Your Permanent Record

Think you don't have one? Well, if you've protested the last couple of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, you just might. What's more, it might get.
handed over to federal investigators

In what may be the first subpoena of its kind in decades, a federal judge has ordered a university to turn over records about a gathering of anti-war activists.

In addition to the subpoena of Drake University, subpoenas were served this past week on four of the activists who attended a Nov. 15 forum at the school, ordering them to appear before a grand jury Tuesday, the protesters said.

...

In addition to records about who attended the forum, the subpoena orders the university to divulge all records relating to the local chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, a New York-based legal activist organization that sponsored the forum.

If you ask me, it's an ovbious case of using the law to quash dissent. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that people might be likely to stay away from anti-war demonstrations if they think that it might lead to their being investigated by government agents. And I don't buy the old excuse "You shouldn't worry if you have nothing to hide." Peacefully and non-violent exercising of one's first ammendment right, and the right to peacefully assemble, should not expose one to federal or other governmental investigation, period.