Stephanie Weiner, a peace activist in Chicago, said about 20 FBI agents raided her house and took documents and photos, including one of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Another activist was an organizer for the 2008 demonstrations at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

Steff Yorek, an antiwar spokeswoman, said the Anti-War Committee offices where she worked at 1313 5th St. SE. also were raided.

Tracy Molm said she woke up to:

"federal agents pounding on the door. I was told to be seated on my couch and I had no rights to walk around the apartment and I was under an investigation for my connections with groups in other countries, particularly Palestine."

Molm said she went to the Palestinian territories in 2004 with an international solidarity delegation. She said she saw houses demolished without notice and people jailed without evidence. "I don't believe I've done anything illegal."

This is in the same year that one of the all-time prizes for travesty of justice was handed down, in the 15 year sentence for Fahad Hashmi for providing "material support" for terrorism. Fahad is an American citizen who unfortunately let a guy crash in his London flat for a couple of weeks, at the request of a friend, while he was in graduate school. The visitor allegedly wound up passing a pair of waterproof socks and some ponchos to an alleged Al Qaeda operative in Pakistan, which were kept in a suitcase during his stay with Fahad. Fahad didn't know what was in the suitcase in the corner, which remained unopened for the whole stay. He didn't know who the guy was, except a friend of a friend. The Feds did not allege that any other items were involved. No weapons, no cash. Socks and ponchos.

Hashmi was kept in solitary confinement for 3 years before his trial, a form of torture, under Special Administrative Measures (SAMS) passed under Bush which allows 23 hour lockdown, one hour exercise per day, no privacy, no news, one visit per year from a family member.

Counterpunch:

Since he was extradited to the United States, he has been held in solitary confinement in pre-trial detention in the Special Housing Unit at Metropolitan Correction Center in Manhattan. By April 2010 he had been held in isolation for nearly three years whilst awaiting trial. Prolonged isolation is considered a form of torture by the United Nations; medical testimony presented in Hashmi's case concluded that after 60 days' solitary detention people's mental state begins to break down and gradually develops into psychosis as the mind disintegrates.

Do not for one minute believe this could not happen to you.

I spoke with Fahad's brother recently, who travels the country desperately trying to bring attention to Fahad's case. "It's the climate" he told me when I shook my head in amazement at the sentence and the offense. Obama regularly and routinely files Amicus Curea briefs on behalf of members of the former administration, asking that torture cases be dismissed. No such request for Fahad, who, oh yes, has been outspoken in defending Palestinian rights.

I ask once again: Where's the change?

UPDATE, THANKS TO COMMENTER: "Local peace activists held a meeting yesterday to discuss the FBI raids. The meeting was video recorded (because, unlike our government, the activists are transparent), and posted online by Indymedia.

If you look at that video, you will see ordinary people, in ordinary clothes, many of them parents and grandparents, speaking rationally but passionately about the Constitutional right of citizens to protest government policies.

Now, look at the image CNN provides on its website here. The image shows a group of anarchists, wearing the typical black garb and face masks, and gas masks draped around their necks. CNN's caption reads: "A coalition of groups that protested at the GOP convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul in 2008 called Friday's raids 'harassment.'"

Anarchists never make up more than a tiny fraction of demonstrators here in the U.S., and often the arrive uninvited...

I hope everyone reading will complain to CNN about this despicable excuse for journalism and bring it to the attention of others through twitter, email, blogs, etc." CNN CONTACT LIST HERE (thanks to Jonathan for work done on list)

Fed caught on tape in St.Paul Raids