The March 14 panel on open government, held by the League of Women Voters of Berrien and Cass counties in Three Oaks, MI, featured a journalist, prosecutor, communications professor, and Common Cause president Chellie Pingree. Pingree noted that freedoms are being eroded in the name of national security, saying that concern about the Patriot Act is justified, and "Government wants to act in secrecy to invade your privacy."
A local newspaper covered the event and quoted Pingree. Within a few days, St. Joseph FBI agent Al DiBrito had called Susan Gilbert, president of the local League, claiming that Pingree's comments were "way off base" and that the League should have had someone from the federal government on the panel. He went on to say that someone from the U.S. Attorney's office in Grand Rapids would be contacting her to set the record straight on the Patriot Act.
Gilbert believed the call to be a threat, telling the Herald-Palladium that the FBI "should not go around intimidating the League of Women Voters and Common Cause because they don't like the Patriot Act. There are many people who don't like the Patriot Act, including members of Congress. I'm just stupefied."
DiBrito told the press that the call was only meant to invite the League to debate what was reported. It is widely regarded to be wholly inappropriate, however, for a government agency to attempt to dictate who speaks at meetings of citizen organizations.
Such subtle intimidation is even more problematic when the agency in question is the FBI, with its history of unconstitutional surveillance and interference in organizations, including the COINTELPRO program. COINTELPRO is an acronym for an FBI counterintelligence program whose purpose was to neutralize political dissidents. It operated from 1956-1971 and conducted operations against civil rights, anti-war, and many other groups. The program ended in 1971 after it was publicly exposed.
The letter sent by Common Cause and the League to Mueller described what had transpired, explaining that "[w]hen the country has far more pressing security and terror concerns, we question the FBI using precious resources hounding leaders of two of the most distinguished citizen advocacy organizations in the country. Is this the kind of behavior citizen activists can expect from the FBI? To us, it smacks of intimidation."
Pingree and Kay Maxwell, President of the League of Women Voters, in a joint statement averred that "[c]itizens can be intimidated when an FBI agent calls and questions their activities." The statement also raised the question, "Why should a citizen meeting on open government merit the attention of the FBI?"