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My Friend Was on a Terrorist Watch List

By Jamie Henn - Oct 23rd, 2008 at 3:13 pm

My friend is a terrorist?

I was outraged this morning to read that a number of my friends who work on building a youth movement to stop global warming were listed on a terrorist watch list for over two years. Here’s the story straight from Josh Tulkin, one of the activists on the list:

Just the facts.  Two days ago I received a letter from the Maryland State Police informing me that I was a suspected terrorist.  I have since learned that two other employees of Chesapeake Climate Action Network received similar letters, and that all of us were put under surveillance from the period of March 2005 - May 2006.  The letter informed me that the police “have no evidence whatsoever” that I am a risk of violent crimes and are removing me from this database.  What a relief.

Read on to hear more from Josh:

I went public this morning, along side Mike Tidwell, Executive Director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, and members of the American Civil Liberties Union.   I am too upset at the moment to share any insights, but I recorded this video last night to capture my emotions. And check out Andrew Revkin’s blog post on the New York Times.

As Revkin wrote this morning, Josh was under surveillance when he attended the UN Climate Meetings in Montreal, Canada in 2005. I was there along with many other students. The idea that we were somehow involved in terrorist activities is completely absurd. When I was there, youth shared strategies for engaging their friends on campus, talked about their vision for a clean energy future, and proudly marched with people from around the world to call for climate protection. There wasn’t a hint of violence in the entire two weeks we were in Montreal.

This December, I’ll be going to another round of UN Climate Meetings in Poznan, Poland. At the moment, the campaign I work on is running an effort to send Obama and McCain thousands of invitations to the meetings.

I assume if the next president comes with us, we won’t be put on the terrorist list?

Click here to read the letter the police sent Josh (PDF).

Tags: environment, privacy, surveillance, war on terror, youth activism