Enemies of the State

New York RNC is going to be ugly.

In the last few weeks, beginning before the Democratic convention, F.B.I. counterterrorism agents and other federal and local officers have sought to interview dozens of people in at least six states, including past protesters and their friends and family members…

In an internal complaint, an F.B.I. employee charged that the bulletins improperly blurred the line between lawfully protected speech and illegal activity. But the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, in a five-page internal analysis obtained by The New York Times, disagreed.

The office, which also made headlines in June in an opinion – since disavowed – that authorized the use of torture against terrorism suspects in some circumstances, said any First Amendment impact posed by the F.B.I.’s monitoring of the political protests was negligible and constitutional.