Sherman Austin said he landed in federal prison for a year for
starting an anarchist Web site and had been followed by federal
agents and police for years before that.
Austin, the first U.S. citizen to be prosecuted under a 1997 law
banning the distribution of bomb-making information for the purpose
of committing a crime, spoke to a group of students Tuesday as part
of a new campus event called the Social Justice Speaker Series.
Speakers will be on campus every Tuesday at noon for the next
seven weeks as part of the series, started by Samer Araabi, a
general representative on the Undergraduate Students Association
Council.
“The speaker series was started as a way for UCLA students
to think critically about social justice issues,” Araabi
said. “This is an opportunity for students to link up with
(activists) in a more personal setting … with the opportunity for
a discussion afterward.”
During his speech, Austin claimed he was the victim of unjust
prosecution by federal authorities for linking his Web site to
another site that had bomb-making instructions on it.
Austin said that after he started the site at the age of 16, it
gained popularity and eventually started getting hits from the FBI
and Department of Defense.
Austin said federal officials acting under the authority of the
Patriot Act hacked into his e-mail and instant message accounts and
tapped his phone lines and Internet connection.
The Patriot Act gives law enforcement officials broad powers to
investigate U.S. citizens who are suspected terrorists, according
to the White House Web site.
After the FBI launched an investigation, Austin said he was
followed by law enforcement officials, arrested several times, and
placed in a federal holding facility that also housed
terrorists.
Austin said he was eventually forced to sign a plea agreement
and spent a year in federal prison for a crime he says he never
committed.
“I was an 18-year-old kid with a Web site and they made it
look like I was part of the Taliban,” he said.
But Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said she supports
Austin’s prosecution.
“I was pleased to learn recently that Sherman Austin was
sentenced … in federal court in Los Angeles for violating … a
law I authored mandating up to 20 years in prison for anyone who
distributes bomb-making information knowing or intending that the
information will be used for a violent federal crime,” she
said in a statement.
John Cappa, a first-year business economics student who attended
the event, said he was disturbed by the alleged civil rights
violations that Austin faced.
“His story was interesting. We have all these rights but
we’re not allowed to exercise them,” he said.
President Bush defends the Patriot Act by saying it helps law
enforcement protect the country from terrorists and drug
dealers.
“The (Patriot Act) legislation strengthens the Justice
Department so it can better detect and disrupt terrorist threats.
And the bill gives law enforcement new tools to combat threats to
our citizens from international terrorists,” Bush said in a
statement in March 2006.
The next speaker in this series will be Mark Gonzalez, founder
of the Human Writes Project. He will be speaking Jan. 23 at noon in
the Kerckhoff Art Gallery.