The Associated Press - ATLANTA
Two vegans have filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court saying DeKalb County's Homeland Security Division and county police spied on them and subjected them to false imprisonment and harassment.
The lawsuit was filed Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia on behalf of Caitlin Childs, 22, and Christopher Freeman, 36.
The two said they were at an animal cruelty protest outside an area HoneyBaked Ham store in December 2003 when they noticed a man in a parking lot taking pictures of them. After the protest, Childs and Freeman said they walked over to the man's car and wrote down his license plate number.
But when they drove off, the car started following them.
They pulled into a restaurant parking lot and the car and a police car pulled in behind them. The two were ordered out and told to hand over the piece of paper with the tag number on it. Childs refused and was handcuffed and searched. She and Freeman were arrested for disorderly conduct and jailed.
They were released, but the piece of paper and Childs' house keys were not returned, the lawsuit claims.
"I couldn't believe that all of it was happening," Freeman said. "We were out there doing educational outreach on a topic that is important to us." At the event, "we were handing out leaflets on alternatives to pork," he said.
Now the two are suing DeKalb County, Detective D.A. Gorman and an officer identified as K.A. Moffit.
A Homeland Security report on the incident, which The Atlanta Journal-Constitution got from the ACLU of Georgia, says Gorman told Childs and Freeman he was a police detective "instructed to monitor and picture the protest."
Gorman told Childs he was driving an undercover vehicle and did not want the tag number passed around. The report said the two vegans were "hostile, uncooperative and boisterous towards the officers."
County spokesman Burke Brennan said DeKalb County does not discuss pending litigation.
The county's Homeland Security Division was formed after the County Commission decided in October 2001 to hire a homeland security director. The move was prompted by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
"They're using security and the idea of terrorism, which is such a hot word and scares people, to silence people who have unpopular beliefs," Childs said.
Gerry Weber, legal director at the ACLU of Georgia and a lead attorney in the lawsuit, said the case "illustrates the overreaching of homeland security by monitoring clearly peaceful protesters. This is a poor allocation of resources and chills free speech."
In addition to the lawsuit, the state ACLU is seeking any law enforcement surveillance files on Childs and Freeman.
And the ACLU says affiliates in 15 other states have filed similar requests with the FBI on behalf of more than 100 groups and individuals "as part of a nationwide effort to expose unlawful domestic spying."
http://www.accessnorthga.com/news/ap_newfullstory.asp?ID=65447