My saga with the Federal Bureau of Investigation began in 1971. Over the course of the previous year, I had fought the Army’s attempt to order me to active duty. During the previous two years I had been a member of both the National Guard and a Reserve unit. Following the murders at Kent State and Jackson State, and the increasing brutality of the Vietnam War, I stopped attending Reserve meetings and petitioned the military for a discharge.
Of course, once a person signs a contract with the military, as many have found with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the military won’t let go. I petitioned for discharge on medical grounds, as a discharge as a conscientious objector was impossible to get (as it is today). Following the loss of the legal battle, I refused an order to report for active duty. It took the FBI a good long time to find me.
After my arrest and return to the military, I was granted a “bad” discharge. It took four years and the Carter amnesty for me to win an upgraded (granted under honorable conditions) discharge from the military. In the meantime, I petitioned the FBI to expunge the record of my arrest. It took them almost no time to respond in the negative.
Decades passed and I thought little about the FBI record since I had “good” paper from the military. Then, came the carnage of September 11, 2001. That was followed by the Patriot Act and an exponential increase in the scrutiny of millions of people. When I applied for a teaching certificate in Florida around 2005, I was stunned when I received a notice that the state’s board of teacher licensing was investigating whether or not my character was in keeping with the tenets of the profession. It took about one year and the help of a member of the U.S. Senate to be granted the certificate. I had to provide the state with proof of my “good” discharge. Following this, I sent a copy of the discharge to the FBI and asked that they place that document in the file they maintained about me.
Fast forward to 2010. I took the test and applied for a job with the U.S. Census Bureau to work on the 2010 census. Again, the FBI was hard at work. Again, I had to provide proof to the Census Bureau that I indeed did have good paper.
When the census was completed, I decided that enough was enough and I wasn’t going to have an albatross or scarlet letter attached to myself for the rest of my life, Patriot Act or no Patriot Act. Since I had worked in Senator John Kerry’s campaign in Florida as a precinct captain, and I now lived in Massachusetts, I asked that the senator’s office intervene on my behalf with the FBI. His office advised, in consultation with a representative of the FBI in Congress, that I should file a motion for expungement in the federal district court closest to the place where I was arrested by the FBI.
It took about six months to receive the decision from the federal court. In a lengthy decision, the court reasoned that it had no authority to make a decision in my case. What the federal magistrate did do, however, was to outline the cases that might support a civil suit on my behalf and suggest the venue where I might bring such a case. I figured that since Massachusetts is still a moderately liberal place, and that since a Democrat still occupied the White House (notwithstanding the current wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan), that this indeed might be my best chance of winning a decision in my favor (and perhaps the last chance).
So, I spent weeks outlining, researching, and writing my case that I filed in the federal district court in Springfield, Massachusetts. Outside of a lawyer acquaintance, no liberal group or individual would answer my request for assistance in formulating the case. The ACLU and the National Lawyers’ Guild would not help, and I received no response from a fairly well known activist from the ’60s who was a lawyer.
Using a template from a civil liberties case I drew up my arguments about why I should be granted an expungement of the FBI file. The U.S. attorney who was assigned my case against the FBI was cooperative. Though it seemed that the case teetered back and forth at one point, the FBI finally agreed to expunge my record and the case ended before coming before a federal judge. And it seems that the FBI had the authority to “just say no” and allow my record to stand without any legal recourse remaining on my part (except perhaps a costly appeal).
About a week after the granting of the expungement by the FBI, I kidded at a weekly peace vigil that it felt unreal to have had a record for so many decades and now to suddenly have none. It certainly was a “long time passing.”
Howard Lisnoff is a freelance writer, activist, and educator. He is the author of “Notes of a Military Resister: Looking Back from a Time of Endless War” (2011). He can be reached at howielisnoff@yahoo.com.
RSS
The saga of my FBI record
Posted on June 20, 2011 by Howard Lisnoff
My saga with the Federal Bureau of Investigation began in 1971. Over the course of the previous year, I had fought the Army’s attempt to order me to active duty. During the previous two years I had been a member of both the National Guard and a Reserve unit. Following the murders at Kent State and Jackson State, and the increasing brutality of the Vietnam War, I stopped attending Reserve meetings and petitioned the military for a discharge.
Of course, once a person signs a contract with the military, as many have found with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the military won’t let go. I petitioned for discharge on medical grounds, as a discharge as a conscientious objector was impossible to get (as it is today). Following the loss of the legal battle, I refused an order to report for active duty. It took the FBI a good long time to find me.
After my arrest and return to the military, I was granted a “bad” discharge. It took four years and the Carter amnesty for me to win an upgraded (granted under honorable conditions) discharge from the military. In the meantime, I petitioned the FBI to expunge the record of my arrest. It took them almost no time to respond in the negative.
Decades passed and I thought little about the FBI record since I had “good” paper from the military. Then, came the carnage of September 11, 2001. That was followed by the Patriot Act and an exponential increase in the scrutiny of millions of people. When I applied for a teaching certificate in Florida around 2005, I was stunned when I received a notice that the state’s board of teacher licensing was investigating whether or not my character was in keeping with the tenets of the profession. It took about one year and the help of a member of the U.S. Senate to be granted the certificate. I had to provide the state with proof of my “good” discharge. Following this, I sent a copy of the discharge to the FBI and asked that they place that document in the file they maintained about me.
Fast forward to 2010. I took the test and applied for a job with the U.S. Census Bureau to work on the 2010 census. Again, the FBI was hard at work. Again, I had to provide proof to the Census Bureau that I indeed did have good paper.
When the census was completed, I decided that enough was enough and I wasn’t going to have an albatross or scarlet letter attached to myself for the rest of my life, Patriot Act or no Patriot Act. Since I had worked in Senator John Kerry’s campaign in Florida as a precinct captain, and I now lived in Massachusetts, I asked that the senator’s office intervene on my behalf with the FBI. His office advised, in consultation with a representative of the FBI in Congress, that I should file a motion for expungement in the federal district court closest to the place where I was arrested by the FBI.
It took about six months to receive the decision from the federal court. In a lengthy decision, the court reasoned that it had no authority to make a decision in my case. What the federal magistrate did do, however, was to outline the cases that might support a civil suit on my behalf and suggest the venue where I might bring such a case. I figured that since Massachusetts is still a moderately liberal place, and that since a Democrat still occupied the White House (notwithstanding the current wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan), that this indeed might be my best chance of winning a decision in my favor (and perhaps the last chance).
So, I spent weeks outlining, researching, and writing my case that I filed in the federal district court in Springfield, Massachusetts. Outside of a lawyer acquaintance, no liberal group or individual would answer my request for assistance in formulating the case. The ACLU and the National Lawyers’ Guild would not help, and I received no response from a fairly well known activist from the ’60s who was a lawyer.
Using a template from a civil liberties case I drew up my arguments about why I should be granted an expungement of the FBI file. The U.S. attorney who was assigned my case against the FBI was cooperative. Though it seemed that the case teetered back and forth at one point, the FBI finally agreed to expunge my record and the case ended before coming before a federal judge. And it seems that the FBI had the authority to “just say no” and allow my record to stand without any legal recourse remaining on my part (except perhaps a costly appeal).
About a week after the granting of the expungement by the FBI, I kidded at a weekly peace vigil that it felt unreal to have had a record for so many decades and now to suddenly have none. It certainly was a “long time passing.”
Howard Lisnoff is a freelance writer, activist, and educator. He is the author of “Notes of a Military Resister: Looking Back from a Time of Endless War” (2011). He can be reached at howielisnoff@yahoo.com.