But the perception of nonviolent activists as terrorists has emerged elsewhere as well. During demonstrations at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, organizers were targeted for carrying cellphones. John Sellers of the activist training group Ruckus Society was arrested and held on an unprecedented $1 million bail after the Philadelphia assistant district attorney argued that Sellers "facilitates the more radical elements to accomplish their objective of violence and mayhem." (Another judge later reduced the bail on constitutional grounds, but misdemeanor charges against Sellers are still pending. Sellers denies all charges.)

A previously sealed police affidavit made public earlier this month details how Philadelphia police used state troopers to infiltrate planning meetings and the puppet warehouse, where activists were constructing giant, satirical floats and other props. Some state troopers even posed as union carpenters and helped build floats.

More disturbing still, the affidavit cites a report by an obscure right-wing think tank to contend that some of the protest groups are funded by Communists and "Soviet" sympathizers.

Specifically, the affidavit claims that PCAN, the Pennsylvania Consumer Action Group, is a "United States conveyer for People's Global Action (PGA), a self-styled 'leaderless' international network of groups opposed to the global market economy. Funds for the PGA ... allegedly originate with Communist and leftist parties and from sympathetic trade unions. Other funds reportedly come from the former Soviet-allied World Federation of Trade Unions."

In fact, People's Global Action is the international umbrella group that formed two years ago in Geneva to help launch the WTO protests in Seattle. And PCAN is a consumer rights group in Reading, Pa. While PCAN organized the permitted and peaceful "unity march" that led off the GOP protests on July 30, it had nothing to do with the street blockades that took place later that week.

The affidavit attributes its information to a report by the Maldon Institute, a private think tank funded by conservative multimillionaire Richard Mellon Scaife. Scaife is best known for financing several investigations of President Clinton in recent years. Maldon Institute director John H. Rees is a contributor to the right-wing John Birch Society and publishes a newsletter devoted to "intelligence-gathering" which is distributed to police.

The affidavit's red-baiting shocked protest lawyers and civil libertarians. "For many of us, it brings back the worst memories of J. Edgar Hoover and the flagrant abuses of the FBI during the '40s and '50s ... right on up to the '60s and '70s," says Larry Frankel, executive director of the Pennsylvania American Civil Liberties Union.

Philadelphia police are barred from conducting undercover investigations of political groups without mayoral consent because of a 1987 lawsuit filed by the ACLU. Both prior to and during the GOP Convention, police and city officials repeatedly denied that they had infiltrated protest groups -- a fact which leads ACLU legal director Stephan Presser to contend that the cops used state police to do "an end run" around the law.

Police and city officials have declined to comment, noting that the GOP protesters are still being prosecuted.

More repressive measures have taken place in cities where media scrutiny was not so high. In Minneapolis last July, the FBI was brought in to oversee preemptive measures on activists aiming to disrupt the International Society of Animal Geneticists meeting. Claiming that large quantities of ammonium nitrate had been stolen from a nearby storage facility, and that a cyanide bomb had been detonated in a McDonald's restaurant (it was a smoke bomb), the federal Drug Enforcement Agency raided one of the collective houses where anarchists had been organizing, several days before the protest. A dozen were arrested and several hospitalized during the raid. Charges against all but one were eventually dropped.

Last May, undercover police disguised as activists went so far as to provide a "secure" apartment in Calgary for a "communications team" set up by John Parnell of the Ruckus Society to advise protesters during the World Petroleum Congress. The Congress, which drew no more than 300 demonstrators, was defended by some 2,500 law enforcement officers.

According to Parnell, the undercovers (a police detective, a Canadian Mountie and a customs official) met him outside the convergence space where activists were meeting and led him to an apartment, where they helped him set up his gear and even helped out with logistics. Undercovers were also among those carrying radios and Nextel cellphones on the streets. "It was surreal," says Parnell, "I was listening to people talking on the radio that were monitoring us."

Parnell, a 52-year-old communications geek who installed radio systems for Witness for Peace during the Contra struggle in Nicaragua, is no stranger to police surveillance. "These guys were good," he says of the Canadian undercovers.

While global law enforcement authorities step up their surveillance of activists, activists in turn are using technology to keep their eyes on police. During protests in Seattle, Washington, Philadelphia and Los Angeles, activists monitored police communications, in some cases live-streaming feeds picked up off police radio scanners over the Internet.

As the FBI is well aware, independent media centers -- information hubs set up by activists in cities across the U.S. and Europe -- have played an increasing role in helping protesters to both coordinate actions and control the spin on events.

An Aug. 1 FBI advisory to corporate security officials and police reads, "Based on the increasing priority that independent media centers appear to have received by protests and activists organizations after N30 [the November 30 demonstrations against the WTO], the coverage will likely attempt to record law enforcement operations, particularly during the marches, and even more so if physical response is used by local law enforcement."

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