ACLU Protests Investigation of
VA Employee for ‘Sedition’

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, January 31, 2006
CONTACT:
Peter Simonson, Executive Director, ACLU of New Mexico at 505-266-5915 or (cell) 505-620-0775

Albuquerque—In a letter to the US Department of Veteran Affairs, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico is demanding an explanation for the department’s investigation of a federal employee for publishing an editorial in a local newspaper criticizing the Bush administration. In September, 2005, VA Information Security employees seized Laura Berg’s office computer due to the professed belief “that government equipment was used inappropriately…during government time for drafting an editorial letter.” No evidence was recovered to support that belief.

“The VA had no reason to suspect that Laura Berg used government resources to produce her editorial,” said ACLU Executive Director Peter Simonson. “She signed the letter as a private individual. From all appearances, the seizure of her work computer was an act of retaliation and a hardball attempt to scare Laura into silence.”

In her letter to the weekly Alibi, Berg, a clinical nurse specialist, criticized the Bush administration’s handling of Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq War, noting that, “[a]s a VA nurse working with returning…vets, I know the public has no sense of the additional devastating human and financial costs of post-traumatic stress disorder.” She urged readers to “act forcefully to remove a government administration playing games of smoke and mirrors and vicious deceit.”

In a November 9th memorandum to Berg, the VA’s Human Resource Chief, Mel Hooker, conceded that no evidence was found implicating the use of Berg’s work computer in the writing of the editorial. However, he justified the investigation by saying that “[the] Agency is bound by law to investigate and pursue any act which potentially represents sedition.”

Simonson described the reference to ‘sedition’ as “shocking".

“Even if Laura had used the office computer, neither that fact, nor her criticism of the government, nor her appeal for a change in the heads of government approach an act of unlawful insurrection,” Simonson said. “Is the government so jealous of its power, so fearful of dissent, that it needs to threaten people who openly oppose its policies with charges of ‘sedition’?”

ACLU attorneys George Bach and Larry Kronen plan to submit a request under the Freedom of Information Act for all documents related to the VA’s actions towards Berg. They have asked Hooker for a public apology “to remedy the unconstitutional chilling effect on the speech of VA employees that has resulted from these intimidating tactics.”
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