Boston-area climate activists report visits from the FBI

Local climate activists are on edge after people claiming to be FBI agents visited at least six of them at their Boston-area homes on the same day in March.

Weeks later, the motivations behind these visits remain a mystery. None of the activists targeted has a history of violent protests or felony criminal charges in federal or Massachusetts court. And while FBI agents interview people for a variety of reasons, legal experts say it’s rare for the agency to seek out nonviolent climate activists for questioning.

“Until this year I have never heard about the FBI or any other federal law enforcement officer visiting or questioning any of the hundreds of climate activists that I have personally represented,” said Jeff Feuer, a lawyer in Cambridge who has represented climate activists for more than three decades through the National Lawyers Guild Mass Defense Committee.

Whatever the explanation, some legal experts worry the visits could have a chilling effect on free speech, especially following the recent high-profile detentions of several pro-Palestinian activists.

“It’s scary to have agents show up at your door and start asking you questions,” said Karen Pita Loor, a professor at Boston University School of Law who specializes in protest policing. She said activists may question whether public protests are “a risk that’s worth taking in the future.”

Nathan Phillips was sitting in his office at Boston University on a Thursday afternoon when he got an urgent text from his wife. He called her right away.

She told him two men had just come to their Newton home and asked to see him. One of them flashed a badge and said he was with the FBI.

When she told them Phillips wasn’t home, she said one of the men commented that “he must be at school.” They left without leaving business cards or offering any reason for the visit.

“My jaw dropped,” said Phillips, a professor in the university’s department of Earth & Environment. “It’s like, FBI? Can this be real? What possibly could they want?”

Phillips wondered if the visit might be related to his activism. He’s been advocating for the release of Mahmoud Khalil, who led pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, and Tufts student Rümeysa Öztürk, who co-wrote an op-ed criticizing her university’s response to student demands related to the war in Gaza.

Phillips has also been an outspoken environmental activist for about a decade, protesting pipelines, a new compressor station in Weymouth and the expansion of Hanscom airfield. Most recently, he helped organize peaceful demonstrations outside Tesla showrooms in the Boston area in opposition to Tesla CEO and Trump adviser Elon Musk.

Phillips wasn’t the only local activist who got a visit that afternoon. WBUR has learned of at least five other climate activists in greater Boston who were visited the same day, at around the same time, by people claiming to be FBI agents.

One of these activists, Donald “Monty” Neill, is a veteran of nonviolent protests with the climate advocacy group Extinction Rebellion. Neill said two men came to his door. One flashed a badge that looked legitimate to Neill, and said he was with the FBI.

“My immediate reaction was to say, ‘I don’t talk with the FBI,’” Neill said. The man said, “OK,” and Neill shut the door. Two other activists described similar visits in interviews with WBUR.

The activists have no obvious connection to each other except their presence at various nonviolent climate protests, said Kylah Clay, a public defender who is representing four of the people visited. Some, but not all, have been at Tesla protests; some, but not all, have protested the expansion of Hanscom Field; some, but not all, have arrest records in Massachusetts for misdemeanors related to civil disobedience. None have federal arrest records. A few are members of Extinction Rebellion.

The FBI’s Boston Division declined to confirm the agency’s involvement in the visits.

“As a matter of longstanding policy, we do not confirm or deny the existence of an investigation, nor do we release information pertaining to interviews,” wrote spokesperson Kristen Setera in an email. “The FBI contacts individuals for a variety of reasons on a daily basis whether they are a witness, victim, subject, or someone providing information.”

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Legal experts say visits like those described by the environmental activists are within the FBI’s purview, and they have no reason to think the visitors were not legitimate agents.

If they were from the FBI, legal experts say, the visits could signify increased scrutiny of climate activists under a president who has called climate change “a hoax” and rolled back environmental funding and regulations.

“The FBI doesn’t typically come knocking on protesters’ doors, especially peaceful protesters’ doors,” Clay said. “ I definitely don’t think that this is the normal life of a climate activist. Although I do think it’s becoming that — for many activists, actually — under the Trump administration.”

After Phillips got off the phone with his wife, he felt rattled.

The visit to his home felt “creepy,” he said, and he also wondered if the men had been impersonating FBI agents. Puzzled, he called the FBI to ask what they wanted.

He worked his way through the phone menu and finally got through to a person.

He provided his name and some personal information, then described the visit to his home and asked if the FBI was looking for him.

“ And they hung up. They just abruptly hung up,” he said. “Since that, there’s been nothing.”

Phillips and the other climate activists who spoke to WBUR said they’ve received no further communication nor any explanation from the FBI or any other law enforcement agency.

To retired FBI Special Agent Michael Harrigan, this is not surprising or alarming.

“The Bureau conducts hundreds of thousands of interviews and contacts a year, if not more,” said Harrigan, a 22-year FBI veteran who now works in crisis consulting and security management. Harrigan has no knowledge of why FBI agents may have visited these activists. But he said it’s possible the agency was simply gathering intelligence.

“ If they want to talk to him, they’ll come back out. If not, nothing to worry about,” Harrigan said.

But Loor, the BU law professor, is concerned about political influence on law enforcement. And while she said the visits were not surprising, she added, “I think it’s terrible.”

According to FBI guidelines — officially called the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide — agents are not supposed to investigate people based on political beliefs alone. But FBI agents can consider political beliefs as a factor, and have broad leeway to question people through what are called “assessments.”

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However, under the Trump administration, other federal agencies including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, have detained legal residents who were engaged in — or seen to be affiliated with — pro-Palestinian activism. Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote that Mohsen Mahdawi, a green-card holder who was detained at a citizenship appointment in Vermont, should be deported because his activism threatens foreign policy goals.

When U.S. District Court Judge Geoffrey Crawford released Mahdawi from custody on April 30, the judge likened the government’s actions to McCarthyism.

“Legal residents — not charged with crimes or misconduct — are being arrested and threatened with deportation for stating their views on the political issues of the day,” Crawford wrote.

For Neill, one of the activists who received a visit, it’s no stretch to conclude that the Trump administration wants to intimidate other activists — like climate protesters — who disagree with the president’s policies on energy and the environment.

“The Trump administration is weaponizing the Department of Justice to go after people on the left and progressives,” Neill said. “They haven’t hid it at all. It’s an open statement on their part.”

Phillips, the BU professor, came to the same conclusion.

“It’s intimidation,” he said. But he added that he plans to continue his activism: “I’m going live my life in the open, and I’m going to continue to express my first amendment rights.”

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One local activist with the group Extinction Rebellion who received a visit said she, too, will continue protesting. WBUR agreed not to use her name because she feared being further targeted by federal agents.

“It takes courage to overcome fear, but I have to do it,” she said. “When I stop speaking out they have won.”

Harrigan, the retired FBI agent, said he hasn’t seen evidence of the FBI targeting progressive activists under Trump, though he acknowledges that federal agents have overstepped in the past.

“You cannot be targeting persons for their political beliefs, no matter how much you might dislike that position,” he said. “You can’t do that, because where does it stop?”

Legal experts said the visits came at a time when they were already on the alert for an escalation of charges against nonviolent climate activists.

The FBI has used “domestic terror” or “potential violence” as a rationale for investigating climate activists in the past, including Dakota and Keystone XL pipeline protesters. And an investigation by The Guardian found that countries including the United States, Canada, Chile, India, the United Kingdom and Australia use criminal charges like subversion, illicit association, terrorism and tax evasion to crack down on climate activists.

The definition of domestic terrorism in the FBI guidelines is broad, encompassing damage to property, something Trump administration officials have noted in their response to recent arson attacks at Tesla dealerships.

Legal experts and activists expressed concern that the administration may be trying to curtail climate activism by conflating nonviolent speech and protests — which are protected under the U.S. Constitution — with destructive domestic terrorism.

“They’re normalizing the term ‘terrorist’ so it can be applied to an increasing circle of progressive advocacy,” said another local climate organizer with Extinction Rebellion who received a visit. WBUR agreed to withhold his name because he feared being further targeted by federal officials.

Feuer, the Cambridge lawyer who has represented environmental activists, said he’s also concerned, and watching for attempts to charge protesters with more serious crimes that might “undercut their ability to demonstrate and protest.”

“You have a right to assemble. You have a right to free speech. You have a right to petition the government for redress of grievances,” he said. “If you are charged with serious crimes in which you could face significant jail time, people are going to be more hesitant to do those things.”

Todd Wallack contributed additional reporting to this story.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

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