Tracy Molm sometimes has a hard time paying rent, so it came as a surprise when American security forces banged on her door at 7am one morning, and searched her apartment under suspicions she provided material support to a terrorist organisation.
 
Warrants indicate that investigators believe Molm and at least seven other activists from the Minnesota anti-war committee and other groups provided material support to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), groups the US considers terrorist organisations.
 
“My assumption is that material support means money and guns, but they [police] wouldn’t explain anything,” Molm told Al Jazeera. “I think the real thing is that they are trying to intimidate those of us who are standing in solidarity with the people of Palestine and Colombia.”
 
Activists from Minneapolis and Chicago have been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury investigation in October, after coordinated police raids on September 24.

No charges
 
Despite the searches and seizures of computers, cheque books, mobile phones, documents and photographs, Molm and other activists have not been charged with committing a crime.
 
“The searches were conducted pursuant to a warrant issued by a federal judge,” Royden Rice, a special agent with US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Chicago, told Al Jazeera.
 
“No arrests have been made or charges filed in connection with this investigation,” he said, leading activists to call the searches a trolling expedition targeting Americans who object to their government’s foreign policy ventures.

To read more on the Al Jazeera site, click here.