Protest Is the New Terror: How US Law Enforcement Is Working to Criminalize Dissent

[marmar]

Protest Is the New Terror: How US Law Enforcement Is Working to Criminalize Dissent

Tuesday, 30 June 2015 09:19
By Derek Royden, Occupy.com | News Analysis


It's well established that the FBI surveilled civil rights and other activists from Martin Luther King Jr. to leaders of the National Lawyers Guild as part of its wide ranging COINTELPRO (counter intelligence program) during the 1960s and early 70s. The use of planted news stories, faked communications to create dissension within activist groups, informants to make dubious cases and even assassinations was revealed by a group of activists called the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI, who broke into a bureau office in Media, Pennsylvania, in 1971 and found ample evidence of the agency's misdeeds. This is generally seen as an era of terrible government overreach in the name of fighting "communism."

The problem is that the use of similar tactics has been discovered again and again in the years since. Following the anti-globalization protests of 1999, the 9/11 attacks, and the Occupy protests of 2011, similar strategies, enhanced by modern technology, have been ratcheted up and deployed against an ever-increasing number of activists and political groups of all ideological stripes as part of the even more dubious "wars" on drugs and terrorism.

Part of this is due to the fact that there simply aren't enough real threats of terrorism to justify all the money and toys that have been given to U.S. law enforcement. Add to this the fact that police at all levels seem eager to see potential terrorism in even the mildest forms of dissent and you have a recipe for disaster. In one of the most recent instances, it was revealed that the FBI has been coordinating with local law enforcement to target the Black Lives Matter movement.

Another story, unrelated to current anti-racist organizing, is a bizarre case out of Minneapolis in the lead up to the Republican national convention in 2008. According to the City Pages, a Univ. of Minnesota police officer who was the department's only officer on the local Joint Counter Terrorism Task Force worked with an FBI Special Agent to recruit college students who acted as paid informants at "vegan potlucks" hoping they'd discover activist plans to disrupt the city's upcoming convention. ..............(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/31641-protest-is-the-new-terror-how-us-law-enforcement-is-working-to-criminalize-dissent

[brer cat]

1. If they don't have enough real threats of terrorism

to investigate, maybe we should clue them into the black churches being burned. Take them off of Black Lives Matter and give them some real dots to connect.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

3. Back during the 60s the FBI sent moles into the KKK....

These days they're more likely to send them into the ACLU.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

2. This is partly the result of the US policy to promote capitalism....

Anyone who opposes an economy based on greed and consumption is considered to be a threat.

Any liberal group is considered a threat.

You can bet that the FBI has dossiers that are bulging for key members of the Sierra Club, Amnesty International and Greenpeace. They're more likely to investigate the Southern Poverty Law Center than the right-wing hate groups the SPLC tracts.

[JonLP24]

4. Exactly and Spitfire is exactly right (capitalism)

You have to wonder why they are asking this question

CIA Red Cell Memorandum on United States "exporting terrorism", 2 Feb 2010

This CIA "Red Cell" report from February 2, 2010, looks at what will happen if it is internationally understood that the United States is an exporter of terrorism; 'Contrary to common belief, the American export of terrorism or terrorists is not a recent phenomenon, nor has it been associated only with Islamic radicals or people of Middle Eastern, African or South Asian ethnic origin

https://wikileaks.org/wiki/CIA_Red_Cell_Memorandum_on_United_States_%22exporting_terrorism%22,_2_Feb_2010

What I mean is there could be an effort (Red Cell) to facilitate something to discredit opposition to what the US is trying to do

–In response to the events of 11 September, DCI Tenet tasked the DDI to create a “red cell” that would think unconventionally about the full range of relevant analytic issues. The DCI Red Cell takes a pronounced “out-of-the-box” approach and produces memos intended to provoke thought rather than to provide authoritative assessment.
https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/intelligence-analysis/history.html

New Documents Claim Intelligence on Bin Laden, al-Qaeda Targets Withheld From Congress' 9/11 Probe
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/1607:exclusive-new-documents-claim-intelligence-on-bin-laden-alqaeda-targets-withheld-from-congress-911-probe

There is a lot of COINTELPRO to this and the most obvious example is "kettling" the NYPD does it a lot with orange tape and all sorts of tactics. They set a formation around the protestors blocking them inside seldom allowing the leave for food, water, or toilet. They also "direct" them into areas so they can arrest them for "blocking traffic" which doesn't get a lot of sympathy in comments in how it relates to NYC. Eventually something "pops" and they move in with arrests and the protest is broken up.

[captainarizona]

5. agent provocateur

As A protestor from the 1960's I once heard janette rankin speak. I am used to agent provocateurs infiltrating and trying to disrupt protests. The loudest most radical protestor usually advocating violent confrontation or even violence is almost always a government agent provocateur. We saw this in the cointelpro program and church commission ;but in all the wars since we have seen agent provocateurs in action! Even with occupy wall street they have been doing their dirty work as well as the environment movement. Beware the agent provocateur!

[Scuba]

6. K&R

[arikara]

7. That is what they historically do

They also disrupted AIM, the American Indian Movement back in the 70's and if they didn't outright murder many Native Americans themselves they certainly stood by with full knowledge of what their goons were doing and allowed/encouraged it to continue. Leonard Peltier is still in jail because of the death of an FBI agent during those times, even though the evidence against him was less than convincing.

Unfortunately, its usually a very successful tactic. They did get caught out awhile back in Canada during a protest though because they were so totally inept at it.