Police Log Confirms FBI Role in Arrests (DC, 2002)

[MountainLaurel]

Here's one to keep in mind for the next protest: Don't wear black, no matter how slimming it may be.

A secret FBI intelligence unit helped detain a group of war protesters in a downtown Washington parking garage in April 2002 and interrogated some of them on videotape about their political and religious beliefs, newly uncovered documents and interviews show.

For years, law enforcement authorities suggested it never happened. The FBI and D.C. police said they had no records of such an incident. And police told a federal court that no FBI agents were present when officers arrested more than 20 protesters that afternoon for trespassing; police viewed them as suspicious for milling around the parking garage entrance.

But a civil lawsuit, filed by the protesters, recently unearthed D.C. police logs that confirm the FBI's role in the incident. Lawyers for the demonstrators said the logs, which police say they just found, bolster their allegations of civil rights violations.

The probable cause to arrest the protesters as they retrieved food from their parked van? They were wearing black -- a color choice the FBI and police associated with anarchists, according to the police records.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/02/AR2007040201568.html

[snappyturtle]

1. So now it's clothing profiling??? Great.

:sarcasm: But, they're keeping us safe! :sarcasm: I guess if we ever see the color black used to alert us to a terra attack it must mean: doomed.

[jilln]

3. Don't you remember the big trench coat scare after Columbine?

Clearly focusing on articles of clothing is easier than doing real investigations or fixing society.

[snappyturtle]

4. Yes, I remember. Isn't the old saying:

Clothes make the person?

[jilln]

6. Ha! It's clothes make the MAN.

A sexist saying.

But if they were serious about profiling "terrorists" they'd only check men.

[snappyturtle]

8. Thanks...I didn't think I had it just right! It IS sexist but in this case

I think I don't mind!

[peacetalksforall]

2. Don't wear Mexican, Moslem, Native American, French, African,

Cuban, Venezuelan, or al Queda/Taliban colars - either.

[tanyev]

5. But this is perfectly OK. (Eww WARNING)

[MountainLaurel]

7. I need to wash my brain with bleach now

Egads!

[loyalkydem]

9. So

if we wear black we'll be arrested. Gee I guess I better get rid of all the black in my closet.

[lepus]

10. hmm, most fbi tactical teams wear black also

And black does go with so many different clothes