Members of an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force tracked the time and location of a Black Lives Matter protest last December at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, email obtained by The Intercept shows.
The email from David S. Langfellow, a St. Paul police officer and member of an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, informs a fellow task force member from the Bloomington police that “CHS just confirmed the MOA protest I was taking to you about today, for the 20th of DEC @ 1400 hours.” CHS is a law enforcement acronym for “confidential human source.”
Jeffrey VanNest, an FBI special agent and Joint Terrorism Task Force supervisor at the FBI’s Minneapolis office, was CC’d on the email. The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces are based in 104 U.S. cities and are made up of approximately 4,000 federal, state and local law enforcement officials. The FBI characterizes them as “our nation’s front line on terrorism.”
Activists had planned the protest at the mall to call attention to police brutality against African Americans. “Our system disproportionately targets, profiles and kills black men and women, that’s what we are here talking about,” organizer Michael McDowell told a reporter at the time. “We wanted to show people who have the everyday luxury of just living their lives that they need to be aware of this, too.”
According to an FBI spokesman, Langfellow’s Confidential Human Source was “a tipster with whom Mr. Langfellow is familiar,” who contacted him “after the tipster had discovered some information while on Facebook” that “some individuals may engage in vandalism” at the Mall of America protest. Upon receiving the email, Bloomington police officer and task-force member Benjamin Mansur forwarded it to Bloomington’s then-Deputy Police Chief Rick Hart, adding “Looks like it’s going to be the 20th…” It was then forwarded to all Bloomington police command staff. There is no mention of potential vandalism anywhere in the email chain, and no vandalism occurred at the Mall of America protest.
The FBI spokesman emphasized that “As for any ‘FBI interest’ in the Black Lives Matter campaign, the FBI had (has) none,” and “makes certain its operational mandates do not interfere with activities protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.” The spokesman acknowledged that vandalism does not fall under the Memorandum of Understanding establishing the parameters under which local police officers are detailed to Joint Terrorism Task Forces and the task force mission of “prevention, preemption, deference and investigation of terrorist acts.” Asked why VanNest, the Joint Terrorism Task Force supervisor, was CC’d on Langfellow’s email, the spokesman responded “I don’t know” but speculated it was “as a matter of courtesy.”
“Clearly it’s inappropriate to be using the Joint Terrorist Task Force to monitor activists [and] the use of a CHS seems extremely inappropriate,” said Michael German, a fellow at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice and former special agent with the FBI. “The fact that they’re spending resources in this manner reflects poor leadership and is something that they should really take a hard look at.”
The FBI has been criticized in the recent past for its actions regarding domestic advocacy groups. A 2010 report by the Department of Justice Inspector General found the FBI opened investigations connected to organizations such as Greenpeace and the Catholic Worker movement that classified possible “trespassing or vandalism” as domestic terrorism cases. The report also found the FBI’s National Press Office “made false and misleading statements” when questioned by the media about documents obtained by public records requests. Langfellow himself, while working as a member of a Joint Terrorism Task Force, was in charge of a 2008 raid on the home of St. Paul activists ahead of that year’s Republican Party Convention that led to a lawsuit that the city settled for $50,000.
Further in the past, the FBI engaged in well-known, ugly mistreatment of African American activists in particular. “There’s a long history in the FBI and law enforcement generally of law enforcement agents seeing challenges to the status quo as threats to security,” said German. Documents stolen from an FBI field office in 1971 showed the Bureau was keeping literally every black student at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania under surveillance.
After the December 20 Mall of America protest, the city of Bloomington charged 11 protestors with six separate criminal misdemeanors, including unlawful assembly, and is seeking thousands of dollars in restitution. Jordan Kushner, one of the activist’s defense attorneys, says the city has alleged $25,000 in police costs and that he also received a letter from the Mall of America seeking $40,000 for mall security costs, raising overall restitution to $65,000.
As reported by the Star Tribune, emails released earlier this week reveal apparent coordination between Sandra Johnson, the Bloomington city attorney, and Kathleen Allen, the Mall of America’s corporate counsel. “It’s the prosecution’s job to be the enforcer and MOA needs to continue to put on a positive, safe face,” Johnson wrote to Allen two days after the protest, encouraging the mall company to wait for a criminal charge from the city before pursuing its own lawsuit. “Agree — we would defer any civil action depending on how the criminal charges play out,” Allen wrote back.
“That’s pretty unprecedented to use a criminal proceeding for a corporation to collect their costs, costs for policing and protest,” said Kushner. “It’s not like people stole from them or damaged belongings.”
Nekima Levy-Pounds, a professor of law at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul and one of the Black Lives Matter defendants, said she found parallels between the conduct of law enforcement in Minnesota and the tactics used against civil rights protesters a generation ago. “I think it’s relevant,” she said, adding that in both instances, officers attempted to “curb nonviolent peaceful protests and to violate people’s rights to free speech.”
Photo: Aaron Lavinsky/Star Tribune/AP
People don’t seem to understaind that the president don’t make these decisions. B.Obama was shocked to when he realized his powers were limited. He didn’t choose or call for Obama care, they did he went along with it. But I could see doing his first term he was fustrat.Cause his hands were tired. He seems to be sensible, O- I forgot. He part black. But when it’s all said and done GOD SHALL be the judge. And for all you scollar This is all in Revelation, so it must take place. And for all you unbeliever do your research. Oh and the end time are here and they know it. Do your research how easy to fool generation whom parents haven’t taught them about GOD. But our government they didn’t go to war without acknowledgement of The Only wise God.
They LOOK FOR PEOPLE TO TARGET TO SET UP AND FRAME FOR CRIMES. They have to find some way to JUSTIFY THEIR EXISTENCE………
The US Government Has Gone WAY BEYOND MONITORING, SURVEILLANCE, AND SEARCHES, AND ARE COMMITTING CRIMES AGAINST TARGETED CITIZENS NOW.
Criminal Homeland Security Personnel have been using surveillance targeting on Citizens for Crimes, including Burglarizing them.
In my own personal experience, they will use any method or devise any means to politically target activists, journalists, or other individuals with lies, propaganda and targeted smear campaigns as well as crimes.
We have worse criminals, pathological liars, psychopaths and sociopaths, working for the US government, than most of the people in prisons and jails…..and they are using all the highest technology equipment and devices against citizens, activists and journalists.
They have been targeting citizens, like Kay Griggs, Michael Hastings, Phillip Marshall, Judi Bari and myself, for crimes with all the advance technology surveillance equipment, devices and special ops ex-military personnel involved in covert criminal Homeland Security Agencies operations in the US. (Watch Kay Griggs videos on you tube, as she gives her testimonials for what has been going on for a long time now.)
The government has been promoting and rewarding war criminals for years from the CIA and Military Black Sites, Torture Facilities, and Military Special Operations into Homeland Security, FBI, Law Enforcement, and other government agencies across the country, and are targeting citizens for surveillance and crimes.
I have been a 9/11 activist for years and since 2011, I’ve been targeted for surveillance burglaries, vandalism, pet torture, vehicle tampering as well as the planting of stolen and unknown origin property and malicious prosecution. My safe deposit box in, Colville, WA , was even burglarized. I can’t find any organization to help me, out of the dozens and dozens of civil rights and constitutional rights organizations and attorneys I’ve contacted. I had to get a private investigator to trace license plates and find out who some of the people involved in these targeted black operations are.
I can’t get my FOIA Requests fulfilled for information on my surveillance targeted crimes and it’s even common knowledge in Washington state that Homeland Security personnel are involved in my targeted surveillance and gang stalking crimes. There has even been one out of court settlement in one case in the Seattle area for these criminal activities by Homeland Security Personnel.
My cruise control stopped working on my 140 mile trip back from Spokane WA, on Thursday February 26th (about 3 weeks ago), and I was gang stalked on the road by multiple vehicles (one of them with a Big Transformer Decal on the Back Window, one with a Big US “Infantry” sticker on his back window, as well as by WA license plate # WEPLAY2) and after they all turned off and I got past Colville, WA, I tried my cruise control again and it started working. I know they have had remote control over my car alarms on my vehicles for a long time now, and it looks to me that they can also remote control my cruise control as well now…….
They have been using FOIA DENIALS, FOIA APPEAL DENIALS, GAG ORDERS, NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENTS AND EVEN — “CLASSIFYING” INFORMATION IN ORDER TO COVER UP THEIR CRIMES AGAINST TARGETED INDIVIDUALS, ACTIVISTS AND JOURNALISTS.
They also use “BELOW THE RADAR” AND “OFF THE BOOKS” communications through private cell phones and messaging, as well as email accounts, as has been exposed with Hillary Clinton OFF THE RECORD COMMUNICATIONS.
There are so many more criminal activities that have been kept HIDDEN AND OFF THE RECORD BY GOVERNMENT PERSONNEL WHO ARE NETWORKED IN CRIMINAL COVERT OPERATIONS AND DO NOT WANT THEIR CRIMES EXPOSED.
scribd : CrystalSpirit_US.
If the Intercept has names of people in the terror database, could you please consider some new sort of coverage of it?
You have tagged and written about some high profile people on it.
You have written about profiled groups on it.
Can you contact people off the list for whom the reasons may be diverse and unrelated? There have got to be a thousand stories and it would help us get a fuller picture. I think the list is being abused like crazy, for the pettiest of reasons and coverage like that might help ferret that out.
The assumption is that anyone not high profile, part of a group (muslims) is somehow a random crazy who said something stupid, and i figure that is exactly what they want people to think. Please grab bucketfuls of these names, reach out to those people and find out. Flesh out coverage to include people not deemed important enough to command a story, but who are indeed a story. There are millions in these databases, as you reported. And they are on the radar in each state’s federal terror task force operations.
If you are in a group (any activist group, BlackLivesMatter, etc) that is targeted be glad. Be happy. You have absolutely no idea what it is like if they get you alone, and worse, when their motive is personal. I have been put on a watch list and that list is the least of what I’ve been through, at least seemingly the least … so far.
I worked alone and was not very prominent. I did not have good backing. I had no resources to fight it. I have been handed a living death sentence. My livelihood has been destroyed, my name, my future. It is like house arrest and it is now been almost a decade. It was done in plain sight and I suffer in plain site yet it, and I, are entirely invisible and my voice is not heard at all by anyone. In fact, it almost can’t be heard, can’t be. It would take a lot of work to peel the layers away to see it. I have reams of documentation but who is going to ever bother?
When I was first targeted it would have been easy to write about it and that would have protected me, but I couldn’t get anyone to write about it. That is not unusual by the way, for even newsworthy stories. The press is late to respond, if at all, even for obviously newsworthy material. It is harder than people think — it’s not what’s in the paper but what isn’t that is most horrifying — look at the negative space, or imagine it. There is a lot that isn’t there and never will be.
Most NGOs have little or no research staffs. The press and NGOs have no resources to cover more than a fraction. To research individuals is extremely labor intensive for reporters or NGOs. They have to figure out who you are from scratch. And let’s face it – a lot of NGOs get their preliminary info from news stories.
The only way to do it is to choose a handful for one story that raises awareness that it is not just groups of activists, and not just classes of people and not just prominent people.
The guardian did a really good story kind of like this not long ago, about whistleblowers ten years later. They were ordinary professionals – not famous. These weren’t people on the terror list but the story is a good example of the kind of story a reporter could do sampling people on the watch list. What they – we, as I include myself — go through is a stripping of our potential, our dignity, our rights – oh, it never ends. No one believes you – the presumption is you are not believable. In that story, the Guardian gave them back their credibility and dignity.
I know that what you’re saying is true, “Crystal”, because it has been happening to me too for at least the past nine years. And I wanted to commiserate with you that I too have sought assistance from many sources that supposedly provide such help, and have been turned down by every single one of them. I, for obvious reasons, can’t go into the particulars, or name what agencies they are, even generally without giving their actual names (in other words, even saying what type of agency they are).
Most “Amerikans” wrongly think this stuff isn’t happening, and that those like ourselves who speak of it are nothing but “paranoid”, and/or that we “deserve” what is happening to us. If they knew the full extent of what we have to relate, not just about our personal circumstances, they would even more falsely think we’re “crazy”. The U.S. is pretty much already “Nazi Germany” on steroids, and we have the duty to sound the alarm about it; but, like it undoubtedly was in Germany during the rise of Nazism to complete power in Germany, most “Amerikans”, even most workers in the above-referenced “help” agencies, don’t believe the truth of just how far along it is; and so, they write off all such people like ourselves who are already experiencing it firsthand.
You’ve probably already asked yourself, as I have, how an agency like Amnesty International hears about all of these many people abroad who are suffering government persecution in violation of human rights, and go to bat for some if not many of them, but yet they don’t seem to help ANYONE in the U.S. who is suffering quite similar government persecution, and why that is. Will they ever do so even when it becomes obvious that it IS happening here too, and go to bat for more and more Americans who are victims of it, much like those are victims of it at the hands of their various governments abroad? I personally believe that, because these agencies are bought off by government and NGO grants (corporate welfare), “justifying” salaries and paychecks for intentionally withholding help from most Americans who need it, except in very-limited token cases, and don’t want to jeopardize that payroll, having become nothing but controlled “opposition” and gatekeepers for the government and/or government-controlled NGOs, even when the very real persecution at the hand of the U.S. government becomes obvious, they still won’t come to aid of those people; except, again, only in very-limited, high-profile token cases.
It seems like, if our situations aren’t high profile, if even then, they purposely leave us out in the cold, “spinning in the wind”, and to fend for ourselves at the hands of an increasingly “fascistically-powerful” and violently, viciously and brutally abusive government that we cannot possibly fend for ourselves against. And I believe that the government has INTENTIONALLY made certain, through the foregoing means, that most of those victims of government repression can’t and/or don’t get any temporal help.
All hell on earth is already beginning to break loose in the U.S. proper, as you so accurately alluded to, and most literally CHOOSE to remain blind to it, presume its victims “guilty”, support their persecution, and will be glad when they are “disappeared” into indefinite imprisonment for doing nothing but non-violently exercising our innate human rights and civil liberties, fulfilling our constitutional duty(ies) to non-violently stand up against the increasingly-tyrannical government, and to only non-violently stand up for nothing but what is right, and that the U.S. is ONLY supposed to stand for.
On the temporal level, we are on our own; but, thank God, we are NOT alone, and have God to help us, which He DOES; and, if we depend upon Him, He will help us in these dire straights. He may have to allow our demise; but, again, if we have depended upon Him, He will not let our sacrifice be in vain.
Again, “welcome” to now increasingly no longer free country of the U.S. where “JTTF” neo-Nazi “Gestapo” offices exist all over the nation monitoring completely innocent, non-violent activists, advocates and their protest gatherings, while spokespeople claim they don’t do such things, and/or shouldn’t be doing them. Any question anymore that exercise of First Amendment rights and duties is now considered “terrorism”? So, you see what the so-called “threat” of the latter people is, right? It’s that they might threaten the illegitimate, unconstitutional “government” from continuing to operate, and from increasingly operating, lawlessly and in violation of liberties and freedom; in other words, to oppress and carry out repression more and more against the free American people, which is really what the “government” presently-constituted is now all about, the opposite of freedom and liberty; they are a threat to all that represents True Liberty and that is Truly Free, therefore they are illegitimate because they go against all of the True Freedom and Liberty that the U.S. and state constitutions represent and stand for, and that the U.S. is ONLY supposed to stand for.
Well, obviously, as delineated in the Declaration of Independence joined to the U.S. Constitution via the Supremacy Clause, and thus just as much constitutional *(!)LAW(!)*, it is the *DUTY* of ALL OF US to stand up against that illegitimate government and “throw (it) off”:
“IT IS (OUR) *DUTY*, TO *THROW OFF* SUCH GOVERNMENT”
Written by John S. Browne [my “nom d’plume” (aka, “pen name”) on RSN]
Thursday, 26 February 2015 08:50
http://readersupportednews.org/pm-section/256-justice/28793-qit-is-our-duty-to-throw-off-such-governmentq
This is actually understandable and completely justified.
I thought it was a given that decent is now terrorism.
The FBI has always worked against free speech. They have always worked against any indication of “liberal” action. They are just another tool for suppressing American citizens.
9/11 has turned into quite a boondoggle for the security industries/agencies in this country. And it’s become a civil liberties nightmare for US citizens.
Im not saying im a saint but Nv. Is definitely working with the nsa and fbi , not only to watch African-Americans but to stalk them phone reverse them treat them with disrespect and eventually eliminate or incarcerate them . Why are they so angry with the very people who has not only endured hardships in the days of old because of hatred . We have practically but this country from intimidation from them but , it seems like they will not be happy until all African-Americans are dead . Why? Hate us so much?
How did you acquire a copy of an internal FBI-police email exchange…?
Let’s face it, the only public protests likely not scrutinized by DHS and FBI were those of the brownshirts best known as the Tea Party.
congratulations everyone. you are some of the most unintelligent human beings to ever exist. you read one biased news outlet and take it as fact. these worthless protestors were warned and were deliberately breaking the law…but ya, these protestors are modern day heros. stop using racism as an exuse for failure
What law were they breaking? Can you name it?
“they were warned”? what does that even mean? Anyone can warn any one else of any thing, that doesn’t mean the warning carries any weight, either legal or in practice. So what if the mall “warned” the protesters, is that significant? A “warning” from a private citizen does not exempt protesters their constitutional rights.
You know what, I am “warning” the owners of the mall of america right now that they are making me upset, can I send them a bill for $40,000 now?
This is a form of intimidation by government powerful corporations. A message to future protesters.
“Why Was an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force Tracking a Black Lives Matter Protest?
Obviously the Black Lives Matter Protestors were considered to be a “threat” to “Homeland Security.”
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Homeland_Security
Personally I find the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to be more of a threat to the well-being of American Citizens than any small group of American Citizens attempting to exercise rights granted under the provisions of Amendment I to the Constitution.
That’s right. I have objected to Homeland in-Security from the start. The term “Homeland” is about as New World Order fascist and insulting as you can get. Right up there with the “Patriot” Act. What a travesty these evil doers have made of American democracy.
Yep. I agree 100%.
This is the reason I read the intercept. You would not read this story anywhere else. Keep up the good work. Fighting crime for the FBI is all about entrapment. They have to create crime to continue to get funding and the real criminal are free to do whatever.
America loses twice with this kind of misconduct. We lose first by having spy agencies doing the wrong things, suppressing public discourse, reifying problems into such insurmountable and eternal barricades to progress that none will be seen until after the PLA peacekeepers arrive, which is to say, not for decades. But we lose again by having them fail at what they’re supposed to do!
Yes, the FBI should be involved in a Mall of America protest. They should be involved to help out the peaceful protesters, help them make sure no al-Qaida terrorists or Ferguson shooters or arsonists or looters slip in among them and wreak havoc and overshadow their cause, while making sure that local cops don’t play Ferguson style games to charge them wrongly. They should be there listening to feedback so that a DOJ investigation into the injustices protesters report doesn’t require weeks of rioting first. They should have proved themselves trustworthy by decades of tracking down racist killers (something they even do, on occasion) rather than by coming up with clever new ways to deface the Constitution. Of course, we know that didn’t happen, so it doesn’t happen, so for example there were no FBI agents invited to set up a table and talk to protesters in Ferguson yesterday; there was nobody at all to spot a killer in the crowd until cops were getting shot.
The same is true of the National Security Agency. That name! They ought to be somebody you’d trust to alert you about security exploits the moment they hear about them; they should have a website where you can look up how to spot and defuse every virus and worm ever made. They should distribute PGP and you should be able to count on what you download to them to work, because it’s open source, well scrutinized, and … who wouldn’t trust the National Security Agency? When their virus checker whirrs away on your hard drive, you shouldn’t have any reason to think it’s doing anything but making sure the Chinese aren’t stealing your secrets. Now as you can tell, yes, I have a lot of dreams about parallel universes, and this one, well, seems like if it exists it must be a looong way away from here. But the loss! All these professional agents, all roped in at the beginning with some promise of doing “the right thing”, all … helpless to do their job, or not to do what isn’t their job.
J Edgar Hoover was a racist who used the FBI to harass and intimidate people in the Civil Rights movement, and nothing has changed. The idea that a mall or business or police force chooses to increase it’s security force because they know there are going to be protesters, and then charge the protesters for the additional costs, has a chilling effect on the exercise of one’s constitutional rights. Even in the corporate state of America that we’ve become I don’t think such a case can be won.
Not to mention their involvement in the Martin Luther King plot :: http://www.thekingcenter.org/sites/default/files/KING%20FAMILY%20TRIAL%20TRANSCRIPT.pdf
JTT, Homeland Security, FBI and local County prosecutor investigated me – including a personal visit to my home by 3 investigators – for photography of what they called “critical infrastructure” (oil refineries and chemical plants in south jersey).
The photography was for journalistic purposes and was published by the Newark Star Ledger at my column then at NJ Voices. I also am long known environmental activist and focus on health and safety risks of chemical plants on nearby populations.
That event has placed me on some kind of domestic watch list, because I have been hassled numerous times by local police and Homeland Security.
Hello from South Jersey!
Bill Wolfe, Thanks for your comment. There is more of this sort of thing going on than most people realize. IMO, if journalists were to focus heavily on the types of intrusions/activities that you’ve described, the whole mess would come unraveled. Journalists must begin to look at local JTTF activities that are being directed by the FBI. Homeland Security and local police are involved, as well, as you note. Many people are being subjected to extremely intrusive surveillance and harassment.
A couple of weeks ago on NPR: http://www.npr.org/2015/03/01/389598765/fracking-opponents-feel-police-pressure-in-some-drilling-hotspots (and it isn’t just happening in “drilling hotspots”)
Most media is owned by wealthy corporations so it’s not in their interest to inform the people of these types of intrusions. Actually powerful corporations now use government and their agents to their advantage. An example is the Iraq war.
I too was targeted as a journalist. Although I would cooperate with a journalist writing about me, commenting publically with my name is problematic for me. I wish I could work through that, but I am hesitant and frightened to be honest — I was a freelancer, and was told that if I were a staffer it’d be different — I would get backing, (and I had ‘other news clients’ too, right? So, any way to create questions about who should be the backer/how to allocate. The hypocrisy of mainstream media never ceases to amaze, as they sit on every board of every pro-press freedom organization in existence while doing this stuff. this was at the height of that trend of using freelancers and before the outcry about not protecting us equally with staffers) Instead I got sympathy and was left at the mercy of these people, who have never stopped harassing me — a combo of local police/feds. I kept working, just less and less to avoid assignments on which I was most harassed. So my client just sort of used me up, basically.
None of us, including my client, knew how bad it would get or that it would not be resolved, so now, you can imagine, they would surely disavow publicly if I spoke out as it makes them look bad. Privately/quietly, I feel they have likely stood in the way at some of the journalist NGOs when I have sought help. Usually one rad. board member will support my request while the others cryptically refuse. It is hard to get backing from those orgs to begin with, even for journalists who eventually have, so I don’t know for sure in every instance.
I wish I could say what you get to say — ‘I was with the Newark paper and got hammered by feds/police.’ I am scared to say something so simple as I will be hammered and buried from both ends.
So, I feel extremely vulnerable and have not stepped out by name.
maybe cause the mossad aka soros sponsered black panthers want to violently overthrow the gov and kill all whites
Minor correction:
In 1971 files were not stolen from a “field office”, they were stolen from a “resident agency”.
Resident agencies are smaller regional offices acting as annexes for their associated field office. Most field offices have more than one associated resident agency.
The 1971 burglary was possible because the resident agencies typically have lower staffing and less security that the field offices.
“Why Was an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force Tracking a Black Lives Matter Protest?”
Exactly!, when are Americans going to wise up and realise who the real enemy is…consider…
When the “war on drugs” began, who would have guessed that the culprits would have been mainly minorities. When you dig down into the numbers, the overwhelming preponderance of convicted drug offenders are minorities. …and now, surprise surprise! What turns out to be at the centre of the FBI’s “war on terror” investigations? More minorities!!! Even when minorities aren’t getting rich smuggling drugs, or trying to blow up Washington, will they behave themselves? No!!! What was revealed by the recent events in Ferguson? Again, the vast majority of petty crimes and municipal violations were done by minorities. How long can we afford to let minorities hide behind labels such as “drug dealer” and “terrorist”, when, like a shape-shifting nemesis, we know that…whatever the next US war is against…the enemy will be minorities!!!
You’re absolutely correct. 80% of drug arrest made are on drug users as opposed to drug dealers. Statically there are more white addicts than black yet blacks are targeted more for arrest. Blacks aren’t responsible for bringing drugs into this country nor are they responsible for the majority of drug use. They are however the primary target of the war on drugs. A war which started in 1982 when drug use was statistically at an all time low in America.
Great article! Thanks!
I’ve wondered for a long time if the FBI has any proof that they vetted potential members for sympathies to the KKK? After watching a show a few years ago about the spies for the communists in the Manhattan Project during WW2, I wondered if the Army vetted the workers for KKK sympathies. The HUAC…did they investigate Nazi or KKK sympathies?
I strongly suspect that the answer to all three is…no.
Shameful policies, emanating from an expiring democracy, created and blessed by intellectually weak bureaucrats, to be carried out by 2nd rate actors and paid for by the the FBI’s suspects and other taxpayers.
They’ve learned their lesson to stay away from white extremist groups, just like HSA has been warned off
Who do we send the bill for the unnecessary expenditure of taxpayer resources? The misallocation of manpower, payments to informers, fuel costs, wear and tear on equipment… just the costs of hours of email typing, forwarding and reviewing likely breached the misdemeanor threshold and crossed into felony theft territory.
I’d also like to see a breakdown of this $40,000 the Mall is claiming for security.
Mall security jobs don’t exactly pay very well… so who got paid how much for less than a day of work?
Why be concerned with such a protest? Why pay far too much attention to it. Well for starters CONTELPRO (the FBI effort to destroy the reputation of “non loyal people”… and to jail those who were against the current status quo) never really stopped. CONTELPRO put a lot of innocent people in prison, many of whom are still there. Note that those in charge of CONTOLPRO gave the Detroit police direct instructions to murder the heads of the Black Panther Party (which they did indeed do). I knew nothing about any of this growing up in the 70s, as a poor white kid in a very white town of very white rednecks.
In later years…in 1988… one day I was dropping off a few people I knew at their university for classes. There was (as usual) a protest going on (this was after all at Evergreen State). A number of the protesters were pointing up a lot; they were making sure that those in the crowd knew they were being filmed. There were agents on the roofs of the university buildings, with cameras that had long telephoto lenses. They were taking pictures of the people in the crowd below. This sort of thing was found to be illegal back in the late 1970s… and here it was going on in plain sight in the late 1980s.
A few of those in the crowd who were into photography, and had the necessary camera gear, responded to this “spy vs spy” garbage, by grabbing their own cameras and taking pictures of the agents up there on the roofs… that did not go well for the students with the cameras.
Lets look at basic life here. People do jobs that attract them for some reason. IN some cases it is just plain survival, but with many jobs there is an attraction.
Builders get to build & gardeners get to grow plants. Chemists get to do chemistry and fire fighters get to save lives and … well .. police get to *ENFORCE* the rules. They get to tell everyone else how to live. It also happens that police officers tend to look out for each other (and cover for each other) and judges nearly always rule in favor of officers. This means that an officer gets to do just about anything they want to do without ever getting in trouble for it. It does not take long to figure this out if you are a cop.
Federal police have even more power. They also tend to see conspiracies against ‘THEM and their POWER everywhere (like the old reds under the beds). And power – power is what this is really all about.
There are certain psychological types who are very attracted to having and using power. None of these are stable people and a lot of them are quite dangerous. It happens that the same sorts of psychological profiles that seriously dangerous criminals have (including violence to family members, high rates of alcoholism, etc) exist in police officers. Part of that similarity in profile, is probably the effects of untreated P.T.S.D. because cops have to deal with “humanity at its worst” every day, all day. But that isn’t all of the reason for this ‘similarity’. After all, anyone who reads the news very much, or grew up in an area with a lot of poor or minority folks in it, knows that a badge essentially gives an officer the right to do anything, and get away with it. You can kill an unarmed kid in front of dozens of witnesses and walk away free.
So, if you are the sort of person who wants to be able to assault others with impunity; carry and use a gun with a very low chance of ever getting in trouble not matter what you do, twist the rules so you can enjoy the thrill of the power…you can;t ask for a better job than “cop” and FBI agents have a lot more power than that.
If an unarmed black man standing in the toy section of a store and holding one of the items sold right there in that store, can be shot and killed by a cop (and on investigation – “nothing is wrong with that shooting” is the official verdict) …then we know we have serious issues with how the US police view anyone who isn’t white.
With the last several years of police shooting of unarmed black people, the FBI **ought** to be investigating the police and trying to clean the mess up. However, the FBI does not exist to help the average people. They exist to promote the governments current “status quo” (whatever it might be) and keep things from changing. So of course they are investigating the people who actually *DO* want the USA to be a good country to live in.
Excellent catch, Mr. Fang.
Keep it coming!
I wonder how the JTTF may be involved in what is essentially the continuation of COINTELPRO? For instance, does the JTTF do most of the behind-the-scenes orchestration with private contractors doing most of the ‘on the street’ supervision?
If the FBI had no moral qualms about keeping every black student at Swarthmore under surveillance in 1971, then what would keep them from placing any or all of us under surveillance, if they could? With the tens of thousands of contractors available to do the foot work, how would we know?
This is enraging. It shows they’re not really concerned about terrorism. This should be concerning to everyone!
BTW, any updates on the court case of those 11. Nothing like trying to criminalize protest, I suppose. I really hope they have good counsel.
They’re the experts – if they’re not concerned then no one else should be either.
Many people believe the FBI are continually manufacturing terrorist plots so they can take credit for foiling them. But in fact, there are many interludes where the FBI waits to see if anyone else will do it. Unfortunately, the terrorists have become lazy. They are now so used to the FBI doing their work for them, that they can barely be bothered to lift a finger. This is a problem with many well intentioned government programs – they just take away people’s natural initiative.
However, this doesn’t mean the danger of terrorism has dissipated completely. Many people are injured by slipping on ice every year, so not shovelling the walk is one of the most severe terrorist threats. In other words, the laziness of terrorists has itself become a threat. Another example, as in this story, is people going to malls and not shopping. This inaction, or ‘failure to shop’ is a way of disrupting commerce, and so must also be considered as a serious terrorist threat.
As terrorism morphs and manifests itself in new ways, the FBI has no choice but to follow suit. Terrorists have discovered the power of not doing anything, and so has the FBI.
Oh, you’re something else, Benito. Of course the FBI, CIA, NSA and all are mightily concerned – they want to keep those jobs and perks coming.
So the terrorists are getting lazy? And the Surveillance State, for example, wants to foil encryption. Maybe they should listen to you – make the terrorists WORK to try to hide their communications…
But I also have to note one thing you mentioned: ” Another example, as in this story, is people going to malls and not shopping. This inaction, or ‘failure to shop’ is a way of disrupting commerce, and so must also be considered as a serious terrorist threat.” Imagine – nonmaterialism being a threat to society. Who wouldda thought? Not us 99%ers, for sure :-)
Law enforcement must have a difficult time operating under rules of engagement that value enemy’s (non-LEO’s) lives so little.
With their consciousness so full of murderous intent, it must be easy for them to believe the murderous intent they sense is that of objects of their surveillance.
Yup, “terrorism” is the new “Communism”, the new “black protest”, the new “immoral, drug-addled hippie movement”.
Yep. COINTELPRO is thriving — it’s just being run under a different name.
Why Was an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force Tracking a Black Lives Matter Protest?
In answer, for one, becaues they can, who’s going to stop them? Secondly, any source of disrupting order or impeding business as usual could be construed as terroristic. Thirdly, I think the government is truly scared that at any time any one of the many social protests could go viral in scope.