Sinop é uma cidade de fronteira instalada no meio da floresta. Sua história é um resumo emblemático da ocupação da Amazônia: as riquezas naturais são gradualmente destruídas ano após ano, e a floresta, os povos indígenas e comunidades tradicionais dão lugar lentamente a estradas, barragens, madeireiras, mineração, agronegócio e a outras formas do que se convencionou chamar de “desenvolvimento”.

Antes e Depois

Acima: Vista aérea de Sinop em 1973, no momento de sua implantação em plena Floresta amazônica. Abaixo: Imagem atual de Sinop. A floresta foi destruída para dar lugar a plantações de soja.

Fotos: Edu Marcel Ribeiro e Google Maps

Os generais faziam questão de ocupar a região com aqueles que chamavam de “verdadeiros brasileiros” — sua maneira de dizer “não-indígenas”.

Até a década de 1950, toda a região de Sinop era originalmente habitada por povos indígenas, particularmente os Kayabi e os Apiakás, além de remanescentes de seringueiros que lá se instalaram no entre-século 19-20. Foi então que o governo reassentou esses povos indígenas de forma obrigatória a centenas de quilômetros de distância dali, no Parque Nacional do Xingu.

Alguns anos mais tarde, a “ocupação” da bacia amazônica tornou-se uma obsessão dos generais que comandaram o país durante o governo militar de 1964-1985. Com o argumento de que havia interesses estrangeiros sobre a geração hidrelétrica e acesso às reservas de minérios, os militares invocaram a segurança nacional – um conceito chave da época – e não tardaram em lançar um novo slogan, “Ocupar para não Entregar”, comunicando sua ânsia de “salvar” a região.

Os generais faziam questão de ocupar a região com aqueles que chamavam de “verdadeiros brasileiros” — sua maneira de dizer “não-indígenas”. Desta forma, o incentivo do governo militar ao fluxo de migrantes para o norte do país intensificou a expulsão dos indígenas.

Curiosamente, entre esses verdadeiros brasileiros, constavam grandes grupos internacionais como Mercedes-Bens e Volkswagen, que receberam, com amplas facilidades, imensas extensões de terras na Amazônia e fartos subsídios financeiros.

As iniciativas militares se diversificaram. Abriram a enorme rodovia Transamazônica, rasgando a bacia amazônica de leste a oeste, e instruíram um projeto ambicioso de trazer famílias sem-terra do Sul e do árido Nordeste para instalarem-se em lotes demarcados ao longo da nova rodovia.

Pipino e os pistoleiros de aluguel

O governo militar também convidou empresários do Centro-Sul do Brasil que já acumulavam experiência em projetos de colonização de terras a se implantarem em Mato Grosso. Vastas áreas de floresta do MT passaram a ter “donos” – Zé Paraná em Juara, Ariosto da Riva em Alta Floresta e Ênio Pipino em Sinop. Nessa equação, a exuberante floresta, os índios e as comunidades tradicionais entravam apenas como obstáculos a serem superados.

Nascido em uma família de imigrantes italianos em 1917, Ênio Pipino cresceu no interior de São Paulo. Em 1948, criou a Sociedade Imobiliária do Noroeste do Paraná, mais conhecida como Sinop Terras; ele comprava grandes áreas no Paraná por preços baixos e as vendia mais caro, já divididas em lotes pequenos para agricultores familiares. Pipino fundou várias cidades e ganhou muito dinheiro.

“O Paraná era como o oeste selvagem americano no século 19, quando todos os conflitos foram resolvidos pela bala.”

O jornalista Silvestre Duarte, que estuda a colonização do Paraná, explicou à reportagem que foi uma época violenta: “O Paraná era como o oeste selvagem americano no século 19, quando todos os conflitos foram resolvidos pela bala”, disse Duarte. O nível de violência empregada para expulsar índios e famílias camponesas foi tamanho que provocou repercussões na imprensa brasileira e no Congresso Nacional.

Ao erguer um império no norte paranaense, Pipino ficou famoso por sua violência. “De meados da década de 1940 até o começo da década de 1960, foi grande a atuação do exército de pistoleiros e jagunços da Sinop nessa região. Sob o comando de Marins Belo e de outros famosos pistoleiros da região, foram desalojadas famílias inteiras de posseiros e assassinadas muitas pessoas, cujos corpos eram jogados no rio Piquiri. Essa foi a marca sinistra dos pistoleiros de aluguel, contratados pela Sinop”, descreve Duarte.

Na primeira oportunidade, Pipino se empenhou em reproduzir, em escala maior, o esquema de assentamento que lhe rendeu fortuna no Paraná. De acordo com Luiz Erardi, arquivista de Sinop, Ênio Pipino e a esposa, Lélia Maria de Araújo Vieira, começaram a visitar o norte de Mato Grosso em 1970. Pipino logo teria comprado uma área de terras de um fazendeiro de São Paulo e arregimentado trabalhadores de Mato Grosso para abrir estradas de terra para tornar a área mais acessível.

Quarenta anos depois, essas terras valem fortunas e os filhos e netos de alguns desse colonos são muito ricos.

Contando com favores dos militares, Pipino acabou se apropriando de 645 mil hectares. As terras que “ganhava” do governo federal eram divididas em lotes e vendidas para famílias sem-terra do Sul.

Ao que parece, o implacável Pipino também sabia ser cativante e amável quando convinha. Para Geraldino Dal’Mazo, o norte de Mato Grosso da década de 1970 era uma região selvagem e sem lei, mas Pipino irradiava sossego e confiança. Dal’Mazo foi um dos primeiros colonos a chegar em Sinop e, conforme contou a The Intercept Brasil, as pessoas se tranquilizaram quando Pipino garantiu que “todos os lotes tinham um título legal”. Entretanto, o direito de Pipino de emitir esses títulos e vender as terras era, na melhor das hipóteses, duvidoso, pois as terras que alienava eram, na sua maioria, públicas.

Comparação da cobertura florestal do município de Sinop em 1986 e em 2016: em apenas 30 anos, quase toda floresta foi devastada.

Elaboração: Mauricio Torres

O início do projeto militar de colonização

Em 1972, os primeiros colonos fizeram a árdua viagem de sete dias do Paraná até Sinop. Em 1975, a migração se intensificaria, como Luiz Erardi explicou: “Teve uma geada que ceifou o cafezal no Paraná. A maioria das famílias foi atingida porque mexiam com café, acabou com café no Paraná. Nessa época também estava em expansão o latifúndio. Veio o grande que tinha dinheiro, ‘tem aí sua chácara, eu dou tanto’. E muitos falam que, com a venda da chácara que tinham no Paraná, compraram fazenda aqui em Mato Grosso.”

Mesmo com fazenda, a vida nas áreas de colonização se mostrou árdua. Os solos por baixo da floresta eram pobres e faltava tudo: assistência técnica, financiamento, infraestrutura etc. O conhecimento tradicional dos camponeses sulistas não se transportou facilmente para um ambiente amazônico desconhecido e diferente. Muitos plantaram café e, mesmo sem a ocorrência de geadas, não faltaram motivos para o fracasso dos cultivos.

“O sujeito vinha quebrado e voltava quebrado e meio”, sintetizou Erardi para explicar a situação das famílias que retornavam ao Sul. Completamente sem dinheiro, acabavam pagando com a terra – e que, até então, não tinha praticamente valor de mercado – para que um vizinho, também colono e dono de um pequeno caminhão, os levassem de volta para o Sul.

Quarenta anos depois, essas terras valem fortunas e os filhos e netos de alguns desse colonos são muito ricos.

Luiz Erardi e sua esposa eram professores no Paraná e, em 1982, chegaram a Sinop, com o projeto de fundar uma escola infantil. Ele conta que faltava energia, pois o gerador a diesel quebrava rotineiramente; que não tinham água aquecida e nem fogão a gás.

“Um domingo de manhã, levantei cedo, era final de novembro, muita chuva. Olhei lá fora, tudo alagado. Fui fazer café e peguei o açúcar e estava todo melado com a umidade. Disse: ‘não é terra de gente, é terra de sapo’. Fui ao quarto e falei para a minha esposa, ‘vamos ajeitar as coisas e ir embora’. Ela, inicialmente, não queria vir para cá. Nossos filhos estudavam, ela estava bem colocada lá no Paraná e tínhamos um fusquinha. Mas quando falei em voltar, ela bateu o pé, ‘eu não quis vir, você forçou para vir, agora não vou voltar’, ela disse. E acabamos ficando. Ainda bem.”

Depois de anos difíceis, Sinop não apenas sobreviveu, mas prosperou. Na medida em que a cidade prosperava, também cresciam as ambições de Pipino, facilitadas graças à amizade com os generais. “Ênio Pipino recebeu muito apoio militar”, nos disse Luiz Erardi. Frequentemente, ele participava de delegações oficiais em viagens ao exterior e era particularmente próximo ao general Figueiredo, que governou o Brasil de 1979 a 1985.

Os generais até dobraram a lei, quando for preciso. Em 1982, quando escrevia o livro The Last Frontier, Sue Branford encontrou uma carta em um arquivo no escritório do Incra, com data de 25 de março de 1979, na qual Pipino solicitava cortesmente a Paulo Yakota, então presidente do Incra, que lhe desse os títulos referentes a uma enorme área de 2 milhões de hectares, que ele chamava de gleba Celeste e onde já havia estabelecido 3.300 famílias. Ao menos em parte, o pedido parece ter sido atendido, pois a Gleba Celeste foi registrada em nome de Pipino com um terço do tamanho pretendido e, como no Paraná, ele seguiu vendendo as terras e fundando cidades, sempre com nomes de mulheres: Vera, Cláudia e Santa Carmem.

Prosperidade para quem?

Obviamente, nem todos progrediram em Sinop. Na região, é comum dizer que os “teimosos” ficaram e colheram as recompensas, mas essa expressão é quase folclórica: para se tornar um milionário da fronteira, era preciso mais do que teimosia.

De acordo com a professora da Universidade do Estado de Mato Grosso (Unemat), Maria Ivonete de Souza, cujo pai, um trabalhador rural pobre, comprou um lote de terra em um projeto de assentamento mais ao norte, “sempre foi difícil para os colonos que chegaram sem dinheiro. Não foi fácil para os agricultores encontrar uma maneira de cultivar a terra que deu certo. No fim, descobriram que aplicar muitos insumos químicos funcionava bem. Mas até lá os pobres tinham gasto todos seus recursos e nunca ganharam o suficiente para recuperar o que perderam. Quarenta anos depois meu pai é tão pobre como quando chegou”, disse Maria Ivonete. “Ele sempre teve que trabalhar na terra de outra pessoa para fazer face às despesas da família.”

Professora Maria Ivonete de Souza: “Quarenta anos depois, meu pai é tão pobre como quando chegou”.

Foto: Thaís Borges

Geraldino Dal’Mazo e Luiz Erardi acham bom ter ficado em Sinop. Erardi foi professor, trabalhou em uma série de empregos dentro do governo municipal e seus netos ascenderam socialmente. Hoje, ele se orgulha de uma neta médica, formada em uma grande universidade. Dal’Mazo ganhou muito dinheiro nos primeiros anos, principalmente com a abertura de postos de gasolina, e se tornou prefeito durante o governo militar. Perdeu tudo na crise econômica brasileira no início dos anos 80; seus filhos, no entanto, enriqueceram.

Geraldino Dal’Mazo, um dos primeiros colonos sulistas a se mudar para Sinop, na concessionária de veículos de um de seus filhos.

Foto: Thaís Borges

Demorou mais de uma década em Sinop até que os agricultores descobrissem um tipo de cultivo rentável. Depois de tentativas fracassadas com várias culturas, o irmão de Geraldino Dal’Mazo plantou soja e se tornou o primeiro produtor da região a experimentar o cultivo, que até a década de 80 era pouco conhecido no Brasil. “Plantou 1.500 hectares em 1987 e produziu maravilhosamente bem” falou Dal Mazo. Atualmente, a maioria dos agricultores participa da onda sojeira e plantam milho e algodão na entressafra.

Aparentemente, Sinop é uma cidade próspera, vibrante e que pertence ao Brasil moderno. No entanto, alguns grupos sociais pagaram um preço alto pelo sucesso da cidade – os povos indígenas, as famílias sem terra e colonos sem recursos tornaram-se invisíveis. A floresta, que até a década de 1970 cobria todo o município, foi dizimada: em apenas 40 anos, 2/3 do município foram desmatados.

Dependendo do ângulo e de quem está olhando, Sinop pode ser considerada um território de conquista ou escombros de uma terra arrasada. À medida que nossa reportagem avança rumo ao norte pela BR 163, vamos ao encontro da atual fronteira agropecuária, onde hoje são travadas disputas por terras. É como viajar ao passado de Sinop.

Esta matéria é da série exclusiva “Tapajós sob Ataque”, escrita pela jornalista Sue Branford e pelo cientista social Mauricio Torres, que percorrem a bacia Tapajós. A série é produzida em colaboração com Mongabay, portal independente de jornalismo ambiental. Leia a versão em inglês. Acompanhe outras reportagens no The Intercept Brasil ao longo das próximas semanas.

The post Desenvolvimento chega a Mato Grosso com bala e devastação appeared first on The Intercept.

The couple wanted a child no older than 6 years of age. They were willing to adopt a child with chronic, treatable diseases such as diabetes or fetal alcohol syndrome, but not one with untreatable conditions — such as blindness or paralysis — which they believed themselves financially and emotionally incapable of supporting.

And, unlike many prospective parents in Brazil — where a substantial portion of adopting parents only want a white child — they had no preferences when it came to race or gender. About 70 percent of the children eligible for adoption in Brazil are black or mixed race, which means that many parents who want to adopt are closed off to the possibility of taking most of the ones who need a home.

To the extent that Alexandre and Francisco, both 39 and together for 10 years, had any inflexible desire, it concerned the number of children they intended to adopt on the first go: just one. Indeed, after taking years of discussion and contemplation before finally pronouncing themselves ready, they never considered, let alone discussed, adopting more than one child at once. But as they navigated the adoption process, and learned that most Brazilian children eligible for adoption are together in shelters with siblings, they were eventually persuaded to be open to the possibility of adopting two siblings at the same time.

But in July 2015, roughly 1 1/2 years after they formally initiated the process, the couple ended up simultaneously adopting three children, all boys. Their sons are likely half brothers, sharing the same biological mother but, they speculate, with different biological fathers. At the time of the adoption, Gabriel, the youngest, was 6; the middle child, Pablo, was 9; and the oldest, Patrick, was 12. All three are black. Alexandre is white, and his husband, Francisco, is what Brazilians refer to as “moreno,” or mixed race.

Reported by Glenn Greenwald, Juliana Gonçalves, and Thiago Dezan. Film: Thiago Dezan for The Intercept

Their adoption of three children, rather than one or two, happened because of an unexpected but very common quandary: After being told that adoption authorities had located a child who met their age and health preferences — the youngest, Gabriel — and that he had an older sibling, Pablo, whom they had decided they would also adopt, they learned soon thereafter that the two boys had another, older brother, 12-year-old Patrick, who had been lingering for years in adoption shelters. With Patrick, they faced a heavy dilemma: leave him in the shelter — where, given his age, he would be extremely unlikely ever to be adopted, then would be expelled at the age of 18 — or adopt him, as well as his two younger brothers, all at once.

Children over 6 have a very low likelihood of ever being adopted, which all but guarantees a grim future. According to the journalist Gilberto Scofield’s account in the magazine Piaui of his and his partner’s adoption, only 6 percent of adopting couples are open to adopting a child over the age of 6, while 85 percent of eligible children are in that age group.

Declining to adopt Gabriel’s brothers would almost certainly have consigned them to a life of heinous deprivation, or worse. Children in shelters who end up not being adopted face great hardships even in the best of circumstances. But in the poorest states of Brazil, itself a poor country, they have almost no societal support. Upon expulsion from the shelter at 18, boys commonly end up selling drugs and living on the streets, while girls turn to prostitution.

The choice this couple unexpectedly faced — adopt one or two children as intended while leaving their brother, or adopt the three siblings together despite uncertainty about how it could work — is a common one in Brazil. Because most Brazilian children eligible for adoption were removed from their biological parent due to serious abuse or neglect, siblings are often removed together.

As Scofield reported, 77 percent of the children in shelters are with siblings, while 79 percent of adoptive parents want to adopt only one child. In sum, the overwhelming majority of couples begin the process wanting only to adopt a purely healthy infant with no siblings, yet the reality of the eligible children is radically different. Adoption authorities have a strong preference to have siblings adopted together, and they apply a wide array of pressure tactics, from subtle to overt, to induce adopting couples to accept more than one child.

In the case of Alexandre and Francisco, such pressure was unnecessary. They rigorously scrutinized their income and budget and knew it would be extremely difficult to care for three children. But no matter: “From the start, it was unthinkable to leave one of the boys there,” Alexandre said. “We decided we would find a way to make it work. We felt we had no choice.”

Alexandre and Francisco with two of their three sons.

Photo: Thiago Dezan for The Intercept

The way the five of them have so quickly bonded into a loving and supportive family is a moving human story. It is also an illuminating and thought-provoking one, shedding light on a wide range of complex questions about human needs and relationships, psychology, race, class, gender, and behavioral influences — some of which are unique to Brazil, most of which are universal.

The couple decided to share their story because they want to enable better societal understanding of adoptive families, and to inspire others to adopt. They have begun speaking about their experience at the monthly meetings prospective adoptive parents are required to attend in Brazil in order to become certified to adopt, and they are active in several organizations devoted to support for adoptive families and public advocacy on their behalf.

There is serious need for such efforts in Brazil, where a growing and powerful faction composed of evangelicals and other ultra-conservatives want to ban same-sex couples from adopting, despite the large number of unwanted children in shelters. Such sentiments are also common in many other countries, including the United States.

After a three-week trial period — one designed to allow both the prospective parents and children to decide if the situation should be made permanent — the two fathers and three boys all unequivocally agreed they wanted to form a family. All three boys moved into the couple’s small, two-bedroom apartment in Tijuca, a working-class neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro’s Northern Zone. The two new fathers kept their bedroom, while the three boys moved together into the small spare room, with bunk beds and pull-out trundles maximizing the space.

“I grew up middle class, with English classes and trips to Disney World and other foreign countries,” Alexandre recalled. “And I did not want to adopt until we were ready and able to provide our own children with everything I had growing up.” Alexandre is a trained psychoanalyst but has been unemployed for the last year, creating uncertainty about whether they were ready.

But Francisco had a radically different upbringing: born into extreme poverty until the age of 7, and then raised by an aunt along with three cousins. “Because of how I grew up, I felt the most important thing wasn’t what we could give materially, but all that mattered was providing a loving and stable home, with the right values being taught,” he said.

Alexandre has now come around to that way of thinking — for the most part.

“I still wish I could give them more,” he said. “But reality is reality, and I feel very good about what we’ve all been able to do for each other’s lives.”

I first met the couple last July, when they spoke at a meeting I attended with my husband, David Miranda, for parents who were planning to adopt; it was the last of four meetings we had to attend to fulfill our own requirements to be certified by the family court. The session was held at night in a chapel inside a Catholic church in the Tijuca neighborhood where the family lives.

We sat with 20 or so prospective adoptive couples, all of whom seemed — like we were — filled with a roughly equal mix of apprehension and excitement. One of the four meetings entails listening to parents who have already adopted describe their experiences, and Alexandre and Francisco regularly volunteer to share their story.

Halfway into the couple’s presentation about their new lives as parents, all three boys entered the room, after playing together upstairs with their grandfather, Alexandre’s father. They walked through the crowd of prospective adoptive parents and made a beeline for their fathers, seating themselves at the front of the room next to them.

What was most striking about this 1-year-old family was its total normalcy. As most children would, all three boys manifestly felt uncomfortable as a roomful of adult strangers gazed at them. They sought immediate refuge and protection behind their fathers, literally hiding their faces.

But as their fathers’ presentation progressed, each of them — on their own time, slowly — began to be more comfortable. They gradually revealed their faces, while remaining anchored to the protective arms of their fathers. They began playfully interrupting their fathers’ presentation, mischievously grabbing their microphones, making fun of one another and their parents. The two fathers valiantly tried to divide their attention between the talk they were giving and their efforts to control three increasingly bold and restless boys as they began basking in the positive attention they were receiving from the roomful of attendees.

Five people who did not know each other the year before — who came from such radically different backgrounds and experiences — had so obviously and quickly formed a standard family with all of its familiar patterns. The power and beauty of this bond instantly dispelled whatever lingering doubts my husband and I had about the exciting but scary prospect of adopting.

The family agreed to share their story with The Intercept. Our team — myself, reporter Juliana Gonçalves, and videographer Thiago Dezan — spent many hours with them over the course of several days, in various settings, in order to get them comfortable with being interviewed and filmed and to be exposed to a full range of their experiences. Their individual story is fascinating on its own, but also for the window it provides into a wide array of societal issues.

Photo: Thiago Dezan for The Intercept

Adoptive parents in Brazil confront a number of ethical quagmires which many did not anticipate. The first is the issue of race preference.

Is there any explanation, other than racism, for why some white parents would specify that they only want a white child, thus ensuring a far longer wait for themselves, particularly when most of the children in Brazil eligible for adoption are black?

Psychologists who oversee the orientation sessions insist that there is a non-racist motive. Adoptive parents, fearing that their children will already face significant hurdles, don’t want to add another: the constant stigma of having everyone — even strangers in public — know they are adopted by virtue of being of a different race than their parents. Having a child who looks enough like their parents to be perceived as their biological child, so the explanation goes, reduces the stigma for the child.

One of Alexandre and Francisco’s first conflicts with their youngest son, Gabriel — which took place within weeks after the adoption process was finalized — highlights this concern. When the five of them were walking on the street, Gabriel, when told he could not have something he wanted, threw a tantrum of the type common among 6-year-olds.

As his rage escalated, he ran away from his fathers, and Francisco had to chase and then grab him, all while Gabriel screamed for help. The sight of a 30-something man chasing and grabbing a screaming black child attracted the attention and concern of pedestrians and even security guards. “It was embarrassing,” Francisco recalled, “because it was the first time it happened. But I explained Gabriel was my son and that was the end of it.”

Both Alexandre and Francisco are dismissive of the significance of this stigma. “People do look at us in public, especially when I’m alone with them,” said Alexandre. “But it’s a look of curiosity, not malice, and it’s not hard to deal with. The boys know they are adopted and do not regard it as a stigma or source of shame: quite the opposite, as they have learned that adoption is something to be proud of and we are as much a family as anyone else.”

Whatever else is true, the issue of race looms over the adoption process from the start. The question prospective parents in orientation sessions most frequently ask is about time frame: How long will it take before you have your child? The answer is delivered by social workers in a matter-of-fact tone that masks its stunning meaning. The message is along these lines: “Well, it all depends on your preferences; if you want a fully healthy, white infant, then of course you will wait a very long time, even years. But if you are more flexible with your preferences, if you’re open to a nonwhite or an older child, one with conditions requiring treatment, then it will go much quicker.”

That nonwhite children are implicitly regarded as less desirable and thus more available is casually stated — as though it’s the most natural, or obvious, fact in the world. The grim reality that white children are more in demand hovers over an otherwise inspiring process. For that reason, preferences about race, along with age of the child, are among the most significant factors determining how long the process takes.

The issue of health is also complex. Children with disabilities requiring significant levels of care are sometimes given up for adoption by parents incapable of caring for them, meaning that many of those eligible suffer from blindness, paralysis, Down syndrome, or severe heart disease certain to produce a short life. Other children have treatable, chronic conditions such as fetal alcohol syndrome, HIV, or diabetes.

An adoptive parent’s decision on the limits of illness or condition they feel themselves able and willing to confront can be a tormenting one. “You have dreams for what you want your children to be,” explained Francisco, “but you don’t want to feel as though you’re demanding a physically perfect specimen. We all have frailties and imperfections; it’s part of what makes us human.”

Beyond that, added Alexandre, “part of our motive was to have children because of the happiness it would bring us, but a big part was to give an unwanted child a home. So we didn’t want to restrict ourselves to children who would easily find one.” Ultimately, they opted to accept a child with treatable, chronic conditions but not grave, untreatable ones.

Photo: Thiago Dezan for The Intercept

Questions of gender, and, for same-sex couples, sexual orientation, can be even more difficult to navigate. The couple’s youngest child, Gabriel, spent years in a poorly funded and badly managed shelter that was just one small step removed from living on the street: Homeless children often entered without impediment, and the children in the shelter easily left to commingle with groups of homeless people. At a young age, they were all immersed in a highly patriarchal and macho culture as a means of survival. And no family members or relatives ever visited the boys to provide a countervailing influence.

The two fathers were, at first, concerned about what attitudes Gabriel and his brothers would have to same-sex couples and to women. They therefore prioritized education about social attitudes. Alexandre bought books designed to teach kids that both genders are equal and that sexual orientation discrimination is wrong. “I immediately corrected any expression of bigotry that they had picked up,” Alexandre said, “and now they see these issues completely differently.”

During their first week together, one of the boys, when told that Alexandre and Francisco were married, asked whether that was allowed. After being told that it was, the boys pointed to a well-known Brazilian prime-time soap opera that had depicted a same-sex couple, provoking controversy in Brazil. “That normalized it for them,” said Francisco, “made them understand that this was common. After that, it’s just natural for them that they have two fathers.”

The question of age also presents an endless array of difficult questions. Child psychologists vehemently debate the age at which a child’s emotional and psychological formation is largely complete and thus immune from meaningful influence, with some believing that can take place as early as 2 or 3 years old. Others, however, believe the process never ends.

Alexandre and Francisco had no such doubts about their ability to parent their pre-adolescent boys, and time appears to have proven them correct. “These are completely different children than they were a year ago when we met them,” Alexandre says. “Even as an adult, I continue to learn and change from interactions I have with others and my life experiences. Of course kids are susceptible to parental influences throughout their childhood.”

Perhaps an even more excruciating ethical quandary comes from how one conducts the “search” for the child. The question a prospective adoptive parent must face is an almost impossible one to resolve: Do you keep meeting multiple children until you find “the right one” — thus rejecting hopeful children you meet on the path to the one you ultimately adopt — or do you commit in advance to adopting the first one that falls within your demographic preferences?

Children in shelters who are older than 3 or 4 know that they are waiting to be adopted and are hopeful it will happen. When a prospective parent visits, many try to be charming in the hope that they will be chosen. A parent who rejects a child under those circumstances knows they are bestowing the child with the knowledge that they have been rejected, and are also consigning them to a future where there is a real possibility that they will never be adopted. That’s a heavy burden for both to bear.

But the other option — committing in advance to adopting the first child one meets regardless of compatibility — can present its own serious difficulties. Not every parent is equipped to provide every adopted child with the emotional and psychological support they need. Compatibility can be critical in determining whether the relationship works.

“In our case,” recalls Alexandre, “this turned out not to be a problem because we knew as soon as we met Gabriel that he was our son. And we felt the same way when we met his two brothers.” Francisco added: “That’s not to say it’s always been easy. But somehow we found them and they found us and it was meant to be.”

Gabriel with his parents and two of his friends at a birthday party.

Photo: Courtesy Alexandre Louzada and Francisco David

There is no question that adoption presents some unique challenges. Ultimately, though, parenting adopted children is far more similar than different to the process of raising biological children. Those who have children biologically also face an endless array of unknowns and factors far beyond their control. On one level, adoptive parents have more advanced information about their children than biological parents do. But in each case, the beauty and power of the parent-child relationship lies in the unknown. As is always true, that is where human possibility resides: in the realms we cannot control and thus limit with expectations.

In his 2016 book “Love That Boy,” the political journalist Ron Fournier describes the dreams and plans he had for his son before he was born, only to find that his son’s autism rendered the boy much different than the blueprint envisioned. Fournier’s account of how he came to love his son on his own terms, for what he is and for his unique attributes and abilities, highlighted the vital lesson: Once one frees oneself from expectations and attachments, all new and more powerful possibilities are discovered.

What is ultimately most powerful and inspiring about the family formed by Alexandre, Francisco, and their three boys is the sheer improbability of it. The seemingly insurmountable obstacles one would expect them to face are, in reality, no match for the human bonds they formed. The barriers and differences — socioeconomic, racial, cultural, psychological — seem trivial when set next to the love-and-support-based structure these five human beings have chosen to form. Observing and understanding it provides critical, and universal, clues for how empathetic humans are truly capable of interacting with one another.

For a school assignment, the middle son, Pablo, now 11, wrote a story of the wish he once made when throwing a coin into a fountain. He wrote: “My dream came true: I asked for a family which would never leave me.” His father Francisco put it simply: “If anyone thinks that we, two men, cannot care for these children, and that they’re not living well at our house: come here and meet us.”

The post A Same-Sex Couple Set Out to Adopt a Child. They Ended Up With Three. appeared first on The Intercept.

O casal queria uma criança com menos de seis anos de idade. Estavam dispostos a adotar uma criança com doença crônica que pudesse ser tratada, como diabete ou síndrome do alcoolismo fetal, mas não queriam uma com condições médicas sem tratamento, como cegueira ou paralisia, porque acreditavam que não seriam capazes de sustentá-la financeira e emocionalmente.

Além disso, diferentemente de muitos pais em processo de adoção no Brasil – onde uma porcentagem substancial quer uma criança branca, eles não tinham preferências quanto à cor ou ao sexo da criança. Cerca de 70% das que estão aptas para adoção são negras ou mestiças, o que significa que muitos pais que desejam adotar crianças não têm a possibilidade de adotar grande parte das que precisam de um lar.

Havia pontos em que Alexandre e Francisco, ambos 39 anos de idade e juntos há dez anos, eram inflexíveis quanto ao processo de adoção, mas apenas quanto ao número de filhos que pretendia adotar de uma só vez: apenas um. Na verdade, após anos de debate e reflexão antes de finalmente se considerarem prontos, eles nunca tinham pensado ou discutido adotar mais de uma criança ao mesmo tempo. Mas, à medida que consideravam o processo de adoção, e descobriram que a maioria das crianças em abrigos estão acompanhadas de irmãos, acabaram sendo convencidos da possibilidade de adotarem dois irmãos ao mesmo tempo.

Mas, em julho de 2015, aproximadamente um ano e meio depois de iniciar formalmente o processo, o casal acabou adotando três crianças simultaneamente, todos meninos. Seus filhos são provavelmente meio-irmãos, têm a mesma mãe biológica, mas o casal especula que tenham pais biológicos diferentes.

À época da adoção, Gabriel, o mais novo, tinha 6 anos de idade; o do meio, Pablo, tinha 9; o mais velho, Patrick, 12. Todos eles são negros. Alexandre é branco e seu marido, Francisco, é pardo.

Reportagem: Glenn Greenwald, Juliana Gonçalves e Thiago Dezan. Filme: Thiago Dezan por The Intercept Brasil

Isso aconteceu depois de um inesperado dilema, mas muito comum: após serem informados que as autoridades de adoção tinham localizado uma criança que atendia às suas preferências quanto à idade e às condições de saúde – Gabriel, o mais novo –, e que ele tinha um irmão mais velho, Pablo, que o casal decidiu também adotar, descobriram pouco depois que os dois meninos tinham outro irmão, Patrick, 12 anos, que vinha aguardando pais adotivos há anos.

O dilema era grande: deixar o irmão de seus filhos em um abrigo — onde provavelmente não seria adotado por conta de sua idade e, depois, desalojado aos 18 anos — ou adotar os três.

As chances que crianças maiores de seis anos têm de serem adotadas são muito pequenas, o que praticamente garante um futuro sombrio: ao serem desalojados aos 18 anos, grande parte acaba nas ruas com pouca instrução. De acordo com o testemunho do jornalista Gilberto Scofield na revista Piauí sobre o processo de adoção pelo qual ele e seu parceiro passaram, apenas 6% dos casais que buscam adotar crianças estão abertos à possibilidade de adotar crianças maiores do que seis anos, enquanto 85% das crianças aptas à adoção estão nessa faixa etária.

Portanto, não adotar o irmão de Gabriel e Pablo significaria consigná-lo a uma dura vida na miséria ou talvez algo ainda pior do que isso.

As crianças que moram em abrigos e não são adotadas encontram enormes dificuldades. Nos estados mais pobres de um país pobre como o Brasil, não recebem quase nenhum apoio da sociedade. Após serem desalojados aos 18 anos, é comum que homens acabem vendendo drogas e morando nas ruas, enquanto mulheres tendem a acabar na prostituição.

A escolha que esse casal teve de fazer — adotar uma ou duas crianças conforme planejado, e deixar um dos irmãos, ou adotar os três irmãos juntos mesmo não sabendo se seria viável — é muito comum no país. Como a maioria das crianças brasileiras aptas à adoção foram afastadas de seus pais biológicos por abuso ou negligência grave, irmãos são normalmente afastados juntos.

Conforme escreveu Scofield, 77% das crianças em abrigos estão em companhia de irmãos, enquanto 79% dos pais adotivos querem adotar apenas uma criança. Ou seja, a grande maioria dos casais inicia o processo pretendendo adotar apenas uma criança completamente saudável e sem irmãos, no entanto, a realidade das crianças aptas à adoção é radicalmente diferente.

As autoridades de adoção preferem que irmãos sejam adotados juntos. Elas usam de diversas táticas de pressão, algumas sutis, outras explícitas, para induzir casais a adotarem mais de uma criança.

No caso de Alexandre e Francisco, tal pressão não foi necessária. “Desde o começo, era inimaginável a possibilidade de deixar os outros dois”, disse Alexandre. “Decidimos que encontraríamos uma forma de tornar isso possível. Não havia outra opção.”

Alexandre e Francisco e dois dos seus três filhos

Foto: Thiago Dezan

A forma como os cinco rapidamente se tornaram uma família unida e carinhosa é uma história tocante no aspecto humano. Além disso, é uma história esclarecedora e instigante, elucidando diversos aspectos complexos sobre relacionamentos e necessidades humanas, psicologia, raça, classe, sexo e influências comportamentais – alguns deles relevantes apenas para o Brasil, outros, universais.

O casal decidiu contar sua história porque queriam facilitar a compreensão social sobre famílias adotivas e inspirar outros a também adotarem. Começaram compartilhando sua experiência nas reuniões mensais a que futuros pais adotivos precisam comparecer para se tornarem aptos a adotar e participam de diversas organizações dedicadas a apoiar e defender publicamente as famílias adotivas.

Há uma enorme demanda por tais esforços no Brasil, onde um poderoso setor social em crescimento, composto de evangélicos e ultraconservadores, quer impedir a adoção por parte de casais homossexuais apesar da quantidade de crianças abandonadas em abrigos para menores de idade. Mas esse tipo de posicionamento também é comum em muitos outros países, inclusive nos EUA.

Depois das três semanas de experiência – destinadas a permitir que os pais adotivos e as crianças decidam se a situação deve se tornar permanente –, todos concordaram categoricamente que gostariam de formar uma família. Os três meninos se mudaram para o pequeno apartamento de dois quartos na Tijuca, zona norte do Rio de Janeiro. Os dois novos pais mantiveram seu quarto, e os três meninos ficaram com o outro, usando um triliche para maximizar o espaço.

“Cresci em uma família de classe média, com aulas de inglês e viagens para a Disney e para outros países”, disse Alexandre. “E não queria adotar até que estivéssemos prontos e pudéssemos oferecer a nossos filhos tudo o que tive quando era criança.” Alexandre é projetista, mas está desempregado há um ano, o que criou dúvidas se eles estavam preparados.

Mas Francisco teve uma criação completamente diferente: cresceu sob extrema pobreza até os sete anos de idade, quando passou a viver com uma tia e mais três primos. “Por conta de como fui criado, acho que o mais importante não é o que posso oferecer materialmente, o que mais importa é oferecer um lar com amor e estabilidade, ensinando os valores corretos”, afirmou.

Alexandre agora compartilha da mesma opinião – ou praticamente a mesma.

“Ainda gostaria de oferecer mais a eles. Mas essa é a realidade e me sinto feliz pelo que podemos oferecer um ao outro”, disse.

Conheci o casal em julho de 2016, quando contaram sua história em uma das reuniões a que compareci com meu marido, David Miranda: a última das quatro reuniões a que precisávamos comparecer para completar os requisitos de adoção. Os encontros aconteciam à noite em uma capela de uma igreja católica na Tijuca, onde mora a família.

Sentamos com aproximadamente 20 casais que pretendiam adotar crianças, quase todos pareciam apresentar – assim como nós – uma mistura de apreensão e entusiasmo. Uma das quatro sessões necessárias para sermos pais aptos à adoção envolvia ouvir a história de pais que adotaram crianças descrevendo suas experiências. Alexandre e Francisco regularmente se propõem a contar sua história nesses encontros.

Na metade da apresentação sobre suas novas vidas como pais, os três meninos entraram na sala – eles aguardavam no andar de cima enquanto brincavam com o avô, pai de Alexandre. Passaram pela plateia de futuros pais adotivos e se sentaram na frente do grupo, logo atrás de seus pais.

O mais surpreendente nessa família, junta há apenas um ano, é a completa normalidade. Da mesma forma que qualquer criança se sentiria, os meninos ficaram pouco confortáveis com a sala cheia de estranhos olhando para eles e, imediatamente, buscaram refúgio e proteção atrás de seus pais, literalmente escondendo o rosto.

Mas, à medida que a apresentação progredia, os três – respeitando seu próprio tempo, vagarosamente – começaram a relaxar. Aos poucos, mostraram os rostos, mesmo que ainda ancorados aos braços protetores de seus pais. Começaram por interromper graciosamente a apresentação de seus pais, pegando os microfones de forma travessa e fazendo graça um do outro. Os dois pais tentavam dar atenção às crianças, alternando entre suas falas e o esforço em controlar seu três filhos que estavam cada vez mais ousados e agitados, enquanto desfrutavam da atenção da sala repleta de pais.

Cinco pessoas que não se conheciam há cinco anos – com origens e experiências radicalmente diferentes – formaram rapidamente uma família que apresenta todos os traços que marcam qualquer outra. A força e a beleza desse vínculo eliminaram quaisquer dúvidas que ainda persistiam em nossas mentes sobre a empolgante, porém assustadora, possibilidade de adotar uma criança.

A família concordou em contar sua história para o The Intercept. Nossa equipe – eu, nossa repórter, Juliana Gonçalves, e nosso produtor de vídeo, Thiago Dezan – passou muitos dias junto com eles, em diversas situações, para que ficassem mais à vontade com a ideia de serem entrevistados e filmados, e para participarmos de todo o tipo de experiências com a família. A história deles, por si só, é fascinante, mas também possibilita o entendimento de uma grande variedade de problemas sociais.

Foto: Thiago Dezan

No Brasil, é comum os pais adotivos enfrentarem diversos dilemas éticos que não haviam previsto ao iniciar o processo. O primeiro é a questão da preferência racial.

Além do racismo, existe alguma explicação razoável para que pais brancos especifiquem que somente desejam um filho branco, se sujeitando dessa forma a um tempo de espera muito mais prolongado, visto que a maioria das crianças elegíveis para adoção são negras?

Os psicólogos que supervisionam as sessões de orientação insistem na existência de um motivo que não é racista. Os pais adotivos não querem sobrecarregar seus filhos com ainda mais um obstáculo: o estigma constante de todo mundo saber, incluindo estranhos em público, que, por conta da diferença de cor, seus filhos são adotados. Essa explicação pressupõe que a criança sofrerá um estigma menor se for parecida com seus pais adotivos e, portanto, tomada como seu filho biológico.

Um dos primeiros conflitos de Alexandre e Francisco com o seu filho mais novo, Gabriel, algumas semanas após o processo de adoção estar finalizado, realçou essa preocupação. Os cinco estavam andando na rua, e Gabriel fez uma birra porque não lhe deram uma coisa que ele queria, uma reação comum para uma criança de 6 anos.

Cada vez mais zangado, Gabriel fugiu dos pais, e Francisco teve de correr atrás dele para pegá-lo, enquanto o garoto gritava pedindo socorro. Esse homem, com mais de 30 anos perseguindo e segurando um garotinho negro aos gritos, despertou a atenção e preocupação de pedestres e seguranças. “Foi constrangedor”, recorda Alexandre, “porque foi a primeira vez que isso aconteceu. Mas eu expliquei que o Gabriel era meu filho e a cena parou por ali.”

Alexandre e Francisco não se preocupam com esse estigma. “É verdade que as pessoas olham para nós em público, especialmente quando estou sozinho com eles”, diz Alexandre. “Mas é um olhar motivado por curiosidade, sem maldade, e não é difícil lidar com isso. Os meninos sabem que foram adotados e não encaram isso como estigma nem sentem vergonha, muito pelo contrário, já que aprenderam que a adoção é algo para se orgulhar e que somos uma família como qualquer outra”.

Seja como for, a questão racial permeia o processo de adoção desde o começo. A pergunta feita com mais frequência por possíveis pais adotivos em sessões de orientação é relativa ao tempo de duração do processo: em quanto tempo teremos nossa criança? A resposta é dada por assistentes sociais de forma prática, mascarando suas arrebatadores consequências. A mensagem é essa: “bem, depende de suas preferências; se você quiser uma criança plenamente saudável e branca, obviamente, terá de aguardar muito tempo, talvez anos. Mas se for mais flexível, se estiver aberto a uma criança não branca, mais velha ou que precise de tratamento médico, será muito mais rápido”.

O fato de crianças não brancas serem consideradas menos desejáveis, e portanto estarem em maior número, é informado de forma casual – como se fosse a coisa mais óbvia do mundo -, mas é um dado aterrorizante. O processo de adoção seria completamente inspirador, não fosse essa triste realidade: crianças brancas têm maior demanda e, portanto, são adotadas mais rapidamente. Por esse motivo, as preferências de raça e idade estão entre os fatores mais determinantes da duração do processo de adoção.

A questão da saúde também é complexa. Por vezes, as crianças com deficiências que precisam de sérios cuidados médicos são oferecidas para adoção porque os pais não conseguem tomar conta delas, o que significa que muitas das crianças elegíveis têm cegueira, paralisia, Síndrome de Down ou condições cardíacas graves que encurtam muito a sua expectativa de vida. Outras sofrem de condições menos graves, mas ainda assim crônicas e que precisam de atenção médica, como a síndrome do alcoolismo fetal, HIV ou asma.

Ter de decidir quais os limites para sua capacidade de lidar com uma doença ou condição médica pode se tornar um tormento para os pais adotivos. “A gente sonha sobre como serão nossos filhos”, explica Francisco, “mas, por outro lado, não quer sentir como se estivesse exigindo um espécime fisicamente perfeito. Todos nós temos fragilidades e imperfeições, faz parte de sermos humanos”.

Além disso, acrescenta Alexandre, “parte da nossa motivação para ter filhos foi a felicidade que eles trariam às nossas vidas, mas uma grande parte foi também dar um lar a uma criança abandonada. Por esse motivo, não quisemos ficar limitados às crianças que seriam facilmente adotadas”. Por fim, eles decidiram aceitar crianças com doenças crônicas.

Foto: Thiago Dezan

Pode ser ainda mais difícil lidar com questões de gênero e, no caso de casais do mesmo sexo, de orientação sexual. O filho mais novo do casal, Gabriel, passou anos em um abrigo mal gerenciado e com verba insuficiente, uma realidade apenas um pouco melhor do que viver na rua. Era frequente crianças sem abrigo entrarem no centro sem autorização e, por isso, as crianças residentes conviviam com grupos de desabrigados. Assim, as crianças se viram desde muito cedo imersas em uma cultura muito patriarcal e machista como forma de sobrevivência. E nenhum membro da família ou parentes distantes visitava os meninos para oferecer uma influência compensatória.

De início, ambos os pais se preocupavam com as atitudes que Gabriel e seus irmãos teriam com relação a casais do mesmo sexo e mulheres. Por isso, priorizaram a educação dirigida às atitudes sociais. Alexandre comprou livros destinados a ensinar às crianças que os gêneros são iguais e que é errado discriminar com base na orientação sexual. “Eu corrigia de imediato qualquer expressão discriminatória que eles tivessem interiorizado”, afirma Alexandre, “e hoje eles veem esses assuntos sob uma perspectiva completamente diferente”.

Na primeira semana juntos, quando explicaram a um dos garotos que Alexandre e Francisco eram casados, ele perguntou se isso era permitido. Com a resposta afirmativa, os meninos mencionaram uma novela famosa de horário nobre que incluía um polêmico casal do mesmo sexo. “O fato de esse casal entrar na novela normalizou a situação aos olhos dos meninos”, afirma Francisco, “e mostrou que é uma realidade comum. Depois desse episódio, é natural para eles terem dois pais”.

A questão da idade apresenta ainda mais dificuldades. Psicólogos infantis debatem vigorosamente a idade em que se conclui a formação emocional e psicológica da criança, tornando-a então imune a maiores influências. Alguns acreditam que isso ocorra até 2 ou 3 anos de idade, outros creem que esse processo nunca termina.

Alexandre e Francisco não tinham dúvidas de sua capacidade de criar meninos pré-adolescentes, e o tempo parece confirmar essa crença. “Esses três meninos são seres humanos completamente diferentes do que quando os conhecemos há um ano”, conta Alexandre. “Mesmo como adulto continuo a ser moldado e alterado pelas minhas experiências e influências. É claro que mesmo crianças mais velhas estão extremamente abertas a influências.”

Talvez o mais complicado dilema ético seja como conduzir a “busca” por um filho. A pergunta que um pai adotivo em potencial deve se fazer é quase impossível de se responder: “continuo a ver crianças até encontrar a ‘certa’ – rejeitando assim crianças que venha a conhecer durante a busca – ou me comprometo a adotar a primeira que se encaixar em minhas preferências demográficas?”.

Crianças em abrigos com mais de 3 ou 4 anos de idade sabem que estão esperando serem adotadas, e estão esperançosas de que isso aconteça. Quando pais em potencial fazem uma visita, muitas delas tentam ser simpáticas na esperança de serem escolhidas, não muito diferente de uma entrevista de emprego. Pais que rejeitam uma criança nessas circunstâncias sabem que estão passando à criança o conhecimento de que foram rejeitadas, e sabem que estão as colocando em uma posição em que podem nunca ser adotadas. Ambas as partes levam dessa interação um fardo psicológico pesado.

A outra opção – comprometer-se antecipadamente a adotar a primeira criança que conhecer independentemente da compatibilidade – pode apresentar sérios desafios. Nem todos os pais estão preparados para oferecer a sua criança adotiva o suporte emocional e psicológico que ela precisa. A compatibilidade pode ser fundamental para determinar se o relacionamento vai funcionar.

“Em nosso caso”, lembra Alexandre, “isso acabou não sendo um problema porque sabíamos, assim que conhecemos o Gabriel, que ele era nosso filho. E pensamos o mesmo quando conhecemos os dois irmãos”. Francisco acrescentou: “isso não quer dizer que foi totalmente fácil. Mas, de alguma forma, quando os encontramos, e eles nos encontraram, sabíamos que era para ser assim”.

Gabriel com seus pais e dois amigos.

Foto: Arquivo pessoal

Não há dúvidas de que o processo de adoção apresenta desafios únicos. Mas, no final das contas, o processo de adoção lembra muito o processo de ter filhos biológicos. Quem tem filhos biológicos também enfrenta inúmeras incertezas e fatores completamente fora de seu controle. De fato, pais adotivos têm mais informações antecipadas do que pais biológicos, de certa forma. Mas, em ambos os casos, a beleza e a força de uma relação entre pai e filha(o) mora no desconhecido. As possibilidades humanas sempre residem aí: no âmbito do que não podemos controlar e, consequentemente, limitar.

Em seu livro de 2016, Love That Boy (Amo esse Menino), o jornalista político Ron Fournier descreveu seus sonhos e projetos para seu filho ainda não nascido, mas descobriu que o autismo havia feito de seu filho uma pessoa completamente diferente daquela para quem havia feito planos. O testemunho de Fournier sobre como acabou por amar seu filho da sua própria forma, pelo que ele é e por seus atributos únicos, evidencia uma lição fundamental que vai muito além de ser pai: uma vez livre de suas próprias expectativas e apegos, novas e ainda mais poderosas possibilidades são descobertas.

O aspecto mais inspirador e poderoso da família formada por Alexandre, Francisco e seus três meninos é a alta improbabilidade de ela se encontrar. Os obstáculos aparentemente insuperáveis que se esperaria enfrentar que, no final das contas, não foram páreo para os laços humanos que eles formaram. Todos esses obstáculos e diferenças – socioeconômicas, raciais, culturais, psicológicas – parecem triviais quando comparadas à estrutura baseada no amor e no apoio que esses cinco seres humanos resolveram formar. Observá-la e compreendê-la dá demonstrações fundamentais, e universais, sobre como seres humanos são verdadeiramente capazes de interagir entre si.

Pablo, agora com 11 anos de idade, escreveu uma história para um dever de casa sobre um pedido que fez quando jogou uma moeda em uma fonte. Ele disse: “meu sonho se tornou realidade: pedi uma família que nunca me deixasse”. Seu pai Francisco explicou de forma simples: “se alguém acha que nós, dois homens, não podemos cuidar dessas crianças, e que não vivemos bem em nossa casa, venham aqui nos conhecer”.

Reportagem: Glenn Greenwald, Juliana Gonçalves e Thiago Dezan. Filme: Thiago Dezan por The Intercept Brasil

The post Casal homoafetivo planejava adotar uma criança, mas acaba optando por três appeared first on The Intercept.

Ao longo de dois mandatos presidenciais anteriores, o FBI, sob a supervisão complacente do Congresso logo após os ataques de 11 de Setembro, se transformou de uma organização de segurança pública em uma agência de coleta de inteligência, com métodos semelhantes aos da CIA e da NSA. Com 35 mil funcionários e mais de 15 mil informantes, o FBI é uma agência de inteligência sem igual na história dos Estados Unidos.

O recrutamento e a gestão de informantes, conhecidos no jargão do FBI como “fontes humanas confidenciais”, são as mais importantes formas usadas pelo órgão para coletar informação. Documentos confidenciais do FBI obtidos com exclusividade por The Intercept mostram como a agência vem recrutando seu vasto exército de informantes para suprir sua operação de coleta doméstica de inteligência.

“Muito disso sugere um retorno aos métodos usados na época de J. Edgar Hoover [primeiro diretor do FBI], que foram posteriormente denunciados e abandonados para assegurar que as operações domésticas do FBI fossem estritamente limitadas a fazer cumprir a lei penal”, afirmou o ex-agente do FBI Michael German, que é atualmente ligado ao Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty (Centro Brennan pela Liberdade da Justiça) e ao Programa de Segurança Nacional.

Um dos documentos, o Guia da Política de Fontes Humanas Confidenciais (FHC), um manual de quase 200 páginas classificado como secreto, descreve detalhadamente os passos e diretrizes que agentes devem seguir para recrutar, lidar e finalmente cortar relações com informantes. Esse documento, de 21 de setembro de 2015, é muito mais volumoso que a versão tornada pública pela União Americana pelas Liberdades Civis em 2011, de 5 de setembro de 2007, foi tornado não confidencial e, portanto, teve diversas partes de seu texto censuradas. Nos oito anos seguintes, o FBI revisou substancialmente seu guia de política de informantes. As modificações parecem permitir que agentes trabalhando dentro dos EUA empreguem métodos geralmente associados a agências de inteligência estrangeiras.  The Intercept está publicando quase integralmente a versão de 2015, censurando apenas informações cuja divulgação possa causar danos.

Algumas das revelações mais significativas do guia de FHC se estendem para além do que sabemos sobre as chamadas avaliações Tipo 5 do FBI – por meio das quais os agentes federais são autorizados a investigar, nos EUA, pessoas fora de suspeita de terem cometido crimes, mas que, na opinião do agente, poderiam ser recrutadas como informantes. As instruções confidenciais revelam:

• Antes de abordar um informante em potencial, os agentes são incentivados a criar um arquivo sobre a pessoa, usando informações obtidas durante uma avaliação do FBI, incluindo informações depreciativas ou vindas de outras fontes. O FBI alega que procura por essas informações depreciativas com o intuito de não ser prejudicado pelas vulnerabilidades de seus informantes; mas o material descrito também pode ser útil para forçar a cooperação de recrutas que não se mostrem inicialmente dispostos a colaborar.
• Agentes do FBI podem usar identidades falsas para recrutar informantes, inclusive online, e essas operações não se limitam à regra dos cinco encontros de agentes e informantes com seus alvos antes da atividade ser considerada uma operação disfarçada.
• Mediante permissão de supervisores, os agentes do FBI podem recrutar menores como informantes e podem recrutar também membros de igrejas, advogados e jornalistas com permissão do Departamento de Justiça.
• Os informantes podem atuar em outros países pelo FBI, e as diretrizes da organização não exigem que esses países sejam notificados.

Ao longo da história do FBI, os informantes foram a espinha dorsal da organização e fonte de muita controvérsia. A agência tinha 1500 informantes quando a chamada Comissão Church (Church Comitee), liderada pelo então senador Frank Church, do estado de Idaho, começou a investigar a o programa de contrainteligência de Hoover contra grupos defensores de direitos civis e outros, conhecido como COINTELPRO. As reformas sugeridas pela comissão foram decretadas, com a Comissão de Inteligência do Senado fortalecida para supervisionar o poder nunca antes supervisionado das agências de inteligência dos EUA.

Nos anos 80, quando o FBI recebeu jurisdição concorrente sobre narcóticos com a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (órgão do Departamento de Justiça para combate às drogas), as listas de informantes chegaram a ter aproximadamente 6 mil nomes. Após o 11 de Setembro, e em resposta a uma determinação presidencial para aumentar os recursos humanos de inteligência, o número de informantes foi inflado para mais de 15 mil – são tantos que, atualmente, o FBI usa um software padrão, Delta, para localizar e gerenciar informantes.

O número exato de informantes ativos simultaneamente e o modo como eles são controlados pelo FBI estão entre os segredos mais bem guardados da agência. Enquanto o guia da política de informantes secretos é focado, em grande parte, nos aspectos burocráticos da gestão de informantes – por exemplo, como levantar arquivos de informantes, fazer pagamentos, ou mesmo a melhor forma de se comunicar com informantes (“cuidado com mensagens de texto”, avisa o documento) –, também descreve os poderes investigativos que o FBI recebeu e como praticamente qualquer um nos Estados Unidos poderia ser investigado por meio do seu vasto aparato de inteligência em expansão. Essas regras e restrições frequentemente apontam para as reformas dos anos 70, que tentaram limitar o FBI dirigido por Hoover e forçar a agência a respeitar liberdades protegidas constitucionalmente, como a liberdade de expressão. Mas essas reformas também incluíram exceções elaboradas e brechas que, observadas em conjunto, corroeram significativamente as restrições legais a operações nacionais de espionagem, impostas à época das audiências da Comissão Church.

Desde os ataques de 11 de Setembro, o FBI tenta driblar essa supervisão, muitas vezes sendo omisso em relação a comissões do Congresso – segurando informações e, em alguns casos, fornecendo informações deturpadas. Como exemplo, em 2014, o House Homeland Security Committee (Comissão de Política Interna de Segurança Nacional) investigou as falhas de inteligência em torno das explosões da Maratona de Boston. O FBI ora negava, ora ignorava pedidos de informação, alegando por carta à comissão referida que o conteúdo dos pedidos continha “atividades não supervisionadas”.

Michael German, ex-agente especial do FBI, depõe durante uma audiência no Comitê Judiciário do Senado sobre a melhora na proteção de whistleblowers na agência. Washington, 4 de março de 2015.

Foto: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Praticamente qualquer um pode ser recrutado como informante, de acordo com o guia de políticas do FBI, e os agentes têm competência para abrir investigações sem motivos plausíveis, sobre qualquer pessoa que possa ser um informante de valor para a agência. Na verdade, essa versão do guia de política recomenda que os agentes investiguem informantes em potencial, produzindo um “pacote de identificação de fontes” – em essência, um dossiê – antes de qualquer interação para o recrutamento. Esse é um processo relativamente novo, segundo três ex-agentes do FBI entrevistados pelo The Intercept.

“Isso era feito no passado, mas nunca era formalizado”, afirmou Peter Ahearn, um agente especial aposentado que chefiava a unidade de Buffalo, Nova York.

O pacote de identificação de fontes pode incluir informações a serem usadas para pressionar informantes contrários à cooperação com a segurança federal. Pode, ainda, conter informações de bancos de dados públicos e do próprio FBI, vindas de outros informantes, assim como de outras agências norte-americanas.

Outro documento interno do FBI conseguido pelo The Intercept, de 2011, entitulado “CHS Assessing” (Análise CHS) e classificado como secreto, descreve a análise de um informante em potencial como “um meio de induzi-lo/induzi-la a se tornar um recruta [informante] principalmente por meio da identificação das motivações e vulnerabilidades da pessoa em questão”.

O documento ressalta que o FBI “também procurará avaliar psicologicamente o alvo para determinar suas motivações, estabilidade mental e lealdades, e buscará informações sobre hábitos, hobbies, interesses, vícios, aspirações, laços emocionais e opiniões do alvo em relação a seu país, sua carreira e seu empregador”. O FBI se recusou a discutir como seus agentes avaliam psicologicamente possíveis informantes.

Caso essas informações não sejam suficientes para induzir alguém a colaborar, a agência pode oferecer pagamentos da ordem de seis dígitos (dólares) e até mesmo o valor de qualquer propriedade apreendida como resultado da investigação, conforme esclarecido pelas diretrizes. Informantes podem ganhar muito dinheiro trabalhando para o FBI.

Recrutar certas pessoas como informantes, pelo menos algumas vezes, requer aprovação do Departamento de Justiça. Alguns informantes em potencial podem ser líderes de organizações envolvidas em atividades ilegais, assim como funcionários de alto escalão do governo e de entidades trabalhistas.

Até mesmo indivíduos menores de 18 anos podem ser recrutados como informantes, independente do consentimento de seus pais ou responsáveis, contanto que um agente responsável do FBI conceda permissão.

Talvez o mais preocupante sejam os métodos que o FBI pode utilizar para recrutar informantes e a forma como os agentes podem abordar informantes em potencial. No jargão do FBI, o primeiro encontro entre um agente e um informante em potencial é conhecido como “O Esbarrão”. Pode acontecer de várias formas. Uma delas é uma abordagem nas fronteiras do país; nos últimos anos, houve muitas queixas sobre o FBI estar usando a imigração como influência para recrutar informantes. O guia da política de informantes discorre sobre isso.

Além dos esforços tradicionais de recrutamento – quando um agente do FBI se identifica a um indivíduo e pede que ele se torne informante – a agência pode usar o que é descrito como abordagens “não afiliadas” e “disfarçadas”.

Numa abordagem não afiliada, que não requer aprovação de supervisores, o agente “não diz voluntariamente” ser afiliado ao FBI ou a uma agência relacionada, como uma Força-tarefa de Combate ao Terrorismo (Joint Terrorism Task Force), quando encontra uma fonte em potencial. Nesse método, os agentes não têm permissão para “negar afirmativamente” que fazem parte da segurança pública e não podem usar nenhum tipo de disfarce como, usando exemplos do guia, “usar um uniforme de encanador ou dirigir um caminhão de construção”.

Já em uma abordagem disfarçada, o agente do FBI emprega táticas mais comuns em agências de inteligência internacionais – assumindo toda uma identidade falsa com o objetivo de recrutar um novo informante. Os agentes do FBI têm permissão para negar que são oficiais de segurança. Esse método requer aprovação e, segundo as instruções do guia, “um plano operacional bem elaborado para proteger a técnica e utilizá-la efetivamente, pondo em questão, ao mesmo tempo, seu uso em favor de métodos menos intrusivos de investigação”. O FBI classifica esse tipo de trabalho investigativo como uma “abordagem Tipo 5”, que permite aos agentes se encontrarem com informantes em potencial mais do que cinco vezes sem revelar sua verdadeira identidade, um limite que é imposto a outros tipos de atividades da organização. Agentes disfarçados que tiverem sucesso em recrutar um informante não têm permissão para revelar sua identidade verdadeira, e devem passar o informante a um agente que não esteja sob disfarce.

Quando questionado sobre por que essa forma de abordagem não é limitada pela regra dos cinco encontros, um porta-voz do FBI explicou que essas abordagens buscam apenas identificar, avaliar e recrutar informantes. Atividades sob disfarce, em contraste, “incluem o uso de uma identidade falsa para obter informações ou provas sobre um caso ou pessoa importante para a investigação”. O porta-voz também afirmou que o FBI tem salvaguardas disponíveis para assegurar que avaliações não seja abusivas: “Auditorias regulares de arquivo, que incluem uma análise para determinar se a avaliação deve ser fechada ou se deve continuar por mais 60 ou 90 dias, assim como uma limitação de recursos realística, fornecem as salvaguardas necessárias para garantir que indivíduos não sejam submetidos a vigilância de longo prazo”.

Porém, o FBI reconheceu que qualquer informação obtida por meio de avaliações pode ser retida e acessada posteriormente por outros agentes, em conformidade com normas padrão do governo quanto a retenção de registros.

Agentes do FBI também podem usar operações secretas para recrutar informantes online, com algumas limitações, de acordo com o guia da política de informantes. Da mesma forma que em outras operações secretas, os agentes devem receber autorização de supervisores para agir sob disfarce online.

Uma vez autorizados, os agentes podem usar sites de acesso público, inclusive aqueles que exigem cadastro desde que sejam públicos. Quando se cadastram, agentes que usam uma abordagem disfarçada para recrutar informantes podem usar um nome falso e um e-mail criado apenas para o cadastro, mas só podem fornecer uma quantidade mínima de informações. As limitações, por exemplo, impediriam o FBI de forjar perfis em mídias sociais, já que agentes não são autorizados a fornecer dados como fotos ou interesses.

Além disso, no contexto do recrutamento de informantes, agentes do FBI não têm permissão para visualizar sites de acesso limitado, como perfis restritos a “amigos” em mídias sociais ou sites limitados a um grupo de pessoas como, no exemplo demonstrado no guia da política de informantes, um site onde “somente pessoas de uma certa instituição educacional possam se cadastrar”.

O FBI afirmou, em uma declaração, que os mesmos protocolos e restrições que regem os agentes e informantes nas ruas se aplicam aos que agem em ambientes online.

Visitantes esperam na fila para ter suas impressões digitais colhidas e serem fotografados na checagem do aeroporto internacional de São Francisco, em 5 de janeiro de 2004.

Foto: Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP

Como mais uma prova da transformação do FBI de um órgão nacional de segurança pública em uma agência internacional de inteligência, o guia da política de informantes permite que o FBI estabeleça informantes em países por todo globo e não menciona a necessidade de que a agência notifique o país onde eles estiverem presentes.

Conexões legais do FBI, ou “legats”, são centrais para manter essa função da agência. Os legats são alocados em embaixadas dos EUA e seu dever oficial é servir como mediadores entre o FBI e as agências de segurança de outras nações. Mas tem se tornado claro nos últimos anos que os legats funcionam como a versão do FBI para chefes de unidade da CIA – agentes de inteligência atuando em outros países sob pretexto de estarem a serviço do Departamento de Estado (órgão norte-americano de relações internacionais).

Os legats tiveram um papel nas chamadas detenções por procuração, quando alguém que está saindo dos EUA é detido pela polícia de outro país e interrogado sobre sua atividades no território norte-americano. Legats teriam, segundo relatos, recebido perguntas de oficiais do FBI e repassado a policiais do país de destino, que, em alguns casos, teriam agredido as pessoas interrogadas com as perguntas do FBI.

O guia da política de informantes do FBI deixa claro que os legats também controlam informantes em seus próprios países. O programa de legats tem crescido constantemente, passando de 45 escritórios no exterior em 2003 para 64 no momento.

Esse programa teve uma pequena participação na controvérsia dos e-mails de Hillary Clinton, no início deste ano, quando o então pré-candidato Republicano à presidência, Trump, levantou a acusação de “corrupção criminosa” após um funcionário do FBI e outro do Departamento de Estado terem falado numa mesma conversa sobre expandir o programa de legats e tirar de sigilo alguns dos emails de Clinton. O FBI e o Departamento de Estado negaram acusações de troca de favores, na declaração de John Kirby, porta-voz do Departamento de Estado, que descreveu a conversa como “cem por centro rotineira”.

O FBI se recusou a comentar sobre o programa de legats e seu uso de informantes no estrangeiro.

O desafio do FBI, desde os ataques de 11 de setembro, é ser, simultaneamente, uma organização de investigação criminal e uma agência de inteligência. As diretrizes que permitem recrutamento de informantes não relacionados a investigações criminais específicas colocam o FBI mais claramente na posição de uma agência de inteligência.

Mas a agência permanece como uma organização com um pé na segurança e outro na coleta de inteligência. O FBI tem tido dificuldades com essa missão dupla, e o Presidente Trump terá competência para levar a agência a focar ainda mais em inteligência – algo que muitos funcionários do FBI gostariam que acontecesse de forma a manter a organização como principal organização de inteligência interna nos EUA.

Em um documento confidencial obtido pelo The Intercept, em 2013, um funcionário do FBI reclamou que poucos recursos eram destinados a agentes encarregados exclusivamente a recursos humanos de inteligência. Nesse documento, o funcionário revelou que apenas 3,5% dos agentes especiais do FBI eram completamente designados para recrutar e trabalhar com informantes.

Outro documento sigiloso, descrito como uma “proposta de visão” para recursos humanos de inteligência, recomendava que o FBI aumentasse para um mínimo de 5% o número de agentes especiais designados para trabalhar exclusivamente com recursos humanos de inteligência.

Para quem não trabalha no FBI, esses números podem parecer pequenos – o que sugeriria que o FBI não se tornou uma agência de inteligência demoníaca. Mas isso não é verdade. Essa pequena minoria de agentes é designada apenas para coletar fontes humanas de informação e recrutar informantes. Graças à missão dupla do FBI, funcionários disseram que os agentes, incluindo aqueles que estão fora da inteligência e do recrutamento de informantes, são geralmente requisitados para trabalharem com fontes humanas de informação, com uma demanda tão importante que uma típica avaliação trimestral de desempenho dos agentes inclui uma seção com a quantidade de informantes e sua respectiva qualidade.

Uma mudança na direção de aumentar a proporção de agentes dedicados ao trabalho com inteligência humana poderia futuramente prejudicar a capacidade da agência para investigações criminais tradicionais.

O motivo alegado pelo FBI para propor essa mudança parece ter relação com poder territorial, assim como com a segurança nacional. O documento que sugere um aumento para 5% alertava que, se o FBI não aumentar sua capacidade de inteligência, a agência poderia perder sua “primazia” sobre a inteligência nacional para a CIA, para o Department of Homeland Security (órgão de segurança interna) ou para outra organização.

De acordo com os documentos secretos recebidos por The Intercept, o FBI de Trump não só tem poderes de espionagem sem precedentes, mas também uma aspiração a expandi-los sob um presidente que apreciaria o controle de poderes de vigilância tão extraordinários e invasivos.

Esta é uma reportagem de uma série de onze publicadas pelo The Intercept com base em centenas de páginas de documentos secretos do FBI. Para ler todas as reportagens e os documentos em inglês, clique aqui.

Tradução: Beatriz Felix

Foto principal: Pedestres passeiam em frente a Bolsa de Valores de Nova York. Nova York, 22 de fevereiro de 2016.

The post FBI tem ampla liberdade para recrutar informantes appeared first on The Intercept.

O órgão fez do antiterrorismo sua prioridade estratégica, dedicando pessoal e atenção a um projeto central chamado Net Talon (garra da internet) e medindo seu desempenho através de métricas como o tempo que seus agentes passam online, quantas publicações fizeram e quantas identidades falsas criaram. Os tentáculos virtuais do FBI são tão extensos que o órgão por vezes acaba investigando seus próprios agentes.

Como alguns grupos terroristas usaram a internet de forma eficaz para divulgar propaganda e recrutar indivíduos conturbados, o mundo virtual se tornou um palco importante para as operações antiterrorismo do FBI. O órgão deu ampla autoridade para seus agentes que operam online, visando aumentar o número de operações “isca” de antiterrorismo, dentre outras. Mas advogados, especialistas e ativistas demonstraram preocupação que o uso agressivo de operações secretas possa estar encarando como terroristas os infelizes que dizem besteiras na internet.

As informações contidas nesse artigo foram obtidas em grande parte a partir do Guia de Política de Antiterrorismo do FBI, um manual para agentes trabalhando em casos de terrorismo nacional e internacionais. O documento, classificado como confidencial, é de 1º de abril de 2015 e está sendo divulgado pela primeira vez.

O The Intercept está publicando partes do guia que lidam com as investigações online do FBI, um assunto sobre o qual o órgão oferece pouca transparência. Outras orientações sobre operações secretas foram publicadas no passado, mas nada que entrasse em mais detalhes sobre as investigações online.

De acordo com o guia, uma investigação antiterrorismo online pode ter como alvo sites e redes online que o FBI acredita serem usados por terroristas para “encorajar e recrutar membros” ou para divulgar propaganda. As investigações podem cobrir os administradores e criadores desses fóruns, bem como as pessoas envolvidas no “desenvolvimento de práticas de segurança nas comunicações” ou pessoas “agindo como ‘mensageiros virtuais’ de organizações terroristas passando mensagens online entre seus membros e líderes”.

O guia classifica como investigações online aquelas que dependem principalmente de informantes online ou funcionários disfarçados, assim como as que envolvem a vigilância de dispositivos de internet ou sites estrangeiros hospedados em servidores nos EUA. Com frequência, o FBI realiza essas operações em parceria com outras agências de inteligência dos EUA ou “parceiros internacionais”, diz o documento.

Desde 2008, a Divisão Antiterrorismo coordena essas operações sob um programa chamado Net Talon National Initiative (Iniciativa Nacional Garra da Internet). O Net Talon usa informantes, linguistas e funcionários do FBI disfarçados de usuários de internet normais para investigar a forma como terroristas usam a internet, explica o guia. A iniciativa visava desenvolver especialização em alvos e plataformas específicos para “suprir as lacunas de inteligência” e criar uma central contendo toda a inteligência que o órgão coletou sobre o uso da internet por parte de terroristas.

As atividades online do FBI parecem ser tão abrangentes e descoordenadas a ponto de levar a confusões. O documento menciona “recursos sendo desperdiçados investigando e coletando [informações] sobre as [próprias] identidades do FBI na rede”, incluindo funcionários disfarçados, informantes e pessoas que já tinham sido investigadas por outros órgãos e agências. Um oficial do FBI revelou ao The Intercept que “você podia estar em um fórum e pensar ‘essa pessoa é muito estranha’, aí, nós vamos e abrimos um caso, e algumas vezes acaba sendo um departamento de polícia local ou um serviço estrangeiro aliado. Ainda há casos em que isso acontece e é importante determinar quem é fogo amigo”.

Khurrum Wahid e Joshua Dratel, advogados de defesa de Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, respondem a perguntas da imprensa, após a divulgação da sentença de Abu Ali. 29 de março de 2006. Tribunal Federal em Alexandria, Virginia.

Foto: Alex Wong/Getty Images

O Guia de Políticas Antiterrorismo demonstra a flexibilidade que informantes e agentes disfarçados têm quando operam online, mesmo que não estejam trabalhando com alvos específicos. O FBI insiste que não há nada demais: em declarações enviadas ao The Intercept, o órgão de inteligência disse que “ainda que existam diferenças óbvias entre ambientes online e offline”, funcionários e informantes do FBI trabalhando na internet estão sujeitos às mesmas regras, e os funcionários do órgão só podem monitorar a atividade de pessoas online através de uma investigação autorizada.

No entanto, o guia sugere que a internet tem áreas ambíguas. Muito se resume a questões sobre o que um informante pode fazer em contraposição ao que fazem os funcionários do FBI, e se o objetivo da operação deve ser entendido como uma tentativa de obter informações de inteligência específicas, um simples monitoramento de sites públicos ou o desenvolvimento de um perfil para uma identidade secreta.

Por exemplo, o guia indica que um funcionário do FBI pode visitar um fórum de mensagens ou blog apenas quando o site for relevante para uma investigação. Um funcionário do FBI, de acordo com o guia, pode ser um agente secreto ou um “funcionário disfarçado online”, um termo que teoricamente se refere aos funcionários do FBI que não são agentes, como analistas, por exemplo. Funcionários do FBI não podem conversar online com alguém que não seja alvo de uma investigação com o objetivo de coletar informações de inteligência sobre a pessoa. No entanto, podem “se comunicar de forma ilimitada com [indivíduos] associados” a uma pessoa sob investigação, se as conversas forem relevantes para a investigação.

Informantes e funcionários disfarçados do FBI também são autorizados a realizar diversas atividades online com a finalidade de “conquistar confiança”, como criar identidades falsas ou se passar por comentaristas normais em fóruns online. O guia diz que, para ganhar credibilidade, os funcionários do FBI “podem fazer publicações e se comunicar com indivíduos que não sejam nem o alvo da investigação, nem associados ao alvo (…) não há limite quanto ao volume de comunicação que [eles] podem iniciar neste sentido”.

E o FBI tem permissão para abrir novas investigações sobre as pessoas que identificar através de “monitoramento passivo ou comunicação ativa” em sites da internet.

Um porta-voz do FBI esclareceu que, para que um funcionário disfarçado ou secreto monitore um site ou um fórum, eles já devem estar associados a uma investigação, “seja porque o fórum era sabidamente usado por um indivíduo alvo [de uma investigação] ou porque os alvos da investigação participam do fórum. Eu não posso ficar no fórum tentando iniciar uma conversa com você”.

No entanto, o FBI reconhece que, quando seus funcionários participam de fóruns online, eles interagem com pessoas que podem ser apenas espectadores da atividade que também levou o órgão ao site inicialmente. E isso não é acidental. “Queremos saber se o alvo conhece outras pessoas que participarão, quem é parte da atividade e quem é apenas expectador”, explicou um porta-voz.

Em outras palavras, os agentes do FBI podem publicar mensagens e conversar com pessoas que não têm nada a ver com a investigação, desde que não coletem informações de inteligência. Mas durante a conversa online, podem decidir investigar alguém.

Michael German, ex-agente do FBI, agora parte do Brennan Center for Justice (Centro Brennan de Justiça) da Faculdade de Direito da Universidade de Nova York, disse que os agentes sempre querem um pouco de flexibilidade nessa área. Eles podem ter um determinado número de encontros particulares com alguém ou, em algumas circunstâncias, ir a encontros públicos ou visitar sites públicos, sem se identificarem como agentes do FBI. Isso ajuda os agentes a evitar uma série de burocracias ao realizar uma simples apreensão de drogas através de uma operação de “compra e prisão”, por exemplo, disse German.

Mas a possibilidade de conduzir conversas online ilimitadas com o intuito de gerar confiança dá aos agentes “muita flexibilidade”, disse German.

O advogado penal de defesa Khurrum Wahid, que lidou ou foi consultor em diversos casos de segurança nacional, observou que funcionários e informantes do FBI frequentemente se passam por especialistas oferecendo orientação para indivíduos confusos.

“Esses jovens desinformados entram na internet e ficam impressionados com pessoas que demonstram um alto nível de conhecimento, mas frequentemente são informantes ou agentes disfarçados”, disse Wahid.

Informantes operam sob regras mais flexíveis do que funcionários do FBI. São autorizados a se envolverem com um alvo de forma ilimitada durante uma “avaliação”, que é uma investigação preliminar que pode ser iniciada por conta de um dica vaga sobre um comportamento suspeito, para coletar informações de inteligência sobre um alvo ou para avaliar um potencial novo informante. A categoria “avaliações” foi criada em 2008. German acredita ser problemático permitir que cada vez mais informantes sejam utilizados.

“O que notamos em operações ‘isca’ é que, antes de ser iniciada oficialmente, há uma parte questionável que conta com o informante”, contou German. “Aí então, quando isso é passado para um agente, eles [os investigados] parecem estar prestes a cometer um crime.”

Wahid observou que, pelo menos nos casos online, geralmente existem conversas entre suspeitos e informantes, mas “quando o informante atua no mundo real, eles podem desativar o gravador e nunca vamos saber o que aconteceu”.

Ouso de informantes em operações “isca” antiterrorismo se expandiu desde os ataques de 11 de Setembro, quando o FBI adotou o mantra de que seu trabalho é impedir ataques terroristas antes que eles ocorram, não apenas investigá-los depois. O governo defende que o anonimato que a internet oferece aos suspeitos demanda uma abordagem agressiva, inclusive operações isca. No ano passado, o diretor de segurança nacional do FBI disse ao New York Times que “usar agentes disfarçados online permitiu que o FBI confirmasse suspeitos ganhando sua confiança e os persuadindo a revelar suas identidades reais”. Em alguns casos, o FBI chegou a criar sites falsos para atrair suspeitos.

“As agências estão sob enorme pressão para encontrar uma agulha em um palheiro, algo que vem nos atormentando desde o começo da guerra contra o terror”, contou Karen Greenberg, diretora do Centro de Segurança Nacional da Faculdade de Direito de Fordham. “É verdade que a Internet mudou completamente a forma como nos comunicamos, mas vamos apenas investigar a internet daqui em diante? É colocar os princípios de investigação criminal de ponta cabeça.”

Oficiais do FBI coletam provas no estacionamento da boate Pulse, local de um assassinato em massa em Orlando, Florida, EUA, 15 de junho de 2016.

Foto: Adrees Latif/Reuters

Poucos documentos ilustram tão bem a importância que o FBI coloca em suas operações online como a seção do Guia de Políticas Antiterrorismo sobre como alegar “conquistas estatísticas”. Esses números podem ser usados nas avaliações profissionais de agentes e nos relatórios do órgão para o Congresso. De acordo com o documento, o FBI criou novas formas para medir o desempenho de funcionários específicas para a atividade online, calculando o “tempo online, o número de publicações, sites extremistas identificados (por exemplo, blogs ou páginas) e identidades virtuais criadas”.

“Acredito que estamos em um período de transição na área de segurança entre o estilo antigo, que gastava sola de sapato e batia de porta em porta, e o novo, em que funcionários disfarçados online investigam fóruns e coisas do gênero”, explicou Seamus Hughes, especialista em extremismo da Universidade George Washington. “É evidente que eles estão concentrando esforços online, e faz sentido, porque é comum esse ser o sinal mais claro de que as pessoas se autodenominam radicais, e é mais fácil do que introduzir um informante em pessoa e grampeá-lo. E se você é um jovem de 17 anos de Indiana, é mais provável que você entre em contato com um terrorista conhecido ou suspeito na internet do que em Indiana.

É indiscutível que propaganda e mensagens online permitiram que o terrorismo estrangeiro semeasse a violência nos Estados Unidos, seja através de comunicação direta ou servindo de inspiração para terroristas solitários, como Omar Mateen, que atacou na boate Pulse, em Orlando.

No entanto, Hughes escreveu que “o papel da internet na radicalização [de pessoas] tem sido exagerado” e demonstra “uma simplificação extrema” do assunto.

“Isso não quer dizer que o ambiente online não é importante, mas não passa de um reflexo da vida real — a idade média de um alguém recrutado pelo Estado Islâmico é de 20 a 30 anos, e toda essa faixa etária usa a internet”, contou Hughes ao The Intercept. “As pessoas vão apontar para um perfil do Facebook e dizer, olha, ‘isso é radicalização online, ele postou uma foto de uma bandeira do EI’, mas essa análise é provavelmente muito superficial.”

Na maioria dos casos de pessoas que realmente tentaram entrar para o EI ou planejar um ataque violento, o relacionamento fora da internet foi crucial para isso.

“A radicalização não ocorre em um vácuo”, escreveu Hughes. “Embora o ambiente online possa solidificar crenças e oferecer um apoio inimaginável há apenas alguns anos, ele não é a única forma de recrutamento de terroristas.”

Esta é uma reportagem de uma série de onze publicadas pelo The Intercept com base em centenas de páginas de documentos secretos do FBI. Para ler todas as reportagens e os documentos em inglês, clique aqui.

Foto principal: Um laptop exibe uma pesquisa na internet sobre o Estado Islâmico.

The post Agentes disfarçados do FBI inundam a internet em busca de contato com terroristas appeared first on The Intercept.

Over two previous presidential administrations, the FBI, enabled by complacent congressional oversight in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, has transformed itself from a criminal law enforcement organization into an intelligence-gathering operation whose methods are more similar to those of the CIA and NSA. With 35,000 employees and more than 15,000 informants, today’s FBI is an intelligence agency without a historical peer in the United States.

Recruiting and managing informants, known in the FBI’s parlance as “confidential human sources,” is one of the most crucial ways in which the bureau gathers intelligence. Confidential FBI documents obtained exclusively by The Intercept reveal for the first time how the bureau approaches those tasks — including its use of a number of tactics that raise concerns about the civil liberties of those being targeted for recruitment.

“A lot of this suggests a return to the methods that were used under J. Edgar Hoover that were later denounced and abandoned in favor of ensuring FBI domestic operations were narrowly confined to enforcing criminal statute,” said Michael German, a former FBI agent who is now a fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program.

One document, the Confidential Human Source Policy Guide, a nearly 200-page FBI manual classified secret, details the steps and rules agents must follow in recruiting, handling, and finally parting ways with informants. This document, dated September 21, 2015, is much more voluminous than the version the American Civil Liberties Union made public in 2011, which was dated September 5, 2007, and was unclassified and therefore heavily redacted. In the eight intervening years, the FBI revised its informant policy guide substantially. The changes appear to allow agents working within the United States to employ methods more commonly associated with foreign intelligence agencies. The Intercept is publishing the 2015 version in near complete form, redacting only information whose disclosure could cause harm.

Some of the most significant revelations of the CHS guide expand on what we know about the FBI’s so-called Type 5 assessments — through which federal agents have authority to investigate people in the United States who are not suspected of having committed crimes, but who, in a federal agent’s opinion, could be recruited as informants. The classified guidelines reveal:

• Before approaching a potential informant, agents are encouraged to build a file on that person, using information obtained during an FBI assessment, including derogatory information and information gleaned from other informants. The FBI claims that it seeks derogatory information in order not to be blindsided by its informants’ vulnerabilities, but such material may also be useful in coercing cooperation from otherwise unwilling recruits.
• FBI agents may use undercover identities to recruit informants, including online. These approaches are not limited by a rule stipulating that agents and informants are allowed no more than five meetings with a target before their activity is subject to supervisory approval as an undercover operation.
• With permission from supervisors, FBI agents may recruit minors as informants. They may also, with permission from the U.S. Department of Justice, recruit clergy, lawyers, and journalists.
• Informants may operate in other countries for the FBI, and the FBI guidelines do not require notification to be given to the host countries.

Throughout the FBI’s history, informants have been the bureau’s backbone and a source of controversy. The bureau had 1,500 informants when the Senate’s so-called Church Committee, led by Sen. Frank Church of Idaho, began investigating Hoover’s counterintelligence program against civil rights groups and others, known as COINTELPRO. The committee’s suggested reforms were enacted, with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence empowered to provide a check on what had been the unchecked power of U.S. intelligence agencies.

In the 1980s, when the FBI was given concurrent jurisdiction over narcotics with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the informant rolls expanded to around 6,000. After 9/11, and following a presidential directive to increase human intelligence, the number of informants ballooned to more than 15,000 — so many that today the FBI uses a custom software program, Delta, to track and manage informants.

The exact number of informants operating at any given time and how they are handled by the FBI are among the bureau’s closely guarded secrets. While the classified informant policy guide focuses largely on the bureaucratic aspects of managing informants — such as how to open informant files, how to make payments, even how best to communicate (be careful about text messages, the document warns) — the guide does describe the expanded investigative powers the FBI has received and how just about anyone in the United States could be investigated through the bureau’s vast and expanding intelligence apparatus. These rules and restrictions frequently nod to the 1970s reforms that sought to rein in Hoover’s FBI and force the bureau to respect constitutionally protected liberties, such as the right to free speech. But they also include elaborate exceptions and loopholes that, taken together, significantly erode the legal constraints on domestic spying operations imposed in the wake of the Church Committee hearings.

Since the 9/11 attacks, the FBI has at times attempted to avoid oversight by being unresponsive to congressional committees — withholding information and in some cases providing misleading information. As one example, the House Homeland Security Committee in 2014 investigated the intelligence failures surrounding the Boston Marathon bombings. The FBI at times denied or ignored requests for information, writing in a letter to the committee that the requests were “non-oversight activities.”

Michael German, a former FBI special agent, testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on improving protections for whistleblowers at the FBI, March 4, 2015, in Washington.

Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Just about anyone can be recruited as an informant, according to the FBI’s policy guide, and agents have authority to open investigations, without probable cause, related to anyone who could be a valuable source for the bureau. In fact, this version of the policy guide recommends agents investigate potential informants by producing a “source identification package” — essentially a dossier — prior to any recruitment approach. This is a relatively new process, according to three former FBI agents interviewed by The Intercept.

“This type of thing was done in the past, but it was never formal,” said Peter Ahearn, a retired FBI special agent who headed the field office in Buffalo, New York.

The source identification package may include information that could be used to pressure otherwise unwilling informants to cooperate with federal law enforcement. This may include information from public and FBI databases, from other informants, as well as from other U.S. agencies.

Another internal FBI document obtained by The Intercept, from 2011, which is titled “CHS Assessing” and classified secret, describes the assessment of a potential informant as “a means to induce him/her into becoming a recruited [informant] mainly through identifying that person’s motivations and vulnerabilities.”

The document notes that the FBI “will also attempt to psychologically evaluate the target to determine the target’s motivations, mental stability and loyalties and will seek information on the target’s habits, hobbies, interests, vices, aspirations, emotional ties, and feelings concerning his country and his career and his employer.” The FBI declined to comment further on how its agents go about psychologically evaluating would-be informants.

If information alone is not sufficient to induce someone to inform, the bureau may offer six-figure payments and even some of the value of any property forfeited as a result of the investigation, the informant guidelines make clear. Informants can make a lot of money working for the FBI.

Recruiting some people as informants requires approval from the Justice Department at least some of the time. These sensitive potential informants include the senior leaders of any organization involved in illegal activity, as well as high-level government and labor union officials.

Even individuals under the age of 18 may be recruited as informants, with or without their parents’ consent, as long as an FBI special agent-in-charge gives permission.

Perhaps most concerning are the methods the FBI may employ in recruiting informants and how agents may approach potential informants. In the FBI’s phraseology, the first meeting between an agent and a potential informant is known as “The Bump.” It can take several forms. One is an approach at the border; in recent years, many have complained of the FBI using immigration status as leverage to recruit informants. The informant policy guide addresses this.

In addition to traditional recruitment efforts — when an FBI agent identifies himself and asks an individual to become an informant — the bureau may use what are termed “nonaffiliated” and “covert” approaches.

In a nonaffiliated approach, which does not require supervisory approval, the agent “does not volunteer” that he or she is affiliated with the FBI or a related agency, such as a Joint Terrorism Task Force, when meeting with a potential informant. In this approach, agents are not allowed to “affirmatively deny” that they are with law enforcement and may not use any sort of disguise, such as, to use the guidelines’ examples, “wearing a plumber’s uniform or driving a cable truck.”

In a covert approach, the FBI agent employs tactics more commonly used by foreign intelligence agencies — taking on a full undercover identity for the purpose of recruiting someone to be an informant. In this approach, FBI agents are allowed to deny that they are affiliated with law enforcement. This method requires approval and, according to the guidelines, “a well-devised operational plan to protect the technique and use it effectively, while weighing its use against less intrusive investigative methods.” The FBI classifies this type of investigative work as a “Type 5 assessment,” which permits agents to meet with potential informants more than five times without revealing their true identity, a limit otherwise imposed on other types of FBI activity. Covert agents who successfully recruit an informant are not allowed to reveal their true identity and must pass on the informant to an agent who is not using a cover.

Asked why this type of assessment is not bound by the five-meetings rule, an FBI spokesperson explained that such assessments seek only to identify, evaluate, and recruit informants. Undercover activity, by contrast, “includes the use of a false identity to obtain intelligence or evidence from a subject or other person of interest.” The spokesperson added that the FBI has safeguards in place to ensure that assessments are not abused: “Regular file reviews, which include a review of whether or not the assessment should be closed or should continue for another 60- or 90-day period, as well as realistic resource constraints, provide the necessary safeguards to ensure that individuals are not subject to long-term surveillance,” he said.

However, the FBI acknowledged that any information collected through assessments may be retained, and accessed later by other agents, in accordance with standard governmental records-retention rules.

FBI agents may use covert assessments to recruit informants online as well, with some limitations, according to the informant policy guide. As with other covert assessments, agents must receive authorization from supervisors for covert work online.

Once given authorization, agents may use publicly accessible websites, which include websites that require registration so long as the public at large is able to register. When registering, agents using a covert approach to recruiting may use an alias and a throwaway email account, but they are permitted to provide only a minimal amount of information. The limitations, for example, would hinder the FBI’s ability to set up covert social media profiles, as FBI agents are not permitted to provide such data as photographs and interests.

In addition, in the context of informant recruiting, FBI agents are not permitted to view websites with access limitations, such as social media profiles that are restricted to “friends” or websites that are limited to a group of people, such as, in the example provided in the informant policy guide, a website where “only persons from a certain school may register.”

The FBI said in a prepared statement that the same protocols and restrictions that govern agents and informants on the streets apply to those working in online environments.

Visitors wait in line to be fingerprinted and photographed at the U.S. Customs check point at San Francisco International Airport on Jan. 5, 2004.

Photo: Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP

As further proof of the FBI’s transformation from domestic law enforcement organization to global intelligence agency, the informant policy guide allows the FBI to deploy informants in countries around the globe and mentions no requirement that the agency notify the host country of their presence.

FBI legal attaches, or legats, are central to this capacity. Legats are stationed in U.S. embassies and their official duty is to serve as liaisons between the FBI and the law enforcement agencies of other nations. But information from the informant policy guide and news reports in recent years suggests that legats function as the FBI’s version of CIA station chiefs — intelligence agents operating in other countries under nominal State Department cover.

Legats have played a role in so-called proxy detentions, when someone traveling from the United States is detained by another country’s police and questioned about activities in the United States. Legats have reportedly received questions from FBI officials and then passed those on to the host country’s police officials, who in some cases have reportedly beaten the people they are interrogating with FBI questions.

The FBI informant policy guide makes clear that legats may also operate informants in their host countries. The legat program has steadily grown, from 45 overseas offices in 2003 to 64 today.

The legat program played a small role last year in Hillary Clinton’s email controversies, when then-Republican presidential nominee Trump alleged “felony corruption” after an FBI official and a State Department official discussed in the same conversation expanding the legat program and declassifying some of Clinton’s emails. The FBI and the State Department denied allegations of quid pro quo, with State Department spokesperson John Kirby describing the conversation as “100 percent routine.”

The FBI declined to comment on the legat program and its use of informants overseas.

The FBI’s challenge since the 9/11 attacks has been to be simultaneously a criminal investigations organization and an intelligence agency. The guidelines allowing for the recruitment of informants unrelated to specific criminal investigations move the FBI more clearly toward being an intelligence agency.

But the bureau remains an organization that has one hand in enforcing the law and the other in collecting intelligence. The FBI has struggled with this bifurcated mission, and President Trump will have the authority to tip the bureau toward focusing even more on intelligence — something some FBI officials may welcome in order to maintain the bureau’s role as the premier domestic intelligence organization in the United States.

In a classified document obtained by The Intercept, an FBI official in 2013 bemoaned that too few resources were devoted to agents assigned exclusively to human intelligence. In that document, the FBI official disclosed that only 3.5 percent of the FBI’s special agents were devoted entirely to recruiting and developing informants.

Another classified document, described as a “vision proposal” for human intelligence, recommended that the FBI increase to a minimum of 5 percent the number of special agents assigned exclusively to human intelligence work.

To those outside the FBI, these numbers may seem low — suggesting the FBI hasn’t become a behemoth intelligence agency after all. But the opposite is true. This small minority of agents is assigned only to gathering human intelligence and recruiting informants. Owing to the FBI’s bifurcated mission, FBI officials have said that agents, including those outside intelligence and informant recruiting, are generally required to develop human sources and intelligence, with the demand so critical that a typical agent’s quarterly review includes a section on informant quantity and quality.

A shift to increasing the proportion of agents dedicated to human intelligence work would further erode the bureau’s capacity for traditional criminal investigations.

The FBI’s reason for proposing a shift appears to be as much about turf as national security. The document suggesting an increase to 5 percent warned that if the FBI does not increase its intelligence capacity, the bureau could lose its “primacy” over domestic intelligence to the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, or another agency.

According to the classified documents obtained by The Intercept, Trump’s FBI not only has unprecedented spying capabilities, but an aspiration to expand them further under a president who would find appealing the control of such extraordinary and intrusive surveillance powers.

Top photo: Pedestrians walk past the New York Stock Exchange in New York on Feb. 22, 2016.

The post The FBI Gives Itself Lots of Rope to Pull in Informants appeared first on The Intercept.

If a low-level Mafia soldier was popped for stealing a car, the FBI line was simple: Hey, would you rather work for us or go to prison?

After the 9/11 attacks, the FBI became the front-line agency in the war on terror. A presidential directive instructed the FBI to increase its ranks of informants, particularly in Muslim communities, where the bureau’s intelligence capacity was underwhelming.

But the FBI had a problem: It needed a recruiting strategy for Muslims. While agents could, and did, use criminal offenses by Muslims as leverage, as they had done against the Mafiosi, the bureau chose to widen its net in Muslim communities by looking past those with known links to criminal enterprises to individuals who simply wanted to remain in the United States. Many of these people have been targeted not because of anything they have done, but merely because the bureau sees them as potential sources of intelligence on other members of their communities.

If they have immigration problems, then that becomes a key pressure point. Potential Muslim recruits are offered a variation on the bureau’s line to mobsters: Hey, would you rather work for us or be deported?

The FBI’s Confidential Human Source Policy Guide — a nearly 200-page manual for how FBI agents should recruit and handle informants, classified secret and obtained by The Intercept — devotes an entire chapter to immigration, reflecting the outsized importance of leveraging a relatively vulnerable population of immigrants in recruiting informants. While the guide does not explicitly state that agents should exploit a potential informant’s immigration status, other government documents have come remarkably close — even using the phrase “immigration relief dangle” — and real-world examples of agents doing exactly this are plentiful.

In response to questions for this article about its use of immigration status to put pressure on potential recruits, the FBI maintained that the choice to become an informant was only ever a voluntary one.

Agents are prohibited from working with informants who do not have legal immigration status, according to the guidelines. As a result, agents are required to assist immigrants who lack legal status to obtain it before they can be enrolled as informants, and to this end, the bureau makes arrangements with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In some instances, the FBI can help secure legal status or asylum for informants. But the guide makes clear that as often as not, the bureau avails its informants of temporary immigration relief. Once these informants are no longer of value to the bureau, agents are required to assist ICE in locating them. “If the [informant]’s location is unknown, the [FBI agent] must work with ICE to locate the individual,” the classified manual reads.

Asked whether such practices suggest that the FBI’s authority is blurring into immigration enforcement, the FBI replied: “FBI policy requires case agents to know the general location of confidential human sources, regardless of immigration status.”

This policy shows that the FBI is required to work much more closely with ICE than agents have previously suggested, said Ira J. Kurzban, a Miami-based immigration lawyer who has argued cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

“In most cases, individuals will go to the FBI and the FBI will say, ‘Yeah, we don’t have any problem with you; you’re cleared,’ and yet ICE is aggressively going after them,” Kurzban said. “To the extent that this document reveals what’s really going on, it’s obvious that the FBI is working with ICE notwithstanding what they’re telling the individuals.”

A television in Islamabad broadcasts news of Adnan El Shukrijumah, a senior al Qaeda leader reportedly killed by Pakistan’s military, Dec. 6, 2014.

Photo: Farooq Naeem/AFP/Getty Images

Among the earliest documented cases of the FBI using immigration status as leverage was that of Yassine Ouassif, whom border agents questioned in November 2005 as he crossed from Canada into New York. The border agents took his green card, placed him on a bus to San Francisco, and told him to contact an FBI agent once he arrived. The FBI’s offer: become an informant or lose the visa.

Across the country, in Miami, the FBI used a similar tactic to attempt to recruit a local imam, Foad Farahi, whose mosque had been attended by al Qaeda members José Padilla, who is serving a 21-year prison sentence for conspiring to deploy a dirty bomb, and Adnan El Shukrijumah, who was killed in Pakistan. Farahi has claimed that after he rebuffed the FBI’s advances, he attended a hearing in 2007 for his political asylum case only to discover that the government suddenly wanted him deported.

In recent years, complaints of the FBI using immigration status as leverage to recruit informants have swelled. As The Intercept reported in October, the FBI now coordinates with U.S. Customs and Border Protection to produce lists of passengers of potential intelligence value. CBP provides the names of passengers who fit the FBI’s criteria, and the FBI may specify who among them should be subjected to extra screening and follow-up visits. The FBI uses this encounter with CBP as a means of prepping the person for informant recruitment and instructs agents to offer the “immigration relief dangle,” as described in the documents obtained by The Intercept.

“If you’re recruiting informants for intelligence purposes, you’re casting a wide net,” said Diala Shamas, a lecturer at Stanford Law School who represented individuals targeted for informant recruitment when she was at the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility project, known as CLEAR. “You’re not identifying people based on their nexus to potential terrorist activity. You’re identifying people based on their nexus to the community you’re surveilling. So you’re going to turn to the most common point of vulnerability, which is immigration status, because the target community is largely an immigrant one.”

International air travelers are electronically fingerprinted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers upon arrival to Los Angeles International Airport on Dec. 10, 2009, in Calif.

Photo: David McNew/Getty Images

The FBI’s informant manual goes into detail about some of the programs agents may employ to recruit sources using immigration status.

One program, known as the “Significant Benefit Parole Program,” allows agents to bring into the country “inadmissible or deportable” informants if they can assist in investigations and prosecutions or provide information of national security interest.

Another, known as a “Deferred Action Program,” allows an immigrant who otherwise would not be allowed to leave the United States and return, to go to another country on FBI business and then be permitted re-entry.

Still, the most significant revelation of the FBI informant manual as it pertains to immigration is the required coordination between the FBI and immigration officials.

It’s been clear for a decade that the FBI works with ICE to keep informants in the country. What we didn’t know was that the assistance is often contingent and temporary, and that the FBI actively assists ICE in locating informants who are no longer useful so that they may be deported.

“This creates a perverse incentive structure, because informants are incentivized to keep themselves valuable,” said Shamas. “It will further incentivize them to create investigations when there wouldn’t be one otherwise. In the traditional criminal context, the law enforcement community is conscious of the risk that coercing informants increases the likelihood of getting bad intelligence. But in the counterterrorism and intelligence context, this caution has been thrown out the window.”

Kurzban, the immigration lawyer, suspects this information becoming public will undercut claims from FBI agents that informants should work with them so they can be protected from ICE.

“The incentives for helping and cooperating seem diminished if as soon as whatever information is given, the FBI is going to turn them back over to ICE,” Kurzban said.

Top photo: People are shackled before boarding an Immigration and Customs Enforcement charter jet early on Oct. 15, 2015, in Mesa, Ariz.

The post When Informants Are No Longer Useful, the FBI Can Help Deport Them appeared first on The Intercept.

“Did the FBI ever say, ‘Mr. Hammad, there’s a limit to how much we can pay you on one case’?” Aaron asked.

“No, sir,” Hammad answered.

“So as far as you know, there’s no limit to how much you could get paid on this case?” Aaron followed.

“I don’t know, sir,” Hammad responded.

“Is there a limit as to how much you could be paid working for, as an FBI informant, on all of your cases?”

“I don’t know, sir,” Hammad repeated.

Aaron was deploying a well-worn tactic among lawyers defending cases involving FBI informants: suggest to the jury that the informant is primarily motivated by money. Hammad had led an FBI counterterrorism sting in Southern California that targeted four men, including Ralph Deleon, a citizen of the Philippines, and Sohiel Omar Kabir, an Afghanistan-born U.S. citizen. By Aaron’s calculations, Hammad, who previously had been convicted of aiding a conspiracy to manufacture methamphetamine and was later released from immigration custody to help the FBI, had received $380,000 in government payments for his work on that one case alone.

Hammad isn’t the only handsomely compensated informant working for the U.S. government. Defense lawyers have long known that informants can earn tens of thousands, even millions, of dollars. Shahed Hussain, a prolific FBI informant, received $96,000 for his work in the Newburgh Four case. Naseem Khan collected $230,000 following a counterterrorism sting in Lodi, California. In the course of a 20-year career as an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration, IRS, FBI, and Department of Homeland Security, Alex Diaz has taken in more than $4.9 million.

For the first time, we can now point to an internal government document that provides the framework for how informants are paid.

The FBI’s Confidential Human Source Policy Guide, a nearly 200-page manual classified secret and obtained by The Intercept, describes how payments to FBI informants are accounted for and authorized and how these payments can quickly become serious money.

The picture that emerges is of an approach that borrows some of the sophistication of modern banking. The bureau has devised a variety of ways to pay informants, including directly, before or after trial; via reimbursements; and through a cut of asset forfeitures. The guide provides some options that are clearly preferable when trying to sway a jury at trial, even as it explicitly disclaims selecting them for such reasons.

Craig Monteilh worked undercover as an informant for the FBI by spying on mosques in Southern California.

Photo: Gina Ferazzi/LA Times/Getty Images

The FBI’s Confidential Human Source Policy Guide makes clear what anecdotal evidence in criminal cases has suggested: Informants can make a lot of money working for the bureau.

A special agent-in-charge has the authority to pay each of his office’s informants up to $100,000 per fiscal year. However, informants may earn substantially more as long as each additional $100,000 is approved by successively higher levels within the bureau. With deputy director approval, according to the policy guide, an informant may earn more than $500,000 per year.

In addition to compensation, an informant may be eligible for 25 percent of the net value of any property forfeited as a result of the investigation, up to $500,000 per asset, according to the guide. This can be a particularly lucrative benefit for drug informants, whose cases sometimes result in the forfeiture of planes, boats, cars, and real estate.

Martin Stolar, a New York criminal defense lawyer, said large payments are a way for FBI agents to control informants, many of whom are criminals who might otherwise readily break an agreement. “They justify payments to informants by saying it’s for the greater need, for getting inside information,” Stolar said. “It’s dirty business, but it’s not illegal.”

Payments to informants are a thorny issue for the bureau, because agents know defense lawyers will use the payments to question the credibility of an informant while he or she is testifying, pointing to the money as a way of suggesting that the informant will say anything for a payday.

There are two types of payments available when a case is active: expense reimbursements and payments for services.

The policy guide allows for plenty of wiggle room in expense reimbursements, creating opportunities for agents to disguise service payments as reimbursements. The guide permits informants to be reimbursed for, among other things, housing costs, vehicles and transportation, meals, equipment, and even medical bills.

It’s in the interest of the FBI and prosecutors for payments to be seen as reimbursements, not compensation, according to Stolar. “What it looks like otherwise is a person whose testimony has been bought, just a straight-up bribe,” Stolar said. “If it’s described as an expense reimbursement, then it’s more defensible.”

The FBI policy guide implicitly acknowledges this temptation, instructing agents not to consider the effects at trial when paying informants. “In determining the way to classify a particular payment to a (source) as a service or an expense, the (case agent) should not consider whether or not that classification might result in a basis for an impeachment at trial,” the policy guide reads. An FBI spokesperson said that the bureau prohibits service payments from being classified as expense reimbursements.

Craig Monteilh, a bodybuilder who worked undercover as an informant for the FBI by spying on mosques in Southern California, said he received $177,000 from the FBI over a one-year period. Monteilh said that his compensation was disguised as expense reimbursements. He said he provided receipts for everything — rent, car payments, gasoline, medical bills, food, even for the steroids he was taking — to justify an $8,200 monthly expense bill.

“Most informants are criminals. So the FBI gets that,” Monteilh said. “They know that I’m going to get the bill for lunch, even if someone else pays for it, and I’m going to say I paid for it. That includes the movies, the theater, going to an Angels game — everything. I’m paying for everything, even though I’m really not.”

That’s how the informant payment game is played, Monteilh said, and the FBI is a sober and willing player. “Everything they do is based on covering something up if it goes to trial,” Monteilh said. “They always told me that 98 percent of cases do not go to trial, but if indeed this one does, then all these payments are for reimbursements.”

Monteilh and the FBI cut ties years ago, after he went public with claims of warrantless surveillance of Muslim communities. Monteilh’s information prompted the American Civil Liberties Union and others to file a class-action lawsuit against the FBI for alleged constitutional violations. The U.S. Department of Justice largely dodged the lawsuit by asserting the state secrets privilege.

Under oath and on the witness stand, Hammad, the FBI informant, described a similar method of disguising payments as reimbursement, though he was less forthcoming than Monteilh. He admitted that the FBI was paying his personal living expenses and even the maintenance on his car. Aaron, the defense lawyer, asked him about an FBI check for nearly $4,000 that was labeled “miscellaneous.” Hammad couldn’t remember what the payment was supposed to cover.

“You can’t remember receiving $3,806?” Aaron asked him.

“I can’t remember every penny I get,” Hammad said.

In addition to expense reimbursements and service payments, the FBI has a third, potentially more lucrative option for informants.

At the conclusion of a case, agents may offer “lump-sum payments” to informants, according to the confidential informant policy guide.

These payments must be approved by the special agent-in-charge. Their total size may be influenced by the value of any seized property.

Peter Ahearn, a retired FBI special agent who headed the field office in Buffalo, New York, said that in cases that go to court and require an informant to testify, lump-sum payments are generally provided after the trial. This practice saves the informant and federal prosecutors from having to disclose the full amount of compensation an informant will receive and thereby limits a defense lawyer’s ability to undermine the informant’s credibility. (The document does not specify the timing of these payments in relation to the trial.)

Ahearn described this as a long-standing practice at the bureau. He said agents are more likely to refer to these payments as “performance incentives” than “lump-sum payments,” the language used in the policy guide.

“Source payments come at the end,” Ahearn said. “That’s the way it’s always done. You never tell your source how much he’s going to get at the end of a trial. You just wink and nod, and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to take care of you at the end.’”

The wink and nod allow informants to testify, without fear of perjury, that they do not know if they will receive additional compensation from the FBI.

That’s what happened in Hammad’s testimony in Southern California. Aaron, the defense lawyer, couldn’t nail the informant down to answer whether he expected to receive one of the FBI’s lump-sum payments after the trial.

“Aren’t you hoping that you’ll get a bonus for your work in the case when the case is done?” Aaron asked.

“No, sir,” Hammad answered.

“You know of other FBI informants who have gotten bonuses, right?”

“No, sir.”

“You’ve gotten bonus payments in other cases, haven’t you?”

“No, sir.”

“Are you quite sure about that?” Aaron pressed.

“Not that I remember,” Hammad said, softening his position.

“So you could have gotten bonus payments; you just don’t remember?”

“I don’t recall,” Hammad answered. “I don’t remember.”

Top photo: The FBI headquarters are reflected in a window in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 1, 2016.

The post How the FBI Conceals Its Payments to Confidential Sources appeared first on The Intercept.

The bureau has made online counterterrorism a strategic focus, lavishing staff and attention on a clearinghouse project called Net Talon and measuring performance through such metrics as the amount of time agents spend online, how many postings they make, and the personas they create. The FBI’s virtual tentacles are so ubiquitous that the bureau sometimes finds itself investigating its own people.

Because terror groups have made effective use of online networks to spread propaganda and to connect with troubled individuals, the virtual realm has become a significant counterterrorism theater for the FBI. The bureau has given broad authority to agents operating online in order to ramp up counterterrorism sting operations, among other activities. But lawyers, experts, and activists express concern that the FBI’s aggressive use of undercover operations may be creating terrorists out of hapless people who say stupid things online.

The information in this story is drawn largely from the FBI’s Counterterrorism Policy Guide, a manual for agents working on both international and domestic terrorism cases. The document, classified secret, is dated April 1, 2015, and has not been previously released.

The Intercept is publishing sections of the guide dealing with the FBI’s online investigations, a subject on which the bureau has offered little transparency. Other guidance on undercover operations has been made public in the past, but none that goes into as much detail on online investigations.

According to the guide, an online counterterrorism investigation can target websites or online networks that the FBI believes terrorists are using “to encourage and recruit members” or to spread propaganda. Such probes may extend to the administrators or creators of those forums, as well as people engaged in “the development of communications security practices” or “acting as ‘virtual couriers’ for terrorist organizations by passing online messages among members or leadership.”

The guide classes as online investigations those that rely primarily on online informants or undercover employees, and those that involve surveilling internet facilities or foreign websites hosted on U.S. servers. The FBI often runs such operations jointly with other U.S. intelligence agencies or “international partners,” according to the document.

Since 2008, the Counterterrorism Division has coordinated these operations under a program called the Net Talon National Initiative. Net Talon uses informants, linguists, and FBI employees working undercover, posing as ordinary internet users, to zero in on terrorists’ use of the internet, according to the guide. The initiative was meant to centralize expertise on particular targets and platforms, to “address intelligence gaps,” and to create a clearinghouse of the intelligence the bureau has collected on terrorists’ use of the internet.

The FBI’s online activities are apparently pervasive and uncoordinated enough to lead to confusion. The document refers to “resources being wasted by investigating or collecting on FBI online identities,” including undercover employees, informants, or people who have already been investigated by other offices or agencies. An FBI official told the Intercept, “You would be in a forum, and you’re like, ‘This person’s way out there,’ and we’ve gone and opened up a case, and sometimes that was a local police department, or a friendly foreign service. There are still instances of that, and deconfliction is still necessary.”

Khurrum Wahid and Joshua Dratel, defense attorneys for Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, answer questions from the media after Abu Ali was sentenced on March 29, 2006, at a federal court in Alexandria, Va.

Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images

The Counterterrorism Policy Guide shows just how much flexibility informants and undercover agents have when operating online, even when they’re not working specific targets. The FBI insists that there is nothing to see here: In statements provided to The Intercept, the FBI said that “while there are obvious differences between online and offline environments,” FBI employees and informants working on the internet are subject to the same rules, and that bureau employees can only monitor people’s online activity as part of an authorized investigation.

The guide, however, suggests that the internet offers areas of ambiguity. Much comes down to the questions of what informants can do, as opposed to FBI employees, and whether the goal of an operation should be construed as seeking to obtain specific intelligence, simply watching public websites, or developing a profile for an undercover identity.

For instance, the guide states that an FBI employee can visit a message forum or blog only when the site is relevant to an investigation. An FBI employee, according to the guide, could be an undercover agent or an “online covert employee,” a term that presumably refers to FBI workers other than agents, like analysts. FBI employees can’t chat online with someone who isn’t already the subject of an investigation for the purposes of gathering intelligence on that person. They can, however, “engage in unlimited communication with associates” of a person under investigation, if the conversations are relevant to the investigation.

Informants and undercover FBI employees are also allowed to do a great deal online in the name of “building bona fides,” such as creating fake identities or making themselves appear to be normal commenters on online fora. The guide says that in order to establish credibility, FBI employees “may make postings and communicate with individuals who are neither the subjects nor the associates of subjects … there is no limitation with respect to the amount of communication [they] may initiate in this regard.”

And the FBI is allowed to open new investigations on people it identifies through “passive monitoring or active communication” on websites.

An FBI spokesperson clarified that in order for an undercover or covert employee to monitor a website or forum, the site must already be associated with an investigation, “either because the forum was known to be used by a subject [of an investigation], or because the subjects are there. I can’t be in the forum trying to bait you into conversation.”

However, the FBI acknowledges that when its employees participate in online fora, they interact with people who may be bystanders to whatever activity led the bureau there in the first place. And that is not accidental. “We want to know if the subject has other people who are joining in, which people are part of the activity, and who is just there,” a spokesperson explained.

In other words, FBI agents can post and chat online with people who have nothing to do with an investigation, so long as they aren’t collecting intelligence — but in the course of those online communications, they can decide to start investigating someone.

Michael German, a former FBI agent who is now with the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, said that agents have always had a little bit of wiggle room in this regard. They can have a certain number of in-person meetings with someone, or in some circumstances go to public meetings or public websites, without identifying themselves as part of the FBI. This helps agents avoid a bureaucratic mess when carrying out a simple “buy and bust” drug sting, for example, German said.

But the ability to conduct unlimited online conversations in the name of building bona fides gives agents “a pretty long rope,” German said.

Criminal defense attorney Khurrum Wahid, who has handled or been an adviser on many national security cases, notes that FBI employees or informants frequently pose as experts offering guidance to lost individuals.

“These uninformed young people go online and become almost smitten with people who show a level of knowledge, who often turn out to be informants or undercovers,” said Wahid.

Informants operate under looser rules than FBI personnel. They are allowed unlimited engagement with a target in the course of an “assessment,” a preliminary investigation that can be opened on a loose tip of suspicious behavior, in order to collect general intelligence on a subject, or to evaluate a potential new informant. Assessments were created as a category in 2008. German finds their allowance for the expansive use of informants problematic.

“What we’ve seen in sting operations is that there is this shady portion before the official operation begins which often involves the informant,” said German. “And then it’s passed off to an agent, and it looks like they are ready to commit a crime pretty quickly.”

Wahid noted that at least in online cases, there are generally logs of all the conversations between suspect and informant, whereas “when it’s a live informant, they can turn off the recorder and we never know what it was all about.”

The use of informants in counterterrorism sting operations has expanded since the 9/11 attacks, when the FBI adopted the mantra that its job is to stop terror attacks before they occur, not just investigate them afterward. The government argues that the anonymity the internet affords to suspects necessitates an aggressive approach, including stings. The FBI’s national security director told the New York Times this summer that “using undercover agents online allowed the FBI to ‘flesh out’ suspects by gaining their trust and persuading them to disclose their real identities.” In some cases, the FBI even created fake webpages in order to draw in suspects.

“Agencies are under a lot of pressure to find a needle in a haystack, something that has haunted us since the beginning of the war on terror,” said Karen Greenberg, director of the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School. “It’s true that the internet has changed everything about how we communicate, but are we just going to be trawling online forever? It turns the principles of criminal investigation on their head.”

FBI officials collect evidence from the parking lot of Pulse nightclub, the site of a mass shooting days earlier, in Orlando, Fla., June 15, 2016.

Photo: Adrees Latif/Reuters

Little better illustrates the importance the FBI places on online operations than the Counterterrorism Policy Guide’s section on how to claim “statistical accomplishments.” Such numbers can factor into agents’ job evaluations and the bureau’s reports to Congress. According to the document, the FBI has generated new measures of employee performance that are specific to online work, tallying “duration online, the number of postings made, the extremist online venue identified (e.g., blog or Web site), and online personas created.”

“I think we’re in a transition for law enforcement, between the old-school shoe-leather knocking on doors, and the new school of online undercover employees looking on forums and such,” said Seamus Hughes, an expert in extremism at George Washington University. “They are very clearly focusing resources online, and that makes sense, because it’s often the most overt sign that people are self-identifying as radicalized, and it’s easier than introducing an in-person informant, putting a wire on them. And if you’re a 17-year-old from Indiana, you’re more likely to have your connection to a known or suspected terrorist online than you are to find one in Indiana.”

There is no disputing that online propaganda and messaging have allowed overseas terror networks to sow the seeds of violence in the United States, whether through direct communication or by serving as an inspiration for lone attackers like Omar Mateen, who shot up Pulse nightclub in Orlando.

And yet, Hughes has also written that “the role of the internet in radicalization has been overblown” and reflects “a vast over-simplification.”

“That’s not to say that the online environment isn’t important, but it’s basically a reflection of real life — the average age of an ISIS recruit is in their 20s, and everyone that age is online,” Hughes told The Intercept. “People will pull up a Facebook profile and say, ‘Hey, this is online radicalization, he posted a photo of an ISIS flag,’ but that’s probably a very superficial analysis.”

In most cases of people who actually did try to join ISIS or plot a violent attack, offline relationships were critical.

“Radicalization does not occur in a vacuum,” Hughes wrote. “While the online environment can solidify beliefs and provide support that was unimaginable just a few years ago, it is not the single cause of terrorist recruitment.”

Top photo: A laptop computer displays internet research on the Islamic State terrorist organization.

The post Undercover FBI Agents Swarm the Internet Seeking Contact With Terrorists appeared first on The Intercept.

Two large FBI manuals obtained by The Intercept, one of which is classified, offer previously unreleased information about just how powerful an intelligence apparatus the FBI draws on even for low-level checks, known as “assessments.”

Assessments allow agents to look into tips or leads that don’t meet the standard for opening an investigation, which requires specific information or allegations of wrongdoing — an “articulable factual basis” for suspicion, as FBI rules put it. In an assessment, by contrast, an agent just needs to give an “authorized purpose” for their actions. Agents can open assessments “proactively,” in order to evaluate potential informants, collect intelligence about threats surrounding public events, study a field office’s geographical area, or gather information about a general phenomenon of interest to the bureau.

When assessments were made an official category in the last months of the George W. Bush administration, civil liberties advocates warned that the change eroded limits imposed on the bureau after the abuses of J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI came to light in congressional investigations in the 1970s. Those limits set high standards for the FBI’s investigations, requiring them to be tied to evidence of wrongdoing and adding layers of oversight. Advocates now say that the standard for opening an assessment is just too low, allowing for enormous amounts of information to be collected and retained even when nothing turns up.

The FBI counters that assessments offer a common-sense, expeditious means of handling tips and doing due diligence on potential threats. The bureau maintains that assessments are still subject to oversight and are usually quickly closed if they don’t meet the threshold for a more intensive investigation.

The Intercept is publishing in full for the very first time the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, or DIOG, which governs FBI operations. The DIOG’s rules for assessments, which were previously released with significant redactions, make clear that the FBI can follow up on a tip or complaint by probing government records and conducting interviews. The bureau need not necessarily keep a record of this search. But if agents decide to dig deeper by opening an assessment, they are allowed to have informants collect information, and they can also physically surveil the subject — including by airplane. In some cases, they can issue grand jury subpoenas. If the purpose of an assessment is to evaluate someone as a potential informant, agents can give polygraph tests, dig through trash, and use fake identities in the course of their research.

When an assessment is linked to counterterrorism, agents are required to address a sort of checklist of questions called the “baseline collection plan.” The American Civil Liberties Union obtained the 2009 baseline collection questions through a public records request several years ago. The Intercept has now obtained an unredacted version of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Policy Guide, which reveals new details about baseline collection and the resources the FBI uses to carry it out.

According to this guide, as part of baseline collection, the FBI avails itself of an array of sophisticated databases and analytical tools. These include “Clearwater” and “Polaris,” tools that are used to analyze links between email, phone, and other records collected by government agencies through various programs, and about which little has been publicly acknowledged. The policy guide directs agents to query the subject’s telephone numbers in those and other systems, including the FBI’s Telephone Application, used to analyze phone records; the Investigative Data Warehouse, which as of 2008 contained some 1 billion unique records and has been described as the FBI’s Google; the Data Warehouse System, which collates many FBI investigative records; and the Data Loading and Analysis System, which holds files from digital media seized by the FBI, including cellphones, computers, CDs, and the like.

The FBI also traces the subject’s travel history through Department of State visa and passport records, a Customs and Border Protection database, and data held by a private company called the Airlines Reporting Corporation, which manages itineraries for airlines and travel agencies. In 2009, Wired reported that the FBI was seeking access to ARC’s full database, which would include billions of travel records showing the data printed on the front of an airplane ticket and the method of payment used. ARC told Wired at the time that it only released records in response to a legal order such as a national security letter or subpoena, and that such demands had so far resulted in 17,000 records being turned over. It is unclear from the policy guide what sort of access the FBI now has to ARC, or whether it is checking previously obtained documents. ARC declined to comment.

Agents running assessments can further check the databases of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network in the Department of the Treasury. They can ask for information on gun purchases from the relevant local bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. They can run subjects’ names through the National Counterterrorism Center, and even through the CIA and NSA.

An unclassified October 2013 communiqué from the FBI’s counterterrorism division also suggests searching a classified terror watchlist, an FBI internet data-mining tool called Base Jumper, DMV files of driver’s license photos, and state-level business filings. The communiqué also lists open source resources, including social media sites, “web crawlers/deep web engines/social media searchers,” and photo websites like Flickr, Picasa, and Shutterfly.

The document adds that “in addition to queries of databases/resources and interviews, careful consideration should also be given to utilizing other investigative methods authorized in Assessments, such as [confidential human source] tasking and physical surveillance, when appropriate.”

The FBI, through a spokesperson, said that assessments were limited in scope and subject to rigorous oversight: “Regular file reviews, which include a review of whether or not the assessment should be closed or should continue for another 60- or 90-day period, as well as realistic resource constraints provide the necessary safeguards to ensure that individuals are not subject to long-term surveillance,” said an FBI spokesperson.

Yet, critics note that it appears the data collected can be retained for decades and queried for years, even when it does not lead to an investigation. The FBI would not clarify the precise limits on how long it can keep assessment data.

“Everyone should know that the FBI claims the authority to use extremely intrusive methods to investigate people without any factual basis to suspect that they have engaged in actual wrongdoing,” said Hina Shamsi, director of the National Security Project at the ACLU. Those methods “can reveal intimate information about how people live their lives,” she said, adding, “This is an ineffective authority because it clogs up the system with baseless investigations, and it is a dangerous authority because it has been abused to spy on innocent people exercising their First Amendment rights to protest, worship, and engage in political advocacy.”

Workers at the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division headquarters, in the hills of West Virginia near Clarksburg, analyze data to help track criminals in 2003.

Photo: Nina Berman/NOOR/Redux

Despite initial condemnation from civil liberties groups, in the years since assessments were instituted, they have received relatively little attention — except when the FBI is criticized for not having caught in an assessment someone who went on to carry out an attack.

The DIOG specifies that an assessment can’t be opened on the basis of “arbitrary or groundless speculation,” and the agent is supposed to be able to articulate why the assessment isn’t “frivolous or improper.” Assessments are also not supposed to be based “solely” on First Amendment-protected activities, or on the target’s race, religion, or ethnicity — although such characteristics can be taken into account. The Counterterrorism Policy Guide indicates that an assessment isn’t enough to place someone on the terror watchlist.

The examples of assessments given in the DIOG — blacked out in the versions that have been made public previously — show how FBI agents are expected to understand these boundaries.

In one example, if an FBI agent gets a tip that men of Middle Eastern descent rented a boat and asked the marina owner to circle military installations and nuclear power plants on a map, he can open an assessment and look into the men’s backgrounds. The example emphasizes that “the men’s national origin is not the motivating factor for the assessment” — unless other information suggests it is relevant, “for example, if existing intelligence reporting suggested that Al Qaeda was planning an attack using boats.” In another example, the FBI describes an assessment asking whether a public event — such as an auto show — could draw national security threats.

According to the DIOG, some assessments can take whole neighborhoods into their sights, with agents collecting information on the “composition of the community, the different ethnic groups, religious affiliations, community interests and dynamics, businesses, etc. for analysis and planning.” This kind of assessment could involve checking public, commercial, and governmental data, including visa information, and the FBI field office could “store, analyze, map, and share the information.” Such practices have stoked controversy, particularly among civil liberties and Muslim groups, who protest that such assessments risk tarring whole communities with criminal associations.

According to the last available figures, obtained by the New York Times, the FBI opened more than 82,000 assessments between 2009 and 2011. Most of them were closed without developing into investigations. Critics seized on these numbers as evidence that the FBI was casting too wide a net. But the FBI protested that the opposite was true: Assessments allowed agents to be more discriminating, the FBI maintained, and to open fewer preliminary investigations, which are even more invasive.

Between the 2008 and 2011 versions of the DIOG, the rules on assessments actually got more permissive, granting agents more flexibility in using surveillance teams, for example, and allowing them to run checks in commercial and law enforcement databases without formally opening assessments.

“There’s been a lot of morphing on assessments,” Jeff Danik, a former FBI agent who worked on counterterrorism, told The Intercept. “At first it was very cut and dry when it says, ‘We can’t do this.’ Now it’s more, ‘We’re not going to go against what it says, we’re just going to get the approvals, which are going to be given pretty freely.’ It’s kind of found its own middle ground. They didn’t take the rules away, but they made it a little easier to go forward.”

There is no time limit on how long an assessment can last, though the FBI stressed that supervisors must periodically review the basis for keeping it open. Danik said there was often pressure to either “convert it to an investigation or get it closed.”

Assessments have mostly come to the public’s attention after domestic terror attacks, when the bureau gets criticized for not having caught perpetrators beforehand. After last year’s bombings in New Jersey and New York, for example, the public learned that the suspect had been scrutinized in an assessment. Yet nothing had turned up that warned of his future violence or warranted either an investigation or an arrest.

According to some critics, assessments offer a worst-of-both-worlds solution, in which agents pursue every lead, generating overwhelming caseloads, even while the bureau is unfairly blamed for not having followed up beyond what it was legally allowed to do.

Top photo: Workers at the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division headquarters, pictured in 2003 in West Virginia, have access to the largest repository of fingerprints in the world.

The post Based on a Vague Tip, the Feds Can Surveil Anyone appeared first on The Intercept.

Although these right-wing extremists have posed a growing threat for years, federal investigators have been reluctant to publicly address that threat or to point out the movement’s longstanding strategy of infiltrating the law enforcement community.

No centralized recruitment process or set of national standards exists for the 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States, many of which have deep historical connections to racist ideologies. As a result, state and local police as well as sheriff’s departments present ample opportunities for white supremacists and other right-wing extremists looking to expand their power base.

In a heavily redacted version of an October 2006 FBI internal intelligence assessment, the agency raised the alarm over white supremacist groups’ “historical” interest in “infiltrating law enforcement communities or recruiting law enforcement personnel.” The effort, the memo noted, “can lead to investigative breaches and can jeopardize the safety of law enforcement sources or personnel.” The memo also states that law enforcement had recently become aware of the term “ghost skins,” used among white supremacists to describe “those who avoid overt displays of their beliefs to blend into society and covertly advance white supremacist causes.” In at least one case, the FBI learned of a skinhead group encouraging ghost skins to seek employment with law enforcement agencies in order to warn crews of any investigations.

That report appeared after a series of scandals involving local police and sheriff’s departments. In Los Angeles, for example, a U.S. District Court judge found in 1991 that members of a local sheriff’s department had formed a neo-Nazi gang and habitually terrorized black and Latino residents. In Chicago, Jon Burge, a police detective and rumored KKK member, was fired, and eventually prosecuted in 2008, over charges relating to the torture of at least 120 black men during his decadeslong career. Burge notoriously referred to an electric shock device he used during interrogations as the “nigger box.” In Cleveland, officials found that a number of police officers had scrawled “racist or Nazi graffiti” throughout their department’s locker rooms. In Texas, two police officers were fired when it was discovered they were Klansmen. One of them said he had tried to boost the organization’s membership by giving an application to a fellow officer he thought shared his “white, Christian, heterosexual values.”

Although the FBI has not publicly addressed the issue of white supremacist infiltration of law enforcement since that 2006 report, in a 2015 speech, FBI Director James Comey made an unprecedented acknowledgment of the role historically played by law enforcement in communities of color: “All of us in law enforcement must be honest enough to acknowledge that much of our history is not pretty.” Comey and the agency have been less forthcoming about that history’s continuation into the present.

In 2009, shortly after the election of Barack Obama, a Department of Homeland Security intelligence study, written in coordination with the FBI, warned of the “resurgence” of right-wing extremism. “Right-wing extremists have capitalized on the election of the first African-American president, and are focusing their efforts to recruit new members, mobilize existing supporters, and broaden their scope and appeal through propaganda,” the report noted, singling out “disgruntled military veterans” as likely targets of recruitment. “Right-wing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to exploit their skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat.”

The report concluded that “lone wolves and small terrorist cells embracing violent right-wing extremist ideology are the most dangerous domestic terrorism threat in the United States.” Released just ahead of nationwide Tea Party protests, the report caused an uproar among conservatives, who were particularly angered by the suggestion that veterans might be implicated, and by the broad brush with which the report seemed to paint a range of right-wing groups.

Faced with mounting criticism, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano disavowed the document and apologized to veterans. The agency’s unit investigating right-wing extremism was largely dismantled and the report’s lead investigator was pushed out. “They stopped doing intel on that, and that was that,” Heidi Beirich, who leads the Southern Poverty Law Center’s tracking of extremist groups, told The Intercept. “The FBI in theory investigates right-wing terrorism and right-wing extremism, but they have limited resources. The loss of that unit was a loss for a lot of people who did this kind of work.”

“Federal law enforcement agencies in general — the FBI, the Marshals, the ATF — are aware that extremists have infiltrated state and local law enforcement agencies and that there are people in law enforcement agencies that may be sympathetic to these groups,” said Daryl Johnson, who was the lead researcher on the DHS report. Johnson, who now runs DT Analytics, a consulting firm that analyzes domestic extremism, says the problem has since gotten “a lot more troublesome.”

Johnson singled out the Oath Keepers and the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association for their anti-government attitudes and efforts to recruit active as well as retired law enforcement officers. “That’s the biggest issue and it’s greater now than it’s ever been, in my opinion.” Johnson added that Homeland Security has given up tracking right-wing domestic extremists. “It’s only the FBI now,” he said, adding that local police departments don’t seem to be doing anything to address the problem. “There’s not even any training now to make state and local police aware of these groups and how they could infiltrate their ranks.”

A spokesperson for DHS declined to comment on the 2009 report or on the agency’s specific concerns about white supremacist and right-wing groups.

Timothy McVeigh, a U.S. Army veteran, bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, killing 168 people.

Photo: Robert Daemmrich Photography Inc./Sygma/Getty Images

In 2014, the Department of Justice re-established its Domestic Terrorism Task Force, a unit that was created following the Oklahoma City bombing. But for the most part, the government’s efforts to confront domestic terrorism threats over the last decade have focused on homegrown extremists radicalized by foreign groups. Last year, a group of progressive members of Congress called on President Obama and DHS to update the controversial 2009 report. “The United States allocates significant resources towards combating Islamic violent extremism while failing to devote adequate resources to right-wing extremism,” they wrote. “This lack of political will comes at a heavy price.”

Critics fear that the backlash following the 2009 DHS report hindered further action against the growing white supremacist threat, and that it was largely ignored because the issue was so politically controversial. “I believe that because that report was so denounced by conservatives, it sort of closed the door on whatever the FBI may have been considering doing with respect to combating infiltration of law enforcement by white supremacists,” said Samuel Jones, a professor of law at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago who has written about white power ideology in law enforcement. “Because after the 2006 FBI report, we simply cannot find anything by local law enforcement or the federal government that addresses this issue.”

Pete Simi, a sociologist at Chapman University who spent decades studying the proliferation of white supremacists in the U.S. military, agreed. “The report underscores the problem of even discussing this issue. It underscores how difficult this issue is to get any traction on, because a lot of people don’t want to discuss this, let alone actually do something about it.” Simi said that the extremist strategy to infiltrate the military and law enforcement has existed “for decades.” In a study he conducted of individuals indicted for far-right terrorism-related activities, he found that at least 31 percent had military experience.

After a series of investigations uncovered substantial numbers of extremists in the military, the Department of Defense moved to impose stricter screenings, including monitoring recruits’ tattoos for white supremacist symbols and discharging those found to espouse racist views.

“The military has completely reformed its process on this front,” said the SPLC’s Beirich, who lobbied the DOD to adopt those reforms. “I don’t know why it wouldn’t be the same for police officers; we can’t have people with guns having crazy ideas or ideas that threaten certain populations.”

After a news conference on Aug. 6, 2012, community members in Oak Creek, Wisc., hold up a mug shot of Wade Michael Page, an Army veteran and the suspected shooter in a deadly attack on a Sikh temple.

Photo: Darren Hauck/Getty Images

Reforming police, as it turns out, is a lot harder than reforming the military, because of the decentralized way in which the thousands of police departments across the country operate, the historical affinity of certain police departments with the same racial ideologies espoused by extremists, and an even broader reluctance to do much about it.

“If you look at the history of law enforcement in the United States, it is a history of white supremacy, to put it bluntly,” said Simi, citing the origin of U.S. policing in the slave patrols of the 18th and 19th centuries. “More recently, just going back 50 years, law enforcement, particularly in the South, was filled with Klan members.”

Norm Stamper, a former chief of the Seattle Police Department and vocal advocate for police reform, told The Intercept that white supremacy was not simply a matter of history. “There are police agencies throughout the South and beyond that come from that tradition,” he said. “To think that that kind of thinking has dissolved somehow is myopic at best.”

Stamper said he had fired officers who expressed racist views, but added, “It’s not likely to happen in most police departments, because many of those departments come from a tradition of saying the officer is entitled to his or her opinions.” Whether the First Amendment protects an officer’s right to express racist, white supremacist views — or even to associate with organizations that endorse those views — is something that remains a subject of debate, Stamper said. “You can fire someone. Whether the termination will stand up under review is the real question.”

“Local, state, federal agencies, all to some extent have their hands tied, because it’s not necessarily against the law to be a member of a domestic hate group” said Simi, noting the military as the one exception because of its unique legal status. For instance, the U.S. government considers the KKK a hate group — but membership in the group is not illegal. That’s the case for all domestic hate or extremist groups, though authorities can choose to target their members under conspiracy statutes, Simi said.

Most police departments don’t screen prospective officers for hate group affiliation. The SPLC has reported that the number of these groups peaked at more than 1,000 in 2011, from less than half that in the late 1990s, though experts like Simi note that many of these groups “come and go” and membership between them is often fluid.

Although officers have been fired for expressing hateful views — sometimes to be re-hired by other departments, as happens regularly with officers accused of misconduct — some officers have also challenged those dismissals in court. Robert Henderson, an 18-year veteran of the Nebraska State Patrol, was fired when his membership in the Klan was discovered. He sued on First Amendment grounds and appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear his case. Last year, 14 officers in the San Francisco Police Department were caught exchanging racist and homophobic texts that included several references to “white power” and messages such as “all niggers must fucking hang.” Most of those officers remain on the force after an attempt to fire several of them was blocked by a judge, who said the statute of limitation had expired.

“All agencies, if they want to, can curtail this problem — the problem is that many do not,” said Jones, who has been tracking similar incidents following the 2006 FBI report and believes many more get buried behind the code of silence that often dominates police departments. “When somebody holds a belief that indicates that they do not see all Americans are worthy of equal protection under the law, it compromises their ability to be a police officer.”

A member of the Georgia Security Forces, an extremist militia, participates in a military drill in Flovilla, Ga., on Nov. 12, 2016.

Photo: Mohammed Elshamy/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

According to the Counterterrorism Policy Guide, the FBI has the option to mark a watchlisted police officer as a “silent hit,” thus preventing queries to the National Crime Information Center, a clearinghouse for crime data accessible to law enforcement agencies nationwide, from returning a record that identifies the officer as having been flagged as a known or suspected terrorist. The document states that a “specific, narrowly defined, and legitimate operational justification” must be given in order to mark a Known or Suspected Terrorist (KST) entry as a silent hit. The suspect’s membership or affiliation with a law enforcement or military agency with access to the NCIC database is one of the specific justifications listed, implying that extremist infiltration is enough of a concern that the FBI has built-in protocols to prevent domestic terrorism investigations from being obstructed by members of law enforcement.

The FBI document also notes that in order to protect the safety of local law enforcement, suspects who are “violent or are known to be armed and dangerous” may not be marked as silent hits. It’s unclear how that standard applies to armed law enforcement personnel, especially since the FBI document singles out not only white supremacist groups for their ties to law enforcement, but also militia extremists and sovereign citizen extremists. While there is plenty of overlap between them, the last group, in particular, is characterized by deep anti-government ideology and the belief that “even though they physically reside in this country, they are separate or ‘sovereign’ from the United States,” the FBI notes on its website. “As a result, they believe they don’t have to answer to any government authority, including courts, taxing entities, motor vehicle departments, or law enforcement.”

In a 2011 article, the FBI’s counterterrorism analysis section called sovereign citizens “a growing domestic threat to law enforcement.” In one 2010 incident, two Arkansas police officers were killed when 16-year-old sovereign citizen Joseph Kane fired on them with an AK-47 assault rifle after he and his father were pulled over for a routine stop.

A 2014 survey found that sovereign citizen extremists were perceived by law enforcement agencies as a top threat, ahead of foreign-inspired extremists. And a 2015 DHS intelligence assessment, written in coordination with the FBI, warned about the continuing threat sovereign citizen extremists pose to police officers.

The counterterrorism guide does not specify the conditions under which the FBI will notify local law enforcement agencies whose members may be under surveillance as silent hits. Michael German, a former FBI agent who specialized in domestic terrorism investigations, told The Intercept that such alerts are likely handled on a “case-by-case basis.” “Typically, if someone in the police department is suspect, unless it’s an extreme case of leadership, professional courtesy requires some sort of notification,” he said.

The FBI did not respond to a detailed series of questions sent by The Intercept about its knowledge of extremists’ presence in law enforcement agencies, but a spokesperson for the agency did comment on the practice of placing silent hits on law enforcement officers. “While a silent hit would keep a subject who is a law enforcement employee from knowing they are under scrutiny, it would be standard practice to let someone at the agency know that one of their officers was under investigation,” the spokesperson said.

Although the FBI’s counterterrorism guide prohibits watchlisting individuals in the Known or Suspected Terrorist File “based solely on activities protected by the First Amendment,” the document does not elaborate on what would constitute such activity. Nor does it state what specific actions on the part of officers would be serious enough to warrant inclusion in the watchlist. The document refers to the Terrorist Screening Center’s March 2013 Watchlisting Guidance, previously published by The Intercept, for additional details regarding the watchlisting standard. The FBI did not answer questions about what activities would warrant entry into the list.

Civil rights groups have denounced the Known or Suspected Terrorist database’s lack of transparency and the vague formulation of its standards. In a detailed analysis of the KST watchlist based on documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the ACLU observed that the goal of the list “is not law enforcement, but the surveillance and tracking of individuals for indefinite periods.” The April 2016 report characterized the watchlist as “essentially a black box — an opaque and expanding accumulation of names.”

A disproportionate number of Muslims have been included on the watchlist, and because the database is accessible to federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies nationwide, the ACLU said, they are exposed to “unwarranted scrutiny or investigation by police.” That level of scrutiny has hardly been applied to white supremacists, however, even though the country’s first anti-terrorism laws, in the 1870s, were aimed at protecting black citizens from groups like the KKK, and despite the ongoing threat posed by these extremists.

“This is a fundamental problem in this country: We simply do not take this flexible, and forgiving, and exceptionally understanding approach for combating any other form of terrorism,” said Jones. “Anybody who’s on social media advocating support for ISIS can be criminally charged with very little effort.”

“For some reason, we have stepped away from the threat of domestic terrorism and right-wing extremism,” Jones continued. “The only way we can reconcile this kind of behavior is if we accept the possibility that the ideology that permeates white nationalists and white supremacists is something that many in our federal and law enforcement communities understand and may be in sympathy with.”

That sympathy might just be reflected by the election of a president who was endorsed and celebrated by the KKK, and who has been reluctant to disassociate himself from individuals espousing white supremacist views.

“This election, for white supremacists, was a signal that ‘We’re on the right track,’” said Simi. “I have never seen anything like it among white supremacists, where they express this feeling of triumph and jubilee. They are just elated about the idea that they feel like they have somebody in the White House who gets it.”

Top photo: A member of the Ku Klux Klan protests the removal of the Confederate flag from the state house building in Columbia, S.C., on July 18, 2015.

The post The FBI Has Quietly Investigated White Supremacist Infiltration of Law Enforcement appeared first on The Intercept.

If the FBI had its way, the infiltration loopholes would still be secret. They are detailed in a mammoth document obtained by The Intercept, an uncensored version of the bureau’s governing rulebook, the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, or DIOG. The 2011 edition of the book, which covers everything from wiretapping to how to read Miranda rights, was made public in redacted form thanks to a lawsuit brought by civil liberties groups. Beneath the FBI’s redaction marks were exceptions to rules on “undisclosed participation” that could be easy to exploit.

The FBI rules show a significant level of oversight when it comes to looking into “sensitive” groups — namely, those with religious, political, or academic affiliations. For instance, if an undercover agent wants to pose as a university student and take classes, or if an FBI handler wants to tell an informant to attend religious services — two examples straight out of the rulebook — he or she must obtain a supervisor’s approval and attest both to the operation’s importance and to its compliance with constitutional safeguards.

But all those rules go out the window if an agent decides the group is “illegitimate” or an informant spies on the group of his or her own accord.

The FBI insists that supervisors regularly review agents’ work to make sure these exceptions aren’t being misused, and that the extra steps and approvals detailed in the guide are proof that the bureau has voluntarily limited its authorities beyond what it believes to be the legal minimum.

An FBI spokesperson said that a provision in the DIOG encourages agents to err on the side of considering something sensitive if there is any doubt.

“That discretion will be part of our regular case review. Agents will be asked, ‘Hey, why isn’t that a sensitive investigative matter?’” the spokesperson said.

But civil rights groups still worry that the FBI has made use of precisely these kinds of loopholes, silently undermining cherished freedoms enshrined after a dark chapter of FBI history: the COINTELPRO program in the 1950s and ’60s, when the FBI spied on, harassed, and tried to discredit leftists, civil rights leaders, and anti-war protestors. The exposure of COINTELPRO led to a famous Senate investigation and to institutional reform. The bureau adopted new rules and stricter oversight. Since 9/11, however, these hard-won protections have been weakened. What the public has not known is by exactly how much.

“Going into political gatherings, houses of worship — these are First Amendment-protected activities,” said Farhana Khera, the executive director of Muslim Advocates, a group that originally sued to have the rulebook released, particularly over concerns about the issue of undercover infiltration. “We believed the DIOG to be a broadening of their authority to go into those spaces.”

The FBI sees it exactly the other way.

“These are a voluntary narrowing of our authorities. We learn from history and try to get better,” the spokesperson said.

People exit the Islamic Center of Bay Ridge following traditional Friday prayers on Nov. 11, 2016, in New York’s Brooklyn borough.

Photo: Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images

The FBI openly acknowledges that some of its undercover operations can be “intrusive” and carry “a greater risk to civil liberties,” and therefore that they may require higher levels of approval or legal review. The requirements for a particular operation vary depending on how intimately the FBI employee or informant will be involved with the group, and what kind of group it is.

The FBI distinguishes between “sensitive undisclosed participation,” in political, religious, media, or academic groups, and “non-sensitive undisclosed participation,” in groups “such as a business or a club formed for recreational purposes.” (Even this basic distinction was previously redacted.)

The once-censored rules explain that for non-sensitive groups, a supervising agent must sign off if the plan is for an FBI agent to infiltrate a group in order to gain information or as part of an investigation. An informant doing the same thing does not require extra approval. If the participation of the FBI agent or informant will influence the group’s activities, then the head counsel for the division needs to review the plan. If the FBI’s presence is specifically likely to influence the group’s First Amendment-protected activity (if, as the guide specifies, the FBI participant plans to steer the group’s agenda on “social, religious, or political” issues), then the FBI’s office of general counsel must get involved, and perhaps senior FBI officials.

The requirements for infiltrating a group considered sensitive are even more stringent: The FBI agent must get approval both from a supervisor and from the head lawyer of his or her division, while also notifying a committee that oversees FBI operations. And if the intention or likelihood is that this infiltration will influence a sensitive group’s exercise of its First Amendment rights, then the FBI director must sign off.

These rules appear to offer layers of oversight. But they only kick in when certain conditions are met. The policy guide gives agents considerable discretion in deciding whether infiltrating an organization constitutes “undisclosed participation” at all — and therefore, whether it requires the extra approvals.

For instance, none of the rules apply if a foreign government operates the organization, or if the FBI “reasonably” believes the organization to be acting on behalf of a foreign power, so long as its U.S.-based members are mostly foreigners. And the rules only apply to groups the FBI deems “legitimate.” The redacted definition of a “legitimate” group is one “formed for lawful purposes” and whose “activities are primarily lawful.” This would exclude obvious criminal networks but could also exclude activist groups if an agent decides that their “primary purpose” is to hold protests involving unlawful acts.

“An organization whose primary purpose is to engage in destruction of property as a means to bring public attention to commercial activities that harm the environment is also not a legitimate organization within the meaning of this definition because its primary purpose is to engage in criminal conduct,” the guide says. “On the other hand, an organization that seeks to bring attention to a social or political cause by engaging primarily in lawful protest or advocacy, but also some acts of civil disobedience, is a legitimate organization.”

Michael German, a former FBI agent who is a fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, said that such language gives agents wiggle room to justify themselves if they are found to have been improperly investigating an organization.

“It’s not that you can’t ever investigate a legitimate organization, it’s just that it requires an additional level of oversight because of the history of abuse,” German said. “So do we really want to have agents parsing the language of what’s legitimate and what isn’t legitimate without that oversight?”

Classifying constitutionally protected activities as “illegitimate” is not a distant possibility. There have been many recent examples of the FBI twisting or ignoring the rules in order to investigate political or religious groups. In 2010, to take just one example, a Justice Department inspector general found that the FBI had violated policy in investigating groups including the Catholic Worker, Greenpeace, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Documents released last year showed that the bureau tracked Keystone Pipeline protesters without proper authorization. The FBI has also generated legal controversy with its use of informants in mosques.

The definition of what constitutes “participation” is also flexible in the FBI’s reading.

It was previously known that FBI agents and informants could go to public events without identifying themselves and attend up to five meetings of an organization without triggering the undisclosed participation rules — although sending an informant or employee to a religious service always requires a supervisor’s approval, the guide states.

Another loophole allows that if an informant volunteers information about a group without having been asked to collect it, FBI agents don’t have to worry about whether the informant obtained the information through undisclosed participation.

And although the rules require legal review if the FBI employee’s or informant’s participation is intended to influence a group, what constitutes “influencing” is narrowly defined: A source or undercover employee “simply voting or expressing an opinion” does not count. When it comes to First Amendment concerns, the FBI’s activities must “substantially affect the agenda of the organization” in order to raise flags.

There are certain caveats that go in a more restrictive direction: For instance, the rules specify that joining a mailing list or following a group on Twitter does constitute “participation,” and that agents are supposed to err on the side of caution when determining whether or not a group is “legitimate” or whether having undercover agents participate in group activities is “sensitive.”

Tarek Ismail, senior staff attorney with CLEAR, an initiative at the City University of New York that works with communities affected by counterterrorism policies, said that the breadth of these exceptions elaborated in the DIOG demonstrates “broad rules created and then chipped away.”

He added that the rules’ apparent flexibility made sense of the experiences of many of his clients. “There’s a disconnect between what’s on paper and what’s actually done,” Ismail said. “We see significant departures from these rules in our cases, but clearly it’s not because these rules are hard to live with.”

U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey listens to a speaker during the graduation ceremony for FBI special agents at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., on Oct. 30, 2008.

Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

The DIOG, despite being hundreds of pages of dense bureaucracy, actually documents a loosening of the standards enacted to rein in the FBI after COINTELPRO and other scandals involving the bureau under Director J. Edgar Hoover.

“The baseline that we started from in the 1970s was that there were no rules governing the FBI,” said Emily Berman, a law professor at the University of Houston.

The fallout from COINTELPRO resulted in new guidelines from the attorney general that reined in domestic intelligence gathering by requiring that agents’ investigations be focused on actual criminal activity. Yet in the decades since — and especially after the 9/11 attacks — the bureau’s mandate has expanded again, beyond the realm of crime fighting and toward intelligence gathering in the name of combating terrorism.

The FBI, which has no single statute governing its activities, has operated under a series of guidelines issued by attorneys general over the years. The DIOG first came out in the last months of the Bush administration in 2008, implementing guidelines from then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey. Mukasey emphasized intelligence sharing and the retention of information “regardless of whether it furthers investigative objectives in a narrower or more immediate sense.” He cited the “historical evolution of the FBI” after the 9/11 attacks toward the elimination of the traditional wall between foreign intelligence and domestic law enforcement.

At the time, civil liberties groups were alarmed that Mukasey’s rules, known as the “Attorney General’s Guidelines for Domestic FBI Operations,” broadened the authorities of the FBI to collect and retain more data than ever before, and allowed for “assessments,” in which agents could probe for information without evidence of wrongdoing. Some of the tactics authorized for assessments were quite invasive, allowing for physical surveillance, interviews, and the tasking of informants to collect information.

Muslim Advocates, with other groups, sued to have the whole rulebook released without redactions. They argued that the redacted portions couldn’t be very sensitive given that the FBI had invited advocacy groups to review portions of the guide at its offices before implementation. But in 2011, a judge disagreed and allowed the redactions to remain. Although portions of the DIOG have been updated since then — the FBI recently posted a new version from 2013, also redacted — the 2011 guide remains the baseline document.

Some of the redactions are inconsistent, with identical text covered in one place and not in another. Most of the text beneath the redactions simply spells out designations of authorities and necessary signoffs for particular activities.

“Now being able to look at what was redacted, it’s hard to understand what the justification would have been” for withholding the information, German said, “other than to prevent having to have a public dialogue about whether these changes to the FBI’s authority were appropriate.”

“This is something that the public has a right to know, what policies the government is operating under, particularly when they’re using authorities that have both a long history and recent history of abuse,” said German. “Anytime you come across some sort of improper activity, you can’t say it’s improper unless you know what the rules are.”

Top photo: A Muslim woman walks through the Queens borough of New York City on Aug. 29, 2016.

The post Hidden Loopholes Allow FBI Agents to Infiltrate Political and Religious Groups appeared first on The Intercept.

The Intercept obtained the FBI’s rules for national security letters as they are spelled out in two different guides: a document detailing current guidelines for agents using the letters and an uncensored 2011 version of the FBI’s main operating manual, the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, or DIOG. Both documents are marked “unclassified” or “for official use only.” The first document has not been previously released. The DIOG has been made public only in heavily redacted form.

The FBI issues thousands of NSLs each year. They are controversial in part because they carry the force of law but are created entirely outside the judicial system: To issue one, an FBI official just needs to attest that the information sought is relevant to a national security investigation. The letters have also been criticized because they are shrouded in secrecy. Companies that receive them are for the most part forbidden from notifying their customers or the public. The government has fought to keep even basic rules governing them secret.

The FBI’s internal guidelines suggest that the bureau uses the letters to demand sensitive information on email transactions — even though the Justice Department has specifically advised the FBI that it does not have the authority to use the letters this way. The documents also indicate that the FBI can use national security letters to surveil a “community of interest” by obtaining information from a business about a customer and every person that customer has contacted. This is a controversial practice that the bureau once halted amid scrutiny. But the documents reveal that a secretive unit that mines phone records can still initiate such requests.

Last June, Congress narrowly rejected a proposal to allow the FBI to use the letters to demand information like browsing history, email headers (not including subject lines), and, depending on your reading of the bill, possibly even some social media information. An amendment to a criminal justice funding bill making that change fell just two votes short of passage.

Even so, the newer document on NSL policy contains a reference to a “model NSL” the FBI uses to request “email transactional” data from companies and other organizations — despite the fact that the organizations are not obligated to provide such information.

The bureau has long used NSLs to obtain basic subscriber information from telecom companies. The Electronic Communications Privacy Act lists four types of information the bureau is allowed to obtain, including the name of the owner of an account, how long that person has owned it, the person’s address, and toll billing records, which show phone numbers called, the date and time of each call, and the length of each call. Several years ago, the FBI began using the letters to ask for email headers and internet browsing records — assuming that such queries were consistent with the bureau’s right to procure “basic subscriber information.” To that end, the bureau requested a broad category of information it sometimes refers to as “electronic communication transactional records.”

In 2008, Department of Justice lawyers clarified that the FBI didn’t actually have the legal authority to demand that technology companies hand over records outside of the four types listed. However, as The Intercept previously reported, the FBI disagreed with that conclusion and asked for such material anyway in a 2013 NSL it sent to Yahoo.

Some large companies like Facebook and Yahoo have refused to provide email and browsing data in response to such NSLs, but FBI agents may have expected that other companies, especially small ones, would be too ignorant or weak to fight back.

“The government’s position is: We can ask for anything analogous to toll billing records” — such as email and browsing data — “and if the providers are dumb enough to give it to us, that’s not our problem,” said Chris Soghoian, a technologist formerly with the American Civil Liberties Union.

The FBI guide to NSLs obtained by The Intercept references a set of “model NSLs” for agents to choose from; among the options are “email transactional NSL,” along with model letters for more conventional requests: “telephone subscriber NSL” and “telephone toll billing record NSL.”

“The existence of a standard form in the FBI’s NSL system suggests that this is not one or two agents that are misreading the statute, it’s policy,” said Soghoian of the “email transactional NSL.”

The 2011 DIOG obtained by The Intercept does delineate a few “sorts of records” that couldn’t be obtained through an NSL, at least in 2011, including social media friend lists and virtual property owned on platforms like Second Life. But neither guide specifies exactly how it defines toll billing records, which are expressly allowed, or “electronic transactional” data, the umbrella term that often appears in the letters.

Even when not explicitly asking for email or electronic transaction records, the FBI implies that toll billing records might include such data, said Al Gidari, a prominent national security attorney who has worked on NSL cases in the past. The language of the letters is ambiguous and “leaves the impression that the provider better think broadly about what a toll record is as opposed to ‘Hey, it’s up to you as to what you give us,’” Gidari said.

The Department of Justice’s inspector general found widespread misuse of NSLs at the FBI in the early 2000s, and the model letters in this case were, ironically, actually part of an effort to reform the NSL process. The idea was that an automated system for generating and submitting NSLs would prevent agents from issuing improper requests for information. In the case of “email transactional” NSLs, however, automation appears to have systematized the bureau’s contentious reading of the law.

Chris Soghoian speaks at TEDSummit 2016 held in Banff, Canada, in June.

Photo: Bret Hartman/TED

The fact that the FBI made such requests was first disclosed in 2007, at which time the practice was halted under scrutiny from the inspector general of the Department of Justice. The FBI seems to have eventually started it up again, under rules that have not previously been made public.

The DIOG states that “under limited circumstances, one NSL may simultaneously request toll or transactional information for a ‘seed number’ [normally the target of the investigation] and toll or transactional information for all telephone numbers that have been in contact with the seed number.”

Such requests need the approval of the deputy general counsel of the FBI’s National Security Law Branch. The guide states that NSLs seeking “second generation/community of interest information” are “used rarely,” and specifies that agents cannot ask for second-generation information “if there is reason to believe the ‘seed number’ has been in contact with members of the news media.” (In June, The Intercept published the FBI’s standards for NSLs targeting the media, which require a modicum more oversight.)

The guide doesn’t detail what circumstances warrant second-generation requests, but it confirms that they are issued by a secretive FBI data-mining unit. Back in 2007, it was reported that the FBI used the information it gleaned from community of interest requests for a technique it called call-link analysis, visualizing phone data to look for patterns and connections and identify previously unknown suspects.

Soghoian said that the FBI might be especially sensitive about community of interest requests because they have the potential to suck up information on a large number of people who may have only a tangential connection to a national security threat; the letters can target people who are not even the subject of an investigation, but merely deemed “relevant” to one.

The FBI abused this power in the past. In 2007, documents released to the Electronic Frontier Foundation showed orders with boilerplate language asking for “a community of interest for the telephone numbers in the attached list.” At the time, an unnamed government official told the New York Times that the data “was limited to people and phone numbers ‘once removed’ from the actual target” of the NSL — the same standard in the 2011 DIOG. A spokesperson for the FBI also told the Times that community of interest data “was used infrequently.”

Yet despite this, a 2010 report from the Justice Department’s inspector general found that the FBI “often” asked for such data, both through NSLs and other orders and requests. It identified hundreds of NSLs that included language seeking second-generation records. At the time, at least, AT&T was apparently the only company capable of providing community of interest information; Verizon had told Congress it didn’t keep that data.

In some cases, the report found that FBI officials who signed NSLs with community of interest language “were not even aware that they were making such requests.” Overall, the report concluded the FBI’s community of interest practices were “improper,” “inappropriate,” and “likely resulted in the FBI obtaining and uploading into a [redacted] database thousands of telephone records” without actually certifying that they were relevant to an investigation.

In a 2014 follow-up report, the inspector general concluded that the FBI’s policy on community of interest requests as written in the DIOG was a good start in fixing these problems because it required the general counsel’s review — but the description of the policy itself was almost entirely redacted.

The FBI recently posted an updated section on NSLs from the DIOG from 2013, but it is heavily redacted, including the section on community of interest requests, making it impossible to know what updates have been made.

“I can say that the DIOG has been updated to reflect privacy concerns re: community of interest information,” said an FBI spokesperson. He did not respond to questions about how often the FBI issues community of interest requests, whether they are still always limited to information once-removed from the original target of the NSL, and whether they could be used to obtain email as well as telephone records.

Reporters work on their laptops during a campaign event for then Sen. Barack Obama on May 9, 2008, in Beaverton, Ore.

Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

When that happens, the FBI is not allowed to upload the excess data into any of its internal systems except in cases where the information may be obtained via NSL and the bureau issues a second, “curative” letter.

The newer policy document on NSLs also spells out a clear prohibition on “exigent letters” — informal requests, supposedly issued only in an emergency, through which the FBI demanded information without even the internal approval and record keeping required of an NSL, let alone the approval of a judge. Up until 2006, the FBI used these letters to ask for information from companies without any particular authority, sometimes promising to follow up with a subpoena or NSL, but not always doing so. In 2010, the inspector general found that the bureau had illegally collected more than 2,000 call records between 2003 and 2006, often also asking for community of interest information. The report concluded that the FBI’s use of the letters flouted the law and internal policies.

The newer NSL guidelines suggest that since 2007, the FBI has complied with this judgment: The document contains a section headed “NO EXIGENT LETTERS,” in upper-case letters.

“The practice of using exigent letters to obtain NSL-type information is prohibited,” it continues.

Top photo: An employee fixes part of a web server inside the Facebook Inc. Prineville Data Center in Prineville, Ore., on April 28, 2014.

The post National Security Letters Demand Data Companies Aren’t Obligated to Provide appeared first on The Intercept.

The issue of profiling by federal law enforcement and immigration authorities has taken on new urgency with the inauguration of Donald Trump, who as a candidate called Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals and was slow to denounce white supremacist supporters. Among his first moves in office has been an executive order banning immigration from a list of majority-Muslim countries.

The FBI updated its policy on racial profiling as recently as March 3, 2016, in a section of its main governing manual, known as the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide. (The Intercept is publishing the 2011 edition of the DIOG in its entirety, along with the updated section on profiling.) The guidelines make clear that when an FBI agent is deciding whether or how to investigate someone, he or she can consider factors like race, nationality, or ethnicity so long as these factors are clearly relevant and coincide with other reasons for suspicion. And when the FBI selects communities on which to gather intelligence — in order to generate what the bureau calls “domain awareness” — it also allows itself to take such factors into consideration.

The only policy change on profiling added in the five-year gap between the manuals — and in the wake of former Attorney General Eric Holder’s anti-profiling initiative — is that the new version reflects an expanded definition of profiling, which covers not just race and ethnicity but also gender identification, national origin, religion, and sexual orientation.

Civil liberties groups, which have long objected to the FBI’s practice of surveilling ethnic communities and seeding them with informants, say that the guidelines leave the door open to alarming forms of monitoring.

“The fact that the DIOG hasn’t changed is exactly what we had feared,” said Ferhana Khera, president of the group Muslim Advocates. “While we appreciate that Attorney General Holder expanded the categories to include religion, national origin, and sexual orientation, we were concerned that he did not go far enough in making those revisions, and that it still gave a green light to the FBI to engage in activities that would target our communities.”

The flexible guidelines on racial profiling show that the FBI’s formal procedures reflect the blunt talk of its leadership. In late 2014, when the Department of Justice announced the new rules, Holder, who had spoken about his own experiences being stopped by the police as a young black man, heralded them as an important step to ensure “sound, fair, and strong policing practices.”

Yet the very next day, FBI Director James Comey insisted that the new guidance would have no impact on his agency’s counterterrorism investigations or on its ability to look for informants and map Muslim communities and businesses in the United States.

“No, nothing. It doesn’t require any change to our policies or procedures,” he said in a press briefing.

Behind the scenes, the FBI had reportedly pushed back against any rules from Holder that would ban consideration of race, ethnicity, and religion in counterterrorism investigations. Federal law enforcement has long been barred from scrutinizing someone solely on the basis of race or ethnicity, unless chasing down a particular suspect of a crime. But rules in effect under the administration of George W. Bush included a blanket exception for national security and border investigations.

Holder’s guidelines retain significant loopholes. For example, they explicitly permit cultivating sources of a particular ethnicity when investigating a terrorist organization made up of members of that ethnic group. They also allow mapping a city and looking at “population demographics, including concentrations of ethnic demographics,” if that information is collected “pursuant to an authorized intelligence or investigative purpose.” Moreover, the guidelines apply only to federal law enforcement, not to local and state police, and not to federal agents near the borders.

The FBI argues that agents need such latitude in order to recruit informants who might have insight into terrorist networks. For example, the bureau has suggested, agents might look within Somali communities in the United States for people who might have information about the Shabab militant group.

“When there is a threat from outside the country, it makes sense to know who inside the country might be able to help law enforcement,” Comey argued in 2014. “It is about knowing the neighborhoods: What’s it like, where’s the industry, where are the businesses, are there particular groups of folks who live in a particular area?”

In recent years, the American Civil Liberties Union obtained documents showing FBI field offices investigating ethnic communities based on broad generalities. For example, a 2009 document from San Francisco justified mapping that city’s Chinese neighborhoods because “within this community there has been organized crime for generations.” In Michigan, the FBI looked at the “large Middle Eastern and Muslim population” as “prime territory for attempted radicalization.”

Civil liberties groups, and Muslim groups in particular, oppose this logic, noting that the overwhelming majority of Muslim Americans have nothing to do with terror networks.

“Imagine the FBI deciding to collect data on where all Italian-Americans live, the churches that they worship in, and their charitable giving activities, because they’re concerned about the mob,” said Khera. “Rather than focusing on where there’s evidence of particular criminal activity, they collect data in one broad brush on an entire ethnic group.”

The mapping policy has also come under criticism from those who see it as a representation of the FBI’s mutation after the 9/11 attacks into an intelligence agency with broad investigative powers aimed at counterterrorism rather than at solving specific crimes.

Faiza Patel, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, said that she worried about the FBI combining mapping with “the vast reams of public information that are now available about everybody (including, for example, social media posts and travel records obtained through license plate readers) to create detailed portraits of each of us and of entire communities.”

An FBI spokesperson said the guidelines under which the FBI operates “are very clear that the FBI cannot predicate investigative activity solely on the exercise of First Amendment rights, including freedom of religion, or on race or ethnicity.”

A U.S. Border Patrol agent speaks to a driver at a checkpoint north of Nogales, Ariz., on Feb. 26, 2013.

Photo: John Moore/Getty Images

The FBI’s profiling loopholes raise questions about the extent to which other federal law enforcement agencies will amend their practices — especially under a Trump administration that has pledged to take a hard line on immigration and counterterrorism. The Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the Transportation Security Administration have all been expected to put out new policies, which are “badly overdue,” said Chris Rickerd, policy counsel for the ACLU.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees CBP and TSA, does have its own policy against racial profiling, but it has a broad loophole for national security. CBP’s current guidance states that “the use of nationality as a screening, enforcement, or investigative criterion is appropriate for the vast majority of CBP functions and operations.” A CBP spokesperson told The Intercept this fall that the agency follows Holder’s 2014 rules but did not elaborate on whether or how it will update its own guidance.

A spokesperson for DHS told The Intercept last month that the department “has reviewed the Attorney General’s guidelines on racial, ethnic, religious and other profiling by federal law enforcement and is in the process of developing our own department-wide standards.”

Activist groups have documented the targeting of Latino drivers for traffic stops and other examples of Border Patrol activity that extends well beyond actual border crossings. Last year, The Intercept reported on FBI cooperation with CBP to create lists of passengers arriving from “countries of interest” who might make good informants.

The TSA has also been singled out for allegedly profiling minority passengers for extra screening. In April, a Minnesota TSA manager said that he was told by his supervisor to look for Somali-Americans.

“Absent a specific, reliable suspect description, no law enforcement agency should engage in profiling based on protected characteristics because such profiling is ineffective and offensive,” Rickerd said. “We call on CBP and TSA to make clear that discriminatory enforcement plays no role in their operations, as well as to implement public data collection and training reforms to be vigilant against profiling.”

Top photo: Somali Muslims pray during a soccer tournament in St. Paul, Minn.

The post Despite Anti-Profiling Rules, the FBI Uses Race and Religion When Deciding Who to Target appeared first on The Intercept.

Beginning over a decade ago, the country’s surveillance court intervened to limit the FBI’s ability to act on some sensitive information that it collected while monitoring phone calls.

The wrangling between the FBI and the secret court is contained in previously undisclosed documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC. The documents, part of an ongoing Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, were shared with The Intercept.

The documents reveal that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court told the FBI several times between 2005 and 2007 that using some incidental information it collected while monitoring communications in an investigation — specifically, numbers that people punch into their phones after they’ve placed a call — would require an explicit authorization from the court, even in an emergency.

“The newly obtained summaries are significant because they show the power that the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court] has to limit expansive FBI surveillance practices,” Alan Butler, an attorney for EPIC, wrote in an email to The Intercept.

Additionally, The Intercept independently obtained sections of the FBI’s 2011 Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide describing how the FBI currently deals with information it obtains after getting a court order for what is called a “pen register,” or “trap and trace” on a target — a capability built in to the phone lines that records incoming and outgoing numbers for a particular phone. The 2011 guide is currently public but heavily redacted.

The DIOG, in addition to shedding light on how the FBI uses pen registers, reveals that the surveillance court’s pushback more than a decade ago has become internal FBI policy.

During an investigation, the FBI is often interested in who a target is talking to — what calls the target makes and receives and where those calls physically originate.

By simply telling a judge the information is “relevant,” the FBI can demand that a phone company, or email or other online provider, immediately hand over any and all “telephone numbers, email addresses, and other dialing, routing, addressing, or signaling information.” That information can sometimes include locational data. The FBI doesn’t need to notify the target or demonstrate probable cause that he or she committed a crime to get it.

But the FBI’s monitoring can end up getting more information than just phone numbers, though pen-register and trap-and-trace orders are not intended to get any “content” that would provide insight into the substance or subject of a communication.

For example, the numbers people punch into the phone after making a call can reveal financial or personal information — like a credit card number, a social security number, a PIN, a prescription number, or any other type of response sent via automated telephone prompts. The “term of art” for this information is “post-cut-through dialed digits.”

In its 2011 Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, the FBI has described the digits dialed after someone makes a call as “content.”

Following the release of documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, many have described the secretive court as a “rubber stamp” because it rarely rejects a surveillance request. But there’s nuance in what the judges have challenged or modified in response to requests over the years.

Between July and December 2005, the surveillance court approved pen registers and trap-and-trace devices to target “at least 138” people.

However, one judge started asking the FBI more probing questions about what exactly it did with post-cut-through dialing digits it “incidentally” obtained with those orders — launching what Butler describes as an “open secret” fight between the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and FBI over the information. The judge’s request for a “memorandum of law” appears in the July 2006 Department of Justice report to Congress on its use of FISA pen registers, obtained by EPIC. Some of that pushback was documented by Wired in 2008.

In May 2006, the government told the court that it had the authority to collect that sensitive information and would “in some cases … specifically seek authority for secondary orders requiring a service provider to provide all dialing, routing, addressing or signaling information transmitted by a target telephone, which, in light of technological constraints, may include content and non-content digits alike,” the report continues. (According to the DIOG, the FBI agent requesting the pen register has to specifically ask for any additional dialing information following the first nine or 10 digits — it isn’t automatic.)

The government also insisted it wouldn’t actually use that information in an investigation — unless there’s an emergency, that is, to prevent death, serious physical injury, or “harm to national security,” though it’s never made explicit what exactly that means.

Between January and June 2006, the surveillance court modified some of the FBI’s applications to stop it from using that information without additional permission, no matter the urgency.

The court “had made modifications to the government’s proposed pen register orders,” reads the biannual report to Congress obtained by EPIC. “Although the [FISA Court] has authorized the government to record and decode all post-cut-through digits dialed by the targeted telephone, it has struck the language specifically authorizing the government to make affirmative investigative use of possible content” unless permission is specifically granted by the court.

The surveillance court wasn’t the only judicial body rejecting the FBI’s requests to hold on to the additional dialing information. In July 2006, a magistrate judge in Texas denied an application for a pen register because filtering technology would not eliminate the additional content information. That led then-chief judge of the surveillance court, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, to ask the government to respond to the Texas court and explain how it might impact decisions in foreign intelligence investigations.

The government said the court should basically ignore the decision — and take note of new revisions to the USA Patriot Act, which said the government could obtain “noncontent” dialing information. (Because there isn’t technology that can reliably separate out content from noncontent when it comes to this type of dialing information, the law basically allows for all of it, the government argued.)

In 2006, the court had not yet written a formal decision on whether or not the government could keep getting this information — let alone use it in an investigation.

But “most” of the judges continued to strike the “emergency” language from the FBI’s requests, despite the government continuing to insist that “the proposed exception is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment” because its use is so rare.

By August 2006, the court asked the FBI to produce an entire report on how the dialing information obtained through pen registers is stored and kept in its databases. By 2007, the court reported that it modified 18 different government requests out of 98 within six months.

The secret court continued to delete language that would allow the government to use the post-cut-through dialed digits in an emergency — and added a time limit on when it could come back to ask to use that content.

By 2011, the court’s resistance appeared to enter into formal policy, according to the DIOG section obtained by The Intercept. The FBI, the guide states, can never in these cases use information like credit card numbers or social security numbers obtained after a phone number is dialed, “even in cases of emergency.”

However, that exception still applies in criminal cases, according to the 2011 DIOG. “In an emergency,” information obtained from the numbers people dial “may be used as necessary in criminal investigations to prevent immediate danger of death, serious physical injury, or harm to national security,” reads the section on post-cut-through dialing digits. And if the target is calling a bank, for example, the FBI cannot get the account number from the call, but it can use the call as a lead and subpoena the bank for that information instead.

Butler points out that despite the FBI and the secret court’s fight over the information, it is basically impossible to tell whether that information triggered investigative leads agents wouldn’t otherwise have had without the pen register.

The FBI declined to comment on the previously redacted portions of the 2011 DIOG obtained by The Intercept as well as the FOIA documents obtained by EPIC.

“The Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide establishes the FBI’s internal rules and procedures, and describes the FBI’s authority to use specific investigative tools as determined through the Constitution, U.S. statutes, executive orders, and the AG Guidelines for Domestic FBI Operations,” Chris Allen, an FBI spokesperson, wrote in an email. “These rules are audited and enforced through a rigorous compliance mechanism designed to ensure that FBI assessments and investigations are subject to responsible review and approval.”

Top photo: A woman talking on her cellphone walks down the street in Chicago, Illinois, where Secretary of State Jesse White proposed a ban on the use of cellphones while crossing the street, April 2, 2008.

The post In Secret Battle, Surveillance Court Reined in FBI Use of Information Obtained From Phone Calls appeared first on The Intercept.

Secret FBI rules allow agents to obtain journalists’ phone records with approval from two internal officials — far less oversight than under normal judicial procedures.

The classified rules, obtained by The Intercept and dating from 2013, govern the FBI’s use of national security letters, which allow the bureau to obtain information about journalists’ calls without going to a judge or informing the news organization being targeted. They have previously been released only in heavily redacted form.

Media advocates said the documents show that the FBI imposes few constraints on itself when it bypasses the requirement to go to court and obtain subpoenas or search warrants before accessing journalists’ information.

The rules stipulate that obtaining a journalist’s records with a national security letter requires the signoff of the FBI’s general counsel and the executive assistant director of the bureau’s National Security Branch, in addition to the regular chain of approval. Generally speaking, there are a variety of FBI officials, including the agents in charge of field offices, who can sign off that an NSL is “relevant” to a national security investigation.

There is an extra step under the rules if the NSL targets a journalist in order “to identify confidential news media sources.” In that case, the general counsel and the executive assistant director must first consult with the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s National Security Division.

But if the NSL is trying to identify a leaker by targeting the records of the potential source, and not the journalist, the Justice Department doesn’t need to be involved.

The guidelines also specify that the extra oversight layers do not apply if the journalist is believed to be a spy or is part of a news organization “associated with a foreign intelligence service” or “otherwise acting on behalf of a foreign power.” Unless, again, the purpose is to identify a leak, in which case the general counsel and executive assistant director must approve the request.

“These supposed rules are incredibly weak and almost nonexistent — as long as they have that second signoff, they’re basically good to go,” said Trevor Timm, executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, which has sued the Justice Department for the release of these rules. “The FBI is entirely able to go after journalists and with only one extra hoop they have to jump through.”

A spokesperson for the FBI, Christopher Allen, declined to comment on the rules or say if they had been changed since 2013, except to say that they are “very clear” that “the FBI cannot predicate investigative activity solely on the exercise of First Amendment rights.”

The Obama administration has come under criticism for bringing a record number of leak prosecutions and aggressively targeting journalists in the process. In 2013, after it came out that the Justice Department had secretly seized records from phone lines at the Associated Press and surveilled Fox News reporter James Rosen, then-Attorney General Eric Holder tightened the rules for when prosecutors could go after journalists. The new policies emphasized that reporters would not be prosecuted for “newsgathering activities,” and that the government would “seek evidence from or involving the news media” as a “last resort” and an “extraordinary measure.” The FBI could not label reporters as co-conspirators in order to try to identify their sources — as had happened with Rosen — and it became more difficult to get journalists’ phone records without notifying the news organization first.

Yet these changes did not apply to NSLs. Those are governed by a separate set of rules, laid out in a classified annex to the FBI’s operating manual, known as the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, or DIOG. The full version of that guide, including the classified annex, was last made public in redacted form in 2011.

The section of the annex on NSLs obtained by The Intercept dates from October 2013 and is marked “last updated October 2011.” It is classified as secret with an additional restriction against distribution to any non-U.S. citizens.

Emails from FBI lawyers in 2015, which were released earlier this year to the Freedom of the Press Foundation, reference an update to this portion of the DIOG, but it is not clear from the heavily redacted emails what changes were actually made.

In a January 2015 email to a number of FBI employee lists, James Baker, the general counsel of the FBI, attached the new attorney general’s policy and wrote that “with the increased focus on media issues,” the FBI and Justice Department would “continue to review the DIOG and other internal policy guides to determine if additional changes or requirements are necessary.”

“Please be mindful of these media issues,” he continued, and advised consulting with the general counsel’s office “prior to implementing any techniques targeting the media.” But the email also explicitly notes that the new guidelines do not apply to “national security tools.”

Allen, the FBI spokesperson, told The Intercept in an emailed statement that “the FBI periodically reviews and updates the DIOG as needed” and that “certainly the FBI’s DIOG remains consistent with all [attorney general] guidelines.”

Bruce Brown, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said that the “use of NSLs as a way around the protections in the guidelines is a serious concern for news organizations.”

Last week, the Reporters Committee filed a brief in support of the Freedom of the Press Foundation’s lawsuit for the FBI’s NSL rules and other documents on behalf of 37 news organizations, including The Intercept’s publisher, First Look Media. (First Look also provides funding to both the Reporters Committee and the Freedom of the Press Foundation, and several Intercept staffers serve on the foundation’s board.)

Seeing the rules in their uncensored form, Timm, of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said that the FBI should not have kept them classified.

“Redacting the fact that they need a little extra signoff from supervisors doesn’t come close to protecting state secrets,” he said.

The FBI issues thousands of NSLs each year, including nearly 13,000 in 2015. Over the years, a series of inspector general reports found significant problems with their use, yet the FBI is currently pushing to expand the types of information it can demand with an NSL. The scope of NSLs has long been limited to basic subscriber information and toll billing information — which number called which, when, and for how long — as well as some financial and banking records. But the FBI had made a habit of asking companies to hand over more revealing data on internet usage, which could include email header information (though not the subject lines or content of emails) and browsing history. The 2013 NSL rules for the media only mention telephone toll records.

Another controversial aspect of NSLs is that they come with a gag order preventing companies from disclosing even the fact that they’ve received one. Court challenges and legislative changes have loosened that restriction a bit, allowing companies to disclose how many NSLs they receive, in broad ranges, and in a few cases, to describe the materials the FBI had demanded of them in more detail. Earlier this month, Yahoo became the first company to release three NSLs it had received in recent years.

It’s unclear how often the FBI has used NSLs to get journalists’ records. Barton Gellman, of the Washington Post, has said that he was told his phone records had been obtained via an NSL.

The FBI could also potentially demand journalists’ information through an application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (or FISA court), which, like NSLs, would also not be covered by the Justice Department policy. The rules for that process are still obscure. The emails about revisions to the FBI guidelines reference a “FISA portion,” but most of the discussion is redacted.

For Brown, of the Reporters Committee, the disclosure of the rules “only confirms that we need information about the actual frequency and context of NSL practice relating to newsgathering and journalists’ records to assess the effectiveness of the new guidelines.”

Top photo: Jerry Delakas, 63, a longtime newspaper vendor in Manhattan’s Cooper Square, stands by his newsstand on April 3, 2012, in New York City.

The post Secret Rules Make It Pretty Easy for the FBI to Spy on Journalists appeared first on The Intercept.

This unusual question is presenting itself with urgent regularity as President Trump tries to overturn a wide array of sensible policies in his drive to implement a far-right agenda, including a chaotic travel ban aimed at Muslim immigrants. Yet it’s a familiar question to a particular species of government official: those who have resigned to protest deplorable initiatives they disagreed with. The last time it happened on a significant scale was in the early 1990s, and George Kenney was at the epicenter.

Kenney joined the State Department in 1988, and after serving overseas, he took a post in Washington as the deputy chief of Yugoslav affairs. He managed day-to-day policy on the region and pored over intelligence reports as well as news articles. He disagreed with the U.S. policy of standing aside as Serbian fighters seized large parts of Bosnia in a conflict that involved ethnic cleansing and siege warfare. As the author of the first drafts of State Department position papers, Kenney saw his strong language watered down by layers of higher officials who sought to minimize the justification for U.S. intervention. Six months after the war began in 1992, he quit.

“I can no longer in clear conscience support the administration’s ineffective, indeed, counterproductive handling of the Yugoslav crisis,” he wrote in his letter of resignation, which was front-page news.

Four State Department officials quit over Bosnia policy in the early 1990s, and their actions are newly relevant as the Trump era gets underway. “All over the nation’s capital, panicked job searches are underway,” noted a Washington Post story about bureaucrats looking for escape hatches in advance of what they fear will be a reversal of key policies on law enforcement, reproductive rights, and national security. The Environmental Protection Agency is on a virtual lockdown, with a freeze in its grant programs and a gag order on any of its employees talking with outsiders about what’s going on. A temporary ban has been instituted that prohibits a broad swath of refugees and green card holders from entering the United States. And there’s even a war over things that in ordinary times would be innocuous, such as social media postings by national parks.

What should a frustrated civil servant do? In recent weeks, The Intercept interviewed Kenney and the other officials who quit over Bosnia, and to a surprising degree, they generally agreed that dissenting officials should stay in their jobs as long as possible in the Trump administration, working inside the always-powerful machinery of bureaucracy to keep destructive policies from being implemented.

“My advice would be to throw sand in the gears,” said Kenney, who was the first State Department official to resign over Bosnia. “You’re not going to do anybody any good by leaving. Nobody is going to listen to you. If you work in the EPA and think the Trump people are the devil, you and every mid-level person who can, mount an internal resistance. There should be opportunities for people who are smart to act in a classic bureaucratic passive-aggressive manner and just be obstructionist. It’s a situation that lends itself to creative opposition from within.”

Kenney’s advice tracks the parting words of at least one of the Obama-era political appointees who had to step down in recent weeks — Vanita Gupta, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, which is expected to follow a discernably different agenda in the Trump era. “My ask of you today is that I need you to keep pushing,” Gupta told her career staff on her last day at work. “Even when it’s hard, I need every single one of you to keep pushing, because there are too many people in this country who are depending on us.”

Kenney’s public resignation shocked Washington, as did the ones that followed. Marshall Harris was next, then Jon Western, then Stephen Walker — all of them 30-something diplomats who publicly turned their backs on secure lives working for the U.S. government. The unique “Saturday Night Massacre” in 1973 notwithstanding — when Attorney General Elliot Richardson resigned and his deputy, William Ruckelshaus, was dismissed after President Richard Nixon demanded they fire Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox — the last wave of resignations-in-principle was among officials who opposed the invasion of Cambodia during the Vietnam War. But those resignations, in 1970, were quiet and unnoticed. When Anthony Lake and three other mid-level aides quit the staff of National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, they did not publicize their reasons.

“We never should have heard of them,” noted a 1993 story in the Washington Post about the Bosnia dissenters. “They were mid-level bureaucrats, dots in the State Department matrix. But they’ve gone and done something extraordinary in Washington: They quit their jobs on moral grounds.”

Kenney said his views were shaped by a seminal text he read as a graduate student at the University of Chicago. Written by economist Albert Hirschman, the book was called “Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations and States,” and it examined the choices that confronted dissatisfied consumers and officials. “Exit” was a euphemism for going elsewhere, “Voice” meant speaking up from the inside, and “Loyalty” meant staying silent. Hirschman, whose work is regarded as path-breaking, explained in a later essay that his original analysis of the efficacy of voice had been “too timid.” He noted the candidacies of George McGovern and Barry Goldwater — outsiders within their respective parties who rather than quitting or staying silent kept fighting and eventually won their parties’ presidential nominations.

“My point,” Hirschman wrote, “was of course that power grows not only out of the ability to exit, but also out of voice, and that voice will be wielded with special energy and dedication by those who have nowhere to exit to.”

Hirschman, who died in 2012, was speaking directly to the dilemma of federal workers who at this moment might feel a bit like Hamlet — “to resign or not to resign?” For Hirschman, doubt was not paralyzing but liberating, leading to action of some sort — he described it as proving Hamlet wrong. Hirschman’s own life was an example. Before becoming an academic, he fought in the Spanish civil war against Franco, with the French in their (very short) battle against invading Germans at the start of World War II, and he stayed in France during the German occupation and perilously helped several thousand refugees escape, including Hannah Arendt and Marc Chagall.

But how much can an oppositional bureaucrat accomplish in the Trump era? One of the State Department officials who resigned in 1993, Jon Western, noted that particularly in the first months of a new administration, bureaucrats possess an unusual amount of influence because many appointees who are supposed to call the policy shots have not started their jobs. Political appointees are not just the brand names who lead the various agencies and departments of government. In every one of them, there are as many as five layers of political appointees, and it can be months or more before they are in place. Many of them have to be confirmed by Congress and obtain security clearances, some haven’t lived in Washington D.C. and must arrange to move there, while others are so new to their jobs that they don’t yet know enough to question the civil servants under them.

Western, now a professor of international relations and dean of faculty at Mount Holyoke College, recalled that when Bill Clinton took office in early 1993, an immediate policy review was ordered for Bosnia. Clinton became president after four years of George H.W. Bush and eight years of Ronald Reagan, so the exodus of political appointees was particularly deep — few Republicans wanted to stay on to help the other side, and the other side didn’t want them to stay. “None of the third, fourth or fifth layer people were in place,” Western recalled. The review was largely carried out by career civil servants who had helped design and execute the do-nothing policy that was under review. The White House “was left with a report that said there’s not a whole lot you can do,” Western recalled. “The bureaucracy can really slow things down. At the end of the day, policy has to be implemented by people on the ground, and for people on the ground to get their instructions, it has to go through a pretty cumbersome process.”

The number of federal career employees is 2.1 million, which is separate from the 3.7 million people who work as federal contractors. The growth of the government workforce since World War II has inevitably spawned a cascade of academic studies of bureaucratic politics, with a foundational text written by a Harvard professor, Graham Allison, whose 1971 book on the Cuban missile crisis examined three models for understanding how and why the crisis unfolded the way it did. Allison drew attention to what at the time was a relatively new model for making sense of how a state acts: the behind-the-scenes struggles of bureaucrats and bureaucracies. Allison compared it to a chess match in which the moves of one side are determined not by a single player (the president) or by a predictable strategy that is planned in advance, but by several bureaucratic players with distinct interests and strategies who battle each other over each move.

Even in the age of Twitter and stream-of-consciousness edicts from the commander-in-chief, “It’s not as though the president picks up the phone and says ‘This has to be done,’ and immediately things will be done,” Western said.

On January 24, 1993, the New York Times published a story based on a leaked intelligence assessment that Serbian forces operated 135 prison camps, months after they had promised to shut down all of their camps. Western, who was an intelligence analyst at the State Department at the time, was surprised to read about it in the Times because he had written the classified assessment just a day earlier. Someone else had slipped it to the Times — “I wouldn’t have felt comfortable” disclosing it, Western said — but he was glad it had been done.

Leaking to journalists is another way that civil servants can perform their jobs in the public interest, Western and the other Bosnia dissenters agreed. With Congress and the White House controlled by a political party that prefers “alternative facts,” the truth of what the government knows is less likely to see the light of day unless it is leaked. Even Western, who describes himself as “not a big fan” of the massive leaks of Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, notes that without leaks the American public wouldn’t know about the Pentagon Papers and other truths the government did not want to share with the American public. “Leaking is part of the process of making sure information gets out,” he said.

During the run-up to the Iraq war, when senior officials in the George W. Bush administration falsely claimed that intelligence assessments confirmed Saddam Hussein’s regime was building weapons of mass destruction, the messier truth made its way into the public realm only because mid-level officials talked to journalists about the absence of hard evidence to back up the administration’s erroneous claims. By staying on the inside, midlevel bureaucrats can function as the fact-checkers of senior-level spin.

Stephen Walker, who was the fourth and final State Department official to resign over Bosnia, recalled in an interview that after Secretary of State Warren Christopher refused to say in 1993 that Serbian forces were systemically killing Muslims in Bosnia, somebody leaked a classified State Department memo that said the exact opposite. This was an example, Walker said, of a leak being the best and perhaps only way to present evidence that a senior official was lying about what the government knew. “While I never would have leaked myself, I’m glad people did it,” said Walker. “I’m glad that the things that got leaked at that time got leaked, because they were important documents that needed to be in the public domain and didn’t involve sources and methods.”

Of course a key difference between then and now is that unauthorized leaks are investigated far more aggressively than before, and the consequences of being caught are more severe. The Obama administration prosecuted more leakers and whistleblowers under the Espionage Act than all previous administrations combined, and the Trump administration, with its ingrained hostility toward the major media, is expected to continue the crackdown, if not intensify it.

When Marshall Harris began working at the State Department in 1985, he had to attend a six-week orientation course known as A-100, the department’s version of basic training. There were about 60 youthful diplomats in the course, and each day they received instruction in everything they would need to know as they started their careers — such as security protocols, how to write cables, the structure of the department, the do’s and don’ts of public speaking and negotiating.

One day, a lecturer told a story about a diplomat who disagreed with U.S. policy and resigned on principle. The punch line was that the righteous diplomat couldn’t find a job on the outside — his skills were so impractical that he ended up pumping gas in northern Virginia. The story might sound a bit apocryphal but the point it conveyed to Harris and his young colleagues-in-diplomacy was clear — if you resign, you will forever lose the prestige and security you enjoyed as a Foreign Service Officer. Don’t do it.

Just a few years later, Harris ignored that advice. He was a Bosnia specialist in the State Department and disagreed with the U.S. policy of looking the other way as genocide occurred. In 1993, after failing to change the policy, Harris decided to resign. “I can no longer serve in a Department of State that accepts the forceful dismemberment of a European state and that will not act against genocide and the Serbian officials who perpetrate it,” he wrote in his resignation letter, which quickly got into the hands of reporters.

For him and the three other Bosnia dissenters, resignation was a last resort that for each of them turned out to attract far more attention than they expected. Kenney, the first to quit, became an influential voice at the outset of the Bosnian conflict (though his views changed after a few years and he eventually expressed doubts about the scale of killings in Bosnia). Harris, after leaving the State Department, worked for a congressman, the late Frank McCloskey, who was a leading figure on Bosnia, and then he helped form a pro-Bosnia advocacy group with Walker. Western took a slightly different path, speaking out less than the others and going into the academic world (Walker is now a high school teacher, while Western is a professor).

The Bosnia dissenters, while not regretting their choices, recognize that the media landscape has shifted since their resignations catapulted them to durable perches in the public eye. When they resigned, the web was just a few years old, not much of a platform for public debate. The velocity of today’s news cycle is radically quicker. Harris recalled that when he resigned, “everyone wanted to talk to me,” so he did frequent television interviews that were serious and respectful. When I spoke with Harris on the phone earlier this month, he mentioned that on the previous night he had watched CNN’s Anderson Cooper show and the panel discussion included eight participants who competed for precious airtime for their seconds-long sound bites.

“Back in my day, you had a one-on-one interview,” Harris said. “But in a heartbeat today, you can get 50 people on a panel.”

The warning Harris received as a diplomat-in-training remains painfully relevant. Although some things have changed in a good way — Harris notes there are now more career opportunities outside government for people who resign — in general, leakers and whistleblowers tend to be shunned and punished by the institutions they leak against, even if the public welcomes their disclosures. While there is little hard data, a 1975 study looked at the resignations of high-level officials between 1900 and 1970. Only 34 of those resignations involved a public protest of some sort, and only one of the officials who resigned in public eventually returned to an equivalent or higher post in government.

“If you want somebody to stand up and say no and be noticed, you can’t have somebody like me, who was midlevel,” Kenny said. “You have to have someone quite senior to throw themselves on the barbed wire. But I’m not sure anyone who is in a position to be listened to would want to do it.”

For information on contacting The Intercept anonymously via SecureDrop, instructions are here: https://theintercept.com/leak/

Correction: January 29, 2017
This story has been updated to reflect that Stephen Walker formed a Bosnia advocacy group with Marshall Harris.

Illustration: Vivienne Flesher for The Intercept

The post Should Officials Resign When the Government Goes Crazy? appeared first on The Intercept.

“I woke up yesterday to this news, and it filled me with sadness,” Varona told Keyssar, a photographer who documented her life in Tijuana — separated from her children — last spring. “To me, the wall means misery. It makes me think of death, of how many people die trying to cross these borders, and it represents hatred for my community. It means separation of families.”

Mexican federal policemen conduct a tour of the U.S.-Mexico border wall near Tijuana on April 8, 2016.

Natalie Keyssar

Varona is one of scores of women who have been separated from their children both legally and physically after being deported from the United States. But she has bonded with others facing a similar plight through the activist organization Dreamers Moms. Though their stories vary, the women share a similar fate: They wait in Tijuana, often for years, for a chance to see their families. Some women have lost contact, while others find ways to connect with their children from afar.

Keyssar, whose reporting for this story was supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation, spent time with half a dozen Dreamers Moms during her week in Tijuana. Her photographs convey a sense of loss, but the women remained hopeful.

One Dreamers Mom, Emma Sanchez Paulsen, is married to an American military veteran who brings her children, who were born in the United States, to visit as often as they are able. As Sanchez Paulsen waits out a 10-year-ban from the United States for entering the country illegally, she finds ways to connect with her children. In her self-published children’s book “El Pequeño Elfo,” Sanchez-Paulsen explains the separation to her children through illustrations and words.

Montserrat Godoy, another Dreamers Mom, first entered the U.S. illegally with her husband and settled in North Carolina. When she left the relationship and the country because of spousal abuse, she was ultimately separated from her children, who are citizens, when she was denied re-entry to the United States. Godoy said that despite being awarded joint custody by a North Carolina court, the arrangement is untenable and their contact is limited — she remains behind a wall with her children on the other side.

Speaking from limbo in Tijuana, Varona emphasized the human suffering that Trump’s rhetoric obliterates. “He is talking about people,” she told Keyssar. “We feel and love and cry too. We need to be with our families. We need to be making bridges, not borders and divisions. That is what the world needs right now.”

Emma Sanchez-Paulsen displays family photographs on a shelf in the living room of her Tijuana home.

Natalie Keyssar

A group of children play at a spring festival in the small border town of Jacumel near Tijuana, on April 8, 2016.

Natalie Keyssar

Emma Sanchez Paulsen talks to her son, who lives in the United States, over Facetime from the living room of her Tijuana home.

Natalie Keyssar

A Mexican federal policeman stands outside a car window during a tour of the wall at Mexico’s border with the U.S., near Tijuana, on April 8.

Natalie Keyssar

Maria de la Luz Montalvo stands on the stairways of her Tijuana apartment building. Also a Dreamers Mom, she was deported from the U.S. nearly six years ago. Her husband, a U.S. Citizen, abused her. Stories of abuse are common among Dreamers Moms, who say they often have no legal recourse to take if their husband is a citizen. De la Luz Montalvo said that her husband does not allow her to speak to her children on the phone and has only permitted one visit.

Natalie Keyssar

A statue of the Christ stands near the neighborhood of Camino Verde in Tijuana on April 9.

Natalie Keyssar

A detail of a sculpture of Christ on the cross, which is displayed at a migrant shelter in Tijuana on April 5, 2016. Many of the Dreamers Moms have stayed in shelters like this one at some point in their journeys.

Natalie Keyssar

Emma Sanchez Paulsen shows her children’s baby teeth, which she keeps as one of the many tokens of her family that resides on the other side of the border.

Natalie Keyssar

El Pequeño Elfo is a children’s book that Emma Sanchez-Paulsen wrote and illustrated to explain the separation to her children.

Natalie Keyssar

Emma Sanchez Paulsen poses for a portrait in her bedroom in Tijuana. Sanchez Paulson, who has been deported and banned, is married with three children.

A donkey is tied up near the border wall in Tijuana, on April 5.

Natalie Keyssar

Leticia Orozco and Manuel Aguirre peer through the border at their children and grandchildren at Friendship Park in Tijuana on April 9.

Natalie Keyssar

A Mexican federal policeman at the border wall near Tijuana.

Natalie Keyssar

The post Deported Mothers, Separated From Their Children, Wait in Limbo at the Mexican Border appeared first on The Intercept.

Em abril de 2014, a CHTP, que construiu e opera a Usina Hidrelétrica Teles Pires, uma das quatro sendo finalizadas no rio Teles Pires, recebeu o Certificado Selo Verde na categoria Gestão Socioambiental Responsável do Prêmio Chico Mendes. O certificado é um reconhecimento do Instituto Internacional de Pesquisa e Responsabilidade Socioambiental Chico Mendes a empresas que são “exemplos de solução de conflitos entre desenvolvimento, justiça social e equilíbrio ambiental”.

O Prêmio Chico Mendes não é o único reconhecimento “verde” que a CHTP ostenta. Dois outros grupos ligados ao setor energético – Power Brasil e Instituto Acende Brasil – premiaram a empresa em 2014 e 2016, respectivamente, por sua inovação e em reconhecimento ao seu empenho social e ambiental.

Foto: Divulgação

Lideranças indígenas, pesquisadores e ambientalistas se perguntam como é possível que a UHE Teles Pires seja considerada esse “exemplo de sustentabilidade”. Afinal, o empreendimento é conhecido por ter prejudicado a vida das comunidades tradicionais e dos povos indígenas, impactado a biodiversidade, ter acelerado o desmatamento na sua área de influência e, ainda, ter destruído locais sagrados para os índios da região.

Átila Rocha Macedo, coordenador de Comunicação Social da CHTP, mostra bem o viés propagandístico da companhia quando diz à reportagem que o Certificado Selo Verde foi concedido em reconhecimento à contribuição que a empresa faz ao desenvolvimento sustentável e à “melhoria de vida da população nos municípios em sua área de abrangência”.

Por outro lado, o arqueólogo Francisco Pugliese, pesquisador do Laboratório de Arqueologia dos Trópicos do Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia da Universidade de São Paulo, afirma, em entrevista a The Intercept Brasil, que “esse prêmio vai contra tudo o que se espera de algo que carrega o nome Chico Mendes e seus desdobramentos serão catastróficos se a UHE Teles Pires for tomada como exemplo de responsabilidade social”.

“A decisão política de construir a UHE Teles Pires veio anos antes dos estudos de viabilidade técnica, econômica e ambiental serem feitos.”

A UHE Teles Pires custou mais de R$ 4 bilhões e tem capacidade máxima de geração de 1.820 megawatts, energia suficiente para abastecer uma população de 5 milhões de habitantes. A usina foi construída na divisa de Mato Grosso e Pará, sobre o rio Teles Pires, principal formador do rio Tapajós, e recebeu a licença de instalação do Ibama em 2010. A obra estava pronta para entrar em operação em novembro de 2015. A oposição ao projeto, com inúmeros protestos e ações judiciais de povos indígenas, comunidades tradicionais, pesquisadores e Ministério Público Federal (MPF), começou ainda durante a fase de estudos da usina e continua até hoje.

Predação certificada

Além dos prêmios de “sustentabilidade”, a CHTP ganhou outro tipo de reconhecimento por seus “préstimos” ambientais. Em 2012, a companhia se candidatou e obteve créditos de carbono no âmbito do Protocolo de Kyoto. No regime do Mecanismo de Desenvolvimento Limpo (MDL), projetos de países em desenvolvimento que reduzem emissões de dióxido de carbono geram créditos, que, por sua vez, podem ser negociados ou vendidos para países industrializados a fim de compensar suas metas de redução de emissão de gases.

Ao habilitar a CHTP, o MDL desconsiderou pesquisas científicas que mostram que a vegetação em decomposição nas barragens tropicais emitem quantidades significativas de metano, gás 20 vezes mais danoso ao clima que dióxido de carbono.

“Vários estudos indicam que as emissões de represamentos na Amazônia são substanciais ao longo dos seus primeiros dez anos, justamente o período coberto pelos créditos de carbono”, observou Philip Fearnside, professor do Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA) e ganhador de Prêmio Nobel por trabalhos sobre aquecimento global.

Pescaria ao amanhecer.

Foto: Mayangdi Inzaulgarat

Estudos “de encomenda”

Essa imagem pública da CHTP toda trabalhada na “inovação e sustentabilidade” leva os menos atentos a imaginar que o projeto foi analisado e discutido criteriosamente antes de ser implementado pelo governo.

Não foi o que ocorreu, de acordo com Brent Millikan, diretor do programa Amazônia da ONG International Rivers. “No Plano Decenal de Energia (PDE) de 2008, o Ministério de Minas e Energia deixou claro que a decisão política de construir a usina de Teles Pires já estava tomada – ou seja, dois anos antes da apresentação do Estudo e Relatório de Impacto Ambiental (EIA/Rima) que avaliariam os impactos socioambientais e as viabilidades técnica e econômica do projeto”, afirma.

Montagem: Mauricio Torres

Quando finalmente o EIA/Rima foi realizado, tomou-se cuidado para que ele não trouxesse “surpresas” que se opusessem aos interesses barrageiros. Millikan explica que, “no caso da UHE Teles Pires, uma das contratadas para a realização dos estudos de impacto foi a empresa Leme Engenharia, que foi sócia da Odebrecht – além da Andrade Gutierrez e da Engevix – na construção da UHE Capim Branco I e II, no rio Araguari-MG. Além disso, a Leme Engenharia é vinculada à empresa energética belga-francesa GDF Suez/Engie, que tem projetos na bacia do Tapajós. Ainda assim, o governo nunca cogitou haver qualquer conflito de interesses”.

“A decisão política de construir a UHE Teles Pires veio anos antes dos estudos de viabilidade técnica, econômica e ambiental serem feitos”, continua Millikan.

Brent Millikan, International Rivers.

Foto: Mauricio Torres

Os estudos realizados pela Leme e as outras empresas deveriam ter atentado a todos os potenciais impactos da usina, incluindo efeitos negativos sobre pesca, ecossistemas aquáticos e terrestres, biodiversidade, comunidades tradicionais e povos indígenas, mudanças climáticas, entre outros. Porém, nem os estudos nem a análise do Ibama (o órgão federal que concedeu a licença ambiental) encontraram qualquer tipo de inconveniente que resultasse em atrasos significativos ou redesenhos do projeto.

Solange Arrolho, professora da Universidade Estadual de Mato Grosso e coordenadora do laboratório de ictiologia da universidade, disse a The Intercept Brasil que “a maior parte dos pesquisadores que fazem os estudos não são da região. Não vão a uma peixaria, à feira. Conversam muito pouco com pescadores ou com as universidades locais. Moro aqui há 25 anos. Os estudos das hidrelétricas foram feitos por gente que nunca pisou nessa universidade para coletar informações”.

De acordo com Arrolho, a precariedade das pesquisas leva a um grave subdimensionamento dos verdadeiros custos dos empreendimentos: “Qual o custo de uma estrada ou de uma hidrelétrica, por exemplo? Comumente se chega à conclusão de que é viável por não se levar em consideração todo o passivo ambiental e social que a obra traz. Os processos de compensações socioambientais da usinas são irrisórios diante de todo o impacto”.

Ricardo Scoles, doutor em ecologia e professor da Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará, concorda. “Não há argumentos científicos que possam garantir baixos impactos socioambientais quando se trata de construção de barragens em bacias de alta diversidade socioambiental como o Teles Pires. Temos que lembrar que a área Tapajós-Xingu é considerada uma região de alto endemismo e, portanto, os potenciais impactos sobre a fauna seriam mais severos e irreversíveis já que muitas espécies de animais somente são encontradas nessa biorregião”.

“É altamente irresponsável interferir na dinâmica dos cursos d’água localizados na Amazônia Meridional, uma região já atingida por mudanças climáticas locais, com diminuição média da precipitação e secas mais prolongadas”, explica Soles.

“Na Amazônia, o rio é a ‘alma’ da vida animal e humana”.

Foto: Mayangdi Inzaulgarat

Licenciamento Cosmético

Quem acompanhou o processo de perto sabe que servidores do Ibama e da Funai tentaram garantir alguma seriedade ao licenciamento, mas foram silenciados. Millikan relata que “a Empresa de Pesquisa Energética (EPE), órgão federal encarregado do planejamento do fornecimento de energia no Brasil, ficou ‘indignada’ quando técnicos do Ibama e da Funai levantaram objeções ao projeto, ainda que formalmente fosse sua obrigação fazê-lo”.

A situação com a Funai foi particularmente tensa. Millikan prossegue: “Em dezembro de 2010, servidores da Funai produziram uma crítica técnica detalhada ao EIA, justificando por que a parte do estudo que se referia aos povos indígenas teria que ser completamente reformulada. Alguns dias depois, o presidente do órgão, sob intensa pressão do setor energético – que tinha o apoio do gabinete da Presidência da República – anuiu com a emissão da primeira das três licenças para o empreendimento”.

Desde 2010, em vista do grande número de irregularidades, a Justiça Federal considerou, em várias instâncias, o estudo de impacto ambiental da UHE Teles Pires “totalmente viciado e nulo de pleno direito, por agredir os princípios constitucionais de ordem pública, da impessoalidade e da moralidade ambiental” . Mesmo assim, os embargos ao empreendimento caíram sucessivamente com a aplicação do mecanismo de Suspensão de Segurança a pedido do governo federal.

Os Munduruku e a Caixa de Comentários

Sem espaço para análises técnicas, sem a participação dos índios, sem segurança jurídica e sem a realização de consulta prévia, um dos únicos foros de discussão (bastante limitada) sobre a UHE Teles Pires foi a seção de comentários públicos do website Mecanismo de Desenvolvimento Limpo (MDL). Ainda em 2012, quando a CHTP buscava se habilitar, várias entidades, brasileiras e internacionais fizeram objeções à concessão dos créditos à companhia.

Sucessivos barramentos nos rios geram efeitos cumulativos. Os estudos, entretanto, avaliam os impactos isoladamente.

Foto: Thaís Borges

Uma das questões discutidas ali foi o impacto da barragem sobre a vida espiritual dos Munduruku e outros povos indígenas da região, como a destruição da cachoeira de Sete Quedas, detalhado em artigo anterior.

Em resposta, a CHTP minimizou a relevância de Sete Quedas para os índios, alegando que a área não era frequentemente visitada e que estudos etnográficos sobre esse grupo étnico não mencionam a cachoeira de Sete Quedas como um local de importância cosmológica.

É mentira.

O fato da área não ser frequentada deve-se, justamente, à sua sacralidade. Na cultura Munduruku, os locais sagrados não devem ser perturbados. Há muito se sabia que a cachoeira Sete Quedas era um lugar sagrado para os índios Munduruku, inclusive com manifestações a esse respeito dos próprios índios. Também era sabido que a destruição da cachoeira traria consequências catastróficas para a cosmologia desse povo.

CHTP deixa sua marca – nos peixes

Apesar da falta de dados históricos e da construção apressada da barragem, a especialista em peixes Solange Arrolho diz que o empreendimento certamente afetou a migração de peixes. “Antes do rio ser barrado, alguns peixes – principalmente os maiores – migravam para alcançar o alto curso do Teles Pires, algo que não podem mais fazer, pois a obra não conta com o canal lateral para permitir que os peixes a transponham”.

Sandro Waro Munduruku, da aldeia Teles Pires. Os povos indígenas do rio Teles Pires queixam-se muito da diminuição de peixes e da turvação das águas que lhes prejudica a pesca de mergulho.

Foto: Thaís Borges

Os peixes estariam, então, procurando outros lugares para se reproduzir rio abaixo. Arrolho adverte que também os impactos chegarão gradativamente à jusante: “Os peixes ficarão concentrados em pontos como o entorno da usina e estarão sob pressão de pesca e captura muito maiores”.

Suas opiniões são corroboradas pelo ecólogo e assessor ambiental do MPF no estado de Mato Grosso, Francisco Arruda Machado, popularmente conhecido como Chico Peixe. Ele contou à reportagem que, em janeiro de 2016, ao coletar exemplares de peixes no rio Verde, um afluente do Teles Pires, à montante da barragem, pôde notar os impactos. “No passado, eu coletava de 10 a 15 grandes peixes como matrinchã ou curimatá, cada um pesando de 2,5 a 3 kg”, disse ele. “Este ano eu não peguei nenhum. Isto me convence de que os peixes não estão conseguindo migrar à montante do rio para desovar”.

“Nas cabeceiras do Teles Pires há um grande polo do agronegócio que despeja um volume enorme de sedimentos e agrotóxicos. Rio abaixo, as barragens retêm e concentram esse material, agravando o efeito da contaminação”.

“Diminuiu muito o peixe. Está muito difícil a gente pegar peixe igual antes da barragem. O peixe está morrendo de cardume, a gente não sabe como vai sobreviver daqui pra frente”, diz Sandro Waro Munduruku, jovem liderança indígena.

Pode haver diversas razões para a escassez de peixe de que os Munduruku e outros povos indígenas que vivem na região da UHE se queixam muito. Os impactos se acumulam. Arrolho explica que, com o barramento do rio, “metano e outros gases são liberados com a decomposição de material orgânico. Quando esses gases vêm para a superfície, a água se torna mais ácida, a temperatura aumenta e diminui a quantidade de oxigênio. Toda a estrutura do rio é alterada. Os bichos não comem direito e não têm nutrientes para processos reprodutivos”.

Solange Arrolho, especialista em peixes.

Foto: Thaís Borges

“Os impactos se acumulam. Nas cabeceiras do Teles Pires há um grande polo do agronegócio que despeja um volume enorme de sedimentos e agrotóxicos. Rio abaixo, as barragens retêm e concentram esse material, agravando o efeito da contaminação”, diz Arrolho.

O antropólogo Rinaldo Arruda, da Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, reitera a gravidade dos impactos sobre o rio: “Na Amazônia, o rio é a ‘alma’ da vida animal e humana, tudo acontece no e ao redor do rio. Quando os rios são seccionados em uma série de lagos com barragens hidrelétricas, tudo isso é drasticamente perturbado.”

Energia (nem tão) limpa, barra suja

Em um número especial da revista Teles Pires, a Neoenergia, principal parceira do consórcio de construção da barragem, escreveu que havia redesenhado o projeto original e repetiu que “comparada a outros empreendimentos hidrelétricos, a obra se destaca pelo alto rendimento de geração de energia e baixo impacto” e que “a CHTP avaliou e alterou o projeto original da hidrelétrica para reduzir ainda mais os impactos ambientais”, com “o uso de técnicas avançadas de engenharia sustentável”.

Até hoje, nenhuma grande represa foi construída na Amazônia sem gerar grande influxo populacional, brutal valorização das terras e aumento de investimentos ligados à degradação florestal.

Entretanto, os resultados práticos se mostram diferentes. Em entrevista à Repórter Brasil, a CHTP garante ter tomado o cuidado de não danificar a floresta ao construir a barragem, alojando os 6 mil trabalhadores da construção na própria obra, em canteiros que já estariam sendo gradativamente desmontados e a área isolada. Tentando transmitir modernidade e cuidado, a empresa alega que Teles Pires é uma usina-plataforma por empregar um sistema similar ao de plataformas petrolíferas no oceano, o que impediria a formação de povoados ao redor da obra.

Tal narrativa pode até servir às estratégias de marketing da CHTP, mas é inócua em relação aos impactos indiretos da usina, principalmente o desmatamento gerado por terceiros associados ao empreendimento, como prestadores de serviço, por exemplo.

Até hoje, nenhuma grande represa foi construída na Amazônia sem gerar grande influxo populacional, brutal valorização das terras e aumento de investimentos ligados à degradação florestal.

A Bacia do Teles Pires não é exceção. Em 2010, antes da obra ser iniciada, a cidade mais próxima, Paranaíta, era a 93ª mais desmatada do país. Com a chegada da hidrelétrica, em 2014, o município saltou para a 26ª posição. Indagada a respeito, a CHTP responde simplesmente que “não há como estabelecer qualquer nexo com a chegada do empreendimento.” A empresa parece acreditar em “coincidências” convenientes.

Construção da usina São Manoel

Foto: International Rivers

Passando vergonha

Os críticos da UHE Teles Pires admitem que a CHTP não é a única responsável pelos impactos ambientais e sociais da usina – os maiores danos socioambientais devem ser compartilhados. Afinal, foi o governo federal que decidiu lançar o projeto, executar – e aprovar – estudos inadequados, evitar um debate público aberto, descumprir a obrigatoriedade legal de consultar povos e comunidades tradicionais e até recorrer a atos autoritários, como o instrumento da suspensão de segurança, para construir a barragem.

Com a usina hidrelétrica em operação, muitos que acompanham o processo ficaram perplexos quando um prêmio que leva o nome de Chico Mendes foi concedido à CHTP. Vale ressaltar que a filha do seringueiro, Elenira Mendes, insiste há anos para que o Instituto deixe de usar o nome de seu pai no prêmio – sem obter sucesso.

O arqueólogo Francisco Pugliese observa: “Se olharmos a premiação de perto, veremos que foi concedida por um instituto privado e direcionada a um campo muito específico do poder econômico nacional, que atua não só no Brasil, mas em vários países de diversas partes do globo: as grandes empreiteiras.”

Nesse enredo de licenciamentos cosméticos e atropelos aos direitos de povos e comunidades tradicionais e ambientais, premiações como essas operam um ambientalismo de mercado que esconde os desmandos e impactos do empreendimento. Usam selos concebidos como propaganda para promover a imagem da empresa e aumentar os seus lucros.

O caso da CHTP na Bacia do Tapajós comprova que as mídias e redes podem ser até novas, mas o conceito aplicado é a velha e conhecida “maquiagem verde”. Não há nada de inovador e sustentável sob o sol do marketing falacioso de empreiteiras e setores governamentais de energia que lideram a corrida barrageira na Amazônia e ameaçam a sobrevivência dos povos indígenas. Chico Mendes sentiria vergonha.

UHE Teles Pires

Foto: Divulgação

Esta matéria é da série exclusiva “Tapajós sob Ataque”, escrita pela jornalista Sue Branford e pelo cientista social Mauricio Torres, que percorrem a bacia Tapajós. A série é produzida em colaboração com Mongabay, portal independente de jornalismo ambiental. Leia a versão em inglês. Acompanhe outras reportagens no The Intercept Brasil ao longo das próximas semanas.

Agradecemos o Instituto Centro de Vida (ICV) e a International Rivers pelo apoio logístico na região do rio Teles Pires.

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Krixi Biwün (ou Valmira Krixi Munduruku, como consta em seu batismo cristão) é uma guerreira e importante matriarca da aldeia Teles Pires, localizada à margem direita do rio de mesmo nome na divisa entre Pará e Mato Grosso (ver mapa). A sabedoria sobre antigas histórias de seu povo fazem de Biwün uma grande liderança da aldeia. Seu conhecimento tradicional ensina desde como se deve banhar uma menina com ervas para que se torne uma brava guerreira até as histórias da cosmologia de seu povo.

O local sagrado a que se refere a matriarca Munduruku era um trecho encachoeirado do rio Teles Pires conhecido como Sete Quedas ou Paribixexe em Munduruku. Em 2013, o consórcio responsável pela construção da usina hidrelétrica de Teles Pires — composto pelas empresas Odebrecht, Voith, Alston, PCE e Intertechne — obteve autorização judicial para iniciar a obra e acabou com as corredeiras. Ao explodir as pedras e abrir o leito do rio, o empreendimento destruiu também o que, na cosmologia dos povos indígenas da região, seria o equivalente ao “céu” ou “paraíso” na cultura cristã.

“A gente tinha esse lugar sagrado e quando morria ia pra lá. Mas como o governo agora tá dinamitando tudo, mesmo indo pra ser espírito, a gente vai acabar. A gente vai morrer no espírito também”, acrescenta a matriarca.

Corredeiras no Rio Teles Pires

Foto: Thaís Borges

Mundurukânia

As 90 famílias da aldeia que visitamos são uma pequena parte da população Munduruku, que soma cerca de 13 mil índios distribuídos por 112 aldeias concentradas no alto Tapajós. O povo Munduruku já ocupou a bacia do Tapajós de forma tão ampla que “ainda no Brasil colonial, todo o rio Tapajós chegou a ser conhecido pelos europeus como ‘Mundurukânia’”, explica Bruna Rocha, professora de arqueologia da Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará.

A rápida expansão da exploração da borracha na segunda metade do século XIX e, mais tarde, as investidas das missões evangelizadoras e do próprio Estado com propósitos de “assimilar” os povos indígenas à “sociedade nacional”, levaram os munduruku a perder muito de seu território. “Restaram fragmentos no baixo Tapajós e bolsões maiores no curso superior do rio, que representam apenas uma fração do que já ocuparam no passado”, completa a arqueóloga.

A barragem hidrelétrica Teles Pires em construção.

Foto cortesia de Brent Millikan/International Rivers

Esses fragmentos do território Munduruku sofrem cada vez mais os impactos de grandes hidrelétricas que vêm sendo construídas e planejadas na região. Brent Millikan, diretor do Programa da Amazônia da ONG International Rivers, explica que, após a liberação da construção da hidrelétrica de Belo Monte, no rio Xingu, em 2011, a meta do governo passou a ser o rio Teles Pires.

 “Quatro barragens estão sendo construídas simultaneamente. Duas muito perto de terras indígenas, Teles Pires e São Manoel. São Manoel fica a 300 metros da fronteira de uma TI onde vivem grupos Munduruku, Kayabi e Apiaká, com impactos diretos na vida desses povos, e tem previsão de desviar o rio para encher seu reservatório no início de 2017” (ver Mapa).

Millikan relata que, diferente de Belo Monte – obra com ampla repercussão midiática nacional e internacional -, “os projetos do rio Teles Pires correram na surdina graças a uma combinação de fatores: dificuldade de acesso ao local, construções menos ‘grandiosas’ – para usar as palavras de Dilma Rousseff – desinteresse da grande imprensa e a pouca presença de entidades da sociedade civil que pudessem apoiar os grupos ameaçados”.

Uma dança tradicional Munduruku. Uma corredeira sagrada, conhecida como Sete Quedas, o “Paraíso” Munduruku foi dinamitado para dar espaço a uma barragem em 2013. Um conjunto de artefatos sagrados também foi apreendido pelo consórcio das barragens e pelo Estado.

Foto: Thaís Borges

Valmira Krixi Munduruku: “É tempo de morte. Os Munduruku vão começar a morrer. Haverão acidentes. Mesmo os menores acidentes resultarão em morte. Não será por acaso. Tudo isso porque o governo interferiu com um local sagrado”.

Foto: Thais Borges

 “Nós nunca aceitamos o projeto”

Assim como o resto da sociedade, os Munduruku também não sabiam o quanto seriam prejudicados com a implementação das barragens. “O governo nunca informou a gente. O governo sempre falou coisa boa, que vai acontecer coisa boa, mas ele nunca contou o impacto que podia trazer”, ressente-se o cacique Disma Muo.

“Nós nunca aceitamos o projeto e, quando protestamos, o governo disse que a terra não é dos índios. Que a terra é do governo, então, não tem como os índios impedir e eles constroem o que eles querem”, continuou Muo.

Não é bem o que diz a lei. Embora, tecnicamente, as terras indígenas sejam de propriedade da União, os povos indígenas têm usufruto exclusivo e perpétuo sobre tais territórios. Além disso, a obrigação de ouvir e consultar os índios é indiscutível.

Rodrigo Oliveira, mestre em direito e assessor do Ministério Público Federal (MPF) em Santarém, explica que, como era evidente que haveria impactos a povos e comunidades tradicionais, o governo brasileiro estava obrigado a consultá-los de maneira prévia, livre e informada. “A consulta deve ocorrer desde os primeiros passos do licenciamento e ser anterior a qualquer tomada de decisão. Esse processo de consulta se torna obrigatório em decorrência de o Brasil ser signatário da Convenção nº. 169 da Organização Internacional do Trabalho (OIT)”.

Guerreiros Munduruku. Sendo um grupo de 13 mil indígenas cheios de orgulho, os Munduruku estão tomando uma posição desafiadora contra o plano do governo brasileiro de construir inúmeras barragens no Rio Tapajós e em seus afluentes.

Foto: Mauricio Torres

Suspensão de Segurança ou de Direitos?

Em resposta a ações ajuizadas pelo MPF, a Justiça Federal de Mato Grosso chegou a parar as obras das barragens em decorrência do descumprimento da obrigatoriedade da Consulta Prévia, uma vez que havia evidências de que os índios enfrentariam “danos iminentes e irreversíveis para sua qualidade de vida e seu patrimônio”. Porém, sempre que o MPF obtinha vitórias em favor dos povos indígenas, os grandes interesses do setor energético as derrubavam em instâncias superiores.

Em grande medida, essa dinâmica ocorreu porque, durante os treze anos de gestão federal do PT, intensificou-se o uso de um mecanismo chamado “Suspensão de Segurança”. Trata-se de um instrumento jurídico amplamente empregado pela ditadura militar, em que uma decisão judicial fundamentada legalmente pode ser revertida em instância superior em nome da “segurança nacional”, da “ordem pública” ou da “economia nacional”.

Eurico Krixi Munduruku: “Quando eles dinamitaram a cachoeira, dinamitaram a Mãe dos Peixes e a Mãe dos Animais que caçamos. Portanto, esses peixes e animais morrerão. Tudo aquilo que faz parte de nossas vidas morrerá. É o fim dos Munduruku”.

Foto: Mauricio Torres

Segundo o Procurador da República Luís de Camões Lima Boaventura, “dados levantados pelo MPF concluem que, apenas em relação aos projetos hidrelétricos da bacia do Teles Pires-Tapajós, obtivemos 80% de vitórias em ações judiciais que buscavam o ajuste de tais empreendimentos à legalidade. Nenhuma dessas decisões foi observada. Todas foram revertidas por suspensão de segurança”.

Em março de 2016, o Brasil recebeu a visita de Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, relatora especial da ONU sobre povos indígenas, que também mostrou preocupação com o uso da suspensão de segurança. A relatora da ONU referiu-se ao instrumento jurídico como um grande obstáculo à defesa dos direitos dos povos indígenas no judiciário brasileiro.

“Eu diria que a Amazônia não tem sido vista como um território a ser conquistado. Pior, tem sido vista como um território a ser saqueado. A exploração que em regra aqui se pratica é predação”, diz Procurador da República Luís de Camões Lima Boaventura.

Um mundo que deixou de existir 

Além da destruição das cachoeiras, os Munduruku sofreram também outro forte baque imposto pela usina Teles Pires: a retirada de doze urnas mortuárias e peças arqueológicas com dimensão sagrada de uma região próxima a Sete Quedas.

Referindo-se a esse patrimônio, o Cacique Disma Muo – que também é pajé (uma autoridade espiritual) da aldeia – explica: “toda cerâmica, flecha, borduna, tudo é sagrado. Porque foram colocados no tempo em que a gente guerreava e que a gente trafegava muito e fomos deixando lá, escolhendo o local para ser sagrado e hoje está sendo destruído pela hidrelétrica”.

O ancião Eurico Krixi Munduruku também demonstra muita angústia com a profanação das urnas: “Não era pra mexer de jeito nenhum. E não é o branco que vai pagar por isso. Somos nós, os Munduruku vivos, que vamos pagar, em forma de acidente, em forma de doença, em… em morte de índio Munduruku. Os antepassados deixaram lá pra gente proteger. É guerreiro vivo que tem que proteger aquelas urnas”.

Mapa mostrando os reservatórios criados pelas barragens no Rio Teles Pires e a invasão das terras indígenas.

Montagem: Mauricio Torres

Atropelos e Injustiças

A resolução da questão não parece próxima. Levando adiante o desencontro e atropelo históricos aos valores indígenas, o Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional (Iphan), tem, nesse caso, um papel de destaque. Primeiro por ter, polemicamente, autorizado tais escavações sem a aceitação do povo Munduruku; segundo, por já ter afirmado que as urnas são patrimônio público federal, que não serão reenterradas e que compete ao Iphan determinar qual museu receberá o material.

O arqueólogo Francisco Pugliese, pesquisador do Laboratório de Arqueologia dos Trópicos do Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia da Universidade de São Paulo, é um crítico feroz da atuação do Iphan nesse processo. Para ele, “o órgão desobrigou o empreendedor a cumprir as pesquisas que deveriam ser feitas com o povo Munduruku para a proteção de seus lugares sagrados, uma vez que aquela etnia se posiciona contrariamente à implantação de barragens em seus territórios, desrespeitando a legislação sobre o tema e criando o precedente para que situações como essa sejam replicadas em contextos semelhantes”.

 “O fato dos Munduruku não terem aceitado participar dos estudos arqueológicos impedia que o Iphan autorizasse os trabalhos. Assim, a licença concedida para as escavações à revelia desse povo sobrepôs o direito da União ao direito cultural e territorial Munduruku, resultando na violação dos cemitérios e na expropriação dos remanescentes de seus antepassados”. – arqueólogo Francisco Pugliese. 

A reportagem tentou várias vezes entrar em contato com Iphan mas não foi concedida uma entrevista. As urnas, hoje, são alvo de ação na Justiça Federal e estão armazenadas pela Companhia Hidrelétrica Teles Pires (CHTP), na cidade de Alta Floresta (MT) e não nos foi permitido vê-las.

O recém construído porto de processamento de soja de Miritituba no Rio Tapajós. Financiado e construído por comerciantes de commodities brasileiros e estrangeiros que anteciparam a aprovação por parte do Congresso Nacional de uma hidrovia industrial, novas estradas e uma ferrovia. Se a construção for adiante, causará enorme desmatamento e danos ecológicos à Bacia do Tapajós, ao mesmo tempo que empobrecerá a cultura indígena.

Foto: Walter Guimarães

Etnocídio: a morte da identidade indígena

A profanação de locais sagrados reflete-se no cotidiano material dos índios. Para os Munduruku, a explosão das corredeiras iniciou uma destruição em cadeia: “a explosão da dinamite no local sagrado é o fim da religião, é o fim da cultura. É o fim do povo Munduruku. Quando eles dinamitaram a cachoeira, eles mataram as Mães dos Peixes e a Mães das Caças. Então, vão morrer esses animais e esses peixes, com que a gente é envolvido. E isso é o fim do Munduruku”, explica Eurico Krixi.

“O que diria o homem branco se nós construíssemos nossas aldeias em cima de suas propriedades, de seus santuários e cemitérios?”, questiona o Manifesto dos povos Munduruku, Apiaká e Kaiaby, fruto de reunião dos indígenas em 2011 em protesto contra a construção das hidrelétricas. 

Recentemente, em 2 de dezembro de 2016, o MPF obteve a segunda vitória da ação judicial que já havia parado as obras das usinas pela falta da consulta prévia. A 5ª Turma do Tribunal Regional Federal da 1ª Região (TRF1), por unanimidade, reconheceu em mais uma instância a ilegalidade da UHE Teles Pires. Os desembargadores ordenaram a realização de consulta livre, prévia e informada, nos moldes previstos na Convenção 169 da OIT, com os povos indígenas Kayabi, Munduruku e Apiaká, atingidos pelo empreendimento. Em seu voto, o desembargador Antônio Souza Prudente chamou a atenção à destruição de Sete Quedas.

Marcelo Munduruku: “O etnocídio continua, na forma como as pessoas olham para nós, na maneira como querem que sejamos como elas, subjugando nossas organizações, na maneira como dizem que nossa religião não tem valor e que a deles é que importa, na maneira como dizem que nosso comportamento é impróprio. Estão destruindo a identidade dos índios enquanto seres humanos.”

Foto: Thaís Borges

A realização da consulta prévia já havia sido ordenada em 1ª instância, mas a Companhia Hidrelétrica Teles Pires recorreu. Agora, a Justiça também considerou inválida a licença de instalação da usina concedida pelo Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente (Ibama). Entretanto, assim como a primeira, esta decisão do Tribunal não vai entrar em vigor. Por conta do recurso da suspensão de segurança, apesar da reiterada ilegalidade da obra, nenhuma decisão judicial tem efeito até que o processo seja julgado em última instância, que no caso, é o Supremo Tribunal Federal.

“O Estado-Nação estabelece uma hierarquia de valores a partir de critérios como classe, origem social, cor e etnia. Nessa subordinação classificatória, determinados grupos têm valores que ‘importam menos’, e são tidos como culturalmente inferiores e passíveis de serem simplesmente apagados”, explica pesquisadora Rosamaria Loures, estudiosa da resistência Munduruku.

Marcelo Manhuary Munduruku, que vive na TI Apiaká-Kaiaby, em Juara (MT), sofre na pele o dia-a-dia desse racismo: “O etnocídio continua hoje. Com o olhar que o pessoal tem sobre a gente, querendo que a gente seja igual a eles, subjugando as organizações nossas. Dizendo que a nossa religião não vale, que vale a deles. Dizendo que o nosso comportamento é errado, que Deus não é esse, que Deus é aquele. Desconfigurando aquilo que é a identidade do indígena”.

Esta matéria é da série exclusiva “Tapajós sob Ataque”, escrita pela jornalista Sue Branford e pelo cientista social Mauricio Torres, que percorrem a bacia Tapajós. A série é produzida em colaboração com Mongabay, portal independente de jornalismo ambiental. Leia a versão em inglês. Acompanhe outras reportagens no The Intercept Brasil ao longo das próximas semanas.

Agradecemos o Instituto Centro de Vida (ICV) e a International Rivers pelo apoio logístico na região do rio Teles Pires.

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