The FBI said it searched eight addresses in Minneapolis and Chicago Friday. Warrants suggest agents were looking for connections between local anti-war activists and groups in Colombia and the Middle East.
[….]
FBI spokesman Paul Bresson said Saturday that the bureau’s investigations “are predicated on criminal violations, not First Amendment protected activities.”
When reached Friday, FBI spokesman Steve Warfield declined to provide details of the searches, but said there was no imminent threat to the community and the agency wasn’t anticipating any arrests “at this time.” He said the FBI was seeking evidence related to “activities concerning the material support of terrorism.”
The peace activists were subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury in Chicago. The groups apparently were originally targeted after they participated in protests at the Republican Convention in 2008.
It turns out the FBI used a spy to infiltrate the Minnesota group and report back on their activities. Shades of COINTELPRO. Democracy Now reported on the story yesterday.
Minneapolis, MN – At a press conference here, Jan. 12, Jess Sundin of the Twin Cites based Anti-War Committee (AWC) blasted police infiltration of the anti-war and international solidarity movement, stating, “We are here today to express outrage that our democratic rights have been violated by a government operation of spying, infiltration and disruption of our anti-war movement, which was carried out over the course of at least two and half years.”
The exposure of an undercover law enforcement agent in the Twin Cities anti-war movement is linked to the Sept. 24, 2010 FBI raids on peace and international solidarity organizers and the subpoenas that have been served on 23 activists to appear in front of a Chicago Grand Jury.
The infiltrator, who used the name ‘Karen Sullivan,’ joined the AWC in April 2008, and about a year later she joined the Freedom Road Socialist Organization. A statement from the Committee to Stop FBI Repression notes, “In conversations between our attorneys and the prosecutor’s office in Chicago, we have had confirmation that Karen Sullivan was in fact a law enforcement officer working undercover.”
Sundin said, “In April 2008, law enforcement officer Karen Sullivan joined the Anti-War Committee. In 2008, we were involved in organizing the anti-war marches on the first and last days of the Republican National Convention in Saint Paul. At that time, there was a massive security operation here which included the infiltration of the RNC Welcoming Committee. We now have it confirmed that in this same time period, we too became the subject of government investigation. The difference is that our spy made herself comfortable and decided to stay awhile, posing as a fellow anti-war activist and pretending to befriend us.”
The government attempts to control not only the speech and actions, but also the thoughts of its subjects, labeling unapproved thoughts with the term thoughtcrime, or, in Newspeak, crimethink.
One of the more eye-opening events for me of 2010 occurred in March, when I first wrote about WikiLeaks and the war the Pentagon was waging on it (as evidenced by its classified 2008 report branding the website an enemy and planning how to destroy it). At the time, few had heard of the group — it was before it had released the video of the Apache helicopter attack — but I nonetheless believed it could perform vitally important functions and thus encouraged readers to donate to it and otherwise support it. In response, there were numerous people — via email, comments, and other means — who expressed a serious fear of doing so: they were worried that donating money to a group so disliked by the government would cause them to be placed on various lists or, worse, incur criminal liability for materially supporting a Terrorist organization.
Will we join the ranks of those the Justice Department consider materially supporting a Terrorist group if Wikileaks is redefined by the Justice Department from whistle blower site to Terrorist group? Should we all be getting lawyers like those peace activists who were hauled in for sending off old clothes to naked Palenstinians I described in a post calledNostalgic for Nixon? Better yet should we all line up with confession letters before we get hauled off to Saudi Arabia for extraordinary interviews and held in solitary confinement for extraordinary thought crime?
The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
You thought Nixon and Reagan were bad? Let’s see what the Obama/Holder Department of Justice has been up to while you may have been watching football. Glenn Greenwald heard and ignored a cautionary tale. He tells it all with the knowledge of present sight.
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