COINTELPRO

[Soleilmavis]

INTRODUCTION
Activists across the country report increasing government harassment and disruption of their work:
-In the Southwest, paid informers infiltrate the church services, Bible classes and support networks of clergy and lay workers giving sanctuary to refugees from El Salvador and Guatemala.
-In Alabama, elderly Black people attempting for the first time to exercise their right to vote are interrogated by FBI agents and hauled before federal grand juries hundreds of miles from their homes.
-In New England, a former CIA case officer cites examples from his own past work to warn college students of efforts by undercover operatives to misdirect and discredit protests against South African and US racism.
-In the San Francisco Bay Area, activists planning anti-nuclear civil disobedience learn that their meetings have been infiltrated by the US Navy.
-In Detroit, Seattle, and Philadelphia, in Cambridge, MA, Berkeley, CA., Phoenix, AR., and Washington, DC., churches and organizations opposing US policies in Central America report obviously political break ins in which important papers are stolen or damaged, while money and valuables are left untouched. License plates on a car spotted fleeing one such office have been traced to the US National Security Agency.
-In Puerto Rico, Texas and Massachusetts, labor leaders, community organizers, writers and editors who advocate Puerto Rican independence are branded by the FBI as "terrorists," brutally rounded-up in the middle of the night, held incommunicado for days and then jailed under new preventive detention laws.
-The FBI puts the same "terrorist" label on opponents of US intervention in El Salvador, but refuses to investigate the possibility of a political conspiracy behind nation-wide bombings of abortion clinics.
-Throughout the country, people attempting to see Nicaragua for themselves find their trips disrupted, their private papers confiscated, and their homes and offices plagued by FBI agents who demand detailed personal and political information.
These kinds of government tactics violate our fundamental constitutional rights. They make it enormously difficult to sustain grass-roots organizing. They create an atmosphere of fear and distrust which undermines any effort to challenge official policy.
Similar measures were used in the 1960s as part of a secret FBI program known as "COINTELPRO." COINTELPRO was later exposed and officially ended. But the evidence shows that it actually persisted and that clandestine operations to discredit and disrupt opposition movements have become an institutional feature of national and local government in the US. This pamphlet is designed to help current and future activists learn from the history of COINTELPRO, so that our movements can better withstand such attack.
The first section gives a brief overview of what we know the FBI did in the 60s. It explains why we can expect similar government intervention in the 80s and beyond, and offers general guidelines for effective response.
The main body of the pamphlet describes the specific methods which have previously been used to undermine domestic dissent and suggests steps we can take to limit or deflect their impact.

A final chapter explores ways to mobilize broad public protest against this kind of repression.
Further readings and groups that can help are listed in back. The pamphlet's historical analysis is based on confidential internal documents prepared by the FBI and police during the 60s.
It also draws on the post-60s confessions of disaffected government agents, and on the testimony of public officials before Congress and the courts. Though the information from these sources is incomplete, and much of what was done remains secret, we now know enough to draw useful lessons for future organizing. The suggestions included in the pamphlet are based on the author's 20 years experience as an activist and lawyer, and on talks with long-time organizers in a broad range of movements. They are meant to provide starting points for discussion, so we can get ready before the pressure intensifies. Most are a matter of common sense once the methodology of covert action is understood. Please take these issues seriously. Discuss the recommendations with other activists. Adapt them to the conditions you face. Point out problems and suggest other approaches. It is important that we begin now to protect our movements and ourselves.


A HISTORY TO LEARN FROM
WHAT WAS COINTELPRO?
"COINTELPRO" was the FBI's secret program to undermine the popular upsurge which swept the country during the 1960s. Though the name stands for "Counterintelligence Program," the targets were not enemy spies. The FBI set out to eliminate "radical" political opposition inside the US. When traditional modes of repression (exposure, blatant harassment, and prosecution for political crimes) failed to counter the growing insurgency, and even helped to fuel it, the Bureau took the law into its own hands and secretly used fraud and force to sabotage constitutionally- protected political activity. Its methods ranged far beyond surveillance, and amounted to a domestic version of the covert action for which the CIA has become infamous throughout the world.

HOW DO WE KNOW ABOUT IT?
COINTELPRO was discovered in March, 1971, when secret files were removed from an FBI office and released to news media. Freedom of Information requests, lawsuits, and former agents' public confessions deepened the exposure until a major scandal loomed. To control the damage and re-establish government legitimacy in the wake of Vietnam and Watergate, Congress and the courts compelled the FBI to reveal part of what it had done and to promise it would not do it again. Much of what has been learned, and copies of some of the actual documents, can be found in the readings listed at the back of this pamphlet.


HOW DID IT WORK?
The FBI secretly instructed its field offices to propose schemes to "misdirect, discredit, disrupt and otherwise neutralize "specific individuals and groups. Close coordination with local police and prosecutors was encouraged. Final authority rested with top FBI officials in Washington, who demanded assurance that "there is no possibility of embarrassment to the Bureau." More than 2000 individual actions were officially approved. The documents reveal three types of methods:
1. Infiltration: Agents and informers did not merely spy on political activists. Their main function was to discredit and disrupt. Various means to this end are analyzed below.
2. Other forms of deception: The FBI and police also waged psychological warfare from the outside through bogus publications, forged correspondence, anonymous letters and telephone calls, and similar forms of deceit.
3. Harassment, intimidation and violence: Eviction, job loss, break ins, vandalism, grand jury subpoenas, false arrests, frame- ups, and physical violence were threatened, instigated or directly employed, in an effort to frighten activists and disrupt their movements. Government agents either concealed their involvement or fabricated a legal pretext. In the case of the Black and Native American movements, these assaults including outright political assassinations were so extensive and vicious that they amounted to terrorism on the part of the government.

WHO WERE THE MAIN TARGETS?
The most intense operations were directed against the Black movement, particularly the Black Panther Party. This resulted from FBI and police racism, the Black community's lack of material resources for fighting back, and the tendency of the media and whites in general to ignore or tolerate attacks on Black groups. It also reflected government and corporate fear of the Black movement because of its militancy, its broad domestic base and international support, and its historic role in galvanizing the entire Sixties' upsurge. Many other activists who organized against US intervention abroad or for racial, gender or class justice at home also came under covert attack. The targets were in no way limited to those who used physical force or took up arms. Martin Luther King, David Dellinger, Phillip Berrigan and other leading pacifists were high on the list, as were projects directly protected by the Bill of Rights, such as alternative newspapers.
The Black Panthers came under attack at a time when their work featured free food and health care and community control of schools and police, and when they carried guns only for deterrent and symbolic purposes. It was the terrorism of the FBI and police that eventually provoked the Panthers to retaliate with the armed actions that later were cited to justify their repression.

Ultimately the FBI disclosed six official counterintelligence programs: Communist Party USA (1956-71); "Groups Seeking Independence for Puerto Rico" (1960-71); Socialist Workers Party (1961-71); "White Hate Groups" (1964-71); "Black Nationalist Hate Groups" (1967-71); and "New Left" (1968- 71). The latter operations hit anti-war, student, and feminist groups. The "Black Nationalist" caption actually encompassed Martin Luther King and most of the civil rights and Black Power movements. The "white hate" program functioned mainly as a cover for covert aid to the kkk and similar right wing vigilantes, who were given funds and information, so long as they confined their attacks to COINTELPRO targets. FBI documents also reveal covert action against Native American, Chicano, Philippine, Arab- American, and other activists, apparently without formal Counterintelligence programs.


WHAT EFFECT DID IT HAVE?
COINTELPRO's impact is difficult to fully assess since we do not know the entire scope of what was done (especially against such pivotal targets as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, SNCC and SDS) and we have no generally accepted analysis of the Sixties. It is clear, however, that:
-COINTELPRO distorted the public's view of radical groups in a way that helped to isolate them and to legitimize open political repression.

-It reinforced and exacerbated the weaknesses of these groups, making it very difficult for the inexperienced activists of the Sixties to learn from their mistakes and build solid, durable organizations.

-Its violent assaults and covert manipulation eventually helped to push some of the most committed and experienced groups to withdraw from grass-roots organizing and to substitute armed actions which isolated them and deprived the movement of much of its leadership.

-COINTELPRO often convinced its victims to blame themselves and each other for the problems it created, leaving a legacy of cynicism and despair that persists today.

-By operating covertly, the FBI and police were able to severely weaken domestic political opposition without shaking the conviction of most US people that they live in a democracy, with free speech and the rule of law.



THE DANGER WE FACE
DID COINTELPRO EVER REALLY END?
Public exposure of COINTELPRO in the early 1970s elicited a flurry of reform. Congress, the courts and the mass media condemned government "intelligence abuses." Municipal police forces officially disbanded their red squads. A new Attorney General notified past victims of COINTELPRO and issued Guidelines to limit future operations. Top FBI officials were indicted (albeit for relatively minor offenses), two were convicted, and several others retired or resigned. J. Edgar Hoover the egomaniacal, crudely racist and sexist founder of the FBI died, and a well known federal judge, William Webster, eventually was appointed to clean house and build a "new FBI."
Behind this public hoopla, however, was little real improvement in government treatment of radical activists. Domestic covert operations were briefly scaled down a bit, after the 60s' upsurge had largely subsided, due impart to the success of COINTELPRO. But they did not stop. In April, 1971, soon after files had been taken from one of its offices, the FBI instructed its agents that "future COINTELPRO actions will be considered on a highly selective, individual basis with tight procedures to insure absolute security." The results are apparent in the record of the subsequent years:

-A virtual war on the American Indian Movement, ranging from forgery of documents, infiltration of legal defense committees, diversion of funds, intimidation of witnesses and falsification of evidence, to the para-military invasion of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, and the murder of Anna Mae Aquash, Joe Stuntz and countless others;

-Sabotage of efforts to organize protest demonstrations at the 1972 Republican and Democratic Party conventions. The attempted assassination of San Diego Univ. Prof. Peter Bohmer, by a "Secret Army Organization" of ex-Minutemen formed, subsidized, armed, and protected by the FBI, was a part of these operations;

-Concealment of the fact that the witness whose testimony led to the 1972 robbery murder conviction of Black Panther leader Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt was a paid informer who had worked in the BPP under the direction of the FBI and the Los Angeles Police Department;

-Infiltration and disruption of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and prosecution of its national leaders on false charges (Florida, 1971-74);

-Formation and operation of sham political groups such as "Red Star Cadre," in Tampa, Fla., and the New Orleans "Red Collective" (1972-76);

-Mass interrogation of lesbian and feminist activists, threats of subpoenas, jailing of those who refused to cooperate, and disruption of women's health collectives and other projects (Lexington, KY., Hartford and New Haven, Conn., 1975);

-Harassment of the Hispanic Commission of the Episcopal Church and numerous other Puerto Rican and Chicano religious activists and community organizers (Chicago, New York City, Puerto Rico, Colorado and New Mexico, 1977);

-Entrapment and frame-up of militant union leaders (NASCO shipyards, San Diego, 1979); and

-Complicity in the murder of socialist labor and community organizers (Greensboro, N.C., 1980).


IS IT A THREAT TODAY?
More information http://www.thetalkingdrum.com/cointelpro.html#is

 

Please go to LAST PAGE OF "Replies to this Discussion" to read NEWEST Information

[Soleilmavis]

Some information about COINTELPRO
Write your testimonies to COINTELPROCONTINUESTODAY.ORG
http://www.cointelprocontinuestoday.org/mission.htm
Write your testimonies to this organization about your experiences with government Cointelpro Corruption. They will be collected to be submitted to Congress to open up a Congressional Hearing and Investigation into our Illegal and Covert Operations by our Government on its Domestic Citizenry.

From Bob Levin
Professor Alfred McCoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vTmCMSjBvE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8-RHMSR908
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8-RHMSR908

COINTELPRO 101 - The Sabotage Of Legitimate Dissent
Pentagon hacks blogs and changing messages to destroy the writer’s credibility while enlisting groups like FFCHS to subvert the positive efforts of Pro-TI Activists with COINTELPRO operations and propaganda. This is also realized by scientific articles disappearing or being changed on the internet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISkqQ3hpW5E

Norm Chomsky
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpAKfAtPfps

Ward Churchill on COINTELPRO and Terrorism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14W5hYRHjD0&feature=related

Cointelpro FBI (#24) [Marshal Thomas] Note I do not concur on any associations linking COINTELPRO to gang stalking.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbMsOGWN_ts&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtGrWUIz92Y&feature=related

FBI DIRECTOR ROBERT MUELLER TESTIFIES BEFORE CONGRESS [speaks of programs, software, “terrorism”, prosecutions of law enforcement]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guYXH_0-YAQ&feature=related

FBI history not always legal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVNu9XWQob4&feature=related

Alex Jones TV: Obama's Info Czar Sunstein, to Order Cointelpro, Military Provocateurs on Truthers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxYX5QNU5CA&feature=PlayList&...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzgUON8WGC4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY4oGEu3RG0&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghhWXtocgIA&feature=rec-fav-watc...

DALTON TRUMBO [McCarthyism] MUST LISTENING
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/dalton-trumbo/intr...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyWWb9QJOHs
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dalto+trumbo&search...

"Safety Bracelets" for air travelers that would include personal information and would not only track the wearer but also be capable of remotely delivering a taser-like shock.
http://fourwinds10.com/siterun_data/government/homeland_security_pa...

Another Fourwinds10.com
No-Planer Cointelpro Operation Becoming Transparent
http://fourwinds10.com/siterun_data/government/fraud/911_attack/new...

The above one describes the disinformation campaigns to label targets. Ex: Alex Jones:
Haupt continuously spreads disinformation, even abject lies, surrounding the 9/11 truth movement. From calling legitimate 9/11 truthers “Plane Huggers”, to claiming “Alex Jones works for ABC” and is “covering up for the media”, Haupt’s tactics and behavior exhibit classic COINTELPRO methods. Haupt even advocates “waterboarding Plane Huggers”.

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/gang-stalking-foia-and-cointelpro-co...

[Soleilmavis]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO

Reports that COINTELPRO tactics continue
While COINTELPRO was officially terminated in April 1971, suspicions persist that the program's tactics continued informally.[42][43] Critics have suggested that subsequent FBI actions indicate that post-COINTELPRO reforms in the agency did not succeed in ending the program's tactics.[44] The Associated Press reported in November 2008 that documents released under the FOIA reportedly show that the FBI tracked the late Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author David Halberstam for more than two decades.[45]
“Counterterrorism” guidelines implemented during the Reagan administration have been described as undercutting these reforms, allowing a return to earlier tactics.[46] Some radical groups accuse factional opponents of being FBI informants or assume the FBI is infiltrating the movement.[47]
Several authors have accused the FBI of continuing to deploy COINTELPRO-like tactics against radical groups after the official COINTELPRO operations were ended. Several authors have suggested the American Indian Movement (AIM) has been a target of such operations.
A few authors go further and allege that the federal government intended to acquire uranium deposits on the Lakota tribe's reservation land, and that this motivated a larger government conspiracy against AIM activists on the Pine Ridge reservation.[2][15][48][49][50] Others believe COINTELPRO continues and similar actions are being taken against activist groups.[50][51][52]
Caroline Woidat argued that with respect to Native Americans, COINTELPRO should be understood within a historical context in which "Native Americans have been viewed and have viewed the world themselves through the lens of conspiracy theory."[53]
Other authors note that while some conspiracy theories related to COINTELPRO are unfounded, the issue of ongoing government surveillance and repression is nonetheless real.[54][55]

[Soleilmavis]

COINTELPRO never ended says former FBI agent

This says it all.... from a former FBI agent. Organized Stalking, smearing, and new advanced covert weapons.... this is being reported by thousands of non terrorist Americans and the media and the 11% approval rated Congress can't ( with the exception of Ron Paul) step up and do the right thing. Expose that Homeland Fusion Centers went off the track and the system built to protect us from terrorism is being used for vendetta purposes by the personnel within the Fusion Centers. So what that means is... you happen to have a run in with somebody that is part of this network and boom! the next thing you know you are getting whacked in the head at home with electronic harassment, organized stalked anywhere you go and smeared wherever you go because of a huge lack of oversight and the false rights that these folks think they have to trample on people's Constitutional Rights. The people within this Stasi network can put anyone on the list. The bottom line is the terrorist network is being used for Vendetta purposes by the hundreds of organizations that make up the Fusion. Can you say Congressional Hearings?

"What remains a government and mainstream media secret, however, is that the same program has been operating on U.S. soil against innocent Americans. Cointelpro, that shocked the nation after the Church Committee investigation, never ended according to former FBI agent, M. Wesley Swearingen"

http://www.examiner.com/x-10438-Human-Rights-Examiner~y2010m3d8-Vid...

What is Cointelpro?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO

http://www.examiner.com/x-10438-Human-Rights-Examiner~y2010m7d13-Hi...

[Soleilmavis]

FBI hi-tech Cointelpro abuses questioned in Senate•
August 16th, 2010 8:52 pm
http://www.examiner.com/human-rights-in-national/senate-questions-f...

FBI still targeting innocent citizens to silence them for maintaining status quo: the new COINTELPRO
Photo: BORDC
The Senate is questioning FBI abuses it is committing against Americans as the "intelligence" agency seeks to further expand its powers to target Americans. In a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, FBI Director Robert Mueller revealed that the FBI is conducting surveillance operations supported neither by evidence nor even suspicion of wrongdoing.
When Corporate-government applies a 24-7 tracking-snitching ... program, it is easy to persecute, harass, intimidate, assault or even assassinate individuals speaking out against the corporate government abuses. The treatment of Matt Smith for filming the truth in the Gulf of Mexico is being applied to thousands of innocent individuals across the nation to silence them as a cover for fascist high-level corruption and abuse.
BORDC informed the Senate hearing through a letter on behalf of a diverse coalition of nearly 50 organizations requesting further congressional oversight. Many have been calling for an investigation such as the Church Committee Investigation that exposed FBI's crimes including death squads on US soil - all under the category of "surveillance."
"Surveillance operations" involves both "foot soldiers" harassing, intimidating and assaulting targeted individual. It also involves hi-tech surveillance equipment including satellites as Paul Baird of Surveillance issues details. (See www.surveillanceissues.com)
Both of these broad general types of "surveillance" are injurious. In both cases, targets have no refuge as he medical and justice systems pretend to not know about them, are complicit or are ill-informed.
Hartford city council considers groundbreaking civil rights reforms
On August 9, Hartford City Councilor Luis Cotto introduced legislation to restore civil rights and liberties in Connecticut's capital. With the support of a diverse local coalition, Cotto's bill--based on proposed reforms developed by BORDC to stop local police participation in racial profiling, federal immigration enforcement, and surveillance--is the first of its kind in the country.
Fusion Centers play a major surveillance role in targeting innocent people for "experimentation" and to maintain the political status quo through blacklisting individuals to neutralize them. (See: National Fusion Ctr Conference starts today - ...)
ACLU's report, What's wrong with fusion centers? - Executive Summary, Dec 2007 states:
"This report is intended to serve as a primer that explains what fusion centers are, and how and why they were created. It details potential problems fusion centers present to the privacy and civil liberties of ordinary Americans, including:

•Ambiguous Lines of Authority. The participation of agencies from multiple jurisdictions in fusion centers allows the authorities to manipulate differences in federal, state and local laws to maximize information collection while evading accountability and oversight through the practice of "policy shopping."
•Private Sector Participation. Fusion centers are incorporating private-sector corporations into the intelligence process, breaking down the arm's length relationship that protects the privacy of innocent Americans who are employees or customers of these companies, and increasing the risk of a data breach.
•Military Participation. Fusion centers are involving military personnel in law enforcement activities in troubling ways.
•Data Fusion = Data Mining. Federal fusion center guidelines encourage whole sale data collection and manipulation processes that threaten privacy.
•Excessive Secrecy. Fusion centers are hobbled by excessive secrecy, which limits public oversight, impairs their ability to acquire essential information and impedes their ability to fulfill their stated mission, bringing their ultimate value into doubt.
"The lack of proper legal limits on the new fusion centers not only threatens to undermine fundamental American values, but also threatens to turn them into wasteful and misdirected bureaucracies that, like our federal security agencies before 9/11, won't succeed in their ultimate mission of stopping terrorism and other crime." (ACLU)
BORDC reports that the People's Campaign for the Constitution's legal professionals team is bringing light to fusion centers' activities by filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests about their work. The public can join this effort by submitting FOIA requests to federal, state, and regional fusion centers near you.
BORDC's mission is to organize and support an effective, national grassroots movement to restore civil liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.
Copyright © 2010 Deborah Dupre. All rights reserved. This article cannot be copied, posted, republished without author permission.
Deborah Dupré, with post-graduate science and education degrees from U.S. and Australian universities, has been a human and environmental rights advocate for over 25 years in the U.S., Vanuatu and Australia. Support her work by subscribing to her articles and forwarding the link of this article to friends and colleagues or reposting only the title and first paragraph linked to this Examiner page. Dupre welcomes emails: [e-mail] See herVaccine Liberty or Death book plus Compassion Film Project DVDs.
Also see:
8/16, Chisun Lee, Pro Publica, Judges Reject Interrogation Evidence in Guantanamo Cases
8/15, Eric Margolis, Toronto Sun, Punishing the WikiLeaker Misses the Point
8/14, Editorial, New York Times, As Arizona Went, So Goes Virginia
8/14, Christopher Weber, Politics Daily, Army Officer Rejected for Military Panel Because of Stance on Gitmo
8/13, Cindy Cohn, Electronic Frontier Foundation, EFF Files Appeal of Warrantless Wiretapping Case Jewel v. NSA

[Jeff]

M. Wesley Swearingen is a former FBI agent who is on record sating COINTELPRO never ended.

http://www.examiner.com/human-rights-in-national/video-ron-paul-def...

[Soleilmavis]

What a Coincidence. This never stops - 24/7/365.
http://americanstargetingamericansbycointelpro.com/faqs.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:

How do you know it is COINTELPRO (i.e., Federal) Crimes being committed against us?
The absence of physical break-ins is what identifies the criminals. Only a government intelligence agency has the capability to bypass any lock or security device without breaking in.

Common criminals and “local” gangs do not have this capability and have no motive to avoid leaving evidence of a break-in. The COINTELPRO motive is to make the victim to be delusional and to give local police an excuse to refusing to investigate the crime.

Why is a TI’s harassment not a crime?
Separate acts of harassment by people in a group do not meet the penal definition of the crime of “stalking.” Harassment is not a crime unless you can prove a series of harassing acts by a single person. This constitutes the crime of stalking. It is thus not only useless, but counterproductive to report activities that are not crimes and which will give police an excuse for treating you as delusional. This is the purpose of street theater and other unbelievable forms of COINTELPRO harassment.

Only a federal investigative or intelligence agency has the capability to perform these operations, and they have a very long proven history of having performed such operations for decades.

If you report this to the FBI, as many TI’s have tried to do, they have always ignored all the reports and refused to investigate its own unconstitutional, criminal COINTELPRO operations.

Anti-TI activists have been very successful in covering up the COINTELPRO truth with the “local stalking group” myth. Also, “local stalking groups” could not possibly be doing this all over the U.S. and Canada to so many TI’s in so many different cities and states because they are, supposedly, LOCAL. They are NOT local; they receive federal training.

Why shouldn’t I report these harassment activities, even if I don’t refer to them as “local gang stalking”?
No matter what you call them, the harassment activities do not violate any penal law, unless you are a senior citizen; in which case they are a violation of elder abuse laws. The harassment activities are designed to make anyone who reports them appear to be paranoid and delusional. This is the kind of police report you would get if you attempt to report the bizarre harassment forms of COINTELPRO operations.
TI’s need to understand that local police are a part of the COINTELPRO machine. They participate in COINTELPRO harassment, and they cover up COINTELPRO crimes.

Why won’t a lawsuit succeed in getting TI’s help?
The crimes being perpetrated against us are government crimes. We are not prevented from exposing our knowledge of government crimes, but these crimes are state secrets. We cannot access state secrets through court discovery procedures, but congress can access them. It has done so in past investigations of COINTELPRO, MK-ULTRA, etc.:

1. A major congressional investigation of COINTELPRO OPERATIONS WAS CONDUCTED IN 1976-78 BY THE Church Committee, a U. S. Senate Committee chaired by Senator Frank Church.

2. An investigation of the 1981-85 COINTELPRO war against CISPES (Committee In Sympathy with the People of El Salvador) was conducted by the Senate Intelligence Committee in 1989.

What if we don’t get a Congressional Investigation?
If we cannot get a Congressional Investigation, we will publish the statements on the Internet with the identifying into removed. We will respect privacy elsewhere for those who request it.

We will send statements to journalists, to civil and constitutional rights organizations; to all liberal activist organizations, such as 9-11 Truth. These activist organizations may now be targeted or may have participants who are targeted, or they are subject to being targeted in the future. It is very much in their interest to join with us in demanding congressional Investigation of today’s COINTELPRO operations.

We can’t name all of the organizations and groups that we would contact. We would try anything that might help once we have the evidence we need. And that would be your testimonial.

Why are you asking for certain topics on your sample testimonial?
We need to join together many people who can confirm the truth of the same COINTELPRO crimes. Any ONE person can be treated by police as a nut, but if several people in cities around the U.S. report the same crimes, we are more likely to paint the picture of federal COINTELPRO TACTICS.

Where will you be taking my statement?
(See the FAQ “What if we don’t get a congressional Investigation?”)

Will you be taking my statement to the FBI?
No, they are an intrinsic part of COINTELPRO.

What happens if we choose to NOT have our personal information disclosed (i.e., privacy issue concerns)?
We will respect the privacy of those who are fearful about identifying themselves. We WOULD need to disclose names if we ask Congress to investigate specific harm to specific persons, but we can maintain anonymity even there for those who wish it, --but they will not get the possible benefit of an investigation of their personal experiences.

How long does this process take?
The actual timeline is uncertain, and depends largely on the number of testimonials we receive, and how soon we receive them.

It can’t happen at all if propagandists are able to continue making the entire TI community present a public image as paranoid and delusional, covering up the truth of COINTELPRO by claiming “organized stalking” is the problem.

My testimony, if submitted, may not guarantee a Congressional Investigation. Is this true?
We can’t get a Congressional Investigation by proving the need for it and the right to it. That has never happened. Only proving it to the public has ever forced an investigation. Your statement will be used to arouse enough public pressure to force a Congressional Investigation.

Why do we need a Congressional Investigation, instead of a lawsuit against government officials or agencies?
Congressional Investigation is the one and only way possible to access the classified government secrets that we must be able to prove in order to make successful litigation possible. The two past Congressional Investigations of COINTELPRO were forced upon Congress by public pressure.

TI’s have never been able to obtain such investigation by making personal requests to Congress. What worked for TI’s twice in the past can work again now.

[Jeff]

here is a link to the Fusion Center Guidelines...

http://www.it.ojp.gov/documents/fusion_center_guidelines.pdf

in Guideline 1 they write about targeting "terrorists" and "prolific criminals" but the innocent people who are being targeted fit neither category yet they are having their lives destroyed with government sanctioned gang stalking, character assasination everywhere they go and electronic harassment/torture when they are in their homes.

[Soleilmavis]

Shahid Buttar
Civil rights lawyer and electronica MC
Posted: August 2, 2010 01:21 PM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shahid-buttar/cointelpro-20_b_664943....
COINTELPRO 2.0

The week before last, The Washington Post concluded a two-year investigation of our government's domestic spying activities, revealing a lack of accountability pervading its far-flung and vast operations. Last Wednesday, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, confirming that the FBI is violating the constitutional rights of Americans en masse -- as it has done before.
Adding insult to injury, the Bureau now preposterously demands even further powers beyond those dramatically extended by the PATRIOT Act. At a minimum, Congress should emphatically reject demands for FBI access to "electronic communication transactional records," such as email meta-data and browsing history. However, Congress must also go further, by -- as a coalition of nearly 50 peace, environmental, civil rights, and civil liberties groups this week requested -- shining light on the Bureau's violations of constitutional rights, and considering long overdue legislative limits to constrain the FBI.
President Eisenhower warned 50 years ago that national security could undermine democracy by subverting popular policy preferences. His warning was prescient. In the 1960s, the FBI pursued a concerted campaign to undermine the civil rights movement by criminalizing groups, like the NAACP, pursuing peaceful political activities protected by the First Amendment.
This is no conspiracy theory: Congress documented wanton FBI abuses in over 14,000 pages of testimony. According to the Church committee, the FBI's activities then

would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity, but COINTELPRO went far beyond that...the Bureau conducted a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment rights....
Revelations of the FBI's "COINTELPRO" (counter-intelligence program) prompted a national outrage that forced the Department of Justice to enact limits in 1976 curtailing the Bureau's various abuses. Today, these problems are back.
The Attorney General's Guidelines that once constrained the FBI have faced repeated erosion, culminating in revisions in 2008 -- adopted despite congressional objections in the last full month of the Bush administration -- that essentially invite racial and political profiling.
The 2008 Mukasey Guidelines hold that race may serve as a factor justifying scrutiny, and even grants individual agents discretion to use intrusive investigatory methods without any evidence suggesting that a crime has been committed. This week, Mueller mistakenly claimed before the Senate that FBI agents must at least have a suspicion of wrongdoing before beginning surveillance -- but later conceded that, in fact, FBI surveillance is not limited even by suspicion.
This bears repetition: the FBI currently conducts monitoring and surveillance operations based on neither evidence nor suspicion. Think about that for a moment.
The Fourth Amendment prohibits "unreasonable searches and seizures" and specifically requires judicially authorized warrants based on "probable cause" that "particularly describe[] the place to be searched." For centuries, courts have interpreted the Fourth Amendment to require individualized suspicion for searches. Mueller's testimony confirms that no requirement for suspicion at all (not even suspicion impermissibly based on association or race) currently constrains agents from monitoring law-abiding Americans.
The Bureau has engaged in political spying for nearly a decade, infiltrating peaceful activist groups and suppressing dissent in the name of disingenuous national security. Nor has the Bureau carefully limited its targets: "[f]aith institutions, activist groups advocating for causes as varied as pro-life and pro-choice stances on reproductive rights, environmental causes...and animal rights have all been affected."
Worse yet, the Bureau's standard for undercover activities is known neither by the public nor Congress. I wrote a FOIA request that led to the FBI's disclosure of part of its policy, but the section on undercover infiltration remains secret. Intelligence agencies may justifiably pursue clandestine activities, but should not operate according to secret rules--at least not in countries that claim to lead the free world.
What little transparency we have confirms fears of abuse. In at least three separate reports (in 2007, 2008 and 2010) over the last four years, the Justice Department's Inspector General has documented rampant abuse of powers that the FBI received through the PATRIOT Act--as well as further abuse of entirely new powers invented by the FBI with the support of the Obama administration.
The Bureau has received a free pass long enough. As a civil rights coalition argued to the Senate this week, "Congress should not grant the FBI guidelines artificial legitimacy, nor should the Bureau be afforded credibility that it has not only failed to earn, but actively undermined....As a repeat offender, the Bureau is long overdue for intervention by Congress." New powers demanded by the FBI should be denied, and as recently demanded by the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, the Bureau's leadership should be replaced.

[Soleilmavis]

Surveillance State USA; Wholesale War on Dissent In America
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Surveillance-State-USA-Wh-by-Rob-K...
By Rob Kall

At a town hall in Philadelphia , the explosion of surveillance organizations and the development of a wholesale war on dissent was described by ACLU attorneys, a civil rights attorney and an antiwar activist who was victim of recent FBI raids.

The town hall introduced a chilling mountain of information describing how, since 911 and the introduction of the patriot act, regulations preventing abuses of power by espionage and surveillance agencies introduced in response to Cointelpro abuses, decades ago, have been just about totally nullified. The result is there are thousands of organizations-- at all levels of government and private-- that are spying on innocent activists and dissenters, then reporting their activities, their names and at the least irresponsibly, at worst dangerously, fraudulently and slanderously describing them as terrorists or people providing material assistance to terrorists.

In other countries, people who are accused of what the agencies in the US are saying are jailed, killed or disappeared. Actually, foreigners in the US who have been accused and then deported HAVE been jailed, killed or disappeared.

The town hall was organized in response to the discovery that the state of Pennsylvania had contracted with a private firm to provide reports of terrorist activity relevant to Pennsylvania. When a report was accidentally emailed to an activist working to protect Pennsylvanians from the risk of Marcellus Shale drilling, the lid was blown off this operation and freedom of information requests revealed that hundreds of reports had been generated that listed hundreds of totally legal peace, environmental and political groups, even Ron Paul supporters as potential terrorists.

Below is summary of the reports of the speakers at the town hall.
To view the actual videos of the town hall speakers and more quotes, see Cheryl Biren's article War On Dissent Town Hall; Documenting a failed and dangerous US intelligence network (Videos)

Mary Catherine Roper senior staff attorney for ACLU of PA
She describes a Chinese activist being sent to jail for 2.5 years for having a website, speaking out and holding magazine size signs complaining about adulteration of milk. Could this be where the US is heading?

"What you see is a wholesale attack on the whole concept of dissent-- not the beginning, just the latest and most obvious advance in that war. "
Institute on terrorism research and response (ITRR) was contracted, for $125,000 to put together reports on terrorism threats to PA infrastructure.

She asks people who have read their names mentioned in the bulletins to stand up-- about 25 out of an audience of about 125 do. She observes, "the rest of you, you haven't read enough of the bulletins."
She reports PA state police are taking over this "non-criminal intelligence" function, not something to engender greater confidence in our first amendment freedoms' security.

There has been lots of news coverage, one lawsuit on behalf of the gas drilling awareness coalition, because they allege that because they were listed in the bulletins they have had people refuse to have anything to do with them.

Roper states that this is about a government agency paying a private corporation to spy on the citizens who are trying to bring about change through social action, which is "not how I want our tax dollars used."
ACLUPA.org/tracked for info on what ACLU has gotten from FOIA requests, also more posted on PARevolution.org

Government has been withholding some information from people who filed requests.

She says, "Our solution is not in the courts. Particularly since 911 the courts have again and again protected government secrecy. The only thing that has put the brakes on this kind of abuse of dissent is public outrage. ...It has to be more than news articles. We need activists, interested citizens to talk to our elected officials, trying to get the government to enforce some accountability and transparency in terms of what they do about people trying to exercise their first amendment rights.

She gives the example about how when there was an uproar about NSA spying, when complaints were raised, Senator Specter said that attention would be given when there was enough outrage.

Bottom line-- talk to your friends, your neighbors, your representatives. Roper closes, "I know you are activists for all kinds of reason, but please save some of your time for this one because it really matters to all of us."

Paul Hetznecker, defense attorney and civil rights attorney discusses the historical context.
The war on dissent has a long and storied history in this country.

Church committee hearings revealed much of what was not known to the public.

Patriot act did much to codify what had already been done illegally by the government to protesters in this country.

One of the apparatuses used for intelligence was a collection of right wing think tanks-- which also provided misinformation -- they called for a catalog of dissenters.

Cointelpro
Maldon Institute sponsored by Richard Mellon Scaife was one of the think tanks.

Before the establishment of the patriot act, they were doing intelligence gathering in order to nullify the effectiveness of the leaders of protests.

They started plucking people off the street--- ALL UNDER OUR NOSES.

There was an agreement, a settlement, that Phila police would not infiltrate protesters. They got around it by using PA state policel, and now the state police are supposed to do a more responsible job of collecting surveilance information-- not reassuring.

Looking at state police as guardians-- they've been doing it for ten years. To what end" To undermine dissent, to stifle our first amendment rights.

Every dissenting group and person is subject to being catalogued... It's been going on for decades.

In philadelphia there has long been an active intelligence gathering process.

The danger is what was the label communist in the 1950's is now , today terrorist.

If you can be labeled as a terrorist by a private think tank, where does that leave you. It leaves you on a watch list, someone to be afraid of.

We are seeing an encroaching and entrenched intelligence gathering and fear mongering network that has already developed.

Regarding first amendment rights, Democracy only has meaning in the exercise of those rights, every day, all the time, not the words from a federal judge, not an acquittal in a courtroom. We re-affirm it first with our voices.

The war on dissent is unending. The exercise of first amendment rights is unending. We have to exercise it every day Be emboldened by the fact that they threatened your privacy interests and your freedom.

What can you do in your everyday life and your private life to not allow these frontiers to be limited by your fears by some right wing think tank that put you on a list.

Mike German former FBI agent and ACLU Policy Counsel in Wash. D.C.
All the legal restrains that were put on to insure that cointelpro would never happen again until now we are at a point where they don't exist.

Department of justice Inspector General Investigative reports are valuable sources for what actually happened.

Glen Fine Inspector General has done a good job. There are many reports, extremely detailed. All have executive summary and conclusion. The problem is most people only read the abstracted brief summary and conclusions, which can be misleading and leave out essential info.

FBI says they did not target these groups for their political beliefs.

But because of relaxed guidelines, anyone with the possibility of criminal behavior could be investigated by the FBI. Report concluded there was no factual basis for starting the investigations. German assumes the real reason was the individuals' and groups' political activism.

Once you are subject to an FBI investigation like that you are put on the terrorist watch list regardless of the findings of the investigation, even if you are determined to be completely innocent. This is injurious to people. This is a serious thing. This is not something that does not have harm. There are real harms that come from this in addition to your first amendment rights.

Last year ACLU discovered that MD state police investigated 53 individuals.

No information was ever uncovered that anyone was doing anything illegal.

One state police official was "the reason we continued was we thought it was good training for the undercover operative because we knew she wouldn't get hurt."

This is a network of spying activity-- this web of surveilance that is not just state and federal govt, and also private companies, is new.

aclu.org/spy-files has a lot of the documents uncovered through FOIA requests and narratives of what is happening and how it works. The site ties all these activities together.

Fusion centers-- state and local, regional operations that consist of more than one surveillance or espionage organization, which get together to share "intelligence information" These can be federal, state, local or private-- the federal govt denies ownership, responsibility or accountability for these operations which are out of control and accountable to no-one. There are no regulations regarding their activities. There's more on Fusion centers on the website listed above.

For example, the federal government denied responsibility even though people in MD were put in a federal database.
Attorney German suggest the term "Surveilance laundering" by which these fusions centers help to get surveillance information that may be illegal or inappropriate for other agencies.

Fed gives money to state govt. which hires a private company which gives information back which gets back to the federal govt.

The Feds have denied involvement, but FOIA inquiries found state police documents showing that homeland security was involved.

Because this is being formalized in these centers, it's very hard to stop it.

Because they're part of a network, the network is only as good as the worst operator.

This is not a victimless activity. It's very damaging in a lot of ways--- to the people who are inappropriately investigated.

Once dissent is suppressed against anyone, it's suppressed against all of us.

Washington Post report, Top Secret America reported that over 800,000 people employed in this surveillance industry-- a growing phenomena without any regulation.

Right before OBama took over, AG Mukasey eliminated just about all regulation of the FBI and this kind of surveillance. Obama has not done anything to reverse the absence of regulations. (Whistleblowers would say that the Obama DOJ is far worse than Bush's)

This kind of surveillance has always been around but it's becoming pervasive and formalized. So it's up to our legislators to put regulation back.

Jess Sundon one of the targets of FBI raids in the midwest.
founding member of twin cities anti war..,

On sept 24 their home was raided by FBI searching for material support for their aiding overseas terrorists
The spying that is happening to you and is happening here in PA could lead to what happened to me.
8 federal agents went through all her belongings over the course of 4 or 5 hours. looked through her six year old daughter's belongings. Looked through archives from her grandfather who had died several months before.

On that day five homes, as well as the office of the antiwar committee and two homes in chicago were raided. More than 70 federal agents were involved in the operation. In all 14 people were subpoenaed for a grand jury.

Friends were questioned. FBI went to people's employers. Told friends this about Jess Sundin how they manipulated people and how they manipulated you.

There something like 20 people on her front lawn before the raid was over.

The day of the raid 150 people showed up. That night a meeting was held in a church and over 250 people showed up. There were more than 60 protests held at FBI offices across the country, in solidarity, the following week.

Why was she engaged by the FBI? She travelled to Columbia, went to a conference-- meeting to talk about Plan Columbia-- the US military aid package going to Columbia. Our money is fueling a devastating civil war. In Columbia, being involved in activism can get you killed or imprisoned.

FARK was engaged in peace talks with the columbian govt. There were town halls where people could speak on what they wanted peace to look like. She went and listened and met with the guerillas who were involved in those peace talks-- like NY Times reporters, diplomats and many others also did.

Current terrorism laws make it illegal to provide "material support" for terrorist organizations. The law came into effect in 1996 and then strengthened with Patriot Act

People have been prosecuted for sending used clothing to relatives in Somalia.

Humanitarian Law Project targeted by this law-- lost a case before supreme court.

They wanted to train Kurdish workers party on how to claim rights before the UN but the org was classified as terrorist.
It has been suggested that Jimmy Carter could be prosecuted for his work in elections monitoring voting process with Hezbollah. The law makes it illegal to do all kinds of things with "terrorist" organizations.

Nelson Mandela was on the terrorist list until the day he became the president of South Africa.

This law isn't fair. There's not even a way to appeal it. If you and I believe that an organization should not be on the terrorist list, you could be charged as a material supporter for lobbying our legislators to remove the organization form the list.

Grand juries are the opposite of anything that you or I would ever see on TV. The whole Jury is run by the prosecutor. There is no judge. You don't get to bring an attorney. You don't know if you are a target or a witness.

A prosecutor can even indict a ham sandwich.

The grand jury is unfair.

When Salvadorans were mentioned in lists they were deported from the US, sent back to El Salvador and some of them were disappeared or killed.

She and her fellows have told the prosecutor that they will claim the 5th amendment but prosecutors can give immunity and force testimony and if you refuse to testify then you can be sent to jail for contempt of court. She expects to be put in jail for refusing to testify against her friends and fellow activists.

She says, "Our greatest defense is our movements, our movements, all of us standing together. "

Some of the most important dissident groups in US history were surveilled and some arrested by the FBI.

"I'm excited that we're able to come together for all the issues we work on. Our right to come out to a meeting or demonstration... this world cries out for justice. "

"All the wars we fight are fought in other people's lands."

"We are people with deep roots in our communities but we have been called to something larger."

What can be done?
The ACLU has documented this kind of surveillance in 33 states and DC since 911-- by federal, state and private organizations.

Make sure you make your local representatives and state police that you don't want them involved in this kind of activity.

The only way this surveillance network can work is if they keep the network alive, so keep police from giving info to the network.

First steps going on now:
There is a petition, and letters to PA governor elect Corbett asking him to issue an executive order preventing state police and homeland security to not collect information about political beliefs unless there is legitimate risk for crime.

First Amendment Network FAN was instrumental in planning the town hall.

questions
Was there any restriction on who could be sent the "terrorism" reports generated by ITRR?
There was absolutely no restriction on resending of reports from ITRR

There was a huge original list and who knows who it was sent to by them.

I asked if any conservatives were in the room, and asked the speakers ideas on how to frame the problem of stifling of dissent so it would get tea partiers and people on the right allied in opposing the abuses of surveillance that are becoming institutionalized and codified -- There were no conservatives in the room, but Mary Catherine Roper noted that Ron Paul supporters were included in the reports and had intended to attend.

Another questioner commented that he'd made a resolution to do all he could to never allow the rise of a state like Weimar Germany and asked about whether this surveillance state in the US looked like the development of a fascist state. Michael German responded, "...anything that takes power away from the people and gives it to the government and allows it to use it in secrecy is a is a threat to representative democracy. The Patriot Act gives too much power to the government to conduct secret surveillance of the citizenry without probable cause or effective public oversight."

Another questioner observed, talking about the coal industry and Marcellus shale drillers, that "fossil fuel industries are the terrorists-- destroying land, people's air and water. It's time to turn the tables on the real terrorists. "

Former FBI agent Mike German told the audience that FBI considers non violent civil disobedience terrorism.
And that's America today.

Rob Kall is executive editor, publisher and site architect of OpEdNews.com, Host of the Rob Kall Bottom Up Radio Show (WNJC 1360 AM), President of Futurehealth, Inc,

[Soleilmavis]

War On Dissent Town Hall; Documenting a failed and dangerous US intelligence network (Videos)
http://www.opednews.com/articles/War-On-Dissent-Town-Hall--by-Chery...

By Cheryl Biren

For OpEdNews: Cheryl Biren - Writer

Please assist us in keeping the information provided in the PIB [Pennsylvania Intelligence Bulletin] to those having a valid need-to-know; it should only be disseminated via closed communications systems. Thanks for your support. We want to continue providing this support to the Marcellus Shale Formation natural gas stakeholders while not feeding those groups fomenting dissent against those same companies.
Jim

James F. Powers, Jr. | Director
Office of Homeland Security
Excerpt from an email by Jim Powers, former director of Pennsylvania's Office of Homeland Security mistakenly sent to a critic of gas drilling in Pennsylvania.

The "support" Powers was referring to was intelligence information provided by the Institute for Terrorism Research and Response (ITRR), a private Philadelphia/Jerusalem based company that received a $103,000 no-bid contract from the PA Office of Homeland Security. ITRR boasts that its "Analyst team is comprised of the leading experts in terrorism and international security," and that "Intelligence is gathered by multi-language and Arab native-language who have previously served in security and armed forces positions in the war on international and domestic terror."

However, the "intelligence" provided to Homeland Security in Pennsylvania by ITRR was comprised almost exclusively of reports on activities and events organized by political (from anti-tax Tea Party groups to anti-war organizers), environmental, LGBTQ and animal rights activists who challenged the government and private sector interests.

While researching the bulletins first made available in September, this writer discovered that her false arrest stemming from OEN reporting of a protest in September 2009 was cited and blatantly manipulated in four separate intelligence bulletins. It appears that the purpose of this manipulation was to create unnecessary alarm among local authorities and military contractors by alerting them to the potential presence of "radical elements" from "local Communist and/or Anarchist groups" at otherwise peaceful anti-war vigils.

Even though the Pennsylvania state legislature, after initial outrage, seems content to consider this an isolated incident (James Powers resigned and Governor Ed Rendell allowed ITRR's contract to expire) and move on with business as usual, this is just a symptom of a larger issue of a failed and dangerous intelligence network in the United States. OpEdNews.com will be reporting more on these abuses in future issues.

In response to this assault on first amendment rights and in the shadow of recent FBI raids of activists in the Twin Cities and Chicago, the ACLU along with targeted activists joined forces in a town hall titled the "War on Dissent." OpEdNews covered this event held in Philadelphia earlier this week.

The videos below include must-see presentations by Mary Catherine Roper, Senior Staff Attorney for the ACLU of Pennsylvania; Paul Hetznecker, a Philadelphia civil rights attorney; Michael German, former FBI agent now with the ACLU Policy Counsel; and Jess Sundin, one of the targets of the recent FBI raids on activists in the Midwest. The forum was moderated by activist and attorney, Michael Coard.

Mary Catherine Roper: "If you read the bulletins from the Pennsylvania Office of Homeland Security all of which are on the Internet, very interesting reading in your free time, what you see is not a collection of information about threats from people who threaten violence or property damage, what you see is a wholesale attack on the whole concept of dissent."

Paul Hetznecker: "The danger is the label "communist" in the 1950s is now "terrorist." So, if you can be labeled a terrorist by a private think tank and that think tank can push the federal government into an investigation, where does that leave you if you're simply opposing gas drilling in Pennsylvania and the destruction of pristine wilderness in our state? Where does that leave you? It leaves you on a watch list, it leaves you labeled as a terrorist, it leaves you labeled as someone to be watched and afraid of..."

"Democracy is based on not a dead scroll that says you have the right to free speech. It's a dead paper, it has no meaning. It only has meaning in the exercise of those rights, everyday, all the time...Don't be afraid, don't be chilled by the activities of this organization or the state police or the FBI, be emboldened by the fact that they threatened your privacy interests and your freedom. If you believe that freedom, in this country, is still alive, it's alive and it's in your hands, I'd ask that you exercise it."


Michael German: "A fusion center is any two agencies who decide to get together and share intelligence information whether those agencies are federal, state or local, whether they're law enforcement or non law enforcement can call themselves a fusion center. They can also involve private parties and private companies can be involved in the fusion centers. There are no regulations governing their activities. "

Jess Sundin: "They went through everything. They took books and CDs, computers, cell phones. They were very interested in anything with names and phone numbers. They took address books. They took sign-up lists for the activism I do. They were very interested in anything political so they took fliers from events like this one tonight or information on Palestine or Columbia which were places of interest in their investigation. They looked through my daughter's belongings. She is six."

For more information on the ACLU's work on this issue visit http://www.paaclu.org/tracked

Managing editor, OpEdNews.com. Cheryl Biren is a Philadelphia-based writer, researcher and photographer. She also serves as a consultant and researcher for the Rob Kall Bottom Up Radio Show with guests such as Noam Chomsky, whistleblower

[Soleilmavis]

Testimony of Michael German, Policy Counsel,
American Civil Liberties Union,
former Special Agent, Federal Bureau of Investigation,
before the
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
May 14, 2009

http://www.whistleblowers.org/storage/whistleblowers/documents/germ...

 

We Need Whistleblowers
By Mike German
Also by Mike German:
Public Advocacy Is Not a Crime   04/01/09
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=1061

 

Govt 'creating vast domestic snooping machine'

Dec 20 07:27 AM US/Eastern

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.35fe9afbf5c0253f885080b...

[Soleilmavis]

The enclosed affidavit of Geral D. Sossbee, ex-agent of the FBI, is clear enough.  Who could believe that what he asserts are just delusions of a paranoid individual!