FBI TARGETING RNC PROTESTERS

Does this strike any­one else as com­pletely inap­pro­pri­ate?

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been ques­tion­ing polit­i­cal demon­stra­tors across the coun­try, and in rare cases even sub­poe­naing them, in an aggres­sive effort to fore­stall what offi­cials say could be vio­lent and dis­rup­tive protests at the Republican National Convention in New York.
F.B.I. offi­cials are urg­ing agents to can­vass their com­mu­ni­ties for infor­ma­tion about planned dis­rup­tions aimed at the con­ven­tion and other com­ing polit­i­cal events, and they say they have devel­oped a list of peo­ple who they think may have infor­ma­tion about pos­si­ble vio­lence. They say the inquiries, which began last month before the Democratic con­ven­tion in Boston, are focused solely on pos­si­ble crimes, not on dis­sent, at major polit­i­cal events.
But some peo­ple con­tacted by the F.B.I. say they are mys­ti­fied by the bureau’s inter­est and felt harassed by ques­tions about their polit­i­cal plans.
“The mes­sage I took from it,” said Sarah Bardwell, 21, an intern at a Denver anti­war group who was vis­ited by six inves­ti­ga­tors a few weeks ago, “was that they were try­ing to intim­i­date us into not going to any protests and to let us know that, ‘hey, we’re watch­ing you.’”

THERE’S MORE: “The intel­li­gence unit of the New York Police Department has been closely mon­i­tor­ing Web sites run by self-​​described anar­chists,” the AP says. “It also has sought to infil­trate protest groups with young, scruffy-​​looking offi­cers pos­ing as activists.“
AND MORE: The FBI has also paid a lit­tle visit recently to John Young, who runs the always-​​informative Cryptome​.org site. Young’s sin, appar­ently, was post­ing publicly-​​available infor­ma­tion about ques­tion­able secu­rity at the Convention sites in New York and Boston.

“They said, ‘Why didn’t you call us about this? Why are you telling the pub­lic?’ And we said, ‘Because it’s out there and you can see it. You folks weren’t doing any­thing,’ ” Young told ABC News.
The agents, accord­ing to Young, stressed they knew that noth­ing on the site was ille­gal. Young added: “They said, ‘What we’d like you to do, if you’re approached by any­one that you think intends to harm the United States, we’re ask­ing you to let us know that.’ ” (via Boing Boing)

AND MORE: “I have vis­ited a few of those protest sites,” writes Defense Tech reader WW. ” They give spe­cific instruc­tions on how to tie up traf­fic, crip­ple police horses, dis­able police dogs and gen­er­ally deny to oth­ers the right to peace­ably go about their busi­ness, then try to cover them­selves with a dis­claimer that they are not advo­cat­ing the break­ing of any laws. A fail­ure to inves­ti­gate a crim­i­nal con­spir­acy like this would be dere­lic­tion of duty.”

August 16th, 2004 | Homeland Security | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.