FBI 2

see FBI main and COINTELPRO for pre- 7/17 info

SEE THREE 2 25 TRUMP KAsh boNDI FASCISM 6

see deep state BS

merri ok

prolly neglected

target, defund BS

see wray director FEDSOC CLERK BRETT KAVANAUGH FAIL

see activ and legal suppress

see deep state BS

neglected post maralago

trump waco speech

strzok

1219 bak

---

an 5 26

Since returning to the White House on January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump has made a concerted effort to give the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI an ultra-MAGA makeover — including choosing far-right conspiracy theorist Kash Patel for FBI director. Many non-MAGA veterans of the FBI have either left the agency or been fired, and some of them are now pointing the finger at Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

The Hill's Rebecca Beitsch, in an article published on May 7, reports, "several former FBI agents are arguing Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) played a significant role in their firings — removals that followed his release of a number of unredacted materials about the criminal investigation into President Trump. That assertion was made in two separate lawsuits against the FBI that don't name Grassley as a defendant but point to his actions as a factor precipitating the firing of agents who worked on former special counsel Jack Smith's investigation into the riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021."

The lawsuits, according to Beitsch, allege that the agents were fired simply because of their work on Smith's election interference case against Trump for DOJ.

"The litigation also raises questions about the Senate Judiciary Committee's sprawling investigation into Smith's Arctic Frost probe, as well as Grassley's role in a conservative ecosystem focused on addressing what Republicans have branded as 'rot' at the FBI," Beitsch explains. "Grassley's disclosures include the unredacted names of agents, something their attorney argues sparks not only online vitriol but backlash from the bureau as it culls employees."

Grassley, now 92, was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1980. Before entering the Senate, he spent six years in the U.S. House of Representatives. And Grassley served in the Iowa House of Representatives from 1959-1975.

Margaret Donovan, the former DOJ federal prosecutor now representing two ex-FBI agents who are suing the FBI, told The Hill, "It is appalling to me that lawmakers would so carelessly mischaracterize these unredacted disclosures, knowing that the direct result of their actions is to cause an ill-informed online mob to go after honest, hardworking federal law enforcement officers. The best-case scenario is that Grassley is so far past his prime, he is clueless as to what he's doing. The worst-case scenario is that Grassley and others are intentionally trying to harm federal agents who dared to investigate criminal activity, which happened to implicate a political ally."

---

AN 11 25

A " handful"of documents found by the FBI during their raid of President Donald Trump's Palm Beach country club were "so sensitive that even a senior Justice Department official didn’t have authorization to see them," according to an explosive new book excerpted by MSNBC.

“Injustice: How Politics and Fear Vanquished America’s Justice Department,” written by MSNBC's senior investigative correspondent Carol Leonnig and Washington Post's Aaron Davis, details how the surprise FBI raid on Mar-a-Lagoin 2022 revealed a national security threat so severe that they'd have gotten "American operatives killed if the information fell into the wrong hands."

The book details how assistant Attorney General Matt Olsen was so shocked by what was found, he asked his top Justice Department expert on the mishandling of classified records, Julie Edelstein what they should do next and her answer was stunning.

"If it was anybody else, we would arrest him tomorrow,” Edelstein said. "Knowingly taking classified documents outside of a secure government facility was a crime, plain and simple," she explained.

But worse than that, the book writes, was Trump's attempts to concealthem after receiving a May subpoena to return all classified records.

IFrame Content

Trump, "made the crime far worse, she argued." Unfortunately, according to the book, "Olsen’s team knew that with Trump, all bets were off. The Justice Department would invariably treat the former president more gingerly."

Most recently, Trump announced that he is seeking approximately $230 million in total damages from the Department of Justice (DOJ) through two administrative claims related to past federal investigations, including the search of Mar a Lago, claiming it violated his civil rights.

"But these new revelations from an unprecedented probe run counter to Trump’s insistence that he was mistreated and that he engaged in no criminal wrongdoing in withholding top-secret documents at his private social club," MSNBC explains.

Following the raid, Trump posted on Truth Social, "“These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents."

According to the book, FBI’s chief spokesperson, Cathy Milhoan, was about to issue a statement of her own until she was stopped because it would look "political."

FBI assistant director Alan Kohler "was stunned. It was standard FBI procedure to publicly explain that a court had approved a search," the book says.

As they dug through the "handfuls" of documents, the FBI was stunned, according to the book, which explains that "Some of the documents were so restricted that top Justice Department security officials reacted with surprise to the code names: They had never heard of them before. Some involved special access programs that required the president or a cabinet member to grant approval to view."

Not even Olsen was authorized to look at these documents, they write.

"A handful of documents stored in boxes throughout Trump’s club were so sensitive that even he didn’t have authorization to look at them," they say.

Trump's reaction to the raid also put the FBI agents in grave danger, they write.

"The same day as the attack, the FBI agents who signed the paperwork for the Mar-a-Lago search warrant were evacuated temporarily from their homes for their own safety," the book says.

"Documents with their names had begun to circulate online. The agents’ identities had been redacted from filings on the court’s website, but a copy of the original paperwork was left at Mar-a-Lago. FBI officials surmised that Trump’s team had leaked their names, endangering the agents and their families," they write.

------

AN 2 25

President Donald Trump’s Justice Department last week distributed a survey to FBI agents asking about their roles in the investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol — and some agents are taking the questioning as a sign of a potential purge of those perceived as disloyal to the president, Politico reported Sunday.

The 12-question survey, due Tuesday, asks agents about their role in the Jan. 6 investigations. It asks, for example, about whether they handled arrests, conducted surveillance, or testified in trials, among other types of involvement.

Concerns about mass firings are by no means unfounded. Last week, the Justice Department fired at least two dozen prosecutors who worked on cases related to Jan. 6. According to a memo, their employment has "hindered the ability" of the D.C. U.S. attorney to "faithfully implement the agenda that the American people elected President Trump to execute." Trump ended the four-year criminal investigation into the attack on his first day in office, pardoned Jan. 6 rioters, and ordered the DOJ to drop pending charges.

As the DOJ probes FBI involvement, not all agents are complying. An anonymous lawyer representing several FBI agents told Politico that some employees are pushing back against the inquiry, telling subordinates not to turn the surveys in.

“There’s growing resistance from among the SACs [special agents in charge],” they said. “Some are telling people beneath them, don’t submit it, or don’t submit it right away … Some are saying, we will submit it as leadership only.”

The Justice Department also asked for a list, due Tuesday, of employees who worked on Jan. 6 cases.

The FBI Agents Association, a group providing advocacy for active and retired FBI agents, wrote to members that employees carrying out their jobs legally should not be treated as though they had carried out any wrongdoing.

“We understand that this feels like agents and employees are being targeted, despite repeated assurances that ‘all FBI employees will be protected against political retribution,’” the association wrote. “Employees carrying out their duties to investigate allegations of criminal activity with integrity and within the rule of law should never be treated as those who have engaged in actual misconduct.”

“We continue to hear rumors of dismissals/security revocations, or individuals who have been told to expect dismissals on Monday,” the association wrote. “Again, we have no confirmation of any such events. Please be cautious in sharing and spreading what could be misinformation. We do not need any more stress on those potentially impacted.”

---

an 10 24 badash

A years-long investigation by a top Senate Democrat of the FBI’s 2018 supplemental background investigation into multiple allegations of sexual misconduct by Brett Kavanaugh, in the middle of his confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court, finds the Trump White House and then-President Donald Trump himself engaged in a “sham” process to ensure the nominee was placed on the nation’s highest court.

“New report details how the Trump White House restricted FBI investigators and lied to the American people about the investigation and tip line. Six-year-long Senate inquiry was hampered by repeated executive branch obstruction,” reads the introduction to the 32-page report by U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), the chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts and one of the leading advocates for Supreme Court reform.

“In 2018, I pledged to Christine Blasey Ford that I’d keep digging, for however long it took, and not give up or move on from the Trump White House’s shameful confirmation process for Justice Kavanaugh,” Senator Whitehouse says. “A full, proper investigation is the bare minimum that victims who come forward – like Dr. Ford and Deborah Ramirez – deserve. This report shows that the supplemental background investigation was a sham, controlled by the Trump White House, to give political cover to Senate Republicans and put Justice Kavanaugh back on the political track to confirmation.”

Dr. Ford was Kanvanaugh’s main accuser. She had confidentially told her Congresswoman, U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and later, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who was the Ranking Member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, that in high school Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her. A lie detector test administered by a former FBI agent found Dr. Ford to be truthful.

Senator Whitehouse’s report finds:

“The FBI’s supplemental background investigation concluded on October 4. Despite credible allegations from two different women, hundreds of witness leads and tips the FBI received, and the high stakes of a life-tenured Supreme Court nomination, the FBI ultimately interviewed only ten people.”

“The supplemental background investigation was completely controlled by the Trump White House. The FBI was never given ‘free rein’ to conduct a thorough, complete investigation. Statements to the contrary from former President Trump and White House and Department of Justice officials were false.”

“The investigation was directed by the Trump White House to pursue only first-hand evidence and not corroborating evidence. Senate Republicans then cited the absence of corroborating evidence to justify confirming Kavanaugh.”

Pointing to this “absence of corroborating evidence,” The Washington Post reports it “was cited by senators as they narrowly voted to confirm Kavanaugh, marking a major triumph for the conservative movement and locking in a right-leaning majority that would later overturn the constitutional right to abortion.”

But among the most-damning facts Senator Whitehouse’s report reveals is the “FBI’s public ‘tip line’ investigation was a fake. No tip was ever investigated; Kavanaugh-related tips were delivered straight to the Trump White House without FBI investigation. Indeed, the Trump White House could have used tip line information to steer FBI investigators away from derogatory evidence.”

That fact was confirmed and made public in 2022 during sworn Senate testimony by FBI Director Chris Wray to Senator Whitehouse, on which NCRM reported at the time (video below).

“So when it comes to the tip line, we wanted to make sure that the White House had all the information we had, so when the hundreds of calls started coming in, we gathered those up, reviewed them and provided them to the White House —” Director Wray said.

“Without investigation,” Sen. Whitehouse interjected.

“We reviewed them and then provided them —” Wray replied.

“You reviewed them for purposes of separating from tipline traffic, but did not further investigate the ones that related to Kavanaugh, correct?” Sen. Whitehouse asked.

“Uh, correct,” Wray responded.

Professor of law, MSNBC/NBC News legal analyst, and former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance responded to news of Tuesday’s report: “A different FBI Director might have resigned in protest: The report found messages to the FBI tip line regarding Kavanaugh were forwarded to the WH & never probed.”

The Post notes that at the time, Trump “vowed that the FBI would have ‘free rein’ to vet the claims. Trump said the FBI was ‘talking to everybody’ and added on social media: ‘I want them to interview whoever they deem appropriate, at their discretion.'”

That apparently was a lie.

The Post reports, “the White House never authorized the agency to independently probe the sexual misconduct allegations.”

In fact, the FBI never interviewed Dr. Ford or Brett Kavanaugh, who at the time of his nomination to the Supreme Court was a federal appeals court judge, as part of its supplemental investigation.

Sen. Whitehouse’s report also reveals there did not seem to be anyone at the FBI actually working on the investigation.

“Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee also individually contacted the FBI to provide names of people with potentially corroborating or otherwise relevant information who had reached out after trying—but failing—to get in touch with FBI investigators. Some of these individuals, including Max Stier, a college classmate of Kavanaugh’s, contacted Senator Coons after they had ‘difficulty reaching anyone’ at the FBI who would ‘collect their information.’ Senator Coons wrote directly to Director Wray to request ‘appropriate follow up’ with Stier in particular. Ultimately, many people were referred or resorted to the agency’s online and telephonic ‘tip line,’ which did not result in any follow-up from the FBI.”

After Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing but before the vote that would end up placing him on the Supreme Court, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow reported, “Kavanaugh may have lied to the Senate, pretty extensively, in order to obtain the currency that he already has on a federal appeals court.”

===

How Fox hosts are reacting to the collapse of their FBI “informant” story

WRITTEN BY MATT GERTZ

:{PUBLISHED 02/20/24

The right’s flagging effort to impeach President Joe Biden took another blow last week when the Justice Department said that Alexander Smirnov, an FBI informant, had made up his accusation that Biden and his son Hunter had each taken $5 million bribes from a Ukrainian oligarch, and charged him with lying to the bureau.

Smirnov’s tale, chronicled in a much-ballyhooed FBI FD-1023 report released last year, was described by House Republicans as the “heart” of their case against the president. “The most corroborating evidence we have is the 1023 form from this highly credible confidential human source,” House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) said in a January interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity.

Right-wing Fox propagandists like Hannity had relentlessly promoted the informant’s claims, touting his purported credibility while ignoring the flimsy, sensational nature of his Biden bribery allegations. But they aren’t responding to his arrest by leveling with their viewers or reflecting on why they were taken in by unverified claims that “proved” what they desperately wanted to believe. Here’s what they’re doing with the news instead.

1. Ignoring it

Fox provided a mere 31 minutes of coverage of Smirnov’s indictment from Thursday through Monday. That total is noticeably scant given how loudly the network previously trumpeted the informant’s allegations; Fox mentioned “Biden in the context of ‘bribe’ or ‘bribery’ more than 2,600 times” in the year before his arrest, The Washington Post’s Philip Bump reported.

Several shows that typically provide robust coverage of the Hunter Biden probe ignored it; Fox & Friends provided only a single headline read, while The Ingraham Angle did not address the story at all (the latter featured interviews with a “body-language expert” as well as purported comedian Jimmy Failla on Thursday).

2. Claiming this actually makes Republicans look good

Hannity has been pilloried by the press for his credulous treatment of the informant’s claims; he promoted them on his Fox show in at least 85 segments last year, touting them as evidence of “public corruption” and “bribery.”

When the host finally addressed the informant’s arrest on Friday, rather than acknowledging that he had served as the willing tool of the Republican politicians who sought to inject the informant’s story into the public discourse, Hannity claimed that the new developments actually make those Republicans look good.

Video file

CitationFrom the February 16, 2024, edition of Fox News' Hannity.

The Fox host acknowledged that he had “talked a lot about” the 1023, but presented it as “very damning, but a very, very small part of what is the large body of evidence in the Biden impeachment inquiry.” After rattling off a string of falsehoods familiar to his show’s regular viewers but inscrutable to normal people, Hannity claimed that Smirnov’s arrest “raises a lot of questions” — but for the FBI, not Republicans like Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who released the 1023 form, or right-wing media figures like himself who promoted it.

“When presented with information from a source that the agency so trusted for what, now 14 years, the FBI, as exposed by Sen. Grassley, they sat on that 1023 document and they did so for years,” Hannity claimed. “He was still working for the FBI and without any performance of any due diligence, they never looked into it.”

“So it's clear that only after Sen. Grassley made the 1023 public that the FBI then investigate the allegations of the document,” he added.

Hannity was somewhat more candid on his radio show Friday. “I'm mad that the FBI informant, the 1023 form in this case, that now this guy has been charged,” he said. “It appears that Alexander Smirnov was not to be trusted.”

“I guess I was stupid,” he concluded.

3. Layering on more conspiracy theories

The right-wing media have spent the last several years constructing a ludicrous, overarching conspiracy theory that federal law enforcement agencies are left-wing institutions which persecute conservatives. Some of Fox’s biggest conspiracy theorists are leaning on that to explain Smirnov’s arrest, alleging that the informant’s story is true and he’s only being charged with a crime because the deep state is trying to help Biden.

Prime-time host Jesse Watters — who has promoted a lengthy list of conspiracy theories, including spreading doubt about the brutal assault of Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) husband during a home invasion — claimed on Friday that Smirnov had been arrested because “he was too credible.” He attributed the charges to the president directly, alleging that “this is the second informant Biden has arrested for blowing the whistle about his bribes” (it is true that this is the second indictment of a supposed “whistleblower” whose unverified, dramatic claims were previously touted by Republicans and right-wing media).

Watters went on to claim that “everyone who blows the whistle on the Biden syndicate or is connected to it has been arrested.” He then brought on former FBI agent Stuart Kaplan, who claimed that the Bidens “took out a hit on this informant, Smirnov. They have now disabled him, and now the public is going to believe, well, this guy is a liar.”

Video file

Maria Bartiromo, whose treatment of purported election fraud during the 2020 election helped put Fox on the hook for a record defamation settlement, offered a similar reaction to Smirnov’s indictment on her Fox Business show on Friday.

4. Diverting viewers to a different, similarly dubious Biden scandal

Some Fox hosts are following the right's typical cycle by moving on to a new MacGuffin after the failure of the old one.

Fox host Brian Kilmeade, for instance, presented Smirnov’s arrest as part of a “rollercoaster week” for “the Biden family business drama.” He briefly noted that Smirnov had been charged with fabricating the Biden bribery story, adding that it “turns out not to be true, but keep in mind that is an FBI informant, nothing to do with Republicans.”

Video file

CitationFrom the February 17, 2024, edition of Fox News' One Nation with Brian Kilmeade.

Having relieved Republicans and their media allies of any responsibility for endlessly promoting Smirnov’s tale, Kilmeade moved on to the new shiny object: the deposition of Tony Bobulinski, a disgruntled former business partner of Hunter Biden.

“He knows it all,” Kilmeade raved. “He testified that he has got receipts. He's got emails. He has got text messages showing that this business existed and thrived.”

“I cannot wait to see this publicly,” he concluded. “I can't wait to read the transcripts. That's all coming your way, he is going to testify.”

Sure, Bobulinski told his story on Fox’s own airwaves nearly four years ago and it dissolved under scrutiny. But this time … this time is going to be different.

---

Donald Trump Jr.: "Deep state retribution" for DOJ to indict of FBI informant for making false claims about the Bidens | Media Matters for America

---

weaponization 1 24 triggered by rubber reverse eric trump, but also jordan comer comm vs gubmint

AHA RUBBER REVERSE: originally used for trump norm busting early autocratic fascist lie power any means, hijack rubbered by benghazi 2 BS (impeach Biden, retaliation, muddy waters make term meaningless like fake news? war on eg xian is about victimization/ white grievance, but that means we GOP need a warrior to get our white priviledge back

// SARAH HUCKABEE REPLY TO SOTU BUT NOT SO CODED/ JARGONY // DAD STUMP RALLY RAMBLE?

an 1 24

eric Trump broadcast a barrage of fabrications and falsehoods about America, Democrats, and President Joe Biden, while promoting blatant propaganda supporting his father, Donald Trump, as voters went to the polls Tuesday to cast their ballots in the New Hampshire presidential primary.

“You know there’s an all out war on family in this country,” Eric Trump declared while speaking to Newsmax. “There’s an all out war on God and religious freedom in this country. There’s certainly an all out war on freedom of speech and [the] First Amendment, you know, in this nation you guys have seen that, you’ve covered it probably every single day for the last three years.”

“People are sick and tired of nonsense,” Trump continued, offering up no examples to support his claims. “People want our economy back. They want low gas prices again, they don’t want World War Three to break out all over the world. They want to be able to, you know, worship God and speak freely and not be censored and not be de-platformed, and not have war waged against them and their their quality of life every single day. People are sick and tired of the games, and you know, they want to be able to live the American dream and that’s what my father did.”

IFrame Content

Speaking to Ben Bergquam on the far right wing website Real America’s Voice, Eric Trump claimed, “they have weaponized the system so viciously, so nasty, that they thought he would actually drop out,” referring to Donald Trump’s presidential race.

Donald Trump is facing 91 criminal charges across four cases in three jurisdictions. He is also facing civil cases involving business fraud and defamation, and is now an adjudicated rapist, according to a judge.

“That was always their intent, you know, make it so painful for him that he didn’t want to stay in the race that he wanted to drop out that, you know, he realizes that his life and Mar-a-Lago would be exponentially nicer and more comfortable and everything else and give it back to the political elites in DC and, frankly, he did the exact opposite.”

He also claimed, “they weaponized every AG [attorney general] and DA [district attorney] in the country to go after him similarly, civilly and criminally.”

“It’ one sham after another,” Trump said, referring to efforts in multiple states to implement the 14th Amendment’s automatic, self-executing requirement that insurrectionists cannot hold office.

“And frankly, I think he’s made a lot of Americans really question their government, which is necessary, certainly in the world that we live in now, it’s so apparent what they’re doing. It’s also very sad because you would expect that America would be a lot better than that.”

“Democrats spent 20 years weaponizing every single system of government that we had, they weaponized the military, they weaponized DOJ, they weaponized the FBI, they’ve, they’ve weaponized all of it,” Eric Trump claimed.

IFrame Content

Eric Trump also spoke with right-wing British politician turned broadcaster, Nigel Farage, in a Great Britain News interview, saying, “being president is the last thing that Donald Trump needs,” and claiming his father “can be living a much better life than getting indicted for nonsense because they want to weaponize the entire system.”

“Every single one of us. We get subpoenaed every day. We get this,” Trump declared. “Donald Trump’s better life is not in politics, and he does it every single day because he loves it. He loves his country, he loves the Western world.”

Also on Real America’s Voice, Eric Trump declared, “Joe Biden is the worst president that we’ve ever seen.”

Speaking to NBC News’ Kristen Welker, Eric Trump claimed the enthusiasm in New Hampshire is the best he’s ever seen. Some journalists have said the enthusiasm is not there.

---

an 8 23

a seasoned Federal Bureau of Investigation counterintelligence officer told the United States Senate Judiciary Committee that he was ordered by his superiors to "stop investigating Rudy Giuliani and to cut off contact with any sources who reported on corruption by associates of former President Donald Trump," according to a whistleblower complaint that was exclusively obtained by Business Insider's Mattathias Schwartz.

"The agent, who served 14 years as a special agent for the bureau, including a long stint in Russia-focussed counter-intelligence, claims in a 22-page statement that his bosses interfered with his work in 'a highly suspicious suppression of investigations and intelligence-gathering' aimed at protecting 'certain politically active figures and possibly also FBI agents' who were connected to Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs," Schwartz writes. "Those figures, the statement claims, explicitly included 'anyone in the [Trump] White House and any former or current associates of President Trump.'"

Schwartz explains that the employee's account was "apparently leaked and posted in mid-July to a Substack newsletter. Insider has independently obtained a copy of the complaint and verified its authenticity, but has not corroborated all of its claims."

The unnamed individual said in an interview with Insider that he was motivated by the desire to "policymakers accountable, whether they're on the left or the right." According to Schwartz, the whistleblower felt the FBI was at "a decision point" and wondered, "Are we going to do public corruption or not?"

Schwartz continues, "The whistleblower told Insider that he was finally ordered to stop investigating Giuliani and the rest of the Trump White House in August 2022, after months of what he says were persistent efforts to frustrate his work,at a meeting with three FBI supervisors at a bureau field office. Insider was able to confirm the agent's account of the meeting with a second source with knowledge of what took place."

Schwartz notes that "the directions he received included a strict prohibition on filing intelligence reports relating to Giuliani or any other Trump associate" during an August 2022 meeting where he was fed "performance issues and concerns" despite having "eight consecutive years of "excellent" or "outstanding" work.

"In one case, the statement says, the agent developed information from confidential informants that Giuliani had allegedly done paid work for Pavel Fuks, a Ukrainian oligarch and 'asset of the Russian intelligence services.' (That charge was previously reported by Rolling Stone.) The whistleblower also looked into claims that Giuliani had fraudulently raised money from investors to produce a never-completed film about Joe Biden in the months before the 2020 election," Schwartz explains. "The agent's reporting on Giuliani wasn't received well in the bureau's New York field office, his statement says. 'In the midst of my reporting involving Giuliani, which had previously been identified by my supervisor as 'high impact,' my management told me they received a call from a supervisor in [the New York field office], who they did not identify,' the statement says. 'This supervisor had taken issue with my reporting.'"

---

intercept

BI Hired Social Media Surveillance Firm That Labeled Black Lives Matter Organizers “Threat Actors”

:{:{:{Ken Klippenstein}::{}:

A new Senate report calls out the FBI for lying to Congress about its social media monitoring, pointing out the FBI’s hiring of ZeroFox.

---

}:}:

---

https://www.alternet.org/jim-jordan-fbi/

no lnx

house Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) has issued a subpoena to the Director of the FBI over the Bureau’s alleged efforts to develop “sources” in local Catholic Churches, and a now-withdrawn memo from a local field office that reportedly discussed the possibility some right-wing Catholics might pose possible domestic terror threats.

Jordan, who also heads the House GOP’s new, specially-constituted Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, appears to be using the new committee as a bullhorn to amplify far-right wing conspiracy theories about alleged incidents of anti-conservative bias, while attacking government officials who he sees as enemies of the far-right. His committee has not investigated any instances of anti-liberal bias.

But this new subpoena of FBI Director Wray (Jordan infamously to this day has refused to comply with a lawful subpoena from the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack) comes under the auspices of Jordan’s Judiciary Committee, despite Jordan tweeting it out via his Weaponization Committee account.

“The Committee on the Judiciary is conducting oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) handling of domestic violent extremism investigations against Catholic Americans and its effect on protected First Amendment activity,” Jordan’s letter begins. There is no proof his allegations are credible.

READ MORE: Louisville Becomes 146th Mass Shooting in Just 100 Days This Year – Dem Governor Says Two of the Victims Were His Friends

Commonweal, a liberal Catholic magazine, explored the issue last month, mocking the far-right’s outrage, and noting: “Those who’ve been quick to call the FBI anti-Catholic should recognize that far-right Catholic websites do publish a great deal of material that would draw and affirm racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists, especially anti-Semites. Catholic leaders and spokespersons should condemn that more forcefully.”

The FBI withdrew the memo after it was leaked. The far-right jumped on the memo as yet another alleged example of anti-Christian bias of the federal government. In reality, it was a memo drafted by one Richmond, Virginia FBI agent.

The now-withdrawn FBI memo, The Richmond-Times Dispatch reported in February, “said the agency was investigating Catholics who have possible ties to ‘the far-right white nationalist movement.'”

In his letter, Jordan claims: “Based on the limited information produced by the FBI to the Committee, we now know that the FBI relied on at least one undercover agent to produce its analysis, and that the FBI proposed that its agents engage in outreach to Catholic parishes to develop sources among the clergy and church leadership to inform on Americans practicing their faith. This shocking information reinforces our need for all responsive documents, and the Committee is issuing a subpoena to you to compel your full cooperation.”

Commonweal also wrote that it’s “easy to make fun of the leaked FBI memo that proposed infiltrating radical-traditionalist Catholic organizations to gather intelligence on the violent extremists said to be drawn to them and, supposedly, their celebrations of the Tridentine Mass.As one op-ed writer scoffed in the Washington Post, ‘the most dangerous thing a Rad Trad might do is leave a rosary lying about for someone to slip on.'”

“It’s also easy to be outraged, especially if you misinterpret the FBI memo in the way twenty Republican attorneys general did in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland: ‘The memorandum’s targeting of Catholics because they prefer to pray in the ancient liturgical language of the Church, and the tactics it proposes for dealing with those Catholics, harkens back to some of the worst chapters of our past.'”

READ MORE: Jim Jordan to Hold Committee Hearing During NYC Field Trip to Attack Alvin Bragg for Prosecuting Trump

It’s also important to remind Americans that Republican outrage during the early days of the Obama administration over a Dept. of Homeland Security “report warning that home-grown extremists are organizing and targeting military veterans for recruitment,” was so vilified – because those extremists were right-wing extremists – DHS withdrew the report.

:{:{}:

That helped enable the rise of right-wing violent extremism, including white supremacist and white nationalist hate groups, that America faces today.

In 2021, President Joe Biden said, “Domestic terrorism from white supremacists is the most lethal terrorist threat in the homeland.”

Watch President Biden’s remarks below or at this link.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

'So defund the police?' Jim Jordan slammed for plan to cut DOJ and FBI funds over Trump indictment ›

Jim Jordan threatens 16 FBI officials with subpoenas after facing affront over three 'nutcase' whistleblowers ›

Revealed: Jim Jordan's FBI 'whistleblowers' were paid by Trump ally and spread J6 conspiracy theories ›

The Elusive “Environmental Extremist”

“Environmental extremism” is among a handful of categories of so-called domestic extremism — including “racially motivated violent extremism,” “anti-government extremism,” “animal rights extremism,” and “abortion extremism” — that the FBI monitors closely.

Who exactly are these eco-extremists? Under a section titled “environmental rights extremism,” a November 2019reference guide to “violent extremism” published by the Colorado Information Analysis Center, a fusion center, and other state security agencies, which was released as part of BlueLeaks, lists a range of groups. Among others, they listed the animal liberation group Direct Action Everywhere, which has removed animals from factory farms in rescue actions, and the Earth Liberation Front, which had its heyday committing arsons in the ’90s. Also listed were East Boulder County United, a grassroots organization that promotes community consultation on oil and gas development; and 350 Colorado, the local chapter of a well-known national climate organization. Both groups have participated in and promoted nonviolent civil disobedience as a tactic to force public officials to appropriately address the climate crisis.

In a statement,Colorado Information Analysis Center spokesperson Micki Trost provided a justification for the labels, “We want to ensure that individuals have the opportunity to exercise their First Amendment rights in a safe and impactful manner,” Trost said. “We believe that information sharing on groups that have perpetrated crimes and disrupted peaceful protests helps local law enforcement better protect those that are lawfully exercising their First Amendment rights.”

According to an FBI and Department of Homeland Securitydocument, “environmental extremists” primarily target the “extraction, use, and transportation of fossil fuels.” BlueLeaks documents from various regional fusion and homeland security centers, as well as other federal agencies, point to an array of fossil fuel industry opponents, including the climate direct action group Extinction Rebellion; the Oglala Lakota opponent of the Dakota Access pipeline Red Fawn Fallis, who remains imprisoned after being accused of firing gunshots during a struggle with law enforcement at a Standing Rock protest; Arctic drilling protesters who chained themselves to a ship in Washington; and anti-oil industry activists, who shut off a pipeline by turning a valve.

the only recent U.S. incident listed in the documents that resulted in loss of life involved Rory Gunderman, who, according to the South Dakota Fusion Center and Wyoming Criminal Intelligence Center, wasassociated with the movement Deep Green Resistancebefore he allegedly attempted to carry out a plot in 2015 to shut down the power grid. After police attempted to apprehend Gunderman, he took his own life.

Indeed, in various documents law enforcement agencies underline something that many environmental activists have themselves pointed out: Unlike other types of extremism, “environmental extremism” is aimed at property, not people. One bulletin published by the FBI and DHS noted the threat that such activists pose has decreased over the years and is lower than other types of extremism. However, their “desire” to commit crime “has not waned.”

Nevertheless, authorities are keen to view “environmental extremists” as a major threat. An FBI memo urges partner law enforcement agencies to coordinate with the Bureau on any incident involving environmental extremism. Federal agents, the memo says, are interested in who is training “environmental extremists,” in addition to knowing which purported extremists are involved in domestic or international criminal organizations, where they have traveled, and how they communicate.

Protesters gather in front of San Francisco City Hall during a protest in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe against the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline on March 10, 2017.

Photo: Joel Angel Juarez/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

And so law enforcement has continued to monitor activists’ activity, including through an online discussion forum, an environmental organization’s web site, and a bulletin that described how tactics utilized in the resistance to the Dakota Access pipeline could be repurposed against the Enbridge Line 3 tar sands oil pipeline in Minnesota, documents show.

To prepare law enforcement for encountering such alleged extremists, police attended trainings, including one offered in October 2019 by the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center. According to one of the documents, a flyer, the training would be led by Steven Stanley, a “certified anti-terrorism specialist” working for the Sigma Group who planned to cover a remarkable range of “domestic terrorism topics.” His focus would be on ideologically left-leaning viewpoints, including “Global Anarchist Activity, Social and Global Justice Groups, Anti-War Activists/Militants, Anti-Nuclear Activists/Militants, Anti-Pipeline Activists/Militants, Anti-Police Movement, AntifaMovement (Antifascists), Animal Liberation Activists/Militants, Eco-Terrorism, Radical Environmental Groups, Radical Unions, [and] Protests Protest Activity/Dynamics.” Stanley also promised to show attendees a “private collection consisting of 40 years of radical books, magazines, patches, stickers, clothing, pictures, videos, DVD’S and much more.” Fifty-eight people registered for the course.

German, the former FBI agent, said that the result of so much attention on environmental activists is visible in police’s response to protests. “We’ve had a variety of unruly protests by armed, far-right militia groups that the police react to in a very calm manner,” he said. “And yet when you see a group of environmentalists or people who might look similar to the way environmentalists at a protest look, you see a hyper-aggressive police response, even though the level of violence coming from those groups is significantly lower.”

Comparing Pipeline Activists to Al Qaeda

In most of the fusion center documents revealed by BlueLeaks, it’s the language of “extremism” that suggests that law enforcement officers perceive a common thread between environmental activists and violent militants. One document, though, explicitly applied the lens the U.S. military used on groups like Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Iraq to community members opposing two natural gas pipelines in Virginia.

In September 2019, the Virginia Fusion Center issued a briefing titled “Criminal Environmental Groups Study and Adopt Militant Insurgent Strategiesto Advance Goals in Virginia.” The Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley pipeline projects were in the midst of approval processes and under construction in the state at the time. A range of activists, environmental experts, and neighbors had organized to observe construction, file lawsuits, voice their dissent at public meetings, and hold protests — including a series of tree sits, where project opponents camped out in trees in the pathway of the pipeline.

The document concluded that “criminal environmental groups” organizing against pipeline construction would likely use the same four tactics as Al Qaeda: provocation, intimidation, protraction, and exhaustion.

Asked for comment, Virginia State Police Public Relations Director Corinne Geller explained to The Intercept: “This particular report was designed to provide regional law enforcement with an enhanced awareness of criminal activity that has been associated with various groups protesting environmental interests nationwide and worldwide. Sharing common tactics and strategies associated with criminal activity is invaluable to law enforcement agencies’ efforts to engage with and for the protection of local citizens/communities, as well as for the purpose of officer safety.”

How a Movement That Never Killed Anyone Became the FBI’s No. 1 Domestic Terrorism Threat

Provocation was used by Al Qaeda, the fusion center report claimed, when militants destroyed the Al-Askari Mosque in Karbala, Iraq, in 2004 in an effort to set off a violent response in the majority Shia country toward the Sunni minority. (The mosque bombing actually took place in Samarra in 2006.) In turn, provocation, the document claimed, was also used by “criminal environmental groups” in 2016 in North Dakota, when private security contractors unleashed their dogs on Dakota Access pipeline opponents —the suggestion being that the Indigenous water protectors strategically incited the dog attacks to stir up conflict.

Insurgent groups use the tactic of intimidation, the document continued, by threatening violence against local community members who don’t submit to their cause. An individual associated with a “criminal environmental group” deployed a comparable tactic in Virginia, the document suggests, when they posted a comment on the Facebook page of a hotel that provided rooms to pipeline construction workers. “I hope that money lasts you for a lifetime because the people will be there every day making sure you never earn another dollar for the rest of your existence,” the comment said. The threat of protest was apparently comparable to a threat of physical violence.

The fusion center even quoted 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden describing his goal of exhausting the U.S. government by “bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy.” Then it went on to note that “criminal environmental groups” would likely try to exhaust law enforcement and private businesses’ resources by building camps and distributing “extremist propaganda” to residents impacted by construction. Although the document title suggested activists were studying these tactics, the fusion center provided no evidence that was so.

In small print at the bottom, the fusion center wrote, “This document is not designed to compare criminal environmental groups to al-Qa’ida and associated movements” — despite the fact that it did exactly that.

The report repeatedly cited the book “The Accidental Guerrilla,” by David Kilcullen, a senior counterinsurgency adviser to the U.S. during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as a source. “Overall, in terms of content, the document doesn’t strike me as objectionable,” Kilcullen said when asked to comment on the document. “I am sure if they knew it was going to be leaked the authors might have framed the language differently, but it is an accurate reflection of how things work in these kinds of situations.”

In a recent article for theFoundation for the Defense of Democracies, a neoconservative Washington think tank where he is an adviser, Kilcullen argued that, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, the U.S. might considered as being amid an “incipient insurgency.” He told the Intercept, “What’s perhaps a bit confronting is that people are now applying that logic to the United States — but the shocking thing is not that this is inaccurate, but rather that it’s now an increasingly accurate way of thinking about what’s happening on our streets and elsewhere.”

McQuade, the University of Southern Maine sociologist, said that, although this document was distinct from other fusion center documents he’s reviewed throughout his research, it shouldn’t be viewed as an aberration. “This is an insight into how security professionals view politics,” he said. “When your job is to defend the status quo at all costs, it isn’t a ridiculous overreach to apply a theory for defeating an armed movement in a developing country that has been in a civil war for decades against a protest movement in a country that isn’t at civil war.”

The danger, German said, was that law enforcement officers might unthinkingly take the document seriously. “I would put myself in the place of a brand-new police officer trying to protect his or her community, and not having a deep background in terrorism research, receiving this document,” German said. “Now anybody doing any activism in my community, I would automatically perceive as a threat — not just a threat of engaging in civil disobedience or vandalism but actually a terrorist threat.”

The fusion center claimed some individuals would be recruited into Virginia’s “criminal environmental groups” through what the unnamed author called “accidental guerrilla syndrome,” a process that leads someone who normally would not join an insurgent group to fight alongside one.

State and local law enforcement monitor an anti-pipeline protest site to make sure that no attempts are made to give protesters food or water. The pipeline opponents are occupying trees high above the ground outside Roanoke, Va., to protest the Mountain Valley Pipeline Project on April 2, 2018.

Photo: Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post via Getty Images

The proliferation of tree sits were signs that “accidental guerrilla syndrome” was already in the “contagion phase,” the document says. The memo pointed to Giles County, where tree-sitters with Appalachians Against Pipelines had gained support from neighbors, and Montgomery County, where a tree sit called Yellow Finch has been in place for two years. “If tree sits like these continue to develop, it may become more difficult for pipeline construction to continue and support for it may decrease,” the fusion center document concluded.

“If they can compare us to Al Qaeda, they can do anything to us,” said Dustie Pinesap, commenting from atop the Yellow Finch tree sit. “Last I checked we never picked up a Kalashnikov. We tend to see property damage or denial of use of property or any sort of damage or impeding of property rights as violent.”

Indeed, the document makes crystal clear that the fusion center conflated support for the projects with security. “Collaborative relationships between law enforcement and businesses, working with contractors or the energy companies may help identify criminal actors before violence or property destruction takes place,” the fusion center document says. It points to a suite of “counter insurgency strategies,” drawn from a Kunar Province road-building project in Afghanistan, that police — as well as the pipeline companies — could deploy to build community support.

“Organizations involved in pipeline construction” should consider “contracting local restaurants to provide lunch to pipeline workers each day,” the fusion center advises, in order to “spread economic engagement across the community.” Similarly, implementing the Kunar road’s “10 kilometer rule,” hiring workers within a certain radius of the construction zone, could “provide local residents a sense of pride and connection to the project.”

The pipeline companies might even consider a “youth employment campaign,” the publicly funded fusion center suggested. “If such a project was implemented in local Virginia communities, families would not support outside groups, individuals, or local opposition groups that hinder their children’s economic and skill gaining opportunities, much like the Afghan communities that rejected the Taliban and al-Qa’ida in their attempts to delay and disrupt the Kunar Road project because it directly affected their livelihood.”

“The constituency is clearly the private sector,” said McQuade, highlighting that the document’s goal did note even seem to be to protect the broader community that may be ambivalent about pipeline construction. “Those people are just pawns whose support needs to be won.”

German sees the fusion centers as captured by corporate PR campaigns seeking to portray themselves as victims of extremist violence. “Many of these are multinational corporations —they’re not even necessarily U.S. corporations — yet law enforcement seems to favor protecting them over their own communities,” German pointed out. “How many fusion center reports have we seen that document environmental damage done by criminal actions or negligent actions of corporations? Those are also criminal — those are within the jurisdiction of these law enforcement agencies — and arguably cost a whole lot more in economic damage to these communities than somebody turning a valve on a pipeline. Yet that’s not where we see law enforcement resources being spent.”

Law Enforcement Goes Don Quixote

Despite the comparisons to Al Qaeda and the descriptions of widespread monitoring of activists, several fusion center documents acknowledge that environmental defenders pose little threat to people — or even property. But intelligence analysts still had plenty of guesses about what might spark “environmental extremists” to commit so-called violence, defined to include property damage.

“Media attention given to related issues, such as exotic game hunting, may compel some individuals who had not been associated with the extremist movements to make threats of violence or commit other crimes,” a 2016 FBI report suggests.

The arrests of high-profile activists could also push people over the edge. When Ruby Montoya and Jessica Reznicek were arrested last October for using a welding torch to poke holes in the Dakota Access Pipeline, the FBI and DHS assessed that “it is possible environmental extremists may commit criminal acts potentially destructive of critical infrastructure, such as property damage, to express solidarity with those arrested in the near term.” However, the document adds, there existed “no specific targeting or threat information” suggesting that this was actually true.

In the eyes of some intelligence analysts, even Covid-19 provided potential spark for environmental extremism. A daily intelligence briefing by the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Interagency Counterterrorism Task Force provided analysis about how “Europe’s terrorists” might take advantage of the pandemic. “The Covid-19 outbreak could also lead to a rise of violent actions by the hands of environmental extremists. Economic difficulties, a lack of public support, and more urgent needs might thwart advances in the global warming agenda and interrupt green investments by national governments,” the document states. “Moreover, having witnessed the immediate environmental benefits due to radical actions like a global lockdown and economic disruption, eco-activists could be triggered to resort to violence.”

German framed much of the speculation as noise. “One of the problems with the buildup of these intelligence reporting platforms and the information sharing environment that was built after 9/11 was that they hired all these analysts who aren’t given a very specific mandate on what to report,” he explained. “They’re measured by the number of reports. After you’ve written about one problem in the criminal justice system, you run out of things to write about.”

Ultimately, the wind energy exercise in Iowa was inconclusive. The attacks might happen, or they might not: “Based on the Red Hat exercise, FBI Omaha and the Iowa DOI/FC estimated that, as wind energy projects become more common, there is a roughly even chance that attacks against wind energy assets in Iowa by environmental extremists will occur.” Even in the face of that analysis, though, the FBI declined to back down from its hypothesis: “The FBI’s official assessment is environmental extremists possibly will increase their criminal activity against the industrial wind industry.”

If anything, Germain said, the FBI’s foray into attacking windmills was counterproductive. “It is just dangerous for the FBI to be brainstorming ways for groups to attack private companies, putting that on paper, and then putting it in systems where it can leak out,” he said. “They created a security situation. This is a blueprint for how to attack wind turbines, and it doesn’t come from any terrorist group, it comes from the FBI.”

Down the road, police learning to view environmentalists as saboteurs could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. “It’s creating a likelihood that when there are more confrontations over energy infrastructure,” McQuade said, “that the response will be extremely punitive and will escalate the struggle.”

no lnx highlight, see Sabu bottom

https://gizmodo.com/dojs-new-wikileaks-indictment-has-significant-convenie-1844166678

6/20

In its push to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from the U.K., the U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday published a superseding indictment aimed at broadening “the scope of the conspiracy surrounding alleged computer intrusions with which Assange was previously charged.” The names of certain organizations and individuals are masked, including that of a paid FBI informant who stole money from WikiLeaks and later confessed to having sex with nine underage boys in exchange for money and other valuables.

A decent chunk of the filing relates to Chelsea Manning, her interactions with Assange and other possible ties to known WikiLeaks associates, which serve as the foundation for the bulk of the charges against Assange, including multiple counts of espionage.

But in hopes of linking Assange to other “unlawful overt acts” as part of a broader conspiracy—one goal of which is connecting Assange to crimes against a NATO ally of the country considering his extradition—DOJ describes several alleged interactions between Assange and Anonymous hackers involved in major criminal operations. Considerable context is omitted from the descriptions of these events, however, including the FBI’s own role in furthering attacks by Anonymous against American businesses and foreign governments in South America and the Middle East, based on a review of sealed evidence by Gizmodo.

A section of the indictment titled “Sabu, Hammond, and ASSANGE” begins on the date December 25, 2011, and refers to an attack on servers belonging to a private firm identified only as “Intelligence Consulting Company.” This is obviously Stratfor, the Austin-based private intelligence company whose millions of pilfered emails comprise the WikiLeaks drop known as the Global Intelligence Files.

DOJ omits several crucial details about the Stratfor hack in its attempts to name Assange as a conspirator in a breach that happened without his knowledge. Most notably, prosecutors exclude that the actual breach of Stratfor’s security, in late 2011, occurred 83 days prior to the events they describe, unknownst by anyone DOJ identifies as part of the conspiracy, including Assange.

This has gone mostly unreported due to the fact that all of the evidence related to the hack was sealed by a federal judge in Manhattan. Attempts by the New York Times and other outlets to acquire the evidence in court all failed. Nevertheless, nearly all of it was leaked to a handful of reporters in 2013 and today form the basis of multiple detailed accounts of the hack and surrounding events. (A portion of the material has been publicly accessible for years.)

One key document is a confidential computer forensics report, completed in February 2012, describing the Stratfor breach. The report was completed by investigators working for Verizon, which Stratfor contracted about five days after the public became aware of the breach. It lays out several important facts: The first is that attempts to breach Stratfor’s email server began on September 29, 2011, and that four days later, a brute force attack against a specific user account was successful.

This break-in detailed in the confidential report occurred two months before anyone prosecutors have blamed for the attack even knew of the company’s existence.

On November 16, the data dump containing the credit card information of Stratfor customers was created. Notably, this predates the DOJ’s own timeline of Anonymous’ involvement by 19 days. That this is the actual credit card file ultimately leaked by Anonymous is indisputable: The dataset contains 79,062 credit cards, the exact number of cards held by Stratfor on November 16, according to the forensics report. By the time Anonymous published its list, Stratfor’s database contained an additional 1,860 cards, none of which were included in the leak.

Strategic Forecasting, Inc. computer forensic investigation

Screenshot: Sabu Files

The first Anonymous figure identified by DOJ as part of the Stratfor hack doesn’t become aware of the breach until early December, according to DOJ’s own timeline of events. In 2012, the FBI fed news reporters, including those at the New York Times, false information about how this all transpired. The FBI claimed that an Anonymous hacker found a way into Stratfor’s network on December 6 and then notified a member of his team—who happened to be an FBI informant.

In reality, the exact opposite happened.

Prosecutors have never mentioned, nor has the FBI ever acknowledged the capture of, the hacker actually responsible for breaching Stratfor and creating the stolen credit card file. The narrative has always been that Jeremy Hammond, a hacker affiliated with the Anonymous-offshoot Antisec, was chiefly responsible for the breach. (Hammond is currently serving the final year of his 10-year sentence for hacking Stratfor.)

Strategic Forecasting, Inc. computer forensic investigation

Screenshot: Sabu Files

For certain, Hammond gleefully ransacked Stratfor, defaced its website, encouraged others to commit fraud using its stolen credit cards, and on December 24, 2011, inputted the commands that disabled its web server and deleted its file systems. But prior to December 4, the date an FBI informant (“Sabu”) offered him the means to access those systems, Hammond had no apparent knowledge of the company’s existence.

Evidence collected by the FBI, which DOJ has fought to keep concealed, shows the hacker responsible for breaching Stratfor (known only as “Hyrriiya”) was closely tied with a group of hackers whose central focus was infiltrating the Syrian government—the same group behind the leak of the Syria Files, more than 2 million emails from Syrian government officials published by WikiLeaks in July 2012.

Moreover, the evidence appears to show a clear violation of DOJ’s guidelines for the use of confidential informants, which expressly forbid informants from initiating or instigating “a plan or strategy to commit a federal, state, or local offense.” Despite claiming in court that its informant was under constant surveillance and worked side-by-side with agents throughout his cooperation, an FBI official later said of any alleged unlawful conduct: “It’s not like we watched him every time he got up to get a coke.” (This also appears untrue as prosecutors claimed in 2014 there was a webcam in his apartment.)

In one of the most egregious examples of this violation, records show the informant providing Hammond complete credit card data belonging to a member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police and an employee of Raytheon as evidence the breach is authentic. Hammond responds that he’s interested and wants to “sink [his] teeth” into the target.

At the time Stratfor was hacked, companies rarely faced any scrutiny for suffering data breaches. Were the same hack to occur today, coverage of the event would likely be different. After Equifax announced its breach in 2017, the company was investigated federally and excoriated publicly, its reputation essentially torched. Stratfor, meanwhile, quietly paid out a meager $1.7 million settlement and was largely portrayed as a victim in the press.

In truth, Stratfor set the stage for its own devastating breach through its own sheer negligence. Its security, or lack thereof, was appalling, according to its own forensic report. The company had virtually no controls over remote access to its network, which was not protected by a firewall and lacked proper file integrity-monitoring. It had no password management policy. According to the report, staff “commonly use the same password to access email as the password to remotely access a system containing sensitive information.”

In 2011, Stratfor was, the report found, ignoring all routine data security standards established by the payment card industry: no firewall, no encryption, no regularly updated anti-virus software, no need-to-know restricted access, no network monitoring, no regular audits of its systems, and no existing policy to address information security. The server that held Stratfor’s unsecured credit card data wasn’t even segregating from its email server, which was the hackers’ point of entry and the only reason any financial information was stolen in the first place.

If the same hack were to have happened this year, the company would wind up eating the lion’s share of the blame.

Perhaps the most absurd twist is that Dallas-based journalist Barrett Brown ended up getting slapped with nearly $900,000 in restitution to Stratfor, even though Brown had no advanced knowledge of the attack and, to be blunt, couldn’t hack his way out of a paper bag.

As with Hammond, Brown took a deal in an effort to avoid potentially decades in prison. But in trying to ensure Brown got the harshest sentence possible, federal prosecutors repeatedly painted him as being closely allied with the hackers behind the Stratfor breach. This despite the fact that DOJ quietly withheld evidence obtained by an informant obliterating that theory. This evidence showed that the hackers secretly loathed Brown and had even discussed implicating him in the crime—textbook Brady material, which would have all but upended the government’s account of Brown being integral to the breach.

As Gizmodo previously reported, there is likely ample evidence to show that WikiLeaks aided the Stratfor hackers in the wake of the attack, after the fact. But in several places, Gizmodo can confirm, the indictment attributes statements directly to Assange when, in reality, those conversations were relayed second-hand. (Assange is also known for using a variety of methods to obscure his identity online including, notoriously, referring to himself in the third-person.) At best, these are copies of exchanges taken from chat rooms in which a user claims to be Assange, which is not likely to hold up in court.

The evidence does show that someone alleging to be Assange provided the Stratfor hackers with a script designed to help them more easily navigate the more than 5 million emails they stole (though, as FBI’s own evidence shows, the hackers found the tool was practically useless.) Nevertheless, like Brown, the evidence also shows Assange had no foreknowledge of the attack. Without WikiLeaks’ involvement, Stratfor’s customers would have still suffered the same amount of financial harm, the company’s systems would have still been destroyed, and its emails would have ended up splattered across the internet anyway, in one form or another.

Regardless of whatever alleged crimes Assange may actually be guilty of—if any—that shouldn’t distract from the fact that DOJ’s timeline of events is woefully misleading. The agency’s handling of the Stratfor breach should not be cast as a model for how to prosecute computer crimes. It is at best a paradigm for evidence mismanagement, and at worst, a glaring case of deliberate prosecutorial misconduct.

9/19

https://gizmodo.com/jeremy-hammond-anonymous-hacker-and-wikileaks-source-1837830636

---

https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/democrats-warn-the-fbi-that-a-gop-senator-is-laundering-a-foreign-operation-to-attack-biden-report/

On Monday, Politico reported that Democratic congressional leaders have sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray demanding a briefing on foreign efforts to target members of Congress as part of an influence campaign.

“Among the Democrats’ concerns is that a Senate investigation being led by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) has become a vehicle for ‘laundering’ a foreign influence campaign to damage Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, according to two people familiar with the demand,” reported Natasha Bertrand. “Though the letter did not mention the Johnson investigation, it included a classified addendum that the two sources say identified the probe as one of the sources of their concern.”

The letter was signed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA), and Senate Intelligence Committee ranking member Mark Warner (D-VA).

Johnson, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee, opened the investigation ostensibly to audit the origins of the Russia investigation in the previous administration. But even some Republicans have raised concerns that the overly political nature of the probe will backfire on them.

---

https://yyy.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/23/revealed-how-the-fbi-targeted-environmental-activists-in-domestic-terror-investigations

https://yyy.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/25/keystone-xl-protests-pipeline-activism-environment

no lnx pix

Keystone XL: police discussed stopping anti-pipeline activists 'by any means'

720 lee f

https://theintercept.com/2020/06/24/fbi-surveillance-social-media-cellphone-dataminr-venntel/

---

https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/qanon-conspiracy-theory-post-about-coronavirus-spreading-social-media

no lnx many

QAnon conspiracy theory post about the coronavirus is spreading on social media

The QAnon conspiracy theory, alreadylabeled a potential domestic terror threat by the FBI, is now also a threat to public health

WRITTEN BY ALEX KAPLAN

PUBLISHED 03/24/20 1:41 PM EDT

A conspiratorial post about the novel coronavirus by “Q,” the central figure of the QAnon conspiracy theory, is spreading throughout social media, harming efforts to convey that the virus is a legitimate danger to public health.

The QAnon conspiracy theory revolves around an anonymous account known as “Q,” and is premised around the claim that President Donald Trump was working with then-special counsel Robert Mueller to take down the president’s perceived enemies, the “deep state,” and pedophile rings. Multiple adherents to the conspiracy theory have been tied to acts of violence, including murders and an attempted kidnapping, and an FBI field office released a memo in May 2019 that listed QAnon as a potential domestic terrorism threat. The conspiracy theory started on far-right message board site 4chan and later moved to fellow far-right message board site 8chan, which has since relaunched as 8kun. The owner of 8chan/8kun, Jim Watkins, has shown support for QAnon and helped establish aQAnon super PAC. (Beyond the QAnon conspiracy theory, 8chan/8kun has been linked to multiple instances of white supremacist terrorism, including the August 2019 massacre in El Paso, Texas.)

On the evening of March 23, “Q” posted on 8kun’s “/qresearch/” message board about the coronavirus. The post used race-baiting language, referring to the illness as the “China virus,” and implied that the virus was a bioweapon created in order to harm Trump’s reelection chances. (This false conspiracy theory has spread elsewhere on social media.)

Q post coronavirus pix]

Since then, the post has spread throughout Facebook groups and Twitter among QAnon supporters, where it has received thousands of engagements combined, being cited for proof that “the virus is a Cabal weapon” and a “false flag” that “democrats look suspiciously responsible for.”The “Q” post was also able to spread thanks to QAnon apps that are offered on the Google Play Store (which Google profits from).

Q post coronavirus Twitter2

Q post coronavirus Facebook1

Q post coronavirus Twitter3

The “Q” post’s spread comes as supporters of the conspiracy theory have been using social media platforms to spread falsehoods about the virus being some kind of false flag by the “deep state” for population control or a “military operation” to target supposed elites. They have also promoted dangerous false cures for the disease such as drinking bleach.

---

note NOT an fbi investigation (but they cc'd wonder if will act)

https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/gop-lawmaker-invokes-trump-impeachment-while-refusing-to-resign-from-washington-state-legislature-after-investigators-say-he-engaged-in-domestic-terrorism/

[trms local sheriff not buying academic nature of plan]

1219 an no lnx

GOP lawmaker invokes Trump impeachment and refuses to resign from Washington state legislature after investigators accuse him of ‘domestic terrorism’

Written by Alex Henderson December 20, 2019

Washington State Rep. Matt Shea is so extreme that he’s controversial even among fellow Republicans and the far-right Tea Party, and both Democrats and Republicans in Washington’s state legislature are calling for his resignation following the release of a report accusing him of participation in an “act of domestic terrorism.”

The 108-page report, according to the Spokane Spokesman-Review, was delivered to the Washington House of Representatives on Thursday and was based on a four-month investigation — which found that Shea’s role in the armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in 2016 amounted to “an act of domestic terrorism against the United States.” The report’s findings are being forwarded to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

The armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, the report states, “was meticulously planned in December 2015 by conspirators that included Rep. Shea.”

Republican J.T. Wilcox, minority leader in the Washington House of Representatives, said of Shea, “He absolutely should resign. His role as a House Republican is over.”

Rep. Matt Shea has been suspended from any role in the House Republican Caucus. He should resign. He cannot use House Republican staff, he cannot meet with the caucus, his office will be moved. https://t.co/AATHOHuO31

— Rep. JT Wilcox (@jtwilcox111) December 20, 2019

But Shea has so far refused to resign. On his Facebook page, the 45-year-old Republican compared calls for his resignation to the impeachment of President Donald Trump — writing, “Like we are seeing with our president, this is a sham investigationmeant to silence those of us who stand up against attempts to disarm and destroy our great country. I will not back down, I will not give in, I will not resign. Stand strong, fellow patriots.”

The investigation of Shea addressed in the report was conducted by the Seattle-based firm the Rampart Group, which was hired by members of the Washington House of Representatives and is headed by a former FBI agent.

In Washington State, Shea is infamous for his Christianist and anti-Muslim views and his support of armed militia groups. And not unlike Islamists who advocate sharia law, Shea has called for the U.S. to become an authoritarian Christian theocracy.

The report noted that in a document titled “Biblical Basis for War,” Shea “advocated the replacement of U.S. democracy with a theocracy and the killing of all males who do not agree.”

---

How the FBI Botched Its Russia Inquiry, One of the Most Closely Watched Cases in Its History

Eric Lichtblau

The investigation was slowed by communication failures, concerns about political optics, and an overall lack of urgency, along with plenty of mistakes.

intercept

---

https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/senate-republicans-defend-fbi-director-wray-against-trumps-angry-attacks-i-think-hes-excellent/

OJ IG report debunked Trump’s claims — but found anti-Hillary bias among FBI agents

"I didn’t want a criminal to be in the White…

---

https://yyy.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/23/revealed-how-the-fbi-targeted-environmental-activists-in-domestic-terror-investigations

no link guk

Revealed: how the FBI targeted environmental activists in domestic terror investigations

US news

Protesters were characterized as a threat to national security in what one calls an attempt to criminalize their actions

Adam Federman

Tue 24 Sep 2019 01.00 EDTLast modified on Wed 25 Sep 2019 14.11 EDT

Helen Yost, a 62-year-old environmental educator, has been a committed activist for nearly a decade. She says she spends 60 to 80 hours a week as a community organizer for Wild Idaho Rising Tide. She’s been arrested twice for engaging in non-violent civil disobedience.

Yost may not fit the profile of a domestic terrorist, but in 2014 the FBI classified her as a potential threat to national security. According to hundreds of pages of FBI files obtained by the Guardian through a Freedom of Information Act (Foia) lawsuit, and interviews with activists, Yost and more than a dozen other people campaigning against fossil fuel extraction in North America have been identified in domestic terrorism-related investigations.

The investigations, which targeted individual activists and some environmental organizations, were opened in 2013-2014, at the height of opposition to the Keystone XL Pipeline and the expansion of fossil fuel production in North America.

From an FBI communication on Helen Yost, dated 24 July 2014.

The new Foia documents reveal the bureau’s motivation for investigating a broad cross-section of the environmental movement and its characterization of non-violent protesters as a potential threat to national security.

In 2010, the DoJ’s inspector general criticized the FBI for using non-violent civil disobedience as grounds to open domestic terrorism investigations. US citizens swept up in such investigations can be placed on terrorism watchlists and subjected to surveillance and restrictions on international travel. The designation can also lead local law enforcement to take a more confrontational approach when engaging with non-violent activists.

The Resistance Now: Sign up for weekly news updates about the movement

The FBI’s 2013-2014 investigation of Keystone XL activists in Houston violated internal agency guidelines designed to prevent the bureau from infringing on constitutionally protected activities. The investigations opened in 2013-2014 were closed after the FBI concluded that the individuals and organizations had not engaged in criminal activity and did not a pose a threat to national security.

In 2015, the Obama administration rejected the Keystone XL pipeline project, which required state department approval because it would cross international borders, handing the environmental movement a major victory. More large-scale protests followed, including the standoff over the Dakota Access pipeline, which temporarily delayed the project.

But those decisions have been reversed in recent years. Donald Trump has approved construction of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, and his administration has also advocated for stiffer penalties against activists who engage in non-violent direct action targeting fossil fuel infrastructure. Meanwhile, in the wake of the Standing Rock protests, seven states have passed legislation making it a crime to trespass on property containing critical infrastructure.

In its July 2014 file on Yost, the FBI cited federal anti-terrorism legislation prohibiting “attacks and other violence against railroad carriers” as the primary justification for opening the investigation. Violation of the law can lead to up to 20 years in prison. Activists who engage in non-violent civil disobedience and are charged with minor offenses such as trespassing are typically released within 48 hours.

The FBI characterized Yost as being driven by a “desire to stop fossil fuels which, in her political view, are destroying parts of the US, specifically Montana, Idaho and Washington”. In addition, the FBI discussed the case with the US attorney’s office in Idaho, local law enforcement, and BNSF Railway, which operates the main rail line delivering coal and oil to export terminals in the Pacific north-west.

FBI communication on Helen Yost

From an FBI communication on Helen Yost, dated 24 July 2014.

According to the FBI file, the bureau opened the investigation based on information that Yost “was organizing and planning on conducting illegal activities against railroad companies from Montana into Idaho and Washington”.

Yost said Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) never organized direct action protests to disrupt oil train traffic passing in the region. The heavily redacted Yost investigation concludes that “no potential criminal violations or priority threats to national security warranting further investigation were identified”.

WIRT did participate in a series of community-led events and workshops in July and August 2014 opposing the transport of oil and coal by rail. “Investigators may have conflated several community events to assume such fictitious allegations,” Yost said in an email.

For several years, WIRT, founded in 2011, had been publicizing its actions on the organization’s Facebook page. Much of its activity had focused on stopping the passage of huge trucks known as megaloads, which transport processing equipment to tar sands oil fields in Canada and weigh hundreds of thousands of pounds, along one of Idaho’s scenic byways.

The campaign involved posting public records on the megaload routes, tracking their progress, and at times blockading their movement.

Yost was also active in protesting against the shipment of coal and oil by rail to export terminals in Seattle. In the summer of 2014, WIRT, along with several other environmental organizations and native groups across the Pacific north-west, sponsored a series of rallies and workshops in the region.

Those protests were peaceful – a handful of activists in Montana including the environmental writer Rick Bass were arrested for trespassing – and in the end the FBI concluded that Yost did not pose a threat to national security. Several months later the investigation was closed.

However, in the file closing the case, it appears that Yost has been watchlisted, which is standard for named subjects of FBI domestic terrorism investigations, according to Mike German, a former FBI agent who is now a fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice. Being watchlisted can lead to heightened scrutiny from law enforcement and delays or additional screenings when traveling. Yost said she had not traveled overseas since the FBI investigation.

Yost, who was contacted by an FBI agent when the case was still active, said she was not surprised by the agency’s actions. Surveillance was a form of suppression, she said, and this was another attempt to criminalize the actions of “normal people” working to protect natural resources. But she remains undeterred.

“Assume they know the color of your underwear every morning and get up and resist anyway,” Yost said.

Herb Goodwin, a 70-year-old activist, has a similar philosophy. “We’re all under surveillance,” Goodwin said. “If they want to look at your stuff, they’re going to.”

In 2013-2014 Goodwin frequently participated in actions organized by Yost and WIRT. He was also part of the Occupy Wall Street protests in Bellingham, Washington, in 2011 and was one of 12 individuals arrested that year for blockading a BNSF coal train passing through the city. They became known as the Bellingham 12.

Goodwin was one of at least a dozen environmental activists, many of them affiliated with the group Deep Green Resistance, contacted by FBI agents in autumn 2014. In early October that year, not long after Goodwin returned from a megaload resistance campaign in Idaho, an FBI agent and a police intelligence officer showed up at his residence. According to Goodwin, they wanted to ask him questions about the environmental group Deep Green Resistance. Goodwin refused to cooperate and referred the agents to his lawyer, who himself became a subject of interest to the FBI.

Founded in 2011 Deep Green Resistance (DGR), based on the principles laid out in the book of the same name, describes itself as a radical organization that “uses direct action in the fight to save the planet”. Though the group supports underground movements, its members abide by a code of conduct that includes a commitment to nonviolence and operating entirely above-ground. According to the group’s website, “We do not want to be involved in or aware of any underground organizing.” In another FBI interview with a DGR member documented in the files, the activist even invited the agents to attend one of DGR’s presentations.

FBI files show that the bureau initiated the two-year investigation into DGR to determine if the group or any of its members were planning to engage in the destruction of energy facilities or attacks against railroad companies, referring to the same federal statute cited in the Yost investigation.

But the FBI also took an interest in constitutionally protected activities, including DGR members’ participation in public meetings and lectures and the group’s early organizing efforts.

Even though the FBI investigation found no evidence that DGR was planning to engage in violent activity, it often portrayed the group as an extremist organization. One individual contacted numerous times by the FBI was said to have been a “suspected member of the Deep Green Resistance’s extremist wing” and a participant in DGR’s “Midwest extremist planning process”. DGR did have a strategic planning conference in Wisconsin in spring 2012 which they said was attended by about 30 people, but it was publicly advertised and focused on building the organization, fundraising and leadership training.

From an FBI communication on Deep Green Resistance, dated 28 November 2014.

The FBI also focused its attention on DGR organizing at Western Washington University, which hosted a lecture in 2011 by two of the group’s members, Max Wilbert and Dillon Thomson. Information about the lecture, titled Environmentalism for the New Century, and about the professor who hosted it was included in the FBI files. Wilbert, who attended WWU, is also a member of DGR’s board of directors.

As part of the investigation, the FBI met with the university’s police department to “discuss possible Deep Green Resistance presence on the WWU campus”. The FBI also said it would attempt to determine whether any of the professors in the environmental sciences department were involved in the “DGR movement”.

FBI communication on Deep Green Resistance

From an FBI communication on Deep Green Resistance, dated 21 November 2013.

The sweeping investigation into DGR’s activities was formally closed in 2014 but Wilbert assumes that the group is still being closely watched. Wilbert, who is also a writer and photographer, frequently posts short polemical essays on his Facebook page or the Deep Green Resistance website.

Wilbert said that on 7 September 2018, nearly four years after the investigation was closed, he got a call from an FBI agent in Seattle informing him that the bureau had received an anonymous tip regarding something he had written online. The agent also left a card at Wilbert’s parents’ home.

“I’m pretty outspoken about being a revolutionary, somebody who believes in the necessity for revolutionary change,” Wilbert said. “It’s not something I hide.”

An FBI file documenting the online tip describes Wilbert as “an environmental extremist” involved in “inciting violence in Seattle”.

German, the former FBI agent, whose recent book, Disrupt, Discredit, and Divide, chronicles the troubling post-9/11 expansion of the FBI’s domestic surveillance powers, said the agency had failed to heed the warnings laid out in a 2010 justice department IG investigation that criticized the FBI’s targeting of certain domestic advocacy groups. According to German, the Yost files and the two-year DGR investigation show how “ineffective these internal oversight mechanisms are to preventing abusive and wasteful investigations of non-violent protesters”.

Adam Federman is a reporting fellow with Type Investigations

---

https://www.alternet.org/2019/09/russia-government-carried-out-shocking-breach-of-the-actual-substance-of-fbi-communications-in-2016-report/

no lnx

Russia government carried out shocking breach of ‘the actual substance of FBI communications’ in 2016: report

Written by Alex Henderson September 16, 2019

In 2016, the Russian government not only interfered in the United States’ presidential election — a fact that has been well-documented in the Mueller report — it also spied on U.S. intelligence within the United States. And according to an investigative report by Zach Dorfman, Jenna McLaughlin and Sean D. Naylor for Yahoo News, Russian operatives “targeted FBI communications” and successfully “hampered the bureau’s ability to track Russian spies on U.S. soil.”

One of the sources for Yahoo News’ report, a former senior official for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), asserted, “It was a very broad effort to try and penetrate our most sensitive operations.”

On December 29, 2016, the outgoing Obama Administration gave almost three dozen Russian diplomats only 72 hours to leave the U.S. and seized two rural estates owned by the Russian government. At the time, Russian officials insisted that those estates were merely vacation spots. But according to Yahoo News’ report, the estates were used for spying — and that spying was so comprehensive that it underscores “U.S. counterintelligence vulnerabilities.”

Security compromises in the U.S., according to Yahoo News, “gave Russian spies in American cities — including Washington, New York and San Francisco — key insights into the location of undercover FBI surveillance teams, and likely the actual substance of FBI communications.”

Former U.S. officials told Yahoo News adds that Russian spies successfully cracked some types of encryption used by U.S. intelligence. A former U.S. national security official, interviewed anonymously, told Yahoo News, “Any time you find out that an adversary has these capabilities, it sets off a ripple effect. The Russians are able to extract every capability from any given technology…. They are singularly dangerous in this area.”

Russian spies, according to Yahoo News’ report, also compromised the FBI’s backup communications systems. “This was something we took extremely seriously,” a former senior counterintelligence official told Yahoo News.”

Yahoo News’ report also quotes a former senior counterintelligence official as saying, “The intel reporting was they did break our codes or got their hands on a radio and figured it out. Either way, they decrypted our comms.”

Joel Brenner, who headed U.S. counterintelligence from 2006-2009, told Yahoo News, “When I was in office, the counterintelligence business was.… focused entirely on its core concern, which is insider threats, and in particular mole hunting. This is, in fact, the core risk, and it’s right that it should be the focus. But we were neither organized nor resourced to deal with counterintelligence in networks, technical networks, electronic networks.”

---

https://www.alternet.org/2019/09/revealed-the-fbi-is-targeting-immigration-activists

no lnx

Revealed: The FBI is targeting immigration activists

Written by Igor Derysh September 6, 2019

An FBI document obtained by Yahoo News shows that the bureau is monitoring groups that protest the Trump administration immigration policies as “extremists.”

An FBI “external intelligence note” that was sent to law enforcement and government agencies by the bureau’s Phoenix field office in May warns that immigration activists are “increasingly arming themselves and using lethal force to further their goals,” although it offered no evidence of violence.

The memo alleges that “anarchist extremists” are “very likely” increasing the “targeting” of immigration enforcement officers and detention facilities and pose the “risk of armed conflict.” The memo acknowledges that the claims were made with “medium” and “low confidence.”

Even though nearly all evidence cited in the memo refers to nonviolent protests and statements, the document alleges that the “threat” to Arizona “likely will grow” and may be “emboldened” if given an “opportunity for an escalation to violence.”

The memo further claims that some of the groups it described as “anarchist extremists” have “banned firearms or [are] carrying loaded weapons.” No specific evidence that this had actually happened was cited.

“These indicators, if found to be accurate, could cause a change in the confidence levels or in the assessments in general,” the document says.

The evidence cited for the FBI’s claims largely refers to activist websites and social media accounts calling for “disruptions” near ICE facilities.

The allegation that immigration activists are arming themselves appears to refer to comments from “antifa” groups about training members to use firearms. There have been no instances of shootings linked to antifa members. The document also cites a single human source to claim a group planned to provide “armed support of the migrant caravans” in December 2018. There has been no evidence that any group or any individuals actually did so.

Despite this general lack of hard evidence, the memo states that agents assessed that it was “likely” that immigration activists planned to use firearms against the government and right-wing groups, rather than arming themselves for self-defense, even though sources had told the FBI that these groups have “summarily banned the use of firearms.”

The memo was produced by the FBI Phoenix field office and distributed to other agencies. A bureau spokesperson told Yahoo News that the contents of the document offered only the perspective of the Phoenix field office and included nuanced qualifiers.

“These products are intended to be informative in nature,” the spokesperson said, “and as such, they contain appropriate caveats to describe the confidence in the sourcing of information and the likelihood of the assessment. Additionally, when written at a local level, these products will note that the perspective offered may be limited to the field office’s area of responsibility.”

Mike German, a former FBI special agent, told Yahoo News that the memo is evidence of the bureau’s post-9/11 “overreach” in classifying protest groups as terror threats.

“It’s been a feature of the post-9/11 counterterrorism effort by the FBI to focus on nonviolent civil disobedience and to prioritize it,” German said. “For several years after 9/11, the FBI called environmental activists the No. 1 domestic terror threat, even though there’s not a single homicide related to environmental ‘terrorists’ in the United States.”

A 2010 FBI inspector general report criticized the bureau for targeting groups like PETA and Greenpeace, noting that some investigations were “factually weak,” and showed no indication of federal criminal activity.

“In some cases, the FBI extended the duration of investigations involving advocacy groups or their members without adequate basis, and in a few instances the FBI improperly retained information about the groups in its files,” the report said. “The FBI also classified some investigations relating to nonviolent civil disobedience under its ‘Acts of Terrorism’ classification, which resulted in the watchlisting of subjects during the investigation.”

German told Yahoo News that even groups like antifa, which have been involved in violent street clashes with far-right groups, would not qualify as terror threats.

“Congress passed a definition of domestic terrorism. It requires illegal activities harmful to human life,” German said. “I’m not aware of any fatal attacks committed by somebody associated with an antifascist movement.”

Nate Snyder, a former Homeland Security and Justice Department official, told Yahoo News that the FBI also erred in linking antifa to anarchist groups and immigration activists.

“Those are three very different groups,” he said.

This federal scrutiny is apparently not limited to activist groups. An NBC San Diego investigation earlier this year found that government authorities are tracking journalists who have covered migrant caravans at the border.

Snyder called the memo a “head scratcher.” In July, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified to Congress that domestic terror cases are on the rise, but that most of them involve “white supremacist violence.”

Despite Wray’s testimony, Yahoo News reported last month that the Justice Department had suppressed a report showing that white supremacists were responsible for all race-based domestic terror incidents last year. The Trump administration has also shifted resources and staff away from investigating white supremacist violence, while increasing DHS investigations that have targeted Muslims and other minority groups.

“There are people out there actually harming other people, and that’s where the counterterrorism resources should be devoted,” German told Yahoo News, “not toward people who are simply challenging government policy,”

https://www.alternet.org/2019/09/where-is-the-fbi-former-federal-agent-who-spent-years-infiltrating-white-supremacist-groups-has-some-questions

no lnx

‘Where is the FBI?’ Former federal agent who spent years infiltrating white supremacist groups has some questions

Written by Joe Sexton / ProPublica September 3, 2019

Late in 2017, ProPublica began writing about a California white supremacist group called the Rise Above Movement. Its members had been involved in violent clashes at rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia, and several cities in California. They were proud of their violent handiwork, sharing videos on the internet and recruiting more members. Our first article was titled “Racist, Violent, Unpunished: A White Hate Group’s Campaign of Menace.”

More articles followed, and another neo-Nazi group, Atomwaffen Division, was exposed.

Michael German, a former federal agent who spent years infiltrating white supremacist groups, said the work of the groups constituted “organized criminal activity,” and he asked, in so many words, “Where is the FBI?”

Federal authorities wound up arresting eight members of the Rise Above Movement, and five of them have since pleaded guilty tofederal riot charges.This summer, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified that, over the last nine months, the bureau’s domestic terrorism investigations had led to 90 arrests, many of them involving white supremacists. And in recent weeks, there have been additional arrests: a Las Vegas man said to be affiliated with Atomwaffen and a young man in Chicago affiliated with Patriot Front, another white supremacist group.

The activity concerning the threat of white racists has gone beyond arrests. There have been a variety of proposals making their way through Congress aimed at creating federal criminal statutes that might make prosecuting domestic terrorism threats more effective. The FBI Agents Association has supported new laws.

We went back to German, a fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program and the author of the forthcoming book“Disrupt, Discredit, and Divide: How the New FBI Damages Democracy,” to inquire about the significance of the seeming burst of enforcement efforts.

The FBI, made aware of German’s observations and arguments, declined to comment, but it provided a link to recent testimony by bureau officials before Congress.

There have been a handful of arrests of alleged white supremacists in recent weeks. What do you make of them? A temporary reaction to the El Paso, Texas, massacre? Evidence of a deeper commitment by the FBI? Coincidence?

First, the arrests of several white nationalists allegedly planning acts of violence since the El Paso attack demonstrate beyond question that the FBI has all the authority it needs to act proactively against white supremacist violence.Claims from the FBI Agents Association and other current and former Justice Department officials that the government needs new laws to target this violence are false. I worked successful domestic terrorism undercover operations against white supremacists in the 1990s, and no one ever suggested we didn’t have all the authority we needed.

It is hard to know if these arrests mark a new increase in attention to far-right violence because the Justice Department doesn’t keep reliable data about how many investigations and prosecutions it conducts against white supremacists. It sometimes categorizes them as domestic terrorism, other times as hate crimes or even gang crimes, obscuring the true scope of the violence they inflict on our society. And since the Justice Department defers the investigation and prosecution of hate crimes to state and local law enforcement, the FBI doesn’t even know how many people white supremacists kill each year.

The Justice Department and FBI de-prioritize the investigation and prosecution of far-right violence as a matter of policy, not a lack of authority. These recent cases are a result of increased public pressure to do something about these crimes. But the Justice Department and FBI have done nothing to amend their policies that de-prioritize the investigation of white supremacist crimes. Maintaining public pressure and focusing on changing the biases that drive these policies is essential to forcing a change in priorities at these agencies.

At least two of the arrests appear to have involved a certain infiltration of white hate groups online. Noteworthy? Overdue?

Many researchers have suggested that the internet fuels white nationalist violence and therefore suppression of these online communities is necessary. But white supremacists have been killing people in this country for more than a 100 years before the internet was created. They use the internet more to communicate today than 20 years ago, just like all the rest of us do, but that doesn’t mean there is more violence. In fact, as the recent cases suggest, internet communications make them far easier to track and infiltrate, so it is more a boost to law enforcement more than to violent militants.

But mass monitoring of social media for clues isn’t an effective strategy, as there are far more people expressing racist ideas online than committing violence. The FBI would be very busy chasing down false leads, which would only dull the response. Instead, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies should work from reasonable criminal predicates. Where there is objectively credible evidence that someone is planning to do harm they should act. The number of homicides in the U.S. has fallen significantly since the 1980s and 1990s, but so has the clearance rate. Even though there are fewer homicides now, fewer are being solved. I think it is because we are spending so much time and resources on suspicion-less surveillance and intelligence gathering rather than traditional evidence-based law enforcement tactics.

There is a variety of proposed legislation aimed at creating more specific federal domestic terrorism statutes. Worthy? Wrongheaded?

Congress shouldn’t pass broad new laws or stiffer penalties, as there are already dozens of federal statutes outlawing domestic terrorism, hate crimes and organized violent crime that carry significant sentences. There are bills that demand better data collection by the Justice Department, which would reveal where counterterrorism resources should be devoted and where they are being wasted. This is the better approach. Proper policies can’t be developed without a better understanding of the crime problem.

In the meantime, Congress should explore mechanisms to fund and implement community-led restorative justice practices that would redress the communal injuries hate crimes are designed to inflict. White supremacists try to intimidate and marginalize the communities they attack. Making sure these communities are cared for, protected and supported after an attack frustrates that goal. More policing isn’t always the right answer, and certainly not the only one.

There was recently news coverage of leaked FBI threat assessments listing the promotion of an array of political conspiracy theories as a domestic menace. What did you make of that?

The FBI intelligence assessment declaring conspiracy theorists a domestic terrorism threat should worry all of us. It had a line defining conspiracy theorists as those who do not hold the “official” or “prevailing” view on a particular topic. Given that the intelligence community has often been the promoter of false narratives, particularly about the lawfulness of its own conduct, giving them license to target people who disagree with the “official” view is chilling. It is basically a declaration that the government will treat dissent as dangerous.

There was a recent case that has to puzzle the public. A Coast Guard lieutenant was arrested with guns and a target list of politicians and others, and held on firearms charges. At least one federal magistrate thought he deserved bail because the government had failed to provide evidence of terrorist acts and the simple gun charges didn’t merit him being held without bail. A judge overturned the magistrate and kept the lieutenant held. All that can be hard to follow for an American public concerned about safeguarding its rights and its citizens. Thoughts?

It’s difficult to talk about cases that have not yet gone to trial because there is little information available outside the government’s allegations, which haven’t been proven yet. But there are some principles of our legal system that should be applied in all cases, including this one, even though we seem to have moved far from them over the years. First, people are innocent until proven guilty. That means, absent government evidence that a defendant poses a threat to the public or to abscond, that person should be released until trial, and bond should only be used to guarantee appearance. Of course, many people with allegations that seem less serious than those against the Coast Guard officer don’t receive bond, but that is a question for those judges and prosecutors, not the ones involved in this case.

Obviously the government initially failed to present evidence that justified pretrial confinement, so based on the charged conduct the judge considered bond. This result should happen more often, not less. When the government got its act together, added charges and presented evidence of a potential threat to the public, the judge ordered him held. The burden is on the government and shouldn’t be met through sensationalized press releases but through reasonable evidence presented in court.

Second, prosecutors can only charge people with crimes they committed, not crimes the government thinks they might commit in the future. Lots of people stockpile weapons in this country. And if keeping a creepy diary is against the law, plenty of people will go to jail. Where the government has evidence that laws were broken, they have the power to act, which — ironically given the hyperbolic news coverage of this incident — they did here. The officer was arrested and is being prosecuted for crimes the government alleges he committed, so there seems to be no problem.

The Justice Department seems to have tried to make this into a test case for demanding new authorities, even though prosecutors obviously had enough evidence to address the threat. Compare this case to the Larry Hopkins case in New Mexico. There the FBI received a tip in 2017 that a formerly incarcerated felon who was the “commander” of a border militia group that harassed migrants was also planning to assassinate Hillary Clinton, George Soros and Barack Obama. The FBI went to Hopkins’ trailer and recovered nine firearms he was not permitted to own due to his previous felony convictions, which included weapons charges and impersonating a police officer. The FBI did not arrest Hopkins and instead let him continue to operate with his militia group for 18 months, harassing migrants in the desert, until a video of his group pointing weapons at a group of migrants they detained went viral and sparked public outrage. Only then did the FBI take action.

Comparing the two cases, the FBI had much more significant evidence of potential dangerousness from Hopkins than from the Coast Guard officer, yet they took no action against Hopkins. I think they saw the Coast Guard officer’s case as a ready-made scandal near D.C. that they could sensationalize to pressure Congress into passing a broad new domestic terrorism law. Obviously, they already had enough authority to arrest him on the drug and weapons charge, and his possession of illegal silencers. So there was no lack of authority to arrest him in the first place. It was a manufactured scandal.

What, if anything, is different today than two summers ago in Charlottesville concerning the threat of white supremacists and the government’s response at all levels to it?

I think the violence in Charlottesville was a wake-up call for everyone. The media finally recognized that white supremacists were engaging in terrorism, too. The level of violence these far-right groups inflict has been persistent over time, but studies show that the media gave terrorist acts perpetrated by Muslims 350% more coverage than violence committed by other terrorists. The increased reporting post-Charlottesville eventually caused policymakers to take notice, which in turn compelled the FBI and Justice Department to begin to take these crimes more seriously. The media coverage drives public perception, which causes policymakers to act. It remains to be seen whether they react in a way that improves the situation and builds a more inclusive society, or makes it worse by giving law enforcement broad powers to continue targeting marginalized communities agitating for civil rights and changes in government policies.

https://theintercept.com/2019/08/04/whistleblowers-surveillance-fbi-trump/

https://yyy.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/08/fbi-oregon-anti-pipeline-jordan-cove-activists

no lnx

Law enforcement groups, including the FBI, have been monitoring opponents of a natural gas infrastructure project in Oregon and circulated intelligence to an email list that included a Republican-aligned anti-environmental PR operative, emails obtained by the Guardian show.

The South Western Oregon Joint Task Force (SWOJTF) and its members were monitoring opponents of the Jordan Cove energy project, a proposal by the Canadian energy company Pembina to build the first-ever liquefied natural gas export terminal on the US west coast, as well as a new 232-mile pipeline that would carry fracked natural gas to the port of Coos Bay.

The Trump administration has named Jordan Cove as one of its highest-priority infrastructure projects. Jordan Cove opponents have raised concerns about the project’s significant environmental impacts, impacts on public lands, indigenous rights and climate change.

The emails, obtained via open records requests, reflect the increased scrutiny and surveillance to which law enforcement agencies are often subjecting indigenous and environmental groups, activists say.

'Protesters as terrorists': growing number of states turn anti-pipeline activism into a crime

It also comes amid an uptick in civil disobedience and direct actions challenging fossil fuel infrastructure projects – particularly in the wake of the Native American-led struggle against the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016 and 2017. They also reflect a nationwide tendency for rightwing partisans, law enforcement agencies and the fossil fuel industry to ally with one another in the suppression of such activities.

An email distribution list associated with the taskforce included addressees in the FBI, the Bureau of Land Management, the Department of Justice (DoJ), the National Forest Service (NFS), Oregon state police (OSP), and various Oregon municipal police and sheriffs departments. But some of its recipients are outside any government agency, most notably Mark Pfeifle, the CEO of the political consultancy Off The Record Strategies.

Pfeifle was previously a Bush administration PR adviser on national security. More recently, Pfeifle worked with law enforcement on a counter-information operation against the Dakota Access Pipeline protesters.

When contacted by telephone about the Jordan Cove project, Mr Pfeifle said “I just don’t have anything for you, I’m not up on it,” before ending the conversation.

Emails circulated on the SWOJTF email list include activists’ social media posts, emails and rally announcements.

Pfeifle appeared on the distribution list of a November 2018 email from the list’s apparent keeper, theCoos county deputy sheriff, Bryan Valencia, which described a recent protest action by Southern Oregon Rising Tide, a direct action climate justice group.

“These are thetactics that are currently being used to forcibly insert their narrative into the conversation,”Valencia wrote. He noted: “There has long been a call for a ‘Standing Rock’ action by the Klamath Tribe in Klamath county.”

Don Gentry, the chairman of the Klamath Tribes, said Valencia’s characterization is false – his tribe has never put out such a call. “We’re working through the readily available channels to get this project stopped,” Gentry said.

In January 2019, Valencia circulated information on Facebook event attendance to a smaller group of SWOJTF officers, related to an upcoming Oregon department of state lands hearing, to some members of the taskforce, despite stating there was a “lack of a criminal nexus”.

The Coos county sheriffs office (CCSO) public information officer, Gabriel Fabrizio, wrote in response to emailed questions that SWOJTF had been set up to “ensure a multi-agency approach to any and all contingencies”.

Fabrizio added: “As potential dangers to the safety of the citizens and businesses of the county are identified, we monitor groups as long as necessary to determine if they will become a danger to others. Once it’s determined a group has not or likely will not conduct criminal activity, we discontinue monitoring.”

He also wrote that “Mr Pfiefle has no relationship with the Coos county sheriff’s office or with the SWOJTF. He was involved with training that was presented by the National Sheriffs Association to emergency responders in Coos county.”

He also denied that SWOJTF had been engaged in surveillance. “Surveillance implies an active gathering of data and images, and any monitoring we have conducted has been passive, simply watching for information,” he said.

The records reveal the existence of other law enforcement intelligence activities related to monitoring the work of environmental groups.

In a November 2018 email to Valencia, a BLM law enforcement analyst noted her role in the “Forest Intelligence Group (FIG)” that is also tracking activists. “I appreciate anything you find, and I am glad to share likewise,” the analyst wrote.

Fabrizio said in an email response to questions that FIG “began its life as a timber investigators meeting in the mid eighties … It has been sharing information about activity including criminal activity in our regions forests since that time. The intent of the group is to identify activities that may require sharing of resources or have an impact across traditional jurisdictional lines.”

In a telephone interview, a spokesman for the US attorney in Oregon also confirmed the existence of another body mentioned in the emails: a “domestic terrorism working group”led by the assistant US attorney, Craig Gabriel, that meets “roughly quarterly” in Portland. He said that the group was mostly made up of federal agencies but included some local law enforcement.

“It’s really just to discuss any current issues in the domestic terrorism arena. This could be local issues, all the way up to international issues,” the spokesman said. He said protest movements would be “within the scope” of its discussions even if no criminal activity had occurred.

In another email exchange, an FBI agent, Michael Frost, offered “open source and social media training” to the Coos county sheriffs, writing to Valencia that “with the significant social media presence of the anti-pipeline individuals, I figured your office would be a good place to start”.

The flyer for the training promises law enforcement officers information on tracking individuals online while minimizing their “digital footprint”, and indicates that it would be hosted by yet another law enforcement “task force”: the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in Portland.

A spokesperson for the FBI’s Portland field office said in an email: “The FBI does not comment on what may or may not be an ongoing investigation. However, it is important to note that the FBI can never initiate an investigation based solely on first amendment-protected activity.”

On the training session, the spokesperson said: “The FBI’s Portland field office regularly provides training to local law enforcement agencies. This training covers a wide range of law enforcement topics, includingappropriate and legal use of open source material in investigations.”

Fabrizio said that the offer of training had not been taken up.

Although Coos Bay is located more than 200 miles away from Portland, the Portland police bureau (PPB) officer Andrew Hearst is also part of the SWOJTF email list. Hearst told Valencia in January 2019: “As always if we hear anything about our people heading down to your area we will alert asap.”

Jordan Cove opponents expressed alarm upon learning about the level of scrutiny they are receiving from so many different law enforcement entities.

“It is outrageous that our Oregon public agencies are actually working to plan how to stifle the very southern Oregonians whose drinking water, property and communities are threatened by this project,” said Sylvia Mangan, a retired public health nurse who lives on one of the proposed pipeline routes.

Asked why Pfeifle was included in the distribution of intelligence on protest groups, Fabrizio wrote: “Open source information is posted on public forums and not considered sensitive.”

He added: “Anyone who may be affected by potential actions are involved as an effort in community outreach and according to the tenets of community policing.”

Pfeifle previously described his work with law enforcement at Standing Rock during a 2017 presentation to oil, gas and banking executives during a pipeline conference in Houston. “A lot of things that we were doing were being done to put a marker down for the protesters. And, ‘OK, if you’re going to go protest somewhere? There’s going to be consequences from it.’”

In an email comment, the ACLU of Oregon questioned the legality of the activities revealed in the emails.

“Monitoring and compiling information about Oregonians’ political or social views, activities, or associations violates Oregon law,” said the spokeswoman Sarah Armstrong.

Lauren Regan, the executive director of the Oregon-based Civil Liberties Defense Center, says the SWOJTF’s activities reflect a nationwide trend. “Police and corporations are working together to suppress movements against fossil fuels,” she said.

Holly Mills of Southern Oregon Rising Tide, a group regularly subjected to scrutiny in the records obtained by the Guardian, said: “We know that the state, police and corporations have often tried to stop movements like this one by using fear as a tactic and repressing dissent. We have prepared ourselves with this in mind, and we communicate on social media and over email with the assumption that cops might be reading.”

---

https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/qanon-conspiracists-appear-at-trump-rally-only-hours-after-fbi-warning-on-far-right-conspiracy-group/

no lnx ah

Far-right proponents of the bizarre QAnon conspiracy theory — which claims that an alliance of Hollywood actors and Washington, D.C. politicians, among others, have been engaging in an international child sex ring —are not only unhinged; they are also potentially dangerous, according to the FBI. And this week, the Washington Post reports, some QAnon proponents turned up at a rally for President Donald Trump on the same day the FBI issued a bulletin warning that the group could be dangerous.

According to the bulletin, proponents of QAnon as well as the Pizzagate conspiracy theory have the potential for violence. In 2016, Pizzagate proponents claimed that Democrats were using a Washington, D.C. pizzeria for child sex abuse.

The bulletin reads, “The FBI assesses theseconspiracy theories very likely will emerge, spread and evolve in the modern information marketplace, occasionally driving both groups and individual extremists to carry out criminal or violent acts.And it goes on to say thatreports “of a sudden rise in threats and unfounded accusations against a given individual or business may indicate impending conspiracy theory-driven crime or violence.”

On Thursday at a Trump rally in Cincinnati, according to the Post, a supporter named Brandon Straka used a QAnon slogan: “where we go one, we go all.” And other QAnon proponents were seen at the rally as well.

In the cultish QAnon community, Trump is held in high regard: QAnon theorists believe his presidency is meant to help carry out a worldwide battle against a child sex ring — and Q is an anonymous figure who sends sporadic messages on the battle.

no lnx ref thom h

Using his Attorney General William Barr as a hitman, President Donald Trump began laying the groundwork to jail his perceived enemies as the Justice Department follows his order to investigate the origins of the Russia probe.

Barr has asked U.S. Attorneys to examine how the counterintelligence and FBI investigations began and has refused to turn over the unredacted report from special counsel Robert Mueller, who has a recording of a person “connected to” Congress attempting to influence Michael Flynn’s testimony.

U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ordered the government Thursday to provide a public transcript of a voice mail message from Trump’s attorney reminding the former national security adviser of the president’s fondness for him, when Flynn was considering cooperation with Mueller’s team.

Trump reacted by citing a Fox News poll showing “58 percent of people say that the FBI broke the law” by investigating him, and calling for investigators to be jailed for “treason.”

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump

My Campaign for President was conclusively spied on. Nothing like this has ever happened in American Politics. A really bad situation. TREASON means long jail sentences, and this was TREASON!

135K

4:11 AM - May 17, 2019

Twitter Ads info and privacy

83.5K people are talking about this

Twitter users were quick to respond, and it wasn’t pretty.

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump

May 17, 2019

My Campaign for President was conclusively spied on. Nothing like this has ever happened in American Politics. A really bad situation. TREASON means long jail sentences, and this was TREASON!

Anita Creamer

@AnitaCreamer

Spoken like a true fascist.

6:40 AM - May 17, 2019

Twitter Ads info and privacy

See Anita Creamer's other Tweets

BrooklynDad_Defiant!

@mmpadellan

Replying to @realDonaldTrump

We only see ONE person guilty of TREASON, and that's you...

Unless you count all of the unindicted co-conspirators, all the people who WERE indicted, all the people who plead guilty, and all those who CONTINUE to cover your treasonous tracks.

Yeah, TREASON.

LONG sentence.

3,345

7:45 AM - May 17, 2019

Twitter Ads info and privacy

817 people are talking about this

Eugene Gu, MD

@eugenegu

Replying to @realDonaldTrump

Trump is a deranged dictator who wants to abuse his power to exact retribution on his enemies. He sounds exactly like a Joseph Stalin screaming “TREASON!” and it’s damn scary.

8,011

4:14 AM - May 17, 2019

Twitter Ads info and privacy

1,875 people are talking about this

Morten Øverbye

@morten

Replying to @realDonaldTrump

Treason is the crime of betraying one's country, especially by attempting to kill the head of state or overthrow the government.

Cooperating with a foreign adversary to undermine democracy is treason. Investigating wether someone cooperated with a foreign adversary is not.

935

4:17 AM - May 17, 2019

Twitter Ads info and privacy

126 people are talking about this

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump

May 17, 2019

My Campaign for President was conclusively spied on. Nothing like this has ever happened in American Politics. A really bad situation. TREASON means long jail sentences, and this was TREASON!

???????????? ????????

@TheBaxterBean

REMINDER: 17 hours after firing FBI director Comey over the Russia investigation, Russian photographers took these photos of Trump w/ Russian govt officials inside our WH — all U.S. press were banned from attending.

(we only know because Russia released photos)

THIS IS TREASON

3,372

6:48 AM - May 17, 2019

Twitter Ads info and privacy

View image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on Twitter

1,557 people are talking about this

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump

May 17, 2019

My Campaign for President was conclusively spied on. Nothing like this has ever happened in American Politics. A really bad situation. TREASON means long jail sentences, and this was TREASON!

Josh Campbell

@joshscampbell

2019: The President of the United States is demanding long jail sentences for FBI officials who investigated threats from a hostile foreign adversary

8,861

4:23 AM - May 17, 2019

Twitter Ads info and privacy

2,670 people are talking about this

Anonymous White House Official

@littledeekay

Replying to @realDonaldTrump

Follow me for a sec, homefry. Russian operatives were targeting your Campaign to try to infiltrate and influence the outcome of American elections, a pillar of our democracy. Do you want our intelligence community ignoring these efforts and letting foreign governments attack us?

2,921

4:38 AM - May 17, 2019

Twitter Ads info and privacy

476 people are talking about this

Share your response in the comments section below.

Don't miss the latest Political Digs.

https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/fbi-says-it-lost-missing-files-on-the-white-nationalist-hate-site-stormfront-report/

no lnx

FBI told reporter Emma Best that has lost or could not find its records on the white nationalist hate site Stormfront, MuckRock reported this week.

Best had requested the records through the Freedom of Information Act, but the bureau only returned 104 pages of files. It believed there were more records to find:

For your information. a search of the indices of our Central Records System reflected there were additional records potentially responsive for your Freedom of Information/Privacy Acts (FOIA) request. We have attempted to obtain this material so it could be reviewed to determine whether it was responsive to your request. We were advised that the potentially responsive records were not In their expected location and could not be located after a reasonable search. Following a reasonable waiting period. another attempt was made to obtain this material. This search for the missing records also met with unsuccessful results.

It’s not clear how extensive a “reasonable search” has to be, so it’s difficult to assess if the materials are truly lost or just inconveniently stored.

“FBI claims to have lost the file on the neo-nazi group Stormfront. Sure, Jan,” Best said. Best added that they didn’t think the bureau was acting unusually deceptive, noting that the FBI claims it can’t find records frequently.

“My implication wasn’t that they lost it on purpose, just that they either didn’t look very hard or have an organizational system that would have Hoover spinning in his grave,” they explained.

Forward reported that some of the members on Stormfront were “gleeful” in response, suspecting that an ally in the bureau buried the files. But a review of the forum showed that many of the hate site users seemed shocked that the bureau would have any interest in Stormfront at all. Some suspected that the failure to release the files may even be an attempt to hide the extent to which the bureau is monitoring the site.

Combating white supremacy has long been a part of the FBI’s mission, even while it also targeted civil rights leaders in the past. Director Christopher Wray recently said it poses a “persistent, pervasive threat” to the United States, and the bureau has recently found an increase in the white supremacist domestic terrorism. But critics have said that President Donald Trump’s administration, it has become more difficult to fight the danger this ideology poses.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/23/politics/fbi-white-supremacist-domestic-terror/index.html

CNN)

The FBI has seen a significant rise in the number of white supremacist domestic terrorism cases in recent months, a senior FBI counterterrorism official said Thursday.

The official said the FBI has been grappling with the rise of domestic threats while international terror threats have remained constant with the fall of the ISIS caliphate in Syria.

The domestic terror cases generally include suspects involved in violence related to anti-government views, racial or religious bias,environmental extremism and abortion-related views.

The FBI wouldn't provide specific numbers to quantify the increase of in the number of white supremacist domestic terrorism cases. Unlike international terrorism investigations, domestic terrorism cases pose thornier issues for the FBI because of First Amendment protections. The US doesn't have a domestic terrorism law and no government agency designates domestic groups as being terrorist organizations. That means many cases the FBI calls domestic terror-related end up with a variety of charges for violations of laws related to guns or even other state charges.

In 2017, there were about 150 arrests on charges the FBI classifies as domestic terror, and about 120 in 2018. The official said the FBI is on course to match or exceed those numbers this fiscal year.

Overall, the FBI has about 5,000 terrorism-related investigations open, including 850 related to domestic terrorism, according to the official. About 1,000 are related to ISIS or other affiliated groups, and another 1,000 are for homegrown violent extremism.

Reflecting law enforcement concern over the issue, earlier today at a hearing Acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan called "white supremacist extremist violence" a "huge issue" and called it an "an evolving and increasingly concerning threat."

https://theintercept.com/2019/06/08/white-supremacist-domestic-terrorism-fbi-justice/

harder to track nomenclasture cats

TUESDAY, during a House subcommittee hearing, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., described a death threat she and fellow Muslim Rep. Ilhan Omar had received in the mail. “A good Muslim is a dead one,” the letter had read. The hearing, called “Confronting White Supremacy: Adequacy of the Federal Response,” featured the FBI’s Assistant Director for Counterterrorism Michael McGarrity. Tlaib wondered why threats like the one against her and Omar don’t qualify as domestic terrorism. “We get so many of them, and I keep asking, ‘What happens? What happens to these individuals?’” She asked McGarrity, “How is that not enough to fall under domestic terrorism?”

In the U.S., there is no criminal charge specifically for “domestic terrorism.” For example, white supremacist James Fields Jr., who killed Heather Heyer with his Dodge Challenger at the “Unite The Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, was described as a domestic terrorist; even racist then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the attack met the definition of “domestic terrorism.” Yet he was convicted for hate crimes, not on terror charges.

Instead of being a legal category, “domestic terrorism” is used by federal law enforcement as a framework to organize and describe cases and investigations. But thanks to a recent shift in how the FBI classifies its domestic terror categories, the answer to Tlaib’s urgent question, “what happens” to white supremacist threats, writ large, is all the harder to discover.

Over the last decade, the FBI classified domestic terrorism cases using 11 categories, including a specific grouping for white supremacists. At the end of April, the FBI and Justice Department revealed to Senate Judiciary Committee staffers that a new classification system was now in place, employing only four categories: racially motivated violent extremism; anti-government and anti-authority extremism; animal rights and environmental extremism; and abortion extremism.

The “racially motivated” category is the most problematic one. Under an administration that has made a point of drawing false equivalences between deadly white supremacist violence and anti-racist dissent, the FBI’s category collapse is as unsurprising as it is disconcerting.

The new nomenclature reflects the Trump administration’s ideological commitment to enabling white supremacists.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, between 2009 and 2018, white supremacist and far-right extremists were responsible for 73 percent of extremist murders in the U.S. Yet the distinct and deadly threat of white supremacist violence is now unnamed and merely folded into the too-broad “racially motivated extremism” category. That category folds in “black identity extremism” — an FBI category conjured in 2017 to make the unsubstantiated claim that black organizers fighting against racist police executions were a national security threat.

The new nomenclature reflects the Trump administration’s ideological commitment to enabling white supremacists. But the new classifications are more than semantic: They render it impossible for the public, or even elected officials, to know whether the FBI is dedicating resources to investigating the very real threat of white supremacist terror or if those resources are going toward the harassment of Black Lives Matter and civil rights activists. Only the former use of government time and money would be justified, but both cases would fall under “racially motivated extremism.”

EARLIER THIS MONTH, the FBI’s inability to distinguish white supremacist, far-right terror cases in its data was made clear during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing. During his testimony, McGarrity, the same FBI official questioned this week by Tlaib, was asked by House members how many current domestic investigations were targeting white supremacists. He couldn’t answer with any specificity, save to say that 50 percent of current investigations related to the “racially motivated” category and that the “majority” of these involved white supremacists. Another 40 percent of investigations, he said, related to “anti-government” extremism, without delineating whether targets were right- or left-wing groups. So, while we can know that 90 percent of current domestic FBI investigations involve supposedly “racially motivated” or “anti-government” cases, we can’t know to what extent the agency is abusing these “terror” categories to persecute anti-racist activism and civil rights struggle — as federal law enforcement has historically done.

...

new cointelpro blk extremists

https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/the-fbi-appears-to-be-engaged-in-a-modern-day-version-of-cointelpro-aclu-racial-justice-program-deputy-director/

---

Denouncing the database as “an illegal boondoggle,” a civil rights organization on Wednesday is calling for a congressional probe after the FBI admitted it lied for years when it insisted federal authorities do not share the so-called terrorist watchlist with private entities.

In fact, as the Associated Pressfirst reported, the federal government has shared the controversial Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB) with 1,441 private entities including universities, detention facilities, and hospitals.

The list, created in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, may contain as many as a million names and, according to civil rights groups, the names are placed there on dubious grounds.

From AP:

The government’s admission comes in a class-action lawsuit filed in federal court in Alexandria by Muslims who say they regularly experience difficulties in travel, financial transactions, and interactions with law enforcement because they have been wrongly added to the list.

Following the challenge brought by the Washington D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga, according to AP, “ordered the government to be more specific about how it disseminates the watchlist” because “the plaintiffs are entitled to the information to try to prove their case that inclusion on the list causes them to suffer ‘real world consequences.'” The government responded earlier this month with the list of entities, though it did not say how they then use the TSDB.

“The indiscriminate dissemination of the watchlist is but the latest indication that the federal government’s watchlisting system is an illegal boondoggle,” said CAIR litigation director Lena Masri in a statement. “We call on congressional leadership to investigate the private sector dissemination of watchlisting information that stigmatizes the innocent and makes none of us safer.”

https://www.alternet.org/2019/01/the-illegal-cia-operation-that-brought-us-9-11/

Was it conspiracy or idiocy that led to the failure of U.S. intelligence agencies to detect and prevent the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon headquarters? That’s one of the questions at the heart of “The Watchdogs Didn’t Bark: The CIA, NSA, and the Crimes of the War on Terror,” by John Duffy and Ray Nowosielski. In their careful and thorough investigation of the events leading up to the attacks, the authors uncover a story about the Central Intelligence Agency’s neglect, possible criminal activities and a cover-up that may have allowed al-Qaida to carry out its plans uninhibited by government officials.

In the latest installment of “Scheer Intelligence,” the journalists tell Truthdig Editor in Chief Robert Scheer how an interview with Richard Clarke, the counterterror adviser to Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, led them to a jaw-dropping revelation regarding two hijackers involved in the infamous attacks. As it turns out, Khalid Muhammad Abdallah al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, two men linked to al-Qaida, were staying at an FBI informant’s home in San Diego in 2000, and they were being tracked by the National Security Agency. Despite knowledge of the men’s ties to the terrorist organization responsible for 9/11, neither was investigated by the FBI. Clarke and others believe that this may have had to do with a CIA attempt to turn the two men into agency informants.

===

---

https://boingboing.net/2018/11/19/fbi-describes-proud-boys-a.html

extremist

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/fbi-fires-agent-peter-strzok-over-anti-trump-text-messages

https://www.democracynow.org/2018/5/23/the_new_cointelpro_meet_the_black

In Texas, a black activist says he is the first person to be targeted and prosecuted under a secretive U.S. surveillance effort to track so-called black identity extremists. On December 12, activist Rakem Balogun awoke to armed FBI agents storming his Dallas apartment. He was then jailed for nearly six months without the possibility of bail as the FBI investigated him for “domestic terrorism,” in part because of his Facebook posts criticizing police brutality. He was released earlier this month, after U.S. attorneys failed to prosecute him. For more, we speak with Rakem Balogun, who was released earlier this month after being jailed for nearly six months. And we speak with Malkia Cyril, co-founder and executive director of the Center for Media Justice and a Black Lives Matter Bay Area activist.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, we end today’s show in Texas, where a black activist says he is the first person to be targeted and prosecuted under a secretive U.S. surveillance effort to track so-called black identity extremists. On December 12th, activist Rakem Balogun awoke to armed FBI agents storming his Dallas apartment. He was then jailed for nearly six months without the possibility of bail as the FBIinvestigated him for “domestic terrorism,” in part because of his Facebook posts criticizing police brutality. He was released earlier this month, after U.S. attorneys failed to prosecute him.

Balogun is a founding member of the groups Guerrilla Mainframe and the Huey P. Newton Gun Club. The groups coordinate meals for homeless people, organize youth picnics, run self-defense classes, protest police brutality and advocate for the rights of black gun owners. The Guardian reports investigators began tracking him after he was part of a 2015 protest against police brutality and that the FBI learned about the protest from a video on InfoWars, the far-right website run by Alex Jones.

Balogun’s arrest comes after a leaked August 2017 report from the FBI’s Domestic Terrorism Analysis Unit revealed that the FBI claiming, quote, “it is very likely Black Identity Extremist perceptions of police brutality against African Americans spurred an increase in premeditated, retaliatory lethal violence against law enforcement and will very likely serve as justification for such violence.”

AMY GOODMAN: Civil liberties groups have slammed the FBI report, comparing the memo to the FBI’s covert COINTELPRO program of the 1950s, '60s and ’70s, Counterintelligence Program, which targeted the civil rights movement. Many have also noted the FBI memo was dated August 3rd—only a few days before the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where white supremacists, Ku Klux Klan members and neo-Nazis killed an anti-racist protester, Heather Heyer, and injured dozens more. The FBI does not seem to be surveilling and targeting white people whopost violent things to social media, including multiple white men who have recently carried out mass school shootings. Dimitrios Pagourtzis, who shot dead eight students and two teachers last week at Santa Fe High School in Texas, had posted on his Facebook page a picture of a T-shirt reading “born to kill.” Nikolas Cruz, the 19-year-old man who killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Florida, on Valentine's Day had shared numerous posts on social media so disturbing, he was reported to the FBI multiple times, yet they never arrested him.

Well, for more, we go to Texas, where we’re joined by Rakem Balogun, who was released earlier this month after being held for nearly six months. In San Francisco, we’re joined by Malkia Cyril, co-founder and executive director of the Center for Media Justice and a Black Lives Matter Bay Area activist.

Let’s begin with Rakem. You were arrested December 12th. Describe what happened.

RAKEM BALOGUN: Well, pretty much, on December 12th, around 6 a.m. in the morning, me and my son was at home resting, when FBI agents rammed our door and immediately rushed us outside in our underwear, you know, under gunpoint, to be arrested and for me and my son to be separated and, overall, me be hauled off to jail.

AMY GOODMAN: And what did they tell you? On what grounds? What were you charged with?

RAKEM BALOGUN: I was charged with 922(g), which is prohibited possession of a firearm.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And did you have a license for the firearm?

RAKEM BALOGUN: Well, in the state of Texas, we don’t—you don’t need a license or even have to register firearms to have them legally. Long as, you know, you’re not a felon or considered a prohibited person, you’re able to have firearms within your home or your vehicle. And if it’s a long-barrel rifle, you’re able to open-carry that without any licenses or anything of that nature.

AMY GOODMAN: Why were you held for almost a year, Rakem, a half a year?

RAKEM BALOGUN: Well, the reason why I was held is because the FBI was pretty muchsurveillancing me for over two-and-a-half years as a domestic terrorist. And from surveillancing me for being a domestic terrorist, you know, they overreached and tried to use a previous charge from 2005 to say that this charge made me prohibited of having a firearm, which the elements of that charge actually didn’t. But the reason I was able to be detained for so long is because, when I initially got locked up, I went to a magistrate hearing with a magistrate judge for a bond, and the judge denied me bond based off of me using my First Amendment right to criticize police officers on Facebook.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And how was your case ultimately resolved?

RAKEM BALOGUN: It was dismissed. You know, we filed pretrial motions stating that I am not a prohibited person and forcing the United States government to prove that I’m a prohibited person not to have firearms. And the government failed to prove that. And so, therefore, they had to release me, after holding me over five months of being detained.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s bring Malkia Cyril into this conversation, with the Center for Media Justice. Malkia, your thoughts on how Facebook and Instagram posts of people like the alleged mass shooters in Texas and Florida were able to post guns and other threatening language and symbols on their Facebook page, yet someone like Rakem is surveilled and held in jail for half a year and then not charged?

MALKIA CYRIL: Well, first of all, let’s be very clear: The history of gun control in this country is totally and completely focused on controlling the possession of weapons of black people, while allowing white people to run free shooting up the nation. So, I think that we have to, first of all, understand that, you know, whether we’re talking about posting online or we’re talking about just living your offline life, there’s discrimination in how black people and white people are treated in terms of their First Amendment rights and in terms of their right to carry. Second of all, on Facebook, we already know that black activists are being censored, are victims of hate speech regularly, are surveilled. There’s undue cooperation between Facebook and law enforcement agencies when it comes to the targeting of black activists. So, the online space, particularly on these platforms, these social media platforms, and especially on Facebook, the largest social media platform in the world, is a contested space, is a discriminatory space and is a space that is virulently anti-black.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I want to turn to Texas state Representative Sheila Jackson Lee questioning Attorney General Jeff Sessions in November about the leaked FBIcounterterrorism memo claiming that so-called black identity extremists pose a threat to law enforcement.

REP. SHEILA JACKSON LEE: Are you familiar with the names Eric Garner, Walter Scott, Tamir Rice? My question is, as I hold up the poster dealing with the report under your jurisdiction, “Black Identity Extremists,” it is interesting to me that you are opposing individuals who are opposing lethal force, similar to the attack on Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King on COINTELPRO, but there seems to be no report dealing with the tiki torch parade in Charlottesville chanting “Jews will not replace us.” Why is there an attack on black activists versus any reports dealing with the “alt-right” and the white nationalists? Can you answer that question, quickly?

ATTORNEY GENERAL JEFF SESSIONS: I’m not aware—

REP. SHEILA JACKSON LEE: Are you planning on investigating that?

ATTORNEY GENERAL JEFF SESSIONS: When was that report completed?

REP. SHEILA JACKSON LEE: In August of 2017.

ATTORNEY GENERAL JEFF SESSIONS: I’m not aware—I have not studied that report.

REP. SHEILA JACKSON LEE: I ask you, too, because it’s an attack on individuals who are simply trying to petition the government in a redress of grievances.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was U.S. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee questioning Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Malkia Cyril, your comments?

MALKIA CYRIL: I mean, look, white supremacists have committed the largest share of domestic extremist-related killings last year. We know that white supremacy and white supremacists represent the biggest domestic threat to the United States. And yet, Trump cut funding to countering violent extremism to fight white supremacy. We understand very clearly where the priorities lie. And in a digital environment, those priorities—that discrimination and that undue focus on black people and black activists becomes exacerbated. So, that—you know, first of all, I’m just so happy to hear that sister speak so clearly to this issue, but we understand very, very clearly that under these current political conditions, black activists are being targeted, Muslims are being targeted, immigrants are being targeted, while white supremacists are running free.

AMY GOODMAN: And what is happening with your battle against the FBI’s “black identity extremist” program, which I think a lot of people are going to be hearing for the first time right here, Malkia?

MALKIA CYRIL: Well, let’s be clear. You know, I want to remind you all that in the '70s, what it took to even bring the Counterintelligence Program, that was targeting the Black Panther Party and other civil rights activists, to light, you know, several white people had to break into an FBI office, expose that program through illegal means. Right? Today, we have FOIAs. We have—you know, Color of Change, Center for Media Justice, ACLU, Center for Constitutional Rights have used the FOIAprocess to find out more information about this program. Color of Change has been able to uncover something called a race paper, you know, where they're looking into what really is going on.

But at the end of the day, we understand that very little information is available to us. Part of the problem is a deep lack of transparency. We know that the FBI is undergoing its own separate crisis, which makes it even more difficult, under the current political conditions, to get any information. We know that members of Congress, you know, as you just heard, have gone to the FBI, the FBI director, have gone to Jeff Sessions, and demanded information and not received any.

So, right now, we see those in power stalling, not sharing information. I think it will require a lawsuit of pretty significant proportions just to get basic information, the goal of which is to get the FBI to withdraw this designation, to rescind any funds dedicated to attacking black activists using this designation. But it’s going to be an uphill battle and one that we’re prepared to be on.

AMY GOODMAN: Rakem, do you think you are still under surveillance? And what happened—

RAKEM BALOGUN: Yes, I—

AMY GOODMAN: Go ahead.

RAKEM BALOGUN: Yes, I do.

AMY GOODMAN: And how are you going to challenge what happened to you, being held and then not tried?

...

https://www.alternet.org/dear-liberal-america-fbi-not-your-friend-and-it-never-has-been

...

Kansas, a federal jury convicted three white male militia members Wednesday of plotting to massacre Somali immigrants at a mosque and an apartment building in Garden City. Gavin Wright, Patrick Stein and Curtis Allen were found guilty of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, after an FBI informant said they were plotting to use guns and car bombs to mass murder Somalis. The three belonged to a militia called the Crusaders. At trial, their lawyer admitted the trio referred to Muslims as “cockroaches” but argued they hadn’t meant to go through with their plot.

entrapment // animal rights tutt?

---

https://www.theXXXguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/10/standing-rock-fbi-investigation-dakota-access

no link

Revealed: FBI terrorism taskforce investigating Standing Rock activists

FBI representatives have contacted several ‘water protectors’, raising alarm that an indigenous-led movement is being construed as domestic terrorism

A permit has been granted for the oil pipeline to cross the Missouri river, following Donald Trump’s executive order.

Sam Levin in Cannon Ball, North Dakota

@SamTLevin

Friday 10 February 2017 06.00 EST Last modified on Friday 14 July 2017 13.42 EDT

The FBI is investigating political activists campaigning against the Dakota Access pipeline, diverting agents charged with preventing terrorist attacks to instead focus their attention on indigenous activists and environmentalists.

The Guardian has established that multiple officers within the FBI’s joint terrorism taskforce have attempted to contact at least three people tied to the Standing Rock “water protector” movement in North Dakota.

The purpose of the officers’ inquiries into Standing Rock, and scope of the task force’s work, remains unknown. Agency officials declined to comment. But the fact that the officers have even tried to communicate with activists is alarming to free-speech experts who argue that anti-terrorism agents have no business scrutinizing protesters.

“The idea that the government would attempt to construe this indigenous-led non-violent movement into some kind of domestic terrorism investigation is unfathomable to me,” said Lauren Regan, a civil rights attorney who has provided legal support to demonstrators who were contacted by representatives of the FBI. “It’s outrageous, it’s unwarranted … and it’s unconstitutional.”

Regan, who has regularly visited Standing Rock and is the executive director of the Civil Liberties Defense Center in Oregon, said she learned of three cases in which officers with the taskforce, known as the JTTF, tried to talk to activists in person. She described the encounters as attempted “knocks and talks”, meaning law enforcement showed up at people’s doors without a subpoena or warrant and tried to get them to voluntarily cooperate with an interview.

The three individuals, who include a Native American and a non-indigenous activist, asserted their fifth amendment rights and did not respond to the officers, according to Regan, who declined to identify them to protect their privacy and out of fear of retribution.

Two of them were contacted in North Dakota and a third at their home outside the state, according to Regan. She said all three contacts were made in recent weeks after Trump’s inauguration.

Trump, a former investor in Energy Transfer Partners, the Texas-based firm behind the pipeline, took executive action in his first week in office to expedite the project. On Wednesday, workers began drilling to complete the pipeline across the Missouri river.

The JTTF revelation comes at a time when there have been increasing concerns at Standing Rock about law enforcement surveillance, police violence and the targeted arrests and prosecutions of activists.

Since the summer, law enforcement officials have made roughly 700 arrests, in some cases leading to serious felony charges and possibly lengthy state prison sentences. Following recent indictments, at least six activists are now facing charges in federal court. Rumors about JTTF have caused further stress among the activists.

Regan said she was able to confirm the identity of one of the JTTF officers, Andrew Creed, who attempted to contact an activist. Reached by phone, he declined to comment to the Guardian, saying, “I can’t talk to you” before hanging up.

An FBI spokesman, Jeffrey Van Nest, also declined to answer any questions, saying: “We’re not in a position to provide a comment as to the existence of an investigation.”

In November, a JTTF officer also showed up to the hospital room of Sophia Wilansky, a 21-year-old who was seriously injured during a standoff with law enforcement at Standing Rock, according to her father, Wayne Wilansky. The FBI took her clothes and still have not returned them, he said in an interview this week.

Wayne said he suspected that the FBI brought a terrorism agent given that local police had alleged that activists set off an explosion that caused his daughter’s injuries. Witnesses have said they believe she was hit by a police concussion grenade.

The timing of the FBI hospital visit in Minneapolis was upsetting, he added. “It was especially disturbing, because Sophia’s blood pressure was going up. She was about to be wheeled into surgery.”

Activists at Standing Rock have faced blizzard conditions at the camp during the winter months.

Activists at Standing Rock have faced blizzard conditions at the camp during the winter months. Photograph: Michael Nigro/Pacific/Barcroft

Police have repeatedly painted the anti-pipeline movement as dangerous, which is why JTTF may be involved, Regan said.

“From the very beginning, local law enforcement has attempted to justify its militarized presence … by making false allegations that somehow these water protectors were violent.”

Analysis How Keystone XL and Dakota Access went from opposition to resurrection

Both projects were opposed by grassroots groups, mired in court battles and produced high-profile clashes between environmentalists and energy interests

The attorney said it also seemed likely that JTTF may have contacted other water protectors and said she worried they may not have realized their best option is to remain silent and contact a lawyer.

This is not the first time the JTTF has been tied to an investigation of civil rights protesters. Records from Minnesota suggested that the taskforce monitored a Black Lives Matter demonstration.

For indigenous leaders who have vowed to continue fighting the pipeline on the ground, the FBI investigations and ongoing federal prosecutions have become increasingly worrisome. It’s particularly troubling to some given the US government’s history of aggressively targeting Native American protesters and turning them into political prisoners.

“This is history repeating itself,” said LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, who founded the first camp opposing the pipeline. “I keep on thinking, how we did come to this point? … When did Americans lose their rights? When did America stop following the law?”

Brandy-Lee Maxie, a 34-year-old Nakota tribe member from Canada, said it’s difficult not to worry about possible prosecution. But the cause, she said, is too important to give up: “I’m staying here. Whatever happens to those who stay happens. We’ve just gotta keep praying.”

FBI 2

How Fox hosts are reacting to the collapse of their FBI “informant” story

1. Ignoring it

2. Claiming this actually makes Republicans look good

3. Layering on more conspiracy theories

4. Diverting viewers to a different, similarly dubious Biden scandal

BI Hired Social Media Surveillance Firm That Labeled Black Lives Matter Organizers “Threat Actors”

The Elusive “Environmental Extremist”

Comparing Pipeline Activists to Al Qaeda

Related

How a Movement That Never Killed Anyone Became the FBI’s No. 1 Domestic Terrorism Threat

Law Enforcement Goes Don Quixote

===