Newly Released FBI “Domestic Terrorism” Training on Anarchists, Environmentalists, Show COINTELPRO Tactics

by Will Potter on May 29, 2012 Green is the New Red

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Newly released FBI presentations show the flawed and misleading information the government is using to train agents to identify and investigate “domestic terrorist” groups such as “black separatists,” anarchists, animal rights activists, and environmentalists.

Among the more troubling portions of the training materials are warnings of activists using the Freedom of Information Act, engaging in non-violent civil disobedience, and gathering in coffee shops.


The domestic terrorism training materials were obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by the ACLU. They offer additional insight into a disturbing pattern of FBI activity misrepresenting political activists as “terrorists” and manufacturing “domestic terrorism threats” where none exist, akin to the notorious COINTELPRO program of J. Edgar Hoover.

 

Anarchists Are “Criminals Seeking an Ideology”

In presentations on “Anarchist Extremism,” the FBI warns:

– Anarchists are “Criminals seeking an ideology to justify their activities”
– Anarchists are “Not dedicated to a particular cause”
– Green anarchists believe “individuals should ‘get back to nature’”

Their meeting locations include “college campuses, underground clubs, coffee houses/ internet cafes.” Their criminal activity includes “Sleeping Dragons” (a form of civil disobedience in which people lock arms in PVC pipes).

Anarchists are also “paranoid / security conscious,” according to the presentation. This is an interesting observation coming from the FBI, considering there have been two recent cases where the FBI played a key role in infiltrating anarchist groups in order to orchestrate alleged terrorist attacks. In the Cleveland May Day arrests, and in the Chicago NATO arrests, the FBI trumpeted the arrest of “terrorists” that agents themselves tried desperately to create.

However, not all anarchists are engaged in these types of plots, the FBI acknowledges. They use a “variety of tactics” including “civil disobedience” (such as resisting home foreclosures, creating community gardens, and many other activities not mentioned by the bureau).

The FBI also warns that anarchists may have “crossover ideologies” including animal rights extremism and environmental extremism.

 

Animal rights / environmental extremism

In the training presentation on these so-called “eco-terrorists,” the FBI lists lawful, First Amendment activity and low-level criminal activity (such as civil disobedience) as examples of domestic terrorism.

The FBI is particularly focused in these presentations on information gathering and what it calls a “public relations war” by activist groups. “Media is sometimes slanted in favor of activists,” the FBI says. “Activists spin the truth.”

Examples of information gathering listed by the FBI include requests for public documents under the Freedom of Information Act. In one presentation, FOIA requests are listed as examples of “University targeting.”

Elsewhere the FBI warns of “cold calls” and using “USDA Report [sic].”

The FBI also warns of activist attempts to use “false employment.” This is undoubtedly related to activists who seek employment at factory farms and vivisection labs in order to expose animal welfare abuses. As I have reported here previously, the FBI has considered terrorism charges for non-violent undercover investigators. And multiple states have been seeking to criminalize undercover investigations as well.

As I document in Green Is the New Red, there has been a slow and relentless expansion of “terrorism” rhetoric and investigations over the last 30 years. This type of language and FBI investigation was initially confined to property crimes by the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front (groups that have caused millions of dollars in economic loss, but have never harmed a human being).

Now this already-broad terrorism classification has been expanded even further.  The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act was drafted to target anyone who causes the “loss of profits” of an animal enterprise. The FBI acknowledges this shift in “terrorism” investigations in a slide that says the new law “alleviates the use of force or violence criteria.”

 

Relentless Expansion of “Domestic Terrorism”

The ACLU’s Mike German has an excellent dissection of the FBI’s “black separatist” documents. German writes:

Who are “Black Separatists” and is there any evidence they pose a terrorist threat?
Internet searches of “Black Separatist terrorism,” “Black Separatist bombing,” and “Black Separatist shooting” fail to bring up any recent incidents that could be fairly described as terrorist violence. No “Black Separatist” terrorist incidents are included in the FBI’s list of “Major Terrorism Cases: Past and Present,” nor on the more comprehensive list of terrorist attacks going back to 1980, which are detailed in an FBI report entitled “Terrorism 2002-2005.” While Black nationalist groups like the Black Panthers and the Black Liberation Army were certainly involved in political violence back in the 1970s, they no longer exist, and the last acts of violence attributed to either group were more than two decades ago.

So why are Atlanta FBI agents now searching for black separatist threats?   Because the FBI appears to be training them to believe there is one using factually flawed materials.

The FBI is targeting “black separatists,” anarchists, animal rights activists, and environmentalists in nearly identical methodologies. And these new documents show just how little these tactics change over time and between movements.

The FBI is manufacturing these “terrorism threats” through what I would call a process of conflation. Disparate groups are being conflated, across ideological and tactical divides, and presented as a united “threat.” For instance, the FBI notes that “black separatists” are a movement that “consists of multiple groups” lacking a unified ideology, but they are lumped together because they “all share racial grievances against the U.S., most seek restitution, or governance base [sic] on religious identity or social principals [sic].”

Just as the FBI invented a new class of domestic terrorists in 2009 called “American Islamic Extremists,” the FBI long ago embraced a new class of domestic terrorists called “eco-terrorists.” A wide range of groups, from the Humane Society to the Animal Liberation Front, have been conflated into this catch-all term. This use of language is essential to the demonization of entire social movements because it aides in reshaping them as an “other.” They are not individuals with specific political grievances, they become a mass of unreasonable extremist threats.

At the same time, the FBI is conflating a wide range of tactics. People who support anarchists or “black separatists” in their words are conflated with the very small group of people who have engaged in illegal activity. That’s how the FBI is including FOIA requests and civil disobedience as example tactics in a domestic terrorism presentation. Juxtapose this with the tactics of militia extremists and white supremacists, who have murdered, lynched, bombed, assaulted government officials and created weapons of mass destruction.

To most reasonable people, such a stark disparity between these groups would raise questions about how the FBI is allocating its domestic terrorism resources. How did such misguided policies come about?

These presentations point to one possible answer to that question: The FBI creates terrorism threats by directly training agents to believe they exist.

And Now They Are Coming For You

Tuesday, May 29, 2012 Modesto Anarcho

 
A Few Words from the Editors...

We live in an exciting time where it can be reasonably believed that the current ruling order can be overthrown and an entirely new world can flourish in it's place. Entire governments have been brought down, insurrections nurtured and pushed to their most subversive ends, and people across the globe anticipate a coming, perhaps winnable, clash between themselves and power. However, it is also a scary time to call yourself an anarchist, with the media and whole governments inflating fears of anarchist "terrorism," bomb-plots, and attacks. In recent months, 10 people have been brought up on conspiracy charges. Each of these cases is similar; an FBI informant finds young idealistic people involved on the periphery of protest movements and pushes them toward radical action, only to later arrest them after they have been pushed. In this special article from a comrade in the bay area, they discuss how strategies classically used against revolutionaries have come to be more broadly applied to other groups of people, as though they too are seen by the state as combatants and potential insurgents. 

Eric McDavid

In Modesto, we've already seen police target anarchists for repression, as was the case when the Stanislaus County Sheriffs launched a sting operation against an underground needle exchange in order to "rid the parks of anarchists and junkies," as head Sheriff Adam Christianson explained before the Board of Supervisors. In 2006, an Auburn anarchist, Eric McDavid, was sentenced to 20 years in prison after being entrapped by an FBI informant without even carrying out an action. While we have seen the state act against anarchists in this area, we also have seen the targeting of whole groups of people based on the neighborhood they live in or their immigration status. When the needle exchange was shut down, people reacted with solidarity: dropping banners, holding demonstrations, packing the courtroom, and throwing benefits to raise money, but what was our response when immigration officials raided a Modesto area flea market, carting away children under the pretext of looking for pirate DVDs? Where was the rage when the city of Modesto declared entire neighborhoods under gang injunctions, which in colonial fashion created curfews, forbade people from associating with each other, and hindered the movements of entire groups of people? 


We should not be surprised at state repression against radicals when such strategies are used by the government against huge segments of the population. Generalized surveillance, mass incarceration, the ubiquitous exploitation of migrant workers terrorized to silence through the constant threat of deportation, and gang injunctions which keep poor communities of color fractured and isolated are all part of a social war waged against the very population itself. With these first forays into the domestication of warfare into the every day fabric of our lives, is it any wonder that the state would target those who already proclaim themselves combatants in just such a war?

And Now They Are Coming For You

3 of the 5 people arrested after protests
in Chicago. 

The image of five men circulates through the news media and around the internet.  A few weeks later, a new story, this time the mugshots of three more men flash on the screen, followed by the pictures of two other men in the following days.

The ten white men are in serious trouble, something about “terrorism” from the sounds of it, but the situation is very confusing.  One thing is clear: informants were involved in all of these cases, and that they developed friendships with these young men in order to entrap them.

People in Ohio involved in FBI
entrapment case. 

In most of the cases it seems the men are charged with nothing more than talking, yet they are facing lengthy prison sentences.

How did we get to this point?

Background

Late 2002- 20,000 feet above the ocean a young man lies on the cold metal floor of an airplane, his arms and legs affixed to metal posts by sturdy canvass straps.  His captors speak a language he does not understand, yet they constantly scream at him, their mouths just inches from his face.  He is afraid.

The airplane lands somewhere outside of an Eastern European capital.  He is placed in a van and driven away from the makeshift airport.  They arrive at what appears to be a small office building on the outskirts of a city.

This place does not exist on any map.

Inside the building are not offices but 6 tiny damp cells.  The cells have no sinks or benches.  There is not even a toilet.   He is forced to the ground and, once again, his arms and legs are strapped down.

A hood is thrown over his head and he feels water running down his body.  His captors are yelling.  He cannot breathe. 

Guantanamo Bay 

In the past decade, thousands of Muslims have been subjected to the most disturbing forms of incarceration and interrogation imaginable.  Of those incarcerated, most were never officially charged.  Many did not survive the ordeal.

Extraordinary rendition, the extrajudicial abduction and international transport of a person for the purpose of interrogation, became commonplace during the “war on terror”.   Countless people who were never charged with a crime were transported to “black sites”.  The US government refuses to acknowledge the existence of many of these secret prisons. 

Like “indefinite detention” and “enhanced interrogation techniques”, “extraordinary rendition” is another euphemism used to downplay the campaign of terror waged by the US against the Muslim world.

Abdulrahman al-Awlaki

Friday, October 14, 2011 -  A 16 year old American boy, along with nine others, is killed in a targeted CIA drone strike in Yemen. Abdulrahman al-Awlaki becomes the third American killed in Yemen by United States drones in just over two weeks.

These attacks made it clear that the most brutal methods, those aerial bombardments normally reserved for citizens of far-away lands, would now be used against Americansas well.

The targeted CIA murder of an American boy would normally cause an outrage. 

But he was Muslim, and we had grown to expect this.

It’s hard not to feel that we failed to respond appropriately to this decade long campaign of state repression, and that our failure to act then has helped to create the situation we are in today.

Drone planes carry out attacks and
conduct surveillance. 

Perhaps we didn’t understand how similar our struggles are.  Maybe we were susceptible to the reactionary media campaigns and thought that these young men from the Muslim world were the same men who burned women with acid in Pakistan or poisoned girls for learning to read in Afghanistan. Perhaps we convinced ourselves that, without knowing each individual’s politics, that they were all religious fundamentalists who wanted a return to an era of the most unbridled patriarchy.  Maybe believing this made it easier for us to ignore their persecution, perhaps it gave us an easier justification for our inability to act than to admit that we were afraid. 

It is now apparent that we ignored their struggle at our own peril.

The Precedent

Tarek Mehanna

Last month Tarek Mehanna was sentenced to 17 years in prison for translating communiqués issued by Muslim combatants.  This case is just another demonstration of the extreme racism of the judicial system.  But it has become apparent that the State is no longer content to suppress only ethnic minorities.  Any challenge to the system will now be met with the most brutal reprisal.

The prosecutions of animal and earth liberation militants from 2006 to 2009 was as much an attempt by the State to destroy those movements as it was a chance to set a precedent in the conviction of white Americans as terrorists.  Using the fear of the not-so-distant World Trade Center attack and the precedent of the convictions of countless Muslims for doing far less, the State successfully targeted another network of people.  They saw the animal and earth liberation movements as being marginal enough that they could be used as a testing ground for a campaign of persecution that is now aimed at all who disobey.

Somebody Snitchin’

Informants have been critical in the prosecution of nearly all terror cases.  We have been told that their role is to identify plots and to stop them before they are carried out. 

The role of the informant is to create a situation that justifies his existence.  An informant does not infiltrate a terror cell.  He creates one.

Many of us believed that informants target the key players of a movement in an attempt to remove influential people, thus striking a crippling blow. 

COINTELPRO targeted revolutionary
movements and groups in the 1960's-70's.

In the 1960s the FBI targeted the leaders of social movements for “neutralization”.  To cut off the head was to kill the body.  We learned from this and developed bodies that could function without a head.  No longer could they destroy us by targeting a few key people.

But they also learned.  Informants no longer look for leaders, they look for followers, those bright-eyed young idealists who will do anything to end this global cycle of suffering. 

Our diffuse structure has been met by a diffuse repression.  To target at random, to incarcerate the least threatening among us, sends a message that is much more terrifying than the old method. 

They no longer seek to decapitate a movement, but to slash wildly at its body so that none of its parts are safe. 

Today, there is nowhere to hide.

The Homefront

Occupy Oakland 

The Bay is the epicenter of struggle in this country.  We have almost grown used to the experience of small-scale uprisings.  We have participated in conflicts we never would have thought possible.

Around the country our allies have taken notice.  It is certain that the same is true of our enemies.

In Ohio, Minnesota, Washington, Illinois, even in small town Iowa the State’s secret messengers have reared their heads. 

But here they have remained silent.

The current wave of struggle in the Bay began three and a half years ago, and almost immediately evidence of informants was apparent.

At the height of the Oscar Grant movement we learned that the FBI expressed a great deal of interest in the anarchist tendency in the Bay.  It was uncovered that someone was feeding information about anarchist participation in the uprising to law enforcement.  It was suspected that this source was close to or within the anarchist movement.

This person was never discovered.

Around this time a strange figure appeared.  Claiming to be a leader of the “Oakland Panthers”, he publicly exalted the dumbest forms of violent action and considered macho homophobic yelling matches to be an admirable form of struggle.  He physically attacked people at random.  He was trusted by few.  It was revealed that he was a pimp who had worked as an informant for OPD in the recent past, and it was speculated that he still working for them.  3 years later he made an appearance at an Occupy Oakland action, trying to persuade a young anarchist to light something on fire.  He was outed and hasn’t been seen since.

We're already at that point...

It is apparent that law enforcement has, to some degree, used covert methods against radical movements in the Bay in recent times.  They have reason to fear the fighting force we have developed.  But, with the exception of a washed up pimp-turned fake Panther, none of the State’s messengers have been discovered.

Be safe.  There are enemies among us, though we have yet to identify them.

Learn from the cases of the ten men, and from all the prosecutions before them.  Be cautious about your use of the word “trust”.  Don’t let anyone drag you into a situation that you are not prepared for.

Organize your conspiracies carefully.  We must learn to strike harder and more effectively.  The anger we carry with us will one day bring down empires.

Until now the victims of the most brutal state repression have been the same people that have always had the boot on their neck. Though at times the police have clearly targeted people they believed to be white anarchists, the judicial system continued functioning in the same way it always has. In the past three and a half years of struggle in the Bay, nearly all of the people who have done time have been working-class black males.  

Media encourages people to call police on rioters and
looters after Oscar Grant revolt in Oakland.

For those of us who were raised to believe that, because of our race, we would be subjected to the full range of terror the State has to offer, this was not surprising.  In a sense, we do not react with the same emotion to these situations because we have grown to expect them.  That Muslims are indefinitely held in solitary confinement, that black youths fill the jails, we have come to believe that this is simply the order of things.

But this will soon change. 

The controlled management units, the sensory deprivation, the enhanced interrogation techniques, the indefinite detention, all the tools of the wars against populations abroad are coming home.

You watched as they tortured Muslims in Iraq, detained Mexicans in Arizona, incarcerated blacks in Oakland, and as you watched you thought to yourself this is fucked up. 

But you said nothing as they were thrown to the lions.

And now they are coming for you.

Further reading: 

Inside the FBI Entrapment Strategy - Crimethinc.com

The New State Repression - Ken Lawrence

Repression As State Strategy - A Murder of Crows

Inside the FBI Entrapment Strategy

May 29, 2012 CrimethInc.

 

Over the past month, the FBI has initiated a spate of entrapment operations designed to frame anarchists as “terrorists.” Significantly, they have not targeted longtime organizers, but rather people who are relatively peripheral to anarchist communities.

In response, we’ve prepared a pamphlet suitable for a wide readership explaining how this entrapment strategy works, and an analysis exploring why the FBI has adopted it. Please circulate these widely.
Reading PDF [550kb]
Imposed PDF for Printing [550kb]


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The Latest Trend in Repression

Not so long ago, it seemed that the FBI focused on pursuing accomplished anarchists: Marie Mason and Daniel McGowan were both arrested after lengthy careers involving everything from supporting survivors of domestic violence to ecologically-minded arson. It isn’t surprising that the security apparatus of the state targeted these activists: they were courageously threatening the inequalities and injustices the state is founded upon.

However, starting with the entrapment case of Eric McDavid—framed for a single conspiracy charge by an infiltrator who used his attraction to her to manipulate him into discussing illegal actions—the FBI seem to have switched strategies, focusing on younger targets who haven’t actually carried out any actions.

They stepped up this new strategy during the 2008 Republican National Convention, at which FBI informants Brandon Darby and Andrew Darst set up David McKay, Bradley Crowder, and Matthew DePalma on charges of possessing Molotov cocktails in two separate incidents. It’s important to note that the only Molotov cocktails that figured in the RNC protests at any point were the ones used to entrap these young men: the FBI were not responding to a threat, but inventing one.

Over the past month, the FBI have shifted into high gear with this approach. Immediately before May Day, five young men were set up on terrorism charges in Cleveland after an FBI infiltrator apparently guided them into planning to bomb a bridge, in what would have been the only such bombing carried out by anarchists in living memory. During the protests against the NATO summit in Chicago, three young men were arrested and charged with terrorist conspiracy once again involving the only Molotov cocktails within hundreds of miles, set up by at least two FBI informants.


Undercover informants “Mo” and “Gloves” (aka “Nadiya”)
from the NATO entrapment cases  None of the targets of these entrapment cases seem to be longtime anarchist organizers. None of the crimes they’re being charged with are representative of the tactics that anarchists have actually used over the past decade. All of the cases rest on the efforts of FBI informants to manufacture conspiracies. All of the arrests have taken place immediately before mass mobilizations, enabling the authorities to frame a narrative justifying their crackdowns on protest as thwarting terrorism. And in all of these cases, the defendants have been described as anarchists in the legal paperwork filed against them, setting precedents for criminalizing anarchism.

Why Entrapment? Why Now?

Why is the FBI focusing on entrapping inexperienced young people rather than going after seasoned anarchists? Isn’t that just plain bad sportsmanship? And why are they intensifying this now?
For one thing, experienced activists are harder to catch. Unlike anarchists, FBI agents work for money, not necessarily out of passion or conviction. Their reports often read like second-rate homework assignments even as they wreck people’s lives. Agents get funding and promotions based on successful cases, so they have an incentive to set people up; but why go after challenging targets? Why not pick the most marginal, the most vulnerable, the most isolated? If the goal is simply to frame somebody, it doesn’t really matter who the target is.

Likewise, the tactics anarchists have actually been using are likely to be more popular with the general public than the tactics infiltrators push them towards. Smashing bank windows, for example, may be illegal, but it is increasingly understood as a meaningful political statement; it would be difficult to build a convincing terrorism case around broken glass.

Well-known activists also have much broader support networks. The FBI threatened Daniel McGowan with a mandatory life sentence plus 335 years in prison; widespread support enabled him to obtain a good lawyer, and the prosecution had to settle for a plea bargain for a seven-year sentence or else admit to engaging in illegal wiretapping. Going after disconnected young people dramatically decreases the resources that will be mobilized to support them. If the point is to set precedents that criminalize anarchism while producing the minimum blowback, then it is easier to manufacture “terror” cases by means of agents provocateurs than to investigate actual anarchist activity.

Above all, this kind of proactive threat-creation enables FBI agents to prepare make-to-order media events. If a protest is coming up at which the authorities anticipate using brutal force, it helps to be able to spin the story in advance as a necessary, measured response to violent criminals. This also sows the seeds of distrust among activists, and intimidates newcomers and fence-sitters out of having anything to do with anarchists. The long-range project here, presumably choreographed by FBI leadership rather than rank-and-file agents, is not just to frame a few unfortunate arrestees, but thus to hamstring the entire anti-capitalist movement.

How to Destroy a Movement

As we saw in the Green Scare, FBI repression often does not begin in earnest until a movement has begun to fracture and subside, diminishing the targets’ support base. The life cycle of movements passes ever faster in our hyper-mediatized era; the Occupy phenomenon peaked in November 2011 and has already slowed down, emboldening the authorities to consolidate control and take revenge.
As anarchist values and practices become increasingly central to protest movements, the authorities are anxious to incapacitate and delegitimize anarchists. Yet in this context, it’s still inconvenient to admit to targeting people for anarchism alone—that could spread the wrong narrative, rallying outrage against transparently political persecution. Likewise, they dare not initiate repression without a narrative portraying the targets as alien to the rest of the movement, even if that repression is calculated to destroy the movement itself.

Fortunately for the FBI, a few advocates of “nonviolence” within the Occupy movement were happy to provide this narrative, disavowing everyone who didn’t affirm their narrow tactical framework. Journalists like Chris Hedges took this further by framing the “black bloc” as a kind of people rather than a tactic—despite even the Chicago Sun-Times comprehending the distinction. Hedges led the charge to consign those who actively defended themselves against state repression to this fabricated political category—in effect, designating them legitimate targets. It is no coincidence that entrapment cases followed soon after.
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“The individuals we charged are not peaceful protesters, they are domestic terrorists,” [state attorney Anita] Alvarez said. “The charges we bring today are not indicative of a protest movement that has been targeted.”  The authorities swiftly took up this narrative. In a recent Fox News article advancing the FBI agenda, we see the authorities parroting Chris Hedges’ talking points—“they use the Occupy Movement as a front, but have their own violent agenda”—in order to frame the black bloc as a “home-grown terror group.” The article also describes the Cleveland arrestees as “Black Bloc anarchists,” without evidence that any of them have ever participated in a black bloc.

The goal here is clearly to associate a form of activity—acting anonymously, defending oneself against police attacks—with a kind of people: terrorists, evildoers, monsters. This is a high priority for the authorities: they were able to crush the Occupy movement much more quickly, at least relative to its numbers, in cities where people did not act anonymously and defend themselves—hence Occupy Oakland’s longevity compared to other Occupy groups. The aim of the FBI and corporate media, with the collusion of Chris Hedges and others, is to ensure that when people see a masked crowd that refuses to kowtow to coercive authority, they don’t think, “Good for them for standing up for themselves,” but rather, “Oh no—a bunch of terrorist bombers.”
To recapitulate the FBI strategy:

-divide and conquer the movement by isolating the most combative participants

-stage-manage entrapments of vulnerable targets at the periphery

-use these arrests to delegitimize all but the most docile, and to justify ever-increasing police violence.
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What Comes Next

The authorities are explicitly announcing that there will be more of these “sting operations” at the upcoming Republican National Convention in Tampa. We can expect more and more “unsportsmanlike” entrapments in the years to come.

For decades now, movements have defended themselves against police surveillance and infiltration by practicing security culture. This has minimized the effectiveness of police operations against experienced activists. However, it can’t always protect those who are new to anarchism or activism, who haven’t had time to internalize complex habits and practices, and these are exactly the people that the FBI entrapment strategy targets.

Three years ago, we called for a collective security culture that could protect even newcomers against infiltrators. In a time of widespread social ferment, however, even this is not sufficient to thwart the FBI: we can’t hope to reach and protect every single desperate, angry,vulnerable person in our society. Infiltrators need only find one impressionable young person, however peripheral, to advance their strategy. These are inhuman bounty hunters: they don’t balk at taking advantage of any weakness, any need, any mental health issue.

If we are to protect the next generation of young people from these predators, our only hope is to mobilize a popular reaction against entrapment tactics. Only a blowback against the FBI themselves can halt this strategy. This will not be easy, but there is no better alternative.

Don’t stop speaking out, organizing, and fighting—that won’t stop them from repressing us or entrapping people. Retreating will only embolden them: we can only protect ourselves by increasing our power to fight back, not by withdrawing, not by hiding, not by behaving.

The best defense is a good offense. So long as capitalism is unstable—that is to say, until it collapses—there will be repression. Let’s meet it head on.

Further Reading

What Is Security Culture?
Towards a Collective Security Culture
Cleveland 5 Support Website
Lisa Fithian’s Experiences with FBI Informant Brandon Darby

Permalink

Entrapment of Cleveland 5 and NATO 3 is Nothing New

Police Entrapment of Nonviolent Movements

May 21, 2012 by JAKE OLZEN Counterpunch

The old trope of the bomb-throwing anarchist is back in the news, with a round-up in Ohio on May 1 and the three would-be NATO protesters arrested on Wednesday who are now charged with conspiracy to commit terrorism. While the impression that appears in the media is one of remnants of the Occupy movement verging toward violence, the driving forces behind these plots are the very agencies claiming to have foiled them.

The five activists arrested in Cleveland, Ohio, are facing multiple charges for conspiring and attempting to destroy the Brecksville-Northfield High Level Bridge on May Day to protest corporate rule. According to the FBI press statement released shortly after the May 1 arrests, FBI Special Agent in Charge Stephen D. Anthony said “the individuals charged in this plot were intent on using violence to express their ideological views.” But that is only one side of the story.

The mainstream media and blog reports, both nationally and in Cleveland, have emphasized that the young activists were part of Occupy Cleveland and self-identified anarchists (here, here, and here). The men — Douglas L. Wright, 26, of Indianapolis; Brandon L. Baxter, 20, of nearby Lakewood; Connor C. Stevens, 20, of suburban Berea; and Joshua S. Stafford, 23, and Anthony Hayne, 35, both of Cleveland — were arrested and remain in jail after they attempted to detonate a false bomb that they had set, in conjunction with the FBI.

It’s an old script: Violence-prone anarchists devise a nefarious plan and, just before they can carry it out, law enforcement swoops in to save the day, catching them red-handed. But there’s another script being acted out here too, one much more sinister, complex, and morally and legally dubious: Agents of the state infiltrate an activist group and, through techniques of psychological manipulation, lead its most vulnerable members into a violent plan — for which explosives, detonators, contacts and case mysteriously become available — until SWAT teams and prosecutors suddenly arrive and haul the accomplices off to jail for the rest of their lives. In both cases, at the end of the story, officials congratulate each other for their bravery and bravado and the public breathes a sigh of relief as more of their civil liberties are stripped away.

I recently spoke with Richard Schulte, a veteran activist who has known the Five from groups like Food Not Bombs and is helping to organize their legal and jail support. Schulte explained that under the influence of undercover federal agents and informants, the activists — particularly the youngest, Baxter and Stevens — found themselves increasingly vulnerable and reliant on their informant. Baxter’s lawyer, a public defender named John Pyle, recently identified the informant working with the group as Shaquille Azir, a 39-year old ex-con.

“[Azir] became something of a role model, stepping in as a father figure, offering guidance on emotional and social stuff,” said Schulte. “Connor and Brandon thought he was a rad dude but getting more and more pushy.”

Collectively, according to accounts from friends and associates, statements from lawyers, and the FBI affidavit, members of the Cleveland Five have backgrounds that include mental illness, substance abuse, homelessness and social marginalization.
Brandon and Connor had been part of the full-time occupation over the winter in Cleveland’s Public Square. After having grown frustrated with what they perceived as the Occupiers’ timidity — Schulte called it “passive gradualism” — the Five were encouraged by Azir to break off from Occupy Cleveland and form their own, much smaller group, “The People’s Liberation Army.” At first it was mostly just a graffiti crew — tagging the phrase “rise up” around the city and putting up stickers, said Schulte.

Azir would give them a case of beer in the morning, according to Schulte, have them work outside on houses all day, and then give them a case of beer at night. He gave them marijuana and would wear them down by keeping them up late into the night with drinking and conversation — all the while urging them to break away from other groups, keep their arrangement secret and not to trust other activists.

Looking back, Schulte said Azir and the FBI used “security culture against activists” and “developed patterns of trust to seem legit.” The Cleveland Five, he explains, “were coached by the federal government.”

In a letter Stevens wrote from jail, Schulte told me, he described the feeling of helplessness he experienced right before the bust: “We saw this coming,” Stevens wrote.

“Brought to the edge of the swimming pool”
Andy Stepanian knows a thing or two about state repression of activists. As one of the animal-rights activists known as the SHAC 7, Stepanian has served three and a half years in federal prison after having been prosecuted under the Animal Enterprise Protection Act for costing animal testing laboratories more than $380 million in lost profits simply by operating a website. While the SHAC 7 case did not involve FBI entrapment or property destruction, the specific targeting of activists because of their anti-capitalist activism was reflective of a new era of post-9/11 state surveillance and repression.

When I talked to him on the phone about the Cleveland Five, Stepanian surmised, “These folks would not have gone out and done this if not brought to the edge of the swimming pool by federal agents and urged to jump in.”

The FBI affidavit — analyzed here by RT — confirms, again, what many have warned about regarding the growing surveillance and security agencies in the United States: To keep themselves employed and justify their budgets, people in agencies like the FBI are orchestrating plots to catch “terrorists” who, otherwise, seem to be quite unable to do anything on their own. Last fall,Mother Jones reported on FBI efforts against Muslim extremists and concluded that many of those were instances of entrapment as well.

In activist circles, there are a series of notorious cases of entrapment by federal authorities. In 2006, for instance, environmental activist Eric McDavid, encouraged by an informant known as “Anna,” was convicted on conspiracy charges. Another more notorious case is that of Brandon Darby — a well-known anarchist and activist-turned-informant — and his entrapment of David McKay and Bradley Cowder. The award winning film, Better This World, tells the story of how McKay and Cowder were convicted on charges of conspiracy to commit terrorism.

“In most cases,” said Stepanian, “this is not one coordinated crackdown with a puppet-master. It’s a bottom-up [phenomenon] where special investigators are creating things for themselves to do. They go to potential targets to justify their position and create work for themselves.”

Perhaps even more troubling than the manipulation of vulnerable individuals — whether they be political activists or members of mosques — is the way in which law enforcement meanwhile manipulates public discourse about terrorism, Islam or, in this case, a growing social movement.

According to Schulte, the operation in Cleveland appears to have been part of a pre-planned narrative meant to paint Occupiers as a group with terrorist thugs in their midst, discouraging others from joining the movement. The FBI had a media statement prepared for immediate release on May Day after the arrests, and it hosted an unusually high-profile press conference the following day. There have been more than 300 pleas involving FBI informants in six years and such kind of overt media blitz from the feds is rare. Rolling Stone reporter Rick Perlstein observes, comparing two different anti-terrorism operations at the end of April, “that the State is singling out ideological enemies.” He reports that authorities are much less likely, for instance, to use tactics of entrapment against violent white supremacist groups.

Investigative journalist Will Potter is an expert on state-sponsored targeting of radical activist groups who has testified before Congress on FBI entrapment and is the author of a book (and an accompanying blog) titled Green is the New Red.Potter calls the Cleveland Five conspiracy “part of the ongoing focus on demonizing anarchists.” Just a cursory look at the headlines in Chicago and Cleveland confirms a growing association of anarchism with violence and terrorism while alienating radical movements from potential supporters.


Occupy Cleveland responds
Each of the Cleveland Five entered pleas of not guilty in federal court last week. As the trial of these young men plays out, their fates rest in which story is more compelling — their own victimhood, or the cunning of the federal agents. Although they were not taking action in the name of Occupy Cleveland, the future of Occupy and related movements in the United States is at stake in which story the public chooses to believe.

Occupy Cleveland, one of the movement’s longest-lasting encampments, had the remnants of its occupation removed by police in the middle of the night on May 3. There was little public outcry, when the city revoked its permit after the May 1 arrests.

Occupy Cleveland spokesperson Katie Steinmuller stressed that it was only a matter of time before the camp was evicted, and that it wasn’t entirely a result of the bomb scare. “There was a casino planned to be opened in view of the tents,” said Steinmuller referring to Occupy Cleveland’s camp when I spoke with her by phone about the eviction. “This [conspiracy] was just a good excuse to get us out.”

In a media statement following the arrests of the Cleveland Five, Occupy Cleveland affirmed its commitment to “active non-violence.” Individual occupiers have chosen to join the support team for the Five, but Occupy Cleveland as a whole is steering clear of commenting on it further.

“The FBI was successful in … what they set out to do,” said Schulte about theinitial negative reaction the Occupy movement and other activists experienced in Cleveland. “People were exploited and trapped.”

“When you take away a space of legitimate protest,” adds Stepanian, “less legitimate forms of protest become more prevalent.” Events like the arrests of the Cleveland Five can create schisms within movements, which the state exploits to create a climate of fear within and about activist groups. The NATO 3 arrests and bond hearing, for instance, just before this weekend’s mass No NATO demonstration, will serve to deter people from participating and obscure the reality of the protest’s message.

In Chicago, the NATO 3 are each being held on $1.5 million bail. More details will emerge in the coming weeks, but Michael E. Deutsch, legal counsel for the NATO 3, has said that two of the 11 arrested during a house raid in Bridgeport were Chicago Police Department informants and have since disappeared. The truth of what really happened in Cleveland and Chicago may or may not emerge in the courtroom. But it is clear regardless that Occupy is now being exposed to a new level of state repression, and that it is taking a toll on what has still remained a nonviolent protest movement.

Jake Olzen is an activist/organizer, farmer, and graduate student at Loyola University Chicago. He is part of the White Rose Catholic Worker community.

Attacks on Chicago police stations, Obama office were planned, prosecutors say

By Miranda Leitsinger, msnbc.com May 19, 2012

Updated at 2:30 p.m. ET CHICAGO -- Three anti-NATO protesters charged with
terrorism conspiracy planned to attack four Chicago police stations, the
local campaign headquarters for President Barack Obama and the home of
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, prosecutors alleged in court Saturday.

While friends of the three men insisted they were just operating a home
brewery, prosecutors stated that police found a gun that fires mortar
rounds, swords, a hunting bow, ninja-like throwing stars and knives with
brass knuckle handles. The beer-brewing operation, prosecutors added, was
used to fill bottles with gasoline that would later be thrown as Molotov
cocktails.

"Plans were made to destroy police cars and attack four CPD stations with
destructive devices, in an effort to undermine the police response" to
attacks on the Obama office and the Emanuel home as well as unspecified
financial institutions, the charging statement said.

The three were being held on charges of conspiracy to commit terrorism,
possession of an explosive or incendiary device and providing material
support for terrorism.

The men were identified as 20-year-old Brian Church, of Ft. Lauderdale,
Fla.; 24-year-old Jared Chase, of Keene, N.H.; and 24-year-old Brent
Betterly, of Oakland Park, Mass.

Mike Barrett, CEO of Diligent Innovations Consulting and former director
of strategy for the Bush administration's Homeland Security Council, talks
the G8 summit being held at Camp David, and the upcoming NATO Summit
kicking off in Chicago this weekend where Occupy Wall Street protesters
are already waiting.

Defense attorneys told a judge on Saturday that undercover police were the
ones who brought the Molotov cocktails, and that their clients were
entrapped.

Bond of $1.5 million was set for each defendant.

Michael Deutsch, one of their attorneys, later told reporters outside the
courtroom that it was all a setup. Two informants "ingratiated themselves"
with the three men and "this was all their idea," he insisted.

It was "entrapment to the highest degree," Deutsch said.

But Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy told reporters "the evidence
speaks for itself" about what he called an "imminent threat."

"They were making the bombs ... (and had) directions on how to implement
this," added Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez.

The charging document states that "while the Molotov Cocktails were being
poured, Church discussed the NATO Sumrnit, the protests, and how the
Molotov Cocktails would be used for violence and intimidating acts of
destruction. At one point, Church asked if others had ever seen a 'cop on
fire' and discussed throwing one of the Molotov Cocktails into" a police
station.

Six others initially arrested have been released. They were all detained
in a raid Wednesday on a home in Bridgeport on Chicago's South Side,
NBCChicago.com reported.

Beer or bombs?
But the group of protesters said what police thought was suspicious was
actually a home beer-brewing operation.

“We were handcuffed to a bench and our legs were shackled together. We
were not told what was happening,” one of those detained but later
released, Darrin Ammussek, told NBCChicago.com.

“I believe very strongly in non-violence, and if I had seen anything that
even resembled any plans or anything like that, we wouldn’t have been
there," he added.

Scenes from Chicago protests surrounding NATO summit

He claimed that during 18 hours in custody, police never told him why he
was arrested, read him his rights or allowed him to make a phone call, The
Associated Press reported. He said he remained handcuffed to a bench, even
after asking to use a restroom.

"There were guards walking by making statements into the door along the
lines of 'hippie,' 'communist,' 'pinko,'" a tired-looking Ammussek told
reporters just after his release.

Nurses (yes, nurses) lead charge for Wall Street 'sin' tax

Security has been high throughout the city in preparation for the summit,
where delegations from about 60 countries, including 50 heads of state,
will discuss the war in Afghanistan and European missile defense.

Among the pre-NATO protests planned for Saturday was a march on the home
of Mayor Emanuel. The big show will be on Sunday, the start of the two-day
NATO summit, when thousands of protesters are expected to march 2½ miles
from a band shell on Lake Michigan to the McCormick Place convention
center, where delegates will be meeting.

 3 men charged with terror conspiracy ahead of NATO

By SHANNON MCFARLAND and TAMMY WEBBER | Associated Press – May 19, 2012

CHICAGO (AP) — Three men arrested earlier this week when police raided a
Chicago apartment were being held Saturday on terrorism conspiracy
charges, accused of trying to make Molotov cocktails ahead of the NATO
summit.

Their attorney, Sarah Gelsomino, said the men are "absolutely in shock and
have no idea where these charges are coming from."

They were scheduled to be in court later Saturday for a bond hearing on
charges of conspiracy to commit terrorism, possession of an explosive or
incendiary device and providing material support for terrorism.

Six others arrested Wednesday in the South Side raid were released Friday
without being charged.

Among the items seized by federal authorities was beer-making equipment,
Gelsomino said.

Chicago police Lt. Kenneth Stoppa declined to elaborate on the case beyond
confirming the charges against the three who were still in custody.

Police identified the men being held as Brian Church, 20, of Ft.
Lauderdale, Fla.; Jared Chase, 24, of Keene, N.H.; and Brent Vincent
Betterly, 24. A police spokesman gave Betterly's hometown as Oakland Park,
Mass., but no such town exists. There is an Oakland Park, Fla., that is
near Fort Lauderdale.

The three came to Chicago in late April to take part in May Day protests,
said activist Bill Vassilakis, who said he let them stay in his apartment.

He said Betterly was an industrial electrician and had volunteered to help
wire service at The Plant, a former meatpacking facility that has been
turned into a food incubator with the city's backing.

Vassilakis said he thought the charges were unwarranted.

"All I can say about that is, if you knew Brent, you would find that to be
the most ridiculous thing you've ever heard. He was the most stand-up guy
that was staying with me. He and the other guys had done nothing but
volunteer their time and energy," he said."

Authorities in Oakland Park, Fla., said Betterly and two other young men
walked into a public high school last fall after a night of tequila
drinking and took a swim in the pool, according to a report in the South
Florida Sun-Sentinel.

They stole fire extinguishers from three school buses, discharged one and
smashed a cafeteria window with another. The vandalism caused about $2,000
in damage, the newspaper said.

Betterly was charged with burglary, theft and criminal mischief.

Security has been high throughout the city in preparation for the summit,
where delegations from about 60 countries will discuss the war in
Afghanistan and European missile defense.

Elsewhere, Chicago was mostly quiet. Downtown streets were largely empty,
though that is not unusual for a weekend. Security guards stood watch
outside many downtown buildings. In places, the guards almost outnumbered
pedestrians.

Outside the Chicago Board of Trade, a frequent target of Occupy
protesters, a lone protester wore a sign about wasteful military spending.

Closer to the summit site, commuter rail service was halted for a short
time so police could investigate a suspicious package on a train running
beneath the convention center where diplomats will be meeting.
Investigators determined there was no threat.

Among the pre-NATO protests planned for Saturday was a march on the home
of Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

The bigger show will be on Sunday, the start of the two-day NATO summit,
when thousands of protesters are expected to march 2½ miles from a band
shell on Lake Michigan to the McCormick Place convention center, where
delegates will be meeting.

On Friday, police on bicycles and foot tailed activists through the
streets but ignored taunts and went out of their way to make as few
arrests as possible. Protesters made a lot of noise and tried to evade
police, but otherwise were relatively uneventful.

In all, police said there was a single arrest on a charge of aggravated
battery of a police officer. Another man was briefly taken into custody,
but he was released a short time later after being questioned by police, a
department spokesman said.

Michael Olstewski, a recent music school graduate who came to Chicago from
Atlanta, was one of hundreds of protesters who took to the streets Friday
for a spontaneous march. He said he would not rule out provoking police to
arrest him later "if I feel it's strategic and a powerful statement."

___

Associated Press writers Ryan Foley, Jason Keyser, Jim Suhr and Jeffrey
McMurray contributed to this report.