Informant News

Terrorists for the FBI: How the FBI Uses Informants to Surveil and Entrap Americans

(video interview from the Democracy Now show based on the recent story in Mother Jones magazine, “The Informants,” by Trever Aaronson.) In collaboration with the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California, Berkeley, reporter Trevor Aaronson examined more than 500 terrorism-related cases and found that nearly half the prosecutions involved the use of informants, many of them incentivized by cash rewards up to $100,000 per assignment… the FBI has recruited a network of informants that today numbers 15,000… What we found in our investigation was that of the 500 terrorism prosecutions since 9/11, half of those involved the use of an informant.

---

Profiles of Provocateurs

Kristian Williams, the author of Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America Recent published a collection of short case studies on Portland IMC regarding the use of agents provocateurs, including warning signs and practical advice. Click here for the full article.

---

Turncoat

A show fromThis American Life about informant Brandon Darby, from the 2008 RNC cases of David McKay and Bradley Crowder.Following this show, Darby has started an informant advocacy group Citizen Patriot Response, which he encourages people to snitch on activists to the FBI. He has also admitted in recent speeches to right-wing neo-fascist Tea Party conference goers that he is traveling to Occupy camps around the country and attending assemblies to collect information and share it with the government. Like other informants, he is known to perpetratesexist behavior.

---

Better This World

A PBS special, from the Point Of View (POV) series, on the use of Informant Brandon Darby in the arrests of two activists, David McKay and Bradley Crowder, during the 2008 Republican National Convention. Check it out here.

---

SnitchWire

Another source for occasional updates on informants. From their site: “SnitchWire exists solely for the purpose of investigating and objectively reporting on the existence and actions of known informants, infiltrators, rats, snitches, and provocateurs. This blog is to be used as a tool for people wishing not to associate with such unsavory, treacherous scum.”

---

From Green is the New Red

“This [below] is Laura Jane Grace (formerly Tom Gabel) of Against Me! playing at the Nimbus Dam, the site Eric McDavid was allegedly plotting to blow up with Zachary Jenson and Lauren Weiner. An FBI informant named “Anna” provided the group with bomb-making recipes; at times financed their transportation, food and housing; strung along McDavid, who had the hopes of a romantic relationship; and poked and prodded the group into action.

Mark Reichel, McDavid’s attorney, said: “There has never been a case in America that has involved this much entrapment, this much pushing by an informant, by the U.S. government and by the FBI behind it.”