Black August event on Omaha Two and COINTELPRO to be held by Malcolm X group

July 31, 2012 Examiner.com

By: Michael Richardson

COINTELPRO 101

Credits: 

Freedom Archives

The Malcolm X Memorial Foundation will host a Black August commemoration in Omaha on Saturday, August 11, 2012 at the Malcolm X Center. The theme of the event will be America’s Imprisoned Human Rights Activists and will feature the Omaha Two, Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa (formerly David Rice).

Black August is a nationwide series of events recognizing the political imprisonment of activists in the 1960’s and 1970’s. The Malcolm X Memorial Foundation has held five prior Black August events.

The Omaha Two were leaders of the Nebraska affiliate of the Black Panthers in 1970 and were targeted by J. Edgar Hoover’s infamous COINTELPRO operation. Hoover headed the Federal Bureau of Investigation and secretly directed a clandestine war on political dissidents that did not meet his favor. Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa were convicted for the murder of an Omaha policeman after Hoover ordered laboratory evidence withheld.

The Black August event will feature screening of three films. COINTELPRO 101 is a documentary produced by Freedom Archives and offers an overview of COINTELPRO’s attack on American citizens particularly the Black Panthers, Hoover’s most despised group. Black August is a feature film on George Jackson, the Soledad Brothers, and the prosecution of Angela Davis. Prisons on Fire is a documentary on 1971 prison uprisings at Attica and San Quentin.

The Jericho Movement will present an exhibit of photos and biographies of 49 persons incarcerated beginning in the 1960’s who lost their freedom after clashes with police.

Tariq Al-Amin, head of Nebraskans for Justice and former Omaha policeman, will discuss the plight of the Omaha Two and how they did not receive a fair trial because of COINTELPRO interference with the police investigation.

Historian Tekla Ajbala will provide additional details on the compromised murder investigation that shifted the case from the confessed killer to the targeted Panther leaders.

Earlier this summer the Omaha City Council voted against hearing new evidence about the identity of one of the killers of policeman Larry MInard, Sr. The August 17, 1970 bombing murder of Minard was blamed on the Omaha Two and the confessed bomber, Duane Peak, was allowed to escape a murder charge in exchange for implicating the two Panther leaders.

Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa are in their 42nd year of life sentences at the maximum-security Nebraska State Penitentiary. Both men continue to deny any role in MInard’s death.

More information on the Omaha Two

Re-Open COINTELPRO Investigation: If the Sioux Can Seek Justice, Why Can’t Blacks?

June 27, 2012 — Glen Ford Black Agenda Report

Printer-friendly version

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

The Pine Ridge, South Dakota, Oglala Sioux have convinced the U.S. Justice Department to re-examine 50 possible political killings, from the mid-Seventies, some of which are surely linked to the FBI’s infamous COINTELPRO. The program registered its biggest body count among African Americans, but Black Misleaders have made “no serious effort to exhume the full body of the program’s crimes, much less prosecute the guilty, or free the framed, or compensate the victims, or rewrite the lies of national history.”

Re-Open COINTELPRO Investigation: If the Sioux Can Seek Justice, Why Can’t Blacks?

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“Who among the Black Misleadership Class is demanding a reopening of COINTELPRO’s reign of terror in Black America?”

A U.S. Justice Department team will review the deaths of 50 Native Americans over the past 40 years, in what could amount to a re-examination of at least one theater of the FBI’s infamous secret war against U.S. radicals, including members of the American Indian Movement (AIM). The FBI’s counter-intelligence program, or COINTELPRO, has not been officially scrutinized since the Church Committee investigations of 1975-76. The impending Justice Department probe is the result of years of requests from members of the Oglala Sioux tribe to take a new look at scores of deaths that previous investigators had claimed were accidents or suicides, but which American Indian Movement members believe were related to political violence on the Pine Ridge reservation, including the 1973 federal siege of Wounded Knee in which two FBI agents also died. AIM member Leonard Peltier is serving a life sentence in those shootings. In the aftermath of its agents’ deaths, the FBI is reported to have “caused 542 separate charges to be filed against those it identified as key AIM leaders.”

AIM members have long maintained that many deaths that authorities attributed to accidents or suicides were actually murders committed by a tribal paramilitary force, abetted or covered up by the FBI and other federal lawmen. The FBI’s COINTELPRO specialized in instigating violence against – or fomenting deadly discord within – targeted organizations, scoring its highest body counts among AIM and the Black Panther Party, which FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover described as the number one threat to national security.

“COINTELPRO, has not been officially scrutinized since the Church Committee investigations of 1975-76.”

Had it not been for the perseverance of Oglala Sioux tribal leaders, there would be little hope of discovering the truth about political violence at Pine Ridge, and COINTELPRO’s role in the killings. But who among the Black Misleadership Class is demanding a reopening of COINTELPRO’s reign of terror in Black America? As the Jericho Movement has stated, “dozens of women and men are still incarcerated upwards of 40 years as a direct result of this heinous program.” Scores of Panthers were murdered directly by police, like Chicago Panther leader Fred Hampton; or in disputes instigated by the FBI, like the Los Angeles shootings of Bunchy Carter and John Huggins by the “US Organization.” The Party itself ultimately fell victim to internal discord – a methodical COINTELPRO campaign of destabilization that produced an unknown number casualties. The Church Committee told the world that COINTELPRO was real, not a figment of paranoid radical imaginations – but there has been no serious effort to exhume the full body of the program’s crimes, much less prosecute the guilty, or free the framed, or compensate the victims, or rewrite the lies of national history.

The Congressional Black Caucus, as a body, has repeatedly ignored appeals that they demand a real investigation of COINTELPRO’s massive official criminality. Most of these requests have been directed at Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) who, as chair or ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, was the logical convener. But the closest the Caucus came to acknowledging the crimes of COINTELPRO was in Durban, South Africa, at the 2001 World Conference Against Racism, when Conyers and his Black Democratic colleagues Donna Christianson (VI), Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX), Barbara Lee (CA), Sheila Jackson Lee (TX), Diane Watson (CA), and Cynthia McKinney (GA) presented the study “COINTELPRO: The Untold American Story” to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. But Durban is far from Capitol Hill.

“The Caucus was more interested in creating an environment more conducive to Democratic electoral victories, than in justice.”

On her own, Congresswoman McKinney unsuccessfully introduced legislation, in 2006, to begin where the Church Committee left off and re-open the COINTELPRO investigation. (Rep. McKinney had held a forum on COINTELPRO at the CBC’s Legislative Weekend, in 2005.) Had the CBC deployed its collective prestige to hold a full-blown, official Caucus review of what was already known about COINTELPRO, even without subpoena power, it would have done its Black constituents, and the cause of truth, a real service. But the Caucus was more interested in creating an environment more conducive to Democratic electoral victories, than in justice.

As a result of the silence of the Black Misleadership Class, COINTELPRO still lives. From 2007 to 2009, the FBI coordinated a renewed persecution of aging Panthers in a case that became known as the San Francisco Eight, reviving charges that were nearly 36 years old.

The Oglala Sioux community was wracked by violence in the mid-Seventies, a period of terror and death fomented, in large part, by the FBI’s COINTELPRO. Yet, nearly 40 years later, Sioux leaders have compelled federal authorities to take a new look at the era’s ghastly events. The Pine Ridge Sioux have no congresspersons of their own, they number only about 20,000, and they cannot claim a U.S. president and attorney general among their ethnicity. But they have the courage to demand Truth of Power.

What’s wrong with Black America?

Anti-COINTELPRO demonstration at Nebraska State Capitol for the Omaha Two Continue reading on Examiner.com Anti-COINTELPRO demonstration at Nebraska

March 15, 2012 Examiner.com by Michael Richardson

Several dozen demonstrators spread a 80 foot banner across the entrance to the Nebraska State Capitol on Tuesday in behalf of the Omaha Two. Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa (formerly David Rice) are serving life sentences at the Nebraska State Penitentiary in Lincoln for the 1970 murder of an Omaha policeman.

The Omaha Two were convicted after a COINTELPRO-tainted trial where Federal Bureau of Investigation Director J. Edgar Hoover had ordered evidence withheld from the jury. Poindexter and Mondo were leaders of Omaha’s Black Panther affiliate chapter and targets of Hoover’s clandestine war of counterintelligence against domestic political activists.

Serving 41 years in prison, the Omaha Two are among America’s longest-held political prisoners.

The capitol steps demonstration was organized by Ben Jones of the Anti-Oppression Art project. Jones used Facebook to help recruit people to help hold the giant banner.

Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa continue to maintain their innocence for the murder of Larry MInard, Sr. on August 17, 1970. Minard and seven other Omaha police officers were lured to a vacant house by an anonymous 911 call about a woman screaming. Instead of a woman, police found a booby-trapped suitcase filled with dynamite which exploded in Minard’s face as examined it.

J. Edgar Hoover ordered the FBI crime laboratory to withhold a report on its analysis of a recording of the 911 call. Omaha police had sent the tape to Washington to determine the identity of the anonymous caller. The unknown caller presented a problem in making a case against the two Black Panther leaders.

For a year prior to the bombing, Paul Young, the Special Agent-in-Charge of the Omaha FBI office had been under pressure from Hoover to eliminate the Black Panther leadership. After the Omaha Two trial in April 1971, where the jury never got to hear the voice of Minard’s killer on the 911 tape, Young was rewarded for his role in the case with a transfer to head the Kansas City FBI office.

Ivan Willard Conrad, the FBI laboratory director, talked with Hoover about the unusual request to withhold information since it involved the death of a policeman. Hoover told Conrad to withhold a report on the identity of the caller which Conrad noted on the COINTELPRO memo about the tape. Hoover never publicly acknowledged his role in the frame-up.

The Omaha Two are on the agenda Saturday at the Left Forum at Pace University in New York. The title of the panel discussion is Remembering Our Comrades and is one of the opening sessions.

For further information on the Omaha Two click HERE

Still time to order your Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar!

With just over a week left before the holidays,
you are looking for a unique, meaningful gift for
your loved ones - whether family, co-workers or
comrades. Please consider giving the Certain
Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar.

Order now at
www.certaindays.org.
See below for holiday shipping deadlines

Our collective will be happy to mail calendars
anywhere in the world on your behalf, and we can
even include a personalized message.

Featuring 42 gorgeous pages of full-colour art
and writings, the calendar is a thoughtful gift
and also makes an important financial
contribution supporting grassroots groups (The
New York State Task Force on Political Prisoners,
Addameer, and the Freedom Archives).

Sincerely,
The Certain Days collective
certaindays.org

* * * *HOLIDAY SHIPPING DEADLINES* * * *
For those of you ordering for December 25 or
thereabouts, please note that Canada Post
recommends ordering by December 8 in the United
States or December 12 in Canada. Later than that
and express post should work up til the 16th in
the U.S. and the 21st in Canada. Please note that
additional charges will apply for express orders,
and that orders placed by 5pm (Eastern Standard
Time) will be sent out by the following day.

If you're outside North America, air mail (i.e.
orders of 1-2 calendars) should still work until
November 29, and express post (all larger orders,
or rush orders of any size) until December 6.

All the above are rough guidelines, not
guaranteed. For more information, check out the Canada Post website.

______________________________
___________________________________
Certain Days: The 2012 Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar
COINTELPRO: Repression & Resistance, Then & Now
_________________________________________________________________

ORDER NOW at www.certaindays.org
Join us on Facebook
(http://facebook.com/certaindays)
and help spread the word.
_________________________________________________________________

42 GORGEOUS FULL-COLOUR PAGES OF ART AND WRITINGS! A GREAT FUNDRAISER
FOR GROUPS, AN IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTION TO GRASSROOTS ORGANIZING, AND A
MEANINGFUL GIFT!

FEATURING amazing artwork and writings from Aric
McBay, The Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid,
Claude Marks, David Gilbert, The Denver Anarchist
Black Cross, Emily Kantar, Favianna Rodriguez,
Fireworks Graphic Collective, Gerald and Maas,
Herman Bell, Jesus Barraza, Jihad Abdulmumit,
Josh MacPhee, Kara Sievewright, Kevin "Rashid"
Johnson, Lynne Stewart, Ojore Lutalo, We Are The
Crisis Collective, the RNC 8, Safiya Bukhari,
Santiago Armengod, Shannon Willmott, Supporters
of John Graham, Tim Groves and Tom Manning.

WHERE TO GET 2012 CALENDARS
Calendars can be ordered online at
www.certaindays.org
and purchased at local bookstores, distros and
community events. Calendars cost $12 (plus
shipping) and $5 for prisoners. We encourage
groups to buy in bulk ($8 each when purchasing 10
or more) and to sell them as a fundraiser. Visit
our website for more info - www.certaindays.org.

Funds raised from the sale of this calendar will
be divided between the New York State Task Force
on Political Prisoners, the Palestinian NGO Addameer, and the Freedom Archives.

__________________________________________

COINTELPRO: Repression & Resistance, Then & Now
__________________________________________

The term COINTELPRO has become synonymous with
the "tricks of the trade" of state repression:
surveillance of organizations and individuals,
the use of infiltrators and informants,
frame-ups, harassing or disproportionate use of
the legal system, and outright physical attacks.
While the term is widely used to describe
repression of liberation movements, at least in
North America, the history of the actual
COINTELPRO program its details and the lessons
to be learned from it remain relatively unknown.

Recently, we have witnessed growing awareness of
state repression of radical organizing in North
America, although it is difficult to judge to
what extent repression is actually increasing,
and to what extent this reflects the success of
the work to expose it. Certainly since September
11, 2001, the state has new tools and new
social license to go after social movements and
marginalized sectors of the population alike,
perhaps comparable to the Red Scare climate of
the 1950s, when COINTELPRO was conceived of.

In some ways, this is to be expected. Effective
movements beget repression. That being said,
resisting this backlash directly fighting back
(rhetorically, legally, physically, but also via
a more general resilience) is fundamental to
the survival of liberation movements.

In the wake of the repression associated with the
summer 2010 G20 meeting Toronto, with several
cases of infiltration in both the US and Canada
coming to light in recent years, and with ongoing
legislative changes giving government increasing
power to surveil and disrupt us, the time seemed
ripe to remind ourselves of the legacy of COINTELPRO, and resistance to it.

In putting together the Certain Days calendar, we
always aim for a realistic balance between
bringing to light social injustice and the
challenges we face, and the inspiring work done
to meet these challenges. It is important to
speak of repression to share examples so that
we might learn from each others experiences, and
see the patterns and trends in the state's
approach. But it is impossible to do so without
also being struck by the many contemporary and
historical examples of resistance. We hope that
the information gathered in this years calendar
can help teach the difficult lessons we need to
learn to weather the storm and also provide the inspiration we need to do so.

The Certain Days Collective
www.certaindays.org
QPIRG Concordia
1500 de Maisonneuve Ouest, suite 204
514-848-7583 fax: 514-848-7584
qpirgconcordia.org
qpirg@qpirgconcordia.org

Inside the Surveillance State: How Peaceful Activists Get Swept Up onto "Terrorist" Watch Lists

There appears to be no end to the appetite for data to be stored and mined, and all sorts of agencies want a share of the action.

September 15, 2011 | Alternet

Ten Years Later: Surveillance in the "Homeland" is a collaborative project with Truthout and ACLU Massachusetts.

How little - yet how much - has changed in the last 40 years. The COINTELPRO papers sound distinctly 21st century as they detail the monitoring of perceived threats to "national security" by the FBI, CIA, National Security Agency (NSA), Secret Service, and the military, as well as the intelligence bureaucracy's war on First Amendment protest activity.

The Church Committee investigation concluded in 1976 that the "unexpressed major premise of the programs was that a law enforcement agency has the duty to do whatever is necessary to combat perceived threats to the existing social and political order."

In addition to massive surveillance, assassinations and dirty tricks "by any means necessary" included the creation of NSA "watch lists" of Americans ranging "from members of radical political groups, to celebrities, to ordinary citizens involved in protests against their government," with names submitted by the FBI, Secret Service, military, CIA, and Defense Intelligence Agency. The secret lists, which included people whose activities "may result in civil disturbances or otherwise subvert the national security of the US," were used by the NSA to extract information of "intelligence value" from its stream of intercepted communications.

We learned that there was, apparently, no easy way to get off the FBI's "security index." Even after the criteria for fitting the profile of a "subversive" were revised in the mid-1950's, the names of people who no longer fit the definition remained on IBM punchcards, and were retained in field offices as "potential threats." A card would only be destroyed "if the subject agreed to become an FBI source or informant" or in another way indicated a "complete defection from subversive groups."

Officer Larry Minard denied justice by J. Edgar Hoover under COINTELPRO in 1970

August 18, 2011 by Michael Richardson , COINTELPRO Examiner

Forty-one years ago on August 17, 1970, a couple of hours after midnight, a 29 year-old police officer, Larry Minard, Sr., was murdered Officer Minard was killed by an ambush bomb, while responding to a 911 call about a woman screaming.

The father of five young children was one of eight Omaha, Nebraska policemen lured to a vacant house where death waited in a bobby-trapped suitcase. Officer Minard was killed instantly when the suitcase he was examining exploded in his face.

Almost immediately the homicide investigation began leaving the young policeman’s body lying in the blast debris for several hours while crime scene personnel searched for clues.

In the morning a task force codenamed Operation Domino was convened to coordinate the investigation. A week-long sweep soon began that would yield approximately 60 arrests as police sought to catch Minard’s killer. Governor Norbert Tiemann offered use of the State Patrol.

Investigators from the Division of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation in aiding the Omaha police. The entire city was on notice that the crime would not go unpunished.

But unknown to the uniformed officers searching the Near North Side for suspects, Paul Young, the Special Agent-in-Charge of the Omaha FBI office was not interested in apprehending Minard’s killer or killers. Instead, Young would propose to Assistant Chief of Police Glen Gates that the Black Panther leadership be charged with the crime.

Paul Young had been under pressure from FBI director J. Edgar Hoover to get the Panther leaders off the streets. Hoover was secretly directing a massive clandestine counterintelligence operation called COINTELPRO against domestic political targets he considered dangerous and had sent a series of memorandums to Young demanding results.

The only trouble with the FBI plan was the 911 recording of the killer’s voice which was not that of either Edward Poindexter or Mondo we Langa (then David Rice) the two Panthers targeted by Young. To get the incriminating tape recording out of the way Young convinced Gates to send the 911 recording to the FBI crime laboratory in Washington, D.C. for analysis.

However, Young requested no laboratory report be prepared and that test results be phoned to him only. When Ivan Willard Conrad, head of the FBI lab, got the tape and unusual request to not issue a report about the killer of a policeman he talked with J. Edgar Hoover over the phone about the tape from Omaha.

Hoover gave the okay to withhold a report on the identity of Minard’s killer which Conrad noted in a handwritten entry on the COINTELPRO memorandum which he initialed and dated, the only written record thus far released of Hoover’s treachery.

Larry Minard was buried the next day on what would have been his thirtieth birthday.

The jury that convicted Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa, now known as the Omaha Two, of the killing never got to hear the voice of the killer who made the murderous call.

The tape suppressed by Hoover was eventually destroyed by the Omaha Police Department. However, years later a copy, made by a dispatcher, surfaced and in 2007 was the subject of a post-trial hearing. A leading forensic audiologist, Tom Owen, testified the killer‘s identify caught on the 911 tape remains unknown,

Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa, denied a new trial, continue to deny any role in the bombing but remain imprisoned at the Nebraska State Penitentiary serving life sentences.

Reprints approved

For more information about the Omaha Two click HERE

Cointelpro abuse of LA targeted rights worker to draw crowd at Court Continue reading on Examiner.com Cointelpro abuse of LA targeted rights worker t

Examiner.com June 15, 2011 by Deborah Dupre

Obama Hit-squads: FBI COINTELPRO Witch Hunt Revival

As human rights defenders in two cities protest US human rights abuses of whistleblowers and defend David House in the WikiLeaks Grand Jury investigation, Los Angeles rights defenders are readying today to gather at court tomorrow to help defend Carlos Montes, another American caught in the sweeping hit-squad campaign launched by Obama administration's US Attorney General, using a Federal Grand Jury and FBI that has abused 23 other human rights defenders, now investigated for "material support of terrorism" in their peaceful political activism.

While as many as 350,000 innocent Americans are suffering covert assaults by the draconian government program using refined COINTELPRO tactics, now including President Obama's authorization of targeted killings on U.S. soil, some victims are being overtly abused. Carlos Montos is one such rights workers who is experiencing the Obama regime new hit squad treatment.

On May 17, the Los Angeles Sheriff's SWAT team and members of the FBI carrying automatic weapons stormed into the home of the veteran activist, Mr. Montes.

According to rights defenders advocating for Mr. Montes, his arrest was a typical Cointelpro style in terms of trumped up charges to silence dissent.

"He was arrested on trumped-up charges that were merely a pretext to invade his home and seize political documents, computers and cell phones, as well as question him about his political affiliations."

Last month, the day after the arrest of Montes, angry protesters in downtown Los Angeles rallied against the U.S. New Phoenix Program hit squads ramped after the Obama authorized manhunt and assassination activities. The SWAT Team with FBI had broken down the door to activist Carlos Montes' home while he slept early in the morning morning. ("Protesters rally against Obama Cointelpro Hit Squads attacking Americans")

Advertisement

Mr. Montes's supporters say they want three things:

1. Drop the trumped-up charges
2. Stop the FBI/Grand Jury witch hunt against all anti-war and international solidarity activists
3. Return all confiscated property to its rightful owners

A petition for Carlos has been created here on the International Action Center website.

Human rights defenders working with the LA Committee to Stop FBI Repression are urging the public to call and write to US Attorney General Eric Holder, (202) 353-1555.

They say to simply tell Holder, 'Hands Off Carlos Montes and other activists."

The Committee to Stop FBI Repression was birthed in response to the FBI raids on seven homes and an anti-war office on Friday, September 24, 2010.

The FBI also handed subpoenas to testify before a federal grand jury to fourteen activists in Illinois, Minnesota, and Michigan. These activists have been involved in many groups, including Twin Cities Anti-War Committee, Palestine Solidarity Group, Colombia Action Network, Students for a Democratic Society, and Freedom Road Socialist Organization. These individuals raided by the FBI and many others had come together to organize the 2008 anti-war marches during the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

"In the 'freest country in the world,' raids like these are becoming more and more commonplace," reported Russia Today recently.

On Thursday, wearing red, advocates will meet on the sidewalk outside of the Alhambra Courthouse to protest the Obama regime hit squad abuse of Mr. Montes.

NY Cointelpro 101 Film Showing - Sat, 6/18

COINTELPRO 101
Film and Discussion

Saturday, June 18, 2011
The Brecht Forum, 451 West Street
(between Bank & Bethune Streets, Manhattan)

4 to 6 pm

Panelists:
Former Political Prisoners Shaba Om, Laura Whitehorn,
Francisco Torres

Beginning in the 1950s with a focus on the Puerto
Rican independence movement and continuing
through the 1960s and into the 1970s when much of
its focus had shifted to the Black Liberation,
Chicano Liberation and American Indian Movements,
COINTELPRO racked up a number of assassinations,
false imprisonments and ruined lives. No
government official was ever punished for actions
taken under the program's auspices.

The film by Freedom Archives details this history
through the artful use of still photos and moving
images of the period covered. Films of police
attacks and protests; still photos of
revolutionary leaders and police murders
graphically remind the viewer of Washington's
willingness to do whatever it takes to maintain its control.

Organizers who began their political activity
during the time of Cointelpro discuss the effect
the program had on them and the organizations and
individuals they worked with. Indeed, several of
the interviewees were themselves targets and
spent years in prison (some under false
accusations, as in the case of Geronimo ji-Jaga Pratt)
or on the run.

Former Black Panther member Kathleen Cleaver
states toward the end of the film that Cointelpro
represented the efforts of a political police
force making the decision as to what is allowed
politically and what is not. Anything outside the
parameters set by this force was fair game.
Nothing that was done by government officials or
private groups and individuals acting on the
government's behalf was perceived as wrong or
illegal. As Attorney Bob Boyle makes clear in his
final statement in the film, Cointelpro is alive
and well. The only difference now is that most of
what was illegal for the government to do during
Cointelpro's official existence is now legal. The
PATRIOT Act and other laws associated with the
creation of the Department of Homeland Security
have insured this.

Cointelpro 101 is a well made and appealing
primer on the history of the US police state.
Produced, written and directed by individuals who
have themselves been the target of tactics
documented in the film, it has an authenticity
and immediacy that pulls the viewer in. Although
too short to cover the history in as full detail
as some may desire, the film's intelligence and
conscientious presentation of the historical
narrative makes it a film that the student, the
citizen and the activist can all appreciate.

Light Refreshments will be Served!

Sponsored by: NYC Jericho Movement, Malcolm X
Commemoration Ctte,
NYC Leonard Peltier Defense-Offense Ctte,
ProLibertad, NYC Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition

For more information:
http://www.jerichony.org/
nycjericho@gmail.com
tel:718-325-4407>718-325-4407

What happens when you uncover FBI infiltration?

BOOK READING AND LIVE DIALOGUE

with Dominque Stevenson & Eddie Conway
Friday, April 15, 12:30 p.m.
@Southern California Library
6120 S. Vermont Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90044

A truly amazing, authentic African American history lesson.
—Emory Douglas, Artist and former Minister of Culture, Black Panther Party

"Eddie Conway articulates past and present oppression and demonstrates the need
for continuing resistance. Read him."
—Bobby Seale, Founding Chairman of the Black Panther Party


Marshall "Eddie" Conway is a former member of the Baltimore chapter of the Black
Panther Party. In 1969, he uncovered evidence of FBI actions against the Black
Panther Party as part of the COINTELPRO initiative, and found himself locked away
one year later, convicted of a murder he did not commit. Read more....
Dominque Demetrea Stevenson is the co-author of Marshall Law: The Life and Times of
a Baltimore Black Panther, and the director of the American Friends Service
Committee's Maryland Peace with Justice Program. Read more....

Copies of Marshall Law: The Life & Times of a Baltimore Black Panther
will be available at the event.
Download a flyer (PDF)
For more info: www.socallib.org • facebook.com/socallib (323) 759-6063

The Library is located at 6120 S. Vermont Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90044 (off the 110
Freeway, exit Slauson or Gage).We're accessible by MTA Bus 204 and Express Bus 754.
Street parking is available. Mapquest map and directions to the Library.

Chicago - Cointelpro 101, Monday, April 18, 6:00 pm

The Center for the Study of Race, Politics & Culture at the
University of Chicago

presents a special screening of the documentary film


COINTELPRO 101

"COINTELPRO is the FBI acronym for a series of covert action programs
directed against domestic groups. In these programs, the Bureau went
beyond the collection of intelligence to secret action defined to
'disrupt' and 'neutralize' target groups and individuals." Church
Committee Report, 1976


Panel discussion after the screening featuring former political prisoners
Ricardo Jimenez, National Boricua Human Rights Network
Dr. Ahmad Rahman, Associate Prof. of History, University of Michigan-Dearborn

Monday, April 18, 2011
6:00 p.m.
5710 S. Woodlawn- Community Lounge
Free Admission & Refreshments

Persons with disabilities requiring assistance to participate,
contact <mailto:jessicas@uchicago.edu>jessicas@uchicago.edu in advance.

Co-Sponsored by: Black Panther Party Illinois Chapter History
Project, N.F.P.; The Jericho Movement/Chicago Chapter an affiliate of
IYPAD Chicago; National Boricua Human Rights Network Chicago Chapter;
Organization of Black Students at U of C; and Puerto Rican Students
Association at U of C

‘COINTELPRO 101’: an interview wit’ filmmaker Claude Marks

March 17, 2011 SF Bay View

Attend a screening – March 18 and 22 in Berkeley, March 30 and April 2 in San Francisco

by Minister of Information JR

In “COINTELPRO 101,” you’ll hear Fred Hampton’s rallying cry in his own voice: “You can jail a revolutionary, but you can’t jail a revolution!”

“COINTELPRO 101” is a recently released documentary that takes a long hard look at the deeds of the U.S. government under the FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program. We are featuring this interview because it was the government’s program to crush resistance that led to the deportation of Marcus Garvey, the assassinations of Malcolm X, George Jackson, Fred Hampton, Martin Luther King Jr., Bunchy Carter, Filiberto Rios and others, the incarceration on trumped up charges of Mumia Abu Jamal, Imam Jamil Al-Amin, the Angola 3, the MOVE 9, the Omaha 2, Veronza Bowers, Mutulu Shakur, Oscar Romero, Leonard Peltier and others who are still languishing in this country’s concentration camps.

Our people are not taught this history in colonial elementary schools or high schools, although acts by the government under this program have greatly affected the quality of life of people who are oppressed in Amerikkka by killing, falsely imprisoning and harassing our grassroots leaders in our resistance movements.

So we took it up ourselves, at the Block Report and the SF Bay View, to give you a little education on the subject. Read the exclusive interview with Claude Marks, the filmmaker of “COINTELPRO 101” …

M.O.I. JR: Before we get into the movie, what is the Counter Intelligence Program aka COINTELPRO?

Claude: COINTELPRO may not be a well-understood acronym, but its meaning and continuing impact are absolutely central to understanding the government’s wars and repression against progressive movements. COINTELPRO represents the state’s strategy to prevent movements and communities from overturning white supremacy and creating racial justice.

COINTELPRO is both a formal program of the FBI and a term frequently used to describe a conspiracy among government agencies – local, state and federal – to destroy movements for self-determination and liberation for Black, Brown, Asian and Indigenous struggles, as well as mount an institutionalized attack against allies of these movements and other progressive organizations.

M.O.I. JR: What inspired you to do a movie on this topic?

Claude: After making “Legacy of Torture,” which focuses on the Black Panther Party and the SF 8 case, it made sense to expose COINTELPRO in greater detail and look at the broad and seeping nature of government repression. So in “COINTELPRO 101” we look at examples of how the government’s attacks are consistent with the history of genocide and settler colonialism.

M.O.I. JR: What have your personal run-ins been like with COINTELPRO?

Claude: I was a participant in a conspiracy to break a Puerto Rican political prisoner out of Leavenworth. The plan was infiltrated by the FBI and was unsuccessful. This resulted in a multi-year pursuit by the FBI and ultimately with imprisonment.

M.O.I. JR: What is the documentary about? Who does it feature?

Claude: The story of COINTELPRO is mainly told by activists who experienced it.

Interviews in the video include:

• Muhammad Ahmad (Max Stanford), founder of Revolutionary Action Movement and professor at Temple University.
• Bob Boyle, attorney representing many activists and political prisoners targeted by COINTELPRO.
• Kathleen Cleaver, former leader of the Black Panther Party, now professor of law at Emory and Yale Universities and an expert on COINTELPRO.
• Ward Churchill, just-removed professor at the University of Colorado who has written extensively about COINTELPRO.
• Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, long-time Native American activist and educator.
• Priscilla Falcon, long-time Mexicana activist and professor whose husband was assassinated for his leadership in the Chicano struggle.
• Geronimo Ji-Jaga Pratt, former leader of the Black Panther Party who was falsely imprisoned for 27 years in a COINTELPRO case.
• Jose Lopez, director of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center in Chicago and long-time advocate of Puerto Rican independence.
• Francisco “Kiko” Martinez, long-time Chicano/Mexicano activist and attorney.
• Lucy Rodriguez, Puerto Rican Independentista and former political prisoner.
• Ricardo Romero, long-time Chicano/Mexicano activist and Grand Jury resister.
• Akinyele Umoja, African American history scholar at Georgia State University.
• Laura Whitehorn, radical activist and former political prisoner who was targeted by the federal government.

M.O.I. JR: What has the response been like?

Claude: As we take the film on the road, it is especially rewarding to see the response from young students. They are amazed that none of this history is taught in their schools. So the impact is powerful by pushing people to think more openly today about the ways that governments and police agencies act with impunity in our communities; how “terrorism” is defined to suit their needs and criminalize conscious resistance; how Islamophobia and anti-immigrant campaigns function to support racism; how public education is targeted for demise while prisons are bursting at the seams.

M.O.I. JR: Why do people need to know about COINTELPRO specifically?

Claude: The conflicts we face with a powerful government that does not serve the people, rather represents the elite and corporate interests, has historic roots. By understanding this history, we can learn from the mistakes of the past but, more importantly, take inspiration from the legacies of resistance. It is up to us to fight for a more just and humane world – one where we can insure that everyone has basic human rights, that our communities are embracing future generations rather than locking them up.

M.O.I. JR: After people educate themselves, what do you recommend they do to fight it?

Claude: There are many different ways to address what goals we have. Self-determination varies from community to community, but we can’t expect that those in power will reach a moral epiphany and restore justice, end discrimination and suddenly commit their resources to ending wars. That is up to us to organize and win.

M.O.I. JR: When can people see the movie again in the Bay?

Claude: Many showings are being planned. The best way is to check our website, http://www.freedomarchives.org/Cointelpro.html. The next showings are

• Friday, March 18, 5:30 p.m., at the UC Berkeley Student Union
• Tuesday, March 22, 7 p.m., at Fellowship Hall, 1924 Cedar St., Berkeley
• Wednesday, March 30, 7 p.m., at CIIS, 1453 Mission St., San Francisco
• Saturday, April 2, 4 p.m., USF Human Rights Film Festival, San Francisco

We also have a page of suggested resources for people interested in more in-depth materials as well as ideas for how to teach and take the film into schools and communities. The suggestions can grow with input from the community.

DVDs will be available starting in April.

Email POCC Minister of Information JR, Bay View associate editor, at blockreportradio@gmail.com and visit www.blockreportradio.com.

The Omaha Two story

by Michael Richardson Examiner.com

Omaha Two story: An explanation

The Omaha Two are Edward Poindexter and Mondo we Langa (formerly David Rice). Both men are imprisoned at the Nebraska State Penitentiary in Lincoln where they are serving life sentences for the August 17, 1970 bombing murder of an Omaha police officer.

Both Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa deny any involvement in the death of patrolman Larry Minard, Sr. Minard, a 29 year-old father of five young children, was killed instantly when he handled a booby-trapped suitcase in a vacant house.

Minard had been lured with seven other officers to the vacant house on Ohio Street in Omaha by a false 911 emergency call reporting a woman screaming at the residence. Police immediately suspected the local Black Panther chapter, called the National Committee to Combat Fascism, of the crime and focused their attention on the Panthers.

Poindexter was Chairman of the chapter and Mondo was the Minister of Information. Both men had been targets of COINTELPRO, an illegal counter-intelligence operation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation under J. Edgar Hoover.

Hoover had been personally monitoring the COINTELPRO actions against Black Panther chapters across the United States. In December 1969 Hoover chastised the Special Agent-in-Charge of the Omaha office, Paul Young, for not getting the Panther leadership off the streets.

When the report of Minard’s death came in to the FBI office, Young sprang into action and proposed making a case against the Panther leaders offering to deal with the incriminating 911 tape. A recording of the killer’s voice was sent to the FBI crime laboratory for analysis with the instruction to make no report on the findings other than a phone call to the local FBI office.

When Ivan Willard Conrad, the FBI lab director, got the COINTELRO memo he called Hoover to verify he was to not issue a report on the identity of Minard’s killer. Hoover told Conrad to proceed as directed and the lab boss noted Hoover’s directive on the memo, initialing and dating he entry.

The jury that convicted the Omaha Two in April 1971 never heard the 911 tape nor were told of COINTELPRO and Hoover’s role in the case. Despite the later revelation of the withheld report and subsequent police conflicting testimony, plus new scientific analysis of the 911 tape, the two men have been repeatedly denied new trials.

EXAMINER is going to go back in time and relive the turbulent era in Omaha four decades ago in a continuing series of reports culminating in a day-by-day recap of the trial.

The series will begin in 1919 with a lynching in downtown Omaha to set the scene and then advance to March 1968 when George Wallace sparked a small riot in Omaha during a campaign appearance. From there the story will advance as events of the time occurred.

Omaha Two story: Sept. 28, 1919

The Omaha Two, Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa (formerly David Rice), were both born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska. Both men had personal experiences with Omaha’s racist climate and joined the Black Panthers to address problems they witnessed.

Fifty years before the Black Panthers formed in Omaha, a race riot in downtown Omaha had to be put down by the United States Army. Before the Army was able to restore order, a white mob of thousands sacked and burned the Douglas County Courthouse to seize a prisoner, Will Brown, accused of sexual assault.

Will Brown, 40, was accused of rape by a 19 year-old woman from South Omaha. The Omaha Bee newspaper published inflammatory articles about the case and three days after the alleged crime a frenzied, alcohol-fueled mob from South Omaha descended on the downtown and demanded Brown be released from his cell for a street lynching.

When officials refused to release Brown the mob began attacking the courthouse to gain entry to the jail on the top floor. The mob broke into the courthouse and stormed a police line in the building. While the sheriff and his men were barricading the fourth floor of the courthouse the mob raided a gas station and doused the lower floors of the building with gasoline.

After the fire started the mob armed itself with guns stolen from looted hardware stores and pawnshops. A thousand guns were reported stolen that terrible night in Omaha.

Omaha Mayor Ed Smith tried to stop the mob but he was hauled to a streetlight on Harney Street near the courthouse where a noose was placed around his neck and he was hoisted in the air. Swift intervention by a state policeman who cut down Smith saved the mayor’s life.

Sheriff Michael Clark led the 121 prisoners to the roof of the building as the fire burned upward. Ladders where placed against the courthouse as the mob sought access to the roof. Within minutes shots rang out and the crowd seized Brown. The unfortunate mob victim was immediately beaten and his clothing ripped from his body. Brown may have already been dead by the time he was lynched at the corner of 18th and Harney.

After the crowd used the corpse for target practice the bloody body was taken down and towed behind a car four blocks to 17th and Dodge Street where oil was poured on Brown’s body and it was set on fire.

Rioting continued until 3 a.m. when federal troops from Fort Omaha arrived with machine guns. It took 1,600 soldiers to bring order to the city.

Despite photographs that allowed authorities to identify several hundred of the lynch mob including the chief agitators, no one was ever prosecuted for the crimes committed that fearful night.

Actor Henry Fonda lived in Omaha at the time and his father ran a business across from the courthouse. Fonda would later describe the horror:

“It was the most horrendous sight I’d ever seen…We locked the plant, went downstairs, and drove home in silence. My hands were wet and there were tears
in my eyes. All I could think of was that young black man dangling at the end of a rope.”

Within years of the riot Omaha would see the growth of the Ku Klux Klan in the city. Omaha was a segregated city with the black population largely confined to the Near North Side.

The Near North Side was the home of both Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa and also the neighborhood where patrolman Larry Minard. Sr. would lose his life on August 17, 1970 in an ambush bombing.

The Omaha Two are serving life sentences in the Nebraska State Penitentiary for the murder of Minard but continue to deny any role in the crime 40 years later. The two men say they were victims of J. Edgar Hoover’s illegal COINTELPRO operation that targeted the Black Panthers with a lethal ferocity.

Omaha never really recovered from the 1919 riot and its ugly legacy led to a community now divided over the conviction of the Omaha Two.

Omaha Two story: March 4, 1968

Third-party presidential candidate George Wallace, the former-governor of Alabama, was in Omaha to qualify his American Party in Nebraska. Wallace had arrived in Omaha on Sunday, the day before, and held an angry news conference to provoke a large turnout at his rally. The event was technically a convention and Wallace needed to collect 750 signatures to appear on the ballot.

Wallace said riots were “caused by militants, activists, Communists and revolutionaries.” Further, “Leaders and sympathizers of militant civil rights organizations are Communists.”

A crowd of 1,500 supporters greeted Wallace on his arrival at the airport. Excited news reports of the visit put Wallace’s critics on notice and numerous protestors dogged him on Monday as he campaigned in the city. Police guards had to hold off demonstrators blocking Wallace from getting into his car after speaking at Omaha University.

Mayor A. V. Sorenson assigned four uniformed police officers to protect Wallace by the city and off-duty policemen were also hired for crowd control at the rally. George Wallace also traveled with his own security detail.

One of the protestors at the Omaha Auditorium Arena where the American Party convention was held was Mondo we Langa, then known as David Rice. Mondo was a reporter for two local underground newspapers, Buffalo Chip and Asterisk, and often played guitar at Holy Family Church.

On the floor were 1,000 Wallace supporters sitting on metal folding chairs. The balconies were full with several thousand more supporters. Mondo and about 50 other protestors, mostly black, gained entry to the main floor and marched right in front of the podium charging up the crowd as shouts rang out.

Wallace delayed his entrance for nearly an hour while tempers flared from the front rows where some of Wallace’s most fervent supporters were seated. After Wallace came out to a thunderous ovation the protestors got busy and jeered nearly every word.

Soon some of the protestors began tearing up their signs and throwing the bits of paper and stick at Wallace. Mondo attempted to stop the group from pelting Wallace but was sprayed in the face with mace by an undercover policeman. Two of the other demonstrators helped Mondo outside through a side door.

Police moved in to clear the aisles and suddenly the floor erupted in violence as Wallace supporters began hitting the trapped protestors with the metal chairs. The bloody battling continued outside the Arena where $1,200 worth of windows were broken. Before the night was over the Near North Side was in riot.

Thirteen people went to the hospital with injuries and a 16 year-old was shot to death by police attempting to break in to a pawn shop. Horace Mann Jr. High had 50 windows broken out.

On Tuesday two dozen black community leaders descended on the mayor’s office complaining about police conduct during the disturbances. That night more rioting continued with firebombs being thrown at businesses.

Police arrested two Catholic priests for their role in the protest at the Auditorium. One of the priests arrested was Father John McCaslin, head of the Catholic Social Action Office and pastor at Holy Family.

Seven youth were arrested Tuesday night including Central High School basketball star player Dwayne Dillard who was scheduled to play in the state tournament which had to be moved to Lincoln because of rioting.

Mayor Sorenson defended the police conduct saying the protestors were handled “properly and superbly.” Governor Norbert Tiemann monitored the situation ready to order in the National Guard.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation was also watching. The FBI director J. Edgar Hoover had ordered a secret counter-intelligence operation against “Black Nationalist” groups, code-named COINTELPRO, into effect in 27 selected cities on August 25, 1967.

Hoover’s secret COINTELPRO operation was established at a time when Hoover was taking criticism for the lack of action by the FBI on racial disturbances sweeping the nation and had been told his intelligence was not good. To blunt criticism from the White House daily briefings were sent culled out of reports sent to FBI headquarters from the field offices.

The “Confidential” FBI report to President Lyndon Johnson told of events in Omaha: “Omaha, Nebraska, Police Department, advised yesterday that as an aftermath of the appearance of former Alabama Governor George C. Wallace at a political rally on the night of March 4, 1968, several incidents of violence by Negroes took place in Omaha.”

“Among these were the vandalizing of a pawnshop early yesterday morning and the subsequent fatal shooting of a 16-year-old Negro boy by an off-duty police officer during an attempt by the young Negro to loot the pawnshop. Several assaults by Negroes against white persons also occurred after the former Governor Wallace rally and two of the white persons reportedly were seriously injured,” stated the FBI report.

The confidential memo concluded, “Public buses were stoned by Negroes as they passed through Omaha’s north side and yesterday morning Negro students of several Omaha high schools broke windows in business establishments while on their way to school. The students later caused minor damage in the schools by setting fires in wastebaskets in the restrooms and by throwing rocks through the windows of the schools.”

On March 4, 1968, the day of the Wallace rally, Hoover sent out a new COINTELPRO directive expanding the program to 42 cities, including Omaha, Nebraska. Hoover’s order would soon be put into action by Paul Young, the Special Agent-in-Charge of the Omaha FBI office.

When Mondo we Langa was maced at the Omaha Auditorium he did not know that same day, far away in the nation’s capital, the director of the FBI had issued an order that would lead to a lifetime of imprisonment.

To view all the Omaha Two story articles click HERE

Oakland: People’s Hearing on Racism and Police Violence on February 19th and 20th

Oakland: People’s Hearing on Racism and Police Violence

The People’s Hearing on Racism and Police Violence will take place on February 19th
and 20th from 9am to 5pm.
Each morning will start with a keynote speech, which will be followed by two
sessions of testimony.
Day 1 (Feb 19) will feature the following two sessions:


Police Killings (featuring testimony by people who’ve witnessed police killings as
well as family members of people killed by police)
Racial Profiling Day 2 (Feb 20th) will feature the following two sessions:


COINTELPRO and State Repression
Organized Resistance to police violence For further clarity, please note that for
the purposes of this Tribunal Hearing we are making distinctions between three
different types of testimony.
The testimony types and distinctions are as follows:
1. Direct Victim’s testimony: someone sharing her or his direct experience with a
human rights violation at the hands of a government authority or institution.
2. Eye Witness testimony: someone sharing her or his direct experience witnessing a
human rights violation.
3. Expert Testimony:
a. Testimony which details the effects of human rights abuses (police brutality,
murder, etc.) on affected individuals and communities.
b. Testimony which details state frame-ups, cover-ups, suppression of evidence, and
systemic government repression.
c. Testimony which details the grassroots and organized resistance to racism,
sexism, homophobia, exploitation and state repression.
Organized Panels and Public Testimony
The fundamental purpose of the People’s Hearing on Racism and Police Violence is to
allow people’s experiences to speak for themselves. Organizers of the event hope
that it will facilitate space for those experiences to be exposed and explored.
The organized testimony panels will follow this format:
Each testimony will be 10 minutes, with an additional 10 minutes for questions and
answers from the jurors. At the end of each session, there will be at least 30
minutes allotted for questions and answers from the public.
People invited to give testimony have been asked to start from the following facts
of their experience, and are invited to expand far beyond these limitations (given
time constraints):


Who (law enforcement agency, officers/officials involved, etc.),
What (type of abuse, false arrest, illegal detention, gendered discrimination, etc.)
When (date and time), where (specific location)
Why (reason provided by agency or official involved)
How (manner in which abuse was executed) People offering testimony are also asked to
provide copies of any corroborating evidence relating to their experience/testimony.
Jurors/Judges
The program committee for the Hearing on Racism and Police Violence has invited
jurors to play a vital role at and after the event. The juror panels, made up of
lawyers and activists who have strong histories of involvement in supporting victims
of police harrassment, will play a variety of roles.
Jurors will hear all the testimony given during the event, and for each person who
speaks, there will be allotted time for the jurors to ask follow up questions, so
that each experience is fully described and can be strongly documented.
Beyond the Hearing
After the hearing, jurors are being asked to write summary opinions of the testimony
they heard and to produce their summary within three months of the Hearing.
The juror summaries and raw testimony will be used to advocate for Federal
intervention on the recommendations produced from the Hearing to address the human
rights violations raised and to press the demand that the Executive Branch adhere to
its obligations under the CERD Treaty and create a National Plan of Action to
Eliminate Racism and Racial Discrimination.
Additionally, the program committee along with the jurors will publish and
disseminate the findings of the Hearing to a mass domestic audience and to advocates
and experts in the international community.
Finally, Hearing organizers will submit the findings and opinions of the Hearing to
several international human rights monitoring bodies and institutions, including the
Inter-American Commission, the International Committee on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination, and several United Nations Special Rapporteurs.

Human rights group calls for reopening of COINTELPRO cases

Feb. 6, 2011 Examiner.com by Michael Richardson

A U.S. Human Rights Network Working Group has issued a call to action to
end the incarceration of “COINTELPRO/Civil Rights era political activists
held in United States prisons, some more than 40 years.”

Operation COINTELPRO was a massive, secret, illegal attack on political
activists conducted in the 1960s and 1970s by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation. The illegal campaign of dirty tactics was ordered and
micro-managed by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.

The U.S. Human Rights Network Political Prisoner/State Repression Working
Group based the call to action on recent draft recommendations from the
United Nations Human Rights Council to end the incarceration of political
prisoners in America.

Efia Nwangaza of the USHRN Working Group offered three actions to correct
past and continuing injustice:

1. “We call on President Obama to use his presidential powers to grant
clemency and commute the sentences to time served and release all
COINTELPRO/Civil Rights Era political activists criminalized and held in
federal custody.”

2. “We call on President Obama to direct U.S. Attorney General Eric
Holder and the U.S. Department of Justice to review the convictions of all
COINTELPRO/Civil Rights Era activists in federal or state custody to
identify and address civil and human rights violations perpetrated.”

3. “We call on the Obama administration to create a national Truth and
Reconciliation Commission for the release and compensation of all
COINTELPRO/Civil Rights Era activists in federal or state custody.”

The call for action echoes that of Jericho, a national effort to address
the problem of political prisoners in the United States. One of Jericho’s
efforts to help political prisoners is an online petition.

Jericho’s appeal followed a call for a national Reconciliation Commission
on COINTELPRO cases from the Nebraskans For Justice. Formed to support
litigation for the Omaha Two, the Nebraskans For Justice began a postcard
campaign to the Attorney General last fall.

The Omaha Two are Edward Poindexter and Mondo we Langa (formerly David
Rice) who have been locked up since August 1970 when they were arrested
for the murder of an Omaha policeman.

Ed Poindexter was head of Nebraska’s chapter of the Black Panthers known
as the National Committee to Combat Fascism. Mondo we Langa was minister
of information of the group and published a local newsletter. Both men
had been targeted by the Omaha FBI office under orders of J. Edgar Hoover.

When Omaha police officer Larry Minard was killed in an ambush bombing
Hoover decided to pin the crime on Poindexter and Mondo and ordered the
FBI crime lab director to withhold evidence on the identity of the 911
caller that lured Minard to his death. Both men were convicted of the
killing in a COINTELPRO-tainted trial that included both withheld evidence
and also conflicting police testimony.

The Omaha Two remain imprisoned at the maximum-security Nebraska State
Penitentiary where they continue to maintain their innocence.

How Top Secret America Misfires; A Call for a 21st Century Church Commission

By Coleen Rowley Jan. 23, 2011 opednews.com

Why has Congress not yet awoken to the fact that since 9-11 we have been sailing into a perfect storm? Here are just some of the turbulent winds blowing and pushing officials in the wrong direction:

Politicians who stoke the fear of terrorism while forcing underling officials to promise they can protect the public by "pre-empting" all threats, hyped and unhyped;
The erosion of the prior legal safeguards, even the firmly entrenched ethical and legal (jus cogens) principles prohibiting torture;

The broad legal authority given to the executive by Congress in such laws as the Patriot Act and Military Commissions Act, and also the abuse of "presidential war powers" through warrantless monitoring and authorization of offshore, indefinite detention;
Perverse, counterproductive job and profit incentives for the 854,000 agents, analysts, operatives and private contractors/consultants who staff the "Top Secret America" surveillance-security complex;

Lack of any effective, independent oversight (despite the 9-11 Commission's prescient and serious concerns enumerated years ago), as exemplified by the hobbled Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board;

And the basic need for war presidencies to maintain momentum in the face of popular disapproval of the ongoing conflicts and occupations in the Mideast.

Such systemic forces will always produce a similar bad result -- for our rights and our safety.

Even the rather conservative Washington Post is quite worried about what's likely to come of this clearly out-of-control pressure cooker called "Top Secret America." If it cannot be quickly reined in, we are almost certain to witness and suffer the worst of Cold War McCarthyism and Vietnam COINTELPRO abuses. That prediction is based on what has happened before when militarist forces turned inward on U.S. citizens. Even if government officials are well-intentioned, these forces increase the chances for error and opportunism. Some would say we've entered a perfect storm already, given the numerous examples of improper targeting of domestic advocacy groups, most recently the FBI raids on various anti-war activists' offices and homes in Minneapolis and Chicago.

Let's not forget how the "war on terror" was originally sold to the American public: as "Let's fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here." But Homeland Security now admits the "war on terror" is increasingly being fought at home.

FBI agents are motivated, for instance, to check off "statistical achievements" by sending well-paid, manipulative confidential informants into mosques and apparently also into various advocacy and anti-war groups. In the Iowa heartland, for instance, FBI surveillance, trash searches, terrorism database paperwork, and "statistical accomplishments" regarding a few student protesters in Iowa City before the 2008 Republican National Convention fill hundreds of file pages without providing any plausible justification for the operation.

These abuses attack our basic constitutional right to dissent without making us safer. Relatively simple ways to address and reduce each of these counterproductive forces do exist, however -- ways that preserve our liberties while actually enhancing our collective security. The list below outlines the most serious current civil liberties problems and the potential fixes. It is based on my years teaching constitutional criminal procedure to FBI agents and police officers, and also on my firsthand exposure to and understanding of some of the pre- and post-9-11 failures:

1) In the course of arguing the Holder v Humanitarian Law Project case in the Supreme Court (decided in late June of this year), Georgetown Law Professor David Cole warned explicitly that this law could be used to improperly target and prosecute a wide range of humanitarian, human rights and peace advocacy groups, and prevent them from exercising freedom of speech and other First Amendment rights. However, Cole failed in his arguments to overturn a few words in the Patriot Act that broadened "Material Support of Terrorism" to encompass "expert advice and assistance" to designated "foreign terrorist organizations." (For more information, see "How Easy Is It for Peaceful People to Violate the Patriot Act?") The problematic Supreme Court decision, which essentially makes advocacy of peace and humanitarian issues illegal with respect to 40-some groups designated by the State Department, is surely something that Congress never intended in hastily passing the hundreds of pages of Patriot Act revisions in October 2001. As a result, missionaries, fair election proponents and humanitarian workers could be placed in legal jeopardy. People like Three Cups of Tea author Greg Mortenson, who had to meet with a variety of foreign nationals in war zones in order to forge a consensus to build schools for girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan, could be in trouble, as could former president Jimmy Carter, who engages in pro-democracy efforts to monitor election fraud in many places in the world. The paradox is that true non-government-affiliated efforts aimed at furthering education, humanitarian assistance, free elections and non-violent conflict resolution in other parts of the world are widely recognized as more effective and beneficial than U.S. military or U.S. State Department-controlled efforts.

The simple fix would be to revise the phrase "expert advice and assistance" in the Patriot Act, clarifying that Congress never intended to define "material aid or comfort" to designated organizations so that it would chill or hamper the free speech rights of members of non-governmental humanitarian, peace and pro-democracy groups.

2) "Pre-emptive" security -- with its false promise of preventing all future acts of terrorism, and its accompanying pressures -- should be understood as a real Mission Impossible (not to say Mission Stupid). It led to the immediate erosion of the post-Church Committee Attorney General (AG) Guidelines that required varying levels of factual justification before targeting any domestic group. Shortly after 9-11, AG Ashcroft began by loosening the old guidelines and allowing FBI agents to go into churches, mosques and other public places. The final nail in the coffin was the decision by the Bush Administration, in one of its last official acts, to reverse the need to demonstrate some level of factual justification and promulgate a new and very low legal standard for all types of cases. This new standard means, in effect, that the FBI has only to deny that a group has been targeted based solely on its exercise of First Amendment rights. Civil libertarians were initially aghast at the prospect of this total erasure of any real investigative guidelines. But knowing of Obama's background as a constitutional lawyer, they thought it better to bring the issue to Bush's successor. It should be noted that the demise of the old AG Guidelines came after the Inspector General (IG) discovered that the FBI had served hundreds of thousands of mistake-ridden and unjustified National Security Letters, and also found many compliance problems in the FBI's opening of cases and handling of informants.

Simple fix: It's fine to create one set of guidelines for all crime programs. However, some reasonable level of factual justification should be required before the FBI or other federal law enforcement agency can target a group or individual. The Department of Justice (DOJ) IG should immediately undertake a review of all "terrorism enterprise investigations" begun by the FBI after 2006, when the IG's prior investigation ended.

3) The blurring of protest activities and dissent with terrorism dovetailed with the launching of U.S. wars after 9-11. For example, in October 2003, the FBI put out "Intelligence Bulletin 89," which focused on protesters' plans for the Free Trade Area of the Americas meetings in Miami and anti-war marches in Washington, D.C. I personally made an IG complaint to the DOJ IG about this blurring, but it was punted back to the FBI and then swept under the rug. New York Times reporter Eric Lichtblau exposed the problematic Bulletin but the DOJ retaliated by yanking Lichtblau's press pass, and the FBI ordered its 56 field divisions to cease contact with the reporter. (The sorry episode is described beginning on page 122 of Lichtblau's book, Bush's Law: The Remaking of American Justice.) Perhaps if that overly defensive posture had not been taken, problems would not have reached the proportions later found in the September 2010 report, "A Review of the FBI's Investigations of Certain Domestic Advocacy Groups." The wrongheaded mindset that dominated law enforcement almost immediately after the launching of the Iraq War (and the larger "war on terror") is most clearly seen in what a spokesman for the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center (CATIC) said when forced in 2003 to defend his agency's unjustified targeting of anti-war protesters without any factual evidence. CATIC Spokesman Van Winkle, apparently without thinking too hard, reasoned that evidence wasn't needed to issue warnings on war protesters: "You can make an easy kind of a link that, if you have a protest group protesting a war where the cause that's being fought against is international terrorism, you might have terrorism at that [protest]. You can almost argue that a protest against [the "war on terror"] is a terrorist act." In a similar vein, the Department of Defense (DOD) for years administered an annual mandatory anti-terrorism test that equated protest with terrorism. The test asked, "What is an example of low-level terrorism activity?" The correct answer was "protest."

Similarly, listen to the compelling testimony of anti-drilling activist Virginia Cody after she discovered she had been spied on by the Pennsylvania Department of Homeland Security by authorities who actively worked with industry officials to quash dissent.

Also noteworthy is the fact that Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) and Fusion Centers combine local and state police jurisdiction with federal jurisdiction. So crowd control, something not usually within federal jurisdiction, becomes a "joint" activity. The CIA has members on these joint task forces and fusion centers, even though the CIA charter bars the organization from operating domestically.

The fix would be to stop equating protest, including acts of civil disobedience, with terrorism. The Patriot Act's definition of domestic terrorism begins with these words: "Acts dangerous to human life...." Protest and dissent - and even acts of civil disobedience involving trespass and minor property damage - do not constitute acts of terrorism. Issues of crowd control, even during large marches and rallies, do not normally threaten national security and should not involve federal authorities.

4) Front-loaded "statistical achievements" are the main way of evaluating job performance inside the FBI and probably the other 3,000 or so agencies and contractors thought to be operating in "Top Secret America." The 854,000 operatives, agents, analysts, private contractors and consultants (believed to average about $90,000 per year in salary) are under more than a little pressure to prove they are earning their generous paychecks and in competition with each other to move up the ranks. So an elaborate grading system is used that checks the initial projection of work in a quantitative, not qualitative way. An FBI agent, for instance, collects "stats" for opening files, disseminating information, adding individuals to a terrorist database or a watch list, serving subpoenas and national security letters for records, recruiting and contacting secret sources and informants, executing searches/seizures, making arrests, and getting people charged and/or convicted. Given the change of emphasis from prosecution to intelligence data collection and analysis, more and more of the "stats" do not involve any judicial oversight. The danger exists that the pressure of producing "stats" would encourage FBI agents and personnel of the other 3,000 entities to open fruitless investigations and try to fit garden-variety crimes into the terrorism category.

Pressure to "pre-empt" plus lack of oversight in managing "top-echelon informants" lead to repeated examples ofopportunistic targeting and entrapment of people not predisposed to commit crimes.

Cases that don't pan out or were never justified to begin with, like the "terrorism enterprise investigation" of the students in Iowa City referred to earlier, can fulfill this unending need for "stats." Ultimately, if no quality-over-quantity mechanism is found to evaluate work performance, agencies are likely to return to the Cold War-era "post and float" system of "papering files." McCarthyism and COINTELPRO-type abuses are bound to recur, this time with "terrorist" substituted for the old bogey of "communist."

Revise the method of collecting and proving "statistical accomplishments" to favor quality over quantity. At a minimum, ensure that "statistical achievements" are subtracted when actions are found to have unjustifiably targeted advocacy groups or interfered with a person's constitutional rights without proper cause.

5) Because the 9-11 Commission was very concerned about the much greater authority being given to the FBI and other agencies in the "war on terror," three of their 41 recommendations concerned the creation of a Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB). The FBI Director assured the ACLU that civil liberties would be upheld. The PCLOB was statutorily forced on Bush by Congress, but he assured its powerlessness and later dismantled it. Obama has thus far totally ignored the issue by not appointing anyone to the PCLOB.

Fix the situation by immediately appointing five PCLOB commissioners and empower them to interact with and provide mandated training to all national security agencies, contractors and consultants. In addition, allow PCLOB to directly hear and evaluate whistleblower complaints relating to abuses, and to access reports from Civil Liberties/Privacy Officers in each agency, as is done by the Office of Government Ethics.

6) Intelligence failures as well as abuses are the predictable outcome of massive and irrelevant data collections, which only add hay to the haystack and make it even harder to spot patterns. Abuses and failures result from excessive over-classification (see "WikiLeaks and 9-11: What If?") and improper use of the "State Secrets" privilege, which keeps cases out of the courts and negates government whistleblower protection. The English historian Lord Acton, who observed that power corrupts, also noted that, "Everything secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity."

This great cartoon drawn by Ben Sargent says it all but only begins to capture the irony of our current situation. While governmental targeting of domestic advocacy, peace and environmental groups are jaw-dropping revelations, the even worse news is that these same agencies have failed to stop real terrorist violence and attempted violence. No government agency connected the dots before Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan killed 13 and wounded 30, flight passenger Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to ignite his "underwear bomb" in the air over Detroit or Faisal Shahzad planted his car bomb in Times Square. Yet all of these terrorist events involved individuals in direct communication with the very same Yemeni cleric who was also connected to three of the 9-11 hijackers.

The news gets even worse. We now know that the CIA ignored prior warnings regarding a suicide bomber they were hoping to use as a double agent who attacked a CIA outpost in eastern Afghanistan, and that the scout who planned the terrorist attacks in Mumbai in 2008 was a former DEA informant who U.S. officials had sent to train in Pakistan. Yet the FBI had been warned years before that the DEA informant worked for Al Qaeda.

Why would joint terrorism task forces go after American students and peace and labor activists while failing to detect and stop genuine acts of terrorism? This combination of misplaced zeal, incompetence and opportunism has consequences for our freedom and our safety. It is time for Top Secret America to ask itself whether its own flawed and contradictory assumptions and strategies are furnishing "material aid to terrorism."

JOIN THE NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION TUESDAY, JANUARY 25, 2011

In December 2010, under the direction of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, the FBI delivered 9 new subpoenas in Chicago to anti-war and Palestine solidarity activists -- bringing the total number of subpoenaed activists to 23. These nine activists are being ordered to appear before the Grand Jury in Chicago on January 25. In response hundreds of organizations and thousands of people in over 30 cities will be protesting at Federal Buildings (includingMinneapolis), FBI offices, and other appropriate places on this date. Everyone who is concerned about the erosion of their security or civil liberties is invited.

(Editing assistance from Hugh Iglarsh, writer/editor/citizen based in Chicago. A shorter version of this piece originally appeared as an op-ed in the Minneapolis Star Tribune on January 16 "Coleen Rowley: We're conflating proper dissent and terrorism".)