Monday, January 26, 2009
Saturday, January 24, 2009
timeless lessons from COINTELPRO
Despite the public outcry to the revelations of COINTELPRO, the apparatus remains in place, and federal agencies have been given increased powers by the Reagan Administration.
Good organizers should be acquainted with this sordid part of American history, and with the signs that may indicate their group is the target of an investigation.
HOWEVER, DO NOT LET PARANOIA immobilize you. The results of paranoia and overreaction to evidence of surveillance can be just as disruptive to an organization as an actual infiltrator or disruption campaign.
Although covert action will be adapted to changing social and technological conditions, only a limited number of methods exist. A study of COINTELPRO revealed four basic approaches.
* First, there was infiltration. Agents and informers did not merely spy on political activists. The main purpose was to discredit and disrupt. Their presence served to undermine trust and scare off potential supporters. They also exploited this fear to smear genuine activists as agents.
* Second, there was psychological warfare from the outside. They planted false media stories and published bogus leaflets and other publications in the name of targeted groups. They forged correspondence, sent anonymous letters, and made anonymous telephone calls. They spread misinformation about meetings and events, set up pseudo movement groups run by agents, and manipulated or strong-armed parents, employers, landlords, school officials and others to cause trouble for activists.
* Third, there was harassment through the legal system, used to harass dissidents and make them appear to be criminals. Officers gave perjured testimony and presented fabricated evidence as a pretext for false arrests and wrongful imprisonment. They discriminatorily enforced tax laws and other government regulations and used conspicuous surveillance, "investigative" interviews, and grand jury subpoenas in an effort to intimidate activists and silence their supporters.
* Fourth and finally, there was extralegal force and violence. The FBI and police threatened, instigated and conducted break-ins, vandalism, assaults, and beatings. The object was to frighten dissidents and disrupt their movements. In the case of radical Black and Puerto Rican activists (and later Native Americans), these attacks, including political assassinations, were so extensive, vicious, and calculated that they can only be accurately called a form of official "terrorism."
A CHECK-LIST OF ESSENTIAL PRECAUTIONS:
-Check out the authenticity of any disturbing letter, rumor, phone call or other communication before acting on it.
-Document incidents which appear to reflect covert intervention, and report them to the Movement Support Network Hotline: 212/477- 5562.
-Deal openly and honestly with the differences within our movements (race, gender, class, age, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, personality, experience, physical and intellectual capacities, etc.) before the FBI and police exploit them to tear us apart.
-Don't rush to expose a suspected agent. Instead, directly criticize what the suspect says and does. Intra-movement witch hunts only help the government create distrust and paranoia.
-Support whoever comes under government attack. Don't be put off by political slander, such as recent attempts to smear radical activists as "terrorists." Organize public opposition to FBI investigations, grand juries, show trials and other forms of political harassment.
-Above all, do not let them divert us from our main work. Our most powerful weapon against political repression is effective organizing around the needs and issues which directly affect people's lives.
WHAT THEY DO & HOW WE CAN PROTECT OURSELVES
INFILTRATION BY AGENTS OR INFORMERS
Agents are law enforcement officers disguised as activists.
Informers are non-agents who provide information to a law enforcement or intelligence agency. They may be recruited from within a group or sent in by an agency, or they may be disaffected former members or supporters.
Infiltrators are agents or informers who work in a group or community under the direction of a law enforcement or intelligence agency. During the 60s the FBI had to rely on informers (who are less well trained and harder to control) because it had very few black, Hispanic or female agents, and its strict dress and grooming code left white male agents unable to look like activists. As a modern equal opportunity employer, today's FBI has fewer such limitations.
What They Do: Some informers and infiltrators quietly provide information while keeping a low profile and doing whatever is expected of group members. Others attempt to discredit a target and disrupt its work. They may spread false rumors and make unfounded accusations to provoke or exacerbate tensions and splits. They may urge divisive proposals, sabotage important activities and resources, or operate as "provocateurs" who lead zealous activists into unnecessary danger. In a demonstration or other confrontation with police, such an agent may break discipline and call for actions which would undermine unity and detract from tactical focus.
Infiltration As a Source of Distrust and Paranoia: While individual agents and informers aid the government in a variety of specific ways, the general use of infiltrators serves a very special and powerful strategic function. The fear that a group may be infiltrated often intimidates people from getting more involved. It can give rise to a paranoia which makes it difficult to build the mutual trust which political groups depend on. This use of infiltrators, enhanced by covertly-initiated rumors that exaggerate the extent to which a particular movement or group has been penetrated, is recommended by the manuals used to teach counter-insurgency in the U.S. and Western Europe.
Covert Manipulation to Make A Legitimate Activist Appear to be an Agent: An actual agent will often point the finger at a genuine, non-collaborating and highly-valued group member, claiming that he or she is the infiltrator. The same effect, known as a "snitch jacket," has been achieved by planting forged documents which appear to be communications between an activist and the FBI, or by releasing for no other apparent reason one of a group of activists who were arrested together. Another method used under COINTELPRO was to arrange for some activists, arrested under one pretext or another, to hear over the police radio a phony broadcast which appeared to set up a secret meeting between the police and someone from their group.
GUIDELINES FOR COPING WITH INFILTRATION:
# l. Establish a process through which anyone who suspects an informer (or other form of covert intervention) can express his or her fears without scaring others. Experienced people assigned this responsibility can do a great deal to help a group maintain its morale and focus while, at the same time, centrally consolidating information and deciding how to use it. This plan works best when accompanied by group discussion of the danger of paranoia, so that everyone understands and follows the established procedure.
# 2. To reduce vulnerability to paranoia and "snitch jackets", and to minimize diversion from your main work, it generally is best if you do not attempt to expose a suspected agent or informer unless you are certain of their role. (For instance, they surface to make an arrest, testify as a government witness or in some other way admit their identity). Under most circumstances, an attempted exposure will do more harm than the infiltrator's continued presence. This is especially true if you can discreetly limit the suspect's access to funds, financial records, mailing lists, discussions of possible law violations, meetings that plan criminal defense strategy, and similar opportunities.
# 3. Deal openly and directly with the form and content of what anyone says and does, whether the person is a suspected agent, has emotional problems, or is simply a sincere, but naive or confused person new to the work.
# 4. Once an agent or informer has been definitely identified, alert other groups and communities by means of photographs, a description of their methods of operation, etc. In the 60s, some agents managed even after their exposure in one community to move on and repeat their performance in a number of others.
# 5. Be careful to avoid pushing a new or hesitant member to take risks beyond what that person is ready to handle, particularly in situations which could result in arrest and prosecution. People in this position have proved vulnerable to recruitment as informers.
OTHER FORMS OF DECEPTION
Bogus leaflets, pamphlets, etc.: COINTELPRO documents show that the FBI routinely put out phony leaflets, posters, pamphlets, etc. to discredit its targets. In one instance, agents revised a children's coloring book which the Black Panther Party had rejected as anti-white and gratuitously violent, and then distributed a cruder version to backers of the Party's program of free breakfasts for children, telling them the book was being used in the program.
False media stories: The FBI's documents expose collusion by reporters and news media that knowingly published false and distorted material prepared by Bureau agents. One such story had Jean Seberg, a noticeably pregnant white film star active in anti-racist causes, carrying the child of a prominent Black leader. Seberg's white husband, the actual father, has sued the FBI as responsible for her resulting still-birth, breakdown, and suicide.
Forged correspondence: Former employees have confirmed that the FBI and CIA have the capacity to produce "state of the art" forgery. The U.S. Senate's investigation of COINTELPRO uncovered a series of letters forged in the name of an intermediary between the Black Panther Party's national office and Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver, in exile in Algeria. The letters proved instrumental in inflaming intra-party rivalries that erupted into the bitter public split that shattered the Party in the winter of 1971.
Anonymous letters and telephone calls: During the 60s, activists received a steady flow of anonymous letters and phone calls which turn out to have been from government agents. Some threatened violence. Others promoted racial divisions and fears. Still others charged various leaders with collaboration, corruption, sexual affairs with other activists' mates, etc. As in the Seberg incident, inter-racial sex was a persistent theme. The husband of one white woman involved in a bi-racial civil rights group received the following anonymous letter authored by the FBI:
--Look, man, I guess your old lady doesn't get enough at home or she wouldn't be shucking and jiving with our Black Men in ACTION, you dig? Like all she wants to integrate is the bedroom and us Black Sisters ain't gonna take no second best from our men. So lay it on her man--or get her the hell off [name]. A Soul Sister
False rumors: Using infiltrators, journalists and other contacts, the Bureau circulated slanderous, disruptive rumors through political movements and the communities in which they worked.
Other misinformation: A favorite FBI tactic uncovered by Senate investigators was to misinform people that a political meeting or event had been cancelled. Another was to offer non- existent housing at phony addresses, stranding out-of-town conference attendees who naturally blamed those who had organized the event. FBI agents also arranged to transport demonstrators in the name of a bogus bus company which pulled out at the last minute. Such "dirty tricks" interfered with political events and turned activists against each other.
SEPARATE BOX:
Fronts for the FBI: COINTELPRO documents reveal that a number of Sixties' political groups and projects were actually set up and operated by the FBI.
One, "Grupo pro-Uso Voto," was used to disrupt the fragile unity developing in l967 among groups seeking Puerto Rico's independence from the US. The genuine proponents of independence had joined together to boycott a US-administered referendum on the island's status. They argued that voting under conditions of colonial domination could serve only to legitimize US rule, and that no vote could be fair while the US controlled the island's economy, media, schools, and police. The bogus group, pretending to support independence, broke ranks and urged independistas to take advantage of the opportunity to register their opinion at the polls.
Since FBI front groups are basically a means for penetrating and disrupting political movements, it is best to deal with them on the basis of the Guidelines for Coping with Infiltration (below).
Confront what a suspect group says and does, but avoid public accusations unless you have definite proof. If you do have such proof, share it with everyone affected.
GUIDELINES FOR COPING WITH OTHER FORMS OF DECEPTION:
# 1. Don't add unnecessarily to the pool of information that government agents use to divide political groups and turn activists against each other. They thrive on gossip about personal tensions, rivalries and disagreements. The more these are aired in public, or via a telephone which can be tapped or mail which can be opened, the easier it is to exploit a groups' problems and subvert its work. (Note that the CIA has the technology to read mail without opening it, and that the telephone network can now be programmed to record any conversation in which specified political terms are used.)
# 2. The best way to reduce tensions and hostilities, and the urge to gossip about them, is to make time for open, honest discussion and resolution of "personal" as well as "political" issues.
# 3. Don't accept everything you hear or read. Check with the supposed source of the information before you act on it. Personal communication among estranged activists, however difficult or painful, could have countered many FBI operations which proved effective in the Sixties.
# 4. When you hear a negative, confusing or potentially harmful rumor, don't pass it on. Instead, discuss it with a trusted friend or with the people in your group who are responsible for dealing with covert intervention.
# 5. Verify and double-check all arrangements for housing, transportation, meeting rooms, and so forth.
# 6. When you discover bogus materials, false media stories, etc., publicly disavow them and expose the true source, insofar as you can.
HARASSMENT, INTIMIDATION & VIOLENCE:
Pressure through employers, landlords, etc.: COINTELPRO documents reveal frequent overt contacts and covert manipulation (false rumors, anonymous letters and telephone calls) to generate pressure on activists from their parents, landlords, employers, college administrators, church superiors, welfare agencies, credit bureaus, licensing authorities, and the like.
Agents' reports indicate that such intervention denied Sixties' activists any number of foundation grants and public speaking engagements. It also cost underground newspapers most of their advertising revenues, when major record companies were persuaded to take their business elsewhere. It may underlie recent steps by insurance companies to cancel policies held by churches giving sanctuary to refugees from El Salvador and Guatemala.
Burglary: Former operatives have confessed to thousands of "black bag jobs" in which FBI agents broke into movement offices to steal, copy or destroy valuable papers, wreck equipment, or plant drugs.
Vandalism: FBI infiltrators have admitted countless other acts of vandalism, including the fire which destroyed the Watts Writers Workshop's multi-million dollar ghetto cultural center in 1973. Late 60s' FBI and police raids laid waste to movement offices across the country, destroying precious printing presses, typewriters, layout equipment, research files, financial records, and mailing lists.
Other direct interference: To further disrupt opposition movements, frighten activists, and get people upset with each other, the FBI tampered with organizational mail, so it came late or not at all. It also resorted to bomb threats and similar "dirty tricks".
Conspicuous surveillance: The FBI and police blatantly watch activists' homes, follow their cars, tap phones, open mail and attend political events. The object is not to collect information (which is done surreptitiously), but to harass and intimidate.
Attempted interviews: Agents have extracted damaging information from activists who don't know they have a legal right to refuse to talk, or who think they can outsmart the FBI. COINTELPRO directives recommend attempts at interviews throughout political movements to "enhance the paranoia endemic in these circles" and "get the point across that there is an FBI agent behind every mailbox."
Grand juries: Unlike the FBI, the Grand Jury has legal power to make you answer its questions. Those who refuse, and are required to accept immunity from use of their testimony against them, can be jailed for contempt of court. (Such "use immunity" enables prosecutors to get around the constitutional protection against self-incrimination.)
The FBI and the US Dept. of Justice have manipulated this process to turn the grand jury into an instrument of political repression. Frustrated by jurors' consistent refusal to convict activists of overtly political crimes, they convened over 100 grand juries between l970 and 1973 and subpoenaed more than 1000 activists from the Black, Puerto Rican, student, women's and anti-war movements. Supposed pursuit of fugitives and "terrorists" was the usual pretext. Many targets were so terrified that they dropped out of political activity. Others were jailed without any criminal charge or trial, in what amounts to a U.S. version of the political internment procedures employed in South Africa and Northern Ireland.
False arrest and prosecution: COINTELPRO directives cite the Philadelphia FBI's success in having local militants "arrested on every possible charge until they could no longer make bail" and "spent most of the summer in jail." Though the bulk of the activists arrested in this manner were eventually released, some were convicted of serious charges on the basis of perjured testimony by FBI agents, or by co-workers who the Bureau had threatened or bribed.
The object was not only to remove experienced organizers from their communities and to divert scarce resources into legal defense, but even more to discredit entire movements by portraying their leaders as vicious criminals. Two victims of such frame-ups, Native American activist Leonard Peltier and 1960s' Black Panther official Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt, have finally gained court hearings on new trial motions.
Others currently struggling to re-open COINTELPRO convictions include Richard Marshall of the American Indian Movement and jailed Black Panthers Herman Bell, Anthony Bottom, Albert Washington (the "NY3"), and Richard "Dhoruba" Moore.
Intimidation: One COINTELPRO communique urged that "The Negro youths and moderates must be made to understand that if they succumb to revolutionary teaching, they will be dead revolutionaries."
Others reported use of threats (anonymous and overt) to terrorize activists, driving some to abandon promising projects and others to leave the country. During raids on movement offices, the FBI and police routinely roughed up activists and threatened further violence. In August, 1970, they forced the entire staff of the Black Panther office in Philadelphia to march through the streets naked.
Instigation of violence: The FBI's infiltrators and anonymous notes and phone calls incited violent rivals to attack Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, and other targets. Bureau records also reveal maneuvers to get the Mafia to move against such activists as black comedian Dick Gregory.
A COINTELPRO memo reported that "shootings, beatings and a high degree of unrest continue to prevail in the ghetto area of southeast San Diego...it is felt that a substantial amount of the unrest is directly attributable to this program."
Covert aid to right-wing vigilantes: In the guise of a COINTELPRO against "white hate groups," the FBI subsidized, armed, directed and protected the Klu Klux Klan and other right-wing groups, including a "Secret Army Organization" of California ex-Minutemen who beat up Chicano activists, tore apart the offices of the San Diego Street Journal and the Movement for a Democratic Military, and tried to kill a prominent anti-war organizer. Puerto Rican activists suffered similar terrorist assaults from anti-Castro Cuban groups organized and funded by the CIA.
Defectors from a band of Chicago-based vigilantes known as the "Legion of Justice" disclosed that the funds and arms they used to destroy book stores, film studios and other centers of opposition had secretly been supplied by members of the Army's 113th Military Intelligence Group.
Assassination: The FBI and police were implicated directly in murders of Black and Native American leaders. In Chicago, police assassinated Black Panthers Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, using a floor plan supplied by an FBI informer who apparently also had drugged Hampton's food to make him unconscious during the raid.
FBI records show that this accomplice received a substantial bonus for his services. Despite an elaborate cover-up, a blue-ribbon commission and a U.S Court of Appeals found the deaths to be the result not of a shoot out, as claimed by police, but of a carefully orchestrated, Vietnam-style "search and destroy mission".
GUIDELINES FOR COPING WITH HARASSMENT, INTIMIDATION & VIOLENCE:
# 1. Establish security procedures appropriate to your group's level of activity and discuss them thoroughly with everyone involved. Control access to keys, files, letterhead, funds, financial records, mailing lists, etc. Keep duplicates of valuable documents. Safeguard address books, and do not carry them when arrest is likely.
# 2. Careful records of break-ins, thefts, bomb threats, raids, arrests, strange phone noises (not always taps or bugs), harassment, etc. will help you to discern patterns and to prepare reports and testimony.
# 3. Don't talk to the FBI. Don't let them in without a warrant. Tell others that they came. Have a lawyer demand an explanation and instruct them to leave you alone.
# 4. If an activist does talk, or makes some other honest error, explain the harm that could result. But do not attempt to ostracize a sincere person who slips up. Isolation only weakens a person's ability to resist. It can drive someone out of the movement and even into the arms of the police.
# 5. If the FBI starts to harass people in your area, alert everyone to refuse to cooperate (see box). Call the Movement Support Network's Hotline:(2l2) 614-6422. Set up community meetings with speakers who have resisted similar harassment elsewhere. Get literature, films, etc. through the organizations listed in the back of this pamphlet. Consider "Wanted" posters with photos of the agents, or guerilla theater which follows them through the city streets.
# 6. Make a major public issue of crude harassment, such as tampering with your mail. Contact your congressperson. Call the media. Demonstrate at your local FBI office. Turn the attack into an opportunity for explaining how covert intervention threatens fundamental human rights.
# 7. Many people find it easier to tell an FBI agent to contact their lawyer than to refuse to talk. Once a lawyer is involved, the Bureau generally pulls back, since it has lost its power to intimidate. If possible, make arrangements with a local lawyer and let everyone know that agents who visit them can be referred to that lawyer. If your group engages in civil disobedience or finds itself under intense police pressure, start a bail fund, train some members to deal with the legal system, and develop an ongoing relationship with a sympathetic local lawyer.
# 8. Organizations listed in the back of this pamphlet can also help resist grand jury harassment. Community education is important, along with legal, financial, child care, and other support for those who protect a movement by refusing to divulge information about it. If a respected activist is subpoenaed for obviously political reasons, consider trying to arrange for sanctuary in a local church or synagogue.
# 9. While the FBI and police are entirely capable of fabricating criminal charges, any law violations make it easier for them to set you up. The point is not to get so up-tight and paranoid that you can't function, but to make a realistic assessment based on your visibility and other pertinent circumstances.
# 10. Upon hearing of Fred Hampton's murder, the Black Panthers in Los Angeles fortified their offices and organized a communications network to alert the community and news media in the event of a raid. When the police did attempt an armed assault four days later, the Panthers were able to hold off the attack until a large community and media presence enabled them to leave the office without casualties. Similar preparation can help other groups that have reason to expect right-wing or police assaults.
# 11. Make sure your group designates and prepares other members to step in if leaders are jailed or otherwise incapacitated. The more each participant is able to think for herself or himself and take responsibility, the better will be the group's capacity to cope with crises.
Possible evidence of government spying
Obvious surveillance
Look for:
# Visits by police or federal agents to politically involved individuals, landlords, employers, family members or business associates. These visits may be to ask for information, to encourage or create possibility of eviction or termination of employment, or to create pressure for the person to stop his or her political involvement.
# Uniformed or plainclothes officers taking pictures of people entering your office or participating in your activities. Just before and during demonstrations and other public events, check the area including windows and rooftops for photographers. (Credentialling press can help to separate the media from the spies.)
# People who seem out of place. If they come to your office or attend your events, greet them as potential members. Try to determine if they are really interested in your issues -- or just your members!
# People writing down license plate numbers of cars and other vehicles in the vicinity of your meetings and rallies.
Despite local legislation and several court orders limiting policy spying activities, these investigatory practices have been generally found to be legal unless significant "chilling" of constitutional rights can be proved.
Telephone problems
Electronic surveillance equipment is now so sophisticated that you should not be able to tell if your telephone conversations are being monitored. Clicks, whirrs, and other noises probably indicate a problem in the telephone line or other equipment.
For example, the National Security Agency has the technology to monitor microwave communications traffic, and to isolate all calls to or from a particular line, or to listen for key words that activate a recording device. Laser beams and "spike" microphones can detect sound waves hitting walls and window panes, and then transmit those waves for recording. In these cases, there is little chance that the subject would be able to find out about the surveillance.
Among the possible signs you may find are:
# Hearing a tape recording of a conversation you, or someone else in your home or office, have recently held.
# Hearing people talking about your activities when you try to use the telephone.
# Losing service several days before major events.
Government use of electronic surveillance is governed by two laws, the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Warrants for such surveillance can be obtained if there is evidence of a federal crime, such as murder, drug trafficking, or crimes characteristic of organized crime, or for the purpose of gathering foreign intelligence information available within the U.S. In the latter case, an "agent of a foreign power" can be defined as a representative of a foreign government, from a faction or opposition group, or foreign based political groups.
Mail problems
Because of traditional difficulties with the U.S. Postal Service, some problems with mail delivery will occur, such as a machine catching an end of an envelope and tearing it, or a bag getting lost and delaying delivery.
However, a pattern of problems may occur because of political intelligence gathering:
# Envelopes may have been opened prior to reaching their destination; contents were removed and/or switched with other mail. Remember that the glue on envelopes doesn't work as well when volume or bulk mailings are involved.
# Mail may arrive late, on a regular basis different from others in your neighborhood.
# Mail may never arrive.
There are currently two kinds of surveillance permitted with regards to mail: the mail cover, and opening of mail. The simplest, and lest intrusive form is the "mail cover" in which Postal employees simply list any information that can be obtained from the envelope, or opening second, third or fourth class mail. Opening of first class mail requires a warrant unless it is believed to hold drugs or "ticks." More leeway is given for opening first class international mail.
Burglaries
A common practice during the FBI's Counter- Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) was the use of surreptitious entries or "black bag jobs." Bureau agents were given special training in burglary, key reproduction, etc. for use in entering homes and offices. In some cases, the key could be obtained from "loyal American" landlords or building owners.
Typical indicators are:
# Files, including membership and financial reports are rifled, copied or stolen.
# Items of obvious financial value are left untouched.
# Equipment vital to the organization may be broken or stolen, such as typewriters, printing machinery, and computers.
# Signs of a political motive are left, such as putting a membership list or a poster from an important event in an obvious place.
Although warrantless domestic security searches are in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and any evidence obtained this way cannot be used in criminal proceedings, the Reagan Administration and most recent Presidents (excepting Carter) have asserted the inherent authority to conduct searches against those viewed as agents of a foreign power.
Informers and Infiltrators
Information about an organization or individual can also be obtained by placing an informer or infiltrator. This person may be a police officer, employee of a federal agency, someone who has been charged or convicted of criminal activity and has agreed to "help" instead of serve time, or anyone from the public.
Once someone joins an organization for the purposes of gathering information, the line between data gathering and participation blurs. Two types of infiltrators result -- someone who is under "deep cover" and adapts to the lifestyle of the people they are infiltrating. These people may maintain their cover for many years, and an organization may never know whom these people are. Agents "provocateur" are more visible, because they will deliberately attempt to disrupt or lead the group into illegal activities. They often become involved just as an event or crisis is occurring, and leave town or drop out after the organizing slows down.
An agent may:
# Volunteer for tasks which provide access to important meetings and papers such as financial records, membership lists, minutes and confidential files.
# Not follow through or complete tasks, or else does them poorly despite an obvious ability to do good work.
# Cause problems for a group such as committing it to activities or expenses without following proper channels; urge a group to plan activities that divide group unity.
# Seem to create or be in the middle of personal or political difference that slow the work of the group.
# Seek the public spotlight, in the name of your group, and then make comments or present an image different from the rest of the group.
# Urge the use of violence or breaking the law, and provide information and resources to enable such ventures.
# Have no obvious source of income over a period of time, or have more money available than his or her job should pay.
# Charge other people with being agents, (a process called snitch-jackets), thereby diverting attention from him or herself, and draining the group's energy from other work.
THESE ARE NOT THE ONLY SIGNS, NOR IS A PERSON WHO FITS SEVERAL OF THESE CATEGORIES NECESSARILY AN AGENT. BE EXTREMELY CAUTIONS AND DO NOT CALL ANOTHER PERSON AN AGENT WITHOUT HAVEING SUBSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
Courts have consistently found that an individual who provides information, even if it is incriminating, to an informer has not had his or her Constitutional rights violated. This includes the use of tape recorders or electronic transmitters as well.
Lawsuits in Los Angeles, Chicago and elsewhere, alleging infiltration of lawful political groups have resulted in court orders limiting the use of police informers and infiltrators. However, this does not affect activities of federal agencies.
If you find evidence of surveillance: Hold a meeting to discuss spying and harassment
# Determine if any of your members have experienced any harassment or noticed any surveillance activities that appear to be directed at the organization's activities. Carefully record all the details of these and see if any patterns develop.
# Review past suspicious activities or difficulties in your group. Has one or several people been involved in many of these events? List other possible "evidence" of infiltration.
# Develop internal policy on how the group should respond to any possible surveillance or suspicious actions. Decide who should be the contact person(s), what information should be recorded, what process to follow during any event or demonstration if disruption tactics are used.
# Consider holding a public meeting to discuss spying in your community and around the country. Schedule a speaker or film discussing political surveillance.
# Make sure to protect important documents or computer disks, by keeping a second copy in a separate, secret location. Use fireproof, locked cabinets if possible.
# Implement a sign-in policy for your office and/or meetings. This is helpful for your organizing, developing a mailing list, and can provide evidence that an infiltrator or informer was at your meeting.
Appoint a contact for spying concerns
This contact person or committee should implement the policy developed above and should be given to authority to act, to get others to respond should any problems occur.
The contact should:
# Seek someone familiar with surveillance history and law, such as the local chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Conference of Black Lawyers or the American Friends Service Committee. Brief them about your evidence and suspicions. They will be able to make suggestions about actions to take, as well as organizing and legal contacts. In the SF Bay Area, the NLG hotline # is: 415/285-1011.
# Maintain a file of all suspected or confirmed experiences of surveillance and disruption. Include: date, place, time, who was present, a complete descriptions of everything that happened, and any comments explaining the context of the event or showing what impact the event had on the individual or organization. If this is put in deposition form and signed, it can be used as evidence in court.
# Under the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy act, request any files on the organization from federal agencies such as the FBI, CIA, Immigration and Naturalization, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, etc. File similar requests with local and state law enforcement agencies, if your state freedom of information act applies.
Prepare for major demonstrations and events
# Plan ahead; brief your legal workers on appropriate state and federal statutes on police and federal official spying. Discuss whether photographing with still or video cameras is anticipated and decide if you want to challenge it.
# If you anticipate surveillance, brief reporters who are expected to cover the event, and provide them with materials about past surveillance by your city's police in the past, and/or against other activists throughout the country.
# Tell the participants when surveillance is anticipated and discuss what the group's response will be. Also, decide how to handle provocateurs, police violence, etc. and incorporate this into any affinity group, marshall or other training.
During the event:
# Carefully monitor the crowd, looking for surveillance or possible disruption tactics. Photograph any suspicious or questionable activities.
# Approach police officer(s) seen engaging in questionable activities. Consider having a legal worker and/or press person monitor their actions. If you suspect someone is an infiltrator:
# Try to obtain information about his or her background: where s/he attended high school and college; place of employment, and other pieces of history. Attempt to verify this information.
# Check public records which include employment; this can include voter registration, mortgages or other debt filings, etc.
# Check listings of police academy graduates, if available.
Once you obtain evidence that someone is an infiltrator:
# Confront him or her in a protected setting, such as a small meeting with several other key members of your group (and an attorney if available). Present the evidence and ask for the person's response.
# You should plan how to inform your members about the infiltration, gathering information about what the person did while a part of the group and determining any additional impact s/he may have had.
# You should consider contacting the press with evidence of the infiltration.
If you can only gather circumstantial evidence, but are concerned that the person is disrupting the group:
# Hold a strategy session with key leadership as to how to handle the troublesome person.
# Confront the troublemaker, and lay out why the person is disrupting the organization. Set guidelines for further involvement and carefully monitor the person's activities. If the problems continue, consider asking the person to leave the organization.
# If sufficient evidence is then gathered which indicates s/he is an infiltrator, confront the person with the information in front of witnesses and carefully watch reactions.
Request an investigation or make a formal complaint
# Report telephone difficulties to your local and long distance carriers. Ask for a check on the lines to assure that the equipment is working properly. Ask them to do a sweep/check to see if any wiretap equipment is attached (Sometimes repair staff can be very helpful in this way.) If you can afford it, request a sweep of your phone and office or home form a private security firm. Remember this will only be good at the time that the sweep is done.
# File a formal complaint with the U.S. Postal Service, specifying the problems you have been experiencing, specific dates, and other details. If mail has failed to arrive, ask the Post Office to trace the envelope or package.
# Request a formal inquiry by the police, if you have been the subject of surveillance or infiltration. Describe any offending actions by police officers and ask a variety of questions. If an activity was photographed, ask what will be done with the pictures. Set a time when you expect a reply from the police chief. Inform members of the City Council and the press of your request.
# If you are not pleased with the results of the police chief's reply, file a complaint with the Police Board or other administrative body. Demand a full investigation. Work with investigators to insure that all witnesses are contacted. Monitor the investigation and respond publicly to the conclusions. Initiate a lawsuit if applicable federal or local statues have been violated.
Before embarking on a lawsuit, remember that most suits take many years to complete and require tremendous amounts of organizers' and legal workers' energy and money.
Always notify the press when you have a good story
Keep interested reporters updated on any new developments. They may be aware of other police abuses, or be able to obtain further evidence of police practices.
Press coverage of spying activities is very important, because publicity conscious politicians and police chiefs will be held accountable for questionable practices.
Good organizers should be acquainted with this sordid part of American history, and with the signs that may indicate their group is the target of an investigation.
HOWEVER, DO NOT LET PARANOIA immobilize you. The results of paranoia and overreaction to evidence of surveillance can be just as disruptive to an organization as an actual infiltrator or disruption campaign.
Although covert action will be adapted to changing social and technological conditions, only a limited number of methods exist. A study of COINTELPRO revealed four basic approaches.
* First, there was infiltration. Agents and informers did not merely spy on political activists. The main purpose was to discredit and disrupt. Their presence served to undermine trust and scare off potential supporters. They also exploited this fear to smear genuine activists as agents.
* Second, there was psychological warfare from the outside. They planted false media stories and published bogus leaflets and other publications in the name of targeted groups. They forged correspondence, sent anonymous letters, and made anonymous telephone calls. They spread misinformation about meetings and events, set up pseudo movement groups run by agents, and manipulated or strong-armed parents, employers, landlords, school officials and others to cause trouble for activists.
* Third, there was harassment through the legal system, used to harass dissidents and make them appear to be criminals. Officers gave perjured testimony and presented fabricated evidence as a pretext for false arrests and wrongful imprisonment. They discriminatorily enforced tax laws and other government regulations and used conspicuous surveillance, "investigative" interviews, and grand jury subpoenas in an effort to intimidate activists and silence their supporters.
* Fourth and finally, there was extralegal force and violence. The FBI and police threatened, instigated and conducted break-ins, vandalism, assaults, and beatings. The object was to frighten dissidents and disrupt their movements. In the case of radical Black and Puerto Rican activists (and later Native Americans), these attacks, including political assassinations, were so extensive, vicious, and calculated that they can only be accurately called a form of official "terrorism."
A CHECK-LIST OF ESSENTIAL PRECAUTIONS:
-Check out the authenticity of any disturbing letter, rumor, phone call or other communication before acting on it.
-Document incidents which appear to reflect covert intervention, and report them to the Movement Support Network Hotline: 212/477- 5562.
-Deal openly and honestly with the differences within our movements (race, gender, class, age, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, personality, experience, physical and intellectual capacities, etc.) before the FBI and police exploit them to tear us apart.
-Don't rush to expose a suspected agent. Instead, directly criticize what the suspect says and does. Intra-movement witch hunts only help the government create distrust and paranoia.
-Support whoever comes under government attack. Don't be put off by political slander, such as recent attempts to smear radical activists as "terrorists." Organize public opposition to FBI investigations, grand juries, show trials and other forms of political harassment.
-Above all, do not let them divert us from our main work. Our most powerful weapon against political repression is effective organizing around the needs and issues which directly affect people's lives.
WHAT THEY DO & HOW WE CAN PROTECT OURSELVES
INFILTRATION BY AGENTS OR INFORMERS
Agents are law enforcement officers disguised as activists.
Informers are non-agents who provide information to a law enforcement or intelligence agency. They may be recruited from within a group or sent in by an agency, or they may be disaffected former members or supporters.
Infiltrators are agents or informers who work in a group or community under the direction of a law enforcement or intelligence agency. During the 60s the FBI had to rely on informers (who are less well trained and harder to control) because it had very few black, Hispanic or female agents, and its strict dress and grooming code left white male agents unable to look like activists. As a modern equal opportunity employer, today's FBI has fewer such limitations.
What They Do: Some informers and infiltrators quietly provide information while keeping a low profile and doing whatever is expected of group members. Others attempt to discredit a target and disrupt its work. They may spread false rumors and make unfounded accusations to provoke or exacerbate tensions and splits. They may urge divisive proposals, sabotage important activities and resources, or operate as "provocateurs" who lead zealous activists into unnecessary danger. In a demonstration or other confrontation with police, such an agent may break discipline and call for actions which would undermine unity and detract from tactical focus.
Infiltration As a Source of Distrust and Paranoia: While individual agents and informers aid the government in a variety of specific ways, the general use of infiltrators serves a very special and powerful strategic function. The fear that a group may be infiltrated often intimidates people from getting more involved. It can give rise to a paranoia which makes it difficult to build the mutual trust which political groups depend on. This use of infiltrators, enhanced by covertly-initiated rumors that exaggerate the extent to which a particular movement or group has been penetrated, is recommended by the manuals used to teach counter-insurgency in the U.S. and Western Europe.
Covert Manipulation to Make A Legitimate Activist Appear to be an Agent: An actual agent will often point the finger at a genuine, non-collaborating and highly-valued group member, claiming that he or she is the infiltrator. The same effect, known as a "snitch jacket," has been achieved by planting forged documents which appear to be communications between an activist and the FBI, or by releasing for no other apparent reason one of a group of activists who were arrested together. Another method used under COINTELPRO was to arrange for some activists, arrested under one pretext or another, to hear over the police radio a phony broadcast which appeared to set up a secret meeting between the police and someone from their group.
GUIDELINES FOR COPING WITH INFILTRATION:
# l. Establish a process through which anyone who suspects an informer (or other form of covert intervention) can express his or her fears without scaring others. Experienced people assigned this responsibility can do a great deal to help a group maintain its morale and focus while, at the same time, centrally consolidating information and deciding how to use it. This plan works best when accompanied by group discussion of the danger of paranoia, so that everyone understands and follows the established procedure.
# 2. To reduce vulnerability to paranoia and "snitch jackets", and to minimize diversion from your main work, it generally is best if you do not attempt to expose a suspected agent or informer unless you are certain of their role. (For instance, they surface to make an arrest, testify as a government witness or in some other way admit their identity). Under most circumstances, an attempted exposure will do more harm than the infiltrator's continued presence. This is especially true if you can discreetly limit the suspect's access to funds, financial records, mailing lists, discussions of possible law violations, meetings that plan criminal defense strategy, and similar opportunities.
# 3. Deal openly and directly with the form and content of what anyone says and does, whether the person is a suspected agent, has emotional problems, or is simply a sincere, but naive or confused person new to the work.
# 4. Once an agent or informer has been definitely identified, alert other groups and communities by means of photographs, a description of their methods of operation, etc. In the 60s, some agents managed even after their exposure in one community to move on and repeat their performance in a number of others.
# 5. Be careful to avoid pushing a new or hesitant member to take risks beyond what that person is ready to handle, particularly in situations which could result in arrest and prosecution. People in this position have proved vulnerable to recruitment as informers.
OTHER FORMS OF DECEPTION
Bogus leaflets, pamphlets, etc.: COINTELPRO documents show that the FBI routinely put out phony leaflets, posters, pamphlets, etc. to discredit its targets. In one instance, agents revised a children's coloring book which the Black Panther Party had rejected as anti-white and gratuitously violent, and then distributed a cruder version to backers of the Party's program of free breakfasts for children, telling them the book was being used in the program.
False media stories: The FBI's documents expose collusion by reporters and news media that knowingly published false and distorted material prepared by Bureau agents. One such story had Jean Seberg, a noticeably pregnant white film star active in anti-racist causes, carrying the child of a prominent Black leader. Seberg's white husband, the actual father, has sued the FBI as responsible for her resulting still-birth, breakdown, and suicide.
Forged correspondence: Former employees have confirmed that the FBI and CIA have the capacity to produce "state of the art" forgery. The U.S. Senate's investigation of COINTELPRO uncovered a series of letters forged in the name of an intermediary between the Black Panther Party's national office and Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver, in exile in Algeria. The letters proved instrumental in inflaming intra-party rivalries that erupted into the bitter public split that shattered the Party in the winter of 1971.
Anonymous letters and telephone calls: During the 60s, activists received a steady flow of anonymous letters and phone calls which turn out to have been from government agents. Some threatened violence. Others promoted racial divisions and fears. Still others charged various leaders with collaboration, corruption, sexual affairs with other activists' mates, etc. As in the Seberg incident, inter-racial sex was a persistent theme. The husband of one white woman involved in a bi-racial civil rights group received the following anonymous letter authored by the FBI:
--Look, man, I guess your old lady doesn't get enough at home or she wouldn't be shucking and jiving with our Black Men in ACTION, you dig? Like all she wants to integrate is the bedroom and us Black Sisters ain't gonna take no second best from our men. So lay it on her man--or get her the hell off [name]. A Soul Sister
False rumors: Using infiltrators, journalists and other contacts, the Bureau circulated slanderous, disruptive rumors through political movements and the communities in which they worked.
Other misinformation: A favorite FBI tactic uncovered by Senate investigators was to misinform people that a political meeting or event had been cancelled. Another was to offer non- existent housing at phony addresses, stranding out-of-town conference attendees who naturally blamed those who had organized the event. FBI agents also arranged to transport demonstrators in the name of a bogus bus company which pulled out at the last minute. Such "dirty tricks" interfered with political events and turned activists against each other.
SEPARATE BOX:
Fronts for the FBI: COINTELPRO documents reveal that a number of Sixties' political groups and projects were actually set up and operated by the FBI.
One, "Grupo pro-Uso Voto," was used to disrupt the fragile unity developing in l967 among groups seeking Puerto Rico's independence from the US. The genuine proponents of independence had joined together to boycott a US-administered referendum on the island's status. They argued that voting under conditions of colonial domination could serve only to legitimize US rule, and that no vote could be fair while the US controlled the island's economy, media, schools, and police. The bogus group, pretending to support independence, broke ranks and urged independistas to take advantage of the opportunity to register their opinion at the polls.
Since FBI front groups are basically a means for penetrating and disrupting political movements, it is best to deal with them on the basis of the Guidelines for Coping with Infiltration (below).
Confront what a suspect group says and does, but avoid public accusations unless you have definite proof. If you do have such proof, share it with everyone affected.
GUIDELINES FOR COPING WITH OTHER FORMS OF DECEPTION:
# 1. Don't add unnecessarily to the pool of information that government agents use to divide political groups and turn activists against each other. They thrive on gossip about personal tensions, rivalries and disagreements. The more these are aired in public, or via a telephone which can be tapped or mail which can be opened, the easier it is to exploit a groups' problems and subvert its work. (Note that the CIA has the technology to read mail without opening it, and that the telephone network can now be programmed to record any conversation in which specified political terms are used.)
# 2. The best way to reduce tensions and hostilities, and the urge to gossip about them, is to make time for open, honest discussion and resolution of "personal" as well as "political" issues.
# 3. Don't accept everything you hear or read. Check with the supposed source of the information before you act on it. Personal communication among estranged activists, however difficult or painful, could have countered many FBI operations which proved effective in the Sixties.
# 4. When you hear a negative, confusing or potentially harmful rumor, don't pass it on. Instead, discuss it with a trusted friend or with the people in your group who are responsible for dealing with covert intervention.
# 5. Verify and double-check all arrangements for housing, transportation, meeting rooms, and so forth.
# 6. When you discover bogus materials, false media stories, etc., publicly disavow them and expose the true source, insofar as you can.
HARASSMENT, INTIMIDATION & VIOLENCE:
Pressure through employers, landlords, etc.: COINTELPRO documents reveal frequent overt contacts and covert manipulation (false rumors, anonymous letters and telephone calls) to generate pressure on activists from their parents, landlords, employers, college administrators, church superiors, welfare agencies, credit bureaus, licensing authorities, and the like.
Agents' reports indicate that such intervention denied Sixties' activists any number of foundation grants and public speaking engagements. It also cost underground newspapers most of their advertising revenues, when major record companies were persuaded to take their business elsewhere. It may underlie recent steps by insurance companies to cancel policies held by churches giving sanctuary to refugees from El Salvador and Guatemala.
Burglary: Former operatives have confessed to thousands of "black bag jobs" in which FBI agents broke into movement offices to steal, copy or destroy valuable papers, wreck equipment, or plant drugs.
Vandalism: FBI infiltrators have admitted countless other acts of vandalism, including the fire which destroyed the Watts Writers Workshop's multi-million dollar ghetto cultural center in 1973. Late 60s' FBI and police raids laid waste to movement offices across the country, destroying precious printing presses, typewriters, layout equipment, research files, financial records, and mailing lists.
Other direct interference: To further disrupt opposition movements, frighten activists, and get people upset with each other, the FBI tampered with organizational mail, so it came late or not at all. It also resorted to bomb threats and similar "dirty tricks".
Conspicuous surveillance: The FBI and police blatantly watch activists' homes, follow their cars, tap phones, open mail and attend political events. The object is not to collect information (which is done surreptitiously), but to harass and intimidate.
Attempted interviews: Agents have extracted damaging information from activists who don't know they have a legal right to refuse to talk, or who think they can outsmart the FBI. COINTELPRO directives recommend attempts at interviews throughout political movements to "enhance the paranoia endemic in these circles" and "get the point across that there is an FBI agent behind every mailbox."
Grand juries: Unlike the FBI, the Grand Jury has legal power to make you answer its questions. Those who refuse, and are required to accept immunity from use of their testimony against them, can be jailed for contempt of court. (Such "use immunity" enables prosecutors to get around the constitutional protection against self-incrimination.)
The FBI and the US Dept. of Justice have manipulated this process to turn the grand jury into an instrument of political repression. Frustrated by jurors' consistent refusal to convict activists of overtly political crimes, they convened over 100 grand juries between l970 and 1973 and subpoenaed more than 1000 activists from the Black, Puerto Rican, student, women's and anti-war movements. Supposed pursuit of fugitives and "terrorists" was the usual pretext. Many targets were so terrified that they dropped out of political activity. Others were jailed without any criminal charge or trial, in what amounts to a U.S. version of the political internment procedures employed in South Africa and Northern Ireland.
False arrest and prosecution: COINTELPRO directives cite the Philadelphia FBI's success in having local militants "arrested on every possible charge until they could no longer make bail" and "spent most of the summer in jail." Though the bulk of the activists arrested in this manner were eventually released, some were convicted of serious charges on the basis of perjured testimony by FBI agents, or by co-workers who the Bureau had threatened or bribed.
The object was not only to remove experienced organizers from their communities and to divert scarce resources into legal defense, but even more to discredit entire movements by portraying their leaders as vicious criminals. Two victims of such frame-ups, Native American activist Leonard Peltier and 1960s' Black Panther official Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt, have finally gained court hearings on new trial motions.
Others currently struggling to re-open COINTELPRO convictions include Richard Marshall of the American Indian Movement and jailed Black Panthers Herman Bell, Anthony Bottom, Albert Washington (the "NY3"), and Richard "Dhoruba" Moore.
Intimidation: One COINTELPRO communique urged that "The Negro youths and moderates must be made to understand that if they succumb to revolutionary teaching, they will be dead revolutionaries."
Others reported use of threats (anonymous and overt) to terrorize activists, driving some to abandon promising projects and others to leave the country. During raids on movement offices, the FBI and police routinely roughed up activists and threatened further violence. In August, 1970, they forced the entire staff of the Black Panther office in Philadelphia to march through the streets naked.
Instigation of violence: The FBI's infiltrators and anonymous notes and phone calls incited violent rivals to attack Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, and other targets. Bureau records also reveal maneuvers to get the Mafia to move against such activists as black comedian Dick Gregory.
A COINTELPRO memo reported that "shootings, beatings and a high degree of unrest continue to prevail in the ghetto area of southeast San Diego...it is felt that a substantial amount of the unrest is directly attributable to this program."
Covert aid to right-wing vigilantes: In the guise of a COINTELPRO against "white hate groups," the FBI subsidized, armed, directed and protected the Klu Klux Klan and other right-wing groups, including a "Secret Army Organization" of California ex-Minutemen who beat up Chicano activists, tore apart the offices of the San Diego Street Journal and the Movement for a Democratic Military, and tried to kill a prominent anti-war organizer. Puerto Rican activists suffered similar terrorist assaults from anti-Castro Cuban groups organized and funded by the CIA.
Defectors from a band of Chicago-based vigilantes known as the "Legion of Justice" disclosed that the funds and arms they used to destroy book stores, film studios and other centers of opposition had secretly been supplied by members of the Army's 113th Military Intelligence Group.
Assassination: The FBI and police were implicated directly in murders of Black and Native American leaders. In Chicago, police assassinated Black Panthers Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, using a floor plan supplied by an FBI informer who apparently also had drugged Hampton's food to make him unconscious during the raid.
FBI records show that this accomplice received a substantial bonus for his services. Despite an elaborate cover-up, a blue-ribbon commission and a U.S Court of Appeals found the deaths to be the result not of a shoot out, as claimed by police, but of a carefully orchestrated, Vietnam-style "search and destroy mission".
GUIDELINES FOR COPING WITH HARASSMENT, INTIMIDATION & VIOLENCE:
# 1. Establish security procedures appropriate to your group's level of activity and discuss them thoroughly with everyone involved. Control access to keys, files, letterhead, funds, financial records, mailing lists, etc. Keep duplicates of valuable documents. Safeguard address books, and do not carry them when arrest is likely.
# 2. Careful records of break-ins, thefts, bomb threats, raids, arrests, strange phone noises (not always taps or bugs), harassment, etc. will help you to discern patterns and to prepare reports and testimony.
# 3. Don't talk to the FBI. Don't let them in without a warrant. Tell others that they came. Have a lawyer demand an explanation and instruct them to leave you alone.
# 4. If an activist does talk, or makes some other honest error, explain the harm that could result. But do not attempt to ostracize a sincere person who slips up. Isolation only weakens a person's ability to resist. It can drive someone out of the movement and even into the arms of the police.
# 5. If the FBI starts to harass people in your area, alert everyone to refuse to cooperate (see box). Call the Movement Support Network's Hotline:(2l2) 614-6422. Set up community meetings with speakers who have resisted similar harassment elsewhere. Get literature, films, etc. through the organizations listed in the back of this pamphlet. Consider "Wanted" posters with photos of the agents, or guerilla theater which follows them through the city streets.
# 6. Make a major public issue of crude harassment, such as tampering with your mail. Contact your congressperson. Call the media. Demonstrate at your local FBI office. Turn the attack into an opportunity for explaining how covert intervention threatens fundamental human rights.
# 7. Many people find it easier to tell an FBI agent to contact their lawyer than to refuse to talk. Once a lawyer is involved, the Bureau generally pulls back, since it has lost its power to intimidate. If possible, make arrangements with a local lawyer and let everyone know that agents who visit them can be referred to that lawyer. If your group engages in civil disobedience or finds itself under intense police pressure, start a bail fund, train some members to deal with the legal system, and develop an ongoing relationship with a sympathetic local lawyer.
# 8. Organizations listed in the back of this pamphlet can also help resist grand jury harassment. Community education is important, along with legal, financial, child care, and other support for those who protect a movement by refusing to divulge information about it. If a respected activist is subpoenaed for obviously political reasons, consider trying to arrange for sanctuary in a local church or synagogue.
# 9. While the FBI and police are entirely capable of fabricating criminal charges, any law violations make it easier for them to set you up. The point is not to get so up-tight and paranoid that you can't function, but to make a realistic assessment based on your visibility and other pertinent circumstances.
# 10. Upon hearing of Fred Hampton's murder, the Black Panthers in Los Angeles fortified their offices and organized a communications network to alert the community and news media in the event of a raid. When the police did attempt an armed assault four days later, the Panthers were able to hold off the attack until a large community and media presence enabled them to leave the office without casualties. Similar preparation can help other groups that have reason to expect right-wing or police assaults.
# 11. Make sure your group designates and prepares other members to step in if leaders are jailed or otherwise incapacitated. The more each participant is able to think for herself or himself and take responsibility, the better will be the group's capacity to cope with crises.
Possible evidence of government spying
Obvious surveillance
Look for:
# Visits by police or federal agents to politically involved individuals, landlords, employers, family members or business associates. These visits may be to ask for information, to encourage or create possibility of eviction or termination of employment, or to create pressure for the person to stop his or her political involvement.
# Uniformed or plainclothes officers taking pictures of people entering your office or participating in your activities. Just before and during demonstrations and other public events, check the area including windows and rooftops for photographers. (Credentialling press can help to separate the media from the spies.)
# People who seem out of place. If they come to your office or attend your events, greet them as potential members. Try to determine if they are really interested in your issues -- or just your members!
# People writing down license plate numbers of cars and other vehicles in the vicinity of your meetings and rallies.
Despite local legislation and several court orders limiting policy spying activities, these investigatory practices have been generally found to be legal unless significant "chilling" of constitutional rights can be proved.
Telephone problems
Electronic surveillance equipment is now so sophisticated that you should not be able to tell if your telephone conversations are being monitored. Clicks, whirrs, and other noises probably indicate a problem in the telephone line or other equipment.
For example, the National Security Agency has the technology to monitor microwave communications traffic, and to isolate all calls to or from a particular line, or to listen for key words that activate a recording device. Laser beams and "spike" microphones can detect sound waves hitting walls and window panes, and then transmit those waves for recording. In these cases, there is little chance that the subject would be able to find out about the surveillance.
Among the possible signs you may find are:
# Hearing a tape recording of a conversation you, or someone else in your home or office, have recently held.
# Hearing people talking about your activities when you try to use the telephone.
# Losing service several days before major events.
Government use of electronic surveillance is governed by two laws, the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Warrants for such surveillance can be obtained if there is evidence of a federal crime, such as murder, drug trafficking, or crimes characteristic of organized crime, or for the purpose of gathering foreign intelligence information available within the U.S. In the latter case, an "agent of a foreign power" can be defined as a representative of a foreign government, from a faction or opposition group, or foreign based political groups.
Mail problems
Because of traditional difficulties with the U.S. Postal Service, some problems with mail delivery will occur, such as a machine catching an end of an envelope and tearing it, or a bag getting lost and delaying delivery.
However, a pattern of problems may occur because of political intelligence gathering:
# Envelopes may have been opened prior to reaching their destination; contents were removed and/or switched with other mail. Remember that the glue on envelopes doesn't work as well when volume or bulk mailings are involved.
# Mail may arrive late, on a regular basis different from others in your neighborhood.
# Mail may never arrive.
There are currently two kinds of surveillance permitted with regards to mail: the mail cover, and opening of mail. The simplest, and lest intrusive form is the "mail cover" in which Postal employees simply list any information that can be obtained from the envelope, or opening second, third or fourth class mail. Opening of first class mail requires a warrant unless it is believed to hold drugs or "ticks." More leeway is given for opening first class international mail.
Burglaries
A common practice during the FBI's Counter- Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) was the use of surreptitious entries or "black bag jobs." Bureau agents were given special training in burglary, key reproduction, etc. for use in entering homes and offices. In some cases, the key could be obtained from "loyal American" landlords or building owners.
Typical indicators are:
# Files, including membership and financial reports are rifled, copied or stolen.
# Items of obvious financial value are left untouched.
# Equipment vital to the organization may be broken or stolen, such as typewriters, printing machinery, and computers.
# Signs of a political motive are left, such as putting a membership list or a poster from an important event in an obvious place.
Although warrantless domestic security searches are in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and any evidence obtained this way cannot be used in criminal proceedings, the Reagan Administration and most recent Presidents (excepting Carter) have asserted the inherent authority to conduct searches against those viewed as agents of a foreign power.
Informers and Infiltrators
Information about an organization or individual can also be obtained by placing an informer or infiltrator. This person may be a police officer, employee of a federal agency, someone who has been charged or convicted of criminal activity and has agreed to "help" instead of serve time, or anyone from the public.
Once someone joins an organization for the purposes of gathering information, the line between data gathering and participation blurs. Two types of infiltrators result -- someone who is under "deep cover" and adapts to the lifestyle of the people they are infiltrating. These people may maintain their cover for many years, and an organization may never know whom these people are. Agents "provocateur" are more visible, because they will deliberately attempt to disrupt or lead the group into illegal activities. They often become involved just as an event or crisis is occurring, and leave town or drop out after the organizing slows down.
An agent may:
# Volunteer for tasks which provide access to important meetings and papers such as financial records, membership lists, minutes and confidential files.
# Not follow through or complete tasks, or else does them poorly despite an obvious ability to do good work.
# Cause problems for a group such as committing it to activities or expenses without following proper channels; urge a group to plan activities that divide group unity.
# Seem to create or be in the middle of personal or political difference that slow the work of the group.
# Seek the public spotlight, in the name of your group, and then make comments or present an image different from the rest of the group.
# Urge the use of violence or breaking the law, and provide information and resources to enable such ventures.
# Have no obvious source of income over a period of time, or have more money available than his or her job should pay.
# Charge other people with being agents, (a process called snitch-jackets), thereby diverting attention from him or herself, and draining the group's energy from other work.
THESE ARE NOT THE ONLY SIGNS, NOR IS A PERSON WHO FITS SEVERAL OF THESE CATEGORIES NECESSARILY AN AGENT. BE EXTREMELY CAUTIONS AND DO NOT CALL ANOTHER PERSON AN AGENT WITHOUT HAVEING SUBSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
Courts have consistently found that an individual who provides information, even if it is incriminating, to an informer has not had his or her Constitutional rights violated. This includes the use of tape recorders or electronic transmitters as well.
Lawsuits in Los Angeles, Chicago and elsewhere, alleging infiltration of lawful political groups have resulted in court orders limiting the use of police informers and infiltrators. However, this does not affect activities of federal agencies.
If you find evidence of surveillance: Hold a meeting to discuss spying and harassment
# Determine if any of your members have experienced any harassment or noticed any surveillance activities that appear to be directed at the organization's activities. Carefully record all the details of these and see if any patterns develop.
# Review past suspicious activities or difficulties in your group. Has one or several people been involved in many of these events? List other possible "evidence" of infiltration.
# Develop internal policy on how the group should respond to any possible surveillance or suspicious actions. Decide who should be the contact person(s), what information should be recorded, what process to follow during any event or demonstration if disruption tactics are used.
# Consider holding a public meeting to discuss spying in your community and around the country. Schedule a speaker or film discussing political surveillance.
# Make sure to protect important documents or computer disks, by keeping a second copy in a separate, secret location. Use fireproof, locked cabinets if possible.
# Implement a sign-in policy for your office and/or meetings. This is helpful for your organizing, developing a mailing list, and can provide evidence that an infiltrator or informer was at your meeting.
Appoint a contact for spying concerns
This contact person or committee should implement the policy developed above and should be given to authority to act, to get others to respond should any problems occur.
The contact should:
# Seek someone familiar with surveillance history and law, such as the local chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Conference of Black Lawyers or the American Friends Service Committee. Brief them about your evidence and suspicions. They will be able to make suggestions about actions to take, as well as organizing and legal contacts. In the SF Bay Area, the NLG hotline # is: 415/285-1011.
# Maintain a file of all suspected or confirmed experiences of surveillance and disruption. Include: date, place, time, who was present, a complete descriptions of everything that happened, and any comments explaining the context of the event or showing what impact the event had on the individual or organization. If this is put in deposition form and signed, it can be used as evidence in court.
# Under the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy act, request any files on the organization from federal agencies such as the FBI, CIA, Immigration and Naturalization, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, etc. File similar requests with local and state law enforcement agencies, if your state freedom of information act applies.
Prepare for major demonstrations and events
# Plan ahead; brief your legal workers on appropriate state and federal statutes on police and federal official spying. Discuss whether photographing with still or video cameras is anticipated and decide if you want to challenge it.
# If you anticipate surveillance, brief reporters who are expected to cover the event, and provide them with materials about past surveillance by your city's police in the past, and/or against other activists throughout the country.
# Tell the participants when surveillance is anticipated and discuss what the group's response will be. Also, decide how to handle provocateurs, police violence, etc. and incorporate this into any affinity group, marshall or other training.
During the event:
# Carefully monitor the crowd, looking for surveillance or possible disruption tactics. Photograph any suspicious or questionable activities.
# Approach police officer(s) seen engaging in questionable activities. Consider having a legal worker and/or press person monitor their actions. If you suspect someone is an infiltrator:
# Try to obtain information about his or her background: where s/he attended high school and college; place of employment, and other pieces of history. Attempt to verify this information.
# Check public records which include employment; this can include voter registration, mortgages or other debt filings, etc.
# Check listings of police academy graduates, if available.
Once you obtain evidence that someone is an infiltrator:
# Confront him or her in a protected setting, such as a small meeting with several other key members of your group (and an attorney if available). Present the evidence and ask for the person's response.
# You should plan how to inform your members about the infiltration, gathering information about what the person did while a part of the group and determining any additional impact s/he may have had.
# You should consider contacting the press with evidence of the infiltration.
If you can only gather circumstantial evidence, but are concerned that the person is disrupting the group:
# Hold a strategy session with key leadership as to how to handle the troublesome person.
# Confront the troublemaker, and lay out why the person is disrupting the organization. Set guidelines for further involvement and carefully monitor the person's activities. If the problems continue, consider asking the person to leave the organization.
# If sufficient evidence is then gathered which indicates s/he is an infiltrator, confront the person with the information in front of witnesses and carefully watch reactions.
Request an investigation or make a formal complaint
# Report telephone difficulties to your local and long distance carriers. Ask for a check on the lines to assure that the equipment is working properly. Ask them to do a sweep/check to see if any wiretap equipment is attached (Sometimes repair staff can be very helpful in this way.) If you can afford it, request a sweep of your phone and office or home form a private security firm. Remember this will only be good at the time that the sweep is done.
# File a formal complaint with the U.S. Postal Service, specifying the problems you have been experiencing, specific dates, and other details. If mail has failed to arrive, ask the Post Office to trace the envelope or package.
# Request a formal inquiry by the police, if you have been the subject of surveillance or infiltration. Describe any offending actions by police officers and ask a variety of questions. If an activity was photographed, ask what will be done with the pictures. Set a time when you expect a reply from the police chief. Inform members of the City Council and the press of your request.
# If you are not pleased with the results of the police chief's reply, file a complaint with the Police Board or other administrative body. Demand a full investigation. Work with investigators to insure that all witnesses are contacted. Monitor the investigation and respond publicly to the conclusions. Initiate a lawsuit if applicable federal or local statues have been violated.
Before embarking on a lawsuit, remember that most suits take many years to complete and require tremendous amounts of organizers' and legal workers' energy and money.
Always notify the press when you have a good story
Keep interested reporters updated on any new developments. They may be aware of other police abuses, or be able to obtain further evidence of police practices.
Press coverage of spying activities is very important, because publicity conscious politicians and police chiefs will be held accountable for questionable practices.
SF 8 court update - "big" surprise, shotgun purchased on internet is no match
In a brief court hearing on Friday, January 23rd, attorneys for the San
Francisco 8, once again, tried to pry discovery (potential evidence) from
the prosecution.
California State Prosecutors revealed that federal wiretaps of the
defendants were reviewed by a US Attorney's "taint team" which deemed them
non-discoverable (not to be made available to the defense) because they lack
relevance. This was immediately challenged by defense attorneys who argued
that the federal government cannot be expected to determine the relevance of
their own surveillance given the history of COINTELPRO (the FBI's counter
intelligence program) which targeted the Black Panther Party and these very
defendants for the last 40 years. In light of this history and the fact that
this very prosecution was started by the federal government after 2000,
several defense attorneys argued, you can't say that the Federal Government
and the FBI have no interest in this case, and those same agencies cannot
determine the relevance or lack of relevance of these wiretaps.
John Philipsborn, who represents Hank Jones, made it very clear that there
is substantial evidence of close FBI surveillance of several of these
defendants along with many other people associated with the Black Panther
Party. It is more than reasonable, he argued, that the defense team
determine the relevance of the wiretaps, not just a federal "taint team."
Judge Moscone agreed to review an affidavit from this "taint team" and rule
on these wiretaps.
Chuck Bordon, who represents Francisco Torres, once again argued that all
fingerprint evidence be turned over by the prosecution. These requests were
originally made at the beginning of these hearings and still have not been
fully complied with.
Close to 200 pages of additional materials are being deemed
"non-discoverable" by the California prosecutors on behalf of New York
prosecutors. These documents date back to the 1970s and the New York 3 case
– which was tried twice and resulted in the convictions of Herman Bell,
Jalil Muntaqim and Nuh Washington (now deceased). The events connected to
that New York case are being re-raised in one of the conspiracy counts
against Herman Bell, Jalil Muntaqim and Francisco Torres. Not only is the
prosecution raising more than 30-year old legal issues that have already
been tried, but they are clearly trying to limit raising issues of
COINTELPRO, the use of torture, and the government conspiracy to destroy the
Black liberation movement.
Before the hearing ended, prosecutors revealed that the highly touted
shotgun that was purchased through the internet and sent to the FBI labs
last October for testing as the "missing murder weapon," has now been found
to NOT match any other weapons evidence in this case. That weapon, much like
the highly touted DNA swabs taken in June of 2006 and only last year
determined to not match any of the defendants, only served as the
prosecutor's "new evidence" argument to the media, and turns out to be yet
another lie.
The next discovery hearing is scheduled for March 6th at 9:30 am in
Department 22.
Francisco 8, once again, tried to pry discovery (potential evidence) from
the prosecution.
California State Prosecutors revealed that federal wiretaps of the
defendants were reviewed by a US Attorney's "taint team" which deemed them
non-discoverable (not to be made available to the defense) because they lack
relevance. This was immediately challenged by defense attorneys who argued
that the federal government cannot be expected to determine the relevance of
their own surveillance given the history of COINTELPRO (the FBI's counter
intelligence program) which targeted the Black Panther Party and these very
defendants for the last 40 years. In light of this history and the fact that
this very prosecution was started by the federal government after 2000,
several defense attorneys argued, you can't say that the Federal Government
and the FBI have no interest in this case, and those same agencies cannot
determine the relevance or lack of relevance of these wiretaps.
John Philipsborn, who represents Hank Jones, made it very clear that there
is substantial evidence of close FBI surveillance of several of these
defendants along with many other people associated with the Black Panther
Party. It is more than reasonable, he argued, that the defense team
determine the relevance of the wiretaps, not just a federal "taint team."
Judge Moscone agreed to review an affidavit from this "taint team" and rule
on these wiretaps.
Chuck Bordon, who represents Francisco Torres, once again argued that all
fingerprint evidence be turned over by the prosecution. These requests were
originally made at the beginning of these hearings and still have not been
fully complied with.
Close to 200 pages of additional materials are being deemed
"non-discoverable" by the California prosecutors on behalf of New York
prosecutors. These documents date back to the 1970s and the New York 3 case
– which was tried twice and resulted in the convictions of Herman Bell,
Jalil Muntaqim and Nuh Washington (now deceased). The events connected to
that New York case are being re-raised in one of the conspiracy counts
against Herman Bell, Jalil Muntaqim and Francisco Torres. Not only is the
prosecution raising more than 30-year old legal issues that have already
been tried, but they are clearly trying to limit raising issues of
COINTELPRO, the use of torture, and the government conspiracy to destroy the
Black liberation movement.
Before the hearing ended, prosecutors revealed that the highly touted
shotgun that was purchased through the internet and sent to the FBI labs
last October for testing as the "missing murder weapon," has now been found
to NOT match any other weapons evidence in this case. That weapon, much like
the highly touted DNA swabs taken in June of 2006 and only last year
determined to not match any of the defendants, only served as the
prosecutor's "new evidence" argument to the media, and turns out to be yet
another lie.
The next discovery hearing is scheduled for March 6th at 9:30 am in
Department 22.
Monday, January 19, 2009
APOC Letter in Poster Form
In the follow up to the rioting in Oakland after the murder of Oscar Grant there has been some hand wringing from those who wished to contain the protests for their own gain. Petaluma Cop Watch published this extremely disappointing letter.
This poster, with a few additions, draws its text from a letter that addressed dismissive reactions to the rage that took place the night of the 7th.
Confronting CAPE's Kum-ba-yaa
Minister of Information JR from the POCC (Prisoners of Conscience Committee) latest article is a reportback on the rally that happened Jan 14th and is definitely worth a read.
After the rally officially ended at 7pm CAPE's (Coalition Against Police Executions) rally-marshals linked arms to block protesters from heading towards an attacked bank and repeatedly shouted "go home." A contingent mostly comprised of youth busted out the windows of Wells Fargo, Radioshack, and other corporations in downtown Oakland (video).
After the rally officially ended at 7pm CAPE's (Coalition Against Police Executions) rally-marshals linked arms to block protesters from heading towards an attacked bank and repeatedly shouted "go home." A contingent mostly comprised of youth busted out the windows of Wells Fargo, Radioshack, and other corporations in downtown Oakland (video).
Friday, January 16, 2009
Riots erupt in Oakland after funeral of Oscar Grant
"We live a life of fear, and we want them to be afraid tonight,"
-anonymous female rioter
In the early hours of January 1st, Bay Area Metro Transit (BART) police shot and killed a 22 year old man, Oscar Grant, on the platform of the Fruitvale BART station in Oakland. Grant was being held on the ground by two officers and was not struggling as another cop, Officer Johannes Mehserle, took out his gun and shot Grant in the back fatally wounding him. All of this took place in front of a crowd of people some of whom filmed the murder with cell phone cameras.
On January 7th Grant's funeral, as well as protests took place. A march leaving from the metro station where Grant was murdered made its way to downtown Oakland where the crowds fury was unleashed. Dumpsters were set on fire and a police cruiser was attacked, police counter attacked and over the course of the night cars were set on fire, businesses were attacked, and over 100 arrests were made.
Breaking News as it happened from Indybay
Video of Oscar's Murder:
Video of the rioting:
More footage
and here
Oakland rebellion: Eyewitness report by POCC Minister of Information JR
During the first Wednesday of 2009, downtown Oakland was physically rocked by the justified fury that the rebellions brought out in response to the police killing of 22-year-old unarmed Black male Oscar Grant, who was fatally shot at the Fruitvale BART station while he was face down, being restrained by two officers, in front of dozens of witnesses New Year’s morning.
For me, that day of protesting started at the Fruitvale BART station with a peaceful rally that was organized by members of the Bay Area’s activist community. Speakers included Crea Gomez, a community non-profit advocate, local rappers like Zion of Zion I and Mistah FAB, as well as concerned community members like myself who were appalled at the police murder. I was there as a member of the Black community demanding justice for the police murder of Oscar Grant, as well as I was in attendance as a journalist on assignment.
When I arrived a little bit after the protest started, I witnessed at least 200-300 people who were demanding justice for Oscar Grant’s family at the BART station. BART had shut down the station so that it would slow the pace of protesters who could have used the BART to get to the rally but had to rely on Oakland’s slow ass bus system to make their voices heard. People of all nationalities, ages, classes and religions were chanting angry slogans led by the speakers: “Fuck the police!” “No justice, no peace!” “Justice for Oscar Grant!”
One of the things that struck me most about this rally was the fact that it was so many people who were moved to protest in East Oakland, which is rare during a workday. The question that I asked on the microphone when it was my turn to speak was, “Why didn’t people come out when Bay Area police officers murdered unarmed Terrence Mearis, unarmed Casper Banjo, unarmed Anita Gaye, unarmed Gary King, unarmed Gus Rugley, unarmed Cammerin Boyd, unarmed Idriss Stelley or when the police terrorized 15-year-old unarmed Laronte Studesville, unarmed Randy Murphy or unarmed Nadra Foster? Is it because these cases were not caught on camera?”
It seemed to me that people have to see police atrocities on television to believe that they happen in the Black community, when young Black males in the Bay Area and all over the country know from experience that the police have a legal license to kill you, severely beat you or frame you with no repercussions. An example of this is the Oscar Grant case, where he was unarmed and shot point blank, while being restrained by two officers and surrounded by at least three more, yet no one was charged with murder, manslaughter or as an accessory to murder. After a few hours, this demonstration ended peacefully, with the remaining protesters marching to downtown Oakland.
I left and went and hung out with some of my friends that were at the Fruitvale BART protest. About an hour later, I got a call telling me that I needed to cover what was going on in the streets of downtown. When I got there, I saw dozens of police in a huge circle on 14th and Broadway, occupying the intersection in front of City Hall. The Oakland hummer, the tank-like armored vehicle that was shown on the news, had just shown up.
On one block, the militant activists were shouting slogans face to face with police. Behind them, a few bands broken up into racial groups were smashing car windshields and storefronts on 14th, using their feet and their skateboards. Many of the white protesters, who had their faces covered up, were involved in setting cars on fire. I was photographing this historic time, where the people’s patience ran short on city officials, including the mayor, who refused to indict any of the officers involved.
Since this day, I have seen many reports talking about white invaders taking over the rebellion, which is b.s. Yes, they played a part, but so did everyone else. They didn’t take over anything, and the Black, Brown and Asian youth involved were taking leadership from themselves, not the white people.
I’ve also heard some criticisms of the rebels, because of the fact that they tore up innocent people’s property. But the reality is that the peaceful protest outside of Fruitvale BART as well as the meeting of ministers, reverends and local politicians that took place that morning demanding an explanation from the D.A. did not put the mayor, police and city officials on notice nor did those actions have the energy behind them to make the police execution of Oscar Grant a national story.
The rebellion did. As a matter of fact, during the rebellion, Mayor Dellums had a secret meeting with many of these suit-types, then proceeded to walk through the rebellion like Black Jesus, with about 50 primarily Black people in suits following him across Broadway to City Hall, where he held a press conference. Needless to say, the protesters he was talking to demanded that he indict all of the officers involved, but the mayor clouded the issue with words like “respect” and “civility” while the city was burning and being trashed in the backdrop due to his negligence in dealing with a police force that has a notorious history of terrorism in the Black community - as if it had not been police who shot an unarmed Black man, Oscar Grant, a week prior.
Once the mayor was booed and run off from his press conference, Round 2 of the rebellion began, claiming Broadway and 17th. This was at about 9 p.m. The Oakland police escalated their attacks on protesters by six or seven of them at one time breaking ranks from the other dozens of officers they were originally standing with to tackle and arrest anyone in the vicinity. Another tactic utilized by the OPD was to roll up to an intersection in a hummer with about 10 pigs hanging off of it, and the cops would jump off, brutally arresting everyone in reach.
I was arrested in front of the Ron Dellums Federal Building, after at least two officers broke out running after me for no reason, tackled me to the cement, injuring my left leg, and bouncing my camera off of the ground. I was charged with the trumped up charge of felony arson. Luckily, a few legal observers from the National Lawyers Guild saw the whole episode.
After I was arrested and in the paddy wagon, I heard a dispatcher say that the police needed to confiscate all cameras and camera phones from arrestees, which they did, so that they could use this info as evidence in different cases. To add to their reasoning, they also wanted to cover up and slow down the amount of information that could be posted, broadcast and published that was live from the street rebellion in Oakland, where protesters were being routinely roughed up and beaten by the Oakland police, while the mayor, who was on the scene, refused to act in this case, as well as in the case of Oscar Grant. A week later, I still don’t have my camera, which I use daily to bring in an income to support myself and feed my family.
When I got locked up, the solidarity was amazing. Blacks, Latinos, Asians and whites were in North County being booked on misdemeanor charges like “inciting a riot,” “vandalism” and “failure to disperse.” I was reportedly one of three or four who were charged with a felony directly related to the case. A guy that I got booked into Santa Rita with, a Black Puerto Rican, was charged with “felony vandalism.”
Now the truth of the matter is that most people arrested were cited out, but the felony charges were saved for Blacks and Latinos. Me and the brotha were the only ones on our bus to Santa Rita who had to put on the “Yellows,” which represent violent inmates, while the rest of the people on the bus with us put on “Blues,” which designate a prisoner as general population.
Behind enemy lines, the inmates at Santa Rita put their fists in the air, smiled, cheered and gave us dap when we told them that we were being held captive because we were in the streets during the rebellion. Mexicans were congratulating Blacks, Blacks were congratulating whites, Norteños (a Latino street organization) were congratulating Bloods (a Southern Cali street organization), who are their rivals, for their participation in fighting the police and the city for justice against police terrorism.
When it is all said and done, I’m proud of Oakland people in general and youngstas specifically for standing up to the occupying army in our community: the police and the city officials that support the system that lets the police kill us wantonly. Like what was being said in the streets of the rebellion, “Oscar Grant is not Sean Bell, and New York is not Oakland.” In other words, we are not just taking this police murder sitting down, like other big cities have in recent years.
I’m proud of Oakland people in general and youngstas specifically for standing up to the occupying army in our community: the police and the city officials that support the system that lets the police kill us wantonly.
The rebellion was just the beginning of a longer political education class in Amerikkkan politics and how it fails to meet the needs of its Black and Brown low income dwellers. I will continue to cover how the cops who were involved in the shooting of Oscar Grant are handled by the city, how the protesters who caught charges in the rebellion are handled, as well as see how the police are handled after they were brutally beating people up, framing people at the rebellion and stealing their cameras and telephones without warrants to build cases against people.
Don’t miss these upcoming events
The arrested protesters’ next hearing is this Friday, Jan. 16, 9 a.m., in Department 112 of the Wiley M. Manuel Courthouse, 661 Washington St. in downtown Oakland. Strong support from the community will help win justice for Oscar Grant and for the protesters.
You could hear from the family of Oscar Grant and from protesters, community leaders and artists at the “Town Bizness Townhall Meeting - Against Police Terrorism” on Friday, Jan. 23, at the legendary Black Dot Café, 1195 Pine St. in West Oakland at 6 p.m. It is free. All are invited. For more information, you could hit up www.blockreportradio.com and www.sfbayview.com .
Thanks to the generous support of Black Repertory Group Theater producer Sean Vaughn Scott, the matinee performance of Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf” on Saturday, Feb. 7, will benefit my legal defense fund and Block Report Radio. Doors will open at noon for a talk by Prisoners of Conscience Committee Chairman Fred Hampton Jr., and the play will follow.
Meanwhile, here’s what you can do
Demand that the police involved in the execution of Oscar Grant be charged and that the trumped up charges against JR Valrey and all the other arrested protesters be dropped immediately. Call, mail, fax or email:
• Mayor Ron Dellums, 1 Frank Ogawa Plaza, 3rd Floor, Oakland, CA 94612, (510) 238-3141, fax (510) 238-4731,
officeofthemayor@oaklandnet.com
• District Attorney Tom Orloff, 1225 Fallon Street, Room 900, Oakland, CA 94612, (510) 272-6222, fax (510) 271-5157,
cci@acgov.org
• Congresswoman Barbara Lee, 1301 Clay Street, Suite 1000-N, Oakland, CA 94612, (510) 763-0370, fax (510) 763-6538; for email, go to http://lee.house.gov/?sectionid=128§iontree=18,128 .
Also, all who can are urged to offer your financial support to Minister of Information JR for his legal defense and to replace his camera by donating online at www.SFBayView.com . You can also donate by credit card by calling the Bay View at (415) 671-0789 or you can mail your donation to SF Bay View, 4917 Third St., San Francisco CA 94124.
Email POCC Minister of Information JR at
blockreportradio@gmail.com and visit www.blockreportradio.com.
During the first Wednesday of 2009, downtown Oakland was physically rocked by the justified fury that the rebellions brought out in response to the police killing of 22-year-old unarmed Black male Oscar Grant, who was fatally shot at the Fruitvale BART station while he was face down, being restrained by two officers, in front of dozens of witnesses New Year’s morning.
For me, that day of protesting started at the Fruitvale BART station with a peaceful rally that was organized by members of the Bay Area’s activist community. Speakers included Crea Gomez, a community non-profit advocate, local rappers like Zion of Zion I and Mistah FAB, as well as concerned community members like myself who were appalled at the police murder. I was there as a member of the Black community demanding justice for the police murder of Oscar Grant, as well as I was in attendance as a journalist on assignment.When I arrived a little bit after the protest started, I witnessed at least 200-300 people who were demanding justice for Oscar Grant’s family at the BART station. BART had shut down the station so that it would slow the pace of protesters who could have used the BART to get to the rally but had to rely on Oakland’s slow ass bus system to make their voices heard. People of all nationalities, ages, classes and religions were chanting angry slogans led by the speakers: “Fuck the police!” “No justice, no peace!” “Justice for Oscar Grant!”
One of the things that struck me most about this rally was the fact that it was so many people who were moved to protest in East Oakland, which is rare during a workday. The question that I asked on the microphone when it was my turn to speak was, “Why didn’t people come out when Bay Area police officers murdered unarmed Terrence Mearis, unarmed Casper Banjo, unarmed Anita Gaye, unarmed Gary King, unarmed Gus Rugley, unarmed Cammerin Boyd, unarmed Idriss Stelley or when the police terrorized 15-year-old unarmed Laronte Studesville, unarmed Randy Murphy or unarmed Nadra Foster? Is it because these cases were not caught on camera?”
It seemed to me that people have to see police atrocities on television to believe that they happen in the Black community, when young Black males in the Bay Area and all over the country know from experience that the police have a legal license to kill you, severely beat you or frame you with no repercussions. An example of this is the Oscar Grant case, where he was unarmed and shot point blank, while being restrained by two officers and surrounded by at least three more, yet no one was charged with murder, manslaughter or as an accessory to murder. After a few hours, this demonstration ended peacefully, with the remaining protesters marching to downtown Oakland.
I left and went and hung out with some of my friends that were at the Fruitvale BART protest. About an hour later, I got a call telling me that I needed to cover what was going on in the streets of downtown. When I got there, I saw dozens of police in a huge circle on 14th and Broadway, occupying the intersection in front of City Hall. The Oakland hummer, the tank-like armored vehicle that was shown on the news, had just shown up.On one block, the militant activists were shouting slogans face to face with police. Behind them, a few bands broken up into racial groups were smashing car windshields and storefronts on 14th, using their feet and their skateboards. Many of the white protesters, who had their faces covered up, were involved in setting cars on fire. I was photographing this historic time, where the people’s patience ran short on city officials, including the mayor, who refused to indict any of the officers involved.
Since this day, I have seen many reports talking about white invaders taking over the rebellion, which is b.s. Yes, they played a part, but so did everyone else. They didn’t take over anything, and the Black, Brown and Asian youth involved were taking leadership from themselves, not the white people.
I’ve also heard some criticisms of the rebels, because of the fact that they tore up innocent people’s property. But the reality is that the peaceful protest outside of Fruitvale BART as well as the meeting of ministers, reverends and local politicians that took place that morning demanding an explanation from the D.A. did not put the mayor, police and city officials on notice nor did those actions have the energy behind them to make the police execution of Oscar Grant a national story.
The rebellion did. As a matter of fact, during the rebellion, Mayor Dellums had a secret meeting with many of these suit-types, then proceeded to walk through the rebellion like Black Jesus, with about 50 primarily Black people in suits following him across Broadway to City Hall, where he held a press conference. Needless to say, the protesters he was talking to demanded that he indict all of the officers involved, but the mayor clouded the issue with words like “respect” and “civility” while the city was burning and being trashed in the backdrop due to his negligence in dealing with a police force that has a notorious history of terrorism in the Black community - as if it had not been police who shot an unarmed Black man, Oscar Grant, a week prior.
Once the mayor was booed and run off from his press conference, Round 2 of the rebellion began, claiming Broadway and 17th. This was at about 9 p.m. The Oakland police escalated their attacks on protesters by six or seven of them at one time breaking ranks from the other dozens of officers they were originally standing with to tackle and arrest anyone in the vicinity. Another tactic utilized by the OPD was to roll up to an intersection in a hummer with about 10 pigs hanging off of it, and the cops would jump off, brutally arresting everyone in reach.I was arrested in front of the Ron Dellums Federal Building, after at least two officers broke out running after me for no reason, tackled me to the cement, injuring my left leg, and bouncing my camera off of the ground. I was charged with the trumped up charge of felony arson. Luckily, a few legal observers from the National Lawyers Guild saw the whole episode.
After I was arrested and in the paddy wagon, I heard a dispatcher say that the police needed to confiscate all cameras and camera phones from arrestees, which they did, so that they could use this info as evidence in different cases. To add to their reasoning, they also wanted to cover up and slow down the amount of information that could be posted, broadcast and published that was live from the street rebellion in Oakland, where protesters were being routinely roughed up and beaten by the Oakland police, while the mayor, who was on the scene, refused to act in this case, as well as in the case of Oscar Grant. A week later, I still don’t have my camera, which I use daily to bring in an income to support myself and feed my family.
When I got locked up, the solidarity was amazing. Blacks, Latinos, Asians and whites were in North County being booked on misdemeanor charges like “inciting a riot,” “vandalism” and “failure to disperse.” I was reportedly one of three or four who were charged with a felony directly related to the case. A guy that I got booked into Santa Rita with, a Black Puerto Rican, was charged with “felony vandalism.”
Now the truth of the matter is that most people arrested were cited out, but the felony charges were saved for Blacks and Latinos. Me and the brotha were the only ones on our bus to Santa Rita who had to put on the “Yellows,” which represent violent inmates, while the rest of the people on the bus with us put on “Blues,” which designate a prisoner as general population.
Behind enemy lines, the inmates at Santa Rita put their fists in the air, smiled, cheered and gave us dap when we told them that we were being held captive because we were in the streets during the rebellion. Mexicans were congratulating Blacks, Blacks were congratulating whites, Norteños (a Latino street organization) were congratulating Bloods (a Southern Cali street organization), who are their rivals, for their participation in fighting the police and the city for justice against police terrorism.When it is all said and done, I’m proud of Oakland people in general and youngstas specifically for standing up to the occupying army in our community: the police and the city officials that support the system that lets the police kill us wantonly. Like what was being said in the streets of the rebellion, “Oscar Grant is not Sean Bell, and New York is not Oakland.” In other words, we are not just taking this police murder sitting down, like other big cities have in recent years.
I’m proud of Oakland people in general and youngstas specifically for standing up to the occupying army in our community: the police and the city officials that support the system that lets the police kill us wantonly.
The rebellion was just the beginning of a longer political education class in Amerikkkan politics and how it fails to meet the needs of its Black and Brown low income dwellers. I will continue to cover how the cops who were involved in the shooting of Oscar Grant are handled by the city, how the protesters who caught charges in the rebellion are handled, as well as see how the police are handled after they were brutally beating people up, framing people at the rebellion and stealing their cameras and telephones without warrants to build cases against people.
Don’t miss these upcoming events
The arrested protesters’ next hearing is this Friday, Jan. 16, 9 a.m., in Department 112 of the Wiley M. Manuel Courthouse, 661 Washington St. in downtown Oakland. Strong support from the community will help win justice for Oscar Grant and for the protesters.
You could hear from the family of Oscar Grant and from protesters, community leaders and artists at the “Town Bizness Townhall Meeting - Against Police Terrorism” on Friday, Jan. 23, at the legendary Black Dot Café, 1195 Pine St. in West Oakland at 6 p.m. It is free. All are invited. For more information, you could hit up www.blockreportradio.com and www.sfbayview.com .
Thanks to the generous support of Black Repertory Group Theater producer Sean Vaughn Scott, the matinee performance of Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf” on Saturday, Feb. 7, will benefit my legal defense fund and Block Report Radio. Doors will open at noon for a talk by Prisoners of Conscience Committee Chairman Fred Hampton Jr., and the play will follow.
Meanwhile, here’s what you can do
Demand that the police involved in the execution of Oscar Grant be charged and that the trumped up charges against JR Valrey and all the other arrested protesters be dropped immediately. Call, mail, fax or email:
• Mayor Ron Dellums, 1 Frank Ogawa Plaza, 3rd Floor, Oakland, CA 94612, (510) 238-3141, fax (510) 238-4731,
officeofthemayor@oaklandnet.com
• District Attorney Tom Orloff, 1225 Fallon Street, Room 900, Oakland, CA 94612, (510) 272-6222, fax (510) 271-5157,
cci@acgov.org
• Congresswoman Barbara Lee, 1301 Clay Street, Suite 1000-N, Oakland, CA 94612, (510) 763-0370, fax (510) 763-6538; for email, go to http://lee.house.gov/?sectionid=128§iontree=18,128 .
Also, all who can are urged to offer your financial support to Minister of Information JR for his legal defense and to replace his camera by donating online at www.SFBayView.com . You can also donate by credit card by calling the Bay View at (415) 671-0789 or you can mail your donation to SF Bay View, 4917 Third St., San Francisco CA 94124.
Email POCC Minister of Information JR at
blockreportradio@gmail.com and visit www.blockreportradio.com.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Bart police shooting: Protest At Fruitvale BART
Wednesday January 07
3:00 PM - 8:00 PM
THERE WILL BE A RALLY AT THE FRUITVALE BART STATION IN RESPONSE TO THE MURDER OF 22YEAR OLD OSCAR GRANT.PLEASE COME OUT AND SHOW YOUR SUPPORT.JANUARY 7TH WEDNESDAY.....3PM-8PM
PLEASE SHOW UP AT THR FRUITEVALE BART STATION AT 3PM- 8PM ON WEDNESDAY JAN.7TH ........THIS IS TO SHOW OUR OUTRAGE AND OUR CALL FOR JUSTICE FOR THE MURDER OF 22 YEAR OLD FATHER OSCAR GRANT.
Wednesday January 07
3:00 PM - 8:00 PM
THERE WILL BE A RALLY AT THE FRUITVALE BART STATION IN RESPONSE TO THE MURDER OF 22YEAR OLD OSCAR GRANT.PLEASE COME OUT AND SHOW YOUR SUPPORT.JANUARY 7TH WEDNESDAY.....3PM-8PM
PLEASE SHOW UP AT THR FRUITEVALE BART STATION AT 3PM- 8PM ON WEDNESDAY JAN.7TH ........THIS IS TO SHOW OUR OUTRAGE AND OUR CALL FOR JUSTICE FOR THE MURDER OF 22 YEAR OLD FATHER OSCAR GRANT.
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