Infiltration and Agents Provocateurs
A heavily redacted FBI document revealed that the FBI in 2011 used agent provocateurs against Occupy Houston to gather information and photographs, spy on supporters and activists, and then planned to ‘kill the leadership via suppressed sniper rifles’. A federal judge ruled that the FBI could refuse to release the documents un-redacted to conceal the identities of the infiltrators who joined OH, which the FBI labeled as an ‘organized violent group’.
In January 2015, Eric McDavid, who had been convicted to 19 years for ‘domestic terrorism’ in his role in an Earth Liberation Front plot in California in 2005, was released from prison after serving 9 years when federal prosecutors agreed to a settlement when it was exposed that thousands of pages of evidence were withheld from the defense during the 2007 trial. The concealed evidence included a plethora of information about the FBI agent provocateur known as ‘Anna’, who had a ‘romantic relationship’ with McDavid, and entrapped the small ELF cell into conspiring to bomb the Nimbus Dam, cellphone towers, science labs and other targets. ‘Anna’ was central to entrapping other protesters as well. [Read more →]
Endless War
A leaked classified US government document published by The Intercept gives more precise numbers about people placed on various ‘terrorism’ suspect databases as of August 2013. The Terrorism Screening Database (TSDB) has 680,000 ‘known or suspected terrorists’, with 40% or 280,000 labeled as having ‘no recognized terrorist group affiliation’. An additional 320,000 are in Terrorism Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE). This unclassified information is based on ‘reasonable suspicion’ (not facts or evidence), and is routinely shared to intelligence, military, local police, foreign governments and private companies. The second highest concentration of ‘known or suspected terrorists’ is in Dearborn, Michigan, a city with the largest percentage of Arab-Americans, which makes the racial profiling practices of the databases clear. There are 240 nominations a day to TIDE. The no-fly list contains 47,000 people; 16,000 more people are ‘selectees’ given addition airport screening. TIDE includes more than 860,000 biometric files (face scans, fingerprints, iris scans) on 144,000 people. The Intercept also published the leaked March 2013 Watchlisting Guidance document which details the secret procedures that 19 government agencies use to put people on these various databases.
Rahinah Ibrahim is the first person to successfully challenge her placement on the government no-fly list. The federal court judge ruled that she was not a ‘threat’ to national security and had been placed on the no-fly list because of a bureaucratic ‘mistake’ when the FBI official, Kevin Kelley, filled out the form wrong by checking the ‘wrong boxes’. Her name has to be purged from the list, or the government has to certify her name is already removed. Four American Muslims have filed a lawsuit in which they accuse the FBI of putting them on the no-fly list in order to either intimidate them into becoming informants or retaliating against them for refusing. In another American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawsuit on behalf of 13 US citizens, a federal judge struck down as unconstitutional the procedures people on the list must use to contest their inclusion. The government must create a new remedy process, but the judge did not in any way stop the implementation of the no-fly list.
In April 2014, publicintelligence.net made public a 2011 US Army Commander’s Guide to Biometrics in Afghanistan, which thoroughly details the government’s goal to collect biometric data (facial photos, iris scans, and all ten fingerprints) from every person in Afghanistan. The biopolitical war project includes not only attempting to ID ‘terrorists’ by running the biometrics through Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and FBI databases, but also the management of entire populations. [Read more →]
