FBI Greenlights Crackdown on Black Lives Matter Protesters

[Stellar]

Much more: Alternet

The FBI is using the actions of a lone gunman as a pretext to attack the Black Lives Matter movement.

The violent events of the past week have placed the country at a decisive moment. Words matter but deeds matter more. Leadership matters. President Obama spoke about the need for real change and new “practices” following the murders by police officers of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota.

He followed that by stating last weekend, "One of the great things about America is that individual citizens and groups of citizens can petition their government, can protest, can speak truth to power. And that is sometimes messy and controversial but because of that ability to protest and engage in free speech, America over time has gotten better. We've all benefited from that.”

But the real truth is that federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies, under the Obama administration, are continuing to fuel and encourage a repressive crackdown on peaceful demonstrators exercising their First Amendment rights and moving for social change in America.

Last weekend, Baton Rouge’s African-American community was repeatedly assaulted by the police as people attempted to peacefully protest the killing of Sterling. The Baton Rouge police were given the green light by President Obama’s FBI to approach this peaceful protest as they would an enemy force. This has been the dangerous pattern of the FBI and other federal law enforcement efforts in the past few years: to suppress social movements in coordination with local police departments.

[uponit7771]

1. +1, seeing the shooter lambasted BLM in his manifesto

[pdom694]

2. When will the FBI crackdown on killer cops?

Its always the little guy. Organized racial profiling continues, while they focus on the little guy. People standing up for what is right. Yes, its tragic what happened in Dallas, but it isn't any more tragic than all of the people of color that are preyed upon by the goon squads. There needs to be some external oversight of these departments, because the fox guarding the hen house isn't working. Until there is some real change in the way these police departments operate, I'm afraid more of these types of incidents are going to occur. People can only stand to see just so much injustice before they feel compelled to act. It may not be right, but I understand.

[craigmatic]

3. So now we live in a country where the kkk isn't considered a terrorist group but they'll do this.

This country is racist as hell man.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

4. The FBI doesn't have to give them the greenlight

They have no jurisdiction in Baton Rouge.

[Igel]

7. A lot of people are unclear on such things.

They don't get that there are different jurisdictions. They don't get separation of powers. All there is is some nebulous "them" that have "all the power" and "the government" that has to fight "them the not-People" on behalf of 'we the People."

[Glassunion]

11. How the fuck else are we supposed to blame Obama then?

[Chakab]

5. Does this surprise anybody? Comey has repeatedly blamed the protest movement for basically

anything and everything that's related to crime over the past few years.

I'd also point out that there is sitting Democratic President, whom the FBI director serves at the pleasure of, but the ensuing rant how the Democratic establishment doesn't actually support any of the grassroots movements in spite of the lip service that they pay to them during election years wouldn't be in the spirit of "party unity."

[MrScorpio]

6. COINTELPRO never really went away

All they did was change the name to something else.

[mountain grammy]

8. Meet the new FBI

same as the old FBI.. J Edgar must be smiling, the racist bastard!

[Javaman]

9. sounds like the chaney 1% doctrine.

oh joy...

[Bernardo de La Paz]

10. Correlation is not causation. Nothing in the excerpt supports the headline's claim. . . nt