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47of74 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun May-17-09 03:39 PM
Original message
FBI infiltrated Iowa anti-war group before GOP convention
Source: The Des Moines Register

An FBI informant and an undercover Minnesota sheriff's deputy spied on political activists in Iowa City last year before the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn.

Confidential FBI documents obtained by The Des Moines Register show an FBI informant was planted among a group described as an "anarchist collective" that met regularly last year in Iowa City. One of the group's goals was to organize street blockades to disrupt the Republican convention, held Sept. 1-4, 2008, where U.S. Sen. John McCain was nominated for president.

Read more: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090517/NEWS/905170341



Time to write another letter to my representatives in Congress.
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MineralMan Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun May-17-09 03:41 PM
Response to Original message
1. Of course they did. Any group that thinks they are able
to exclude infiltration by law enforcement is being foolish. As foolish as the stupid pedophiles who chat online with 13-year-olds. Every third one is a cop.

I guess lessons are never learned.
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MikeNearMcChord Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun May-17-09 03:42 PM
Response to Original message
2. What is it about peace that scares the Law Enforcement community?
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bluestateguy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun May-17-09 04:22 PM
Response to Original message
3. Now it's Obama's FBI
and the bureau should infiltrate these "tea parties" and the anti-abortion troublemakers.
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sce56 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun May-17-09 05:01 PM
Response to Reply #3
5. Sorry but it has been J Edgars for many years the directors may have changed but
Edited on Sun May-17-09 05:03 PM by sce56
Don't believe the President is in charge of it!

Just look at three names of people in the FBI that stopped investigators from searching Moussaoui's computer and their rewards for fucking up!

But the most severe question of government accountability must reside with the U.S. Justice Department and specifically its Federal Bureau of Investigation headquarters in Washington, D.C. FBI headquarters has an incredible documented trail of actions in both assisting the 9/11 terrorists and promoting agents who appear to have assisted them. Here are a dozen examples: Marion “Spike” Bowman, FBI’s National Security Law Unit deputy general counsel who was implicated by Democrat and Republican Senators for refusing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant in the Zacarias Moussaoui investigation, received a Presidential Rank Award and a 20%+ pay increase;

Michael Maltbie, FBI supervisory special agent who was implicated in removing FISA application information that may have helped obtain the warrant against Moussaoui, was promoted to field supervisor in Cleveland;

Maltbie’s boss, David Frasca, the FBI's Radical Fundamentalists unit chief, was implicated by FBI field offices in thwarting the Moussaoui investigation and ignoring the memo from Ken Williams in Phoenix about flight training for Hani Hanjour and other potential hijackers;FBI agent, Gamal Abdel-Hafiz who refused to secretly record another suspected Arab terrorist, was promoted to an anti-terrorism investigation post at the American Embassy in Saudi Arabia;
Of Course Shrub did reward them but we know they have a history at the FBI of completing political dossiers on congress to blackmail them.
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Downwinder Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun May-17-09 04:45 PM
Response to Original message
4. Makes me wonder how many hits DU gets from .GOV addresses. n/t
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gratuitous Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun May-17-09 05:12 PM
Response to Original message
6. We can't investigate torture
But peace groups scare the living bejesus out of our government.
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Downwinder Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun May-17-09 05:16 PM
Response to Reply #6
7. A guilty conscience breeds paranoia. n/t
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kickysnana Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun May-17-09 05:18 PM
Response to Original message
8. If I ran a non-anarchist group today
I would have a contract requirement for anyone who came in the door.

It would agree:

1. that the group advocates legal remedies and only legal remedies and anyone who engages in illegal activity would be expelled, authorities notified and have to pay money to the group.

2. that the person would not discuss, tape or record proceedings without prior authorization and if they did they owed a huge amount of money to the group EVEN IF THAT GROUP WAS LAW ENFORCEMENT.

3. Anyone who lied to the group about who they were owed a huge amount of money to the group.

The fake Lyme Advocacy groups started by managed care operate this way so it must be legal.



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snot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun May-17-09 10:44 PM
Response to Reply #8
10. yeah!!
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Wednesdays Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun May-17-09 08:46 PM
Response to Original message
9. K&R
:kick:
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annm4peace Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun May-17-09 11:08 PM
Response to Original message
11. the MN's DFL leaders let the Secret Service and Homeland security take over the Twincites during RNC
over 800 people were arrested and charged.
I get these emails once a week of the schedule of court hearings.



Keith Smith is the only juvenile I know of who is facing charges resulting from the RNC. You might know him as “boot print boy.” He was beat up badly by the cops. They failed to give him any medical care. The juvenile facility refused to accept him due to his injuries, and the cops decided to just drop him off in the middle of nowhere. They are pursuing charges only because they suspect a civil suit is on its way. To be honest, I have the same suspicion. I have spoken to both his mother and sister, and they tell me he wants as many people as we can turn out to support him at his trial.

His trial is scheduled for Monday at 1:00. The Juvenile and Family Justice Center is at 7th and St. Peter (25 W. 7th St.) – that’s on the corner opposite Mickey’s Diner. I have to be at the corner of Snelling and University at 1:00 to try to get a member of CUAPB out of jail.
I really feel that my presence is needed there, but I don’t want to leave Keith hanging.
I’m asking you all to get as many people as you can to the JFJC by 12:30.
I will get there early to make sure everyone is hooked up with this family, so you all can get into the courtroom. These are really awesome people, and I encourage you all to spend some time getting to know them. I got to know Keith’s mothers and sister more than I got to know him, and they inspired me. I’ll try to make it tomorrow’s CRASS meeting to make the case for getting people there, but just in case I can’t…



Even though I know we don’t operate that way, anyone who shows up can consider me to owe them a personal favor in return. I see this case as extremely important to the cause.

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annm4peace Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun May-17-09 11:20 PM
Response to Original message
12. an FBI informer was able to influe two kids from TX.... they faced 6 FBI agents in court


Please down load "terrorizing dissent" and call some friend over to watch it.

Then write a letter to Susan Gaertner to dismiss the charges.


also check out http://rnc08report.org/

Republican National Convention firebomb maker gets two years
RNC defendant says he made 'terrible mistake'
Mara H. Gottfried, St. Paul Pioneer Press, May 15th, 2009

A 24-year-old Texan told Minnesota's chief federal judge Thursday he made a "terrible mistake" when he built Molotov cocktails during last year's Republican National Convention in St. Paul, but he said it was hard to offer an explanation that wouldn't sound like an excuse.

Before U.S. District Judge Michael Davis sentenced Bradley Neal Crowder to two years in prison, he said he needed to understand how the Austin man with no criminal background made the leap from social activism to making firebombs.

"I made bad decisions," Crowder said. "I engaged in activities that were indefensible."

Davis told Crowder everyone makes bad decisions. "I was young once, too," he said. "I need to know why you crossed that line."

Crowder said he didn't want to scapegoat Brandon Darby, the government informant in the case, but said the Austin man had become "very influential" in his life and he looked up to him.

Darby was a longtime activist who earned a national reputation for his relief work in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Crowder and his co-defendant, David Guy McKay, didn't know the FBI had used Darby to infiltrate their group.

Davis asked Crowder whether Darby had anything to do with his making Molotov cocktails. Not in a direct way, Crowder answered.

The question Davis posed was at the center of the case.

McKay went to trial claiming Darby entrapped him, and his first trial ended with a hung jury. On the eve of his scheduled retrial in March, he changed his plea and admitted guilt to all three counts of possession of an unregistered firearm, which is how federal law classifies a Molotov cocktail. He is to be sentenced next Thursday.

Crowder pleaded guilty in January to a single count of possession of an unregistered firearm; two other counts were dismissed.

Crowder and McKay were members of a small "affinity group" of activists in Austin who came to St. Paul to disrupt the RNC. McKay said they built eight Molotov cocktails after learning police had seized their U-Haul trailer filled with homemade riot shields.

At first, their intended target was a truck-mounted JumboTron screen parked by the Cathedral of St. Paul. Later, after Crowder was arrested in a street demonstration, McKay allegedly decided a better target would be law-enforcement vehicles parked in a lot near the Dayton Avenue apartment he was staying in.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Paulsen said Crowder crossed the line because "he was mad at the police because they took his shields."

Davis pointed out that Darby was about 10 years older than the defendants and "extremely experienced in organizing."

Though Darby had nothing to do with either man making the firebombs, Davis said, "changing the mentality and thought processes of young adults seems to be what is being projected here with Mr. Darby." He asked Paulsen for his thoughts.

"It didn't happen that way," Paulsen said. Darby didn't want Crowder and McKay "going down that road," he said. One of Darby's roles at the RNC was to prevent violence, not incite it, Paulsen said.

Crowder's mother, Twila Crowder, addressed Davis before he sentenced her son.

"He is passionate," said the Midland, Texas, woman who was joined in the courtroom by other relatives from Texas and New Mexico. "He would never hurt anybody on purpose. I don't know how he got into this."

Crowder's "history of social activism goes back to grade school," said federal public defender Andrew Mohring. But what was more remarkable, Mohring said, was that Crowder's beliefs arose in Midland, where they weren't common or supported. Crowder worked in a soup kitchen, marched to protest the KKK and wrote and handed out anti-racist literature, Mohring said.

Paulsen argued Davis should follow the sentencing guidelines and send Crowder to prison for three years and one month to three years and 10 months. There will be future political conventions, and "there has to be deterrence," Paulsen said.

Mohring asked that Crowder be sentenced to no more than a year and a day in prison.

Davis sentenced Crowder to two years in prison and said he could serve it in Texas, to be close to his family. He also ordered three years of supervised release.

Before he goes to prison, Davis said Crowder should be taken to the Ramsey County jail to answer a second-degree assault charge filed against him in state court. He is accused of throwing a traffic sign from an overpass and onto Interstate 94, missing a police officer by three feet, according to a criminal complaint.

"You're young," Davis said. "Take this opportunity to learn from your egregious, bad mistakes."
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