Stripper Interrogated by FBI: "Possible Domestic Terrorist"-Unbelievable!

[Clara T]

America's Least Trusted
How a Clermont stripper ended up under FBI surveillance
By Coley Ward
Published December 28, 2005
 
Tabby Chase works nights as a dancer at the Clermont Lounge, so she was asleep the morning of Thurs., March 17, when she says FBI Special Agent Dante Jones called her. Chase says she didn't know what the FBI wanted. When she awoke, it was late afternoon, and she had five messages from three numbers. She says each was from Jones, telling her the FBI needed to ask some questions.

<snip>

Driggs says the meeting lasted for an hour-and-a-half. Chase says it took awhile to get to the point. "First they brought out a sheet that they were filling out with my personal information. They wanted to know my full name. Where do I live? Do I have any tattoos? Then they started asking me who I date and who I live with."
"When it broke up," he says, "the language was, 'You have not satisfied our concerns; you are likely to hear from us again.'"

<snip>

Finally, there is Chase's protest work. In February, Chase traveled to Washington, D.C., to work for a group called Action Medical Research at President Bush's 2005 inauguration. Chase says she was a "street medic," someone who dispenses first aid at progressive rallies and marches. Chase says she also worked as a street medic at the Democratic National Convention in Boston and the Republican National Convention in New York in 2004.

<snip>

In the summer of 2004, Chase had been kicking around the idea of joining Circus2Iraq, a group that performs for children in war-torn countries. But she says she couldn't scrape together the money for a plane ticket and, after hearing that several members of the group were killed while in Iraq, decided against going. She never got around to applying for a visa. "I said that I didn't even have a passport, and they said that they knew that."

<snip>

Chase says she is a member of a group called the Industrial Workers of the World, whose biggest ambition, according to its website, seems to be reducing the length of the standard workweek.
"The IWW is one of the country's oldest unions," Chase says. "They'll take anyone. They're the only union that takes strippers. That's why I joined. For a while I was thinking about organizing the strippers in Atlanta, but I ran into some hostility when I was trying to do it."

After the meeting, the FBI appears to have continued its investigation of Chase.

More:
http://clnlb.us.publicus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051228/ATLNEWS01/512280392/-1/ATLNEWS


And this comment from Mr. Velasquez posted later:
"They said to me, 'Mr. Velasquez, do you expect us to believe that you would take out a cell phone for somebody and risk your credit history without knowing anything about their politics, their religion or personal beliefs?'

(For the record, my exact response was: "When someone asks me a money-related favor, the first question that comes to my mind is whether or not they're good for it...and not who they voted for in 2004.")

And last...but not least: As they were leaving, one of the FBI agents pointed at my cat's slightly distended belly (a neutering side-effect) and asked: "What's wrong with your cat's stomach? That doesn't look right." The other agents nodded and looked on, concerned expressions plastered across their soulless faces. For a full 10 seconds I half expected them to ask me to cut the belly open in the off chance I might have some smack or insurgents hidden away in there.

Maybe both....

*sigh*


-SV
http://www.livejournal.com/users/the_colombian/

[acmavm]

1. What does FBI stand for, Frigging Blithering Idiots?

.

[EVDebs]

30. ...Maybe she knows Amanda Keller ( Atta's stripper girlfriend) !

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1433886

[Greyhound]

2. Yep, your tax dollars at work. n/t

[TomClash]

3. Everyone is a terrorist

except the man who is responsible for the deaths of 2,172 GIs and 30,000 Iraqi civilians.

[0007]

24. The official Iraqi civilians death count is way over 30k

Perhaps like a 100k

[sasquatch]

4. Strippers for Change

Well I think we found where we're going to have our next DU meetup.
:D

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. It begs the question, "What does she got to hide?"

I suppose it's more important to annoy dissenters than to chase the white-collar criminals who are destroying the economy or political criminals responisible for a murderous "war".

[Supersedeas]

29. White Collar crime is irrelevant to the task of intimidating dissent

[musette_sf]

6. oh, now , come on,

everyone knows Mohammed Atta went to strip shows right before September 2001! Therefore all strippers MUST be investigated for radical Islamist fingerprints on the dollar bills stuffed into her g-string!

:wtf: :silly:

[Spinzonner]

7. Well, we knew the FBI could be real boobs

but I didn't realize they were obsessed with investigating naked ones.

[Rex]

8. Ah, I see her infraction! No wonder they are after her!

She belongs to a group that supports workers rights. The FBI is now a pawn of the Boosh WH and by extension a pawn of Big Biz. Big Biz likes it's slave wages and next to no support for the fam.

[Sydnie]

9. the last paragraph says it all -

"During the interrogation, they kept asking me my political affiliation," Chase says. "And one of them would interject every so often, 'This is the United States of America, you have the right to believe whatever you want to believe. We just need to know what that is.'"

We are being watched and we had better have the right answers when asked ... or else. Bastiges!

[nosmokes]

17. that's what stood out for me as well.

you can believe whatever you want, but we need to know what it is. can anyone point me to the clause in the constitution that gives them that right? yeah, i din't think so either. next it'll be you can believe whatever you want as long as it's on this comprehensive list of approved amurkan beliefs. and we know what it is you believe... this really pisses me off.

[Aimah]

10. I don't think I've had direct interaction but..

a couple weeks after 9-11 I got an odd phone call. A man with an older sounding voice called my house and asked for someone named Bob. I responded "I'm sorry you have the wrong phone number". The man responded "no wait hold on". "Bob put this number on his application for a job and I'm trying to hire him." Of course my response "There is no one here named Bob." "Well could Bob have used your phone?" he replied. My response "No no one named Bob has used my phone." His response "Well how do you know?" My response "I know who has been in my house to use my phone."

Now this has already gone to far...do not ask my why I'm still talking to him but here is where it really gets odd.

The next thing the man says, "Well what are the names of the people in your home?"

I respond "There is no one in my home with a name anything like "Bob""

He responded "Well what are the names of the people who have visited your home lately."

At this point I'm livid and I'm on my last response:

"Sir there is no one by that name living here or has been here I have no idea what you're talking about HAVE A NICE DAY!" and then I hang up.

I don't know if he was just a regular ass or if "someone" really wanted to know who all had been in my house. For a long time my families name was one of the first Arabic names in the phone book so we would often get calls from people visiting in the area trying to find out where the nearest Masjid was. Don't know if we'd been marked or this was just random.

[HawkerHurricane]

11. What, is she a expert on...

Boobie traps?

(runs and hides)

[Indy_Dem_Defender]

12. They hate us for our freedoms

Apparently it looks like The FBI caught this in time, you see since they hate us for our freedoms, The terrorist have an operation apparently stealing our strippers, with out our strippers we don't have the freedom to go to strip clubs anymore because there won't be any stripper left if they steal them all. "That's it, that's it" said the closet sexaholic right winger! :sarcasm:

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

13. She was flagged for being a Wobbly

(IWW's nickname). They've been investigated by the FBI forever. I am afraid if the FBI came and asked me my political affiliation, and said what they did, I would respond, "Then you also know it is none of your F--ing business how I vote." And I don't use the F word very much, but this whole thing has really made me mad.

[G_j]

19. being a street medic also

they don't like that sort of thing.

[Clara T]

20. All "deviant behavior" is flagged

And "deviant behavior" is defined as anything that does not comport within the strict parameters of normalcy as defined by the corporate culture. And that means anyone who is not a willing participant in the wheels of the machine or in short someone who refuses to capitulate to the culture of death.

The trouble with normal is it only gets worse.

[bliss_eternal]

14. What a bunch of shit!

...nuff said. :grr: :mad: :grr: :mad: :grr: :mad:

[rman]

15. we're all extremists now. nt

[Neil Lisst]

16. The Constitution anticipated an oppressive federal government.

This is exactly the kind of abuse the Bill of Rights was designed to stop. It's such an irony that these 2006 Bush Brown Shirts stomp all over the document they are SWORN to uphold.

Never fear. The tide is turning, and there will be a purge of bad agents, after the top layer is prosecuted. Those who have exceeded their authority will have to answer for it. Those who don't learn the lessons of Watergate and Iran-Contra are condemned to repeat them.

[depakid]

18. America's latest excursion down fascism road

This just reinforces my New Year's resolution to graduate this year and find employment abroad.

I don't foresee this getting any better over the years.

[OneBlueSky]

21. your tax dollars at work . . . making America safe from . . .

strippers and peaceful demonstrators . . .

what's wrong with this picture? . . .

on edit: ya know, some Congress in the future (hopefully soon) should demand a full accounting of American "black ops" . . . how much it's costing us, where the money is coming from, and what it's being used for . . . it is, after all, OUR money (or at least our grandchildrens') . . .

[REP]

22. They Confused "She Da Bomb" With "She Has a Bomb"?

More likely because she's a Wobbly. "Then they came for the trade unionists..." (Niemoller) "Those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it." (Santanya)

[MadHound]

23. Well, here it is people

The beginning of the leftist, anti-war persecution. Today strippers who belong to the Wobblies, tommorrow folks who belong to DU, or who march against the war, or who criticize the President. Welcome to our brave new world, smile for the hidden camera:eyes:

[crispini]

25. Well, maybe ALL dissenters should join the IWW,

if that's what got her investigated. We can drown them in investigations. I have to admit, I'm not familiar with the IWW. :shrug:

[Czolgosz]

26. I have a friend who was spied upon for no more than anti-fur, pro-veganism

activism and websites. The game plan is to steal all the executive power they can in the name of terrorism and then to define terrorism as anything they don't personally endorse.

[Porcupine]

27. It makes perfect sense from the agents point of veiw.

You're an FBI agent. You have a list of "potential terrorists" that includes a beautiful female stripper, a vegan activist and sixteen Fundie gun nuts with .50 cal sniper rifles and API (armor peircing incindiary) ammunition.

Of COURSE you're going to go interview the stripper first. You of course take extra time to moniter her show for Al Quaida information drops, check her tatoos for microdots and copy her entire photographic portfolio. You also want to check her house for anything with "DNA samples."

Now doesnt' that sound like a more fun day at work than going down a driveway back in the woods that has the "trespassers will be shot and fed to the dogs" sign. Especially when you know there are twenty rifles on site and 3K rounds of ammo.

Next week they get to check out the tip about cheerleading teams being fronts for Al Quaida target assesments. They travel so much.

[EVDebs]

32. FBI and CIA have hiring preference for conservatives

Time Magazine August 4, 1997 article 'Kingdom Come' by D. Van Biema page 52

"...the FBI and CIA ...have instituted Mormon recruitment plans"

along with the weeding out process they use, with no one's background check allowing for the hiring of anyone with a less than upright (at least on paper) review and the process itself being done by mostly ex-military or retired officer/agents, the intelligence agencies are over-run with religious fundumentalists.

Just look at the backgrounds of the leadership of the CIA in its inception: Wm 'Wild Bill' Donovan, Wm Casey, James Jesus Angleton, Allen Dulles, Wm Colby, and via Operation Paperclip Reinhard Gehlen, etc, etc., all members of the Knights of Malta.

The most recent choirboy was Opus Dei member Robert Hanssen of the FBI, now a resident of a federal prison somewhere (his infatuation was with stripper Priscilla Galey).

There is something wrong with their 'insiders' and I don't think they've figured it out yet. Maybe they will someday.

Unless OBL is sending coded messages by pasties and G-strings....but remember, the unsolved JFK case included the Jack Ruby strip joints and during Watergate the "Operation Gemstone" stuff with G. Gordon Liddy (FBI man himself) included prostitutes and surveillance (and some think this was the 'honey trap' that was really behind Watergate itself, but couldn't be disclosed since many in government would have been exposed).

[Porcupine]

34. Once again the truth is weirder than fiction n/t.

.

[Bozita]

33. Bingo! ... We have a Bingo here.

Same reasons so many cops go after hookers.

[DarleenMB]

28. My first thought

was that she should have an attorney present. Then I realized, not everyone can afford an attorney. Maybe, and even better, she should have gotten a reporter for the local paper to go with her to the questioning.

[MessiahRp]

31. I wonder just how many instances of this there are...

There seems to be a lot of them coming out now:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x34484

Pretty large abuses of power. If you ask me we're painting WAY too broad of a brush stroke on this terrorist tag. I really hope we find Bin Laden somewhere (although I doubt Bush or the Neocons really want that), this war on terror shit has gotten way out of hand.

Rp

[FreedomAngel82]

35. There's also a story

of a four year old boy in Houston who was labeled a terrorist! Go to canofun.com/blog and watch that video. Outrageous!

[ninkasi]

36. Must be late in development...

Usually it's called the "terrible twos" because they start asserting their own identities, and using the word "no" a lot. I would have thought that by the age of four...their terroristic years would be over!