Activist Silenced for Fear of Surveillance

[babylonsister]

Activist Silenced for Fear of Surveillance
by Rocco Parascandola



Jennifer Flynn is not a rabble-rouser. She’s not an aspiring suicide bomber. She doesn’t advocate the overthrow of the government. Instead, she pushes for funding and better treatment for people with HIV and AIDS.0924 04

Better keep an eye on her.

Wait! Somebody already did.

On the day before a rally by the New York City AIDS Housing Network at the 2004 Republican National Convention - a rally by an organization Flynn co-founded, and a rally that the NYPD had approved - she experienced something straight out of a spy novel.

While visiting her family in Hillside, N.J., Flynn spotted a car with a New York license plate parked outside the house. When she left to head back to her Brooklyn home that evening, the car followed hers. Shortly after leaving Hillside, two more vehicles, also with New York plates, seemed to be tailing her, too.

snip//

On the New Jersey side of the Goethals Bridge, her followers pulled away. But later, when Flynn pulled up in front of her Flatbush home, she spotted another car, with two men inside, both with laptops. At 4 a.m., they were still there.

Is Flynn paranoid? Well, she is now. She did, however, jot down the license plate number of one of the vehicles in Jersey - a blue sport utility vehicle. When a reporter asked for the number, Flynn couldn’t find it. Recently, it was found in a file kept by Christopher Dunn, the civil liberties lawyer she called that day in a panic.

The license plate number traces back to a company - Pequot Inc. - and a post office box at an address far from the five boroughs. Registering unmarked cars to post office boxes outside the city or to shell companies is a common practice of law enforcement agencies to shield undercover investigators.

more...

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/24/4067/

[Warpy]

1. She needed to watch the early episodes of "Burn Notice."

"If you want to lose a tail, drive like an idiot. Signal one way and turn the other way. Make dumb moves without signaling...."

[rodeodance]

2. Flynn says the damage is done. She sees it in the attitudes of other activists. There's less desire.

"I feel like I've stepped back, in a way," she says. "I feel I'm not as vocal as I was. I'm still going to sign a petition. I'm still going to organize a rally. I do it. But now I'm deathly afraid."

Flynn, 35, may one day learn who was following her. Activists have decried police tactics at the GOP convention - 1,806 arrests, protesters hemmed in with orange netting, people arrested and held for hours and hours in a West Side pier warehouse. The New York Civil Liberties Union, which represents seven plaintiffs suing the city over their arrests, is pushing for the release of raw NYPD intelligence reports detailing police surveillance of activists and protest groups.

Flynn says the damage is done. She sees it in the attitudes of other activists. There's less desire. More trepidation.

"When you use scare tactics, you really are curbing our right to dissent against the government," she said. "The only thing this is serving to do is squash public dissent. By going after the organizers of a rally, you really are sending a message - 'Don't hold a rally.'"

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[ThomCat]

3. The very fact that our law enforcement agencies think

that this is acceptable should be a very loud and clear warning that we're closer to a police state than people like to think.
x(

[Hydra]

4. Here it comes

And this isn't new...it's just more overt than it's ever been.

The only reason I speak out like an idiot is because one of my close family rattles cages at the highest levels- acts that make me cringe at their sheer "are you stupid?" value when I hear about them.

I'm already marked if they plan to round us loud ones up...no point in worrying about it.

[jberryhill]

5. Pequot Inc.

There is no "Pequot Inc." in New Jersey:

https://accessnet.state.nj.us/gatewaywatchnamesearch.asp

...or in New York:

http://appsext8.dos.state.ny.us/corp_public/corpsearch.entity_search_entry

[nashville_brook]

6. AIDS activist. imagine what they are doing to environmentalists or others who

directly question the economics of a particular issue -- development, logging, etc.