Amy Goodman: FBI Raids and the Criminalization of Dissent

[marmar]

from truthdig:




FBI Raids and the Criminalization of Dissent

Posted on Sep 28, 2010
By Amy Goodman


Early in the morning on Friday, Sept. 24, FBI agents in Chicago and Minnesota’s Twin Cities kicked in the doors of anti-war activists, brandishing guns, spending hours rifling through their homes. The FBI took away computers, photos, notebooks and other personal property. Residents were issued subpoenas to appear before a grand jury in Chicago. It was just the latest in the ongoing crackdown on dissent in the U.S., targeting peace organizers as supporters of “foreign terrorist organizations.”

Coleen Rowley knows about the FBI. She was a career special agent with the FBI who blew the whistle on the bureau’s failures in the lead-up to the 9/11 attacks. Time magazine named her Person of the Year in 2002. A few days after the raids in her hometown of Minneapolis, she told me, “This is not the first time that you’ve seen this Orwellian turn of the war on terror onto domestic peace groups and social justice groups ... we had that begin very quickly after 9/11, and there were Office of Legal Counsel opinions that said the First Amendment no longer controls the war on terror.”

Jess Sundin’s home was raided. She was the lead organizer of the St. Paul, Minn., anti-war march on Labor Day 2008 that occurred as the Republican National Convention began. She described the raid: “They spent probably about four hours going through all of our personal belongings, every book, paper, our clothes, and filled several boxes and crates with our computers, our phones, my passport ... with which they left my house.”

They smashed activist Mick Kelly’s fish tank when they barged into his home. The net cast by the FBI that morning included not only anti-war activists, but those who actively support a changed foreign policy toward Israel-Palestine and Colombia. The warrant for Kelly sought all records of his travel, not only to those countries, but also all his domestic U.S. travel since 2000, and all his personal contacts. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/fbi_raids_and_the_criminalization_of_dissent_20100928/

[L0oniX]

1. This is a test and will end up at the supreme court. The FBI is a domestic terrorist organization!

Twisted mutha fuckas trying to quell anti war dissent. It's our constitutional right ...you asscarrot bastards!

[dotymed]

22. OMG...not the supremes.

We need a real Peoples Court(not Wapner either). The Supremes have already sold America to the highest bidder. Orwellian and Kafkaesque...
When will people realize that Fascism is here?

[Scruffy1]

31. It can't go the Supremes

because no charges will be filed. In the meantime they just take all your stuff and make you drag your ass across country for an inquisition. Grand juries are secret and your not allowed a lawyer so the public can't see what a farce it is. A trial would be a public farce and they don't want that. I know and like some of these people and know they are all poor and no threat to anyone.

[Occulus]

51. As an aside, no Ignoreds are posting on this thread.

I have over fifty- all the usual "what do you want, President Palin?" suspects.

Not one of them have posted here. I think if we all paid attention to the threads those types don't post on, we would come to some very... interesting conclusions.

[L0oniX]

2. K & R ...because I care.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

3. K & R

[flyarm]

4. K&R

[gratuitous]

5. God DAMN but I'm glad I voted for change I can believe in

Er, waitasecond.

[ThomCat]

8. Isn't it wonderful that Obama restored the Rule of Law,

And got rid of these Republican Tactics? :rofl:

[pscot]

25. That promise was the main reason

I supported him over HRC. I was fooled.

[sce56]

52. Obama HRC same masters Kucinich would have been the one to make real change!

Warning reading these posts could make you a terrorist supporter and subject to a arid by the FBI!

:sarcasm:

[L0oniX]

54. +1

[DirkGently]

6. This is why people "whine" about Bush policies being left in place.

[SlimJimmy]

35. Not only left in place, but expanded in some cases (nt)

[leftstreet]

7. K&R

[Panaconda]

9. K&R n/t

[Angry Dragon]

10. Quit your whinning and vote for democrats

think how worse it will be with the republicans in office
as we are told so often by our great leaders

[EFerrari]

11. K&R for Amy, a voice of sanity. n/t

[Luminous Animal]

12. I went to a rally in San Francisco in support of those raided.

A small but good crowd. Including Cindy Sheehan.

I hope that this revives the anti-war movement.

[Mnpaul]

23. I went to the rally in Minneapolis

We had a good turnout and good speakers as well. Several members of AIM spoke at the event detailing FBI dirty tricks. The UpTake has videos. http://theuptake.org/2010/09/28/hundreds-rally-in-support-of-fbi-raided-peace-activists/

Peter Erlander spoke and pointed out something that I did not know, that the Muslims arrested in Mn were arrested on material support of terrorism charges for sending clothes home to a charity.

I also put a slideshow/video up of my own
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jpdn6pfMKUg

[suffragette]

13. K&R

[Techn0Girl]

14. Amy Goodman is among the last of the true American Journalists

Her show, Democracy Now (avail on free podcast btw) is a breath of fresh air.

I was surprised to see so many Conservadems on this board throw these Union and Peace activists under the bus the past few days by making un-American assumptions regarding their alleged guilt. I swear one of them even told me they were guilty until a court proved otherwise.

Sad days for Democracy.

[Supersedeas]

21. this story is not getting much play from superficial pundits like Chrissy Matthews

[Fumesucker]

15. Oh please.. Dissent has not been criminalized..

Dissent is still perfectly fine and legal if you're a Teahadist Wingerati..

Hell, you can bring an assault weapon to a Teahadist rally and no one will so much as say "boo" to you, particularly the cops who are all out busting heads of those dangerous and traitorous Peace Activists and Tree Hugging Econazis..

[Scruffy1]

32. Yep-didn't see any outside the FBI office in Minneapolis

They only want freedom for their own viewpoint.

[ooglymoogly]

16. KR for Amy Goodman, one of the last true journalists.

Our constitution in shreds, our democracy in shreds....and these assholes ask for our vote. No war criminals brought to trial. What the hell is the difference between these idiots and the other idiots. They are indeed all the same.

[earcandle]

17. Are these guys just bullies gone renegade, or is this allowed in our constitution? If not, why is

it happening? 

[moonbatmax]

19. Because who's gonna stop it?

[EXneoCON]

20. So true, so true...

....sadly, so true.

[John Q. Citizen]

38. Who's gonna take away thier license to kill?

- Bob Dylan

[lob1]

39. This has been happening at least since Viet Nam.

During the Nam era, every peace group was infiltrated and spied upon by the FBI. If the peace groups broke no laws, the infiltrators did and blamed it on the peace groups. I didn't expect this, though, from a president that I thought was on my side. I was wrong.

[laughingliberal]

44. Patriot act, don't you know? Terraists don't need no stinking due process. nt

[PoliticAverse]

50. Ask these guys...

http://thatsmycongress.com/index.php/2010/02/26/house-dems-who-voted-for-patriot-act-extension-without-reform/

[Solly Mack]

18. K&R

[Jeffersons Ghost]

24. K&R

[indepat]

26. The FBI's actions, while not even in the league of early Nazi reprisals against the Jews, do have

a rather chillingly Orwellian totalitarian flavor. :patriot:

[Scruffy1]

29. Especially when you are sitting in the witness box

without even a lawyer, knowing that all the resources of the FBI can be used against you.

[indepat]

36. As junior said "You are either with us are you are agin' us" and its beginning to look a lot like

any innocuous action that questions governmental authority, no matter how seemingly illegal, unconstitutional, or un-American, is agin' government's absolute authority and will be dealt with as if it were criminal, if indeed, not treasonous, i.e., any questioning of government in the conduct of the war on terra (pre-emptive war(s) of choice), no matter how inane, how tangential, how lacking in substance in the big scheme of things, is akin to constitutional aiding and abetting: how disingenuous, how sophomoric, how Orwellian, what a waste of vital resources when just on a fishing expedition over something without relative substance in the big scheme of things. 11th-generation :patriot:

[geardaddy]

27. K & R

[felix_numinous]

28. What exactly is terrorism again?

Who are being terrorized, who are being threatened?

Peace activists, immigrants, homeless people. minorities, politically incorrect people.....the list is getting longer and longer who is a "threat' to these gangsters, they are getting paranoid and delusional, and dangerous. It is they who are the domestic threat.

Perhaps if we all put teabags on our heads we will be safe! Sounds like a plan.

[Scruffy1]

30. We need a new dicyionary-like Ambrose Bierce's.

Personally I use the one that a terrorist is a man with a bomb and no plane.

[Jackpine Radical]

46. Consider that line stolen.

[DeSwiss]

33. K&R n/t

[Blue_Tires]

34. major kick

[SaveOurDemocracy]

37. K&R! Critically important issue ... return to Nixon &...

J. Edgar Hoover days. This must not stand, or it will spread!

[PoliticAverse]

49. Last I checked...

the FBI's headquarters is still called "The J. Edgar Hoover building".

[Bozita]

40. K&R. bigtime!

[fascisthunter]

41. K&R

thanks for keeping it real

[Odin2005]

42. K&R!

[Uncle Joe]

43. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, marmar.

[laughingliberal]

45. K & R nt

[OwnedByFerrets]

47. Are we STILL in 2007??

Hard to believe this shit is still going on. I am in shock.

[defendandprotect]

48. **Homeland Security outsourced intelligence to "PA/Jerusaleum-based consulting firm"

This month, the state's citizens were shocked when they discovered that their Office of Homeland Security had been issuing intelligence bulletins to local law enforcement and private industry that covered the activities of law-abiding activist groups, most prominently those opposed to natural gas drilling. The bulletins, however, weren't generated by state law enforcement. Instead they were produced by the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response,

a Philadelphia- and Jerusalem-based consulting firm

that received a $103,000 no-bid contract from the state homeland security director James Powers to identify threats to Pennsylvania's critical infrastructure.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/sep/28/private-surveillance-pennsylvania-scandal

[murdoch]

53. Youtube has video interviews with these "terrorists"

One of the most ridiculous things of all is all the FBI paperwork about how they got the money to travel outside the country. This is like the charge in the 1950s and 1960s that the civil rights and peace movement was financed by "Moscow gold".

Does anyone really think this liberal schoolteacher from Minnesota, or this hippie from the 1960s, Mick Kelly, who lives over a vegan co-op restaurant, had their trip to the West Bank funded by Hezbollah? It is the most ridiculous thing ever. The problem is their trip, which they were public about and spoke about and wrote about, was legal, and to charge them with a crime the FBI would have to say Hezbollah paid for their trip, and give the idea that they came back to the US with Hezbollah bombs blow up grammar schools or something. I mean, it so absurd.

As some of the videos here point out, before the Republican National Convention in Minnesota in 2008, eight local activists were arrested - before the convention. Recently, charges against three were dropped. The government had no case against them! Hey it is an easy way to stop a protest, just lock everyone up before the RNC, then let them go. No mess, no fuss, it worked for Mussolini.

Lots of videos on the Minneapolis people here -

http://www.youtube.com/user/UpTakeVideo