Chasing Anarchists: May Day and the Federal Government's Use of Grand Juries as Political Counterintelligence
04/30/2013
It’s almost May 1st, otherwise known as May Day or International Workers Day. The genesis of May Day can be traced to labor struggles of the late 19th century in the United States, but today it’s more widely celebrated in other parts of the world. Nevertheless, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is keenly interested in May Day-focused political demonstrations as if they represent a real threat to National Security in the U.S.
A year ago, on May Day 2012, a demonstration in Seattle, Washington resulted in a few broken windows at certain targeted corporations and other locations. As a result of these actions, which have become relatively commonplace at political demonstrations over the past decade, local law enforcement arrested and began criminally prosecuting five people accused of property destruction and other crimes. Ironically and perhaps symbolically, the trials in these State cases are scheduled to occur just after this May Day 2013.
But, that’s not the whole story.
Last July 25th, in the early morning hours, the FBI conducted a series of coordinated actions across the Pacific Northwest, during which dozens of Joint Terrorism Task Force agents broke down doors, entered residences with automatic weapons drawn, and used flash-bang grenades while searching the homes of several targeted individuals and serving subpoenas on others.
According to one of the search warrants used in the raids, the federal government was looking for “Anti-government or anarchist literature,” black clothing, flags, flag-making material, address books, cell phones, hard drives and other electronic storage devices. Multiple people were served with subpoenas to appear before a federal grand jury the following week in Seattle.
Although initially unclear, the federal government’s motivations soon became clear. Ostensibly tied to criminal investigations surrounding the May Day 2012 demonstrations, the series of raids and grand jury subpoenas would frame an effort by the FBI over the ensuing months to find out more about the anarchist community. Official records, however, also revealed that political activists endured heavy surveillance in the days leading up to May Day 2012.
Indeed, political-based surveillance and infiltration has become a renewed and common policing practice over the past decade at protests in the U.S. The anarchist-inspired Global Justice movement, which formed in the late 1990s, culminated with massive protests against the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Seattle. Images of Black Bloc anarchists breaking the windows of banks and corporate chain stores in 1999 gave the federal government a modern day “bogeyman,” which it has strategically used to antagonize and intimidate activists of all political persuasions ever since.
By constantly invoking the specter of “violent anarchists,” and “outside agitators,” law enforcement and other public officials hope to intimidate those demanding broad-based social change. Negative perceptions of anarchists and anarchism are not only generated by government and unquestioningly perpetuated by mainstream media, but they are also routinely used to drive a wedge between dissidents and an otherwise supportive public. The manufactured fear of anarchist bogeymen is conveniently used to justify the tens of billions of dollars spent on so-called “homeland security.”
According to a recent report by the National Lawyers Guild, the “violent anarchist” narrative is used by authorities prior to almost every large political demonstration in order to justify “enormous security expenditures, large numbers of police, and strict event zone ordinances.” The Guild further asserts that this strategy “produces a ‘threat amplification’ spiral that consistently leads to sweeping police repression,” which is “the desired outcome of a multi-pronged strategy of maintaining control over the populace.”
* * *
So, why is the cash-strapped U.S. Justice Department so interested in a few broken windows? According to the affidavit used to obtain search warrants in the coordinated July raids, the pretext used by U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan was to find and prosecute the people who vandalized the William Kenzo Nakamura U.S. Courthouse in downtown Seattle. But, why didn’t the State of Washington bring charges against the accused like it did with the five people currently being prosecuted? Many activists believe that Durkan and the rest of the Justice Department are eager to learn more about anarchists, disrupt their communities, and deter activists from confrontational political protest.
The search warrant affidavit, which was hidden from public view until earlier this year when The Stranger and attorney Neil Fox got the court to unseal it, contained some clues. In order to get a federal judge to sign the search warrant, the government claimed the raids would yield “evidence, instrumentalities, or fruits of violations of the following offenses:”
Destruction of government property, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1361; Conspiracy to destroy government property, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371; Interstate travel with intent to riot, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2101; and Conspiracy to travel interstate with intent to riot, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371.
While the federal government could convene a grand jury based on any of the above charges, it’s the last two that stand out as a particularly aggressive legal move. Crossing state lines with the intent to riot and conspiracy to do the same are felonies contained in a little known provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 — passed in response to inner-city riots throughout the previous decade. Although not explicitly protesting racial inequality, the Chicago 8 defendants were accused of inciting riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention and were the first to be indicted under the Act. Have we progressed so little that we’re using the same sensationalized charges 45 years later in an attempt to undermine yet another political movement?
* * *
Last summer, in the Pacific Northwest, anarchists and other activists quickly came together after the July raids to organize a response to the grand jury subpoenas. A group calling itself the Committee Against Political Repression, which takes a principled stand against cooperation with politically motivated grand juries, began to stage demonstrations and offer direct material and legal support to those subpoenaed. Solidarity actions began happening across the country and around the world. As a result of widespread opposition to the government’s apparent fishing expedition in the anarchist community, one-by-one people refused to testify and answer questions being asked by the federal prosecutor.
By the end of 2012, four of those subpoenaed had been jailed, not based on any criminal convictions, but for refusing to testify before the grand jury. Matt Duran, Katherine “KteeO” Olejnik, Leah-Lynn Plante, and Matthew “Maddy” Pfeiffer all made strong public statements against cooperation. Duran and Olejnik were the first to be jailed for civil contempt in September. Then, in October, Plante was jailed, but a week later released under an apparent agreement to testify. In late December, Pfeiffer joined Duran and Olejnik in jail, with the three spending several weeks in solitary confinementwithout explanation.
Under the rules of the U.S. justice system, one can be jailed for civil contempt if he or she refuses to testify before a grand jury after being granted so-called “use immunity,” which can protect a subpoenant from being prosecuted for crimes related to the grand jury. However, this immunity may not protect the subpoenant from being prosecuted for other crimes such as perjury. Civil contempt must be imposed as a means of coercing not punishing one to testify. In order to achieve this end, the court can keep you jailed until the grand jury expires, up to 18 months.
Under some circumstances, a subpoenant can be released early if he or she can demonstrate that no amount of coercion will result in the desired testimony. This can be achieved with a “motion for release from non-coercive confinement,” or “Grumbles” motion, named after the appellants in a 1971 court case.
In February, after spending five months in jail, Duran and Olejnik filed Grumbles motions, but not before the Seattle Human Rights Commission sent a scathing letter to federal District Court Judge Richard Jones, condemning the use of solitary confinement and calling for the prisoners’ immediate release. According to The Stranger, attorneys for Duran and Olejnik argued that not only was their clients’ detention punitive, but the government also appeared to no longer need their testimony, based on information revealed in the search warrant affidavit.
It’s rare for Grumbles motions to succeed, given a government-leaning judicial system and the blurry line between coercion and punishment. Despite this, Judge Jones decided to free Duran and Olejnik days later with a strongly worded order. Judge Jones noted that during the detainees’ time in the Special Housing Unit (SHU) of the Federal Detention Center at SeaTac, “Their physical health has deteriorated sharply and their mental health has also suffered from the effects of solitary confinement.” The Jones order echoed “extensive declarations” by Duran and Olejnik that “they will never end their confinement by testifying.”
Shortly after Duran and Olejnik’s release, the still-detained Pfeiffer was also set free. But freedom for the grand jury resisters has not resulted in an end to the federal government’s campaign against the anarchist community. According to The Stranger, over the past week, FBI agents in Seattle and Olympia identifying themselves as members of the domestic terrorism unit have been “showing up at people’s houses, jogging locations, schools, [and] workplaces,” asking about “coworkers, roommates, romantic situations, and general social-mapping questions.” Without a shred of evidence of terrorist activity or motivations, dissidents are left to assume that this continued harassment is at least partly aimed at chilling political protest on May Day 2013.
Although there remains a looming threat of federal indictments, dissidents are refusing to be intimidated. Activists of all stripes are busily organizing May Day activities and are continuing their efforts to draw attention to the federal grand jury in Seattle and to support those resisting its fishing expedition. Anarchists and other dissidents from around the country have organized a week of actionsfrom April 24th-May 1st to oppose political repression and express solidarity with grand jury resisters.
* * *
Unfettered speculation on the true motivations of the federal government to pursue political demonstrators is of limited and questionable utility, but the material consequences of such pursuits can be clearly tracked. The FBI’s concerted campaign to drum up hysteria and justify the massive resources spent in chasing anarchists represents a law enforcement trend with loud echoes of McCarthyism, wherein FBI targets were identified by what books they read and with whom they kept company rather than on the basis of criminal acts. Harkening back to an era of blacklists and thought crime, the trend of using grand juries to target holders of unpopular political views represents a real move toward a dangerous and deeply troubling infringement on the civil liberties of all.
Although proportionally the federal government’s targeting of largely white and young political radicals represents a smaller total number of terrorism-related investigations, the pattern of using grand juries as secret forums to ask activists what organizations they belong to, who they associate with and to scrutinize their political beliefs on the basis of “Americanism” closely parallels the hearings held by the House Subcommittee on Unamerican Activities. In this context, the activists in the Pacific Northwest who have vowed not to cooperate with politically motivated grand juries can be seen as canaries in the coal mine and the importance of their resistance to government intimidation cannot be overstated. Regardless of what one may think of the political philosophy, these government-identified anarchists merit widespread support and the gratitude of all who wish to exercise civil liberties so now in question
(via ex-ist)
New law will ban protesters from riding mass transit in California — RT USA
April 30, 2013
Risking arrest isn’t the only obstacle for Northern California protesters — under a new rule about to go into effect, political demonstrators could lose their right to ride public transportation.
Starting next week, law enforcement officers policing the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system in San Francisco, Sacramento, Oakland and other cities can issue bus and subway bans for unruly passengers — and according to one local news report, that power could be used to prevent political protesters from getting to demonstrations or essentially going anywhere.
Under the recently passed State Assembly Bill 716, BART can issue “prohibition” orders to any passenger cited or arrested for certain offenses, essentially blacklisting some people from boarding public transit vehicles if they’ve been charged with certain crimes.
BART Board President Tom Radulovich told Bay City News the law is “an important safety initiative to keep our employees and riders safe,” adding, “We’re very concerned that for the past few years folks have been assaulting our station agents.”
”We are really wanting to send the message that if you are going to come onto our system and be unruly or violent, there are going to be consequences,” BART spokesperson Alicia Trost told local ABC affiliate KGNO News.
But while the new bill will provide BART police the authority to immediately revoke riding privileges for persons arrested or convicted of acts involving violence, threats of violence, lewd or lascivious behavior or possession or sale of drugs on area transit, those charged with minor infractions could be targeted too. “AB 716 won’t only target violent behavior,” KGNO reported. “It can be applied to protestors who have been arrested during free-speech movements.”
The law will allow for prohibition orders to be issued on-the-spot if a person is just once arrested or convicted for a misdemeanor or felony involving lewd, violent or drug-related acts in a BART zone, but passengers cited three or more times for minor infractions in just as many months are subject to the ban as well.
Under the bill, a transit district may issue a prohibition order to any person charged with violating a number of local statutes, including Section 640 of state Penal Code — the law that goes after riders accused of “Willfully disturbing others on or in a system facility or vehicle by engaging in boisterous or unruly behavior” and those “Willfully blocking the free movement of another person in a system facility or vehicle.”
Although the official statute includes a note from the state declaring that Section 640 “shall not be interpreted to affect any lawful activities permitted or First Amendment rights protected under the laws of this state or applicable federal law,” allowing BART officers to ban users even accused by law enforcement of a misdemeanor could disenfranchise a huge percentage of their rider base and has critics already warning of potential authoritarian overreach.
”Certain instances have happened over the years that have caused some tragic things to happen, but you got to be careful who your profile,” BART passenger Kadmiel McCrory told KGNO.Indeed, one doesn’t have to look too deep to divulge instances of arguable overreach in not just the Bay Area but on the BART system as well. On the morning of January 1, 2009, BART Officer Johannes Mehserle fatally shot an unarmed, 22-year-old passenger, Oscar Grant, on an Oakland train platform. The killing of Grant remains a highly contested issue among Bay Area residents, and has spawned a number of large protests impacting the BART system, including a November 2010 demonstration that led to 152 arrests. Then in July 2011, BART police shot and killed another passenger — a mentally ill homeless man name Charles Blair Hill — who is alleged to have thrown a knife at an officer. The response that occurred as a result can easily be considered a precursor to enacting AB 716.
Following the 2011 shooting death of Hill, BART passengers orchestrated a massive protest that made national headlines thanks in part to the involvement of Internet hacktivist group Anonymous. A rally for Hill days after his death began peacefully but ended in violence and at least three dozen arrests. When a second protest was planned the following month, BART officials responded by having cell phone service shut down in four separate train stations to prevent demonstrators from coordinating their actions.
”We’re going to take steps to make sure our customers are safe,” BART spokesman Jim Allison said in a statement that August. “The interruption of cell phone service was done Thursday to prevent what could have been a dangerous situation. It’s one of the tactics we have at our disposal. We may use it; we may not. And I’m not sure we would necessarily let anyone know in advance either way.”
Although that protest never materialized as planned, Anonymous responded by leaking the names, passwords and other identifying information for more than 2,000 customers of a BART-affiliated website, announcing in a statement, “we will not tolerate censorship.”
“Anonymous demands that this activity revolving around censorship cease and desist and we know you are already planning to do this again,” the hacktivists wrote. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and American Civil Liberties Union opposed the decision to throttle cell service as well.
Now with AB 716 going into effect, protesters may once again find they are unwelcome to ride on the fifth-busiest heavy rail rapid transit system within the United States. Accumulating only three easy-to-obtain infractions in just 90 days can cause a prohibition order to be issues, and when the law goes into effect on Monday, BART officers will actually be provided with the names and photographs of prohibited individuals in order to keep them from riding mass transit, BART police Chief Kenton Rainey told the San Francisco Appeal. According to Rainey, officers’ computers will contain information about active orders, and any persons picked up or cited on the BART system for new crimes can be matched against the database to see their status.
Rainey added that BART officers will go through training to work with special-needs riders, including the homeless and mentally ill. Even if one of those passengers is cited with a prohibition order, though, it might take a lengthy appeal process to have their ban rescinded. Prohibition orders restrict passengers from riding for anywhere from 30 days up to one year.
(via ex-ist)
FIB Press Conference:
“We, the secret police and our thousands of militarized auxiliaries, are wonderful. We are the best. We are brave. We are strong. We are smart. We are the many. We are the proud. We are the narcissists. We work 24/7. Just like on TV. Our motto is: Hey You, Protect Us, Serve Us. Let’s slap each other’s backs! Again! We failed to prevent the bombing, with our vast spending and spying, of course, but at least we accomplished our real objective: weakening the people, empowering the police state.
“With our control of the media and thousands of armored occupiers, we closed down Belmont, Boston, Cambridge, and Watertown. We ordered everyone to stay in their homes. Need food? Medicine? To walk the dog? Tough luck. We closed all businesses, schools, universities. This is unique in American history, and so we have set the precedent for the future. Civil liberties? Property rights? The people exist to serve the government. Get your priorities straight.
“With our vast display of force, our tanks, our helicopter gunships, our infrared sensors, our night-vision goggles, we captured the final suspect…when a mere citizen tipped us off. We own the night, the ground, the air! And no Miranda warnings, in a public safety exemption. As to the first suspect, we may tell you something, or we may not. That goes for this whole business, and all future activities, for we are the FIB. And don’t doubt us. Do not have any competing theories or questions. There’s a public safety exemption for that, too.”
In a mature society, civil servant is semantically equal to civil master.
Joe Biden: the ‘affirmative task’ before us is to “create a new world order”.
After Boston Bombing, Everyone Is Being Watched—and Everyone is Watching
By monitoring social media and using crowd-sourced evidence, authorities have turned the public into both suspects and investigators.
April 19, 2013 | FBI special agent and head of the bureau’s Boston office Richard DesLauriers has been running an crowd-sourced campaign for information about suspects in the Boston marathon bombing that left three dead and more than 170 wounded. So far, it appears to be working—but it also may herald in an unexpected end to privacy and civil liberties in the U.S.
Let’s take a look at the strategy, thus far.
The investigator released photos and videos of the two men authorities identified as suspects and created a website where tipsters and witnesses could come forward with pertinent information about the attack.
At a press conference yesterday, DesLauriers said the release of photographs and videos showing the bombers’ clothes, baseball hats, and faces could pull clues from anyone — in the United States or internationally — who had ever seen or known the suspects.
“With the media’s help, in an instant, these images will be delivered directly into the hands of millions around the world,” DesLauriers said.
And indeed they were. By the time the new information prompted a shootout in a Boston suburb that left one suspect dead, DesLauriers had already received more than 2,000 tips.
At the same time that the FBI was pouring over images and videos from the bombings, so too were internet users. On Reddit and 4Chan, vigilante investigators pointed out in photos and videos people and behavior they deemed suspicious. Claiming a man’s backpack was shaped as if it might have a pressure cooker in it, Reddit users identified the same wrong ‘suspect’ the New York Post pictured on its front page yesterday. The man, Salah Barhoun, was indeed not being sought by police. He was simply an innocent teenager.
“It’s the worst feeling that I can possibly feel,” Barhoun told ABC News, “I’m only 17.”
The FBI’s investigation helped to clear the name of the high schooler. But he remains worried that his life will be forever stained by those who remember that NY Post and much of the internet portrayed him as a terrorist.
While some people have standards for the kind of information they will post to Facebook, we have yet to establish a precedent for how authorities — and average civilians — may use social media to identify suspects in crimes. With spying as easy as the click of a mouse, privacy, like hand-written letters, becomes a thing of the past. At the same time, questions about how we can maintain security and safety have largely gone unaddressed.
Is there a time and place for police work, or is everything on the internet free reign? For example, should the FBI be allowed to scour through the Facebook and twitter profiles of every person they identified at the Boston marathon? Or, to push the question even further, should NYPD officers monitor Facebook pages to identify “at-risk” youths before they have committed crimes?
Whether internet vigilantes or trained investigators are using social media for crime analysis, the privacy of the people on the other end is often pushed aside in the name of safety. If this phenomenon continues un-checked, the impact on civil liberties could be as swift and severe as the false reports that followed the attack.
Plane brought back to gate at Boston's Logan Airport due to Arab-speaking passengers - FOX News
===
BOSTON (MyFoxBoston.com) – Sources told FOX 25 there was an American Airlines flight that was headed to Chicago. There were two men on that plane – not sitting next to each other – and speaking Arabic.
There were some concerned marathoners on the flight so the plane was brought back to the gate and the two men were escorted off the plane.
No other details were immediately available.
Idiots…… Fear is now the dominant feeling here in the USA and it will destroy us.
(via ex-ist)
NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly 'wanted to instill fear' in Black and Latino men
The commissioner of the New York City police department views the controversial practice of stop, question and frisk as a means to instil fear in young African American and Latino men, a New York state senator testified in a federal court on Monday.
State senator Eric Adams, who retired from the NYPD after rising to the rank of captain during a 22-year career, said commissioner Ray Kelly described his views on stop and frisk during a July 2010 meeting in the office of then-governor David Patterson.
Adams had traveled to Albany for a meeting on 10 July 2010 with the governor to give his support for a bill that would prohibit the NYPD from maintaining a database that would include the personal information of individuals stopped by the police but released without a charge or summons. In discussing the bill, which ultimately passed, Adams said he raised the issue of police stops disproportionately targeting young African American and Latino men.
“[Kelly] stated that he targeted and focused on that group because he wanted to instil fear in them that every time that they left their homes they could be targeted by police,” Adams testified.
“How else would we get rid of guns,” Adams said Kelly asked him.
Adams told the court he was stunned by the commissioner’s claim and immediately expressed his concerns. “I was amazed,” Adams testified. “I told him that was illegal.”
According to Adams, also at the meeting were a former New York City council member, Hakeem Jeffries, who is now a US congressman, and another New York state senator, Martin J Golden. Adams said he was “shocked” the commissioner would describe an effort to instill fear among African American and Latino youth in the company of three elected African American politicians – referring to himself, Jeffries and Golden.
Adams’s testimony marked the latest in a series of explosive allegations leveled against the NYPD in an ongoing trial targeting the department’s stop-and-frisk practices. In earlier hearings, two serving NYPD officers testified that the department maintains a rigid quota system to ensure officers make a certain number of stops, arrests and summons. Both men secretly recorded roll-call meetings and conversations with supervisors which purport to show the existence of such a system.
Under the joint tenure of Kelly and mayor Michael Bloomberg, the NYPD has stopped and, in some cases searched, approximately 4.4 million people, most of them Latino or African American.
By law, police officers are empowered to stop individuals on the street if they have reasonable suspicion that an individual is preparing to, is in the process of, or has just committed a crime.
According to Adams, under these conditions, stop and frisk is a “great tool” for suppressing and responding to crime. He added, however, that “nowhere” in the law is an officer empowered to “use the tool to instil fear. Nowhere”.
Heidi Grossman, an attorney for the city, challenged Adams on the facts of his meeting with Kelly, noting the state senator had not provided notes on the conversation, despite a subpoena. Adams said his email inbox contained some 10,000 messages and that his search for notes concerning the meeting was ongoing.
“I don’t think anyone in their right mind would believe the police commissioner would say the police department is targeting, just for targeting, blacks and Hispanics,” Grossman said.
She added that commissioner Kelly has denied telling Adams that stop and frisk is intended to instil fear in minority populations.
David Floyd is the lead plaintiff in the class-action lawsuit against the city of New York over its stop-and-frisk practices. Photograph: Lucas Jackson/ReutersIn October 2011, Adams signed an affidavit in support of class action certification for the Floyd suit. Grossman confirmed that Adams met with attorneys filing the suit before he signed the affidavit and suggested it was drafted by the the plaintiffs’ attorneys. Adams said he was unaware of how the affidavit came into being and said it may have been drafted by one of his staffers. Grossman pointed out that the document uses the phrase “instil the belief”, with respect to Kelly’s comments to Adams, rather than “instil fear”.
The same month, Adams also described the meeting with Kelly to the Guardian. At the time, Adams said the commissioner told him the aim of the practice was to “instil in every young man from those communities [black and Hispanic] that any time they leave their house they can be searched by the police.”
Asked whether Adams’ October 2011 comments had given an accurate account of Kelly’s remarks NYPD spokesman Paul Browne told the Guardian at the time: “commissioner Kelly said he wants gunmen to be deterred from carrying weapons on them in the streets, particularly in those communities most victimised by gun violence.”
In court on Monday, Grossman attempted to read from an affidavit signed by Kelly in 2011 in which Kelly apparently rejected Adams’ claims, but judge Scheindlin shut the effort down, stating that the commissioner would not be able to provide testimony through “backdoor” means. “If he’d like to come here, he’s welcome in this courtroom,” Scheindlin said. “If he’s not going to be here we’re not going to have his statement.”
Kelly said in a statement later that he “categorically and totally” denied making the remarks attributed to him by Adams. “It’s interesting that apparently only Mr Adams heard this statement though other people were present. And, it just defies logic … it’s ludicrous.”
Adams’s Brooklyn district contains some of the most heavily policed areas in New York City, including Brownsville, which in 2011 reported the second highest number of stops in the city. The neighborhood also has some of the highest crime rates in the city. Adams told reporters outside court that young people simply trying to survive in his district frequently find themselves trying to avoid both crime and police harassment.
“They feel trapped,” Adams said. He described a meeting in his office approximately a year and a half ago when seven high school football players came in to describe police stops they had experienced.
“Two of them began to cry,” Adams said, adding that the boys told him about “police touching their privates.”
“Cops don’t want to do this,” he said. “Cops are so frustrated they are wearing wires to roll call.”
Adams said he is at times frustrated with his own ability to convey the seriousness of conditions in his district to residents in New York’s more affluent neighborhoods. “It pains me,” he said. “New Yorkers don’t really know how bad it is for young people.”
(via ex-ist)
Law Enforcement Issues ‘Fugitive Summons’ To Black Anarchists In Attempt To Disrupt Anti-KKK Rally
In an attempt to disrupt the anti-police brutality work in Memphis, Tenn., USA. and the city’s March 30 Anti-Klan protest, the Hamilton County Sheriff’s department in Chattanooga, Tenn. (very likely working with other law enforcement agencies in Tennessee), has issued a “fugitive” summons for U.S. black anarchist, Lorenzo Komboa Ervin. He is the author of Anarchism and the Black Revolution and the co-founder of the Black Autonomy Federation, whose chapter in Memphis has organized several protests against police brutality and made the national call for the upcoming Anti-Klan protest.
The summons stems from court costs the county claims that Lorenzo owes in connection with a 12-year-old misdemeanor conviction. Damon McGee, Mikail Musa Muhammad (Ralph P. Mitchell), and Lorenzo were convicted in January, 2001, for disrupting a Chattanooga (Tenn.) City Council meeting in 1998 where they went to protest against police brutality. At the time, Chattanooga had the highest number of people killed by police in U.S. cities with populations under 200.000.
Damon has also received a “fugitive” summons. Mikail died in 2006. There is no statute of limitations in the U.S. on the collection of court fees and fines, and Damon and Lorenzo could be arrested at any time.
The Chattanooga 3, as they were called, were convicted for violating Tennessee’s “Disrupting Meetings Law,” which makes it illegal for anyone by “physical action or verbal utterance” to interfere with a lawful meeting. The law should be declared unconstitutional because it violates the First Amendment rights of free speech and assembly.
At the May 19, 1998 city council meeting, the chairman of the council had agreed to allow Lorenzo to speak on behalf of the Coalition Against Police Brutality to present a proposal for community control of the police. More than 100 people packed the meeting to back the proposal. But when the time came, the city council president would not allow Lorenzo to speak. Police arrested him when he attempted to read the proposal from the speaker’s podium. Damon and Mikail, who were at the podium with Lorenzo, were also arrested.
The Chattanooga 3 went on trial in a kangaroo courtroom. For one thing, the jury pool was tainted. One juror was a neighbor of the prosecutor. Worse, a married couple was on the same jury pool! The judge refused to allow defense attorneys to use the First Amendment in arguing their cases.
The conspiracy against the Chattanooga 3 became crystal clear after sheriff’s deputies allowed a black man to bring a gun into the courtroom. The man, who said he was a supporter of Osama Bin Laden, claimed that Lorenzo told him to bring the gun to the courtroom. The defendants had to remove some of the jurors prior to jury deliberations because of this prejudicial orchestrated event.
The Chattanooga 3 had support from activists around the world, who sent hundreds of emails to the Hamilton County district attorney. This international support and the fact that two days prior to sentencing, supporters held a big rally in Chattanooga that was widely publicized in the ruling class media, forced the judge to give the three activists suspended sentences.
What You Can Do To Help:
- Contact Criminal Court Judge Rebecca Stern, who presided over the Chattanooga 3 trial. Email , call or fax her and demand that she withdraw the “fugitive” summonses issued for Lorenzo and Damon McGee. Send email here.
- Make a complain to Hamilton County Sheriff Hamilton County Sheriff on their website and call the sheriff at (423)209-7000, or send a fax to (423)209-7001
- Circulate this text widely by reblogging and sending it to ABC, autononmist and left groups around the U.S.and internationally.
Peace & Love,
JoNina Ervin (acting chairmen of Memphis Black Autonomy Federation)
(via ex-ist)
Gray State (Official Concept Trailer)
When society falls
those who panic
die first
Report: US Shops for New Drone Base in Africa
Reporting in the New York Times Monday reveals that the US government is busy in west Africa looking for a country willing to host a military base for a portion its fleet of Predator drones.
Officials who spoke to the newspaper say that only un-armed surveillance drones would be part of an original plan to establish a base, but “they have not ruled out conducting missile strikes” if they consider it necessary in the future.
According to the Times:
If the base is approved, the most likely location for it would be in Niger, a largely desert nation on the eastern border of Mali, where French and Malian troops are now battling Qaeda-backed fighters who control the northern part of that country. The American military’s Africa Command is also discussing options for the base with other countries in the region, including Burkina Faso, officials said.
The immediate impetus for a drone base in the region is to provide surveillance assistance to the French-led operation in Mali. “This is directly related to the Mali mission, but it could also give Africom a more enduring presence for ISR,” one American military official said on Sunday, referring to intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.
Established critics of the US war on terror will not be surprised at the news, as the Pentagon and CIA have been fighting aspects of the so-called ‘war on terror’ in Africa for much of the last decade. However, establishing a US drone base inside Niger, Burkina Faso or elsewhere will be a clear escalation on the part of AFRICOM.
As Dashiell Bennett writes at The Atlantic, a new US base “almost certainly guarantees a long-term U.S. presence in North Africa.” And continues:
It would also send a clear signal that the U.S. now considers North Africa to be a theater in the never-ending, non-declared war on terror (with lowercase letters). Now that Afghanistan and Iraq are officially “over,” the focus appears to be moving West, to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, to the ethnic and religious violence in Nigeria, to the scattered militias in Libya, and toward terrorist attackers like those who hit the Algeria gas facility this month. This just continues the pattern of the Sahara region drawing more and more of America’s military resources and attention. And history shows that once the Pentagon establishes a presence in an foreign country, it becomes almost impossible to get them to leave.
It also proves that drones will continue to be the preferred first line of defense overseas. The Times also reports that Americans have already signed a “status of forces” agreement with Niger, the likely location of the new base. There are still several steps of approval to go through, but the wheels are in motion, and it won’t be long before the drones will be in the sky.
(via ex-ist)
