Thursday, December 18, 2008

Notes on the undercovers

They look like your mom. They look like your older brother. They even cry when you doubt that they're really friends with you, and say they'll stick up for you.

Who are they? The undercover fuzz.

The Campus Anti-War Network has just exposed an informant named Jason Mumford who was informing the FBI about numerous individuals involved in the Wild Rose Rebellion group and University Of Iowa Anti-War Committee. (I would tell you that this information came from a facebook message but then I'd have to kill you, you see.)

Here's a video of him infiltrating his own rally:




Sometimes I wonder just how many people actually work for the FBI. It looks like in 2004 the FBI had 28,576 total employees, which was before a 2004 executive order created even more employment for the FBI and doubled the number of CIA employees. Needless to say, the number of FBI or CIA employees does not include the number of informants. You can be an informant who does not actually work for the FBI or CIA, and can still be paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to ruin other peoples' lives.

I think this confirms that during the RNC the FBI was using technology that "would allow them to locate an individual through their cell phone." The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is one of the organizations mentioned in previous link, which means police had been using satellite photos to track people during and probably before the convention. NORTHCOM, a domestic military chain-of-command created after September 11th for Homeland Security, was involved in the security planning and operations as well. Originally NORTHCOM was given a limited role in civilian law enforcement after 9/11 - limited, that is, by posse comitatus. Now as you probably know, they're set to patrol the streets and aid local law enforcements.

An article titled 'Anarchist looked like someone's mom' in the Minneapolis Star Tribune is worth reading. It's about FBI informants who cry, pout, turn on each other, look like moms and nieces, show up for more potlucks than you do, and then eventually, rat you out without any evidence. Here is an excerpt.

Nathanael Secor, one of the RNC Eight, said "a level of comradeship" developed between activists and the operatives and it was disappointing to learn they were spies. Still, he says, "We had the feeling we were under surveillance from the beginning. It did not come as a complete shock."

...

At one meeting of various groups, "somebody made a joke that based on looks, he's the one who looks like a cop," Plotz said. "He kind of smiled and didn't say anything."

At a meeting where Hedstrom was the facilitator, a kind of chairperson, an anarchist expressed concern that he was a cop, a report said. Dugger "became emotional and told them how bad he felt, he wiped his eyes and blew his nose." He denied he was an informer.

The memo said two anarchists told him they "don't think he is a cop. They said a cop would have just walked away and never returned and wouldn't cry."

Dugger even got into the act. By August he was urging an anarchist to suspect another anarchist of being an informer.

In the reports, the anarchists talk with bravado, with occasional references to breaking windows and damaging vehicles. They told each other it was not violence, since they had no plans to injure people.

Many meetings involved no talk of property damage, or even protests. They dealt with tasks like finding places to stay. The local anarchist core was small, and the reports offer a glimpse into strains --and even gripes -- among them.