FBI Agents Raid Homes in Search of “Anarchist Literature”

From the Trenches

Green is the New Red – by Will Potter  When FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force agents raided multiple activist homes in the Northwest last week, they were in search of “anti-government or anarchist literature.”


The raids were part of a multi-state operation that targeted activists in Portland, Olympia, and Seattle. At least three people were served subpoenas to appear before a federal grand jury on August 2nd in Seattle.

In addition to anarchist literature, the warrants also authorize agents to seize flags, flag-making material, cell phones, hard drives, address books, and black clothing.


The listing of black clothing and flags, along with comments made by police, indicates that the FBI may ostensibly be investigating “black bloc” tactics used during May Day protests in Seattle, which destroyed corporate property.

If that is true, how are books and literature evidence of criminal activity?

To answer that, we need to look at the increasing harassment, surveillance, and prosecution of anarchists and political activists associated with the Occupy Movement.

In some cases, such as the May Day arrests in Cleveland, the FBI has been so desperate to arrests “anarchist terrorists” that it supplied them with bomb-making materials and used an informant to entrap them. The same thing happened in Chicago.

The motivation for these operations, and the instruction that “anarchist” means “terrorist,” is coming straight from the top levels of the federal government. As I recently wrote, new documents show that the FBI is conducting “domestic terrorism” training presentations about anarchists.

The FBI presentation described anarchists as “criminals seeking an ideology to justify their activities.”

This is the guilt-by-association mentality that is guiding FBI and JTTF assaults on political activists; if agents find “anarchist literature” in a raid, it is evidence of criminalactivity because anarchism, in and of itself, is criminal activity.

The Seattle grand jury may or may not be investigating May Day protests. What’s clear, though, is that the grand jury is being used as a tool in this criminalization of those suspected as “anarchists.” Grand juries are secretive processes that are frequently used against political activists in order to acquire information. They are fishing expeditions. If activists refuse to testify about their personal beliefs and political associations, they can be imprisoned. Jordan Halliday, for example, was recently released after serving more than six months in prison (and being imprisoned once already for four months) for asserting his First Amendment and Fifth Amendment rights and refusing to provide information about the animal rights movement.

As one organizer with Occupy Seattle said after the raid: “…we are not being raided for connection to any crime, but to some political ideology that the police think we have.

“I was just doing research on the old Pinkerton strikebreaking paramilitaries, so it’s kind of funny, you know, to have that old Red Scare history burst through my front door at six AM.”

Newburgh Four: poor, black, and jailed under FBI 'entrapment' tactics

Guardian
Paul Harris

In June, four men were jailed for 25 years over a US terror plot. The FBI painted them as dedicated fanatics, but were they lured by the promise of cash from a fake informant?

Imam Salahuddin Muhammad could hardly miss Shahed Hussain when he first appeared three years ago at his mosque in the dilapidated town of Newburgh, just 60 miles up the Hudson River from New York.

Hussain was flash, drove expensive cars and treated people to gifts of cash and food. He also had radical opinions that stood out in a mosque that welcomed Shia and Sunni followers and had good relations with local Jewish and Christian communities.

"This guy said women should not be heard, not be seen. I thought that was strange," Muhammad told the Guardian as he sat in his office inside Newburgh's mosque." Muhammad, who is a black American convert, had no idea how strange things would get.

Hussain would make Newburgh's Muslim community famous when earlier this year four other black Newburgh Muslims were jailed for 25 years for a 2009 plot to fire a Stinger missile at US military planes. They also planted car bombs, packed with lethal ball bearings, outside Jewish targets in the wealthy New York suburb of Riverdale.

Prosecutors painted them as America-hating terrorists bent on slaughter. All four followed the instructions of Hussain, who meticulously organised the scheme: from getting the missile and bombs, to reconnaissance missions, to teaching the tenets of radical Islam.

The "Newburgh Four" now languish in jail. Hussain does not. For Hussain was a fake. In fact, Hussain worked for the FBI as an informant trawling mosques in hope of picking up radicals.

Yet far from being active militants, the four men he attracted were impoverished individuals struggling with Newburgh's grim epidemic of crack, drug crime and poverty. One had mental issues so severe his apartment contained bottles of his own urine. He also believed Florida was a foreign country.

Justice Dept: Homeland Security Advised Raids On Occupy Wall Street Camps

Gothamist

President Obama's "position" regarding the NYPD's raid of Zuccotti Park, is that "every municipality has to make its own decision about how to handle" the issues of free speech and the concerns of the community. But according to Rick Ellis at the Examiner, a Justice Department official says that the recent evictions of Occupy movement across the country including Salt Lake City, Denver, Portland, Oakland, and New York City were "coordinated with help from Homeland Security, the FBI and other federal police agencies."

Ellis reports that his source says though the decision to evict protesters ultimately rested with each individual jurisdiction, the local police departments "had received tactical and planning advice from national agencies" from the feds.

Oakland's mayor Jean Quan told the BBC yesterday that she had participated in a conference call with the leaders of 18 other cities to discuss their shared "situation where what had started as a political movement and a political encampment ended up being an encampment no longer in control by the people who started them."

Mother Jones reports that the US Conferences of Mayors has stated that two conference calls, one on October 13, the morning before the aborted raid on Zuccotti Park, and the second on November 10, were held with "mayors and police top brass." They discussed "issues of concern" and how to "maintain public health and safety" during the occupations. The USCM official "denied that there was any coordination or planning between mayors and police officials about breaking up Occupy protests or tearing down encampments." Mayor Bloomberg denies participating in these conference calls.

The AP reports that another set of conference calls on October 11 and November 14 were organized by the Police Executive Research Forum and included representatives from 40 different cities. A spokesman for the group said that the timing of the calls were "completely spontaneous" and had nothing to do with the recent raids. "This was an attempt to get insight on what other departments were doing." Including the maxim: "Don't set a midnight deadline to evict Occupy Wall Street protesters, it will only give a crowd of demonstrators time to form."

In our recent interview with Glenn Greenwald, a former civil rights attorney and current Salon columnist, we asked him a question regarding the expanding powers of the federal government.

Typically, new powers are often applied in ways that people will feel comfortable with. So if the government wants to restrict speech they will pick the most hated person in the society and restrict their speech and nobody will care...The problem is that these things proliferate far beyond their original applications, in every instance that's true. Historically, that's how power functions.

According to a Presidential directive issued by George W. Bush in 2003, the DHS's responsibility is to "develop all-hazards plans and capabilities, including those of greatest importance to the security of the United States homeland, such as the prevention of terrorist attacks and preparedness for the potential use of weapons of mass destruction, and ensure that state, local, and federal plans are compatible." Is assisting to coordinate the eviction of mostly-peaceful protests what the DHS was designed to do?

Homeland Security detain Occupy Portland Photographer

Demotix

The Federal Protective Service officers who arrested the man gave no reason as to why he was arrested and the man provided no details to the amassing crowd who wanted to help.
Reportedly his arrest was not concerning the Occupy Portland movement.

Police were mobilising in riot gear under the Morrison Bridge shortly before the arrest but were not involved in this operation.

UPDATE

According to a report on Oregon Live entitled 'Occupy Portland: Federal officials tell protesters no camping in Schrunk Plaza' by Anne Saker it is stated that at "4:25 p.m. Amy Ruiz, Mayor Sam Adams' spokeswoman, tweets: Rumor control: No "riot police" near #occupyportland (or anywhere else). Just a squad in regular uniform, keeping zombie march safe."

When the police were questioned if they were under the bridge for the zombie march, they responded that they were not.

The occupation has erected a handful of tents on Terry Shrunk Plaza which is a Federal Park with a 10pm curfew.

CIA agent in police triggers probe

GulfNews

Differing explanations offered on posting in department amid fears of domestic spying

New York Council members Daniel Drumm and Robert Jackson
listen as NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly testifies
before the public safety committee.

Washington: Working inside the New York Police Department is one of the CIA's most experienced clandestine operatives. He arrived in July as the special assistant to the deputy commissioner of intelligence. While his title is clear, his job responsibilities are not.
 
Federal and city officials have offered differing explanations for why this top CIA officer was assigned to a municipal police department since AP revealed the assignment in August.

The CIA is prohibited from spying domestically, and its unusual partnership with the New York Police Department (NYPD) has troubled top lawmakers and prompted an internal investigation.

The last time a CIA officer worked so closely with the NYPD, beginning in the months after the 9/11 attacks, he became the architect of aggressive police programmes that monitored Muslim neighbourhoods.

With that earlier help from this CIA official, the police put entire communities under a microscope based on ethnicity rather than allegations of wrongdoing, according to the AP investigation.

It was an extraordinary collaboration that at times troubled some senior CIA officials and may have stretched the bounds of how the CIA is allowed to operate in the United States.
The arrangement surrounding the newly arrived CIA officer, who was at the centre of one of the worst US intelligence fiascos in recent history, has been portrayed differently from that of his predecessor.

When first asked by the AP, a senior US official described the posting as a sabbatical, a programme aimed at giving the man in New York more management training.

Technical information

Testifying at City Hall recently, New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the CIA operative provides his officers "with information, usually coming from perhaps overseas". He said the CIA operative provides "technical information" to the NYPD but "doesn't have access to any of our investigative files".

The FBI Again Thwarts Its Own Terror Plot

Information Clearing House
Glenn Greenwald

September 29, 2011 "Salon" -- The FBI has received substantial criticism over the past decade -- much of it valid -- but nobody can deny its record of excellence in thwarting its own Terrorist plots. Time and again, the FBI concocts a Terrorist attack, infiltrates Muslim communities in order to find recruits, persuades them to perpetrate the attack, supplies them with the money, weapons and know-how they need to carry it out -- only to heroically jump in at the last moment, arrest the would-be perpetrators whom the FBI converted, and save a grateful nation from the plot manufactured by the FBI.

Last year, the FBI subjected 19-year-old Somali-American Mohamed Osman Mohamud to months of encouragement, support and money and convinced him to detonate a bomb at a crowded Christmas event in Portland, Oregon, only to arrest him at the last moment and then issue a Press Release boasting of its success. In late 2009, the FBI persuaded and enabled Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, a 19-year old Jordanian citizen, to place a fake bomb at a Dallas skyscraper and separately convinced Farooque Ahmed, a 34-year-old naturalized American citizen born in Pakistan, to bomb the Washington Metro. And now, the FBI has yet again saved us all from its own Terrorist plot by arresting 26-year-old American citizen Rezwan Ferdaus after having spent months providing him with the plans and materials to attack the Pentagon, American troops in Iraq, and possibly the Capitol Building using "remote-controlled" model airplanes carrying explosives.

None of these cases entail the FBI's learning of an actual plot and then infiltrating it to stop it. They all involve the FBI's purposely seeking out Muslims (typically young and impressionable ones) whom they think harbor animosity toward the U.S. and who therefore can be induced to launch an attack despite having never taken even a single step toward doing so before the FBI targeted them. Each time the FBI announces it has disrupted its own plot, press coverage is predictably hysterical (new Homegrown Terrorist caught!), fear levels predictably rise, and new security measures are often implemented in response (the FBI's Terror plot aimed at the D.C. Metro, for instance, led to the Metro Police announcing a new policy of random searches of passengers' bags). I have several observations and questions about these matters:

(1) The bulk of this latest FBI plot entailed attacks on military targets: the Pentagon, U.S. troops in Iraq, and possibly military bases. The U.S. is -- as it has continuously announced to the world -- a Nation at War. The Pentagon is the military headquarters for this war, and its troops abroad are the soldiers fighting it. In what conceivable sense can attacks on those purely military and war targets be labeled "Terrorism" or even illegitimate? The U.S. has continuously attacked exactly those kinds of targets in multiple nations around the world; it expressly tried to kill Saddam and Gadaffi in the wars against their countries (it even knowingly blew up an entire suburban apartment building to get Saddam, who wasn't actually there). What possible definition of "Terrorism" excludes those attacks by the U.S. while including this proposed one on the Pentagon and other military targets (or, for that matter, Nidal Hasan's attack on Fort Hood where soldiers deploy to war zones)?

(2) With regard to the targeted building that is not purely a military target -- the Capitol Building -- is that a legitimate war target under the radically broad standards the U.S. and its allies have promulgated for themselves? The American "shock and awe" assault on Baghdad destroyed "several government buildings and palaces built by Saddam Hussein"; on just the third day of that war, "U.S. bombs turn[ed] key government buildings in Baghdad into rubble." In Libya, NATO repeatedly bombed non-military government buildings. In Gaza, Israeli war planes targeted a police station filled with police recruits on the stated theory that a valid target "ranges from the strictly military institutions and includes the political institutions that provide the logistical funding and human resources" to Hamas.

Obviously, there is a wide range of views regarding the justifiability of each war, but isn't the U.S. Congress -- which funds, oversees, and regulates America's wars -- a legitimate war target under the (inadvisedly) broad definitions the U.S. and its allies have imposed when attacking others? If the political leaders and even functionaries of other countries with which the U.S. is at war are legitimate targets, then doesn't that necessarily mean that Pentagon officials and, arguably, those in the Congress are as well?

(3) The irony that this plot featured "remote-controlled aircraft filled with plastic explosives" is too glaring to merit comment; the only question worth asking is whether the U.S. Government can sue Ferdaus for infringing its drone patents. Glaring though that irony is, there is no shortage of expressions of disgust today, pondering what kind of dasterdly Terrorist monster does it take to want to attack buildings with remote-controlled mini-aircraft.

(4) Wouldn't the FBI's resources be better spent on detecting and breaking up actual Terrorist plots -- if there are any -- rather than manufacturing ones so that they can stop those? Harboring hatred for the U.S. and wanting to harm it (or any country) is not actually a crime; at most, it's a Thought Crime. It doesn't become a crime until steps are taken to attempt to transform that desire into reality. There are millions and millions of people who at some point harbor a desire to impose violent harm on others who never do so: perhaps that's true of a majority of human beings. Many of them will never act in the absence of the type of highly sophisticated, expert push of which the FBI is uniquely capable. Is manufacturing criminals -- as opposed to finding and stopping actual criminals -- really a prudent law enforcement activity?

(5) Does the FBI devote any comparable resources to infiltrating non-Muslim communities in order to persuade and induce those extremists to become Terrorists so that they can arrest them? Are they out in the anti-abortion world, or the world of radical Christianity, or right-wing anti-government radicals, trying to recruit them into manufactured Terrorist plots?

(6) As usual, most media coverage of the FBI's plots is as uncritical as it is sensationalistic. The first paragraph of The New York Times article on this story described the plot as one "to blow up the Pentagon and the United States Capitol." But the FBI's charging Affidavit (reproduced below) makes clear that Ferdaus' plan was to send a single model airplane (at most 1/10 the size of an actual U.S. jet) to the Capitol and two of them to the Pentagon, each packed with "5 pounds" of explosives (para. 70); the Capitol was to be attacked at its dome for "psychological effect" (para 34). The U.S. routinely drops 500-pound or 1,000-pound bombs from actual fighter jets; this plot -- even if it were carried out by someone other than a hapless loner with no experience and it worked perfectly -- could not remotely "blow up" the Pentagon or the Capitol.


(7) As is now found in almost every case of would-be Terrorist plots against the U.S. -- especially "homegrown Terrorists" -- the motive is unbridled fury over (and a desire to avenge) contintuous U.S violence against Muslim civilians. Infused throughout the charging Affidavit here are such references to Ferdaus' motives, including his happiness over the prospect of killing U.S. troops in Iraq; his proclamation that he's "interested in traveling to Afghanistan" to aid insurgents; his statement that "he wanted to 'decapitate' the U.S. government's 'military center' and to severely disrupt . . . the head and heart of the snake" (para 12) and to "essentially decapitate the entire empire" (para 34) (compare that language to how the U.S. described what it tried to do in Baghdad). Using drones to decapitate the leadership and government infrastructure of a nation at war; I wonder where he got that idea.

At least according to the FBI, this is how Feradus replied when expressly asked why he wanted to attack the U.S.:

Cause that would be a huge scare . . . the point is you want to scare them so they know not to mess with you . . . They have . . . . have killed from us, our innocents, our men, women and children, they are all enemies (para 19).

If the FBI's allegations are accurate, then it's clear Ferdaus has become hardened in his hatred; he talks about a willingness to kill American civilians because they have become part of the enemy, and claims that he fantasized about such attacks before the FBI informant spoke to him.

But whatever else is true, it's simply unrealistic in the extreme to expect to run around for a full decade screaming WE ARE AT WAR!! -- and dropping bombs and attacking with drones and shooting up families in multiple Muslim countries (and occupying, interfering in and killing large numbers before that) -- and not produce many Rezwan Ferdauses. In fact, the only surprising thing is that these seem to be so few of them actually willing and able to attack back that -- in order to justify this Endless War on civil liberties (and Terror) -- the FBI has to search for ones they can recruit, convert, convince, fund, and direct to carry out plots.

Complaint Affidavit

A Family Affair: Who’s Left Behind After the FBI’s Fake Terror Stings

Color Lines
Lyric Cabral

Ten years after September 11, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has prioritized protecting American citizens from the threat of domestic terrorism emanating from within our borders. Consequently, about 15,000 of our friends, neighbors, business proprietors and religious leaders now work as paid, untrained informants for the FBI, in zealous pursuit of disrupting a terrorist threat. Though a clear path to “radicalization” has yet to be identified, the FBI relies on this vast network of informants to “see something and say something” about American citizens whose speech, ideology or religious expression suggests cause for a national security investigation. The Obama administration is invoking the state secrets privilege to block legal challenges to the surveillance as a violation of constitutional rights.

A large portion of the FBI’s $3.3 billion counter-terrorism budget is dedicated to informants, who typically earn about $100 a day for their role in an active investigation. Informants are disproportionately tasked to gather information in Muslim-American communities; they have been deployed based on blunt mapping programs that profile and target entire Muslim populations. Since 9/11, 508 defendants have been prosecuted for terrorism in 36 states and Washington, D.C. Almost half of these cases involved the use of an FBI informant.

The Raleigh Seven, Fort Dix Five, Newburgh Four and Tarik Shah (Martial Arts) cases received national attention as high-profile terrorism arrests—in each case an FBI informant enticed Muslim men to participate in a fictional terrorist plot. The lengths to which informants went to convince the men to participate in their nonexistent plots are striking; the details of their ultimate participation are often absurd. The families involved in these cases are African American, Albanian and Jordanian,* but they are united in that their belief that their family members were targeted and entrapped. As the anniversary of 9/11 nears, I aim that these photographs speak to the personal toll of our national security policies, which continue to adversely affect Muslim-American communities and families.

Ibrahim Shnewer, father of Mohammed Shnewer in the Fort Dix Five case, prays at Masjid-As-Salaam in Albany, N.Y. Masjid-as-Salaam was targeted by FBI informant Shahed Hussain, who was instrumental in securing the conviction of Yassin Aref, the mosque’s imam, in 2007 (Hussain was later involved in the Newburgh Four case as well). The preemptive prosecution wall lists the names of many individuals prosecuted in terrorism cases since 9/11—in the majority of these cases no one was hurt and the weaponry involved was fake and provided by the FBI.

 Laila Yaghi holds a picture of her son Ziyad Yaghi (left) and his friend Omar, taken during Ziyad’s 2006 vacation in Egypt. Two years after returning home to Raleigh, N.C., Ziyad was charged with conspiracy and material support for terrorism, for allegedly traveling overseas to seek training and terrorist resources. Ziyad has pleaded not guilty and he is currently going through trial. 

Elizabeth McWilliams, mother of David Williams IV, speaks to the media outside the White Plains Federal Court House on the day the Newburgh Four trial was scheduled to begin. She is hesitant to speak to the media “because they only want their story, not my story.” Williams, Laguerre Payen, Onta Williams and James Cromitie were sentenced to 25 years for their role in a fake synagogue bombing. Presiding Federal District Judge Colleen McMahon commented that “a government, understandably zealous to protect its citizens, created acts of terrorism out of the fantasies and the bravado and the bigotry of one man in particular and four men generally and then made these fantasies come true.”

 Zurata Duka serves dinner at home to her five grandchildren, whom she cares for while their father, Dritan Duka, serves a prison sentence of 33 years plus life. Dritan, Eljvir, and Shain Duka were convicted in 2009 of conspiring to kill military personnel at the Fort Dix Military Base in New Jersey. Two informants surveilled the men for over a year, though there was scant evidence indicating the Duka brothers had any knowledge of an alleged attack at Fort Dix.

Tarik Shah, a prominent martial arts teacher and bassist who played at the inauguration of President Bill Clinton, is seen playing at a Harlem jazz club. His mother, Marlene Shaw, enjoyed her birthday in a jazz club where he once played. Tarik pleaded guilty in 2007 of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism. He had been held in solitary confinement for 33 months and felt that his innocence would never be proven in a federal trial. Tarik was targeted by two FBI informants, who encouraged him to teach martial arts to individuals with purported Al Queda associations.

Despite Previous Reassurances by Janet Napalitano and Homeland Security, Incident Rates of Cancer Surge in TSA Employees

PrisonPlanet

FOIA documents reveal how “large number of workers have been falling victim to cancer, strokes and heart disease”

 Fearful of provoking further public resistance to naked airport body scanners, the TSA has been caught covering up a surge in cases of TSA workers developing cancer as a result of their close proximity to radiation-firing devices, perhaps the most shocking revelation to emerge from the latest FOIA documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

After Union representatives in Boston discovered a “cancer cluster” amongst TSA workers linked with radiation from the body scanners, the TSA sought to downplay the matter and refused to issue employees with dosimeters to measure levels of exposure.

The documents indicate how, “A large number of workers have been falling victim to cancer, strokes and heart disease.”

“The Department, rather than acting on it, or explaining its position seems to have just dismissed. I don’t think that’s the way most other agencies would have acted in a similar situation if they were confronted with that question,” EPIC’s Marc Rotenberg said.

In an email sent to Heather Callahan (PDF), deputy federal security director at Boston Logan International Airport, union representatives express their concern about “TSA Boston’s growing number of TSOs working here that have thus far been diagnosed with cancer.”

Of course, if TSA workers who are merely standing near the scanners are already developing cancer, frequent flyers are also putting themselves in harm’s way by standing directly inside the radiation-firing machines.

As we reported yesterday, newly released internal government documents, obtained via the Freedom Of Information Act by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, reveal that the TSA, and specifically the head of the Department of Homeland Security, “publicly mischaracterized” the findings of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, in stating that NIST had positively confirmed the safety of full body scanners in tests.

In erroneously citing both NIST and the Johns Hopkins school of medicine to claim that the body scanners are safe, the TSA has also deliberately misled the public on the dangers posed by the devices.
Documents obtained by EPIC show that, far from affirming their safety, NIST warned that airport screeners should avoid standing next to full body scanners in order to keep exposure to harmful radiation “as low as reasonably achievable.”

Further documents illustrate how a Johns Hopkins study actually revealed that radiation zones around body scanners could exceed the “General Public Dose Limit,” contradicting repeated claims by the TSA that Johns Hopkins had validated the safety of the devices.

At the time we pointed out that Dr Michael Love, who runs an X-ray lab at the department of biophysics and biophysical chemistry at the Johns Hopkins school of medicine had publicly stated two days previously that “statistically someone is going to get skin cancer from these X-rays”.