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Police State Targets the Left
by Jim Redden - Excerpt from the book: Snitch Culture
The sound of breaking glass signalled a dramatic change in the focus
of the
government's political surveillance programs in late 1999. After
spending
most of the decade spying on the right wing neo-Patriot movement, law
enforcement agencies abruptly shifted gears and declared
brick-throwing
anarchists to be the newest threat to the American way of life. By
the dawn
of the new Millennium, the government was running COINTELPRO-style
operations against a coalition of radical labor, environmental, and
human
rights organizations opposed to corporate control of the global
economy.
Police were photographing suspected activists and entering license
plate
numbers in their computer databanks. Undercover operatives were
infiltrating meetings and disrupting protests. Even the Pentagon was
involved, dispatching its Delta Force anti-terrorism commandos to
identify
and secretly videotape suspected leaders. By early August, calls were
underway for a full-blown federal investigation into the movement,
raising
the specter of an government-orchestrated Green Scare along the lines
of
anti-Communist witch hunts of the 1950s.
The shift was the direct result of the massive protests which
disrupted the
World Trade Organization conference in Seattle. Over 50,000
demonstrators
jammed the streets, snarling traffic and preventing WTO delegates
from
reaching their meetings. When the authorities tried to break up the
protests, a small group of the most militant activists struck back,
vandalizing businesses in the downtown core and clashing with police
throughout the city. Much like the urban riots of the early 1960s,
the
intensity of the confrontations caught political leaders and law
enforcement officials off guard, prompting the most significant
change in
the direction of the government's domestic surveillance operations in
the
past 20 years.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the FBI and other domestic law
enforcement
agencies focused their political intelligence-gathering programs on
militias and other Far Right organizations. But, by the summer of
1999,
federal authorities were beginning to look at the emerging
anti-globablization movement. Tipped off that large numbers of
protesters
were preparing to travel to Seattle for the December WTO meeting, the
FBI
began spying on environmental, labor and anti-corporate activists. As
the
Seattle Weekly reported on December 23, 1999, "Sources say... that
police
and 30 other local, state, and federal agencies have been
aggressively
gathering intelligence on violent and nonviolent protest groups since
early
summer (FBI agents even paid personal visits to some activists' homes
to
inquire about their plans)."
Even the military got involved. According to the Weekly, the Pentagon
sent
members of the top-secret Delta Force to Seattle to prepare for
President
Bill Clinton's arrival. As the paper put it, "the elite Army special
force,
operating under its cover name of Combat Applications Group (CAG),
was in
Seattle a week in advance of the Clinton visit to scope out possible
terrorist acts. Under the control of the Joint Special Operations
Command
(JSOC) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the contingent took up
residence in a
Regrade motel and fanned out downtown dressed as demonstrators, some
wearing their jungle greens."
The preparations didn't work. Thousands of protesters overwhelmed the
police on the opening day of the conference, shutting down the center
where
the main meetings were scheduled to be held. The police overreacted
and
began macing and tear-gassing the protesters who were preventing the
WTO
delegates from entering the center. A small group of the most
militant
protesters retaliated by attacking such corporate icons as McDonalds,
Nike
Town, the Gap and Starbucks, smashing windows, toppling shelves,
spraying
graffiti and provoking a massive police crackdown.
The mayor of Seattle declared a state of "civil emergency,"
essentially a
local version of martial law. Washington's governor called out 300
state
troopers and two divisions of the National Guard to secure the blocks
around the downtown convention site. A "Protest-Free Zone" was
declared
around the conference headquarters, allowing the police to exclude
anyone
merely wishing to express their First Amendment rights. Police
dressed up
in military-style riot gear chased protesters through the streets for
the
next few days. Thousands of people were sprayed with pepper gas,
clubbed
with ballistic batons, and shot with rubber-coated bullets and steel
pellet-filled "beanbag" shotgun rounds. Many of the victims were
innocent
bystanders and business owners who simply didn't get out of the way
fast
enough.
The chaos was broadcast around the world. TV viewers saw police
firing at
protesters at point blank range. One cop went out of his way to kick
an
empty-handed protester in the groin. Another cop ripped a gas mask
off a
pregnant foreign reporter and struck her.
Delta Force troops were in the middle of the confrontations, working
to
identify protest leaders. "Some Deltas wore lapel cameras,
continuously
transmitting pictures of rioters and other demonstrators to a master
video
unit in the motel command center, which could be used by law
enforcement
agencies to identify and track suspects," the Weekly reported.
The WTO conference ended in disarray, a victory for the protesters
and a
major embarrassment for the Clinton Administration. Four days later,
Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper resigned in disgrace.
The corporate media immediately fell into line behind the government,
portraying all anti-corporate protesters as violent thugs to justify
the
coming crackdown. Although the police shot demonstrators with tear
gas
canisters at point blank range, images of black-clad anarchists
smashing
windows dominated the post-riot news reports. The December 13 issue
of
Newsweek linked the anarchists to Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber. 60
Minutes
traveled Eugene for a story on the new domestic terrorists. "They
came to
Seattle with violence in their hearts and destruction on their
minds," the
CBS News show warned viewers sternly.
The government's abrupt shift from right to left wing activists was
accompanied by a wave of false alarms and bogus reports. A rumor
spread
that the Eugene anarchists were planning to drive up the freeway to
Portland and disrupt that city's downtown New Year's Eve party. The
local
police went on high alert, fencing off the site and installing
security
gates to detain and search party-goers. The U.S. Marshals Office
opened a
number of temporary holding cells in an old downtown federal
building. The
FBI set up a command center in the basement of the nearby Mark O.
Hatfield
Federal Courthouse. Heavily-armed federal agents gathered in the
basement
on New Year's Eve. Police in full riot gear patrolled the perimeter.
None
of the anarchists showed up. The informant was wrong.
Another bogus tip sparked a similar panic in Tacoma, Washington a few
months later. The local steelworkers union had called for a March 25
rally
at the Kaiser aluminum plant. Labor and environmental activists from
throughout the Pacific Northwest were planning to attend. Then Eugene
authorities contacted the Tacoma police and reported that some of the
anarchists were allegedly heading their way with a bomb. The police
contacted union organizer Jon Youngdahl, who called off the protest.
No
bomb-carrying anarchist was ever found.
Anarchy fever gripped the Portland police again in late April. A few
hundred local activists were planning a May Day march and
demonstration. An
unnamed informant told the police that the Eugene anarchists were
coming up
to cause trouble. According to one police report, they "have little
regard
for the laws of society" and were expected to engage in civil
disobedience.
Police Chief Mark Kroeker, a former deputy chief from the Los Angeles
Police Department who had only been on the job a few months,
dispatched
over 150 officers in full riot gear, including black body armor and
helmets
with plastic face shields. Police spent hours chasing demonstrators
through
the streets, spraying them with mace, clubbing them with ballistic
batons
and shooting them with "beanbag" rounds. Nineteen people were
arrested,
mostly on minor charges. None were anarchists from Eugene. Kroeker
later
apologized to the city council for the actions of his officers.
These incidents occurred as federal authorities were bracing for the
next
major anti-globalization protests, set for the World Bank and
International
Monetary Fund meetings scheduled to begin on April 16 in Washington
DC. As
the activists began planning their demonstrations, they were targeted
by
federal, state and local law enforcement officials. Their meetings
were
infiltrated, their public gatherings disrupted, their phones tapped,
and
police were posted outside their homes and offices. Even the
corporate
media took note of the harassment. "Some protesters think they are
being
watched. They are correct." the Washington Post reported on April 1O,
quoting Executive Assistant Washington Police Chief Terrance W.
Gainer as
saying, "If it's an open meeting and it says, 'Come on over,' then
anybody's welcome."
Three days later, USA Today reported government agents were going
undercover online to thwart the protesters. "[T]hey have been
monitoring 73
internet sites where the groups have been exchanging messages to
learn more
about their plans. Sometimes, officers have even gone online posing
as
protesters," the paper said, adding that police were physically
following
suspected anarchists throughout the capitol city. "They have been
monitoring the movements of nearly two dozen self-proclaimed
anarchists who
have arrived in Washington."
As a result of this surveillance, all 3,500 DC police officers were
put on
alert, along with unknown number of law enforcement agents from at
least 12
federal and state agencies, including the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms. The authorities spent over $1 million on new
body
armor and bullet-proof shields. They set up three mass detention
centers
where arrested protesters would be taken. They removed 69 mailboxes
where
bombs could be hidden.
"They ain't burning our city like they did in Seattle," Police Chief
Charles Ramsey told USA Today. "I'm not going to let it happen. I
guarantee
it."
The authorities started cracking down on the activists the week
before the
IMF/World Bank meetings were scheduled to begin. On April 13, seven
activists driving to a planning meeting were pulled over and
arrested.
Police seized 256 PCV pipes, 45 smaller pipes, 2 rolls of chicken
wire, 50
rolls of duct tape, gas masks, bolt cutters, chains, an electrical
saw, and
lock boxes. According to a Washington Post account of the incident, a
Secret Service agent frisked one passenger, showing him a photo that
had
been taken of him earlier.
The police justified the arrests by saying the materials and tools
found in
the van were "implements of crime." The accusation struck NLG
President
Karen Jo Koonan as absurd. "These activists construct signs, puppets,
sound
stages, and other tools for expressing their political views," she
wrote in
a letter to U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno. "They were in fact
arrested
for possession of implements of First Amendment activity. We have
been told
by an MPD officer that the FBI directed them to make this arrest."
But the police claim was made a specific purpose
a purpose which
would
soon become clear. It is illegal for the police to spy on anyone
simply
because of their political beliefs. But political activists can be
monitored if the police believe they are planning to commit crimes,
no
matter how petty. The police claimed the items seized from the van
were
"instruments of crime" to justify their surveillance. It was a claim
that
would be heard repeatedly in the days, weeks and months to come.
On the morning of April 15, law enforcement authorities unexpectedly
raided
a warehouse that served as the demonstrators' headquarters. According
to
eyewitness accounts, the agencies involved in the raid included the
BATF,
the Washington Metropolitan Police Department and the Washington Fire
Department. Saying the warehouse violated fire codes, the authorities
threw
all the activists out and closed the building. Then the authorities
claimed
they found weapons in the warehouse, physical proof that violent
crimes
were being planned. According to the police, the evidence included a
Molotov cocktail, balloons filled with acid, and a lab for producing
explosives and pepper spray. In a later retraction, the police
admitted
they'd only found oily rags and a kitchen, but not until after the
warehouse was shut down. Police also kept all the signs, banners and
giant
satiric posters under construction inside, depriving the
demonstrators of
their most effective means of communicating their causes.
By the morning of Saturday the 16th, the police had cordoned off 50
blocks
around the headquarters of the World Bank and the International
Monetary
Fund. The first mass arrests happened that afternoon when thousands
of
protesters marched toward the headquarters of the two financial
institutions. The police blocked their way, then isolated and
arrested
approximately 635 activists, far more than the total arrested during
several days of rioting in Seattle. "What makes the situation all the
more
maddening is that such actions are apparently being taken based on
the
ridiculous view that every protester or activist is an anarchist time
bomb
waiting to go off
a view apparently buttressed by unspecified
police
'intelligence' that may or may not be true," reporter Jason Vest
wrote in
the online SpeakOut.com website.
The authorities quickly revealed that they were obsessed with
identifying
the protesters. Those who provided identification were fined $50.
Those who
didn't were fined $300.
Demonstrators clashed with police during the next few days. The
federal
government gave all non-essential employees in Washington DC the day
off on
Monday, resulting in a partial government shut-down, which is far
more than
the neo-Patriot movement was able to achieve at any point in the
1990s. By
the time it was over, even the IMF had released a communique
acknowledged
the protesters had made its policies a matter "of growing public
debate."
As the ABC Evening News reported on Monday, "The demonstrators
outside the
building did their best to be heard. The delegates inside the
building said
they got the message."
The full extent of the government's surveillance operation was not
revealed
until May 4, when the Paris-based Intelligence Newsletter carried a
story
titled "Watching the Anti-WTO Crowd" which reported that U.S. Army
intelligence units were monitoring the anti-corporate protesters.
Among
other things, the newsletter discovered that "reserve units from the
US
Army Intelligence and Security Command helped Washington police keep
an eye
on demonstrations staged at the World Bank/IMF meetings... [T]he
Pentagon
sent around 700 men from the Intelligence and Security Command at
Fort
Belvoir to assist the Washington police on April 17, including
specialists
in human and signals intelligence. One unit was even strategically
located
on the fourth floor balcony in a building at 1919 Pennsylvania Avenue
with
a birds-eye view of most demonstrators."
The newsletter also charged that much information being collected
about the
protesters was being fed into the Regional Information Sharing System
computers used by law enforcement agencies across the country.
According to
the report, the government is rationalizing this surveillance by
claiming
the protesters are terrorists. As the report put it, "to justify
their
interest in anti-globalization groups from a legal standpoint, the
authorities lump them into a category of terrorist organizations.
Among
those considered as such at present are Global Justice (the group
that
organized the April 17 demonstration), Earth First, Greenpeace,
American
Indian Movement, Zapatista National Liberation Front and Act-Up."
In early May, In These Times confirmed the government government spy
operation. The progressive newspaper quoted Robert Scully, executive
director of the National Association of Police Organizations, as
saying
that federal, state and local law enforcement agencies were
"successful in
infiltrating some of the groups... and had firsthand, inside
information
of who, when, why, and where things were going to happen."
Even before the Washington DC protests began, organizers began
planning to
bring their message to the Republican and Democratic Presidential
conventions, scheduled for July and August in Philadelphia and Los
Angeles.
Police representatives from both cities travelled to the nation's
capitol
for the April demonstrations, consulting with federal authorities on
how to
identify and handle the demonstrators. Federal officials also
travelled to
the convention cities, setting up surveillance operations in advance
of the
arriving demonstrators.
By late May, the corporate media was openly writing about the
intelligence-gathering operations. Previewing the Republican
convention,
the Philadelphia Inquirer said, "The Secret Service is checking
rooftops.
The FBI is monitoring the Internet. And city police are getting ready
to
play cat and mouse with protesters... 'Virtually every resource that
the
FBI has available will be put into play,' said Thomas J. Harrington,
the
assistant special agent-in-charge in the FBI's Philadelphia office."
The Reuters news agency confirmed the FBI's role in June 2, saying,
"The
U.S. Secret Service is running security inside the convention and at
main
hotels, the FBI is handling intelligence and state police are
providing
escorts for dignitaries. That leaves Philadelphia's 6,800-strong
police
department to keep the streets of the 5th-largest U.S. city safe for
delegates and clear of unruly crowds."
Throughout June, activists from several groups reported at least five
instances in which unidentified men were seen photographing people
entering
and leaving protest planning meetings. On June 29, a reporter with
the
Philadelphia Inquirer observed two men dressed in casual clothes
watching
activists arrive for a meeting at the offices of the Women's
International
League for Peace and Freedom. The pair sat on the hood of a maroon
Plymouth, taking pictures of the activists as they came and went.
Both men
refused to answer any questions from the reporter. Police spokeswoman
Lt.
Susan Slawson flatly denied her agency was doing anything that would
violate its policy against political intelligence-gathering, saying,
"[W]e
are in no way violating it." But then the reporter traced the license
plates on the Plymouth to the police department. Confronted with
proof of
his agency's role in the surveillance operation, department spokesman
David
Yarnell reluctantly admitted the activists were right. "We were
watching.
We were making surveillance efforts. It's just prudent preparations
for
anything," he confessed. "This is just outrageous," responded
organizer
Michael Morrill "If this is in fact going on, and city officials are
lying
about it, I wonder what else they're doing."
Philadelphia police officials openly talked about having the
protesters
under surveillance when the Republican National Convention began on
July
31, with Police Commissioner John Timoney specifically saying his
troops
were watching "the anarchists." The first serious confrontation
occurred on
August 1, after police unexpectedly raided a warehouse where
activists were
painting posters and building puppets. Before the raid, police
claimed the
activists were storing weapons in the building, in this case C4
explosives
and acid-filled balloon. No explosives, acid or other weapons were
found.
But 70 activists were arrested, and all their signs and puppets were
seized.
The raid set off street protests, during which 15 police officers
were
injured in scuffles, and more than 25 police cruisers and other city
vehicles were vandalized by protesters who also overturned dumpsters,
smashed windows, and sprayed graffiti on downtown buildings. Before
the end
of the day, more than 350 people were arrested, including 19 who were
charged with such felony offenses as assaults. Most were jailed and
kept
imprisoned on high bails. Hundreds were still behind bars days after
the
convention ended, complaining of deplorable conditions and brutal
treatment.
The day after the delegates went home, Timoney called a press
conference
and announced that he and his intelligence officers had uncovered a
vast
left wing conspiracy. In language reflecting the anti-Communist
hysteria of
the Red Scare, the Philadelphia police commissioner claimed outside
agitators had conspired to cause violence and property damage at the
convention. He called on the federal government to investigate this
subversive plot, saying, "There is a cadre, if you will, of criminal
conspirators who are about the business of planning conspiracies to
go in
and cause mayhem and cause property damage in major cities in America
that
have large conventions or large numbers of people coming in for one
reason
or another."
One of the alleged conspirators was John Sellers, director of Ruckus
Society, a Berkeley-based organization which trains political
protesters in
civil disobedience tactics. He was arrested while walking down the
street
and talking into a cell phone outside the Police Administration
building.
Although all of the charges filed against Sellers were misdemeanors,
one of
them was carrying an "instrument of a crime," the police excuse for
spying
on him. His bail was set at $1 million, far more than all but the
most
dangerous felons are required to post.
In seeking the high bail, District Attorney, Cindy Mertelli produced
a 27
page "dossier" on Sellers. She called him "a real risk of danger to
the
community," noting he had been "involved in Seattle, a situation with
almost dead bodies." Although none of the charges levied at Sellers
involved violence or even vandalism, Mertelli said he "sets the stage
to
facilitate the more radical elements and intends to do the same in
L.A.,"
where the Democrats were set to meet in early August.
Shortly after bail was set, CBS News was reporting that Philadelphia
police
had pinpointed the "ringleaders" of the most violent protests against
the
Republicans and had been stalking them throughout the day. Sellers
was
identified as one of the ringleaders that were stalked.
"We know they had a list of things they were going to do, and they
set
about doing it," Timoney said at an August 2 news conference,
signalling
that at least some of his information came from infiltrators. "I
intend on
raising this issue with federal authorities. Somebody's got to look
into
these groups."
Although a judge soon lowered the bail, the local news media
immediately
embraced the police version of events. The day after Timoney's press
conference, the Philadelphia Inquirer congratulated the police for
their
restraint, crediting their excellent intelligence-gathering work. The
paper
also said that what appeared to be a spontaneous melee on August 1
was in
fact a carefully choreographed assault, the result of a conspiracy.
Timoney's conspiracy theory got a boost when it was embraced by Bruce
Chapman, president of the Discovery Institute and a former U.S.
Ambassador
to the United Nations Organizations in Vienna. Writing in the
Washington
Times, Chapman claimed several left wing political organizations had
conspired to cause violence in Seattle, Washington DC, Philadelphia
and Los
Angeles, including the Direct Action Network, Global Exchange, the
Rainforest Action Network, the Foundation for Deep Ecology, and the
International Forum on Globalization, which he described as "an
umbrella
group for 55 organizations opposed to globalization and high
technology."
Chapman said several of the most prominent organizations were funded
by
Douglas Tompkins, who he described as "a businessman who nurses an
intense
anger at modern technology and international trade." Chapman ended
his
piece by calling for a federal investigation of Tompkins, the
organizations, and "the rioters."
Although the most serious charges against Sellers were eventually
dropped,
protesters faced a similar surveillance and harassment campaign in
Los
Angeles. On July 13, the Los Angeles Times printed a guest editorial
by
Mayor Richard Riordan which warned of violence by "international
anarchists." In the piece titled "A Fair Warning to All: Don't
Disrupt Our
City," Riordan said the protesters coming to town had attended
"training
camps where they have learned strategies of destruction and guerrilla
tactics." Before too long, the authorities and media were talking
about the
protesters in terms which had previously been reserved for domestic
terrorists. On July 23, the Los Angeles Times reported the Secret
Service
and other government agencies were warning that a biological agent
might be
released in or around the Staples Center, where the convention was
scheduled to be held. "We have purchased a lot of equipment,
specialized
masks and gowns," said Dr. Robert Splawn, medical director of the
California Hospital Medical Center, the closest hospital to the
center.
The police also began visiting businesses near the center, showing
them
videos from the Seattle protests and advising them to consider
boarding up
glass walls and windows, hiring additional security guards, and
stocking up
on emergency provisions like flashlights, food and water. "It's
almost like
a tornado," said LAPD Detective Darryl. "You can see it coming, but
you
don't know where it's going to go."
On August 7, the Southern California chapter of the ACLU wrote a
letter to
Police Chief Bernard Parks and Deputy City Attorney Debra Gonzales on
behalf of several groups coordinating the upcoming demonstrations,
including the D2K Convention Planning Coalition, the Rise Up/Direct
Action
Network, and the Community Action Network. In the letter, ACLU
attorney Dan
Tokaji complained that police were watching the the four-story
protest
headquarters building around the clock, constantly videotaped the
building
and recorded license plate numbers of cars used by protesters. The
letter
also alleged police were selectively enforcing traffic laws near the
building, and had repeatedly entered it with producing search
warrants.
"They've crossed the line separating legitimate security preparations
from
unlawful harassment that violates protesters' First and Fourth
amendment
rights. The mere potential for a disturbance does not justify the
suspension of our constitutional rights," the letter said.
When the city didn't respond, the ACLU went to federal court on
August 11
and obtained a temporary restraining order prevent the police from
raiding
the building without a warrant. In its complaint, ACLU lawyers cited
22
separate incidents of surveillance and harassment, including random
police
visits without warrants, low helicopter overflights, and people being
followed and searched after leaving the building. Although U.S.
District
Court Judge Dean Pregerson granted the injunction, he did not bar
police
from keeping the protest headquarters under surveillance if they had
"probable cause."
But the injunction didn't stop the police from infiltrating the
protest
organizations. On August 12, a group called The Youth Are the Future!
We
Demand a Better World! held a meeting Luna Sol Cafe. They were
planning to
participate in the next day's Mumia Abu-Jamal protest march. Shortly
after
the meeting broke up, uniformed police officers rushed through the
cafe's
door and through three of the main speakers up against a wall.
Several of
the meeting's participates also jumped up and helped with the
arrests,
revealing themselves to be undercover officers. After checking the
identifies of the three activists, the officers let two go and hauled
the
third one away in handcuffs.
By the time the Democratic National Convention began on August 18,
federal,
state and local law enforcement agencies were running an untold
number of
undercover officers and other infiltrators among the protesters. The
infiltrators included members of the LAPD's Anti-Terrorism Division
who
were already spying on political dissidents in the Los Angeles area.
As
reported by the Los Angeles Times, "[S]ome of these undercover
officers met
before going out on the streets in their work clothes: T-shirts and
shorts,
bandannas, thong shoes and sneakers. They even are allowed to break
department policy by wearing beards and keeping their hair long. One
wore a
'Free Mumia' bandanna, a reference to a Pennsylvania inmate on death
row
for killing a police officer. His face was unshaven, his hair
tousled."
Among other things, these "scouts" mingled with protesters at the
various
demonstrations, using cell phones to file continuous reports and
allowing
commanders to make "real time" decisions on deploying riot-gear
equipped
squads around town. Intelligence officers working in several downtown
command posts took information from the undercover officers, then
immediately shared it with commanders and lieutenants. Police used
tip
provided by these infiltrators to justify arresting 42 animal rights
protesters on August 15. Authorities claimed the protesters had
materials
which could be used in "homemade flamethrowers," a charge strongly
denied
by the activists. A Superior Court judge released 40 of them after a
hearing two days later.
"It's standard operating procedure: infiltrate and disrupt," protest
organizer Lisa Fithian told the Times. "They are potentially trying
to
incite problems in the midst of our demonstrations. We're not doing
anything illegal; we're not doing anything wrong."
The undercover agents helped police arrest hundreds of demonstrators
during
the convention. By the time the Democrats went home, even the
protesters
were beginning to concede the snitch-fueled tactics were beginning to
hurt
the anti-globalization. "Anyone who has been involved in the mass
protest
movement through a major event of the last six months has friends who
have
been brutalized at the hands of the system," activist/journalist Tim
Ream
wrote in an August 10 dispatch from Los Angeles, noting that nearly
2,500
protesters had been arrested since November 30, 1999.
But the repression wasn't merely happening in America. In recent
years, the
FBI has opened more than 40 satellite offices around the world. In
August
2000, the Central and Eastern European Review reported that FBI
Director
Louis Freeh and Czech Interior Minister Stanislav Gross met to
discuss
launching a joint operation in advance of the annual meeting of the
World
Bank and the International Monetary Fund, set for September 26 in
Prague.
At the time, thousands of anarchist, socialists, communists and other
left
wing European activists were planning to protest the gathering, and
Czech
Prime Minister Milos Zeman had declared "largest threat to stability
in the
country is the extreme left."
As Freezerbox political writer Ezekial Ford put it, "The Battle of
Seattle followed by Mayday demonstrations around the world and the IMF
protests
in Washington
was a wake up call to those interested in seeing
popular
struggle against the reign of capital stunted or reversed. We must
remember
that the 1960s were viewed by elites not as a flowering of
consciousness or
a period of liberation for subjected groups, but constituted a 'crisis of
democracy,' according to the Trilateral Commission, the collective
voice
for elites in the US, Europe and Japan. Networks of activists
involved in
the struggle against the investor-centric model of globalization may
become
future targets of state repression, just as they were in the 60s and
70s.
And the FBI is apparently doing the preparatory fieldwork."
Indeed, some American protesters reported that they were prevented
from
entering the Czech Republic. The FBI had apparently provided their
names to
border guards, who used the information to turn them away.
And now law enforcement agencies are gearing up for the large
demonstration
expected when George Bush is sworn in as President. Activists from
all over
the country are travelling to Washington DC to protest the
inaguration,
including many minorities who believe their votes were intentionally
rejected by Florida officials. Law enforcement authorities are
promising
even more repression, as L.A. Kauffman wrote in the January 5 issue
of her
Internet newsletter, FreeRadical: "The D.C. police have been making
menacing pronouncements about their preparations. If the recent past
is a
guide, there will be a huge law enforcement presence, and the real
possibility of police violence against protesters. Be aware that you
run
some risk of arrest if you attend any of these protests, except
perhaps the
permitted Voter March. There's also a chance that you will encounter
pepper
spray or other chemical weapons; prepare yourself by reading an
excellent
guide on the subject from the current Earth First! Journal."
The New Millennium is suddenly looking a lot like the 1960s.
Jim Redden's email is pdxs@teleport.com.
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