Outlawing dissent

I've only read the first page of this article and it's sending chills up my back.



Feb. 11, 2004 | The undercover cop introduced herself to the activists from the Colorado Coalition Against the War in Iraq as Chris Hoffman, but her real name was Chris Hurley. Last March, she arrived at a nonviolence training session in Denver, along with another undercover officer, Brad Wanchisen, whom she introduced as her boyfriend. The session, held at the Escuela Tlatelolco, a Denver private school, was organized to prepare activists for a sit-in at the Buckley Air National Guard Base the next day, March 15. Hurley said she wanted to participate. She said she was willing to get arrested for the cause of peace. In fact, she did get arrested. She was just never charged. The activists she protested with wouldn't find out why for months.

Chris Hurley was just one of many cops all over the country who went undercover to spy on antiwar protesters last year. Nonviolent antiwar groups in Fresno, Calif., Grand Rapids, Mich., and Albuquerque, N.M., have all been infiltrated or surveilled by undercover police officers. Shortly after the Buckley protest, the Boulder group was infiltrated a second time, by another pair of police posing as an activist couple.


Meanwhile, protesters arrested at antiwar demonstrations in New York last spring were extensively questioned about their political associations, and their answers were entered into databases. And last week, a federal prosecutor in Des Moines, Iowa, obtained a subpoena demanding that Drake University turn over records from an antiwar conference called "Stop the Occupation! Bring the Iowa Guard Home!" that the school's chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, a civil libertarian legal group, hosted on Nov. 15 of last year, the day before a protest at the Iowa National Guard headquarters. Among the information the government sought was the names of the leaders of the Drake University Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, its records dating back to January of 2002, and the names of everyone who attended the "Stop the Occupation!" conference. Four antiwar activists also received subpoenas in the investigation.


Rest of article ..

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/02/11/cointelpro/

wtf

,...are the enemies of freedom and democracy. Why don't they use their time more effectively and investigate the traitors in the executive branch!!!!

...from the same article:

<snip>
As a new round of protests approaches -- including worldwide antiwar demonstrations on March 20 and massive anti-Bush actions during the Republican National Convention in August and September -- experts say the surveillance is likely to increase. "The government is taking an increasingly hostile stance toward protesters," says Michael Avery, president of the National Lawyers Guild and a professor of constitutional law at Suffolk University. In the run-up to the Republican Convention, he says, "I'm sure the government will be attempting to infiltrate political groups. They may send agent provocateurs into political groups. They're no doubt compiling reports on people. We have to stand up against that."
</snip>

Of course, this will create paranoia amongst the antiwar protesters - any new faces that join up could be suspected of being "infiltrators."

In 2003 when we marched against the War my husband swears the guy who he talked to and walked beside us during the march was undercover. He'd seen him before in a different context. He happily marched with us and created the impression he was just 'ordinary people' like us.

This occurred in little old Tucson AZ. Tucson is the liberal part of Arizona.

On other occasions the police have taken movies of protesters here. They are generally polite and stay out of the way, but pictures and movies are intimidating to free speech also.

I'll say this much. If you are brave enough to speak out and march, be brave enough to wave at the cameras and smile. As I mentioned in my "shared thought" t'other day if you are going to die anyway die brave and piss off your enemies.

and J. Edgar Hoover's days are so apparent.

Mueller will go down in history (along with AssKKKrap) as criminal elements within our government.

There were front page articles about undercover cops going through crowds of anti-war protestors in Murfreesboro, armed with pad and pen, posing as reporters, asking many of the protestors for their names, addresses and phone numbers. THIS WAS FRONT PAGE NEWS in the Tennessean last year, but no one gave a shit.

And downtown Nashville, too. My favorite was at a rally outside the Estes Kefauver building, a bunch of us were marching and protesting, and some asshole in an office building across the street hung out a big sign saying, "Protestor=Terrorist." Charming, eh?


We've GOT to get these fuckers out of office, and start getting some of our 1st Amendment rights back.

:mad: