http://www.inthesetimes.com/web2521/hoffman2521.html

TO THE EXTREME

FBI testimony provokes fear of new Cointelpro

By Hank Hoffman

Is the FBI back in the business of trying to squelch

political dissent?

An obscure paragraph in congressional testimony this

past spring by

departing FBI Director Louis Freeh has fanned fears that

the agency is

planning a surveillance and disruption effort against

anti-globalization

groups similar to Cointelpro, which focused on the

anti-war and Black

Power movements in the '60s and '70s.

Freeh delivered his testimony on the "Threat of

Terrorism to the United

States" before the Senate Appropriations committee on

May 10. In the

section on "domestic terrorism," Freeh identified

"right-wing extremist

groups," such as the World Church of the Creator and

Aryan Nation, as

"representing a continuing terrorism threat." One of the

two paragraphs

dealing with "special-interest extremists" focused on

the eco-sabotage of

the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front.

In contrast,

extreme anti-abortion groups, with their record of

murder and clinic

bombings, merited only a passing mention.

But it was the final paragraph in Freeh's assessment of

"left-wing

extremist groups" that raised eyebrows among

anti-globalization

activists: "Anarchist and extremist socialist

groups--many of which, such

as the Workers World Party, Reclaim the Streets and

Carnival Against

Capitalism--have an international presence and, at

times, also represent

a potential threat in the United States," Freeh said.

"For example,

anarchists, operating individually and in groups, caused

much of the

damage during the 1999 World Trade Organization

ministerial meeting in

Seattle."

"These are extremely dangerous and inappropriate

comments," says Mara

Verheyden-Hilliard, co-founder of the Washington-based

Partnership for

Civil Justice. Verheyden-Hilliard is the lead attorney

on a lawsuit

against the FBI and other police agencies for civil

rights violations

during the April 2000 protests at the Washington meeting

of the

International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Noting that

Freeh's remarks

were made in the context of an appropriations hearing,

she says that he

"may be trying to legitimate funding for a

government-sponsored war

against the social justice movement."

Freeh's comments do provoke serious concerns. No

justification is offered

for the naming of Workers World Party, a Marxist group,

and Reclaim the

Streets, a network founded in London in 1995 that merges

protests and

raves, as representing potential threats. Freeh

seemingly criminalizes

all anarchists based on vandalism during the Seattle WTO

protests. "By

demonizing this movement and suggesting these folks pose

a threat," says

Verheyden-Hilliard, "they justify declaring some form of

martial law

[during large demonstrations]."

Verheyden-Hilliard notes that protests in Philadelphia,

Los Angeles and

Washington have been met with excessive police response:

illegal arrests,

intrusive surveillance, pepper spray and the employment

of agents

provocateur. Washington police traveled to Philadelphia,

Quebec and Genoa

to observe protests, while local and state police are

cooperating with

the FBI on "joint anti-terrorism task forces." She adds:

"It appears

there's been substantial funding, sending people all

around the country."

According to Jon Weiss of New York Reclaim the Streets,

activists'

initial response to Freeh's testimony was fear "because

the phrase

'domestic terrorism' is usually just a packaging tool

for the mass

suspension of civil liberties."

Weiss suspects the FBI cribbed the terrorist tag from

Scotland Yard,

based on actions that devolved into riots. Reclaim the

Streets' actions

in Britain had been nonviolent since the network's

founding in 1995, but

that changed on June 18, 1999. As part of an

international "global street

party" to protest the G8 meeting in Cologne, Germany,

10,000 gathered in

London's financial district. What started as a street

party ended in the

trashing of several businesses, including a McDonald's

and a bank.

Chuck Munson, an anarchist and co-editor of Alternative

Press Review,

says the feds are grasping at "broad terms to tar and

feather" the

movement and dismisses as "demonization" the

"insinuation that all

anarchists are violent." The real violence, Munson

argues, is perpetrated

by the police. "They're the ones who bring guns,

bullets, gas, dogs and

water cannons to protests," he says, "and they use

them."

FBI spokesman Steven Berry would not elaborate on

Freeh's reasons for

targeting anarchists, Workers World and Reclaim the

Streets beyond

drawing attention to Seattle. But their inclusion wasn't

random. "There

are a lot of groups in the anti-globalization movement

who have exhibited

some potential to commit a terrorist incident," Berry

insists.

Asked whether these groups or others are under

investigation or subject

to counterintelligence operations, Berry says, "We don't

comment on

specific investigations." Berry denies that Freeh's

comments were a

politically motivated smear. "We recognize that every

group has the right

to assemble, the right to meet, has the right to exist

no matter how

abhorrent their message is," Berry says. "The FBI only

gets involved when

there is a violation of federal law."

Says Weiss, "If blocking a road or having a party

constitutes a terrorist

act these days, I suppose we're guilty. The FBI is

trying to get their

mind around the concept that there is a global democracy

movement, and

they don't quite understand it yet."

*************************************************

Alternative Press Review - www.altpr.org

Your Guide Beyond the Mainstream

PO Box 4710 - Arlington, VA 22204

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PO Box 4660 - Arlington, VA 22204

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Infoshop News Kiosk - www.infoshop.org/inews

Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed

www.anarchymag.org/

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I run a web site that is being very heavily monitered by the U.S Department of Defence, FBI/CIA .. They literaly flood into the site with connections from many different US military routers... Many other governments connections also come into the site. International ones as well, which route back to NSA servers. EVERY DAY. Sometimes i'm getting HUNDREDS of connections from these motherfuckers all in one day.

We have to remember what we are up against. These fuckers are specialists in assanitions, infiltrations, counter-intelligence, counter-warfare ..etc. They don't fuck around. If they see you as a threat, they will eliminate you very easily. If they see you as a potential, you will be in there database and they will deal with you sooner or later. They are trying to knock down the entire movement. If we do not prepare to defend ourselves this time, then we will be knocked down and this movement will become distinguished just like the movement in the 60's.

They don't set up operations like Conelpro to just sit on their ass and eat popcorn. They set up these operations to take us down, and they will be any means because they have before.

This is america, the great big "democracy" at work. The hypocritical piece of shit that imprisons the whole world. If you speek up, then you will be greated with profiling, guns, rubber (or live) bullets, you see blood. You see murder. Why? Because you speek the truth, and this truth is a threat to National Security. We speek the truth where everyone can see it.

I think the US constituion has got to be the biggest joke ever written on paper.

"our rights" do not exist, and in reality, they never have. The people have never controled the government. The government has always controled us. Ever since they set foot on this contintent. Wealth governs this country and always has, and that's why it's so corrupt. That why this country has the biggest and most brutal central intelligence programs.

Freedom and Justice for all my ass. Don't beleive the lies.

Those state terrorists should get the message into their bird brains. We the people are out there to smash you scumbags and fascist pigs by all means and your capitalist masters. Put that in your heads if you have any, we the people will always prevail and we will smash neo-fascism and kill capitalism once and for all OK. The work just wasn't finished in 1945, it seems that we have to EXTERMINATE capitalisms most violent expression FASCISM ! Because when the power of $ is threatened it always goes back to its real nature and face and that is fascism !

So why don't you cops that have some intelligence come join us and fight for freedom and democracy !

This FBI revival of Cointelpro is just the U.S. showing its true colors-AGAIN! The U.S. has always been committed to its white supremacist MANIFEST DESTINY and will stop at nothing to defend and EXTEND this patently facist policy around the world. AmeriKKKa is a greed and hate driven society. FORCE is the only thing it understands. The movement must be prepared to defend itself, because they will use any means to "prove" the supremacy of the Anglo-Saxon "master race". CAPITALISM is their means of economic conquest and control. FORCE is their means of military conquest and control. We must, through GLOBAL UNITY, come up with a means to defend and EXTEND our movement for DEMOCRACY and FREEDOM worldwide, where-ever and however they raise their ugly fascist heads.

UNITY IN STRUGGLE!!!