Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > FBI Greenlights Crackdown on Black Lives Matter Protesters
________________________________________
FBI Greenlights Crackdown on Black Lives Matter Protesters
By Mara Verheyden-Hilliard [1] / AlterNet [2]
July 12, 2016
The violent events of the past week have placed the country at a decisive
moment. Words matter but deeds matter more. Leadership matters. President
Obama spoke about the need for real change and new "practices" following the
murders by police officers of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and
Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota.
He followed that by stating last weekend, "One of the great things about
America is that individual citizens and groups of citizens can petition
their government, can protest, can speak truth to power. And that is
sometimes messy and controversial but because of that ability to protest and
engage in free speech, America over time has gotten better. We've all
benefited from that."
But the real truth is that federal law enforcement and intelligence
agencies, under the Obama administration, are continuing to fuel and
encourage a repressive crackdown on peaceful demonstrators exercising their
First Amendment rights and moving for social change in America.
Last weekend, Baton Rouge's African-American community was repeatedly
assaulted by the police as people attempted to peacefully protest the
killing of Sterling. The Baton Rouge police were given the green light by
President Obama's FBI to approach this peaceful protest as they would an
enemy force. This has been the dangerous pattern of the FBI and other
federal law enforcement efforts in the past few years: to suppress social
movements in coordination with local police departments.
While the arrests were carried out by local police, federal law enforcement
agencies facilitated and laid the groundwork for the anti-free speech
crackdown.
The suppression and dispersal of a peaceful protest is emblematic of the
methods used to extinguish free speech rights of those communities seeking
to redress issues of racial and economic inequality.
Here's what happened and why:
More than 100 peaceful protesters were arrested by police on Saturday.
Police repeatedly swept into the crowd like a paramilitary force dressed as
robots, giving no audible instructions and snatching people for arrest. More
were arrested on Sunday by police who moved in wearing riot gear and plastic
face masks, and banged their batons against riot shields in threatening
unison.
By 12am on Sunday, July 10, the city was under a virtual lockdown.
Businesses closed down early in response to the police actions in the
streets. Local law enforcement had clearly received the go-ahead to suppress
those in the community who were demanding justice.
The police treated Baton Rouge's black community like an enemy rather than
Americans exercising the cherished rights. President Obama spoke about the
right to assemble and redress grievances, but the message that the
protestors were the enemy was broadcast by the FBI.
The FBI's New Orleans Field Office circulated an alert to local law
enforcement on July 7 titled "Violence Against Law Enforcement Officers and
Riots Planned for 8-10 July 2016 [3]." This document consisted of a few
unsourced and inflammatory images that appear to be screen grabs from random
social media postings. No such riots took place anywhere over the weekend,
and despite widely circulating that the peaceful demonstrators were bent on
violence, not a single law enforcement entity cited any credible evidence of
such a threat or plot. But the bulletin gave local law
enforcement-implicitly or explicitly-the green light for repression.
The message of repression is clear: If you rise up and protest against
police abuse in Baton Rouge, be prepared to go to jail, be assaulted, have
to come up with hundreds of dollars in bail money, find a competent
attorney, and then to go through the system and endure the consequences of
having a record marked by arrest and possible conviction. Many individuals
who don't have the resources end up having to plead out and accept some
fine, probation or even jail time.
The Partnership for Civil Justive Fund's (PCJF) Freedom of Information Act
investigations carried out over the last five years in particular have shown
that the FBI, DHS, Fusion Centers and other federal law enforcement agencies
regularly label peaceful protest as terrorist activity, and also concoct
violent potential scenarios to justify the widespread surveillance of and
crackdown on the social justice movement and dissenters. Such an abuse of
counter-terrorism authority, it should be noted, is accompanied by a wide
abuse in counter-terrorism funding, in the form of billions of dollars in
agency budgets and private federal contracts.
Relating directly to Louisiana, a PCJF investigation [4] into federal
monitoring of the Occupy Wall Street movement discovered that the ATF and
U.S. Marshals Service were both actively involved [4] in stimulating an
"extremism" scare among local law enforcement. After soliciting 70 State
Fusion Centers for information about violence stemming from the Occupy
movement, the New Orleans ATF Field Intelligence Group received
"overwhelming negative responses." The agency nonetheless manufactured
"several scenarios where escalation to violence could occur."
A similar PCJF investigation found such conduct from the FBI in its
decade-long monitoring of School of the Americas Watch [5], a human rights
organization founded by pacifists aiming to end the U.S. role in the
militarization of Latin America. Despite internal FBI reports admitting the
"peaceful intentions" of the SOA Watch leaders, the agency justified their
work on the basis that "a militant group would infiltrate the protestors and
use of the cover of the crowd to create problems." Yet they admitted that,
"at this time, there are no specific or known threats to this event."
PCJF exposed the role of the FBI in a national operation that involved field
offices across the country targeting the peaceful Occupy movement [6], which
was ultimately extinguished in cities and towns across the United States
with more than 7,000 arrests.
Now that playbook is being followed with the Black Lives Matter movement.
While the Justice Department and President Obama have repeatedly spoken of
building unity between local police and the black community, and claim to be
in favor of the right to dissent and protest, in practice the FBI, which is
under their control, is ratcheting up tensions and laying the groundwork for
repression.
The pattern is clear: Federal and local law enforcement target the First
Amendment-protected activities of social justice movements because they pose
a political threat, not a violent one. Regardless of the fact that the
activities of these movements are constitutionally protected, U.S. domestic
and federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies operate with a
methodology that helps justify repression and a false media presentation. It
also contributes to the right-wing and racist smear against the BLM movement
amplified by talk radio and politicians.
The people of this country should not allow the Dallas shootings, which
local and federal law enforcement all agree were carried out by a deranged
lone gunman, to be manipulated into an attack on the Black Lives Matter
movement.
PCJF demands that the FBI and other intelligence entities stop treating
peaceful protesters as potential violent threats. It is well past time for
the Obama administration and Congress to reign in the unchecked abuse of
power and authority that lead to the circulation of last weekend's false
bulletin about Black Lives Matter protests. The federal agencies that are
carrying out fear-mongering and circulating exaggerated and concocted
reports about Black Lives Matter free speech actions are effectively giving
a green light for local law enforcement to sweep protests off the streets.
It is not too late for President Obama, in his final months in office, to
have his deeds match his words. In his speech last week, he reiterated that
"America over time has gotten better" because people have taken to the
streets to protest and "speak truth to power."
No one should believe for a second that that this vital tradition of protest
is going to stop. On the contrary, it is growing. The question is whether
the FBI and other federal government law enforcement agencies are going to
use their vast authority and power to set up pretexts justifying one
confrontation after another with grassroots movements seeking change. That
path will succeed only in intensifying polarization and ever-graver
conflicts. Such tactics will not succeed in extinguishing social movements,
whose existence is caused by unmet needs, racial and economic disparities,
and the absence of justice for so many.
Note: As of Monday morning, the police have not filed charges or bail
amounts for the release of many of those arrested. Loved ones of those
arrested over the past two nights have been gathering in front of the Parish
Prison to receive word. The National Lawyers Guild in Louisiana is playing a
major role in defending those arrested.
Mara Verheyden-Hilliard is a constitutional rights litigator and executive
director of the Partnership For Civil Justice Fund [7].
Share on Facebook Share
Share on Twitter Tweet
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [8]
[9]
________________________________________
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/fbi-greenlights-crackdown-black-live
s-matter-protesters
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/mara-verheyden-hilliard
[2] http://alternet.org
[3]
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2977532-FBI-New-Orleans-7-7-16-Bulle
tin-About-Violence.html#document/p1
[4]
http://www.justiceonline.org/exposed_atf_s_monitoring_of_occupy_and_known_an
archists_and_protestors
[5] http://www.justiceonline.org/soaw
[6] http://www.justiceonline.org/ows-foia
[7] http://JusticeOnline.org
[8] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on FBI Greenlights
Crackdown on Black Lives Matter Protesters
[9] http://www.alternet.org/
[10] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > FBI Greenlights Crackdown on Black Lives Matter Protesters
FBI Greenlights Crackdown on Black Lives Matter Protesters
By Mara Verheyden-Hilliard [1] / AlterNet [2]
July 12, 2016
AddThis Sharing ButtonsShare to FacebookShare to TwitterShare to Google+More
AddThis Share optionsShare to Email
The violent events of the past week have placed the country at a decisive
moment. Words matter but deeds matter more. Leadership matters. President
Obama spoke about the need for real change and new "practices" following the
murders by police officers of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and
Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota.
He followed that by stating last weekend, "One of the great things about
America is that individual citizens and groups of citizens can petition
their government, can protest, can speak truth to power. And that is
sometimes messy and controversial but because of that ability to protest and
engage in free speech, America over time has gotten better. We've all
benefited from that."
But the real truth is that federal law enforcement and intelligence
agencies, under the Obama administration, are continuing to fuel and
encourage a repressive crackdown on peaceful demonstrators exercising their
First Amendment rights and moving for social change in America.
Last weekend, Baton Rouge's African-American community was repeatedly
assaulted by the police as people attempted to peacefully protest the
killing of Sterling. The Baton Rouge police were given the green light by
President Obama's FBI to approach this peaceful protest as they would an
enemy force. This has been the dangerous pattern of the FBI and other
federal law enforcement efforts in the past few years: to suppress social
movements in coordination with local police departments.
While the arrests were carried out by local police, federal law enforcement
agencies facilitated and laid the groundwork for the anti-free speech
crackdown.
The suppression and dispersal of a peaceful protest is emblematic of the
methods used to extinguish free speech rights of those communities seeking
to redress issues of racial and economic inequality.
Here's what happened and why:
More than 100 peaceful protesters were arrested by police on Saturday.
Police repeatedly swept into the crowd like a paramilitary force dressed as
robots, giving no audible instructions and snatching people for arrest. More
were arrested on Sunday by police who moved in wearing riot gear and plastic
face masks, and banged their batons against riot shields in threatening
unison.
By 12am on Sunday, July 10, the city was under a virtual lockdown.
Businesses closed down early in response to the police actions in the
streets. Local law enforcement had clearly received the go-ahead to suppress
those in the community who were demanding justice.
The police treated Baton Rouge's black community like an enemy rather than
Americans exercising the cherished rights. President Obama spoke about the
right to assemble and redress grievances, but the message that the
protestors were the enemy was broadcast by the FBI.
The FBI's New Orleans Field Office circulated an alert to local law
enforcement on July 7 titled "Violence Against Law Enforcement Officers and
Riots Planned for 8-10 July 2016 [3]." This document consisted of a few
unsourced and inflammatory images that appear to be screen grabs from random
social media postings. No such riots took place anywhere over the weekend,
and despite widely circulating that the peaceful demonstrators were bent on
violence, not a single law enforcement entity cited any credible evidence of
such a threat or plot. But the bulletin gave local law
enforcement-implicitly or explicitly-the green light for repression.
The message of repression is clear: If you rise up and protest against
police abuse in Baton Rouge, be prepared to go to jail, be assaulted, have
to come up with hundreds of dollars in bail money, find a competent
attorney, and then to go through the system and endure the consequences of
having a record marked by arrest and possible conviction. Many individuals
who don't have the resources end up having to plead out and accept some
fine, probation or even jail time.
The Partnership for Civil Justive Fund's (PCJF) Freedom of Information Act
investigations carried out over the last five years in particular have shown
that the FBI, DHS, Fusion Centers and other federal law enforcement agencies
regularly label peaceful protest as terrorist activity, and also concoct
violent potential scenarios to justify the widespread surveillance of and
crackdown on the social justice movement and dissenters. Such an abuse of
counter-terrorism authority, it should be noted, is accompanied by a wide
abuse in counter-terrorism funding, in the form of billions of dollars in
agency budgets and private federal contracts.
Relating directly to Louisiana, a PCJF investigation [4] into federal
monitoring of the Occupy Wall Street movement discovered that the ATF and
U.S. Marshals Service were both actively involved [4] in stimulating an
"extremism" scare among local law enforcement. After soliciting 70 State
Fusion Centers for information about violence stemming from the Occupy
movement, the New Orleans ATF Field Intelligence Group received
"overwhelming negative responses." The agency nonetheless manufactured
"several scenarios where escalation to violence could occur."
A similar PCJF investigation found such conduct from the FBI in its
decade-long monitoring of School of the Americas Watch [5], a human rights
organization founded by pacifists aiming to end the U.S. role in the
militarization of Latin America. Despite internal FBI reports admitting the
"peaceful intentions" of the SOA Watch leaders, the agency justified their
work on the basis that "a militant group would infiltrate the protestors and
use of the cover of the crowd to create problems." Yet they admitted that,
"at this time, there are no specific or known threats to this event."
PCJF exposed the role of the FBI in a national operation that involved field
offices across the country targeting the peaceful Occupy movement [6], which
was ultimately extinguished in cities and towns across the United States
with more than 7,000 arrests.
Now that playbook is being followed with the Black Lives Matter movement.
While the Justice Department and President Obama have repeatedly spoken of
building unity between local police and the black community, and claim to be
in favor of the right to dissent and protest, in practice the FBI, which is
under their control, is ratcheting up tensions and laying the groundwork for
repression.
The pattern is clear: Federal and local law enforcement target the First
Amendment-protected activities of social justice movements because they pose
a political threat, not a violent one. Regardless of the fact that the
activities of these movements are constitutionally protected, U.S. domestic
and federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies operate with a
methodology that helps justify repression and a false media presentation. It
also contributes to the right-wing and racist smear against the BLM movement
amplified by talk radio and politicians.
The people of this country should not allow the Dallas shootings, which
local and federal law enforcement all agree were carried out by a deranged
lone gunman, to be manipulated into an attack on the Black Lives Matter
movement.
PCJF demands that the FBI and other intelligence entities stop treating
peaceful protesters as potential violent threats. It is well past time for
the Obama administration and Congress to reign in the unchecked abuse of
power and authority that lead to the circulation of last weekend's false
bulletin about Black Lives Matter protests. The federal agencies that are
carrying out fear-mongering and circulating exaggerated and concocted
reports about Black Lives Matter free speech actions are effectively giving
a green light for local law enforcement to sweep protests off the streets.
It is not too late for President Obama, in his final months in office, to
have his deeds match his words. In his speech last week, he reiterated that
"America over time has gotten better" because people have taken to the
streets to protest and "speak truth to power."
No one should believe for a second that that this vital tradition of protest
is going to stop. On the contrary, it is growing. The question is whether
the FBI and other federal government law enforcement agencies are going to
use their vast authority and power to set up pretexts justifying one
confrontation after another with grassroots movements seeking change. That
path will succeed only in intensifying polarization and ever-graver
conflicts. Such tactics will not succeed in extinguishing social movements,
whose existence is caused by unmet needs, racial and economic disparities,
and the absence of justice for so many.
Note: As of Monday morning, the police have not filed charges or bail
amounts for the release of many of those arrested. Loved ones of those
arrested over the past two nights have been gathering in front of the Parish
Prison to receive word. The National Lawyers Guild in Louisiana is playing a
major role in defending those arrested.
Mara Verheyden-Hilliard is a constitutional rights litigator and executive
director of the Partnership For Civil Justice Fund [7].
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [8]
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.[9]
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/fbi-greenlights-crackdown-black-live
s-matter-protesters
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/mara-verheyden-hilliard
[2] http://alternet.org
[3]
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2977532-FBI-New-Orleans-7-7-16-Bulle
tin-About-Violence.html#document/p1
[4]
http://www.justiceonline.org/exposed_atf_s_monitoring_of_occupy_and_known_an
archists_and_protestors
[5] http://www.justiceonline.org/soaw
[6] http://www.justiceonline.org/ows-foia
[7] http://JusticeOnline.org
[8] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on FBI Greenlights
Crackdown on Black Lives Matter Protesters
[9] http://www.alternet.org/
[10] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
