Répression & dérives sécuritaires USA: Le FBI fait une descente à la recherche de littérature anarchiste

Ungovernable · 2 Août 2012

FBI Raids Homes Across Northwest—Looks Like They Might Be Targeting Anarchists
Wed, Jul 25, 2012

FBI agents and local police who are part of the Joint Terrorism Task Force raided multiple houses in Portland, Olympia, and Seattle this morning—but it's still unclear what the authorities were looking for, exactly.

No arrests were made in the raids and the warrants for the searches are sealed, which means they're not public record. The most the FBI will say is the raids are part of an "ongoing violent crime investigation." They issued grand jury subpoenas to individuals in all three cities.

However, the Oregonian talked with the owner of one of the three homes in NE Portland who said the FBI may have been seeking a group of "anarchists" who lived there a year ago and ran an info booth at Last Thursday. In Portland, the three houses raided were 4820 NE 31st Ave, 7129 NE 8th Ave, and 6846 N. Greenwich. It's not clear whether this is related, but earlier this month, police raided the home of Occupy Mayday protesters in Seattle.

KGW has some shots of the agents in the raid. It's a pretty heavy duty squad:

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This is a clear example of one of the controversial issues about Portland being a part of JTTF. The FBI can work with police to raid Portlanders' houses, but then not make public any information about it... except maybe include some details in a bare-bones report about their involvement down the line. Until then, we're in the dark.

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Vermont activists receive FBI visit
http://www.privacysos.org/node/769

On July 26, 2012 at 1 PM activists near Burlington, VT received a knock at the door of their home from two FBI agents. The agents asked to speak with a member of the household who wasn't present. The person who answered the door, organizer and self-identified anarchist Jo Robin, a pseudonym, asked the agents why they were looking for her roommate. While they initially declined to tell her, they ultimately said that they wanted to ask him questions about the Northeast Governors' Conference, to take place in Burlington over the July 28th weekend.

Organizers from the northeast United States and Quebec have planned a convergence to coincide with the binational governors' meeting, the BTV Convergence. Members of the FBI-targeted house near Burlington have been actively involved in planning the convergence, including Jo Robin.

"I think it's highly inappropriate for the FBI to visit my home to ask my roommate about his political activity," said Robin. "That kind of intimidation intends to chill political speech. It isn't appropriate and I want the federal government to know that we are not intimidated."

It's not the first time Robin has been approached by law enforcement to inquire about her First Amendment protected political activity. While organizing in New York City she was repeatedly, informally interrogated by plainclothes NYPD officers about her protected speech and association. On more than one occasion, members of the NYPD legal office called Robin out by her legal name in public. An NYU and Fordham University study released this week says that Robin is far from alone, reporting "evidence that police made violent late-night raids on peaceful encampments, obstructed independent legal monitors and [were] opaque about [their] policies."

Today's FBI visit to the activist house near Burlington in advance of the governors' conference follows a week of FBI raids on houses affiliated with anarchists in the northwest United States.

Also this week, journalist and green activist Will Potter released documents showing that the FBI "is creating reports and maintaining files about the writing, interviews, and lectures of journalists who are critical of the government’s repression of political activists," including his own writing, which agents called "compelling and well written."

Remember: if the FBI asks to speak with you, you do not have to talk to them, no matter what they say. The best thing you can do is take the agent's card and say your lawyer will contact them. Say nothing else, because lying to a federal agent can get you in very serious trouble, and they'll figure out a way to make it look like you lied. Watch the clip below to see how that works. Don't get caught in their vice; don't speak to them without your lawyer present. Ever.

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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 criminal activity 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.”

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