Could you post this FBI Task Force Witch-Hunting [continued] on those lists that you so kindly used ten days or so ago? I've posted this on all of "our" lists -- including LeftUnity -- but am thinking of PEN L and LBO and those others on which you ride such capable herd!
Thanks much! Hunterbear
The just out, August 2001, issue of the always excellent LABOR NOTES has this front page story: "Portland: Anti-Terrorism Task Force Targets Unions." The opening labor spokesperson making this charge is from the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals. Among other union people involved who are echoing this are persons from International Longshore and Warehouse [ILWU] and Carpenters.
And the so-called Task Force? It's the same basic FBI/state police/local police et al. coven about which we've sent out much material for a hell of a long time.
One of the friendly beefs that I'm beginning to have with some [not all by any means] cyberspace friends is that, on a multitude of these discussion lists on which I've posted very contemporary and relevant material about these Task Forces -- whose murky cover is now beginning to wear very thin nationally -- it's hard to pick up much substantive interest in any of this current, on-going witch-hunting. Worthwhile discussions about FBI COINTELPRO of the 1950s and 1960s etc come and go -- along with very interesting and solid give-and-takes on the Black Panther situation of yore.
Present-day Idaho has many of the qualities of "Old" Mississippi -- and one of those is that its harassing practices certainly are not subtle. In addition, I'm a very, very long-time target of FBI et al. and am extremely quick to pick up the signs. I'm also a long-time hunter and woodsman.
When we came here in the Summer, 1997, we immediately began to encounter multi-faceted surveillance and other forms of harassment which obviously involved local cops. But, at the same time, there was very obvious interference with our US Postal mail -- and that clearly had Federal connotations. By the early Fall, '97, I was openly speculating about some kind of Federal/state/local entourage -- and, at the very beginning of 1999 -- when I began writing the first of what have been several detailed and unanswered letters to regional US Postal Inspectors, I directly raised, in each of those letters, the strong possibility of "under color of law" harassment. Not only were the letters not answered by regional Postal Inspectors [not even acknowledged] but the blatant interference continued, and then some very crude examples of just plain sabotage of our mail occurred -- some of these very recent indeed. Other forms of harassment have continued right along into the contemporary period. In July 2000, I openly discussed the obvious existence of an FBI/state/local Task Force -- and did so very publicly on our large website www.hunterbear.org
Rather than reiterate our situational detail, here, once again, are our relevant website links:
http://www.hunterbear.org/directory.htm This is our Index/Directory which, in the upper portion, contains a number of relevant announcements and postings on all of this.
http://www.hunterbear.org/an_open_letter_to_the_left_radic.htm This is our very recently posted "Open Letter" to United States radicals on the whole matter of contemporary FBI/state/local Task Force witch-hunting. Attached to this is a very valuable and detailed critical summary and analysis of the national Task Force situation recently done by activists in Portland.
http://www.hunterbear.org/camp.htm This page is a very detailed and up-to-date discussion of our own family Idaho experiences vis-a-vis Task Force harassment.
Several months after I did my July 2000 website post indicating my very strong feeling that an FBI/state/local Task Force was involved, word came from Portland, Oregon that such a creature was being implemented in that city with resultant wide-spread activist protests. In this embattled context, FBI finally admitted it has almost three dozen "Task Forces" in operation around the United States.
I began hearing some similar experiences from scattered points around the country. Although some of this, through no fault of the victims, is still murky, it's certainly strongly suggestive.
More recently, material on all of this that I posted drew a very appreciative letter from civil rights activists at Cincinnati, Ohio. They, with every good reason , are convinced they're the targets of such a Federally-managed arrangement, and have found my stuff -- and the accompanying summary/analysis from Portland that I sent along-- extremely useful. [I posted Cincinnati's good letter in my website and on several discussion lists -- keeping the sender's name in confidence as a matter of form.]
We are intrigued that the normally timid CBS Evening News was, over several days last week, discussing FBI surveillance of Americans/political opinions in the 1980s into the early 1990s -- and raising the possibility that it's all still continuing. And CBS cited Congressman Barney Frank as one who has expressed strong concern about possible contemporary FBI et al. surveillance of people simply because of their political beliefs.
Once again, I want to say that -- especially at this point where FBI is the target of at least a half-dozen official investigations into its many, many profound sins [but there has still been little mention of illegal surveillance of people because of their opinions] -- it's incumbent on all of us who believe that we may be targets of Task Force surveillance and harassment to sensibly indicate this to comrades and fellow-workers , to make -- whenever possible -- formal complaints to "authorities" and to potential civil libertarian allies, and to contact responsive [or at least relatively responsive] politicians at all levels.
Others, not necessarily victimized but genuinely concerned with the critical importance of civil liberty, should certainly ask the appropriate members of Congress to investigate the nature and practices of the whole FBI/state/local Task Force network.
Several people have suggested to me that we contact ACLU. We have done hat -- a number of times in 1999 -- with no response. In the early part of 1999, I wrote three very detailed letters to the Idaho ACLU office at Boise, asking for assistance. [They are hard to reach by telephone.] Nothing was acknowledged and, in early March, 1999, I wrote national ACLU director Ira Glasser -- attaching much relevant material. In the opening paragraph of that long and detailed account, I indicated the "probability that a crude and clumsy Federal/state/local task force of some sort is involved as a causal mechanism."
I received only a form letter which referred me back to the quite unresponsive Idaho ACLU office. Many months later, via computer, I had a sketchy e-mail exchange with the Idaho office -- but nothing came of it. Since then, I've sent much material via e-mail to them with absolutely no acknowledgement.
Part of the problem, at least, with ACLU in the Mountain States and environs, is that, in 1994, with the retirement of the quite good Dorothy Davidson, the Rocky Mountain Office -- which encompassed a number of
"small" regional states -- was ended. The resources were divided among the several states involved -- including Idaho. The result has been a functional disaster. Prior to coming to Idaho in 1997, I had been for years a member of the coordinating committee of the North Dakota ACLU, one of the units in the combined arrangement -- and can directly attest to the fact that our operation suffered greatly from the break-up of the old Rocky Mountain office. How much of this accounts for the Idaho ACLU's obvious reluctance to help us -- and how much stems from just plain cowardice -- is presently speculative. But I wish we had the old Rocky Mountain office and Dorothy Davidson again.
As I say, we fight on -- and we're experienced and tough. I'm a hunter -- was once a trapper -- from very early childhood on. We can certainly make it on all fronts. We always have. But this FBI task force situation -- as so clearly indicated by our experiences and those of the Portland people and organizations, and others -- is simply, no more and no less, than the old, traditional and always vicious FBI et al. campaign against the American Left and its allied forces.
It's time, good folks: Wake Up, America!
Hunter Gray [Hunterbear] Micmac / St. Francis Abenaki /St. Regis Mohawk -- and DSA, CCDS, SPUSA
Hunter Gray www.hunterbear.org