Victor wrote:
> Wow!
> You're not only tactically juvenile, but incredibly naive concerning the
> sophistication and skill of the forces you're dealing with.
No, I'm the opposite of naive, I'm pretty sober about what we are up against. Here's a list of some of my more notable interactions with the authorities:
1) The FBI subpoenaed user information from our website Infoshop.org (March 2005) 2) The Midwest division of the FBI conducted a harassment campaign against my anarchist friends in the Midwest (July-August 2004). The FBI manufactured hysteria in the corporate media about the plans of Midwest anarchists at last summer's protests of the DNC and RNC conventions. 3) The FBI monitors the Infoshop News website and issues advisories to local police about upcoming protests. On several occasions they've issued general FBI threat advisories based on information gleaned from Infoshop News. 4) I've been active in several groups which were infiltrated by undercover police. Mark Rickling alluded to some of this in a post yesterday. The cops had placed long term agents in the anti-globalization movement in Washington, DC. 5) The search warrant used to raid the puppet warehouse during the 2000 RNC protests listed Infoshop.org as a source. 6) Rank-and-file police in Washington, DC had been briefed on my identity before protests. A few years ago, the DC MPD had listed me internally as on of four local protest leaders to watch. There may have been an effort by the DC MPD to frame the four of us on felony charges if an incident presented itself for the police.
So you get the picture.
>> From 1956-1971 the FBI developed the COINTELPRO program to "neutralize"
> COINTELPRO was discontinued after public exposure in order to afford
> additional security to [their] sensitive techniques and operations."
>
> So I suspect not much has changed since then.
> I realize that you don't like boring written material but you might find
> it interesting to check Paul Wolf's site on this:
> http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/cointel.htm
I'm familiar with the history of COINTELPRO. I'm also aware that there are too many American activists--especially older ones--who think that COINTELPRO is still an active campaign. The police do spy on activists, but I've seen little evidence that they are doing anything on the level of COINTELPRO. Our movement is bigger than the 1960s and the police have fewer resources to throw at us. The odds of any one activist being the target of any kind of COINTELPRO campaign are remote.
The paranoia among activists about COINTELPRO is more harmful than the actual existence of a program. These activists sow the seeds of paranoia and mistrust, which ends up disempowering activists and causing them to engage in self-censorship and caution. The COINTELPRO paranoia is damaging in so many ways. One problem is this common assumption that loudmouth activists, or those who advocate militant tactics, are police agents. I've been suspected of being a police agent and have had to deal with the trust issues created by irresponsible activists.
> The only way to deal with this kind of infiltration is to build a very
> strong political and public base that makes it dangerous for illegal
> exercise of police power. The heroic radical volunteerist mode makes
> for good folk ballads, but even when popular never can actually become
> the basis for a powerful peoples' movement. In the end it's a sign of
> weakness and political social incompetence.
I agree with your first sentence, but the sentence about heroism come from looking at contemporary activism with the rose-colored glasses of the 1960s. You are thinking about the Weathermen. Contemporary militants understand the mistakes the Weathermen made and they really don't fetishize revolutionary action like some people did 35 years ago. There are the few insurrectionists and zealous animal rights activists, but my impression is that most younger radicals understand that social change has to be organized using a mixture of tactics and methods.
I'm making available to everybody on this list a new article by the police about the anarchist movement. It's quite interesting.
Anarchist Direct Actions: A Challenge for Law Enforcement http://chuck.mahost.org/weblog/anarchist_direct_actions.pdf
--------------
Studies in Conflict and Terrorism
Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group
Issue: Volume 28, Number 3 / May-June 2005
Pages: 201 - 223
URL: Linking Options
DOI: 10.1080/10576100590928106
Anarchist Direct Actions: A Challenge for Law Enforcement
RANDY BORUM A1 and CHUCK TILBY A2
A1 University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, USA A2 Eugene (Oregon) Police Department, Eugene, Oregon, USA
Abstract:
This article provides a descriptive, operational analysis of the modern anarchist movement, emphasizing the actions of the criminal anarchists and implications for US law enforcement. It begins by explaining some core tenets of anarchist “theory,” and its relationship to violence, then describes the structure, tactics and tradecraft of militant anarchist activists. It concludes that Anarchism is a revolutionary movement, not just a “protest group.” Clearly not all anarchists advocate or engage in violence, but some do. Those individuals and factions pose a particular concern to law enforcement. This article offers some practical recommendations to law enforcement for preventing and managing those direct action attacks that may compromise public safety.