I'm not in a good position to speak to Jaggi's organizing skills, especially around the time of the 2004 RNC protests. I'm not intimatley familiar with the dynamics of the anarchist movement in Eastern Canada.
Singh was a prominent anarchist and anti-globalization activist in the late 90s and in the two years following Seattle. If people remember, Singh was pre-emptively arrested by Canadian authorities during the 2001 Quebec City protests. He was famously charged with having created the trebuchet that supposedly was going to fire projectiles at the police. I think I know the creator of that trebuchet and I believe that it's objective was to fire stuffed animals at police lines.
Singh had been in the news and was probably the subject of police files. The released RNC documents show that the police were interested in his trips to Palestine.
The NYPD's decision to feature Jaggi Singh just doesn't make much sense. The police are most likely just being ignorant and idiotic. Singh was just not an important anarchist organizer of the 2004 RNC protests. There were quite a few NYC anarchists who played a prominent role in organizing protests, but I don't see their names anywhere.
I also don't see my name anywhere, which is curious, or any mention of Infoshop. I didn't play a role in organizing the RNC protests, but Infoshop promoted the protests. Not only did I participate in the RNC protests, but the NY Times did a feature on me before the convention. I wasn't very active in 2003-2004 in activist groups, but I was organizing stuff online and I've organized black blocs.
There are also lots of other hardcore organizers and groups left out of these reports. I suspect that the FBI has more comprehensive information on activists and activist groups. They probably shared this info with the NYPD and most of it didn't make it into the files.
My gut feeling, based on years of interaction with the police and as a radical anarchist, is that the authorities just don't have a clue. There are some activists out there who believe that the authorities are watching our every move and know our big strategy. I just don't buy this. I've seen police files from previous protests and other info about police spying. Their main focus is very simple. Gather information on activists who are likely to break the law. Spy and gather information on them. Prevent them from acting and arrest them if necessary.
The inclusion of Jaggi Singh as an important anarchist organizer is just a perfect example of this cluelessness. Unless there are unreleased documents that contain the real list of "anarchist ringleaders", these documents show a shallow understanding of activists. The documents are good when the analyze things like black bloc tactics, which are, after all, kind of similar to police tactics. But what's up with all the attention paid to Aron "Pieman" Kay?
You mean to tell me that the police spent millions of dollars on convention security and they wrote reports on the utterances and whereabouts of a famous pie-throwing anarchist?
This suggests to me that activists should really be pushing the envelope more at future protests.
Chuck