[Ppnews] Syping on activists: Who is the criminal now?

[Political Prisoner News]

Syping on activists: Who is the criminal now?

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/brenda-norrell/2009/02/syping-activists-who-criminal-now
Posted by 
<http://narcosphere.narconews.com/users/brenda-norrell>Brenda Norrell 
- February 10, 2009 at 5:08 pm
By Brenda Norrell

After the Denver police spy files were revealed in 2002, my friends, 
the spied upon, said, "It isn't just happening in Denver. It is 
happening all over the United States."

In Denver, the secret police spy files became public through attorney 
discovery in a local court case. The spy files did not become public 
because of the integrity of the Denver Police Intelligence Division. 
Those secret police spy files included cases that went back 30 years. 
Of course all of the American Indian activists names were there, the 
usual suspects working for peace and justice. But there were 
surprises in the list of 3,200 individuals and 208 organizations.

Denver police spied on an 80-year-old grandmother because she had a 
"Leonard Peltier" bumper sticker on her car.

Denver police also spied on American Indian attorneys at the Native 
American Rights Fund and a senator who worked for Native American 
rights. South Dakota Sen. James Abourezk, who once headed the Senate 
Committee on Indian Affairs, was spied on. Abourezk obtained a copy 
of his spy file and said he still didn't have a clue why he was 
targeted. Abourezk said he hadn't been in Denver in 15 years. The 
Abourezk spy file just said the Denver police were watching him.

Anyone helping Navajos at Big Mountain or Zapatistas in Chiapas in 
Denver was under Denver police surveillance.

The Quakers, it turned out, were among the most spied on in the US, 
revealing the insanity of US police probes of the peace-seeking.

In the end, after a lawsuit was filed against the Denver Police 
Department by American Indians, the ACLU and others, the spied-upon 
could go and retrieve their spy files in Denver. However, this 
required updating Denver police records with current IDs and personal 
information, so many passed.

Now, years later, spy files are worming their way out of police file 
cabinets everywhere, like maggots in wait, feeding on the dark and 
decaying fecal matter of failed trust.

American Indians were a primary target of the Denver police. In 
retrospect, it appears Denver activists were a sort of pilot project 
for extensive domestic spying because of the large network of 
multi-agency task forces in Colorado and secret US military 
operations in Colorado Springs.

Elsewhere in the United States, groups of peace activists opposed to 
the Iraq war and organizations working against the death penalty were 
targets. Their meetings were infiltrated by liars and deceivers. In 
Maryland, peaceful climate change activists were listed as "suspected 
terrorists." Code Pink women who never came to Maryland were tracked 
in spy files by Maryland State Police.

Now, it is revealed that one million Americans are on the US watch 
list. One million Americans are being spied on. How can any 
government provide manpower to spy on one million people?

One of the ways that the US spies on 1 million citizens is to place 
secret spy rooms at telephone companies, including Verizon and AT&T, 
as revealed in the book, The Shadow Factory. The US subcontracted 
Israeli companies to data mine the operations, so now Israeli 
companies have sensitive information on most Americans. Still there 
was so much information from recording everyone's phone calls and 
e-mails, it was often ineffective. Those plotting the 9/11 attack 
were within two miles of the NSA. Although the NSA was listening, 
probably even eating at the same cafes, the US agents said they did 
not know the 9/11 plotters were in the neighborhood.

The CIA has a new strategy: Advertising for CIA spies in American 
Indian newspapers.

In reality, this means that those Native American newspapers are now 
funded by the CIA. Advertisements for the CIA Clandestine Services 
have appeared now for months on the websites of Indian Country Today 
and Native American Times, even on the same webpages with articles 
about American Indians struggling against this same oppression.

Mohawk Nation News states that spies for foreign nations forfeit 
their birthright. The US and Canada are foreign governments.

"Espionage is a violation of the Kaianerehkowa, the Great Law, our 
constitution. A spy breaking their own nation's laws can be 
imprisoned. Wampum 58 provides that, 'any persons who submit to laws 
of a foreign people are alienated and forfeit their birthright and 
claims of the Rotino'shonni:onwe and territory,'" Mohawk Nation News states.

During the Earth First! trial in Prescott, Arizona in 1991, a 
particularly sleazy informant was on the witness stand, one of many 
who revealed a trail of FBI misconduct. Of course, that revelation of 
FBI misconduct did not prevent the majority of the five defendants 
from going to prison. The FBI even had to drive the monkey wrenchers 
to their so-called crime because they didn't have a ride.

The sleazy informant was a former boyfriend of one of the defendants. 
He was placed back in her home as a babysitter to be an informant. He 
bugged his former girlfriend's bedroom with a listening device. When 
the federal prosecutor was asked why she placed this sleazy informant 
on the witness stand, her response was, "Everyone knows that 
informants are always sleazy."

As a news reporter covering the Earth First! trial as a stringer for 
AP, this was the first of many revelations in federal court for me, 
including the fact that the federal prosecutors and the federal 
judges are on the same team. This trial also opened a window into the 
corrupt world of US spying and how federal agents coax people into 
what appears to be a crime.

The question remains, "Who is the criminal now?"




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