(Part I)
(Part II)
Ms. Udry led off by discussing examples of environmental dissent chilled or disproportionately punished by laws, law enforcement, and the judicial system. She went on to note that law enforcement agencies have also taken it on themselves to infiltrate and surveil all kinds of legitimate activism. Examples include the so-called “Fusion Centers” where federal, state, and local law enforcement work together on allegedly “terrorism”-related, but often simply activism-related casework, ICE (Immigration Customs Enforcement) maintaining a watch on peace activism(!), the DHS “Institute of Terrorism Research” monitoring right- and left-wing “extremism,” and the FBI engaging in entrapment operations against Muslim-Americans, Occupy activists, and political protesters. “It’s not the FBI’s role to take lost people and turn them into terrorists.”
Selected relevant links:
Slideshow – click image to follow presentation:
- Defending Dissent “Resources” page, including links to…
- Chilling environmental dissent
- Ag-gag laws (SourceWatch): “laws intended to prevent whistleblowers from exposing animal cruelty on farms. The term “ag gag” for the laws was coined by Mark Bittman in an April 2011 New York Times column.“
- Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (Defending Dissent Foundation): “…brands as terrorism any activities that cross a state line and interfere with the operation of an animal enterprise or of any entity that deals with one.”
- CMUs: The Federal Prison System’s Experiment in Social Isolation (Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) on “Communications Management Units”); fact sheet updated March 2013: “Daniel McGowan is also a CCR client. Despite never having received a disciplinary infraction, documents revealed through CCR’s legal challenge demonstrate that Mr. McGowan was transferred to the CMU at USP Marion because of his protected political activism.”
- Tim DeChristopher — sentenced to two years in jail for disrupting oil and gas lease sales in Utah by bidding on them without sufficient funds: Tim’s Story (Peaceful Uprising page), “Bidder 70“(documentary).
- Fusion Centers and the Virginia 2009 Terrorism Threat Assessment:
- 2009 Virginia Terrorism Threat Assessment, Mar 2009 (Wikileaks, 4/10/09)
- Fusion Center Declares Nation’s Oldest Universities Possible Terrorist Threat (ACLU, 4/6/09): “A recently published “terrorism threat assessment” from a Virginia fusion center says the state’s universities and colleges are “nodes for radicalization” and encourages law enforcement to monitor First Amendment-protected activities of educational and religious foundations as terrorism threats.”
- U.S. Intelligence Reports Continue to Confuse Political Dissent with Terrorism (Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), 4/15/09)
- Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
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CIVIL ACTIVISTS AND EXTREMISTS ACTION CALENDAR (Protests, Demonstrations, Marches, and Special Events of Interest) (via Defending Dissent)
- Domestic Intelligence System Grows without Controls (CDT, 3/19/09)
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- Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
- Leftwing Extremism Threat Analysis (DHS), Rightwing Extremism Threat Analysis (DHS); Report for DHS on “EcoTerrorism”
- Institute of Terrorism Research and Response, contractor to DHS and author of reports smearing American activists. It is “…an American and Israeli nonprofit corporation created to help organizations succeed and prosper in a world threatened by terrorism.”
- FBI
- A Review of the FBI’s Investigations of Certain Domestic Advocacy Groups (DOJ Inspector General, September 2010): “…we concluded that the factual basis for opening some of the investigations [was weak]. […] In some cases, we also found that the FBI extended the duration of investigations involving advocacy groups… without adequate basis, and in a few instances the FBI improperly retained information about the groups in its files. In some cases, the FBI classified some investgations relating to nonviolent civil disobedience under its “Acts of Terrorism” classification.”
- Terrorists for the FBI: Inside the Secret Network that Surveils and Entraps Americans (Mother Jones Special Report, Oct 2011): “The FBI has built a massive network of spies to prevent another domestic attack. But are they busting terrorist plots—or leading them?”
- FBI v. Occupy
- Has the FBI Launched a War of Entrapment Against the Occupy Movement? (Gupta, Alternet, 5/24/12) “Is the government unleashing the same methods of entrapment against OWS that it has used against left movements and Muslim-Americans?”
- Cleveland Occupy arrests are the latest in FBI’s pattern of manipulation (Gupta, The Guardian, 5/28/12)
- FBI Documents Reveal Secret Nationwide Occupy Monitoring (Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, 12/22/12)
- The FBI and Occupy: Sometimes it Ain’t Paranoia (newsrackblog, 12/30/12)
- Grand jury abuses
- Midwest: Timeline of events (stopfbi.net)
- Grand Juries (stopfbi.net statement): “The grand jury can subpoena pretty much anyone they want and ask about anything, and people can be jailed for contempt if they do not answer questions. The jurors are hand-picked by prosecutors with no screen for bias. All evidence is presented by a prosecutor in a cloak of secrecy. The prosecutor has no responsibility to present evidence that favors those being investigated. Grand jury witnesses have no right to have a lawyer in the room to object to how the prosecutor is conducting the proceedings. The grand jury has been used as a tool of political repression against many movements for social change in this country…. “
- Northwest: Christmas in Prison: Katherine Olejnik and Matt Duran Have Not Been Charged with Any Crime, and Yet They Have Been Locked Up for Three Months and Counting (Kiley, “The Stranger,” 12/19/12)
- Tortured for Testimony: Anarchists Get Solitary Confinement for Not Snitching (Oppenheimer, Reason, 4/9/13)
- Jailed in Solitary without Charge: An Evening with the Pacific Northwest Grand Jury Resistors (4/30/13 Facebook event page)
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Sue Udry is the executive director of the Defending Dissent Foundation, a national organization dedicated to protecting the right to protest, organize, and speak out. Over a quarter of a century working for peace and social justice has taught Sue that the right to dissent is crucial to expanding democracy, promoting justice, and enlarging the global human rights perspective. Sue is on the board of the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms and the National Coalition to Protect Student Privacy. She is treasurer of the DC chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, and an advisor to the Charity and Security Network.
For more about the forum and links to videos of other speakers, visit Activists survey challenges to dissent at Wheaton forum, propose Rapid Response Network.
