Related Research Articles
COINTELPRO was a series of covert and illegal projects conducted between 1956 and 1971 by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting American political organizations that the FBI perceived as subversive. Groups and individuals targeted by the FBI included feminist organizations, the Communist Party USA, anti-Vietnam War organizers, activists in the civil rights and Black power movements, environmentalist and animal rights organizations, the American Indian Movement (AIM), Chicano and Mexican-American groups like the Brown Berets and the United Farm Workers, and independence movements. Although the program primarily focused on organizations that were part of the broader New Left, they also targeted white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the National States' Rights Party.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. An agency of the United States Department of Justice, the FBI is a member of the U.S. Intelligence Community and reports to both the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence. A leading U.S. counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and criminal investigative organization, the FBI has jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crimes.
An agent provocateur is a person who commits, or who acts to entice another person to commit, a wrongdoing or falsely implicates them in partaking in such an act, so as to ruin the reputation of, or entice legal action against, the target, or a group they belong to or are perceived to belong to. They may target any group, such as a protest or demonstration, a militia, a political party or a company.
A Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) is an American locally-based multi-agency partnership between various federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies tasked with investigating terrorism and terrorism-related crimes, led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Department of Justice. The first JTTFs were established before the September 11 attacks, with their numbers increasing dramatically in the years after.
The Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI was an activist group operational in the US during the early 1970s. Their only known action was breaking into a two-man Media, Pennsylvania, office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and stealing over 1,000 classified documents. They then mailed these documents anonymously to several US newspapers to expose numerous illegal FBI operations which were infringing on the First Amendment rights of American citizens. Most news outlets initially refused to publish the information, saying it related to ongoing operations and that disclosure might have threatened the lives of agents or informants. However, The Washington Post, after affirming the veracity of the files which the Commission sent them, ran a front-page story on March 24, 1971, at which point other media organizations followed suit.
Alex Rackley was an American activist who was a member of the New York chapter of the Black Panther Party (BPP) in the late-1960s. In May 1969, Rackley was suspected by other Panthers of being a police informant. He was brought to Panther headquarters in New Haven, Connecticut, held captive and tortured there for several days, condemned to death, taken to the wetlands of Middlefield, Connecticut, and murdered there.
Eric McDavid is an American green anarchist who was convicted of conspiring to use fire or explosives to damage corporate and government property and sentenced to 20 years in prison. While U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott has called McDavid the first person in the U.S. to be prosecuted on Earth Liberation Front (ELF)-related charges, the trial revealed that McDavid's group had not decided whether or not to claim the planned actions in the name of the ELF. On January 8, 2015, after he spent eight years and 360 days in prison, McDavid's conviction was overturned after the prosecution conceded that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had withheld thousands of pages of potentially exculpatory evidence.
Robert Fuller is an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation who has worked in counter-terrorism. He has questioned suspected terrorists, been a handler of informants in the U.S., and testified in both federal court and Guantanamo military commission trials.
Colleen McMahon is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
David McKay is an activist and artist known for his attempted protest of the 2008 Republican National Convention in Minneapolis and subsequent imprisonment based in part on testimony of FBI informant Brandon Darby.
The practice of mass surveillance in the United States dates back to wartime monitoring and censorship of international communications from, to, or which passed through the United States. After the First and Second World Wars, mass surveillance continued throughout the Cold War period, via programs such as the Black Chamber and Project SHAMROCK. The formation and growth of federal law-enforcement and intelligence agencies such as the FBI, CIA, and NSA institutionalized surveillance used to also silence political dissent, as evidenced by COINTELPRO projects which targeted various organizations and individuals. During the Civil Rights Movement era, many individuals put under surveillance orders were first labelled as integrationists, then deemed subversive, and sometimes suspected to be supportive of the communist model of the United States' rival at the time, the Soviet Union. Other targeted individuals and groups included Native American activists, African American and Chicano liberation movement activists, and anti-war protesters.
The Intercept is an American left-wing nonprofit news organization that publishes articles and podcasts online.
Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a decentralized political and social movement that aims to highlight racism, discrimination, and racial inequality experienced by black people and to promote anti-racism. Its primary concerns are police brutality and racially motivated violence against black people. The movement began in response to the killings of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Rekia Boyd, among others. BLM and its related organizations typically advocate for various policy changes related to black liberation and criminal justice reform. While there are specific organizations that label themselves "Black Lives Matter", such as the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, the overall movement is a decentralized network with no formal hierarchy. As of 2021, there are about 40 chapters in the United States and Canada. The slogan "Black Lives Matter" itself has not been trademarked by any group.
Ralph Kenneth Deleon is a Filipino, and legal permanent resident of the United States, who in 2015 was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder of members of the United States military and government, and providing material support for terrorists. Deleon is serving a 25-year sentence.
The New York Police Department's Strategic Response Group (SRG) is a unit of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) formed in 2015 for all counter-terrorism and the policing of political protests.
Los Seis de Boulder were six Chicano activists and students killed in two car bombings in Boulder, Colorado. The bombings occurred at the end of May 1974, with the name Los Seis de Boulder coined posthumously. The students were protesting the negative treatment of Mexican-American students at the University of Colorado, Boulder at the time of their death. Memorials to the bombing victims have been installed on the University of Colorado campus and in Chautauqua Park.
Defending Rights & Dissent (DRAD) is a national not-for-profit advocacy organization in the United States, dedicated to defending civil liberties, exposing government repression, and protecting the right of political dissent. DRAD was formed as the merger of the Defending Dissent Foundation (DDF) and the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC). DRAD is currently active in defending the right to protest, opposing political surveillance, and campaigning against the prosecution of national security whistleblowers.
The George Floyd protests were a series of protests and demonstrations against police brutality that began in Minneapolis in the United States on May 26, 2020. The protests and civil unrest began in Minneapolis as reactions to the murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old unarmed African American man, by city police during an arrest. They spread nationally and internationally. Veteran officer Derek Chauvin was recorded as kneeling on Floyd's neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds; Floyd complained of not being able to breathe, but three other officers looked on and prevented passersby from intervening. Chauvin and the other three officers involved were later arrested. In April 2021, Chauvin was found guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. In June 2021, Chauvin was sentenced to 22+1⁄2 years in prison.
This is a list of George Floyd protests in Colorado, United States.
John Earle Sullivan, also known as Activist John, is an American political activist and self-identified photojournalist who participated in the January 6, 2021 United States Capitol attack. In November 2023, he was convicted by a jury of felony obstruction of an official proceeding, civil disorder, and five misdemeanors.
References
- ↑ "Trevor Aaronson". The Intercept. Retrieved August 24, 2021.
- ↑ "Trevor Aaronson". New America. Retrieved August 24, 2021.
- ↑ "Meet the 2015 class of TED Fellows and Senior Fellows". TED.com. December 17, 2014. Retrieved March 16, 2023.
- ↑ Aaronson, Trevor (July 15, 2021). "An American ISIS Fighter Describes the Caliphate's Final Days — and His Own". The Intercept. Retrieved August 24, 2021.
- ↑ Collis, Clark (June 15, 2021). "Why a diet clinic entrepreneur was perfect subject for season 2 of investigative podcast 'Chameleon'". Entertainment Weekly . Retrieved August 24, 2021.
- ↑ "Alphabet Boys: Introducing: Alphabet Boys: Season One, Trojan Hearse on Apple Podcasts". Apple Podcasts. Retrieved February 7, 2023.
felt like history in the making... then the protests just stopped
- ↑ Aaronson, Trevor; Hall, Zebbodios; German, Mike (February 7, 2023). "COINTELPRO 2.0: How the FBI Infiltrated BLM Protests After Police Murder of George Floyd". Democracy Now! (Interview). Interviewed by Amy Goodman . Retrieved February 7, 2023.
'Alphabet Boys' documents how the FBI disrupted racial justice organizing after the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, including paying an informant at least $20,000 to infiltrate and spy on activist groups in Denver, Colorado. The informant also encouraged activists to purchase guns and commit violence, echoing the FBI's use of the COINTELPRO program to sabotage left-wing activist groups in the 1960s
- ↑ Weill, Kelly (February 7, 2023). "How an FBI Informant Derailed Denver's BLM Movement". The Daily Beast. Retrieved February 7, 2023.
Windecker made more than $20,000 working for the FBI during the summer of 2020... appeared on the Denver protest scene in the summer of 2020, when the nation was reeling from the on-camera murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. In Denver, Floyd's killing also ignited a simmering anger over the death of Elijah McClain, a young Black man from nearby Aurora. McClain died in 2019 after police violently subdued him...
- ↑ Intercepted (June 28, 2023). "CIA Arms Dealer Was Actually DEA Target". The Intercept. Retrieved July 8, 2023.
- ↑ "New Season of the Hit iHeartPodcast 'Alphabet Boys' Goes Inside an International Arms-Trafficking Case". www.iheartmedia.com. Retrieved July 8, 2023.
- ↑ Nelson, Piper (June 8, 2012). "Paul Krugman Keynotes and Trevor Aaronson Wins Top Award at The 2012 MOLLY National Journalism Prize Dinner". Texas Observer.
- ↑ "Mother Jones Wins International Data Journalism Award for FBI Terrorism Informant Database". Mother Jones . May 31, 2012. Archived from the original on July 15, 2012.
- ↑ "Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Mother Jones Magazine Win 2012 John Jay College/H.F. Guggenheim Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting Awards" (Press release). John Jay College. January 17, 2012. Archived from the original on January 20, 2012.
