Former undercover officer Peter Francis says department helped spies by providing false passports in dead children’s names

Peter Francis, the former undercover police officer turned whistleblower. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian

A second police spy has said the Home Office was aware that undercover police officers stole the identities of dead children to infiltrate political groups.

Peter Francis, a former undercover officer turned whistleblower, said the Home Office helped the spies by providing false passports in the names of the dead children.

His claim comes as Britain’s most senior police officer, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, is due to publish a report on Tuesday about the secret use of dead children’s identities.

It will be released on the same day that MPs on the home affairs select committee are due to question Mick Creedon, the chief constable who is leading the police investigation into the deployment of undercover officers in protest groups over a 40-year period.

Creedon has already conceded that the theft of the children’s identities was “common practice” within a covert special branch unit which operated between 1968 and 2008.

Earlier this month, Bob Lambert, one of the leading spies of the unit, claimed that the technique was “well known at the highest levels of the Home Office”.

In a practice criticised by MPs as “ghoulish” and “heartless”, undercover spies in the unit, the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), searched through birth and death certificates to find children who had died at an early age. They then assumed the identity of the child and developed a persona based on that identity when they went undercover for five years or longer.

The spies were issued with fake documents such as passports, driving licences and national insurance numbers in the child’s name to further bolster their credibility.

Francis, who infiltrated anti-racist groups from 1993 to 1997, discussed the technique with the head of the SDS because he had reservations about stealing the identity of a four-year-old boy who had died. He did not disclose the name of the SDS head.

“We bounced it around – what were his thoughts, what were my thoughts. It was evident that it was standard practice,” Francis said.

The head of the SDS told him the Home Office knew the undercover spies “were using the children”, he said, as it gave fake passports to the spies knowing that they were in the names of the dead children.

The SDS was directly funded by the government, which received an annual report on its work for much of its existence.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We expect the highest standards of professionalism in all aspects of policing. That is why Chief Constable Mick Creedon is leading an IPCC-supervised investigation which will ensure any criminality or misconduct is properly dealt with.”

Francis was an important source for the Guardian when the newspaper detailed the technique, dubbed the “jackal run” after Frederick Forsyth’s novel The Day of the Jackal, in February.

Speaking then as Pete Black, one of his undercover identities, Francis said he felt he was “stomping on the grave” of the boy whose identity he stole. “A part of me was thinking about how I would feel if someone was taking the names and details of my dead son for something like this,” he said at the time.

Last month, he said his superiors had asked him to find “dirt” that could be used to smear the family of Stephen Lawrence, the black teenager who was stabbed to death in a racist attack in 1993.

Lambert went undercover for four years in the 1980s to infiltrate environmental and animal rights groups. He adopted the persona of Bob Robinson, a seven-year-old boy who had died of a congenital heart defect.

Interviewed by Channel Four News this month, Lambert said that at the time he did not “really give pause for thought on the ethical considerations. It was, that’s what was done. Let’s be under no illusions about the extent to which that was an accepted practice that was well known at the highest levels of the Home Office.” Lambert fathered a child with a campaigner while he was undercover.

On Tuesday, Creedon is expected to be questioned by the select committee about whether the police will apologise to the parents whose children’s identities were taken. Creedon has said he has taken legal advice on whether the spies who stole the children’s identities could be put on trial.

Rob Evans
The Guardian, Monday 15 July 2013 18.35 BST

Find this story at 15 July 2013

© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Executive Summary

History
The Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) was an undercover unit formed by the
Metropolitan Police’s Special Branch. It operated between 1968 and 2008, during
which time it infiltrated and reported on groups concerned in violent protest.

Operation Herne
Operation Herne (formerly Soisson) was formed in October 2011 in response to
allegations made by the Guardian newspaper about alleged misconduct and criminality
engaged in by members of the SDS. Similar matters had been previously aired as early
as 2002 in a BBC documentary.

Operation Riverwood
On 4th February 2013 the Metropolitan Police received a public complaint from the
family of Rod Richardson, a young boy who had died in the 1970s. It is alleged that an
undercover officer working for the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) had
used this child’s details as his covert identity. This matter was referred to the IPCC. The
matter was returned to the force and is currently subject of a ‘local investigation’.

National Public Order Intelligence Unit
The NPOIU was formed within the MPS in 1999 to gather and coordinate intelligence.
In 2006 the governance responsibility for NPOIU was moved to the Association of
Chief Police Officers, after a decision was taken that the forces where the majority of
activity was taking place should be responsible for authorising future deployments. In
January 2011 the NPOIU was subsumed within other units under the National Domestic
Extremism Units within the MPS.
In January 1995 large numbers of police from London, Kent and Hampshire were
drafted to the West Sussex harbour of Shoreham in response to protests surrounding
the export of live animals to Europe. The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and another
animal extremist group named ‘Justice Department’ had a strong base in the
community there. This led to a number of protests and in October 1995 there was a
further demonstration in Brightlingsea, Essex. This resulted in a record number of police
being deployed to prevent widespread public disorder. Ad-hoc protest groups emerged
and the need for first hand high quality intelligence was evident. This led to undercover
operatives being required to infiltrate these animal extremist organisations.

The purpose of the NPOIU was:
1 To provide the police service with the ability to develop a national threat assessment
and profile for domestic extremism.
2 Support the police service to reduce crime and disorder from domestic extremism.
3 Support a proportionate police response to protest activity.
4 Help the police service manage concerns of communities and businesses to
minimise conflict and disorder.

Control of the NPOIU moved to ACPO in 2006 under the direction of the ACPO National
Co-ordinator for Domestic Extremism, Assistant Chief Constable Anton Setchell. He
was replaced by Detective Chief Superintendent Adrian Tudway in 2010. The NPOIU
worked with the National Extremism Tactical Co-ordination Unit (NETCU) and the
National Domestic Extremism Team (NDET).
The NPOIU now exists as part of the National Domestic Extremism Unit (NDEU) under
the Metropolitan Police Service Specialist Operations and is run by Detective Chief
Superintendent Chris Greaney.

Deceased identities
On 5th February 2013 the Home Affairs Select Committee (HASC) questioned Deputy
Assistant Commissioner Gallan about the alleged practice that SDS officers had used
the details of dead children, as part of a cover identity for undercover police officers. At
the time DAC Gallan was based in the MPS Directorate of Professional Standards and
was in overall command of Operation Herne. Her appearance before the HASC led to
considerable media coverage and some negative commentary. As a result of the media
coverage, Operation Herne has now received enquiries from fourteen (14) families
regarding seventeen (17) children.

Operation Herne review
One hundred and forty-seven (147) named individuals are believed to have served as
police officers within the SDS at all ranks from Chief Superintendent down. This covers
the forty (40) years that the unit was in existence and not all the police officers were
deployed in undercover roles.
At this stage one hundred and six (106) covert identities have been identified as having
been used by the SDS between 1968 and 2008.
Forty-two (42) of these identities are either confirmed or highly likely to have used the
details of a deceased child.
Forty-five (45) of these identities have been established as fictitious. Work continues to
identify the provenance of the remaining identities.

Neither Confirm Nor Deny (NCND)
The policy of ‘neither confirming nor denying’ the use of or identity of an undercover
police officer is a long established one used by UK policing. It is essential so as to
provide for the necessary operational security and to ensure undercover officers are
clear that their identity will never be disclosed by the organisation that asked them to
carry out the covert activity. The duty of care owed to such officers is an absolute one
and applies during their deployments, throughout their service and continues when they
are retired.
Please note that this is an interim report specifically about the use of the identities of
deceased children and infants. It does not seek to cover either all of the activities of
the SDS nor has it been able to completely provide all the answers regarding the use
of covert identities. The report clearly explains the use of the tactic and is submitted
early given the need to deal with the public concerns and is provided in agreement with
the Home Office who sought to have this matter concluded before the parliamentary
summer recess.

Find this report at July 2013

The identities of 42 dead children whose names were assumed by undercover police officers will not be revealed to their relatives, according to a report.

The Metropolitan Police offered a general apology for the “shock and offence” the practice had caused.

But Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said revealing the identities used would endanger the officers concerned.

The senior officer who wrote the report on the 1980s practice told MPs it would not be used as a tactic today.

The report’s author, Derbyshire Chief Constable Mick Creedon, was asked to investigate in 2011 after the Guardian newspaper published allegations about the conduct of undercover officers.

He told the Home Affairs Select Committee ministers did not authorise the practice but refused to condemn the officers’ actions.

“It’s irrelevant what I think,” he said. “It is not a tactic we would use these days.

“It would feel very strange for me to criticise the actions of people 20, 30, 40-years-ago without knowing what they faced at the time.”

Earlier this year, the Guardian reported that officers had stolen the identities of about 80 children who died at an early age.
Anonymity ‘vital’

Mr Creedon’s report concluded that at least 42 children’s identities had, either definitely or very probably, been used by the Metropolitan Police’s Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) and its National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU).

The earliest known use of the tactic occurred between 1976 and 1981 and it was phased out from 1994 in the SDS, the report added.

But it also found that the practice might have been used by the NPOIU as recently as 2003, and that it was “highly possible” that its use was more widespread than currently understood.

The report said: “A range of officers at different ranks and roles have been interviewed by the investigation team. The information provided corroborates totally the belief that, for the majority of the existence of the SDS, the use of deceased children’s identities was accepted as standard practice.”

Sir Bernard said 14 families had contacted the Met to ask whether the identities of their relatives had been used by undercover officers.

The Met had apologised to them, and to another family that had heard separately that it might be affected by the revelations, he said.

“Undercover officers are brave men and women” and maintaining their anonymity is “vital”, Sir Bernard said.

He explained: “There are criminals behind bars and at large today who would have no qualms in doing serious harm if they discovered a former close confidant had been working for the police.

“That’s why undercover officers spent so much time building up their ‘legend’ or false identity, and why that identity must be protected forever.”
‘Rot’

Sir Bernard added: “I believe the public do understand the necessity for police and others to do things like this to protect against a much greater harm. It was never intended or foreseen that any of the identities used would become public, or that any family would suffer hurt as a result.

“At the time this method of creating identities was in use, officers felt this was the safest option.”

But Jules Carey, a solicitor acting for Barbara Shaw, who is concerned that her son Rod Richardson’s identity was used, said: “What we heard this morning was not an apology but a PR exercise.

“The families of the dead children whose identities have been stolen by the undercover officers deserve better than this.

“They deserve an explanation, a personal apology and, if appropriate, a warning of the potential risk they face, in the exceptional circumstances, that their dead child’s identity was used to infiltrate serious criminal organisations.

“The harvesting of dead children’s identities was only one manifestation of the rot at the heart of these undercover units which had officers lie on oath, conduct smear campaigns and use sexual relationships as an evidence-gathering tool.”

He added: “Ms Shaw has told me that she feels her complaint has been ‘swept under the carpet” and she has instructed me to appeal this outcome.”

UK
16 July 2013 Last updated at 16:29 GMT

Find this story at 16 July 2013

BBC © 2013 The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe releases report on surveillance used since 1970s but refuses to inform any affected families

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said families of dead children whose identities were used would not be approached, as that could put undercover officers in danger. Photograph: John Stillwell/PA

Britain’s most senior police officer has offered a general apology for the “morally repugnant” theft of dead children’s identities by undercover spies who infiltrated political groups.

But Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan police commissioner, has refused to tell any families if the identities of their children were stolen by the undercover officers. He said he wanted to protect the spies from being exposed.

In a report published on Tuesday, he admitted that at least 42 police spies stole the identity of children who had died before they were 14 years old.

But the total number of such spies could be far higher as he conceded that the technique could have been more widespread than initially believed.

Hogan-Howe said he “should apologise for the shock and offence the use of this tactic has caused” among the public, after the Guardian revealed details of the policing method in February.

The commissioner argued that the families could not be informed as it could lead to the exposure of the undercover officers sent to infiltrate the political groups.

“It was never intended or foreseen that any of the identities used would become public, or that any family would suffer hurt as a result. At the time this method of creating identities was in use, officers felt this was the safest option” he added.

His decision drew immediate criticism. Jenny Jones, a Green party member of the London Assembly, said: “This falls short of coming clean to all the families whose children’s identities were harvested. In giving a blanket apology they have avoided the difficult task of apologising to real people.”

The Met has sent letters of apology to 15 families whose children died young, but has neither confirmed nor denied whether identities were stolen.

One case concerned a suspected spy, deployed between 1999 and 2003, who allegedly stole the identity of Rod Richardson, who died two days after being born in 1973.

The family’s lawyer, Jules Carey, said that Barbara Shaw, the mother of the dead boy, was taking legal action as she felt her complaint had been “swept under the carpet”.

Carey said Hogan-Howe’s apology was a PR exercise. He added: “The families of the dead children whose identities have been stolen by the undercover officers deserve better than this. They deserve an explanation, a personal apology. The harvesting of dead children’s identities was only one manifestation of the rot at the heart of these undercover units.”

Peter Francis, one of the spies who originally blew the whistle on the tactic, said the police should offer a personal apology to the families in the cases of spies whose identity had already been exposed. He agreed that the spies whose work remained secret should be protected.

The report, on Tuesday, was produced by Mick Creedon, the Derbyshire chief constable who is conducting an investigation into the activities of the undercover spies over 40 years.

Creedon revealed that the technique was used extensively as far back as 1976 and was authorised by senior police. He reported that the tactic became “an established practice that new officers were taught” within a covert special branch unit known as the special demonstration squad (SDS), which spied on political groups.

“This was not done by the officers in any underhand or salacious manner – it was what they were told to do,” Creedon added.

One senior spy is quoted as saying the undercover officers “spent hours and hours … leafing through death registers in search of a name [they] could call his own”.

“The genuine identities of the deceased children were blended with the officer’s own biographical details,” Creedon said.

The spies were issued with fake documents, such as passports and driving licences, to make their alter egos appear genuine in case suspicious activists started to investigate them.

The last time the tactic was used, according to Creedon, was 2003, by a spy working for a second covert unit – the national public order intelligence unit (NPOIU) – which infiltrated political campaigns.

Creedon said it was highly possible that the tactic was used by undercover officers in other units which infiltrated serious criminal gangs. “It would be a mistake to assume that the use of identities of dead children was solely within the SDS and the NPOIU.”

He said that the use of the technique “however morally repugnant, should not detract from the [spies’] bravery”.

Rob Evans and Paul Lewis
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 16 July 2013 12.22 BST

Find this story at 16 July 2013

© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Bob Lambert admits to adopting the identity of a seven-year-old boy and has conceded to having four affairs while undercover

Bob Lambert was deployed as an animal rights activist named Bob Robinson in the 1980s.

A former police spymaster has claimed the practice of resurrecting the identities of dead children so they could be used by undercover officers was “well known at the highest levels of the Home Office”.

Bob Lambert, who is facing a potential criminal investigation over his work for a secret unit of undercover officers, admitted that when he was deployed as a spy himself, he adopted the identity of a seven-year-old boy who died of a congenital heart defect.

He also admitted to using his false identity in court and co-writing the “McLibel” leaflet that defamed the burger chain McDonald’s, resulting in the longest civil trial in English legal history.

Conceding publicly for the first time that he had four relationships with women while undercover, one of which resulted in him secretly fathering a child, he said: “With hindsight I can only say that I genuinely regret my actions, and I apologise to the women affected in my case.”

Lambert was deployed as an animal rights activist named “Bob Robinson” in the 1980s for a covert Metropolitan Police unit called the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) which deployed undercover officers in political campaign groups. In the 1990s, he was promoted to manage other undercover operatives.

Over the last two years the Guardian has detailed the covert work of Lambert, one of the most controversial spies to have worked for the SDS and its sister squad, the National Public Order Intelligence Unit.

Until now, Lambert has either declined to comment in detail or said the Guardian’s reports amounted to “a misleading combination of truth, distortions, exaggerations and outright lies”.

However, in a Channel 4 News interview broadcast on Friday, Lambert admitted that many of the allegations made against him were true. “My reputation is never going to be redeemed for many people, and I don’t think it should be,” he told the programme. “I think I made serious mistakes that I should regret, and I always will do.”

Lambert said he was arrested “four or five” times while undercover and in 1986 he appeared in a magistrates court charged with a “minor public order offence”. He said he had to appear in court using his alter ego – rather than his real name – in order to “maintain cover”.

He also admitted to co-writing the McLibel leaflet. “I was certainly a contributing author to the McLibel leaflet,” he told the programme. “Well, I think, the one that I remember, the one that I remember making a contribution to, was called What’s Wrong With McDonald’s?”

Asked if that was ever disclosed to the court during the long-running civil trial, he replied: “I don’t know the answer to that question.”

Although he admitted having relationships with women, Lambert denied it was a deliberate tactic in the SDS to use relationships to gain access, saying “probably I became too immersed” in his alter ego. “I’d always been a faithful husband,” he said. “I only ever became an unfaithful husband when I became an undercover police officer.”

Harriet Wistrich, a lawyer representing eight women involved in relationships with Lambert and other undercover police said that there was a systematic pattern in which operatives repeatedly used long-term relationships to build their cover.

Almost all of the undercover officers identified so far – including those known to have worked under Lambert – had sexual relationships while operating covertly.

An SDS spy who has become a whistleblower, Peter Francis, has said that when he was deployed as an anti-racist campaigner, his superiors asked him to find “dirt” that could be used to smear the family of Stephen Lawrence, the black teenager who was stabbed to death in a racist attack in 1993.

His revelation has since triggered further investigations into alleged covert tactics used against the Lawrence family, their supporters and Duwayne Brooks, a friend of Stephen and the main witness to the murder.

On Friday, police chiefs admitted bugging a meeting with Brooks and his lawyer, Jane Deighton. Deighton said that Brooks, who is now a Lib Dem councillor, conveyed his concern in a meeting with the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg.

In a previous Channel 4 News broadcast, Lambert denied the unit was involved in seeking to smear the Lawrence family during his tenure as deputy head of the unit.

He had a supervisory role when other spies, such as Jim Boyling and Mark Jenner, formed long-term relationships with people they were spying on. All are now under investigation.

The deployments of Francis, Lambert, Boyling and Jenner are detailed in a new book: Undercover: The True Story of Britain’s Secret Police.

Lambert has also been accused in parliament of igniting an incendiary device in a branch of Debenhams as part of a fire-bombing campaign by the Animal Liberation Front. Repeating earlier denials, he told Channel 4 News that the claim was “false”.

The home secretary, Theresa May, is coming under mounting pressure to announce an independent public inquiry into the affair. So far she has indicated that two pre-existing inquiries – one run by a barrister, the other an internal Met police review – are capable of investigating the allegations surrounding the Lawrences and Brooks.

Paul Lewis and Rob Evans
The Guardian, Saturday 6 July 2013

Find this story 6 July 2013

© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Bob Lambert had a five-year covert career using the alias Bob Robinson
The married office slept with four women and fathered a child with one
Lambert claims that being undercover led to his bad behaviour

Back in the day: During a covert career in which he infiltrated various groups, Bob Lambert has spoke of his disgust at some of his actions

A former Scotland Yard police officer who fathered a child with one of several targets he had relationships with while working undercover has apologised to the women.

Bob Lambert said he would always regret the ‘serious mistakes’ he made during a covert career which saw him use the identities of dead children, give evidence in court under his false name and co-author a libellous leaflet.

Mr Lambert used the alias Bob Robinson during his five years infiltrating environmentalist groups, when he was with the special demonstration squad (SDS), the Metropolitan Police unit that targeted political activists.

The revelation that the married officer slept with four women – fathering a child with one – sparked outrage.

In an interview with Channel 4 News, he said he accepts his behaviour was morally reprehensible and a gross invasion of privacy.

‘With hindsight, I can only say that I genuinely regret my actions, and I apologise to the women affected,’ he said.

‘I’d always been a faithful husband. I only ever became an unfaithful husband when I became an undercover police officer.’

The ex-officer declined to reveal whether his superiors were aware of the child – insisting he would only discuss that with an investigation into the activities of undercover police activities being led by the chief constable of Derbyshire.

Mr Lambert said he ‘didn’t really give pause for thought on the ethical considerations’ of adopting the identity of a dead child in 1984 as it was standard practice at the time.

‘That’s what was done. Let’s be under no illusions about the extent to which that was an accepted practice that was well known at the highest levels of the Home Office,’ he told the programme.

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Baby snatched from its pram and thrown to the floor outside a hospital by teenager who was on a legal high called Salvia

He confirmed that he had appeared in court as Bob Robinson but could not say whether the judiciary was made aware by the police that he was doing so.

‘On occasions I was arrested as Bob Robinson and to maintain cover I went through the process of arrest, detention, and on occasions, appearing in court,’ he said.
Lambert insists he was unaware of any campaign to smear family and friends of Stephen Lawrence

He denied it amounted to perjury as ‘the position was that I was maintaining cover as Bob Robinson’.
But asked if the court was ‘made aware’, he added: ‘Well, that’s what needs to be established.’

Mr Lambert also confirmed that he helped write a libellous leaflet that attacked fast food giant McDonald’s and triggered the longest civil trial in English history.

McDonald’s famously sued two green campaigners over the leaflet in a landmark three-year high court case.

It was not disclosed during the costly civil legal proceedings brought by McDonalds in the 1990s that an undercover police officer helped write the leaflet.

‘I was certainly a contributing author to the McLibel leaflet. Well, I think, the one that I remember, the one that I remember making a contribution to, was called What’s Wrong With McDonalds?’, he told Channel 4.

Over the line: Bob Lambert in a more recent picture, fathered a child with one of his targets

Asked if that fact was disclosed during the proceedings, he said: ‘I don’t know.’

He repeated his rejection though of claims that he planted an incendiary device in a Debenhams store in Harrow in 1987, calling that a ‘false allegation’.

Mr Lambert, who was an SDS manager for five years, earlier this week insisted he had not been aware of any campaign against the family of murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence.

Those claims were made by another veteran of the unit, Peter Francis, who alleges he was told to find information to use to smear the Lawrence family – who are calling for a public inquiry to examine the issue.

Home Secretary Theresa May has said they would be looked at by the Derbyshire probe and a separate inquiry led by barrister Mark Ellison QC into alleged corruption in the original Lawrence murder investigation, but has left open the possibility of other action.

‘My reputation is never going to be redeemed for many people, and I don’t think it should be,’ Mr Lambert said.

‘I think I made serious mistakes that I should regret, and I always will do. I think the only real comfort I can take from my police career is that the Muslim Contact Unit was about learning from mistakes.’

Belinda Harvey, one of eight women who are suing the Metropolitan Police over relationships with men who turned out to be undercover officers, rejected his apology.

‘Almost everything he said to me was a lie; why would I possibly believe what he says to me know.’ she told Channel 4.

‘If it hadn’t been for the case we’re bringing against the police, he would never have apologised and I would have lived the rest of my days not finding out the truth.’

Former director of public prosecutions Lord Macdonald of River Glaven said the latest evidence strengthened the case for a judge-led public inquiry.

‘It is as bad as I think we thought it was,’ he said.

‘He seems to have admitted a great deal of the conduct that people feared had been taking place.

‘It now sounds as though not only senior police officers but senior civil servants may have known what was going on.

‘It’s no good having this multitude of inquiries that are going on at the moment, one of them conducted by the police themselves which is pretty hopeless in my view.

‘We need a single public inquiry under a senior judicial figure to examine what happened, what went wrong, who authorised it and most of all to reassure us that its not going on still.’

By Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED: 00:37 GMT, 6 July 2013 | UPDATED: 01:06 GMT, 6 July 2013

Find this story at 6 July 2013

© Associated Newspapers Ltd

Investigation into covert policing has found widespread use of the practice.

Senior police leaders are set to make an unprecedented national apology after hundreds of names of dead children were used to create false identities for undercover officers.

An investigation into covert policing has found widespread use of the practice.

Undercover officers told The Times that they were trained to use names of the dead and it had become “standard practice”.

Special branch units used the names while infiltrating criminal gangs, animal rights activists and football hooligan firms, it is claimed.

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, will be questioned about the method after it was revealed that officers were told to gather “dirt” on the family of Stephen Lawrence.

Sources say that the practice may have been used in MI5 and MI6 and that several thousand identities of dead infants, children and teenagers may have been assumed by undercover officers.

An apology will be made senior police in the coming days.

Tom Foot
Friday, 5 July 2013

Find this story at 5 July 2013

© independent.co.uk

Police chiefs are expected to formally apologise for using the names of dead children to create fake identities for undercover officers.

It had been thought that only officers in secret police units such as the Met Police’s Special Demonstration Squad, which was closed in 2008, had adopted dead children’s names as a new identity.

But Operation Herne, an ongoing investigation into the conduct of undercover police, has revealed that the practice was more widespread than originally thought and used by forces across the country.

Standard practice: It had been thought that the practice of using dead children’s names as identities for undercover officers was restricted to Scotland Yard’s Special Demonstrations Squad, but the practice is now said to have been more widespread

According to sources, undercover police officers infiltrating criminal networks and violent gangs were given dead people’s identities as ‘standard practice’, reported The Times.

The technique, which was regularly used in the 1960s and 1990s, is thought to have been last used in 2002.

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But it is thought that the technique was not restricted to police forces with other agencies such as HM Revenue & Customs said to have adopted the practice.

The apology could come as early as this month but police are not expected to contact families of the dead people whose names were used through fear that it could put officers who have taken part in undercover operations in the past in danger.

A way in: Dead children’s identities were used by undercover offices to infiltrate violent gangs and demonstration groups

A source told The Times: ‘This wasn’t an anomaly, it wasn’t something that was used in isolation by just one unit.

‘If you are infiltrating a sophisticated crime group they are going to check who you are, so you need a backstop, a cover story that has real depth and won’t fall over at the first hurdle.

Disapproving: Policing minister Damien Green has expressed his disappointment at the use of dead children’s names by police units

‘The way to do that was to build an identity that was based on a real person.’

It was reported earlier this year that around 80 names were used by officers over a 30 year period.

Set up in 2011, Operation Herne, which is expected to cost around £1.66million a year, will examine the conduct of all ranks of officers and even look at the actions of former Home Secretaries.

Both The Home Affairs Committee and Police minister Damian Green have spoken of their ‘disappointment’ that dead children’s names were used in investigations.

Back in may, Derbyshire Chief Constable Mick Creedon admitted that the practice had been widespread

A raft of allegations have been made since former PC Mark Kennedy was unmasked in 2011 as an undercover officer who spied on environmental protesters as Mark ‘Flash’ Stone – and had at least one sexual relationship with a female activist.

The revelation comes before Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan Howe appears before MPs to answer questions over a number of controversies including claims last month that the family of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence were targeted by undercover officers who were assigned to ‘get dirt’ on them.

Quiz: Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe will face questions from MPs over a number of controversies

It also emerged that police admitted bugging meetings involving Duwayne Brooks, the friend who was with Stephen the night he was attacked.

The claims affecting Mr Brooks came after former undercover officer Peter Francis alleged that he had been told to find information to use to smear the Lawrence family.

Mr Francis, who worked with Scotland Yard’s former Special Demonstration Squad, spoke out about tactics that he said were used by the secretive unit in the 1980s and 1990s.

Investigation: A raft of allegations have been made since former PC Mark Kennedy was unmasked in 2011 as an undercover officer who spied on environmental protesters as Mark ¿Flash¿ Stone ¿ and had at least one sexual relationship with a female activist

By Steve Nolan

PUBLISHED: 11:07 GMT, 6 July 2013 | UPDATED: 11:13 GMT, 6 July 2013

Find this story at 6 July 2013

© Associated Newspapers Ltd

Anti-war activists who were infiltrated and spied on by the military for years have now been placed on the domestic terrorist list, they announced Monday. The shocking revelation comes as the activists prepare to sue the U.S. military for unlawful spying.

“The fact that a peaceful activist such as myself is on this domestic terrorist list should be cause for concern for other people in the US,” declared Brendan Maslauskas Dunn, plaintiff in the lawsuit. “We’ve seen an increase in the buildup of a mass surveillance state under the Obama and Bush Administrations.”

The discovery is the latest development in a stunning saga that exposes vast post-9/11 spying networks in which military, police, and federal agencies appear to be in cahoots.

Documents declassified in 2009 reveal that military informant John Towery, going by the name ‘John Jacob,’ spent over two years infiltrating and spying on Olympia, Washington anti-war and social justice groups, including Port Militarization Resistance, Students for a Democratic Society, the Industrial Workers of the World, and Iraq Veterans Against the War.

Towery admitted to the spying and revealed that he shared information with not only the military, but also the police and federal agencies. He claimed that he was not the only spy.

The activists, who blast the snooping as a violation of their First and Fourth Amendment rights, levied a lawsuit against the military in 2009.

“The spying resulted in plaintiffs and others being targeted for repeated harassment, preemptive and false arrest, excessive use of force, and malicious prosecution,” reads a statement by the plaintiffs.

The Obama Administration attempted to throw out the litigation, but in December 2012 the 9th Circuit Court ruled that the case could continue.

When the plaintiffs were preparing their deposition for the courts two weeks ago, they were shocked to discover that several Olympia anti-war activists were listed on the domestic terrorist list, including at least two plaintiffs in the case.

The revelations prompted them to amend their lawsuit to include charges that the nonviolent activists were unlawfully targeted as domestic terrorists.

“The breadth and intensity of the spying by U.S. Army officials and other law enforcement agents is staggering,” said Larry Hildes, National Lawyers Guild attorney who filed the lawsuit in 2009. “If nonviolent protest is now labeled and treated as terrorism, then democracy and the First Amendment are in critical danger.”

Plaintiffs say this case takes on a new revelevance as vast NSA dragnet spying sparks widespread outrage.

“I think that there is a huge potential for the case to set precedent,” declared plaintiff Julianne Panagacos. “This could have a big impact on how the U.S. military and police are able to work together.”

She added, “I am hopeful we will win.”

Published on Monday, June 24, 2013 by Common Dreams
– Sarah Lazare, staff writer

Find this story at 24 June 2013

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

(Image: Jared Rodriguez / Truthout)Accused of domestic terrorism in the course of the Chicago NATO summit,
Brian Church, Brent Betterly and Jared Chase were arguably victims of police entrapment and the use of “Red Squad” tactics the Chicago police were formerly enjoined from employing.

When local and federal police conducted a no-knock, midnight search warrant raid in May 2012 at an apartment in Chicago’s Bridgeport neighborhood, it looked at first like a failed mission.

Yes, police seized a group of 11 political activists in Chicago to protest an international summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). But most of the arrestees were released without charge, and rumors soon began to swirl.

Police chained protesters to benches for 18 hours, one television station reported. Chicago Police Department (CPD) sources told Truthout the raid would unearth Molotov cocktails – homemade firebombs made of breakable glass bottles and gasoline. But they found beer brewing equipment instead.

“If anybody would like some,” one Bridgeport tenant told Truthout, “I would like to offer them a sip of my beer.”

Then things turned.

Of the 11 Bridgeport arrestees, it turned out, two were undercover cops. And beer-brewing equipment wasn’t the only thing the authorities found.

Mo and Nadia at Woodlawn (Photo Courtesy of Occupy Chicago)

They found four dark beer bottles “containing a clear liquid” implied to be gasoline. They found a pint can containing four presumably gas-soaked cloths. They found another pint can containing four glass vials each containing saturated cotton, along with four gas-soaked pieces of cloth, an empty gas can, a black tactical vest and a black gas mask. They found a compound bow and nine arrows.

They found two knives in sheaths, two swords in sheaths, and a set of handcuffs. They found a metal throwing star (a sharp, hand-held blade). They found a PVC pipe with a black flag attached. Authorities also found a printed photo of the female undercover officer who led SWAT teams to Bridgeport in the first place.

This litany of materials, police told Truthout, belonged to three men visiting Chicago from Florida to protest the NATO Summit – and, allegedly, to set parts of the Windy City aflame.

Dubbed the “NATO 3” in media reports, they face maximum sentences of 85 years in prison apiece if convicted, under a decade-old Illinois law that had never been used before. And that was without ever carrying out an attack.

Mug shots taken of the “NATO 3” after their arrests (From Left to Right: Brian Church, Brent Betterly, Jared Chase)

Their arrests may paint a picture of what federal authorities wish they had done to stop the bombings in Boston, or the Fort Hood shootings, or any actual terrorist attack carried out by suspects who had aroused suspicion from authorities.

Unlike the Boston bombers, the NATO 3 hadn’t set off any bombs prior to their arrests. Unlike the Fort Hood shooter, they hadn’t shot anyone. They hadn’t thrown molotov cocktails. They hadn’t even pressed dummy detonators, as was the case with five Cleveland activists in a similar domestic terrorism investigation last year.

They just ran their mouths. They just talked about revolution. And they went far enough into a conspiracy to elicit major charges.

To this day, more than a year after their arrest in Bridgeport, the NATO 3 are still sitting in Chicago’s Cook County Jail, awaiting their trial, which is set to begin on September 16, one day before the two-year anniversary of the Sept. 17, 2011, launch of Occupy Wall Street.

Their case is a big one. It’s the new face of US counterterrorism investigations – a template for pre-crime arrests, performed through entrapment by police – to stop supposedly dangerous political acts before they happen.

And if the “3” are convicted in September, it could set a troubling precedent far beyond the borders of Illinois.

Who are the NATO 3?

While Occupy Wall Street helped to ramp up the possibility for major protest action in cities such as Chicago, it also brought together young activists who would’ve never met otherwise. Case in point: Chase and Betterly.

The duo met in Washington DC at an Occupy protest. They were arrested, arm in arm, in front of the White House, while protesting the National Defense Authorization Act.

It wasn’t the first arrest for either man.

Years ago, when Chase was 18 and living with his folks in Keene, N.H., he was charged with “attempt to commit an assault and reckless endangerment after allegedly pulling a knife on another man,” according to the New Hampshire Union-Leader.

A month later, Chase received more charges, this time for first-degree assault and conduct after an accident, which earned him nine months in jail.

“In that incident, Chase was found guilty of hitting a man with a car after the two had a fist fight,” said the Union-Leader article. “The victim’s impact with the car damaged the windshield, but the man was not seriously injured. . . .The conduct after an accident charge was added because Chase drove off after striking the man.”

He spent six months in jail. He had trouble with drugs when he got out. He violated his probation three times and then eventually moved to Boston, where he stayed for years and worked as a cook at a P.F. Chang’s.

A photo from Jared Chase’s Facebook

Late last year, Chase left his life in Boston. A drifter, he headed to Rhode Island briefly and then to Washington, D.C.

After Chase and Betterly were arrested outside the White House, they headed toward Oakland Park, Florida, just north of Fort Lauderdale, where Betterly’s from, before heading to Miami.

Chase was arrested again as part of a group during Occupy Miami before heading off to Chicago. That group was found with bolt cutters, a baseball bat and a sledgehammer, but they were not charged.

The Miami New Times described Betterly, “with his good looks and dreadlocks,” as “a hippie who attended rainbow gatherings.” He had a criminal record in Florida, but nothing violent: Last September, he and a friend were drunk when they broke into a high school, did some after-hours swimming and broke a cafeteria window. Police picked them up. Betterly was released, but he still faces a pending burglary charge.

A photo from Brent Bettery’s Facebook

New Times reported that Betterly was known among those at Occupy Miami “for his creativity and commitment to fighting foreclosures,” while Chase was seen as more “enigmatic”: “The chain-smoker was a computer whiz who . . . spent days wandering around downtown and talking to homeless people.”

On March 14, 2012, Occupy Miami was raided by police, and Chase was there when it happened. It was depicted on Chase’s Facebook page, in fact, underneath a picture of a SWAT team outside an apartment complex housing members of Occupy Miami.

Church (aka “Sum Wun”) joked – ominously with the benefit of hindsight – that the raid was the result of a “terrorist meeting.”

Occupy’s Open Door for Infiltration: Enter “Mo” and “Nadia”

When it comes to protecting itself from prosecution, one of the Occupy movement’s truest merits – the inclusion of “the 99 percent” and acceptance of anyone willing to lend a hand – is also its fatal flaw.

CPD undercover officers began their investigation in February 2012 as part of a temporary 90-day assignment to monitor NATO protests. Undercover officers soon entered Occupy Chicago posing as activists and did so with ease.

Occupy Chicago organizer Matthew McLoughlin explained the hectic nature of preparations in the months leading up to the NATO Summit protests.

“Every day of the week . . . we had an action going on. So we were making sure that went off without a hitch,” he told us. “And then we had out-of-towners pouring in, so we had to take care of that

“We weren’t really prepared” to deal with undercover police officers, he continued.

That’s how two undercover officers, going by the names “Mo” and “Nadia,” would soon become the NATO 3’s downfall.

In early March, an undercover officer – a big man, a little over 6 feet tall, bearded and dark-featured, in his mid-30s with broad shoulders, wearing jeans, a black hoodie and a black winter cap – was first spotted by central organizers of the NATO Summit protests at a planning meeting.

He went by “Mo.”

A photo of “Mo,” the pseudonym for the undercover informant agent responsible for the entrapment-created arrests of the “NATO 3” and now two others taken by an activist and submitted to the National Lawyer’s Guild Chicago. (Photo Courtesy: National Lawyers Guild)

During small group introductions, Mo said he became an activist because he had been laid off from a job. “Shit blew up,” he said, and Occupy Chicago started. No further explanation was needed.

Mo would show up at a public Occupy event later in March with a woman who would always be by his side: a young woman who went by “Nadia Youkhana.”

Nadia was tall, with tanned skin. Some Occupy sources told Truthout she claimed to be Syrian. Many activists said she was charming and bubbly. They were attracted to her seeming genuine excitement to get involved with activism. If “Mo” was the brawn of the two-person team, “Nadia” was the brains.

Photo of “Nadia” released by Occupy Chicago

Nadia showed up alongside Mo at an Occupy General Assembly – a completely open meeting for anyone new to the movement – to introduce themselves, saying they were cousins. She talked with an Occupy Chicago organizer who oversaw a number of list-serves and who generally passed information about meetings to anyone who needed it.

Nadia seemingly saw this organizer as un-dangerous and useful; she kept in touch with him to monitor when various meetings were taking place and rallies were being planned, as well as to get email addresses of everyone involved in Occupy Chicago.

Mo and Nadia were on a 90-day temporary duty undercover assignment as part of CPD Field Intelligence Team 7150 (FIT 7150). The team was tasked with “attend[ing] Occupy Chicago and anarchist movement events for the purpose of observing and listening to reports of any planned criminal activity” in the run-up to the NATO Summit, according to pre-trial court documents.

Truthout visited the apartments of both Mo and Gloves, but both denied comment.

Woodlawn

The Woodlawn Mental Health Clinic on Chicago’s south side was one of six city-operated facilities scheduled for closure in April 2012. Occupy Chicago activists planned to protest on a daily basis.

Occupy Chicago activists link arms to form a human chain outside the occupied Woodlawn Clinic on the night of Thursday, April 12 2012. (Photo: Marcus Demery / Flickr)

At one of these protests in early April, 23 were arrested. Mo and Nadia thought a second protest – and an inevitable series of arrests – might cause some protesters to plan something violent, according to sources.

So when 10 protesters were arrested on April 23, Mo and Nadia were there.

“At the time, I couldn’t figure out why we were under such close surveillance this particular night,” recalled Rachel Unterman, press liaison for Occupy Chicago. “I thought they were overreacting to a few tents and a handful of expected arrests. Now I know that they had undercover officers in the field, which raised the stakes.”

The 10 spent the night in a Cook County Jail facility together. Some of them found “Mo” and “Nadia” to be a bit odd.

“When she walked into the police van was the first time I had ever seen her,” Christina Pillsbury told Truthout, a University of Chicago student who was arrested with Nadia that day. “It didn’t really make sense because I had seen everyone else arrested with me that day before, but I didn’t really have time to think about it at the time, either.”

Pillsbury recalls her being “really funny” and “really liking her at first.” Nadia also told Pillsbury and her fellow arrested activists “really intense stories about her sister’s mental illness.”

But she also recalls Nadia trying to rile up her and the other women arrested that day in jail. Pillsbury says Nadia started to “freak out” when the police were giving her stuff back to her and they only gave her one of her two cell phones – in hindsight, the two phones being another telltale sign that something was off, she noted.

“It seemed as if she was trying to get us in the whole ‘fuck the police’ mentality, but she was barking up the wrong tree,” noted Pillsbury. “We didn’t even do anything violent to be in jail in the first place; we just stood our ground across the street from Woodlawn in an act of nonviolent civil disobedience.”

Mo had told a story paralleling Nadia’s at Woodlawn Clinic prayer vigil earlier that day, shared by Mental Health Clinic activist Matt Ginsberg-Jaeckle. Mo said he had a “cousin struggling with mental health issues” and that was why he felt strongly about the events unfolding at Woodlawn, compelling him to take part in them.

Mo also played the violence game. While in lockup, he approached one of the arrested activists. “What’s our next step?” he asked Ginsberg-Jaeckle. “We need to step this up a notch.”

Another Woodlawn activist, James Arentz, locked up with Mo, recalled him saying he was once arrested for “violence,” as if to gauge if his compatriots in jail were also interested in participating in illegal violent acts.

Arentz said he showed little interest in taking this route, and it was a route he had never gone down before as a veteran, middle-aged activist and father. Mo soon lost interest in him after a round of intrusive questioning.

Roger Shuy, an emeritus professor of linguistics at Georgetown University, refers to tactics utilized in jail by Mo and Nadia as the “hit-and-run” strategy for undercover cops.

“If the target does not say anything that seems to point to his guilt, many undercover operators begin to ‘drop in’ hints about illegality, sometimes clear and sometimes not,” he writes in his book Creating Language Crimes: How Law Enforcement Uses (and Misuses) Language. “It is commonplace that when they drop these hints into the conversation and are unsure how their targets might react, they often quickly change the subject to something benign before they give up their turn.”

May Day, May Day

If anyone at the Chicago NATO Summit was going to “step this up a notch,” it was Jared Chase, Brent Betterly and Brian Church – the NATO 3.

In south Florida, Betterly and Church – court records reveal – made plans over Facebook, in private messages, to visit Chicago for NATO. That was April 19, the date the “conspiracy to commit an act of domestic terrorism” began, according to Illinois state prosecutors.

In those messages, Church said he wanted to “get on the front lines” of the protests. Betterly agreed, writing that the Chicago NATO “protests are gonna get ugly.” During that same interaction, Betterly asked if Chase would also make the trip to Chicago.

On April 24, Betterly discussed molotov cocktails with a female acquaintance on Facebook after asking that acquaintance to come to Chicago and then typing, “riot!!” Betterly responded: “u cant apologize after throwing a molotov cocktail.” Betterly wrote that he might “catch some charges” in Chicago.

Official accounts suggest the “NATO 3” domestic terrorism plot began on May 1, known by leftist activists as “May Day.” Chase, Betterly and Church were part of the “black bloc” for a large march planned for that day.

Betterly in blue jeans and blonde hair with bandana over his face, Chase on far right in all black and black bandana over face (Photo Courtesy of Occupy Chicago)

Black bloc is a protest tactic in which activists dress in all black, often wearing bandanas, ski masks and other clothing to conceal their faces and identities and to appear as one group in solidarity. On May Day, Nadia and Mo were there, posing as members of the bloc.

Photo obtained from video of May Day rally shot by member of Occupy Chicago. “Nadia” in white shoes, Church in red bandana, Chase to his right and Betterly to far right.

Occupy sources said Nadia was pushing for militant violence within the black bloc, which can be seen on a YouTube video, as well.

Church in red bandana, Nadia in white shoes and Mo to the right with anarchist black flag (Photo Courtesy of Occupy Chicago)

Later that night, Church told “Mo” and “Nadia” that he wanted to find “targets” for the NATO Summit. Occupy sources said Nadia actively attempted to provoke violence that night, asking people if they wanted to go out into the streets and light dumpsters on fire. That never panned out.

On May 2, Church met up with Mo and Nadia in Chicago’s financial district. According to court records, “Church immediately told the undercover officers to remove the batteries from their [cellphones] so that the conversations could not be subject to government eavesdropping.”

Church had come there with an assault vest he told Mo and Nadia he would like to fill with foam for more cushioning. On that day, he also allegedly asked Mo and Nadia where he could purchase a filter from an Army Plus store (aka a gas mask) and where he could buy three assault rifles, plus a long rifle.

Mo and Nadia said Church told them, “If a cop is going to be pointing an AR at me, I’ll be pointing one back at them.” He also said he wanted to make smoke bombs to throw during the NATO Summit and that he owned a bow and arrow that could shatter a window.

Church allegedly formulated a grand plan that day with Mo and Nadia to attack four police districts and destroy as many police vehicles as possible. He’d do the latter by bringing together groups to destroy police vehicles days before the NATO Summit. Church also said he wanted to “hit” a Chase Bank and shoot an arrow through Mayor Emanuel’s window.

“If everything goes according to plans, I am leaving right after NATO,” he allegedly told Mo and Nadia during this meeting. “The city doesn’t know what it’s in for, and after NATO, the city will never be the same,” he reportedly told Mo and Nadia.

On May 4, Brian Church and Jared Chase met with Mo and Nadia at a park in Chicago’s Bridgeport neighborhood. At this meeting, according CPD search warrant documents, they discussed destroying police vehicles parked in police parking lots during the NATO Summit to damage and disrupt their response to protesters.

Two days later, Mo and Nadia met with Chase and Church again to discuss using sling shots to destroy the windows of President Obama’s campaign headquarters. Church allegedly asked the two undercover officers where he could go to buy metal pipes to break windows.

On May 8, Mo and Nadia were invited into the Bridgeport apartment for the very first time.

While there, CPD search warrant documents allege, Brian Church invited them into a bedroom and showed them a bow and arrow with 10 arrows, two metal swords, one silver Chinese throwing star, two knives with brass knuckle handles, a black gas mask, knee/shin pads and arm pads. He also told Mo and Nadia he had a homemade mortar.

Chase allegedly asked the two undercover officers where he could buy cocaine or heroin.

On May 14, the use of molotov cocktails during the NATO Summit was first mentioned by Church to Mo and Nadia. According to CPD search warrant documents, Church also said at the May 14 meeting that he had built a mortar gun with PVC pipe and a piece of wood and that he had filled the mortar gun with bottle rockets, further noting that it was operational.

Church also told Mo and Nadia that they seemed like two “anarchists in a pod,” and he would like for them to travel with him to other states during his activist journey. Church allegedly offered them the opportunity to travel with him if they were willing to shoot a rifle, point it, and shoot someone with it.

On May 16, the day of the raid, Mo and Nadia met the “NATO 3” for a protest and convened at the Bridgeport apartment later that night, according to CPD search warrant documents.

Once inside, they discussed how to make and then constructed four molotov cocktails for use at the NATO Summit. Mo and Jared left for BP to buy the gasoline for the molotovs, the last necessary ingredient for the cocktails.

Truthout has obtained the video of Jared Chase purchasing the gasoline from the BP Station, published here from multiple angles for the first time.

“Church handed one of the officers a knife and advised him to cut a bandana in strips for use as fuses for the molotov cocktails,” a Feb. 15, 2013, court document states. “Betterly cautioned that gasoline should not be poured directly on the cloth; the cloth should be soaked in the bottles. Chase poured the gasoline into the bottles and then turned the bottles over so the strips could be soaked.”

While making the cocktails, Church allegedly asked Nadia if she were “ready to see a police officer on fire.” That’s when the police decided to act. That night, officers from the CPD and the FBI raided the Bridgeport apartment.

Nowhere in the search warrant – or in any of the hundreds of pages of discovery documents later made public – does the prosecution mention one pivotal point: Two aggressive undercover cops helped along – and possibly even incited – the plot.

Mapping the Chicago Activist Community’s “Human Terrain”

It should go without saying that the NATO 3 are not being represented by high-priced attorneys. They are, however, being represented at no charge by attorneys at the People’s Law Office of Chicago (PLO), which specializes in high-profile civil rights cases involving law enforcement.

On April 30, the office filed court papers arguing that under a recent consent decree – an agreement dissolved in 2009 that limited undercover police activities by the City’s notorious Red Squad, a unit that spied on the political and social activities of Chicagoans during the 1950s and 1960s – CPD’s undercover operation in the NATO 3 case would have been illegal.

“At its heart, the consent decree prohibited precisely the type of undercover activities that CPD engaged in here,” PLO argued. “[It] appears to be the broadest foray into undercover activities implicating the First Amendment.”

PLO also argued that the spying and entrapment attempts were motivated by the ideology of the activists, not an imminent threat to public safety.

“The state has acknowledged a . . . broader investigation of Occupy Chicago . . . and political organizing surrounding the NATO Summit,” the PLO stated in a court motion. “This large, overarching operation began by March 2012 and was . . . based in part by political affiliations and beliefs.”

The Booz Allen Hamilton Connection

Court records also show that members of the FBI’s Chicago Regional Computer Forensic Laboratory (RCFL) may be called to testify if the case goes to trial.

A domain name search for Chicago RCFL’s web site shows that it was registered by military and intelligence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH).

BAH is a major US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor abroad. Former CIA Director R. James Woosley once served as BAH Vice President, while Director of National Intelligence James Clapper once served as a BAH executive and current BAH Vice Chairman John “Mike” McConnell held Clapper’s position under former President George W. Bush.

Edward Snowden – the NSA whistleblower who revealed classified NSA spy program to The Guardian and The Washington Post – was a contractor for BAH at the time of the leak.

Michael Hayden, the former head of the NSA and CIA, as well as the deputy director of National Intelligence has referred to BAH as a “Digital Blackwater,” a reference to Blackwater USA – now known as Academi – the “world’s most powerful mercenary army.”

“[BAH] is one of the NSA’s most important and trusted contractors. It’s involved in virtually every aspect of intelligence and surveillance,” writes investigative journalist Tim Shorrock in a recent article. “Among other secret projects, Booz was deeply involved in ‘Total Information Awareness,’ the controversial data-mining project run for the Bush administration.”

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Missed in Shorrock’s analysis: BAH also provides IT and logistical support for the Pentagon’s Human Terrain System and its Human Terrain Teams, which “map the human terrain” of communities abroad for the military and CIA.

A career New York cop, Chicago Police Department (CPD) superintendent Garry McCarthy is no stranger to the Human Terrain System.

It wasn’t long he after formally assumed the mantle of CPD superintendent in 2011 that McCarthy drew fire for having allowed a spy ring tasked to “map the human terrain” of Newark, N.J.,’s Islamic community to operate there, where he served as police chief before taking the position as CPD’s top dog.

McCarthy also served as an NYPD commander when the police set up spy rings before the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City and during “CIA on the Hudson,” the joint NYPD/CIA project that was set up and run by former CIA Deputy Director for Operations David Cohen to “map the human terrain” of New York City’s Islamic community.

Shortcomings of “Mapping Human Terrain”

The problem with “mapping the human terrain”: It relies on overly-simplistic stereotypes. Case in point: FBI Special Agent Maureen Mazzola.

Mazzola is designated in court records as one of the people the state of Illinois may call to testify if the “NATO 3” case goes to trial. She’s also infamous for an incident based on stereotypes that unfolded before the 2008 Republican National Convention (RNC).

In a nutshell, Mazzola attempted to recruit a University of Minnesota (U of M) student in spring 2008 to join the FBI’s ranks as an informant. Conned into the meeting by U of M’s police sergeant, the student was displeased and came to the press to tell his story.

“She told me that I had the perfect ‘look,'” recalled the student after the incident. “And that I had the perfect personality – they kept saying I was friendly and personable – for what they were looking for.”

Stereotypes were the name of the game for the FBI and Mazzola, as an account in the Minneapolis/St. Paul’s City Pages said.

“What they were looking for [was] someone to show up at ‘vegan potlucks’ throughout the Twin Cities and rub shoulders with RNC protesters, schmoozing his way into their inner circles, then reporting back to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, a partnership between multiple federal agencies and state and local law enforcement,” reads City Pages’ rare inside look into the recruitment of an informant.

The days leading up to the 2008 RNC saw the arrest of Scott DeMuth, an animal rights activist and member of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). His charges: an “animal enterprise terrorism” plot that took place in a University of Iowa lab dating back to 2004.

This fishing expedition was lead by Mazzola and ended with DeMuth pleading guilty and serving six months in jail.

“As Special Agent Maureen Mazzola testified to on the stand in Scott’s pre-trial hearing, the FBI used the pretext of this raid as a fishing expedition, searching Scott’s room for anything linking him to ‘criminal activities’ that fell well outside of the scope of the search warrant being executed,” his support committee explained. “In this process, Mazzola came across a journal that she mistakenly believed linked him to the 2004 ALF raid at the University of Iowa.”

Court documents for that case show that Mazzola – unsurprisingly, given the backdrop – was working with an informant leading up to DeMuth’s eventual arrest. Mazzola was one of the people the US government called to testify as a witness during the DeMuth trial.

One Man’s Terrorist, Another Man’s Language Criminal

Digging deeper, there’s also the question of “Why ‘terrorism’?” Why not just leave the NATO 3’s charges at the several felony counts?

PLO tackled the issue of terrorism head-on.

PLO made the legal argument in Jan. 2013 that the language in Illinois’ terrorism statute may be overly broad and unconstitutional. Judge Wilson, though, denied this constitutional challenge two months later, saying the law under which the three were charged is constitutional on its face and as applied.

It all boils down to politics, and a May 2012 Chicago Tribune story demonstrates the political nature of the charges, which were decided on at the proverbial 11th hour the night before the May 19, 2012, bail bond proffer hearing.

“[Cook County Attorney General Anita] Alvarez and seven of her prosecutors spent Friday evening analyzing the statute and weighing whether their case rose to the level of domestic terrorism,” reported the Tribune. “It was a marathon meeting with lawyers reading the statute out loud at times. Others ran in and out of the room to look up case law on other potential charges, such as conspiracy to commit arson. After four hours of debate, Alvarez polled those in the room and had a clear consensus that the terrorism statutes offered the toughest penalties and sent the strongest message.”

As an important parallel, a 2009 Neo-Nazi and right-wing terrorism threat report done by the US Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) went unpublished and censored, showing the truly political nature of “terrorism” charges. The author of the report, a former DHS analyst, has asserted that he warned of the right-wing “terrorist” elements that fueled the 2012 attack on a Sikh temple in Wisconsin – and that his warnings were ignored.

Another example: In Boston, local police in conjunction with federal law enforcement, focused attention on the political activism of local Occupy activists at the same time they missed the actual threat posed by the Boston Marathon bombers.

Contentious political events are, in many ways, a trap set to capture those who even insinuate the wrong kind of political language – “creating language crimes” – as Shuy put it in his eponymous book.

“The persons wearing the undercover mike . . . begin their work with a distinct power advantage over those they talk with,” Shuy writes in his book. “In undercover conversations, when the targets think they are simply engaged in everyday conversations, they are less on alert and are frequently less careful about how they say things. The persons doing the taping, in contrast, have the power to decide when to tape, who to tape, when to start the taping, when to stop, and even how to slant the conversation to serve their own ends.”

Shuy refers to this as “manipulative seduction.”

“When being seduced,” Shuy adds, “the listener does not understand the hidden intent of the seducer.”

The overall message is clear: Whatever your political stripe in the United States, the authorities are watching. That’s no longer a conspiracy theory. It’s policy and now just a question of what the authorities do with that intelligence.

And that decision is by-and-large a political one.

If any case in the last decade has shown that reality, it’s the case of the NATO 3.

Their case revealed authorities watching anarchists and the Occupy movement – specifically designated as the reason for the creation of Field Intelligence Team 7150 – with an all-seeing eye.

These young men fit the stereotypical profile of what a homegrown terrorist is “supposed” to look like. They’re politically active and angry with their country’s direction, burdened with nothing to lose but their freedom, and maybe, their lives.

The CPD and state of Illinois would like you to believe that makes them dangerous – unhinged and ready to strike out and hurt people with impunity, at any moment.

But perhaps they weren’t. The burden of proof falls on the prosecutors to make the case that they were.

Steve Horn

Steve Horn is a freelance investigative journalist, and a researcher and writer at DeSmogBlog.
Matt Stroud

Matt Stroud is a contributing writer at tech website TheVerge.com, where he writes about policy and law. Follow him on Twitter@ssttrroouudd.

Friday, 21 June 2013 00:00
By Matt Stroud and Steve Horn, Truthout | Report

Find this story at 21 June 2013

© 2013 Truthout

After Brian Church completed a course in emergency medicine at Broward College, he told his mother he was headed to Chicago for hands-on experience he hoped would boost his chances of becoming a paramedic.

“He was very proud of the fact that he was helping set up the first-aid tents,” said Elizabeth Ennis of her son’s participation in the NATO summit protest movement.

It has been a year since Church and two others from South Florida arrived in the Windy City and were arrested in a raid of an apartment just before the May 2012 summit.

Prosecutors allege the trio — now known by a cadre of supporters as the “Nato 3” — planned to use Molotov cocktails to blow up political targets, including Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s home and President Barack Obama’s downtown re-election campaign headquarters last year.

Yet, with the terrorism trial set to begin Sept. 16, defense attorneys for the men, along with Church’s mother, are calling the charges absurd.

“The whole terrorism thing just blows my mind,” said Ennis, a physician’s assistant and former Pembroke Pines resident who now lives in Central Florida. “This is a kid who made sandwiches to hand out to the homeless.”

Church, 21, Brent Betterly, 25, of Oakland Park, and Jared Chase, 29, a New Hampshire man who had been living in Miami, each are charged in an 11-count indictment with conspiracy to commit terrorism, possession of explosives and attempted arson.

In Illinois, they remain in custody on $1.5 million bond.

Church’s lawyer, Michael Deutsch, tried to get the charges thrown out, arguing that the law passed by the Illinois Legislature in the wake of 911 and used only once before is unconstitutional and being used politically.

“This is an attempt to take the acts of young people who are talking about criminal vandalism and convert it into terrorism in order to chill all militant activity in protest,” Deutsch said.

In a March 27 ruling, County Judge Thaddeus Wilson upheld the statute, saying, “The concept of domestic terrorism is not any more remote in contemporary society than the ‘international terrorism’ U.S. citizens were exposed to in September 2001.”

Church, Betterly and Chase were active in South Florida’s Occupy movement. Betterly was a familiar face around Fort Lauderdale City Hall during a brief encampment that took place there in late 2011 and early 2012.

But when the local Occupy movement began to sputter, all three looked for action elsewhere, friends said.

“He had specifically gone up there [to Chicago] to be a participant,” Ennis said of her son. “He wanted to be part of a bigger cause. At 20 years old, we all want to be part of a bigger cause.”

In the months before he left for Chicago, Church dated Danielle Hiller, then a West Park High School senior. “He always told me he wanted to peacefully protest,” said Hiller, 19. “He never seemed violent. He was really into helping people.”

The government case relies on two informants, undercover police officers nicknamed Mo and Nadia, who infiltrated the group and recorded the men talking about the plots and making four Molotov cocktails that were recovered inside the apartment during the raid. According to prosecutors, police also found swords, a bow and arrows, a slingshot and knives.

In a filing in March, prosecutors said the three allegedly obtained or planned to obtain “other improvised explosive devices, napalm, instructions for producing a pipe bomb, instructions for making potassium nitrate, a mortar … assault rifles and a long rifle.”

The three also constructed a wooden shield with sharp metal screws protruding from its front and hid it in an alley, “where they intended to violently confront police officers” during the summit protests, the filing alleged.

Deutsch acknowledges that Molotov cocktails were found in the apartment. But, he said, they were made at the urging of the police agents.

“When [police] didn’t get them to do anything, they got them to make these Molotov cocktails, with their money and expertise, and created a crime that never would have occurred,” he said.

Ellis said she has visited her son in jail, and talks to him regularly.

“It is starting to sink in, the magnitude of this,” she said. “He wants to be a flight medic, but the FAA has revoked his student’s pilot’s license. Even if these charges get thrown out, he has fears of never getting a job as an EMT.”

Ennis said her son, who is housed apart from the general jail population in semi-isolation, spends his time reading.

“He has his good days and bad,” she said. “He tries not to let the gloom set in.”

Sun Sentinel | By Mike Clary Posted: 06/16/2013 10:11 am EDT | Updated: 06/17/2013 9:11 am EDT

Find this story at 17 June 2013

© 2013 the Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.)

In early 2010, journalist and satirist Barrett Brown was working on a book on political pundits, when the hacktivist collective Anonymous caught his attention. He soon began writing about its activities and potential. In a defense [2] of the group’s anti-censorship operations in Australia published on February 10, Brown declared, “I am now certain that this phenomenon is among the most important and under-reported social developments to have occurred in decades, and that the development in question promises to threaten the institution of the nation-state and perhaps even someday replace it as the world’s most fundamental and relevant method of human organization.”

By then, Brown was already considered by his fans to be the Hunter S. Thompson of his generation. In point of fact he wasn’t like Hunter S. Thompson, but was more of a throwback—a sharp-witted, irreverent journalist and satirist in the mold of Ambrose Bierce or Dorothy Parker. His acid tongue was on display in his co-authored 2007 book, Flock of Dodos: Behind Modern Creationism, Intelligent Design and the Easter Bunny, in which he declared: “This will not be a polite book. Politeness is wasted on the dishonest, who will always take advantage of any well-intended concession.”

But it wasn’t Brown’s acid tongue so much as his love of minutia (and ability to organize and explain minutia) that would ultimately land him in trouble. Abandoning his book on pundits in favor of a book on Anonymous, he could not have known that delving into the territory of hackers and leaks would ultimately lead to his facing the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison. In light of the bombshell revelations published by Glenn Greenwald and Barton Gellman about government and corporate spying, Brown’s case is a good—and underreported—reminder of the considerable risk faced by reporters who report on leaks.

In February 2011, a year after Brown penned his defense of Anonymous, and against the background of its actions during the Arab Spring, Aaron Barr, CEO of the private intelligence company HBGary, claimed to have identified the leadership of the hacktivist colletive. (In fact he only had screen names of a few members). Barr’s boasting provoked a brutal hack of HBGary by a related group called Internet Feds (it would soon change its name to “LulzSec”). Splashy enough to attract the attention of The Colbert Report [3], the hack defaced and destroyed servers and websites belonging to HBGary. Some 70,000 company emails were downloaded and posted online. As a final insult to injury, even the contents of Aaron Barr’s iPad were remotely wiped.

The HBGary hack may have been designed to humiliate the company, but it had the collateral effect of dropping a gold mine of information into Brown’s lap. One of the first things he discovered was a plan to neutralize Glenn Greenwald’s defense of Wikileaks by undermining them both. (“Without the support of people like Glenn, wikileaks would fold,” read one slide.) The plan called for “disinformation,” exploiting strife within the organization and fomenting external rivalries—“creating messages around actions to sabotage or discredit the opposing organization,” as well as a plan to submit fake documents and then call out the error.” Greenwald, it was argued, “if pushed,” would “choose professional preservation over cause.”

Other plans targeted social organizations and advocacy groups. Separate from the plan to target Greenwald and WikiLeaks, HBGary was part of a consortia that submitted a proposal to develop a “persona management [4]” system for the United States Air Force, that would allow one user to control multiple online identities for commenting in social media spaces, thus giving the appearance of grassroots support or opposition to certain policies.

The data dump from the HBGary hack was so vast that no one person could sort through it alone. So Brown decided to crowdsource the effort. He created a wiki page, called it ProjectPM [5], and invited other investigative journalists to join in. Under Brown’s leadership, the initiative began to slowly untangle a web of connections between the US government, corporations, lobbyists, and a shadowy group of private military and information security consultants.

One connection was between Bank of America and the Chamber of Commerce. WikiLeaks had claimed to possess a large cache of documents belonging to Bank of America. Concerned about this, Bank of America approached the United States Department of Justice. The DOJ directed it to the law and lobbying firm Hunton and Williams [6], which does legal work for Wells Fargo and General Dynamics and also lobbies for Koch Industries, Americans for Affordable Climate Policy, Gas Processors Association, Entergy among many other firms. The DoJ recommended that Bank of America hire Hunton and Williams, explicitly suggesting Richard Wyatt [7] as the person to work with. Wyatt, famously, was the lead attorney in the Chamber of Commerce’s lawsuit against the Yes Men.

In November 2010, Hunton and Williams organized a number of private intelligence, technology development and security contractors—HBGary, plus Palantir Technologies, Berico Technologies, and, according to Brown, a secretive corporation with the ominous name Endgame Systems—to form “Team Themis” —‘themis’ being a Greek word meaning “divine law.” Its main objective was to discredit critics of the Chamber of Commerce, like Chamber Watch [8] using such tactics as creating a “false document, perhaps highlighting periodical financial information,” giving it to a progressive group opposing the Chamber, and then subsequently exposing the document as a fake to “prove that US Chamber Watch cannot be trusted with information and/or tell the truth.” In addition, the group proposed creating a “fake insider persona” to infiltrate Chamber Watch. They would “create two fake insider personas, using one as leverage to discredit the other while confirming the legitimacy of the second.” The leaked emails showed that similar disinformation campaigns were being planned against WikiLeaks and Glenn Greenwald.

It was clear to Brown that these were actions of questionable legality, but beyond that, government contractors were attempting to undermine Americans’ free speech—with the apparent blessing of the DOJ. A group of Democratic Congressmen asked for an investigation [9] into this arrangement, to no avail.

By June 2011, the plot had thickened further. The FBI had the goods on the leader of LulzSec, one Hector Xavier Monsegur, who went under the nom de guerre Sabu. The FBI arrested him on June 7, 2011 and (according to court documents) turned him into an informant the following day. Just three days before his arrest, Sabu had been central to the formation of a new group called AntiSec, which comprised his former LulzSec crew members, as well as members as Anonymous. In early December AntiSec hacked the website of a private security company called Stratfor Global Intelligence. On Christmas Eve, it released a trove of some five million internal compnay emails. AntiSec member and Chicago activist Jeremy Hammond [10], has pled guilty to the attack and is currently facing ten years in prison for it.

The contents of the Stratfor leak were even more outrageous than those of the HBGary hack. They included discussion of opportunities for renditions and assassinations. For example, in one video, Statfor’s Vice President of Intelligence, Fred Burton, suggested taking advantage of the chaos in Libya to render Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who had been released from prison on compassionate grounds due to his terminal illness. Burton said that the case “was personal.” When someone pointed out in an email that such a move would almost certainly be illegal—“This man has already been tried, found guilty, sentenced…and served time”—another Stratfor employee responded that this was just an argument for a more efficient solution: “One more reason to just bugzap him with a hellfire. :-)”

(Stratfor employees also seemed to take a keen interest in Jeremy Scahill’s writings about Blackwater in The Nation, copying and circulating entire articles, with comments suggesting a principle interest was in the question of whether Blackwater was setting up a competing intelligence operation. Emails also showed grudging respect for Scahill: “Like or dislike Scahill’s position (or what comes of his work), he does an amazing job outing [Blackwater].”)

When the contents of the Stratfor leak became available, Brown decided to put ProjectPM on it. A link to the Stratfor dump appeared in an Anonymous chat channel; Brown copied it and pasted it into the private chat channel for ProjectPM, bringing the dump to the attention of the editors.

Brown began looking into Endgame Systems [11], an information security firm that seemed particularly concerned about staying in the shadows. “Please let HBGary know we don’t ever want to see our name in a press release,” one leaked email read. One of its products, available for a $2.5 million annual subscription, gave customers access to “zero-day exploits”—security vulnerabilities unknown to software companies—for computer systems all over the world. Business Week [12] published a story on Endgame in 2011, reporting that “Endgame executives will bring up maps of airports, parliament buildings, and corporate offices. The executives then create a list of the computers running inside the facilities, including what software the computers run, and a menu of attacks that could work against those particular systems.” For Brown, this raised the question of whether Endgame was selling these exploits to foreign actors and whether they would be used against computer systems in the United States. Shortly thereafter, the hammer came down.

The FBI acquired a warrant [13] for Brown’s laptop, gaining the authority to seize any information related to HBGary, Endgame Systems, Anonymous, and, most ominously, “email, email contacts, ‘chat’, instant messaging logs, photographs, and correspondence.” In other words, the FBI wanted his sources.

When the FBI went to serve Brown he was at his mother’s house. Agents returned with a warrant to search his mother’s house, retrieving his laptop. To turn up the heat on Brown, the FBI initiated charges against his mother for obstruction of justice for concealing his laptop computer in her house. (Facing criminal charges, on March 22, 2013, his mother, Karen McCutchin, pled guilty to one count of obstructing the execution of a search warrant. She faces up to twelve months in jail. Brown maintains that she did not know the laptop was in her home.)

By his own admission, the FBI’s targeting of his mother made Brown snap. In September 2012, he uploaded an incoherent YouTube video [14], in which he explained that he had been in treatment for an addiction to heroin, taking the medication Suboxone, but had gone off his meds and now was in withdrawal. He threatened the FBI agent that was harassing his mother, by name, warming:

“I know what’s legal, I know what’s been done to me… And if it’s legal when it’s done to me, it’s going to be legal when it’s done to FBI Agent Robert Smith—who is a criminal.”

“That’s why [FBI special agent] Robert Smith’s life is over. And when I say his life is over, I’m not saying I’m going to kill him, but I am going to ruin his life and look into his fucking kids… How do you like them apples?”

Please support our journalism. Get a digital subscription for just $9.50! [15]

The media narrative was immediately derailed. No longer would this be a story about the secretive information-military-industrial complex; now it was the sordid tale of a crazy drug addict threatening an FBI agent and his (grown) children. Actual death threats against agents are often punishable by a few years in jail. But Brown’s actions made it easier for the FBI to sell some other pretext to put him away for life.

The Stratfor data included a number of unencrypted credit card numbers and validation codes. On this basis, the DOJ accused Brown of credit card fraud for having shared that link with the editorial board of ProjectPM. Specifically, the FBI charged him with Traffic in Stolen Authentication Features, Access Device Fraud, Aggravated Identity Theft, as well as an Obstruction of Justice charge (for being at his mother’s when the initial warrant was served) and charges stemming from his threats against the FBI agent. All told, Brown is looking at century of jail time: 105 years in federal prison if served sequentially. He has been denied bail.

Considering that the person who carried out the actual Stratfor hack had several priors and is facing a maximum of ten years, the inescapable conclusion is that the problem is not with the hack itself, but with Brown’s journalism. As Glenn Greenwald remarked in the Guardian: “it is virtually impossible to conclude that the obscenely excessive prosecution he now faces is unrelated to that journalism and his related activism.”

Today, Brown is in prison and ProjectPM is under increased scrutiny by the DOJ, even as its work has ground to a halt. In March, the DOJ served the domain hosting service CloudFlare with a subpoena [16] for all records on the ProjectPM website, and in particular asked for the IP addresses of everyone who had accessed and contributed to ProjectPM, describing it as a “forum” through which Brown and others would “engage in, encourage, or facilitate the commission of criminal conduct online.” The message was clear: Anyone else who looks into this matter does so at their grave peril.

Some journalists are now understandably afraid to go near the Stratfor files. The broader implications of this go beyond Brown; one might think that what we are looking at is Cointelpro 2.0—an outsourced surveillance state—but in fact it’s worse. One can’t help but infer that the US Department of Justice has become just another security contractor, working alongside the HBGarys and Stratfors on behalf of corporate bidders, with no sense at all for the justness of their actions; they are working to protect corporations and private security contractors and give them license to engage in disinformation campaigns against ordinary citizens and their advocacy groups. The mere fact that the FBI’s senior cybersecurity advisor has recently moved to Hunton and Williams shows just how incestuous this relationship has become. Meanwhile the Department of Justice is also using its power and force to trample on the rights of citizens like Barrett Brown who are trying to shed light on these nefarious relationships. In order to neutralize those who question or investigate the system, laws are being reinterpreted or extended or otherwise misappropriated in ways that are laughable—or would be if the consequences weren’t so dire.

While the media and much of the world have been understandably outraged by the revelation of the NSA’s spying programs, Barrett Brown’s work was pointing to a much deeper problem. It isn’t the sort of problem that can be fixed by trying to tweak a few laws or by removing a few prosecutors. The problem is not with bad laws or bad prosecutors. What the case of Barrett Brown has exposed is that we confronting a different problem altogether. It is a systemic problem. It is the failure of the rule of law.

Links:
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOW7GOrXNZI
[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barrett-brown/anonymous-australia-and-t_b_457776.html
[3] http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/426198/may-09-2013/colbert-s-book-club—learning–the-great-gatsby-
[4] http://boingboing.net/2011/02/18/hbgarys-high-volume.html
[5] http://wiki.echelon2.org/wiki/Main_Page
[6] http://www.hunton.com/
[7] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/19/chamber-of-commerce-still_n_768076.html
[8] http://images2.americanprogress.org/ThinkProgress/ProposalForTheChamber.pdf
[9] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/28/AR2011022805810.html
[10] http://www.dailydot.com/news/lulzsec-jeremy-hammond-bail-denied-hacker/
[11] http://wiki.echelon2.org/wiki/Endgame_Systems
[12] http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/cyber-weapons-the-new-arms-race-07212011.html
[13] http://www.buzzfeed.com/mhastings/exclusive-fbi-escalates-war-on-anonymous
[14] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOW7GOrXNZI
[15] https://subscribe.thenation.com/servlet/OrdersGateway?cds_mag_code=NAN&cds_page_id=122425&cds_response_key=I12SART1
[16] http://leaksource.wordpress.com/2013/04/05/doj-issues-subpoena-for-info-on-barrett-browns-project-pm-site/

Peter Ludlow | June 18, 2013

Find this story at 18 June 2013

© 2012 The Nation

Jeremy Hammond pleaded guilty today to the infamous Stratfor hack, as well as taking responsibility for eight additional hacks of law enforcement and defense contractor websites in 2011 and 2012. As a condition of the plea, the radical hacker will face a maximum of 10 years in federal prison, and restitution costs of up to $2.5 million. After Hammond entered his plea, his legal team framed his prosecution as part of the government’s larger attempt to control the flow of information and punish those who seek to distribute it to journalists and the public.

“There’s a war going on about corporate spying and access to information,” said defense attorney Sarah Kunstler at a press conference immediately following the hearing. “Jeremy is someone who worked toward making information public.”

In a statement posted online after the plea deal, Hammond echoed this point. “I did this because I believe people have a right to know what governments and corporations are doing behind closed doors,” Hammond wrote. “I did what I believe is right.”

The Rise and Fall of Jeremy Hammond: Enemy of the State

Hammond entered his plea – admitting to one count of conspiracy to engage in computer hacking – in a federal courtroom in lower Manhattan, surrounded by observers and supporters. One of those in attendance was his twin brother, Jason, who had just flown in from Chicago. When Hammond initially addressed the judge, he raised his right hand to be sworn in, and clenched his fist in a symbol of defiance.

The hack Hammond pleaded guilty to involved accessing information from the servers of Stratfor, a private intelligence company, and providing it to Wikileaks, who then published some of the information. Hammond was charged under the controversial 1984 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the same law used to charge the late Aaron Swartz and other cyber-activists. “Included among the leaked internal documents were millions of emails that exposed Stratfor’s wide-ranging spying activities, including surveillance of Bhopal activists at the behest of Dow Chemical, of PETA on behalf of Coca-Cola, and of Occupy Wall Street under contract to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security,” supporters said in a statement.

Beyond Stratfor, Hammond took responsibility for eight other hacks, all of which involved either law enforcement, intelligence firms or defense contractor websites. From June 2011 to February 2012, Hammond obtained unauthorized information from the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the FBI virtual academy, a marketing firm that builds websites for law enforcement called Brooks Jeffreys, Special Forces Gear, Vanguard Defense Industries, the Jefferson County sheriffs department, the Boston Police Patrolman’s Institute and a Pennsylvania firm called Combined Systems that makes tear gas. Hammond was granted immunity from federal prosecution for any of those hacks in exchange for taking responsibility for them. Kunstler said he could potentially face charges at the state level, though she said there may be some double jeopardy protection.

The New Political Prisoners: Leakers, Hackers and Whistleblowers

Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Center For Constitutional Rights and lawyer for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, said that journalists should stand up for Hammond. “He should be looked at as a source, as a whistle-blower,” Ratner said after the plea deal. “He, like other whistle-blowers in this country, ought to be protected, because they’re the only thing that let us know what our government and our private security companies are doing and they’re the only things that can keep this government even close to honest.”

Earlier in the case, Hammond’s legal team made a motion for Judge Loretta Preska to recuse herself because her husband was a victim of the Stratfor leak. That motion was denied. (Full disclosure: This reporter previously spoke at a rally that called for Preska to recuse herself.)

Other hackers in the Anonymous-affiliated group called Lulzsec who were charged in similar leaks – but were tried in the U.K. – have received much lighter sentences, from 20 to 32 months. Jason Hammond has asked supporters to sign a Change.org petition on his brother’s behalf calling for Judge Preska to sentence Hammond to time served. Jeremy Hammond’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for September 6th.

by John Knefel
MAY 28, 2013

Find this story at 28 May 2013

©2013 Rolling Stone

LONDON—Today, Monday 27 February, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files – more than five million emails from the Texas-headquartered “global intelligence” company Stratfor. The emails date from between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal’s Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defense Intelligence Agency. The emails show Stratfor’s web of informers, pay-off structure, payment-laundering techniques and psychological methods, for example :

“[Y]ou have to take control of him. Control means financial, sexual or psychological control… This is intended to start our conversation on your next phase” – CEO George Friedman to Stratfor analyst Reva Bhalla on 6 December 2011, on how to exploit an Israeli intelligence informant providing information on the medical condition of the President of Venezuala, Hugo Chavez.

The material contains privileged information about the US government’s attacks against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks and Stratfor’s own attempts to subvert WikiLeaks. There are more than 4,000 emails mentioning WikiLeaks or Julian Assange. The emails also expose the revolving door that operates in private intelligence companies in the United States. Government and diplomatic sources from around the world give Stratfor advance knowledge of global politics and events in exchange for money. The Global Intelligence Files exposes how Stratfor has recruited a global network of informants who are paid via Swiss banks accounts and pre-paid credit cards. Stratfor has a mix of covert and overt informants, which includes government employees, embassy staff and journalists around the world.

The material shows how a private intelligence agency works, and how they target individuals for their corporate and government clients. For example, Stratfor monitored and analysed the online activities of Bhopal activists, including the “Yes Men”, for the US chemical giant Dow Chemical. The activists seek redress for the 1984 Dow Chemical/Union Carbide gas disaster in Bhopal, India. The disaster led to thousands of deaths, injuries in more than half a million people, and lasting environmental damage.

Stratfor has realised that its routine use of secret cash bribes to get information from insiders is risky. In August 2011, Stratfor CEO George Friedman confidentially told his employees : “We are retaining a law firm to create a policy for Stratfor on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. I don’t plan to do the perp walk and I don’t want anyone here doing it either.”

Stratfor’s use of insiders for intelligence soon turned into a money-making scheme of questionable legality. The emails show that in 2009 then-Goldman Sachs Managing Director Shea Morenz and Stratfor CEO George Friedman hatched an idea to “utilise the intelligence” it was pulling in from its insider network to start up a captive strategic investment fund. CEO George Friedman explained in a confidential August 2011 document, marked DO NOT SHARE OR DISCUSS : “What StratCap will do is use our Stratfor’s intelligence and analysis to trade in a range of geopolitical instruments, particularly government bonds, currencies and the like”. The emails show that in 2011 Goldman Sach’s Morenz invested “substantially” more than $4million and joined Stratfor’s board of directors. Throughout 2011, a complex offshore share structure extending as far as South Africa was erected, designed to make StratCap appear to be legally independent. But, confidentially, Friedman told StratFor staff : “Do not think of StratCap as an outside organisation. It will be integral… It will be useful to you if, for the sake of convenience, you think of it as another aspect of Stratfor and Shea as another executive in Stratfor… we are already working on mock portfolios and trades”. StratCap is due to launch in 2012.

The Stratfor emails reveal a company that cultivates close ties with US government agencies and employs former US government staff. It is preparing the 3-year Forecast for the Commandant of the US Marine Corps, and it trains US marines and “other government intelligence agencies” in “becoming government Stratfors”. Stratfor’s Vice-President for Intelligence, Fred Burton, was formerly a special agent with the US State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service and was their Deputy Chief of the counterterrorism division. Despite the governmental ties, Stratfor and similar companies operate in complete secrecy with no political oversight or accountability. Stratfor claims that it operates “without ideology, agenda or national bias”, yet the emails reveal private intelligence staff who align themselves closely with US government policies and channel tips to the Mossad – including through an information mule in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Yossi Melman, who conspired with Guardian journalist David Leigh to secretly, and in violation of WikiLeaks’ contract with the Guardian, move WikiLeaks US diplomatic cables to Israel.

Ironically, considering the present circumstances, Stratfor was trying to get into what it called the leak-focused “gravy train” that sprung up after WikiLeaks’ Afghanistan disclosures :

“[Is it] possible for us to get some of that ’leak-focused’ gravy train ? This is an obvious fear sale, so that’s a good thing. And we have something to offer that the IT security companies don’t, mainly our focus on counter-intelligence and surveillance that Fred and Stick know better than anyone on the planet… Could we develop some ideas and procedures on the idea of ´leak-focused’ network security that focuses on preventing one’s own employees from leaking sensitive information… In fact, I’m not so sure this is an IT problem that requires an IT solution.”

Like WikiLeaks’ diplomatic cables, much of the significance of the emails will be revealed over the coming weeks, as our coalition and the public search through them and discover connections. Readers will find that whereas large numbers of Stratfor’s subscribers and clients work in the US military and intelligence agencies, Stratfor gave a complimentary membership to the controversial Pakistan general Hamid Gul, former head of Pakistan’s ISI intelligence service, who, according to US diplomatic cables, planned an IED attack on international forces in Afghanistan in 2006. Readers will discover Stratfor’s internal email classification system that codes correspondence according to categories such as ’alpha’, ’tactical’ and ’secure’. The correspondence also contains code names for people of particular interest such as ’Hizzies’ (members of Hezbollah), or ’Adogg’ (Mahmoud Ahmedinejad).

Stratfor did secret deals with dozens of media organisations and journalists – from Reuters to the Kiev Post. The list of Stratfor’s “Confederation Partners”, whom Stratfor internally referred to as its “Confed Fuck House” are included in the release. While it is acceptable for journalists to swap information or be paid by other media organisations, because Stratfor is a private intelligence organisation that services governments and private clients these relationships are corrupt or corrupting.

WikiLeaks has also obtained Stratfor’s list of informants and, in many cases, records of its payoffs, including $1,200 a month paid to the informant “Geronimo” , handled by Stratfor’s Former State Department agent Fred Burton.

WikiLeaks has built an investigative partnership with more than 25 media organisations and activists to inform the public about this huge body of documents. The organisations were provided access to a sophisticated investigative database developed by WikiLeaks and together with WikiLeaks are conducting journalistic evaluations of these emails. Important revelations discovered using this system will appear in the media in the coming weeks, together with the gradual release of the source documents.

END

Public partners in the investigation
Comment
Current WikiLeaks status
How to read the data
Public partners in the investigation:

More than 25 media partners (others will be disclosed after their first publication) :

Al Akhbar – Lebanon – http://english.al-akhbar.com
Al Masry Al Youm – Egypt – http://www.almasry-alyoum.com
Bivol – Bulgaria – http://bivol.bg
CIPER – Chile – http://ciperchile.cl
Dawn Media – Pakistan – http://www.dawn.com
L’Espresso – Italy – http://espresso.repubblica.it
La Repubblica – Italy – http://www.repubblica.it
La Jornada – Mexico – www.jornada.unam.mx/
La Nacion – Costa Rica – http://www.nacion.com
Malaysia Today – Malaysia – www.malaysia-today.net
McClatchy – United States – http://www.mcclatchydc.com
Nawaat – Tunisia – http://nawaat.org
NDR/ARD – Germany – http://www.ndr.de
Owni – France – http://owni.fr
Pagina 12 – Argentina – www.pagina12.com.ar
Plaza Publica – Guatemala – http://plazapublica.com.gt
Publico.es – Spain – www.publico.es
Rolling Stone – United States – http://www.rollingstone.com
Russian Reporter – Russia – http://rusrep.ru
Sunday Star-Times – New Zealand – www.star-times.co.nz
Ta Nea – Greece –- http://www.tanea.gr
Taraf – Turkey – http://www.taraf.com.tr
The Hindu – India – www.thehindu.com
The Yes Men – Bhopal Activists – Global http://theyesmen.org
Comment:

WikiLeaks – Kristinn Hrafnsson, Official WikiLeaks representative, +35 4821 7121

Other comment :
Bhopal Medical Appeal (in UK) – Colin Toogood : colintoogood@bhopal.org / +44 (0) 1273 603278/ +44 (0) 7798 845074
International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal (in India) – Rachna Dhingra : rachnya@gmail.com, +91 98 261 67369
Yes Men – mike@theyesmen.org / +44 (0) 7578 682321 – andy@theyesmen.org, +1-718-208-0684
Privacy International – +44 (0) 20 7242 2836

Twitter tag : #gifiles
CURRENT WIKILEAKS STATUS:

An extrajudicial blockade imposed by VISA, MasterCard, PayPal, Bank of America, and Western Union that is designed to destroy WikiLeaks has been in place since December 2010. The EU Commission is considering whether it will open a formal investigation, but two lawsuits have been filed (http://wikileaks.org/Banking-Blocka…). There are also other ways to donate (https://shop.wikileaks.org/donate). It is legal to donate, including in the United States. The US Treasury has publicly stated that that there are no grounds to place WikiLeaks on a US government blacklist.

WikiLeaks Founder and Publisher Julian Assange has not been charged with any crime in any country. Four prosecutors are currently trying to charge him under the Espionage Act of 1917 before a closed Grand Jury in Virginia, in the United States. Julian Assange has been detained for 447 days (10,728 hours) since Dec 7, 2010, without charge, and he is currently awaiting a decision from the UK Supreme Court on extradition to Sweden (http://www.justiceforassange.com/Su…). The decision is expected in March. The decision on whether he will be onwardly extradited to the US lies in the hands of the Swedish Executive, but Sweden’s Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has refused to state whether he will protect Assange from a politically motivated extradition to the United States (http://justice4assange.com/US-Extra… ).

The Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt has repeatedly attacked WikiLeaks this week in a bizarre manner (http://ferrada-noli.blogspot.com/20… ).

An alleged WikiLeaks US military source, Bradley Manning, has been in pre-trial detention for 639 days (http://bradleymanning.org/ ). His arraignment took place on 24 February 2012. In December 2011, Manning’s attorney revealed in the preliminary hearing that the US government is attempting to enter a plea deal with Manning in order to “go after” Assange. Manning has 22 charges against him, including violating the Espionage Act of 1917 and aiding the enemy. Manning has deferred entering a plea. Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are legally represented in the Manning hearings by the US Centre for Constitutional Rights (http://ccrjustice.org/ ). WikiLeaks was denied full access to Manning’s hearing after appeal (http://ccrjustice.org/newsroom/pres… ). WikiLeaks put out a statement relating to Manning’s trial ahead of the Article 32 Hearing : (http://www.wikileaks.org/Statement-… ).

The alleged WikiLeaks-supporting hacktivists known as the “PayPal 14” were arrested in 2011 following co-ordinated online demonstrations against the financial services companies that are carrying out the unlawful financial blockade on WikiLeaks (VISA, MasterCard, Paypal, Western Union, Bank of America). They are represented by attorney Stanley Cohen and will go before court in May 2012 (http://www.cyberguerrilla.org/?p=4644 ).

WikiLeaks is about to launch a distributed, encrypted “Facebook for revolutionaries” (https://wlfriends.org/ ).

Julian Assange is currently directing interviews, from house arrest, for a programme on the future of the world that is syndicated to various broadcasters. The first show will be broadcast in March (http://www.wikileaks.org/New-Assang… )
HOW TO READ THE DATA

This is a glossary and information on how to understand the internal terms and codes used by Stratfor in their emails. It is not a complete list. We call on the public to add to this list by tweeting #gifind

To see a list of the terms George Friedman considers useful for his staff to know please download this PDF : The Stratfor Glossary of Useful, Baffling and Strange Intelligence Terms.

OPEN SOURCE VS. “COVERT”

As you browse through the content, you will notice that a large set of it is what is classified as “open source” (subject lines which include [OS]). These are basically email threads that start with someone posting a published and accessible source, such as news sites, and follow with commentary by the staff. In one of the emails, Joseph Nye is referenced saying :

“Open source intelligence is the outer pieces of the jigsaw puzzle, without which one can neither begin nor complete the puzzle”

CODES IN SUBJECT LINES

Many of the emails have codes in the subject lines as well as in the body, to make it easier for the staff to “quickly identify when we need to go back and have a look-see.” [*] :

Examples : INSIGHT – COUNTRY – Subject – SOURCE CODE INSIGHT – CHINA – Trains and planes – CN1000

Please refer to the glossary for the code names of subject and country tags, as well as mailing list names.

SOURCE CODES

A lot of interesting stuff comes from “sources”. Sources are either informal contacts or people they have a formal relationship with. The IDs for sources have the format of CN120 or ME001. In terms of the character part, it refers to a region or a country :

A) Regions ME – Middle East region EU – European Union EE – Eastern Europe LA- South America SA- South Asia

B) Countries or Orgs CN – China PK – Pakistan IN- India ML – Malaysia VN – Vietnam NP- Nepal

US – United States VZ – Venezuela CO- Colombia BR-Brazil NC- Nicaragua MX- Mexico CL/CH- Chile AR- Argentina PY- Paraguay BOL- Bolivia

RU – Russia UA – Ukraine GE – Georgia TJ – Tajikstan MD – Moldova BG -Bulgaria CR/CZ- Czech Republic PT- Portugal

ZA – South Africa AO – Angola SO – Somalia NG- Nigeria CD- DR Congo CI- Cote D’Ivoire ZW- Zimbabwe ZM- Zambia RW- Rwanda KE- Kenya ET- Ethiopia SD -Sudan MA- Morocco SN- Senegal GN- Guinea SL- Sierra Leone

IR – Iran IQ- Iraq IL or IS- Israel SA- Saudi Arabia SY- Syria KU- Kuwait Y or YN – Yemen HZ – Hizbollah TK – Turkey LN- Lebanon LY- Libya UAE- UAE EG- Egypt (etc.)

C) Odd codes OCH – Old China hand, a finance insider. Stick – Scott Stewart, high level employee Z’s – Zetas, Mexican drug gang

INSIGHTS FORMAT

When “insights” are sent, they usually have the following header information :

SOURCE : The ID of the source, say CN123. Sometimes this is left “no source ID” when it’s a new source.

ATTRIBUTION : How the source is to be attributed, i.e. “Source in the pharma distribution industry in China”, Stratfor source, etc.

SOURCE DESCRIPTION : Describes the source, for example : “Source works with Mercator Pharmaceutical Solutions, distributing pharma to developing countries.” These include concrete details on the source for internal consumption so that there’s a better understanding on the source’s background and ability to make assessments on the ground.

PUBLICATION : Yes or No. If the option is yes it doesn’t mean that it would be published, but rather that it _can_ be published.

SOURCE RELIABILITY : A/B

SOURCE RELIABILITY : A-F, A being the best and F being the worst. This grades the turnaround time of this source in responding to requests.

ITEM CREDIBILITY : 1-10, 1 being the best and 10 being the worst (we may change the range here in the future). this changes a lot based on the info provided. 1 is “you can take this to the bank” and 10 would be an example of maybe – “this is a totally ridiculous rumor but something that is spreading on the ground”

SPECIAL HANDLING : often this is “none” but it may be something like, “if you use this we need to be sure not to mention the part about XXX in the publication” or any other special notes

SOURCE HANDLER : the person who can take follow-up questions and communicate with the source.

MAILING LISTS

alpha@stratfor.com Discussions circulated exclusively among analysts, writers and higher-ups, including ’insights’ and discussions about sources and source meetings. secure@stratfor.com Discussions circulated exclusively among analysts and higher-ups, and only for use within continental US (analysts traveling ’overseas’ are removed from the list for the duration of their journey). analysts@stratfor.com – Discussion among analysts only, who manage sources, gather and analyze intelligence. ct@stratfor.com Ongoing discussions to collect and analyze counterterrorism intelligence, circulated among select group of analysts. tactical@statfor.com Non-time sensitive discussions for internal training on technical and tactical matters within field of counterterrorism. intelligence@stratfor.com gvalerts@stratfor.com – Related to Gas ventures clients military@stratfor.com Military list for pre-approved staff africa@stratfor.com eastasia@stratfor.com mesa@stratfor.com Middle East/South Asia list for pre-approved staff. eurasia@stratfor.com os@stratfor.com List with information from the public domain circulated and discussed among all employees. adp@stratfor.com List for ADPs. See Glossary. translations@stratfor.com alerts@stratfor.com responses@stratfor.com dialog-list@stratfor.com

GLOSSARY

a) Industry and other misc. tags :

HUMINT – Human intelligence OSINT- Open source intelligence DATA FLU BIRDFLU ECON TECH ENERGY MINING GV – Gas Venture CT – Counterterrorism G1-G4 B2-B4 S1-S4 MILITARY or MIL PENTAGON AQ- Al Qaeda AQAP – Al Qaeda in the Arabia Peninsula SF- Special Forces CONUS- Continental US

b) Special internal codewords :

Hizzies or HZ – Hizbollah Izzies or IZ – Israel A-dogg – Mahmoud Ahmadinajad, Iranian President Baby bashar – Bashar Al-Assad, Syrian President Uncle Mo – Moammar Gaddhafi ADP- Analyst Development Program. Four-month program at STRATFOR from which candidates— mostly recent college graduates— are selected for hire. Strictly protect and protect – Often mentioned in the ’subject’, means that the source is protected. Played- A term used for procuring sensitive information from sources. E.g. from one of the secure list messages circulating the ’complete scenario for the Israeli team in Centcom’s war game,’ the analyst who procured the data wrote : “I played the head of the Mossad which was great fun.” Excomm- Appears to be ’executive committee’ of STRATFOR.

c) Regions and Orgs

AFRICOM – African countries LATAM – Latin American MERCOSUR NATFA ASEAN APEC FSU – Former Soviet Union countries MESA or MIDDLEEAST – Middle East EASTASIA OPEC EURASIA SA – South Asia FSB- Federal Security Service (Russia)

ATTACHED DOCUMENTS

Attached documents can be searched by Filename or part of the file name. Preliminary searches for filenames using the terms ’lists’, ’source lists’ or ’insight lists’, coupled with the names of source handlers (e.g. Reva for Turkey, Brazil or Venezuela) produced Excel lists of the source names, contact info and source descriptions which correspond to the source codes (e.g. ME1315).

Sourcing Criteria

The following are the proposed criteria for analyzing both sources and insight.

1. Source Timeliness 2. Source Accessibility/Position 3. Source Availability 4. Insight Credibility 5. Insight Uniqueness

Source Timeliness : This is the average grade on how long this particular source turns around tasks and replies to inquiries. It may change but is more of a static indicator.

Source Accessibility : Accessibility weighs the source’s position to have certain knowledge in a particular field. So, for example, if we are looking for energy insight and the source is an official in an energy agency, his or her Accessibility would be ranked higher than if s/he was a banker giving insight on energy. While we would welcome a banker giving his/her insight, a good source may not have a high accessibility ranking if they aren’t in a position to offer reliable insight on a certain topic. The source’s access to decision makers, specific training or education in the desired topic area, specific knowledge of events/situations/incidents can also be considered.

Source Availability : How often can we go to this source ? Are they someone we can tap daily, weekly, monthly, yearly ?

Insight Credibility : This is our assessment of the veracity of the insight offered. Here we need to consider whether or not this is disinformation, speculation, correct data or knowledgeable interpretation. Any bias that the source is displaying or any specific viewpoints or personal background the source is using in the assessment provided should also be considered.

Insight Uniqueness : Is this insight something that could be found in OS ? If it is but the analysis of the information is unique, it would still have a high uniqueness ranking. Or, if it is concrete data, but is something that is only offered to industry insiders, i.e. stats that aren’t published but that aren’t secret, it would still have a high uniqueness score.

Scoring

All of the above factors will be scored on an A-F scale, with A being exemplary and F being useless.

Source Timeliness : A = turnaround within 24 hours B = turnaround within 48 hours C = turnaround within a week D = turnaround within a month F = lucky to receive a reply at all

Source Accessibility : A = Someone with intimate knowledge of the particular insight B = Someone within the industry but whose knowledge of the topic is not exact (e.g. if we were asking someone in the oil industry about natural gas) C = Someone working close to the industry who doesn’t have intimate knowledge of a particular topic but can speak to it intelligently (e.g. a financial consultant asked to gauge the movement of the stock market) D = Someone who may know a country but doesn’t have any concrete insight into a particular topic but can offer rumors and discussions heard on the topic F = Someone who has no knowledge of a particular industry at all

Source Availability : A = Available pretty much whenever B = Can tap around once a week C = Can tap about once a month D = Can tap only several times a year F = Very limited availability

Insight Credibility : A = We can take this information to the bank B = Good insight but maybe not entirely precise C = Insight is only partially true D = There may be some interest in the insight, but it is mostly false or just pure speculation. F = Likely to be disinformation

Insight Uniqueness : A = Can’t be found anywhere else B = Can only be found in limited circles C = Insight can be found in OS, but the source has an interesting take/analysis D = Insight can be found in OS, but still may not be common knowledge F = Insight is accessible in numerous locations

Daily Insight Scoring

SOURCE : code ATTRIBUTION : this is what we should say if we use this info in a publication, e.g. STRATFOR source/source in the medical industry/source on the ground, etc SOURCE DESCRIPTION : this is where we put the more concrete details of the source for our internal consumption so we can better understand the source’s background and ability to make the assessments in the insight. PUBLICATION : Yes or no. If you put yes it doesn’t mean that we will publish it, but only that we can publish it. SOURCE RELIABILITY : A-F. A being the best and F being the worst. This grades the source overall – access to information, timeliness, availability, etc. In short, how good is this source ? ITEM CREDIBILITY : A-F. A = we can take this info to the bank ; B = Good insight but maybe not entirely precise ; C = Insight is only partially true ; D = There may be some interest in the insight, but it is mostly false or just pure speculation ; F = Likely to be disinformation. SPECIAL HANDLING : often this is “none” but it may be something like, “if you use this we need to be sure not to mention the part about XXX in thepublication” or any other special notes SOURCE HANDLER : the person who can take follow-up questions and communicate with the source.

Find this story at 27 February 2012

The first time “Danny” (far right) officially ran as a CAM medic: March 18, 2012 at a protest to mark the anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war.
On March 27, Chicago teachers and their supporters – including parents, students and community residents – rallied against the largest mass public school closure in US history. News of the mobilization sparked huge public interest before the demonstration – including from an undercover police officer calling himself “Danny Edwards.”

The day before the big rally, “Danny” reached out in individual emails to fellow volunteer street medics he had met a year earlier after he took a 20-hour training with Chicago’s local street medic collective, Chicago Action Medical (CAM). CAM’s volunteer emergency medical technicians (EMTs), nurses, doctors and trained street medics provide emergency medical treatment at local protests.

His aim in reaching out: to learn more about the next day’s plans.

“Danny” – who admitted to us on May 6 that he is, in fact, a Chicago police officer – could have saved himself the trouble and his department the expense. After all, organizers had already coordinated directly with top CPD brass about their plans for the next day and widely promoted their intent to stage nonviolent civil disobedience.

After the CTU rally, “Danny” also tried to recruit at least one CAM volunteer street medic via email on April 30, the day before a May 1, 2013, immigrants’ rights march, to pair up with him as a partner. There were no takers, so he showed up alone at the rally sporting marked medic regalia.

His latest undercover sortie as a fake volunteer street medic bookends a hectic year for him.

The Paper Trail

“Danny” was a fixture at CAM events beginning in early March 2012, when he participated in a 20-hour introductory training for new street medics – a training he described in an email to CAM volunteer street medic Scott Mechanic as “great.”

May 1, 2012: “Danny Edwards” – posing with fellow Chicago Action Medical volunteers at their health care booth in Union Park, where street medics were volunteering to provide first aid and emergency health care for participants at the annual May Day rally and march. “Danny” – the only medic not smiling – is standing in front of the CAM banner.

The email address “Danny” used in that correspondence, which he did not sign by name, was pegged to the name of a Chicago police officer cited months later in court documents involved in undercover work around the NATO protests.

Less than half an hour after sending that initial email, “Danny” sent the first in a flurry of emails to Mechanic from a different email address, writing “let me know what going on so i can get involved (sic).”

“Danny’s” March 2012 foray into spying on CAM aligns with the date prosecutors say the Chicago Police Department (CPD) posted two other undercover agents who went by the street names “Mo” and “Nadia” on a 90-day temporary duty undercover assignment to Field Intelligence Team 7150. That team was tasked with infiltrating Occupy and anarchist groups in the run-up to the NATO Summit, according to court documents filed by Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez in April 2013.

Those two officers, “Mo” and “Nadia,” are also purported linchpins in the criminal cases against five activists known as the “NATO 5,” three of whom are scheduled to go to trial on NATO-related domestic terrorism charges this September.

The NATO prosecutors’ October 2012 Answer to Discovery lists this same police officer among the CPD officers, detectives and other police officials who may be called to testify in this fall’s upcoming trial. He is also mentioned in the NATO defendants’ February 25, 2013, Motion to Compel Discovery as “a CPD undercover officer related to this investigation.”

Busy Year for “Danny” – and Early Red Flags

Five days after he inadvertently emailed Scott Mechanic under his given name and scrambled to cover his tracks, “Danny” acted for the first time as a CAM street medic at a small permitted peace march on Chicago’s north side. The March 18, 2012 event was organized to mark the anniversary of the launch of the Iraq War in March 2003.

May 1, 2013: “Danny Edwards,” undercover Chicago police officer, at a May Day rally for immigrant rights in Chicago’s Union Park.
“Danny” ran again as a marked CAM street medic on April 7, 2012 at Occupy Chicago’s “Occupy Spring” event, also emailing Mechanic on April 26, 2012 about bringing a “friend” to an upcoming health workshop. On May 1, 2012, he volunteered as a marked CAM street medic at a May Day rally and march, where his refusal to follow CAM operational guidelines – reportedly abandoning his street medic partner to make a b-line for a group of young protesters wearing black clothes – began to raise real alarms with fellow street medics.

After “Danny’s” behavior on May Day, a number of veteran CAM volunteers – including Mechanic – moved immediately to isolate him from new and less experienced street medics, to monitor his behavior closely and to broadly urge the practice of good security culture.

But without a smoking gun, they were unwilling to expose him publicly. The chill from veteran street medics didn’t discourage “Danny” from continuing to reach out and show up to actions.

On May 11, a week and a half later and as local organizers were scrambling to find housing for out-of-town protesters traveling in for the demonstrations, he emailed Mechanic directly for information about housing that other groups or collectives might be offering. “I have a group of friends in need and I wanted some direction,” he wrote.

On May 20, 2012, at a large protest against the NATO Summit, CAM street medics demanded that he remove his medic markings after he again ignored CAM street operations protocols by deserting his partner to sprint after a group of protesters clad in black clothes.

“Danny” sent emails to individual members of CAM’s listserv – but almost never to the larger listserv – strategically for the next year, seeking information about upcoming demonstrations and meetings. The off-list queries continued to raise red flags with CAM members he contacted, some of whom had never met him and did not know who he was.

When we asked “Danny” at the 2013 May Day rally to confirm his name and identity as a CPD officer, he insisted he was “Danny Edwards” and claimed to be a friend of a local activist.

That’s not how the activist described “Danny” to CAM volunteers at a street medic training before the NATO protests last spring. At that training, he told CAM members that “Danny” had recently befriended him, and he raised concerns there about “Danny’s” interest in topics ranging from Molotov cocktails to property damage.

“NATO 5” Connection

According to court documents released in the months after the NATO Summit protests, “Danny”is one of the undercover officers at the heart of the “NATO 5” criminal cases. He’s mentioned in the pre-NATO Summit pre-emptive raid search warrant documents as “Undercover Officer C,” and is also cited by his given name in court documents for one of the NATO defendants, Sebastian “Sabi” Senakiewicz, as a potential trial witness.

We tried to question “Danny” about his undercover activities on May 6 at a house that had a sheet of paper with his given name and phone number taped to the front door. While he admitted he was, in fact, the named police officer he’d denied being just five days earlier, he declined to answer our questions.

“Danny’s” post-NATO activities raise a key question: Why keep an undercover officer in play as a volunteer street medic in a nonviolent health-care project almost a year after the NATO protests that ostensibly put him into motion as a police spy in the first place?

It’s virtually impossible to say from the official record. That’s because the CPD and Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez have fought tooth and nail in court for almost a year to prevent defense attorneys in the remaining NATO cases from learning more about the scope and character of police spying on political activity leading up to last year’s NATO Summit.

At a “NATO 3” status hearing on May 14, 2013, prosecutors again opposed disclosing information about the wider scope of police spying on Chicago’s activist groups (as they have before in official court filings) in the months leading up to the NATO Summit. Defense attorneys rebutted in open court – as they did in writing earlier in their April 30, 2013, “Reply to the State’s Response to Defendants’ Motion to Compel” – that this information remains directly relevant to the NATO cases because it would broaden the context of the arrests of the NATO 3 and the CPD’s pre-NATO spying efforts targeting the activist community.

Broader Context

Police spying in recent years has targeted peace groups, environmentalists and the Occupy movement, a focus on protest as a potential flashpoint of “terrorism” that sometimes has disastrous consequences. By way of example, in Boston, local police focused their attention on the political activism of local residents at the same time they missed the threat posed by the Boston Marathon bombers.

And law enforcement has also demonstrated a disturbing pattern of working undercover to create crime to prosecute crime. Notable cases like the “Cleveland 4” fit into a pattern that journalist Arun Gupta has described as law enforcement’s “war of entrapment against the Occupy movement.”

Law enforcement infiltration in Chicago in the run-up to the 2012 NATO Summit unfolded most publicly with the use of at least two undercover cops who went by the names “Mo” and “Nadia.”

Both were regular fixtures at a spring 2012 encampment to try to prevent the closure of the Woodlawn Mental Health Clinic on Chicago’s south side, one of six public mental health clinics slated for closure by city officials and hardly a flashpoint of “potential terrorist activity.” They also showed up at one point at an independent media center organized to cover the NATO protests and at numerous other documented locales in the two and a half months before the NATO Summit.

“Red Squad” 2.0 Rolling Back into Town?

Ongoing police spying a year after the NATO meeting by “Danny” – and potentially others – raises a real alarm among activists, including CAM street medics, whose national community traces its origins to the Medical Presence Project of the Medical Committee for Human Rights (MCHR).

MCHR was first formed in 1964 to provide medical assistance to the civil rights movement. Its Chicago-based volunteers, who also provided medical aid at protests organized by peace projects and student groups opposed to the Vietnam War, were among thousands of civilians spied on by the CPD’s notorious Red Squad.

“The CPD’s decision to plant an undercover police spy in Chicago Action Medical is outrageous, but sadly, comes as no surprise,” said CAM street medic Dick Reilly in an interview. “The CPD has a long and sordid history of surveillance and infiltration of labor, peace and social justice groups dating back to the 1886 railroading of the Haymarket defendants – efforts that led to the creation of Chicago’s infamous Red Squad. Over a hundred years later, the cops are clearly still at it.”

For Reilly, CAM’s ongoing infiltration threatens core freedoms that range from the privacy rights of the people they treat to police officials’ ongoing assault on dissent in the city.

“When the CPD targets a volunteer medical project like CAM – which seeks to provide basic first aid to people exercising their democratic rights and whose primary principle is to ‘do no harm’ – it underscores the lengths to which they’ll go to criminalize dissent, suppress resistance and pander to the agenda of the political and economic elites they actually serve and protect,” Reilly said.

The Chicago Red Squad’s abuses of basic constitutional rights were so egregious – targets included the Parent-Teachers’ Association and the League of Women Voters – that a federal court slapped the city with a consent decree in 1982 that expressly barred politically motivated police spying unless police could show at least some evidence of criminal intent on the part of the targets of their spying.

The city was finally able to win relief from the consent decree in January 2001, after arguing for years constitutional protections thwarted its ability to investigate gangs and “terrorism.”

The consent decree’s demise hasn’t kept the CPD out of hot water for spying on political projects, either, beginning as early as 2002. Were the old consent decree still in place, CAM members believe “Danny’s” undercover spying on their work over the past year would have been illegal.

McCarthy’s Spy-Ops Background at NYPD, Newark PD

Just before he was sworn in as Chicago’s new mayor in May of 2011, Rahm Emanuel – a former US Congressman and chief of staff for President Obama – announced the appointment of new police superintendent Garry McCarthy. Three months later, McCarthy created an intelligence-gathering unit tasked to perform “counter-terrorism” work in preparation for the May 2012 NATO meetings.

A career New York cop, McCarthy is no stranger to the use of systematic police spying.

The New York Police Department (NYPD) has a contentious track record in this arena, prompting the implementation of New York’s own version of Chicago’s Red Squad consent decree – the Handschu Decree – while McCarthy was climbing up the NYPD’s ranks to a senior command position.

It wasn’t long after he formally assumed the mantle of CPD superintendent in 2011 that McCarthy drew fire for allowing the latest iteration of New York’s police spy ring to operate in Newark, NJ, where he had served as police chief before taking the position as CPD’s top dog.

McCarthy also served as an NYPD commander when the police set up spy rings before the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City and during “CIA on the Hudson,” the joint NYPD/CIA project that was set up and run by former CIA Deputy Director for Operations David Cohen to “map the human terrain” of New York City’s Islamic community.

Targeting Street Medics

Volunteer street medics have historically been an attractive target for undercovers.

CAM street medic Scott Mechanic met “Anna,” before she was outed as a police infiltrator, an FBI informant who used her position as a street medic to befriend and entrap environmental activists. One of those activists, Eric McDavid, is serving a 20-year sentence in a case built around Anna’s testimony and her reported entrapment activities.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Mechanic was also a street medic volunteer at New Orleans’ Common Ground Collective, where he and dozens of other volunteer health-care providers ran into Brandon Darby, an agent provocateur and FBI informant at the heart of another entrapment case, this one against David McKay and Bradley Crowder.

“These kinds of informants and undercover police represent a real threat to activists, in no small part because they’re committed to manufacturing crime where none exists to terrorize the public and justify their abuses of our right to dissent,” said Mechanic. “This Chicago cop’s infiltration of our group raises real questions about police intrusion into protesters’ medical histories – and it’s a truly despicable example of exploiting people’s caregivers as part of the national campaign to criminalize dissent.”

Convergence of the War on Drugs, War on Terrorism

As a Chicago cop, the CPD officer who infiltrated CAM has worked on narcotics and gang cases, including as an undercover officer.

Given the growing conflation of the “War on Drugs” with the “War on Terrorism,” which is increasingly married to a War on Dissent, it’s not surprising that the Chicago police officer who infiltrated CAM would segue into COINTELPRO-style undercover work. By the 1990’s, the CPD was listing dissidents by alleged political affiliation in their gang database, in tandem with then-Mayor Richard M. Daley’s claim that the Red Squad Consent Decree shackled cops’ ability to investigate both gangs and “terrorism.”

Shahid Buttar, executive director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, points to the delayed notice search warrants enabled by Section 213 of the USA PATRIOT Act – presented to the public as a counter-terrorism tool – as a key example of the War on Drugs’ convergence with the War on Terrorism.

“Both the War on Drugs and the War on Terrorism have long represented cash cows for law enforcement and intelligence agencies, from the FBI all the way down to local police departments,” Buttar said in an interview. “Beyond the serial corruption of agencies pimping public fears to inflate their budgets, many particular powers claimed as necessary for one ‘war’ are actually used more in the other.”

The Chicago Police Department did not respond to our phone calls or emails about this story.

Tuesday, 21 May 2013 09:55
By Steve Horn and Chris Geovanis, Truthout | Report

Find this story at 21 May 2013

© 2012 Truthout