>
>Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2000
>To: cpa@lists.uchicago.edu, asc@listhost.uchicago.edu
>Subject: [asc] COINTELPRO targets anti-globalization movement
>
>Report on Federal Anti-Activist Intelligence Network
>
> By Frank Morales
>
>On May 4, 2000, the Intelligence Newsletter, based in Paris, France,
>published a report which stated that "sources close to the Washington DC
>Metropolitan Police have given Intelligence Newsletter details about
>intelligence units that gather information on anti-globalization militants
>in the US and elsewhere". (1) In addition, the same sources said that
>during the April 17 Break the World Bank DC protests, "reserve units from
>the US Army Intelligence and Security Command helped Washington police keep
>an eye on demonstrations staged at the World Bank/IMF meetings." In
>addition, the French intelligence service report notes that "the Pentagon
>sent around 700 men from the Intelligence and Security Command at Fort
>Belvoir to assist the Washington police on April 17, including specialists
>in human and signals intelligence. One unit was even strategically located
>on the fourth floor balcony in a building at 1919 Pennsylvania Avenue with
>a birds-eye view of most demonstrators."
>
>According to the report, information on the protest movements is collected
>and stored by six Regional Information Sharing System (RISS) centers funded
>by the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Assistance. Ostensibly these
>intelligence centers are set up to counter organized crime, drugs and
>terrorism but it takes no great stretch to comprehend how civil
>disobedience, once defined as a terrorist threat and/or criminal conspiracy
>would, or has become a target. According to the Intelligence Newsletter
>report, "the RISS also act against any political activist group deemed to
>be a threat and over the last year has found itself focusing on
>anti-globalization groups." In addition, the report notes that in order "to
>justify their interest in anti-globalization groups from a legal
>standpoint, the authorities lump them into a category of terrorist
>organizations. Among those considered as such at present are Global Justice
>(the group that organized the April 17 demonstration), Earth First,
>Greenpeace, American Indian Movement, Zapatista National Liberation Front
>and Act-Up." Although this story has yet to be verified, given the
>existence of RISS and the paranoid proclivities of the US national security
>state and its civil disturbance planning apparatus, we should assume the
>report is accurate.
>
>According to RISS program documents (2), the agency is set up to "share
>intelligence and coordinate efforts against criminal networks that operate
>in many locations across jurisdictional lines." The program "serves more
>than 5,300 member law enforcement agencies" across the country including
>the FBI, DEA, IRS, Secret Service, Customs and the BATF. It is overseen by
>the Bureau of Justice Assistance, State and Local Assistance Division, 810
>Seventh Street, NW, Washington, DC (202-305-2923). Its immediateoverseer is
>the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR), PO Box 12729,
>Tallahassee, Florida, (850-385-0600). The IIR also sponsors the State and
>Local Anti-Terrorism Training program (SLATT) which provides, via its
>"extremist research experts", "training and information to state and local
>law enforcement personnel in the areas of domestic anti-terrorism and
>extremist criminal activity." (3) The FBI's National Security Division
>Training Unit is a partner with IIR in providing SLATT training nationally.
>
>According to a 1999 Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) report on RISS, the
>six federally funded Regional Information Sharing System centers are
>financed "to support law enforcement efforts to combat multi-jurisdictional
>criminal conspiracies and activities." (4) The six centers, the Middle
>Atlantic-Great Lakes Organized Crime Law Enforcement Network, Newtown, PA,
>the Mid-States Organized Crime Information Center, Springfield, MO, the New
>England State Police Information Network, Franklin, MA, the Rocky Mountain
>Information Network, Phoenix, AR, the Regional Organized Crime Information
>Center, Nashville, TN, and the Western States Information Network,
>Sacramento, CA, are set up in such a way that "each center's staff possess
>sufficient flexibility to tailor the individual center's priorities and
>operations to the particular- perhaps unique - needs of the region."
>According to the BJA report, the centers "maintain pools of specialized
>investigative equipment for loan to participating member agencies",
>including "photographic, communications (and) surveillance" equipment. In
>addition, "all six RISS Intelligence Centers have confidential funds
>available to member agencies for the purchase of investigative information,
>contraband, stolen property, and other items of an evidentiary nature. The
>net amount of confidential funds provided by the centers to member agencies
>totaled $265,526 for 1998."
>
>According to the Intelligence Newsletter report cited earlier, it's the
>Mid-Atlantic Network, based in Newtown, Pennsylvania, whose region includes
>New York and the District of Columbia, that is particularly efficient in
>activist spy work. According to the report, that center "distributes
>intelligence on the groups to other police departments via RISSNET,
>enabling investigators to find links between the movements and look into
>their finances, telephone calls and membership lists." According to
>Mid-Atlantic Network documents, it was "initiated by the US Congress in
>1974 to aid law enforcement agencies in targeting, identifying, and
>removing multi-jurisdictional criminal elements." The Network offers a
>"secure database containing information concerning known or suspected
>criminals, businesses, organizations and their related identifying
>information", along with "training in the seizure of computers." (5)
>
>As mentioned earlier, the Intelligence Newsletter report claims that
>hundreds of Army intelligence operatives were present during the DC
>anti-World Bank demo. Again, with a premonition of tens of thousands of
>protesters, it is quite likely that the report is accurate. After all, one
>can rest assured that the Department of Defense Civil Disturbance Plan,
>code-named Garden Plot, is especially fixated on defending the seat of
>government (corporate) power in America. (6) That DC was flooded with
>intelligence operatives and assorted government spies is, lamentably, quite
>likely. The US Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM), cited in
>the French report, is a "a major army command", which "conducts dominant
>intelligence, security and information operations for military commanders
>and national decision makers." (7) Based at Fort Belvoir, Flagler Road,
>Virginia, (the Nolan Building) since 1989, INSCOM recently redesignated a
>number of units including "the Continental United States Military
>Intelligence Group that supported the National Security Agency and a number
>of field stations."
>
>According to military documents, during the course of the 90's, "INSCOM was
>drawn into contingency operations other than war all over the globe" These
>"contingency operations" or domestic military operations other than war,
>are law enforcement "support missions" in civil disturbance suppression.
>Quite possibly they are run out of the "Emergency Operations Center" at
>Fort Belvoir. These operations have been enhanced with the recent creation
>of the "National Ground Intelligence Center." Further, according to INSCOM,
>"the mission of the Special Security Group that had disseminated Sensitive
>Compartmented Information since World War II was drastically realigned. The
>unit was redesignated and resubordinated to the 902nd Military Intelligence
>Group." Some of this "sensitive" information is contained in so-called top
>secret SAP programs. In this regard, INSCOM is in the business of
>"providing counterintelligence support to the Army's growing number of
>Special Access Programs -- highly sensitive projects which required
>exceptional security measures." Actually, the gathering of intelligence
>during the DC protest involves an even higher source, given that "in 1993
>the Secretary of Defense ordered service human intelligence assets
>consolidated under Defense Intelligence Agency control", at which time
>"INSCOM turned over most of its human intelligence operations"
>
>Intelligence Newsletter, No.381, "Watching Anti-WTO Crowd", May 4, 2000,
>www.intelligenceonline.com/
>
>Regional Information Sharing Systems (RISS) Program, www.iir.com/riss/
>
>State and Local Anti-Terrorism Training (SLATT) Program, www.iir.com/slatt/
>
>Bureau of Justice assistance, The RISS Program, 1998,
>www.iir.com/Publications/RISSProgram1998.pdf
>
>Middle Atlantic-Great Lakes Organized Crime Law Enforcement Network,
>www.iir.com/riss/magloclen/index.htm
>
>Frank Morales, "US Military Civil Disturbance Planning: The War at Home",
>CovertAction Quarterly #69, Spring/Summer 2000, www.covertaction.org/
>
>US Army Intelligence and Security Command, www.vulcan.belvoir.army.mil/
>
>_______________________________________________
>anti-sweatshop coalition (ASC)
>asc@listhost.uchicago.edu
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