Federal Government involved in raids on protestors

[Diemen]

Federal government involved in raids on protesters - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

Massive police raids on suspected protesters in Minneapolis - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

What. The. Hell?!? There were some sketchy happenings on the streets in Denver, but nothing quite on the scale of this.

Last night, members of the St. Paul police department and the Ramsey County sheriff's department handcuffed, photographed and detained dozens of people meeting at a public venue to plan a demonstration, charging them with no crime other than "fire code violations," and early this morning, the Sheriff's department sent teams of officers into at least four Minneapolis area homes where suspected protesters were staying.

Today's Star Tribune added that the raids were specifically "aided by informants planted in protest groups." Back in May, Marcy Wheeler presciently noted that the Minneapolis Joint Terrorist Task Force -- an inter-agency group of federal, state and local law enforcement led by the FBI -- was actively recruiting Minneapolis residents to serve as plants, to infiltrate "vegan groups" and other left-wing activist groups and report back to the Task Force about what they were doing. There seems to be little doubt that it was this domestic spying by the Federal Government that led to the excessive and truly despicable home assaults by the police yesterday.

So basically what we have here are police forces spying on its own citizens, raiding, detaining and basically unlawfully entering and searching houses for the sole reason of intimidating people who have committed no crime and were not suspected of committing any crimes, but only were planning on engaging in a constitutionally protected act of free speech.

So here we have a massive assault led by Federal Government law enforcement agencies on left-wing dissidents and protesters who have committed no acts of violence or illegality whatsoever, preceded by months-long espionage efforts to track what they do. And as extraordinary as that conduct is, more extraordinary is the fact that they have received virtually no attention from the national media and little outcry from anyone. And it's not difficult to see why. As the recent "overhaul" of the 30-year-old FISA law illustrated -- preceded by the endless expansion of surveillance state powers, justified first by the War on Drugs and then the War on Terror -- we've essentially decided that we want our Government to spy on us without limits.

This makes me livid.

 

[Se7en]

this story broke a few days ago...you can look at the warrant here.

several crew members from democracy now! were also arrested.

 

[deep]

.

YouTube - REM End Of The World As We Know It (And I feel Fine).

 

[zonelistener]

If you check out startribune.com (the Minneapolis newspaper), they have a link to all those who have been jailed at the Ramsey County Jail (the County that Saint Paul is in), and see what they have been charged with. It was an interesting way to spend a few minutes.

There are a lot of people who were being charged with "Riot" and similar offenses.

 

[Vincent Vega]

What country is that city in, again?

Sadly, this much reminds me of some of the shit our very own Minister of the Interiour, Mr Schaeuble, did in the weeks before the G8 summit last year.
It goes to show once again that even we think we have finally reached a state of free society and free democracy, our states are still something we should have a healthy suspicion of their doings.

 

[namkcuR]

To think that, as this is going on, Mitt Romney is going to accuse the Democrat Party of being 'the party of Big Brother' tonight.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Do you honestly think that party has anything to do with such totalitarian tendencies?