Rob of the RNC 8 provides and update on the RNC 8's legal status, discusses the impact of informants on the group, provides insight about informants in our community, and shares some ideas about how to move forward on the program Air Cascadia of KBOO, "Volunteer-Powered, Non-Commercial, Listener-Sponsored, Full-Strength Community Radio for Portland, Oregon, Cascadia & the World!". Click here to listen to the show!

Once again, we see how little they really understand... from http://colorado.indymedia.org/node/1757 Counter-Terrorism Magazine's most recent issue, has on it's cover (ironically), a picture of a protestor in a “V/Guy Fawkes” mask......and the title of their featured article reads, “Twitter.com and Coordinated Mayhem: An Examination of the Incorporation of Twitter by the RNC Welcoming Committee”. Below is a short sample: “There are myriads of threats that jeopardize peace and stability. Among these threats, the proliferation of extremism is a peril to civilized society. These extremist include, but are not limited to the following: religious, anarchists, anti-government, and anti-globalization. They operate both in the United States and abroad. Advances in technology and media have enabled extremists to broadcast their propaganda to an untold audience. These provocative messages have enticed a vulnerable following into discontent and action. Consider the riots that occurred during World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle, the Rwandan Genocide, and the recent rioting in Greece. Instability is increasing with the compounding of the economic crisis. The reality is that there are countless people being incited to violence and extremism through media” A longer sample of the article can be found here: http://www.iacsp.com/latest_article.php picture of the cover: http://www.iacsp.com/publications.php FULL PDF of article linked below written by Institute of Terrorism Research and Response published by the IACSP http://www.terrorresponse.org/generator/downloads/Social_Networking_Site...

By Jeremy Scahil
http://www.alternet.org/story/132171/

For those already outraged at the AIG bonus scandal, here is a fact that should add more fuel to the fire: The Obama administration has paid the mercenary firm formerly known as Blackwater nearly $70 million to operate in Iraq and, according to The Washington Times, may keep the company on the payroll months past the official expiration of its Iraq contract in May. I reviewed Blackwater's recent transactions with the Obama State Department and discovered a $45 million payment to Blackwater on February 4, 2009 for "protective services-Iraq." It is described as a "funding action only." Here is the interesting part: The estimated "Ultimate Completion Date" is 5/07/2011.

Gabe, the 5-year old son of some rad activists in Minneapolis, who survived two raids by Minneapolis-St. Paul police and Ramsey County Sheriff's Department during the RNC earlier this past year, has been seriously injured in an accident and is in critical -yet stable- condition at Hennepin County Medical Center.

At about 1pm Friday, doctors attempted to remove the respirator from his lungs as he appeared to be breathing well enough on his own. This proved premature as his lungs quickly collapsed and the surrounding cavity began filling with fluid. Acting fast, they replaced the respirator and had to put an additional tube through his chest to drain the fluid.

As frustrating and sad as this is, Gabe is again doing well under the circumstances. The swelling of his face, arms, and upper torso is going down substantially. Doctors are again hoping that his respirator can be removed on Monday at which point he would be taken off the sedatives. They are also expecting a specialist to come on Monday to look at his femurs which have both been set with pins until they heal and setting his pelvis which was shattered.

If you wish to visit Gabe, he is located at HCMC downtown Minneapolis in the huge medical complex off of Chicago and 7th St. S. Once inside it is the Orange building, you should be able to get the room number there. Visiting hours for patients are from 9am until 8:30 pm although friends can come to support parents and loved ones of Gabe around the clock as they have a special resting room for relatives and friends. Sammy requested that friends come later in the evening as there has been a rush of visitors in the afternoon and she was hoping people could space out their visits to better support the family.

The family has requested that while Gabe is unconscious (and has more scary tubes sticking out of him) they'd prefer families with small children leave their kiddos at home. After he is awake, children should definitely come and visit as much as possible!

Other ways of support include bringing coloring books or nature and science books for Gabe to occupy himself once he's awake. A little goes a long way. Also, I've been notified of a website where people can donate items that his family is requesting to help them out. It is: http://www.supportgabe.org

The New York Times, Democracy Now, Indymedia and several other sources are reporting that Brandon Darby, of Austin, TX has outed himself as an FBI informant.  Darby was most recently involved in the Republican National Convention last year and worked with the FBI to identify people that were planning on "violent" activity during the convention.  Darby got his start in the activist community working with Common Grounds after Hurricane Katrina.  From the New York times article:

In a telephone interview, Mr. Darby said that he had provided information leading to the arrest of Mr. Crowder and Mr. McKay, and that he planned to testify at their trial.

Mr. Darby would not provide details about his undercover activities, but said he had also worked as an informant in cases not involving the convention. He defended his decision to work with the F.B.I. as “a good moral way to use my time,” saying he wanted to prevent violence during the convention at the Xcel Energy Center.

Documents that activists said were given to defense lawyers by the prosecution and printed on F.B.I. letterhead indicated that an informant — now identified as Mr. Darby — carried out a thorough surveillance operation that dated back to at least 18 months before the Republican gathering. He first met Mr. Crowder and Mr. McKay in Austin six months before the convention.

Mr. Darby provided descriptions of meetings with the defendants and dozens of other people in Austin, Minneapolis and St. Paul. He wore recording devices at times, including a transmitter embedded in his belt during the convention. He also went to Minnesota with Mr. Crowder four months before the Republican gathering and gave detailed narratives to law enforcement authorities of several meetings they had with activists from New York, San Francisco, Montana and other places.

One of his last conversations with Mr. McKay ended in an alley in Minneapolis, according to court documents, with Mr. Darby recording Mr. McKay talking about plans to use Molotov cocktails."

This whole case raises some tough questions, how can we secure our own communities when even someone who is heavily involved in the activist community may decide to turn sides and become an FBI informant.  Darby was not someone like Anna, who came into the activist movement just to snitch, Darby was an established activist who decided one day to side with the FBI.  This must necessarily make us re-evaluate our security protocols and our levels of trust.
 

A lot more information is coming to light recently about government activities to surpress protests surrounding the RNC this September. The Minnesota National Guard's involvement has been widely reported on. Recently, though, it has come to light that military agencies such as the Pentagon's Northern Command, and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (the folks behind the eye in the sky) were -- literally -- at the table during the convention. Also present were representatives of the nation's major telecom companies. Of course military involvement in a domestic policing action is a major violation of US law, but then again so is warrant-less wiretapping and any number of other government programs.  It's also being speculated that the government was using the Triggerfish system (see the post from a few days ago) during the convention. Please read more here. Check out the government planning document that was leaked on wikileaks which lead to this discovery here

So now what?

Comment with your thoughts...

http://www.terrorizingdissent.org/downloads.php

Didn't make it to the RNC this year? Want to experience the gasing and pepper spray from the comfort of your own home? This new film is now available for download. There will be a showing in the bay area at AK press.

Oakland, CA — AK Press, doors 7pm/show 8pm

$5-$10 sliding scale donated to RNC-related legal support groups. [more info]
AK Press is at 674-A 23rd Street, Oakland, CA. Wheelchair accessible.

Please come if you can and throw a few bucks for our homies.

A draft US Army intelligence report has identified the popular micro-blogging service Twitter, Global Positioning System maps and voice-changing software as potential terrorist tools.

The report by the 304th Military Intelligence Battalion, posted on the website of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), examines a number of mobile and web technologies and their potential uses by militants.

The posting of the report on the FAS site was reported Friday by Wired magazine contributing editor Noah Shachtman on his national security blog "Danger Room" at wired.com.

The report is not based on clandestine reporting but drawn from open source intelligence known as OSINT.

A chapter on "Potential for Terrorist Use of Twitter" notes that Twitter members sent out messages, known as "Tweets," reporting the July Los Angeles earthquake faster than news outlets and activists at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis used it to provide information on police movements.

"Twitter has also become a social activism tool for socialists, human rights groups, communists, vegetarians, anarchists, religious communities, atheists, political enthusiasts, hacktivists and others to communicate with each other and to send messages to broader audiences," the report said.

Hacktivists refers to politically motivated computer hackers.

"Twitter is already used by some members to post and/or support extremist ideologies and perspectives," the report said.

"Extremist and terrorist use of Twitter could evolve over time to reflect tactics that are already evolving in use by hacktivists and activists for surveillance," it said. "This could theoretically be combined with targeting."

The report outlined scenarios in which militants could make use of Twitter, combined with such programs as Google Maps or cell phone pictures or video, to carry out an ambush or detonate explosives.

"Terrorists could theoretically use Twitter social networking in the US as an operation tool," it said. "However, it is unclear whether that same theoretical tool would be available to terrorists in other countries and to what extent."

Besides Twitter, the report examined the potential use by militants of Global Positioning Systems and other technologies.

"GPS cell phone service could be used by our adversaries for travel plans, surveillance and targeting," it said, noting that just such uses have been discussed in pro-Al-Qaeda forums along with the use of voice-changing software.

"Terrorists may or may not be using voice-changing software but it should be of open source interest that online terrorist and/or terrorist enthusiasts are discussing it," the report said.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=081025182242.js2g2op8&show_artic...

Dear Friends, Family, and Comrades:

We are the RNC 8: individuals targeted because of our political beliefs and
work organizing for protests at the 2008 Republican National Convention, in
what appears to be the first use of Minnesota’s version of the US Patriot
Act. The 8 of us are currently charged with Conspiracy to Commit Riot in
Furtherance of Terrorism, a 2nd degree felony that carries the possibility of
several years in prison. We are writing to let you know about our situation, to
ask for support, and to offer words of hope.

A little background: the RNC Welcoming Committee was a group formed in late
2006 upon hearing that the 2008 Republican National Convention would be
descending on Minneapolis-St. Paul where we live, work, and build community.
The Welcoming Committee’s purpose was to serve as an
anarchist/anti-authoritarian organizing body, creating an informational and
logistical framework for radical resistance to the RNC. We spent more than a
year and a half doing outreach, facilitating meetings throughout the country,
and networking folks of all political persuasions who shared a common interest
in voicing dissent in the streets of St. Paul while the GOP’s machine chugged
away inside the convention.

In mid-August the Welcoming Committee opened a “Convergence Center,” a
space for protesters to gather, eat, share resources, and build networks of
solidarity. On Friday, August 29th, 2008, as folks were finishing dinner and
sitting down to a movie the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Department stormed in,
guns   drawn, ordering everyone to the ground. This evening raid resulted in
seized property (mostly literature), and after being cuffed, searched, and
IDed, the 60+ individual inside were released.

The next morning, on Saturday, August 30th, the Sheriff’s department executed
search warrants on three houses, seizing personal and common household items
and arresting the first 5 of us- Monica Bicking, Garrett Fitzgerald, Erik
Oseland, Nathanael Secor, and Eryn Trimmer. Later that day Luce Guillen-Givins
was arrested leaving a public meeting at a park. Rob Czernik and Max Specktor
were arrested on Monday, September 1, bringing the number to its present 8. All
were held on probable cause and released on $10,000 bail on Thursday, September
4, the last day of the RNC.

These arrests were preemptive, targeting known organizers in an attempt to
derail anti-RNC protests before the convention had even begun. Conspiracy
charges expand upon the traditional notion of crime. Instead of condemning
action, the very concept of conspiracy criminalizes thought and camaraderie,
the development of relationships, the willingness to hope that our world might
change and the realization that we can be agents of that change.

Conspiracy charges serve a very particular purpose- to criminalize dissent.
They create a convenient method for incapacitating activists, with the
potential for diverting limited resources towards protracted legal battles and
terrorizing entire communities into silence and inaction. Though not the first
conspiracy case against organizers- not even the first in recent memory- our
case may be precedent-setting. Minnesota’s terrorism statutes have never been
enacted in this way before, and if they win their case against us, they will
only be strengthened as they continue their crusade on ever more widespread
fronts. We view our case as an opportunity to demonstrate community solidarity
in the face of repression, to establish a precedent of successful resistance to
the government’s attempts to destroy our movements.

Right now we are in the very early stages of a legal battle that will require
large sums of money and enormous personal resources. We have already been
overwhelmed by the outpouring of support locally and throughout the country,
and are grateful for everything that people have done for us. We now have a
Twin Cities-based support committee and are developing a national support
network that we feel confident will help us through the coming months. For more
information on the case and how to support us, or to donate, go to
http://RNC8.org

We have been humbled by such an immense initial show of solidarity and are
inspired to turn our attention back to the very issues that motivated us to
organize against the RNC in the first place. What’s happening to us is part
of a much broader and very serious problem. The fact is that we live in a
police state- some people first realized this in the streets of St. Paul during
the convention, but many others live with that reality their whole lives.
People of color, poor and working class people, immigrants, are targeted and
criminalized on a daily basis, and we understand what that context suggests
about the repression the 8 of us face now. Because we are political organizers
who have built solid relationships through our work, because we have various
forms of privilege- some of us through our skin, some through our class, some
through our education- and because we have the resources to invoke a national
network of support, we are lucky, even as we are being targeted.

And so, while we ask for support in whatever form you are able to offer it, and
while we need that support to stay free, we also ask that you think of our case
as a late indicator of the oppressive climate in which we live. The best
solidarity is to keep the struggle going, and we hope that supporting us can be
a small part of broader movements for social change.

For better times and with love,

the RNC 8: 

Monica Bicking, Robert Czernik, Garrett Fitzgerald, Luce Guillen-Givins,
Nathanael Secor, Max Spector, Eryn Timmer, Erik Oseland,