Monday, May 23, 2011

Searching for Snitches: A response to "To take on the Wild Beast"

from Puget Sound Anarchists:

On May 13th, an article called "To take on the Wild Beast" was posted on Portland Indymedia, calling for readers to snitch on a big list of leftists, radicals, and anarchists. Back in January, an article similar to "To take on the Wild Beast" showed up on Portland Indymedia and a bunch of other Indymedia websites around the world. The article insinuated (but did not outright say) that a bunch of different radical (and some not-so-radical) activist-type groups and ideologies were wanted by the police and FBI. The article encouraged readers to call a number of snitch hotlines and report for cash rewards.

At the time, Olympia Rising Tide (one of the groups mentioned) released this statement, originally posted at http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/13524 and http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2011/01/405571.shtml:
"An article titled 'In the Fight to Make a Better World' recently appeared on several Indymedia websites, including Portland Indymedia. The article began,
'You read indymedia, chances are you know some protesters who are wanted by the police and the FBI. The good news is that now you can receive a big cash reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of crimanals [sic]. It's easy just a quick call. and if you know more that one person you can get multiple REWARDS up to $2000 for each . for information leading to the arrest of known criminals and subversive group activity.'

"The article then listed a wide-ranging and diverse collection of activist groups, movements, and political parties, including Democracy Now!, the Animal Liberation Front, Socialist Labor Party, and 'Anarcist [sic] book fair,' among many others. We were very surprised to see our name on this list, right in between Cascadia Rising Ecodefense and Freedom for Animals. The article finishes by providing contact information for various federal agency snitch lines, including the FBI and Homeland Security.

"Although the implicit premise of this article is that Olympia Rising Tide (and everyone else mentioned) are wanted by the police and FBI for criminal activity, it is important to note that Shayne O'Neill, the supposed author of this fishing expedition article, never actually accuses us of any criminal activity, nor of being wanted by the police or FBI. Olympia Rising Tide is a legal, aboveground community group. We have never carried out any illegal actions in the fight for a just and sustainable world. Some people do perform underground actions to dismantle oppressive power structures, but those are tactics that Olympia Rising Tide chooses not to use. The police and FBI have no grounds on which to accuse us of any illegal activity - that is why they are looking for people who read Indymedia to provide that non-existent information.

"Fishing expeditions (searches for information on groups disliked by the State and Capital but about whom the State has no incriminating information) are a scare tactic used to neutralize groups who are effective at creating change. The police wish to silence us by sowing fear, distrust, and misinformation in our community. We believe we are being targeted because we are vocal, uncompromising, and effective (qualities any social or climate justice group should be proud to claim), not because we have broken any laws.

"It is important to remember that nothing good ever comes from talking to the police. If you don't talk, they won't have any information. The majority of convictions of activists would not be possible were it not for informants, undercover agents, and snitches. Even if you think you are going to 'clear up our name,' it is better to say nothing at all. If questioned by police, remember that the only thing you should say is 'I am going to remain silent. I would like to speak with my lawyer.' Without voluntary snitches, the police would be much less effective at neutralizing activist groups. However much reward money you are offered (and do you really think they'll deliver on that promise?), it is never worth it to betray your friends, comrades, and the movement. And statistically, people who snitch receive sentences that are just as long, if not longer, than those who refuse to talk. If you snitch you're not 'just telling them what they already know,' you're giving them the tools to fabricate charges where they couldn't before, and you're setting back the movement. If you incriminate others, you are also incriminating yourself and making yourself a target of investigation.

"This false insinuation that Olympia Rising Tide is comprised of known criminals and is wanted by the police and FBI is part of the larger crackdown on environmental and animal rights activists known as the Green Scare. Activists who carry out non-violent but illegal activities in furtherance of animal or earth liberation are demonized as violent terrorists. This 'terrorism' rhetoric is used to prevent people from speaking out in the first place, and justify the criminalization of previously free speech. The government is not going after us for breaking the law, they're going after us because we're effective. For more information on the Green Scare, check out www.greenisthenewred.com.

"Anyone who has information on Shayne O'Neill or the source of the original article is asked to please contact Olympia Rising Tide at olympia@risingtidenorthamerica.org. If you believe you have been harassed because of your political beliefs, affiliations, or perceived political beliefs and affiliations, please contact the National Lawyers Guild's Green Scare hotline: 1-888-NLG-ECOL.

"Olympia Rising Tide will not be scared into passivity, nor will we allow ourselves to be neutralized by unfounded allegations of criminal activity. We will continue to remain vocal, uncompromising, and effective in confronting the root causes of climate change."

(To be clear, the article you are reading now was not written by Olympia Rising Tide, just some anarchists who appreciated their previous commentary and found it to still be pertinent.)

The most significant difference between the article that appeared in January and the one that appeared on May 13 is the terrorism rhetoric. In the previous article, the author only insinuated that the people and organizations listed were known criminals and wanted by the police and FBI. In this article, the author goes ones step further and insinuates that the groups and people are domestic terrorists. Whatever government agency wrote this call for snitches can get away with the terrorism rhetoric because they didn't outright say “such-and-such group is a terrorist organization,” although the FBI and police have certainly done so in the past with many of the groups listed here, and could certainly get away with calling every one of these groups terrorists – not because anyone on this list inspires terror, but because the FBI and police can get away with whatever they want, including lying through their teeth.

We (the authors of what you are reading now) are anarchists. We are under no illusions that the State has our best interests at heart. This attempt to gather information on radical and revolutionary groups is not the result of a few “bad apples.” This is how the State functions. We are under no illusions that the State will follow its own rules of conduct. If the State is ever forced to follow its own rules, it simply revises them. So while we are not surprised that it is gathering information on radicals (really, this is nothing new), we are pissed off and sick of this shit.

In their response to the initial snitching article, Olympia Rising Tide wrote of the criminalization of free speech. While we agree that the State is always looking for ways to silence more and more oppositional voices, we would like to shatter the illusion of “free speech.” Under the State and capitalism, speech has never been free for People of Color, poor people, queer and trans people, or any other number of targets of oppression. While it is crucial to support Green Scare prisoners and note how the government has fractured earth and animal liberation movements into “legal” versus “illegal” and “violent” versus “non-violent,” it is just as important to note the ways in which the government has also done so (and continues to do so) in communities of color, poor communities, and queer and trans communities.
To be clear, we are at war. Against the forces that oppress us and keep us miserable in all aspects of our lives, against capitalism and the State. We don't expect the State to play nice, but we expect people to recognize which side they're on and not sell out their comrades. Playing by the State's rules (whether that means avoiding illegality or adhering to Nonviolence) doesn't guarantee you won't be targeted. Debates over violence versus Nonviolence and whether or not property destruction constitutes “violence” are a dead end that serve to further neutralize all forms of resistance and further fracture the movement.
Finally, we would like to note that this snitch search has appeared on Indymedias all over the world. Almost every article is attributed to the name of a different author. We don't believe that the names listed are the actual authors (in all likelihood, whatever agency that wrote this bullshit just gathered a bunch of names from the internet), and we caution against taking action against anyone whose name appears on this article unless it can be verified that they actually had a hand in this.
- Some anarchists

11 comments:

  1. Hello all.

    The mis-spellings point to an interesting phenomenon that I have been noticing lately and that is un-experienced people claiming to be affiliated with law enforcement so they can get government contracts as consultants.

    It could be a degree of Walter Mitty-ism ('cept the good Mitty never hurt people with his imagination) but to me it looks like private intelligence gathering ala H.B Gary Federal (except H.B Gary folks were actually close to their targets without offering bribes.) so they can present a LEO or a state agency with their information and claim that they actually "run informants".

    My question to people does anyone have this information (like the phone number) on file? I followed the Indymedia link and found nothing.

    I can and will get the phone registration information and post it here at my expense for all to see if someone can get this and post it here.

    ---The Anarchist Who Eats At McDonald's And Starbucks Whose Friends Are Often Dissapointed With His Habits.

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  2. Hello, me again.

    I did some research and found the posts after googleing "anarcist book fair"

    The first one I looked at caused me to waste lots of time (more on that later.) because of the last link was the only private organization. So I researched the hell out of it.

    http://milwaukee.indymedia.org/en/2011/02/211846.shtml

    This one was made in Venezuela Indymedia

    http://venezuela.indymedia.org/es/2011/01/28218.shtml

    Chicago
    http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/93947/index.php

    Pittsburgh

    http://pittsburgh.indymedia.org/news/2011/03/37101.php

    Indybay (scroll down)

    http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/02/08/18671575.php

    and so on...

    The poster of this is oddly the only person to call the Anarchist Book Fair the "Anarcist Book Fair" on the whole internet. That is something that we should be proud of, since that means we never misspell anarchist.

    Now the odd bit, the one part that took a good portion of my evening was that after January 5th the poster included this link

    http://rubywatch.hsfamerica.org/

    wtf is a Rubywatch and what the hell is hsfamerica.org?

    hsfamerica.org is Homeland Security For America, a non profit snitch and safety clearinghouse that is run by a very fat man and a man who I hope to never see eating soup...ever, and a woman whom I cannot find any faults with. Rubywatch is something I still cannot figure out, its mascot is a giant red, sponge wearing a wig.

    While I prepare the rest of my post please view a youtube video featuring a canned appearance by Norman Schwartzkopf and you can see what I mean about the the dude's totally gross moustache. He looks like Cousin Itt from the Addams Family shaved to look like Colonel Sanders for halloween.

    http://www.youtube.com/user/HSFAmerica

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  3. Now that you have seen a man whose moustache serves the same function as baleen does to a Humpback Whale I can continue.

    I am going to start with my conclusions first. When doing research of this kind it is very easy to see connections but often...very often..they are just coincidences. It is understandable that we see these things considering how anarchists are subjected to undue harrassment, observation and arrest but we have to remember that an incorrect conclusion is always incorrect no matter what our feelings and our history. So I had to use my experience with these sort of things (and that is pretty extensive) most of that experience was being incorrect enough times so the correct conclusion was all that was left.

    So just remember, this is one evening's research and I may be incorrect.

    I think that the posts on Indymedia were most likely done by a troll. I believe this is about a 70% probability based on the volume of posts, the repitition and the fact it hit on sensitive areas for the "left" and especially the North West people. It had little logic to it other than to cause anger and maybe fear (both justified..which is why I am doing this work on a Friday night).

    But, the part that bothers me is the fact that one link, added after January 5th to RubyWatch.hsfamerica.org involved a snitch service. My quick research into this group showed wanna-be cops, resume padding businessmen and a physical adress linked to electronic surveilance products. That was just too many coincidences to pass up.

    It could be that the troll saw these coincidences too and that is why he added them after early January in 2011. Even if that is true hsfamerica.org is a bunch of suck-ups to power and they deserve to be exposed and made fun of.

    I am going to separate my posts for ease of reading and so I do not go over the word limit.

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  4. http://rubywatch.hsfamerica.org/default.aspx

    The site is weird.

    It has an awkward system of navigating threats that are done by zip code only and not region (they have not received any tips as far as I can tell)

    It has something called C-System Access and there is an agreement you click on that pops up a menacing warning.

    http://rubywatch.hsfamerica.org/CSystemAccess.aspx

    Yes, this small place in a office complex that hosts training during the summer months for a German electronic security company has its own National Investigative Services Division. Scary indeed...until you see the man in charge of this division. His name is Keith Preusse, and his face looks as if it is trying to eat itself.

    http://www.linkedin.com/in/keithpreusse

    When not eating, Keith manages their database.

    Other's use Rubywatch too. Apparently that is a patent of some sort called C-System

    http://rubywatch.hsfamerica.org/HelpFile/ShowThread.aspx?f=7&p=1&t=101

    Of interest is that the City of Minneapolis uses it. I have no idea where Bumanglag is, but they use it too. Interesting enough is Boeing, they use it. You see, Boeing is more likely to get government contracts if they hire "minority owned businesses" as subcontractors...more on that later because it ties into previous research I have done in years past....also with Indymedia harassment (please see my earlier warning about finding connections that may be a coincidence as well).

    This website is confusing. I have even lost track of where I am or where funny stuff is. They did have a form to fill out where they requested your Tax ID, DL number, SSN, and all kinds of stuff that no one in their right mind would fill out in a pdf, print, sign and fax it back to them. Those of you not familiar with faxes , what you did was you got Tom from next door to help bump start your Buick Roadmaster, told your wife to get off the phone and that you did not care if the call was "long distance" then you tilted your fedora, lit a Lucky Strike and dialed in the numbers and fed a piece of paper into a noisy machine. Then you died of Polio because faxes are so old that you can still catch Polio from using one.

    This is why they do not have any database to use. Which is weird why a number of people seem to use a useless database that they likely paid for.

    More on that later...I gotta take a break. In my next segment we find the owner of both a Private Homeland Security Company who is also a Process Server and President of the HSFA. And we wonder where they got 1/2 Million dollars for such a rinky-dink organization.

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  5. Also mentioned above is that this is a certified minority owned company. That opens up doors for defense contracts. Years ago there was a group that was doing bandwith attacks on IMCs and causing people to have to pay out of pocket for excessive bandwith. I traced those to an IP block owned by a company in Gardena called Aeroarc. They were a minority owned company that did orbital tube welding (for jet fighters) but their factory floor was incapable of orbital tube welding. Their IP block also hosted minority owned tube welding places that were really things like lawncare centers and jewelry polishing companies. One guy who was an advisor to Aeroarc was a white dude who ran Creative Pathways. They supplied parts to Boeing. But being non-minority they and Boeing needed an edge and that edge was bogus tube welding outfits run by minorities to get preference on their contracts. So Creative Pathways did the welding and the others did the selling. Since the network admin was not doing anything else he decided to use his group to attack the antiwar movement, they were known as Kobehq.com.

    That is why my paranoia went up when I saw that Boeing used Rubywatch. I suspect that Teck Vond sells C-System (AKA Rubywatch) so Boeing and other groups can get their minority quota in for the defense industry. Here is my post kind of about it on Indymedia many years ago (I excluded the Boeing and Creative Pathways part for reasons I do not remember)

    http://boston.indymedia.org/newswire/display/34254/index.php

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  6. is there a reason why my follow up posts were deleted? I did not mean to offend only to do some research that pertained to the poster's problem with an indymedia weirdo.

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  7. Haven't deleted any posts, will check with the software to see if you got marked for spam. Thanks for the further research.

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  8. Oh, that might be the case since I broke up my main work and posted it one after the other.

    I will repost the missing parts later.

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  9. This post comes after the one where I was worried about going over the word limit. The spam-bot did its work too well and now the order is screwed up.
    --------------------------------------------------
    My first step was to go to the website RubyWatch.hsfamerica.org. There I saw the armed aryan sponge who took too much niacin. That confused me so I did a WHOIS lookup and found this:

    Domain Name:HSFAMERICA.ORG
    Created On:05-Oct-2007 15:50:32 UTC
    Last Updated On:15-Sep-2010 02:39:36 UTC
    Expiration Date:05-Oct-2011 15:50:32 UTC
    Sponsoring Registrar:GoDaddy.com, Inc. (R91-LROR)
    Status:CLIENT DELETE PROHIBITED
    Status:CLIENT RENEW PROHIBITED
    Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED
    Status:CLIENT UPDATE PROHIBITED
    Registrant ID:CR33955335
    Registrant Name:HSFA Support
    Registrant Organization:The Homeland Security Foundation of America
    Registrant Street1:2110 Newmarket Pkwy
    Registrant Street2:Suite 211
    Registrant Street3:
    Registrant City:Marietta
    Registrant State/Province:Georgia
    Registrant Postal Code:30067
    Registrant Country:US
    Registrant Phone:+1.87708596850

    Here I saw one of the most common mistakes of a registration. The 877 number has one didget too many. People do the numbers with the caps lock on for some reason and their brain tells them that there needs to be a parenthesis somewhere so they add a zero by accident. I love seeing that for some reason and thought I would share.

    The next thing I checked was the address. Usually when you see a "suite" you will also find that it hosts numerous other businesses and I was right. A check for "suite" 211 at 2110 Newmarket Parkway in Marrietta revealed two companies (kind of) One was Bosch Security Systems of Germany and the other was Peerless Electronics Inc. of New York State. It turned out the same address was a distributer for both companies (Bosch and Peerless had nothing to do with any of this). More research had that address also doing training for Bosch products. Training usually means that their is ample space and it is not occupied by other junk so the trainer can come in, set up, run a class for a day or two and then pack up and leave. I say this only because the Youtube video I posted earlier clearly shows such a place.

    I am not sure of the name of the distributer of these products. Is this person a security "buff"? Perhaps, but I do think they are tied in with the crank organization in some way but the companies they represent are not.

    My next step was to go to the Rubywatch hsfamerica site and then do some light digging on the members to see what kind of people they were.

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  10. This is weird. I have been trying to post the remainder of my post for two days on two separate IPs and the spamkiller keeps on killing me.

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  11. Im looking for a free website to search out rats. Can anyone help me out ?

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