Counter-activism & Counter-Revolutions. Snowden Documents Reveal Covert Surveillance and Pressure Tactics Aimed at WikiLeaks and Its Supporters - The InterceptThe Intercept. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth) Top-secret documents from the National Security Agency and its British counterpart reveal for the first time how the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom targeted WikiLeaks and other activist groups with tactics ranging from covert surveillance to prosecution. The efforts – detailed in documents provided previously by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden – included a broad campaign of international pressure aimed not only at WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, but at what the U.S. government calls “the human network that supports WikiLeaks.”
The documents also contain internal discussions about targeting the file-sharing site Pirate Bay and hacktivist collectives such as Anonymous. One classified document from Government Communications Headquarters, Britain’s top spy agency, shows that GCHQ used its surveillance system to secretly monitor visitors to a WikiLeaks site. GCHQ Spies on WikiLeaks Visitors. NSA, GHCQ targeted WikiLeaks network. The latest report from the Intercept based on Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks reveals how the NSA and its British counterpart GCHQ targeted WikiLeaks and its supporters. The report details how the U.S. and U.K. governments deployed surveillance tools against WikiLeaks networks and supporters, while pressuring international governments to persecute the organization’s founder, Julian Assange, over the publication of the Afghanistan war logs.
The documents also show that the NSA considered ways to spy on Anonymous affiliates and hackers as well as users of file-sharing site Pirate Bay. The documents are some of the most significant to come to light yet in highlighting the government’s engagement in what Snowden’s attorney Jesselyn Raddack has long called a “war on information.” Publishers and activists have been specifically targeted for making public otherwise secrecy-shrouded instances of abuses of power by the government and the military. Via The Intercept:
Nationwide - Guilt by association? Here's why were. Chicago Police “Heat List” Renews Old Fears About Government Flagging and Tagging. The Verge had a story last week (expanding on an August report from the Chicago Tribune that I’d missed) that the Chicago police have created a list of the “400 most dangerous people in Chicago.” The Trib reported on one fellow, who had no criminal arrests, expressing surprise over having received a visit from the police and being told he was on this list. A 17-year-old girl was also shocked when told she was on the list. The database, according to the Verge, is based on historic crime information, disturbance calls, and suspicious person reports. The CPD’s list is heavily based on social network analysis (which is interesting considering the debates now swirling around the uses of metadata and the analysis such data enables).
The list was funded through a Justice Department grant known as “Two Degrees of Association.” I’m still consistently surprised how often things we worry about in the abstract actually show up in the real world. Ha! Filmmaker Joe Tropea talks about the... - The Real News Network. A Look at the FBI Infiltration of the Anti-Vietnam War Movement (2/2) DN! Exclusive: Inside the Army Spy Ring & Attempted Entrapment of Peace Activists, Iraq Vets, Anarchists. AMY GOODMAN: More details have come to light showing the U.S. military infiltrated and spied on a community of antiwar activists in the state of Washington and beyond. Democracy Now! First broke the story in 2009 that an active member of Students for a Democratic Society and Port Militarization Resistance was actually an informant for the U.S. military.
At the time, Port Militarization Resistance was staging nonviolent actions to stop military shipments bound for Iraq and Afghanistan. The man everyone knew as "John Jacob" was in fact John Towery, a member of the Force Protection Service at Fort Lewis. He also spied on the Industrial Workers of the World and Iraq Veterans Against the War. BRENDAN MASLAUSKAS DUNN: After it was confirmed that he was in fact John Towery, I knew he wouldn’t call me, so I called him up the day after. So, when I met him, he admitted to several things. So he admitted to other things, too. Since 2009, there have been numerous developments in the case. House Un-American Activities Committee. While newsmen take notes, Chairman Dies of House Committee Investigating Un-American Activities reads & proofs his statement replying to Pres. Roosevelt's attack on the Committee, Oct. 26, 1938 The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives.
It was created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having Communist ties. In 1969, the House changed the committee's name to "House Committee on Internal Security". When the House abolished the committee in 1975,[1] its functions were transferred to the House Judiciary Committee.
The committee's anti-Communist investigations are often confused with those of Senator Joseph McCarthy.[2] McCarthy, as a U.S. Precursors to the permanent committee[edit] Overman Committee (1918)[edit] Fish Committee (1930)[edit] McCormack-Dickstein Committee (1934–1937)[edit] Pete Seeger Songs. Testimony of Pete Seeger before the House Un-American Activities Committee, August 18, 1955. Here’s the Amazing Transcript of Pete Seeger Pissing Off the House Un-American Activities Committee. House Un-American Activities Committee, August 18, 1955.
House Unamerican Activities Committee August 18, 1955 Pete Seeger A Subcommittee of the Committee on Un-American Activities met at 10 a.m., in room 1703 of the Federal Building, Foley Square, New York, New York, the Honorable Francis E. Walter (Chairman) presiding. Committee members present: Representatives Walter, Edwin E. Staff members present: Frank S. MR. MR. MR. MR. MR. MR. MR. MR. MR. MR. MR. MR. MR. MR. CHAIRMAN WALTER: Will you answer the question, please? MR. CHAIRMAN WALTER: Did you practice your profession? MR. MR. MR. MR. MR. MR. MR. CHAIRMAN WALTER: I direct you to answer. MR. CHAIRMAN WALTER: You have only been asked one question, so far. MR. MR. CHAIRMAN WALTER: He said that he is not going to answer any questions, any names or things. MR. MR. MR. CHAIRMAN WALTER: The same answer. MR. CHAIRMAN WALTER: What is your answer? MR. MR. (Witness consulted with counsel [Paul L. CHAIRMAN WALTER: Why don't you make a little contribution toward preserving its institutions?
MR. MR. MR. MR. DN! Spies of Mississippi: New Film on the State-Sponsored Campaign to Defeat the Civil Rights Movement. AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to another story of government spying on activists, this time during the civil rights movement. The story is told in a new film now airing on PBS. It’s called Spies of Mississippi. LAWRENCE GUYOT: Lyndon Johnson said, "There’s America, there’s the South, and then there’s Mississippi. " RALPH EUBANKS: Well, the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission was Mississippi’s spy agency during the civil rights movement.
WILLIAM WINTER: The Sovereignty Commission wanted to know who the activists were in the black community. They were out to stop overt efforts at integration. JERRY MITCHELL: It’s state government itself. MARGARET BLOCK: We knew we were being followed. REP. WILLIAM WINTER: As far as the Sovereignty Commission went, in terms of crossing legal lines, I think it is accurate to say that they crossed them all the time.
Click here to support this global independent news hour today. We welcome you both to Democracy Now! REP. PRISONER 1: I don’t mind coming to jail. Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission. Millsaps students protesting death of JSU student and civil rights worker Benjamin Brown. Photo shot by the Commission with numbers identifying individual students. [1] The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission was a state agency directed by the governor of Mississippi that existed from 1956 to 1977, also known as the Sov-Com.[2] The commission's stated objective was to "[...] protect the sovereignty of the state of Mississippi, and her sister states" from "federal encroachment.
" Initially, it was formed to coordinate activities to portray the state, and the legal racial segregation enforced by the state, in a more positive light. Creation and structure[edit] Activities[edit] The commission's activities included attempting to preserve the state's segregation and Jim Crow laws, opposing school integration, and ensuring portrayal of the state "in a positive light. " Demise and legacy[edit] The commission officially closed in 1977, four years after Governor Bill Waller vetoed funding. Black Civil Rights Leader Was Mississippi's Prolific `Agent X' June 07, 1998|By Dahleen Glanton, Tribune Staff Writer.
JACKSON, MISS. — The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission files identify him simply as "Agent X. " A black man in a state obsessed with preserving Jim Crow segregation, he was perhaps the government's most prolific ally. The recently unsealed documents reveal that he was a respected civil rights leader in the 1960s, a competent strategist and trusted confidant who attended private meetings and drove young protesters to events in his green and tan Cadillac.
For years, the Sovereignty Commission, a state-funded agency established to thwart integration, held Agent X in its back pocket. His most damaging work as a snitch occurred his first day on the job in 1964, according to the files, when he provided investigators the license plate number of a blue Ford station wagon registered to the Congress of Racial Equality, information that was circulated throughout the state.
The mere mention of the name R.L. The History of Surveillance and the Black Community. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X waiting for press conference, March 26, 1964. (Photo: Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons) February is Black History Month and that history is intimately linked with surveillance by the federal government in the name of "national security. " Indeed, the history of surveillance in the African-American community plays an important role in the debate around spying today and in the calls for a congressional investigation into that surveillance.
Days after the first NSA leaks emerged last June, EFF called for a new Church Committee. The latest revelations about surveillance are only the most recent in a string of periodic public debates around domestic spying perpetrated by the NSA, FBI, and CIA. Government surveillance programs, most infamously the FBI’s “COINTELPRO”, targeted Black Americans fighting against segregation and structural racism in the 1950s and 60s. The FBI subjected Dr.
The FBI was not alone in targeting civil rights leaders. Why we need privacy. Not All "Serve and protect you" Entrapment. Cointelpro (fbi history) COINTELPRO. The Palmer Raids. House Un-American Activities Committee. American Committee's/Commissions.