FBI

“Defendant Shall Not Attend Protests”: In Portland, Getting Out of Jail Requires Relinquishing Constitutional Rights

By Dara Lind | – ( ProPublica ) – Federal authorities are using a new tactic in their battle against protesters in Portland, Oregon: arrest them on offenses as minor as “failing to obey” an order to get off a sidewalk on federal property — and then tell them they can’t protest anymore as a […]

Bush

First the Nat’l Security State Surged Baghdad, now it is Surging Portland and Seattle

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – USA Today’s headline went, “Mayors see broken trust, political agenda in Trump’s surge of federal officers to US cities.” Surge? For those of us old enough to remember George W. Bush’s Iraq War, the use of the word “surge” to describe Federal agents sent into Democratic cities to break heads […]

Bill of Rights

The Attack of the Feds from the Deep: Autocratic Trump is Testing his Limits

John Feffer

( Foreign Policy in Focus) – Federal agents poured into Portland, Oregon this month to crack down on anti-racism protests. They beat up peaceful protesters and fired impact munitions at demonstrators, seriously injuring one of them. They drove around the city in unmarked vans pulling people off the street. Oregon officials at every level — […]

Donald Trump

Trump’s ISIL Reelection Scheme: Send Federal Agents to Provoke Protesters in Dem Cities, Scare Suburbs

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Part of Trump’s reelection strategy is to scare the white suburbs, which polls show have soured on him, with “urban” (read: minority) violence. This is clear from his current campaign ads, which try to paint the gentlemanly Joe Biden as a bomb thrower. It now appears clear that part of […]

FBI

Has the FBI been spying on US citizens at Israel’s behest?

Asa Winstanley

( Middle East Monitor ) – US Federal Bureau of Investigation documents obtained by The Intercept and published at the start of April made for fascinating reading. They showed that federal officers conducted a 2004-2006 “terrorism” investigation into the International Solidarity Movement, a non-violent Palestine solidarity group. The investigation proved only that the ISM was […]

Far Right

If the FBI Really Arrested 90 Suspects in Domestic Terror Probe, Why won’t they Share Records of Even One?

ProPublica

By Fritz Zimmermann | ProPublica | – On July 23, FBI Director Christopher Wray told the Senate Judiciary Committee that federal investigations of domestic terrorism had led to some 100 arrests in the last nine months. While the FBI quickly announced that the number was 90, not 100, the basic message appeared unchanged: The FBI […]

Donald Trump

FBI opened Investigation of Trump’s Russia Ties over Comey Firing

AFP

While Trump has slammed the probe as baseless, Mueller has issued dozens of indictments

Domestic Surveillance

Comey did it to himself & Us, by gutting Privacy, Encryption, & 4th Amendment

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – In former FBI director James Comey’s interview with ABC News, he attempted to position himself as an upholder of the rule of law, of the constitution, and even of the truth. Human beings are very good at forgetting their own misdeeds and building narratives that justify […]

Donald Trump

Cherry-Picking Intel, Nunes and the Iraq War Disaster

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Here is a caution against the Nunes memo that the Republican Party intends to release: it is the sort of thing that got us into the disastrous Iraq War. Cherry-picking raw intelligence is one of the ways the hawks around Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld bamboozled Washington […]