Gang Stalking News
“Show me somebody who is always smiling, always cheerful, always optimistic, and I will show you somebody who hasn’t the faintest idea what the heck is really going on.” — Mike Royko
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Visitors to this website who are unfamiliar with the crime of organized stalking should begin by reading the “What is Gang Stalking?” page for an overview.
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February 8, 2014
V.A. doctors said Washington Navy Yard shooter had no mental health issues
Last week the Associated Press (AP) reported that the medical records of Aaron Alexis – the gunman who killed 12 people and injured 8 in a shooting rampage in September of last year – indicated that the Veterans Affairs doctors who examined Alexis weeks before the shooting determined that he did not appear to have any mental health issues.
“Speech and thoughts clear and focused…” was the description of the attending doctor.
The AP obtained Alexis’s medical records via a Freedom of Information Act request. Normally, the government does not disclose medical records, but the Veterans Affairs Department made an exception because of the public interest in the mass shooting.
It has been widely reported that Alexis had complained that he was the victim of precisely the kind of electronic harassment commonly described by many self-proclaimed targets of U.S. counterintelligence subversion (gang stalking).
About six weeks before the shooting, while staying at a hotel, Alexis had complained about being harassed by noise (a common tactic in psychological operations). This harassment apparently was leaving him sleep-deprived, and he reported his insomnia to his VA doctors.
“An attending doctor provided additional details, saying Alexis suffered from fatigue after sleeping only two or three hours every night over the past three weeks.”
A complete record of the interesting facts reported about the shooting, can be seen here.
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February 7, 2014
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Scalia warns about internment camps
On Monday U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia publicly warned that it would not surprise him if the U.S. Supreme Court authorized internment camps for U.S. citizens again during wartime – just as it did for Japanese-Americans during World War II.
Scalia’s comment came in response to a question posed while he was at the University of Hawaii. He was responding to a question about the Supreme Court’s decision in Korematsu v. U.S., in which the court ruled in favor of forcing Japanese-Americans to report to an internment camp.
Scalia made clear that he felt that the decision was wrong, but that such rulings are likely to happen again during times of war.
“Well of course Korematsu was wrong. And I think we have repudiated [it] in a later case. But you are kidding yourself if you think the same thing will not happen again.”
A well-established policy in the U.S. corporate mainstream news media is that discussion of internment camps should always be portrayed dismissively as a lunatic fringe concern. You can examine the various media accounts of opinions expressed by former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura for examples.
Antonin Scalia is also frequently characterized in the Washington news media as being outside the mainstream because of his conservative views, but it does undermine the establishment propaganda a bit when a United States Supreme Court Justice explicitly states that the danger of such police state actions is real.
Thank you to the Hawaiian reader of this website who brought Scalia’s comments to my attention.
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February 2, 2014
Gang stalking victim in New Jersey who distributed flyers has died
A reader of this website has brought to my attention that Frank L. Raffaele – whose distribution of flyers about gang stalking was the subject of an article in a New Jersey newspaper – died in November. I offer my condolences to his relatives and friends.
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January 31, 2014
Obama’s expert on lying warns about “paranoid libertarianism”
Cass R. Sunstein, a Harvard Law School professor and close confidant of President Obama, has written a column at Bloomberg calling attention to the danger of letting “paranoia” influence public policy.
Sunstein is concerned about folks on both the left and right of the political spectrum who have “a wildly exaggerated sense of risks” that the government will abuse its authority in ways which violate civil liberties.
This “presumption of bad faith on the part of government officials” is unwarranted as Sunstein sees it. For perspective, it is important to know that Mr. Sunstein has interesting views about lying. He co-authored a paper at Harvard in 2008 which asserted that sometimes it’s a good idea for the government to lie to the public to shape opinion in ways that make people easier to govern. Seriously.
Presumably because he shares Obama’s views on the usefulness of lying, Sunstein was chosen to run the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs during the first Obama administration. His responsibilities in that position included overseeing policies on privacy and information quality.
He was also appointed by the White House last summer to serve on the panel which reviewed the NSA’s surveillance program in the wake of the disclosures by whistle-blower Edward Snowden. Again, presumably Sunstein was chosen for his creative notions about honesty and for his belief that massive secret expansions of government power should not be viewed with suspicion.
Although he is critical of paranoia, Sunstein is selective about which instances of paranoid thinking should be resisted. He seems to be unconcerned, for example, about the federal government’s conviction that our nation should be obsessed with terrorism – notwithstanding the fact that it is statistically less of a threat than say, lightning strikes.
Instead, the “paranoia” which Sunstein objects to is the kind exhibited by civil liberties advocates – the people who protest things like black-listing and profiling and harassment by thugs in the law enforcement industry.
“Paranoid libertarians tend to believe that as individuals or as members of specified groups, they are being targeted by the government, or will be targeted imminently, or will be targeted as soon as officials have the opportunity to target them.”
For whatever reason, the column does not mention any people who have actually been unjustly targeted by powerful government officials and agencies – such as the victims of the FBI’s Cointelpro operations or victims of current counterintelligence harassment (gang stalking) such as Jeffrey Kantor (see the post below).
Sunstein has adopted the totally-reasonable view that since Harvard professors who are close associates of the President of the United States do not seem to be targeted for harassment by the government, no one should be concerned about being targeted.
This compelling logic presumably impressed the editors at Bloomberg – which is owned by billionaire Michael Bloomberg.
So we have a consensus: a Harvard professor, a U.S. president, and a billionaire all agree: no one should worry that powerful people might abuse their power by targeting those who are deemed inconvenient.That settles it.
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January 25, 2014
U.S. government contractor sues federal officials for gang-stalking him
CBS, the Daily Mail, RT, and Tech Dirt reported that last month a former U.S. government contractor filed a lawsuit against federal agencies and high-level government officials for gang stalking him and causing him to lose his job. The story first appeared on 10 December inCourthouse News Service, a national source of civil litigation news for attorneys.
Officials named as defendants in the lawsuit include Attorney General Eric Holder, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Secretary of State John Kerry.
Jeffrey Kantor, the plaintiff, claims he became the target of intense stalking, harassment, and threats beginning in October 2009 after he made a Google search which attracted the attention of federal agents.
As the Daily Mail reported, Kantor alleges that he “was fired from his job after the government stalked him and used his co-workers to emotionally abuse him.”
Kantor’s lawsuit seeks $13.8 million in compensatory damages and $45 million in punitive damages, as well as an injunction to prevent the government from further stalking him.
Kantor’s complaint – filed on 4 December in Federal court in Virginia – alleges that the federal government made him the target of a “group stalking” campaign. The complaint states that group stalking is “(aka gang-stalking).”
As I explain in this website, “gang stalking” is a slang term for a set of counterintelligence subversion tactics used by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies such as the FBI, and is also used by police and intelligence agencies in other nations. It was most famously used in communist East Germany by the Stasi (state police) – where the process was called zersetzung (which translates as “decomposition” or “corrosion”).
As explained in his complaint, the stalking began after Kantor performed a Google search for information about how to build a radio-controlled airplane – which he was planning to build with his son. According to Kantor, Google’s auto-complete function finished his query as “How to build a radio controlled bomb.”
According to Kantor, he then became a target of constant surveillance by government officials who began monitoring his computer activity, his book purchases, his phone calls, and his private conversations in his residence and in his car.
His claim also asserts that a GPS antenna was secretly attached to his car to monitor his travel.
At his workplace, Kantor became the target of constant verbal harassment and threats by his co-workers.
At the time, Kantor was employed by the Appian Corporation – a sub-contractor of a company called CRGT – which was hired by the large defense contractor Northrop Grumman to work for the U.S. Army at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.
Reportedly, Kantor has also filed a claim against the Appian Corporation. That case was filed in November in the Virginia Eastern District Court.
Kantor’s federal civil lawsuit against the U.S. government claims that the government’s gang stalking campaign against him involved illegal disclosure of his personal information, and violated the federal anti-stalking law. The suit also challenges the constitutional legitimacy of the Patriot Act.
According to the complaint, the gang stalking of Mr. Kantor involved multiple violations of his rights under the Constitution:
“Kantor asserts that this was done in an attempt to deprive Kantor of his 1st amendment right to free speech, his 4th amendment right to be secure in his house and papers, and his 5th amendment right to due process, his 6th amendment right to counsel, and his 8thamendment right to not be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment.”
Among the allegations in the complaint was that Kantor’s co-workers were apparently used to perpetrate constant verbal harassment and threats against him at his workplace.
Mainstream news media reports of this workplace harassment element of gang stalking – such as this August 2000 article in Newsweek/Daily Beast – refer to the process as “mobbing.”
Kantor claims that federal agents apparently used personal information about him – obtained by a secret FISA warrant under the Patriot Act – to psychologically torture him at work. The process continued after he found a new job.
The tactic, familiar to anyone targeted by gang stalking, involves making comments about something which could only have been acquired via unconstitutional surveillance – for example, the contents of a private conversation inside the victim’s residence. Comments are also made which will be understood as threats – but which are never explicit enough to be legally incriminating if recorded.
“Each time his information was repeated back, a person would immediately say there is a person and that person dropped dead from hypertension. If Kantor reacted angrily to them repeating back his private information (which included conversations in his house, conversations on his cell phone, emails that he sent, websites that he went to, and books that he got from the library) then the person instead of saying that there is a person who dropped dead from hypertension, would instead say that they had a neighbor who seemed like a nice person but went on a murder-suicide.”
Gang stalking – such as was done to Kantor – is a form of extra-judicial punishment. Kantor’s claim implies this by saying that such actions were done “for the purpose of harassment and group stalking, which has no legitimate investigative purpose.”
Harassment of Jeffrey Kantor included anti-Semitic comments according to his complaint. This too is consistent with a strategy apparently used in all cases of gang stalking – namely, trying to provoke emotional reactions by the targeted individual through the use of comments personally tailored to the victim (Kantor is Jewish).
As the CBS report of the lawsuit indicates, Kantor states that he reported the anti-Semitic comments to the Anti-Defamation League, after which he experienced an increase in the frequency of death threats.
Kantor’s complaint is filled with details about incidents that were intended to provoke him on a personal level – such as comments about Jews trying to control the U.S. government through the central bank. These tactics are consistent with reports of FBI tactics generally, which apparently often involve baiting people so that agents can capture some form of incriminating behavior when they react.
One example of this appears on page 17 of the complaint. One of Kantor’s co-workers would repeat Kantor’s private information to him“in a whiny high-pitched voice that he never used otherwise.”
Something which is apparent from the claim is that the plaintiff, Mr. Kantor, is an intellectually-sophisticated target. For example, at the time when his gang stalking began, Kantor was studying chemistry at George Mason University.
From my experience with correspondents who contact me via this website – individuals targeted by America’s Stasi agents range from clueless to exceptionally smart. Possibly some of the former end up as targets of counterintelligence subversion for the same reason thatmany of the “terrorists” arrested by the FBI seem to have been entrapped – namely, because they are essentially soft targets and therefore easy work for the agents and intelligence-security contractors who manage their surveillance. Conversely, some people might be targeted because their employer or an FBI agent suspects that they are dangerously capable of independent thought.
I have no doubt whatsoever – based on personal experience and news reports I cite elsewhere in this website – that gang stalking, not surprisingly, is also used as a personal weapon by people associated with the law enforcement and intelligence community to exact revenge.
Jeffrey Kantor is exceptional in that he had the wherewithal to document his case and retain legal counsel. His harassment is far from unique though – as indicated, for example, in the DOJ Statistics about cases of stalking which involve multiple perpetrators.
Kantor’s case is also probably typical in the sense that when an assessment is made that someone should be targeted, the career interests and egos of the agents involved make it very unlikely that the initial decision will be later acknowledged to have been wrong.
Of course, even if someone is an appropriate target of an investigation, the use of extra-judicial punishment would still be unconstitutional.
Note also that the tactics Kantor alleges were used against him – which are typical of accounts by other targeted individuals – involved psychological operations specifically intended to generate angry reactions by the target.
One of the intended effects of such methods – which are textbook FBI tricks – is that once someone is targeted for subversion, he or she will almost inevitably react in ways that can be portrayed as evidence that the individual is emotionally unstable – and therefore deserving of surveillance. It quickly becomes a Kafkaesque nightmare for the victim, who is essentially at the mercy of a bunch of sociopath minions of a rogue intelligence agency.
As is typical of gang stalking cases, the numerous incidents described in Kantor’s complaint are – by design – inherently difficult to prove. For example, even if the abusive comments were recorded, it would be very hard to show that they were part of a conspiracy to torment the victim.
No doubt Kantor and his attorney, Stephen Swift, understand the challenge they are facing. Quite possibly, the agencies involved will also employ a variety of illegal dirty tricks as the case progresses to make the challenge even greater. I have enormous respect for Mr. Swift’s courage for even taking the case, whatever the outcome.
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January 21, 2014
“Morbid Reality” comment thread about gang stalking onreddit.com
A discussion thread (a “subreddit” in reddit-speak) called “Morbid Reality” has been generating some Internet traffic to Fight Gang Stalking recently. Predictably, there are the usual disinformation comments by FBI sock-puppet minions, but also a few legitimate comments – several of which contained links to Fight Gang Stalking.
Here is one of the recent comments – in response to the disinformation:
It’s a fascinating puzzle why “paranoid schizophrenia” would sweep across the country and manifest itself coincidentally in precisely similar experiences. Schizophrenia is a genetic and neuro-biological illness. Those are not known to be contagious.
Hmmm… What would Sherlock Holmes think about the schizophrenia theory?
The other theory is that – since the described experiences are precisely identical to counterintelligence subversion psyops tactics used by the FBI and formerly by the East German Stasi, that what is happening is a new version of Cointelpro.
By remarkable coincidence, a former high-level FBI official, the late Ted L. Gunderson, publicly maintained that gang stalking is in fact a modern version of the FBI’s infamous Cointelpro operations.
A Belgian criminologist – Nicolas Desurmont – has published several academic peer-reviewed articles on gang stalking tactics being used by police in Belgium. There are also about a dozen published news articles on this topic in both the U.S. and foreign press which you can read at (http://FightGangStalking.com).
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January 20, 2014
Former FBI agent tried to smear Edward Snowden on “Meet the Press”
On yesterday’s broadcast of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” chairman of the House intelligence committee, Mike Rogers (R-Michigan), tried to slander NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden by alleging that he probably worked with Russia to obtain and reveal NSA secrets.
Being a former FBI agent, Rogers is not especially fond of the man who exposed the Stasi rodent empire.
Rep. Rogers said he suspected that Snowden was “a thief whom we believe had some help.”
“Let me just say this. I believe there’s a reason he ended up in the hands, the loving arms, of an FSB agent in Moscow. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”
In support of his allegations against Snowden, the Congressman cited – nothing.
Of course, NBC’s totally-legitimate serious journalist David Gregory did not let that purely-fabricated allegation go unchallenged: “That’s a significant development if it’s true” he said.
In response to that withering cross-examination, Rogers said this:
“Well, like I said, we have questions we have to answer. But as somebody who used to do investigations, some of the things we’re finding we would call clues that certainly would indicate to me that he had some help.”
David Gregory then asked Senator Diane Feinstein (D-California), chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee if she concurred with Congressman Rogers’ suspicions that Snowden colluded with the Russians.
“He may well have” said Sen. Feinstein.
Naturally, Gregory demanded to know the evidence of Snowden’s alleged treason. He did this by asking Feinstein this:
“Is it critical, then, to get to the bottom? And will you investigate who might have been involved and whether there was any link to the Russians?”
Thankfully, both Feinstein and Rogers assured Gregory – and the American public – by saying “Absolutely.”
Apparently, the talking points had been passed around to all the top political rodents connected to the U.S. intelligence community. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House committee on homeland security told ABC’s “This Week:” “I believe he [Snowden] was cultivated by a foreign power to do what he did.” McCaul also apparently based his suspicions on the same non-existent evidence.
“I think he was helped by others. Again, I can’t give a definitive statement on that…”
Using the same standards of proof, it could be fairly alleged that Edward Snowden might have been assisted by space aliens. We’ll just have to wait to see if evidence for that emerges. In the mean time, we cannot rule it out.
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January 15, 2014
What can law enforcement personnel in America get away with?
This is what law enforcement personnel in America can get away with.
On Monday a jury in southern California decided that it was OK with them that officers from their local police department beat to death an unarmed mentally ill homeless man who was posing no risk to anyone.
The mere fact that the whole incident was completely recorded on surveillance video (and audio), and that the victim was pleading for mercy during the ten minutes he was being beaten by a half-dozen police officers was deemed by the jury to be of no significance. They found the officers innocent – not only of the murder charge against the main defendant – but also of the lesser charges of excessive use of force.
Apparently, the jurors were of the view that anyone in America who has a uniform and a badge should never have his actions questioned for any reason.
The victim, Kelly Thomas, was well-known to the officers who murdered him. He suffered from schizophrenia.
On the audio recording of the incident, as he was being beaten, Thomas could be heard screaming and begging for his life. During the final ten minutes of his life, as he was being killed, Thomas repeatedly shouted “I’m sorry” to the police officers, and repeatedly called out “Dad, help me! Dad help me!”
Kelly Thomas also shouted “I can’t breathe!” On the fourth day of the trial, the coroner who conducted Thomas’s autopsy confirmed that he died from lack of oxygen caused by chest compression during his struggle with police.
About 15 minutes into the video, one of the officers donned a pair of rubber gloves and said to Thomas: “See these fists? They’re going to fuck you up.” The officers repeatedly tasered Thomas and beat him with their fists and batons and bashed-in his face with the butt of their taser-gun.
He died five days later when he was removed from life-support.
Apparently, there are no rules for the government’s enforcers.
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January 15, 2014
A glimpse of the shadow government
In a column posted Sunday on the excellent websiteTomDispatch.com, Peter Van Buren, a former State Department Foreign Service Officer, suggests that the domestic spying revelations of NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden are only the tip of the iceberg.
Counterintelligence activities – such as gang stalking – would not be part of the NSA’s responsibilities. Those operations would presumably be handled by the FBI or perhaps the Department of Homeland Security.
“…count on one thing: we undoubtedly don’t yet know the worst or most illegal aspects of this era of “intelligence.” After all, while Snowden “liberated” up to 1.7 million National Security Agency documents (many of them not yet looked at, analyzed, or written about), there have been no similar twenty-first-century break-ins at the FBI, the CIA, or other parts of the American intelligence community (or for that matter at the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security). Massive and shocking as the NSA revelations have been, the curtain has only been pulled back on a corner of the new Washington world that we, the people, continue to fund, even if we aren’t considered important enough to know anything about it.” [emphasis added]
Another insightful piece on TomDispatch.com was posted last week by the website’s founder Tom Engelhardt, regarding the expansion of the national security complex. Engelhardt teaches at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley.
“It has essentially merged with a set of crony outfits that now do a significant part of its work. It has hired private contractors by the tens of thousands, creating corporate spies, corporate analysts, corporate mercenaries, corporate builders, and corporate providers for a structure that is increasingly becoming the profit-center of a state within a state.”
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January 14, 2014
Government stonewalling on Washington Navy Yard Shooting?
Mainstream news reports of the mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard in September 2013 contained multiple references to allegations about gang stalking. The shooter, Aaron Alexis, claimed to have been the target of organized stalking/MK Ultra tactics, including electronic harassment. He also sent emails to the FBI disinformation front group, FFCHS, several times shortly before the shooting. (For those unfamiliar with FFCHS, see the page of this website devoted to that organization.)
A whole bunch of interesting facts and questions surround the shooting – explained in detail here. That list of interesting facts keeps growing.
Last week, Politico reported that a local NBC news journalist in Washington D.C., Scott MacFarlane, received an email which the U.S. Navy sent to him by accident.
The internal email – from the Navy’s FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) office – outlined the strategy which they planned to use to limit the amount of information released to MacFarlane, who had filed a FOIA request for internal Navy memos sent on the day of the shooting.
MacFarlane tweeted about the incident with this message:
“EPIC FAILURE- U.S. Navy accidentally sends reporter its strategy memo for dodging his FOIA request”
He included this screenshot of the email. Click on the image to enlarge.
The most charitable analysis would be that this was simply routine “cover your ass” protocol for a government entity seeking to avoid embarrassing revelations about its incompetent management of security at a naval facility.
I know a little bit about this stuff incidentally, because I worked in the security industry and I was also a sailor in the U.S. Navy.
At least one thing is clear: some reporters in the mainstream news media are still curious about the shooting. Stay tuned.
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January 7, 2014
The activists who exposed the FBI’s Cointelpro operations have come forward
This morning’s New York Times features an article and video report about the previously-anonymous activists who broke into an FBI office in 1971 to seize the secret documents which exposed the infamous Cointelpro operations.
As the subsequent “Church Committee” Congressional investigations revealed, the FBI had committed numerous crimes against Americans – including slander, black bag jobs, warrantless electronic surveillance, blackmail, spreading disinformation by media manipulation and propaganda, infiltrating political groups, interfering with the judicial process, orchestrating acts of violence, and conducting overt surveillance (stalking).
Of the eight activists who participated in the break-in, five decided to reveal their identities, and three have chosen to remain anonymous. Of the five who decided to go public with their stories, one – William Davidon – died late last year.
The others are Keith Forsyth, John and Bonnie Raines, and Bob Williamson – heroes all.
Mr. and Mrs. Raines “said they felt a kinship toward [Edward] Snowden” – the NSA whistle-blower.
According to the late Ted L. Gunderson, who was a high-level official in the FBI during the Cointelpro era, the current phenomenon of “gang stalking” is a continuation of the Cointelpro operations in a more sophisticated form.
A new film about the break-in, called “1971” is in the works. Apparently, a release date has not been announced yet.
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Current FBI Director says the activists who exposed Cointelpro should have been prosecuted.
When speaking to reporters on 9 January, FBI Director James Comey said that the activists who broke into the FBI office in 1971 should have been prosecuted if they had been caught before the statute of limitations expired.
Comey did not mention anything about whether the FBI agents who perpetrated the numerous crimes against Americans during the Cointelpro era should also have been prosecuted.
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A quote from one of the activists who exposed Cointelpro
Everyone should pay very close attention to this quote from the above-referenced NY Times article. It has obvious relevance to the current version of Cointelpro (“gang stalking”). Activist Keith Forsyth explained why they felt the FBI office break-in was necessary:
“When you talked to people outside the movement about what the FBI was doing, nobody wanted to believe it.”
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January 6, 2014
Kill the beast before it grows even bigger
Anyone with first-hand knowledge of the criminal nature of America’s rogue counterintelligence operations must sometimes wonder if others really understand the depth of corruption in the U.S. government. Some people do understand.
Chris Hedges is one of those people. A journalist at truthdig, Hedges regularly excoriates the political establishment and its enforcers. Moreover, he does not pretend that the police state tendencies of the government can be curbed by playing a game that is heavily rigged by those in power.
Pundits and political leaders who lament the dysfunctional nature of American government are never in short supply, but their prescriptions are usually along the lines of “starting a national dialogue” or “studying ways to reform the system.” Hedges says Americans should take to the streets.
“The structures of the corporate state must be torn down. Its security apparatus must be destroyed. And those who defend corporate totalitarianism, including the leaders of the two major political parties, fatuous academics, pundits and a bankrupt press, must be driven from the temples of power. Mass street protests and prolonged civil disobedience are our only hope. A failure to rise up—which is what the corporate state is counting upon—will see us enslaved.”
Secret domestic surveillance and policing programs are not easily reined-in once they become entrenched. All industries try to protect their interests, but “national security” agencies and contractors have powerful unique tactical and political weapons at their disposal. Hedges suggests that is probably unwise for Americans to wait until things become much worse before pushing back.
“Any state that has the capacity to monitor all its citizenry, any state that has the ability to snuff out factual public debate through control of information, any state that has the tools to instantly shut down all dissent is totalitarian. Our corporate state may not use this power today. But it will use it if it feels threatened by a population made restive by its corruption, ineptitude and mounting repression. The moment a popular movement arises—and one will arise—that truly confronts our corporate masters, our venal system of total surveillance will be thrust into overdrive.”
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January 5, 2014
America’s secret police and the “mosaic” theory
For most Americans, the term “secret police” is associated with totalitarian states, but any police force which operates with a high level of secrecy can be fairly assigned that label.
That the FBI is a secret police agency is an objective fact. No one familiar with the FBI would dispute that the agency is secretive, although opinions vary about the scope and legitimacy of its secrecy.
An article last week on Huffington Post by Matt Sledge explained that the New York City Police Department has adopted a tactic used frequently by the FBI to justify its lack of transparency. Last month, NYPD denied a request for information about its budget (the money it gets from American taxpayers) based – apparently, though not explicitly – on the “mosaic” theory.
That legal concept holds that even a piece of seemingly innocuous information can be legally kept secret from the public because America’s enemies could piece together multiple bits of such information to form a picture (just as one creates a mosaic artwork) and thereby gain knowledge of national security secrets.
Incremental expansions of police powers (always in the name of “security”) such as the one now being asserted by NYPD pose a real threat to freedom. Americans should be careful to avoid becoming a nation of boiled frogs.
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January 4, 2014
European Parliament report on “Technologies of Political Control”
On Wednesday, Cryptome summarized the lessons from the secret NSA documents revealed earlier in the week at the annual conference of the European computer hackers association, Chaos Computer Club.
The documents – part of the data taken by NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden – show some of the ways the NSA hacks computers and phones. Newly-revealed capabilities and methods include such things as hacking Wi-Fi signals from as far as 8 miles away, creating fake cell phone towers to spy on phone calls and text messages, and intercepting computers and phones during their shipment to customers so the NSA can implant hardware which enables the NSA to simply bypass normal security measures.
You can view the details – including photos and diagrams of all the computer spy gear – in this video of Jacob Appelbaum’s presentation at the conference. Appelbaum has been a target of psychological operations by goons from the U.S. intelligence community for his activism – as described in my 24 December post below.
As the folks at Cryptome noted, cyber-security for citizens preyed upon by powerful secret agencies requires much more than technical measures such as firewalls and encryption. It also requires countering things like backdoor hardware installations, bribery, political propaganda, and counterintelligence infiltrations.
Of particular interest to me in the Cryptome post was not so much the latest spy technology leaks, but rather a link to a 1998 report by a technology directorate of the European Union.
“An Appraisal of Technologies of Political Control” is a working draft report which examined how advancements in technology are exploited and abused as weapons of political control.
A range of issues relevant to counterintelligence subversion (gang stalking tactics are a form of counterintelligence subversion) are covered in the document, including the militarization of police forces, the use of non-lethal weapons for interrogation and torture, the use of psychological torture, the proliferation of surveillance and weapon technology, and the exploitation of such trends by private enterprises.
This excerpt from the report’s conclusion offers a “big picture” view of the threats posed by these developments:
“With proper accountability and regulation, some of the technologies discussed above do have a legitimate law enforcement function; without such democratic controls they provide powerful tools of oppression. The unchecked vertical and horizontal proliferation of the technologies of political control described in this report, present a powerful threat to civil liberties in Europe in the [21st] century, particularly if the political context of freedoms of expression changes in the next century as many times as it has in the last.
Whilst there are sufficient real abuses of power by the police, internal security and intelligence agencies to keep the conspiracy theorists busy for the foreseeable future, technological and decision drift will have an equal if not more powerful role to play if current trends develop unchecked. The real threat to civil liberties and human rights in the future, is as likely to arise from an incremental erosion of civil liberties, than it is from some conscious plan. The rate of such erosion is speeding up and is rapidly being fuelled by the pace of innovation in the technology of political control. An arsenal of new weapons and technologies of political control has already been developed or lies waiting on the horizon for a suitable opportunity to find useful work.”
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January 2, 2014
The Washington establishment versus the American people
Today’s broadcast of Jake Tapper’s show on CNN featured a lively debate between journalist Glenn Greenwald and government shill Ruth Marcus about whistle-blower Edward Snowden.
Exchanges such as this one give the impression that even the apologists for the U.S. intelligence community realize deep down that they are defending a bunch of lying weasels.
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December 30, 2013
U.S. State Department whistle-blower’s email was hacked and deleted
Maybe some criminals just randomly happened to perform a sophisticated hacking job earlier this month on the email account of someone who just happened to be a U.S. State Department whistle-blower, and they just happened to delete emails detailing misconduct by top State Department officials.
Also, it could just be an additional coincidence that six months agothe law office of the attorneys representing that whistle-blower happened to be burglarized and some files were stolen – other valuables were left untouched – while no other office suites in the high-rise building were burglarized.
On the other hand, maybe high-level officials in the U.S. government (and U.S. corporations – see the post below) use current and former members of the nation’s vast industry of publicly and privately employed spies to conduct illegal black bag jobs, cyber-attacks, and other crimes to cover-up misconduct and perform other special assignments.
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December 27, 2013
America’s Army of Private Spies
Among the most important stories which mainstream news agencies in the U.S. do not publicly discuss (with rare exceptions) is the shadowy industry of spooks employed by major U.S. corporations. This is partly because of laziness and cowardice in the major news media outlets, but it is also because people in the private intelligence business work hard at staying off the public’s radar.
Many people have heard of corporate espionage, but mainly in reference to corporations spying upon other corporations. A more disturbing activity is privately-funded counterintelligence operations directed at nonprofit organizations, whistle-blowers, and others who are deemed enemies or troublemakers by corporate officials.
Such activities are often performed by former intelligence and law enforcement agents – and in some cases by current members of intelligence and law enforcement agencies who are moonlighting.
A few interesting reports on this subject have emerged recently. A month ago, Democracy Now! reported on some of these activities – as I noted in a post below on 26 November. They stated that some of what is being done is clearly illegal, but that it is rarely prosecuted.
An article by Robert P. Abele posted today on CounterPunch titled“The End of Freedom in America” also touches on this subject. Abele examines a variety of threats posed by America’s shift toward an increasingly authoritarian government. One of the threats he mentions is corporate spying.
Of particular interest in the article is a reference to a report published last month by Gary Ruskin, director of the Center for Corporate Policy, a project of Essential Information. Ruskin was interviewed on thatbroadcast of Democracy Now! on 25 November.
Anyone wishing to understand gang stalking should have a look at his report – “Spooky Business: Corporate Espionage Against Nonprofit Organizations.” Although the document focuses on the use of spies to undermine nonprofit groups (which should be a serious concern to any American), it also contains valuable clues about how counterintelligence crimes are perpetrated in the U.S. – both by the FBI and by privately-employed goons.
While the exact connections to organized stalking can only be speculated upon, it seems almost inconceivable – based on all the evidence cited in this website – that these corporate spooks do not play a major role in at least some of the stalking (or “counterintelligence subversion” if you prefer a more technical term).
I have explored that subject at length in various places on this website – especially in connection with the 2011 case of the hacked emails of the firms HBGary Federal and Stratfor. That case is discussed in Ruskin’s report – including details about the schemes to discredit critics of the Chamber of Commerce using illegal Cointelpro/Stasi-type tactics such as slander, disinformation, cyberwarfare, and threats.
Other topics of interest in the report include the FBI’s infiltration and harassment of the Occupy Wall Street movement – and lying about those activities, as discovered by the Office of the Inspector General, when several members of Congress requested a review of the matter.
Another disturbing issue addressed in the report is the partnership between the FBI and major corporations, called InfraGard. As the report mentions, the ACLU and others have raised serious concerns about the fact that corporate executives who are granted membership in this alliance have privileged access to certain FBI information – presumably as an incentive to provide intelligence for domestic surveillance operations.
Major corporations hire former members of highly-secretive and often-lawless agencies like the FBI to exploit their technical skills and connections (and casual attitude about legality). In the private sector, these former agents are subjected to even less scrutiny than in the government. Also, even in the unlikely event that they get caught breaking a few laws, they are rarely prosecuted.
Ruskin: Some of this lack of accountability and relative impunity may derive from cohesive “old boy networks” within former intelligence, law enforcement and military circles.
A former CIA division chief, Melvin Goodman, is quoted in the report describing the nature of the private spook industry: “My major concern is the lack of accountability, the lack of responsibility. The entire industry is essentially out of control. It’s outrageous.”
While Ruskin’s report is filled with interesting information, its author makes clear that the extreme secrecy surrounding corporate espionage means that what is publicly known (for example, from the aforementioned hacked emails) “is merely the proverbial tip of the iceberg.”
You can view or download Ruskin’s report here. I highlighted some of the most relevant sections. Spooky Business
Just to review:
Note: Published articles, reports, affidavits, and other documents supporting and explaining the following points in detail can be found in the “What is Gang Stalking?” page of this website.
(1) The FBI has a history of conducting secret illegal counterintelligence operations directed at American citizens (Cointelpro).
(2) Partly because of post-9/11 expansions of legal powers – for example, under the Patriot Act – the FBI is currently as secretive and powerful as ever.
(3) The FBI is exempt from the Whistleblower Protection Act – which makes it extremely unlikely anyone inside the agency will expose any wrongdoing.
(4) The FBI now has a formal special alliance with major corporations (InfraGard).
(5) The FBI got caught by the DOJ’s Office of Inspector General lying about its counterintelligence operations against supporters of Occupy Wall Street – a political movement critical of large corporations.
(6) In one of the rare glimpses into the activities of private security-intelligence firms – the HBGary email hacking incident – we learned that such firms are conducting illegal counterintelligence activities against critics of U.S. corporations and critics of U.S. foreign policy.
(7) A secretive industry of private spooks now serves large corporations, and it is staffed by current and former members of the FBI and other intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
(8) Such persons are famous for having “good old boy” network type relationships with current and former co-workers, and are therefore very unlikely to encounter any scrutiny by law enforcement officials or exposure by whistle-blowers.
(9) Political oversight of intelligence agencies such as the FBI is currently managed by people like Mike Rogers (R-Michigan) – chairman of the House Intelligence Committee – who is a former special agent of the FBI.
(10) Numerous reports have emerged over the past two decades from individual Americans claiming to have been targeted by serious harassment from people using sophisticated counterintelligence tactics remarkably similar to those used by the FBI during the Cointelpro era – slander, blacklisting, wiretapping, black bag jobs, overt surveillance (stalking), etc. – in some cases, after angering someone in the business community who has connections.
(11) The FBI – and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) with whom the FBI works – have remained absolutely silent about all such harassment claims, despite the DOJ’s own crime survey statistics showing thousands of people reporting such crimes, and despite mainstream news media reports on the phenomenon such as those cited in this website, and despite a former high-level FBI official (the late Ted L. Gunderson) publicly claiming that “gang stalking” is simply a more sophisticated version of Cointelpro.
(12) In the past year, publications from across the political spectrum have expressed alarm over the excesses of the nation’s intelligence agencies – from an article in the Nation alleging the emergence of an “outsourced” and “worse” version of Cointelpro, to a column in Forbescalling for a new Church Committee investigation.
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