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Southern Poverty Law Center Lists We Are Change with "Hate" Groups
We Are Change
March 4th, 2010
This list of Active Patriot groups is an appendix to the SPLC and ADLs list of active Hate groups. Patriot and constitutionalist groups (Constitution party, John Birch Society, InfoWars, GCNLive, AmericanFreePress, Militias etc. and now WeAreChange) are being listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and Anti-Defamation League as non racist “hate” groups, along side the Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazis!
It is not so surprising that WeAreChange has been added to the updated list of Active Patriot Groups in the Southern Poverty Law Center’s special issue of their magazine “Intelligence Report”. I say this because last year’s list of active patriot groups, which was an appendix to the list of active “hate groups,” included WeAreChange allies and affiliates like InfoWars, GCN Live, John Birch Society, Constitution Party, AFP, militias, and other patriot-constitutionalist organizations. The special report also contains a “hate group” map, where patriot groups are shown alongside the KKK and neo-Nazis.
All of this makes up a sophisticated smear campaign of propaganda, which influences the minds of the ordinary public to associate anti-New World Order and 9/11 Truth organizations with racist groups. It is extremely unjust to equate patriotic activists with racism, especially WeAreChange, because our charter explicitly states:
We Are Change is a pacifist organization and is tolerant of all regardless of racial, religious, ethnic or sexual orientation.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has been rumored to have been implicated in the OKC bombing and as an intelligence arm, gathering information for the FBI, CIA and other law enforcement agencies on socalled “extremist” groups. The SPLC and ADL are the authors of the MIAC report and the older federal law enforcement manuals about domestic terrorist groups. That claim citing the constitution is a sign of a potential domestic terrorism.
Southern Poverty Law Center’s special issue of their magazine “Intelligence Report”—both 2009 and 2010—claims that although the patriot movement is not racist, its beliefs are still “Hate”. This has everything to do with the classification of certain types of speech as “Hate” speech, under the new “hate crime” laws certain elites want passed.
Therefore, this defamation is not just an issue for WeAreChange – it sets the pretext for violating every American’s first amendment rights.
Below is a segment of what they wrote. It’s also interesting how they mark down every single wearechange chapter in every state, state by state, city by city. I didn’t even know we had that many chapters.
Active ‘Patriot’ Groups in the United States in 2009
The Intelligence Project identified 512 “Patriot” groups that were active in 2009. Of these groups, 127 were militias, marked with an asterisk, and the remainder includes “common-law” courts, publishers, ministries and citizens’ groups. Generally, Patriot groups define themselves as opposed to the “New World Order,” engage in groundless conspiracy theorizing, or advocate or adhere to extreme antigovernment doctrines. Listing here does not imply that the groups themselves advocate or engage in violence or other criminal activities, or are racist. The list was compiled from field reports, Patriot publications, the Internet, law enforcement sources and news reports. Groups are identified by the city, county or region where they are located.
NEW YORK (17)
America First Party of New York
Lynbrook
Constitution Party
New York
Empire State Militia 11th Field Force *
Northwestern
Oneida Area
Staten Island
Ulster County
Westchester Area
The Jekyll Island Project
Queensbury
Oath Keepers
Chatham
We Are Change
Hempstead
Ithaca
Long Island
New York City
Oswego County
Staten Island
We The People
Queensbury
Statewide
Truth Fairy Faces off with the Neo Cons
Victim's Family Member Discusses Newly Released 9/11 Photos
WeAreChange TV
Pilot Episode 1/6
WeAreChange TV 2 Cindy Sheehan
WeAreChange TV 3 Obama: A Year in Review
WeAreChange TV 4 Charlie Veitch
WeAreChange TV 5 Weather and Commercial
WeAreChange TV 6 Sports and Boob
Everything is OK on the New York Subway
Becks Says Truth Activists in the White House Threaten Obama’s Life
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
January 20, 2010
The grand master Mockingbird operative Glenn Beck said today on his nationally syndicated radio show that there are 9/11 truth activists in the White House and they threaten the life of Obama. “He has invited 9/11 truthers into the White House and into his administration… he is in danger.”
Beck said Obama should never be left alone and the Secret Service needs to pay special attention to this absurd threat.
In fact, there are no 9/11 truth activists in the White House.
Beck’s comment is apparently a reference to Obama’s “green jobs” adviser Van Jones who signed a petition in 2004 calling for an investigation into the Bush administration’s knowledge of an impending attack. Jones resigned from his position as Special Adviser in September 2009 after WorldNetDaily, Americans for Prosperity, and other groups criticized his membership in a socialist group and support for the convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal who is serving a life sentence.
Everything about Glenn Beck stinks of a COINTELPRO operation.
Representative Mike Pence (R-Indiana), the chairman of the Republican Conference in the U.S. House of Representatives, and Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas), Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, publicly criticized Jones. Senator Kit Bond (R-Missouri) urged Congress to investigate Jones’ “fitness” for the position. Another critic was Bob Beckel, formerly an official in the Carter administration and currently a political analyst for the Fox News Channel and a columnist for USA Today, who may have been the first and most prominent liberal or Democrat to call for Jones’ resignation.
“I do not agree with this statement and it certainly does not reflect my views now or ever,” Jones said after evidence of his signature on the 9/11 petition surfaced.
The Obama administration is not linked in any way to the 9/11 truth movement. Obama ignored a highly publicized call by actor Charlie Sheen to re-investigate the events of September 11, 2001.
In regard the al-Qaeda, 9/11, and the so-called war on terror the Obama administration is essentially a carbon copy of the previous administration. Obama peddles the supposed al-Qaeda threat and has vowed to escalate the occupation of Afghanistan. He has significantly increased illegal attacks inside Pakistan and has not eliminated CIA torture or dismantled Guantánamo as promised. His administration is a virtual roster of Wall Street insiders and he has kept on Bush’s Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates.
In addition, the 9/11 truth movement is not part of the “uber-left,” as Beck claimed on his radio show. Many members of the foundation supported and financed “uber-left” — most notably Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn — have dismissed 9/11 truth out of hand, making them inseparable from the neocons in this regard.
Many 9/11 truth activists and supporters are avowed pacifists and their events are peaceful. They have championed the cause of 9/11 victim families ( Beck claims to hate them) and the shamefully neglected cause of 9/11 first responders.
Glenn Beck’s assigned task is to characterize the movement as violent and dangerous. On June 10, 2009, he declared 9/11 truthers are in league with al-Qaeda and white supremacists, an assertion so absurd as to be almost laughable. He said 9/11 truth activists consider the late James Von Brunn a hero. Von Brunn allegedly shot to death a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. Beck did not provide any evidence of this.
Beck is infamous for inventing lies about the Truth movement.
Unfortunately, many if not most of the people who watch and listen to Glenn Beck are ill-informed and believe his absurdist COINTELPRO propaganda.
Beck’s dichotomy is a pre-planned charade. He claims to be a constitutionalist — he titled his latest book after the patriot Thomas Paine’s screed in favor of liberty, Common Sense — and then advocates punitive taxation on the American people in order to pay off a national debt owed to bankers. He tells us he is a Libertarian and yet dismisses Ron Paul as dangerous (and subsequently sidled up to Paul after his failed presidential bid). Beck has called Paul’s supporters dangerous terrorists on numerous occasions. The corporate media continually claims Beck is the leader of the Tea Party movement (that is to say the Tea Party movement hijacked from Libertarians by Republican operatives).
Beck calls Ron Paul supporters terrorists.
As Alex Jones has noted on numerous occasions, Glenn Beck takes his talking points from him. Media Matters, the supposed media watch dog group linked to the globalist George Soros, said as much in October. “In his response to the announcement that President Obama had been awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, Glenn Beck sounded at times like conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, all while continuing to willfully ignore the currents of racially motivated violence flowing within the 9-12 ‘movement’ he is working to build,” said John V. Santore, a former Obama campaign organizer and congressional speech writer.
Beck’s assertion that 9/11 truth activists are in the White House and pose a threat to the life of Obama — a fiction so fantastic it should be characterized as a imponderable fantasy — is merely another attempt to discredit the movement and convince his easily hoodwinked followers that a peaceful political movement is a threat to national security on par with the imagined threat posed by the CIA designed non-organization al-Qaeda.
Alex addresses Beck’s latest attack on January 20, 2010.
The Love Police And WeAreChange Together!
Obama Information Czar Outlined Plan For Government To Infiltrate Conspiracy Groups
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein, Obama’s appointee to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, outlined a plan for the government to infiltrate conspiracy groups in order to undermine them via postings on chat rooms and social networks, as well as real meetings, according to a recently uncovered article Sunstein wrote for the Journal of Political Philosophy.
As we have often warned, chat rooms, social networks and particularly article comment sections are routinely “gamed” by trolls, many of whom pose as numerous different people in order to create a fake consensus, who attempt to debunk whatever information is being discussed, no matter how credible and well documented. We have seen this on our own websites for years and although some of those individuals were acting of their own accord, a significant number appeared to be working in shifts, routinely posting the same talking points over and over again.
It is a firmly established fact that the military-industrial complex which also owns the corporate media networks in the United States has numerous programs aimed at infiltrating prominent Internet sites and spreading propaganda to counter the truth about the misdeeds of the government and the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
In 2006 CENTCOM, the United States Central Command, announced that a team of employees would be hired to engage “bloggers who are posting inaccurate or untrue information, as well as bloggers who are posting incomplete information,” about the so-called war on terror.
In May 2008, it was revealed that the Pentagon was expanding “Information Operations” on the Internet by setting up fake foreign news websites, designed to look like independent media sources but in reality carrying direct military propaganda.
Countries like Israel have also admitted to creating an army of online trolls whose job it is to infiltrate anti-war websites and act as apologists for the Zionist state’s war crimes.
In January last year, the US Air Force announced a “counter-blog” response plan aimed at fielding and reacting to material from bloggers who have “negative opinions about the US government and the Air Force.”
The plan, created by the public affairs arm of the Air Force, includes a detailed twelve-point “counter blogging” flow-chart that dictates how officers should tackle what are described as “trolls,” “ragers,” and “misguided” online writers.
New revelations highlight the fact that the Obama administration is deliberately targeting “conspiracy groups” as part of a Cointelpro style effort to silence what have become the government’s most vociferous and influential critics.
In a 2008 article published in the Journal of Political Philosophy, Obama information czar Cass Sunstein outlined a plan for the government to stealthily infiltrate groups that pose alternative theories on historical events via “chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine” those groups.
The aim of the program would be to “(break) up the hard core of extremists who supply conspiracy theories,” wrote Sunstein, with particular reference to 9/11 truth organizations.
Sunstein pointed out that simply having people in government refute conspiracy theories wouldn’t work because they are inherently untrustworthy, making it necessary to “Enlist nongovernmental officials in the effort to rebut the theories. It might ensure that credible independent experts offer the rebuttal, rather than government officials themselves. There is a tradeoff between credibility and control, however. The price of credibility is that government cannot be seen to control the independent experts,” he wrote.
“Put into English, what Sunstein is proposing is government infiltration of groups opposing prevailing policy,” writes Marc Estrin.
“It’s easy to destroy groups with “cognitive diversity.” You just take up meeting time with arguments to the point where people don’t come back. You make protest signs which alienate 90% of colleagues. You demand revolutionary violence from pacifist groups.”
This is what Sunstein is advocating when he writes of the need to infiltrate conspiracy groups and sow seeds of distrust amongst members in order to stifle the number of new recruits. This is classic “provocateur” style infiltration that came to the fore during the Cointelpro years, an FBI program from 1956-1971 that was focused around disrupting, marginalizing and neutralizing political dissidents.
“Sunstein argued that “government might undertake (legal) tactics for breaking up the tight cognitive clusters of extremist theories.” He suggested that “government agents (and their allies) might enter chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories by raising doubts about their factual premises, causal logic or implications for political action,” reports Raw Story.
Sunstein has also called for making websites liable for comments posted in response to articles. His book, On Rumors: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be Done, was criticized by some as “a blueprint for online censorship.”
The Infowars office has been visited on numerous occasions by the FBI as a result of people posting violent comments in response to articles. Since the government now employs people to post such comments in an attempt to undermine conspiracy websites, if a law were passed making websites accountable, Sunstein’s program would allow the government to obliterate such sites from the web merely by having their own hired goons post threats against public figures.
The fact that the government is being forced to hire armies of trolls in an effort to silence the truth shows how worried they are about the effect we are having in waking up millions of people to their tyranny.
Airports Set To Become Primary Peddlers Of Child Porn
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
The man is seeing a naked image of the woman similar to the top picture.
The establishment is ensuring that pedophiles and perverts are kept entertained at airport security checkpoints by mandating the mass rollout of naked body scanners that provide detailed images of your child’s genitalia, to be enjoyed by officials sitting alone in back rooms.
Despite official assurances and media talking points that claim the naked body scanners now being implemented in airports worldwide do not show enough detail to be considered a violation of privacy, the true measure of how much of an intrusion they really are is proven by the fact that they break child pornography laws in the UK that bar the production of indecent images of children.
Ministers in the UK will be forced to exempt under-18’s from the virtual strip searches or pass new legislation that protects airport workers from being prosecuted as pedophiles.
“They also face demands from civil liberties groups for safeguards to ensure that images from the £80,000 scanners, including those of celebrities, do not end up on the internet,” reports the Guardian. “The Department for Transport confirmed that the “child porn” problem was among the “legal and operational issues” now under discussion in Whitehall after Gordon Brown’s announcement on Sunday that he wanted to see their “gradual” introduction at British airports.”
“They do not have the legal power to use full body scanners in this way,” said Terri Dowty, of Action for Rights of Children, adding there was an exemption in the 1978 law to cover the “prevention and detection of crime” but the purpose had to be more specific than the “trawling exercise” now being considered.
As the Guardian report highlights, despite the fact that news organizations routinely blur out sensitive areas of the body when showing images produced by the scans, the actual resolution of the images allows airport workers to see “genitalia and breast enlargements”.
Despite the promise that the images would immediately be deleted, Simon Davies of Privacy International warns that scans of celebrities or of people with unusual or freakish body profiles would prove an “irresistible pull” for some employees.
Indeed, the fact that your sons and daughters will potentially be subject to a virtual strip search where the shape and detail of their genitalia will be visible to someone sat alone in a back room begs the question of what kind of people would want to apply for such a job. If such technology is rolled out on a widespread basis, working in airport security will undoubtedly become a pull for perverts and pedophiles who will be given free reign to lust over your naked child’s body. How far will Americans acquiesce in the name of safety?
This compilation of articles proves that people in positions of power have routinely and illegally abused surveillance technologies for their own personal titillation, particularly in regard to young women and children.
A school in Overton County, Tennessee was sued to the tune of $4.2 million in damages by parents after school officials allowed surveillance cameras to be installed in locker rooms of children aged 10-14, with the images showing both girls and boys in various stages of undress.
Another case in Sutherland high school New York found that head school custodian Allen Wemes had kept a pornographic stash of footage filmed by a secret surveillance camera placed in a female restroom.
In June 2004, the director of a tutoring center in Chicago was charged with manufacturing and possessing child pornography after he was discovered to be operating a sophisticated video surveillance system in the bathroom of the Beverly Instructional Center.
These are just a few of dozens of cases in the U.S. alone where officials have been caught abusing invasive surveillance technologies for their own perverted pleasure. If similar technology is to be implemented on a mass scale in airports as is being proposed, we are going to see such violations skyrocket to an industrial level.
A familiar tactic employed to convince the public that the scanners are necessary is the repeated use of images that show concealed weapons, creating the perception that everyone is guilty and needs to be scanned. This is reinforced by the public being made to hold their hands up when they enter the scanner in a symbolic act of submission, when holding their arms out horizontally would be no different.
How much humiliation, fealty and degradation are we prepared to accept in the name of being protected from a menace that the government has proven time and again it has no motivation in stopping? The very people promoting the mass implementation of body scanners stand to reap the financial rewards because they are heavily invested in the technology.
Are we going to allow perverts and pedophiles in positions of power enjoy naked images of our children or are we finally going to draw a line in the sand and say enough is enough and start boycotting and filing lawsuits against airports and other institutions that attempt to ram through these revolting and dehumanizing measures?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRoloQz6UII&feature=player_embedded
The Decade of Resistance
Nate Clark
We Are Change Minnesota
December 31st, 2009
Consider this counterpoint to Paul Watson’s tragically accurate depiction of our last ten years as a decade of tyranny a new year’s call to arms in the information war.
Raise your fist in resistance!
Fear mongering, corporatist looting and governmental encroachment on our rights from so many angles have had the consequence of sending previously fractured (anti-globalization, patriot, sovereign citizen, health freedom, 9/11 truth, tax protest and countless other) movements toward convergence on the pursuit of liberty as the uniting cause of the day.
In the spirit of "100 Signs We Are Winning" by James Corbett, here are some of the defining moments of the past decade that have inspired ever increasing numbers to stand up and resist tyranny:
1999 — Seattle WTO Protests
Suppression of the protests outside the World Trade Organization’s convention in Seattle showed how ruthlessly the global architects will behave in suppression of dissent and was met with backlash in public opinion. This outrage at how the Seattle protests were handled fueled the fire of demonstration against domineering, unaccountable globalist meetings to come.
2000 — Y2K Fear Mongering and Preparedness
Even before 9/11, fear mongering was the name of the game and the corporate media pushed Y2K—their latest scare—to a sensational brink. In a rare shift from the 90’s debt explosion fueled frenzy of over-consumption, people started thinking about self-sufficiency and preparedness—a minor chip in the facade of wellfarism. In hindsight, the Y2K frenzy was so absurdly overblown that many people would become healthily skeptical of the mainstream media.
2001 — 9/11 and the Age of Fear Mongering
Fear mongering entered a new era with the most psychologically influential event to-date. As the public gradually overcomes its emotional trauma, reflection on the events of 9/11/2001 leaves far more questions unanswered than answered. For many, realization of a cover-up on the scale of 9/11 will be the last straw before finally getting involved in the resistance.
2002 — Iraq War Peddling
The Iraq war was sold by a program of lies and disinformation so bold-faced that only the most brainwashed were convinced. These lies have become the foundation of widespread mistrust in government and at the time breathed fresh air into the anti-war movement.
2003 — SARS and Pandemic Fear Mongering
The severe acute respiratory syndrome episode in ’03 was ridiculous on its face. People who may have been swayed by fear at the time can look back to how SARS was hyped and begin to see through the propaganda more recently pushed via the avian and swine flu scares.
2004 — The 9/11 Truth Movement
The 9/11 Commission Report showed us how brazen our bureaucracy is willing to act in the face of public outrage. The Commission, which only happened due to the demands of victims’ families, provided the foregone Al Qaida bogeyman conclusion without even mentioning the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 and fueled the burgeoning 9/11 Truth movement.
2005 — Blogging
The information starved populace found increasing relief from corporate media whoredom as the Internet increasingly replaced the journalistic bankruptcy of the old regime.
2006 — We Are Change
The now over 200 chapter strong We Are Change movement which began in New York in ’06 would sweep across the globe the following year. New chapters sprang to life inspired by resistance journalism embodied by We Are Change.
2007 — Ron Paul
Ron Paul’s 2008 presidential campaign cured the political apathy of untold scores of activits-to-be and thrust the ideal of liberty back into the spotlight of mainstream U.S. politics. In ’07, thousands of patriots left their armchairs to join forces in restoration of our republic.
2008 — Economic Fear Mongering
More consequences of the Alan Greenspan easy money program unraveled and were shamelessly exploited by the powers that be to loot the American taxpayer. Add economic terrorism to the list of modes in which the fear mongers attempt to beat the public into submission. While the public may remain largely ignorant of the root cause of our current economic situation, they are all quite familiar with what crying wolf is. The economy will worsen before it improves, and light pocketbooks are sure to draw ever increasing numbers to the resistance.
2009 — Hope for Change
President Barack Obama has given the truth movement hope for real change. The “Brand Obama” marketing effort’s diversionary tactics can only be so successful in hiding the new president’s overwhelming lack of change from our well established march toward despotism. The more absurdly our rights and qualities of life are offended by the system, the more a backlash against the plundering establishment becomes inevitable.
The Decade of Freedom!
Expansion of global government is the obvious solution being provided to the manufactured problems being rammed down our throats, but any future catastrophic and catalyzing event may backfire instead of being another nail in the coffin of human freedom. The public is losing faith in the system and is ready for change—exactly the reaction desired by the system which intentionally creates problems in order to offer freedom crushing solutions.
The question for the next decade is can this movement wrest control of the next major dialectical “synthesis” from the system and replace it with one of liberty. While “The Decade of Resistance” is a wishful thought, it is also a resolution. Over the next decade, the Internet threatens to ignite a new Renaissance. It costs nothing to get involved while information is easily communicated and relatively free. Now is the time to turn propagandistic strengths into weaknesses.
FBI-Led Task Force Joins Anti-Gang Effort In Minnesota
By Amy Forliti
Associated Press
MINNEAPOLIS — A federal effort designed to dismantle gangs at their core will roll out soon in the Twin Cities, months after the Metro Gang Strike Force was shut down amid allegations of misconduct and evidence mishandling.
The Twin Cities Safe Streets Violent Gang Task Force will be led by the FBI, and will investigate gangs as organized criminal enterprises, using federal tools such as anti-racketeering statutes to take down the whole group by going after its leaders. And unlike the strike force, the FBI says its venture will be tightly managed and funded by the federal government.
“The Gang Strike Force was more of the ‘Let’s go out and saturate a neighborhood and see who we can stop.’ We just don’t operate that way with any investigation,” said Ralph Boelter, the special agent in charge of the FBI office in Minneapolis. “We’re very calculated, very methodical, very thoughtful in what we do.”
The FBI has operated gang task forces like this elsewhere since 1992 under its Safe Streets Violent Crime Initiative. With Minnesota’s program, there will be 160 FBI violent gang task forces in 37 states, Washington D.C., and the Virgin Islands, according to the agency’s Web site.
Authorities are still working out logistics for the Minnesota unit, but the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, police in St. Paul and Minneapolis, and other federal agencies are expected to participate, Boelter said. They hope to start in January.
“I think it’s a fresh start,” said Michael Campion, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety. “It’s not the only thing that we are doing here in Minnesota, but it’s certainly an opportunity for agencies to get together, and in some cases fill some of the gap.”
Campion and others say the FBI-led force isn’t a replacement in itself for the disgraced strike force. In fact, Campion has developed a plan for several county-based units called Violent Crime Enforcement Teams with a hoped-for launch in early 2010.
The Metro Gang Strike Force was shut down in July, after a legislative audit and a special panel’s review found a lack of financial oversight and seized cash and vehicles that couldn’t be accounted for. The FBI is investigating, but no one has been charged.
The special panel review also found that some officers participated in “saturation” details, where police went to suspected gang areas and seized property from people with no gang connections. And it cited a mentality of pursuing seized property and money to fund operations.
B. Todd Jones, U.S. attorney for Minnesota, said the FBI-led task force will have a federal budget and won’t have to rely on legislative appropriations or forfeitures. In addition, the FBI will pay for officers’ overtime, training, equipment and vehicles. Federal investigative tools will also be available, such as the federal grand jury process and the ability to use wiretaps more often.
Jones called the FBI-led effort a “third tier” in fighting gangs, supplementing local police gang units and the new violent crime units Campion has proposed.
Other federal task forces are also fighting gang activity in Minnesota. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has had a task force since 2004 that uses the gun control act to go after violent offenders. Bernard J. Zapor, special agent in charge of the ATF office in Minnesota, said his team will continue to operate alongside Safe Streets. The Drug Enforcement Administration also has a task force that hones in on drug cases.
Adding Safe Streets to the mix gives the area another option for more wide-ranging investigations.
While federal racketeering cases can be complicated, they let prosecutors charge all of a gang’s alleged activity — from drug deals to murders — under one umbrella, essentially alleging that all defendants are responsible for trying to increase the power of the gang, said Thom Mrozek. Mrozek is a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles, which has been prosecuting rackeetering-related gang cases for years.
“We can essentially dismantle the leadership of the organization and take many of their operatives off the street in one fell swoop,” he said.
In one recent example, 88 members and associates of the Avenues street gang in northeast Los Angeles were named in a racketeering indictment in September that alleged they were part of a criminal enterprise, committing crimes ranging from robbery to the 2008 murder of a Los Angeles sheriff’s deputy. Several agencies and task forces were involved in that investigation.
Minnesota doesn’t have nearly the level of gang violence as Los Angeles, where the city has an estimated 30,000-40,000 gang members. Minnesota has nearly 2,500 confirmed gang members, based on criteria in the state’s gang database.
Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek said he supports the FBI’s initiative, but local officers, including his own violent offenders task force, still need to be on the street to keep the community safe. He said the FBI isn’t set up to respond to retaliatory violence — like drive-by shootings.
“They are a long-term investigative agency set up to go after long-term structures,” he said. “That’s not a fault of it; that’s the way it’s set up and structured.”
The FBI agrees both approaches are needed, and the goal is to cooperate and share information with cops on the street. Violent acts, like a drive-by shooting, would be investigated and worked into a larger takedown.
“We will collaborate and we will go after the most violent groups, the most violent … gangs in the Twin Cities,” said Boelter, who ran the FBI’s gang task force in Los Angeles for over 2 years.
“The Twin Cities needs this.”
Al Gore Confronted on ClimateGate in Chicago
CHICAGO IL – On Tuesday, November 24th 2009, We Are Change Chicago attended a book signing with former vice president Al Gore, at the Borders Bookstore on 150 N. State Street.
The previous Thursday, news had begun to circulate that hacked documents and communications from the University of East Anglia’s Hadley Climate Research Unit (CRU) had been published to the internet. The information revealed how top scientists conspired to falsify data in the face of declining global temperatures in order to prop up the premise that man-made factors are driving climate change. Please review ClimateGate for Dummies.
To ensure the public that the media and Al Gore are aware of the facts that prove global warming to be a hoax, patriots from WAC Chicago marched to the book signing. Scattered throughout a crowd of a few hundred were members of WAC Chicago ready to ask Al Gore what he thought about ‘ClimateGate.’
First up was Saad Ali. As he approached Gore, he peacefully and respectably asked, “Sir, can you comment on the emails and documents that were hacked [ClimateGate] that reveal… that the research was a fraud and that it was all manipulated?” Gore, with an evil smirk, claimed that “he never read them.” By the look on his face and his stutter, it became quite clear that Gore was extremely uncomfortable with the question, so he quickly glared towards his security. The agents grabbed and assaulted Saad, escorting him away from Gore for merely asking a simple question. The press took notice and started filming and snapping pictures of what was going on. One of which appeared the next day in the Chicago Sun Times.
We Are Change Chicago at the Al Gore book signing.
Following Saad’s confrontation, Sati Word, a member of WAC Chicago, questioned Gore on why the IPCC hasn’t released any reports on sunspot activity. However, before he could get an answer from Gore, security grabbed Sati and escorted him out of the building.
A little while later, Anthony, an activist from We Are Change Ohio, approached Gore and handed him the petition of the 31,486 scientists who say that Global Warming is a complete hoax. Anthony asked, “What do you think about the science behind this sir?” Mr. Gore rolled his eyes, and security escorted him out of the building.
Steve (swizzlesteve), was the last activist to question Gore. Within seconds of asking, “Any comments on ClimateGate? The emails that prove it’s a scam, a farce, that global warming is a joke, any comment?” Mr. Gore is heard to utter a few “uhhhhhhhs” and security quickly steps in to remove him as well.
The press was waiting outside Borders. They wanted to find out who this group was, that dared question what the elite had forced us to consume as truth. WBBM news radio, 780, ran a sound bite of WAC Chicago, WGN news ran footage, Medill Reports wrote an article, and blog posts were popping up all over the internet about the Al Gore confrontation in Chicago. Many also asked about the footage of WAC Chicago chasing after Gore’s SUV after the event. You will find all of it in this video. Al Gore was confronted multiple times in line, outside the event as he rushed to his waiting Mercedes SUV, (were you expecting something electric?), and once again in the streets of Chicago. We Are Change had people outside with signs, banners, fliers, and DVDs. Activists were inside asking questions and demanding answers; the world is waking up, it’s a great time to be alive.