Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2000 00:37:46 -0400
Subject: [Fwd: Report on Federal Anti-Activist Intelligence Network]


please post everywhere

"Ed Mays (by way of Michael Novick )" wrote:

> From: "frankie m" <frm-AT-panix.com>
> To: <imc-dc-AT-indymedia.org>
> Subject: [imc-dc] Fed Spy and Military Intel
>
> Hi folks,
>
> Great work. FYI below a report on RISS and recent DC demo...Take care.
>
> frank morales, nyc, (covertaction quarterly)
>
> Report on Federal Anti-Activist Intelligence Network
>
> By Frank Morales
>
> On May 4, 2000, the Intelligence Newsletter, based in Paris, France,
> published a report which stated that "sources close to the Washington DC
> Metropolitan Police have given Intelligence Newsletter details about
> intelligence units that gather information on anti-globalization
> militants
> in the US and elsewhere". (1) In addition, the same sources said that
> during
> the April 17 Break the World Bank DC protests, "reserve units from the
> US
> Army Intelligence and Security Command helped Washington police keep an
> eye
> on demonstrations staged at the World Bank/IMF meetings." In addition,
> the
> French intelligence service report notes that "the Pentagon sent around
> 700
> men from the Intelligence and Security Command at Fort Belvoir to assist
> the
> Washington police on April 17, including specialists in human and
> signals
> intelligence. One unit was even strategically located on the fourth
> floor
> balcony in a building at 1919 Pennsylvania Avenue with a birds-eye view
> of
> most demonstrators."
>
> According to the report, information on the protest movements is
> collected
> and stored by six Regional Information Sharing System (RISS) centers
> funded
> by the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Assistance. Ostensibly
> these
> intelligence centers are set up to counter organized crime, drugs and
> terrorism but it takes no great stretch to comprehend how civil
> disobedience, once defined as a terrorist threat and/or criminal
> conspiracy
> would, or has become a target. According to the Intelligence Newsletter
> report, "the RISS also act against any political activist group deemed
> to be
> a threat and over the last year has found itself focusing on
> anti-globalization groups." In addition, the report notes that in order
> "to
> justify their interest in anti-globalization groups from a legal
> standpoint,
> the authorities lump them into a category of terrorist organizations.
> Among
> those considered as such at present are Global Justice (the group that
> organized the April 17 demonstration), Earth First, Greenpeace, American
> Indian Movement, Zapatista National Liberation Front and Act-Up."
> Although
> this story has yet to be verified, given the existence of RISS and the
> paranoid proclivities of the US national security state and its civil
> disturbance planning apparatus, we should assume the report is accurate.
>
> According to RISS program documents (2), the agency is set up to "share
> intelligence and coordinate efforts against criminal networks that
> operate
> in many locations across jurisdictional lines." The program "serves more
> than 5,300 member law enforcement agencies" across the country including
> the
> FBI, DEA, IRS, Secret Service, Customs and the BATF. It is overseen by
> the
> Bureau of Justice Assistance, State and Local Assistance Division, 810
> Seventh Street, NW, Washington, DC (202-305-2923). Its immediate
> overseer is
> the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR), PO Box 12729,
> Tallahassee, Florida, (850-385-0600). The IIR also sponsors the State
> and
> Local Anti-Terrorism Training program (SLATT) which provides, via its
> "extremist research experts", "training and information to state and
> local
> law enforcement personnel in the areas of domestic anti-terrorism and
> extremist criminal activity." (3) The FBI's National Security Division
> Training Unit is a partner with IIR in providing SLATT training
> nationally.
>
> According to a 1999 Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) report on RISS,
> the
> six federally funded Regional Information Sharing System centers are
> financed "to support law enforcement efforts to combat
> multi-jurisdictional
> criminal conspiracies and activities." (4) The six centers, the Middle
> Atlantic-Great Lakes Organized Crime Law Enforcement Network, Newtown,
> PA,
> the Mid-States Organized Crime Information Center, Springfield, MO, the
> New
> England State Police Information Network, Franklin, MA, the Rocky
> Mountain
> Information Network, Phoenix, AR, the Regional Organized Crime
> Information
> Center, Nashville, TN, and the Western States Information Network,
> Sacramento, CA, are set up in such a way that "each center's staff
> possess
> sufficient flexibility to tailor the individual center's priorities and
> operations to the particular- perhaps unique - needs of the region."
> According to the BJA report, the centers "maintain pools of specialized
> investigative equipment for loan to participating member agencies",
> including "photographic, communications (and) surveillance" equipment.
> In
> addition, "all six RISS Intelligence Centers have confidential funds
> available to member agencies for the purchase of investigative
> information,
> contraband, stolen property, and other items of an evidentiary natureThe
> net
> amount of confidential funds provided by the centers to member agencies
> totaled $265,526 for 1998."
>
> According to the Intelligence Newsletter report cited earlier, it's the
> Mid-Atlantic Network, based in Newtown, Pennsylvania, whose region
> includes
> New York and the District of Columbia, that is particularly efficient in
> activist spy work. According to the report, that center "distributes
> intelligence on the groups to other police departments via RISSNET,
> enabling
> investigators to find links between the movements and look into their
> finances, telephone calls and membership lists." According to
> Mid-Atlantic
> Network documents, it was "initiated by the US Congress in 1974 to aid
> law
> enforcement agencies in targeting, identifying, and removing
> multi-jurisdictional criminal elements." The Network offers a "secure
> database containing information concerning known or suspected criminals,
> businesses, organizations and their related identifying information",
> along
> with "training in the seizure of computers." (5)
>
> As mentioned earlier, the Intelligence Newsletter report claims that
> hundreds of Army intelligence operatives were present during the DC
> anti-World Bank demo. Again, with a premonition of tens of thousands of
> protesters, it is quite likely that the report is accurate. After all,
> one
> can rest assured that the Department of Defense Civil Disturbance Plan,
> code-named Garden Plot, is especially fixated on defending the seat of
> government (corporate) power in America. (6) That DC was flooded with
> intelligence operatives and assorted government spies is, lamentably,
> quite
> likely. The US Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM), cited in
> the
> French report, is a "a major army command", which "conducts dominant
> intelligence, security and information operations for military
> commanders
> and national decision makers." (7) Based at Fort Belvoir, Flagler Road,
> Virginia, (the Nolan Building) since 1989, INSCOM recently redesignated
> a
> number of units including "the Continental United States Military
> Intelligence Group that supported the National Security Agency and a
> number
> of field stations."
>
> According to military documents, during the course of the 90's, "INSCOM
> was
> drawn into contingency operations other than war all over the globe"
> These
> "contingency operations" or domestic military operations other than war,
> are
> law enforcement "support missions" in civil disturbance suppression.
> Quite
> possibly they are run out of the "Emergency Operations Center" at Fort
> Belvoir. These operations have been enhanced with the recent creation of
> the
> "National Ground Intelligence Center." Further, according to INSCOM,
> "the
> mission of the Special Security Group that had disseminated Sensitive
> Compartmented Information since World War II was drastically realigned.
> The
> unit was redesignated and resubordinated to the 902nd Military
> Intelligence
> Group." Some of this "sensitive" information is contained in so-called
> top
> secret SAP programs. In this regard, INSCOM is in the business of
> "providing
> counterintelligence support to the Army's growing number of Special
> Access
> Programs -- highly sensitive projects which required exceptional
> security
> measures." Actually, the gathering of intelligence during the DC protest
> involves an even higher source, given that "in 1993 the Secretary of
> Defense
> ordered service human intelligence assets consolidated under Defense
> Intelligence Agency control", at which time "INSCOM turned over most of
> its
> human intelligence operations"
>
> Intelligence Newsletter, No.381, "Watching Anti-WTO Crowd", May 4, 2000,
> www.intelligenceonline.com/
> Regional Information Sharing Systems (RISS) Program, www.iir.com/riss/
> State and Local Anti-Terrorism Training (SLATT) Program,
> www.iir.com/slatt/
> Bureau of Justice assistance, The RISS Program, 1998,
> www.iir.com/Publications/RISSProgram1998.pdf
> Middle Atlantic-Great Lakes Organized Crime Law Enforcement Network,
> www.iir.com/riss/magloclen/index.htm
> Frank Morales, "US Military Civil Disturbance Planning: The War at
> Home",
> CovertAction Quarterly #69, Spring/Summer 2000, www.covertaction.org/
> US Army Intelligence and Security Command, www.vulcan.belvoir.army.mil/
>
>      --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

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