jamesd@echeque.com # # If those radicals were being murdered by the feds, the radical # left would have been eager to have them investigated, instead # of closing their eyes and looking the other way, and suddenly # dropping vanished radicals down the memory hatch. Being subject to: o illegal "Echelon" monitoring o murderous attempts on the organization o a "grand scale" of FBI interference with civil rights orgs o FBI aiding false imprisonment ...doesn't exactly make for a peaceful democratic process. ---- : The Puzzle Palace : Inside the National Security Agency, : America's most secret intelligence organization : Author James Bamford, 1983 revision, ISBN 0-14-00.6748-5 # # P317: 1962. Now, for the first time, NSA had begun turning its massive ear # inward toward its own citizens. With no laws or legislative charter to # block its path, the ear continued to turn. # # # P319: The Secret Service, the CIA, the FBI and the DIA submitted entries # for the NSA's watch list. # # The names on the various watch lists ranged from members of radical political # groups to celebrities to ordinary citizens involved in protest against their # government. # # Included were such well-known figures as Jane Fonda, Joan Baez, Dr. Benjamin # Spock, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Reverand Ralph Abernathy, Black # Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver, and Chicago Seven defendants Abbie Hoffman # and David T. Dellinger. * "The Rise of the Computer State", David Burnham, 1984 * * p128: Federal authorities were concerned that foreign governments MIGHT * try to influence civil rights leaders in the United States. The list * of Americans monitored ballooned as political groups, celebrities and * ordinary citizens were added to the 'watch lists'. The NSA surveillance * was illegal and was instantly stopped [years later] when it appeared * that Congress might learn about the eavesdropping. * Main Justice, by Jim McGee and Brian Duffy, 1996, ISBN 0-684-81135-9 * * The FBI had been spying on members of the civil rights movement * to discredit Martin Luther King and destroy the civil rights * movement, government files showed. There had been burglaries * and illegal wiretapping on a grand scale. At the same time Hoover was in power and developed the "Security Portfolio" and attacked civil rights movements in the United States, a Black Panther named Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt was framed for a murder he didn't commit by the FBI. * "Above the Law", by David Burnham, ISBN 0-684-80699-1, 1996 * * At 4:00 A.M. on December 4, 1969, for example, a special fourteen-man * squad of Chicago police officers raided a house used by the Black * Panther Party. During the shoot-first-ask-questions-later raid, police * fired at least ninety-eight rounds into the apartment. Illinois chairman * Fred Hampton and Peoria chairman Mark Clark were killed. * * An FBI informant gave the bureau specific information about where * Hampton was probably sleeping, and a detailed floor plan of the house * which the special squad used during its raid. * * Thirteen years later, in November 1982, District Court Judge John F. * Grady determined that there was sufficient evidence of an FBI-led * conspiracy to deprive the Panthers of their civil rights, and awarded * the plaintiffs $1.85 million in damages. : 5/30/97 MSNBC : : After more than a quarter of a century in prison, a Black Panther : activist has won the right to a new trial. A judge ruled there had : been prosecutorial misconduct. The judge overturned the conviction : when it was disclosed the government prosecutors withheld critical : evidence: : : o They never said the informer was working with and paid by : the FBI. : : o A former FBI agent also agrees with his alibi: that he was : in the Black Panther HQ at the time of the murder. That the : FBI knew this because they were monitoring the HQ. : : o And the jury never knew the eyewitness, who has since died, : had misidentified people in other cases. : : He has been turned down for parole 16 times, and had been in prison : longer than most murderers. : : : 6/10/97 MSNBC: Mr. Pratt has been freed over the U.S. Attorney's : objections. His first minutes of freedom were spent with his : 94-year-old mother. : : Court TV: : : Judge Dickey overturned the conviction last month, ruling that : prosecutors failed to tell the defense that the key witness against : Pratt was an infiltrator and paid informant for the FBI and police. : *** This primary "witness" had claimed Pratt confessed!!! *** : : "It's madness in there," Pratt said after walking out of jail : on $25,000 bail. "You have political prisoners on top of political : prisoners. I'm only one of a great many that should be exposed, : should be addressed." : : The same judge who presided over Pratt's original trial set him free. : Johnny Cochran said Pratt spent the first eight years of his sentence : in solitary confinement. That's a long time to sit in jail just because the FBI didn't want to reveal its monitoring operations, isn't it?