Friendly Reminder: You’re Being Watched!
I believe this has been widely reported on previously, but it never hurts to be reminded, from today’s Mercury News:
A University of California chancellor called Wednesday on Bay Area congressional representatives to investigate the government’s reported spying at college campus protests…
An eight-page excerpt released by NBC noted monitoring of protests at UC-Berkeley (deemed not a credible threat), planning for a march and rally in Hollywood (not credible) and protests at a San Diego naval facility (credible.)
I can’t even remember the last big protest we had here anyway…
I was arguing with a military recruiter in October, and when it became clear that he couldn’t really back up what he was saying, he changed the subject. He said that “you guys” (presumably Berkeley Stop The War)held a rally in April or May in which we had four Iraqi speakers “denouncing the war.” He said that he was talking to “the FBI agent in charge of tracking those men, and it turns out three of the four weren’t Iraqi at all and were actually Al-Qaeda members.” Now, BSTW has never sponsored an event featuring four supposedly Iraqi speakers, and when pressed about details such as where it was, when exactly it was, etc. he conveniently “wasn’t there and didn’t know.” Anyway, if this man really did have a conversation with an FBI agent or someone proporting to be one, it’s a clever little COINTELPRO type thing they have going on.
Comment by Ehud — December 29, 2005 @ 7:36 pm
This is the USSC Chancellor. Why is our Chancellor not doing anything about this?
Comment by f — December 30, 2005 @ 2:42 pm
Like what? Or do you just bitch about things without providing solutions?
Comment by Beetle — December 30, 2005 @ 2:51 pm
here are some photos from the recruitment thing, by the way. I wasn’t at the BSTW event and don’t remember hearing about it. All I remember was a few conspicuous and obvious right-wingers dressed up as what they thought leftists would like, for instance, wearing a tie-dye shirt, and wearing a Joseph Stalin shirt. The equivalent UC Santa Cruz people are more radical and much more enthusiastic but slightly less intellectual, and difficult to interpret by apolitical members of the public.
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/04/1734260.php
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/04/1734275.php
Comment by cp — December 30, 2005 @ 3:37 pm
Beetle - He could do what the UCSC (mistyped earlier) Chancellor did and complain to our congressmen/women.
Other possible solutions:
1. Chancellor could alert the media more about the issue (it disappeared off the headlines awfully fast).
2. Chancellor could get the UC system as a whole working on the issue (it involved at least two different UC campuses..).
3. Chancellor could ask the governor to talk to the federal government on behalf of our school.
Comment by f — December 31, 2005 @ 4:36 am
It doesn’t sound like the USSC chancellor had a lot of success. Why should he waste his time? It’s not like these protests are supposed to be secret, anyway.
Comment by Beetle — December 31, 2005 @ 4:07 pm
BAMN was monitored for a while by the FBI, so it could be a report on a bunch of middle schoolers on Sproul Plaza.
Comment by Ben N. — January 3, 2006 @ 8:19 pm
Yo-ish! they wasn’t teens.
Comment by Alicia S — February 4, 2006 @ 11:00 am