Two civil rights groups want an end to the surveillance of Black activists, including those associated with the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as for an end to the FBI’s silence on a mysterious “Race paper.”
Several heavily redacted federal documents — released through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the Color of Change and the Center for Constitutional Rights — detail extensive surveillance efforts by the FBI. One report reveals that the agency sent informants to track an activist during the 2014 BLM protests in Ferguson after Michael Brown‘s death. Federal agents also surveilled the homes and cars of people connected to the protests, according to the November 2014 emails and intelligence reports obtained by the civil rights groups and later provided to The Intercept.
Reportedly, the documents describe federal efforts to keep watch of activists of color that went beyond online intelligence gathering, including social media monitoring of protesters’ activities.
Also released as a result of the lawsuit were several Department of Homeland Security emails, which mentioned the existence of a document described as the “Race paper,” the subject of another lawsuit filed by the civil groups Monday. The paper may refer to a “framework for evaluating the alleged radicalization of black activists,” lawyers in the case said. . .
The Most Revolutionary Act 
Well, we should know from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and from the Black Panthers and from the MOVE bombing in Philadelphia that the surveillance of us never ended, but what I would like to know is why are Black activists under surveillance while so-called ‘white supremacists’ get a free pass to terrorize Black people? And what about these recent bombings that are aimed at mostly Black people? The FBI and Homeland Security can’t hone in on that shit because they’re too busy following Black people around who are sick and tired of being shitted on by our damn government! If this shit don’t beat all!
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Shelby, I suspect that your question is rhetorical in the sense you already know why white supremacists get a free pass. I think it’s pretty clear that terrorizing Black people serves the interest of the ruling elite – which is why it’s allowed. Black people are too essential as a source of cheap (and unpaid) labor which means the people who run the US do everything possible to prevent them from organizing and demanding their rights.
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Reblogged this on Human Rights & Activism.
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