Does this look or sound familiar? If you know anything about COINTELPRO, it should be.
Posing as "Anarchists" the Agent Provacateur's used similar tactics to start Seattle's WTO Conference riots back in 1999.
quote:
An agent provocateur is a person assigned to provoke unrest, violence, debate or argument by or within a group while acting as a member of the group but covertly representing the interests of another. In general, agents provacateur seek to secretly disrupt a group's activities from within the group.
Agents provocatuer are employed to disrupt or discredit a group by performing acts for which the group will be falsely accused, by leading the group into activities that they would not otherwise pursue or by creating discord between group members. Provacateurs may encourage illegal acts, recomend belligerant tactics a group might otherwise reject, spread false rumors intended to provoke hasty action by a group, spread malicious rumors within a group about a group member or employ other tactics intended to provoke improper action by a group or to divert a group from its chosen purpose. An agent provocateur might attempt to implicate as an accomplice an innocent target who the agent unwittingly involves in a crime or criminal conspiracy.
Agents provocateur sometimes try to disrupt a group by creating discord between group members. They may argue for unity, while themselves playing consensus thug. They may argue against factionalism, while consistently advancing the positions or actions of one faction in the group. Disruptive group members might not be agents provocateur if they do not represent an outside interest; the term "agent" usually implies representation of or employment by another interest.
Although all COINTELPROs were officially terminated "for security reasons" on April 27, 1971, the documents discontinuing the program provided:
In exceptional circumstances where it is considered counterintelligence action is warranted, recommendations should be submitted to the Bureau under the individual case caption to which it pertains. These recommendations will be considered on an individual basis.
...
III. THE GOALS OF COINTELPRO: PREVENTING OR DISRUPTING THE EXERCISE OF FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS
The origins of COINTELPRO demonstrate that the Bureau adopted extralegal methods to counter perceived threats to national security and public order because the ordinary legal processes were believed to be insufficient to do the job. In essence, the Bureau took the law into its own hands, conducting a sophisticated vigilante operation against domestic enemies.
The risks inherent in setting aside the laws, even though the, purpose seems compelling at the time, were described by Tom Charles Huston in his testimony before the Committee: 114
The risk was that you would get people who would be susceptible to political considerations as opposed to national security considerations, or would construe political considerations to be national security considerations, to move from the kid with a bomb to the kid with a picket sign, and from the kid with the picket sign to the kid with the bumper sticker of the opposing candidate. And you just keep going down the line. 115
The description is apt. Certainly, COINTELPRO took in a staggering range of targets. As noted earlier, the choice of individuals and organizations to be neutralized and disrupted ranged from the violent elements of the Black Panther Party to Martin Luther King, Jr., who the Bureau concedes was an advocate of nonviolence; from the Communist Party to the Ku Klux Klan; and from the advocates of violent revolution such as the Weathermen, to the supporters of peaceful social change, including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Inter-University Committee for Debate on Foreign Policy.
The breadth of targeting springs partly from a lack of definition for the categories involved, and partly from the Bureau's belief that dissident speech and association should be prevented because they were incipient steps toward the possible ultimate commission of an act which might be criminal. Thus, the Bureau's self-imposed role as protector of the existing political and social order blurred the line between targeting criminal activity and constitutionally protected acts and advocacy.
The clearest example of actions directly aimed at the exercise of constitutional rights are those targeting speakers, teachers, writers or publications, and meetings or peaceful demonstrations. 116 Approximately 18 percent of all approved COINTELPRO proposals fell into these categories. 117
The cases include attempts (sometimes successful) to get university and high school teachers fired; to prevent targets from speaking on campus; to stop chapters of target groups from being formed; to prevent the distribution of books, newspapers, or periodicals; to disrupt news conferences; to disrupt peaceful demonstrations, including the SCLCs Washington Spring Project and Poor People's Campaign, and most of the large antiwar marches; and to deny facilities for meetings or conferences.
Haha, I remember the Seattle one ... how the provocateurs were even provided with comfy hotels to stay at, so they more easily disrupt the event, and even be allowed to cause so much mayhem, to blame on all the demonstrators ... LOL ... gotta love our ed up world.
