Bounty hunters & child predators: inside the FBI entrapment strategy

An article by Crimthinc on recent FBI 'terrorism' cases centering on anarchists and the Occupy movement.

Submitted by Juan Conatz on May 29, 2012

The Latest Trend in Repression

Not so long ago, it seemed that the FBI focused on pursuing accomplished anarchists: Marie Mason and Daniel McGowan were both arrested after lengthy careers involving everything from supporting survivors of domestic violence to ecologically-minded arson. It isn’t surprising that the security apparatus of the state targeted these activists: they were courageously threatening the inequalities and injustices the state is founded upon.

However, starting with the entrapment case of Eric McDavid—framed for a single conspiracy charge by an infiltrator who used his attraction to her to manipulate him into discussing illegal actions—the FBI seem to have switched strategies, focusing on younger targets who haven’t actually carried out any actions.

They stepped up this new strategy during the 2008 Republican National Convention, at which FBI informants Brandon Darby and Andrew Darst set up David McKay, Bradley Crowder, and Matthew DePalma on charges of possessing Molotov cocktails in two separate incidents. It’s important to note that the only Molotov cocktails that figured in the RNC protests at any point were the ones used to entrap these young men: the FBI were not responding to a threat, but inventing one.

Over the past month, the FBI have shifted into high gear with this approach. Immediately before May Day, five young men were set up on terrorism charges in Cleveland after an FBI infiltrator apparently guided them into planning to bomb a bridge, in what would have been the only such bombing carried out by anarchists in living memory. During the protests against the NATO summit in Chicago, three young men were arrested and charged with terrorist conspiracy once again involving the only Molotov cocktails within hundreds of miles, set up by at least two FBI informants.


Undercover informants “Mo” and “Gloves” (aka “Nadiya”)
from the NATO entrapment cases

None of the targets of these entrapment cases seem to be longtime anarchist organizers. None of the crimes they’re being charged with are representative of the tactics that anarchists have actually used over the past decade. All of the cases rest on the efforts of FBI informants to manufacture conspiracies. All of the arrests have taken place immediately before mass mobilizations, enabling the authorities to frame a narrative justifying their crackdowns on protest as thwarting terrorism. And in all of these cases, the defendants have been described as anarchists in the legal paperwork filed against them, setting precedents for criminalizing anarchism.

Why Entrapment? Why Now?

Why is the FBI focusing on entrapping inexperienced young people rather than going after seasoned anarchists? Isn’t that just plain bad sportsmanship? And why are they intensifying this now?

For one thing, experienced activists are harder to catch. Unlike anarchists, FBI agents work for money, not necessarily out of passion or conviction. Their reports often read like second-rate homework assignments even as they wreck people’s lives. Agents get funding and promotions based on successful cases, so they have an incentive to set people up; but why go after challenging targets? Why not pick the most marginal, the most vulnerable, the most isolated? If the goal is simply to frame somebody, it doesn’t really matter who the target is.

Likewise, the tactics anarchists have actually been using are likely to be more popular with the general public than the tactics infiltrators push them towards. Smashing bank windows, for example, may be illegal, but it is increasingly understood as a meaningful political statement; it would be difficult to build a convincing terrorism case around broken glass.

Well-known activists also have much broader support networks. The FBI threatened Daniel McGowan with a mandatory life sentence plus 335 years in prison; widespread support enabled him to obtain a good lawyer, and the prosecution had to settle for a plea bargain for a seven-year sentence or else admit to engaging in illegal wiretapping. Going after disconnected young people dramatically decreases the resources that will be mobilized to support them. If the point is to set precedents that criminalize anarchism while producing the minimum blowback, then it is easier to manufacture “terror” cases by means of agents provocateurs than to investigate actual anarchist activity.

Above all, this kind of proactive threat-creation enables FBI agents to prepare make-to-order media events. If a protest is coming up at which the authorities anticipate using brutal force, it helps to be able to spin the story in advance as a necessary, measured response to violent criminals. This also sows the seeds of distrust among activists, and intimidates newcomers and fence-sitters out of having anything to do with anarchists. The long-range project here, presumably choreographed by FBI leadership rather than rank-and-file agents, is not just to frame a few unfortunate arrestees, but thus to hamstring the entire anti-capitalist movement.

How to Destroy a Movement

As we saw in the Green Scare, FBI repression often does not begin in earnest until a movement has begun to fracture and subside, diminishing the targets’ support base. The life cycle of movements passes ever faster in our hyper-mediatized era; the Occupy phenomenon peaked in November 2011 and has already slowed down, emboldening the authorities to consolidate control and take revenge.

As anarchist values and practices become increasingly central to protest movements, the authorities are anxious to incapacitate and delegitimize anarchists. Yet in this context, it’s still inconvenient to admit to targeting people for anarchism alone—that could spread the wrong narrative, rallying outrage against transparently political persecution. Likewise, they dare not initiate repression without a narrative portraying the targets as alien to the rest of the movement, even if that repression is calculated to destroy the movement itself.

Fortunately for the FBI, a few advocates of “nonviolence” within the Occupy movement were happy to provide this narrative, disavowing everyone who didn’t affirm their narrow tactical framework. Journalists like Chris Hedges took this further by framing the “black bloc” as a kind of people rather than a tactic—despite even the Chicago Sun-Times comprehending the distinction. Hedges led the charge to consign those who actively defended themselves against state repression to this fabricated political category—in effect, designating them legitimate targets. It is no coincidence that entrapment cases followed soon after.


“The individuals we charged are not peaceful protesters, they are domestic terrorists,” [state attorney Anita] Alvarez said. “The charges we bring today are not indicative of a protest movement that has been targeted.”

The authorities swiftly took up this narrative. In a recent Fox News article advancing the FBI agenda, we see the authorities parroting Chris Hedges’ talking points—“they use the Occupy Movement as a front, but have their own violent agenda”—in order to frame the black bloc as a “home-grown terror group.” The article also describes the Cleveland arrestees as “Black Bloc anarchists,” without evidence that any of them have ever participated in a black bloc.

The goal here is clearly to associate a form of activity—acting anonymously, defending oneself against police attacks—with a kind of people: terrorists, evildoers, monsters. This is a high priority for the authorities: they were able to crush the Occupy movement much more quickly, at least relative to its numbers, in cities where people did not act anonymously and defend themselves—hence Occupy Oakland’s longevity compared to other Occupy groups. The aim of the FBI and corporate media, with the collusion of Chris Hedges and others, is to ensure that when people see a masked crowd that refuses to kowtow to coercive authority, they don’t think, “Good for them for standing up for themselves,” but rather, “Oh no—a bunch of terrorist bombers.”

To recapitulate the FBI strategy:

-divide and conquer the movement by isolating the most combative participants
-stage-manage entrapments of vulnerable targets at the periphery
-use these arrests to delegitimize all but the most docile, and to justify ever-increasing police violence.

What Comes Next

The authorities are explicitly announcing that there will be more of these “sting operations” at the upcoming Republican National Convention in Tampa. We can expect more and more “unsportsmanlike” entrapments in the years to come.

For decades now, movements have defended themselves against police surveillance and infiltration by practicing security culture. This has minimized the effectiveness of police operations against experienced activists. However, it can’t always protect those who are new to anarchism or activism, who haven’t had time to internalize complex habits and practices, and these are exactly the people that the FBI entrapment strategy targets.

Three years ago, we called for a collective security culture that could protect even newcomers against infiltrators. In a time of widespread social ferment, however, even this is not sufficient to thwart the FBI: we can’t hope to reach and protect every single desperate, angry,vulnerable person in our society. Infiltrators need only find one impressionable young person, however peripheral, to advance their strategy. These are inhuman bounty hunters: they don’t balk at taking advantage of any weakness, any need, any mental health issue.

If we are to protect the next generation of young people from these predators, our only hope is to mobilize a popular reaction against entrapment tactics. Only a blowback against the FBI themselves can halt this strategy. This will not be easy, but there is no better alternative.

Don’t stop speaking out, organizing, and fighting—that won’t stop them from repressing us or entrapping people. Retreating will only embolden them: we can only protect ourselves by increasing our power to fight back, not by withdrawing, not by hiding, not by behaving.

The best defense is a good offense. So long as capitalism is unstable—that is to say, until it collapses—there will be repression. Let’s meet it head on.

Further Reading

What Is Security Culture?

Towards a Collective Security Culture

Cleveland 5 Support Website

Lisa Fithian’s Experiences with FBI Informant Brandon Darby

Originally posted: May 29, 2012 at Crimethinc

Comments

jdoggg

11 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by jdoggg on May 29, 2012

Thank you Juan for an insightful analysis.

One quibble: Why are you so ready to perceive 'divide and conquer' when it's the FBI doing it to us, but not when you're the one dividing the left? I'm referring, of course, to your position on Hugo Chavez.

klas batalo

11 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by klas batalo on May 29, 2012

I was just about to post this.

Juan Conatz

11 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Juan Conatz on May 29, 2012

I didn't write this, jdoggg, it's clearly authored by Crimethinc, which is stated in the intro, in the author tag and at the end link to the original article. Nor am I interested in a conversation about Hugo Chavez in the comment section of this article.

Arbeiten

11 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Arbeiten on May 29, 2012

jdoggg

Thank you Juan for an insightful analysis.

One quibble: Why are you so ready to perceive 'divide and conquer' when it's the FBI doing it to us, but not when you're the one dividing the left? I'm referring, of course, to your position on Hugo Chavez.

LOL :lol:

Steven.

11 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Steven. on May 30, 2012

For while we are opposed to Chavez, see here: http://libcom.org/tags/venezuela

Croy

11 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Croy on May 30, 2012

I found most of this agreeable. I think this is one of the first Crimethinc things Ive ever read, mainly because there seems to be a consensus amongst people on here that they have shitty politics, but I don't think I really remember anyone stating explicitly why with evidence (maybe some one can point me to a critique of them or something on here?).

However I do take issues with 2 things.

Smashing bank windows, for example, may be illegal, but it is increasingly understood as a meaningful political statement; it would be difficult to build a convincing terrorism case around broken glass.

Firstly, whilst it is true that amongst anarchists and those on the radical left rightly don't see as smashing windows as violent, I'm not sure you can take the leap to say its

increasingly understood as a meaningful political statement

. For example, most of us would agree that in the UK riots in England last year, a big thing that was shit about it was that people were not really having targets, and instead just smashed windows and looting, which in some cases meant basically targeting working class communities as well. (I know even this was a minority that the media exaggerated for obvious purposes, I share the analysis most of us have of the riots and I won't re argue it here).

Secondly, I don't like how they keep on the vulnerable people in the movement being young all the time. Well established people within these movements can have even shittier politics of insurrection etc and so could probably be set up to do even worse. Plus if we treat all newcomers as young and vulnerable, it can be patronizing. I would wanted to be treated in a respectful way, whilst obviously being advised and guided to improve my politics, my practice and also to actually protect myself when it comes what to do if I got stopped and searched, arrested, kettled or something like that. And that sort of thing does not much take much effort at all, you just got to talk to people.

jef costello

11 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by jef costello on May 30, 2012

Pretty good.
Croydonian, depending on how it is done it could seem patronising, but the problem with aiting to ask for advice is that people ask for it too late. By the time you realise you need help you're often in pretty deep.
I don't think treating people as vulnerable is a bad thing, sharing knowedge to make them less so is pretty much anarchism.

doam

11 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by doam on May 31, 2012

I would wanted to be treated in a respectful way, whilst obviously being advised and guided to improve my politics, my practice and also to actually protect myself when it comes what to do if I got stopped and searched, arrested, kettled or something like that. And that sort of thing does not much take much effort at all, you just got to talk to people.

This is the very problem, you have to talk to people who are not federal agents attempting to advise and guide you into going to jail for the rest of your life.

doam

11 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by doam on May 31, 2012

I found most of this agreeable. I think this is one of the first Crimethinc things Ive ever read, mainly because there seems to be a consensus amongst people on here that they have shitty politics, but I don't think I really remember anyone stating explicitly why with evidence (maybe some one can point me to a critique of them or something on here?).

You could just read something they wrote instead of a critique of them. I don't agree with most of it but there is always something worth seeing.

Juan Conatz

11 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Juan Conatz on May 31, 2012

The issue of Crimethinc has been debated to death over the years. Just check the search function for these threads. I don't think the criticisms of them in the past apply as much. If you want to check out past critisims, there's a bunch in the library but if you were going to check out 2 I'd see:

Rethinking Crimethinc
http://www.anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_id=3664
This was written by someone who used to post on libcom a lot and sort of reflects that attitude and tone that existed between 'class struggle anarchists' and Crimethincers. Also the Anarkismo article is still getting comments...6 years later. :eek:

Days of Crime and Nights of Horror - Ramor Ryan
http://libcom.org/library/days-crime-nights-horror-ramor-ryan
Probably the best critique I've seen. Takes on Crimethinc's first book and compares it to the book it takes its name from.

That said, I think instead of seeing themselves as the point for the late 90s/ealy 2000s mixture of anticiv, traveler kid, crust punk, insurrectionaryesque, antiglobalization movement anarchism they now see themselves as experienced anarchists-without-adjectives that have something to contribute to the anti-austerity, Occupy etc movements people are in. So they write a lot of summaries and intros that are hard to disagree with because they're sensible and thought out.

That said, they still put out stuff I disagree with. The blog Cautiously Pessimistic wrote a critique on one of their recent pieces that I mostly agree with, particularily the part on Wisconsin.