As the first trial in the RICO case in Atlanta gets underway, both Attorney General John Fowler and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution are spreading outrageous falsehoods—for example, alleging that “The International Workers of The World... issue instructions on anarchy [sic] and committing crime.”
There is no organization called the "International Workers of the World." Fowler is presumably referring to the Industrial Workers of the World, an aboveboard labor organization that—contrary to this cartoonish AJC article—is not run by the legal support workers that Fowler is absurdly charging with violating the RICO act.
From Donald Trump's claims about the 2020 election to this trumped-up court case, intentionally spreading lies is an integral part of the authoritarian strategy. Never take anything they say at face value.
"The nature of this confrontation was altered permanently by the hasty and poorly-made decisions of Jerry Parrish, Bryland Myers, Jonathan Salcedo, Ronaldo Kegel, Royce Zah, and Mark Jonathan Lamb. These officers ambushed and killed Tortuguita, the nom de guerre with which we knew a 26 year old anarchist living in the forest.
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Combative anarchists, New Afrikans/Black liberationists, Indigenous land defenders, socialists, nihilists, abolitionists, anti-imperialists, and all other independent and aspiring forces: let’s organize encounters, events, actions, interventions, and deeds to honor those killed, kidnapped, disappeared, and abused in defense of our shared planet and its life forms."
“We cannot have peace until this empire falls. Even then, peace takes work and freedom is a constant struggle. If the cops kill me I want you to riot, to kill as many of them as you can.” – Tort’s diary p. 121
"Tortuguita lived and died fighting for the dispossessed, the wild, and the feral; against the world of empire, prisons, and police.
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We invite all those who knew Tort, and all who were impacted by its life from afar, to take the anniversary of their death as an opportunity to reflect on our own commitments and deepen our resolve, so that we might invigorate and intensify our conflictuality."
Moved to be able to share this art and the words below by @porknap, and do a humble amount of support to help make time-space for all who were touched by Tort’s life to engage in rituals of remembrance on January 18.
One year has passed since our beloved friend and comrade Manuel Esteban Paez Terán was murdered by Georgia State Police in the Weelaunee forest in Atlanta, GA.
We will gather in ritual resistance on January 18, 2024 @ 6 pm to share stories, songs, prayers, and feelings in remembrance of our dear sibling Tortuguita.
Bring words or non-words to share and altar items.
Mask up! Bundle Up!
We will convene at the grassy area off the French Broad River Greenway near the intersection of Craven/Riverside (in the River Arts District), Asheville, NC.
It should not be lost that the anniversary (or yahrzeit in jewish tradition) is happening the same month that 1 of the 61 defendants indicted with RICO charges will attend their trial, where they face bogus accusations of conspiring, racketeering, and inflicting domestic terr0r.
A bitter reminder to fight for our friends while they are still here (and that fighting for our friends who are not physically still here is tied up together, as prosecutors seek to use Tort’s diary as evidence in the trial)!
May their memory be a blessing.
From the forest to Atlanta to the United States to Palestine, hoping for an eternal shmita (sabbath year) for all occupied land.
In our final podcast episode of the year, we cover the movement to #StopCopCity across the tumultuous first half of 2023—including the historic events of March 5, when a black bloc hundreds strong marched to the construction site and destroyed it.
There's little public scrutiny when private donors pay to give police controversial technology and weapons. Sometimes, companies are donors to the same foundations that purchase their products for police.
by Ali Winston and Darwin Bond Graham, special to ProPublica Oct. 13, 2014
"In 2007, as it pushed to build a state-of-the-art #surveillance facility, the Los Angeles Police Department cast an acquisitive eye on software being developed by #Palantir, a startup funded in part by the Central Intelligence Agency's [#CIA] #VentureCapital arm.
"Originally designed for spy agencies, Palantir's technology allowed users to track individuals with unprecedented reach, connecting information from conventional sources like crime reports with more controversial data gathered by surveillance cameras and license plate readers that automatically, and indiscriminately, photographed passing cars.
"The LAPD could have used a small portion of its multibillion-dollar annual budget to purchase the software, but that would have meant going through a year-long process requiring public meetings, approval from the City Council, and, in some cases, competitive bidding.
"There was a quicker, quieter way to get the software: as a gift from the Los Angeles Police Foundation, a private charity. In November 2007, at the behest of then Police Chief William Bratton, the foundation approached #TargetCorporation, which contributed $200,000 to buy the software, said the foundation's executive director, Cecilia Glassman, in an interview. Then the foundation donated it to the police department.
"Across the nation, private foundations are increasingly being tapped to provide police with technology and weaponry that -- were it purchased with public money -- would come under far closer scrutiny.
"In Los Angeles, foundation money has been used to buy hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of license plate readers, which were the subject of a #CivilRights lawsuit filed against the region's law enforcement agencies by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and the #ElectronicFrontierFoundation. (A judge rejected the groups' claims earlier this year.)
"Private funds also have been used to upgrade 'Stingray' devices, which have triggered debate in numerous jurisdictions because they vacuum up records of cellphone metadata, calls, text messages and data transfers over a half-mile radius.
"New York and Los Angeles have the nation's oldest and most generous police foundations, each providing their city police departments with grants totaling about $3 million a year. But similar groups have sprouted up in dozens of jurisdictions, from #AtlantaGeorgia, to #OaklandCalifornia. In #Atlanta, the police foundation has bankrolled the surveillance cameras that now blanket the city, as well as the center where police officers monitor live video feeds.
"Proponents of these private fundraising efforts say they have become indispensable in an era of tightening budgets, helping police to acquire the ever-more sophisticated tools needed to combat modern crime.
"'There's very little discretionary money for the department,' said Steve Soboroff, a businessman who is president of the Los Angeles Police Commission, the civilian board that oversees the LAPD's policies and operations. 'A grant application to the foundation cuts all the red tape, or almost all of the red tape.'
"But critics say police foundations operate with little transparency or oversight and can be a way for wealthy donors and corporations to influence law enforcement agencies' priorities.
"It's not uncommon for the same companies to be donors to the same police foundations that purchase their products for local police departments. Or for those #companies also to be #contractors for the same police agencies to which their products are being donated.
"'No one really knows what's going on,' said Dick Dadey of #CitizensUnion, a good government group in New York. 'The public needs to know that these contributions are being made voluntarily and have no bearing on contracting decisions.'
"Palantir, the recipient of the #LosAngelesPolice Foundation's largesse in 2008, donated $10,000 to become a three-star sponsor of the group's annual 'Above and Beyond' awards ceremony in 2013 and has made similar-sized gifts to the #NewYorkPolice foundation. The privately held Palo Alto firm, which had estimated revenues of $250 million in 2011 and is preparing to go public, also has won millions of dollars of contracts from the Los Angeles and New York police departments over the last three years.
"Palantir officials did not respond to questions about its relationships with police departments and the foundations linked to them. The New York City Police Foundation did not answer questions about Palantir's donations, or its technology gifts to the NYPD.
"Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York #CivilLibertiesUnion, said she saw danger in the growing web of ties between police departments, foundations and private donors.
"'We run the risk of policy that is in the service of #moneyed interests,' she said."
Six More Months in the Movement to Defend the Forest
2023-12-12 via #CrimeThinc
"Escalating Repression: #RICO and the Furtherance of the Conspiracy
"With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the 'tactics of organized criminals' language Governor Kemp used on July 2 was not just boilerplate copy drafted by an intern, nor was the August 2 press conference simply propaganda to assure backers that the state could still protect their investments. These phrases and statements were shaping operations, carefully crafted interventions designed to position the government for their next operation: the blanket criminalization of the entire movement.
"On August 29, the Attorney General of #Georgia, Christopher M. Carr, filed an indictment with the Fulton County Superior Court, bringing charges against 61 people under Georgia’s version of the Rackeeter-Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act O.C.G.A. § 16-14-4. The indictment became public on September 5. The document, which is over 100 pages long and very poorly written, claims that the 'conspiracy' (which it names 'Defend the Atlanta Forest') was 'founded' on May 25, 2020—the day that #MinneapolisPolice officers murdered #GeorgeFloyd, precipitating a nationwide #uprising.
"This was a serious escalation. It did not catch everyone by surprise: the #AtlantaSolidarityFund has been braced for such charges since February. The authorities and their extreme-right proxies had been demanding a full-scale crackdown on the movement for over a year, spreading a conspiracy theory that the movement was a mafia controlled by a shadowy and well-connected group (a narrative some activists also reproduced, apparently with no sense of irony). According to one version of this conspiracy theory, circulated by far-right trolls, the Network for Stronger Communities (a Georgia-based nonprofit organization) operates a number of financial enterprises, including the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, that coordinate acts of terrorism in order to accumulate wealth and influence. Of the 61 accused, three were members of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund. The 42 people already facing #DomesticTerrorism charges were also indicted, as well as a number of other people whose connection to the movement was unclear. The indictment alleged that some people had committed acts in 'overt furtherance of the conspiracy' such as buying #GlueSticks for #SignMaking. UK is using similar tactics, arresting people for just having [#Superglue or #BikeLocks in their possession.]
"The RICO indictment was not a legal procedure but a political act. It was not a judicial intervention to suppress criminal activity but a government measure to crush what the text describes as '#anarchism,' '#collectivism,' '#SocialSolidarity,' '#MutualAid.”
"It is not simply 61 people who are on trial. By dating the case to the murder of George Floyd, the prosecution showed that their real target was the entire population of millions that participated in the consequent revolt. This is not an unusual court case, but a new chapter in the fight between those who seek to preserve the hierarchies of a structurally white supremacist society and those fighting to destroy it root and branch. The indictment does not present a list of crimes. It describes the contours and values of a rival society emerging within the movement to stop Cop City, aspiring to reinvent the world according to a different logic.
"The Fulton County Judge assigned to the RICO case immediately recused himself. Until then, judges had not recused themselves from cases related to the movement even when they possessed obvious ties to the Atlanta Police Foundation."
Cut services to the loser freaks whonvoted for the Murdercop lover. Cut all the services to their areas. Murdercop lovers and people voting for Murdercop mayors need to SUFFER.
the harms of designating protesters as “domestic violent extremists” #DVE's.: #Georgia authorities have engaged in a crackdown on #StopCopCity protestors, and the #DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) appears to have fueled that effort with intelligence assessments, #socialmedia monitoring reports, and #counterterrorism messaging. Our letter makes public a previously unreleased I&A #intelligence report obtained by the @BrennanCenter via open records request.
Folks I’m on board with #StopCopCity but can you please stop burning shit? We already have the full might of City Hall against us. Arson only builds support FOR the project and supports the narrative that opponents are terrorists.
“Did you know that GA law doesn’t require #police agencies to report officer-involved deaths caused by vehicle pursuits to the GBI?
Under the pretext of a traffic violation, they can hunt you down, force you into a fiery & mangled death, with no accountability whatsoever.” #Georgia#StopCopCity