Occupy Peace: infiltrators

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Hijacking a Protest: How to Prevent It

Hijacking a Protest: How to Prevent it

by Sue Basko

There are three main forms of hijacking in protest. First, a group may try to hijack your protest to use it for their own purposes, or to discredit you and your group. Second, an organization or group may try to hijack a person and use them for their purposes. Third, a website, facebook, or comments section may be hijacked by those trying to subtly undermine the purpose of your group or to stem the flow of useful communication or to discredit those contributing productively.

All three of these forms of hijacks can be largely prevented with one simple rule:

Know who you are dealing with.

This was taught to me many years ago by a man who had decades of experience in activism. He looked at a flyer for a protest march run by a long list of groups with acronym names. “Who are they really?” he asked. Don’t associate until you know who they really are, he warned me. He was right. Years later, at one point, I failed to heed his advice, and found myself in a bad experience from which I had to extricate myself. Do your research. Know who is whom and what is what before you agree to go to any meeting, event, or protest.

Let’s go through each of the forms of hijacking:

I) Hijacking your protest. This happens when other groups come to your protest and take over leadership, or when they show up with inappropriate signs, flags, or banners. They may show up with a sound amplification system and begin shouting things or lecturing on things that are inappropriate to your message. They may pass out flyers for their own ideas or events. They may break your protest march into splinters, leading parts of your group off from the planned route. They may bring drums and drown out your planned speakers or turn your event into a noisy fracas.

What you can do:

1) Issue invitations only to individual people or leaders that you actually know. Tell them your plans. Tell them what you do and do not want participants to bring or do. Tell them specifically what is not acceptable. This is not so much to instruct them, but to make it clear that you do not welcome hijackers.

2) If people volunteer to help, don’t accept everyone. Check them out and be sure you actually want their help. Have them show up at one meeting and decide if you want further contact from them.

3) Train your own group in how to march closely, how not to follow an infiltrator leader, how to maintain order. That takes a lot of discipline and practice. It is worth doing. If someone shows up and tries to lead marchers into the street, or off onto a bridge, or down a different route, make sure in advance that your people are smart enough not to follow.

4) Lead your own group. Have group officials who have special T-shirts or hats. Station them at the entrance to your event and make sure they have the power to ask people to leave or to move elsewhere. That is where it is helpful to have a permit. Tell them your permit does not include their group or message or activity and that therefore it cannot take place at your event. Counter protesters have the right to counter protest, but they are supposed to stay separate from the main protest.

5) Have your group officials tell people who arrive with inappropriate signs or flags or other such items that those things are not part of your event and that they must stow them. Plan in advance to have a storage space for such items. Do not let anyone carry such items saying them will keep them, but not use them. If they insist, tell them their activities are not included in your event or on your permit and that they must stay apart from your group. Your permit is for you and your group and not for anyone that happens to come along. Counter protesters have a right to counter protest, but they are supposed to stay separate and away from your protest.

6) If you are marching, have your special officials with easy-to-see T-shirts or hats stationed along the route. In advance of the march, tell your participants that these people will have correct information and not to follow others.

7) Publicize your agenda, activities, performers, speakers, route, timetable. Publicize the tone of the event. Publicize what is acceptable and what is not.

8) Bigger is not always better. It is better to have a smaller activity of people on-message than to have a larger group with mixed messages or with bad behavior.

9) Caution and train your participants in advance that if someone is doing something disruptive or illegal, not to follow. Step back and get away. Make it abundantly clear that your group is not associated with those actions.

Example: Years ago, it used to be very common for serious groups to plan anti-war protests and for the whole thing to go quite well till the last few minutes. At that time, a few people from some fringe revolutionary or anarchist group would sprint in and do something to bring disrepute on the whole group, such as burning a flag. And mainstream media would always use the dramatic photos of these few fringe people doing their sideshow. That is one reason it is SO important for your participants to step back from such actions — because you do not want it to appear in photos and videos as if your people are watching in approval.

10) Be loud and clear. Tell certain people and groups they are not welcome. Make sure everyone knows you do not associate with those groups or people. (Counter protesters have the right to counter protest. They are supposed to stay separate and apart from the main protest.)

If you are with a group that plans to go "help" another group - ASK Are we welcome? What do you want us to do? Should we bring signs? What should they say? If you walk in and take over leadership of a protest, you may think you are a helper, but you are probably a hijacker. It is probably best never to bring your own megaphone, drums, chants, signs, flags, or banners to a different group's protest. Go as a guest and follow what they do.

II) Hijacking a Person. Fringe groups will often try to hijack a person. How? They will tell you they are having a press conference and ask you to speak at it. Often, the only press present is their own internal group. Or they will do the same with a website or blog – either asking or using without permission. Or they will make sure you get arrested and then use you as their pawn, their poster child.

Keep in mind that if you let yourself be hijacked by a political group or cause, you can end out arrested, in prison, accused of terrorism, etc. Make sure you are making your decisions. Do not fall for a group mentality, because that is no excuse. In fact, in the eyes of the law, you can be held accountable for what others in the group do.

1) Ask questions, lots of detailed questions.

2) Don’t get hooked into a cult of personality. Most fringe groups revolve around a leader who is larger than life. If it sounds like a cult, and acts like a cult – it is a cult.

3) Sometimes a group will use a person as their pawn, “poster child,” or martyr. For example, a group may conduct a protest in such a way that it is sure to result in arrests. Then they use the arrested people as examples of protest martyrdom.

I strongly encourage anyone who is being told to engage in “civil disobedience” or trained in such, to seriously question if this is civil disobedience or if it is merely acting in such a way that assures being arrested or brutalized. Don’t let people guilt trip you into this type of thing. Don’t let peer pressure or group dynamics be used on you to convince you to do something that you know is not what you want.

Some people believe that the way to “grow a movement” is by provoking confrontations with police. Others know that the surest way to discredit a group is by provoking confrontations with police. In any case, confrontations with police are, I think, almost always ultimately counterproductive in that they marginalize you, your group, and your ideas.

Think very carefully when persuasive, smooth, group-think people try to lead you into such activities. It is okay to challenge such people and in fact, the survival of your group probably depends on you doing so.

People trying to convince you to get arrested will tell you that civil disobedience was used in other past movements, such as the Civil Rights movement. True Civil Disobedience was used, but pointlessly being arrested was avoided. What's the difference? Civil Disobedience is when a person intentionally disobeys an unjust law. This is usually done by a carefully-selected front person, in concert with lawyers and financial backing. If you are being arrested for walking into traffic, that is not Civil Disobedience, that is just being arrested for walking into traffic.

4) If you have gotten sucked in, get out. Do not let anything or anyone lure you to stay.

III) Hijacking your website or comments forum. Right now, group websites, facebooks, and comments are being overrun with posters with an agenda to discredit a group, discredit valuable contributors, or to lead a counter agenda. This is especially true in the Occupy groups. MANY of these are paid trolls or are fake profiles. Please see my blog post about fake profiles – these are being used by individuals, organizations, and even by the government. Many fake profiles are obviously fake, though some are not.

What to do:

1) Don’t allow comments on a site if you do not have time to moderate them. Give an email so people who sincerely want to contact you are able to do that.

2) If you allow comments, moderate them. If a poster is using a fake name or fake profile, do not allow them to post.

3) Be wary of people who do not identify themselves as fully as others do. Newspaper and magazine Letters to the Editors and guest Op-Ed sections always required a name, address and phone number. The speed of the internet makes such verification difficult. You should still attempt to verify and cross-check each and every participant. If you notice people trying to discredit useful participants or posting things that are likely to scare off useful participants, delete and ban those users.

4) Check other sites nationwide. If the same profiles show up all over posting the same negative stuff, you know you are onto a troll.

5) If a facebook profile is obviously fake or obviously a front for a political trolling organization, do not allow it to post.

6) If “likes” come from people not otherwise posting, or from profiles that seem suspect, delete them and block the users.

7) Do not allow personal attacks.

8) Read my blog post about Fake Profiles and download and read the linked study from the University of California Santa Barbara. It will make you more aware of how fake profiles are used. You will be better able to spot it when it is happening.

9) Less is more. It is better to have 2 intelligent comments than a flurry of trolls.

10) Negative commenters often use mean, juvenile tactics. Personal attacks, racism, and sexism are common.

11) On Comments sections about Occupy protests, there is a series of trolls/ fake commenters posting Comments that say that Occupy protesters “pee” or “poo” on the ground (yes, often using such juvenile wording), or are “dirty.” These posters are trolls, probably paid trolls, trying to appeal to readers of limited education and social depth. OR they may be used to poison a comments section by scaring off intelligent, productive contributors. Whichever it is – these are the kind of comments that you delete and block the user.

12) On the chat or social networks Comments that run with live streaming video of protests, I have often seen posters who should be removed off the chat and banned much faster than they are. These are often people posting lurid, vile comments about sex or about defecation and urination. Sometimes they post links to unrelated topics, even to sex sites. Anyone running live streaming should get a friend to volunteer as a moderator and the first such comment, ban the person. Such Comments poison the flow of intelligent communication exchange.

13) Keep in mind that there really are counter-organizations paying people to be troll Commenters on facebook, youtube, livestream, websites, news comments, and other locations. It’s for real.

FBI Infiltrators in Protest Groups

FBI Infiltrators in Protest Groups

by Sue Basko

The FBI infiltrates protest groups. They are authorized by the Attorney General to do so to prevent “federal crimes, threats to the national security," and to aid in gathering "foreign intelligence,” three categories that “are not distinct, but rather overlap extensively,” according to the linked report, FBI Domestic Undercover Guidelines. THE ATTORNEY GENERAL'S GUIDELINES FOR DOMESTIC FBI OPERATIONS In doing so, the FBI is supposed to violate Constitutional protections as little as possible – but given the actual guidelines, it can be noted, nothing is safe from intrusion. “These Guidelines do not authorize investigating or collecting or maintaining information on United States persons solely for the purpose of monitoring activities protected by the First Amendment or the lawful exercise of other rights secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States,” the report states. Note it says solely.

Theoretically, at least, the FBI is concerned about – or should be concerned about – people or groups who have destructive plans. Such destructive plans may include such things as planning to bomb, shoot, or poison people. Gathering materials, supplies, or weapons to do such things is of definite concern. Other individuals or groups may be recruiting people to be terrorists or pirates, either in the U.S., or with plans of sending them overseas.

If you read the news on the internet a lot, as I do, you may have noticed that most “groups” engaging in such acts are not really structured organizations, but rather, loosely-affiliated people who somehow come up with a plan to blow something up. Often, these are small groups of friends, such as the three men who were involved in 1995 in blowing up the federal building in Oklahoma City, killing hundreds, including many small children. It seems logical that a large protest group with meetings open to the public is not a format where violent acts can be secretly planned. Nevertheless, such groups almost always are infiltrated by the FBI. Perhaps the agents are attracted by the potluck dinners.

When a protest group is peaceful, it feels very offensive to be spied upon. Groups often do not find out till years or decades later that they were spied upon, and looking back, wonder what about their group could possibly have been of interest to a sophisticated law enforcement agency.

Spying on protest groups and on individuals includes “Undisclosed Participation in Organizations.” That means, the FBI sends agents as infiltrators to join your group. These people are often in trusted leadership positions within a group. I’ll explain in this article how to spot such people.

The FBI also assists local police with “special events management, in relation to public events or other activities whose character may make them attractive targets for terrorist attack.” When big events include protests, that means the FBI is likely to monitor the protest activities.

The FBI also recruits human sources: “The identification and recruitment of human sources -who may be able to provide or obtain information relating to criminal activities, information relating to terrorism, espionage, or other threats to the national security, or information relating to matters of foreign intelligence interest -is also critical to the effectiveness of the FBI's law enforcement, national security, and intelligence programs, and activities undertaken for this purpose are authorized and encouraged.”

Human sources are people within groups who are used, either to their knowledge or not, to provide information. When past FBI activity of spying on protest groups has been uncovered, it has often been found that there have been many such part-time adjunct paid moles within a group. These are people willing to trade a paycheck for information. The bad part is that money gives these people incentive to fabricate or embellish. The FBI usually denies having anything to do with such people. When records are opened decades later, people look back and say, “Ah-ha, I thought he might be spying on us.” Often those doing this type of befriend-and-tell are people with alcohol, drug, legal, or mental problems. These people like the paycheck and the feeling of being special. Or sometimes, perhaps, their weaknesses are used against them to get them to spill the beans. Sometimes, the moles are “pillar of the community” types who get convinced they are doing right to spy on their neighbors.

The FBI infiltrator will identify “potential human sources, assess the suitability, credibility, or value of individuals as human sources, validate human sources, or maintain the cover or credibility of human sources, who may be able to provide or obtain information relating to criminal activities in violation of federal law, threats to the national security, or matters of foreign intelligence interest.” In other words, the FBI helps such people maintain their cover.

Interpersonal spying is easy in this era of the internet and self-employment. One mole might have many identities on the internet, using numerous facebooks with different profile photos, different names on emails, etc. One person can easily adopt multiple personas – men, women, all different races and types. A typical ruse is to have a very pretty, sexy female profile photo. Most men will confirm such a friend request. Once “she” is friends with one person in a group, others will also easily confirm her friend requests. A few months back, I saw an urgent message from a protest organizer warning others that “All the pretty girls are fake profiles!” It was true.

The FBI also spies on protesters using information available on the internet. “The methods authorized in assessments are generally those of relatively low intrusiveness, such as obtaining publicly available information, checking government records, and requesting information from members of the public.” Today, people organize protests out in the open on the internet. When there are comment boards, such as on Facebook, there are often people proposing violence – and these are just as likely to be law enforcement infiltrators as they are to be real agents provocateurs or trolls trying to get a rise out of people.

The FBI also spies on peoples’ emails, phones and internet usage, getting “grand jury subpoenas for telephone or electronic mail subscriber information.” To go to a grand jury, there better be probable cause to show a person may be engaged in crime.

How to Spot Infiltrators. It is fun to play Spot the Spy. The FBI uses two types of spies – agents who infiltrate, and human sources, who are non-FBI agents paid or unpaid to report information to the agents. FBI agents acting as infiltrators are intelligent people with college degrees. They are personable and speak well. They are organized. They are physically fit and can run. They can shoot a gun. Such people are good actors, and they can play people from all socioeconomic backgrounds. They are often multi-lingual, though you may not know this unless they slip up. They are often capable of playing different ethnicities. For example, a man may actually be Puerto Rican, but he can play being from any Hispanic country. If he can speak Arabic, he can also play being from any Arab country or from within any Arab-American group. A woman can do the same. Multilingual Hispanic, American citizens who can speak Arabic are highly coveted for undercover work. A Black person skilled in accents and languages can play roles of being from a northern city, from a southern university, or can put on an accent and be from Jamaica, or from France, or from an island. A 40-ish white person can blend in as a good old boy with the right wing type groups, and then fairly easily slip into mainstream mixed protest groups, and also mix in with Polish or Russian immigrant groups. Asians have a harder time swapping nationalities, but gain trust within Asian groups or as friendly nerds in mixed social groups.

Infiltrators are rarely the center of attention. They wear simple styles of solid-colored clothing that is indistinguishable. Older agents might have a distinct hat that changes for each group or city. They are not the silent observers, nor are they the active agitators. Often, they make broad statements that are supposed to mark them as knowledgeable and unquestionably committed to “the cause.” There will be no substance to the statement, just a broad, nonspecific statement of support. They are not there to argue or to push an agenda, they are there to spy and find out your agenda.

The internet is such a game-changer. I have watched Occupy streams from different cities, and have seen the same three infiltrators pop up from city to city. They talk about “revolution” and “building the movement.” They must be checking in with their moles, then flying to the next city to stand at a GA and talk about building a movement. Back in the pre-internet days, it was easier to get away with conducting a spy operation this way. Also, now with cell phones, it is easy for them to have a local phone number wherever they go. They like whatever food you like. They want to hear whatever music you want to hear. The won’t get drunk with you, but they will gladly be present while you get drunk. Then they will listen to (and record) your careless statements and treat them as well-thought intentions.

The internet can also be used to boost infiltrators’ credibility. They can have imaginary friends and supporters on comment boards. They can easily create an online persona (or two or three or twenty). Creating a simple website gives them a job and a history and makes them “real.” This is especially true if they use a name that is shared by hundreds of other people across the U.S., or a name that can easily have multiple ways of spelling it.

Infiltrators can show up at meetings, at an outdoor event, in a jail cell. There may be chance encounters where, if you look back later, you may realize an encounter was not chance at all, but had been carefully prearranged and timed. The person will "just happen to be” at the mall when you are. They "just happen" to get arrested and locked into your cell with you for a few hours, or for a few days, though it is likely guards will show up to take them in and out of the cell on “official jail business” of some sort so they don’t have to sit with you the whole time. They show up at the community festival, where you won’t notice who they are with, if anyone.

Infiltrators are chameleons; they will become whatever you need. They are not there to push their own agenda, they are there to find out what yours is. If you are being “set up” by an agent infiltrator, they will make your slightest suggestion of an agenda become a reality. If you joke that you would like to blow up a bridge, they will help you order bomb-making materials from their “friend,” and will drive you to scope out the bridge. Whatever it takes to elicit your plan and make it approach reality, they will be there for you. They won’t try to dissuade you. They won’t encourage you, either, they will simply help facilitate whatever you have even slightly verbally uttered. They are recording you secretly.

Spying on peaceful protest groups, where there is no danger, must be the training ground. Working with real terrorist recruiters or drug cartels is actually dangerous. Then, if a spy is supposed to be Arab and suddenly gets a hankering for a burrito or accidentally sings along in Spanish with the car radio, there can be real trouble. Infiltrators who spy among peaceful protest groups are usually good enough to fool most of the people most of the time. A lot of people don't really care, since nothing secret is going on. Others protesters feel very offended and hurt when they find out their "good friend" was a plant.

Human sources are a different bunch altogether. While a real FBI infiltrator will have discipline and poise, intelligence and physical fitness, a human source may be a smoker, a drinker, unfit, paranoid, a layabout, and annoying, but lovable. A human source may be a busybody organizer. A human source may be a quiet friend who is omnipresent, but rarely noticed. A human source may be the ditzy woman that no one takes seriously. A human source may be the eccentric crazy lady with the colorful clothes. In other words, human sources are often the opposite of the disciplined FBI infiltrators for whom they work.

I could tell you some surefire ways on how to test if a person is an infiltrator, but then, everyone would know. Suffice it to say, there are several foolproof methods. Try to guess what they are.

All quotes in this article are from the FBI DOMESTIC UNDERCOVER GUIDELINES, which you can download by clicking.

Undercover Cops at Occupy Protests

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Hijacking a Protest: How to Prevent It

FBI Infiltrators in Protest Groups