The raid on Luke's home involved an extraordinary "coincidance": DC Indymedia went down for the duration of the all-day raid, coming back up after the cops had left! Although no police agency has admitted to FBI involvement, the ability to block out-of-state internet service implies to the contrary. Don't believe for one minute that MPD by themselves is able to order a distant ISP to cut service between DC Indymedia and the public!


Beyond the raid, known after-the-fact arrests at protests include this one at an HLS protest(at Novartis-with NO warrant!) FBI agent Vincent Antignano was seen here shooting video of activists before being run off by a camera-wielding activst. HE LATER ARRESTED ONE ACTIVST ON A VA(not Federal!)WARRANT AT THE GMU/RINGLINGS DEMO! This warrant was for nothing more than wearing a mask. Masks, in turn, were worn because student protesters had beenn harassed by school authorities after previous GMU/Ringlings Brothers protests.

(Novartis coverage)
dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/142763/index.php

(circus coverage)

www.connect2mason.com/protestors_police08

Originally there were FOUR warrants against the Ringling Brothers protesters, but someone had the good sense to quash three of them. As it stands, one person is now facing the risk of 9 months in a Virginia jail over GMU's decision to protect the Circus from the First Amendment.

Yet another and possibly more dangerous case was Elizabeth's wrongful arrest at No War No Warming shortly after the Georgetown IMF protests last fall. This protest appears to have stung the authorities especially hard, with Homeland Security warning all those corporate chain stores to board up, costing millions in lost sales that rainy, windswept night in October.

Unable to stop this event, authorities retaliated days later by arresting Elizabeth Sanders without even being able to show that she was at the event they arrested her for. Elizabeth's case shows a willingness to make arrests without regard for reliability of information claiming a person was ever even at the site of a particular action!


On top of all else, cops arrested one activist in February for refusing to show ID at a fur protest (Saks 5th Ave) just over the MD line from DC. This was in spite of the absence of any law requring ID to be carried. Others at that protest were aggressively harassed for photographing
the cops.

dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/142497/index.php

With multiple police and FBI attacks going on, people haved been wondering what really was happening behind the scenes. Now there is some suspicion that the GOP itself ios beind this, as Move AmeriKKKa Forward has been aggressively lobbying the FBI to go after protesters in this area and elsewhere.

"Pro-war Freeper speaks out on Luke's Police raid"
dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/143193/index.php

"who is being Move America Forward?"
dc.indymedia.org/mod/comments/display/161760/index.php

Especially interesting is this piece on Free republic, posted just THREE DAYS before the raid on Luke's house:

"FBI To Address Attacks (On Military Recruiting Offices, REsponse to MAF "Sedition Report")"

www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2010759/posts

Although the article only directly discusses hits on recruiters, you can bet any FBI response to the Freeper pressure is aimed at protecting ALL the progressive movement's targets, not just recruiters. After all, none of those fur/circus/HLS arrests concerned military recruitmeent either.


If the FBI are making themselves available to the GOP for "special work," this sort of "Party Policing" represents an extraordinary development in "law" enforcement! If the Democratic national Committee had been able in say, 1994, to use the FBI for party action against, say, antiabortion groups, "Flush" Limbaugh et all would have been screaming from coast to coast about the jackbooted stormtroopers.

Now, however, these very same GOP thugs seem to be happy to do this themselves based on the postings by and cojnnection of Move America Forward. It should be rememgbered that "Move AmeriKKKa Forward" was specifically formed by pro-Bush, pro-iraq War conservatives as a couterweight to Moveon.org, however dirty they now like to get their hands.

In asking "Is the GOP behind the escalating police attacks on activists" we must lastly remember one thing: The GOP and their friends in the Dems are behind the routine and crushing police attacks on people of color, as both together seek to ethnically cleanse our cities and sell the 'reclaimed" land to the highest bidder. This being so, it is no suprise that they would aim a dose of the same thing at activsts who dare to challenge this sort of thing.

If any more proof is needed, look at how activists in the Black panthers, AIM, MOVE et all have been treated for generations-polcie murder, life sentences, death sentences, you name it! While the current cases and raids against white activsts are nowhere near this level, it goes to motive.

Those Panther, MOVE, and AIM activsts threatened the authorities with the power of the whole community moving behind them, so the pigs took the velvet glove all the way off the iron fist.

We are seeing some of the same brutality meeted out on the West Coast in particular to animal and Earth liberation fighters, especially Eric McDavid, who just got 19 years for noting more than taking Anna's bait. Anna(taking $75 grand from the FBI) set up a phoney ELF cell-and all three people who took the bait were arrested without ever havign seriously ettempted anything, and after being pressured by her to get militant!

Why did Free get a 23 year sentence for burning 3 SUV's(since overturned) and Eric McDavid get 19 years for nothing? Why do abortion clinic bombers get only 5 yeaqrs in this context, and Tyler Froatz get probation for bringing guns to an immigrant rally to shoot people?

I don't know about you,but I smell GOP and corporate fingerprints all over this discrepancy!