Just read this in the Guardian. by Sam Levin
The Los Angeles police department has revealed in court that it infiltrated an activist group planning anti-Trump protests, in the latest case of US law enforcement spying on leftwing organizers.
A confidential informant working with the LAPD secretly recorded multiple meetings of a group called Refuse Fascism in 2017, according to newly disclosed police documents. The LAPD transcripts, first reported by the Los Angeles Times and reviewed by the Guardian, were submitted in a criminal case against activists who blocked a California freeway during an anti-Trump demonstration.
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The LA case is one of several across the country of law enforcement aggressively targeting anti-Trump and anti-fascist groups with monitoring and criminal trials. In Sacramento, police worked with neo-Nazis to pursue cases against leftwing activists, including seeking charges against anti-fascist protesters who were stabbed at a white supremacist rally. In Berkeley, police collaborated with a violent pro-Trump demonstrator to prosecute a leftwing group last year, and there have been similar controversies in Washington DC, Oregon and other states.
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The LAPD surveillance was particularly striking given that there was documented evidence of violence involving far-right groups in southern California around the same time, and that those white supremacist organizations do pose a serious threat, said Mike German, a former FBI agent and expert on local extremist groups.
“This case seems to fall into a pattern of police agencies viewing anti-fascist organizing as terrorism, while overlooking the far more deadly and frequent violence perpetrated by white supremacists and other far-right militants,” he said.
This police state crap really ticks me off. If I actually Do break the law, then arrest me, but this isn’t a legitimate investigative technique: Infiltrating a legal group looking for someone who might break the law? How do I know the spy didn’t act as an agent provocateur ? I Remember the Quaker group from Michael Moore’s Farenheit 911. This is a another naked attempt to make people too scared to speak up when they are confronted with Official evil. Fascism protecting its own.
Edited to add: Not the first time this has happened.
And : Stop LAPD Spying Coalition