SnitchWire

Brandon Darby Fundraising to Go Try and Troll Occupy Oakland

noreply@blogger.com (SnitchWire) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 20:47:00 +0000

Brandon Darby, who is now acting as one of Andrew Breitbart's little "prankster/investigatory journalist" pets these days, made an appearance at Occupy Wall Street recently. He has a Twitter account @BrandonDarby and has mentioned he'd love to go to Oakland next, and is actively fundraising to make the trip.

Always remember SnitchWire's motto: If only Brandon Darby could be force fed the grill of a Mack truck!

Snitch Sack of Shit Brandon Darby in Florida to Talk to Tea Party Assholes

noreply@blogger.com (SnitchWire) — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 18:42:00 +0000

Hat Tip Earth First!:

That’s right, government informant Brandon Darby and border-loving sheriff Joe Arpaio are scheduled to speak side by side at the Choose Liberty 2012 conference hosted by the Eastern Orlando Tea Party, a group based in central Florida. This event will take place on Saturday, November 12, 2011 from 9:30 AM to 5:00 PM, at the Orlando Airport Marriott, 7499 Augusta National Drive, Orlando.
Darby, who is being promoted as a “Former Black Panther turned FBI Informant,” is also featured on the Earth First! Newswire’s Informant Tracking page. He had been providing information to the government since at least 2007. His efforts resulted in the arrest of two activists during the 2008 Republican National Convention who were allegedly planning to attack police cars in response to preemptive repression against the protesters in Minneapolis.
And Arpaio, famous for his pro-border anecdotes and civil liberties violations, will apparently be available for pictures and signing his “famous pink Merchandise” (a reference to his stupid efforts to humiliate prisoners and detained immigrants by making them where pink underwear.)
As repulsive and pathetic as that conference sounds, it isn’t the worse of what’s to come in Florida. If you want to test out your gag reflex, or see how much your blood can boil, take a look at the list of participants for GAIM USA 2012 in Boca Raton, January 22-25. This conference includes 200 of the most influential institutional allocators of capital and investors who have discretion over $215 bn and over $8 tn under advisement (those are shorthand for billion and trillion, folks!! bet you didn’t even know trillion had a shorthand.) If you can imagine an industrial evil, it will have a representative there.

Earth First! Journal Publishes Giant List of Informants

noreply@blogger.com (SnitchWire) — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 19:23:00 +0000

Many of the following listed by EF! have been profiled on SnitchWire before. Many are cooperating informants we have not previously listed. Much kudos towards EF! for putting this out, hopefully the resource is consistantly updated.

--------------------------------------

This is a new feature on the EF! Newswire to keep you abreast on the whereabouts and status of informants and ‘snitches’ who are cooperating with, or working for, the state in effort to monitor and/or repress ecological resistance movements, as well as other liberation struggles. Sadly, the names on this list are people who can never be trusted again to work in activist circles or resistance movements. The page is currently very centered on North American informants. We appreciate any assistance in broadening this to cover a more international scope.

This is by no means a complete list. Please get in touch with possible updates or corrections. We only post information on this page that can be verified to the greatest extent possible through public documents—in most cases, their plea agreements. We have aimed to present short summaries of the individuals below, so that they would be consolidated in a single location. There is very likely more information, including photos, to be found for each individual through online search engines and resources designed to gather personal information on people (some of which cost money). We hope that this page will serve as a useful starting point for those seeking to take their research further. Posted 9/5/11

Currently walking free

*Justin Clayton Samuel (DOB: Dec. 31, 1978) from Snohomish, WA. Cooperated with government by testifying against Peter Young. Both were charged with cutting fences and liberating mink from a series of fur
farms in October 1997. Samuel was an electrical engineering student at the
University of Washington in Seattle before dropping out in 1997. Samuel
was sentenced to two years in federal prison plus a year supervised
release and ordered to pay $364,106 in restitution in exchange for his
cooperation.
He was released on 11-28-2001, and has gone into the computer security field, working for Firefox as of 2010. He is currently a PhD student at UC Berkeley.
Height: 6’ 0″. Weight: ~165 lbs. Place of birth: California. Hair: brown.
Eyes: hazel. Race: white.
His school department profile:
www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~jsamuel
And twitter:
twitter.com/#!/jstnsml
—————————————
*Angela “Angie” Marie Cesario (DOB ~1979): took a cooperating plea deal, pointing the finger at Tre Arrow to reduce her sentence. This was a departure from earlier testimonies, when both Cesario and Rosenbloom did not name Arrow as the instigator, but Jake Sherman. All three named Arrow in exchange for sentences of 41 months. She was released on 12-22-2006.
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*Jeremy David Rosenbloom (DOB ~1977): took a cooperating plea deal, pointing the finger at Tre Arrow to reduce the sentence. This was a departure from earlier testimonies, when both Cesario and Rosenbloom did not name Arrow as the instigator, but Jake Sherman. All three named Arrow in exchange for sentences of 41 months. He was released on 12-22-2006.
—————————————–
*Jacob “Jake” David Bardwell Sherman (DOB ~1982) of Portland, OR: convicted of arson of logging trucks and a front-end loader near Eagle Creek in 2001. Sherman “immediately began to cooperate” with investigators after his arrest, according to court documents. Sherman was boastful and told several girlfriends (two of whom also provided information to the government), in detail, his version of the events that took place that night. Sherman had also not been an especially careful saboteur. His mother’s vehicle smelled of gasoline and he dumped his clothes in the trash bin when he returned that night at 2:00 am, asking his brother to tell his parents that he had returned home at 10:30 pm. Sherman’s father, contacted the FBI telling them he believed his son
was involved in the arson. During FBI questioning, Sherman pegged Arrow as the ringleader in exchange for a sentence of 41 months.
—————————————
*Darren Todd Thurston (DOB: ~1970), aka “Goat,” of Canada, took a cooperating plea agreement, charged with conspiracy to commit arson and destruction of an energy facility east of Bend, OR in 1999. Thurston was given a sentence of 37 months in prison
after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy and arson in the 2001 fire at the Litchfield, Calif., U.S. Bureau of Land Management wild horse corrals. He was released on 8-14-2008. As of summer 2010, he was running his own computer security firm (http://www.hard-mac.com/blog/) out of Canada. He goes by “rad_boy” and “hard_mac”.
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*Zachary Jensen (DOB: ~1986) of Monroe, WA, Zach Jenson was arrested on January 13, 2006, along with Eric McDavid and Lauren Weiner. He was charged with a single count of conspiracy to destroy by arson or explosives public and private property. His arrest was the direct result of a paid FBI informant, known as “Anna,” who spent over a year and half befriending and entrapping the trio. Zach plead guilty to a lesser charge on July 18, 2006 and was released on bail later that month. The terms of his plea agreement required full cooperation with the government against Eric McDavid at trial, as well as in any and all other investigations in which the government deemed him useful. Zach received time served (which amounted to about 6 months) at his sentencing on December 4, 2008. His supervised release is set to expire in December 2011.
Zach has a medium build, with brown hair and brown eyes. He stands at about 5’5’’. His last known place of residence was Seattle, Washington. He fancies himself a writer and claimed to have been working on a book about his experiences (and warning others against following a similar path) during the time of his sentencing hearing. He has also claimed an interest in Buddhism, yoga and other “spiritual” pursuits. He is normally withdrawn and quiet and eager to please whatever company he might be keeping.
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*Lauren Weiner (DOB: ~1986) of Pound Ridge, NY, was arrested on January 13, 2006, along with Eric McDavid and Zachary Jenson. She was charged with a single count of conspiracy to destroy by arson or explosives public and private property. Her arrest was the direct result of a paid FBI informant, known as “Anna,” who spent over a year and half befriending and entrapping the trio. Lauren was released on bond in early February 2006 and later plead guilty to a lesser charge on May 30, 2006. However, there is evidence that Lauren was cooperating with the government months before the plea agreement was signed. The terms of her plea agreement required full cooperation with the government against Eric McDavid at trial, as well as in any and all other investigations in which the government deemed her useful. Lauren received time served (which amounted to about 3 weeks) at her sentencing on December 11, 2008. Her supervised release is set to expire in December 2011.
Lauren has a heavy build, with brown hair and brown eyes. She stands at
about 5’1’’. Her last known place of residence was Pound Ridge, New York
(Westchester County). Lauren attended art school and is quite skilled in
pottery and various other art forms. She is outspoken and often lies or
engages in hyperbolic speech to impress those around her. Stories have
surfaced about her attempting to attend fundraisers for Green Scare
defendants after her release on bond.
—————————————–
*Lacey Phillabaum (DOB: ~1975) from Spokane, WA: Phillabaum took a cooperating agreement, pleaded guilty to conspiracy, arson, and use of a destructive device at the University of Washington’s Center for Urban Horticulture in 2001. The university spent $7.2 million to rebuild the center. She is very intelligent, calculated and manipulative. Phillabaum is a former Earth First! Journal editor, known for her role as the narrator of the underground documentary film Breaking the Spell, which advocates property damage and examines the 1999 Seattle WTO riots from the perspective of anarchists in Eugene, OR. In 2005 she moved to Charlottesville, VA, to take reporting position at C-Ville Weekly. She turned herself in to federal agents sometime around early 2006. In 2008, Phillabaum was sentenced to three years in federal prison and three years’ probation.
She was released on 4-21-2010 and is currently out after transitioning via a halfway house in Spokane, WA. She is thought to be living at her parents’ house in Pheonix, AZ and reportedly seeking work as a para-legal.
—————————————
*Sarah “Kendall” Harvey Tankersley (DOB: ~1977), originally from Ohio, the daughter of two attorneys, was arrested while living in Flagstaff, AZ; Charged with arson and attempted arson of U.S. Forest Industries in Medford. Kendall received a 3-year, 10-month sentence. Judge Ann Aiken sentenced Tankersley to five months less than she agreed to when she pleaded guilty to arson at the U.S. Forest Industry’s office in Medford in 1998 because she cooperated with the state and left the conspiracy immediately after the arson. Tankersley, then 28 and preparing for medical school, pled guilty in 2006 to charges including conspiracy to commit arson from 1996 through 2001. Left Eugene around 1999, attended Humboldt State and graduated with molecular biology degree in 2004.
She was released on 9-17-2010.
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*Suzanne Nicole Savoie (DOB: ~1977), aka “India,” of Applegate, OR: charged with arson at Superior Lumber Co., in Glendale, OR. She was sentenced to more than 51 months in prison for her role in two arsons. She turned self in to FBI agents in mid-January 2006. Savoie made statements against Nathan Block and Joyanna Zacher and was given a sentence only 8 months less than expected because of her cooperation with investigators. She has been in a Seattle halfway house with a projected release date of 3-24-2011. [UPDATES NEEDED]

Currently serving time:

*Jennifer Lynn Kolar (DOB: ~1973), aka “Diver” originally of Spokane and
later Seattle, WA, took a cooperating agreement pleading guilty to charges in connection with the firebombing at the University of Washington. Kolar has worked for a variety of animal rights and environmental causes throughout the years, including an effort
to prevent the reestablishment of native whaling practices in Washington State. She was often the ‘computer security expert’ for the groups she worked with. For the past six years she has spent much of her time sailing and racing a yacht, Manta Ray, an Olson 911 SE sail number 45, she co-owns. She is a chair of the Corinthian Yacht Club (CYC) of Seattle Large Boat Racing Fleet. She pursued doctorate degree at the University of Colorado, but turned self in to federal agents in Washington sometime around early 2006. She is currently held in USP Hazelton and scheduled to be released on 2-02-2013.
—————————————-
*Chelsea Dawn Gerlach (DOB: 1977) of Sweet Home, and later Eugene, OR:
charged with arson at Childers Meat Co. in Eugene; arson at a Boise
Cascade office in Monmouth, OR; toppling of a Bonneville Power
Administration tower; arson at the Eugene Police Department West
University Public Safety Station; attempted arson at Jefferson Poplar
Farms in Clatskanie. Gerlach pleaded guilty to conspiracy and arson
charges in a string of 20 fires that did $40 million worth of damage in
five states, including a 1998 fire at the Vail ski resort in Colorado.
After the group disbanded in 2001, Gerlach went underground and became a
DJ in Portland, OR. At the time of her arrest, she was selling drugs in
Portland with her boyfriend Darren Todd Thurston. Thus far, drug charges
are not pending with either Gerlach or Thurston. Gerlach was extremely
helpful to the prosecution, although she defends herself against being
villified as a snitch and says she cooperated both to shorten her sentence
and ‘for the movement.’ Gerlach made statements against Nathan Block and Joyanna Zacher. She convinced Thurston to turn informant, unsuccessfully attempting to get Zacher, Block and McGowan to turn as well. She led the prosecution on several field trips to previous arsons and a buried cache of guns, ammunition and fake passports allegedly belonging to William “Avalon” Rodgers. She was sentenced to nine years in prison, is currently held in Tallahassee FCI and is scheduled to be released on 10-10-2013.
Chelsea’s parents are environmentalists and she became active around age
15. She attended Evergreen University for a year. She identifies herself
as good with words and computers in an interview she did from prison with
Outside Magazine in 2007. She developed an interest in Buddhism while
incarcerated.
————————————-
*Stanislas “Stan” Gregory Meyerhoff (DOB: ~1977) of Charlottesville, VA.:
also went by “Jack.” Meyerhoff was the first of the group called “The Family” to be sentenced, and the first
to snitch once arrested. Charged with May 1999 arson at Childers Meat Co. in
Eugene; 1999 arson at Boise Cascade office in Monmouth, OR; toppling of a
Bonneville Power Administration tower; arson at the Eugene Police
Department West University Public Safety Station; arson at Superior Lumber
Co., in Glendale, OR; arson of sport utility vehicles at a Eugene car
dealership; arson of Jefferson Poplar Farms in Clatskanie. He admitted guilt in his first hearing in front
of an arraignment judge. Meyerhoff eventually pleaded guilty to conspiracy
and arson charges in a string of 20 fires that did $40 million worth of
damage in five states, including a 1998 fire at the Vail ski resort in
Colorado. After the group disbanded in 2001, Meyerhoff enrolled in college
in Virginia, where he studied engineering. Meyerhoff, who admitted to
fashioning the devices to start the fires, was sentenced to 13 years in
prison. He is currently held at USP Terre Haute and is scheduled to be
released on 7-08-2015.
—————————————
Frank Brian Ambrose (DOB: ~1975): Ambrose pleaded guilty to conspiring to
set a fire and explosion that caused more than $1 million in damage to the
offices of Michigan State University’s Agriculture Biotechnology Support
Project on New Year’s Eve 1999. Ambrose became a paid FBI informant after
his arrest (for disposing of evidence of actions in a dumpster that were
found and law enforcement notified). Ambrose has provided information on
“15” other people allegedly involved in ELF/ALF actions, including ex-wife
Marie Mason. Court documents reveal that Ambrose was being used by the FBI
not only to gather information on ELF/ALF activities but general movement
organizing as well (specifically organizing against I-69 and Cincinnati
Earth First! organizing). He “traveled outside of Michigan seven times at
the FBI’s direction, often working extremely late hours; he made repeated
trips from Detroit to Grand Rapids; he made 178 consensual recordings of
telephone conversations and in-person meetings with investigative targets;
and he participated in lengthy interviews with the FBI’s Behavioral
Analysis Unit and otherwise assisted the FBI’s efforts to improve its
intelligence-gathering protocols related to, and its understanding of,
underground environmental and animal-rights extremist groups and
movements.”
In sum, his cooperation with investigators after his arrest
has been substantial and rather extraordinary. He was sentenced to 9 years
in prison in 2008. He also received a lifetime of supervisory release
after prison and was ordered to pay $3.7 million in restitution to the
University and for other sabotaged sites. He is currently being held at
Rochester FMC and has a projected release date of 9-26-2016.
Ambrose, moved to Bloomington after graduating from Purdue University with
a degree in biology. At Purdue, the 190-pound six-footer was a varsity
swimmer.
There is speculation of an additional informant in Ambrose’s case (listed as another confidential source in official documents.) Confirmation and details on the identity of this person are currently pending.
—————————————-
*Kevin Tubbs (DOB: ~1969), originally from Nebraska, but had been living
in Springfield, OR. Tubbs cooperated three weeks after his
arrest and that his cooperation was substantial, after he learned of three
snitches against him: Ferguson, Meyerhoff and Kolar-in that order. Tubbs’
testimony was sufficient enough to get Jonathan Paul indicted. Tubbs was an animal rights activist charged with arson of Oakridge
Ranger Station; arson of Cavel West horse slaughterhouse in Redmond, OR,
on July 21, 1997; attempted arson at U.S. Forest Industries in Medford,
OR, in December 1998; arson at Childers Meat Co., in Eugene; Sept. 6,
2000, arson at the Eugene Police Department West University Public Safety
Station; Jan. 2, 2001, arson at Superior Lumber Co., in Glendale, OR;
using a destructive device to set fire to sport utility vehicles at a
Eugene, OR, car dealership in March 2001; arson at Jefferson Poplar Farms
in Clatskanie, OR, in May 2001. In 2007, he
was sentenced to nearly 12 years and 7 months in prison with 3 years
supervised release. Tubbs is currently held in USP Lompoc and has a
projected release date of 11-23-2016.
Tubbs attended Humboldt State University and was once editor of the Earth
First! Journal. Despite his status as an informant, he still has an active support page at: www.supportkevintubbs.com
——————————————
*Jacob “Jake” Todd Ferguson: After a roommate assumed he had stolen her
truck after an argument, reported it stolen and filed a restraining order
against him he was on the police radar. Using heroin by 2003, feds
contacted Ferguson and told him that people within the community had
linked him to the Romania fire and other arsons. And that, ostensibly, is
when Ferguson agreed to cooperate. Court records indicate that by spring
2004, Ferguson was wearing a hidden recording device in an effort to bait
others, into incriminating themselves. He admitted in 2007 that he set
fire to the U.S. Forest Service Ranger Station in Detroit, OR and a
government pickup in 1996. He admitted to being granted immunity plus
$50,000 for his cooperation, and received 5 years probation. Ferguson,
searched out others and had them recount experiences while he was wearing
a recording device. The recordings provided investigators the evidence
that they needed to convict Daniel McGowan, Jonathan Paul, Joyanna Zacher
and Nathan Block (who all received sentences of 5-7 years). Ferguson wore
the hidden recorder to an annual Earth First! gathering, to the Public
Interest Environmental Law Conference at the UO, and to meetings with six
of his partners in crime, by then scattered across the country.
He was never indicted for the over 15 acts of sabotage he admitted to and
was residing in Eugene, OR until being incarcerated for violating probation. He may also have been financially compensated for his cooperation. He is recognizable by a pentagram tattoo on his forehead.
—————————————-
*Ian Wallace: Formerly of the Twin Cities and recently attending college at Stony Brook (NY), was sentenced to three years in prison, beginning June 1, 2009, for his role in placing two failed firebombs at US Forest Service buildings where tree research was being conducted on the campus of Michigan Tech University in 2001. Walllace and another traveled from Minneapolis to upper Michigan for the action, according to the cooperating plea agreement he signed on September 5, 2008. He faced a maximum of 10 years in prison.
In the plea agreement, Wallace also admitted involvement in three other acts. Two were in Saint Paul: sabotage of a building and vehicles at a US Forest Service research station in 2000 (loss $25,186), and arson of the construction site of what is today the Cargill Building for Microbial and Plant Genomics on the University of Minnesota campus (loss $630,000). He also admitted to involvement and named three other activists responsible for the destruction of 500 research trees in Rhinelander, Wisconsin: Bryan Lefey (who took a non-cooperating agreement) and was sentenced to 3 years in prison for the Rhinelander action, Katherine Christianson (who took a cooperating agreement) was sentenced to 2 years, and Daniel McGowan, serving a 7 year sentence currently. Aaron Ellringer, who drove the activists to the Rhinelander site, cooperated with the government and was sentenced to four days in jail. Please contact us with any further information on Christianson or Ellringer. Source
————————————–
*Brianna Waters: former non-cooperating ELF prisoner, decided to take a cooperating plea deal in the prosecution of two 2001 ELF acts of arson. She had been released earlier this year after a mistrial and is expected to testify against former boyfriend Justin Solondz, who was captured as a fugitive in China, is now in US custody and as of July 29 is awaiting trial for his alleged ELF activity.
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International informants:

[this section is awaiting further information]
Mark Kennedy and Mark Jacobs are both UK-based international informants.
—————————————-

Briana Waters is a Snitch

noreply@blogger.com (SnitchWire) — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 03:53:00 +0000

It is very saddening to learn that Briana Waters, former non-cooperating ELF prisoner, decided to take a cooperating plea deal in the prosecution of two 2001 ELF acts of arson. She had been released earlier this year after a mistrial and is expected to testify against former boyfriend Justin Solondz, who was captured as a fugitive in China. Solondz is presently imprisoned there on drug charges, but, thanks to snitches, is expected to be extradited on release to face charges for his alleged ELF activity.

Briana will knowingly provide the state information on ELF activity and contribute to the same kind of imprisonment she was subject to as a non-cooperating defendant. This makes her a snitch.

More on War On Society:

Her decision comes at a time when anarchists and radical environmentalists across the country and somewhat internationally have shown widespread support and solidarity with Marie Mason and Eric McDavid this past June 11th. Marie Mason and Eric McDavid are both serving 20 plus year sentences. In the wake of Briana Waters decision it is important to remember that there are others with true strength and convictions in their ideas. Let us remember those who continue the struggle inside prison and never flip on their friends or comrades.

Total freedom for NON-COOPERATING Green Scare prisoners!
Solidarity with Sadie, Justin, Marie, Eric, Exile, Grant, Michael, Daniel, Scott, and non-cooperating ALF and anarchist prisoners!
Strength to those still free and on the run!

As heartbreaking as it is to see Briana turn, it is important to remember that Briana is somebody's mother, and she likely did this to stay out of jail to continue to parent her daughter. She was well supported by social movements, and many people will be angry and betrayed by her decision. They are completely correct in that anger, should not blame themselves, and it should be noted that Briana was thinking about herself, her future, and her family. She is selfish and couldn't handle the sacrifices so many others have endured.

Once again, the state wins with the same tactics. Many of these cases required informants and cooperating defendants, and the accused likely could've beat the charges due to lack of evidence.

Nobody talks, everybody walks.

Fuck that snitch Briana Waters.

Searching for Snitches: A response to "To take on the Wild Beast"

noreply@blogger.com (SnitchWire) — Mon, 23 May 2011 16:13:00 +0000

from Puget Sound Anarchists:

On May 13th, an article called "To take on the Wild Beast" was posted on Portland Indymedia, calling for readers to snitch on a big list of leftists, radicals, and anarchists. Back in January, an article similar to "To take on the Wild Beast" showed up on Portland Indymedia and a bunch of other Indymedia websites around the world. The article insinuated (but did not outright say) that a bunch of different radical (and some not-so-radical) activist-type groups and ideologies were wanted by the police and FBI. The article encouraged readers to call a number of snitch hotlines and report for cash rewards.

At the time, Olympia Rising Tide (one of the groups mentioned) released this statement, originally posted at http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/13524 and http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2011/01/405571.shtml:
"An article titled 'In the Fight to Make a Better World' recently appeared on several Indymedia websites, including Portland Indymedia. The article began,
'You read indymedia, chances are you know some protesters who are wanted by the police and the FBI. The good news is that now you can receive a big cash reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of crimanals [sic]. It's easy just a quick call. and if you know more that one person you can get multiple REWARDS up to $2000 for each . for information leading to the arrest of known criminals and subversive group activity.'

"The article then listed a wide-ranging and diverse collection of activist groups, movements, and political parties, including Democracy Now!, the Animal Liberation Front, Socialist Labor Party, and 'Anarcist [sic] book fair,' among many others. We were very surprised to see our name on this list, right in between Cascadia Rising Ecodefense and Freedom for Animals. The article finishes by providing contact information for various federal agency snitch lines, including the FBI and Homeland Security.

"Although the implicit premise of this article is that Olympia Rising Tide (and everyone else mentioned) are wanted by the police and FBI for criminal activity, it is important to note that Shayne O'Neill, the supposed author of this fishing expedition article, never actually accuses us of any criminal activity, nor of being wanted by the police or FBI. Olympia Rising Tide is a legal, aboveground community group. We have never carried out any illegal actions in the fight for a just and sustainable world. Some people do perform underground actions to dismantle oppressive power structures, but those are tactics that Olympia Rising Tide chooses not to use. The police and FBI have no grounds on which to accuse us of any illegal activity - that is why they are looking for people who read Indymedia to provide that non-existent information.

"Fishing expeditions (searches for information on groups disliked by the State and Capital but about whom the State has no incriminating information) are a scare tactic used to neutralize groups who are effective at creating change. The police wish to silence us by sowing fear, distrust, and misinformation in our community. We believe we are being targeted because we are vocal, uncompromising, and effective (qualities any social or climate justice group should be proud to claim), not because we have broken any laws.

"It is important to remember that nothing good ever comes from talking to the police. If you don't talk, they won't have any information. The majority of convictions of activists would not be possible were it not for informants, undercover agents, and snitches. Even if you think you are going to 'clear up our name,' it is better to say nothing at all. If questioned by police, remember that the only thing you should say is 'I am going to remain silent. I would like to speak with my lawyer.' Without voluntary snitches, the police would be much less effective at neutralizing activist groups. However much reward money you are offered (and do you really think they'll deliver on that promise?), it is never worth it to betray your friends, comrades, and the movement. And statistically, people who snitch receive sentences that are just as long, if not longer, than those who refuse to talk. If you snitch you're not 'just telling them what they already know,' you're giving them the tools to fabricate charges where they couldn't before, and you're setting back the movement. If you incriminate others, you are also incriminating yourself and making yourself a target of investigation.

"This false insinuation that Olympia Rising Tide is comprised of known criminals and is wanted by the police and FBI is part of the larger crackdown on environmental and animal rights activists known as the Green Scare. Activists who carry out non-violent but illegal activities in furtherance of animal or earth liberation are demonized as violent terrorists. This 'terrorism' rhetoric is used to prevent people from speaking out in the first place, and justify the criminalization of previously free speech. The government is not going after us for breaking the law, they're going after us because we're effective. For more information on the Green Scare, check out www.greenisthenewred.com.

"Anyone who has information on Shayne O'Neill or the source of the original article is asked to please contact Olympia Rising Tide at olympia@risingtidenorthamerica.org. If you believe you have been harassed because of your political beliefs, affiliations, or perceived political beliefs and affiliations, please contact the National Lawyers Guild's Green Scare hotline: 1-888-NLG-ECOL.

"Olympia Rising Tide will not be scared into passivity, nor will we allow ourselves to be neutralized by unfounded allegations of criminal activity. We will continue to remain vocal, uncompromising, and effective in confronting the root causes of climate change."

(To be clear, the article you are reading now was not written by Olympia Rising Tide, just some anarchists who appreciated their previous commentary and found it to still be pertinent.)

The most significant difference between the article that appeared in January and the one that appeared on May 13 is the terrorism rhetoric. In the previous article, the author only insinuated that the people and organizations listed were known criminals and wanted by the police and FBI. In this article, the author goes ones step further and insinuates that the groups and people are domestic terrorists. Whatever government agency wrote this call for snitches can get away with the terrorism rhetoric because they didn't outright say “such-and-such group is a terrorist organization,” although the FBI and police have certainly done so in the past with many of the groups listed here, and could certainly get away with calling every one of these groups terrorists – not because anyone on this list inspires terror, but because the FBI and police can get away with whatever they want, including lying through their teeth.

We (the authors of what you are reading now) are anarchists. We are under no illusions that the State has our best interests at heart. This attempt to gather information on radical and revolutionary groups is not the result of a few “bad apples.” This is how the State functions. We are under no illusions that the State will follow its own rules of conduct. If the State is ever forced to follow its own rules, it simply revises them. So while we are not surprised that it is gathering information on radicals (really, this is nothing new), we are pissed off and sick of this shit.

In their response to the initial snitching article, Olympia Rising Tide wrote of the criminalization of free speech. While we agree that the State is always looking for ways to silence more and more oppositional voices, we would like to shatter the illusion of “free speech.” Under the State and capitalism, speech has never been free for People of Color, poor people, queer and trans people, or any other number of targets of oppression. While it is crucial to support Green Scare prisoners and note how the government has fractured earth and animal liberation movements into “legal” versus “illegal” and “violent” versus “non-violent,” it is just as important to note the ways in which the government has also done so (and continues to do so) in communities of color, poor communities, and queer and trans communities.
To be clear, we are at war. Against the forces that oppress us and keep us miserable in all aspects of our lives, against capitalism and the State. We don't expect the State to play nice, but we expect people to recognize which side they're on and not sell out their comrades. Playing by the State's rules (whether that means avoiding illegality or adhering to Nonviolence) doesn't guarantee you won't be targeted. Debates over violence versus Nonviolence and whether or not property destruction constitutes “violence” are a dead end that serve to further neutralize all forms of resistance and further fracture the movement.
Finally, we would like to note that this snitch search has appeared on Indymedias all over the world. Almost every article is attributed to the name of a different author. We don't believe that the names listed are the actual authors (in all likelihood, whatever agency that wrote this bullshit just gathered a bunch of names from the internet), and we caution against taking action against anyone whose name appears on this article unless it can be verified that they actually had a hand in this.
- Some anarchists

Lead ELF Informant Jake Ferguson Arrested on Drug Charges

noreply@blogger.com (SnitchWire) — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 05:40:00 +0000

From Green is the New Red: The government’s roundup of environmental activists in “Operation Backfire” was only possible because the lead arsonist, Jacob Ferguson, had agreed to wear a wire, travel the country, and prod his friends into talking about the crimes with the Earth Liberation Front.

The government has repeatedly called Ferguson a “hero.” U.S. Attorney Kirk Engdall has said he was “essential” to the largest investigation of the radical environmental movement in U.S. history.

In exchange for doing the government’s work for them, Ferguson, who was involved in about 18 arsons, was sentenced to no jail time and five years probation. In other words, the most prolific arsonist in the history of so-called “eco-terrorism” got a free pass.

But Ferguson was arrested on April 6, 2011, on drug charges and now faces prison time for violating these conditions. Today will be his first probation violation hearing at the Eugene federal courthouse.

I think this is worth highlighting for a few reasons. Ferguson’s drug history is not new information. In fact, the government used this against him in order to pressure him to become an informant. The FBI was well-aware of his personal history, but chose to ignore this because it was the only lead they had in arresting members of the ELF.

This is yet another example of how far the FBI has been willing to go, and the shady deals that agents are willing to make, in order to secure a victory in the “War on Terrorism.”

Greenscare Snitch Suzanne Savoie Goes to the Movies

noreply@blogger.com (SnitchWire) — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 21:49:00 +0000

From Ashland Films

If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front is a documentary that features anarchist and environmental activist, Daniel McGowan . It traces a period of time from his initial arrest on December 7th, 2005, in a federal investigation known as “Operation Backfire,” to the day he began his 7-year sentence for two actions claimed in the name of the Earth Liberation Front. Alongside this focus on Daniel, the film also takes a look at how the radical environmental movement began and talks to a variety of people involved in the case, including prosecutors, police officers, and even some of the snitches.

One of the snitches featured in the film, Suzanne Savoie, has already served her 51-month sentence, and plans on attending a screening of the film at the Ashland Independent Film Festival in southern Oregon. Savoie bargained the lives of the non-cooperating defendants, Daniel McGowan, Jonathan Paul, Sadie, and Exile, as well as those who have yet to be apprehended by the government, for what amounted to a slightly lesser sentence. (Daniel McGowan received 84-months.) Savoie's cooperation deal is public knowledge and with her help, the state has locked away comrades who stared down multiple life sentences without betraying themselves, the others who were involved, and all of us who fight in resistance to the state and capitalism.

The film is favorable to Daniel, humanizing someone who the federal government calls an eco-terrorist and has shoved into a secretive prison unit known as a “Communications Management Unit,” and is also relatively sympathetic to the ELF. However, because the filmmakers are the good little liberals that they are, they treat Savoie as just another “voice” in the “conversation” they hoped that this “story” would generate. What's more, they invited this scum to attend a screening at the festival and plan on publicly acknowledging her in the audience during a Q & A.

It is beyond belief that Savoie would even consider going, considering what she's done, but perhaps she feels emboldened by the filmmakers invitation and hopes this can pave the way for her to return to the very movements that she has betrayed. The filmmakers have thus far refused to rescind the invitation, citing the usual liberal bullshit of "everybody having a voice in this story." Well, as revolutionaries, we cannot allow this snitch to try and reintegrate herself, because Suzanne Savoie has sided with our enemies and no longer has anything to say we want to hear. Additionally, our lives, and our movements of resistance are not “stories” that exist to help filmmakers gain accolades and prestige, but the actions of real people making real attempts to destroy all that which destroys us.

If you live in southern Oregon, or can get there, please think about attending or showing up outside of the film screenings to make sure that Suzanne Savoie and her stupid snitch ass do not feel welcome. Showtimes are Saturday, April 9th, @ 9:30am, Sunday, April 10th, @ 6:00pm, and if the film wins a prize, Monday, April 11th, @ 12 & 9pm.

In the meantime, if everyone could clue the filmmakers in to the VERY BIG MISTAKE THEY ARE MAKING by inviting and welcoming this snitch to their screening, that would also be very much appreciated. Here is the contact info for the directors:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/If-A-Tree-Falls-A-Story-of-the-Earth-Liber...
info@marshallcurry.com
info@yellowcakefilms.com
info@ifatreefallsfilm.com

Anonymous Annihilates Infiltrator: Full Story

noreply@blogger.com (SnitchWire) — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 05:13:00 +0000

from ars technica:

It has been an embarrassing week for security firm HBGary and its HBGary Federal offshoot. HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr thought he had unmasked the hacker hordes of Anonymous and was preparing to name and shame those responsible for co-ordinating the group's actions, including the denial-of-service attacks that hit MasterCard, Visa, and other perceived enemies of WikiLeaks late last year.

When Barr told one of those he believed to be an Anonymous ringleader about his forthcoming exposé, the Anonymous response was swift and humiliating. HBGary's servers were broken into, its e-mails pillaged and published to the world, its data destroyed, and its website defaced. As an added bonus, a second site owned and operated by Greg Hoglund, owner of HBGary, was taken offline and the user registration database published.

Over the last week, I've talked to some of those who participated in the HBGary hack to learn in detail how they penetrated HBGary's defenses and gave the company such a stunning black eye—and what the HBGary example means for the rest of us mere mortals who use the Internet.

Anonymous: more than kids

HBGary and HBGary Federal position themselves as experts in computer security. The companies offer both software and services to both the public and private sectors. On the software side, HBGary has a range of computer forensics and malware analysis tools to enable the detection, isolation, and analysis of worms, viruses, and trojans. On the services side, it offers expertise in implementing intrusion detection systems and secure networking, and performs vulnerability assessment and penetration testing of systems and software. A variety of three letter agencies, including the NSA, appeared to be in regular contact with the HBGary companies, as did Interpol, and HBGary also worked with well-known security firm McAfee. At one time, even Apple expressed an interest in the company's products or services.

Greg Hoglund's rootkit.com is a respected resource for discussion and analysis of rootkits (software that tampers with operating systems at a low level to evade detection) and related technology; over the years, his site has been targeted by disgruntled hackers aggrieved that their wares have been discussed, dissected, and often disparaged as badly written bits of code.

One might think that such an esteemed organization would prove an insurmountable challenge for a bunch of disaffected kids to hack. World-renowned, government-recognized experts against Anonymous? HBGary should be able to take their efforts in stride.

Unfortunately for HBGary, neither the characterization of Anonymous nor the assumption of competence on the security company's part are accurate, as the story of how HBGary was hacked will make clear.

Anonymous is a diverse bunch: though they tend to be younger rather than older, their age group spans decades. Some may still be in school, but many others are gainfully employed office-workers, software developers, or IT support technicians, among other things. With that diversity in age and experience comes a diversity of expertise and ability.

It's true that most of the operations performed under the Anonymous branding have been relatively unsophisticated, albeit effective: the attacks made on MasterCard and others were distributed denial-of-service attacks using a modified version of the Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC) load-testing tool. The modified LOIC enables the creation of large botnets that each user opts into: the software can be configured to take its instructions from connections to Internet relay chat (IRC) chat servers, allowing attack organizers to remotely control hundreds of slave machines and hence control large-scale attacks that can readily knock websites offline.

According to the leaked e-mails, Aaron Barr believed that HBGary's website was itself subject to a denial-of-service attack shortly after he exposed himself to someone he believed to be a top Anonymous leader. But the person I spoke about this denied any involvement in such an attack. Which is not to say that the attack didn't happen—simply that this person didn't know about or participate in it. In any case, the Anonymous plans were more advanced than a brute force DDoS.

Time for an injection

HBGary Federal's website, hbgaryfederal.com, was powered by a content management system (CMS). CMSes are a common component of content-driven sites; they make it easy to add and update content to the site without having to mess about with HTML and making sure everything gets linked up and so on and so forth. Rather than using an off-the-shelf CMS (of which there are many, used in the many blogs and news sites that exist on the Web), HBGary—for reasons best known to its staff—decided to commission a custom CMS system from a third-party developer.

Unfortunately for HBGary, this third-party CMS was poorly written. In fact, it had what can only be described as a pretty gaping bug in it. A standard, off-the-shelf CMS would be no panacea in this regard—security flaws crop up in all of them from time to time—but it would have the advantage of many thousands of users and regular bugfixes, resulting in a much lesser chance of extant security flaws.

The custom solution on HBGary's site, alas, appeared to lack this kind of support. And if HBGary conducted any kind of vulnerability assessment of the software—which is, after all, one of the services the company offers—then its assessment overlooked a substantial flaw.

The hbgaryfederal.com CMS was susceptible to a kind of attack called SQL injection. In common with other CMSes, the hbgaryfederal.com CMS stores its data in an SQL database, retrieving data from that database with suitable queries. Some queries are fixed—an integral part of the CMS application itself. Others, however, need parameters. For example, a query to retrieve an article from the CMS will generally need a parameter corresponding to the article ID number. These parameters are, in turn, generally passed from the Web front-end to the CMS.

SQL injection is possible when the code that deals with these parameters is faulty. Many applications join the parameters from the Web front-end with hard-coded queries, then pass the whole concatenated lot to the database. Often, they do this without verifying the validity of those parameters. This exposes the systems to SQL injection. Attackers can pass in specially crafted parameters that cause the database to execute queries of the attackers' own choosing.
The exact URL used to break into hbgaryfederal.com was
http://www.hbgaryfederal.com/pages.php?pageNav=2&page=27. The URL has two parameters named pageNav and page, set to the values 2 and 27, respectively. One or other or both of these was handled incorrectly by the CMS, allowing the hackers to retrieve data from the database that they shouldn't have been able to get.

Rainbow tables

Specifically, the attackers grabbed the user database from the CMS—the list of usernames, e-mail addresses, and password hashes for the HBGary employees authorized to make changes to the CMS. In spite of the rudimentary SQL injection flaw, the designers of the CMS system were not completely oblivious to security best practices; the user database did not store plain readable passwords. It stored only hashed passwords—passwords that have been mathematically processed with a hash function to yield a number from which the original password can't be deciphered.

The key part is that you can't go backwards—you can't take the hash value and convert it back into a password. With a hash algorithm, traditionally the only way to figure out the original password was to try every single possible password in turn, and see which one matched the hash value you have. So, one would try "a," then "b," then "c"... then "z," then "aa," "ab," and so on and so forth.

To make this more difficult, hash algorithms are often quite slow (deliberately), and users are encouraged to use long passwords which mix lower case, upper case, numbers, and symbols, so that these brute force attacks have to try even more potential passwords until they find the right one. Given the number of passwords to try, and the slowness of hash algorithms, this normally takes a very long time. Password cracking software to perform this kind of brute force attack has long been available, but its success at cracking complex passwords is low.
However, a technique first published in 2003 (itself a refinement of a technique described in 1980) gave password crackers an alternative approach. By pre-computing large sets of data and generating what are known as rainbow tables, the attackers can make a trade-off: they get much faster password cracks in return for using much more space. The rainbow table lets the password cracker pre-compute and store a large number of hash values and the passwords that generated them. An attacker can then look up the hash value that they are interested in and see if it's in the table. If it is, they can then read out the password.

To make cracking harder, good password hash implementations will use a couple of additional techniques. The first is iterative hashing: simply put, the output of the hash function is itself hashed with the hash function, and this process is repeated thousands of times. This makes the hashing process considerably slower, hindering both brute-force attacks and rainbow table generation.

The second technique is salting; a small amount of random data is added to the password before hashing it, greatly expanding the size of rainbow table that would be required to get the password.

In principle, any hash function can be used to generate rainbow tables. However, it takes more time to generate rainbow tables for slow hash functions than it does for fast ones, and hash functions that produce a short hash value require less storage than ones that produce long hash values. So in practice, only a few hash algorithms have widely available rainbow table software available. The best known and most widely supported of these is probably MD5, which is quick to compute and produces an output that is only 128 bits (16 bytes) per hash. These factors together make it particularly vulnerable to rainbow table attacks. A number of software projects exist that allow the generation or downloading of MD5 rainbow tables, and their subsequent use to crack passwords.

As luck would have it, the hbgaryfederal.com CMS used MD5. What's worse is that it used MD5 badly: there was no iterative hashing and no salting. The result was that the downloaded passwords were highly susceptible to rainbow table-based attacks, performed using a rainbow table-based password cracking website. And so this is precisely what the attackers did; they used a rainbow table cracking tool to crack the hbgaryfederal.com CMS passwords.

Even with the flawed usage of MD5, HBGary could have been safe thanks to a key limitation of rainbow tables: each table only spans a given "pattern" for the password. So for example, some tables may support "passwords of 1-8 characters made of a mix of lower case and numbers," while other can handle only "passwords of 1-12 characters using upper case only."
A password that uses the full range of the standard 95 typeable characters (upper and lower case letters, numbers, and the standard symbols found on a keyboard) and which is unusually long (say, 14 or more characters) is unlikely to be found in a rainbow table, because the rainbow table required for such passwords will be too big and take too long to generate.

Alas, two HBGary Federal employees—CEO Aaron Barr and COO Ted Vera—used passwords that were very simple; each was just six lower case letters and two numbers. Such simple combinations are likely to be found in any respectable rainbow table, and so it was that their passwords were trivially compromised.

For a security company to use a CMS that was so flawed is remarkable. Proper handling of passwords—iterative hashing, using salts and slow algorithms—and protection against SQL injection attacks are basic errors. Their system did not fall prey to some subtle, complex issue: it was broken into with basic, well-known techniques. And though not all the passwords were retrieved through the rainbow tables, two were, because they were so poorly chosen.
HBGary owner Penny Leavy said in a later IRC chat with Anonymous that the company responsible for implementing the CMS has since been fired.

Password problems

Still, badly chosen passwords aren't such a big deal, are they? They might have allowed someone to deface the hbgaryfederal.com website—admittedly embarrassing—but since everybody knows that you shouldn't reuse passwords across different systems, that should have been the extent of the damage, surely?
Unfortunately for HBGary Federal, it was not. Neither Aaron nor Ted followed best practices. Instead, they used the same password in a whole bunch of different places, including e-mail, Twitter accounts, and LinkedIn. For both men, the passwords allowed retrieval of e-mail. However, that was not all they revealed. Let's start with Ted's password first.

Along with its webserver, HBGary had a Linux machine, support.hbgary.com, on which many HBGary employees had shell accounts with ssh access, each with a password used to authenticate the user. One of these employees was Ted Vera, and his ssh password was identical to the cracked password he used in the CMS. This gave the hackers immediate access to the support machine.
ssh doesn't have to use passwords for authentication. Passwords are certainly common, but they're also susceptible to this kind of problem (among others). To combat this, many organizations and users, particularly those with security concerns, do not use passwords for ssh authentication. Instead, they use public key cryptography: each user has a key made up of a private part and a public part. The public part is associated with their account, and the private part is kept, well, private. ssh then uses these two keys to authenticate the user.
Since these private keys are not as easily compromised as passwords—servers don't store them, and in fact they never leave the client machine—and aren't readily re-used (one set of keys might be used to authenticate with several servers, but they can't be used to log in to a website, say), they are a much more secure option. Had they been used for HBGary's server, it would have been safe. But they weren't, so it wasn't.

Although attackers could log on to this machine, the ability to look around and break stuff was curtailed: Ted was only a regular non-superuser. Being restricted to a user account can be enormously confining on a Linux machine. It spoils all your fun; you can't read other users' data, you can't delete files you don't own, you can't cover up the evidence of your own break-in. It's a total downer for hackers.

The only way they can have some fun is to elevate privileges through exploiting a privilege escalation vulnerability. These crop up from time to time and generally exploit flaws in the operating system kernel or its system libraries to trick it into giving the user more access to the system than should be allowed. By a stroke of luck, the HBGary system was vulnerable to just such a flaw. The error was published in October last year, conveniently with a full, working exploit. By November, most distributions had patches available, and there was no good reason to be running the exploitable code in February 2011.

Exploitation of this flaw gave the Anonymous attackers full access to HBGary's system. It was then that they discovered many gigabytes of backups and research data, which they duly purged from the system.

Aaron's password yielded even more fruit. HBGary used Google Apps for its e-mail services, and for both Aaron and Ted, the password cracking provided access to their mail. But Aaron was no mere user of Google Apps: his account was also the administrator of the company's mail. With his higher access, he could reset the passwords of any mailbox and hence gain access to all the company's mail—not just his own. It's this capability that yielded access to Greg Hoglund's mail.

And what was done with Greg's mail?
A little bit of social engineering, that's what.

A little help from my friends

Contained within Greg's mail were two bits of useful information. One: the root password to the machine running Greg's rootkit.com site was either "88j4bb3rw0cky88" or "88Scr3am3r88". Two: Jussi Jaakonaho, "Chief Security Specialist" at Nokia, had root access. Vandalizing the website stored on the machine was now within reach.

The attackers just needed a little bit more information: they needed a regular, non-root user account to log in with, because as a standard security procedure, direct ssh access with the root account is disabled. Armed with the two pieces of knowledge above, and with Greg's e-mail account in their control, the social engineers set about their task. The e-mail correspondence tells the whole story:

From: Greg
To: Jussi
Subject: need to ssh into rootkit
im in europe and need to ssh into the server. can you drop open up
firewall and allow ssh through port 59022 or something vague?
and is our root password still 88j4bb3rw0cky88 or did we change to
88Scr3am3r88 ?
thanks

-------------------------------------

From: Jussi
To: Greg
Subject: Re: need to ssh into rootkit
hi, do you have public ip? or should i just drop fw?
and it is w0cky - tho no remote root access allowed

-------------------------------------

From: Greg
To: Jussi
Subject: Re: need to ssh into rootkit
no i dont have the public ip with me at the moment because im ready
for a small meeting and im in a rush.
if anything just reset my password to changeme123 and give me public
ip and ill ssh in and reset my pw.

-------------------------------------

From: Jussi
To: Greg
Subject: Re: need to ssh into rootkit
ok,
it should now accept from anywhere to 47152 as ssh. i am doing
testing so that it works for sure.
your password is changeme123

i am online so just shoot me if you need something.

in europe, but not in finland? :-)

_jussi

-------------------------------------

From: Greg
To: Jussi
Subject: Re: need to ssh into rootkit
if i can squeeze out time maybe we can catch up.. ill be in germany
for a little bit.

anyway I can't ssh into rootkit. you sure the ips still
65.74.181.141?

thanks

-------------------------------------

From: Jussi
To: Greg
Subject: Re: need to ssh into rootkit
does it work now?

-------------------------------------

From: Greg
To: Jussi
Subject: Re: need to ssh into rootkit
yes jussi thanks

did you reset the user greg or?

-------------------------------------

From: Jussi
To: Greg
Subject: Re: need to ssh into rootkit
nope. your account is named as hoglund

-------------------------------------

From: Greg
To: Jussi
Subject: Re: need to ssh into rootkit
yup im logged in thanks ill email you in a few, im backed up

thanks

Thanks indeed. To be fair to Jussi, the fake Greg appeared to know the root password and, well, the e-mails were coming from Greg's own e-mail address. But over the course of a few e-mails it was clear that "Greg" had forgotten both his username and his password. And Jussi handed them to him on a platter.
Later on, Jussi did appear to notice something was up:

From: Jussi
To: Greg
Subject: Re: need to ssh into rootkit
did you open something running on high port?

As with the HBGary machine, this could have been avoided if keys had been used instead of passwords. But they weren't. Rootkit.com was now compromised.

Standard practice

Once the username and password were known, defacing the site was easy. Log in as Greg, switch to root, and deface away! The attackers went one better than this, however: they dumped the user database for rootkit.com, listing the e-mail addresses and password hashes for everyone who'd ever registered on the site. And, as with the hbgaryfederal.com CMS system, the passwords were hashed with a single naive use of MD5, meaning that once again they were susceptible to rainbow table-based password cracking. So the crackable passwords were cracked, too.

So what do we have in total? A Web application with SQL injection flaws and insecure passwords. Passwords that were badly chosen. Passwords that were reused. Servers that allowed password-based authentication. Systems that weren't patched. And an astonishing willingness to hand out credentials over e-mail, even when the person asking for them should have realized something was up.

The thing is, none of this is unusual. Quite the opposite. The Anonymous hack was not exceptional: the hackers used standard, widely known techniques to break into systems, find as much information as possible, and use that information to compromise further systems. They didn't have to, for example, use any non-public vulnerabilities or perform any carefully targeted social engineering. And because of their desire to cause significant public disruption, they did not have to go to any great lengths to hide their activity.

Nonetheless, their attack was highly effective, and it was well-executed. The desire was to cause trouble for HBGary, and that they did. Especially in the social engineering attack against Jussi, they used the right information in the right way to seem credible.

Most frustrating for HBGary must be the knowledge that they know what they did wrong, and they were perfectly aware of best practices; they just didn't actually use them. Everybody knows you don't use easy-to-crack passwords, but some employees did. Everybody knows you don't re-use passwords, but some of them did. Everybody knows that you should patch servers to keep them free of known security flaws, but they didn't.

And HBGary isn't alone. Analysis of the passwords leaked from rootkit.com and Gawker shows that password re-use is extremely widespread, with something like 30 percent of users re-using their passwords. HBGary won't be the last site to suffer from SQL injection, either, and people will continue to use password authentication for secure systems because it's so much more convenient than key-based authentication.

So there are clearly two lessons to be learned here. The first is that the standard advice is good advice. If all best practices had been followed then none of this would have happened. Even if the SQL injection error was still present, it wouldn't have caused the cascade of failures that followed.

The second lesson, however, is that the standard advice isn't good enough. Even recognized security experts who should know better won't follow it. What hope does that leave for the rest of us?

Another UK Snitch - Mark "Marco" Jacobs

noreply@blogger.com (SnitchWire) — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 07:07:00 +0000

from UK Indymedia:

A third undercover police officer has today been revealed by the Guardian. Mark Jacobs, known as 'Marco', operated in Cardiff for four years, infiltrating the Cardiff Anarchist Network (CAN) and other groups including international anti-globalisation networks, No Borders, and the early Climate Camps.

His former girlfriend is reported as saying "I was doing nothing wrong, I was not breaking the law at all. So for him to come along and lie to us and get that deep into our lives was a colossal, colossal betrayal."

Other activists have claimed that as well as disrupting activities and gathering information, he created and nurtured disagreement and division within the group, turning members of the group against each other.

Snitch Mark Kennedy Fears For His Life

noreply@blogger.com (SnitchWire) — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 06:55:00 +0000

More info (and pictures of) on Mark (aka Flash, aka Mark Stone) Kennedy here. More analysis and information coming soon.

from The Guardian via Anarchist News:

The former policeman who spent seven years undercover among environmental activists has denied being an agent provocateur, saying that his superiors knew exactly what he was doing at all times and approved his activities.

Mark Kennedy, a Metropolitan police officer who infiltrated green and anarchist groups under the alias Mark Stone and fled to America after his cover was blown, said he fears for his safety following threats from activists. The 41-year-old said he believed that his former police superiors were looking for him too.

"I can't sleep. I have lost weight and am constantly on edge. I barricade the door with chairs at night. I am in genuine fear for my life," said Kennedy, who sold his story to the Mail on Sunday. "People like to think of things in terms of black and white. But the world of undercover policing is grey and murky. There is some bad stuff going on. Really bad stuff."

However, Kennedy said that throughout his time spent undercover he was in constant touch with police handlers and never tried to push fellow protesters into taking action: "I had a cover officer whom I spoke to numerous times a day. He was the first person I spoke to in the morning and the last person I spoke to at night. I didn't sneeze without a superior officer knowing about it. My BlackBerry had a tracking device. My cover officer joked that he knew when I went to the loo."

He said he felt he had been "hung out to dry" since being exposed.

Kennedy's activities were at the centre of the decision last week by prosecutors to abandon the trial of six activists accused of conspiring to break into Ratcliffe-on-Soar coal-fired power station in Nottinghamshire.
The former officer said that he made undercover audio recordings of the activists which threw doubt on prosecutors' claims they had conspired to commit aggravated trespass, but that his police superiors chose not to pass these on.

He said: "The truth of the matter is that the tapes clearly show that the six defendants who were due to go on trial had not joined any conspiracy. The tapes I made meant that the police couldn't prove their case. I have no idea why the police withheld these tapes."

The Independent Police Complaints Commission is to investigate the collapsed case. Twenty other environmental activists previously found guilty in connection with the same protest at Ratcliffe-on-Soar plan to challenge their convictions.

There have been calls for a wider investigation into the way police infiltrate such groups. Kennedy said that he knew personally of 15 other officers hidden within green groups during his time undercover from 2003 to 2009. He said: "Some got busted, others left. I was the longest-serving operative. At the time I left in 2009, there were at least four other operatives. I never did anything to jeopardise the work or lives of my fellow officers and I will not start now."

Kennedy, who separated from his wife in 2000, said his children, a girl aged 10 and a boy of 12, have been left devastated by recent events.

One of the most controversial aspects of his story is that he conducted at least two sexual relationships with fellow activists while living as Mark Stone. This, he conceded, should not have happened: "I am the first one to hold up my hands and say, yes, that was wrong. I crossed the line."

The relationships symbolised the impossible position in which he felt he had been placed, Kennedy added, admitting that the longer he spent with the activists the more he began to sympathise with their causes.
He said: "I fell deeply in love with the second woman. I was embedded into a group of people for nearly a decade. They became my friends. They supported me and they loved me. All I can do now is tell the truth. I don't think the police are the good guys and the activists are bad or vice versa. Both sides did good things and bad things. I am speaking out as I hope the police can learn from the mistakes they made."

"I was at the heart of a very sensitive operation. I was told my work was the benchmark for other undercover officers. My superior officer told me on more than one occasion, particularly during the G8 protests in Scotland in 2005, that information I was providing was going directly to Tony Blair's desk."
He continued: "As the years went on, I did get a sort of Stockholm syndrome. But I never lost sight of my work. I texted and informed on a daily basis. But I began to like the people I was with. I formed lasting friendships."

He criticised what he said was a lack of psychological support from his employers, saying he had considered killing himself in recent months: "I was supposed to get psychological counselling every three months. I would go two years without seeing the shrink. Initially meetings were regular. Then it became a farce. The office was so greedy for intelligence that they didn't set up the meetings. They went by the wayside. I'm sure that's the same for other undercover officers too." He said he resigned from the police last year.

Kennedy, who joined the City of London police aged 21 before moving to the Met, said that in 2006 he was beaten up by uniformed fellow police near Drax power station in North Yorkshire after trying to protect a female activist being struck with batons.

"I tried to stand between her and him. I didn't do anything aggressive. That's when I got jumped on by five officers who kicked and beat me. They had batons and pummelled my head. They punched me. One officer repeatedly stamped on my back."

Kennedy also told how he had created a credible identity when infiltrating groups, which included claiming a background in drug smuggling. He had formerly worked in the Met's drug squad.

He said: "I was an avid rock climber and I had been to Pakistan so I created a story about being involved in the importation of drugs. I knew the London drug scene well so I purported to be a courier. That is how I justified having money."

Simon Brenner - German Snitch in Antifa Scene

noreply@blogger.com (SnitchWire) — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 22:43:00 +0000

from Athens Indymedia:

German undercover agent also at NoBorder Camp 2010 in Bruxelles

On Sunday the 12th of December 2010 a undercover agent working for the Landeskriminalamt (LKA) Baden-Württemberg was uncovered in Heidelberg, Germany. His aim was to make contact with the Antifa scene via open left structures and to gather information about individuals as well as group structures to be presented directly to the LKA and the local state security division.

After three days of research and reconstruction the following has emerged:

Legend

The LKA informer had a German national identity card under the name of "Simon Brenner" (Nr.: 6920333978D-8604138-1511088), with the date of birth stated as 13.04.1986, born in the town of Leimen (Germany). Allegedly he formerly lived in Bad Säckingen in the Waldshut (Baden-Württemberg) area, which coheres with the license plate of his silver Nissan estate car (WT-??-???).

He used a mobile with the number 0049 (0) 151 20727114 0049 (0) 151 20727114 and the email addresses simonbrenner@ymail.com and californication@riseup.net, the latter has already been blocked. Under the user name 'californiaction' ha also wrote articles on Indymedia.

In the summer term 2010 he enrolled with most likely false documents at the University of Heidelberg in the subjects german philology and ethnology and for the winter term switched to ethnology and sociology (Student Nr.: 2858472).

Chronology

- November 2009: first appearance on the students information day, first contact to the SDS Heidelberg
- April 2010: enrollment at the University of Heidelberg, involvement with the SDS
- 24.04.2010: participation in the direct action "Umzingelung des AKW Biblis" ("encirclement of the nuclear power plant Biblis")
- 01.05.2010: participation in the blockades against the fascist protest in Berlin
- 15.05.2010: participation in the Campus Camp in Heidelberg, first contact the the "Kritische Initiative" (KI)
- 09.06.2010: participation in the anti education cuts protest in Heidelberg
- 26.07.2010: participation in a anti nuclear energy manifestation
- 15.08. - 21.08.2010: participation in a direct action climbing workshop
- 18.09.2010: participation in the the antifascist protests and blockades against the fascist protest in Sinsheim-Hoffenheim
- 27.09. - 03.10.2010: participation in the NoBorder Camp in Brussels (protests, direct action)
- 23.10.2010: participation in the antifascist protests in Rastatt and Rheinmünster-Söllingen against the fascist centre „Rössle“
- 06.11.2010: participation and co-organization of the protests against the nuclear waste transport and the 'south blockade' („Südblockade“)
- 14.11.2010: participation in the antifascist protests against the hero memorial of Heidelberg on the 'honor graveyard' („Ehrenfriedhof“)
- 27.11.2010: participation in the antifascists protests against the fascists protest in Sinsheim-Hoffenheim
- 11.12.2010 : organization and participation of the Critical Mass Action in Heidelberg

The end of the operation

The agent was uncovered by a holiday acquaintance, which he had met in France before the start of his undercover mission. To her he presented himself as "Simon" and told her that he was a police officer in Überlingen. This holiday acquaintance then met him in Heidelberg while she was visiting a friend within the scene. Although he tried to pressure her not to say anything, she told her friend that he was a police officer.

Confronted with this accusation on the next day (12.12.), he admitted to have been sent to Heidelberg as undercover agent for the LKA.

He said, that he did normal police officer duty in Überlingen, but then, as he wanted to pursue a career, had to decide between BFE and LKA. He went for the latter. There he was in the division I540 ("undercover investigations state security"), and availed of a special training for undercover investigations as well as a briefing on the situation of the Heidelberger left scene.

The aim of his mission he said was "information gathering and threat prevention", however without a concrete incident being the instigator nor there being a concrete suspicion (which by German law is necessary for such a mission). The long term goal of this long planed mission was to gather information about the "antifa-scene". Over a medium term, he said, he wanted to try and make contact to the Antifascist Initiative Heidelberg (AIHD) and to infiltrate them.

Further on, he said he gave reports to his superiors in Stuttgart every two weeks, as well as having been in contact in a regular manner over the phone with the Heidelberger sate security division for follow up assessments of political actions.

He also self-confessed that he was responsible for the raiding of a flat of a comrade as well as the enormous police presence at the Heidelberger "Ehrenfriedhof" during the protests against the hero memorial.

During his deployment of nearly 9 months, he said that he gathered all information he could get on political activists and there private environment, to subsequently file these and then forward them to his superiors.

Conclusion

The goal of this mission was obviously the infiltration of and the widespread information gathering on the Heidelberg left, especially of the organized antifa scene. Through the selection of the groups and actions in which he engaged, he tried to establish a comprehensible theoretical as well as practical radicalization for "his" political peers. For this the snitch used low-threshold open structures and groups, to gather a credible reputation within the "scene" to then in a long term avail of precarious and sensitive information.

Even though this case in a shocking way demonstrates how parts of the executive forces undermine the constitutionally enshrined imperative of the separation between police forces and intelligence services and simply ignore the law with such a ruthlessness, also especially towards the psychological condition of the immediate persons concerned, we herby pledge not to set open structures and 'scene-newbies' under general suspicion.

Open structures and groups are necessary low-threshold points of reference for politically interested people. Nonetheless, it is necessary, now even more so than before, to instigate discussions within the organized left about the risks of open structures and to work towards a security concept beyond blind paranoia or to call security standards already in place into our minds and into political praxis!

No collaboration with state repression institutions!
For solidarity!
Get organized! Support your local antifa!

ATTENTION: This reconstruction by no ways claims to be complete! If you should have more information about "Simon Brenner", pictures or actions in which he took part, details of his life (also before his undercover mission), please refer to the Rote Hilfe or the Antifascist Initiative Heidelberg, whose statements and press releases are documented in the following links:

http://www.rote-hilfe.de/static/news.php?a=86
https://linksunten.indymedia.org/fr/node/30691

Αναδημοσίευση από το Bruxelles Indymedia

Teen Popped for Torching Cop Car in '08

noreply@blogger.com (SnitchWire) — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 20:34:00 +0000

A bummer from Albany:

COLONIE -- Police say they've made an arrest in a two-year investigation into the torching of a Colonie Police Department patrol vehicle.

Jacob Lester, 19, of Cohoes was arrested for allegedly setting fire to the patrol car on Aug. 25, 2008. An off-duty Colonie Police traffic investigator discovered the marked 2005 Ford Crown Victoria on fire in front of his home in the Boght Corners section of town at about 2 a.m., according to Lt. Robert Winn.

A confidential informant told police in November 2008 that Lester was connected to the incident, but it took two years of following up on leads and conducting interviews to corroborate the informant's tip, according to Lt. Winn.

There was no apparent motive in the arson. Lt. Winn said Lester set out to torch the vehicle but was not targeting the officer.

Lester was charged with felony third-degree arson and felony second-degree criminal mischief. He was released from jail on $15,000 bail.

Loose lips sink ships! Keep your mouth shut!

Britain Stop Snitching

noreply@blogger.com (SnitchWire) — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 16:40:00 +0000

A pretty sickening report from the other side of the Atlantic after the November 10th occupation and improvisational demolition of Tory Party Headquarters in London earlier this week has surfaced. The media in the UK is assisting the State in tracking down rioters (that's why you mask up you silly geese! Say what you want about the "black bloc" set of tactics, but if there's a throw down with a bunch of media snapping pictures all over, I'd rather look like a mob of ninjas. ESPECIALLY in the most heavy surveillance state in the world. Fuck.), just as Big Media typically ends up being a perfect engine for repression.

Luckily, some kind of badass legalese underground railroad is forming up to help anyone presently splayed up on a wanted poster or likely waiting patiently to be identified by some software program. Check out the November 10th Defense Campaign, which is a really excellent idea:

"2. DO NOT say anything to anyone

You have the right to silence and the right not to incriminate yourself. So we recommend you do NOT. SAY NOTHING TO NO-ONE ONLINE OR OFFLINE, ON THE PHONE OR IN PERSON about the events. These are valuable resources for the Police to find you via internet trawling and phone tapping in order to pin a prosecution on you.

DO NOT SAY ANYTHING TO THE POLICE even if they say “it is in your best interests”. The Police are the arm of the State and a bureaucratic military organisation NEVER to be trusted. Even if the Police put your name and photo in the newspaper, arrest you, take your photo request a solicitor (see Christian Khan below) and demand your Solicitor advises you to say nothing. That way you can say the Solicitor advised you to say nothing in the event the State tries to infer guilty from the fact you said nothing!

Even if they have your picture, and say you committed an offence it does not mean you committed THAT offence or any offence at all. A picture of you holding an item that could cause damage to property does not amount to evidence of you causing damage with that item. So on these matters, like everything else, SAY NOTHING!"

Terrific advice!

CSIS/Counter-Terrorism Spy Unveiled in Fredericton, New Brunswick

noreply@blogger.com (SnitchWire) — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 17:51:00 +0000

UPDATE 11/22/10: Comments from the author of this reveal more information: "Follow up: More research reveals that the man's name is "Stuart Bradshaw". He is on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1036935674&v=info

Spread far and wide.
Saint Schmidt."

Other links of interest
http://atlanticsg.org/

http://ca.linkedin.com/pub/stuart-bradshaw/23/b97/51a
-------------

From Anarchist News:

"I was sitting at a cafe in downtown Fredericton (The Second Cup) and overheard a conversation between two well dressed men. The one man said to the other, "I just moved from the UK. I used to work for counter-terrorism out there and in the United States. My wife wanted me to move here to little Fredericton. Not much work for a person like me here. Now I am working for CSIS. I document anti-capitalist and anarchist groups. There are at least two groups that I am researching lately and we plan to eventually infiltrate these groups. Strax and RAAN, the Red and Anarchist Action Network."

At this point I picked up my laptop spit on his table and said: "You are disgusting, what you are saying is disgusting."

Pictures and Video follow.

While walking away from the cafe, outside, the man yelled out to me and requested that I get my picture taken with him. Instead, I turned on my camera and asked the man a few questions. He changed his tone and denied working for CSIS and denied having a problem with Strax.

I have decided, for the safety of my family and friends, that I will be taking some time away from the Red & Anarchist Action Network. I stay in groundless solidarity with all of my comrades. If members of Strax or RAAN, or any other "group", want to reach me for more information, they know how to do so."

-Saint Schmidt

Elusive Panda Sighting

noreply@blogger.com (SnitchWire) — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 00:30:00 +0000

Andrew Darst, aka Panda, a snitch that emerged from the 2008 RNC demonstrations, was reportedly seen in Minnetonka, MN driving a silver SUV or larger wagon type of vehicle. He was apparently clean-shaven and wearing a University of Minnesota hoodie. Anyone with further information on this total asshole should hit up our digits.

Mark Kennedy Super Post

noreply@blogger.com (SnitchWire) — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 18:56:00 +0000

UPDATE: For what it's worth, the Stimulator is reporting this all to be fact according to a "trusted source."

Multiple reports have emerged about a Mark Kennedy (AKA: Mark Stone, "Flash"), an informant based out of the UK who had links in the United States. A post on the Denver Anarchist Black Cross's website gives a good summary:

Mark Kennedy AKA Mark Stone, who lived in Nottingham, has been exposed as having worked as an undercover police officer and this has been confirmed by Nottingham Indymedia and endorsed by other activist groups.

From 2000 to at least the end of 2009, Mark Kennedy was a well-known face in the local activist community and was actively involved in various environmental, animal rights, anti-capitalist and anti-fascist groups and campaigns.

Investigations into his identity revealed evidence that he has been a police officer and a face-to-face confession has confirmed this. The people involved in confronting Mark and getting his confession from him make clear that for security reasons no more information can be made public at this stage.

Any american or kanadian who knows that they had contact with him please make known the times and initiatives that he may have attended.

More information will be made public as it’s compiled…

A report from UK Indymedia details more of his activities (another photo here). There are also reports he was working on organizing against the upcoming G8 summit in France. He claims he had a brother in Cincinnati. He had been a trusted member of radical communities and social movements for a decade and his ties were far, including possible relationships with Tarnac folks. There are claims that he has been confronted and admitted this information. Anyone with more information on Mark should email SnitchWire.

Jeffrey Luers Speaks on Cooperator Darren Thurston

noreply@blogger.com (SnitchWire) — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 18:31:00 +0000

On the wonderful program "It's the End of the World as We Know It, and I Feel Fine" hosted by the reliable Stimulator, eco-sabotuer and general badass Jeffrey Luers had some choice words for people like Darren Thurston. The interview starts at about seven minutes into the program and Jeff has a lot of great stuff to say, including the following:

"I would have walked if I just opened my mouth... [Thurston] provided information to get more people convicted... The State is my enemy. Capitalism is my enemy. And someone who cooperates with my enemy, against my community, against this movement, against this resistance is a piece of fucking shit."

Here, here!

Got the Hollow Points for the Snitches (FTTP #4)

noreply@blogger.com (SnitchWire) — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 00:07:00 +0000

Snitch culture: historical examples and current proposals

"Homeboy was talking to the po-po, we had to let everybody that was a no-no, he thought he was on the low low, and was surprised when I hit him with the fou(4)-fou(4)" -Uncle Murda, "Bullet, Bullet"

With the growing wave of repression by the state towards direct action oriented struggles, radicals have been bombarded with the shameful concern of snitches and informants. In a struggle which is purely of choice and individual realization, as opposed to a rich cultural or family heritage, a valor dedication to one's community has been shamefully neglected by some. The following article provides a brief look into how radical communities of the past have approached traitors to the community, while at the same time proposing how more unique struggles can learn from it. It is an excerpt from the zine; "Got the Hollow Points for the Snitches".

To order a copy of this pamphlet, you can contact the email below: thegreenscare@gmail.com (Ed note: defunct as shit, thanks anon)

As Anarchists, we fight in the face of what appears to be insurmountable odds; our project of liberation is the natural enemy of the culture of authority and capitalism we now live under. Considering that our revolt against the institutions of domination are not isolated pockets of resistance, and that we do not live separately from the rest of society, our communities are inevitably affected --and perhaps infected-- by the culture we are aiming to destroy.

Snitch Culture is not exclusive to Communities in Resistance, but is one thread of control in the larger social fabric of America. Those in power want people to snitch on each other-- especially those from communities that are targeted in particular by the government and are therefore more vulnerable to Snitch Culture-- because snitching works to create a climate of fear and mistrust that can fragment the populations that threaten the structures of power.

For example, in the war against the poor and people of color --those that fill the prisons of America-- the State promotes snitching as a means to perpetuate crime by creating a 'revolving door' in which low-level drug dealers, addicts, and other petty offenders are arrested and released with orders to provide more information in order to create more arrests in order to fill more prisons. The effects of this cycle of snitch-and-prison are that entire communities are torn apart, families broken up, and the United States has the largest prison population in the world.

In Anarchist circles everyone knows that Snitch Culture breaks solidarity among activists and paralyzes our ability to wage effective resistance. Though there is much complaining and handwringing about the divisive role snitches play in our communities, we have engaged in very little constructive action about this serious and persistent problem. This zine is an attempt to educate and foster dialogue in our communities in order to develop effective strategies for dealing with snitches and to forge a resistance that can withstand the attacks of power.

To start, we must realize that Snitch Culture is not a new phenomenon or only particular to Anarchists, and that many Communities of Resistance in North America and Europe have come up with a number of different ways -some more effective than others--to deal with Snitch Culture while maintaining their core values.

There are three components --perhaps of unequal importance-- that resistance groups and others have traditionally used to determine their response to snitches: practicality, the agreeability to the core values of the group, and tactical benefit.

The ultra-militant Red Army Faction (RAF) in West Germany tried to use something called "Revolutionary Discipline" to respond to a growing number of snitches. This discipline drew heavily on the promise of immediate personal reprisals for snitching. Snitches both in jail and out were subject to vicious beatings and in one case, a snitch was blinded. This type of response was practical for the RAF because they had a number of supporters both inside and outside of jail. Most snitches could be easily located and jumped by supporters or actual RAF members. It was agreeable to the RAF because it fit in with their concepts of both Revolutionary Discipline and a glorification of violence. However, it did not prove to be an effective tactic for reducing the impact of snitches. By the end of the RAF's existence, snitches were an important part of the State's efforts to not only disrupt, but to arrest numerous members of the RAF-- including its leadership.

The tactics they employed did not seem to reduce Snitch Culture within their own ranks or of other contemporary militant radical organizations in West Germany. The Weather Underground (WU) also had an extreme but somewhat different strategy when confronting the problem of snitches. The WU used terror as a way to stop the effectiveness of snitches. They required all members to give the names and addresses of close friends and family and were explicitly warned --sometimes while on psychedelic drugs-- that if they snitched, they and their family would be subject to violent reprisals. In one rambling message from the WU --written after an AIM snitch took the stand against former comrades-- published in radical periodicals at the time and believed to have been written by Bernadine Dorn, stated that the WU was not afraid to support the "[Charlie] Manson approach" when it came to "bringing hell on Earth for pig-snitches." It went into detail about how violently the WU would deal with snitches and their friends and family. This approach ended up being completely impractical for the WU because they had neither the members nor the support to pull off such grandiose plans. By the nature of being underground, they were marginalized and had little ability to strike out at snitches in any way. In fact, there is no evidence that any snitch on the WU was ever even bothered by the group. Whether this approach of terror was agreeable to the core values of the WU is hard to say since the WU position on violence and acceptable violence seemed to change constantly. It was however, consistent with the ultra-violent streak in the core leadership of the group. As a tactic is was counter-productive-- it caused considerable debate in radical circles and most of it was negative. The cops also had little trouble turning folks associated with the WU, and a number of the most rhetorically violent members of the leadership either turned themselves in, or cut deals.

No resistance group in recent times can compare to the Black Panther Party (BPP) --and its factions-- in terms of being completely infiltrated by snitches as well as law enforcement! The BPP, in the popular mind, is associated with violence and ultra-militancy. The image of a tough leather-clad Black Panther carrying a shotgun is an ever present part of the iconography of the radical left. One would think that the BPP's approach to snitches would be similar to the RAF and the WU; however, they took a completely different approach and relied on community shame as a mechanism for dealing with snitches.

This was a somewhat practical approach because they had a number of widely circulating publications and outlets to get information about snitches out. They also were followed closely by the radical left and had access to a staggering number of mediums to report to the broader cultures of resistance. It was certainly agreeable to the ideals of the BPP, which claimed to be the voice of specific communities and saw itself as a community-based organization. Tactically, the record speaks for itself. There were a large number of snitches, many who were not named until well after the fall of the BPP, and the government --which was particularly brutal and repressive in dealing with the BPP-- never had trouble turning members affiliated with the BPP against the organization. In Chicago, for example, the number of snitches was nearly epidemic.

While the above examples are not particularly positive, they illustrate some of the difficulties we face in dealing with snitches today in our own communities --and thus the need for dialogue. However, groups like the Irish Republican Army (IRA), the Basque Separatists (ETA), and namely the WWII French Resistance Fighters (The Maquis), are positive examples of Communities in Resistance that dealt successfully with Snitch Culture. The Maquis, according to Gestapo/Vichy records, show that less than 5% of all detainees were "cooperative". William Volman, in his book, Rising Up and Rising Down, says that the Spanish --and French-- governments have "never been successful in creating a culture of informants". The key is to learn from the mistakes of the past and forge our own response to snitches that is practical, agreeable to our core values, and tactically beneficial.

To understand why these groups --IRA, ETA and the Maquis-- were successful, we have to look not only at their formal and informal policies regarding snitches, but at the movements as a whole. There is precious little written in English about ETA, but from the few sources available, Clean Hands, Dirty Wars, it seems that ETA has been able to avoid widespread Snitch Culture by the very nature of its resistance. It is heavily family- and community-based; nearly everyone knows everyone else and every Basque community has been affected by the draconian repression of the Madrid- State. Since most Basque are deeply attached to their homeland, even the non-nationalists, the idea of snitching on neighbors and comrades is wrought with practical difficulties. Raising the stakes for squealing, neighbors, co-workers and friends would react negatively to the appearance of a snitch, and so anyone caught snitching would not only have to create a new social circle, but relocate.

The IRA put a tremendous amount of energy into prisoner support. In fact it was estimated by Gerald O'Mann that nearly a 1/3 of all money raised by the IRA was spent directly on prisoner support. The Irish nationalist concept of prison support is more extensive than ours and includes family support, the glorification of prisoners, treating ex-prisoners like returning veterans, as well as in-jail support. An IRA prisoner was even elected to parliament while still in jail! This support seriously diluted the benefits of snitching and the consequences (often violent reprisals) greatly outweighed the benefits. The IRA, more than any other group, was successful in reducing the punitive nature of incarceration.

The Maquis used a combination of violent attacks on snitches as well as "reframing" propaganda. There is much written about the beatings and shootings carried out by Maquis, but the historic record actually shows that the Maquis ability to carry out such attacks was extremely limited. They made use of very public reprisals, in no doubt due to the monopoly on news by the occupiers, which, in turn, increased their effectiveness. However, the use of violence can only be seen as a partial explanation for the success of the Maquis in resisting Snitch Culture. The Maquis used an effective propaganda that was based on the idea that they soon would be victorious, which made less attractive the cooperation with illegitimate authorities that would soon be removed. What is surprising when one reads the memoirs of resistance fighters and the historical accounts of everyday French living under occupation is their firm and unshakeable belief that they would be liberated. In fact, most French not only believed they would be liberated, but liberated by the combined French Resistance forces. This belief gave legitimacy to the Maquis and made crossing them a more consequential prospect, since they believed they would come to power-- which in fact many did.

In our own present Communities of Resistance there seems to be no clear theory or discipline regarding the issue of snitches, however, as Anarchists, our inherent critique of authority and power, knowledge of security culture, and decentralized style of organizing are certainly beneficial in fighting Snitch Culture. That said, the few approaches we have used in dealing directly with snitches have not been very successful. We seem to mainly operate under some loose code somewhat akin to the "Revolutionary Discipline" of the RAF. The idea that 'Snitches get Stitches' is prevalent and agreeable to our politics, however it is impractical in that we lack the sheer numbers -- both inside and outside of the jails-- to make this a reality. 'Snitches get Stitches' functions more like the WU idea of terror and with the exact same results in preventing Snitch Culture: absolutely none. Knowing this, communities have also tried the BPP model of shame, but with the recent evidence of government infiltration of radical groups and organizations, former comrades turning into collaborators with wiretaps, and friends arrested or under Grand Jury subpoenas naming names and cooperating with authorities, there is ample evidence that this too is ineffective and unlikely to stem the continuing tide of snitches.

It is easy to look at all of this and grow desperate. Snitch Culture is not a problem that can be easily solved and the very issues at the core of it run right through the heart of everything we are attempting. And perhaps that is the question and answer to this issue: what are we attempting? Why are some groups, like ETA, the IRA, or The Maquis able to successfully deny attempts by those in power to fracture and break their cultures of resistance? Why do Anarchists, with the goals of destroying power and creating a new world of freedom and mutual aid, turn into 'cooperating witnesses' and sacrifice not just their own dreams but those of the communities they belong to?

These are the questions we must ask ourselves if we want to build Communities of Resistance that will hopefully, one day, win. We must think of ways to strengthen our communities of autonomous individuals and build a resistance that is effective and sustainable in the long-term, instead of the current haphazard and reactive scrambling to each and every blow of government repression.

What we can learn from the Communities of Resistance that were successful in defeating Snitch Culture is that they believed wholeheartedly in their struggle. Those that were actively fighting, as well as those who supported them, did not see any choice but to liberate themselves from illegitimate authority and therefore saw themselves individually as part of something larger. This should not be read as a call for individuals to sacrifice themselves on the altar of the collective, but to illustrate that people who believe in what they are fighting for, and identify themselves personally with the success or failure of that fight, are less likely to betray that struggle because that struggle IS them.

However, it must be said that it is probably easier for people to identify intimately with national liberation struggles that have --in a sense-- simpler goals, than with something as complex and far-reaching as Anarchy. The Maquis wanted to overthrow the Nazi-collaborator Vichy government and to oust the German occupiers from France. The IRA wants to kick the English out of Ulster. ETA wants autonomy from Spain and France and to preserve the Basque language and culture. These groups are fighting against one particular source of power, whereas Anarchists are struggling to destroy all power.

Considering the fact that Anarchy is more than just the liberation from one particular illegitimate authority and there are as many battlefields as there are stars in the sky, it can become easy to feel disillusioned or ineffective. After all, authority and capitalism still exist and we are drowned in the propaganda that we have reached the End of History; that the Way Things Are will continue unabated, forever. Snitches in Communities of Resistance are often people whose identity with the struggle for total liberation has become fractured, or those who, in the face of the repressive power of the state, betray their communities because they feel there is little chance those communities can win.

If we are to defeat Snitch Culture in our Communities of Resistance, we must refute the propaganda of those in power. It means tearing up the history books because the end is not predetermined by anyone but us. The ways and means of building a resistance that can refute their history and can engage in a sustainable and long-term struggle for freedom, are the same ones needed to give Snitch Culture the final blow. Clearly, the solution is not as simple as the suggestion 'Snitches get Stitches,' but is complex and takes us in many directions.

As detailed earlier, there have been plenty of failed experiments in dealing with the issue of snitches and the current epidemic of snitching cannot be stopped through random beatings or through empty threats. While violence against snitches or collaborators may be necessary (for example, the very public targeting of snitches utilized by the Maquis could prove useful) it is often harmful or useless in ending Snitch Culture. Not only can the State outmatch us in terms of the violence it can expend, rendering moot a wholesale campaign of violent reprisals --as in the case of the RAF-- it also seems counter to our politics of freedom to use the idea of terror to coerce people into line and could put off sympathetic or interested individuals --much like the WU did. This should not be read as a dismissal of the tactic of violence in our resistance, but as strong critique of violence as a useful tool in combating Snitch Culture.

What has the greatest possibility of working --although it is currently not practiced to the extent that it needs to be-- is community shame coupled with prisoner support. Community shame has the benefit of not being irrevocable --how can you make amends for shooting or beating someone terribly if it turns out they were wrongly accused?-- as well as providing a powerful disincentive for snitches by denying them friendship and support. Prisoner support is obviously positive in that it helps remove the power of violence that the State holds over people. Prisoners who feel supported and know they will be cared for have less reason to abandon their principles and betray their friends. Coupled together, a strategy of strong communities of autonomous individuals that will not allow collaborators back in, along with a prisoner support in which the benefits of not snitching far outweigh any measure put forth by the State, seems to be the best course of action. Presently, however, these tactics have proved ineffective in the prevention of Snitch Culture. Snitches know that they will be reviled by some, but they can remain in our communities by moving to where they may be anonymous or because there are people who will not ostracize them and allow them to return. And even though our prisoner support is one of our strongest attributes, it fails to be the linchpin that prevents Snitch Culture, mainly because it is limited in scope.

What this leads us back to is the idea of building stronger communities capable of long-term resistance to the powers of the State. Community shame and prisoner support lack their necessary bite precisely because our Communities of Resistance are fractured, with no real communication or trust amongst groups. In tightly-knit societies like the Basque, snitches have nowhere to go because word will travel and they would face social isolation wherever they go.

Shame only works when communities can communicate in a way that is informative and trustworthy. Without information about snitches, communities cannot take steps to isolate or shame that person; and without trust, communities have no idea if the information is reliable or that others will also take steps to ostracize a snitch.

In terms of prisoner support, our current Communities of Resistance offer a heartfelt support; however, due to our lack of infrastructure and support outside of traditional Anarchist circles, we cannot provide the all encompassing prisoner support of the IRA. For instance, in most cases, we cannot offer jobs, money to families, or pay for legal representation. Most prisoners are shunted from public view and only a few are known on a national or international basis. On the contrary, IRA prisoners were glorified and at the height of the Troubles, the majority of the murals in IRA neighborhoods were dedicated to celebrating prisoners and their deeds. The culture of prisoner support in the IRA fostered an environment that made it desirable to not snitch, a desire based on a total community support for the prisoner and family. With some exceptions, this is something that we cannot currently provide. Where this leaves us is on the brink of a solution. While we do seem to utilize the effective tactics in combating Snitch Culture --prisoner support and community shame-- they are not actually effective in stopping it. Snitch Culture is not an isolated problem, as mentioned earlier, but an interrelated issue with other problems facing our Communities of Resistance. It comes as no shock to hear that our communities are fragmented and that there is little communication or mutual aid between them. The same also goes for the lack of infrastructure or support of people not traditionally identified with Anarchists or other radical groups. We must seriously and critically examine our communities and search for ways that we can do things better, not just to defeat Snitch Culture, but to win!

The way to strengthen our communities and increase our resistance to Snitch Culture would begin by practicing real mutual aid. Very few groups actually work together in a way that is interrelated and that would actually help build our counter-infrastructure. For instance, people in cities who want to grow their own food and those who already live on farms could participate in projects like the Victory Gardens in Athens, Maine, which helps disenfranchised people in both urban and rural communities develop their own sources of organic food; groups in different cities could pool money and have benefits to pay for the legal costs of prisoners in other places; and those choosing not to work could help provide daycare for working people who have to. The ways in which we can work together and support each other are limitless, and working together on projects and actions is a simple but unrivaled way to build trustworthy lines of communication based on experience-- as well as creating networks of autonomous communities that support each other and would not tolerate a snitch among them.

Infrastructure is important if we are to provide support for people in prison that would actually function as a deterrent to snitching. For instance, we cannot always give people jobs --if they want them-- when they are out, or provide for people's families if they are put away. The counter-infrastructure we do have is largely based on entertainment, and while this is a positive thing in our communities, we must move beyond this into other territory. For many obvious reasons, creating an infrastructure that does not rely on capitalism, but is our very own, is absolutely vital to our ability to wage effective resistance. We must also address the lack of support for our resistance in communities outside of Anarchist circles. One way other Communities of Resistance have been effective is that they had a large network of support in larger society. Besides the obvious, this larger support functioned as a way to propel resistance and created a climate of hope --a climate that Snitch Culture does not function very well in. This lack of support may be due to the fact that our definition of Anarchist culture is rather narrow. Although not true in the least, the image of Anarchists as young black-clad punks certainly does persist and is to an extent perpetuated by Anarchist culture. Anarchists should proudly proclaim themselves, but should also move beyond the stereotype and show our many faces: young and old, queer and straight, crusty and freshly-showered.

And obviously, our current prisoner support must continue --and increase-- while working on the long-term projects of building infrastructure and widening our circles of support. Prisoner support needs to become something that everyone in our community is working on. Comrades must have the full support of their communities when facing down the courts, the jails, and the prison terms of the State. We need to make prisoner support public and visible, and we need to show comrades on the other side of the wall that they are not forgotten. Murals, benefits, sending letters and birthday cards, attending court dates, and solidarity events are all easy ways to show that we celebrate and stand behind those from our communities who are behind bars. We need to make good on the saying: they are in there for us, so we are out here for them!

It should be clear that there is no simple solution to the persistence of Snitch Culture in our Communities of Resistance. This zine set out to begin a dialog on how we can destroy Snitch Culture once and for all. As we have seen, we may currently be unable to prevent snitches in our fight for liberation because we lack the community support and infrastructure we need. This does not mean that we should ever, ever condone snitching. Snitching represents the most vile betrayal of one's self and one's community and although we may not be able to prevent Snitch Culture now, this does not mean that we should not continue in the active removal of snitches from our communities at present and withdraw support from all collaborators immediately. But now we know that this is not enough. To eradicate Snitch Culture we must set ourselves upon the task of building a long-term resistance that can withstand the attacks of power, and that will take time and a lot of hard work. We must create strategies that look beyond today and will allow us to proactively deal with State repression, not only to defeat Snitch Culture, but to create a world made of our desires.

Excerpted from: Fire to the Prisons #4

Green Scare Informant Darren Thurston Runs Computer Security Company

noreply@blogger.com (SnitchWire) — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 18:08:00 +0000

Update: Thurston was apparently at the Under the Volcano event in Vancouver last weekend, where a coordinator for his support committee, Megan Adams (of the resist[dot]ca collective), was shut out of an indigenous panel discussion touching on the repression of the American Indian Movement, including the decimation State informants wreaked upon AIM members. Good on the folks in Vanoc for knowing what's up and acting accordingly:

"If people such as members of the resist(dot)ca collective, Under the Volcano organizers and Megan Adam chose to maintain a friendship with Darren Thurston, that’s their own personal problem. Their inability to distinguish between the loyalty to their friend and loyalty to people whose lives have been damaged by their friend, should not stop the rest of us from preventing Thurston and his supporters from participating in activist or resistance activity, or jeopardizing wider resistance movements by allowing him continued access to activist social circles and organization, or to sensitive resources and infrastructure." Yep, couldn't have said it better. No cooperation!

-------

Hackbloc and Voice of the Voiceless offer extensive reports of Green Scare snitch Darren Thurston running his own computer security firm. His twitter feed hasn't updated since August 3rd. He goes by "rad_boy" and "hard_mac". Hackbloc says "Who needs good computer security when one of your friends will sell you down the river anyway?" and Voice of the Voiceless offers further analysis:

A warning to anyone who has received computer security services from someone going by hard_mac, or rad_boy: Your consultant was once working for the FBI, and may still be.
Thurston became an asset for the federal government in the Green Scare case after his arrest on arson charges for the 2001 torching by the Animal Liberation Front of a BLM wild horse holding barn in Susanville, California. In exchange for reduced charges, he implicated several others in serious arsons. Among them was Justin Solondz, who is serving a three year sentence in China on unrelated charges after being arrested there while a fugitive.
There is additional information about Thurston that may be of concern to activists. From Vancouver Anarchist Online Archive:

“Vancouver lawyer Peter Edelmann (who sometimes works for activists) confirmed in early 2010 that Darren Thurston has been working for him in his legal office since sometime not long after Thurston’s return to Vancouver in late 2008. This opens the possibility of breaches of lawyer-client confidentiality, given Thurston’s signed and sealed agreement to give information on other activists to the FBI.”

One point bears repeating: Thurston entered into a plea agreement which remains sealed, and which he himself has never made public. The terms of the plea agreement are unknown, and may include working for the FBI / Canadian authorities after his release.
Thurston’s computer security consulting site can be viewed here.
Perhaps not by coincidence, there is information another government informant, Justin Samuel, has also gone into the computer security field. Samuel provided 86 pages of testimony, and perhaps additional undocumented information, to prosecutors investigating mink releases in 1999.
It is possible the FBI has found the perfect niche for former activists who have switched sides: giving them “expert”-status and putting them in charge of sensitive data on others computers. Warrants may be unnecessary when the FBI has a “man on the inside”.

Walter Bond Speaks: His Brothers a Rat

noreply@blogger.com (SnitchWire) — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 18:52:00 +0000

from Infoshop News:

Informant Revealed: A.L.F. Suspect Set Up By His Brother

In his first written statement from jail, the accused A.L.F. "Lone Wolf" reveals new details about his case

In a new letter (excerpts posted below), the accused A.L.F. "Lone Wolf" Walter Bond addresses several lingering questions surrounding his case. Among them, the circumstances of his arrest, quotes made about him by "friends" to the media, and: the identity of the informant who set him up.

Bond sits in jail on arson and Animal Enterprise Terrorism charges, accused of being the Animal Liberation Front "Lone Wolf", responsible for three arsons at animal abuse targets in Utah and Colorado. To date, Bond has been charged only in the Denver Sheepskin Factory arson. He faces up to 30 years in prison.

The informant

Walter Bond was arrested after what court documents say was a set-up by a friend. The "friend" allegedly enticed Bond into a monitored conversation in which Bond allegedly admitted to three A.L.F. arsons. The entire set-up was orchestrated by the ATF. The informant had been identified to date only as someone Bond had not seen in 12 years. In his letter from jail, Bond reveals the identity of the informant, and other details of his arrest.

Excerpts from Walter Bond's jail statement

The details surrounding his arrest:

"The day of my arrest I was on my way to see my brother. We hadnt' seen each other for 12 years, and he had told me that he was coming to Denver to help our half-brother [name redacted] move. He had told me that he was bringing my nephews I had never met. I left [location redacted] thinking I was going to begin healing the very deep wounds of my shattered family. I was wrong. My brother [name redacted] had been working for the ATF since July 1st.

On my way to the hotel he was at, the police stopped me because I was on a 'bulletin'. They quesioned me mostly about veganism, and my tattoos. I refused to say anything except 'I have nothing to say'. They searched me and let me go. I later realized I was only released so that I could walk down the street and into an ATF set-up."

On statements made to the media by "friends" (referencing negative statements made about Bond to the media):

"I found out from a visitor today that Billy Jo has been spinning fanciful tales about me. First off, I was not at her house. Next, I am vegan as everyone that has ever met or known me can attest. I was not at a BBQ nor was I even at Jim and Billy Jo's house. I was simply arrested on their front lawn. In two years time I have spoken to Billy Jo a grand total of perhaps two-dozen sentences.... My guess is that given her shady nature the ATF scared her into trying to discredit me. Altogether predictable and honestly of little consequence to me. Those who know me know what I stand for."

On vegan food and support:

"I am being fed a vegan diet and of course the food is less than desirable. I have no money on my books and I can really use some for ramen noodles, envelopes, etc. Other than money and letters of support I don't need anything from the outside."

On animal liberation:

"Obviously I can not talk about my ongoing case / cases, but I will say this: the charges I face are serious. Accordingly so is the time that goes along with them. However nothing they can do to me can ever compare with what animals endure at the hands of speciesist human oppressors. Please use any means at your disposal to use whatever [illegigble] surrounding my case to bring awareness to the plight of animals. I am vegan and an animal liberation activist, and shall never relent in the fight for the total freedom of non-human animals."

Support

After being denied bail, Walter Bond will likely remain in Jefferson County Jail (Golden, CO) until his trial. Write Walter Bond a letter of support:

Walter Edmund Bond
PO Box 16700
Golden, CO 80402-6700

- Peter Young

Concerning Potential Infiltration in Canada: "Khalid Mohammed"

noreply@blogger.com (SnitchWire) — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 20:39:00 +0000

Received anonymously, linked to the Brenda Doughtry case:

"From: The Coalition to see that the G20 infiltrators go fuck themselves

right in their own ears, until the process of self-termination is

completed! (TCTSTG20IGFTRITOE,UTPOS-TIC)

--------

a couple pics of so called Khalid Mohammed are attached. they are at a anti-olmypic torch demonstration on the Haldimand tract in the city of kitchener. one of them was in the toronto star.

so-called Khalid claimed to be 35, hailing originally from Kenya, and had a basically unlived-in apartmentin Guelph. he infiltrated or tried to infiltrate numerous actions and groups over his time in the region. He appeared at the Hanlon Creek Business Park land protection in the summer of 2009 but was not trusted by the entire camp, and he was eventually blocked from the site through the identification of a need offsite for a "dedicated" person. in an earlier attempt to infiltrate a group in guelph, he was asked to stop attending meetings as he was discussing and advancing a policy of property destruction - this was a group which had a mission to educate on the issue.

so-called Khalid always drove a large white van which he claimed to be related to his job as a superintendent for buildings around southern ontario. He offered it up whenever he could, whether for an action or to drive somebody home, or drive their younger siblings home, or someones mom, or grandfather. He always offered up his van to pick up alcohol as well, and had a limit for actions set at not being convicted; for then his "mother may not get status in Canada". He could not drive on weekends as those are days he saw his daughter who lives with her mother in Brampton. He had only a couple stories of his daughter that he would share. A seemingly helpful and engaged person. though this changed as time went on, and the g20 approached and the weekend restrictions on driving was over. he had all sorts of pins on the ceiling of his van - antifa, communist, anti-olympic, be the change, etc.

in Kitchener so-called Khalid never wanted to speak of internal issues or group process issues in the communities he infiltrated, just on action planning. what is more obvious now is that he never offered up any solid suggestions. or any relevant criticisms, just facilitated the continuing of action planning through soft questions, volunteering to help (usually drive or pay for gas, food, beer, etc) and consenting to proposals. he also did not speak of or propose property destruction - an uncommunicated change of tactics from the earlier guelph experience. he kept all his receipts. he gave people gifts from his hometown.

in the time leading up to the g20, so-called Khalid could be heard saying "fuck the cops" and was no longer as concerned about begin arrested and charged. other than this apparent intensification of feelings, he also displayed sketchy behaviour like showing up at meetings he was not supposed to be at.

at one point so-called Khalid was confronted and told that his affinity group was not willing to work with him any longer, and that trust was shaken in him enough for him to be unvouched from SOAR. At this point he yelled and cussed saying that this was not fair as he had been helping plan "this party and now unable to attend it :( " he also was mad that it was the people he liked that got sent to tell him he was no longer trusted.

so-called Khalid did not visibly attend any of the Toronto G20 convergence and did not return calls inquiring into his presence in the 3 weeks prior to the convergence. his cell phone number was 519-830-7205

it turned out we were just too nice...

so so-called Khalid - go fuck yourself in the ear until the process of self termination in complete.

oh, and we dont know what intelligence service Khalid was working for, if anyone figures it out, please follow up."

----------------------

Snitchwire is still eager to hear from individuals who work/ed with the accused informants as well as corroborating these allegations. Telling details that neither informants' residences looked lived in are important and should always be noted when looking to out a possible snitch. If anyone is aware of whether or not these people are still attempting to mill about the activist scene in Canada or indeed just disappeared, it would be a great help to helping formulate strategy. Please email us at snitchwire@riseup.net, you may remain anonymous.

Police Infiltrate Anarchists and Activists (Guelph, Kitchener, Toronto)

noreply@blogger.com (SnitchWire) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 07:34:00 +0000

UPDATE: We obtained photos of Brenda.

via Anarchist News dot Org:

"From April 2009 until July 2010, two undercover police officers infiltrated activist groups in Guelph, Kitchener and Toronto, Ontario. They are members of the “Joint Intelligence Group (JIG)” that focuses on extremism and terrorism. Its specific mandate has been for the Vancouver Olympics and Torch Relay, and the G8/G20 summits. It is an RCMP (National Police) led group that includes police forces collaborating from across Southern Ontario including Guelph, Hamilton, Toronto, Ottawa, Barrie, Kitchener/Waterloo and the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP).
The names the two undercover intelligence police officers used were “Brenda Dougherty” and “Khalid Mohammad”*.

Brenda Dougherty = Filthy Rat Goof Pig

“Brenda” is in her early 40’s, white, 5’3” tall, with short white and blonde hair, glasses, and an English accent and a Canadian flag tattoo (on her back?). Her story was that she had a job with flexible hours as a home caretaker. She said she was born in Victoria, Canada and lived in England for most of her childhood and adult life. She said that she moved back because she was in an abusive relationship/marriage. She said she moved to Guelph because she had a friend who could get her a job here. She also said that she got accepted to the university of Guelph and began doing part time courses. She said she didn’t talk to her family. Her apartment appeared pre-furnished, and didn’t really look lived-in. She occasionally appeared at events with her “boyfriend”, “John”, a 5’7 or 5’8 beefy native dude with brown hair who wore sunglasses and a hat. He had a US Marine Corps tattoo on one of his biceps that read USMC and had numbers under it.

“Brenda” appeared in Guelph in April 2009 at an info-session at the University of Guelph for people interested in getting involved with the Guelph Union for Tenants and Supporters (GUTS). The primary activity of GUTS at this time was free food servings in the downtown each week. “Brenda” began cooking these dinners, usually at anarchist/punk houses. She attended almost every anti-authoritarian/anarchist public event and tried to get involved in as many groups as she could (which is not many, since there aren’t really any other public groups in Guelph). She spent some time at the Hanlon Creek anti-development occupation in Guelph in summer 2009, and always offered people rides to events and meetings. “Brenda” moved into an activist house in Guelph in spring 2010. She was always willing and able to do grunt work; she didn’t bring up ideas for projects but rather helped people with tasks. She didn’t act sketchy for quite some time; in fact she seemed fairly innocent and genuinely interested. Most people were not suspicious of “Brenda” as a cop. She was related to as a periphery friend to cook dinner with, a sympathetic neighbor, and a pleasant, charming person to be around.

Brenda was very active in organizing against the G20 summit with Southern Ontario Anarchist Resistance (SOAR) and Toronto Community Mobilization Network (TCMN). Leading up to the G8/G20, it has been reported that “Brenda” tried to convince people to go to SOAR meetings. It is difficult to give any details of her involvement with G20 organizing, as seventeen people are facing serious allegations and conspiracy charges because of these pigs.

“Brenda” disappeared the evening before the confrontational protests on Saturday, June 26. It has since been 100% confirmed that “Brenda” is actually an undercover intelligence officer. Fuck that bitch.

PS. “Brenda,” we found your dildo. You should come here and get it so you can go fuck yourself.

*An account of “Khalid’s” infiltration will be posted soon online."

--------------------

SnitchWire would be interested in obtaining photos of the mentioned informants as well as first-hand accounts and testimonials of individuals that interacted with these pigs. Please send relevant information to snitchwire@riseup.net. Remember, please don't reveal incriminating information that could be used against accused individuals being held or tried by the State. It is likely, in the opinion of SnitchWire, that one of these undercovers may have been the person present at an alleged organizing meeting for G20 demonstrations in which an audio wiretap was employed, and exposing these rats to the public is paramount to further resistance as with any snitch or undercover.

Utah Man Arrested in Connection With String of ALF Arsons After Opening Mouth to Informant

noreply@blogger.com (SnitchWire) — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 21:41:00 +0000

Comrades at Denver's leader in news on the insurrection, 'Til it Breaks, report from the Denver Post:

(TIB preamble, SnitchWire couldn't agree more): While we have strong opinions about the events surrounding the April 30th arson and the ALF operative’s claiming of it, we are going to refrain from commentary on questions of ideology and tactical decisions. Suffice to say, we hope the informant gets what’s coming to them, and may the fires of revolt burn ever more fiercely.

The following is from the Denver fucking Post:

Federal investigators have arrested a 34-year-old Utah man in connection with the April 30 fire that destroyed the Sheepskin Factory in Glendale.

Walter Edmund Bond was taken into custody Thursday in Denver after allegedly telling an informant that he started the Glendale fire and two fires in Utah because they were businesses that “profited from animals.”

At the time of his arrest by FBI and ATF agents, Bond was carrying a backpack, according to an affidavit by Rennie Mora, a special agent for the ATF.

Agents searched the backpack and found literature titled, “The Declaration of War – Killing People to Save the animals and the Environment – Strike a Match Light a Fuse We’ve Only Have the Earth to Lose.”

According to an affidavit, Bond is a member of the Animal Liberation Movement who went by the name “Lone Wolf.”

The Sheepskin Factory sold a variety of sheepskin products including but not limited to seat covers, shoes, rugs, and blankets. The fire destroyed the building and its contents resulting in approximately $500,000 in damage.

The informant told federal investigators that in early July, Bond contacted the informant by phone and that he admitted he had started the Sheepskin Factory fire, directing the informant to the website of the Animal Liberation Movement.

Jeremy Hammond: A Statement from Hackbloc

noreply@blogger.com (SnitchWire) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 00:28:00 +0000

UPDATE: Jeremy has replied to this post in three parts below.

via HackBloc

Throughout the past few years our association with Jeremy has caused some controversy. Every time we release a new issue of Hack This Zine or announce an event of ours, somebody is there to ask us why our zine is "edited by a known snitch" or how we can tout security culture while still associating with Jeremy.

We support the anarchist community and resist systems of oppression like the state, police and snitch culture. To this end we would like to explain the situation as we currently understand it (partially quoted from communications with other folk) and make clear our plans of dealing with these accusations.

Jeremy was a member of Hack This Site, a Hackbloc-like project. We worked with Jeremy on a lot of projects including Hack This Zine (the first few issues were written entirely by them). Jeremy also worked very closely with Hackbloc during the first few years and without his help early on we certainly wouldn't be where we are today.

In Chicago on June 27, 2004 there was an anarchist bloc in the Gay Pride Parade. When the anarchist bloc reached the parade there was a violent clash between homophobes and the anarchist bloc. Three people were immediately arrested from the anarchist bloc, one of (Halstead 3) them was Jeremy. Someone associated with Chicago Indymedia videotaped the clash. In December 2004 the tape, which Jeremy was tasked with destroying, was given to the lawyers representing the Halsted 3. Nobody else was charged with a crime after the tape was given to the lawyers and the charges the Halsted 3 were facing were not changed after the tape was given to the lawyers at the CAN meeting in January 2005 Jeremy was first accused of snitching. There was not consensus regarding this at the meeting which created conflict at the Crimethinc convergence that year where some members supporting Jeremy were tabling HTZ.

On March 17, 2005, Hammond's apartment in Chicago was raided by FBI agents who seized his computers, written records and various electronic media. He was eventually arrested and charged with felony-level offenses relating to computer hacking and credit card fraud, arising from the 2004 intrusion into the website belonging to the activist group Protest Warrior.

As far as we know Jeremy was the only one arrested resulting from this raid. There is no evidence showing that any credentials that may have been stolen from him by the police in that raid were used to prosecute anyone other them himself.

While engaging in direct action, being identified, raided, and or charged is always a possibility one has to realize and make preparations for. If a person home is raided there is the possibility that evidence that leads to the arrest/investigation of other activists will be found. As a part of consent, each person living at an at risk house or working with others should be made aware of and understand the risk. Like wise with those who are tasked with maintaining tech infrastructure for radical communities should make sure they have mechanisms in place to protect the data of those they are supporting. If the safety of others is affected as a result of such a raid we would consider it a breach of security culture. However, in that scenario we don't see the person as willingly malicious. And that person certainly does not deserve to be lumped in the same category as Anna [2], Brandon Darby [3], or Adrian Lamo [4]. Such a situation should be carefully dissected to see where things went wrong, hold those accountable, and be available to others so as to prevent future mistakes of that nature.

We have been attempting to contact those involved with the group and others who have made claims about Jeremy being a snitch. We are interested in finding out what their story is and if there is anyway we can support an accountability process. Hackbloc's plan is to be transparent about this process and provide documentation detailing our involvement. Hackbloc wants to help support the needs and demands of victims of consent violation and snitch culture. We are dedicated to looking into the accusations made against us.

We had a number of question that we hoped would have been answered by the time this issue went to press, but it turns out this is hard work and it has been difficult to get a hold of folk. We are dedicated to continuing research and documenting this process because of our involvement with Jeremy in the past and because we understand that alternative justice systems handled by our own communities is important for the sustainability of the anarchist movement. To this end we will continue to post our updates on this issue at:
https://hackbloc.org/category/tags/accountability.

Solidarity,
Hackbloc Collective

PS. There is currently a group in Portland that is attempting to document different alternative justice systems of radical communities if you have been apart of an accountability process they would love to hear from you and find out what worked and what didn't. They are especially available to hear from folk who do not feel comfortable talking with members of Hackbloc about issues they have had with Jeremy. The group can be reached at altjustice@gmail.com.

Accountability process notes:
2010-07-03
- Received a big picture perspective� from a third-party.

2010-06-29
- received a response from questions surrounding the nature of the raid on Jeremy's house on 2005-03-17. Received good analysis on consent and security culture as related to computer security.

2010-06-27
- discussed the situation around the raid and Jeremy's earlier arrest with persons that are currently working with Jeremy and in the past had worked with Jeremy. These persons have performed their own analysis of all of the facts and have determined that they do not believe that Jeremy is or was at any point a snitch.

2010-06-18
- Was contacted by a former member of CAN (Chicagoland Anarchist Network) who
gave their perspective on the events that happened with the videotape of the
Halstead 3. Individual provided good background for what happened. Wrote back
asking for more information about what if any accountability process has taken
place.

2010-06-02
- Wrote letter with more questions about the accusations and asking for more contacts related to the accusations.
- Wrote 5 contacts asking them to talk about their experiences with this case.

2010-06-01
- finished reading through legal paperwork relevant to the Halstead 3 cases.

2010-05-29
- received printed copies of legal paperwork relevant to the Halstead 3 case.

2010-04-29
- talked with folk about the situation and got contact information for a number of folks who could speak to the accusations of being a snitch.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Hammond

[2] Confidential Source (Informant) Anna as relating to the arrest of Eric McDavid, Zachary Jensen and Lauren Weiner: http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2006/01/332735.shtml

[3] Brandon Darby (agent provocateur) as related to the arrest of David Guy McKay and Bradley Neal Crowder: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Darby

[4] Adrian Lamo (Informant) as related to the arrest of Bradley Manning: https://hackbloc.org/node/2123

Notes on the Toronto G20 Black Bloc

noreply@blogger.com (SnitchWire) — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Update: Watch this fucking video from the Stimulator. Anarchists started a riot in Toronto, not cops.

The Black Bloc against the G20 summit in Toronto was one of the fiercest, ruthlessly efficient and effective Blocs seen in North America in a considerable amount of time. This, of course, was brought by the momentum and experience gained by the anarchist movement in North America (under insurmountable odds in most circumstances) within the last fifteen years. Several police cars were set on fire, corporate property destruction and looting were rampant, and the pigs were fought in the street. This is what happened in Toronto.

There are a number of people denouncing the tactic and groups and individuals employing it, as per usual after these sorts of things. Some, like Judy Rebick, have gone far enough to claim that the Black Bloc is pretty much full of police officers committing the majority of the damage. This is just ignorant and clearly Judy is not well versed in the tactic or history of its deployment. There are always a small percentage of undercovers in the bloc, mostly planted for observation and to single out folks for the snatch squads. I'll quote the great essay on the matter by Oshipeya:

"To bolster her Toronto conspiracy theory, Rebick bring up the Montebello incident where masked cop infiltrators were exposed and the cops admitted the infiltration. She neglects to mention that it was the real black blocers who exposed the cops, not the union leader who couldn't understand the word “police” in French. She also, of course, doesn't bring up this year's March 15th anti-police demonstration in Montreal, where masked police attempting to infiltrate the demo were physically attacked and driven out.

Rebick uses the term “agent provocateur”, as others have. But do the cops really need to “provoke” the black bloc or others into burning cop cars or smashing corporate windows? You can't provoke a group to do what it is already doing and wants to be doing. You can only provoke people into doing what they wouldn't otherwise do. This is what the cops are concerned with most of all about the black bloc. That the bloc will inspire others who would like to riot but who feel isolated and unable to. That the black bloc will “provoke” others into doing what they already want to, joining in the fun."

In closing, SnitchWire would like to denounce the police state as well as breathe a short sigh of relief that there were no Brandon Darby/Anna/Andrew Darst scenarios unfolded before the summit went down. Hopefully, it stays that way. Solidarity with those arrested and to those that waged war on capitalism, the police, and the ruling class. If anyone has video/photos of undercover police officers from the demos, please email us to contribute our upcoming hot video jam of the summer: "Badly Disguised Swine Attempting to Infiltrate Resistance Demo."