An op-ed published in The Oregonian last week argues in favor of a resumption of FBI JTTF activities in Portland. The obviously staged Christmas tree terror plot was mentioned: “The averted attack during Portland’s Christmas tree lighting ceremony has touched off a debate about the city’s decision, six years ago, to withdraw from the task force. That withdrawal was, clearly, unwise.” The FBI orchestrated event was cooked up not only as yet another sideshow in the never-ending war against manufactured terror, but also as a stunt to frighten the people of Portland into accepting the presence of the FBI. If the FBI is allowed back into Portland, the city’s residents can expect the agency – acting as America’s political police force – to resume its effort to attack the establishment’s political enemies. The FBI does not exist to combat kidnappers and bank robbers, as advertised. It exists to neutralize and destroy all political opposition, as its former director, J. Edgar Hoover, so famously said when COINTELPRO was rolled out fifty years ago.
from washington post: W. Mark Felt Sr., the associate director of the FBI during the Watergate scandal who, better known as "Deep Throat," became the most famous anonymous source in American history, died yesterday. He was 95.
Felt died at 12:45 p.m. at a hospice near his home in Santa Rosa, Calif., where he had been living since August. Felt "was fine this morning" and was "joking with his caregiver," according to his daughter, Joan Felt. She said in a phone interview that her father ate a big breakfast before remarking that he was tired and going to sleep. "He slipped away," she said.
As the second-highest official in the FBI under longtime director J. Edgar Hoover and interim director L. Patrick Gray, Felt detested the Nixon administration's attempt to subvert the bureau's investigation into the complex of crimes and coverups known as the Watergate scandal that ultimately led to the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon.
He secretly guided Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward as he and his colleague Carl Bernstein pursued the story of the 1972 break-in of the Democratic National Committee's headquarters at the Watergate office buildings and later revelations of the Nixon administration's campaign of spying and sabotage against its perceived political enemies.
Felt insisted on remaining completely anonymous, or on "deep background." A Post editor dubbed him "Deep Throat," a bit of wordplay based on the title of a pornographic movie of the time. The source's existence, but not his identity, became known in Woodward and Bernstein's 1974 book, "All the President's Men," and in the subsequent movie version, in which actor Hal Holbrook played the charismatic but shadowy source.
The new details were included in 500 pages of the FBI's large file on Ford, released in part this past week in response to requests under the Freedom of Information Act that The Associated Press and others made on the day Ford died in December 2006. The FBI intends to release additional documents about Ford in several batches, all with parts censored for law enforcement and privacy reasons.
from raw story: According to a newly declassified document, the New York Times reports, a plan by former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover sought to suspend habeas corpus during wartime, with the intention of imprisoning thousands of Americans indefinitely.
Hoover's plan was submitted to the White House twelve days after the start of the Korean War. Under the plan, approximately 12,000 people deemed as "potentially dangerous" to national security, 97% of whom were American citizens, would have been rounded up and sent to military prisons without due process.
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from kurt nimmo: Residents of Portland, Oregon, recently attended a forum on the question of whether the city should rejoin the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. The city withdrew its task force membership five years ago after the Justice Department turned down a city request for oversight over the JTTF. The decision followed revelations in 2002 that the FBI and the Portland Police kept thousands of “red squad” style police files on political activists. Since 1981, Oregon law has barred police surveillance of political groups in the absence of criminal activity... We Are Change Portland mentioned the first World Trade Center bombing during the forum with city officials and the FBI.
