The Curious Incident of the "Lone Wolf" Terrorist

Sherlock Holmes is currently experiencing a tremendous resurgence in popularity, and so I am probably not the only person who thought of Holmes upon reading about Jose Pimentel:

Gregory (Scotland Yard detective): "Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"
Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."
Gregory: "The dog did nothing in the night-time."
Holmes: "That was the curious incident."

(See "Silver Blaze" on Wikipedia)

Pimentel's case, of course, involves the curious incident of a so-called "lone wolf" terrorist. Pimentel was charged with building a pipe bomb and intending to strike a variety of American targets. And yet, according to the New York Times report, "No evidence has been produced in court that Mr. Pimentel had co-conspirators or was taking instructions from terrorist organizations abroad."

The explanation offered by the authorities for this "curious incident" depends on a species of "auto-genesis," a sort of Muslim twist on the Great American Dream of the self-made man.

Consider the words of N.Y. Police Commissioner William J. Bratton:

This young man really was self-radicalized.

And those of D.A. Cyrus Vance, Jr.:

[T]he threat against us from home-grown terrorists is very real.

Ah!

Of course!  

"Self-radicalized" . . . "home-grown" . . .  He did it to himself . . . !

And yet . . . .

The Pimentel case involved "an undercover officer, two confidential informers and hundreds of hours of recorded conversations." Pimentel pled to a single count of "attempted criminal possession of a weapon in the first degree as a crime of terrorism."  According to his attorneys, however, Pimentel "was easily enticed by the informer to build bombs after being plied for months with free food and marijuana."

Anyone who followed the NATO3 case in Chicago is completely aware of the degree to which all the planning and intent in that case seemed to originate with the undercover police, and that the defendants were led down the garden path. (See Keystone (Undercover) Kops and the Lemonhead Gang)

Jose Pimentel

Undercover police . . . months of infiltration, taping, coaxing, inducements . . . an alleged "terrorist" device . . . lots of police assertions about what the defendant was thinking and intending and wanting . . . Yes, there are an awful lot of similarities to the NATO3 case.  And just as in the case of the NATO3, the feds seemed to think this case was too fishy to get near: "The case in state court was unusual because the federal authorities typically handle terrorism prosecutions. But the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which had monitored Mr. Pimentel, decided not to pursue charges . . . . "

(Of course, one difference was that Pimentel is a Muslim. It is sobering to see the picture of Pimentel in his Muslim skullcap and Guantanamo-style orange jumpsuit and remember, "Oh, yeah . . . if you're a Muslim, they bring the hammer down that much harder on you.")

D.A. Vance -- probably detecting the same opportunity to sound Sherlockian that I did -- observed, "The most important aspect of this case is not what happened but what didn’t." In other words, ignore the fact that no crime was actually committed by the defendant; just be grateful for the demonstration of the state's ability to manipulate events. Feel "safe."

The Pimentel case is just one in a long line of government set-ups of Muslims since 9/11.  People who want to learn more about the unbroken string of such "curious incidents" are encouraged to read The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI's Manufactured War on Terrorism, by Trevor Aaronson.  And once you do that, get involved in the campaign to stop the wave of prosecutions of Muslims: Project SALAM and Salam Illinois.

Related posts

Naturally, the jury in the NATO3 case has no reason to buy into Anita Alvarez's narrative about the threat of terrorism from ordinary citizens and how it justifies a culture of fear and a militarized, all-seeing, secret-driven police state. Which is not to say that they're not concerned about terrorism.

(See In Chi-town USA: got terrorism?)






The NATO3 trial was full of evidence of what "law enforcement" consists of today: undercover cops goading and prodding and coercing people toward doing something -- ANYTHING -- that can be ginned up into a prosecution.

(See ENTRAPMENT: "I know it when I see it!")


 

I think the U.S. is in the midst of a big shift.  I think that for over a decade following 9/11 people have been so enmeshed in fear that their instincts weren't working properly. I think that we are in the midst of a slow process of awakening: people are emerging from the shadow of fear to a wider range of sensibility -- and they are realizing there are some things that are out of joint.

(See Too Much State Power? (Asymmetric Warfare and Asymmetric Policing))

In Chi-town USA: got terrorism?

On Friday, a jury brought back its decision in the so-called NATO3 case. They found the defendants not guilty on the terrorism charges against them.

Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez couldn't understand it.

Have we forgotten about Boston here?

Have we forgotten about homemade bombs in backpacks?

Okay: this got me thinking. Alvarez is talking about the marathon bombing in Boston, right? But . . . what's that got to do with the NATO3 case? Is there something about Boston that's supposed to justify surveillance, coercion, arrests, and prosecutions of the NATO3 in Chicago? (Especially considering that the marathon bombing in Boston happened a year after the NATO summit in Chicago??) And why is she talking about "homemade bombs in backpacks"? Why would she be talking about the alleged facts in another case? What's wrong with the facts in this case?

Off with their heads!
(Don't confuse me with the facts!!)

Well . . . since she's "opened the door" . . . (I love lawyer talk) . . . I'm going to talk about why she's doing these things and why the jury was on a totally different wavelength.

 Why Anita Alvarez wants this to be about terrorism

In Chicago, Illinois:
YOU ARE UNDER SURVEILLANCE!

The "law enforcement" system in Cook County -- as in the rest of the U.S. -- has come to depend on a narrative cooked up from a deadly cocktail of elements:

* fear - The linchpin of all of this is fear. The job of the general populace -- at least, according to our leaders -- is to live our lives in fear.  As we passed the ten-year mark and the more immediate impact of 9/11 began to wane, and the general populace has begun to think more rationally. At the same time, we have begun to see more and more desperation on the part of those who thrive on the police state. They're desperate to remind people, "Be afraid!  Be very afraid!"  Their desperation will only get worse as the general public becomes more lucid.

* coercion and entrapment - Since 9/11, the federal government has hatched scheme after scheme to "work on" and "get close to" and "lure" and "induce" people into various compromising situations that could become the basis of prosecutions on terrorism charges. This pattern has been described by Trevor Aaronson in his book, The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI's Manufactured War on Terrorism.   

A climate of fear . . .

* a pipeline of the "usual suspects" - First, they filled Guantanamo with people who were guilty of nothing more than having Muslim names and beards. Second, Federal authorities have brought cases against a long list of Muslim men, as part of the trumped-up cases described above.  Many of them languish in "little Gitmos" in Illinois and Indiana. (The true test will come when we free the Guantanamo hostages -- er, detainees -- as well of those who have been improperly prosecuted, as well as beginning to refuse to let any more Muslim people get railroaded.)

* surveillance - People in Chicago have the distinction of living with the most police cameras of any U.S. city. And that's even before you count NSA surveillance, or undercover CPD police, or FBI surveillance and raids like those in September, 2010.

* militarization of the police - The narrative of "constant terrorist threat" supports a new approach to policing based on armor, automatic weapons, tanks, and drones. The Department of Homeland Security has become the armourer of U.S. police departments -- though some communities are pushing back.

(And I've purposely saved for another day a discussion of how all this intersects with mass incarceration.)

Anita Alvarez (read: the so-called "law enforcement" establishment in Chicago and Cook County) needs people to live in continual fear of terrorism, and to dine on a constant diet of "security theater." That, she believes, will eliminate all possible questions about the growing police state in which we live.

What would lead an otherwise intelligent person like Anita Alvarez to rave about Boston and backpacks? She sees she's losing her audience -- and she's desperate to get it back to following her narrative.

Why the jury in the NATO3 knows about real "terrorism"

Naturally, the jury in the NATO3 case has no reason to buy into Anita Alvarez's narrative about the threat of terrorism from ordinary citizens and how it justifies a culture of fear and a militarized, all-seeing, secret-driven police state.

Which is not to say that they're not concerned about terrorism.

Illinois' terrorism statute points to the "intent to intimidate or coerce a significant portion of a civilian population."  The kind of ordinary Cook County residents that sit on juries have a very clear idea of what intimidation and coercion look like, and it's not the kind of thing the NATO3 were engaged in.

The members of the jury in the NATO3 trial were much more likely to be asking themselves this question:  "Why didn't Anita Alvarez indict the Chicago police officer who discharged all 16 rounds in his firearm over the course of 4 seconds, killing Flint Farmer while Farmer lay face down on the ground?"

Of course, Anita Alvarez declined to charge the police officer because she "did not think that they could show that the shooting was unreasonable." Well, if that isn't terrifying, I don't know what is.

It is a fact that large numbers of African-American Chicago residents (and African-American people throughout the U.S.) are terrified that a member of their family will similarly be shot by a police officer.  It is indisputable that a large portion of the civilian population is "intimidated or coerced" by the so-called "law enforcement" authorities in Cook County.

Drone Gaze, Drone Injury:
The War on Communities of Color

OR . . . perhaps the members of the jury in the NATO3 trial were asking themselves this: "When U.S. and NATO drones are in the skies constantly over villages in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia -- don't the civilian populations there live in a state of terror? Where's the outrage over that?"

In the last year, there has been widespread recognition that people "living under drones" live in a state of terror.  2013 was the year that the United Nations began to take concrete action to shine a bright light on the way U.S. drone killings violate international law; 2014 promises to be the year that the international community actually does something about it.

So . . . Chicago terrorism? U.S. terrorism?  Yeah, we got terrorism.  Just not where Anita Alvarez is pointing.


Related posts

The NATO3 trial was full of evidence of what "law enforcement" consists of today: undercover cops goading and prodding and coercing people toward doing something -- ANYTHING -- that can be ginned up into a prosecution.

(See ENTRAPMENT: "I know it when I see it!")






There will be elections for 435 House seats in 2014. In at least some of those races, U.S. surveillance, secrecy, and assassinations will be an issue.

Herewith an Insider's Guide to the 7 S's (surveillance, secrecy, and assassinations) in the 2014 Midterms.

(See Will the 2014 Midterms be a Referendum on Obama's Surveillance, Secrecy, and Assassinations? )

Even if the current Obama administration approach of releases were to succeed in bringing about the release of everyone at Guantanamo, it would not have begun to address the wrong that has been committed.

(See US to its Humans Rights Violations Victims: "Shut up and take what you're given!" )

ENTRAPMENT: "I know it when I see it!"

It's up to the NATO3 jury now . . .

As I write these words, the closing arguments in the NATO3 trial are being made in Cook County Court.

As important as anything that gets said in those closing presentations are instructions that will be given by the judge to the jurors.  I am grateful for my correspondent M, who has been attending the trial every day and faithfully providing summaries to the rest of us, including specifics on arguments over those instructions.

Notably, M told us that yesterday the prosecution

argued that the defense had been using “soft entrapment” language and arguments throughout the trial. Prosecutors claimed the defense attorneys had danced around the word “entrapment” in their opening arguments, using every word except for that to describe the undercovers' actions and statements. Further, they argued, the defense attorneys' questions during cross examination were intended to cause the jury to infer entrapment. Thus, the jury should be instructed that the defendants would have to admit guilt to every element of each charged offense to claim an entrapment defense, the prosecutors argued. They advanced this argument even though the defense had just rested their case without presenting any formal defense against the charges. Nevertheless, the judge agreed with the prosecution's claims of “soft entrapment” and said that if they continued in their closing arguments as they had been thus far, he would provide the jury with the state's instruction about entrapment.

Which brings us to the magic word "entrapment."

The legal system contains many formal definitions and procedural rules.  One is that the word "entrapment" can't be used until the defendants first admit that they are guilty of something.

It's important to point out that this is a "lawyer" rule, not a "normal person" rule.  To any normal person, it is clear that the police can and do engage in entrapment, and that it is not necessary for one to believe that an actual crime has been committed in order for it to be clear as day that entrapment has been taking place.

This is extremely important because -- whether people recognize it at a conscious level or not -- the NATO3 trial is predicated on punishing people for things that they thought.  So let's all say it: the undercover cops goaded and prodded and coerced the defendants to think thoughts about hurting somebody, and though the defendants never hurt anybody or tried to hurt anybody, the trial has been full of testimony that, in essence, aims at suggesting, "Well, they shouldn't even have allowed themselves to think it!"

So: use your common sense.  Is that entrapment? It sure looks that way to me. As a judge once famously said of pornography, "I know it when I see it!"

Which brings us to another magic word: "jury nullification." It is within the power of U.S. juries to bring a "not guilty" verdict as a way of indicating that they find the law(s) under which the charges are brought to be unacceptable.  Their finding of "not guilty," in effect, serves to "nullify" the offending law.  (A big topic -- for starters see the article on "jury nullification" on Wikipedia.)

The jury in the NATO3 case should nullify the senseless laws and procedures under which these young men are being prosecuted for their behavior and thoughts in the context of entrapment (common sense meaning) by law enforcement.

And then we need to get to work freeing all the other people who have been entrapped by U.S. law enforcement, with special emphasis on all the Muslim men who have been thrown in prison following cooked-up FBI plots.

Related posts

Far from bringing to light any kind of threat to public order, the prosecution of three young men in Cook County court is illustrating just how bad the surveillance and persecution state we live in has become.  Frankly, it's a mystery to me why State's Attorney Anita Alvarez -- or, if not her, at least someone she answers to -- didn't pull the plug on this embarrassing proceeding before it got this far.

(See NATO3 in 6 words: "Those 3 guys are getting railroaded.")

I think the U.S. is in the midst of a big shift.  I think that for over a decade following 9/11 people have been so enmeshed in fear that their instincts weren't working properly. I think that we are in the midst of a slow process of awakening: people are emerging from the shadow of fear to a wider range of sensibility -- and they are realizing there are some things that are out of joint.

(See Too Much State Power? (Asymmetric Warfare and Asymmetric Policing))

 "He could not help feeling a twinge of panic. It was absurd, since the writing of those particular words was not more dangerous than the initial act of opening the diary." (George Orwell, 1984 - p. 16) Luckily, we don't have to experience this kind of fear and paranoia and self-censoring in America! (or do we??)

(See Building Metropolises of Self-Censorship)

NATO3 in 6 words: "Those 3 guys are getting railroaded."

Case Illustrates State Manipulation of Atmosphere of Fear

Well, it's started.  The State's Attorney's office has begun what will certainly be a whole bevy of prejudicial jury instruction requests in the NATO3 case -- the first being an instruction to the jury to disregard the whole question of what law enforcement was doing with its surveillance of public meetings and other Constitutionally-protected speech -- "Just focus on what we want you to focus on," they're saying.

And this is to be expected. Far from bringing to light any kind of threat to public order, the prosecution of three young men in Cook County court is illustrating just how bad the surveillance and persecution state we live in has become.  Frankly, it's a mystery to me why State's Attorney Anita Alvarez -- or, if not her, at least someone she answers to -- didn't pull the plug on this embarrassing proceeding before it got this far.

All I can think of is that they were hoping to channel the energy of that great Chicago impresario, L. Frank Baum, responsible among other things for that famous line: "PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!"

Consider, for a moment, a bottle . . . .

"Just a bottle," you say? But  -- don't look at anything except what I tell you to look at! -- on second glance, isn't it clear that this is a very suspicious-looking bottle?  Even -- a dangerous bottle?

State's Exhibit M
"The Bottle"

In fact, isn't it clear that this bottle poses a clear and present threat to public security?!?!

Or so the the State's Attorney would have us believe.

Luckily, it isn't possible to tell people to "don't look at anything except what I tell you to look at." People are paying attention to the manipulation going on behind the scenes.

When the jury and the public use their senses and their heads, they will see that the bottle is part of an elaborate scheme, engineered by law enforcement.

State's Exhibits A thru O
(with apologies to Rube Goldberg)

And they'll see the scheme is not about protecting the public safety, but rather about befuddling the public.

The illustration is humorous, but what's going on here poses extreme danger to our society.  Because the manipulation that's going on in the NATO3 prosecution is NOT just the attempt to pin some charges on a few young men. Rather, it is the perpetuation of a state of fear in the United States that is used as a pretext for blanket surveillance, persecution, and an undeclared war -- including extrajudicial assassinations that continue around the world every month.

The authorities in Cook County -- and their allies in Chicago City Hall, and their allies in the White House -- are counting on their ability to convince the public, "Don't look at anything except what I tell you to look at!" and "PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!"

And that's where they've gone wrong. The average citizen is just too smart to put up with this treatment. Consider, for instance, the 80-year-old parishioner who came up to me on the way into church on Sunday, elbowed me, shook her head, and said, "Those 3 guys are getting railroaded." Funny: I had just gotten done assembling a thousand or so words and half a dozen images for my previous blog post about the NATO3; she said it all in 6 words.

"Those 3 guys are getting railroaded."  I think that's the message that the public is going to take away from this prosecution. And I hope they won't let it end there.  I hope the public will say, "Now that we're on the subject, we want to know all about what the government has been doing.  Tell us all about:

* state surveillance
* state secrecy
* state violence

Since it's the government that pulled back the curtain in the first place, isn't it time for the general public to get the full story?

Related posts

The NATO 3 prosecution sounds like a comedy of errors, and in many ways it is. But there are at least four things about it at that are deadly serious and should serve as a call to action for people who care about liberty and justice.

(See Keystone (Undercover) Kops and the Lemonhead Gang)

I think there may only be one person left in America who hasn't realized that the NSA surveillance scandal is killing the Democratic Party . . .

(See Obama's Surveillance Problem Is the Dems' Surveillance Problem )








As we have known all along, we need the public to think about how crummy the whole drone program is, and then they will be ready to be on our side. The best way to get them really thinking is to shine a spotlight on the secrecy, evasiveness, and deceit involved in the U.S. drone program.

(See Drone Killings: Come Clean)





Before there was the NATO5 -- or the NATO3 -- there was NATOin5. People tweeted their summaries of NATO in just 5 words (hashtag: #NATOin5). It all started with an interview between Eric Zorn and Andy Thayer about NATO ....

(See #NATOin5)

Keystone (Undercover) Kops and the Lemonhead Gang

Hey, all I know is what I read in the Chicago Tribune.

State's Exhibit #1
Lemonhead® is a registered trademark of the
Ferrara Candy Company -- Chicago, IL

The facts coming out of the very expensive prosecution of three young men on "terrorism" charges are, well, sobering.

According to recordings played Thursday, the talk of explosives was first sparked when Chase dropped a Lemonhead candy into a beer he was drinking, creating a fizzing chemical reaction.  Church and Betterly then discussed how to build an "acid bomb" that could eat through the clothes of police officers.

Well, there's your problem right there.  Someone called the wrong gang of troublemakers.  Lemonheads? Lemonheads? Everyone knows that if you want to create real havoc, you have to use Mentos!!!

State's Exhibit #2
Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov (left)
of Russia drinking a co -- what's that? Oh . . . .

I blame it on the undercover cops -- Nadia "Gloves" Chikko and Mehmet "Mo" Uygum. Clearly they were not coaching their targets nearly effectively enough in how to be serious threats to public order.

Consider the recording of "Gloves" trying to talk the defendants into making explosives:

"Dude, we got Molotovs -- that's not whack," said the other undercover cop . . . .

Well, that's clearly ambiguous. Prospective bad guys could be forgiven for getting confused. And the response of defendant Church, indeed, showed that he was either not clear on what was going on, not serious, not terribly practical, or some combination of the three:

"We can use vodka!"

State's Exhibit #3
Unindicted co-conspirator

As Dave Barry says, I'm not making this up.

The three defendants -- known as the "NATO 3" -- talked about other things, as well, under the encouragement of the undercover agents.  Marbles projected by slingshots . . . homemade potato launchers . . . a message to be sent to Mayor Emanuel by attaching it to an arrow shot through the window of his house. As one reads the descriptions of the court proceedings, one can't help imagining their influences -- Marbles: Huck Finn? or the tin soldier scene in "Babes in Toyland"? Arrow-through-the-window: clearly Robin Hood but . . . Errol Flynn? or Disney? -- though I'm still trying to figure the potato launcher out.

State's Exhibit #4
ACME Brand "Instant Havoc" supplies . . .
. . . ordered by "Mo" and "Gloves" . . . .

According to their testimony, the two undercover police officers -- the leading edge of a team of police that at times numbered 16 -- focused on the Brent Betterly, Jared Chase, and Brian Church because they felt they had the greatest chance of proving criminal activity against the three, compared to anyone else they had observed in "more than two months investigating the protest movement" planning antiwar marches, teach-ins, and other activities during the May, 2012, meeting in Chicago of the NATO military alliance.  Pretty slim pickin's.

The funniest -- or, perhaps, saddest -- detail to come out in court proceedings was that when the alleged miscreants were urged to target Barack Obama's re-election headquarters, they couldn't locate it using the Internet.  Now, in the first place, this is hard to believe because during that period there were almost daily protests in front of the Obama campaign headquarters on Randolph St. just east of Michigan. But-- dude! -- this points to a much larger problem: how could they wreak havoc on the city if they couldn't figure out how to go to the Acme website and order their supplies? (The answer, like everything else in this "case" is . . . with a little help from their undercover cop friends.)

The serious side of the NATO 3 prosecution

People's Exhibit #1
Cook County Jail

The NATO 3 prosecution sounds like a comedy of errors, and in many ways it is. But there are at least four things about it at that are deadly serious and should serve as a call to action for people who care about liberty and justice.

Number One,  the NATO 3 have been held for nearly two years due to on exorbitantly high bail in the hell-hole known as the Cook County Jail.  Not only should there be compensation, but this should shine a bright light on the approximately 10,000 people held there largely as a manipulative means to compel plea bargains. (See Free Them All)

People's Exhibit #2
A pattern of entrapment.

Number Two, the plot to ensnare these three young men is just the tip of the iceberg in a nationwide epidemic of efforts at entrapment and prosecutions by a range of law enforcement agencies.

The new modus operandus is to find someone who is very suggestible and then work on them and work on them until they are badgered into being part of some kind of scheme or plot. 

As documented by Trevor Aaronson in his book, The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI's Manufactured War on Terrorism, the FBI and other government agencies are the single largest planner of terrorist acts in the United States.

People's Exhibit #3
Hands off our young people!

Number Three, anybody who is a parent should think about what's really going on here. How would you like it if someone were egging your kid on, trying perhaps to get them to make the jump from playing video games in which they pretend to hurt people to pulling the trigger of an actual weapon. If you don't think it goes on all day long in Chicago, take a look at what military recruiters are doing in our city schools. (See Chicago Needs Schools for Education, not for War and Occupation)

People's Exhibit #4
"The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today"

Number Four, the way this all started was the invitation that Barack Obama's right-hand man, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, extended to the most terrorizing military alliance in the history of the earth to come to Chicago and plan how to use its weapons and armies. Where's the prosecution of that violence? (See War, War Protests, and "Technology")

There are some prosecutions that should be going on, all right, but the prosecutions that should be happening are of people in the criminal justice system who are perpetuating the wrongful imprisonment of thousands of people in this country . . . people who are abusing investigative power to entrap ordinary citizens . . . people who are luring our kids into the military . . . and people who are using U.S. military might to assault people all over the world and commit war crimes.

Related posts

I predict that by the time the NATO3 trial is over, people will be saying, "Before Edward Snowden, before the revelations about the NSA, we already had clear signs that the US government wanted total surveillance over us.  Just look at how they reacted the minute they started to see dissent from the general public: the Occupy Movement."

(See What I Learned About Obama's Surveillance State at the NATO3 Show Trial )

Guantanamo and Chicago '68 live in the public's subconscious, where they lurk in the shadows, threatening anyone who has a dissenting thought. It's time we dragged those images out into the open, forcing people to consciously address the way people are being intentionally terrorized by our government. Only if we can do this -- put a name to the threat -- will the ordinary Chicagoan wake up and say, "You expect me to be intimidated? HELL NO!"

(See Twin Specters of Repression in America)



People are now beginning to understand that the solution is not to delegate our well-being to our political "representatives." We all have to take part directly, and we all have to keep at it. It will take sustained resistance to stop the abuses of our government. If you've read this far, you've probably realized that you now need to be part of the resistance, too.

(See got police state?)

What I Learned About Obama's Surveillance State at the NATO3 Show Trial

I won't be in the gallery when the trial of the NATO3 starts in Chicago today. The usual public access to the Cook County court system has been suspended; the courts have been overtaken by the Obama security state and its rules.

The foundation of the American system is trials that take place in "open court." Courtrooms are fundamentally public spaces; a few spaces are reserved for the officers of the court - the judge, the lawyers, etc. - but there should never be any mistake about the fact that what is taking place there is to serve the public, and is subject to scrutiny by the public.

I got a taste of this a few years ago when I was working on a patent case.  A lawsuit had been filed against Gillette for patent infringement, and we were beginning a trial in U.S. Federal Court in downtown Chicago.  When it got time to get into the details of Gillette's actual infringement of the patent, the attorney for Gillette argued that the court should be cleared, and the transcripts of the proceeding be sealed, lest the company be irreparably harmed by the leakage of the details of their manufacturing process.  The judge gently but firmly reminded counsel for Gillette that the institution of "open court" is rather important in our system; she wasn't going to start messing with it without a darn good reason.  (She did request that if there were any industrial spies working for Gillette competitors in the courtroom, they should please leave.)

So I am saddened that the judge in the NATO3 case now taking place in Chicago has set up rules that are clearly intended to keep the public out of the courtroom.  Even more shocking to me than the fact that members of the public are barred from the gallery unless they (a) make an in-person visit to the court building at 26th and California a full day in advance of the day they wish to attend and register; and (b) submit to a background check, is the fact that the judge tried (but was talked out of) barring observers from taking notes of the proceeding.

OK, we're getting used to our government conducting their affairs in secret. (By the way, that is one of the bizarre features of a "show trial" -- it is conducted for maximum publicity but there is nothing truly "public" about it.) Under our increasingly secret-driven government, the people get to see NOTHING about the conduct of the government.  On the other hand, the government sees EVERYTHING about us.  And so, if just one shred of truth manages to get into the public view as a result of this trial, it should be the way surveillance was used by the Obama administration against the Occupy movement.

The story of the surveillance of the NATO3 -- the REAL story to come out of the trial in Chicago this week -- is the tip of the iceberg of a national program of surveillance against anyone and everyone who participated in the Occupy Movement.

I predict that by the time the NATO3 trial is over, people will be saying, "Before Edward Snowden, before the revelations about the NSA, we already had clear signs that the US government wanted total surveillance over us.  Just look at how they reacted the minute they started to see dissent from the general public: the Occupy Movement."

Related posts

If you have any doubt that the U.S. government wants to observe EVERYTHING you do, perhaps its time for Foucault 101. Consider the panopticon  . . . .

(See Drones, 1984, and Foucault's Panopticon)

The Amash Conyers Amendment to curtail NSA spying was advanced in the U.S. House of Representatives shortly after the Snowden revelations. It narrowly failed -- in part due to the votes of some so-called "progressive" Illinois representatives.

(See In Chicago, Illinois: YOU ARE UNDER SURVEILLANCE! )

One issue that has a key place in the midterm elections in 2014, I believe, is surveillance.  With each passing day, I am hearing more and more people say that the surveillance issue is something that a wide spectrum of people are deeply upset about. That includes people on the right as well as people on the left -- people who don't usually talk with each other, much less work together for positive change!

(See The Surveillance Issue: The Fulcrum of the 2014 Election?)

It's Time to Derail "the CIRR"

UPDATE: The People are taking on the "CIRR"

Please support the effort to derail the "Chicago Injustice Railroad" by coming out in solidarity at the following events:

Friday Feb 15 - PACK THE COURTROOM II - Free the NATO5!
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On February 15, 2013 three of the NATO 5--Brent, Brian, and Jared--will again appear in court as the motion to dismiss the unconstitutional charges against them proceeds. It is crucial that people attend these hearings to show them that WE SUPPORT THEM and to show the state that WE WILL NOT BE INTIMIDATED. The motion to dismiss makes clear: the state is trying to use the bogus terrorism statute to intimidate EVERYBODY; it's using Brent, Brian, and Jared as pawns. IT'S TIME FOR THAT TO STOP! (Read Kris Hermes' excellent summary.) 26th & California - Hearing starts at 9:30 a.m.

Thursday Feb 21 - Oral Arguments: Class Action on Chicago Torture Cases
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Key question being argued on Feb 21: Does the States' Attorney Office have a conflict of interest in this case? We need EVERYONE there to show support for the efforts of those seeking redress for violence perpetrated against them by the Chicago Police Department. This is part of the effort to get new hearings for scores of men still in prison who are victims of Burge's CPD torture squad. (See related background story on this class action suit.) 26th & California - 1pm press conference, 2pm hearing.

Saturday Feb 23 - 2nd People's Hearing on Police Crimes
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Full day event at U of C - The Second #PeoplesHearing on Police Crimes will focus on the problem of police crimes, exploring how police crimes affect violence in the community, and encourage distrust and violence between the community and the police. The Hearing is also a call to action where we will discuss solutions to hold criminal police accountable for their actions, and for ending the absolute police impunity that currently exists. Ida Noyes Hall - event runs 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.


ORIGINAL POST: January 29, 2013

I want to be in the courtroom on Thursday when Anita Alvarez' office submits its brief to explain why IT should do the people's business in pursuing justice for the men tortured and imprisoned by the Chicago Police Department, the State's Attorney's office, and the Cook County Criminal Courts.

And I REALLY want to be there during oral arguments when the ridiculousness of their position is laid bare for everyone to see, and to dwell on, and for the judge to rule against. We need to be witnesses . . . .

Thursday is part of something big. There is a people's movement going on in 2013 to derail the CIRR - the "Chicago Injustice Railroad." Judge Biebel's courtroom on Thursday (Thursday, January 31 - Cook County Criminal Court - 26th and California, Room 101) is just one stop.

Another stop on the CIR will be in Judge Thaddeus Wilson's courtroom (303) on February 15, when Anita Alvarez' office submits its brief to explain why the bogus Illinois terrorism statute is not unconstitutional on its face. We need to be witnesses there, too . . . .

At both these hearings -- and others -- the people will pack the courtroom. Because it's the people's courtroom, and the people want the operators of the CIRR to know that they see what's going on and "the jig is up."

Will YOU be there when we succeed in finally derailing the CIRR?


Related posts

The Chicago Tribune editorial page today featured the words of Cook County Circuit Judge Catherine Haberkorn in a case of police lying on the witness stand: "Obviously, this is very outrageous conduct. All officers lied on the stand today. ... Many, many, many, many times they all lied."

(See CHICAGO COPS: "Many, many, many, many times" they lied )




The NATO3 trial was full of evidence of what "law enforcement" consists of today: undercover cops goading and prodding and coercing people toward doing something -- ANYTHING -- that can be ginned up into a prosecution.

(See ENTRAPMENT: "I know it when I see it!")











Yesterday was a day of moving testimony before the Committee on Human Relations of the City Council of the City of Chicago on a resolution to make Chicago a torture-free city.

(See Why Chicago Must Become a Torture-Free Zone )

"Free Them All": End Mass Incarceration, End Cook County Jail Abuses

Warming up at the MCC
(Photo: Lee Klawans)

There must have been something about our ragtag assembly of noisemakers outside Cook County Jail on New Year's Eve that enraged the Sheriff's deputies, since they came charging out from their gate and found someone that they could swarm, pin up against the fence, and then drag into a waiting sheriff's car and into the very jail we were protesting against.

Could it have been the tuba?


Although I felt mildly sheepish marching along, twirling the end of a 40-ft. length of knotted sheet - our improvised symbol of liberation for the victims of America's prison-industrial complex - I also felt there was a kind of nobility in it. Sure, my little two-step was as much to keep warm in the post-sunset New Year's Eve cold as it was an expression of my defiant spirit ... but I guess the guys in the sheriff cars trailing us probably saw it as too much to tolerate.

Twirling
(Photo: Lee Klawans)

And when we stood outside new building on the southeast corner of California and 28th, blowing on our kazoos and banging on pots and twirling our glow-in-the-dark wands, we could see prisoners in every window waving with gestures that can only described as joy. "Yes!" they seemed to be saying, "you haven't forgotten us!"

New Year's Eve, 12/31/2012, in Chicago
Cook County Jail inmates gather at windows to see what all the noise is about.

That sort of subverts the whole purpose of Cook County Jail, I suppose.

But more than anything else, I think it was our speech. I think it was the words we were saying. Here's what we were saying:

Free them all.

Yeah, that was definitely it: "Free them all."

Okay, so now that we're getting down to it, let's ask the question: What does it mean to stand outside Cook County Jail and say "Free them all"? Many of us in that assembly are supporters of a particular group of people being held at CCJ -- the NATO5 -- but all it takes is one not-so-short walk around the 96-acre complex to realize that "Cook" is about something much more.

The massive 96-acre Cook County Jail complex

Cook County Jail is the perfect example of the nationwide injustice that Michelle Alexander described in her groundbreaking book, The New Jim Crow: mass incarceration, focused principally one people of color, in which "crimes" (often related to drug possession or other low-level offenses) become the mechanism for entrapping people in a cycle of incarceration that is brutalizing and often begins a downward spiral of lifetime discrimination.

A few facts (see "Population Dynamics and the Characteristics of Inmates in the Cook County Jail", February, 2012, by David E. Olson and Sema Taheri):

People of color constitute a wildly disproportionate part of admissions to CCJ: in 2011, the breakdown was African Americans 66.9%, Caucasians 13.5%, Hispanic/Other 19.6%. (Compare this to Chicago's city-wide demographics (2010): Black 36.8%, Hispanic/Other 30.4%, White 42.0%.) This means that if you are a person of color, you are 4.6 times more likely to be thrown into Cook than if you are white.

Cook is filled with people charged with low-level offenses, including 26.9% on drug charges, 15.4% on DUI/traffic charges, 17.9% on property charges. Over 70% are in for non-violent offenses. But once they are inside, they will learn plenty about violence:

In July 2008, the civil rights division of the United States Department of Justice released a report finding that the Eighth Amendment civil rights of the inmates has been systematically violated.[1][2] The report found that the CCJ failed to adequately protect inmates from harm or risk of harm from other inmates or staff; failed to provide adequate suicide prevention; failed to provide adequate sanitary environmental conditions; failed to provide adequate fire safety precautions; and failed to provide adequate medical and mental health care.

Specific alleged violations that have resulted in Federal sanctions and/or class action lawsuits include:

1. Systematic beatings and rapings by corrections officers.
2. Poor food quality.
3. Inmates forced to sleep on cell floors due to overcrowding and mismanagement (resulting in a $1,000 per inmate class action settlement).
4. Rodent infestation and injury caused to sleeping inmates by rat and mouse bites.
5. Violations of privacy during multiple invasive strip searches.
6. Failure to provide adequate medical care, including failure to dispense medications.
7. Invasive and painful mandatory tests for male STD's (resulting in a $200 per inmate class action settlement).
8. Unnecessarily long waiting time for discharge upon payment of bond, completion of sentence, or charges being dropped. Wait times are currently routinely in excess of 8 hours, nearly all of which is spent with many inmates packed into tiny cells.

(See: Wikipedia: Cook County Jail - U.S. Department of Justice report)

These facts can help the general public get their mind around the most disgusting fact of all about Cook County Jail: the role it plays in compelling defendants to take plea deals. The proposition is simple: take a plea, or rot in Cook waiting for a trial. (And, if you are convicted, the "trial penalty" will make sure your sentence is just not worth the risk.) To understand what this means, look at the fate of the small number of people who stick it out, waiting for trial - the average number of days they spent in Cook County Jail in 2010 was 285. That's 285 days of brutalization as the price for due process in Chicago.

Cook County Jail -- part of USA Prison Nation

So . . . about New Year's Eve . . . . Maybe we went a little far . . . .

Maybe a tuba and a drum and a saxophone was a bit bold . . . Maybe two scary black flags was a bit intimidating . . . .

Maybe the lengths of flowered sheets looked like they might be a match for the miles of concertina wire around the CCJ perimeter . . .

Maybe our words -- "Brick by brick, Wall by wall, Tear it down, Free them all" -- were annoying . . . .

But I can't help thinking that the more people hear about the New Year's Eve Noise Demonstration at Cook County Jail, the more people will be there with us next time. And the more people learn the facts about Cook, the more will be saying with us:

Free them all.

Update: March 17, 2016

Chicago voters denied incumbent states attorney Anita Alvarez another term, after a campaign by activists to change the way prosecutions are done in Chicago. (See "How Black Youth Helped Unseat Anita Alvarez and Transform the Face of Criminal Justice in Chicago" by Miles Kampf-Lassin in In These Times.)

Check out this new visual from the Prison Policy Initiative to get a sense of how jails are really used to break people down, and force pleas.

70% of people in local jails are not convicted of any crime.
(Source: Prison Policy Initiative)

Related posts

What would Christians think if someone proposed carving out a slice of their Sunday services to worship the God of Entombment? Wouldn't they think that was absurd? After all, if Christianity is anything, isn't it the religion of "UN-entombment"?

(See When is Christianity Going Back to Being the Religion of "UN-entombment"?)



BE IT RESOLVED THAT the Mayor and the City Council of the City of Chicago stand firm against all forms of torture and inhuman treatment, and hereby proclaim Chicago to be a torture free zone; and . . .

(See Chicago: A Torture-Free City?)

The biggest idea coming out of the 2013 Drone Summit? We will only deal successfully with the crimes being committed using drones when we understand them as part of the much larger war against communities of color . . . .

(See Drone Gaze, Drone Injury: The War on Communities of Color )












Other related links

October 9, 2014 - "Expert: Cook County Jail one of the most dangerous in country" by Steve Schmadeke in the Chicago Tribune: "Detainees at the Cook County Jail face such an 'extremely high' risk of harm that the facility is one of the most dangerous in the country, a national expert on jail operations testified Wednesday, saying 'serious failures' in staff leadership are exacerbating the problem."

November 13, 2014 - "Tales differ on conditions at Cook County Jail" by Jason Meisner in the Chicago Tribune: This story ran in the print edition under the headline, "Cook jail: A model . . . or mayhem?": "In one court filing, the plaintiff's attorneys wrote that every day, the prisoners in those divisions 'face intolerable risk to life and limb.' ... Violence, the filing said, 'is so commonplace that the jail's motto could be "maim or be maimed."'" The article provides a timeline of court actions that have been undertaken to correct abuses at Cook County Jail, stretching back to 1967. Whether or not you agree with the prison experts who have recently concluded inspections of Cook County Jail (e.g. "David Shapiro, an attorney for the MacArthur center, said [. . .] 'The evidence shows that there are brutal, physical beatings and that the system of accountability for the officers has totally failed.'" and "Jeffrey Schwartz, a national expert on jail operations, testified last month . . . that videos show unacceptable uses of force by jail personnel." ); and whether or not you are troubled by the cavalier attitude of Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart ("I have some idiots that still work for me. I haven't found all of them. I've got 7,000 employees, so I've got some awesome ones and I've got some idiots too."); it is clear that massive intervention of some kind is needed.