<html>
<body>
<font size=3>Friends. i'm just back from Eugene Oregon where a successful
event to support Jeff 'Free' Luers was held. i spoke along with
Ramona Africa and a great Native American group 'Blackfire'. That event
was also targeted with FBI 'terror' warnings (in the NY Times, local
papers and NPR).<br>
That explains why no news for a few days. This story is an indication of
how the environmental movement is being targeted. In Eugene the attack
includes a grand jury which is focused on 3 single mothers who have
preferred not to cooperate with the FBI. Unclear what will happen to
them. The movement in Eugene is making connections to other political
prisoners and educating about the history of Cointelpro. These activists
should have our support!<br>
claude<br><br>
<br><br>
</font><tt><font face="arial" size=3>The event for Jeff Luers in
Worcester, Mass has gotten a lot of attention from the Worcester Police
and the FBI. Hard to imagine how a film screening can do this but they
are idiots so perhaps that it to be <br>
expected.<br>
-------<br>
June 16. 2004 4:50AM<br><br>
Local activists cry foul over FBI 'terror' alert<br><br>
</b>John J. Monahan<br>
T&G STAFF<br>
<a href="http://us.f530.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=jmonahan@telegram.com&YY=63712&order=down&sort=date&pos=0&view=a&head=b">jmonahan@telegram.com<br>
</a> <br>
WORCESTER- City police detectives in concert with other state and <br>
federal police agencies have begun an undercover investigation of local
<br>
environmentalists, based on apparently false FBI reports that targeted
the environmentalists as possible terrorists.<br><br>
The investigation began last week when the FBI put out a national <br>
terrorism alert regarding environmental activists in 10 cities across the
country - including Worcester - they suspected may be planning what they
consider terrorist acts.<br><br>
The alert focused on plans by several local environmental activists to
<br>
show a movie Friday night at a private art studio. The movie that
includes an interview with Jeff Luer, a man convicted of burning two
sport utility vehicles in Oregon five years ago.<br><br>
The video, "Green with a Vengeance" was produced by an
Australian <br>
television network and has already been broadcast throughout
Australia.<br><br>
The Worcester showing of the movie, as listed on a Web site supporting
<br>
Mr. Luer's cause, was being presented by a small group of local activists
to raise funds for Mr. Luer's appeal this July of convictions for arson
that resulted in a sentence of 22 years in Oregon state prison.<br><br>
Yesterday some of those who organized the fund-raiser arranged to meet
<br>
with several local reporters at Elm Park to comment on the FBI alert that
targeted them, and announce they had changed the location of the movie
Friday.<br><br>
During the press conference, a woman wearing blue jeans and a pink tank
<br>
top who appeared to be walking casually through the park at a distance
began taking photographs of the meeting with reporters.<br><br>
Later, the woman, when asked, identified herself as a Worcester police
<br>
detective and said she had been assigned to photograph the meeting for
the Worcester Police Department. Three police cruisers also staked out
the event and parked across Russell Street observing the small
meeting.<br><br>
Matthew Feinstein of Worcester told reporters that he is not a member
<br>
of Earth First, a radical environmental group, and said the group showing
the movie were just unaffiliated local environmentalists. He said they
wanted to "clarify" what they were doing and respond to federal
accusations that they could be terrorists.<br><br>
He said the movie was planned to be shown in the studio of local <br>
photographer John Bean, and only eight or 10 people were expected to
attend. In light of the highly publicized national FBI alert they got
caught up in, he said, the group has decided to make it "a more
public event" and will show the movie at 6 p.m. Friday in Room 001
at Jonas Clark Hall at Clark University.<br><br>
"We hope people will come out and see the movie and participate in a
<br>
discussion. There will be an open microphone," he said.<br><br>
"We are hoping there won't be any more fear spread about people who
are just trying to address issues that are of concern to them," he
said.<br><br>
He said the FBI and Worcester police response to the FBI alert was aimed
at creating fear about local environmentalists.<br><br>
Worcester police reportedly advised numerous car dealerships they had
<br>
information that activists might try to burn their cars at their car lots
last <br>
weekend and urged them to take precautions.<br><br>
"The accusations that were made were totally off-base," Mr.
Feinstein <br>
said. He said the FBI alert was apparently part of "a government
plan to generate fear," and that he suspected it was supported by
the logging industry and possibly automakers worried about activism in
protest of gas-guzzling cars.<br><br>
He said the concerns about terrorism were completely unfounded.
"This <br>
is an absurd accusation. We are just showing a film and having a
discussion," Mr. Feinstein said.<br><br>
Mr. Feinstein said he and other people who organized the movie showing
<br>
were among a group that protested the cutting of old growth forest at
Wachusett Mountain to build ski trails. Some of the group, he said,
supported two demonstrators who sat in trees at the mountain last fall to
protest new ski trail development around the old growth forest area
there, and that it was a "legal peaceful nonviolent
protest."<br><br>
Mr. Feinstein said he has also been involved in other community
activities in recent years, having supported the Worcester nurses' strike
at the Worcester Medical Center hospital several years ago, walking the
picket line there in support while the nurses were on strike.<br><br>
He has also helped set up community gardens in several neighborhoods of
the city, working with the Regional Environmental Council, and said he
passed out leaflets in support of the AmeriPride Linen workers during a
union issue there in the past.<br><br>
He said he and some of the people organizing the movie showing have
<br>
also worked with the group Food Not Bombs, which has distributed food to
needy in the city, and with political activities of the Worcester Global
Action Network that has opposed the NAFTA free trade agreement and other
federal foreign policy actions.<br><br>
Acting City Manager Micheal V. O'Brien was caught unaware of the nature
<br>
of the police response to the FBI alert yesterday.<br><br>
Mr. O'Brien said that while he had been told of the FBI alert last
Friday, he was not aware that the police were undertaking an undercover
terrorism investigation of local environmentalists and were using
surreptitious surveillance.<br><br>
It is unknown whether police or federal investigators plan to photograph
or keep records of people who attend the movie showing at Clark
University on Friday.<br><br>
Worcester police have a history of surveillance of civil demonstrations
<br>
and protest events in the city as well as of tracking politically active
citizens.<br><br>
The operations are conducted in part under little-known and longstanding
provisions of the Worcester Police Rules and Regulation that call for
police to conduct investigations, file reports and maintain dossiers on
citizens not <br>
involved in any reported crimes, but whom police believe may commit a
crime in the future.<br><br>
Mr. O'Brien said he had not authorized the investigation by city
detectives and uniformed officers. "At this point in time I have to
work to get the relevant facts. I think it warrants a full review,"
Mr. O'Brien said.<br><br>
A person answering the telephone at the FBI Boston office of the Regional
Director of Community Relations, identifying himself as Frank Amoroso,
said he had "no idea" what the investigation in Worcester was
about.<br><br>
A spokesman for Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly said
<br>
yesterday the attorney general "was not brought in on this" and
did not comment on the appropriateness of the investigation.<br><br>
<br>
</font></tt><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=3 color="#FF0000">The Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br>
(415) 863-9977<br>
</font><font size=3><a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/" eudora="autourl">www.freedomarchives.org</a></font></body>
</html>