Domestic Extremism

ADL Survey: Three Quarters of

 Americans Concerned About 

Domestic Extremism

NEW YORK (ADL) - 1/17/2021 - Following the seditious riot at the U.S. Capitol, Americans are highly concerned about violent extremism, according to a survey taken after the events released Jan. 12 by ADL (Anti-Defamation League) that evaluated perceptions of the threats facing the country.

Image credit: Anti-Defamation League

    “Most Americans now see the direct connection between the dangerous rhetoric from President Trump, others on the far right, and extremist groups to the horrifying violence at our nation’s Capitol,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL CEO. “At ADL, we have been monitoring the concerning rise of extremism and the way national leaders, including President Trump, have enabled and empowered this hate to spread, especially online. The events of this week were the latest example of why it’s essential that policymakers and social media companies take concrete action to prevent future violence.”

Approximately two-thirds of Americans believe Donald Trump (67 percent) and members of white supremacist, far-right or militia groups (64 percent) are at least somewhat responsible for the violence at the Capitol. Roughly three-quarters of Americans are at least somewhat concerned about violence in the next year from anti-government and militia movement members (77 percent) and white supremacists (75 percent).

Over half of Americans also believe that social media companies like Facebook and Twitter (61 percent) and Congressional Republicans who said they would oppose certification of election results (55 percent) are at least somewhat responsible for the violence on Wednesday.

Unequivocally, Americans want the government to do more to address violent domestic extremism. Sixty-five percent want the government to do more to address the rise of far-right extremism.

“Violent domestic extremism is a global threat that will outlast President Trump’s time in office and so the incoming Congress and Biden-Harris Administration must work together proactively, deliberately and swiftly dismantle this domestic terror threat.” Greenblatt said. “Additionally, we applaud mainstream social media companies for removing President Trump from their platforms, but there is more work to be done to stop the widespread hate and extremism.”

The survey also found that 66 percent of Americans believe that the government should prosecute individuals who stormed the Capitol, while 20 percent oppose prosecuting those responsible, and 13 percent do not know.

Americans also support social media companies taking action, with 63 percent agreeing that social media companies should ban posts and individuals encouraging or celebrating extremism and conspiracy theories.

Twenty-seven percent (27 percent) of Americans believe that antifa is significantly responsible for the attack on the U.S. Capitol, and 64 percent are at least somewhat concerned about violence associated with antifa. While ADL has expressed concerns about violent encounters between antifa and the far right previously, there isno evidence to support this claim.

The survey of U.S. adults was conducted from Jan. 7 to Jan. 8, 2021 by YouGov, a leading public opinion and data analytics firm, on behalf of ADL. There were 1,176 respondents, 1,102 of whom were aware of the incident in the capitol. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all U.S. adults aged 18 or over. The survey has a margin of error of +/- 2.95 percentage points.

Officers Arrested

 Two Off-Duty Police Officers 

Charged Following Events at Capitol

    WASHINGTON, D.C. – (DOJ) - 1/14/2021 - Two off-duty Rocky Mount, Virginia police officers were charged on Jan. 12 in federal court in the District of Columbia in connection with the riots at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021.

    Jacob Fracker and Thomas Robertson were charged by complaint with one count of knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority and one count of violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. Both defendants were arrested on January 13, 2021, in Virginia. It is alleged that during the events at the U.S. Capitol, Fracker and Robertson were photographed in the Capitol building making an obscene gesture in front of the John Stark statue.

    On social media, Robertson is quoted as saying, “CNN and the Left are just mad because we actually attacked the government who is the problem and not some random small business ... The right IN ONE DAY took the f***** U.S. Capitol. Keep poking us.” He also stated that he was “proud” of the photo on an Instagram post that was shared to Facebook, because he was “willing to put skin in the game.” On Facebook, Fracker posted a comment that read, “Lol to anyone who’s possibly concerned about the picture of me going around... Sorry I hate freedom? …Not like I did anything illegal…y’all do what you feel you need to.” The post has since been deleted.

    These cases are being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and the Counterterrorism Section of the DOJ’s National Security Division, with assistance from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Virginia. The cases are being investigated by the FBI’s Washington Field Office and the United States Capitol Police.

    The information contained in the charging documents are merely allegations. The defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

    The ATF and FBI continue to urge the public to report suspected use of explosive devices, or violent, destructive acts associated with the recent unrest. Anyone with information can call 1-888-ATF-TIPS (1-888-283-8477), email ATFTips@atf.gov or submit information anonymously via ReportIt.com.

    The FBI is looking for individuals who may have incited or promoted violence of any kind. Anyone with digital material or tips can call 1-800-CALL-FBI (800-225-5324) or submit images or videos at fbi.gov/USCapitol.

More Documents Released On Torture Program

   (ACLU) – NEW YORK - June 14, 2016 - In response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Central Intelligence Agency released over 50 documents on June 14 detailing the agency’s torture and rendition program under the Bush administration.
   The ACLU filed the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking documents that were referenced in the Senate report on the CIA program made public in December 2014. The report found that torture did not work and the agency lied about it to Congress, the White House, the Justice Department, and the public.
   “These newly declassified records add new detail to the public record of the CIA's torture program and underscore the cruelty of the methods the agency used in its secret, overseas black sites,” ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer said. “It bears emphasis that these records document grave crimes for which no senior official has been held accountable.”
   The documents include new records about the death of Gul Rahman, who died at a CIA secret prison in Afghanistan in 2002. The CIA “Death Report” on Rahman released on June 14 details the horrific conditions he was subjected to: “Often, prisoners who possess significant or imminent threat information are stripped to their diapers during interrogation and placed back into their cells wearing only diapers. This is done solely to humiliate the prisoner for interrogation purposes. When the prisoner soils a diaper, they are changed by the guards. Sometimes the guards run out of diapers and the prisoners are placed back in their cells in a handcrafted diaper secured by duct tape. If the guards don't have any available diapers, the prisoners are rendered to their cell nude.”
Rahan froze to death in his cell, naked from the waist down. The ACLU represents Rahman’s family in a lawsuit against the two CIA-contracted psychologists who designed and implemented the torture program, James Mitchell and John “Bruce” Jessen.
   “In a visceral way, these raw documents drive home the inhumanity of the torture conceived and carried out by Mitchell and Jessen in collaboration with the CIA,” said Dror Ladin, a staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. “The documents reveal that Rahman was brutalized in part because his torturers decided that complaining about his torture was a form of resistance and he needed to be ‘broken.’”
   Also included is a draft letter from the CIA to the Justice Department — cc-ing Mitchell — concluding that the torture they intended to inflict on Abu Zubaydah “normally would appear to be prohibited under the provisions” of the Torture Act, a federal law against torturing people. The draft letter is a “request” that the attorney general “grant a formal declination of prosecution” for torture.
   Other new disclosures reveal the CIA’s concerns that detainees who had been tortured should be kept hidden from representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross for the rest of their lives.
“We’re seeing just how much Mitchell, Jessen, and their CIA co-conspirators knew that what they were doing was wrong and illegal. They talked about seeking a get-out-of-jail-free card for torturing people, and then discussed how to make sure their victims were silenced forever, even if they survived their torture,” Ladin added.
   In April, a federal court ruled that the ACLU’s lawsuit against the psychologists could proceed. On June 22, Mitchell and Jessen must provide their answer to each of the allegations in the legal complaint.
   The documents also include a 2007 CIA inspector general’s report finding that the kidnapping and torture of German citizen Khalid El-Masri was a case of mistaken identity. The report referenced CIA cables on El-Masri’s despair:
   “The cable cited that al-Masri compared his situation to a Kafka novel—he could not possibly prove his innocence because he did not know what he was being charged with. The cable reported al-Masri as saying he had nearly reached the end of what he could bear and as of May 2004 he would begin a total hunger strike to his death.”
   A 2005 ACLU lawsuit on behalf of El-Masri against former CIA Director George Tenet was dismissed by lower courts on the grounds that it would reveal “state secrets,” and the Supreme Court declined to hear the case. The ACLU now represents El-Masri in a pending case against the U.S. before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
   At least two of the documents concerning Gul Rahman — the IG report and the detainee death investigation — were simultaneously provided to Vice News in response to its FOIA request.

   The documents can be found at:

https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/collection/documents-related-former-detention-and-interrogation-program 

Lawsuit Seeks Data On BOP, CIA Detention Site

By Steve Rensberry

srensberry@rensberrypublishing.com
-----------------------------------------------

   (RPC) - 4/28/2016 - Although it has received scant attention in the news, The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit this past month against the Federal Bureau of Prisons, citing the bureau's failure to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request involving documents pertaining to a 2002 visit to a CIA detention site in Afghanistan, code-named COBALT. The operation and site, also known as “the Salt Pit,” was used to confine and torture terrorism suspects, according to the declassified torture report provided to the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee in 2014. Although the practices described in the report were referred to as “not inhumane,” it nevertheless was a shock to the senses for many of those who read it.
   The ACLU's initial Freedom of Information Act request, filed in 2015, was brushed aside by prisons officials, who claimed that “no records exist" -- a response which the civil rights organization has questions.
   “What business did the Bureau of Prisons have with a torture site in Afghanistan?” ACLU National Prison Project Staff Attorney Carl Takei stated in a recent news release. “The bureau controls conditions for the 200,000 federal prisoners in the United States while teaching its methods to jails and state prisons around the country. We have to wonder why a team from that institution would give its approval to a place where prisoners are kept in solitary confinement in near-total darkness 24-7, shackled to the wall standing up, and with a bucket for human waste.”
   The ACLU's suit was filed on April 14, 2016. A link to an executive summary of the report on the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program, given to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on December 9, 2014, is available here: http://freegovinfo.info/node/9325.
   The executive summary is 525 pages long, and the full committee study is 6,700 pages in length.
   As stated in the forward to the summary, written by Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein: “The full report has been provided to the White House, the CIA, the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense, the Department of State, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in the hopes that it will prevent further coercive interrogation practices and inform the management of covert action programs.”
   Recalling the days after 9-11, when political leaders and the public felt the impulse to do whatever it could to stop another attack, Feinstein said that such pressure and fear did no “justify, temper, or excuse improper actions taken by individuals or organizations in the name of national security.”
   Feinstein referred to the lessons of history and the need to subject decisions to internal and external review, then lambasted those who oversaw the COBALT operation.
   “Instead, CIA personnel, aided by two outside contractors, decided to initiate a program of indefinite secret detention and the of brutal interrogation techniques in violation of U.S. law, treaty obligations, and our values,” Feinstein wrote.
    Her statement begs the question: If such techniques were in violation of U.S. law and treaty obligations, why has no one connected with such abuse been prosecuted?
   The short answer is because those doing the prosecuting, that is, the Justice Department, would indirectly be prosecuting themselves. The Justice Department cited in its investigation the advice given by the Office of Legal Council, which itself is part of the U.S. Justice Department. Both are part of the executive branch of the U.S. government. Together with the attorney general, both groups provide advice and guidance to the president and all other executive branch agencies, including the C.I.A.
   Following the release of the 2014 report, justice department spokespersons and the administration have remained unified and steadfast in their redirection of the subject, not surprisingly, with President Obama citing a desire to "look forward, not backward," and the justice department citing the fact that such interrogation techniques had been fully reviewed and considered legal under the previous administration. In other words, it goes all the way to the top.
   One of the most damning assessments of the administration's failure to prosecute those responsible has come from the organization Human Rights Watch, and from UN Special Rapporteur on Counterterrorism Ben Emmerson.
   The Human Rights Watch report can be found here: https://www.hrw.org/report/2015/12/01/no-more-excuses/roadmap-justice-cia-torture
   To quote: “As set out in this report, Human Rights Watch concludes there is substantial evidence to support the opening of new investigations into allegations of criminal offenses by numerous US officials and agents in connection with the CIA program. These include torture, assault, sexual abuse, war crimes, and conspiracy to commit such crimes. In reaching this conclusion, we have drawn on our own investigations, media and other public reports, and the declassified information in the Senate Summary. But more evidence exists that has yet to be made public. . . . US officials who played a role in the process of creating, authorizing, and implementing the CIA program should be among those investigated for conspiracy to torture as well as other crimes. They include: Acting CIA General Counsel John Rizzo, Assistant Attorney General for Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) Jay Bybee, OLC Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, an individual identified as “CTC Legal” in the Senate Summary, CIA Director George Tenet, National Security Legal Advisor John Bellinger, Attorney General John Ashcroft, White House Counsel Legal Advisor Alberto Gonzales, Counsel to the Vice President David Addington, Deputy White House Counsel Timothy Flanigan, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Department General Counsel William Haynes II, Vice President Dick Cheney, and President George W. Bush. In addition, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, CIA psychologist contractors who devised the program, proposed it to the CIA, and helped carry it out, should also be investigated for their role in the initial conspiracy.”
   In a surprise ruling, Federal Judge Justin L. Quackenbush denied on April 22, 2016, a motion to dismiss a suit brought against psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, who aided in the CIA's torture practices and COBALT operation, and for which they were paid $81 million. More about the case and ruling can be found here: http://www.globalresearch.ca/federal-judge-allows-lawsuit-to-proceed-against-cia-contractors-involved-in-torture/5521804