FBI Won't Release Occupy Surveillance Documents to ACLU, Citing National Security

[starroute]

8. You do realize what a ridiculous line of attack this is, don't you?

The FBI has always kept tabs on dissidents and has often deployed provocateurs and other infiltrators against them. COINTELPRO, the operations against anti-Contra groups in the 1980's, that snitch Brandon Darby who lured a couple of protesters at the 2008 RNC into making Molotov cocktails. For that matter, the FBI just arrested Anonymous spokesperson Barrett Brown for no obvious reason -- or at least none they've deigned to reveal.

So the fact that the FBI thinks it can conceal the fact that it's spying on Occupy is in itself ridiculous.

I could maybe vaguely see that if they think the Oakland protests jeopardized port security there might be documents related to security measures they could legitimately redact. But to say they have only 37 pages related to the request and then withhold half of them? That beggars belief.