Target Practice?

Trey Smith

As early as August, while acknowledging that the incipient Occupy Movement was “peaceful” in nature, federal, state and local officials from the FBI, the DHS and the many Fusion Centers and Joint Terrorism Task Force centers around the country were meeting with local financial institutions and their private security organizations to plot out a strategy for countering the Occupy Movement’s campaign.

Interestingly, one document obtained by PCJ from the Houston FBI office refers to what appears to have been a plan by some group, the name of which is blacked out in the released document, to determine who the leaders were of the Occupy Movement in Houston, and then to assassinate them with “suppressed” sniper rifles, meaning sniper rifles equipped with silencers.

The chilling document in question reads as follows:

“One identified BLANK as of October planned to engage in sniper attacks against protesters in Houston, Texas if deemed necessary. An identified BLANK had received intelligence that indicated the protesters in New York and Seattle planned similar protests in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, Texas. BLANK planned to gather intelligence against the leaders of the protest group and obtain photographs, then formulate a plan to kill the leadership by suppressed sniper rifles.”

The wording does not sound like it’s some crank Tea Party faction they’re talking about -- especially the words “deemed necessary” and the reference to “gathering intelligence against the leaders of the protest group.” Fortunately, in any case, no such assassination campaign materialized in Houston or anywhere else during the wave of Occupy actions across the country, but at the same time, there were never any arrests of whatever organization or individuals that the FBI clearly knew to be planning such a terrorist action against the Occupy activists.
~ from FBI Ignored Deadly Threat to Occupiers: US Intelligence Machine Instead Plotted with Bankers to Attack Protest Movement by Dave Lindorff ~

It's bad enough when the government conspires with Wall Street to put down peaceful protests in a violent manner, but it's quite another thing when the FBI uncovers a plot to assassinate peaceful protestors and takes no legal action whatsoever. This from a federal agency that increasingly tries to preempt protests by arresting protest leaders for a bunch of dubious reasons and then releases them once the protest is done.

For those of you who still don't believe we have a two-tiered justice system in this nation, what would you call this? Citizens who peaceably protest the government are hassled and abused by the authorities and subject to a wide variety of legal actions, while individuals or groups who target the protestors themselves are allowed to walk free.