FBI Gathered Information on Tea Party Protesters

Last week hundreds of thousands of Americans exercised their constitutional right to protest against the actions of the government and to demand redress of their grievances. It was too big an event for the media ignore, but media cameras were not the only cameras covering the events. According to the Northeast Intelligence Network (NEIN), a network comprised of veterans, licensed professional investigators, analysts, and military affairs specialists and researchers, the FBI had agents covertly filming and gathering information on the attendees.


"According to this unimpeachable source, a single-page confidential directive issued by the FBI headquarters in Washington, DC (FBIHQ) was sent to each of the 56 field offices located across the United States on or about March 23, 2009, instructing the Special Agents in Charge (SACs) of those offices to verify the date, time and location of each TEA Party within their region and supply that information to FBI headquarters in Washington. The source stated this correspondence termed the TEA parties “political demonstrations,” and added that the dissemination of the directive was very tightly controlled. “Not all agents were privy to this correspondence,” stated the source, who compared the dissemination to an older “Do Not File” classification."


"In addition to obtaining or confirming the location and time of each “demonstration,” each field office was instructed to obtain or confirm the identity of the individual(s) involved in the actual planning and coordination of the event in each specific region, and include the local or regional Internet web site address, if any. The information collected by region was then reportedly sent to FBI Headquarters."


"The source alleges that a second directive was issued on or about April 6, 2009 that reportedly instructed each SAC to coordinate and conduct, either at the field office level and/or with the appropriate resident agency, covert video surveillance and data collection of the participants of the TEA parties. Surveillance was to be performed from “discreet fixed or mobile positions” and was to be performed “independently and outside of the purview of local law enforcement.”


"Although the level of detail collected from each operation is unclear, the information was reportedly submitted to Washington, where, “at the level of the National Security Branch (NSB), this information was to “include the office of the Directorate of Intelligence (DI), and integrated with a restricted access database, one that reportedly is accessible to only two agencies” [of the 14 agencies that comprise the U.S. intelligence community, according to the source."


This "unimpeachable source" is an FBI agent who has provided information to the NEIN in the past, undoubtedly at great personal and professional risk. This agent reportedly told Doug Haggman, the NEIN director, that;


"The Department of Homeland Security Intelligence Assessment that is receiving so much attention is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, and the true patriotic citizens of this country are on the Titanic. This is what bothers me. But is goes far beyond that assessment. There have been very significant changes made over the last few years that redirect the focus and assets of the intelligence community internally. These changes have greatly accelerated under this administration, and the threats have been redefined to include those who used to be patriots. It’s not only chilling but absolutely insulting to God-fearing Americans.”


“The implications to the citizens of the U.S. are ominous. It seems that there is a hostile political agenda coming from Washington that characterizes the supporters of our constitutional freedoms as threats to our domestic security, which is totally absurd. The redirection, the refocusing of domestic threats from al Qaeda cells to ‘flag waving right-wingers’ is something that has gone from a murmur a few years ago to a roar today.”


If Washington is not threatened by the Tea Parties, why spy on the attendees? Why open files on the organizers? Why do a threat assessment. Publicly the American Left is mocking the protesters and pretending that the movement is completely irrelevant. For an irrelevant movement, it is sure attracting a lot of serious attention.