Barr's New Task Force Is a Blatant Attempt to Target Racial Justice Protesters

[Mike 03]

In These Times
JULY 10, 2020
CHIP GIBBONS

By embracing preventive policing, the task force aims to eliminate the threat of dissent.

On June 26, Attorney General William Barr announced the creation of a new task force on “violent anti-government extremists.” Made up of representatives of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and “other relevant components,” the task force comes in the midst of a nationwide uprising against racism and police violence. While Barr’s initial statement cited as examples of “violent anti-government extremists” both the right-wing “Boogaloo” movement and “Antifa,” the taskforce is primarily as a right-wing reaction to racial justice protests erupting across the country.

This development is in keeping with the FBI’s history of spying on nearly every major social movement, from the anti-Vietnam war and civil rights movements, to Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter. And it comes as Barr and Trump have repeatedly tried to turn “Antifa,” or anti-fascist ideology, into an all-purpose boogeyman. Within this context, the creation of the new task force on violent anti-government extremism should be viewed as a dangerous act aimed at policing the politics of racial justice protesters.

The problem with preventive political policing

The task force is not just tasked with prosecuting violent anti-government extremists who engage in domestic terrorism, but preventing these groups or individuals from engaging in violence before it occurs and to “ultimately eliminate it as a threat to public safety and the rule of law.” While preventing violence before it occurs may sound noble, preventive policing is fraught with abuse. After all, it inherently involves law enforcement action or intrusive intelligence gathering against people who have not committed any crime based on the notion that law enforcement and intelligence can successfully pinpoint potential criminals.

Mike German, a former FBI agent and current fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty & National Security Program, told In These Times the claim that “law enforcement or intelligence officers can accurately predict who will engage in criminal behavior in the future is a dubious assumption.” Such a preventive framework, says German, “justifies broad law enforcement or intelligence activities as necessary to serve the laudatory goal of preventing crime where the evidence of success—no crime occurring—justifies the action taken even when there is no evidence the tactics prevented the crime rather than that the prediction that a crime would occur was false.”

Read more: https://inthesetimes.com/article/22657/fbi-barr-task-force-racial-justice-protests-dissent-red-scare-trump-antifa

[Nikki28]

1. Impeach

Impeach Barr and don't send it to the Senate -at least he will be impeached. One congressman was already on the house floor demanding he be impeached and let Adam Schiff do the investigating because Jerry just can't control those proud boys like Adam can.no offense to J.N.

[gratuitous]

2. If you make peaceful protest impossible

You're making violent protest inevitable. I read that somewhere..

[2naSalit]

3. That's how it usually turns out. ...nt