The FBI's COINTELPRO Attack On Activist Frank Ambrose -- More Evidence That The FBI Can't Operate Without Violating The U.S. Constitution

The following two articles are in regard to what eco-activist Frank Ambrose has been subjected to at the hands of the FBI. I list both of them here to give the readers an idea of what can transpire in the life of someone being targeted by this federal criminal syndicate, when they quite literally use their psychological operations in which to torture those whom they target; this while destroying their reputations, relationships, finances, and most importantly, health.

The most recent article was written in 2008. The earlier article was published in 2001. I urge the readers to compare and contrast the two so that they can better understand the vicious tactics that the FBI utilizes (with the approval of both the U.S. Department Of Justice and Congress), in which to wear their victims down, while committing precedent setting violations of the inherent rights of Americans citizens; this done in order to disenfranchise them of these rights.

Through its criminal activities and outrageous attacks on the Bill Of Rights, the FBI continues to show us that there is no depth to which its agents will not plumb when in the commission of a treasonous COINTELPRO operation.

And it is also quite clear that the FBI has established other such precedents in the lengths to which its own agents will go in efforts to conceal their own crimes from the public -- a situation in which these agents will use psychological warfare to drive their victims to commit suicide, or even out rightly murder them through covert means in which the Bureau can maintain plausible denial for having committed these crimes.

The FBI is a predatorial and treasonous criminal syndicate, that simply does not belong in the United States. And it must at some point in time be abolished.

It's stock in trade has always been illegally spying on American citizens to dig dirt on them, which it will later use to blackmail them. Moreover, the FBI will use the NSA to conduct warrantless spying on American citizens within the privacy of their own homes (using the NSA's Electronic Computer To Brain Link technology in which to quite literally rape the minds of those whom they target) while violating every aspect of the 4TH and 5TH Amendments, and then either completely deny what they have done, or attempt to obfuscate specific issues which could place these agents in prison where they belong.

The recent case of former FBI agent Lindley DeVecchio is typical of such machinations. DeVecchio managed to avoid prison time, when the FBI covertly interceded to make a mockery of his trial -- while seeing to it that the investigator (Angela Clemente) who dug up enough evidence on DeVecchio to convince a Brooklyn DA to prosecute him -- was silenced.

Clemente was beaten, strangled and left for dead by an accomplice who was undoubtedly used by the FBI, or even DeVecchio himself, to punish her for digging up evidence on DeVecchio; evidence which the FBI clearly knew about but wanted to keep from the public.

These agents have no integrity, morality or basic decency. Not only are they cruel, they must also be seen as Illuminati predators who will not only use covert means in which to torture and murder their victims, but who also continue to set new lows for the law enforcement industry. Through their wicked abuse the FBI and its U.S. Intel brethren in crime are eventually going to attract the wrath of the American people.


Frank Ambrose and ‘cooperation’
Posted on March 21, 2008 by West Raven

I’ll start by once again stating that I have never met Frank Ambrose or anyone else involved in the latest ELF arrests that happened a couple weeks ago in Michigan.

However, I do feel like I have something to say about the matter, having been following the “Green Scare” closely since the Operation Backfire arrests in 2005.

The latest news is that Ambrose will be pleading guilty, and has agreed to ‘co-operate fairly comprehensively.’

When it comes to what role the armchair eco-defender plays in these kinds of cases, the story is usually predictable. Anyone arrested for actions committed in the name of the earth (as long as no human or other life was harmed) will be supported, advocated for, and it will be assumed, because it has so far seemed to be the case, that they are likely innocent. If these defendants decide to co-operate or testify against other defendants, they will be labeled snitches and the movement will urge a removal of all support for the co-operating defendant.

Earth Liberation Front Actions went on for a long time before the FBI had any leads at all. Finally, a few people, out of fear for their own lives and freedom, agreed to testify against their former friends and comrades. These testimonies make up the vast majority of evidence against the defendants, and in many cases are the only evidence. Does the testimony of someone facing 30 years in prison if they don’t name names constitute proof of guilt beyond reasonable doubt? Most people wouldn’t think so. Too many judges and juries do, and that is the heart of the injustice in most of these cases.

Co-operate, the word being used here to refer to Frank Ambrose’s actions, does not necessarily mean ’snitching’, but it often does. However, given that the eco-defence movement has become rabidly anti-snitch, it seems like another good time to point out that these things are never black and white.

Those of us out here in cyber-land have no idea what goes on behind closed doors when the FBI and Justice Department are working to convince someone to co-operate. Knowing how valuable a co-operating defendant can be to their whole case, they obviously have great motivation to convince someone to snitch. They also have resources to leverage these confessions and testimonies. The four non-cooperating defendants in the Green Scare case represent a brave minority. Some even put forth the theory that those four defendants weren’t pressured as hard as the others, that they were allowed to become non-cooperators to further drive a wedge in the movement.

Their brave actions of resistance in the face of great harm to themselves further villanizes the cooperating defendants; further strips them of the ability to claim they had no choice to co-operate. Who really had choice in this case, who really decided how this would play out?

I for one would put nothing by the FBI.

It’s also worth saying, though it’s advice I don’t seem to follow, that conjecture and theorizing about these cases does us no good at all. In fact, it’s the kind of thing that gets us arguing amongst ourselves, and that is exactly the point for the FBI.

A few people, over the course of many years that our movement has been under attack (and this goes back many years before Operation Backfire, before Judi Bari to the very first days of modern eco-defence) have pointed out that as much harm as snitching does to the movement, and as tactical as it is to shun snitches and punish them after the fact, we are once again playing right into the hands of the enemy by allowing ourselves to turn our back on people who have likely been far more active in the movement than we will ever be.

Darren Thurston is one example. There’s a name that can provoke intense loathing in some people. Most have never met him, most have never heard of the many years of activist experience he had before his co-operation. I haven’t met him either, and I am not saying that I support his ‘choice’ to co-operate. However, when I look into his and other people’s backgrounds, I can see why the powers that be might work hard to neutralize them.

Another name that dare not be uttered among many in the eco-defence and indigenous sovereignty movements is John Trudell. John was one of the most bad-ass hardcore hands-on insurrectionary revolutionaries of the late 20th century. He was spokesperson for the Indians of All Tribes occupation of Alcatraz Island. He was the National Chairman of the American Indian Movement from 1972-1979.

The FBI has wanted him dead or locked away for many years. In 1979 his pregnant wife, mother-in-law and three children were killed in a suspicious house fire that happened after Trudell set fire to an American Flag on the steps of the J. Edgar Hoover building. He continued to speak out against colonization, and the on-going genocide of indigenous people, until one day, out of nowhere, he decided to testify against John Graham, a former AIM comrade, in order for him to be extradited back from Canada to face charges of murdering Anna-Mae Aquash, another AIM comrade.

We know most of what we know of the FBI’s tactics in breaking up activist groups from their involvement in the American Indian Movement. A program called COINTELPRO (counter-intelligence program) was created to infiltrate, pressure and divide ’subversive’ movements and leaders such as AIM, the Black Panther Party, Martin Luther King and the NAACP.

They did a bang-up job, and AIM is still rife with infighting, confusion and distrust. This is where we learned about the tactics used to divide and conquer such as snitch-jacketing. One version of Anna-Mae Aquash’s murder is that the FBI set her up to appear as if she were a snitch, and that AIM members executed her. Whatever happened, it appears to many as if the entire drama was orchestrated by the FBI to neutralize the movement.

So we can’t put anything past them. In the case of ELF arsons, the feds have been determined to solve the cases and bring whoever to justice, regardless of whether they were actually involved. As long as someone pays, justice is served.

Frank Ambrose, Marie Mason and their two co-defendants are the latest targets. Briana Waters is awaiting sentencing. Tre Arrow faces trial in May, and with new arsons still happening, the hunt continues, as does the effort to turn us against each other.

It’s not cool to snitch, it’s not cool to co-operate with the government against your friends, and as a movement we want to discourage such actions however we can. With this latest attack however, we would do well to remember that what the enemy wants is to have us argue amongst ourselves, demonize each other and put more fire on the fuel that the snitch controversy has created in the last few years. I don’t know how to advise we go forward on this. We are facing a truly nefarious enemy who can often be many steps ahead of us. In the next few weeks and months, as events unfold in the injustice system, try to keep in mind who the real enemies are.



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The following article takes us back to 2001, when the FBI began its COINTELPRO against activist Frank Ambrose. It is important to compare and contrast what Frank was being subjected to in the following article, to what he is presently being subjected to in 2008, in the article which you have just read.

It would appear that the FBI simply used their COINTELPRO operations to wear Frank down day after day until they got they what they wanted; even though it is quite clear that the FBI has committed the most egregious of crimes against Frank Ambrose, in violating his inherent rights as a citizen of the United States.

As the late John Gotti once said: "The FEDS are a machine, they don't run out of time or money." And to this extent Gotti was right. The FBI will spend tens of millions of dollars going after legitimate activists, while completely covering up the treasonous crimes of government officials as they have in the case of the former Speaker Of The House, *Dennis Hastert. And Hastert is just one of myriad politicians whom the FBI has deliberately created a smokes screen for since the agency was first founded as the Bureau of Investigation in the early part of the 20TH Century.

*FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds discovered evidence that Hastert was selling U.S. Government secrets to Turkish interests. However, the FBI covered up these crimes, and now claims that the files which Edmonds saw in regard to Hastert's crimes never existed. In other words the FBI has either hidden, or more likely destroyed these files to protect Hastert and quite likely George W. Bush and others within his cabinet.

From 2001:

The FBI's Current Campaign Against Activism in Indiana:
The Case of Frank Ambrose
Peoples Bark News / 2feb01
The People's Bark News is a project of the First Amendment Center Berkeley, Ca (510) 287-9406

Bloomington Defense Committee

Who is Frank Ambrose?

Frank Ambrose is a community activist from Bloomington, IN. He is involved with several mainstream and some radical groups such as Earth First!, Industrial Workers of the World, Speak Out for Animals, and the American Lands Alliance. He is employed by the latter forest protection organization, and has been become one of the foremost forest activists in the Midwest. Outside his employment, he has shown consistent support for people's struggles to rid themselves of those who wish to exploit them and the environment they depend upon. This commitment has made him a prime target in the government's attempts to harass the activist community into silence.

He was arrested on January 25, 2001 and is being charged with tree spiking in relation to an incident in a local State Forest that was claimed by the Earth Liberation Front (ELF). Tree spiking is a Class "D" felony which carries a sentence of up to 3 years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine. This is the first arrest in the U.S. in relation to an ELF action. The ELF has caused over $37 million in damages to businesses profiting from the destruction of the environment.

The harassment of Frank and his family began last February when FBI and ATF agents began visiting him and his friends to attempt to question them about a recent ELF action that had occurred in Bloomington. It continued in July when the FBI and State Conservation Officers raided Frank and Marie Mason's (his wife) house looking for implements of tree spiking. What they came away with was loads of organizational literature, address books, family photo albums and a few miscellaneous household items like spray paint and a pocketknife.

The authorities told them at this time that they would find someone who would "rat" on Frank and come back with an arrest warrant.

Now, 6 months later, the FBI and State Conservation Officers are attempting to frame Frank for the tree spiking incident. They cite circumstantial evidence as the reason for their accusation. They are making Frank and others who take confrontational, but legal, approaches to stop the madness defend themselves in courts for their views. Frank has done nothing more than be vocal and be willing to put his body on the line to stop the logging program (he was a part of a takeover of a State Forest office during a timber bid).

It is believed that the authorities are entering into the legal arena with a "low-pitch" to make it more likely to get a conviction. With a conviction, they would have a name to place with the elusive Earth Liberation Front, and then they might move to add federal anti-terrorism charges, or try to pin the other ELF actions in the Bloomington area upon him.

It is very important that we fight this battle in every way possible. Frank needs to have a good criminal defense to beat the charges. The activist community needs to stand united and show the authorities that we will not be scared into silence. We need to increase the number of effective campaigns that have made the monied interests take notice in the first place.

This is a great chance to stand up and show those who view life as a commodity to exploit that we are not going away no matter what they do to us-we are in this battle to win.

The Role of the FBI
The FBI's primary and founding purpose is to disrupt and destroy activist movements, having been formed to destroy the Industrial Workers of the World in the early part of last century. They continued to infiltrate and break apart many different social movements that have threatened the established power structure through a program called COINTELPRO (counter intelligence program). These movements and groups include the American Indian Movement, Black Panthers, Puerto Rican independence movement, and Earth First! They usually use the pretext of some crime that has been committed that has a political nature to it to begin to investigate social movements. Many times there is no crime, or the FBI committed the crime themselves to gain public support for their investigation. In every movement they have "investigated," they have gone to all lengths to silence the activists involved-many Blank Panthers and AIM members were jailed on manufactured evidence or even executed, and Earth First!ers have been bombed and framed by FBI infiltrators. Fred Hampton is a Black Panther who was assassinated by the FBI, the MOVE organization was bombed and burned by the government, and Leonard Peltier sits in jail today based on FBI lies. These incidents are well documented in other sources, such as War at Home by Brian Glick.

Frank's arrest is just a part of the FBI's modern day witch hunt to destroy the growing movement against globalization and earth's destruction. They see the movement that has been growing exponentially since the WTO meeting disruptions in Seattle as a significant threat to the existing power structure.

This arrest is larger than just a disruption of the Bloomington community -the FBI is also working with other law enforcement agencies across the country to use trumped up charges and threats of significant jail time against activists to make people afraid to join the movement. They want the movement to stop. The FBI is acting as the armed mercenary of the corporate world order, protecting their "right" to destroy all that is living. It is up to everyone out there to resist their efforts and push forward.

What Can I Do?
We need to continue with the work that we have been doing. We must take direct action to confront and prevent the corporations from continuing down their current path of destruction.

2. Political trials and criminal defense takes considerable money. Please donate what you can to help pay for the legal fees of the trial. The costs of Frank's trial are estimated to amount into the several thousands of dollars. All money raised will be used in Frank's defense, not to keep the lawyers working. It is important that he can mount a good defense to beat the charges and avoid further federal charges. Please send donations to: Bloomington Defense Committee PO Box 3503 Bloomington, IN 47402

Call the court at 812-349-2534 and tell them to drop the charges against Frank. Please be polite and think of what you say, as these messages will certainly be noted in the trial.

Write a letter to the editor of your local paper explaining how the government is attempting to stifle protest and break apart communities that care about the earth. Please remember that these letters may show up in the trial, so think about what you say.

Sign up for the email/phone alert list. Write to defensecommittee@yahoo.com , or call 812-333-0173.

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"Recall the face of the poorest and most helpless person you have seen and ask yourself if the next step you contemplate is going to be of any use to that person." ---Mohandas Gandhi

"The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men." ---Alice Walker

The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them. That is the essence of inhumanity. --George Bernard Shaw

"If you assume that there's no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, that there are opportunities to change things, there's a chance you may contribute to making a better world. That's your choice" -Noam Chomsky

"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so SICK AT HEART, that you can't take part; and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you've got to make it stop." --Mario Savio

After the last tree has been cut down, After the last river has been poisoned, After the last fish has been caught Only then will you find That money cannot be eaten. ---Cree Prophecy

http://www.mindfully.org/Heritage/FBI-v-Frank-Ambrose.htm