{"id":417,"date":"2006-10-03T04:03:57","date_gmt":"2006-10-02T18:03:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/?p=417"},"modified":"2006-10-03T04:13:38","modified_gmt":"2006-10-02T18:13:38","slug":"revealed-spying-on-anarchists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/?p=417","title":{"rendered":"Revealed: spying on Anarchists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Well, if it&#8217;s good enough for <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theage.com.au\/news\/national\/revealed-spying-on-greens\/2006\/10\/01\/1159641213599.html?page=fullpage\">The Age<\/a><\/em> and <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/4corners\/content\/2006\/s1750963.htm\">4 Corners<\/a><\/strong>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>In May\/June 2001, it was discovered, independently of the collective, that a member of the <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/barricade.org.au\">Barricade<\/a><\/strong> collective was, in fact, a spy.<\/p>\n<p>Subsequent investigations suggested that the person in question &#8212; <strong>Mehmet Akif Ersoy<\/strong> [1] (employing the pseudonym &#8216;Mehmet Osman&#8217;) &#8212; was a former government agent. Mehmet, having previously worked for\/with <strong>ASIS<\/strong>, the <strong>DIO<\/strong>, the <strong>Federal Justice Office<\/strong> and the <strong>Victoria Police<\/strong>, was, in 2000\/2001, attempting to establish himself as a freelance informant for the state\/corporate sector under the guise of a business consultancy, <strong>Universal Axiom<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<ul>Universal Axiom was an Australian company (ACN 091 146 155) that registered with the <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.asic.gov.au\/asic\/asic.nsf\">Australian Securities &#038; Investments Commission<\/a><\/strong> (ASIC) on 11\/01\/2000. According to the company extract, the Registered Office for the company was <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.communityguide.com.au\/community.cfm?\/whitehorse\/profile\/professionalservices\/accounting\/259587\/\">Walters &#038; Partners<\/a><\/strong>, located in Box Hill, Victoria. Further, Mehmet&#8217;s date of birth was given as being 27\/04\/1967 and his place of birth Istanbul, Turkey. If correct, this would mean that Mehmet is now 39.<\/ul>\n<p>Mehmet, it was discovered, was working &#8216;undercover&#8217; and in the employ of a number of corporations (in particular, those in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mpi.org.au\/\">mining<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wilderness.org.au\/campaigns\/forests\/\">timber<\/a> industries) seeking to obtain otherwise &#8216;confidential&#8217; information on individuals and groups in the environmental movement. These corporations included:<\/p>\n<ul><strong>General Atomics<\/strong> [2] &#8212; a nuclear physics and defense contractor headquartered in San Diego, California, and the parent company of <strong>Heathgate Resources<\/strong>, owners and managers of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.greenleft.org.au\/back\/2006\/674\/674p12.htm\">the Beverley uranium mine<\/a>; and<\/p>\n<p><strong>North Ltd<\/strong> &#8212; since taken over by <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mpi.org.au\/companies\/rio\">Rio Tinto<\/a><\/strong>, owners and managers of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wise-uranium.org\/upjab.html\">Jabiluka uranium mine<\/a> and also heavy investors in the woodchipping industry.<\/ul>\n<p>Of particular concern to Mehmet were the campaigns then being conducted against uranium mining, whether in the Northern Territory (Jabiluka) or South Australia (Beverley). As I see it, his membership of the Barricade collective fulfilled two functions: one, it enabled him to maintain a watching brief on the activities of local anarchists (numbers of which naturally involve themselves in environmental struggles); two, it enabled him to establish a &#8216;profile&#8217; with which to approach various other political\/social communities.<\/p>\n<p>On this second point he was most insistent: literally demanding that the collective vouch for his credibility in order to facilitate his attempts, not only to simply join campaigning groups, but also &#8212; and as is standard practice &#8212; to be entrusted with the very important role of liasing with others. (For example, in the Beverley campaign, Mehmet attempted to be entrusted with liasing between Aboriginal and environmental activists.)<\/p>\n<p>As 4 Corners has confirmed, the environmental movement was, and remains, <a href=\"http:\/\/homepage.mac.com\/herinst\/sbeder\/home.html\">a <strong>big<\/strong> worry for big business<\/a>. Certainly worry enough to support the construction of an &#8216;A Team&#8217;, and to employ Mehmet &#8212; and who knows how many others? &#8212; to lie, cheat and steal from social movements, groups and individuals. All for the benefit of a very small group of people with more money than ways to flaunt it.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps we should take comfort in the fact that state and corporate authorities should feel so threatened by our attempts to stop their &#8216;progress&#8217; &#8212; a &#8216;progress&#8217; which strips us of our humanity at the same time as it plunders our communities and our Earth &#8212; to resort to such measures. For we have <a href=\"http:\/\/www.english.uiuc.edu\/maps\/poets\/g_l\/levine\/carnations.htm\">a new world in our hearts<\/a>, one based on freedom, equality and solidarity, and no amount of lies and deceit can prevent this world from continuing to grow &#8212; both now, and in our future.<\/p>\n<div align = \"center\" ><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/static.flickr.com\/81\/258721416_47fbdfba98_m.jpg\"><\/div>\n<p>::::::<\/p>\n<p>[1] Also, a likely pseudonym: Mehmet Akif Ersoy (1873 \u2013 1936) was a Turkish poet. Ersoy wrote the national anthem of Turkey, <em>Istikl\u00e2l Marsi<\/em> (The March of Independence in English), adopted by the Turkish state in 1921.<\/p>\n<p>Mehmet is approximately 5&#8242; 7&#8243; or 8&#8243; tall, balding, of solid build and olive complexion (Mehmet claimed to be of both Kurdish and Turkish ancestry, at different times, and as required). He was involved in a number of different groups and campaigns, including but not limited to Barricade, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/foe.org.au\">Friends of the Earth<\/a><\/strong> and the <strong>Jabiluka Action Group<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><em>More on Mehmet, his methods, and his motivations, later.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>[2] <a href=\"http:\/\/www.corpwatch.org\/article.php?id=13671\">US: Privately Funded Trips Add Up on Capitol Hill<\/a><br \/>\nJeffrey H. Birnbaum<br \/>\n<em>Washington Post<\/em><br \/>\nJune 6, 2006<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8230;One of the largest corporate sponsors of lawmakers&#8217; travel was General Atomics, a relatively small San Diego-based defense contractor that makes the Predator, an unmanned spy plane now in wide use by the United States and other countries. The study reported that the company &#8220;largely targeted congressional staff members, spending roughly $660,000 on 86 trips for legislators, aides and their spouses from 2000 to mid-2005.&#8221; Some of the trips were valued at more than $25,000.<\/p>\n<p>General Atomics&#8217; spending on congressional travel was more than that of many larger companies and was considerably higher than what other defense contractors spent. Microsoft, for instance, funded nearly $395,000 in trips during the period; SBC Communications Inc. spent about $205,000. Among General Atomics&#8217; defense competitors, Northrop Grumman spent about $12,000 on congressional junkets and Boeing spent about $13,000.<\/p>\n<p><em>On trips paid for by General Atomics to Turkey and Australia, congressional staffers attended meetings with foreign government officials that the company was soliciting to buy the Predator.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;[It&#8217;s] useful and very helpful, in fact, when you go down and talk to the government officials, to have congressional people go along and discuss the capabilities of [the plane] with them,&#8221; Tom Cassidy, chief executive of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, the company&#8217;s aircraft-manufacturing subsidiary, told the center.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well, if it&#8217;s good enough for The Age and 4 Corners&#8230; In May\/June 2001, it was discovered, independently of the collective, that a member of the Barricade collective was, in fact, a spy. Subsequent investigations suggested that the person in &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/?p=417\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18,2,9,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-natas","category-anarchism","category-state","category-television"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6AyE-6J","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}