FBI Domestic Spy Outs Himself

An Austin man who spied on activists for the FBI in advance of the Republican National Convention unmasked himself on Indymedia last week.

The FBI, citing standard policy, will not confirm or deny his identity.

The self-proclaimed spy is Brandon Darby, an activist who says his conscience told him to work with the FBI to prevent violence at the RNC. (Though there was plenty of violence to go around, with reports of police whacking non-aggressive demonstrators people with nightsticks, gratuitously deploying pepper spray—which I saw firsthand—and torturing people in jail.)

From Darby’s convoluted confession/explanation:

The majority of the activists who went to St. Paul did so with pure intentions and simply wanted to express their disagreements with the Republican Party. It’s unfortunate that some used the group as cover for intentions that the rest of the group did not agree with or knew nothing about and are now, consequently, having parts of their lives and their peace of mind uprooted over.

From a NYT story about the spy:

“The simple truth is that I have chosen to work with the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” wrote Mr. Darby, who gained prominence as a member of Common Ground Relief, a group that helped victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

He added, “I strongly stand behind my choices in this matter.”

Mr. Darby would not provide details about his undercover activities, but said he had also worked as an informant in cases not involving the convention. He defended his decision to work with the F.B.I. as “a good moral way to use my time,” saying he wanted to prevent violence during the convention at the Xcel Energy Center.

Documents that activists said were given to defense lawyers by the prosecution and printed on F.B.I. letterhead indicated that an informant — now identified as Mr. Darby — carried out a thorough surveillance operation that dated back to at least 18 months before the Republican gathering. He first met Mr. Crowder and Mr. McKay [now charged with making and possessing Molotov cocktails] in Austin six months before the convention.

Meanwhile, the Minnesota ACLU is defending 21 people who were arrested during the convention and, so far, has had charged dropped against six.

ACLU-Minnesota executive director Charles Samuelson says we can expect to see the civil lawsuits begin in the next six months or so.

“Eight percent of the people protesting in St. Paul were arrested,” Samuelson says. “Only three-tenths of one percent of the protesters in New York [at the 2004 RNC] were arrested. Ten percent of the protesters at in Denver [at the 2008 DNC] were arrested, though there was hardly anybody protesting there. Compare that to the less than one percent of protesters arrested in Boston [at the 2004 DNC].”

“The point is, there’s a movement among law-enforcement people that you can graph,” he says. “Not only in terms of arrests but also in terms of physical aggression. The city of St. Paul got a $50 million security grant and spent $1.8 million of that on pepper spray.”

From Google images.

(You can read The Stranger‘s story on the convention and its acclaimed piquancy here.)

Samuelson says the ACLU has footage, witnesses, and volunteers who used to work for the CIA ready to provide photo and security-camera analysis. “We’re cocked and loaded,” Samuelson says. “We’re ready to go. Look for the civil lawsuits to begin sometime around June.”