For more than two years I have been targeted with non-stop online harassment from the FBI. This online harassment surrounds the website Stop Fascism!. Immediately after putting Stop Fascism! online, the FBI began to send me death threats, threats to my employment and a daily stream of harassment email. The FBI made good on its threat to have me removed from my job as director of Cycorp's programming department. While working at Cycorp I was involved in several projects of the Information Awareness Office, a project designed to spy on Americans.
During the course of my employment, Cycorp was visited by a group of Israeli spies. The Department of Defense sent a message to Cycorp, in the form of an email, warning that these "Israeli art students" were spies. One employee at Cycorp purchased art from these students as was later fired for less than reasonable cause (in my opinion). Upon receiving notice that Israeli spies had visited Cycorp, I offered Mary Shepherd and Doug Lenat use of my equipment to detect listening devices which may have been planted by the spies. According to the Department of Defense, one of the spies was an expert in signals processing. Neither Mary Shepherd nor Doug Lenat, the two top officers at Cycorp responded to my offer. They also turned down my suggestion that an outside firm be invited in to sweep for listening devices.
While employed at Cycorp, I was in the management team for the company. At one of the meetings we discussed an offer from "an intelligence agency" to form a project at Cycorp the purpose of which was to wage cyber warfare against "enemies of the US Government." When I asked Doug Lenat, President of Cycorp, whether this included dissidents or other domestic individuals or groups deemed by the US Government to be troublesome, he claimed that he could not answer. I advised him and all of the other managers at Cycorp that taking on such a project, in addition to being unethical, would one day lead to embarrassment for Cycorp. Based on that assessment, I recommended that Cycorp not pursue the project. Immediately and uncharacteristically Doug Lenat stated that Cycorp would not be involved in the project.
News of the Israeli spy ring broke on Fox News in December of 2001. Within a period of a couple of days, Fox News deleted its articles and information concerning the report and, according to sources, indicated that it had been instructed to do so by the US Government. In March of 2002, a French publication obtained a copy of a DEA report concerning an investigation of the Israeli spy ring. According to the French publication, which published the DEA report, this Israeli spy ring had shadowed the movements of al-Qaeda, was based in Texas and was connected to Amdocs, an Israeli telecommunications company in Texas.
As a first person witness to the Israeli spy ring that had visited Cycorp of Austin, Texas, I replied in an online forum to an individual that claimed that the reports were an example of anti-Semitism. I indicated that I had observed the Israeli art students myself and could confirm that they existed. To the best of my knowledge, I am the only individual in the entire United States of America who has come forward and declared himself to be a witness to Israeli spy ring. What I find surprising is that many of my coworkers at Cycorp were also witnesses to the Israeli spy ring and all of my coworkers received a copy of the email from the Department of Defense stating that these "students" were spies. Not a single one of them has come forward. Combining the fact that these Israeli spies did, in fact, visit Cycorp with the other incidents I have described above (e.g. Cycorp's refusal to sweep for listening devices, Cycorp's dismissal of the only employee who purchased art from the spies and Cycorp's subsequent involvement in the harassment program against me for confirming that the spies existed), I can only speculate that there is more to Cycorp than meets the eye.
Moreover, I brought my bug detector to the office and swept for bugs in my own office. While I found no listening devices, I did detect a strong signal coming from the office adjacent to mine. I also, upon sweeping another office adjacent to that office, detected a strong signal from that same office. The office from which the signal originated was empty. It belonged to an employee of high rank who was no longer showing up for work. Apparently, he was still an employee of the company, but was not working for the company. In fact, he wasn't even living in the state of Texas any longer. Since his office was empty of his person and since I had control over the allocation of offices in the wing of the building where his office was located, I asked whether his office could be reallocated to someone else. I was told on the strongest terms that no one was to enter his office and that his office could not be reallocated. It would remain empty.
Meanwhile, just after confirming online that I had personally witnessed the Israeli spy ring, I began to receive an explosion of hate mail, death threats and disruptive postings on my forum, most of which demanded that I take down my websites and forums and some of which included death threats and threats to my employment. One of the harassers repeatedly stated, "I can see you." He also identified my photo from a set of photos from a protest in Austin and posted it online. This same individual would later identify another Cycorp employee and harass two others online. All of the individuals harassed were my friends.
I filed a report with the Austin Police Department regarding the harassment. Mary Shepherd of Cycorp knew I filed this report. Mary Shepherd spoke many times of a close friend in the APD. The APD did not follow up on my complaint. When I contacted them, they did not return my call. When I more aggressively demanded to talk to the officer in charge of the case he told me "don't call us, we'll call you." I never heard from him again.
Before I continue with the harassment, I would like to touch on another aspect of Cycorp's work.
I began working for Cycorp in 2000. When I arrived, Cycorp was working on a project called RKF (Rapid Knowledge Formation). The domain to which they were applying that application was "bio-terrorism." The specific players in their demonstration system were Osama bin-Laden and al-Qaeda. The specific biological agent of discourse was an agent that shared the same properties as anthrax. Anthrax itself played a central role in the demonstration system. This was long before the attacks of 9/11 and most intelligence experts outside of the United States acknowledge that there is no "al-Qaeda" organization. It is a concept, largely invented by the CIA and derived from the example of the original, very small, al-Qaeda operation that was sponsored by the CIA and run by Osama bin-Laden during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Despite the fact that there really was no "al-Qaeda", numerous projects which would later become the Information Awareness Office (headed by convicted criminal John Poindexter) used Osama bin-Laden and "al-Qaeda" as examples in prototypes.
To understand why a fake entity would be used in a prototype, you need to understand how unclassified work is executed by individuals without clearances, even when that work will later be used in classified projects. It is common practice (in fact, it is a ubiquitous practice) to invent scenarios that are thought to parallel real world problems. These inventions then become the base of testing systems which will later be used on the real thing. Osama bin-Laden and al-Qaeda were just that, with regard to these systems, FAKE EXAMPLES.
Indeed, in a meeting I had with John Poindexter and others working with the Information Awareness Office at the Information Warfare Office of his employer, in April of 2001 (before the attacks of 9/11), Osama bin-Laden and al-Qaeda were, once again, discussed as just such FAKE EXAMPLES.
After the attacks of 9/11, Cycorp became the focus of government efforts to extract technology which could be used to fight "al-Qaeda" (suddenly, the FAKE EXAMPLE had become a REAL EXAMPLE). Doug Lenat was very excited about the possibility of cashing in on 9/11, as were many others at Cycorp. Marketing sought attention. There was a tension between wanting to be known for "fighting terrorism" and fear of "becoming a target of terrorists." A reporter from the Austin American Statesman, who had previously written about Cycorp's work and who knew that Cycorp's earlier project involved the scenario of Osama bin-Laden, al-Qaeda and anthrax, called Cycorp and wanted to do an article on Cycorp's anti-terrorist work, including mention of the earlier project. I had never before seen such a panic at Cycorp over a positive article about the company. Lenat and Shepherd felt that it was very important to quash the article. They demanded that the reporter not publish it. When that failed they had the Department of Defense contact the reporter to tell him not to publish it. He published it anyway. What this shows is that Cycorp did not want the world to know that it had been working on "Osama bin-Laden, al-Qaeda and Anthrax" before 9/11.
The harassment I received increased and I was sent messages telling me that I would soon be removed from my job. An individual using the name "Schooner" whom I have now identified as an agent of the FBI at the FBI Field Office in Baltimore, began to threaten me online, declared he was investigating me and that he would "develop" information on me and post it on the web. He also threatened to "drop a dime" on me and to "get inside my ISP."
Meanwhile, Josiah Hagen, a programmer at Cycorp that was reporting to me, brought into the office an Internet appliance. For those who do not know what an Internet appliance is, it is a device that presents an image, receives and transmits mouse and keyboard events and interacts with a server which acts as a web browser. The user feels like he or she is using a computer browsing the Internet, but in reality, the computer is located somewhere else and the image is displayed on the Internet appliance. Therefore, the computer involved in browsing the Internet is remotely located. I found Josiah Hagen browsing the Internet with just such a device, connected to the remote server by telephone and I asked him what he was doing (this was a security breach). He said he got the device cheaply was trying it out and that upper management told him he could use it at work. Given that Cycorp likes to squeeze every ounce of work out of its workers for as low a salary as it can get away with, I found this strange. What I would find out later has led me to conclude that Josiah Hagen was directly involved in the online harassment against me and was instructed to do this by Cycorp on behalf of the US Government. The Internet appliance was used to avoid detection of the source of that harassment - Cycorp itself.
About a month later I was fired from Cycorp.
The harassment continued after I left Cycorp, including demands that I take down my website. An FBI agent pretended to be me and put up a forum called "Nazis Fighters" (perhaps a derivation of "Stop Fascism!"). He used a second name for the forum "Hag -N Dorf." One of the individuals harassing me online stated that I had created the forum and that it proved I was harassing people online. I had not even heard of the forum so I asked that individual, via posts on my own forum, what other forum he was talking about. Upon visiting "Nazi Fighters" I discovered a forum with an admin. named "Stephen" who was using SJD ("Server of Just Deserts") as a handle. The claim was that my initials were "SJD." My initials are not "SJD" they are "SRD."
More interestingly, however, upon looking back, "Hag -N" is certainly similar to "Hagen."
The harassment became worse and the death threats became more specific. I decided that since the Austin Police Department would do nothing about it, I would go to the Austin Field Office of the FBI and file a complaint. I did this on September 11, 2002 (yes, 9/11, one year later). The harassment only increased after filing a report with the FBI. Within a month the KOBEHQ website went up. That website's purpose was to libel and defame me while recruiting mental defectives to harass me online. KOBEHQ is run by the FBI.
One of the first acts of KOBEHQ was to publish an article claiming that I was a terrorist and requesting readers to report me to the FBI, Homeland Security and the Secret Service. The article was published on the DC Registry, a conservative online journal owned BY THE BROTHER OF JOSIAH HAGEN. Phil Hagen, owner of the DC Registry, refused to remove the article claiming that I would have to prove that I was not a terrorist.
As a consequence of the request to have readers report me to "Homeland Security," the FBI and the "Secret Service" for the crime of being a terrorist (when all I am is a writer with some websites), these agencies within the US Government began monitoring my websites. Additionally, the CIA, FEMA, the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives, DISA, DARPA and the Defense Intelligence Agency, among others, began monitoring my websites.
In time, the US Courts began visiting my websites. I believe they issued a warrant to attach Carnivore to my ISP (once again, based on the fact that I am an anarchist writing about his beliefs online, which is apparently now a crime). The harassment project began to make references to the content of my emails and would show up wherever I posted online, within seconds.
Vile, defamatory and libelous documents were published online in my name by the FBI. Threats against George Bush, Henry Kissinger and the Boston Police Department were published online in my name by the FBI. I authored none of these. Hate mail was sent to US troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, in my name, by the FBI. Anti-Semitic statements were published online, in my name, but the FBI. The consequences of this was a mountain of hate mail from US troops, police and Jews - all of whom were offended by material I DID NOT WRITE.
When I began to write about the harassment, the FBI then published on their harassment website, KOBEHQ, claims that I was paranoid, that I was insane, that I was a child molester, that I was gay, that I was a cross dresser and many other absurdities. They published messages on forums stating that I had killed my father (he is alive), killed my grandmother (she died when I was 2000 miles away), that I had been arrested for jerking off in front of a cop in Cambridge (never happened), that I was homeless (I was not) and that I was a thief (I am not). All of this defamation led to ridicule and physical assaults when I was distributing bumper stickers in Cambridge. In fact, I had fruit thrown at me, a bottle thrown at me, my stickers kicked into the air and a water balloon thrown at me. I was harassed by the Cambridge police and stalked in Harvard Square by a nutcase student from Foxborough, MA. An egg was thrown at my car.
Despite this, I continued with my website. My decision to stop the online publication of Stop Fascism! is not based on the harassment. This harassment has weighed heavily on me but I have always been willing to fight to the end. The reason why I can no longer publish Stop Fascism!, as it is now, is that I have encountered scores of instances since last November where the FBI has used the packet intercepting feature of Carnivore to modify my website. If I cannot author my website with the knowledge that what is on it was authored by me, without change, then I cannot take responsibility for its content. I have the right to exercise my liberty of free speech without interference by the government. If the government is going to maliciously alter my website with the intent of censoring me or framing me, then I have lost my liberty to free speech. Rather than playing the government's game and pretending that free speech exists in the US, I have decided that I should acknowledge that free speech does not exist in the US. Let my silence speak louder than my words can. This fascist regime has robbed me of my right to free speech and it has done so through the malicious execution of a string of horrendous crimes. Fuck Bush!