Date: January 12, 2011 6:41:31 PM PST
Subject: Government Informer Infiltrated Minnesota Activist Groups
Government Informer Infiltrated Minnesota Activist Groups
Secret government informer "Karen Sullivan" infiltrated Minnesota activist groups
By Nick Pinto
January. 12 2011
City Pages
The Twin Cities activists who had their homes raided by
the FBI last September are starting to learn more about
why they're being investigated by a Chicago grand jury
in relation to material support of terrorism.
Lawyers for the activists have learned from prosecutors
that the feds sent an undercover law enforcement agent
to infiltrate the Twin Cities Anti-War Committee in
April 2008, just as the group was planning its licensed
protests at the Republican National Convention. Going
by the name "Karen Sullivan," the agent blended in with
the many new faces the Committee was seeing at meetings
in the lead-up to the RNC. But she stayed active
afterward, attending virtually every meeting.
"She presented herself as a lesbian with a teenage
daughter, and said she had a difficult relationship
with her daughter's father, which is one of the reasons
she gave us for not being more transparent about her
story," says Jess Sundin, a member of the Anti-War
Committee and one of the activists who has received a
subpoena from the Chicago grand jury. "It was a
sympathetic story for a lot of us."
Sullivan told the group she was originally from Boston
but that she had had a rough childhood and was
estranged from her family. She said she had spent some
time in Northern Ireland working with Republican
solidarity groups.
Sullivan at first said that she didn't have any
permanent address in the area, but she eventually got
an apartment in the Seward neighborhood. She claimed to
be employed by a friend's small business, checking out
foreclosed properties that he might buy. The cover
story of a flexible job schedule let her attend all the
meetings she wanted to, and to have individual lunches
with other activists.
"She really took an interest," Sundin said. "It raised
some suspicions among other members at first, but after
the other undercover agents from the RNC Welcoming
Committee came out, and no in our organization did, we
figured we didn't have any. Besides, we didn't think we
had anything we needed to be secretive about."
Sullivan began to take on more responsibilities with
the organization, chairing meetings, handling the
group's bookkeeping, and networking with dozens of
other organizations.
In the summer of 2009, Sullivan joined two other Twin
Cities activists in a trip to visit Palestine. Somehow,
when they landed in Tel Aviv, Israeli security forces
knew they were coming, and that they were headed to
Palestine.
The three women were told they could get on the next
plane back home or they could face detention. Sullivan
took the flight. The other two women chose detention
and were ultimately deported.
Attorneys for the activists have also learned that
prosecutors are especially interested in a small
donation the women intended to give to their host
organization in Palestine, the Union of Palestinian
Women's Committees. The group is registered as an NGO
with the Palestinian Authority and not listed as a
terrorist group by the United States.
Last fall, Sullivan disappeared from the Twin Cities,
telling her fellow activists that she had some family
business to take care of. She never came back. On
September 24, the FBI launched a series of early
morning raids on the homes of members of the Anti-War
Committee and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.
The FBI would not confirm or deny Sullivan's identity
as a government agent or comment on this story by the
time of publication. The U.S. Attorney's office in
Chicago has said it will not comment on anything
related to the grand jury investigation.
Last fall the Justice Department's Inspector General
released a scathing report that criticized the FBI for
invoking anti-terrorist laws to justify their
investigations and harassment of groups including
Greenpeace, People for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals, and the Catholic Worker.
"This is exactly what the Inspector General's report
was talking about," Sundin told City Pages this
morning. "The FBI doesn't have the right to spy on us.
It's an abuse of our democratic rights. We're supposed
to have freedom of association, not, 'You can associate
but we're going to spy on you.'"
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