Making Sense of "Anna's" Posts

Making Sense of "Anna's" Posts

Stephen DeVoy

"Anna", the successful FBI infiltrator of at least a dozen anarchist events/movements, left a trail of posts on various IndyMedia outlets. Interestingly, search engines do not turn up any posts by "Anna" outside of IndyMedia. Evidently, the FBI considers IndyMedia to be the communications lifeblood of the anarchist movement.

In this article, I will examine the four posts we have uncovered. The posts contain information that is useful from several standpoints. There is content that will aid in improving security against future FBI infiltration, content that reveals FBI assumptions about the mindset of anarchists, and content that reveals the FBI's strategy for creating a "credible" activist out of thin air. This article is a follow up to my previous article on Anna and, as in the previous case, it represents my best guesses and best inferences. It does not represent a definitive and complete analysis of "Anna." To the best of my knowledge I have never met Anna and I did not attend any of the events to which she refers in her posts.

I think it is of value to place Anna's posts into two categories: (1) credibility posts and (2) mission posts. It appears to me that the primary reason for the credibility posts is to create references intended to support the notion that "Anna" is a credible activist. Mission posts, on the other hand, have been made to forward operational goals. Each mission post is a shot into the dark seeking contacts to use as stepping stones to a mission.

The credibility posts reveal information about Anna's access to information, inform us on what the FBI believes to be the mindset of activists, and instructs us on the airs that an FBI infiltrator are likely to assume as cover. The mission posts reveal goals of the infiltrator, modus operandi of the infiltrator, and cover mechanisms of the infiltrator. For me, the last category (i.e. the mission post category) is more interesting and so I will save it for last.

Credibility Posts

Chronologically, the first credibility post uncovered is a post on Miami IndyMedia entitled Philly BIO Protest Write-UP!. (I am intrigued that only Miami IMC's posts by Anna were still online. I am especially intrigued given this very recent post by the two most active members of Miami IMC, which, interestingly, was posted today.) The lead-in to the article reads: "I spent a week in Philly with my collective in preparations for the annual BIOTECH meetings, held this year in Philly. The Streets rose up! WHAT an Event!"

Reading "her" article, it occurred to me that there is very little reason to believe that "Anna" actually wrote the article. The article seems far more detailed than the average IMC article. It is chock full of information. Indeed, so much information I am inclined to believe that it was written by a team.

What strikes me is the frequent use of emotional outburst with the intent of attributing to the author a passion for the cause. For example, we have the following "WHAT an Event!", "which was an amazing experience", "How empowering!", "Yeah for Hugs!!", "We love you, FNB!", and so on. These exclamations of emotion do not flow well with the piece and I have a strong impression that they were inserted after review by whatever FBI committee wrote the piece. The intent appears to be to cast Anna as a true believer filled with passion for the cause. However, as a real anarchist, this frequent and gratuitous sprinkling of emotionalisms rings hollow. They set the bells of intuition ringing an alarm.

Anna refers to her fellow protesters as "kids." In fact, she refers to them as kids no fewer than seven times in one article. When I was her age, I did not refer to my peers as "kids." However, I can imagine a committee of FBI agents using the term "kids" to describe protesters. The same diminutive and general glossing is not applied to police in the article. In fact, she names more kinds of police than I could have come up with in the time it takes me to write an article. Here are all of the different kinds of police she mentions in this one article: "security escorts"," undercovers", "bike cops", "plainclothes", "feds", "civil affairs officers", "Riot Police", and "Philadelphia’s Strike Force". "Anna" has about as many words for cops as the Inuit have for snow but her terminology for protesters seems to be constrained to kids, kids, and kids. The intent of the article seems only as a means to establish "Anna" as an activist. She makes one noteworthy comment at the very end of the article: "Hopefully, pictures will be added soon - I need to get my act together and develop the film!" Most activists intending to post images in the Internet use digital cameras for that purpose. Since we know she was working for the FBI, we should assume that her film was being processed when the article was published. It was being processed by the FBI.

Now, since the FBI must have been processing the film, this is an interesting matter to consider. If an activist whose presence causes the alarm bells of intuition to sound and if that activist is taking photos with a traditional film based camera, one might want to insist that she develop the film immediately at one of those "hour" film processing places. If she's an FBI agent, she just might resist this suggestion for the FBI may need to be able to certify that they had possession of the film throughout the process should the question of doctoring come up in a trial.

In another post on Miami IMC, Response to first one, Anna comments to defend the intent of the Black Bloc. Her post seems to have one and only one purpose: create the illusion that "Anna" is a real anarchist. I'm an anarchist and I've never been part of a Black Bloc. I have no problem with the idea of a Black Bloc, but I find it interesting that the FBI wishes to create credibility for Anna amongst members of Black Blocs. This implies that infiltrating Black Blocs was a goal that the FBI had set for "Anna." Moreover, I see no reason to believe that this statement by Anna is true: "I will proudly join and fight with the bloc, as I have in the past." Is there any evidence that "Anna" was ever part of a Black Bloc? What the statement hopes to achieve is to get "Anna" into a Black Bloc. Now, since Miami has about ZERO Black Bloc's, what the hell is this post doing on Miami IMC and why isn't it posted in, let's say, Boston, NYC, or some other city where Black Blocks are common? Surely, not many anarchists read Miami IMC.

Mission Posts

As I stated above, I find the mission posts far more interesting. I actually learned a few things by reading them. I think we should all take a very close look at what they reveal. Consequently, I will post them here in their entirety.

Above we see that Anna wants to go to Europe and videotape demonstrators at the G8. She intends to use a group of legitimate videographers as cover for her crimes against protestors. How does she plan on getting to Europe? Well, the FBI has that figured out.

From the above, it looks like this blows the FBI's "courier" cover once and for all. It also should give you pause about responding to requests by unknown activists, even foreign activists, for direct support that includes allowing them to blend in with you. You just might be the target of exploitation by an intelligence agency. Of course, you could turn around and google the activist's name, but then you would find their "credibility" posts. In sum, this means you should not rely on information posted online to determine that someone is a real activist. You need real flesh and blood people that you know and trust to vouch for the person before you even consider taking an unknown under you wing.

For me, the most compelling reasons to have suspected that Anna was an infiltrator are:

• Anna had too much time on her hands.
• Anna always found the means to go anywhere and everywhere she wanted to.
• Anna always had all of the equipment she needed to film and videograph.
• Anna attended far too many major anarchist events to be a normal activist.

We need to be more careful. The FBI has invested a lot of time and money in setting us up to be used as an excuse for their increasing repression.