Blanket of Surveillance Over Standing Rock Water Protectors Revealed in Federal Court Case

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, March 21, 2024

There is a chilling similarity between the genocide in Palestine that the U.S. is supplying weapons for, and the militarized police response at Standing Rock.

The testimony in the current federal lawsuit, North Dakota v. United States of America, reveals that the FBI, BIA and law enforcement had no compassion, no concern, when women were bitten by attack dogs, or water protectors lay bleeding and critically injured after being shot with lead-filled bean bags.

That was the case when Marcus Mitchell, Dine' (Navajo) was shot while peacefully protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline. After being shot with a lead filled bean bag in the eye, he was brutally wrestled to the ground. In the hospital, he had to endure interrogation by law enforcement while recovering from surgery. Marcus' eye was blown apart.

In North Dakota's current case, the state does not point out that North Dakota law enforcement officers are named in the other federal lawsuit filed by Marcus. The officers are all from North Dakota law enforcement and are named.

Censored News takes an in-depth look at the depositions of FBI agents, BIA law enforcement, and U.S. Marshals in the current federal case. The State of North Dakota is seeking $38 million from the U.S. government, accusing federal agencies of failing to shut down the water protector camps, and failing to carry out their duties.

The depositions reveal that the FBI had cameras on site, the BIA had a mobile command center at Standing Rock's Prairie Knights casino, and narcotics officers were hanging out at the casino to extract information about the camps.

An FBI agent wandered around the camps at dawn dressed in REI outdoors clothes. The U.S. Border Patrol drone was overhead constantly. And all that doesn't include the TigerSwan surveillance.

"Presently in the United States of America, our people have no civil rights," Cheyenne River Chairman Harold Frazier, Lakota, from South Dakota, testified before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in December of 2016, describing the atrocities carried out by law enforcement at Standing Rock.

Representing the traditional Oceti Sakowin government, Lakota grandmother Germaine Tremmel described the attack on her people at Standing Rock at the camp, where she was camped with other water protectors.

"There's poisons in that water, that was used on us, sprayed on us," said Tremmel, great-granddaughter of Chief Sitting Bull, and United Nations attorney. She passed to the Spirit World three years after her testimony to the commission.

Censored News. Part I in original series.

FBI had up to 10 informants at Standing Rock: FBI supervisor reveals daily operations of surveillance in water protector camps
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/03/standing-rock-fbi-had-up-to-10.html

Standing Rock -- BIA top cop can't dodge questions, Part II
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/03/standing-rock-bia-top-cop-cant-dodge.html

FBI special agent supervisor for the Dakota: FBI informants reported rumors, third hand information, Part III
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/03/fbi-informants-reported-rumors-third.html

New today: Secretive U.S. Marshals team wasn't deployed to Standing Rock -- was at Wounded Knee in 1973
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/03/secretive-us-marshals-team-wasnt.html

Indigenous testify on Dakota Access Pipeline before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2016/12/today-indigenous-testify-on-dakota.html

Top photo: Rob Wilson, Standing Rock resistance, 2016, used with permission

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