FBI Responds to The Post & Email’s Questions about “Anonymous” “Days of Rage” Video

“WE HAVE NO INFORMATION TO PROVIDE YOU”

by Sharon Rondeau

(Jul. 13, 2016) — On Wednesday morning, The Post & Email became aware of a video reportedly produced by the global hacker group “Anonymous” announcing a “Day of Solidarity” for Friday, July 15, on which “peaceful protests” will be held in major cities across the country.

According to The Gateway Pundit, the video was posted on Saturday.  It also refers to “Days of Rage” and a “Day of Action.”

The video shows scenes from the police killing of Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, MN on July 6 and that of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, LA the day before.  It then recounted the murders of five Dallas police officers on July 7 as a “heinous incident that has no place in our fight for justice and equality.”

The group is calling for prosecutions of the officers involved in the cases of Castile, Sterling and Michael Brown, the latter of whom was killed in Ferguson, MO in August 2014.

Anonymous faults a “failure of judgment,” apparently on the part of the St. Louis grand jury, for having failed to indict Officer Darren Wilson, who killed Brown in fear for his life after Brown rushed him and tried to take his gun.

The case of Freddie Gray, a man who died after having been arrested by police in Baltimore, was also invoked.

All of those killed were black men.  According to The Chicago Tribune on Monday, more whites are killed by police than blacks, “but blacks [are] 2.5 times more likely to be killed.”

Sterling has been reported as having a gun “in his pocket” but not in his hand when he was killed. Castile had a gun in his possession, but it is unclear if he was reaching for it when one of the officers shot him.

Castile’s girlfriend, who witnessed and streamed the killing online, and Castile’s mother said that Castile was killed for no reason.

“We condemn every form of rioting,” Anonymous said in the video, followed by calling for “a collective days of rage”  “in conjunction with the Black Lives Matter movement,” which it termed a “civil rights” organization.  Both Gateway Pundit and a link from CBS in Los Angeles list the locations and times of the protests, one of which is “Washington DC: 7:00PM (OUTSIDE WHITE HOUSE, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20500).”

A transcript of the video narration can be read here.

“Days of Rage” was the moniker used by Bill Ayers of The Weather Underground in October 1969 when Chicago storefronts, cars, and other property were damaged by college students protesting the U.S.’s involvement in Vietnam and advocating “civil rights,” and “social reform.”  The Weather Underground, which emanated from The Weathermen, admitted to bombing the U.S. Capitol in March 1971.  According to History.com:

The so-called Weathermen were a radical faction of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS); the Weathermen advocated violent means to transform American society. The philosophical foundations of the Weathermen were Marxist in nature; they believed that militant struggle was the key to striking out against the state to build a revolutionary consciousness among the young, particularly the white working class. Their primary tools to achieving these ends were arson and bombing. Among the other targets of Weathermen bombings were the Long Island Court House, the New York Police Department headquarters, the Pentagon, and the State Department. No one was killed in these bombings, because the bombers always called in an advanced warning. However, three members of the Weather Underground died on March 6, 1970, when the house in which they were constructing the bombs exploded.

Ayers and Obama served together on the Board of Directors for the Woods Fund and Joyce Foundation in Chicago, where Ayers was a professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago.  Obama’s Illinois senate campaign is said to have been launched in Ayers’s living room.

Ayers was initially prosecuted, but the case was dismissed due to a technicality.  His wife, Bernardine Dohrn, spent several months in jail but also became a university professor.

According to C-Span, “When the Weather Underground Organization began a series of bombings, including strikes on the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon, as acts of war against the United States, its young members became the target of one of the largest FBI manhunts in history.”

Early on Wednesday afternoon, The Post & Email contacted the FBI in Washington, DC at 202-324-3000 and asked to speak with a media spokesperson.  On our initial call, we were asked to “call back in 20 minutes,” as “the line is busy.”  The second call was accidentally disconnected, but on the third call, placed at 1:13 PM EDT, we reached a person at the FBI’s National Press Office to ask if someone could comment on the Anonymous video.

We were asked to send our request by email with an address provided.

The Post & Email then wrote:

Good afternoon, thank you for taking my call just now regarding the following video:  http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/07/warning-day-rage-blacklivesmatter-protests-set-friday-37-us-cities/

Of course, I cannot vouch for the author nor the authenticity of the video, but my questions are as follows:

1.  Are the contents of the video being taken seriously in regard to the “Day of Solidarity” indicated on July 15, 2016?

2.  Does the FBI have a way to determine who recorded the video and posted it on the Internet?

3.  If the announcement of the protests is considered credible, what steps will the FBI take to ensure the safety of the public?

4.  Has any type of “stand-down” order been issued in regard to possible responses the FBI might make?

Thank you very much.

Sharon Rondeau, Editor
The Post & Email
www.thepostemail.com
P.O. Box 113
Canterbury, CT  06331-0113

Within a few minutes, we received the following response:

Hello,

We have no information to provide you.  We do note the video calls for non-violent protests.

Thank you.

FBI National Press Office

The Post & Email later noted that at 1:13 PM EDT, the “FBI Criminal Justice Information Systems” logged on to its website and opened the navigational page titled “About.”  Although a taxpayer-funded agency, we have redacted the IP number of the computer used to log on.

This writer does not recall stating the name of the publication she represented to the NPO but can state with certainty that we utilized a telephone line not associated with The Post & Email.