Jalil Muntaqim: Campaign Against Drone and Targeted Killing of U.S. Citizens

 

Introduction

If history informs of the future, then it is essential that activists across the country take action on the subject of this letter. Here, I am offering an example of the minimum that activists from across the country should do. Contact your federal and state elected officials, using this letter as a template, and demand they oppose the Obama administration’s implementation of drones for surveillance and targeting killings of U.S. citizens.

Secondly, demand your state legislators enact a “NO-DRONE FLY ZONE” in each respective state. Further, ensure local elected officials pass resolutions and proclamations that your city supports a “NO-DRONE FLY ZONE.”

The right-wing corporate military industrial complex with its auxiliary law enforcement agencies across the country has created an environment that threatens the very foundation of civil liberties. It is extremely important that conscientious Americans recognize the deadly practice of Cointelpro, and how the U.S. government has by law stripped the ideals of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness to its bare minimum — by denying due process and equal protection of the law to those who may be dissenters, protestors and demonstrators. In essence, the “slippery slope” that was Cointelpro is now a downhill avalanche of police-state policies to eventually suppress, squelch and crush a movement. If there is any one issue or concern that should haunt activists across the country, Drones and Targeting Killing of U.S. Citizens is it!!!

In fierce struggle,

Jalil A. Muntaqim
Attica, 3/7/13

Anthony Bottom #77A4283
Attica Correctional Facility
P.O. Box 149
Attica , NY 14011-0149

March 7, 2013

Honorable Kristen E. Gillibrand
United States Senate
Washington , D.C. 20250

Re: Senator Rand Paul Filibuster
Re: U.S. Drone Policy

Senator Kristen Gillibrand:

I would like to bring to your attention specific historical and relevant matters pertaining to Senator Rand Paul’s filibuster opposing nominee John Brennan’s CIA appointment. In respect to the U.S. drone policy and the capacity for targeting killings of U.S. citizens, it is important to note targeting killing of U.S. citizens under a secret program is not new.

On August 25, 1967, J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI, initiated a counterintelligence program (Cointelpro); on page 3 the memo reads: “You are also cautioned that the nature of this new endeavor is such that under no circumstances should the existence of this program be made known outside the Bureau and appropriate within-office security should be afforded to sensitive operations and techniques considered under the program.”

The Cointelpro operation has been legalized under the auspices of the Patriot Act, whereby the purpose of Cointelpro as originally initiated is no longer unconstitutional. As a result of Cointelpro, as many as 33 Black Panthers were targeted for killing during that time. The most noted were Fred Hampton and Mark Clark in Chicago. The point is that the U.S. government has been involved in secret killings of U.S. citizens for decades, and many citizens who dissented and fought back languish in prison to this day.

Ergo, as the Senate Intelligence Committee proclaims astonishment that the Obama administration would engage in a secret program to use drones to target and kill U.S. citizens deemed “terrorists,” historically the U.S. government has been engaged in this practice for decades. “The purpose of this new counterintelligence endeavor is to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit or otherwise neutralize the activities of Black nationalist, hate-type organizations and groupings, their leadership, spokesmen, membership and supporters, and to counter their propensity for violence and civil disobedience.” Given the reality that drones are now being operated inside the U.S., coupled with the legalization of “neutralizing” U.S. citizens deemed to be “terrorists” by virtue of the Patriot Act and the broader 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, along with the most recent U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder, suggesting drone strikes inside U.S. territories is a possibility, it would be expected that your office would actively express opposition to such policies. This is especially true when considering the FBI’s March 9, 1968, Cointelpro memorandum that specifically stated: “Negro youths and moderates must be made to understand that if they succumb to revolutionary teachings, they will be dead revolutionaries.”

I am one of at least 25 victims of Cointelpro, and have been in prison over 40 years. Senator Rand Paul’s filibuster should have been supported by the progressive wing of the Democratic Party in the Senate. I would ask that your office further investigate the allegations made here, and urge your colleagues to take an aggressive position opposing the use of drones and targeted killing of U.S. citizens.

Very truly yours,
Anthony Bottom

cc: New York Times

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