Spying on Activists -- Dine' Klee Benally, Vicam Yaqui, and Zapatistas were Targeted by Tucson and Phoenix police, Tohono O'odham government, and Mexican military
By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, Dec. 7, 2024Democracy Now reports on Pegasus spyware in cell phones. It is a reminder of how our friend Klee Benally, Dine', was spied on by the Tohono O'odham Nation government as he protested the US Border Patrol, and the Salt River Project, and its role in poisoning Dine' with its coal-fired power plant.
The Tohono O'odham Nation government was the first tribal government to become part of a secretive inter-agency tribal/state/federal law enforcement Fusion Center that shared data.
Tohono O'odham and Dine' (Navajo) activists were spied on by the Tucson and Phoenix police, and the Tohono O'odham Nation government. The details are revealed in the report 'Dissent or Terrorism.' The Tohono O'odham Nation Police Department used its police analyst to spy on, and track Tohono O'odham and Dine' activists.
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| Read the report 'Dissent or Terrorism' https://www.prwatch.org/files/Dissent%20or%20Terror%20FINAL.pdf |
Tucson police were among the first police departments in the U.S. to use the stingray for secretly tracking cell phones without a warrant. The Tucson Police Department purchased a Stingray II mobile phone tracking system in 2010 from Harris Corporation for $396,500.
Tucson Police also used facial recognition from jail bookings and Arizona drivers licenses to track activists, according to the report 'Dissent or Terrorism.'
With all the spying, tracking and stalking, Klee eventually was stalled at an airport and under surveillance. Klee was slapped with the 'SSSS' status, Secondary Screening Security Selection. Klee said in 2018 that he had been stopped at airports four times.
Standing Rock a Turning Point
"Leaked documents show the protests at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, the last place Benally traveled to before noticing the SSSS designation on his boarding pass, was a turning point in tactics used against Standing Rock protesters," reports Creede Newton in Mic news.
Klee's book, released shortly before he passed in December of 2023, is a reminder of the stalking of Arizona activists twelve years ago. The protests under surveillance focused on protests of Arizona Sheriff Arpaio, ALEC and Salt River Project in Phoenix, and the Occupy Movement in both Tucson and Phoenix.
And yes, the documents name names, both the cops who were undercover and the activists they stalked, including Klee.
In Klee's book, he describes the surveillance, and the stingrays, portable equipment cops used to track cell phones without a warrant, and more.
Tucson Police purchased 'robots' to extract Facebook dataFacebook was, and is, the favorite of law enforcement for tracking and surveillance of activists, along with cell phones.
The "Dissent or Terrorism" report the purchase of a cyber robot to accumulate and process online user data.
Tucson law enforcement purchased OpenMIND that processes vast amounts of information from Facebook and open sources. OpenMIND uses “customized collection robots’ to collect user data (see page 25.) Tucson police also purchased a Stingray II to track and locate cell phone users.
The report ‘Dissent or Terrorism’ covers the Occupy movement nationwide, from Boston to Portland, Oregon.
The spyware includes Israel's Pegasus which can't be detected. It enables the spies to turn your cell phone on to determine your location, and turn on your audio and video, without your knowledge for surveillance.
Flagstaff Police used their bodycams and social media posts to prosecute Klee
On Flagstaff’s first Indigenous Peoples’ Day, on October 8, 2018, Benally and other indigenous rights activists and anarchists took to the streets, reports Simon Davis-Cohen, in The Progressive.“We were protesting to draw attention to how the city benefits from the desecration of local indigenous culture,” Benally told me.
"Emails obtained through public records requests, and an arrest report, show that over the ensuing weeks, the police department’s body camera audio and video footage of the protest, along with social media accounts, were reviewed by prosecutors, police, and an individual whose identity was redacted," Progressive reports.
Mexico bought Pegasus from Israel and used it to stalk both Zapatistas and the Traditional Vicam Yaqui in Sonora, leaked files reveal. Now, Colombia's new president Gustavo Petro is undertaking an investigation into how Pegasus was used in Colombia, a country where Indigenous land defenders were stalked and assassinated.
The Mexican military used Pegasus to spy on the Zapatistas during their Journey for Life through Europe. Vicam Yaqui Traditional Authority in Sonora were also spied on using Pegasus.
The Vicam Yaqui Traditional Authority led the highway blockades for years to protect their water flowing in the Rio Yaqui, on their ancestral homelands in Sonora, Mexico, about a six hour drive south of the border of Arizona and Mexico. The water was being stolen for an aqueduct for the City of Hermosillo.
The Traditional Vicam Yaqui hosted international water forums and hosted the Zapatistas international gathering.
Our friend Tomas Rojo, Vicam Yaqui spokesman, was among those who were brutally assassinated. The soft-spoken Tomas was bludgeoned to death near his home on a morning walk. Yaqui defending their water from being stolen, and defending their land from gas pipelines and development in Vicam and Bacum communities in Sonora, were murdered, kidnapped, and falsely imprisoned. Others were disappeared.
In memory of Tomas Rojo, and Klee Benally, and all those whose lives were taken.
Their legacy lives.
Order Klee's book 'No Spiritual Surrender: Indigenous Anarchy in Defense of the Sacred'
Read more:
Tohono O'odham police and Arizona police stalk activists
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2013/05/tohono-oodham-and-arizona-police-stalk.html
Spying on Arizona activists by Tohono O'odham, Tucson and Phoenix
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2013/05/government-surveillance-of-occupy.html
Mexico government spy files on Yaqui and Zapatistas
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2022/10/mexicos-government-spy-files-on-yaqui.html
Mexico's military used Pegasus to spy on Vicam Yaqui in Sonora
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/01/mexicos-military-used-israels-pegasus.html
'Under Surveillance' by The ProgressiveIt was in July that Klee Benally first saw the Secondary Screening Security Selection designation on his boarding pass, when he was flying to New York from Arizona. He was hit with delays at the airport from the increased searches of his person and belongings and ultimately missed his flight. -- Mic
Democracy Now, on Pegasus and spying
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/12/5/surveilled_ronan_farrow_israel_spyware
White House financed purchase of Pegasus spyware for Colombian governmentby Latin American reports, Nov. 13, 2024
In an interview with Colombian newspaper El Tiempo, three unnamed officials from the administration of President Joe Biden claimed that the United States sponsored the purchase of the Pegasus spyware by the Colombian government in mid-2021.
Pegasus – along with its Israeli parent company NSO Group – were placed on a US blacklist by the Biden administration in November 2021, after it determined that the spyware acted “contrary to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States,” according to the US Federal Register. The software has reportedly been used to spy on journalists, opposition politicians, and activists in places like Mexico, Europe and Asia.
In early September 2024, current Colombian President Gustavo Petro called for an investigation into the alleged use of Pegasus by the previous administration of Iván Duque.
Article copyright Censored News. Content may not be used without written permission, or in any manner for revenues. This includes grants for non-profits. Both Klee and the Zapatistas Marcos spoke out against the money making non-profits and NGOs using grassroots struggles for their secretive funding.
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