TransCanada and Peabody Coal spying with the feds

In this deceptive world of U.S. and corporate spying, land defenders and human rights activists are targeted, private corporations and U.S. agents are intertwined, young people are duped and go to prison, and federal agents use romance to spy on, and manipulate, peaceful protesters.

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

TransCanada and Peabody Coal have been spying on activists in a toxic, dark world where private corporations and the U.S. government act in collusion, an attorney reveals in a news article on Earth First newswire.
In this deceptive world, private corporations and federal agents are intertwined, young people are duped and go to prison, and U.S. agents use romance to spy on, and manipulate their targets.
The article, Informants, Green Scare Snitches, and Surveillance: Interview with Lauren Regan, CLDC.
The real danger of these covert operations within the United States is that people are vulnerable. They get duped by these operators and schemes, and in the end they go to prison.
Now, by way of the Freedom of Information Act, the facts are being exposed of how corporations and the U.S. government target peaceful protesters, criminalize them, and send them to prison.
In the article, attorney Lauren Regan explains, "TransCanada was giving powerpoint presentations to FBI offices and local law enforcement agencies along the [Keystone] pipeline route. We actually got their whole powerpoint presentation, which included photos of lead organizers, and all of the federal terrorist crimes that they were encouraging local DA’s to use against activists, and things like that. Some of it we actually got through their own stupidity." 
Then there's Peabody Coal: "The way a lot of them work, say Peabody Coal for instance, they know they can’t have in-house spies. Because if that gets back to them, they get in trouble. So they set up and fund a separate private entity that is half-PR firm and half-security firm. In order for that entity to remain operational they have to produce information that Peabody Coal wants to hear, and they have to be validating their own job."
Facebook is referred to as 'facecrack,' and there is a caution. There's no need to create drama on facecrack when you know infiltrators are headed someone's way.
When a known infiltrator was headed to the Buffalo Field Campaign in Montana, here's what they did.
"We were able to call them, and I remember I faxed a black and white photo of the person to them, and said 'hey this person may be heading in your direction, keep your eyes out.' And they did, and they were able to shoo him on.'"

Earth First trial in Prescott exposed FBI entrapment

Meanwhile, in Arizona, it was the Earth First trial in Prescott that revealed how a federal agent romanced his target, entrapped environmentalists and sent them to prison in 1991.
The trial was an expose in federal misconduct in the early 1990s. 
Alongside Mike Lacey, founder of Phoenix New Times, I was among the reporters in the courtroom.
The trial was an introduction into FBI and U.S. misconduct in this dark world of spying, manipulation and entrapment, where the federal government is never prosecuted for entrapment.
Besides the romancing undercover FBI agent, the U.S. also sent an old boyfriend into a home as a babysitter to spy on one woman, planting a spy device in her bedroom. She had a new boyfriend at the time.
Without the romancing undercover FBI agent, there would have been no charges or trial. The U.S. attempted to turn every joke on the defendants tapped phone into a crime.
When the so-called "monkey wrenchers," named after Ed Abbey's book, didn't have a ride to do their monkeying around, the undercover FBI agent gave them a ride. He drove them out  there. Most of those on trial went to prison. Peg Millet out ran the agents at the scene, but later turned herself in.
At the time, I was a stringer for AP. When the trial was over, I question the prosecutor about planting an old boyfriend in someone's home as an undercover agent. "Wasn't he a sleaze?" I asked.
"All informants are sleazes," she said.
At New Times, Lacey had fun with the prosecutor Asst. US Attorney Roslyn Moore-Silver. In one article, Lacy wrote that she came into the courtroom, grabbed her balls and shot the judge a high five.
Lacey went a step further and sent the prosecutor flowers when she had an accidental fall after the trial. She sent them back.
While it was fun at times in that Prescott courtroom, it no doubt was not fun for those well-meaning activists who went to prison while attempting to make a difference in the world.

Corporate bottom-feeders laughing all the way to the bank

These days, the entrapment is more sophisticated and the spying permeates everyone's lives, from the street corner, to cell phones to Internet e-mails and chats.
With new laws now, those manipulated and entrapped are sent to prison for even longer terms.
Snitches are often those who are arrested and are trying to avoid jail time, or those in prison wanting early release. They are willing to send others to prison.
The private corporations found a way to turn all this into money.
Protecting disastrous mining means money to the corporations, and mega dollars roll into new spy corporations. The private prisons and security firms are making fortunes.
Since the media in the U.S. has collapsed -- with most reporters flopped in their easy chairs and plagiarizing from the web -- this dark world is now a vacuum for bottom-feeders.
The film industry too has been compromised. It is now a vehicle to promote bogus wars, U.S. targeted assassinations, and the fantasy world of U.S. news and policy.

Time has brought the gift of truth

The environmentalists who were once demonized in the backrooms of news rooms, who were once vilified by the sell-outs, are now beginning to be recognized as front runners protecting the land, water and air.
As water is vanishing, lands are poisoned, and the air is dark, the world is beginning to appreciate the struggles of the land defenders.
Indigenous Peoples continue to be assassinated by corporations around the world as they defend their lands from mining and destruction. In North America, Native Americans with few resources bear the burden of defending the land, water, and air.
Today they carry on.


Also see The Guardian: Undercover cop fathered children with activists
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/jan/20/undercover-police-children-activists

Lakota Allies Gather to Stand Their Sacred Ground

Lakota Allies Gather to Stand Their Sacred Ground

by Natalie Hand and Kent Lebsock, Owe Aku International Justice Project (www.oweakuinternational.org)

Censored News

“We sought spiritual guidance and were told that the spirit of Unci Maka will awaken people to protect her. For us it has always been about protecting sacred water, whether it's uranium mining or KXL.”  Debra White Plume, Owe Aku, Moccasins on the Ground.

The grassroots people of the Kul Wicasa Oyate (Lower Brule) immediately put out a call to action when they learned that their Tribal Council (1934 Indian Reorganization Act government) agreed to allow the construction of a power station and power lines on treaty land necessary to move tarsands oil through the KXL pipeline.  Despite efforts of the grassroots leaders to obtain documentation from the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, their attempts were unanswered.  The Lower Brule Sioux tribal council is comprised of six people including President Michael Jandreau, who has served in tribal government since 1973, with the most recent decades in the office of the President.  Inquiries to the Council by several tribal members resulted first in denial, then in confirmation (without documentation) and finally an admission that the ‘carrot’ to the Tribal Council is the construction of wind turbines and free electricity for tribal members.    
Lakota people from Rosebud Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux reservations and surrounding towns and urban areas, as well as members of Owe Aku's Moccasins on the Ground, headquartered on the Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation, answered the call to action. The grassroots people served the evening meal to the gathering of about 200 people and spiritual protocol was followed with the offering of prayer and honor songs by Kul Wicasa singers.  George Estes, a member of the Kul Wicasa Oyate and world renowned Lakota flutist, shared a song for Mother Earth to strengthen the growing spirit of collective action.
"We answered the call to action to stand in solidarity with our relatives who want to protect sacred water and lands from Transcanada's HUGE power station needed to pump tarsands through our treaty territory. According to everything we have learned, their tribal council is taking action behind the peoples backs.  We will stand with our relatives and, as one young man said, ‘lets take it right to them,” stated White Plume.
“We’re up against a well-established council.  They had to have signed an agreement,” said Kevin Wright, co-organizer of the meeting.  Power line leases are entered into with local utilities and power corporations (under South Dakota Public Utilities Commission regulations), in this case Basin Electric who intends to provide electrical power to Keystone XL.
The grassroots people of Kul Wicasa oppose the development of the power line infrastructure planned by Basin Electric.  The Lower Brule substation is to be located two miles from the Big Bend Damn.  The thick, corrosive nature of tarsands oil (which in its natural state is the consistency of peanut butter) requires a constant temperature of 150 degrees Fahrenheit and necessary dilutants to liquify it enough to be slurried through the pipeline. This will require an enormous amount of power.  Basin Electric stated at a public utilities commission meeting in Winner, SD “the pipeline apparently moves oil under 1440 pounds of pressure per square inch. If the line is to move 700,000 barrels of crude per day, each pumping station requires three 6500 hp electric motors running on 17 megawatts of power night and

day.  If the flow rate is increased to 900,000 barrels per day, five 6500hp electric motors are required.  That would use 25 megawatts of power.”

This increasing demand for electricity forces the need for the additional power station at Lower Brule. Transmission studies indicate the current system has reached its load limit.   Given the location of the Lower Brule substation, 2 miles south of the Big Bend Damn, it is apparent Missouri River water will be used to produce electricity.
The 230-kV transmission line would impact the landscape along the Missouri River.  This area provides a recreational and tourism based economy to the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe.  According to TransCanada’s own Supplemental Environmental Impact Study, “the 75-mile transmission line would have a 125-foot-wide right of way; therefore, approximately 1,150 acres of land would be affected by construction… An average of 6.6 support structures per mile would be required. The average height of the structures would be 110 feet, and each would span an average of 800 feet.”
Both TransCanada and Basin Electric admit the impacts of the power lines would be permanent, including destruction of soil and vegetation along the right of access and though TransCanada has agreed to mitigate this damage, there are no guarantees.  This could negatively impact the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe’s environmentally sound economic development project called Lakota Foods, started seven years ago with popcorn, kidney and pinto beans, including processing and packaging facilities.  These products are grown on the reservation and the enterprise provides jobs to the people most immediately affected by the proposed KXL pipeline’s need for electrical expansion.  (http://www.americanindianfoods.com/products/lakota-foods/)
In June 2011, Canada’s National Energy Board inspectors revealed pump stations in four locations lacked a required “alternate source of power capable of operating each station’s emergency shut-down system,” finding TransCanada is non-compliant with board regulations.  Evan Vokes, a “whistleblower” who has challenged TransCanada’s methods stated, “an audit based on paper and interviews only cannot catch non-compliance in the field. In my experience, TransCanada’s management failings are systemic and won’t be fixed simply by reviewing what TransCanada says its policies are on paper. These kind of reviews have not fixed the problem in the past and they aren’t sufficient now. Time and again, TransCanada’s internal and third-party audit systems have failed to catch the repeated substandard practice of engineering in the construction and maintenance of its pipelines.”  (http://www.desmogblog.com/2014/03/07/whistleblower-s-evidence-against-transcanada-whitewashed-regulators.)
Kevin Wright of the Kul Wicasa Oyate stated, “even one inch is too much” when it comes to collaboration that leads to the construction of KXL tarsands pipeline on Lakota treaty territory. “The electric power necessary to move tarsands bitumen does not come close to the power of the Lakota Oyate to protect our sacred water,” stated Natalie Hand.
The Rosebud Sioux Tribe is in the same situation.  Although Transcanada has carefully avoided routing the pipeline across reservation land, they too are impacted by KXL’s necessary infrastructure.  Russell Eagle Bear of the Rosebud Sioux Tribal Council, which has officially opposed the Pipeline, stated that power lines are planned to cross the Rosebud reservation.  He said construction of a man camp is planned literally across a narrow dirt road from the reservation.   “We told the Bureau of Indian Affairs, do not let the transmission line through our territory.”
White Plume warned of the devastation that will be caused by TransCanada infrastructure, whether it’s the pipeline, the electrical infrastructure or the bad man camps that will each house up to two thousand imported workers.  “In this work we’ve learned a lot about the tarsands mines up north, we have friends and allies who live in a spiritual way who come from there. They've been displaced from their land because some of their band members signed agreements with corporations and the First Nations peoples had to move off the land; the land isn't even there now; it's an oil mine; there was a lake there that was 200 miles long and 100 miles wide.  Now, the elders are saying, for the first time, the shoreline is receding and the rocks at the bottom of the lake are exposed.  Water is being taken from the rivers and lakes to support the destruction by the tarsands mine.   I'm shocked this tribal council has signed agreements with KXL since we are supposed to be standing together as Oceti Sakowin (Seven Council Fires).  Fat Taker never stops and will run over anybody to feed themselves.”  As Kevin Wright of the Kul Wicasa Oyate stated, “if we do not stand up to the Black Snake, when our sacred water is gone, all we will have left to drink is our tears.”
The Kul Wicasa Oyate have partnered with Owe Aku to host an educational and action meeting on March 30th, 2014 at Lower Brule.  For more information contact Kevin Wright at 605-220-0394 or Louis Grass Rope at 605-208-6151.  The Kul Wicasa have scheduled a Treaty Meeting for March 29, 2014.
The message of the grassroots meeting: we are one Lakota Oyate and we will not permit the destruction of our lands and waters, we will protect it for future generations.