
Activist Jailed for Facebook Posts; FBI Tracks Him as “Black Identity Extremist” - miek
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/11/rakem-balogun-interview-black-identity-extremists-fbi-surveillance
======
abrown28
I suspect he got the attention of the FBI by being publicly vocal about his
hatred of police but was arrested for having a gun when he was prohibited
because of his conviction for domestic assault.

[http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/01/30/is-a-court-case-in-
texas...](http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/01/30/is-a-court-case-in-texas-the-
first-prosecution-of-a-black-identity-extremist/)

~~~
taylodl
Thank you for saving me from going on an anti-free speech tirade. And now I
see the article has been flagged, presumably because the headline is
misleading.

~~~
insickness
> But this month, a judge rejected the charge, saying the firearms law did not
> apply.

~~~
s2g
shhh, any excuse to deny a black man his rights is fine.

------
posting
>Per their statement, Balogon was in leadership roles with Geronimo Tactical,
Huey P. Newton Gun Club, and Guerrilla Mainframe. Let’s take a look at these
three groups.

Geronimo Tactical:

>Instagram account, which has almost four thousand followers, is much more
straight forward. It simply has a quote from the Communist mass murderer Mao
Zedong that says "Political power grows from the barrel of a gun", a PayPal
link, and LOTS of pictures of the group conducting paramilitary training.

Huey P. Newton Gun Club (HPNGC):

>"In essence we take responsibility for the growth and development for our
community which is an element to our nationalist ideals. We understand and
know we will not win every person over to our methods and practices, however
we accept we must walk this difficult path towards eventual armed struggle."

>"We are servants above anything else and more than militants we employ the
revolutionary ideals of nationalism. Nationalism will only organize the
talents that we currently possess as a people and aid our function as a
nation. The beginning of this tasks is to arm the body and minds of black
people in America in which the Huey P. Newton Gun Club intends to be a part
of."

>HPNGC faced a lot of scrutiny when it was revealed that Micah Xavier Johnson,
who ambushed and killed five police officers during a Black Lives Matter
protest in Dallas, Texas in 2016, may have been affiliated with the militant
black nationalist group. They have also come under fire for brandishing their
weapons and confronting employees at a Dallas gas station.

Guerrilla Mainframe:

>According to their website, Guerrilla Mainframe is another militia group
founded in 2008 in Dallas, Texas. The organizations core foundations are Pan
African with teachings from the likes of Kwame Nkrumah and Sekou Toure, both
African Marxist political leaders.

>We support the abolishment of the U.S. Constitution as a political right, and
favor a government based on the needs of the people.

>We want all freedom fighters/prisoners of war to be freed immediately to
rejoin the peoples struggle for revolution.

>We demand the redistribution of land, power, and resources be returned to
exploited people around the world. We are unified against the evils of
capitalism, fascism, and imperialism in all forms.

>We believe in Revolution, by this meaning the Total overthrow of the
Capitalist System by direct struggle conflict.

Some of Balogun's social media posts:

>On July, 6th 2017, he changed his profile picture to an image of Micah Xavier
Johnson in honor of the one year anniversary of the day he ambushed and
murdered five Dallas police officers in cold blood. On that same day he said
"Comrades and Family tomorrow is #ClaimMicahXDay in memory of a great
sacrifice made by a local Dallas Revolutionary! Zalute"

>On July, 7th 2017, the one year anniversary of the murders of Senior Cpl.
Lorne Ahrens, Officer Michael Krol, Sgt. Michael Smith, Officer Brent
Thompson, and Officer Patricio "Patrick" Zamarripa; he said "Today one year
ago one Black Man brought Dallas Pig Department to their knees. #77”. On that
same day he posted pictures of himself as well as pictures of Micah’s dead
body with the caption “I’m wearing brown and khaki in solidarity for Micah X
#77".

Source for all of the above is [https://farleftwatch.com/2018/01/08/far-left-
militia-leader-...](https://farleftwatch.com/2018/01/08/far-left-militia-
leader-rakem-balogun-arrested-by-fbi/) which itself provides proper sourcing
for these claims.

~~~
kbenson
Okay, but what's the point? You could have posted the link by itself if you
were just trying to provide additional information, so I feel like you're
trying to make some sort of argument by choosing these and repeating them in
your comment, but you've left that part out.

~~~
posting
The point is to provide some counterbalance to the Guardian's biased framing
of this case.

The excerpts are provided for the reader's convenience to quickly convey the
gist of the article.

If you want to know more or verify the accuracy of this information, you can
visit the link.

~~~
kbenson
> The point is to provide some counterbalance to the Guardian's biased framing
> of this case.

> The excerpts are provided for the reader's convenience to quickly convey the
> gist of the article.

Sure, and they do that. The question was why you thought the article was worth
including, and there could have been multiple answers, so I decided to ask.
Perhaps you thought it was self evident, but that's often not as clear in a
forums as people would like to think.

As to your reason for inclusion, I don't really see the Guardian's
representation all that biased, because I think the points you referenced are
for the most part irrelevant. In this country, we're supposed to have a right
to free speech. He was detained for months and prosecuted for his speech. What
that speech was advocating isn't really the point.

I do think it's useful information to have though, so thanks.

------
ghba66
>Keighley made no mention of Balogun’s specific actions at the rally, but
noted the marchers’ anti-police statements, such as “oink oink bang bang” and
“the only good pig is a pig that’s dead”. The agent also mentioned Balogun’s
Facebook posts calling a murder suspect in a police officer’s death a “hero”
and expressing “solidarity” with the man who killed officers in Texas when he
posted: “They deserve what they got.”

Yeah he obviously does not know why they were paying attention to him!

~~~
kbenson
_Keighley, however, later admitted the FBI had no evidence of Balogun making
any specific threats about harming police._

That's the next sentence. It's not about why they were looking at him, it's
about why they _arrested_ him, and kept him detained.

 _“Sometimes when you couldn’t prove somebody was a terrorist, it’s because
they weren’t a terrorist,” he said, adding that prosecutors’ argument that
Balogun was too dangerous to be released on bail was “astonishing”.

“It seems this effort was designed to punish him for his political activity
rather than actually solve any sort of security issue.”_

I'm not sure how this wasn't dismissed fairly quickly as an infringement of
his first amendment rights.

~~~
logfromblammo
"You can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride."

This was extrajudicial punishment for expressing anti-police sentiments. They
were able to take away his freedom, job, home, vehicle, and family, without
even going to trial. By the time the prosecution was forced to drop the case
for lack of evidence, their mission had already been accomplished.

They abused the justice system to punish prior to conviction, all based on
their perception of his unforgivable blackness.

------
java_script
He’s misunderstanding what tyranny is. Tyranny isn’t when the police state
arrests you for criticizing them. Tyranny is when Peter Sweden or whoever is
suspended from Twitter for being racist. (Said in a 2018 Libertarian voice).

~~~
kurthr
Even with the parenthetical... Poe's law. I just can't tell any more.

~~~
orwin
I'm pretty sure this is satyric, but it bother me that even on HN, i have to
read this type of comment twice to understand the author.

------
assblaster
What is the line between exercise of free speech and incitement of violence?

If a white supremacist openly advocates for the murder of Jews and helps
organise armed militias, should that person be tracked by the FBI and
prosecuted?

If a high school student openly advocates for the murder of teachers and
flaunts his access to firearms and knives, should that person be tracked by
the FBI and prosecuted?

~~~
nwah1
I think you are being downvoted because you only read the headline.

I'm with you that it is ok for the FBI to track people's public comments when
they fit a risk profile, and to track their private communications with a
warrent.

But in this case, the problem is that this man was arrested and charged with a
vague terrorism thing for what amounts to facebook posts expressing sympathy
with copkillers.

But in the US, it is your legal right to do that.

~~~
thinkcontext
> this man was arrested and charged with a vague terrorism thing

Incorrect. He was charged with illegal possession of a firearm, that's a
specific and not vague thing. He was denied bail as a potential threat based
on him expressing sympathy for copkillers.

~~~
miek
His possession of firearms was legal, and the judge tossed that charge. They
didn't come to his home because they suspected an illegally possessed firearm.
It certainly appears that they came on a fishing expedition because he was
"identified" as a threat. The FBI admitted a lack of any direct threat.

~~~
thinkcontext
> They didn't come to his home because they suspected an illegally possessed
> firearm.

I was curious about this as well, the Foreign Policy article has more detail:

"In his affidavit, Keighley describes learning that Daniels placed a firearm
in his checked luggage — in compliance with airline regulations, according to
the defense — which was then delayed, before being returned to his home
address in Dallas.

The FBI obtained a search warrant on Dec. 7, based on Daniels’s prior
conviction, and the raid took place five days later."

[http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/01/30/is-a-court-case-in-
texas...](http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/01/30/is-a-court-case-in-texas-the-
first-prosecution-of-a-black-identity-extremist/)

This indicates the warrant was indeed for illegal possession.

~~~
miek
Interesting, nice find and thanks- I was curious as well. I guess the warrant
was wrongly issued and pursued then, given that the judge tossed that charge
out. If that is the case, it really seems to boil down to intimidation.

------
cruftyold
If you would like to see what the United States will look like in 2024, look
at Türkiye in 2018. Watching it all unfold is terrifying. All major countries
right now are switching from Republics to single-man rule populists.

~~~
mobilefriendly
Sorry, America was a republic centuries before Turkey and doesn't have the
same authoritarian cultural tradition.

~~~
logfromblammo
No tradition can survive beyond the lifespan of a man, unless it is passed
down to the children.

The ones who voted in 2016 are not children of the revolution. They aren't
even children of the children of the revolution. They grew up saying the
Pledge of Allegiance every day in school, and standing for the national anthem
before every sporting event.

It isn't the _same_ authoritarian cultural tradition, but America is _very_
authoritarian at the median. It thankfully retains a long, fat, and largely
disorganized tail pointing towards libertarian, that moderates the laws and
policies that are able to be enacted.

Even now, some people clamor for censorship, establishment of religion,
restrictions on the press, gun control, expanded police powers, punishments
without due process, abolition of the electoral college, for-profit prison
labor, etc. There isn't a right crucial to liberty that some number of
Americans isn't shouting to repeal and abolish. But they don't have the votes.
Not yet.

More voters are being born every day, and they are being taught to believe in
certain things, so they will vote their beliefs when they grow to voting age.
It can happen here. It can all fall apart within a single generation.

