© Christian O'Rourke/Survival Media Agency
When more than 300
protesters assembled in May at the Holiday Inn in Lakewood, Colorado — the venue chosen by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for an auction of oil and gas leases on public lands —
several of the demonstrators were in fact undercover agents sent by law enforcement to keep tabs on the demonstration, according to emails obtained by
The Intercept.
The "Keep it in the Ground" movement, a broad effort to block the development of drilling projects, has rapidly gained traction over the last year,
raising pressure on the Obama administration to curtail hydraulic fracturing, known as
fracking, and coal mining on federal public lands. In response, government agencies and industry groups have sharply criticized the activists in public, while quietly moving to track their activities.
The emails, which were obtained through an open records act request, show that the Lakewood Police Department
collected details about the protest
from undercover officers as the event was being planned. During the auction,
both local law enforcement and federal agents went undercover among the protesters.
The emails further show that
police monitored Keep it in the Ground participating groups such as
350.org, Break Free Movement, Rainforest Action Network, and WildEarth Guardians, while relying upon
intelligence gathered by Anadarko, one of the largest oil and gas producers in the region.
Comment: The xenophobia and racism in the US has reached absurd levels. As Boing Boing's Rob Beschizza astutely notes: