Second Subpoena Issued for Iowa Grand Jury
Almost a month after Twin Cities activist Carrie Feldman was subpoenaed to an Iowa grand jury, another activist was served a subpoena on the same street corner at the same time and same day of the week. Late Monday afternoon, Scott DeMuth's car was surrounded by a gaggle of local and federal unmarked vehicles on 31st Street near Powderhorn Park. Several men got out, nervously walked to the car, and handed DeMuth the subpoena requesting his fingerprints.
Both activists have been asked to appear next Tuesday before the Davenport, Iowa grand jury that appears to be investigating a 2004 Animal Liberation Front action targeting vivisection at the University of Iowa. At the time, Feldman was a 15-year-old high school sophomore in Minneapolis.
Related: Subpoena PDF | Statement from DeMuth/Support Info | Thursday: Grand-Jury Send-off Potluck and Hip-hop Show @ Seward Cafe | 10-14: Local Activist Subpoenaed to Grand Jury in Iowa | Solidarity Rally Also: Bogus Subpoena Against US Indymedia | Video: Carrie Feldman on Grand Juries & Luce Guillen-Givens on the Green Scare
Both she and DeMuth have previously faced harassment due to their activism around the RNC, prisoner support, decolonization and other issues, and it appears the subpoenas are an attempt to take advantage of a dead-end investigation by extending that harassment and repression.
Solidarity rallies have been called for the Tuesday of the Grand Jury both in Davenport and at the Federal Courthouse in Minneapolis. On that day, Feldman will be going before the grand jury for the second time.
If the prosecution fails to be pleased, it's likely they will seek immunity for the witnesses in an attempt to compel testimony. Upon further refusal to cooperate with the fishing expedition, a resister could be jailed for the length of the grand jury, up to 12 months.
"Grand juries have been used as an integral tactic in the Green Scare, which is the ongoing repression of both legal and illegal activities of the environmentalist and animal rights/animal liberation movements," wrote DeMuth in a statement about his subpoena. Given changing attitudes about animal rights and the FBI and animal research industry's frustration at the unsolved 2004 action, the subpoenas are less than surprising.
Last week, the Minneapolis Star Tribune published an article describing the animal research industry's attempt to salvage their declining public image through a national advertising campaign, including 15 billboards in the Twin Cities. A national poll cited in the article found that only 52% of Americans currently support animal research, down 18% from nine years ago.
On Monday, the Star Tribune followed up by reporting that a professor implicated in animal torture at the University of Minnesota is receiving security at his home when his name showed up on an anti-torture website.
Troublesome, too, for the FBI, must be the breaking of the grand jury's secrecy, and what has so far been a largely successful culture of noncooperation with questionable federal tactics in the midwest. In a separate grand jury case that hit both alternative and corporate media outlets Tuesday, a subpoena seeking the IP addresses of visitors to Indymedia.US (records which aren't even kept by Indymedia) was de-fanged by its exposure and noncooperation. That grand jury seems to have been investigating environmental activists opposing the construction of I-69 in Indiana.
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Comments
Ahaha! Do these fuckers even
I would argue that yes, they
I would argue that yes, they do; hence why they are being targeted.
or fishing
well a lot of times grand juries are just fishing expeditions in order to see who can be found. so they don't neccesarily have a specific target, though they seem to have a specific case they're investigating, but i'm sure if they can dredge up other folks involved in related "crimes" they'd be happy.
I believe that grand juries
I believe that grand juries exist specifically to bring indictments and do so in 99.99999999% of cases. So it's probably safe to assume the feds have a "target" even if they do go on a fishing expedition and abuse the process and subpoena every known radical, everyone named Bob, etc.
Scott, it is an inspiration
Carrie and Scott.
The United States is very familiar with "full spectrum dominance", a strategy used to take out insurrections/revolutions before they even have a chance to take root (Examples of taking root: Greece, France, most of Europe). For they know it will be much harder to take out an enemy that is everywhere later then take out individuals who are isolated now.
Carrie and Scott have been busting their asses for years and subsequently have become two roots the feds want very badly to rip from the ground.
That said, the feds use grand juries not solely to place indictments, but also as an excuse to freeze the lives (if you can't pull a root out, you may as well cut it off where it leaves the ground) of those they hold contempt for.
Enter: Carrie Feldman and Scott Demuth.
These two are not necessarily being targeted for anything they did, but the threat they pose to the grapple hold the state apparatus has over all our lives. In that sense, Grand Juries are very cloak and dagger.
The Cloak: "Look everyone, we're just investigating a crime! They could just answer these questions and be just fine"
The Dagger: Federal prosecutors aren't dip shits. They know damn well that Scott and Carrie wouldn't talk. Thus, putting them in check for contempt of courts. Thus, landing them in jail. Thus, immobilizing them and putting a temporary freeze on their threat.
These fucks will go to any extent to stop us. Right now, they only have the ability to stop Carrie and Scott's intentions for a little while.
The best way to help Carrie, Scott, and any other potential targets of grand juries is to all become PERMANENT individual threats of our own. Create so many roots that no matter how hard they pull they'll never get us all. In our collective hostility/aggression, we provide cover for each other and pose the question to our enemies, "How will they stop us?".
When asked at their potluck, "How can we show solidarity? What is it that you want?" Scott requested us to step back, assess ourselves, have heart, drop the transient scenester mentality, and become a lifer. There you have it. GET MOVING!