In which we learn that the FBI can protect things that are not built yet.

e haven't dropped in for a while on the Keystone XL pipeline, the continent-spanning death funnel and conservative fetish object. But, don't worry. Other people were looking out for it.

Internal agency documents show for the first time how FBI agents have been closely monitoring anti-Keystone activists, in violation of guidelines designed to prevent the agency from becoming unduly involved in sensitive political issues...The documents reveal that one FBI investigation, run from its Houston field office, amounted to "substantial non-compliance" of Department of Justice rules that govern how the agency should handle sensitive matters. One FBI memo, which set out the rationale for investigating campaigners in the Houston area, touted the economic advantages of the pipeline while labelling its opponents "environmental extremists."

Dear True The Vote et. al: This is what political pressure from the government actually looks like.

The FBI files appear to suggest the Houston branch of the investigation was opened in early 2013, several months after a high-level strategy meeting between the agency and TransCanada, the company building the pipeline.For a period of time – possibly as long as eight months – agents acting beyond their authority were monitoring activists aligned with Tar Sands Blockade. Tar Sands Blockade appeared on the FBI's radar in late 2012, not long after the group began organising in east Houston, the end destination for Keystone's 1,660-mile pipeline. Environmental activists affiliated with the group were committed to peaceful civil disobedience that can involve minor infractions of law, such as trespass. But they had no history of violent or serious crime.Ron Seifert, a key organiser at Tar Sands Blockade, said dozens of campaigners were arrested in Texas for protest-related activity around that time, but not one of them was accused of violent crime or property destruction.

First of all, what in the hell is the FBI doing having private planning sessions with a foreign company? Second, it's important to remember that, at the moment, the pipeline by and large is a dormant project. Not much of the disputed stretch of it is being built. So, it is fair to conclude that what the FBI and TransCanada really were cooking up was a counter-propaganda operation using the investigative auspices of the FBI. In other words, the FBI office in Houston joined in ratfking the opposition to the pipeline. Gordon Liddy must be weeping for joy.

And, of course, terrorism.

One of the files refers to Houston police officers who stopped two men and a woman taking photographs near the city's industrial port, noting they were using a "large and sophisticated looking" camera. Two of the individuals were described as having larger subject files in the FBI's Guardian Threat Tracking System. In another incident, the license plate belonging to a Silver Dodge was dutifully entered into the FBI's database, after a "source" spotted the driver and another man photographing a building associated with TransCanada...The documents connect the investigation into anti-Keystone activists to other "domestic terrorism issues" in the agency and show there was some liaison with the local FBI "assistant weapons of mass destruction coordinator".Mike German, a former FBI agent, who assisted the Guardian in deciphering the bureau's documentation, said they indicated the agency had opened a category of investigation that is known in agency parlance as an "assessment".Introduced as part of an expansion of FBI powers after 9/11, assessments allow agents to open intrusive investigations into individuals or groups, even if they have no reason to believe they are breaking the law.

I should stop being shocked by very much but, seriously, an FBI office acting as a private security force for a foreign energy giant, like a bunch of retired cops working a guard shack at a construction site, seems to me to be a waste of taxpayer's money...to say nothing of a couple of amendments to the Constitution. I guess this is what cooperation within a dynamic global economy looks like.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/30170-the-fbi-takes-an-interest-in-the-keystone-xl-pipeline?tmpl=component&print=1&layout=default&page=