Summary of the COINTELPRO-like operation against
this website, its sister websites, and their owner, Stephen DeVoy
We have documentation for all claims made herein. The documentation
has been taken off-line in order to protect innocent individuals and to
protect the identity of suspects. Arrangements can be made to provide the
documentation to all individuals with a demonstrable need to know. We
reserve the right to refuse to provide this documentation at our discretion.
Stephen DeVoy, the editor of the websites Break Your Chains, Stop
Fascism, and Rational Anarchism as well as the former Internet forums known
as Your Soap Box and the Middle East Forum became the target of a COINTELPRO-like
operation while under the employ of a defense contractor. His position at
this defense contractor was that of Director of the Programming Department.
In this capacity he was involved in several projects that later became known
as the Information Awareness Office, a DARPA project under the management of
John Poindexter.
Prior to the commencement of the COINTELPR-like operation, hereafter
referred to simply as "the operation," Mr. DeVoy published several articles
on the Internet promulgating his theory of Rational Anarchism. After the
9/11 attacks, Mr. DeVoy published articles expressing his concern about the
application of surveillance technology to the war on terrorism. Mr. DeVoy
ran two Internet forums were issues concerning current events and the Middle
East were discussed.
While under the employ of this defense contractor, hereafter referred
to simply as "the employer," Mr. DeVoy attended regular management meetings
for the employer. At these meetings several projects involving assistance
to DARPA's war effort were discussed. The prospect of doing classified work
was considered at these meetings. Mr. DeVoy stated his belief that should
the employer pursue such work, it would be in the employer's best interest
to form a separate business entity specifically for this purpose so that
individuals working for the employer who were not in agreement with the
United States Government's approach to the war on terror could safely remain
employed without being subject to security clearances.
The president of the corporation, in response to this statement,
declared that anyone not supporting the United States Government's position
on the war on terror should not be working for the employer.
The president of the corporation presented, at one management meeting,
the prospect of working on a project proposed by an unnamed intelligence
agency. This project entailed aggressive computer warfare against enemies
of the United States of America. The president of the corporation would not
divulge whether or not these "enemies" included domestic targets. It was
the feeling of the majority of managers at that time that such a project
presented sufficient future damage to the reputation of the corporation that
the corporation would not pursue it. This project is mentioned to establish
the fact that an intelligence agency within the United States Government was
seeking to employ private entities in a possibly illegal cyber war on its
behalf. Mr. DeVoy is aware that in addition to DARPA, the employer
discussed various projects with the NSA, the CIA, and the FBI.
At one management meeting prior to the above, another manager made a
point of deriding Mr. DeVoy for being an avowed anarchist with an anarchist
website. This may be salient. The president of this corporation has
intimated that the FBI informed him that upon the arrest of Ted Kaczynski,
aka "the Unibomber," the FBI had found the name of the president of this
corporation on Mr. Kaczynski's hit list. For years thereafter the president
of this corporation had a fear of opening packages. There is still evidence
of this fear. This topic is mentioned because Ted Kaczynski is a self
avowed anarchist. This may establish motive on behalf of the employer to
color his assessment of Mr. DeVoy based on Mr. DeVoy's ideology.
In March of 2002, Mr. DeVoy wrote a message upon one of his forums
explaining his belief that the Mossad may have been involved in the attacks
of 9/11. Mr. DeVoy's belief was based on the revelation of an Israeli spy
ring operating in the US, corroborating evidence that the story was true (an
email sent a year before to his office, from the DoD, stating that such a
spy ring existed), reported sightings of Israelis in a moving van filming
the collapse of the WTC and cheering it, evidence that the Mossad agents
trailed al Qaeda operatives in the US, and a history of similar operations
by the Mossad.
Immediately upon posting the message, the operation began. Mr. DeVoy
began receiving death threats by email and via messages posted on his
forum. Documentation of these threats exists and can be provided. In April
of 2002 Mr. DeVoy received a specific death threat at around midnight one
evening. In order to protect himself and his family, he gathered his wife
and daughter together, and drove down to San Antonio (from Austin) in the
middle of the night, staying at a hotel. In the morning Mr. DeVoy returned
to his home, emailed the head of human resources explaining his situation,
and explained that he needed to stay home with his family for the day for
their protection. Mr. DeVoy asked the manager of human resources not to
share the information with anyone. Despite this request, she sent it to the
president of the company anyway. The president of the company sent Mr.
DeVoy an email message in which he expressed concern only for the time Mr.
DeVoy would not work that day, insisting that the time be counted as
vacation. Additionally, he derided Mr. DeVoy for suggesting that he could
make up the time.
Immediately following this incident, the president of the corporation
began to make management changes concerning individuals reporting to Mr.
DeVoy without consulting Mr. DeVoy. His demeanor became hostile. One month
later he demoted Mr. DeVoy from Director to programmer. In the process of
doing so, he lied to Mr. DeVoy's colleagues claiming falsely that he had
discussed the changes with him before the day the changes were implemented.
In May, the day after Mr. DeVoy was demoted, Mr. DeVoy had the
unfortunate experience of being cornered during lunch by the president of
the company and another manager. This other manager asked Mr. DeVoy, in
front of the president of the company, whether it was true that Mr. DeVoy
was the owner of two Anarchist websites and whether Mr. DeVoy was, in fact,
an anarchist. The president of the company expressed his belief that such
ideas were unworkable and dangerous.
Approximately one month later, Mr. DeVoy went to lunch with his new
boss. At that lunch his new boss expounded about his plans to implemented
software that would monitor all of the activities of employees with respect
to their actions on their work stations. He expressed his support for
government spying on civilians during this time of war. Mr. DeVoy expressed
his disagreement with his boss' position. The new boss derided Mr. DeVoy
for being an anarchist.
During this period, the frequency of death threats waxed and waned.
There were days when much online harassment ensued. There were days when
little ensued. Some of threats included claims that Mr. DeVoy would soon be
unemployed due to his political views. Mr. DeVoy was fired in June.
In September the death threats intensified. A group of individuals
joined together, online, as an organization and began waging a cyber war
against Mr. DeVoy. We have documentation of the recruitment process of this
cyber war, the online names of the individuals involved, and various
documents detailing the identities of several of these "online warriors."
We can confirm, with certainty, that several are ex-military and at least
one appears to be presently within the military. We have evidence of the
involvement of a defense contractor, two NSA assets, an employee of a
newspaper in North Carolina, and possible evidence of concerning a right
wing cable news journalist. Most importantly, we have very strong evidence
suggesting that an individual employed with said employer, ostensibly a
female, has been feeding personal information, some of it fabricated, to
this group of cyber terrorists. Evidence suggests that this information
includes medical information and other information from his personnel file.
While this odd assortment of individuals may seem surprising, we'd
like to point out that there are three layers to the operation. The first
layer appears to be sponsored by an intelligence agency. The second layer
appears to be a group of individuals that were easily recruited,
anonymously. The patriotic/nationalist impulses of these individuals were
exploited to the benefit of the operation. This layer is the most visible.
They are unaware that they are being manipulated. From their point of view,
they are doing what they believe to be best for their country (though, they
are mistaken in this belief). Regrettably, they also stand the most to
lose. It is my preference to avoid taking action against this second layer
if the information I need for pursuit of the other two layers becomes
available. Recent acquisitions of information make this prospect
promising. The third layer appears to be an opportunistic sniping campaign
by one or two mentally unstable individuals with an imagined axe to grind.
In addition to violations of privacy, death threats, online
harassment, and cyber stalking, Mr. DeVoy's websites have been the target of
hacking attempts, his email has been spoofed in an effort to provoke
complaints against him, and many viruses have been sent to Mr. DeVoy by
spoofed emails fraudulently including the email addresses of other activists
as an apparent attempt to cause discord within the dissident community. We
have documentation for these claims.
As a result of this harassment and the defamation online, Mr. DeVoy
has found it difficult to be employed. On one short term project, Mr. DeVoy
was confronted by another worker with defaming posts posted in Mr. DeVoy's
name. His boss sent him an email indicating his awareness of the
harassment. Under present circumstances, Mr. DeVoy doubts that he can find
a job in his field of work as a direct result of the operation.
Most recently, the level of harassment has broken from the Internet
and included a defaming and libelous email read by Bill O'Reilly on the
"Factor." This email was fraudulently sent in Mr. DeVoy's name. Somehow
Mr. O'Reilly failed to properly verify the email (assuming that it was sent
to him at all).
Finally, we'd like to point out that Mr. DeVoy reported these death
threats to the Austin Police Department and the Travis Country District
Attorney. Mr. DeVoy reported these threats to the FBI by email, telephone,
and in person. We have evidence proving that one individual within the
operation has communicated with the same FBI agent that Mr. DeVoy
communicated with. Despite this, the FBI, the Austin Police Department, and
the Travis County District Attorney have done absolutely nothing about these
federal and local crimes.
This brings us to the current moment. Those with a keen interest in
this matter are welcome to contact Mr. DeVoy at:
srdevoy@aol.com
