“Black Identity Extremist” is a term the FBI made up to target Black people who protest police brutality and campaign for racial justice. Demand that the FBI release all documents related to the “BIE” designation and dismantle this program.

Friend,

White-supremacist violence is on the rise, yet the FBI is using its power to target and surveil Black people organizing against police brutality by conflating peaceful protesters with domestic terrorist threats.

In 2017, a leaked intelligence report showed that after police killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, the FBI identified Black-led movements protesting police brutality as possible domestic terrorist threats. The report labeled activists participating in these movements as “Black Identity Extremists” (BIE) and falsely suggests that they are a threat to the safety of police officers.¹

Let’s be clear: “Black Identity Extremists” do not exist. This is a fictitious classification the FBI is using to surveil and discredit activists. Demand that the FBI release all documents pertaining to BIE and stop targeting Black activists.

The FBI created the “Black Identity Extremist” designation to cast suspicion on a movement for racial justice and Black liberation. This classification creates a way for law enforcement to collect data on, monitor and deploy informants to keep tabs on individuals and groups it believes are associated with the fight for racial justice.

The program is eerily similar to the FBI’s targeting of Martin Luther King Jr., the Black Panthers and other civil-rights activists under COINTELPRO in the 1950s and ’60s. And it’s part of the long history of the U.S. government aggressively monitoring protest movements and working to disrupt civil-rights groups.

But there’s good news: Our friends at the Center for Media Justice and the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program are suing the FBI — demanding the release of all documents pertaining to the wrongful surveillance of Black activists and Black-led movements under the “Black Identity Extremist” designation.”²

Keep the pressure on the FBI to release all documents related to the “Black Identity Extremist” label and dismantle its surveillance program targeting Black activists.

Thanks for all that you do,

Lucia, Sandy, Candace and the rest of the Free Press team
freepress.net

P.S. The FBI has no business spying on activists fighting for racial justice. Urge the Bureau to release all information pertaining to the “Black Identity Extremist” designation and dismantle its surveillance program targeting Black activists.

1. “FBI Terrorism Unit Says ‘Black Identity Extremists’ Pose a Violent Threat,” The Guardian, Oct. 6, 2017: https://act.freepress.net/go/22693?t=9&akid=12661%2E10296224%2EwaOEAz

2. “The ACLU and the Center for Media Justice Filed a Freedom of Information Act Lawsuit Seeking Records About FBI Targeting of Black Activists,” ACLU, March 21, 2019: https://act.freepress.net/go/30769?t=11&akid=12661%2E10296224%2EwaOEAz