OFF THE WIRE
agingrebel.com
The Orlando Sentinel ran a fatuous story last Sunday. It was a “Sentinel Exclusive” about a bust last May. The author of the exclusive, Henry Pierson Curtis, led with the statement, “A neo-Nazi motorcycle gang created by an undercover law-enforcement unit to investigate white supremacists and racist bikers has helped topple two domestic-terrorism groups in Central Florida.”
The “neo-Nazi motorcycle gang” was the “1st Kavallerie Brigade.” According to a report titled “Extremism in Florida: The Dark Side of the Sunshine State” published by the Anti-Defamation League in 2011 the group was intended to ‘provide an outlet for racially aware bikers.’ In June 2008, 11 members and associates of the group had to be taken to the hospital after its motorcycle procession was struck by a car going the wrong way in Osceola County, Florida. Despite this setback, by November 2008 the group claimed three units in Florida and one unit in Tennessee.
“The Florida Kavallerie Brigade,” the ADL report continued, “has close ties to the Florida Chapter of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club. A number of Outlaw MC members wear the Kavallerie Brigade flash on their colors or berets. The Kavallerie flash resembles the 5th Army Special Forces Group flash, depicting a silver totenkopf or “deaths head” (a Nazi Symbol) wearing motorcycle goggles.
“The founder of the Brigade is Robert “Doc” Fenaughty of Saint Cloud, Florida, who rides with the Outlaws MC and describes himself as the Florida Affiliate Coordinator for Aryan Nations. He also used slogans such as ‘Support your local Aryan Nations Cavalry Brigade, defending your right to be white.’”
It now appears that Fenaughty was working for the government all along.
Creating Enemies Out Of Air
The Sentinel does not name Fenaughty but does say, “The original investigation began in 2007, when an undisclosed agent traded emails with August Kreis III, a leader of the Aryan Nations hate group…. Using a false identity, the agent with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office became the Aryan Nations’ top Florida administrator responsible for recruiting members for what would become the 1st SS Kavallerie Brigade Motorcycle Division — operating out of a clubhouse in St. Cloud.”
The Sentinel calls the “sting” “the region’s most complex undercover operation in decades” and quotes a State Attorney named Lawson Lamar as saying, “We have a duty to stop what they were doing.” Lamar was talking about the “neo-Nazi motorcycle gang” and not the FBI.
The Florida Kavallerie Brigade appears to have had nine members. Three of them were undercover police officers and the other six were arrested last Spring.
An Orlando man named David Gletty sold them drugs. Gletty was a paid, FBI confidential informant who also organized a neo-Nazi march near Orlando in 2006. It is still unclear whether that march was also funded by the FBI.
National Security
The investigation lasted for five years and it was only revealed because the statute of limitations was running out on the crimes the victims of this sting allegedly committed. Most of those crimes were related to lessons by one of the FBI undercovers about how to blow stuff up. The Sentinel exclusive goes on to report, “Once the operation into the Kavallerie Brigade began, the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force installed enough hidden microphones and cameras in the clubhouse to stage a reality-TV show. Unaware of being filmed and recorded, Klose (one of the fall guys in the sting) warned members to be wary of the post-9-11 Patriot Act, which gave police new surveillance powers, and to never admit they belonged to the Kavallerie Brigade.”
What may be most interesting about the case is that it exemplifies America’s “War On Terror. To this day, many Americans naively believe that war has something to do with Arab terrorists. What that war is really about is funding the transformation of the United States into a police state – which has been partially accomplished by the federalization of local police.
According to the Department of Justice, “Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) are small cells of highly trained, locally based, passionately committed investigators, analysts, linguists, SWAT experts, and other specialists from dozens of U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies. It is a multi-agency effort led by the Justice Department and FBI designed to combine the resources of federal, state, and local law enforcement. The National JTTF was established in July 2002 to serve as a coordinating mechanism with the FBI’s partners. Some 40 agencies are now represented in the NJTTF, which has become a focal point for information sharing and the management of large-scale projects that involve multiple partners.”
Another DOJ statement offers a brief explanation of what this federalization of local police means. “As described in the National Strategy for Information Sharing, fusion centers serve as focal points within the state and local environment for the receipt, analysis, gathering, and sharing of threat-related information among federal and state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) partners. They produce actionable intelligence for dissemination, which can aid other law enforcement organizations, including the JTTFs, in their investigative operations. Owned and operated by state and local entities, fusion centers serve the specific needs of their jurisdictions while supporting the broader homeland security enterprise. Fusion centers overlay national intelligence with local, state, and regional information, enhancing understanding of the threat environment across all levels of government. They augment the federal government’s analytic capability and enhance situational awareness in order to protect the nation.”
In its exclusive, the Sentinel neglected to report how many people were arrested, how many police were involved in this investigation, or how much this counterterrorism effort cost.
