In November, Pennsylvania’s Homeland Security issued a bulletin stating that two Tea Party rallies against illegal immigration might attract “white nationalists.” The report was issued by the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response, an Israeli company.
“I think it is one of the more bizarre things I’ve ever heard,” Karen Kiefer, a Tea Party activist from Scottdale, told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on Saturday. “A lot of people say they never feel safer than at a Tea Party rally. They got $103,000 in taxpayers’ money to compile these bogus lists? That is absolutely shocking.”
Appearing on the Alex Jones Show on Thursday, investigative journalist Wayne Madsen discussed the involvement of the Israeli company in an effort by Pennsylvania’s Homeland Security to spy on activists exercising their First Amendment.
On Wednesday, Infowars.com reported that Pennsylvania paid a Philadelphia-based nonprofit $125,000 to compile a list of activists as part of the state Homeland Security’s federally mandated mission to protect public infrastructure. Pittsburgh officials have refused to comment on the role ITRR played in tracking and sabotaging activist groups that planned to protest the 2009 G20 summit in their city.
