DUEL IN THE SHADOWS:  IDAHO HARASSMENT  [HUNTER GRAY  -- DECEMBER ]  UPDATED FEBRUARY 26 2007

NOTE BY HUNTER BEAR:   January 1, 2007

We view this as a most important page.  It will certainly be updated as needed. At this point, we have attached a highly relevant piece from The Washington Post [12/31/06] and that herewith follows my own personal account.  Our Lair of Hunterbear website contains much indeed on my to-date long career as an activist social justice organizer.  There is considerable material on my family background and myself -- and a key dimension of that is contained in the Special Tribute which includes, among other components, statements from dozens of colleagues and friends over my long life sojourn.  Early on there is the kind statement given by Mississippi Congressman Bennie Thompson [a Tougaloo College grad] which he presented as a tribute to me -- to the United States Congress on February 10, 2004.  The Tribute Link is

http://hunterbear.org/special_tribute_page_for_hunter.htm

And see our very contemporary web page:

http://hunterbear.org/HUNTER%20GRAY%20IN%20NEW%20WEST%20MAGAZINE.htm

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We seem to have once again become the focus of consistent and surreptitious
surveillance in Idaho.  [After all, I am one of the few, maybe about the
only, open -- I say open -- "Resident Radical" in this generally pleasant and appealing
setting.]  More on the latest in a few moments -- but first some background:

Our Organizer's Trail has been indeed a "Romany Trail" -- a "long, long
trail 'a winding."  In the Summer of '97, we came here to our 'way up  home on
the far western "frontier" edge of Pocatello, Idaho:   a town embracing about
65,000  folks in its "metro area."  No sooner did we arrive than we were
greeted by widespread harassment from so-termed lawmen.  This appeared to be
conducted under the Bill Clinton-sponsored "anti-terrorism task forces"
involving Feds and state and local cops. And it certainly had just plain
racist implications. We made protests at many levels, launched organizing
and advocacy projects, spoke at various gatherings, and stayed stubbornly
right here -- where we remain and will continue to remain until Hell
freezes.

Some of the flavor from that epoch is reflected in this from early 2001:

Early 2001 [Hunter Bear]:

"But, no sooner did we arrive [in Idaho], than it became clear that my
reputation as a "known agitator" had preceded me.  Police began almost immediate
surveillance.  We began having weird phone problems -- sometimes with a
crudeness reminiscent of our civil rights years in the Deep South.  Heavy
mail delays -- including innumerable stalled and sometimes opened Priority
packages -- became commonplace. [Three detailed complaints on my part to
regional postal inspectors at Seattle have gone unanswered, unacknowledged.]
Our garbage has been surreptitiously searched.  Idaho State University --
here at Pocatello -- has fled  whenever I've sounded it out about part-time
teaching.  All of these -- and much much more -- including harassing phone
calls -- are continuing.

But with only an exception or two, our immediate neighbors  -- people who've
gotten to know us on a personal basis -- are friendly and fine."

_________________________________________________________

We kept at it and, in time , 2002 and 2003, some of this -- not all of it --
began to fade.  But since about a year ago, there has been a definite
resurgence.  This may stem in part from the fact that I have been giving, on
a fairly consistent basis, social justice talks to large audiences in the
general region.  Here is a brief report from about four months ago


Mid-August 2006 [Hunter Bear]:

"Since this past late winter, we have been having strange
problems with our telephones and especially computers -- leading us to
wonder if the older patterns of  some "lawmen"  harassment which
greeted us upon our arrival in Idaho in the summer of '97 may, at least in
some part, be resuming. Footprints in the snow appeared in our back yard
area -- obviously a night thing -- and, a couple of nights later, Cameron
[with Josie] driving up to our place, spotted a man coming out of our back
area and climbing over our fence and quickly disappearing.  There have been
a number of other odd things, including  midnight visits to our main power
pole on the edge of our  darkened property.  There has been some
surveillance.
Well, hard to tell, but we do think something is underway.

Our neighbors have certainly always been most friendly and supportive."

______________________________________________________________

And now -- late December, 2006:

My computer problems -- and it's a very solid machine -- have substantially
increased on several tech fronts.  E-messages that have been sent to me
have, on a few occasions at least, not made it through and some of my
messages have simply disappeared immediately after my composing them -- or
the cursor has frozen while I am writing.  Weird telephone calls -- both at
our cell phone and our unlisted main phone -- have become commonplace.  Some
conversations are hardly audible --  again, as per the Old Days in the Deep
South.

An interesting case in point occurred at the end of this last October, when
a son of mine, his wife, and several children came from Nebraska for a very
pleasant week-long visit. Arriving at Pocatello at midnight, and not wishing
to disturb us at that hour, they  took out a motel and then e-mailed both my
wife, Eldri, and myself at our separate computers.  Neither of us ever
received that message.  And then, a few days later, when my son and I had a
long breakfast and visit at Perkins, a man immediately came in behind us,
seated himself a few seats from us, and obviously observed us for an hour or
so.  Within a minute after we had left, he came out of the restaurant and,
seated in his vehicle, made a telephone call.

So, it's the Same Old Thing -- and many indeed in both this country and
Canada [among others] are experiencing this police state stuff.  The FBI,
according to my FOIA retrievals of 3,000 or so file documents [not counting
at least a hundred pages presently denied me on grounds of "national
security"] developed an acute interest in my doings when I was barely into
my '20s and formally listed me on several of its "high priority" rosters.
The retrieved documents go through the 1970s -- and only God and the Justice
Department  know how many more there are at this point.  [In addition, of
course, I have secured hundreds of pages from the old and very long-gone
Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission -- a kind of "secret police/spy
agency" that flourished from the latter '50s into the '70s.]

So this is nothing new.  We Keep On, Keeping On.  Given the transparency of
this Idaho-related stuff, it seems clear that the "point-persons" in this
bizarre project are essentially local "entities" -- but, of course, with a
Federal umbrella and endorsement.

And, through all of this, our good neighbors continue to be genuinely
pleasant in all respects.  And so do many others in this great state.

We are sticking right here.  Now and Forever.

UPDATE NOTE BY HUNTER BEAR  [FEBRUARY ]:

Suffice it to say that this endemic "spying" situation is continuing -- as we assume it will into the present-era future.

At this point, we have [1] taken the appropriate steps to safeguard ourselves, our house, and our grounds; and [2] quietly made some basic and initial moves to [in due course] ensure functional privacy with respect to such matters as our computers, telephones, and postal mail. 

Please note related information on the just above Link, "Hunter Gray in New West Magazine" [with reference, among  many other things, to Idaho State University.]  Note, too, the very apt comments, by our good Finnish friend Jyri Kokkonen, on both this page and the New West page -- regarding  Surveillance Bird Dogs [Stasi, KGB, et al.] and crudely obvious "spy" approaches generally.