“They were asking me to inform,” said a protester, one of dozens contacted by the FBI, who was arrested while playing the cello at ICE’s Delaney Hall.

Rozendaal was arrested by the New Jersey State Police and, according to an arrest report viewed by The Intercept, charged with one count of obstructing law enforcement. The charge was minor — but a week later, things took a strange turn when Rozendaal received a call from the FBI.

“The agent said, ‘We’re calling because you were arrested at Delaney Hall,’” Rozendaal told The Intercept. (The FBI declined to comment.)

In the following minutes, Rozendaal said the agents asked if he would be willing to provide the FBI with information on protesters that they described as “anybody planning to go to Delaney Hall with not the right intentions.”

“So, I mean, they were asking me to inform,” Rozendaal said.

Rozendaal is not the only Delaney Hall protester to receive a call from the FBI.

In the weeks since arrests began stacking up at the protests — approximately 90 people have been arrested so far — at least half of those taken into custody have received calls from federal agents looking for information, according to Benjamin Van Meter, a deputy public defender with the Essex County Public Defender’s Office who represents a number of protesters facing charges

    • FiniteBanjo@feddit.onlineEnglish
      82·
      1 month ago

      That is a wonderful plan and absolutely worth the risks, but just so everyone knows what those risks are:

      Refusing to be an informant is legal.

      Being an informant is (usually) legal.

      Be careful sending disinformation as an informant because they could try to charge you with obstruction of justice and making false reports to law enforcement, although given how unlawful the ICE is you could probably get away with claiming entrapment. These dudes work more for private prison industry than the US Government, putting people in their work camps is the whole goal.

      EDIT: Oh, here is an idea, have another person send you the false information via text or email, then when you provide that disinformation to the fuzz it is totally legal: you didn’t lie and the person who did lied to you not the fuzz.