Saint Paul 2008

Two articles in the past few days touch on the demonstrations and protests predicted to take place during the 2008 RNC convention here in St. Paul - one in the Minnesota Daily, the University of Minnesota newspaper, is highly entertaining, despite having no real purpose or point (but such is the case with many of the MN Daily’s articles).

The second, an online blurb in City Pages, our “alternative” weekly paper, makes us once again wonder how Tom Walsh became spokesperson for the SPPD, as he evidently fails to remain Minnesota Nice amid questioning about police monitoring of activists. (Then again, unlike Paul Schnell, he actually seems to have a clue about what he speaks of.)

We’re fairly confident the overworked and understaffed SPPD aren’t going to be doing nearly as much of the legwork in investigating dissidents as the NYPD did in 2004; rather, we expect the nice men and women of The Bureau to be handling such things. From people we’ve spoken to, and a few things we’ve seen, we’re fairly confident they may have already begun researching potential troublemakers.

What remains to be seen is whether the current investigations are just background (266A-0 / 266A-00), or whether individuals and groups are actually being targeted yet. If pressed for an answer, we’d guess the former - and that the real, serious investigations of individuals and groups are going to begin in mid-September, or even early October, of this year. Either way, the St. Paul Police will probably be the recipients of far more intelligence than they produce, if only thanks to the generally less-restrictive guidelines the Bureau can operate under.