Activist Secretly Videotapes FBI Visit in Des Moines, Iowa

by Will Potter on October 7, 2011

in Government Priorities

fbi-alf-iowaIt’s not often that we get to see the FBI in action as agents harass activists. This video is of two FBI agents visiting the owner of Best Place Ever, a video store, and questioning him about last night’s release of mink from a fur farm in Jewel, Iowa. The agents suspect the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) was behind the raid, and question the man about any communication he may have with former ALF prisoner Peter Young. The FBI is investigating the mink release as “domestic terrorism.”

The video is pretty funny and worth a watch (and kudos to the gentleman at the store for taping it!). But I think it’s really important to point out that, if you are ever visited by the FBI, for any reason, the best thing to do is to say absolutely nothing. Not a little bit, not a sentence or two — nothing.

I’m not saying this because of what the person in the video says (I actually can’t make out anything he says, because it has been dubbed over) but because it is always, without a doubt, the best way to protect your rights and the rights of those in your community. As a lawyer friend of mine noted, anything you say could be twisted against you: “If, for instance, this gentleman said he knew nothing but actually did, they could get him on lying to a federal officer. So, like the overdubbing says, just say you’re not interested in talking to them.”

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