When we worked with Billionaires For Bush, the grassroots media campaign that pretended to support our favorite Appointee, we often heard card-game speculation on which of our members secretly worked for the FBI. No one was sure that anyone was working for the FBI, but not too long ago, our suspicions turned out to be true-- documents revealed that the NYPD and other authority figures had infiltrated our ranks to determine if we were up to any good, er, up to any terror-related activities for the Republican National Convention or any other anti-GOP activities.

Of course, the question this always raised was: why were those not supporting the President more likely to do something violent than the nutjob warmongers furious at the anti-war Democratic convention?

Now, it turns out, those questions will be raised again this year, as the FBI is attempting to infiltrate, to our eternal amusement, "vegan potlucks."

“She told me that I had the perfect ‘look,’” recalls Carroll. “And that I had the perfect personality—they kept saying I was friendly and personable—for what they were looking for.”

What they were looking for, Carroll says, was an informant—someone to show up at “vegan potlucks” throughout the Twin Cities and rub shoulders with RNC protesters, schmoozing his way into their inner circles, then reporting back to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, a partnership between multiple federal agencies and state and local law enforcement. The effort’s primary mission, according to the Minneapolis division’s website, is to “investigate terrorist acts carried out by groups or organizations which fall within the definition of terrorist groups as set forth in the current United States Attorney General Guidelines.”

Carroll would be compensated for his efforts, but only if his involvement yielded an arrest. No exact dollar figure was offered.

Read more at City Pages. 

Photo of the author and friends via the Associated Press.