This week, M4BL, along with our partners at CLEAR, released a report, Struggle for Power: The Ongoing Persecution of Black Movement by the U.S. Government, documenting how the federal government deliberately targeted supporters of the movement to defend Black lives during the Summer 2020 uprisings. This was done to disrupt and discourage Black organizing and power-building. To protect protestors for racial justice and Black liberation, we need to weaken the ties between state/local and federal law enforcement. One of the best ways to do that would be to organize for the abolition of so-called Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) nationwide.

We know the U.S. government has a long history of using police and federal law enforcement to suppress social movements for peace and justice. The JTTF is a partnership between the FBI and local, municipal, state, and/or other federal law-enforcement agencies around the country. Agents, officers, and detectives working for the JTTF have been ordered to focus on the nationwide movement to defend Black lives. The FBI and the JTTFs it leads throughout the country are known for their attempts to question people at home, the workplace, organizing spaces, jails, by phone, near or at places of worship, and in other ways, all to collect information about individuals and movements. This practice can sow fear and distrust among activists, disrupting important organizing work.

During the 2020 uprisings, JTTFs were mobilized by then–Attorney General Barr to help stop “domestic terrorism,” a term with racist connotations. This was just one example of the federal government spreading anti-BLM propaganda and casting protestors as “violent radicals” in order to seize power in local communities and charge protestors with inflated federal indictments that carry significantly harsher penalties than local charges under state law.

As we commemorate Black August, we ask that you sign this petition for the abolition of the nationwide network of JTTFs, a tool of the federal government that has been used to try and silence those who protest in defense of Black lives.

I support:

• The abolition of the JTTF in my locality

• Pushing for the redistribution of state and federal resources away from policing and punishment and toward collective care

• Demands for local authorities to pledge against participation in federal prosecutions of protesters by barring their local employees from testifying for the prosecution