Informant Alert: Resident of Berkeley, CA has Informed on anarchists, grand jury resisters

Informant Alert: Resident of Berkeley, CA has Informed on anarchists, grand jury resisters, animal and environmental activists.

In this statement Jamie Holland has disclosed that she has been an informant for the FBI in the past. They should not be allowed in any activist spaces or protests as they have co-operated with the police. She currently lives and works in Berkeley. She violated the consent of many people as she had not stepped forward about this issues in the past and still surrounds her self with activists who she has the potential to snitch on.

Below is here complete public statement:

Personal Disclosure Statement
Please Read, Comrades Especially!
Cn: brief mentions of racism, violence, and coercive tactics
Since we've been instantly transported to a place where activism is ramping up quickly again, and since this statement is long overdue, I'm sitting down to make sure this is now done in a timely manner.
Back in mid 2011 through the end of 2012 I had some occasional unpleasant interactions with the FBI that I need to talk about -- not for anyone else's protection, but for my own.
[Tl;dr: they literally tried to turn me into an informant. I refused, but had other interactions with one particular agent occasionally for about a year and a half. I did a couple of things she asked me to before I felt safe enough to say "No more," but didn't give her any information at any point. A lawyer from the National Lawyers Guild, which works with activists and protesters, reviewed everything and said that I was no threat to anyone's security -- basically that they wouldn't be interested in me. He told me to feel free to interact with any activist friends and that I wouldn't be a security threat. He suggested I make a statement for transparency because the feds are known to make up stories and fake evidence to take people down. It's known as "rat jacketing", and he said activist types are frequently targeted. He said it can happen in a year or after 30 years. So if they ever were to do anything like that in the future, I can at least say that I've made this disclosure about the facts and never intended to hide anything.]
This statement talks about the details, including what happened and why I didn't make this statement sooner. The attorney at the NLG suggested I make it very short, but I'd like for people to understand the context of what happened and hopefully answer some questions preemptively. I also don't want anybody to think that it was any sketchier than it already is. Feeling heard and understood is important to me.
Shortly after I started a new job in 2010, and also shortly after I started volunteering at 924 Gilman Street, I was at work talking to an off-site coworker on the phone. He was a photographer and I told him that he'd probably enjoy the walls of Gilman for their photographic potential. Instead of replying to that statement, he said, "My wife would probably like to talk to you." His wife, I knew, worked for the FBI. My danger antennae instantly went up and I got a rush of adrenaline. He wouldn't tell me why but said she'd probably get a hold of me when she returned from a trip in a couple of weeks. I spent the next two weeks with anxiety making the wait worse and worse.
That's how a couple of weeks later, Kari McInturff, who worked for the domestic security arm of the FBI got a hold of me. I forget the name of the actual department, but it's basically Homeland Security for the FBI, domestic terror issues. She wanted to meet with me, and I was too afraid to say no.
I hadn't done anything to worry about, but at that point I wasn't very politically aware and was basically still a progressive liberal. It was also initiated by someone in my new work place who had been there longer than I had, which was totally inappropriate and coercive.
I met with her at a coffee house and one of the first things she said was that she thought Gilman was a bar. It was probably to manipulate me into comfort and to get me to talk more, unless they're really that inept, which is also certainly possible. She said she worked mainly against animal rights groups that blew up buildings and killed doctors that did animal testing and such. She wanted to know if I had ever seen or heard anything. I assured her No, and that Gilman wasn't a bar OR the type of place she was thinking it was.
She asked me either then or shortly after if I would do something for her. She wanted me to go to a local meeting about how to avoid grand jury indictments. Then she wanted to show me pictures afterward and ask if any of the people in the pics were there. I didn't want to be asked that question, and I thought about it because I felt I had to.
Despite being extremely uncomfortable I said yes for the following reasons:
1) I was intimidated as hell and naive about interacting with the government. I thought if I said no it might make them start watching me for the next 10 years. She had said several things meant to remind me who had the power. She was mostly friendly and casual, but intimidating nonetheless.
2) She found me through my new employment at the time and her husband told her about me and my activities without my consent AND without telling me why she would want to talk to me, leaving me to wait for two weeks wondering in fear and concern. I didn't know if saying no would end up affecting my job.
3) I'm autistic, and one of the ways that manifests is that I'm terrible at recognizing faces I haven't become familiar with. I'm especially terrible at recognizing people from pictures. I felt confident that I legitimately wouldn't be able to snitch even if the people were there. Anyway, I wouldn't have told her if I did see them (and I didn't recognize anyone).
4) Even then, I knew better than to trust the FBI or the gov't. After saying she thought Gilman was a bar, I decided that I was smarter than her and could keep a step ahead and observe how they work. It turned out I never needed to lie to them anyway.
5) I was curious about seeing the grand jury meeting myself because Occupy was starting up and I was spending a lot of time at the meetings. I wasn't involved in any specific Occupy groups or actions, and hardly talked to anyone, so I didn't see myself putting any activists into danger. I was walking around, learning a lot fast, and just loving the sense of unity.
6) She said they'd pay me $100 under the table 100% off any records (I don't believe that), and $100 was something I could really use. I knew I wasn't going to give them any info, so it seemed like a good deal. Now, I'd live on the street before I took money from law enforcement.
7) I thought it would be an interesting experience overall, something new. I was a shy kid, too anxious and uncoordinated to want to try many new things. I eventually learned to take more risks, and I like to seek out new experiences. Sometimes that means getting into risky behavior that I try to be smart about. I don't regret much in life, but I do regret this experience completely.
She told me it was better not to talk about these things, more for my safety than anything else. Still I told both my parents and several friends at the time. I wanted to be at least somewhat transparent from the start. I didn't broadcast it, but I didn't want to hide it either because I wanted to keep it as un-sketchy as possible.
She asked me to do similar things one or two more times during the next couple of months. I don't remember if it was one or two, and I don't remember where it was. I have an excellent memory for things that I prioritize, but if I don't think about something regularly I'll often lose it forever -- another gift of being neurodivergent. Anyway, once again I didn't recognize anyone and wouldn't have told her if I did.
She emailed me several times throughout the next year, asking about things like did I witness a certain assault on my street or hear about an anti-gay hate crime in Berkeley. That was probably just an attempt at manipulating me into feeling safer about her using stories of assaults that would affect me to gain my trust, idk.
At one point she asked me on short notice (2 days) to fly to Colorado and go to a three day meeting in the mountains of what I know now are primitivist anarchists (fuk'n primmies!). She basically said they were extremist environmentalists who wanted to blow everything up and go back to nature. It was probably DGR or some shit.
She didn't tell me that it would change anything, but in hindsight that probably would have made me a full-on informant. What I had done so far was certainly sketchy but wasn't what it means to be "an informant", interacting with and manipulating people.
I did briefly consider it with the same concerns and caution that I had for the other incidents. I was curious if I could pull it off but decided that it was way over my head. I also couldn't take work off and used that for an excuse.
She asked me to go to a couple more local meetings not long after that and I made up excuses why I couldn't.
Finally, at the end of 2012 she contacted me after a few months' gap. I finally felt secure enough to tell her straight up that I couldn't talk to her anymore. I told her my politics had solidified. I told her that I didn't believe I knew anyone she would be interested in and that what the Occupy movement was doing was too important for me to have activist friends and also talk to her.
She didn't contact me again. End of story.
The last I heard about her was on Facebook in 2013 I think. Photos were posted of her and her partner as a warning that she was handing out grand jury summonses to people at Occupy.
Around winter of 2014 I went to a meeting hosted by the NLG about how to become a legal observer at protests during the frequent BLM protests. I planned to sign up, but at the end there was an agreement to sign. One of items was stating that you had never been involved with law enforcement in any way. I didn't sign it, and I waited to talk to one of the attorneys after the meeting. She put me in touch with another attorney. He was leaving town, and I had to wait 4 months to get in touch with him. We communicated back and forth and sometimes he literally took months to respond.
Finally early last year, he was able to sit down with me and go through everything. Like I said at the beginning, he said that I was no threat -- that I wouldn't be interesting to them anymore. My big concern was about putting others in danger. I have a lot of activists in my circle, and I'm sure I'm not too far removed from people who get into some intense shit. He told me that I shouldn't worry about that, and that he knows many people who have been through similar situations and gone on to be extremely effective activists at all levels.
His only suggestion was this statement, and like I said, it's more for my protection than anyone else's. He said he would go over my draft with me, then he disappeared again and didn't respond to several emails.
Potential Questions Answered:
Why didn't I post this sooner?
Basically for the same reasons I repainted 95% of my room a year ago but haven't finished it, and why I have paperwork I should have filled out nearly two years ago that I haven't gotten to:
1) I have adhd
2) I haven't been involved in any illegal actions or plannings and haven't heard of anyone who is, so it was something I basically stopped thinking about shortly after it ended. Still, I recognize that I should have done this sooner to be as safe and transparent as possible to as many people as possible. That's a fuck up, and it's totally on me.
3) After getting the ball rolling with the attorney, I couldn't get a hold of him over a period of months to finalize everything. Now I'm doing it anyway.
4) Last year was incredibly stressful. I faced homelessness for several months and also made a few bad choices of relationships to get into, among several other challenges. It just stayed on the back burner.
Would I do it again?
Fuck no. Fed cops are still cops and there are no good cops. Fuck all of them and their trigger-happy, racist, lying, corrupt asses and the so-called "good apples" who are merely complicit in what the rest of them do by letting it happen and still supporting the prison industrial complex.
So that's it. If anyone has questions, feel free to ask. But I've said everything there is to say as transparently and honestly as I can. If you do have questions, please message me via the Signal app. There are some key words in this discussion that any mass snooping might pick up on quickly and I'm as careful as possible nowadays. My number for Signal can be found on my wall in posts from yesterday and today.