Local FBI Field Office Warns Of 'Conspiracy Theory-Driven Domestic Extremists'

The assessment noted that the document is the first from the FBI to analyze conspiracies and their connection to violent acts.

FBI agents in Phoenix have issued an assessment detailing what they say are the risks posed by people who believe in fringe conspiracies including Qanon and Pizzagate, which have been cited as the impetus for a series of violent incidents over the last three years.

The document came in the form of an intelligence bulletin, intended for other law enforcement agencies but not for public disclosure, from a local FBI field office about how “fringe political conspiracy theories very likely motivate some domestic extremists to commit criminal, sometimes violent activity.”

The bulletin, which was first reported by Yahoo News on Thursday, was circulated May 30 and said the assessments were “made with high confidence” based on information from other law enforcement agencies, court documents, FBI investigations and other sources.

“The FBI assesses anti-government, identity based, and fringe political conspiracy theories very likely motivate some domestic extremists, wholly or in part, to commit criminal and sometimes violent activity,” the document reads. “The FBI further assesses in some cases these conspiracy theories very likely encourage the targeting of specific people, places, and organizations, thereby increasing the likelihood of violence against these targets.”

The assessment was written by the FBI’s Phoenix field office and was not a product of the FBI headquarters or other members of the U.S. intelligence community. The FBI declined to comment.

The document lists several instances of criminal activity by believers in such theories, first describing a standoff between police and a Qanon follower in Tucson, Arizona, who falsely believed a local homeless encampment was a child sex trafficking location. Tucson is about two hours away from Phoenix.

While it’s unclear whether more people are subscribing to and acting on conspiracy theories than in the decades past, the assessment noted that the document is the first from the FBI to analyze conspiracies and their connection to violent acts.

“This is the first FBI product examining the threat from conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists and provides a baseline for future intelligence products,” the assessment states.

The document describes Qanon believers as those who follow “an anonymous government official known as Q posts classified information online to reveal a covert effort, led by President Trump, to dismantle a conspiracy involving ‘deep state’ actors and global elites allegedly engaged in an international child sex trafficking ring.” NBC News tied the roots of Qanon to three veteran internet conspiracy theorists last year.

The document warns that “throughout history, such conspiracy theories have fueled prejudice, witch-hunts, genocide, and acts of terrorism.”

“In the context of domestic terrorism, extremists often view the activities of alleged conspirators as an existential threat that can only be stopped through drastic, or even violent means,” it reads.

Lawyers for Anthony Comello, a New York man who killed a suspected Gambino crime family boss in March, claimed he “became certain that he was enjoying the protection of President Trump himself, and that he had the president’s full support,” in part due to Qanon.

“Mr. Comello's support for QAnon went beyond mere participation in a radical political organization, it evolved into a delusional obsession,” Comello’s lawyers wrote.

Believers have repeatedly ignored failed prophesies, including the very first post, which was posted to an anonymous message board. The first post from “Q,” the purported government insider, was released in October of 2017, and referred to Hillary Clinton’s imminent arrest and a deployment of the National Guard in the next several days. Neither event occurred.

Believers were also forced to reckon with more failed prophecies this week, as “Q” gave a vague “24-hour warning” Tuesday of an event that did not come to pass, leaving followers frustrated and disillusioned.

Adherents were similarly let down Thursday when the Department of Justice declined to prosecute FBI chief James Comey as part of a probe by the Office of the Inspector General. Prosecuting members of a purported Satanic, child-eating cabal by way of the inspector general’s office has become a key cog for belief in Qanon.

“Q,” who now posts on an extreme far-right forum, didn’t mention the FBI field office’s report in posts Thursday, but once again claimed the failed predictions were part of the plan.

Vaccination Cards Will Be Issued To Everyone Getting Covid-19 Vaccine, Health Officials Say

 

Here's what you need to know about getting the Covid-19 vaccine

The Department of Defense released the first images of a Covid-19 vaccination record card and vaccination kits Wednesday.

Vaccination cards will be used as the "simplest" way to keep track of Covid-19 shots, said Dr. Kelly Moore, associate director of the Immunization Action Coalition, which is supporting frontline workers who will administer Covid-19 vaccinations.

A Department of Health and Human Services employee holds a Covid-19 vaccine record card November 13 in Washington, DC.   

"Everyone will be issued a written card that they can put in their wallet that will tell them what they had and when their next dose is due," Moore said. "Let's do the simple, easy thing first. Everyone's going to get that."

Vaccination clinics will also be reporting to their state immunization registries what vaccine was given, so that, for example, an entity could run a query if it didn't know where a patient got a first dose.

Moore said many places are planning to ask patients to voluntarily provide a cell phone number, so they can get a text message telling them when and where their next dose is scheduled to be administered.

Every dose administered will be reported to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Claire Hannan, executive director of the Association of Immunization Managers.

The CDC did not immediately respond to CNN's inquiry about whether such a database would include a record of everyone immunized.

A display shows items that will be provided with Covid-19 vaccines at Operation Warp Speed headquarters in Washington, DC, on November 13.

As far as vaccine kits, the DoD image shows the kits include a card, a needle and syringe, alcohol wipes and a mask. Operation Warp Speed has 100 million vaccine kits ready to go if and when distribution of a coronavirus vaccine starts, Gen. Gustave Perna, Warp Speed's chief operating officer, said last month.

The images come as two companies -- Pfizer and Moderna -- await emergency use authorizations (EUA) in the United States. A panel with the US Food and Drug Administration is expected to discuss whether to authorize the EUAs on December 10 and 17.

Should Pfizer and Moderna get the authorization, the vaccines' first shipments could happen December 15 and 22, respectively, according to a document from the federal government's Operation Warp Speed.

Initial supplies in the United States will be limited, and the wider population won't have access to vaccines until months into 2021. A CDC panel recommended Tuesday that heath care and long-term care workers get inoculated first.

By February, 100 million Americans could be vaccinated against coronavirus, Moncef Slaoui, chief adviser to Operation Warp Speed, said Wednesday.

The United States has said if both Pfizer and Moderna win FDA emergency use authorization in December, they could distribute 40 million doses of vaccine by the end of the month. Each vaccine requires two doses, so that's enough to fully vaccinate 20 million people.

China's Bank Run Victims Planned To Protest. Then Their Covid Health Codes Turned Red

Liu, a 39-year-old tech worker in Beijing, arrived in the central city of Zhengzhou on Sunday with all the boxes ticked to travel under China's stringent Covid restrictions.

He had tested negative for Covid-19 the day before; his hotel had confirmed he could be checked in; and the health code on his phone app was green -- meaning he had not been exposed to people or places deemed risks and was therefore free to travel.

But when Liu scanned a local QR code to exit the Zhengzhou train station, his health code came back red -- a nightmare for any traveler in China, where freedom of movement is strictly dictated by a color-code system imposed by the government to control the spread of the virus.

Anyone with a red code -- usually assigned to people infected with Covid or deemed by authorities to be at high risk of infection -- immediately becomes persona non grata. They are banned from all public venues and transport, and are often subject to weeks of government quarantine.

That all but derailed plans for Liu, who had come to Zhengzhou, the provincial capital of Henan province, to seek redress from a bank that has frozen his deposits. He had put his life savings -- totaling about 6 million yuan ($890,000) -- into a rural bank in Henan, and since April hasn't been able to withdraw a penny.

Over the past two months, thousands of depositors like Liu have been fighting to recover their savings from at least four rural banks in Henan -- in a case that involves billions of dollars. In late May, hundreds of them traveled to Zhengzhou from across China and staged a protest outside the office of the Henan banking regulator to demand their money back -- to no avail.

Another protest was planned for Monday. But as the depositors arrived in Zhengzhou, they were stunned to find that their health codes -- which were green upon departure -- had turned red, according to six who spoke with CNN and social media posts.

Dozens of depositors were taken into a quarantine hotel guarded by police and local officials, before being sent away on trains bound for their hometowns the next day; others were "quarantined" at several other locations in the city, including a college campus, according to the witnesses and online posts.

Depositors accused Zhengzhou authorities of tampering with the health code system to prevent them from returning to the city -- and thus thwarting their plans to fend for their rights.

"The health code should have been used to prevent the spread of the pandemic, but now it has deviated from its original role and become something like a good citizen certificate," said Qiu, a depositor in eastern Jiangsu province.

Qiu, a teacher, had not been to Henan to protest, but his health code also turned red on Sunday evening after he scanned a QR code from Zhengzhou. He said a fellow depositor had shared a photo of the Zhengzhou QR code on the WeChat messaging app, in an attempt to find out whether depositors outside Henan were also affected.

The red code seems to target only depositors. Qiu used his wife's phone to scan the QR code, and it came back green, he said. "I called the government hotline in Zhengzhou to complain about my red code, and they told me there was some error with the Big Data information database."

Liu and Qiu both asked to be identified only by their surnames.

CNN has reached out to the Zhengzhou government for comment. The Henan Provincial Health Commission told state-run news website thepaper.cn it was "investigating and verifying" the complaints from depositors who received red codes.

Online backlash

The alleged abuse of power sparked an outcry on social media.

"Now (the authorities) can stop you from petitioning by directly putting digital shackles on you, aka giving you red codes," said one comment on Weibo, China's Twitter-like platform.

Hu Xijin, the former editor-in-chief of the Global Times, a state-run nationalist tabloid, said on Weibo that local governments should not use health codes for any purposes other than epidemic prevention.

"If any locality tries to prevent the movement of certain people by controlling their health codes for other purposes, it's not only a clear violation of Covid prevention laws and regulations, but also will jeopardize the credibility of the health codes and the public's support for epidemic prevention," Hu wrote on Tuesday. "It'll do more harm than good to our social governance."

Rights groups have long warned that China's omnipresent Covid surveillance and tracking network could be used by authorities to target individuals and groups for political reasons, such as suppressing dissent.

Last November, Xie Yang, a human rights lawyer in the southern city of Changsha, said on Twitter that his health code turned red on the morning he was about to board a flight to Shanghai to visit the mother of Zhang Zhan, a citizen journalist imprisoned for reporting on China's initial coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan.

"The health code, like many algorithmic-based systems in China and around the world, lacks transparency. Exactly how companies designed the app and the criteria they use to categorize people remain unclear ... It is also hard to know whether the system allows local governments to tamper with it as a means to prevent protests," said Maya Wang, a researcher at Human Rights Watch who has studied China's digital surveillance.

"The opacity of the health code, the ability of it to arbitrarily control people's movement while giving people few means to effectively appeal the app's decision, makes it an especially abusive system."

Code turns green again

From the Zhengzhou train station, Liu, the depositor from Beijing, was taken to a room where several other travelers with red health codes were present.

There, he met another depositor who had traveled from Anyang, another city in Henan, and the two of them were then escorted by police to a quarantine hotel. By the evening, about 40 depositors -- all with red health codes -- had ended up at the hotel, and were told to stay the night there.

The following afternoon, he was allowed to leave the hotel and return to Beijing -- escorted by police and local officials until he boarded the train. He was exempted from scanning any QR codes on the way -- because his code was still red and according to Covid rules, he would not have been allowed to enter the train station, let alone travel.

On Tuesday, as news and anger about the red health codes spread online, some depositors said their health codes had turned green again.

Liu's code also turned green by the late afternoon, but he said he wants accountability.
"Officials who made the decision (to tamper with the health code system) and who carried out the policy should receive their punishment according to law," he said. "But I'm not too optimistic about that. The government's power is too capricious."