FBI Documents Show Law Enforcement Monitoring Puerto Rican Pro-Independence Group
It's the first article of more to come.
About two months ago, I obtained eight pages of documents from the FBI that mentioned the pro-independence activist group Jornada Se Acabaron Las Promesas. The documents show the FBI and the Puerto Rican Police mentioned the group during a domestic terrorism meeting last year, and that the federal agency had previously collected information about the group in 2018 and 2019.
Much of the information contained within the documents is redacted, so we have no idea what information the police shared with the FBI. However, it confirms what many people believed to be true already, which is that federal law enforcement monitors pro-independence activists and groups. After I published my story with The Latino Newsletter (where I'm also deputy editor), the response I heard back from a lot of people is that they weren't shocked because the memory of "las carpetas," a mass surveillance program by the FBI and Puerto Rico Police, is front of mind for many modern-day activists.
The article was published on the same day as the Puerto Rican Senate passed a bill that aims to blunt our public records law. While the article was published using a federal FOIA request, it shows the importance of public records law because these documents would never have seen the light of day without FOIA. Both FOIA and Puerto Rico's Transparency Law were purposefully created to be imperfect and do not work as they're supposed to but any attempts to cut off the people's access to public records must be fought at all costs.
I'm going to be working on a lot of surveillance-focused stories for The Latino Newsletter that includes public records, so be on the lookout for that.
You can read the article here:
Carlos Berríos Polanco
I've uploaded the documents to DocumentCloud and you can also view them below in the web version:
