While White extremism rose, the FBI had its sights set on the Black Lives Matter movement.

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** THE WEEKLY REVEAL
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Saturday, Sept. 30, 2023

Hello! In this issue:
* How the FBI infiltrated the 2020 racial justice movement.
* Police are turning alleged victims of sexual assault into criminal suspects.
* Investigative journalists are finding spyware infecting their phones.


** THIS WEEK’S PODCAST
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** Alphabet Boys Revealed
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People protest for racial justice near the Colorado State Capitol on June 6, 2020, in Denver. Credit: Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images

In 2020, as racial justice demonstrations spread nationwide and the most significant Black political movement in decades grew larger, the FBI was convinced that extreme Black political activists could cross the line into domestic terrorism.

That summer, the FBI enlisted Mickey Windecker, a tattooed White man who drove a silver hearse, as a paid informant. Windecker claimed he'd heard racial justice activists speak vaguely of training and violent revolution in Denver. The FBI gave him a recording device and instructed him to infiltrate the city's growing Black Lives Matter movement.

For months, Windecker spied on activists and attempted to recruit two Black men into an FBI-engineered plot to assassinate the state's attorney general.

We partnered with the Alphabet Boys podcast and journalist Trevor Aaronson, who obtained over a dozen hours of Windecker's secret recordings and more than 300 pages of internal FBI reports, to explore the first documented case of FBI infiltration in the modern racial justice movement.
Listen to the episode ([link removed])
🎧 Other places to listen: Apple Podcasts ([link removed]) , Spotify ([link removed]) , Google Podcasts ([link removed]) or wherever you get your podcasts.


** NEW
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** ‘If the Police Don’t Believe You, They Might Prosecute You’
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Emma Mannion (foreground) and Dyanie Bermeo (background) present to a group of police officers during a sexual assault investigation training session in San Diego in November 2021.

We've spent the past five years digging into cases in which someone who reported a sexual assault faced criminal charges themselves: A 12-year-old was charged with making up a rape by a family member, only to prove her innocence later when the same man raped her again – and she recorded the assault. College students buckled under psychological manipulation and backtracked their statements. A young woman was told by police that surveillance footage disproved her entire account, confusing her and causing her to question her sanity.

“Between the way that the police treated me and the assault itself, the police treatment has definitely hit me harder,” said Emma Mannion, who was charged with false reporting in Alabama in 2016. “Half of my nightmares are of the assault. And the other half is court.”
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** One Number to Know
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22

Over the course of one year, 22 staff members of the El Faro newspaper in El Salvador had their phones infected with the spyware called Pegasus, and they were surveilled ([link removed]) by a remote operator. Researchers suspect the government was behind the spying, though it has denied those allegations.

Listen: The Spy Inside Your Smartphone ([link removed])


** In Case You Missed It
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🎧 The Culture War Goes to College ([link removed])

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🎧 Mississippi Goddam: The Ballad of Billey Joe ([link removed])

This issue of The Weekly Reveal was written by Kate Howard and edited by Nikki Frick. If you enjoyed this issue, forward it to a friend ([link removed]) . Have some thoughts? Drop us a line (mailto:[email protected]) with feedback or ideas!

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