Aided by informants planted in protest groups, the Ramsey County Sheriff's Office in collaboration with the FBI, Minneapolis and St. Paul police raided at least six buildings across St. Paul and Minneapolis to stop an "anarchist" plan to disrupt this week's Republican National Convention.

From Friday night through Saturday afternoon, officers surrounded houses, broke down doors, handcuffed scores of people and confiscated suspected tools of civil disobedience.

Republican National Convention protesters targeted in a series of police raids Friday night and Saturday say they won't back down from their plans to march on the event's opening day. 

Organizers have said they hope to attract up to 50,000 people to the protest Monday.

Rob Kall, executive editor and publisher of OpEdNews.com, was dead-on when he said not to bother looking for this story on the front pages of the NY Times, Washington Post, Guardian or Wall Street Journal.

IT’S NOT THERE! It’s as if these very public displays of Gestapo police state tactics aren’t happening and I am quite sure that the powers have “green lighted” the raids would like to keep it that way.  

"A lot of people in the activist community are really on pins and needles about who's next," said Gina Berglund, an attorney helping to represent protesters.  

"They will not crush our spirit," said protester Lisa Fithian from Austin, Texas, at a gathering of about 300 people in a Minneapolis park Saturday afternoon. "Our organization will continue. We will be on the streets."  

The raids drew criticism from other than the targets including Dave Thune, a St. Paul city councilman whose district includes the theater building used as a hub for the protesters, denounced the raid, saying people had a legal right to assemble there.  

The activists, many of whom were detained and then released without charges, called it intimidation designed to quash free speech.  

At a news conference Saturday, Cheri Honkala of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, one of the protest groups, described the Friday raid as "terrorism" intended to divert attention from issues the groups are raising.  

"Everybody I know who's protesting is going to be peaceful," she said. "I think the violence is caused by the cops," said Randi McClure, 23, one of about 10 people handcuffed and made to lie face down at gunpoint by police  

DEMOCRACY BEING SILENCED

 AROUND the BLOGOSPHERE:

Minnesota police raid ‘criminal’ RNC protesters - Minneapolis Police Department officers stand guard outside the Food Not Bombs house. (Photo: Jeff Severns Guntzel via Minnesota Independent). News of Sarah Palin and Hurricane Gustav has eclipsed a series of police raids that took place ...

Police Raids in Minneapolis and St. Paul - The Minneapolis and St. Paul Police Departments have been raiding houses and meeting halls where suspected RNC protest groups are thought to convene since last Thursday, angering many people who've had no designs for any criminal ...

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Massive Police Raids on Minneapolis Protestors; Is It Fascism Yet? - Like the people in Minneapolis - those hated hippies - the same people that, if you were in trouble, would probably give you the shirt off their backs, no questions asked. But this is how they are treated by your police. ...