FBI Visits Me Over Manifesto (www.kenklippenstein.com)

submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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For the second time in a year, the FBI came to my home yesterday after I published the so-called manifesto of the man charged with killing two Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington.

Not a single mainstream media outlet has published the text because, as they claim, the FBI hasn’t confirmed its authenticity. But the real reason is simple. The media just doesn’t want to publish it. And the FBI doesn’t want the media to think it can

These are those 11 questions (from the email I’ve reproduced below):

When did he first encounter the manifesto?
How did he first encounter the manifesto?
Did he receive any instruction from the source of the manifesto about how to disseminate it?
Does the system or platform from which he received the manifesto capture metadata concerning the transfer of the manifesto?
Did he make any edits or changes to the manifesto?
Was this his first and only interaction with whomever submitted the manifesto?
Has anyone else submitted any other documentation regarding this incident?
Did his receipt of the manifesto predate the attack?
Where else, if anywhere, did he disseminate the manifesto?
Does he have any knowledge of where else the manifesto was published or shared?
Why does he think he was the one who received the manifesto?

Other than the questions implying the FBI is entertaining an outlandish theory that I conspired with the shooter, the others seem pretty straightforward and routine.

But there’s a Trump administration dimension to all of this. The administration has many times publicly warned about shadowy, unseen forces that it believes are bankrolling everything from Tesla vandalism to the college protests. That tone from the top, labeling seemingly everything terrorism, tells personnel that the gloves are off and more aggressive work in the field is now permissible.

Get ready to hear that I’m impeding the investigation, giving people a roadmap to the “sources and methods” that are used to catch terrorists, or whatever reason the national security state soundboard offers up for why the public isn’t allowed to know things.

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[-] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago

Beyond obvious that it was targeted against the Israeli embassy staff.

https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/the-israel-embassy-shooter-manifesto

A word about the morality of armed demonstration. Those of us against the genocide take satisfaction in arguing that the perpetrators and abettors have forfeited their humanity. I sympathize with this viewpoint and understand its value in soothing the psyche which cannot bear to accept the atrocities it witnesses, even mediated through the screen. But inhumanity has long since shown itself to be shockingly common, mundane, prosaically human. A perpetrator may then be a loving parent, a filial child, a generous and charitable friend, an amiable stranger, capable of moral strength at times when it suits him and sometimes even when it does not, and yet be a monster all the same. Humanity doesn't exempt one from accountability. The action would have been morally justified taken 11 years ago during Protective Edge, around the time I personally became acutely aware of our brutal conduct in Palestine. But I think to most Americans such an action would have been illegible, would seem insane. I am glad that today at least there are many Americans for which the action will be highly legible and, in some funny way, the only sane thing to do.

this post was submitted on 28 May 2025

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