By Carol Christian – Houston Chronicle –
A federal judge has ordered the FBI to explain why it withheld some information requested by a graduate student for his research on a plot to assassinate Occupy Houston protest leaders.
Ryan Noah Shapiro, a doctoral student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., filed a lawsuit April 29, 2013, against the U.S. Department of Justice in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer issued her order, with an accompanying memo, on March 12.
The FBI, as part of the Department of Justice, controls the records Shapiro wanted for his study of “conflicts at the nexus of American national security, law enforcement and political dissent,” the plaintiff’s complaint stated.
Houston was among hundreds of U.S. cities where protesters occupied outdoor spaces as part of the Occupy Movement that started in New York’s Zucotti Park on Sept. 17, 2011.
“The movement has sought to expose how the wealthiest 1 percent of society promulgates an unfair global economy that harms people and destroys communities worldwide,” the complaint stated.
