John, I'm sorry if you felt that your political activism was under attack. I respect your work and I am thankful for it. Your insistence on certain points made me feel a need to respond, but I hope you don't see this as any kind of deeper attack against you or your work.

It is also with continued respect that I ask/respond to the following.

John responded to me saying, "It's called uninformed speculation".

What is uninformed?

Is it the fact that various government agencies have a history of routinely infiltrating left, even of small organizations?

You think the fact that a face is familiar means they can't be an agent? I suggest you study COINTELPRO. FBI agents pretended to function as regular members for long periods of time.

Is it uninformed speculation when I point to the fact that a very good legal and political argument can be made that the Patriot Act itself is illegal in that it violates various constitutional rights including the First Amendment?

This is not uninformed. This is based on how we won these rights in the first place, before the Patriot Act was passed.