Intelligence Center at Rutgers Protested at Newark Monthly Antiwar Protest

Several organizations culminating around the idea of an “Anti War Agenda” held a second monthly protest at the MLK Monument on MLK Boulevard in Newark NJ this past Saturday, March 3.  These events occur each first Saturday of each month, with the next one scheduled to occur on April 7, at the same location at 11 am.  Next event promotion on Facebook

At this month’s event, there was an important presentation by a student of Rutgers University, Henessa Gumiran, who announced the initiation of plans to oppose the presence of a well funded intelligence center, a conduit for multiple intelligence agencies including the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) notorious as the department that commands ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement ) which has for years been conducting a high profile crackdown on those suspected of being undocumented immigrants.

The massive intelligence operation at Rutgers New Brunswick has been the subject of a news report in the Daily Targum, and a blog piece at this site, an article at the New Brunswick Today news site, an article in the #NJAntiWarAgenda paper which is also published at our website.

However, in Henessa’s presentation she released new information about the intelligence operation – the fact that Rutgers is now providing paid internships to work for the FBI, the CIA and the NSA.

Henessa announced plans, in conjunction with #NJAntiWarAgenda, for a panel discussion on the Rutgers New Brunswick campus to oppose the intelligence operation which directly connects Rutgers to the US war machine.  Those interested in helping should join the CIA OFF CAMPUS Facebook group – an initial organizing meeting will be announced shortly.

The following is Henessa’s presentation:

My name is Henessa, and I am a graduating student at Rutgers University, studying philosophy, political science, and economics. So in January 2015, Rutgers received a 1.95 million grant for the establishment of the CCIS or the Center for Critical Intelligence Studies, funded by the DIA, (Defense Intelligence Agency) making Rutgers the only “Big 10” school to be federally recognized as an “intelligence community center for academic excellence.”

The center is headed by a former acting under secretary of DHS, the Department of Homeland Security, John Cohen. So the objective of the center is to “provide undergraduate and graduate students with academic experiences that will prepare them for careers in national security and law enforcement”. This is the direct recruitment of Rutgers students into the propagation of the US war machine by the US intelligence agencies.

Actually, a current FBI special agent was present in my internship class this past Wednesday, and they basically are using students as proxy recruiters for the FBI, CIA, and NSA by advertising that these are the exclusive, paid internships in the intelligence community, which appeals to low income students in the same way that the military recruitment is catered to low income students as well.

Further, there are critical intelligence studies classes taught by John Farmer, who is a former senior counsel to the national commission on terrorist attacks upon the US, a.k.a. “The 9/11 Commission.” 

I looked at the syllabus briefly for the intro to critical intelligence studies with John Farmer, and one of the objectives of this class is to identify the role intelligence gathering has played through history and also identify historical lessons learned and apply them to the challenges of the intelligence community that are faced in the post 9/11 era. Further review of the critical intelligence studies minor shows that the target focus of these studies is on South Asia, East Asia, the study of the Arabic language, Latin America, the Middle East, and Russia.

Also further criminalizing Islam, by promoting the studies of Arabic along with two classes that fulfill the requirements called Islamic Law and Jurisprudence, and Islam and Democracy in the Arab World.

So it is clear that Rutgers is using its 1.95 million grant in order to promote that students are funneled into the intelligence community by incentivizing with paid internships through the critical intelligence studies program.

So right now we’re in the process of organizing a panel on the militarization of campus whose date is to be announced. So if you’d like to follow along with us, we do have a Facebook group called CIA Off Campus to oppose campus militarization. Thank you.