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MK Occupy Minnesota: The Drug Recognition Evaluator BCA Investigation files

November 25, 2012 in ANON NeWs, Documentary, Editorial, Finance, Headline, Occupy, Politics, Update, Video Perspective

According to all recent reports, police officers themselves indicate people were provided with drugs by law enforcement agents,  think what happens in the medical world for one second and how a Dr.’s life could be ruined in a second with one faulty prescription….
After thinking about that. realize that both Hennepin county and the city of Richfield  and  Minneapolis where this all happened,  have both refused to file criminal charges despite confirmation from law officers that they were giving people drugs with no medical supervision and letting them loose in the street afterwords.

 

The original DRE report video, a new BCA ( bureau of criminal apprehension ) report and a list of all the interesting pages and the statements made on them is noted below,  enjoy

Submitted by HongPong               on Mon, 2012-11-12 10:50

hongpong.com — MINNEAPOLIS — NOV 12 2012 — Law enforcement officers under a state training program called Drug Recognition Evaluators encouraged people in downtown Minneapolis, including Occupy Minnesota protesters at Peavey Plaza and other vulnerable and houseless people to participate in alcohol and drug intoxication evaluations. After a 35-minute video “MK Occupy Minnesota” [produced by Occupy Minneapolis, Communities United Against Police Brutality, Rogue Media & Twin Cities Indymedia] was released documenting claims of several DRE participants they’d been given drugs and encouraged to take drugs, an officer from Hutchinson, MN, stepped forward to corroborate part of that story.

Mn Bureau of Criminal Apprehension under the Department of Public Safety, generated a 513-page investigative report described in Minnesota Public Radio & Star Tribune stories, but not available publicly in full until now, adding another chunk to this incomplete story from one of the many gray areas in the war on drugs & the suppression of Occupy protesters.

New BCA Report URL: http://hongpong.com/files/dre/DRE-investigation-BCA.pdf (78MB)

May 3: http://www.hongpong.com/archives/2012/05/03/mk-occupy-minnesota-drugs-dre-program-peavey-plaza
Original video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTgN17FZGKEMK Occupy Minnesota: Drugs & the DRE Program at Peavey Plaza


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San Francisco Police Shoot a Man Twice in the Back While He is in Handcuffs

July 19, 2012 in ANON NeWs, Headline, Occupy, Politics, Video Perspective

original story here – occupyfeeds.org

SFPD Shoot Unarmed Man In The Back While Handcuffed

Witnesses tell the tale of a handcuffed #OccupySF protestor being shot twice in the back by a member of the San Francisco Police Department.

As the police state continues to intensify, instances where members of the citizenry are being treated like second-class citizens and either spied on, wrongfully targeted and arrested, tazed and/or shot also continues to increase.

Such was the case Wednesday morning as eye-witness video, via #OccupySF Repressed Media and uploaded to Youtube, captured the victim, in what appears to be downtown San Francisco, being loaded into an ambulance, lying motionless and still in the handcuffs.

While asking what took place, one witness explained the circumstance, prompting the videographer to gain a better view, allowing him to see the victim being loaded onto the ambulance.

Based on the video statement, the incident took place around 10:30 AM PST, in front of the “Federal” Reserve building at 101 Market Street. According to the statement,

A man had just been shot and killed by SFPD by the SAFEWAY near Sue Bierman Park. OccupySF Repressed Media responded and witnessed paramedics and SFFD moving a body into an ambulance. Eyewitnesses report SFPD shot and killed an apparently unarmed Asian or Hispanic man twice in the back WHILE HE WAS ALREADY IN HANDCUFFS. WTF? #FTP We later discovered that the witness in this video actually saw the incident. #OccupySF Repressed Media was the first camera on the scene.  (video below) Read the rest of this entry →

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SWAT Team Raids Occupy Organizers’ Apartment in Seattle

July 11, 2012 in ANON NeWs, Headline, Occupy, Politics

By:    –  firedoglake.com/swat-team-raids-occupy-organizers-apartment-in-seattle/

Early in the morning, on July 10, a SWAT team from the Seattle police department raided an apartment where organizers from the Occupy movement have been living. A warrant shown to the four people that were sleeping in the apartment at the time indicated the police were looking for “anarchist materials” and the raid was part of an ongoing investigation into militant action that Occupy engaged in on May Day.

The organizers raided are also known to be members of the Red Spark Collective (or the Kasama Project). A press spokesperson for the Red Spark Collective, Liam Wright, told Firedoglake the Seattle Police Department used a “battering device” to knock down the door of the apartment. They went inside. Some kind of a “flash bang grenade” was thrown. Tactical rifles were drawn. They then proceeded to tear apart the apartment destroying a book shelf and tearing down a curtain. Every door they could find was opened. This went on for about an hour and a half before they left the apartment.

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A Message To Police And Military

May 24, 2012 in ANON NeWs, Headline, Occupy, Politics, Video Perspective, World News

This is a message to the Police, to the military, to the TSA, to Homeland Security and to members of every other enforcement arm of the government.

Published on Apr 6, 2012 by    :  http://www.waitingforthestorm.com/an-open-message-to-police-military

I know that most of you chose the life in uniform because you love your country; because you believed in what that uniform stood for; because you wanted to serve and protect… but I also know that deep down inside you sense that something has gone terribly wrong.

You’ve watched with the rest of us as elected officials have incrementally legislated our constitutional rights away, you’ve watched as the state surveillance apparatus has expanded like a cancer through the heart of the nation, and you’ve watched as the corruption has become more and more blatant. I can understand why you haven’t wanted to acknowledge the implications of what you are witnessing. To face the reality of what is happening would mean admitting that you’ve been betrayed, and it would mean coming to terms with the fact that you… are working… for criminals.

I don’t envy your position. I know your job depends on you following orders. I know you have families to support and bills to pay, and I know that if you stand up you could loose everything… but what you need to understand is that continuing to submit to unconstitutional, and immoral orders will not protect you from what is coming. Read the rest of this entry →

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Battle for the Soul of Occupy

May 8, 2012 in ANON NeWs, Headline, Occupy, Politics, Update, Video Perspective

Round 7 – The Black Bloc Anarchist Turn.

Occupy’s May Day General Strike was a surprising and bold success for the visceral side of the movement. While most of Occupy put its energy into building coalitions with “legacy progressive groups”, labor unions and immigrant rights organizations, these efforts did not yield the anticipated results. In New York, for example, despite amassing a coalition of over a hundred organizations and rallying a crowd of more than 30,000, occupiers were thwarted in their attempts to shut down banks or re-occupy Wall Street. And some Zuccottis have complained that union representatives actively blocked an attempt to lead the crowd toward direct action at the end of the night. Meanwhile in Seattle, Oakland, San Francisco, New Orleans and elsewhere, anarchists using Black Bloc tactics stole the show.

On websites and forums, anarchists are rejoicing the spectacular showing of Black Bloc. “American anarchists haven’t experienced this much positive public attention since the euphoria and aftermath of N30 in Seattle,” writes one commentator. For many, the Black Bloc represents a tactical innovation that suggests the future of Occupy. “Occupy is dead, long live the Black Bloc,” writes another. An anarchist in New Orleans described how the status quo was unprepared for their tactics: “the Anti-Capitalism march caught the police off-guard and has the media dumb-founded. A full 24-hours later the Times Picayune has said nothing about the Anti-Capitalist March, only making mention of the permitted march that happened earlier in the day.”

In Oakland, the Black Bloc, which made up a large portion of the May Day General Strike, displayed a coordinated tactical philosophy – including the de-arresting of comrades, throwing eggs filled with paint, using homemade smoke-creating incendiaries to confuse police, and the rejection of media – that suggests prior planning, ongoing innovation and increasing sophistication. And Black Bloc tactics are just one aspect of the overall rejuvenation of anarchism that is happening right now including the increase of infoshops (there are two near Occupy Oakland: The Holdout and The Longhaul); the creation of bottom-up solidarity networks to replace top-down unions; providing free food on the model of Food Not Bombs; offering a compelling DIY aesthetic.

Anarchist occupiers are energized and their visceral tactics are attracting members. Now, the power of the Black Bloc is growing within Occupy and pushing the movement in unexpected directions.

Round 7 goes to the Black Bloc – now let’s see what we can do for the rest of May!  adbusters.org

 

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VOTING FRAUD BY GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS CAUGHT ON TAPE!!! WHY ARE THEY NOT IN JAIL?!?!

May 8, 2012 in ANON NeWs, Finance, Headline, Occupy, Politics, Video Perspective

Uploaded by on Jul 25, 2008


What would happen to you if police caught you on video fraudulently voting? Would cops quickly arrest you and throw you in jail, only to have the District Attorney immediately charge you with fraud?

What would happen to elected government officials if they were caught doing the same? Absolutely nothing? Read the rest of this entry →

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May 1st in LA, Police take a walk of shame as they are kettled and escorted out of their position of authority

May 2, 2012 in ANON NeWs, Headline, Occupy, Politics, Video Perspective

Published on May 2, 2012 by ourfinest1981

On May 1st, 2012, a general strike took place in Los Angeles. During this action, a faction of protesters had had enough. They decided to take matters into their own hands.


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Police quietly expanding warrantless cell phone tracking

April 13, 2012 in ANON NeWs, Headline, Occupy, Politics

gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com

The New York Times this weekend had a feature on the dramatic growth in cell-phone tracking by law enforcement based on thousands of pages of documents obtained by the ACLU from local police departments, reporting that:

While cell tracking by local police departments has received some limited public attention in the last few years, the A.C.L.U. documents show that the practice is in much wider use — with far looser safeguards — than officials have previously acknowledged.

The issue has taken on new legal urgency in light of a Supreme Court ruling in January finding that a Global Positioning System tracking device placed on a drug suspect’s car violated his Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches. While the ruling did not directly involve cellphones — many of which also include GPS locators — it raised questions about the standards for cellphone tracking, lawyers say. Read the rest of this entry →

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America’s police are out of control

April 12, 2012 in Headline, Occupy, Politics, Video Perspective

BY TONY BOUZA  -  originally posted in southsidepride.com

What can possibly justify so sweeping an assertion?

I will try.

I started in policing on 1/1/53 in the NYPD, rose, over 24 years, to command Bronx forces and then served three as #2 in the Transit Police. This was followed by nine years as chief in Minneapolis.

Uploaded by on Mar 19, 2009   From the DVD, The Police files. Read the rest of this entry →

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How to Fund an American Police State: Real Money for an Imaginary War

March 6, 2012 in Editorial, Headline, Occupy, Politics

by: Stephan Salisbury   –  truth-out.org

At the height of the Occupy Wall Street evictions, it seemed as though some diminutive version of “shock and awe” had stumbled from Baghdad, Iraq, to Oakland, California.  American police forces had been “militarized,” many commentators worried, as though the firepower and callous tactics on display were anomalies, surprises bursting upon us from nowhere.

There should have been no surprise. Those flash grenades exploding in Oakland and the sound cannons on New York’s streets simply opened small windows onto a national policing landscape long in the process of militarization — a bleak domestic no man’s land marked by tanks and drones, robot bomb detectors, grenade launchers, tasers, and most of all, interlinked video surveillance cameras and information databases growing quietly on unobtrusive server farms everywhere.

 

The ubiquitous fantasy of “homeland security,” pushed hard by the federal government in the wake of 9/11, has been widely embraced by the public.  It has also excited intense weapons- and techno-envy among police departments and municipalities vying for the latest in armor and spy equipment.

In such a world, deadly gadgetry is just a grant request away, so why shouldn’t the 14,000 at-risk souls in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, have a closed-circuit-digital-camera-and-monitor system (cost: $180,000, courtesy of the Homeland Security Department) identical to the one up and running in New York’s Times Square?

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Government plans for police privatisation

March 6, 2012 in Headline, Politics, World News

and    –  guardian.co.uk

Street patrols could be handled by security firms under the government's police privatisation plans. Photograph: Lewis Whyld/PA

West Midlands and Surrey police offer £1.5bn contract under which private firms may investigate crime and detain suspects.

Private companies could take responsibility for investigating crimes, patrolling neighbourhoods and even detaining suspects under a radical privatisation plan being put forward by two of the largest police forces in the country.

West Midlands and Surrey have invited bids from G4S and other major security companies on behalf of all forces across England and Wales to take over the delivery of a wide range of services previously carried out by the police.

The contract is the largest on police privatisation so far, with a potential value of £1.5bn over seven years, rising to a possible £3.5bn depending on how many other forces get involved.

This scale dwarfs the recent £200m contract between Lincolnshire police and G4S, under which half the force’s civilian staff are to join the private security company, which will also build and run a police station for the first time. Read the rest of this entry →

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A blow to the police state: Judge rules Illinois eavesdropping law unconstitutional

March 4, 2012 in Headline, Occupy, Politics

By Madison Ruppert  Editor of End the Lie

In a major victory for Americans who value liberty and the First Amendment, a Cook County, Illinois judge ruled that the state’s highly controversial eavesdropping law is unconstitutional.

The law made the simple act of recording a police officer without their consent, even during the course of their public duties, a felony offense.

Judge Stanley Sacks declared that the eavesdropping law is unconstitutional on the grounds that it has the potential to criminalize what would otherwise be “wholly innocent conduct.” Read the rest of this entry →

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FBI : Cyber attacks – America’s top terror threat

March 4, 2012 in ANON NeWs, Headline, Politics

Organized cyber crime is replacing terrorism as the number one threat to the American nation, says the FBI chief. The bureau is preparing to battle internet-based aggressors with recently created cyber-squads policing the web.

­The Cyber Crime section of the FBI website pledges that the bureau is ready to defend America from the cyber space threat. This vow, however, did not help much when the bureau’s website went down after a massive attack by Anonymous hacktivists on January 20.

Over the last few months, the Anonymous hacker community attacked the websites of the White House, CIA, FBI, Department of Justice, US Department of Homeland Security, Universal Music Group, Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and Motion Picture Association of America.

Just as the internet is not a boys’ toy anymore, hackers are no longer boys, either. Nowadays, previously “isolated hackers have joined forces to form criminal syndicates,” FBI boss Robert Mueller said at the RSA security conference in San Francisco on Thursday. These syndicates are often international, so this poses additional difficulties because it takes close work with foreign security agencies to achieve a result in the material world, while the internet knows neither borders nor boundaries, Mueller explained. Read the rest of this entry →

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EXCLUSIVE: Cointelpro Gothic II: Midwestern Police State Paranoia Continues! Winona & Des Moines hubs of spurious “terrorism” & great FBI statistical accomplishments!

March 1, 2012 in ANON NeWs, Headline, Occupy, Politics

http://www.hongpong.com/archives/tags/breaking

EARLIER: October 13, 2010: Cointelpro Gothic: Docs prove Iowa FBI’s Wild Rose Rebellion a pretend RNC “Terrorism Enterprise” for great “statistical accomplishment”

BY DAN FEIDT — HongPong

Feds Invade Homes of Independentistas and Trade-Unionists, Steal Documents, Brutally Assault Journalists

Another level of the seemingly endless, unregulated Midwestern law enforcement campaign against political activists has been revealed in 525 pages obtained from the Department of Justice by Freedom of Information Act requests filed by David Goodner of Des Moines. (FULL PDF 62MB / Scribd.com)

Two related stories emerge: in 2004-2006, federal agents spurred to achieve career-advancing “statistical accomplishments” spied on people the G-Men linked with the CrimeThinc Anarchist publishing label — in Des Moines and Winona, MN anyone linked to anything CrimeThinc is deemed a great target for further snooping. Read the rest of this entry →

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Occupy Scandal!! City Of Oakland Exposed!! The Inquiries!! The Emails!! The Shame!!

February 28, 2012 in Headline, Occupy, Politics, Update

by Daniel Willis and Thomas Peele -  originally found via Occupy Santa Cruz

Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle Oakland interim Police Chief Howard Jordan and Mayor Jean Quan answer questions about the Occupy Oakland camp raid at City Hall.

Journalists constantly struggle to go beyond the official spin and report on a deeper level about government actions.

It’s a daily fight, one in which we need to be ever diligent against getting snowed by officials and falling into the role of stenographers rather than independent reporters. All of us, me included, can find ourselves regretful when we learn that the bureaucratic rhetoric we reported turns out to be far from reality.

That’s why the best reporting tracks government action by document rather than lip service. It’s why obtaining government communications is a vital and why I have dedicated my 2012 columns to the obtaining public officials’ e-mails and texts.

Today, rather than write this column, I am going to let the bureaucrats write it. What follows are city of Oakland e-mails obtained under the Public Records Act in which top officials discuss Occupy Oakland and the tent city that sprang up last year outside City Hall. City officials’ attempts to oust the protesters and the violent response that followed helped turn Oakland into an epicenter of the national Occupy movement. The emails’ writers include public relations people, lawyers, and top police officials, including a deputy police chief, Jeffrey Israel, who has since been demoted to captain. Read the rest of this entry →

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UC Davis sued over pepper spray attack

February 23, 2012 in Headline, Occupy, Politics, Update

Current and former students have sued the University of California, Davis over its campus police’s use of pepper spray against peaceful student demonstrators.

Seventeen UC Davis students and two alumni filed the lawsuit against university officials and police on Wednesday concerning the shocking pepper-spraying incident in November 2011 that sparked international condemnation.

The incident saw campus police pepper-spraying a group of students, who were sitting down in a peaceful protest as part of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement. The OWS emerged after a group of demonstrators gathered in New York’s financial district of Wall Street on September 17, 2011 to protest against the excessive influence of big corporations on the US policies and the high-level corruption in the country. Read the rest of this entry →

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Oakland police accused of shooting cousin of Oscar Grant

February 23, 2012 in Headline, Occupy, Politics, Video Perspective

OAKLAND, California (Reuters) – A man shot and wounded by an Oakland police officer last weekend was a cousin of Oscar Grant, whose shooting death by a Bay Area transit officer sparked violent demonstrations in 2010, his attorney said on Wednesday.

Uploaded by on Feb 22, 2012

The officer shot Tony Jones, 24, in the back as he fled from a police car at about 11:45 p.m. on Sunday, according to Jones’ attorney, Waukeen McCoy.

“He made a mistake running, but that didn’t give them the right to shoot him in the back,” McCoy said. Jones is the son of Oscar Grant’s aunt, he added.

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Stephen Coleman: The moral dangers of non-lethal weapons

February 22, 2012 in Editorial, Headline, Politics, World News

Uploaded by on Feb 7, 2012

http://www.ted.com Pepper spray and tasers are in increasing use by both police and military, and more exotic non-lethal weapons such as heat rays are in the works. At TEDxCanberra, ethicist Stephen Coleman explores the unexpected consequences of their introduction and asks some challenging questions.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the “Sixth Sense” wearable tech, and “Lost” producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate

If you have questions or comments about this or other TED videos, please go to http://support.ted.com

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Appeals Court Rules It Is Not Illegal To Film Police

February 22, 2012 in ANON NeWs, Headline, Occupy, Politics

Paul Joseph Watson

Despite the mass hoax still being promulgated by both the mainstream media and local authorities across America, the First Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that it is not illegal for citizens to videotape police officers when they are on public duty.

“The filming of government officials while on duty is protected by the First Amendment, said the Court,” reports Daily Tech.

“The filming of government officials engaged in their duties in a public place, including police officers performing their responsibilities, fits comfortably within these principles [of protected First Amendment activity].,” said the Court. “Gathering information about government officials in a form that can readily be disseminated to others serves a cardinal First Amendment interest in protecting and promoting the free discussion of governmental affairs,” stated the ruling, adding that this has been the case all along, and that the right to film police officers is not just restricted to the press.

The case cited several examples where citizens were arrested for documenting acts of police brutality on recording devices, including that of Simon Glik, who was arrested after he filmed Boston police punching a man on the Boston Common.

Another case involved Khaliah Fitchette, a teenager who filmed police aggressively removing a man from a bus in Newark. Fitchette was arrested and detained for two hours before police deleted the video from her cellphone.

The court ruling also made it clear that bloggers who report news based on their recordings of police have equal protection under the law as journalists. Read the rest of this entry →

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Building a stronger Occupy movement

February 19, 2012 in Headline, Occupy, Politics

Published on socialistworker.org Feruary 15 2012

A DEBATE about strategy and tactics is taking place in the Occupy movement, with significant consequences for the next phase of the struggle.

Though the starting point is the tactics employed by a current within Occupy Oakland during a January 28 day of protests that included an attempt to occupy a vacant building, the debate has resonated widely because Occupiers around the country face common questions: How can the movement build on its successes last fall during a slower period now? What kind of actions will take the struggle forward? What should the aim of our activities be?

The rise of the Occupy movement last fall was bound up almost everywhere with the encampments at outdoor spaces like Zuccotti Park in New York City, and much of the everyday activities of the movement–from General Assemblies and meetings of working groups on the one hand, to protests and marches on the other–grew organically out of these organizing centers.

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What Does Our Reaction To Black Bloc Tactics Say About Us?

February 16, 2012 in Editorial, Headline, Occupy, Politics, Update

Most people would argue that the use of violence for the protection of self, their loved ones, or those more vulnerable, is justified.  Not as revenge, but as a necessary measure to combat a crime in progress.  A desire for revenge may be understandable, and even acceptable to some, but that’s not the topic.  The topic is defense.  The defense of others and ourselves.  The immediate interference in an assailants ability to inflict harm, or end a life, as the result of their current actions.

The state often uses a doctrine of preemptive measures to justify its violence.  Evidence of a crime is not necessary.  A perceived threat, or imagined potential of a challenge to the states ability to maintain control, is all that is required to warrant acts of violence ranging from human rights violations against individuals to military actions killing hundreds of thousands.  Even if a misguided sense of Nationalism causes you to agree with this doctrine, like revenge, preemptive action is not the topic.

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U.S.-Backed Bahrain Forces Arrest and Deport Two American Peace Activists Acting as Human Rights Observers

February 14, 2012 in Headline, Politics, World News

On Saturday, Bahrain arrested and deported two U.S. human rights lawyers, Huwaida Arraf and Radhika Sainath, for their role in recent protests. They were deported Sunday and returned to New York last night. Both Arraf and Sainath are human rights lawyers and members of the Witness Bahrain initiative, which places international observers in the country in the hopes of preventing violence by security forces. Their arrest comes just ahead of the one-year anniversary of the popular uprising against the U.S.-backed monarchy. In the past year, Bahraini security forces have killed dozens of demonstrators, and hundreds more have been arrested or fired from their jobs. “[We] also were getting reports of journalists and human rights organization representatives being denied entry into the country in the lead-up to the first anniversary of the Bahrain revolution. And this caused great alarm, that the government was planning to escalate its oppression of the people,” says Huwaida Arraf.

from  –  democracynow.org

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Waging War in Secret vs. American Democracy

February 9, 2012 in Headline, Politics, Update, World News

By fighting terrorism with covert CIA actions, President Obama deprives us of the ability to meaningfully evaluate American foreign policy.

The War in Iraq is mostly over. We’re drawing down forces in Afghanistan. Barring an unexpected terrorist attack or another Libya-style troop deployment, Election 2012 will proceed in a world where the War on Terrorism is being waged by intelligence agencies making drone strikes in places like Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, and one in which we may be taking covert action inside Iran too.

In others words, much of American foreign policy will be a state secret.

Think about what that means for democracy.

The Iraq War was a major campaign issue in 2004 and 2006. President Obama owes his victory in 2008 partly to the fact that he opposed it, persuaded voters he’d exercise better judgment if faced with a “3 a.m. phone call,” and vowed to double down on winning the War in Afghanistan.

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A Reply to Chris Hedges’ ‘The Cancer in Occupy’: Stop Scapegoating Black Bloc, Look Within

February 7, 2012 in Editorial, Headline, Occupy, Politics, Update

from   -   truth_addict.blogspot.com

The interweb is abuzz on Chris Hedges latest column, “The Cancer in Occupy.” While employing hyperbole and non sequitur’s to take digs at Black Bloc (not to mention the hypocrisy which was quickly pointed out when referring to a May 2010 article where he wrote that, “The Greeks Get It“), Hedges has managed to alienate himself from, and piss off, many non-Black Blocers. In his column he writes that, “The Black Bloc anarchists, who have been active on the streets in Oakland and other cities, are the cancer of the Occupy movement.” A lot of people who admire Hedges—myself included—think his piece is wrong on many levels.

My first impression was that Hedges is sensing the death of Occupy, and is looking for a scapegoat. But rather than address the elephant in the room (which I will get to), he chose instead to employ a non sequitur. It does not follow that since many of the criticisms of Black Bloc are valid that it is “the cancer in Occupy.”

Initially I was very excited about Occupy, but the romance quickly wore itself out. Speaking in mid-October, Noam Chomsky told occupiers in Boston something that resembled my thoughts: “It’s going to be necessary to face the fact that it’s a long hard struggle. You don’t win victories tomorrow. You have to go on and form structures that will be sustained through hard times and can win major victories. There are a lot of things that can be done.” [emphasis added]
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The Cancer in Occupy – Nihilism, Not Believing In Anything

February 6, 2012 in Editorial, Headline, Occupy, Politics, Update

By Chris Hedges   –   from  truthdig.com

The Black Bloc anarchists, who have been active on the streets in Oakland and other cities, are the cancer of the Occupy movement. The presence of Black Bloc anarchists—so named because they dress in black, obscure their faces, move as a unified mass, seek physical confrontations with police and destroy property—is a gift from heaven to the security and surveillance state. The Occupy encampments in various cities were shut down precisely because they were nonviolent. They were shut down because the state realized the potential of their broad appeal even to those within the systems of power. They were shut down because they articulated a truth about our economic and political system that cut across political and cultural lines. And they were shut down because they were places mothers and fathers with strollers felt safe.

Black Bloc adherents detest those of us on the organized left and seek, quite consciously, to take away our tools of empowerment. They confuse acts of petty vandalism and a repellent cynicism with revolution. The real enemies, they argue, are not the corporate capitalists, but their collaborators among the unions, workers’ movements, radical intellectuals, environmental activists and populist movements such as the Zapatistas. Any group that seeks to rebuild social structures, especially through nonviolent acts of civil disobedience, rather than physically destroy, becomes, in the eyes of Black Bloc anarchists, the enemy. Black Bloc anarchists spend most of their fury not on the architects of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) or globalism, but on those, such as the Zapatistas, who respond to the problem. It is a grotesque inversion of value systems.

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OWS / Occupy Diversity of Tactics or Divide and Conquer?

February 5, 2012 in Editorial, Headline, Occupy, Politics

by Tina Dupuy and Josh Cook   –   from  occupiedmedia.us  — this is not necessarily the view of roguemedia, but an editorial piece to think about as we move forward.

Uploaded by on Jan 30, 2012

Following the most recent police assault on Occupy Oakland, Crooks & Liars managing editor Tina Dupuy called for Occupy to purge those who fail to “denounce violent tactics.”

She argues that it’s wrong to show solidarity with people on the receiving end of police violence in Oakland, declaring that “destroying property destroys moral authority.”

Josh Cook responded on his blog Deep Green Awakening, arguing that years of massive, systemic violence has set the stage for confrontation, even if violence is entirely avoidable.

“OWS is nothing if not a shift toward direct democracy through direct action, in both the sociopolitical and economic realms. Obviously, our super-wealthy rulers do not like this idea and will stop at nothing to squelch it. This shouldn’t be surprising. These are the same people who have no problem murdering Iraqi civilians, for example, to obtain oil and control of strategic land. They, too, are victims of a system whose logic is akin to that of the sociopath.”

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Why Occupy Oakland keeps capturing headlines

February 3, 2012 in Editorial, Headline, Occupy, Politics

A local activist explains why the Occupy movement is focusing on challenging police abuses in the city.

by Cami Graves   –   this post from aljazeera.com  original version in OccupyOaklandMedia

Police in Oakland have a history of brutal repression and wrongdoing, which has incited the ire of local activists [EPA]

Oakland, CA – The streets of Oakland, a California city of about 400,000, became a battle ground again on Saturday, as police showed excessive force in their response to Occupy Oakland demonstrations. Around 400 protesters were arrested, and many more, including the elderly, children, and some unwitting passersby, were tear-gassed and injured during the course of the first day of Occupy Oakland’s Move-In Weekend and Rise Up Festival.

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Is Chicago really planning on detaining anyone who records protestor arrests at the G-8 summit?

February 3, 2012 in Headline, Occupy, Politics

When it comes to recording police behavior, current Illinois law does not consider whether the interaction occurs in public or private Doug Menuez/Thinkstock Images.

By   -  from slate.com

In three months, thousands of reporters from around the globe will descend on Chicago for the G-8 summit. Part of what they will chronicle is the protests and police crackdowns that have made each annual meeting so newsworthy. Sadly for all these reporters, and for all the American journalists with plans to film the protestors and cops, any effort to audiotape police activity on public streets or in parks is a crime in Illinois—a crime punishable by 15 years in prison.

Illinois, like Massachusetts and Oregon, is famous for having one of the most draconian eavesdropping laws in the country. The New York Times recently profiled two Illinois citizens who ran afoul of the law that makes it a Class 1 felony to audio record a law-enforcement officer, state’s attorney, assistant state’s attorney, attorney general, assistant attorney general or judge in the performance of his or her duties. It is a crime to use any device “for the purpose of hearing or recording all or any part of any conversation … unless [done] with the consent of all of the parties to such conversation or electronic communication. …”

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Occupy Oakland inmates at Santa Rita attacked- developing story

February 2, 2012 in Headline, Occupy, Politics, Update

by Yael Chanoff   – taken from www.sfbg.com

Santa Rita jail in Dublin, CA

(THIS STORY HAS BEEN UPDATED)

In the aftermath of the mass arrests of Occupy Oakland protesters– and whoever else happend to be on the wrong street at the wrong time– on Jan. 28 in Oakland, there have been loads of reports and rumors about brutality inflicted on those arrested. Most of those arrested were held in Santa Rita jail.

My observations:

I spent 20 hours in jail, and I saw some cruel treatment. I saw people suffering after being denied medication. I saw people with allergies to the food that was provided refused any substitute and unable to eat, sometimes for more than 24 hours. I saw people crammed into holding cells meant for groups a third their size, so that some people had to remain standing, sometimes for more than 24 hours. As many arrestees were wearing clothing coated in tear gas and pepper spray, those chemicals continued to waft through cells and affect all present.

Reports:

I have reports directly from sources of arrested occupiers being beat up in jail with police batons. At least 20 people were ziptied, meaning their hands were cuffed behind their backs– and more often than not, if they happen to be cuffed too tightly and their hands go numb and even blue, police won’t loosen them– for more than eight hours. I know that some people who were denied access to a restroom ended up sitting in their own vomit and urine for at least four hours in some cases.

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Police Cause Miscarriage

December 1, 2011 in Headline, Occupy

Jennifer Fox, 19, was pregnant at Occupy Seattle last week when Police broke up the encampment. She told officers she was pregnant and asked to be let go. They hit her in the stomach twice before pepper spraying her in the face. Fox miscarried on Sunday. Doctors told her that the baby was killed due to trauma from the attack as well as inhaling tear gas.

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