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Revealed: how the FBI coordinated the crackdown on Occupy

March 3, 2013 in ANON NeWs, Finance, Headline, Occupy, Politics

New documents prove what was once dismissed as paranoid fantasy: totally integrated corporate-state repression of dissent led by Corporate Banks that had Vested Interests in Protecting their Bailout Money, the FBI, Homeland Security and Local Police Forces.

 

Police used teargas to drive back protesters following an attempt by the Occupy supporters to shut down the city of Oakland. Photograph: Noah Berger/AP

Police used teargas to drive back protesters following an attempt by the Occupy supporters to shut down the city of Oakland. Photograph: Noah Berger/AP

By  - guardian.co.uk

It was more sophisticated than we had imagined: new documents show that the violent crackdown on Occupy last fall – so mystifying at the time – was not just coordinated at the level of the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and local police. The crackdown, which involved, as you may recall, violent arrests, group disruption, canister missiles to the skulls of protesters, people held in handcuffs so tight they were injured, people held in bondage till they were forced to wet or soil themselves –was coordinated with the big banks themselves.

The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, in a groundbreaking scoop that should once more shame major US media outlets (why are nonprofits now some of the only entities in America left breaking major civil liberties news?), filed this request. The document – reproduced here in an easily searchable format – shows a terrifying network of coordinated DHS, FBI, police, regional fusion center, and private-sector activity so completely merged into one another that the monstrous whole is, in fact, one entity: in some cases, bearing a single name, the Domestic Security Alliance Council. And it reveals this merged entity to have one centrally planned, locally executed mission. The documents, in short, show the cops and DHS working for and with banks to target, arrest, and politically disable peaceful American citizens.

The documents, released after long delay in the week between Christmas and New Year, show a nationwide meta-plot unfolding in city after city in an Orwellian world: six American universities are sites where campus police funneled information about students involved with OWS to the FBI, with the administrations’ knowledge (p51); banks sat down with FBI officials to pool information about OWS protesters harvested by private security; plans to crush Occupy events, planned for a month down the road, were made by the FBI – and offered to the representatives of the same organizations that the protests would target; and even threats of the assassination of OWS leaders by sniper fire – by whom? Where? – now remain redacted and undisclosed to those American citizens in danger, contrary to standard FBI practice to inform the person concerned when there is a threat against a political leader (p61). Read the rest of this entry →

OCCUPY ISN’T DEAD

October 9, 2012 in ANON NeWs, Editorial, Finance, Headline, Occupy, Politics

DEAR CORPORATE MEDIA: OCCUPY ISN’T DEAD, BUT IF IT EVER DOES DIE, GET THE BLAME CORRECT

By Dan Kaplan

Photo Credit: http://beautyfilledrevolution.tumblr.com

As I do after each one of Occupy Wall Street’s major days of action, I scoured news websites on Tuesday to learn what our “trusted watchdogs,” the mainstream media, had to say about S17.

And within minutes, I learned that the coverage – with little exception – amounted to nothing more than the typical and predictable refrain: Occupy is dead.

For me, reading Occupy stories written by reporters at the AP or Reuters or MSNBC or theDaily News or NY1 or Fox News or The New York Times is almost an exercise in masochism at this point. I don’t need to click on a link to know how the most important social movement of my lifetime is going to be handled by the establishment media. And it’s this: The coverage will fall somewhere between petulant group-think and outright falsehoods.

As a former mainstream media reporter myself – I wrote for the second-largest daily paper in New Jersey – I think I know why this is the case. Most journalists are either too meek and obedient to their most powerful sources (Mayor Bloomberg, the NYPD, etc.) to tell the real story – or they are too J-school trained to get “both sides” of the issue that they always leave the reader wondering: “So what’s the truth?” NYU professor Jay Rosen calls this “the view from nowhere.”

Throw in the fact that most mainstream media outlets are owned by huge corporations and that Occupy doesn’t fit into their neat parameters of what constitutes a political story (Democrats versus Republicans!!!), and it’s pretty obvious why every other story about the movement is an obituary.

But how many times is the mainstream media going to declare Occupy dead? It did so after encampments across the country were brutally raided and evicted late last year, it did so on Occupy’s six-month anniversary, it did so after May Day – and many more times in between.

The opening paragraph to these stories is always the same. It reads something like this: “Occupy Wall Street protesters gathered at such-and-such location yesterday, but their presence did not nearly live up to their numbers last fall.”

Enough already.

IF OCCUPY IS DEAD – AND HAS BEEN DEAD FOR MONTHS – WHY ARE YOU STILL WRITING ABOUT IT? Read the rest of this entry →

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

 

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 →

House Approved Bill Effectively makes First Amendment Null and Void

March 8, 2012 in Headline, Occupy, Politics

   –  examiner.com

H.R. 347 could make the First Amendment illegal. No one is really covering this bill and the major media call it non-controversial. The innocent sounding bill titled The Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011 was passed Tuesday with only three dissenting votes, and passed unanimously in the Senate. This bill dubbed the Anti-Occupy law was passed without one single Democrat speaking up for the first Amenndment.

Once this Bill is signed into law some believe it will make it a felony to excercise your first Amendment rights of Free Speech. Several of those commenting opined that the nearly unanimous vote proves that despite all the posturing both parties stand shoulder to shoulder in their defense of the greed and entitlement of the 1% from the rest of us. When you couple this with the indefinite detention of Americans in the National Defense Authorization Act it is clear that Obama is part of a ruling corporate oligarchy and is surely no Progessive.

Occupy Santa Cruz Shows Chilling Effects Of N.D.A.A. With Street Theatre

March 5, 2012 in Finance, Headline, Occupy, Politics

occupysantacruz.org

By Ricardo Flores Magón
This past Thursday March 1st, 2012, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) went into effect. The NDAA essentially suspends the 4th, 5th and 6th Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, these being our rights against warrantless seizures of person or property of US citizens, against depriving US citizens of life, liberty or property without due process of the law, and against the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury. The NDAA makes indefinite detention without charge or trial the law of the land for any person deemed by the government to have committed a ‘belligerent act’, without limitations and allows military detention of people captured far from any battlefield. (1)

While President Obama issued a signing statement and a policy directive promising that he wouldn’t use these provisions against US citizens and permanent resident aliens, such signing statements or policy directives do not carry the force of law, and are meaningless “protections” that can be revoked at any point. They do not change that the NDAA is the law of the land.

Occupy Santa Cruz protested the NDAA this Saturday in order to raise awareness on this issue that has not received a lot of press. Protesters gathered at the Court House steps and took the streets in a march to the Clock Tower. Read the rest of this entry →

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 →

Wikileaks: The global intelligence files

March 1, 2012 in ANON NeWs, Finance, Headline, Occupy, Politics, World News

Wikileaks: Today, Monday 27 February, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files – more than five million emails from the Texas-headquartered “global intelligence” company Stratfor. The emails date from between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal’s Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defense Intelligence Agency. The emails show Stratfor’s web of informers, pay-off structure, payment-laundering techniques and psychological methods, for example : Read the rest of this entry →

Purchasing Prisoners, Creating Criminals & How Occupy Could be Next

February 26, 2012 in Editorial, Headline, Occupy, Politics, Update

by Arvind Dilawar

Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), owner of the largest private prison system in the United States, recently sent a letter to 48 states offering up to $250 million to manage government-owned detention centers. The letterlists the criteria of eligible purchases, which include an assurance that state corrections agencies “have sufficient inmate population to maintain a minimum 90 percent occupancy over the term of the contract.”

This guarantee isn’t difficult to rationalize when considering it from CCA’s point of view. They are paid by the government for each prisoner they house, so they want to house as many prisoners as possible in order to maximize their revenue.

But what if there aren’t enough prisoners to fill CCA’s quota? Private prisons have faced this dilemma before, and they’ve responded by buying prisoners through legislation, government infiltration and old-fashioned bribery. And in the not too distant future, these conditions may mean that the mass arrests of Occupy protesters could become a windfall for investors. Read the rest of this entry →

New Georgia Bill Further Punishes Protest

February 26, 2012 in Headline, Occupy, Politics

Article by Aaron Cynic

A new Senate Bill in Georgia is leading the charge in punishing peaceful protest. Senate Bill 469 amends laws relating to labor organizations and relations to “provide that certain provisions prohibiting mass picketing shall apply to certain private residences…provide for an action to enjoin unlawful mass picketing…and provide for both criminal trespass and criminal conspiracy” with punishment and fines (h/t Sarah Jaffe at Alternet).

The bill makes it unlawful for persons to engage in picketing where “a labor dispute exists” in numbers that would block any kind of transportation or entrances to buildings or interrupt “quiet enjoyment.” In addition, planning such a direct action or protest would also become a crime – “conspiracy to commit criminal trespass.” In other words, a protest action such as a march or occupation of a building or protest around a private residence will be an arrestable offense, as well as planning such an action. The possible punishment includes a fine of up to $10,000 and a year in jail.

Eric Robertson, Political Director for Georgia Teamsters Local 728 told Alternet “This bill is obviously an attack on working people and anyone who believes in organizing for justice. It undermines civil liberties, and clearly is designed to cripple working peoples’ ability to organize and build organizations to improve their working conditions.” Read the rest of this entry →

Manipulating Reality; Hurting Democracy

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

Over the past few decades in America, reality has been put in play as never before, with powerful interests using  sophisticated “perception management,” the shaping of how the public perceives the outside world, a threat that Lawrence Davidson says is again leading the nation to destruction.

By Lawrence Davidson

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper talks with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office. (Photo credit: Office of Director of National Intelligence)

In mid-February, an array of top U.S. intelligence chiefs appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee to give their annual report on “current and future worldwide threats” to national security. Those testifying included CIA Director David Petraeus, National Intelligence Director James Clapper, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. General Ronald Burgess, and FBI Director Robert Mueller.

Their presentations on what is and is not a real threat to the nation, as well as the reaction of the senators holding the hearings, turned out to be an exercise in one dimensional thinking. What is real? Well, what comports with your point of view. Here are two examples from their testimony:

1. The Enemy Within – Rogue individuals operating “within the ranks” of the intelligence community and armed forces now constitute a major threat to U.S. security. According to Lt. General Burgess these people are “self-radicalized lone wolves.” He pointed to the “recent massive WikiLeaks disclosures.”

Read the rest of this entry →

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.

Read the rest of this entry →

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.

Read the rest of this entry →

Noam Chomsky: U.S. Decline Is Real — and Increasingly Self-Inflicted

February 16, 2012 in Headline, Politics

by – Noam Chomsky – how America “lost” the world.
Significant anniversaries are solemnly commemorated — Japan’s attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, for example.  Others are ignored, and we can often learn valuable lessons from them about what is likely to lie ahead.  Right now, in fact.

At the moment, we are failing to commemorate the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s decision to launch the most destructive and murderous act of aggression of the post-World War II period: the invasion of South Vietnam, later all of Indochina, leaving millions dead and four countries devastated, with casualties still mounting from the long-term effects of drenching South Vietnam with some of the most lethal carcinogens known, undertaken to destroy ground cover and food crops.

The prime target was South Vietnam.  The aggression later spread to the North, then to the remote peasant society of northern Laos, and finally to rural Cambodia, which was bombed at the stunning level of all allied air operations in the Pacific region during World War II, including the two atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  In this, Henry Kissinger’s orders were being carried out — “anything that flies on anything that moves” — a call for genocide that is rare in the historical record.  Little of this is remembered.  Most was scarcely known beyond narrow circles of activists. Read the rest of this entry →

Ten Years Later: Torture, Indefinite Detention, Military Tribunals

February 9, 2012 in Headline, Occupy, Politics

The Indefinite Detention Bill (NDAA) DOES Apply to American Citizens on U.S. Soil

An absorbing article by Andrew Cohen on the Atlantic’s website has reminded me that today marks a very special 10th anniversary. Ten years ago policies were established that led to Abu Ghraib, the secret C.I.A. prisons, the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and torture; that led, in other words, to a period that ranks among the worst in American history for the abuse of executive power, the shredding of civil liberties and the undermining of the judicial system.  At the time, we didn’t know it was happening, because it was done in secret.

Mr. Cohen’s article concerns an executive memorandum with the ironic title “Humane Treatment of Taliban and al Qaeda Detainees.” It was written by several Bush administration officials, including John Yoo (who went on to author the infamous torture memos), and was approved by Alberto Gonzales, Mr. Bush’s mob lawyer – I mean White House counsel.

This memo advanced the notion that the President could honor the Geneva Conventions only when he felt like doing so, and that in any case, they did not apply to prisoners associated with al Qaeda or the Taliban.

Read the rest of this entry →

United States DHS Report, If You Love “Individual Liberty” Of If You “Believe In Conspiracy Theories” You Are A Potential Terrorist

February 9, 2012 in ANON NeWs, Headline, Occupy, Politics, Update

Hot Spots of Terrorism and Other Crimes in the United States, 1970 to 2008“, and it was produced by the “National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism” for the Department of Homeland Security.  As you will see detailed later on in this article, the most shocking part of this report is when it discusses the “ideological motivations” of potential terrorists.  The report shamelessly attempts to portray red-blooded Americans that love liberty and that love their country as the enemy.  Once upon a time, deeply patriotic Americans were considered to be the backbone of America, but today they are considered to be potential terrorists.

Do you love America?  Are you against a one world economy and a one world government?  Do you deeply love individual liberty?  Do you believe in conspiracy theories?  If you answered any of those questions affirmatively, then you are a potential terrorist according to a brand new Department of Homeland Security report that was just released in January 2012. The report is entitled “

And this report is yet another example of how the definition of “terrorism” has changed.  A decade ago, the entire focus of the “war on terror” was on radical Muslims and we were told that we had to send our boys and girls to the other side of the world to defeat them.

Well, in this new report there is barely any mention of Islam at all.  Instead, the report identifies patriots, conspiracy theorists, evangelical Christians, anti-abortion activists, survivalists and those that are against globalism as the real threats.

The focus of the “war on terror” has fundamentally shifted.  The “enemy” is now those that love freedom and those that love America.

Read the rest of this entry →

Liberia: Plenty “democracy” no electricity

February 6, 2012 in Finance, Headline, Politics, World News

By Thomas C. Mountain  –  from  intrepidreport.com

While Liberia could afford an election in which President Ellen Johnson ran unopposed, the people of the country have neither electricity nor running water.

Long the golden girl of the Western banktatorships, Ellen Johnson spent the year before her election in 2006 campaigning in Liberia while drawing a healthy salary and benefits package, courtesy of the United Nations Development Program.

In six years as president and hundreds of millions in Western aid, the only visible benefit seems to be the profit margin of Firestone Rubber, Liberia’s #1 industry.

No electricity but plenty of “democracy,” Western style that is.

Read the rest of this entry →