Police Try To Intimidate Occupy
BECKY HOLLADAY
The earliest evidence that federal authorities in the United States were aware of Occupy Wall Street and preparing to squash it comes from a September 1 Department of Homeland Security briefing. Warning of an upcoming protest on Wall Street, the leaked memo explained that the unique conjunction of culture jammers with politicized hackers was cause for alarm. “The ideologies set forth by Adbusters seem to align at a basic level with the stated intent of Anonymous’ newly adopted Hacktivist agenda … These protests are highly likely to occur,” the report declared. We also know now that the FBI was investigating Occupy at least two days before occupiers seized Zuccotti. In a leaked chat log Sabu, an FBI informant and prominent member of LulzSec, a hacktivist affinity group, pumped for information about Anonymous’s plans for Occupy. He is recorded asking: “Lets talk about OpWallStreet. I plan on going to Wall Street, do we have anything planned?” Shortly after, despite these counterintelligence efforts, Occupy Wall Street was born and Zuccotti Park became the spiritual center of an international movement.
Now, as the international movement gears up for a major escalation in May with myriad big bangs – a May Day General Strike, anarchic swarms in #OCCUPYCHICAGO, an international blast on May 12 and an effort to retake the squares on May 15, a #LAUGHRIOT on May 18, #OCCUPYCAMPDAVID the next day along with major protests against NATO on May 20 and 21 – stories of aggressive intimidation tactics are beginning to emerge from New York City. In a recent article in the New York Times, occupiers described frequent harassment and interrogation by NYPD intelligence and FBI: “police officers or detectives have been posted outside buildings where private meetings were taking place, have visited the homes of organizers and have questioned protesters arrested on minor charges … one protester says he was questioned by a police detective and an agent from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” Meanwhile, authorities are demanding access to the Twitter accounts of prominent occupiers like Jeff Rae and logs of occupy websites. And in Florida, Occupy Miami was raided without cause by paramilitary police on March 13.
On reddit, one activist argued the situation is far worse than is being reported in the news, claiming to have encountered:”DHS bugging of common meeting grounds; DHS paying individuals to attend our meetings and cause disruption; police breaking into property, creating fire hazards, then getting protestors living there evicted for said fire hazard; police breaking into private property and installing surveillance equipment in people’s homes. In at least one instance they left it obvious enough to leave a message; police arresting individuals solely to have them identify photographs of other occupiers; manipulating our personal bank accounts, such as canceling our access to our own accounts.”
Taken together with news of the authoritarian new law H.R. 347, these sinister stories suggest that authorities in the United States are preparing to aggressively disrupt Occupy’s May spring offensive.
Weigh in below and tell us how you think the movement can outmaneuver these authoritarian efforts to shut down our people-power.
53 comments on the article “Police Try To Intimidate Occupy”
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Anonymous
George Clooney ARRESTED! - Civil Disobediamce
http://freedividual.com/2012/03/16/george-clooney-arrested/
Anonymous
I've made a great many changes in my life, since the birth of occupy, in solidarity, of the movement, and the individuals who are active within the movement. Occupy has brought a heightened awareness to my conciousness, and in turn I have shared with my children who are in turn, critically thinking about issues, and more imprtantly not accepting the status quo as is. I suspect that my support of, and involvement in the movement to grow even further in the future, and I will continue to nurture the growning interest in my children. We have the government we deserve, it has been through apathy and the myopic nature of the general public that brought this system into existance; we, through our attention and intention will create a different system, in time we will reap the fruits of our labors, you are doing the right thing, be proud, stand strong, keep sharing! OneLove
iotaprime
It's great what you're doing with your kids.
I have an acquaintance who has had a long career with Lockheed/Martin. I rationalized on his behalf: He's trying to get his kids through college, just like any loving parent. Then I talked to his son. I was shocked to find that he anticipates a career in the military industry and had some grandiose plan to make smart bullets. That's when I realized, his dad had accepted the world view that the US military industry was doing necessary, creative and beneficial work.
Some of our greatest pleasure in life comes from receiving good pay for hard work. Like so many nazis who were just cogs in the machine. The US has so many people making big money, directly or indirectly supporting violence and destruction. It's self-perpetuating.
There will be no political leader(s) who will be willing to steer the ship to a different course.
Like Derek Jensen says, it's the Culture of Make Believe.
Anonymous
It will, of course, be said that such a scheme as is set forth here is quite unpractical, and goes against human nature. This is perfectly true. It is unpractical, and it goes against human nature. This is why it is worth carrying out, and that is why one proposes it. For what is a practical scheme? A practical scheme is either a scheme that is already in existence, or a scheme that could be carried out under existing conditions. But it is exactly the existing conditions that one objects to; and any scheme that could accept these conditions is wrong and foolish. The conditions will be done away with, and human nature will change. The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes. Change is the one quality we can predicate of it. The systems that fail are those that rely on the permanency of human nature, and not on its growth and development. The error of Louis XIV. was that he thought human nature would always be the same. The result of his error was the French Revolution. It was an admirable result. All the results of the mistakes of governments are quite admirable. Oscar Wilde
Anonymous
We don't need no stinkin' OccuRobots.. we are all unique, keep it that way. Makes it harder for them to find us. Even though we know how to find each other. I for one am like many of you. I am in my mid-30's. I use to hack, I use to card, I use to phreak, and I went legit when I was 18 to start my career in the real world of New Media. 15 years later, I sit here and go over all that I have seen and experienced. My calling in life has exposed me to things, truths, and realities that most people from my small midwestern town could only begin to imagine. I have had people of incredibile wealth consult me on investment opportunities, and I was showered with praise by the record industry for trying to help them navigate through Napster. However, everything was lost when I thought I had the answer, and the answer was not what THEY wanted to hear. It didn't work within their models, and gist of my answer was that "there models are broke".
9/11 happened, and as I watched those buildings come down, I knew that life as I knew it was official over, but I remained in denial about such things for 10 years. I think we all did to some degree. Some of us went off and started families, and some of us continued to work through our careers. But something happened this fall. When the curious of us.. the same curiosity that made us the exciting and successful artists and programmers that we are.. turned up to see what all the OWS fuss was about. Many of us couldn't believe it was finally happening. Many of us became scared at what we knew was to come. Many of us know what is coming. We have known all along. We brought you the internet, we are bringing you something else now.
I marched my ass off every week out here on the left coast. I wouldn't say I was a very active Occupier. I never could get myself to sleep down there with the other Occupiers, but they had my back and I had theirs.. and that's really all that mattered. But I fought along side kids during the #j28th action in Oakland when I needed to see for my own eyes what the OPD was all about. I left that night having been gased, kettled, arrested, let go, LRADed, and chased by cops all night. My adrenaline was pumping. I ducked into BART exhausted by the games of cat and mouse I played all night with OPD with my friends in Black.
I don't need to know their names, I don't want them necessarily to know mine. But we all know that we all want the same thing. Something different, and now we are all hooked on rush we get from standing up to authority. This is more then a movement.. its a generational power grab.
Anonymous
For the movement in general...We need to discuss Viral:
misc notes for Adbusters Team
BIGGEST WEB EVENT EVER; volume spike; VIRAL
LET's DISCUSS VIRAL
the top five Web news events of all time
being topped by various sporting events and the 2010 U.S. midterm elections.
More than 10.3 million people per minute
Internet is changing the way people look for and consume information
http://mashable.com/2009/06/26/michael-jackson-web-impact/
30 percent of total volume on Twitter, and that might be a conservative estimate.
Facebook was largest.
Anonymous
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74118_Page2.html
One option may be offered by Americans Elect.
This group has set up a process to hold an on-line convention to select the first bipartisan presidential ticket in U.S. history. Registered Democrats, Republicans and independents will be eligible to participate. The ticket candidates for president and vice president would be required to be from different parties. For example, a Democrat and Republican would run as a team. If elected, they could form a truly bipartisan cabinet and administration.
Americans Elect will likely obtain the petition signatures needed to place a bipartisan ticket on the ballot in all 50 states this November. Millions of Americans have already signed the petitions. A victory by this ticket with this approach could be the “shock therapy” needed to get the two party system working again.
Anonymous
Um, no. Americans Elect is backed by the finance industry. It works exactly like the other two parties, except using the internet gives it a facade of being more democratic. They offer nothing but false hope. It is an attempt to co-opt and dissipate the energy of Occupy Wall Street into a form the system can break down and internalize. Your own writing betrays this tendency: "this approach could be the "shock therapy" needed to get the two party system working again." The smooth functioning of the two-party system is exactly what we should seek to avoid. It allows monopolization of political discourse by very narrow interests and demoralizes a vast number of people who do not feel represented by the two parties of imperial capitalism.
Anonymous
Let Us Discuss Viral Information Outreach Shall we...!
BIGGEST WEB EVENT EVER;
volume spike; VIRAL...
The top five Web news events of all time
being topped by various sporting events
and the 2010 U.S. midterm elections.
As in...
More than 10.3 million views per minute online.
The Internet is changing the way people look for and consume information.
http://mashable.com/2009/06/26/michael-jackson-web-impact/
30 percent of total volume on Twitter, and that might be a conservative estimate...
Facebook had the most hits.
This is a critical mass tool to reach the masses.
Let Us Get on it.
Anonymous
THE FEELING OF GOING OUT TO A PROTEST IS AWESOME
IT'S SO GOOD THAT I CAN'T FIND WORDS TO DESCRIBE IT
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-57398137-503543/the-syrian-teen-who-helped-spark-an-uprising/?tag=exclsv
the-syrian-teen-who-helped-spark-an-uprising
"Mohammed lives in Jordan now, having fled his homeland. His father was taken during the early months of the uprising, and the family has had no word from him since. But asked if he would do it all over again, Mohammed smiled under the scarf that hides his face, his eyes lit up and he said, "Yes I would... the feeling of going out to a protest is awesome. It's so good that I can't find words to describe it."
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