Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108

[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD]According to the New York Times, Mayor Bloomberg's girlfriend, Diana L. Taylor, sits on the board of Brookfield Properties, the owner of Zucotti Park (AKA Liberty Park). But that's hardly the ownly tie that has resulted in Brookfield becoming an active partner in Bloomberg's efforts to close down Occupy Wall Street.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

Read the rest of the story HERE:

http://www.opednews.com/populum/linkrss....4-644.html

Added on edit, from the click-through extension...:

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
According to the New York Times, Mayor Bloomberg's girlfriend, Diana L. Taylor, sits on the board of Brookfield Properties, the owner of Zucotti Park (AKA Liberty Park). But that's hardly the ownly tie that has resulted in Brookfield becoming an active partner in Bloomberg's efforts to close down Occupy Wall Street.
The current gambit of, in essence, closing the public headquarters of the movement under the guise of "cleaning up" the park, and then imposing rules that would prohibit anything other than pedestrian traffic and sitting on benches, is now delayed. (It had originally been scheduled for 7 AM EST Friday.)
Occupy Wall Street put out a call last night for people to join them in preventing the New York Police Department -- allegedly acting at the behest of Brookfield Properties -- from effectively shutting down the active "headquarters" of the anti-Wall Street corruption and economic inequality groundswell uprising. In addition, the public advocate for New York City -- a position not well known out of Manhattan, but one with considerable influence in city politics -- challenged Bloomberg's coordinated effort with Brookfield to render inoperative the anti-Wall Street beachhead.
"Bill de Blasio, the city's public advocate," according to the New York Times, "had expressed concern over the city's actions as he inspected the park Thursday afternoon and listened to protesters' complaints."
Bloomberg had first tried to use the NYPD -- and perhaps others -- to infiltrate and perhaps bait the Occupy Wall Street protesters into some sort of violent act, which would turn public opinion against them, and allow him to use the sort of excessive police force employed in "The Battle of Seattle" several years ago to cut off the head of the populist surge that has put corporations and Wall Street on the defensive. That didn't work, even though hundreds of people were arrested after claiming that the police led them onto the street level of the Brooklyn Bridge and then arrested them.
But plan "B" was for Brookfield Properties, which technically owns the public park as a result of it being built in return for zoning variations in the area, to "ask" for police help if plan "A" didn't pan out.
Just two weeks ago, Bloomberg -- worth $19.5 billion and whose fortune comes from an information software and device used by financial firms (along with a growing media empire, with an emphasis on business) -- spoke of a "sanitation crisis" in arambling attack on Occupation Wall Street on a New York radio program. He implicitly threatened that he would close the site down. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Brookfield Properties was expressing "deep" concern about the sanitation conditions in the park. This was not a coincidence: it was a public relations meme.
Newspaper accounts of the now delayed Zuccotti Park clean up generally accept that the City of New York was planning to have the NYPD arrest protesters who didn't clear the park as a response to a "request" from Brookfield Properties -- and it is true that there is such a written request.
But this is not Brookfield Properties acting on its own. It could have done that a long time ago. In fact it could have employed private security guards to clear the park of "temporary residents," by some legal interpretations of its rights as "owner" of the property.
Brookfield Properties is a multi-billion dollar commercial real estate company that is as tight as a tick with Bloomberg and the Wall Street plutocracy. It can't make a move in New York City to develop new projects without the approval of City Hall. It didn't make a move on Zucotti Park (named after the chairman of Brookfield) until the mayor got his ducks in a row and his public relations and legal people felt they could use the "sanitation" ruse, while the mayor claimed -- for media consumption -- that he was in support of the constitutional right to protest. You can bet your last dollar that Brookfield Properties was asked to write its letter to City Hall at the time it did directly by City Hall. The fact that the mayor's girlfriend is on the board of Brookfield is just symbolic icing on the cake of the oligarchy's symbiotic relationship.
However, due to factors already cited, and the strong legal possibility that the the NYPD could not be called in to Zucotti Park unless Brookfield Properties obtained a court order allowing for such a move, the mayor's office announced just before their scheduled de facto eviction that the police clear-out was being "delayed."
As BuzzFlash at Truthout noted in a commentary last week, "With the price of milk rising so high that many low-income New Yorkers can't afford it anymore, it's hardly comforting to know that...the priority of the multibillionaire mayor of New York is 'helping the banks.'"
Brookfield Properties does not make a move or a statement in regards to Zucotti Park without direction from Mayor Bloomberg's office. Of this you can be certain.
Nearly every financial firm and multi-national corporation in America is relying on Bloomberg to be their fellow multi-billionaire point man in putting an end to this "insurrection," just like the British Tories tried to do with the American revolution.

Diana Taylor, Bloomberg's Girlfriend, Criticizes Obama

By KATE TAYLOR

Published: September 30, 2011

[url=http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/01/nyregion/diana-taylor-bloombergs-girlfriend-criticizes-obama-and-gillibrand.html?_r=1#]REPRINTS
SHARE

As New York's mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg is generally careful when discussing political leaders, measuring his words to avoid directly knocking anyone he might have to work with in representing the city's interests. But his girlfriend, Diana L. Taylor, apparently feels no such constraints.

Enlarge This Image

Michael Reynolds/European Pressphoto Agency

Diana L. Taylor and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. In a published interview, she attacks President Obama's performance.

[Image: nytmetro-twitter-image-custom4.jpg]

Connect With Us on Twitter

Follow @NYTMetrofor New York breaking news and headlines.

In an interview in The New York Observer, she spoke critically of two Democrats, President Obama and Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand of New York, and of the whole field of Republican presidential candidates.
On Mr. Obama: "For somebody's who's going to come in and be the great unifier you know, that hopey-changey stuff it hasn't worked very well. The country is more divided now than it's ever been. And he doesn't appreciate other people and what they do."
On Ms. Gillibrand, whom she once considered opposing for office: "I don't agree with her on anything."
On the Republican presidential field: "I don't really like any of them very much. A lot of them scare me ... a lot."
Her criticism of Mr. Obama contrasted most sharply with the mayor's neutral approach, which often includes acknowledging the scale of the economic problems the president is faced with. Asked last Sunday on "Meet the Press" to rate Mr. Obama's economic performance, Mr. Bloomberg gave a calibrated response, saying: "Some things I agree with, some things I don't. I think he has a vision. I think he's pushed some things which may or may not make a difference. But at least he's trying."
And, he added, "whether you like the president or not, everybody has to pull together and help the president, because as the president goes, so goes the country."
Ms. Taylor, a former state banking official who now works at an investment firm, was more critical in her interview. Speaking about Mr. Obama's handling of the economy, she said: "He should be a champion for this country, and he's not. Because that's where the jobs are going to come from. They're not going to come from government; they're going to come from the private sector."
Ms. Taylor also faulted the president's leadership on health care legislation, saying he had deferred too much to Congress.
"The last time I checked, the president was supposed to sit down and figure out what he wanted and then get Congress to go along with it. And we got a mess," she said of Mr. Obama's efforts on health care. "And exactly the same thing with financial regulation."

A version of this article appeared in print on October 1, 2011, on page A17 of the New York edition with the headline: Sharp Words by Bloomberg's Girlfriend.

Journalists Funded By Vulture Capitalist' Paul Singer Campaign To Smear Wall Street Protests

By Lee Fang on Oct 10, 2011 at 10:30 am
[Image: thomassinger.jpg]

The campaign to marginalize and destroy the growing 99 Percent Movement is in full swing, with many in the mediaattempting to smear the people participating in the "occupation" protests across the country. However, several of the so-called journalists deriding, and in some cases sabotaging the movement, have paychecks thanks to a billionaire whose business practices have been scorned as among the worst of the financial elite.
As the New York Times has documented, Paul Singer, a Republican activist and hedge fund manager worth over$900 million, has emerged as one of the most importantpower brokers within the GOP. Now, it appears that the reporters financed by Singer are at the forefront of efforts to tarnish the reputation of 99 Percent Movement demonstrators:

Journalist Who Admitted To Infiltrating Protests To Mock And Undermine' The Movement Works For A Singer-Supported Right-Wing Magazine. In a column posted last night, reporter Patrick Howley admitted that he had surreptitiously joined an anti-war spin-off group from the OccupyDC protests that planned to demonstrate at a military drone exhibit at the Smithsonian's Air and Space museum. Howley wrote that he "infiltrated" the action and sprinted into the police along with a few protesters in order to "mock and undermine" the movement. Singer is a major donor to the Spectator, a right-wing magazine known for its role in the "Arkansas Project," a well-funded effort to invent stories with the goal of eventually impeaching President Clinton.
Journalist Pushing To Discredit Occupy Wall Street Is Funded By Singer's Think Tank. Josh Barro, a journalist who has attacked the 99 Percent Movement in the National Review and the New York Daily News,draws a salary from the Wriston Fellowship at the Manhattan Institute, a big business advocacy think tank in New York. Barro makes the same tired arguments, that anti-Wall Street protesters are too inarticulate and "extreme" to be taken seriously. Singer is the chairman of the Manhattan Institute, and even oversees the Wriston annual fundraiser.

As Singer-funded journalists make their best effort to diminish the Occupy Wall Street protesters as confused idiots unable to articulate a clear goal, it so happens that these journalists are funded by a man who epitomizes the crony capitalist behavior of the greedy one percent.
Singer, manager of a $17 billion hedge fund, earned the moniker "vulture capitalist" for buying the debt of Third World countries for pennies on the dollar, then using his political and legal connections to extract massive judgements to force collection even from nations suffering from starvation and violent conflicts. Singer and his partners have used such tactics in Panama, Ecuador, Poland, Cote d'Ivoire, Turkmenistan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In addition to squeezing impoverished countries with sovereign debt schemes, Singer speculates in the oil markets, a practice which can lead to gasoline price hikes here in the United States. The revelation that Singer engages in oil speculation, and also funds Republican lawmakers opposed to oil speculation regulations, was exposed by ThinkProgress using leaked government documents.
Singer's political philanthropy is tied to his business interests. As Greg Palast hasreported, Singer purchased near-bankrupt asbestos companies before his allies in Congress changed an asbestoas-liability law to make his investment incredibly profitable (at the expense, critics allege, of sickened workers). More recently, Singer has forged close financial ties to Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ), a little-known lawmaker at the forefront of efforts to repeal Dodd-Frank financial regulations on hedge funds like Elliott Associates, Singer's firm.
The rise of Singer's political profile can be traced to his work as a top donor to pro-Bush character-assasination groups like the "Swift Boat Veterans." In recent years, he has quietly worked with the right-wing billionaire industrialist Koch brothers and Republican strategist Karl Rove to finance a fleet of anti-Obama organizations, including the shady attack ad nonprofit, "Crossroads GPS." Singer also led acontroversial group of Republican moneymen in a bid to recruit Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) into the presidential race, but shifted to endorsing Mitt Romney. Singer and Romney are already close; Singer's hedge fund actually manages at least $1 million of the former governor's personal investments.
Singer's influence even extends to the Supreme Court. As ThinkProgress reported, Singer hosted Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito to speak at his $5,000-$25,000 a plate dinners.
http://thinkprogress.org/special/2011/10...urnalists/

"Vertically Integrated Grassroots Strategy"

by digby

In microeconomics and management, the term vertical integration describes a style of management control. Vertically integrated companies in a supply chain are united through a common owner. Usually each member of the supply chain produces a different product or (market-specific) service, and the products combine to satisfy a common need. It is contrasted with horizontal integration.

Here's the Koch Brothers' Americans for Prosperity answer to Occupy Wall Street:

Dear NAME,
The Left is back to its 1960s play book of fringe politicsthis time with a radical class-warfare mob called "Occupy Wall Street."
Their demands look an awful lot like the Left's tried-and-failed policies of the last two years:

Trillions of dollars for new entitlements we don't need and can't afford,
Government picking winners and losers in the economy,
And, of course, massive tax hikes that will crush the middle class and strangle job creationall in the name of "fairness."

Despite these agitators coming straight out of the Left's central casting, liberals in Washington are desperately trying to frame this as "widespread middle-class support" for their failed economic agendaeven though this unruly mob is anything but.
And, of course, even the left-wing media has climbed aboard the propaganda machine, calling these radicals everything from the "American Autumn" to the "Left's Tea Party."
The Left is coming out swinging, doing anything they can to distract from their radical agendaand it's absolutely critical that you and I stand strong and continue our fight for spending sanity in Washington.
That's why AFP is launching our new nationwideCut Spending Now tour.
Cut Spending Now uses AFP's tried-and-true vertically integrated grassroots strategycombining rallies in 19 states, a petition, and national media attentionto put unprecedented grassroots pressure on Congress and their deficit-cutting "super committee" to cut wasteful spending and keep taxes low on American families.
[B]You can sign the petition by clicking here.[/B]
Let me tell youit's more urgent than ever that you and I build the practical grassroots effort necessary to make sure Congress hears from everyday Americans, not just a fringe mob like "Occupy Wall Street."
Next month, Congress's super committee will announce their plans on how to cut $1.2 trillion from our deficit. And if radical Left-wing groups win the debate today, we could wind up with a trillion dollars in new job-killing tax hikesinstead of them making the necessary cuts to wasteful spending.
So far, Cut Spending Now has received a tremendous response nationwide. In the last few weeks, the tour has already turned out thousands of activists in seven critical statesWashington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, andColorado. And that's just the beginning.
But we can't keep this nationwide project going at full-strength without your help right now.
[B]Please click here to donate $25, $50, $100 or more right away.[url=http://americansforprosperity.org/OL1011F1][/url][/B]
Thank you so much for standing with Americans for Prosperity and Cut Spending Now. As part of our nationwide, 1.8 million-strong grassroots army, you're helping us put real pressure on Congressand stop the Left's propaganda machine dead in its tracks.
Sincerely,
JP DeGance, AFP

P.S. We're counting on you to help AFP's nationwide Cut Spending Now project change the debate in Washingtonand help bring economic freedom and spending sanity back to Washington.

And they're fundraising off of this ... never leave a dollar on the table, I guess.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/v...roots.html

Quote:Despite these agitators coming straight out of the Left's central casting, liberals in Washington are desperately trying to frame this as "widespread middle-class support" for their failed economic agendaeven though this unruly mob is anything but.

:finger: :rofl: :mexican:

By Michel Rose

MILAN | Sat Oct 15, 2011 3:31am EDT

(Reuters) - Protesters worldwide geared up for a cry of rage on Saturday against bankers, financiers and politicians they accuse of ruining global economies and condemning millions to poverty and hardship through greed.

Galvanized by the past month's Occupy Wall Street movement, the global protest began on a sunny spring day in New Zealand and is due to ripple round the world to Alaska via Frankfurt, London, Washington and New York.

Riot police prepared for any trouble -- cities such as London and Athens have seen violent confrontations this year -- but it was impossible to say how many people would actually turn out despite a rallying call across social media websites.

"I've been waiting for this protest for a long time, since 2008," said Daniel Schreiber, 28, an editor in Berlin. "I was always wondering why people aren't outraged and why nothing has happened and finally, three years later, it's happening."

New Zealand and Australia got the ball rolling while most of traditionally reserved Asia was quiet. Several hundred people marched up the main street in Auckland, New Zealand's biggest city, joining a rally in the city square where about 3,000 chanted and banged drums, denouncing corporate greed.

About 200 gathered in the capital Wellington and 50 in a park in the earthquake-hit southern city of Christchurch.

In Sydney, about 2,000 people, including representatives of Aboriginal groups, communists and trade unionists, protested outside the central Reserve Bank of Australia.

"I think people want real democracy," said Nick Carson, a spokesman for OccupyMelbourne.Org, as about 1,000 gathered in the Australian city. "They don't want corporate influence over their politicians. They want their politicians to be accountable."

Hundreds marched in Tokyo, including anti-nuclear protesters. Dozens in Manila, capital of the Philippines, marched on the U.S. Embassy waving banners reading: "Down with U.S. imperialism" and "Philippines not for sale."

In Taiwan, over 100 people gathered at the Taipei 101 skyscraper, home to the stock exchange, chanting "we are Taiwan's 99 percent," saying economic growth had only benefited companies while middle-class salaries barely covered soaring housing, education and healthcare costs.

They found support from a top businessmen, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (TSMC) Chairman Morris Chang, who told reporters in the northern city of Hsinchu that Taiwan's income gap was a serious issue.

"I've been against the gap between rich and poor," Chang said. "The wealth of the top 1 percent has increased very fast in the past 20, 30 years. 'Occupy Wall Street' is a reaction to that. We have to take the issue seriously..."

The protests are billed as peaceful. But in a sign of what may happen, a group of students stormed Goldman Sachs's offices in the Italian city of Milan on Friday.

The students broke into the hall of the Goldman Sachs building in Milan's financial district. They were quickly dispersed but red graffiti was daubed on its walls expressing anger at Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and saying "Give us money."

Demonstrators also hurled eggs at the headquarters of UniCredit, Italy's biggest bank.

Italian police were on alert for thousands to march in Rome against austerity measures planned by Berlusconi's government.

SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE

In Britain, demonstrators aim to converge on the City of London -- a leading international financial center -- under the banner "Occupy the Stock Exchange."

"We have people from all walks of life joining us every day," said Spyro, one of those behind a Facebook page in London which has grown to some 12,000 followers in a few weeks.

Spyro, a 28-year-old who has a well-paid job and did not want to give his full name, summed up the main target of the global protests as "the financial system."

Angry at taxpayer bailouts of banks since 2008 and at big bonuses still paid to some who work in them while unemployment blights the lives of many young Britons, he said: "People all over the world, we are saying, 'Enough is enough'."

Greek protesters aligned with Spain's "Indignant" movement called an anti-austerity rally for Saturday in Athens' Syntagma square, scene of many rallies during the financial meltdown.

"What is happening in Greece now is the nightmare awaiting other countries in the future. Solidarity is people's weapon," the Real Democracy group said in a statement calling on people to join the protest.

TIME TO UNITE

Concrete demands are few other than a general sense that the "greedy and corrupt" rich, especially banks, should pay more and that elected governments are not listening.

"It's time for us to unite; it's time for them to listen; people of the world, rise up!" proclaimed the website United for #GlobalChange. "We are not goods in the hands of politicians and bankers who do not represent us ... We will peacefully demonstrate, talk and organize until we make it happen."

In Germany, where sympathy for southern Europe's debt troubles is patchy, the financial center of Frankfurt and the European Central Bank in particular are expected to be a focus of marches called by the Real Democracy Now movement.

In the United States, the hundreds of protesters at Manhattan's Zuccotti Park called for more people to join them. Their example has also prompted calls for similar occupations in dozens of U.S. cities from Saturday.

In Houston, protesters plan to tap into anger at big oil companies.

Some analysts thought the protest momentum in countries such as Greece and Spain was wearing out.

"More people agree with these protests than actually take part," said Professor Mary Bossis of the University of Piraeus.

Despite despair over austerity measures that have slashed wages and pensions and put hundreds of thousands out of work, the spark for sustained action was lacking, she said.

"There is anger, there is rage ... but what it takes to overturn the current situation is missing," she said.

The targets of the protesters' wrath are also unlikely to be around to feel it. The City of London, for example, is deserted at weekends as wealthy city workers head for the golf club, country house or enjoy a spot of rest and recreation.

Full size

BY ADRIAN CHENShareOCCUPY WALL STREET
[COLOR=#9A9AA1 !important]
OCT 15, 2011 4:47 PM

Meet the Guy Who Snitched on Occupy Wall Street to the FBI and NYPD

[/url]The Occupy Wall Street protests have been going on for a month. And it seems the FBI and NYPD have had help tracking protesters' moves thanks to a conservative computer security expert [url=http://gawker.com/5850025/right+wing-rabble+rouser-leaks-thousands-of-occupy-wall-street-emails]who gained access to one of the group's internal mailing lists, and then handed over information on the group's plans to the authorities as well as corporations targeted by protesters.
Since the Occupy Wall Street protest began on September 17, New York security consultant Thomas Ryan has been waging a campaign to infiltrate and discredit the movement. Ryan says he's done contract work for the U.S. Army and he brags on his blog that he leads "a team called Black Cell, a team of the most-highly trained and capable physical, threat and cyber security professionals in the world." But over the past few weeks, he and his computer security buddies have been spending time covertly attending Occupy Wall Street meetings, monitoring organizers' social media accounts, and hanging out with protesters in Lower Manhattan.

Full size

As part of their intelligence-gathering operation, the group gained access to a listserv used by Occupy Wall Street organizers called September17discuss. On September17discuss, organizers hash out tactics and plan events, conduct post-mortems of media appearances, and trade the latest protest gossip. On Friday, Ryan leaked thousands of September17discuss emails to conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart, who is now using them to try to smear Occupy Wall Street as an anarchist conspiracy to disrupt global markets.What may much more alarming to Occupy Wall Street organizers is that while Ryan was monitoring September17discuss, he was forwarding interesting email threads to contacts at the NYPD and FBI, including special agent Jordan T. Loyd, a member of the FBI's New York-based cyber security team.

On September 18th, the day after the protest's start, Ryan forwarded an email exchange between Occupy Wall Street organizers to Loyd. The email exchange is harmless: Organizers discuss how they need to increase union participation in the protest. "We need more outreach to workers. The best way to do that is by showing solidarity with them," writes organizer Jackie DiSalvo in the thread. She then lists a group of potential unions to work with.
Another organizer named Conor responds: "+1,000,000 to Jackie's proposal on working people/union struggles outreach and solidarity. Also, why not invite people to protest Troy Davis's execution date at Liberty Plaza this Monday?"
Five minutes after Conor sent his email, Ryan forwarded the threadwith no additional commentto Loyd's FBI email address. "Thanks!" Loyd responded. He cc'd his colleague named Ilhwan Yum, a fellow cybersecurity expert at the agency, on the reply.

On September 26th, Ryan forwarded another email thread to Agent Loyd. But this time he clued in the NYPD as well, sending the email to Dennis Dragos, a detective with the NYPD Computer Crimes Squad.
The NYPD might have been very grateful he did so, since it involved a proposed demonstration outside NYPD headquarters at 1 Police Plaza. In the thread, organizers debated whether to crash an upcoming press conference planned by marijuana advocates to celebrate NYPD commissioner Ray Kellyordering officers to halt arrests over possession of small amounts of marijuana.
"Should we bring some folks from Liberty Plaza to chant "SHAME" for the NYPD's recent brutalities on Thursday night for the Troy Davis and Saturday for the Occupy Wall Street march?" asked one person in the email thread. (That past Saturday, the video of NYPD officer Anthony Bologna pepper-spraying a protester had gone viral.) Ryan promptly forwarded the email thread to Loyd at the FBI and Dragos at the NYPD.
Interestingly, it was Ryan who revealed himself as a snitch. We learned of these emails from the archive Ryan leaked yesterday in the hopes of undermining the Occupy Wall Street movement. In assembling the archive of September17discuss emails, it appears he accidentally included some of his own forwarded emails indicating he was ratting out organizers.
"I don't know, I just put everything I had into one big package," Ryan said when asked how the emails ended up in the file posted to Andrew Breitbart's blog. Some security expert.

But Ryan didn't just tip off the authorities. He was also giving information to companies as well. When protesters discussed demonstrating in front of morning shows like Today and Good Morning America, Ryan quickly forwarded the thread to Mark Farrell, the chief security officer at Comcast, the parent company of NBC Universal.
Ryan wrote:

Since you are the CSO, I am not sure of your role in NBC since COMCAST owns them.
There is a huge protest in New York call "Occupy Wall Street". Here is an email of stunts that they will try to pull on the TODAY show.
We have been heavily monitoring Occupy Wall Street, and Anonymous.

"Thanks Tom," Farrell responded. "I'll pass this to my counterpart at NBCU."
Did the FBI and/or NYPD ask him to monitor Occupy Wall Street? Was he just forwarding the emails on out of the goodness of his heart? In a phone interview with us, Ryan denied being an informant. "I do not work with the FBI," he said.
Ryan said he knows Loyd through their mutual involvement in the Open Web Application Security Project, a non-profit computer security group of which Ryan is a board member. Ryan said he sent the emails to Loyd unsolicited simply because "everyone's curious" about Occupy Wall Street, and he had a ground-eye view. "Jordan never asked me for anything."
Was he sending every email he got to the authorities? Ryan said he couldn't remember how many he'd passed on to the FBI or NYPD, or other third parties. Later he said that he only forwarded the two emails we noticed, detailed above.

But even if he'd been sending them on regularly, they were probably of limited use to the authorities. Most of the real organizing at Occupy Wall Street happens face-to-face, according to David Graeber, who was one of the earliest organizers. "We did some practical work on [the email list] at firstI think that's where I first proposed the "we are the 99%" mottobut mainly it's just an expressive forum," he wrote in an email. "No one would seriously discuss a plan to do something covert or dangerous on such a list."
But regardless of how many emails Ryan sentor whether Loyd ever asked Ryan to spy on Occupy Wall StreetLoyd was almost certainly interested in the emails he received. Loyd has helped hunt down members of the hacktivist collective Anonymous, and he and his colleagues in the FBI's cyber security squad have been monitoring their involvement in Occupy Wall Street.

At a New York cyber security conference one day before the protest began, Loyd cited Occupy Wall Street as an example of a "newly emerging threat to U.S. information systems." (In the lead-up to Occupy Wall Street, Anonymous had issued threats against the New York Stock Exchange.) He told the assembled crowd the FBI has been "monitoring the event on cyberspace and are preparing to meet it with physical security,"according to a New York Institute of Technology press release.
We contacted Loyd to ask about his relationship with Ryan and if any of the information Ryan passed along was of any use to the agency. He declined to answer questions and referred us to the FBI's press office. We'll post an update if we hear back from them.
We asked Ryan again this morning about how closely he was working with the authorities. Again, he claimed it was only these two emails, which is unlikely given he forwarded them to the FBI and NYPD without providing any context or explaining where he'd gotten them.
And he detailed his rationale for assisting the NYPD:

My respect for FDNY & NYPD stems from them risking their lives to save mine when my house was on fire in sunset park when I was 8 yrs old. Also, for them risking their lives and saving many family and friends during 9/11.
Don't you find it Ironic that out of all the NYPD involved with the protest, [protesters] have only targeted the ones with Black Ribbons, given to them for their bravery during 9/11?
I am sorry if we see things differently, I try to look at everything as a whole and in patterns. Everything we do in life and happens in life, there is a pattern behind it.

[Photo, top, via dcannflan/Flickr. Photos of Zuccotti Square and arrests of protesters via AP
http://gawker.com/5850054/meet-the-guy-w...i-and-nypd

[/COLOR]

Rumor has it there were police riots in Boston tonight; Mayor Menino is under pressure from the business community to do more, and made some comment about "outside agitators" (sounding like the landlord in "The Graduate"). I don't follow things on Twitter; I was doing some research. The Boston Globe online has more coverage on yesterday's comments by the Red Sox owner than.... oh,wait, there is a publicity shot of the Gubna, and the story notes an anti-war protestor shouting out "Who here has a $4 million home?; raise your hand". http://www.boston.com/Boston/metrodesk/2...News_links

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3100[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3101[/ATTACH]

http://bluemassgroup.com/2010/04/memo-de...-meltdown/

A rather incredible event happened in NYC yesterday. A group of 23 protesters peacefully entered a branch of Citibank to close their accounts. The bank locked them in; two who had left were dragged back in by plainclothes finks; and all were arrested - on what charges I can't imagine. It is all filmed, though the MSM hasn't said a word about it. I'll find the links and you can watch this amazing 'crime' of closing one's bank account! :mexican: Confused

:joystick: Here is part of it...it was ALL filmed and I'd love to watch their Court hearing. I think Citibank committed corporate suicide!

Quote: I think Citibank committed coporate suicide!

Yeah,but I thought zombie banks were already dead........:what:

Deep Politics Forum

Ed Jewett

Ed Jewett

Diana Taylor, Bloomberg's Girlfriend, Criticizes Obama

By KATE TAYLOR

Published: September 30, 2011

Michael Reynolds/European Pressphoto Agency

Connect With Us on Twitter

A version of this article appeared in print on October 1, 2011, on page A17 of the New York edition with the headline: Sharp Words by Bloomberg's Girlfriend.

Magda Hassan

Journalists Funded By Vulture Capitalist' Paul Singer Campaign To Smear Wall Street Protests

Magda Hassan

Peter Lemkin

Peter Lemkin

Magda Hassan

Meet the Guy Who Snitched on Occupy Wall Street to the FBI and NYPD

Ed Jewett

Peter Lemkin

Keith Millea