Occupy Everywhere - Sept 17th - Day of Rage Against Wall Street and what it stands for!

[Peter Lemkin]

The Manhattan District Attorney will not be prosecuting the NYPD cops who were caught on video pepper-spraying and punching Occupy Wall Street protesters, the Daily News reported.

The DA's office made the announcement on Friday.

The cops in question are two Deputy Inspectors, Anthony Bologna and Johnny Cardona.

In video footage that surfaced in late 2011, Bologna was seen liberally pepper-spraying a seemingly calm crowd in Union Square on September 24, and Cardona was captured punching a protester named Felix Rivera-Pitre in the face in the Financial District on October 14.

Bologna was reportedly docked 10 vacation days, and Cardona was cleared by the department.

Manhattan DA spokeswoman Erin Duggan reportedly told the Daily News that additional evidence made it unclear that the officers' actions were unjustified.

"After a thorough investigation … we cannot prove these allegations criminally beyond a reasonable doubt," Duggan said.

Roy Richter, Captains Endowment Association President praised the decision, and hailed Cardona as "a true victim of the [Occupy Wall Street] fiasco." Cardona needed hip- and knee-replacement surgery due to injuries sustained during a demonstration.

Richter also said that Bologna "did nothing that rises to the level of criminal conduct."

Ron Kuby, an attorney who pressed for assault charges on behalf of victims in both cases, condemned the DA's decision, particularly in light of the office taking "almost 19 months to decide he would do nothing."

"Despite the overwhelming proof on videotape, seen around the world, Cy Vance Jr. has shown that he will do nothing to disturb his cozy relationship with the police, even in the face of the clearest wrongdoing," Kuby complained.

[Peter Lemkin]

No Charges for Police Commanders Over Actions During Protests
By ANDY NEWMAN
Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna at an Occupy Wall Street protest in 2011.Charlie Grapski via YouTube Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna at an Occupy Wall Street protest in 2011.

During the Occupy Wall Street protests and their aftermath, they were the online-video symbols for those who said the New York Police Department was using excessive force:

Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna, in his white commander's shirt, walking up to a crowd of people and appearing to pepper-spray protesters at random. And Deputy Inspector Johnny Cardona, who appears to turn around a protester who is walking away and punch him in the face.

Inspector Bologna was found by the Police Department to have violated internal guidelines and was docked 10 vacation days. Both men are facing civil lawsuits in which the city has declined to defend them.

But there will be no criminal charges against either commander, the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., said Friday afternoon.

"The district attorney's office has concluded, after a thorough investigation, that we cannot prove these allegations criminally beyond a reasonable doubt," a spokeswoman, Erin M. Duggan, said in a brief statement. "We have informed the Police Department, the complainants, and the city of our decision."


Video taken Sept. 24, 2011, showing Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna pepper-spraying Occupy Wall Street protesters. The incident was examined by prosecutors.

A former Manhattan prosecutor, Thomas J. Curran, said that it is harder to prosecute police personnel, particularly for conduct in a chaotic situation like a street demonstration, because using force "is part of their job."

"The use of force would have to be a complete departure from any legitimate police activity," said Mr. Curran, who is now a defense lawyer. "You'd have to show an intent to assault, and you have to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt, as opposed to using force as allowed pursuant to police activity. It's very difficult to do."

Kaylee Dedrick, one of the protesters pepper-sprayed by Inspector Bologna who has since sued him, said in a phone interview, "Part of me expected that he wouldn't be prosecuted, but I'm still pretty shocked, with all the evidence against him."

Video taken Oct. 14, 2011, shows Deputy Inspector Johnny Cardona appearing to hit a protester.

Her lawyer, Ron Kuby, who represents several protesters who are suing the inspectors, called the decision "cowardly and despicable."

Prosecutors said they investigated possible assault charges against Inspector Bologna for his use of pepper spray in a protest on East 12th Street on Sept. 24, 2011. In a widely viewed video, Inspector Bologna can be seen striding up to a crowd penned behind orange mesh netting, discharging his pepper-spray canister with a sweeping motion, and walking away.

In the episode involving Inspector Cardona, video shot from several angles on Oct. 14, 2011, appears to show the inspector tapping a man, Felix Rivera-Pitre, on the shoulder, and then, after Mr. Rivera-Pitre turns to look at Inspector Cardona and walks away, the inspector grabbing Mr. Rivera-Pitre and punching him in the face.

The police said at the time that Mr. Rivera-Pitre had tried to elbow Inspector Cardona in the face beforehand and was being sought for attempted assault.

Mr. Curran, who said he had spoken to prosecutors in Mr. Vance's office about the cases, said that in the case of Inspector Bologna, "he used the spray not specifically at any one person but at the crowd, in response to a situation that's getting out of control." The department guidelines Inspector Bologna was found to have violated had to do with using pepper spray in a nonarrest situation without sufficient training, which Mr. Curran said was an entirely different thing from committing assault.

In the Cardona case, Mr. Curran said of Mr. Rivera-Pitre, "the evidence that the D.A. saw suggests that he had his arm cocked in a fist form before Cardona hit him."

Roy Richter, president of the union to which both commanders belong, the Captains Endowment Association, said that declining to prosecute Inspector Bologna was "the right decision" and that Inspector Cardona had been injured by Occupy protesters and "is the true victim of the O.W.S. fiasco."

Mr. Kuby said he would ask federal prosecutors to review the cases.

[Peter Lemkin]

Just saw a 'hit piece' on OWS-2013 comparing them to a Communist Youth Movement, complete with photos of only those protesters [real or planted for the story] with signs, tables or T-shirts with Marx or Lenin on them, or other similar. Yes, a few OWS persons might be of that political bent, but by far most were not. Fine propaganda operation. Gee, I wonder who it serves......? http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://...WM4AYze3RQ

[Magda Hassan]

Just more divide and conquer tactics. They use it because it works and people are too uneducated to tell they are being played.

[Peter Lemkin]

Hey Dawn, I'll bet they never taught this in Law School!....

Appeals Court Turns Away Twitter's Challenge To Subpoena

by Wendy Davis, 8 hours ago


An appellate court in New York has dismissed Twitter's appeal of a ruling requiring it to turn over the records of Occupy Wall Street protester Malcolm Harris, who was arrested for disorderlyconduct during a protest in 2011.
The court said this week that questions about the legality of the ruling were "academic," because Twitter had already turned over the information.That's the type of ruling that makes advocates want to tear out their hair: The only reason Twitter complied with the subpoena was because the appellate court refused to stay a trial judge's order requiring the microblogging service to do so.
Inother words, the court said Twitter had to disclose information, and then refused to hear Twitter's appeal because it did so.
The case dates to the fall of 2011, when Harris was accused ofblocking traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge by walking in the area reserved for cars. The Manhattan District Attorney's office subpoenaed Harris's records from Twitter, in hopes of proving that his tweetswould show he deliberately went into the street. At that point, Harris's tweets were no longer publicly available.
Harris challenged the subpoena, but Judge Matthew A. Sciarrino, Jr., ruledthat Harris lacked "standing" because the subpoena didn't require him to turn over any information. The ruling meant that only Twitter could challenge the subpoena.
Twitter thenfiled its own challenge, arguing that prosecutors had no right to the information unless they obtained a search warrant. Sciarrino rejected Twitter's position and ruled that the prosecutor wasentitled to obtain the data with just a subpoena.
Sciarrino ruled that federal Stored Communications Act only requires a subpoena -- and not a search warrant -- for data more than 180 daysold. Despite that law, one federal appeals panel has said that the constitutional ban on unreasonable searches and seizures nonetheless requires law enforcement to obtain search warrants beforeaccessing users' messages. In that case, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the police must obtain a search warrant before they're entitled to email messages.
That difference iscrucial: To obtain a search warrant, prosecutors must show there's probable cause to believe the material sought will yield evidence of a crime. But subpoenas only require showing that information isrelevant to an investigation.
There's an ongoing effort on Capitol Hill to revise the Stored Communications Act to require search warrants for all digital messages, regardless of how longthey've been stored. In the meantime, the New York appellate court lost an opportunity to weigh in on the issue by punting.
As for Harris, he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct after his tweets were turned over.They reportedly showed that he heard the police tell protesters to stay out of the street.


Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/ar...z2TcTVy3H6

[Peter Lemkin]

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been engaged in massive surveillance of peaceful protesters which undermines protections enshrined in the First and Fourteenth Amendments.Two recent studies raise serious questions about the way the DHS has reacted to Occupy style protests. Let us not forget the primary mission of the DHS is to "safeguard the United States against terrorism."In August of 2012 the bipartisan think tank The Constitution Project issued a report on DHS counter-terrorism fusion centres. It notes how there are 77 active fusion centres in the US which are information sharing hubs where DHS, FBI and state/local law enforcement agencies can pool intelligence and coordinate their activities. This report investigates the use of counter-terrorism fusion centres and notes that many:

"pose serious risks to civil liberties, including rights of free speech, free assembly, freedom of religion, racial and religious equality, privacy, and the right to be free from unnecessary government intrusion. Several fusion centers have issued bulletins that characterize a wide variety of religious and political groups as threats to national security. In some instances, state law enforcement agencies that funnel information to fusion centers have improperly monitored and infiltrated anti-war and environmental organizations. "

The report further notes that many fusion centres are keeping files upon people without proper justification. Racial, political and religious profiling of ordinary citizens is being carried which undermines First Amendment rights to freedom of association, freedom of religious and political beliefs.Apparently, there are numerous examples of counter-terrorism fusion centres targeting a wide variety of different political groups for surveillance and infiltration. For example, between 2005-2007 the DHS and Maryland State Police spied upon and infiltrated anti-war, anti-death penalty and animal rights groups. Despite the fact that these were peaceful protesters who engaged in no criminal activity the surveillance went on for several years with many activists being designated terrorists. The report observes that: "All told, data characterizing 53 peaceful activists (including two nuns) as "terrorists" was transmitted to at least seven federal and state agencies, including the National Security Agency."The Constitution Project report into DHS counter-terrorism fusion centres concludes with the recommendation that,"Congress, DHS or DOJ should commission an independent study of fusion center performance, sustainability and impact upon civil liberties."This violation of civil liberties is further confirmed by the release of DHS documents released by the Partnership for Civil Justice on 2 April 2013. Freedom of Information Act requests saw the DHS release hundreds of pages of heavily redacted documents that reveal the routine surveillance and disruption of free speech Occupy protests by DHS agents in collaboration with local law enforcement agencies.Back in December, documents received by the Partnership for Civil Justice revealed the role of the FBI in monitoring and disrupting peaceful Occupy protests. They clearly show how the FBI regarded Occupy protestors as potential terrorists and criminals despite acknowledging that Occupy Wall Street movement consistently called for peaceful protests.In the last few months of 2011 Occupy Wall Street faced a coordinated violent crackdown to evict protesters from public spaces by DHS, FBI and local law enforcement agencies. This violent crackdown had a stunning effect upon the peaceful Occupy movement which it has still not fully recovered from.The recently released DHS documents show it devoted a lot of time, energy and resources to the constant surveillance of Occupy style protests in cities and towns across America. The DHS was obsessed with the question of whether any protests were receiving media coverage and if they were targeting federal property.Before examining the nature of DHS activities during this phase of the Occupy movement it is worthwhile bearing in mind a comment made by DHS secretary Janet Napolitano on 2 April 2013:

"DHS is mindful that one of its missions is to ensure that privacy, confidentiality, civil rights and civil liberties are not diminished by the Department's security initiatives".

The surveillance of the Occupy Portland movement during October-November 2011 serves to illustrate the nature of DHS activities during this phase of the Occupy Wall Street movement which undermined First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and association.In early October 2011 Occupy Portland was just getting going and DHS devoted considerable time to monitoring its twitter and face book activities. The main focus of its energies were daily surveillance of the various demonstrations and encampments that were set up in city parks and Terry Shrunk Plaza. The DHS was particularly concerned by the encampment on Terry Shrunk Plaza. DHS inspectors worked in shifts to carry out this round the clock surveillance. They were instructed to come with riot gear and be armed.On the 5 October one agent's report reads:

"300 turned up for last week's planning session. This is triple the turnout for a similar event for a planning counsel. Event organizer's have been heard discussing the coming wet weather…I think it is likely this event will affect federal property." [He calls for extra agents to be sent to Portland for ]"civil disturbance operations".

A report on 31 October 2011 with the heading "Crime/Incident: Demonstration-Violent" notes that DHS agents and Portland police told 200 protesters to leave Terry Shrunk Plaza. The agent says that the DHS,

"Acting Area Commander [redacted] advised that the demonstrators appear to have a mob mentality….Portland Police Commander [redacted] wants to coordinate with FPS [read DHS agents] an early morning removal of the tent and protesters tomorrow morning. Michael Moore (Hollywood Film Director) is at Terry Shrunk Plaza right now and is getting the crowd excited and having them bring more tents…"

On 1 November another report notes how DHS agents and Portland police were working together to remove Occupy protesters from Terry Shrunk Plaza:

"[DHS] inspectors entered Terry Shrunk Plaza and began announcing that everyone needed to leave and take down their tents or they would be arrested. 10 subjects refused to leave the property. …We handcuffed and transported all 10 subjects to Gus Solomon courthouse where we processed them. All of the subjects were cited and released for failure to conform to Lawful Direction."

One could be forgiven for asking why are DHS agents spying upon peaceful protesters and then breaking up their free speech protests with arrests? The mission charter of the Department of Homeland Security says nothing about its role being to police free speech protests. One can only draw the conclusion that the DHS regards free speech protests as potential terror threats hence why it devoted such large amounts of energy and resources to mass surveillance of Occupy Wall Street during the autumn and winter of 2011.Maria Verheyden-Hillard, Executive Director of the Partnership for Civil Justice has observed that DHS agents during this period were

"functioning as a secret police force against people participating in lawful free speech activity…. The federal agencies' actions were not because Occupy represented a "terrorist threat" or a "criminal threat" but rather because it posed a significant grass roots political challenge to the status quo"

These reports show how the third biggest government department is obsessed with peaceful Occupy protests. The Department of Homeland Security spends a large amount of time and resources in undermining the civil liberties of peaceful protesters that have nothing to do with its official mandate of fighting terrorism.It is clear that the 1% who make up the ruling class of America feel threatened by the political awakening that is represented by the growing Occupy movement.The growing wave of protests against murderous drone strikes, against home foreclosures, against the destruction of the environment and public services all show how the American people are slowly moving on to the scene of history. When the giant, that is the American working class, moves en masse on to the political scene no force on earth will stop it from sweeping the ruling class away into the dustbin of history.The Department of Homeland Security declined the offer of commenting upon issues raised in this article.

[Peter Lemkin]

Government Surveillance of Occupy Movement

Jump to: navigation, search

Special Report by Center for Media and Democracy and DBA Press

- by Beau Hodai, CMD/DBA
On May 20, 2013, DBA Press and the Center for Media and Democracy 
released the results of a year-long investigation: "Dissent or Terror:
 How the Nation's Counter Terrorism Apparatus, In Partnership With 
Corporate America, Turned on Occupy Wall Street."

 The report, a distillation of thousands of pages of records obtained
 from counter terrorism/law enforcement agencies, details how
 state/regional "fusion center" personnel monitored the Occupy Wall
 Street movement over the course of 2011 and 2012.
The report also examines how fusion centers and other counter terrorism entities that 
have emerged since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 have
 worked to benefit numerous corporations engaged in public-private
 intelligence sharing partnerships. 

While the report examines many instances of fusion center monitoring
 of Occupy activists nationwide, the bulk of the report 
details how counter terrorism personnel engaged in the Arizona Counter
 Terrorism Information Center (ACTIC, commonly known as the "Arizona fusion center") monitored and otherwise surveilled citizens active in
 Occupy Phoenix, and how this surveillance benefited a number of 
corporations and banks that were subjects of Occupy Phoenix protest 
activity.

While small glimpses into the governmental monitoring of the Occupy Wall Street movement have emerged in the past, there has not been any reporting -- until now -- that details the breadth and depth with which the nation's post-September 11, 2001 counter terrorism apparatus has been applied to politically engaged citizens exercising their Constitutionally-protected First Amendment rights.
REPORT Dissent or Terror: How the Nation's 'Counter Terrorism' Apparatus, in Partnership with Corporate America, Turned on Occupy Wall Street
REPORT APPENDIX open records materials cited in report.
PRESS RELEASE "New Report Details How Counter Terrorism Apparatus Was Used to Monitor Occupy Movement Nationwide"
SOURCE MATERIALS almost 10,000 pages of open records materials are archived on DBA Press.
PRWATCH ARTICLE "Dissent or Terror: How Arizona's Counter Terrorism Apparatus, in Partnership with Corporate Interests, Turned on Occupy Phoenix"

Key Findings

Key findings of this report include:

• How law enforcement agencies active in the Arizona fusion
 center dispatched an undercover officer to infiltrate activist groups
 organizing both protests of the American Legislative Exchange Council 
(ALEC) and the launch of Occupy Phoenix and how the work of this 
undercover officer benefited ALEC and the private corporations that
 were the subjects of these demonstrations.


  

• How fusion centers, funded in large part by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, expended countless hours and tax dollars in the monitoring of 
Occupy Wall Street and other activist groups.


  

• How the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has financed
 social media "data mining" programs at local law enforcement agencies engaged in fusion centers.


  

• How counter terrorism government employees applied facial
 recognition technology, drawing from a state database of driver's
 license photos, to photographs found on Facebook in the effort to 
profile citizens believed to be associated with activist groups.


  

• How corporations have become part of the homeland security "information sharing environment" with law enforcement/intelligence agencies through various public-private intelligence sharing partnerships. The report examines multiple instances in which the counter terrorism/homeland security apparatus was used to gather intelligence relating to activists for the benefit of corporate interests that were the subject of protests. 


  

• How private groups and individuals, such as Charles Koch, 
Chase Koch (Charles' son and a Koch Industries executive), Koch 
Industries, and the Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council 
have hired off-duty police officers -- sometimes still armed and in
 police uniforms -- to perform the private security functions of keeping
 undesirables (reporters and activists) at bay.


  

• How counter terrorism personnel monitored the protest
 activities of citizens opposed to the indefinite detention language
 contained in National Defense Authorization Act of 2012.
  

• How the FBI applied "Operation Tripwire," an initiative
 originally intended to apprehend domestic terrorists through the use
 of private sector informants, in their monitoring of Occupy Wall 
Street groups.
  
• =========================================================================
  
• OVER THE LAST FEW YEARS, the Department of Homeland Security and local law enforcement officers have engaged in widespread domestic spying on Occupy Wall Street activists, among others, on the shaky premise that these activists pose a terrorist threat. Often, Homeland Security and other law enforcement agencies have coordinated with the private sector, working on behalf of, or in cooperation with, Wall Street firms and other companies the protesters have criticized.Thousands of public documents recently obtained by DBA Press and the Center for Media and Democracy add new evidence to an increasingly powerful case that law enforcement has been overstepping its bounds. The documents, obtained through state and federal open records searches and Freedom of Information Act requests, demonstrate that law enforcement agencies may be attempting to criminalize thousands of American citizens for simply voicing their disapproval of corporate dominance over our economic and political system.
  The anti-terrorist apparatus that the U.S. government established after 9/11 has now been turned against law-abiding citizens exercising their First Amendment rights. This apparatus consists not only of advanced surveillance technologies but also of "fusion centers" in state after state that coordinate the efforts of law enforcement up and down the line and collaborate with leading members of the private sector. Often, the work they do in the name of national security advances the interests of some of the largest corporations in America rather than focusing on protecting the United States from actual threats or attacks, such as the one at the Boston Marathon on April 15.
  
  
  "The government has built a giant domestic surveillance apparatus in the name of homeland security that has been unleashed on ordinary Americans expressing concern about the undue influence of corporations on our democracy," says Lisa Graves, the executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy and the former senior legislative strategist on national security for the ACLU. "Millions and millions of our tax dollars are being squandered violating the rights of innocent Americans who dare to dissent about legal policies and who have zero connection to any violent crime intended to cause terror."
  The documents reveal many instances of such misdirected work by law enforcement around the country. The picture they paint of law enforcement in the Phoenix area is a case in point. The police departments there, working with a statewide fusion center and heavily financed by the Department of Homeland Security, devoted tremendous resources to tracking and infiltrating Occupy Phoenix and other activist groups.
  In October 2011, Jamie Dimon, the president and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, was coming to town. A giant on Wall Street, Dimon heads the largest bank in the country, which played a pivotal and disreputable role in the collapse of the U.S. economy in 2008. Dimon was holding an event with thousands of his employees at Chase Field, home of the Arizona Diamondbacks, in downtown Phoenix. Four days before the meeting, JPMorgan Chase's regional security manager, Dan Grady, called detective Jennifer O'Neill of the Homeland Defense Bureau of the Phoenix Police Department and told her of the impending event. The two of them were primarily concerned that activists who had recently formed the group Occupy Phoenix might try to disrupt the eventor otherwise inconvenience Dimon.
  O'Neill made it her job to monitor possible "terrorist" activity by Occupy Phoenix connected with Dimon's visit.
  The monitoring of social media for JPMorgan Chase is just a glimpse into the widespread snooping on Occupy activists that Arizona law enforcement engaged in, often on behalf of the private sector.
  O'Neill serves as the coordinator of the "Community Liaison Program" of the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center, which is the state's fusion center. That center consists of representatives from the Phoenix, Mesa, and Tempe police departments' homeland defense units; the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office; the Arizona Department of Public Safety Intelligence Unit; the FBI Arizona Joint Terrorism Task Force; Arizona Infragard, an FBI-business alliance; and Homeland Security. The fusion center received $30,000 in funding from Homeland Security in 2012 for "advertising" its work, and expanding private sector participation in it.
  O'Neill often shares intelligence from this center with the security chiefs at banks and other corporations. The stated purpose of the liaison program is to prevent terrorist activity, to identify terrorist threats, protect critical infrastructure, and "create an awareness of localized security issues, challenges, and business interdependencies." But records indicate that it was often used as an advance warning system to alert corporations and banks of impending Occupy Phoenix protests.
  O'Neill had good intelligence on Occupy Phoenix, since the police department had sent an undercover cop to attend some of the earliest meetings of the group. The impostor presented himself as a homeless Mexican national named Saul DeLara, and he attended the Occupy Phoenix planning meeting held on October 2 at a local coffee shop. He delivered a detailed report on the activists' plans to Sergeant Tom Van Dorn of the Phoenix Police Department's Major Offender Bureau Career Criminal Squad. Meanwhile, the Phoenix Police Department was continually monitoring the group's Facebook page at the urging of Van Dorn.
  The Phoenix Police Department held an "Occupy Arizona Event Planning Meeting" in early October 2011, which was attended by two detectives from the department who also worked as Terrorism Liaison Officers for the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center. The Phoenix Convention Center's head of security was also invited to the meeting. The department came up with an "incident action plan" to handle protests, which included "mass arrest" teams and the possible formation of a "mobile field force" or "tactical response unit" empowered to use pepper spray and chemical agents.
  Detective Christopher "CJ" Wren, one of the Terrorism Liaison Officers, was designated as the "group supervisor" of the incident action plan. He worked with the Phoenix Fire Department as well as the Phoenix Drug Enforcement Bureau, which assigned thirteen undercover vice unit officers to the Occupy Phoenix events.
  The Phoenix Police Department was also working closely with the Downtown Phoenix Partnership. That group "exists to strengthen Downtown Phoenix development and to encourage an environment of activity, energy, and vitality," says its website. Among its board members are executives from such financial institutions as the Alliance Bank of Arizona, the consulting firm Ernst & Young, the huge mining company Freeport-McMoRan, and Republic Media, which owns the state's largest newspaper, The Arizona Republic, as well as the Phoenix NBC affiliate.
  The Phoenix Police Department called this downtown group a "strategic partner" in preparation for Occupy Phoenix events. The police department briefed downtown banks about planned protests and, according to one document, vowed that it would continue to work with them on this issue.
  On October 14, about 300 protesters assembled at Civic Space Park in downtown Phoenix and marched peacefully to Chase Tower, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo Plaza. The police made no arrests that day.
  On October 15, some 1,000 protesters gathered in Cesar Chavez Plaza, and several hundred of them marched to a nearby park, where police officers began issuing warnings to protesters to disperse at 11 p.m. The police arrested forty-five protesters for refusing to leave the park, and three more at Cesar Chavez Plazaone for trespassing and two for "creating an unsafe hazard in the street."
  The Phoenix Police Department spent $245,200.08 in taxpayer funds on the policing of Occupy Phoenix between October 14 and October 16, 2011, according to the documents obtained by DBA Press and the Center for Media and Democracy.
  
  
  But that wasn't the end of the surveillance. In an October 17 e-mail, the Phoenix Police Department assistant chief in charge of the Homeland Security Division, Tracy Montgomery, asked another officer to "gather intel" from "folks monitoring social media, and any other intel streams and give an update on our potential for ongoing Occupy' protests this week" and insisted on figuring out a "plan for monitoring these individuals long term."
  The long-term monitoring meant police were watching Occupy Phoenix members' Facebook conversations and personal social media use well into 2012.
  One member of the Phoenix Police Department seemed to do little else during the fall of 2011 and much of 2012 besides keeping tabs on Occupy Phoenix. Brenda Dowhan is with the department's Homeland Defense Bureau and serves as a Terrorism Liaison All-Hazards intelligence analyst with the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center. Much of her work involved the monitoring of social media sites such as Facebook to track individuals connected to Occupy Phoenix. She distributed the information she gathered to other law enforcement agencies, including the FBI.
  "Tracking the activities of Occupy Phoenix is one of my daily responsibilities," Dowhan wrote in one e-mail to FBI agent Alan McHugh. "My primary role is to look at the social media, websites, and blogs. I just wanted to put it out there so that if you would like me to share with you or you have something to share, we can collaborate."
  During the October 2011 events, she drafted alerts to Downtown Phoenix Partnership Members and advised other business members to contact police if they experienced "problems with demonstrators."
  When a Mesa detective told her that a Mesa city councilmember had said that he had been invited to join a Bank of America protest by members of Occupy Phoenix, Dowhan alerted other officers at the Phoenix Police Department and at the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center.
  On November 3, 2011, the Mesa Police Department's Intelligence and Counter Terrorism Unit issued a bulletin on "Bank Transfer Day," the nationwide effort by the Occupy movement to get people to withdraw funds from the giant banks. O'Neill contacted Dowhan and asked whether there was "anything downtown banks need to know that would be more beneficial." Dowhan responded: "Occupy Phoenix just updated their page saying that they will be marching to Wells Fargo, B of A [Bank of America], and Chase Tower. They are supposed to hold a credit card shredding ceremony,' but we haven't identified which bank they will be doing that at. We will have to monitor their FB [Facebook]."
  To facilitate Dowhan's work, other Phoenix police officers regularly fed her logs containing the names, addresses, Social Security numbers, physical descriptions, driver's licenses, and home addresses of citizens arrested, issued citations, or even given warnings by police in connection with Occupy Phoenix.
  Dowhan also used facial recognition technology to try to identify individuals believed to be involved with the Occupy group. Dowhan grabbed photographs of activists on Facebook and then ran them through their facial recognition system.
  Here is one example of the use of facial recognition. On November 18, 2011, the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center got an anonymous tip about an "Occupy nut" who was allegedly making vague violent threats. "Since I'm aware no crime has technically been committed," the tipster wrote, "I've got an actual crime for you as well: illegal possession/use of marijuana. I've seen her smoking it on camera. I will attempt to get a picture in the future." The tipster proceeded to get a photograph of the activist at her computer.
  Dowhan tried to take it from there. "We have a Facebook photo and tried to do facial recognition, but she was wearing glasses," wrote Dowhan in a December 23 e-mail.
  Dowhan didn't confine herself to Arizona. She compiled a spreadsheet from data supplied by thirty-one fusion centers from around the country of the emerging Occupy movement in fifty cities and twenty-six states. Whatever the excitement this work might generate for a busybody like Dowhan, a summary of that report noted that "the vast majority of the participants have been peaceful, cooperative, and law abiding."
  
  
  One citizen who complained about the Phoenix Police Department's crackdown on Occupy immediately became a subject of inquiry by the department. On December 14, 2011, a concerned citizen by the name of David Mullin wrote an e-mail to the department.
  "Dear Sir or Madam," the e-mail began. "Please consider leaving the Occupy movement alone. They speak for me and I suspect a large portion of America who are upset with corporate greed and the ability to purchase politicians and their votes. We are going to take America back for its citizens, and it would probably be better for your careers not to get in the way. Thanks, David Mullin."
  Mullin was apparently reacting to a police raid on Occupy Phoenix's small camp in Cesar Chavez Plaza on December 8, when police arrested six activists on charges of violating the city's "urban camping" ordinance.
  Within minutes of sending his e-mail, Mullin caught the attention of the Phoenix Police Department's assistant chief in charge of the Homeland Security Division, Tracy Montgomery, who wrote in an e-mail: "Interesting e-mail threatening our careers. Anyone know the name?"
  That very evening, the department's Homeland Defense Bureau commander, Geary Brase, told Lieutenant Lawrence Hein to have someone check out the e-mail. That someone was Dowhan.
  At 6:51 the next morning, Dowhan e-mailed a link to Mullin's Facebook page to Hein. One fellow officer sent Dowhan a note of congratulation: "Great work Brenda!"
  As she continued her spy work, Dowhan became concerned that she might be detected online and asked her superiors if they could get her a "clean computer," possibly one with an "anonymizer."
  Meanwhile, Dowhan's undercover colleague, Saul DeLara, was having a harder time remaining anonymous.
  In July 2011, a Phoenix-area activist, Ian Fecke-Stoudt, mentioned that "a creepy guy who looked like he was probably a cop" had been hanging around Conspire, a coffeehouse in downtown Phoenix. (In 2010, it won the title of "Best Hangout for Anarchists, Revolutionaries, and Dreamers" by the Phoenix New Times but has since gone out of business.)
  According to Fecke-Stoudt, the man was clean-cut and middle-aged. He introduced himself as "Saul DeLara." Despite a fit appearance, he claimed to be homelessand commented frequently on trouble he had had with police during his life on the street. He said he was a native of Juarez, Mexico, but seldom disclosed any other details of his personal life other than to mention that he had ties to anarchists there.
  In an October 3 e-mail, Sergeant Van Dorn of the department's Major Offender Program wrote that "Saul attended the #OccupyPhoenix' meeting at Conspire on 10/2." Van Dorn circulated DeLara's notes of items from the meeting. One item the activists mentioned was "working with police." They even discussed making "You are one of us signs." In a November 3 e-mail, Van Dorn wrote: "Saul will be spending today and tomorrow hanging out in the Plaza and with the Anarchists to try and gather additional information."
  DeLara continued to inform on Phoenix activists until November 9, 2011. In his final month, much of his attention was centered on a pending protest against the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). That protest, which occurred on November 30, took place outside the gates of the Westin Kierland Resort and Spa in Scottsdale, where ALEC was holding its States and Nation Policy Summit.
  ALEC claims to have 2,000 state lawmakers as members, who meet with representatives from the nation's leading corporations and conservative think tanks to come up with "model" legislation. It has sparked criticism in recent years for disseminating voter ID bills and especially "Stand Your Ground" legislation, which created a controversy following the 2012 shooting death of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin.
  In Arizona, activists denounced ALEC for promoting the "No More Sanctuary Cities for Illegal Immigrants Act." The nation's leading operator of for-profit prisons and immigrant detention facilitiesCorrections Corporation of Americawas a longstanding member and underwriter of the ALEC Public Safety and Elections Task Force. The second and third largest private prison and detention center operatorsthe Geo Group and the Management and Training Corporationalso have had ALEC ties.
  And so, when law enforcement got wind of the ALEC protest, it sent Saul on a mission.
  

[Peter Lemkin]

Why Are Homeowners Being Jailed for Demanding Wall Street Prosecutions?

Bankers go free while cops tase peaceful protesters and the Department of Justice targets journalists

Activists put up tents during a protest outside the U.S. Justice Department in Washington, D.C.
Alex Wong/Getty Images

By John Knefel
May 22, 2013 3:00 PM ET

A two-day long housing protest outside the Department of Justice this week has resulted in nearly 30 arrests and several instances of law enforcement unnecessarily using tasers on activists, according to eye-witnesses. The action which was organized by a coalition of housing advocacy groups, including the Home Defenders League and Occupy Our Homes called for Attorney General Eric Holder to begin prosecutions against the bankers who created the foreclosure crisis.
"Everyone here is fed up with Holder acknowledging big banks did really bad stuff but [saying] they're too big to jail," says Greg Basta, deputy director of New York Communities for Change, who helped organize the event. Holder has previously suggested that prosecuting large banks would be difficult because it could destabilize the economy. The attorney general recently tried to walk those comments back but the conspicuous lack of criminal prosecutions of bankers tells another story, one that Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi has written about extensively.
Gangster Bankers: Too Big To Jail
Alexis Goldstein, a former Wall Street employee and current Occupy Wall Street activist who was also at the event on Monday, agrees. "I want Eric Holder to uphold the rule of law, regardless of how much power the criminal has," says Goldstein. She says the lack of criminal prosecutions has created a "culture of immunity" that only gets further entrenched by the small settlements that banks now consider a cost of doing business. "There's no risk," she says, adding that the DOJ is effectively "incentivizing breaking the law."
Around 400 homeowners and 100 supporters took part in Monday's actions outside the DOJ, according to Basta. One of them was Vera Johnson, of Seattle. "I've been dealing with foreclosure issues for three years," says Johnson, just minutes after being released from the jail where she was held for over 24 hours for participating in this peaceful protest. Bank of America recently granted Johnson a loan modification after the media picked up on a Change.org petition that she started to save her home; this reprieve turned out to be a time bomb, as her rates were set to return to their original levels after four years. It's an all too common story, and Johnson went to Washington, D.C. to "join in solidarity" with others in similar situations.
Many of this week's protesters have been black and Latino homeowners, who were hit particularly hard by the foreclosure crisis. Mildred Garrison-Obi a black woman from Stone Mountain, Georgia was evicted from her home in 2012, though with the help of Occupy Our Homes she was able to return to it after four months of facing homelessness. "It was devastating," says Garrison-Obi, who was arrested today in a related action held outside of a law firm where Holder was once a partner. "But I'm not alone."
Activists note with dismay that the government has been significantly harder on people who stage nonviolent demonstrations against Wall Street than it has on the crooked bankers responsible for the housing crisis. Goldstein and Basta both say they witnessed law enforcement using tasers on multiple protesters this week. Johnson says that several hours before her arrest, as she and others sat on planter boxes outside the DOJ, a Department of Homeland Security officer asked, "Do you want to get arrested?" and then, "Do you want to get tased?" Later, when she refused to unlock her arms with another protester after three warnings hardly a violent act or a threat to public safety she says she was tased from behind on her left arm. She turned around to see the same officer, who she recalls telling her, "That's what you get."
Carmen Pittman, an activist with Occupy Our Homes in Atlanta, suffered similar treatment at this week's protests. In video footage of her arrest, Pittman appears to have her arms interlocked with another protester.

Lawyers familiar with police codes of conduct note that this kind of passive resistance generally does not meet the official standards for when an officer can use a taser. "In a study of regulations around tasers, the National Institute of Justice found that most police departments do not allow taser use against someone who 'nonviolently refuses' a police command," says NYU law professor Sarah Knuckey, who co-authored a report on the suppression of the rights of Occupy activists. "The incident needs to be thoroughly investigated, there must be a public accounting of what happened and why, and any wrong-doing must be punished."
Zach Lerner, another activist with NYCC, displayed marks left on his torso after a taser had been used on him.

A spokesperson for the Washington, D.C. police department directed requests for comment to the Federal Protective Service, part of the Department of Homeland Security. Scott McConnell, an FPS spokesperson, said that "a number of individuals" had "breached a security barricade after repeated warnings to leave the area" and that there had been 27 arrests as of Tuesday morning; he declined to comment on the video of Pittman getting tased or on FPS's taser policy generally.
Monday and Tuesday's actions came as the DOJ falls under increasing criticism for its investigations of journalists first seizing records that cover dozens of Associated Press reporters, and now targeting Fox News' James Rosen. Many media observers have found the Rosen case especially troubling, due to the fact that he was investigated under the theory that he engaged in a conspiracy with Stephen Kim his source to leak government information. This is the same theory that U.S. officials have used to go after Wikileaks, and if applied more widely, it would effectively criminalize the basic act of investigative reporting. Some see the Obama DOJ's war on whistleblowers and leakers and now journalists less as a means of protecting national security than a way to crack down on who controls information.
As journalists start to get the feeling that their profession is under attack by Obama's DOJ, that department is saying something entirely different though just as clearly to the nation's financial elite. "The message," says Goldstein, "is that you can get away with anything."

[David Guyatt]

"Everyone here is fed up with Holder acknowledging big banks did really bad stuff but [saying] they're too big to jail," says Greg Basta, deputy director of New York Communities for Change, who helped organize the event. Holder has previously suggested that prosecuting large banks would be difficult because it could destabilize the economy. The attorney general recently tried to walk those comments back but the conspicuous lack of criminal prosecutions of bankers tells another story, one that Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi has written about extensively.

This is what Holder actually stated (see link in above post):

Back then, Holder said: "I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy. And I think that is a function of the fact that some of these institutions have become too large."

Whoops.

Not easy to walk away from that, I think, even though Holder went on to be very, very, very clear about why any bank hasn't done anything at all naughty and it can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt that it has been very, very, very naughty, it will be spanked.

Spanked with a feather, but not tasered mind you, because tasering is reserved for ordinary folks who misbehave and who don't appreciate what the law is about; and a good bolt of electricity is probably medically beneficial in kick-starting their brain functions back to normal again.

[Peter Lemkin]

Occupy Arrests Near 8,000 As Wall Street Eludes Prosecution


[To me, it is clear that the Police and the ENTIRE 'governmental system' are there for the Bankers and NOT for the People!]

Here's a fact that may make your blood boil: Nearly 8,000 Occupy Wall Street protesters have been arrested in association with the activist movement, while not one banker has been prosecuted for the actions that lead up to the country's financial meltdown.
The website OccupyArrests.com has tracked 7,736 in 122 cities nationwide since the Occupy movement began in September 2011.
On Monday, hundreds of members of Occupy Our Homes, an organization that supports homeowners facing foreclosure, protested outside of the Justice Department to speak out against homeowner abuses in the wake of the housing crisis. Seventeen former homeowners were arrested that day, according to Washington police.
"We want our attorney general, Eric Holder, to bring some accountability from the banks and put them in jail," protester Vivian Richardson, whose home was foreclosed on in 2010, told The Huffington Post Monday.
The Department of Justice has long been a target of Occupy protesters for its unwillingness to take judicial action against those responsible for the financial crisis.
Even Attorney General Eric Holder has acknowledged that some of the nation's largest banks have become too big to prosecute -- a claim he later walked back on after it incited backlash.
Just last week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sent a letter to federal officials demanding to know why no Wall Street bank has faced prosecution in the wake of the crisis.