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

[David Guyatt]

A little more than two years ago the NYPD arrested 732 demonstrators on the Brooklyn Bridge in what would be the largest mass arrest of the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York. But how many of those chargesmainly for disorderly conduct or obstructing governmental administrationstuck? The current tally: 680 dismissals (195 at the request of the City, 40 by judges, and 445 more ACD); 21 cases where charges were dropped; 6 guilty pleas to disorderly conduct; 2 acquittals; 1 plea resolved in another case, and 17 no-shows. Five protesters were convicted of the charges levied against them.
"From an administrative and justice perspective, this was obviously a challenge," Manhattan DA Cy Vance told Colin Moynihan. "I'm proud that the office handled the cases in a fair and evenhanded way."
The cases were handled by the DA's "mass arrest coordinator," with the help of three prosecutors and four paralegals. The National Lawyers Guild, which represented 662 of the protesters, assigned 45 volunteer attorneys who made 1,500 appearances in court.
A class action suit filed by the protesters against the City, alleging that the NYPD lured them on to the Brooklyn Bridge to be arrested, is still working its way through the legal system.
It's unclear how much the arrests and their ensuing prosecution cost taxpayers, though the NYPD spent $17 million in overtime on Occupy-related events in 2011 (the department budgeted $614 million for overtime this year [PDF]).
Mass arrests during demonstrations are regarded by experts as having a profoundly chilling effect on free speech [PDF].
1,806 people were arrested during the 2004 GOP convention, and around 90% of those cases were dismissed. Taxpayers shelled out at least $8.2 million for the City to defend the ensuing lawsuits, but the real number is likely much higher: the most recent figure available is from 2008.

There goes the justice part of the legal system.

Ooops, just remembered. Justice doesn't really form part of the legal system anymore -- it's been suborned by procedure, privilege and wealth.

"Justice" from the Free Online Law Dictionary:

justice n. 1) fairness. 2) moral rightness. 3) a scheme or system of law in which every person receives his/her/its due from the system, including all rights, both natural and legal. One problem is that attorneys, judges, and legislatures often get caught up more in procedure than in achieving justice for all. Example: the adage "justice delayed is justice denied," applies to the burdensome procedures, lack of sufficient courts, clogging the system with meritless cases, and the use of the courts to settle matters which could be resolved by negotiation. The imbalance between court privileges obtained by attorneys for the wealthy and for the person of modest means, the use of delay and "blizzards" of unnecessary paper by large law firms, and judges who fail to cut through the underbrush of procedure all erode justice. 4) an appellate judge, the Chief Justice and Associate Justices of the U. S. Supreme Court, a member of a Federal Court of Appeal, and judges of any of the various state appellate courts.

[Peter Lemkin]

Occupy Wall Street couple can't sue over Citibank arrest: Judge

Manhattan Federal Judge Denise Cote ruled Wednesday that the police had probable cause to believe the couple had committed trespassing by staying in bank for several minutes after a Citibank employee asked the protesters to leave.

Comments (5) By Daniel Beekman / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Published: Wednesday, November 27, 2013, 2:49 PM

Updated: Wednesday, November 27, 2013, 5:05 PM




Bryan Smith/Bryan Smith for News

Julio Jose Jimenez-Artunduaga and his fiancee Heather Carpenter can't sue the city and NYPD officers for false arrest in connection with an incident at a bank in Greenwich Village, a judge ruled Wednesday.



Two Occupy Wall Street protesters can't sue the city and NYPD officers for false arrest in connection with an incident at a bank in Greenwich Village, a judge ruled Wednesday.
Graphic artist Julio Jose Jimenez-Artunduaga and his wife, Heather Carpenter, took part in a demonstration at the Citibank branch on Oct. 15, 2011.
They were out on the street by the time cops started making collars, but were hauled back inside and arrested anyway.
Manhattan Federal Judge Denise Cote ruled Wednesday the police had probable cause to believe the couple had trespassed by staying in bank for several minutes after a Citibank employee asked the protesters to leave.
Carpenter was closing out her Citibank account as part of the demonstration and Jimenez was videotaping the action. They plan to appeal.
RELATED: OWS PROTESTER SUES NYPD

"Closing a bank account is, of course, lawful activity," Cote found. "But, given the facts as they appeared to the arresting officers, it was reasonable for them to conclude that Carpenter's decision to remain in the Citibank branch and move to a teller's window to engage in a banking transaction was a decision to engage in protest activity in defiance of the bank employees."
Ronald Kuby, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, called the decision "puzzling and weird."
"The court acknowledged that the only thing Carpenter did was to close her bank account, and then she left," the lawyer said. "I know people love banks but you shouldn't be able to arrest someone for closing their account if even they close it in protest."
The criminal charges against the pair were dismissed but Carpenter, who was a student in 2011 and who now works in a nursing home, spent three days in jail, Kuby said.
The plaintiffs also claimed they were subjected to excessive force. Cote ruled that their case can move ahead on that complaint - against individual cops, including former Chief of Department James Esposito, but not against the city.
"We agree with the court's decision regarding the city's liability and false arrest," city lawyer Andrew Lucas said.


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ows-...z2lyXLtkro

[Peter Lemkin]

Why Did FBI Monitor Occupy Houston, and Then Hide Sniper Plot Against Protest Leaders?

Transparency activist Ryan Shapiro discusses a growing controversy over the FBI's monitoring of Occupy Houston in 2011. The case centers on what the FBI knew about an alleged assassination plot against Occupy leaders and why it failed to share this information. The plot was first revealed in a heavily redacted document obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund through a FOIA request. The document mentioned an individual "planned to engage in sniper attacks against protesters in Houston, Texas." When Shapiro asked for more details, the FBI said it found 17 pages of pertinent records and gave him five of them, with some information redacted. Shapiro sued, alleging the FBI had improperly invoked FOIA exemptions. Last week, Federal District Judge Rosemary Collyer agreed with Shapiro, ruling the FBI had to explain why it withheld the records.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to talk about your work around animal rights activism and getting information, but I want to first turn to Occupy Houston. You have been working on getting information from the FBI around Occupy Houston. The particular issue focuses on what the FBI knew about an alleged assassination plot in 2011 against leaders of Occupy Houston and why it failed to share this information. The plot was first revealed in a heavily redacted document obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice through a FOIA request. It read, quote, "An identified [REDACTED] as of October planned to engage in sniper attacks against protestors in Houston, Texas if deemed necessary," unquote. When our guest, Ryan Shapiro, asked for more details, the FBI said it found 17 pages of pertinent records and gave him five of them with some information redacted. So, Ryan Shapiro, you sued, alleging the FBI had improperly invoked FOIA exemptions.
Last week, Federal District Judge Rosemary Collyer seemed to agree with you, when she ruled the FBI had to explain why it withheld records. She made reference in her ruling to David Hardy, the head of the FBI's FOIA division, writing, quote, "At no point does Mr. Hardy supply specific facts as to the basis for FBI's belief that the Occupy protesters might have been engaged in terroristic or other criminal activity. ... Neither the word 'terrorism' nor the phrase 'advocating the overthrow of the government' are talismanic, especially where FBI purports to be investigating individuals who ostensibly are engaged in protected First Amendment activity."
Ryan Shapiro, explain what the judge ruled and what "talismanic" means.
RYAN SHAPIRO: Absolutely. First I should say that this is a really weird and crazy story, and I'm still trying to make sense of it, and I'm working with my attorney, Jeffrey Light, and the journalist Jason Leopold to that end. But the judge's ruling is terrific on this point.
So, basically, the FBI said, "We found 17 pages, but we're only going to give you five of them, because national security." And the FBI alleged, and David Hardy, the head of the FOIA division of the FBI, asserted in his declaration to the court that the records were exempt from FOIA because they were part of the FBI's investigation, a national security-oriented terrorism investigation of Occupy Houston protesters for potential terrorist activity, including advocating the overthrow of government. And David Hardy provided no evidence to back up his claim. He just said the words, because so oftenas is sadly the case, so often judges are tremendously deferential to the FBI and to other intelligence and security agencies in these sorts of FOIA questions, because the FBI tells the judges, "You're not qualified to decide whether or not this constitutes a threat to national security to release, so we're going to tell you that it does, and you should defer to us."
In this case, Judge Collyer made a wonderful ruling and said, "No, you can't just say the words. The words aren't just talismansterrorism, national security. You have to back them up. You can't just wave them around like magic and expect usexpect the court to give you what you want." And so now the judge has required the FBI to provide substantiation for their seemingly preposterous claims that Occupy Houston were terrorists advocating the overthrow of government. And the FBI has until April 9 to provide this support. They can do it openly or they can do an ex parte in camera declaration, so a secret submission to the judge where she can review the documents herself.
AMY GOODMAN: And what about this assassination attempt against Occupy activists?
RYAN SHAPIRO: Yes, absolutely. As I said, I'm still trying to figure out exactly what's going on there, but what I want to know is, first of allso my requests here are in part inspired because I want to know what the role of the FBI is in coordinating the response to the Occupy movement, why the FBI considered the Occupy movement a terrorist threat, and I also want to know why the FBI didn't inform the protesters of this tremendous threat against them. As Kade Crockford at the ACLU recently said, if the targets of this plot had been Wall Street bankers, I think we can all safely assume that the FBI would have picked up the phone.
AMY GOODMAN: And called them.
RYAN SHAPIRO: And called them, yes, absolutely. Soand, finally, I want to knowand because this is how it appears in the documentsof course, they're heavily redacted, so we're not surebut why was the FBI appearing to pay far more attention to peaceful protesters in their investigation than to the actual terrorists who were plotting to kill those protesters?

[Magda Hassan]

David "Debt" Graeber evicted, implicates NYPD intelligence, claims revenge-harassment for OWS participation

Cory Doctorow at 7:00 am Thu, Apr 3, 2014

I am cleaning out my family home in New York. Evicted. (police intelligence seems to have played a role.).
David Graeber (@davidgraeber) April 2, 2014

There is a pattern here: almost everyone mentioned in press as involved in early days of OWS has been getting administrative harassment
David Graeber (@davidgraeber) April 2, 2014

There have been evictions, visa problems, tax audits... Endless minor harassment arrests
David Graeber (@davidgraeber) April 2, 2014

David Graeber, author of Debt: the First 5000 Years, was evicted from the home that his family had lived in for 52 years yesterday. He says that the NYPD intelligence department played a role in establishing a "technicality" on which his family could be evicted, despite not having missed a single payment in 52 years. He blames the eviction on retaliation against high-profile Occupy Wall Street activists, whom he says have been targeted in a wide-ranging series of administrative attacks: "evictions, visa problems, tax audits..."
Abi Sutherland has a great post on this on Making Light:

I am sure that there will be people right along to ask how anyone can really know whether he's being evicted, and if so, whether it is really for the reasons he states. And of course, I don't know; I've never met the guy, and I am not acquainted with his circumstances. I don't know the functionaries either, nor the officials who ordered them to act. I know that I have seen the tweets, but beyond that, I am out of the world of facts and into one of speculation, inference, and guesswork. So are most of us. Even Graeber himself cannot really know the reasons why anything has happened to him.
But, assuming arguendo that the facts and causes of the matter are exactly as stated, we are back to the matter of knowledge from a different angle: the knowledge of who was involved in Occupy Wall Street from the beginning. And not just abstract knowledge, but usable knowledge on an institutional level, knowledge that can be dispersed and acted upon, both officially and unofficially.
Knowledge is power, and there are people who have more of it than we do. Some work for governments, but some don't. Call them, if you will, the Powers that Be. We individuals have to filter out our knowledge out of a soup of misdirection, denial, fragments1, and propaganda. TPTB, meanwhile, seem to get their knowledge undiluted at source2.
(Not that they always get good information, nor act on it when they do, mind.)
This imbalance is a palpable problem, not just for Graeber, but for us all. Whether it's prosecution for the three felonies a day we are all alleged to commit, or mere public humiliation, the risk of abuse by means of knowledge (and the lying pretense of knowlege) is a real engine of fear. I don't know anyone who has not chosen to do or let be, speak or be silent, with an eye to whom they might piss off and what the consequences could be.

[URL="http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/015820.html"] It's not what you know. It's not who you know, either. It's who knows what about you.

http://boingboing.net/2014/04/03/david-d...icted.html
[/URL]

[Peter Lemkin]

David "Debt" Graeber evicted, implicates NYPD intelligence, claims revenge-harassment for OWS participation

Cory Doctorow at 7:00 am Thu, Apr 3, 2014

I am cleaning out my family home in New York. Evicted. (police intelligence seems to have played a role.).
David Graeber (@davidgraeber) April 2, 2014

There is a pattern here: almost everyone mentioned in press as involved in early days of OWS has been getting administrative harassment
David Graeber (@davidgraeber) April 2, 2014

There have been evictions, visa problems, tax audits... Endless minor harassment arrests
David Graeber (@davidgraeber) April 2, 2014

David Graeber, author of Debt: the First 5000 Years, was evicted from the home that his family had lived in for 52 years yesterday. He says that the NYPD intelligence department played a role in establishing a "technicality" on which his family could be evicted, despite not having missed a single payment in 52 years. He blames the eviction on retaliation against high-profile Occupy Wall Street activists, whom he says have been targeted in a wide-ranging series of administrative attacks: "evictions, visa problems, tax audits..."
Abi Sutherland has a great post on this on Making Light:

I am sure that there will be people right along to ask how anyone can really know whether he's being evicted, and if so, whether it is really for the reasons he states. And of course, I don't know; I've never met the guy, and I am not acquainted with his circumstances. I don't know the functionaries either, nor the officials who ordered them to act. I know that I have seen the tweets, but beyond that, I am out of the world of facts and into one of speculation, inference, and guesswork. So are most of us. Even Graeber himself cannot really know the reasons why anything has happened to him.
But, assuming arguendo that the facts and causes of the matter are exactly as stated, we are back to the matter of knowledge from a different angle: the knowledge of who was involved in Occupy Wall Street from the beginning. And not just abstract knowledge, but usable knowledge on an institutional level, knowledge that can be dispersed and acted upon, both officially and unofficially.
Knowledge is power, and there are people who have more of it than we do. Some work for governments, but some don't. Call them, if you will, the Powers that Be. We individuals have to filter out our knowledge out of a soup of misdirection, denial, fragments1, and propaganda. TPTB, meanwhile, seem to get their knowledge undiluted at source2.
(Not that they always get good information, nor act on it when they do, mind.)
This imbalance is a palpable problem, not just for Graeber, but for us all. Whether it's prosecution for the three felonies a day we are all alleged to commit, or mere public humiliation, the risk of abuse by means of knowledge (and the lying pretense of knowlege) is a real engine of fear. I don't know anyone who has not chosen to do or let be, speak or be silent, with an eye to whom they might piss off and what the consequences could be.

[URL="http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/015820.html"] It's not what you know. It's not who you know, either. It's who knows what about you.

[/URL]http://boingboing.net/2014/04/03/david-d...icted.html

lovely....after 52 years....THEY are AFTER anyone who challenges the SYSTEM - be careful. I know first hand....

[Peter Lemkin]

NYC court unable to find impartial jury to decide Occupy Wall Street trial

Published time: April 11, 2014 03:49




Occupy Wall Street protesters march along 47th Street in New York September 17, 2013.(Reuters / Joshua Lott)








An Occupy Wall Street protester facing seven years in prison for an alleged 2012 assault may wait even longer to hear her fate as New Yorkers have proven to be so divided on the issue that finding impartial jurors has so far been nearly impossible.
Jury selection in the trial of Cecily McMillan began on Monday but has gone on longer than anticipated because attorneys on both sides of the case have been unable to agree on a juror pool willing to approach the case with a fresh perspective. The trial is the last criminal trial relating to the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York.
McMillan, 25, is charged with assaulting a police officer during a March 17, 2012 protest in lower Manhattan's Zuccotti Park. Prosecutors are expected to argue that McMillan intentionally assaulted Officer Grantley Bovell when he was making arrests at the demonstration. The young woman has maintained that she was unaware Bovell was a police officer and that she was only trying to fend off a man who grabbed her breast from behind.
Occupy Wall Street began on September 17, 2011 with a small encampment in the heart of New York City's financial district. The movement quickly multiplied, attracting demonstrators from throughout the world who rallied around the idea that the wealthiest one percent of the population had for too long taken advantage of the other 99 percent.
The "We are the 99%" slogan immediately made headlines and inspired countless other protests around the US and elsewhere in the world.
For all the talk about income inequality, though, the left-leaning Occupy movement has been as divisive as the Tea Party, its rival counterpart on the right. Nowhere was that divide more evident than in the movement's birthplace, where bankers, lawyers, and executives walked past Occupiers' tents and signs on their commute into offices located dozens of floors above.
That tension lasts through today, with prosecutors and defense attorneys quickly filing through prospective jurors for the McMillan trial. Alan Moore, one potential juror, told the court his wife worked on Wall Street as a bond strategist, so it would be difficult for him to judge McMillan's actions with a clear lens.
"I like to think of myself as fair," he said, as quoted by the Guardian, which first reported on the dilemma. "But in terms of Occupy Wall Street in general, I would give less credibility to that group than average…They seem to be people moving a little outside regular social norms and regular behavior. Therefore I don't give them the same level of respect as people who follow the line."
The notion was shared by many. The court hoped to fill the 12 juror seats by Monday's end, although they were only able to fill seven of those seats by the time Tuesday came to a close.
"For 20 years, my occupation has been, in some fashion, on Wall Street," said equity trader Jason McLean, who lives with his wife, also an equity trader, in the Murray Hill neighborhood of New York City. "Everything I believe my morals are kind of the antithesis of what they represent. I don't know that I could be completely objective."
Other possible jurors were excluded after reporting negative experiences with police in the past. Patrick Grigsby, who works as an actuary on the Upper West Side, was expelled when he admitted that learning Officer Bovell had been disciplined as part of the so-called "Bronx ticketing scandal" of 2011 would impede his view of the incident in question.
Martin Stolar, McMillan's attorney, told the Guardian both he and his client are confident that the two sides would eventually "find the people who fit the profile" of impartiality. His co-counsel Rebecca Heinegg agreed.
"A surprising number of people are actually willing to say they can't be fair," she said.
The defense team previously told journalist Jon Swaine that McMillan was a frequent visitor to Zucotti Park and known for her peaceful disposition. She had brought a friend down to visit for a St. Patrick's Day celebration on the day when the incident with Bovell occurred. The young woman had bruises on her back, head, feet, and breasts that the defense says were incurred when Bovell assaulted her.
"An innocent woman is being accused of something that could send her to prison for seven years," Stolar said outside a previous hearing in Manhattan. "She was leaving the park pursuant to the police department's orders when she was brutally assaulted by a police officer and subsequently accused of assaulting that police officer."
The prosecution, perhaps unsurprisingly, disagrees. A criminal complaint obtained by the New York Times claims that Bovell suffered "swelling and bruising and substantial pain to his left eye" in the confusion.
Jury selection is scheduled to resume Friday

[Peter Lemkin]

A new report reveals how closely state and local law enforcement officials at so-called fusion centers across the country were monitoring the day-to-day activities of the Occupy Wall Street movement. A trove of emails and reports obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund and provided to the New York Times reveal a massive, coordinated effort by federal and local officials along with security contractors, corporate interests and military staff to share minute details about peaceful Occupy protests and speaking events. Fusion centers have received hundreds of millions in federal funds since their creation after 9/11, but a Senate subcommittee report found they have failed to yield any significant information for fighting terrorism.

The Hidden Role of the Fusion Centers in the Nationwide Spying Operation against the Occupy Movement and Peaceful Protest in America

An Initiative of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund

By Mara Verheyden-Hilliard and Carl Messineo
Global Research, May 23, 2014
http://www.justiceonline.org/one-nation-...eport.html 23 May 2014

Region: USA
Theme: Intelligence, Police State & Civil Rights

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This report, based on documents obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, provides highlights and analysis of how the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)-funded Fusion Centers used their vast anti-terrorism and anti-crime authority and funds to conduct a sprawling, nationwide and hour-by-hour surveillance effort that targeted even the smallest activity of peaceful protestors in the Occupy Movement in the Fall and Winter of 2011.
It is being released in conjunction with a major story in the New York Times that is based on the 4,000 pages of government documents uncovered by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) during a two-year long investigation.
The newly published documents reveal the actual workings of the Fusion Centers created ostensibly to coordinate anti-terrorism efforts following the September 11, 2001, attacks in collecting and providing surveillance information on peaceful protestors.
The new documents roll back the curtain on the Fusion Centers and show the communications, interactions and emails of a massive national web of federal agents, officials, police, and private "security" contractors to accumulate and share information, reporting on all manner of peaceful and lawful political activity that took place during the Occupy Movement from protests and rallies to meetings and educational lectures. This enormous spying and monitoring apparatus included the Pentagon, FBI, DHS, police departments and chiefs, private contractors and commercial business interests.
There is now, with the release of these documents, incontrovertible evidence of systematic and not incidental conduct and practices of the Fusion Centers and their personnel to direct their sights against a peaceful movement that advocated social and economic justice in the United States. It bears noting also that while these 4,000 pages offer the most significant and largest window into the U.S. intelligence and law enforcements' coordinated targeting of Occupy, they can only be a portion of what is likely many more tens of thousands of pages of materials generated by the nationwide operation.
Until now the role of the Fusion Centers in their application of anti-terrorism authority and resources has been shrouded in secrecy. In 2012, the Senate issued an investigative report on the Fusion Centers that The Washington Post described as revealing "pools of ineptitude, waste and civil liberties intrusions." The Department of Homeland Security immediately dismissed and "condemned the report and defended the fusion centers, saying the Senate investigators relied on out-of-date data," from 2009 and 2010, and prior years of materials. The public was not privy to the records underlying that investigation, however, the documents that the Senate reviewed predated the documents that the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund has obtained and made public. The newly released documents show that the Department of Homeland Security's representations were far from true, that the conduct of the Fusion Centers continued unabated.
The American people can now see for themselves how the U.S. government and the Department of Homeland Security are spending hundreds of millions of dollars of their money in Fusion Center operations. These documents, along with materials previously released by the PCJF that exposed the FBI and other domestic intelligence and law enforcement agencies' targeting of Occupy, reveal a U.S. surveillance-industrial apparatus charging forward in willful disregard for the fundamental civil liberties and political freedoms of the people. Targeting a peaceful social justice movement as a criminal or terrorist enterprise is incompatible with a constitutional democracy.

These documents show that the Fusion Centers constitute a menace to democracy. This gross misuse of U.S. taxpayers' money also demonstrates that the Fusion Centers are a colossal rat hole of waste. The Fusion Centers should be defunded and ended immediately.
Coinciding with the publication of these new documents and this report, the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund has initiated a nationwide campaign to End the Fusion Centers! The campaign includes a mass email and letter-writing effort to President Obama and all members of Congress calling on them to defund and end the Fusion Centers. As part of the End the Fusion Centers campaign and to broaden awareness of the dangers posed by the Fusion Centers, the PCJF has also made the new documents fully available to the public and to the media in searchable format at BigBrotherAmerica.org.

Anti-Terrorism Resources Devoted to Spy on Occupy Movement; Major City Police Chiefs Used Southern Nevada Counter Terrorism Center to Produce Regular National Reports on Occupy Movement

Although the Fusion Centers' existence is justified by the DHS as a necessary component in stopping terrorism and violent crime, the documents show that the Fusion Centers in the Fall of 2011 and Winter of 2012 were devoted to unconstrained targeting of a grassroots movement for social change that was acknowledged to be peaceful in character.
The documents reveal that the police chiefs of major U.S. cities created an "Emerging Issues" Subcommittee to "identify, research and document trends or activities that may threaten public safety" for communication to the nationwide network of Fusion Centers and that "The first issue the committee is working is the Occupy Movement." The documents show that the Major Cities Chiefs (MCC) efforts to "increase situational awareness and promote public safety" required "twice a week"-produced bulletins on the Occupy Movement. "At the present time it is our intention to utilize the services of the Southern Nevada Counter Terrorism Center to collect, analyze and disseminate bulletins twice a week."
The distribution list for these Fusion Center-issued bulletins includes virtually every single Fusion Center in the United States.

Investigating Terrorism in Boston: The Boston Regional Intelligence Center Monitored and Catalogued Occupy-Associated Activities from Student Organizing to Political Lectures

In the Fall of 2011, the Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC) devoted significant resources including deployment of intelligence analysts to a detailed monitoring and cataloging operation, issuing twice-daily "Situation Awareness" Bulletins on Occupy Boston. We have obtained over 1,200 pages of these bulletins which have not been previously disclosed.
We need your help! PCJF attorneys have worked for years to expose the government's use of counter-terrorism authority to carry out illegal spying on peace and social justice movements, including the Occupy movement. ]&df_id=1460&1460.donation=root]Please make an urgently needed tax-deductible contribution to support these efforts in defense of freedom, dissent and constitutional rights.
The BRIC intelligence analysts monitored Occupy activists' Twitter accounts and poured over Facebook pages constantly reporting and then repeatedly providing updates on the number of people who may have indicated they would be attending any event or lecture. The BRIC documentscatalogued plans and meetings, including labor rallies and activities by nurses, the Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts (AFL-CIO), and Verizon workers; student organizing and meetings at Boston University, Suffolk, Harvard, Tufts and throughout the area ("Analyst Notes: Tufts students are organizing a group to go to Dudley Square to show support for the Occupy the Hood … As of 3:00 p.m. on 20 October 2011, 35 people are listed as attending, 9 maybes on the Facebook event page"); speakers, authors, personalities and lecturers, including Noam Chomsky, writer/director David Rothauser ("Analyst note: … It is unknown at this time if Rothauser is a known/respected figure within the anarchist movement"), Bill McKibben ("Analyst note: … [he] organized a sit-in near the White House in August of this year to protest construction of a pipeline."), Russell Simmons, Van Jones, Brian Wilson of VFP, representatives from the National Lawyers Guild, the National Police Accountability Project and the ACLU-Mass. From musical concerts to women's caucus meetings, to yoga, to meetings and lectures on college campuses nothing was outside the purview of the Boston Fusion Center's supposed anti-terrorism and anti-crime mandate and vast resources.
The PCJF had previously obtained and exposed a handful of documents of a different nature showing BRIC's reporting on Occupy, which investigative reporter Michael Isikoff of NBC News noted in an article "Unaware of Tsarnaev warnings, Boston counterterror unit tracked protesters." What was less known from the earlier documents but revealed in the new massive BRIC document release was the immense scope and intensity of hour-by-hour reporting on the Occupy Movement indicating not only an interest but an actual preoccupation with intelligence gathering on all manner of political speech, meeting, thought and expression affiliated with Occupy.
The Boston Police Department stated in 2012, according to The Boston Globe, that the "Boston Regional Intelligence Center … does not conduct surveillance on protest groups without reason to believe they are tied to crime or terrorism." An email, in the newly released documents, from a high level official in the Washington Regional Threat and Analysis Center (D.C. Fusion Center) in December of 2011, and sent to D.C. police officials, states:
"I just received a call from the City of Boston. I was informed that a group of 15-20 Occupy Boston members and other activist group members departed Boston by bus this morning on their way to the District for a Week of Action.' According to the caller, none of the people are known to be troublemakers.'"

Pentagon and Dept. of Defense Worked Through Fusion Centers to Target Occupy Movement

The documents show that the Pentagon and the Department of Defense personnel were conducting their own surveillance on the Occupy Movement and also used the infrastructure of the Fusion Centers to provide information to local and federal law enforcement agencies.
Involved in the monitoring and reporting operation on Occupy Wall Street was the Pentagon's agency that specializes in "countering weapons of mass destruction" worldwide. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), whose official mission is to "address the entire spectrum of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high yield explosive threats," regularly used the Fusion Centers as the vehicle to share information on the Occupy Movement.
This Pentagon agency that exists to counter threats from weapons of mass destruction circulated material on Occupy including, for example, one document with the subject line: "FW: Alert Update! Chicago … What Police Should Be Learning From The Occupy Protests." This document shows in an email chain that this article was initially circulated through the subscription website activistmap.com, which is billed as the "Domestic Terrorism Tracking System." The keywords associated with this Domestic Terrorism Tracking System include: anarchist(s), animal rights, environmentalist, protesters, socialist(s), communist(s), civil disobedience, social justice and global justice, among others.
Another example of information circulated from the Pentagon's WMD agency was about plans for peaceful protests in Washington, D.C, in early December 2011 including "a national prayer vigil with unemployed folks and faith leaders" that was to be followed by "a mass march on Congressional leaders."
In one document, an Intelligence Research Specialist with the Threat Analysis Center at the Pentagon's Force Protection Agency forwards the advice that "anyone having an Occupy Wallstreet type problem in their city" could set up a surveillance operation using social media to maintain constant review of all Twitter tweets and Facebook postings about Occupy Wall Street.
Her email circulates the advice that to constantly monitor the social media communications of Occupy activists:
"you set up a computer and someone to monitor it, they simply type in site:twitter.com occupy "city here"' and they will get feeds of people posting about the occupy movement in that city. Same goes for Facebook. Use facebook.com occupy "city here"' and all of the facebook postings appear. A very handy intel gathering tool. If they have a dual screen set up like I do you can have both open and simply hit refresh every so often and you get the new tweets and postings from the sites."

The Terrorist Threat to U.S. National Security: Black Friday Consumer Boycotts

The documents reveal that Fusion Centers and their personnel even conflate their anti-terrorism mission with a need for intelligence gathering on a possible consumer boycott during the holiday season. There are multiple documents from across the country referencing concerns about negative impacts on retail sales.
The Executive Director of the Intelligence Fusion Division, also the Joint Terrorism Task Force Director, for the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department circulated a 30-page report tracking the Occupy Movement in towns and cities across the country created by the trade association the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC).
He directed that the recipients of the document, who included top staff at the Washington, D.C. Fusion Center, "develop a one page product that we can send to our District Commanders to make them aware of the potential threat."
The ICSC report detailing Occupy Black Friday "threats" includes images of "Sample Anti-Black Friday Icons and Posters" with slogans urging people to "buy local" or "do your shopping at a small independent merchant." The report identifies among "Specific Known Threats" "buy nothing day tactics which might be used by Occupy and other protesters" including credit card cut ups, free non-commercial street parties, and alternative mass green transport activities.
Additional "Specific Known Threats" in the report are identified by individual Occupy locations from Occupy Bee Cave, Texas ("Assessment … Aim: to educate how military spending has affected the economy consistent with anti-war agenda of the group") to Occupy Seattle ("Assessment … leafleting likely in order to draw attention").
The intelligence reporting and communications apparatus was in full throttle over potential Occupy Black Friday boycotts. One sample document issued from the Baltimore police shows a distribution list ranging from the Maryland Fusion Center, the FBI, the DHS, the Middle Atlantic-Great Lakes Organized Crime Law Enforcement Network, the Secret Service, the NYPD and other city and state law enforcement, the manager of corporate security for an energy company, university personnel, and the Federal Reserve.
The "counter-terrorism" documents contain multiple references to Black Friday boycotts as well as potential negative impacts on retails sales.

Let's Go Down to Occupy Encampment to "hear some tunes and get laid": Communication from Washington, D.C. Fusion Center Official to Maryland Fusion Center Official

One document reveals the shared communications about Occupy between an "anti-terrorism" official from the Baltimore Police Department who is assigned to the Maryland Fusion Center and an official (and private contractor) with the Washington Regional Threat Analysis Center. The Baltimore police official, who also circulated through the Fusion Centers hostile and false anti-Occupy materials published by a politically conservative group, says in response to the D.C. official's suggestion that they should go to Baltimore Occupy events and "hear some tunes and get laid" that "I'm all over that…for Halloween I am going as a Occupy protestor…Baltimore Sunday and Annapolis Monday …" [ellipsis in original].

Scared When the "Watched" Start Watching the Watchers

Aware that Fusion Centers' spying operations on First Amendment protected activity and peaceful protest is contrary to their stated anti-terrorism mission, the documents reveal the sense of alarm communicated by Fusion Center officials when Occupy activists speculate about the role of the Fusion Centers in the crackdown on Occupy through social media. The Deputy Director of the Washington Threat and Analysis Center sent an email to "fusion center partners" titled "Open Source Media Discussing Fusion Centers and Crackdowns on the Occupy Movement" about "articles referencing possible fusion center involvement in coordinating police response and subsequent violence." She warns, "Although at this time these references to fusion centers and Occupy seems to be compartmentalized I wanted to make you aware of these references in case the national news media begins speculating about fusion center involvement." This Fusion Center director sent out "an Excel file of about 2700 open source news items from the last 24-48 hours containing Occupy'" created by her "friend" who publishes globalincidentmap.com (and the previously described activistmap.com).
A small sampling of the tweets are included in the text of the email, many of which are about Pacifica radio's flagship show Democracy Now having broadcast discussion on the possible involvement of the Fusion Centers in the crackdown on the Occupy Movement.

Watching the PCJF

Documents released to us show that one DHS Commander subscribes to the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund's constituent emails through his personal email account, forwards our emails to his Department of Homeland Security account and then circulates them on to other law enforcement personnel. Among our emails meriting Homeland Security importance was an announcement that filmmaker and author Michael Moore was supporting our public advocacy campaign calling on the Manhattan District Attorney to drop the charges against the 700 peaceful protestors who had been mass arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge on October 1, 2011 (the PCJF is also litigating the class action constitutional rights suit from those arrests.)

A Well-Funded Surveillance-Industrial Complex on a Mission to Justify its Exponential Funding

The documents reveal a feverish urgency to collect and share as much information as possible on any manifestation of protest. The Deputy Director of the Washington Regional Threat and Analysis Center, the Fusion Center in Washington, D.C., circulated a constituent email from the anti-war organization ANSWER Coalition endorsing a demonstration by postal workers outside the National Press Club against layoffs and post office closings.
Other documents show the intensity of communications between the various local and regional Fusion Centers who seem to be frantic to publish regular Occupy "product" that can be shared with other agency officials, local police officials and a large seemingly duplicative network of Fusion Center POC's (Point of Contact) who are similarly tasked to produce and receive similar reports. The focus of this large, duplicative reporting apparatus concerns even the most trivial details about the smallest activity.
For example, the Nashville-based Fusion Center Point of Contact, in one of many such documents,asks other Fusion Centers around the country to fill out an elaborate reporting form to compile a report to Nashville police chiefs the next day. The agent requests information from officials in the Washington, D.C., Fusion Center because "I've been tasked to produce an overview of Occupy movement activities in various cities around the nation, to be disseminated to all our [Nashville] Chiefs tomorrow morning at 1000 hrs." The Nashville requestor asks for detailed information from the other cities: were there marches in Occupy activities, were there signs and banners, identification of specific political issues raised, did the activists give interviews to the media, did they hold regular General Assembly meetings, did local law enforcement agencies communicate with local civil rights organizations, and did "dealing directly with these organizations" result in any benefits or reveal pitfalls.
At another point the Washington, D.C., Fusion Center sent out a request to other Fusion Centersincluding to the Florida Fusion Center (Central Florida Intelligence Exchange, Counterterrorism Unit) seeking "products on the Occupy Movement … so we can take a look at what is happening around the country." The Florida Fusion Center representative replies that she is "working on a product that I plan on having out by Thursday."
Throughout the documents, which contain even more information than highlighted here, the constant effort for "product" to be written and reviewed is strongly suggestive that the officials themselves feel pressed to justify the large funding stream that keeps them in business.
The documents reveal intelligence officials in government and police agencies partnering with each other and with a myriad of private security contractors in a self-perpetuating and symbiotic system that provides an endless stream of funding for the participants. The documents show the role of private "intelligence" and surveillance corporations that apparently have contracts with or provide subscription services to law enforcement personnel and who also monitor and provide information on protest activities, another improper mass diversion of taxpayers' funds. Many of the private contractors have cycled in and out of government employment, and the documents show that there are personnel using government email addresses, including fbi.gov suffixes, who actually are private contractors.
The fact that the Fusion Centers and this same cast of government and private sector actors reflexively went into full throttle against a peaceful protest movement demonstrates not only institutional hostility to a grassroots movement for social justice but the hollowness of their stated mission of combating terrorism.

The Fusion Centers are Incompatible with Democracy and Must Be Ended

The new Fusion Center documents demonstrate the workings of a self-perpetuating Surveillance-Industrial Complex. In the name of fighting terrorism, and with ever-regular admonitions to the American public that these institutions must be given a blank check in the name of national security, a limitless funding stream flows from the American people into the pockets of those who profit and benefit from this system. These documents reveal what our money is being wasted on and, critically, how it is being used in derogation of our fundamental rights and liberties.
The people of the United States do not want to live as a nation under constant surveillance, targeted by government counterterrorism and intelligence agencies when they engage in the exercise of basic rights to free speech. The American people have the right and ability to decide the nature of the society in which they live. We are calling on elected officials to defend the Constitution and democratic rights by defunding and ending the Fusion Centers. Take action and join the campaign to end the Fusion Centers now!

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[Peter Lemkin]

Occupy Wall Street protesters win $583,000 settlement from New York: lawyer

By Michael Y. Park
NEW YORK Tue Jun 10, 2014 2:54pm EDT

(Reuters) - New York City has agreed to pay $583,000 in a settlement with 14 Occupy Wall Street protesters who were arrested during a New Year's Day march in 2012, lawyers for the plaintiffs announced Tuesday.
The demonstrators have won damages and attorneys' fees from the city for their false arrest on New Year's morning 2012, their attorney, Wylie Stecklow, said in a statement.
Stecklow said it was the largest single settlement related to the Occupy Wall Street protests, which began in September 2011 as a statement against income inequality and corporate influence in America.
"This systematic false arrest and misconduct by high-ranking (New York Police Department) officers is a symptom of an institutional practice of chilling expressive-speech activity and suppressing protest in New York City," Stecklow said in the statement.
The arrests took place on Jan. 1, a few hours after some 300 protesters had attempted to retake Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan, where the movement first camped out before being expelled in November 2011.
During their march to the park, the 14 plaintiffs and about 20 other demonstrators were confronted by officers who refused to allow them to disperse, and were arrested for blocking pedestrian traffic, attorney David Thompson said at a press conference near City Hall.
Garrett O'Conner, one of the protesters who sued the city over his arrest, said he was trapped, pinned down and roughly handled by several officers who ordered him to leave, yet gave him no opportunity to do so. He said the protesters made a point of marching peacefully.
"There were a number of experienced activists in the march," O'Conner said. "They were trying to do the right thing."
A spokeswoman for the City of New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In the settlement agreement filed by the city last Tuesday, the city denied all wrongdoing.
In April, the city agreed in another settlement to pay demonstrators more than $100,000 for property that was damaged or lost when police raided Zuccotti Park.
Since 2011, it is estimated that thousands of Occupy Wall Street activists have been arrested in protests around the country, and civil rights activists have questioned the tactics law-enforcement officials from the New York Police Department to the FBI have used to surveil and infiltrate the movement.

[Drew Phipps]

I wonder if Cecily McMillan was a plaintiff here....

[Tracy Riddle]

http://www.policestateusa.com/2014/snipe...rganizers/

FBI keeps lid on sniper plot to kill Occupy Wall Street' organizers

"The use of the phrase 'if deemed necessary,' sounds like it was some kind of official organization that was doing the planning."

Posted on December 22, 2014 by Site Staff in News
(Image: Paramount Pictures)

HOUSTON, TX Heavily redacted FBI memos confirm that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was aware of a plot to assassinate the Houston organizers of "Occupy Wall Street," but the agency has managed to withhold the details from the American public using the worn-out excuse that transparency compromises national security.
According to the agency's official memos, an unnamed party or agency "planned to engage in sniper attacks against protestors in Houston, Texas, if deemed necessary… [Redacted] planned to gather intelligence against the leaders of the protest groups and obtain photographs, then formulate a plan to kill the leadership via suppressed sniper rifles."
The plot was allegedly devised in October 2011, shortly after the national debut of Occupy Wall Street in September of the same year. It wasn't until 2013 that any mention of the plot was made known to the public, when Massachusetts Institute of Technology doctoral student Ryan Noah Shapiro noticed startling references in the course of his extensive efforts to pursue transparency in the FBI. Mr. Shapiro subsequently filed a Freedom Of Information (FOIA) request for additional details.
The first unclassified FBI document contained the following paragraph:

An identified ██████████████ as of October planned to engage in sniper attacks against protestors (sic) in Houston, Texas if deemed necessary. An identified ██████████████ had received intelligence that indicated the protesters in New York and Seattle planned similar protests in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, Texas. ██████████ planned to gather intelligence against the leaders of the protest groups and obtain photographs, then formulate a plan to kill the leadership via suppressed sniper rifles. (Note: protests continued throughout the weekend with approximately 6000 persons in NYC. Occupy Wall Street' protests have spread to about half of all states in the US, over a dozen European and Asian cities, including protests in Cleveland (10/6-8/11) at Willard Park which was initially attended by hundreds of protesters.)

A second FBI memo, between undisclosed agents in Jacksonville, also mentioned the plot:

On 13 October 2011, writer sent via email an excerpt from the daily ████████████ regarding FBI Houston's ██████████████ to all IAs, SSRAs and SSA ██████. This ███ identified the exploitation of the Occupy Movement by ██████████████████████████████████████████ interested in developing a long-term plan to kill local Occupy leaders via sniper fire.

Note: The reference to "IAs, SSRAs and SSA" is an abbreviation for "Intelligence Analysts, Supervisory Senior Resident Agents, and Supervisory Special Agents."
The memos omit critical details about the persons or agencies that might have been involved in the conspiratorial assassination plot.
"The use of the phrase if deemed necessary,' sounds like it was some kind of official organization that was doing the planning," commented Paul Kennedy, an attorney from the National Lawyers Guild.
Interestingly, this assassination plot was apparently not shared with the Houston Police Department, according to HPD Public Affairs Officer Keith Smith. After conferring with his superiors within the department, he confirmed HPD knew nothing about it, saying, "We haven't heard about it." When asked if that meant that the FBI hadn't warned HPD about a potential terror attack in their own city, Officer Smith simply replied, "No. You'd have to ask the Houston FBI about that."
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION, WITH RESTRICTIONS
In response to Mr. Shapiro's FOIA request, the FBI said it had identified 17 pages of relevant records, but it only released five of them, all highly redacted.
"Here we have an FBI investigation of purported possible terrorism and attempts to overthrow the American government by a protest group, and the discovery during this investigation of an actual terrorist plot to assassinate the leaders of that protest group," Mr. Shapiro told VICE News. "And yet, the FBI is claiming it amassed only 17 pages total on all of the above? Well, beyond implausible, the FBI's claim is preposterous."
Being no stranger to being stonewalled by the government, Shapiro then filed a lawsuit against the FBI. His work has led him to file requests for thousands of documents from federal agencies such as the CIA, DOJ, and FBI, and has been called the "most prolific" FOIA-requester. His efforts have been decried by the federal government, which has claimed that the "mosaic" of information he has requested in various areas, if released, could "significantly and irreparably damage national security" and would have "significant deleterious effects" on the government's "ongoing efforts to investigate and combat domestic terrorism."
Predictably, FBI FOIA Chief David Hardy defended suppressing the information from Mr. Shapiro and filed a motion to dismiss his lawsuit.
"Not only is this far-fetched, it highlights that we as a nation need to foster a broader understanding of national security.'"
Hardy claimed that his reasons included protecting secret investigations regarding "potential criminal activity by protestors involved with the Occupy' movement in Houston." He stated that the potential crimes included "domestic terrorism" and "advocating overthrow of government."
Hardy wrote in his declaration: "To further explain the material that is being protected by Exemption (b)(1) would reveal the very nature of the information the FBI is trying to protect."
Judge Rosemary M. Collyer of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia did not find his explanation sufficient, and ordered the FBI to provide a more complete answer.
"At no point does Mr. Hardy supply specific facts as to the basis for FBI's belief that the Occupy protestors might have been engaged in terroristic or other criminal activity," wrote Judge Collyer. "Neither the word terrorism' nor the phrase advocating the overthrow of the government' are talismanic, especially where FBI purports to be investigating individuals who ostensibly are engaged in protected First Amendment activity."
Unfortunately, the agency's final response was allowed to be provided under seal, and the American public will not be allowed to know any further details. Case closed.
"The FBI is again hiding behind vague unsupported allegations of terrorism' and threats to national security to withhold these documents," Shapiro told VICE News. "Not only is this far-fetched, it highlights that we as a nation need to foster a broader understanding of national security.'"