How the Government Targeted Occupy

[marmar]

from In These Times:


How the Government Targeted Occupy
A new report reveals that the U.S. spent millions of dollars spying on Occupiers and other anti-corporate activists.

BY Lisa Graves


[font size="1"]Demonstrators take part in an Occupy Wall Street protest march in New York City's Financial District on September 26, 2011. (Paul Stein, Flickr/Creative Commons)[/font]


Freedom of conscience is one of the most fundamental human freedoms. This freedom is not merely about one’s ability to choose to believe or not believe in religion or a particular philosophy. In a democracy, freedom of conscience is about the ability to be critical of government and corporations, and to be free from the chilling fear that being critical will subject you to government surveillance.

Freedom of conscience is not fully realized in isolation. Without the ability to share one’s thoughts, to speak out about injustice, or to join with others in peaceably assembling to petition for redress of grievances, this core freedom is not truly free. Americans should be able to exercise these most sacred rights in free society without worry of being monitored by the government.

In our new report, “Dissent or Terror: How the Nation's Counter Terrorism Apparatus, in Partnership with Corporate America, Turned on Occupy Wall Street,” written by Center for Media and Democracy contributor and DBA Press publisher Beau Hodai, we detail several ways in which our tax dollars are being squandered on law enforcement—or so-called “homeland security”—personnel monitoring Americans who dare to voice dissent against the extraordinary influence that some of the world's most powerful corporations have on on our elected officials.

Through this investigation we have documented:

* How U.S. Department of Homeland Security-funded “fusion center” personnel have spent endless hours gleefully monitoring their fellow Americans though Facebook and other social media, and how fusion centers nationwide have expended countless hours and tax dollars in the monitoring of Occupy Wall Street, bank activists and civil libertarians concerned about national security powers.
* How some of these “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 “information sharing environment” with law enforcement/intelligence agencies through various public-private intelligence sharing partnerships—and how, through these partnerships, the homeland security apparatus has been focused on citizens protesting these corporations.

.............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/article/15028/how_the_government_targeted_occupy/

[xchrom]

1. du rec. nt

[Democracyinkind]

2. As if the Fusion Centers were ever conceived for a different purpose.

We knew when Bush set them up. Kinda ironic that they're still here. Well.. they do "save lives" I suppose...

[ananda]

3. This is truly the shame of our nation as a police state.

..