FBI started surveillance of Occupy before it occupied

[HiPointDem]

from 2012, but I didn't see it then, so maybe you didn't either...

****

FBI documents just obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) pursuant to the PCJF’s Freedom of Information Act demands reveal that from its inception, the FBI treated the Occupy movement as a potential criminal and terrorist threat even though the agency acknowledges in documents that organizers explicitly called for peaceful protest and did “not condone the use of violence” at occupy protests.

The PCJF has obtained heavily redacted documents showing that FBI offices and agents around the country were in high gear conducting surveillance against the movement even as early as August 2011, a month prior to the establishment of the OWS encampment in Zuccotti Park and other Occupy actions around the country.

“This production, which we believe is just the tip of the iceberg, is a window into the nationwide scope of the FBI’s surveillance, monitoring, and reporting on peaceful protestors organizing with the Occupy movement,” stated Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Executive Director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF). “These documents show that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are treating protests against the corporate and banking structure of America as potential criminal and terrorist activity. These documents also show these federal agencies functioning as a de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and Corporate America.”

“The documents are heavily redacted, and it is clear from the production that the FBI is withholding far more material. We are filing an appeal challenging this response and demanding full disclosure to the public of the records of this operation,” stated Heather Benno, staff attorney with the PCJF....

more at link

http://www.justiceonline.org/commentary/fbi-files-ows.html

[WCGreen]

1. Wonder how many of he Tea Bagers were under surveillance.

[on point]

2. Like the ones that actually threaten violence and bring guns to their events??

Yeah wonder too.

[cali]

3. Not just the FBI

http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/05/12115/dissent-or-terror-new-report-details-how-counter-terrorism-apparatus-was-used-mon

[HiPointDem]

4. as the article goes on to detail

[cali]

6. The Center for Media and Democracy did the investigation

DBA Press and the Center for Media and Democracy today 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."

[orpupilofnature57]

26. The apparatus of fascism .

[xchrom]

5. du rec.

[Downwinder]

7. This is a surprise? How could a fascist state be otherwise?

I have been told by local law enforcement that they "have a file on everybody in town."

[KG]

8. and here I was, feeling all hopey-changey...

[John2]

9. It is another

example of an orchestrated attempt to control dissent in this country from the Left. The Freedom of expression from the Left is what those on the Right call enabling Foreign Terrorists. It keeps U.S. Foreign Policy to the Right. I think Americans need to know all sides of an issue, if they are to decide which direction this country should go. If you censor the Left, all you hear are the arguments from the Right unless you get information from other sources. They are spying on Americans that might disagree with their Policies. There is a ground swell of Americans disagreeing with U.S. Policies regarding regime change and the movement to War. The U.S. Government does not have Public support yet for their Wars. I'll reiterate my point as many times needed. Our Foreign Policy agenda affects our Domestic agenda on whether America continues to put resources into the military or Domestic programs. They cannot prosecute their Wars without cutting Domestic Programs. Prosecuting their Wars only benefits the Top. The rest will suffer fighting their Wars.

[DWinNJ]

10. I’m not worried

I’m sure Fox and Darrell Issa will be all over this.

[LeftInTX]

95. Or anyone in congress for that matter

Where are all the congressional hearings?
If the FBI was targeting the Tea Party, we would never hear the end of it.

[hobbit709]

11. to quote Gomer "Surprise!" "Surprise!" "Surprise!"

The FBI has been doing this since the 1930's.

[tomp]

12. exactly!

nice to have details (not redacted) but really, this type of government suppression has to be presumed. The left is not free.

[Downwinder]

13. The only solution is to track them. They don't appreciate

surveillance directed in their direction.

[tomp]

22. they should be exposed at every turn.

but the key is for leftist groups to presume they are being monitored and act accordingly. infiltrators and agent provocateurs are especially insidious. the left needs to develop methods of dealing with this. it is obviously not easy.

[zeemike]

15. Yep there is a long history of this.

This is how they destroyed the peace movement in the 70s.
I remember one case in Gainesville Florida where they put what was called the Gainesville 7 on trial and two FBI men were caught in a closet with a tape recorder recording the jury as they deleted...and as you might guess, nothing came of that...the two agents were probably promoted.

[leveymg]

29. You can track them here. We had (have) our own surveillance state deniers who troll this board.

Just go back and look at DU over the last four or five years, and it's easy to spot the aggressive apologists for a police state. They're the ones who constantly condemn other members as "conspiracy theorists." The ones who hijack threads. The ones who target leading whistleblowers for ridicule.

You've probably noticed them and know who they are.

[rhett o rick]

102. Those you speak of are not happy that Meta is gone. They are trying to use

ATA as Meta but not having much luck. They cant stand it if a jury decision or the hosts dont lock a post or thread that they dont like.

[randome]

14. "...surveillance, monitoring, and reporting..." OMG, what repressive tactics!

And the usual comparisons to the Tea Party are made but no one ever makes FOI requests to see if they were treated the same. It's far better to be comfortable in the knowledge that the only reason OWS did not succeed is because of all the 'surveillance, monitoring, and reporting' that shut them down.



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[zeemike]

16. Yes because surveillance is so American.

it is the new normal....to keep us safe from those dirty protesters eh?

[randome]

17. Hell, no. But when you have large groups of people gathering in public parks...

...it makes sense for law enforcement to keep an eye on them. Else, what is LE for? Just to catch apple thieves, perhaps?

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[zeemike]

18. Well then that explains it.

Groups of people represent a threat....that is unless it is a tea party, and we know they are just good old American patriots...and we know that because they love their guns.

I had the crazy idea that LE was there to protect us from crime, not keeping an eye on crowds of people gathering to peacefully demonstrate....but then I did not recon with the new War on Terror and the effort of LE to keep Wall Street in business...they have to protect and serve the money.

[randome]

20. Fuck the Tea Party, I'm sure they were monitored, too. But no one takes the time to find out.

Maybe the only way to know if large groups of people pose a threat is to walk up to them and ask, "Hey. Are you guys a threat?" Probably some monitoring is a better way to approach that. And any monitoring that went on had exactly no impact on OWS.

Unless you believe in the Uncertainty Principle as applied to social groups.

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[socialist_n_TN]

25. Do you SERIOUSLY contend that "...no one takes the time to find out"...

about potential Tea Party monitoring? Sure, no one with leftish tendencies is going to try and find out, but you don't think that Darrell Issa, Bachman, et. al. wouldn't be ALL OVER any hints of Tea Party monitoring by the FBI???? And yet we haven't heard a peep about it.

You can argue your "both sides do it" (or in this case "both sides are under investigation&quot all you want, but until I see some HINT that the FBI was paying as much attention to ARMED Teabaggers as they were to unarmed and peaceful protestors on the left, I ain't gonna believe it. The Teabaggers were and are FBI and PTB approved BECAUSE they are an anti-left group.

[randome]

27. If no one on the Left wants to take the time to learn whether the TP was treated differently...

...then we should stop seeing posts that claim they were not. We hear about right wing militia groups being infiltrated and arrested all the time. Maybe they aren't 'officially' connected to some TP group but they are definitely cut from the same cloth and that goes against the contention that only anti-left groups are targeted.

And again, how did surveillance, monitoring and reporting shut down OWS? It didn't.

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[Zorra]

39. It's your dog. We're saying they treated the Tea Party differently.

It's up to you to prove they didn't if you are disputing our claim.

Feel free to prove us wrong here.

Otherwise, we'll be compelled believe it's just more of your repetitive Wall St. 1% defending smoke and mirrors strawman propaganda.

[randome]

52. No, I don't think I'll spend much time trying to prove a negative.

I am not making any claims. You are. If you want to be taken seriously, do some research. Otherwise, it's all more of the same: "We almost succeeded but for the big, bad police watching us all the time!"

And my 'repetitive Wall St. 1% defending'? That is sheer ludicrousness. I actually couldn't care less about Wall Street. What I would like to see is pressure put on the legislators who write the loopholes and water down regulations every chance they get.

They are the true criminals. I have always maintained that it's not stealing when Congress says, 'Here. Take what you want.'

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[Zorra]

94. Research done. There's no evidence whatsoever. The burden of proof is on you.

[G_j]

56. you left out infiltrating also, remember the Church Committee?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee

The Church Committee was the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a U.S. Senate committee chaired by Senator Frank Church (D-ID) in 1975. A precursor to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the committee investigated intelligence gathering for illegality by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) after certain activities had been revealed by the Watergate affair.

[randome]

62. That is so last century. Literally.

Are you trying to convince me that the government sometimes does terrible things? Consider me convinced.

Maybe if OWS hadn't wasted months taking over other cities' parks and buildings, they would have been more celebrated. Did infiltration occur in some groups of OWS? I'm sure it did and I don't see a reason for it.

But if OWS had more of an organizational structure to it, that would not have been a useful tactic to deploy. Not that it is ever commendable, I'm just saying that if it was a major problem then I hope OWS has some way to counter it this time.

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[zeemike]

34. Well it went far beyond monitoring.

But I guess you would not know that would you?...because you did not look or pay attention to it because you were too concerned about the dirty radicals living in tents?...just like the MSM tried to portray them?

And I guess you never looked at how the cops dumped homeless people at the park and people they had just let out of jail there....or the many agent provocateurs to try to stir up some shit so the MSM could tell us they were a dangerous bunch...

Same fucking play book they have always used...and it worked on many....like you apparently.

[randome]

45. Don't put words in my mouth. 'Dirty radicals'? Really?

If all LE had to do was sprinkle a few homeless people among OWS, then it was never much more than a house of straw, was it?

And no, before you ask, I do NOT approve of any subversive tactics used by LE.

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[zeemike]

50. But you know that is not all they did don't you?

The evidence is there if you wish to see it...
but if you hate OWS for any reason you will not want to see it...that is the way things work in our polarized society...you are ether with them or against them has become the norm.

[randome]

54. The irony is that you fit the very outlook you posit for me.

I don't see you as 'hating' anything. That doesn't mean you aren't free to see me differently based on what I post.

But I don't see anything about my posts on OWS as indicating 'hate'. Merely a recognition that being without leadership and more focused goals (other than a repetitive "Wall Street! Be nicer!&quot is why they didn't have more of an impact than they did.

I was rooting for them at first. I still am. But right now I expect the same results this year as in the past two years: minimal at best.

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[zeemike]

60. Well that is what is sounds like to me...reading what you write.

But the anti war movement in the 60s accomplished the same as OWS...nothing...the war continued on as if they never existed....but they had leaders...who were cooped and infiltrated just as OWS was...but the leaders just made it easier for them.

And these young people get that...and I am thankful for that.

[randome]

64. Honestly, I don't think anyone 'gets' that.

I think it's more that no one wants to step up to the plate. More's the pity. If those in OWS say they are willing to risk their lives to right the wrongs of this world, then someone needs to step up and do the job of organizing.

What happened in the 60s should serve as an example of what to expect and how to counter it.

Unfortunately, I see OWS, without leadership, as making the most minimal of progress on the fronts that should be important to all of us.

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[zeemike]

73. Well what happened in the 60s did serve as an example

And that is why the no leadership thing.
But the difference between now and then is that in the 60s revelations that the cops were using agent provocateur and surveillance on peaceful protesters would have been a shock to most Americans...but today many here think it is their job and think nothing of it.

That is how the frog was boiled....introduce police state tactics a little at a time, and we become accustomed to it and think it is normal....at least the ones that don't know any other way....now we are being told that it is their job to surveil us even by our own progressive leaders...

But fuck it...the past freedom is forgotten, and the new "freedom" is just a Orwellian slogan.

[leveymg]

30. Why is military intelligence, DHS, and the FBI "keeping an eye" on people camped out in parks?

Isn't that the job of local law enforcement? If the point is simply to make sure nobody hurts anyone else, starts fires, or shits on the sidewalk, isn't that something a small unit of bicycle cops in baseball caps couldn't handle without federal coordination, trained infiltrators, and wiretapping?

Or, just maybe, this program isn't just about maintaining public safety, and is really about "mapping out" political dissidents? Can you accept that possibility and speak sensibly to the issue, instead of just ridiculing other members?

[randome]

44. Maybe because OWS had much greater numbers of people involved than the TP.

I think everyone -LE included- kept looking for -and expecting- some organization between the widespread groups. Sadly, there was none. It was leaderless and very uncoordinated.

Some say that's its main strength. I disagree with that.

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[sabrina 1]

53. Any photos of Tea Baggers being beaten nearly to death by law enforcement?

Sure, it 'makes sense' to beat and hospitalize people for daring to peacefully protest.

'Keep an eye on them'. Lol, how about aiming militarized weapons at them AND firing them?



They sure shut him up, he lost his voice. Couldn't speak even if he wanted to. He survived Iraq and all those 'terrorists' we went there to kill, oh wait, they weren't in Iraq, they were in Saudi Arabia. Poor guy actually believed he had been 'fighting for our freedoms'.

So THAT is what LE is for?? Well thank you for letting us know, to beat up and nearly kill citizens who thought they had some rights in this country. Including Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans who were told they were 'fighting for our freedoms'.

And then there was three tour Iraq/Afghanistan war veteran, Kayvan Sabehgi

Yeah, listen to those brave chanting LE officers, courageously beating a War Veteran until they ruptured his spleen and then denied him any medical care for 18 hours. Any of them held accountable yet??

I can post images all day if you like, of old ladies, college students, young women even elected officials and journalists, who had LE keeping an eye on them. But no Tea Baggers.



Let me know when we see Tea Baggers beaten to a pulp because LE is 'keeping on an eye on them'. Not that I would support that, I would object as strongly to them or anyone else being treated the way OWS was.

I'm wondering why you didn't see the difference in the treatment. Were you not following the news or something? I searched for info on even one armed Tea Bagger being badly treated by LE and so far haven't found one.

[randome]

58. I will never defend unnecessary force. And there was too much of that.

But the TP didn't take over public parks and buildings and sit there demanding the world change, either. It got to the point where many local residents wanted them the hell out of their cities and their parks.

Again, not defending those instances where LE used unnecessary force. But when you are ordered to disperse large numbers of people who refuse to leave, it is inevitable that things will spiral out of control.

And OWS had months to themselves and failed to come up with a coherent plan other than to stay in one place.

If OWS wants a better outcome this year, I hope they do something more productive.

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[sabrina 1]

65. Really? Why did no one ask the armed Tea Baggers who attended Obama rallies to 'disperse'?

Why were peaceful protesters who HAD A RIGHT TO GATHER peacefully in the public square, unarmed exercising their 1st Amendment rights, asked to disperse while armed, angry Tea Baggers were not?

I don't recall outraged comments from you, and I wrote many of the original OPs on the OWS movement when it started and when these daily beatings occurred. All I remember from you is excuses, just as you did now, for those crimes.

OWS had a great outcome. They proved without a doubt that when the people begin to wake up to the corruption in our government, they will be beaten, and it is only a miracle that no one died.

What right, please tell us, did anyone have to 'ask peaceful protesters with no guns, no weapons' to disperse?

Why were they asked to disperse? And please don't give me the right wing reasons. I've heard them all before and of course they make no sense in a democracy.

And why were the armed and angry Tea Baggers NOT asked to disperse?

Thanks to OWS we know for a fact that opposing corruption in Government is not allowed and will be dealt with BRUTALLY.

[randome]

69. 'Right to gather' is not the same as setting up tents and kitchens in other people's parks.

For months!

Leave out the 'occupy' shit and I'd bet the organization would have a better outcome. Because so far the 'occupy' part doesn't seem to have worked out too well.

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[sabrina 1]

70. So tents are more threatening than guns? And where is there a limit placed on how long

people can remain in the public square? Can you point me to the part of the Constitution that says you can only peacefully protest for x number of hours, minutes etc?

And you never answered my question. Why were the Tea Partiers, who totally disrupted Politicians, some were even assaulted by them, Rep. John Lewis eg, never treated the same way as OWS?

Or have you forgotten how they shut down Town Hall meetings and threatened elected officials??


So let me get this straight. People putting up tents, protesting peacefully, helping to feed the poor etc, is more of a threat to the government than people carrying weapons, assaulting elected officials and others (yes they did that), shutting down Town Hall meetings conducted for the people by elected officials and those running for office, gathering at Presidential rallies armed and angry and threatening revolution?

You're not making any sense. I look forward to your link to some info on limiting the time citizens can spend protesting government and Wall St. corruption or any other grievance they might have.

[randome]

75. Again, many local residents did not want THEIR parks and THEIR cities occupied indefinitely.

That's a key difference.

And a Town Hall meeting is a much different venue. At least the TP was addressing politicians, not claiming the right to take over public spaces. And we see the effect the TP had on elections, unfortunately.

With all the right-wing TP-like groups that have been infiltrated and arrested, I think you're ignoring the evidence that those other groups ARE monitored and infiltrated.

What's his name -Adam Kokesh?- was in jail recently. He's the yahoo who wanted to lead an armed group to Washington yet he got shut down.

Do I think the same level of attention should have been shown to OWS? No, I don't.

You want to have a different outcome this year from last year? Do things differently. Push for better organization.

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[sabrina 1]

78. 80% of NYers when polled, supported OWS in Zuccotti Park. Not that a few disgruntled

Right Wingers should ever take precedence over the rights of the people to protest anyhow even if that was the case. There is no need for OWS to do anything other than what they are doing right now. They are the most successful protest movement across the globe in recent times. Don't mess with success.

The very fact that Wall St and its puppet 'armies' across the country tried so hard to crush them demonstrates how successful they were. Why bother with so much money invested, so much military style weaponry, with something that was going to fail? Lol!

Your faint 'praise' and 'concern' for the success of OWS mixed in with the usual attempts to avoid answering the questions the whole world has been asking, isn't fooling anyone. I know it's supposed to be a nice touch to pretend that the only concern is that OWS wasn't using the right tactics. Lol, sure, that is why they were so successful, that is why when polled, more than 80% of those polled, everywhere, knew about them and knew what their message was. Fox of course pretended not to know, pretended they 'had no message'. But Faux is a minority radical puppet of Wall St so it is to be expected they would attempt to fly in the face of reality and deny the success of OWS.

You haven't shown me btw, where there is a time limit on protests. That was your defense of the crackdown, wasn't it? So you should be able to produce something that Constitutionally limits the time people have to protest. Or have you shifted the excuses to something else now?

[rhett o rick]

91. And we have the authoritarian response. The protestors deserved the treatment they got.

We used to have a Constitution that gave citizens rights against Big Brother unauthorized surveillance. And you seem to choose the side of Big Brother over protestors. Do you consider yourself a "politically liberal person"?

[randome]

93. Neither of us should need to justify our liberal bona-fides.

I do consider LE monitoring large groups of people taking over public spaces to be appropriate.

Was it in Cleveland they stopped a trio of 'protesters' from going about their plans to dynamite a bridge?

And there were some reported rapes in some of the OWS encampments. With large groups of people gathered together without a unifying leader or focus, shit will happen so, yes, LE keeping an eye on things is good, IMO.

Infiltration and disruption? No.

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[AnotherMcIntosh]

96. Excuse me, but your response seems to be an evasion of the question.

It was a straight-forward question.

There was no question asking you to justify anything.

[rhett o rick]

99. I only asked because it seems to me that you choose the authoritarian side

in most debates. The OP discusses how the FBI started surveillance before they were a crowd in a park. And as far a fearing protestors, the police were guilty of gross misconduct. Brutal treatment that violated the rights of the protestors. Yet our government, let me say that again, OUR GOVERNMENT, of WE THE PEOPLE, choose to surveil the peaceful protestors. And you choose to side with the FBI over the protestors. That doesnt in any way sound liberal to me.

And your example of "they stopped a trio of 'protesters' from going about their plans to dynamite a bridge?" does not justify stomping on Constitutional rights.

[randome]

101. I am 100% behind the goals of OWS -when the wind blows right and they protest coherently.

The enemies of OWS will tear the organization down and do whatever they can to diminish it.

The allies of OWS will offer what they consider to be helpful suggestions, such as redirecting the protests to those who are responsible for our current whacked out economy -Congress, not some amorphous enemy such as 'Wall Street'. Such as dropping the ridiculous concept of occupying something and calling that a protest.

Occupying a parcel of land is only good, IMO, when you are trying to bring light to forest devastation or endangered species. OWS will never have any significant traction if they want to camp out in public parks and call that a 'protest'.

A lot of time and energy has been wasted on shaming 'Wall Street' into behaving better. You cannot shame the rich or corporations. Corporations, especially, are not people so to approach them as such seems ridiculous in the extreme, IMO.

And the rich? They are not threatened by OWS. Not in the slightest, from what I can see.

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[socialist_n_TN]

104. I'm sorry, but THAT IS SUCH BULLSHIT.........

I'm referring of course to your second paragraph. The ones that are ACTUALLY responsible for our "...whacked out economy..." ARE Wall Street. Congress is merely their hired front group. By your posts you seem to say that you'd rather try to go after the puppets rather than the puppeteers.

OWS shined the light on the TRUE rulers in our current capitalist system and you want them to focus on fucking Congress. I had my problems with OWS myself, but the FOCUS of the protests were NOT among my problems.

[randome]

105. So you think shouting loudly on Wall Street is going to make a difference?

You think CEOs whose responsibilities are to shareholders will listen? I really don't understand that. I think we need to give Congress a reason to be MORE afraid of us than they are of corporations.

They write the laws. And the loopholes.

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[leveymg]

106. It's either shouting or shooting. Not many quite ready to cross that bridge, as yet.

But, with each passing day that the Hope and Change thing brings neither, fewer and fewer Americans view scaring Congress into saving us as a viable alternative these days. Even people who don't view themselves as particularly radical are losing faith in the ability of the system to reform itself. That is truly a pity, as it signals a fundamental and perilous change in the course of American institutions.

Obama and Dems will have to take some risks of their own if they are to try to pull this thing put of its spin.

[randome]

107. I just thought of another way to put this.

After nearly two years, can anyone name a Wall Street entity, corporation, whatever, that has changed its practices because of OWS?

And then there is the one unassailable victory that OWS claims: changing the conversation. Has that change in conversation occurred at the Wall Street level? Or has it had more of an impact on the Congressional level?

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[tomp]

23. it is the old normal. nt

[Zorra]

19. Ah, that putrid smell of Borglike anti-Occupy fascism in the morning.

How grandma looks after being pepper sprayed by some of your courageous MIC heroes:

On edit: (Help, please, won't someone help? I'm being repressed!)


Your constant, repetitive message to Occupy, as expressed by one of your 1% Occupy hating fascist comrades:



What Occupy will inevitably do to Wall Streets "Precious":



Please, tell your buddy ALEC to expect us.

Have a nice day.

[randome]

21. What, you think I'm going to insist that LE did not do some despicable things? Not at all.

But as the article is about surveillance and some on this thread think that is fascist in nature, I'll stick to my point that any surveillance, monitoring and reporting had exactly zilch to do with whether OWS succeeded or failed.

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[Zorra]

24. Maybe the FBI will be starting surveillance early on the next Farm Aid charity concert too.

Damn leftist hippie liberals like Willie Nelson or Neil Young might be assembling to conspire to stop hunger on the planet. And we can't have that, can we? It just ain't 'murican.

There's no profit in it.

[sabrina 1]

74. OWS succeeded and is still succeeding. So that isn't part of the argument. No one here believes

they didn't succeed. In fact it was the very 'surveillance' as you call it, others call it brutal attacks on innocent citizens, that got OWS the world wide support they now have.

You are setting up as strawman that only you see and then arguing with it. The success of OWS is not in question. They long accomplished the goals they set out to accomplish and far exceeded them.

The Brutal attempt to stop them, which has failed, is the issue NOT their success or failure.

And the other issue is that the radical, armed Tea Party who shut down Town Hall meetings and assaulted even elected officials among others, were allowed to do so without that same 'surveillance' as you so euphemistically refer to it.

[randome]

77. Who was assaulted by the Tea Party?

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[sabrina 1]

81. Are you serious? You have so much to say about OWS and all of its 'faults'

and so many justifications for the brutal assaults on innocent people by government forces, while claiming that the reason the Tea Party was not treated in a similar fashion is because they were so 'well behaved' by contrast?? Un*&%#@$believable.

Well, let's bring you up do date with just example of the 'behavior' of the TP, not that I expect you to change your views, but at least let's make sure we know you know that your excuses for the TP are simply ridiculous.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/20/tea-party-protests-nier-f_n_507116.html

Tea Party Protests: 'Ni**er,' 'Fa**ot' Shouted At Members Of Congress

Abusive, derogatory and even racist behavior directed at House Democrats by Tea Party protesters on Saturday left several lawmakers in shock.

Preceding the president's speech to a gathering of House Democrats, thousands of protesters descended around the Capitol to protest the passage of health care reform. The gathering quickly turned into abusive heckling, as members of Congress passing through Longworth House office building were subjected to epithets and even mild physical abuse.

A staffer for Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) told reporters that Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) had been spat on by a protestor. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a hero of the civil rights movement, was called a 'ni--er.' And Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was called a "faggot," as protestors shouted at him with deliberately lisp-y screams. Frank, approached in the halls after the president's speech, shrugged off the incident.

And more:

UPDATE 7:48 PM ET: The Buffalo News reports that Rep. Louise Slaughter's district office in Pine View, New York, was vandalized on Saturday.

Sometime early this morning, someone threw a brick through the front window of her Pine Avenue office.

The damage was discovered about 12:30 a.m., city police said.
The brick put a hole in the outer-most window at the office at 1910 Pine Ave., but did not damage a second interior window, police reported. A piece of broken brick believed to have caused the damage was found at the scene.
Damage was estimated at $350.

Where were the Robo Cops with the militarized weapons, where was LE rushing in to crack some heads of those spitting on US Members of Congress?? Those nicely behaved TPers, they didn't bring tents!

Please, just stop. I can certainly keep posting what the TP did yet never, there is so much more, not once did we see a single beating by the Robo Cops.

OWS's success was proven by the difference in the treatment of the TP.

[randome]

84. So anyone who behaves atrociously is automatically part of the Tea Party?

And 'robo-cops' should immediately show up to arrest a brick?

A one-time gathering and an instance of nightly vandalism do not make easy targets for infiltration and monitoring so your analogy falls flat.

Now if the Tea Party stayed in one place for months and refused to leave, I have no doubt they would eventually be dispersed. But I suppose we'll never know.

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[sabrina 1]

87. Keep defending the Tea Party and attacking OWS. Your avoidance of the questions

you were asked, I know you think it's clever to veer off in a whole other direction when you simply cannot answer those questions, is just what I expected. But thanks again for giving me the opportunity to enlighten other people who do want to know the facts, about the difference in the treatment of the well-funded Tea Party and the legitimate Grass Roots movement OWS.

Yes, they WERE the Tea Party!! Lol, why do you care so much about their reputation? They don't.

Once again, just for the fun of it, since you claimed it was the tents that caused the difference in treatment. Where is the law that limits the time of protests in the US Constitution?

Oh, and I know there are laws against spitting on US Congressmembers or anyone else for that matter.

Lol, first you claim the TP never assaulted anyone, now you say 'it was probably not them and/or anyhow, it was just 'one incident'. Yes, THIS is just ONE example of their racist, threatening behavior.

But hey, they had no tents!! I get it!

Btw, I fixed the link so you can read it for yourself. I guess guns and little saliva along with racist epithets aimed at elected officials, so long as they don't have tents, is okay.

[sabrina 1]

89. No, only if it really is the Tea Party. See the fixed link in my previous comment.

The TP attacked US Congressmembers. You're okay with that? Civil Rights heroes, minority and gay members of Congress. Where is the outrage, where were all the arrests? ONE arrest, later after it could hardly be avoided given the press reports.

As I said, stop while you are so far behind. You obviously are anti-OWS and not particularly anti-TP. Your veiled defenses of the TP and constant attacks on OWS are obvious. Don't know why you aren't more straight forward about it, we are all entitled to our opinions and should never have to fear regardless of how wrong they are, expressing them openly. OWS was a perfect example of that kind of oppression and their continued existence and success is a perfect example of how oppression of an idea never works.

[Rex]

88. OWS not only succeded, but is now a cultural revolution

sorry you cannot handle that. It is funny watching you flail around about OWS like an old grumpy frump. THAT is very funny and revealing imo.

[hootinholler]

28. One has to wonder

How they got on the radar before any action?

[ucrdem]

31. +1

Occupy's fabled origin:

Adbusters emailed its subscribers saying “America needs its own Tahrir”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Wall_Street

hmm...

[leveymg]

33. No. If you want to go to origins, and how they're dealt with, look at these groups:

[ucrdem]

35. People-powered movements

sometimes have some funny people powering them.

[ucrdem]

36. p.s. those are NOT pictures of Occupy. nt

[leveymg]

42. Occupy's great-grandfathers

The "Bonus Marchers."

And, here's the first-responders at work, circa 1932:

[hootinholler]

48. Hoover sent the army, Roosevelt sent his wife. n/t

[leveymg]

38. On second glance, are you suggesting that OWS was preemptive of something bigger?

That's an interesting suggestion.

You know, that tactic goes back to the Czarist secret police, the Okhrana, as well as the practice of agents provocateur acting as terrorists and "Court policing." If you want to know the details, please, see: http://journals.democraticunderground.com/leveymg/211

[ucrdem]

40. Not exactly preemptive, more like a faded iteration.

Or you might say a domestic version of a world-wide smash that first hit the headlines in 1953. In Persia I believe.

[ucrdem]

41. Awesome journal!

Recommended. And yep that's what I'm getting at.

[leveymg]

46. I still have people from Eastern Europe emailing me about that one.

Parts of it got picked up and reposted in several countries. Really hit a lot of nerves, all over the place.

That was part of a dissertation I was working on when 9/11 happened. Kinda took it to a whole new level.

[ucrdem]

51. I can see why.

I can also see how 911 would change things but then 911 changed everything didn't it . . . Anyway bookmarking.

p.s. wasn't Philip II also briefly king of England? I imagine he might have passed along a few tricks of the trade, so to speak.

[leveymg]

59. Okhrana seems to have had several sources of inspiration (and allegiance) , but the figure who

really stands out for me is Wilhelm Steiber (and his int'l Police Union), one of those Zelig characters in history who seems to have been everywhere and met and influenced everyone, from London, to Berlin, to St. Petersburg, to Washington. Interesting period, the 1860s. Really the beginning of our era, particularly in terms of technology and praxis applied to politics and war.

Philip may have wanted to be King of the Angles, but was he ever, really? Didn't weather have something to do with the outcome of that ambition?

[ucrdem]

66. He married into the job, from1554-58 it looks like.

And Mary Tudor was also queen of Spain for four years, who knew?

In 1554, Mary married Philip of Spain, becoming queen consort of Habsburg Spain on his accession in 1556.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_I_of_England

Bold lady. Too bad she gets so little credit. As I recall Philip wasn't much of a husband but it looks like he was indeed king of England for a few years, or king-consort. I don't imagine the title flattered his ego.

[leveymg]

71. I always chuckle when the Brits claim that England was never conquered or ruled by foreigners.

Where is the House of Windsor from, if not the same place as the Prussian nobles who also colonized the Russian Court?

The Agnates of the House of Wettin (anglicized to "Windsor&quot have, at various times, ascended the thrones of Great Britain, Portugal, Bulgaria, Poland, Saxony, and Belgium. It's my contention that list should include the Romanov Court, who were carefully controlled, and the Okhrana kept it that way in the East for centuries.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

82. If there is one thing that the Brits do well, it is that they maintain their sense of history.

Unless I'm mistaken, their history which they keep track of includes includes successful invasions in which all or part of what is now known as England was conquered by the Normans, the Saxons, the Vikings, the Romans, the Britons, ...

To paraphrase Harrison Ford from Six Days, Seven Nights, "It's an island." They had to come from somewhere.

Never ruled by foreigners? Ever since the dealth of Elizabeth I, the throne has been held by Scots and Scottish descendants. (Oliver Cromwell doesn't count because he never held the throne.)

[ucrdem]

85. That's a keeper.

Gotta remember that one.

[leveymg]

32. Very good question.

Maybe it's because the whole surveillance state/domestic "counter-terrorism" profiling apparatus is all about detecting this sort of thing before it happens, so it can be most effectively "neutralized"?

[zeemike]

37. You got it.

And it has been going on a long time...so they can protect our "freedom"

[hootinholler]

47. There once was a program named TIA

It was supposed to be dismantled, however I think they just changed the name of it and brought it under the umbrella of the JTTF, which is a fusion of military, federal and local law enforcement forces.

Many think that messaging traffic (including voice) is scanned in near real time for keywords. From limited personal experience I do not think this. There is a very large corpus (likely in the petabyte range, it was terabytes per day when I got the volume numbers) of message traffic that is searchable with some very sophisticated search engine technology. This allows the fusiliers (those working the fusion centers) to play 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon with anyone who comes on the radar. Those whom I have met personally working in that environment are generally authoritarian and are not sympathetic to the notions that OWS espouse.

[leveymg]

49. TIA was a diversion or just a minor competitor. Thin Thread went operational.

Jane Mayer in the New Yorker profiled the NSA whistleblower who developed what became known as "The Program":

I think "The Program" that Comey and Goldsmith objected to, and talked Ashcroft into modifying, was the NSA "Thin Thread" program described by Jane Mayer in her 2011 New Yorker profile of NSA Whistleblower, Bill Binney.

Going backwards, related programs included Trailblazer, an NSA program that focused on interception and analysis of data carried on web communications networks, cell phones, VOIP, and e-mail. After receiving widely-reported adverse publicity Trailblazer was shutdown but reportedly morphed into the NSA Turbulance Program. Thin Thread was a rival, and until more recently still secret, NSA program that went operational, resulting in massive domestic surveillance. This is described by Jane Mayer in a 2011 New Yorker article: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/23/110523fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=all

"Code-named ThinThread, it had been developed by
technological wizards in a kind of Skunk Works on the N.S.A. campus. Formally, the project was supervised by the agency’s Signals Intelligence Automation Research Center, or SARC.

While most of the N.S.A. was reeling on September 11th, inside SARC the horror unfolded “almost like an ‘I-told-you-so’ moment,” according to J. Kirk Wiebe, an intelligence analyst who worked there. “We knew we weren’t keeping up.” SARC was led by a crypto-mathematician named Bill Binney, whom Wiebe describes as “one of the best analysts in history.”

Binney and a team of some twenty others believed that they had
pinpointed the N.S.A.’s biggest problem—data overload—and then solved it. But the agency’s management hadn’t agreed.

Binney, who is six feet three, is a bespectacled sixty-seven-year-old man with wisps of dark hair; he has the quiet,
tense air of a preoccupied intellectual. Now retired and suffering
gravely from diabetes, which has already claimed his left leg, he agreed recently to speak publicly for the first time about the Drake case. When we met, at a restaurant near N.S.A. headquarters, he leaned crutches against an extra chair. “This is too serious not to talk about,” he said.

Binney expressed terrible remorse over the way some of his
algorithms were used after 9/11. ThinThread, the “little program” that he invented to track enemies outside the U.S., “got twisted,” and was used for both foreign and domestic spying: “I should apologize to the American people. It’s violated everyone’s rights. It can be used to eavesdrop on the whole world.” According to Binney, Drake took his side against the N.S.A.’s management and, as a result, became a political target within the agency.

Binney described Thin Thread to Mayer, who describes The Program this way:

ThinThread would correlate data from financial transactions, travel records, Web searches, G.P.S. equipment, and any other “attributes” that an analyst might find useful in pinpointing “the
bad guys.” By 2000, Binney, using fibre optics, had set up a computer network that could chart relationships among people in real time. It also turned the N.S.A.’s data-collection paradigm upside down. Instead of vacuuming up information around the world and then sending it all back to headquarters for analysis, ThinThread processed information as it was collected—discarding useless information on the spot and avoiding the overload problem that plagued centralized systems. Binney says,
“The beauty of it is that it was open-ended, so it could keep
expanding.”

Pilot tests of ThinThread proved almost too successful, according to a former intelligence expert who analyzed it. “It was nearly perfect,” the official says. “But it processed such a large amount of data that it picked up more Americans than the other systems.” Though ThinThread was intended to intercept foreign communications, it continued documenting signals when a trail crossed into the U.S.

< . . .>

Binney, for his part, believes that the agency now stores copies of
all e-mails transmitted in America, in case the government wants to
retrieve the details later. In the past few years, the N.S.A. has built
enormous electronic-storage facilities in Texas and Utah. Binney says that an N.S.A. e-mail database can be searched with “dictionary selection,” in the manner of Google. After 9/11, he says, “General Hayden reassured everyone that the N.S.A. didn’t put out dragnets, and that was true. It had no need—it was getting every fish in the sea.” [end excerpt]

The thing that's different about the The Program as it was modified by Comey, Goldsmith, Ashcroft is a feature retrieved from Binney's original Thin Thread design that employs algorithms to determine that cause exists to obtain a FISA warrant before US Person identities are revealed to the analyst. That may be a small difference, but it is a difference.

[hootinholler]

61. My understanding is

TIA and later the JTTF was a DOD program, not NSA. I believe the raw data stream was obtained from the NSA and likely others as well. The corpus I know of was not held on NSA servers but DOD servers managed by the DIA. My point being that this corpus was available (I'm assuming) to the personnel working the Fusion Centers. I seriously doubt the NSA corpus was, but I'm willing to bet that names identified by NSA analysts were shared with people on the JTTF.

[leveymg]

68. TIA started as a DARPA-DIA project. NSA is the corpus for practically everyone else in the IC.

Can you shed some light into the JTTF connection to the Army Land Intelligence unit at Ft. Belvoir that got shut down after the FBI busted Wade/Wilkes (MZM/ADCS) and the Cunningham/Foggo bribery scandal?

[leveymg]

76. I was referring to National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) there. My bad.

[hootinholler]

79. I think it would be more accurate to say the NSA corpus is the source for others use.

I simply can't imagine the NSA allowing a direct connection to their DBs by anyone other than the NSA. It's just the way things are done in this sort of security environment. It's much more likely there is a private publish/subscribe service and you keep your own copy of the data you subscribe to. I was an uncleared tech consultant working for a large search engine company who's name does not begin with G (and was subsequently bought by another search engine company who's name also does not begin with G). In that position, I was handed test cases of problems to be solved. All I know is inference from the set of things I worked on.

I wish I could shed some light into the curiosities of the Cunningham case. Talk about the successes of a limited hang out strategy! The suppression of that investigation is IMHO legendary and is the root of the Attorneys General mass firings. If I could shed light there, you would already know me as a whistleblower or via an obituary.

[leveymg]

86. See my response to your comment, immediately above.

You're probably right about the publisher/subscriber relationship. That's sort of how I imagine it, as well. Each of the other agencies also has a limited surveillance and storage capability of its own, but its NSA that's the Library of Congress X a billion billion.

[leveymg]

83. You forced me to look it up myself, darn you! ;-)

Last edited Sat Jun 1, 2013, 01:51 PM - Edit history (1)

Looks like most of the investigations stopped c. 2007, and the configuration at that time was that the JTTF and Fusion Centers were linked with the now operational FIRES program at NGIC. Fires computerized all available building plans into a common database, and was originally something dreamed up at TIA as a piece of the larger program.

Wade/Wilkes MZM was linked into this giant DIA program, and they got nabbed by the FBI as part of the probe of bribery of a bunch of Congressmen, including Cunningham, after that rats nest got dug up under the false WMD intel that was uncovered following the outing of Plame and the CIA-CPD.

Here's part of it: http://www.nationalcorruptionindex.org/pages/profile.php?profile_id=26

Shortly after the bribing began, MZM received a $225 million blanket purchase agreement from the Department of Defense. The agreement was not a contract, but rather it was more like a promise: MZM could draw down on that line of credit if it could find contracts within the department to work on. With Cunningham’s help, Wade and his company found plenty.

MZM received the agreement shortly after Wade hired the son of William Rich Jr., who was then director of the National Ground Intelligence Center, which analyzes intelligence for the Army. Under Rich’s leadership, the NGIC contributed to the false intelligence report that alleged Saddam Hussein possessed aluminum tubes that could be used to build nuclear weapons. (It was later revealed that the tubes are used in rockets.)

In late 2002, Cunningham earmarked money at NGIC for classified projects that went to MZM, including one on a computer program called FIRES. (FIRES is an intelligence database of international building blueprints.) After a few months on the project, MZM’s work came up for review. To ensure a favorable rating, Wade again made a strategic hiring decision, this time giving a job to the son of Robert Fromm, the FIRES manager. (Wade billed the salary for Fromm’s son back to the NGIC.)

Hiring the relatives of people in a position to help him was a Wade specialty – prosecutors say he did at for at least 15 government employees. They include Joe James, an executive at the now-closed MZM-owned Foreign Supplier Assessment Center, whose wife May James is an assistant to the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, Stephen Cambone.

Wade also tried to penetrate the paid staff of the House Intelligence Committee, possibly by offering bribes. But according to an internal investigation, he failed. The summary of the investigation report, which is the only part of it released publicly, doesn’t name Wade’s specific tactics. But in the end, it didn’t matter. The investigation found that Cunningham bullied the committee’s staff so relentlessly that they gave in to his demands for money for MZM projects even though they thought the projects “a waste” and were openly suspicious of Wade himself. (Had they resisted Cunningham, the report hints, he would have used his seat on the Appropriations Committee to block funding for Intelligence Committee projects.)

And, a journal of mine that touches on much of this intrigue in spooksville: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1529067

[hootinholler]

97. IIRC there was a rather infamous Madam with a thick black book

Then there was this, which is a little more directly related to Cunningham. A loose end neatly tied if you will.

[leveymg]

100. How did I miss that '07 thread? The commments in the thread are timeless. Get this: "Waxman is

going to be relentless." Crickets. Maybe if there are baseball players taking steroids.

Remember Josh Marshall's "Grand Old Docket"? It isn't even there anymore. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/grandolddocket.php DU reference here - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x282138

Considering our expectations for justice, and the sheer volume of investigations then going on, what a disappointment the last four or five years have been.

[Rex]

90. The governments fear of critical thinking citizens was on display.

It was embarrassing to watch and made our govt look like a bunch of Lefty haters like some here (ain't it pathetic).

[G_j]

43. Seattle National Lawyers Guild: Report on WTO Ministerial

just a reminder of what it means to confront the 'powers that be'

http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/nlg070700.html

(Jan. 2000)

The Seattle Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild has just released its report on the World Trade Organization Ministerial. The report examines what took place in Seattle as an example of larger trends brought about by destructive economic policies. The report pays particular attention to the thinning lines between law enforcement and the military and the adverse effects this loss of delineation is having on civil liberties. The report begins with an overview of the WTO. It provides the historical framework of the WTO as an institution born of the think tanks which were themselves created by the illicit fortunes of the robber barons. It provides concrete examples of the way the WTO has subverted democratic institutions, and had detrimental effects on human rights, the environment, safety and labor laws.

<snip>

The report then examines the thinning lines between the military, who are trained to kill, and law enforcement who are trained to preserve lives. It examines the way military tactics, training and weaponry have come to dominate law enforcement. Citing testimony of law enforcement professionals, the report then traces the disastrous effect this blending of the two has had on the fabric of democracy and members of law enforcement themselves. It examines the disastrous way this dynamic has played out in the past and the disastrous way this dynamic played out during the WTO Ministerial. Citing past work in the field, the report shows how such trends can endanger both the fabric of democratic society and the law enforcement officers themselves.

<snip>

[Zorra]

72. Great post.

Cops hit my partner and I in the back with batons repeatedly at the Battle in Seattle. They came up behind us and starting hitting us because we were, (and this is a direct quote), "walking too slow".

They didn't hit us real hard, just hard enough so that it hurt, but didn't leave bruises. Just hard enough to let us know what would happen if we gave "massa" any trouble.

It is my opinion that all police in the US should be required to earn a 4 year Bachelors Degree in police procedure and public safety from a reputable university, in order to help ensure that they have the ability to perform their duties as public servants safely and effectively.

After all, we really don't want ignorant dumbass conservative authoritarian bullies being responsible for our safety and protection, do we?





,

[Generic Other]

55. Well since Adbusters magazine sent out a "communique" to readers calling for the ACTION

in July, the FBI was only a month late! I even made a video for the cause on July 4th.

OK, I was going to post a link to my video, but it won't play. I have never seen a video do that on Youtube. Can anyone else view it?

[ucrdem]

57. yes it's visible, and nicely done, watching it now nt

[hrmjustin]

67. Welcome to DU my friend!

[AnotherMcIntosh]

80. For the FBI or other Agencies surveiling this site, I just want to confirm you're doing a great job.

If any of your employees are posting the-government-can-do-no-wrong-type-posts, please also know that they are doing a great job as well.

Each employee that does so deserves to be paid more than the average American. No doubt that the super-rich will share more of their extraordinary wealth with you and yours.

Those of your employees who want more, should just ask them or just watch them as well.

[Rex]

92. They sit back and let the Tea Party yell about armed revolution

and march around with their oh so lethal guns. They for some reason treat them totally different than how the LEFT is treated. When liberals get together, they are treated like terrorists, spied upon and sprayed in the face with mace by cops in riot gear.

It is one thing that makes America suck so bad.

[Fire Walk With Me]

98. Of course. The "tea party" are the Koch brothers' activism PAC

and as such, a direct line for plutonomy to control the state. Considering that plutonomy very nearly completely already does, this is merely the naked face of that movement. The state's owners are not going to send riot pigs after their own people, only after anything which threatens their plans.

Calls for an open revolution? Americans duped into installing the extremely rich as kings and queens.

[Corruption Inc]

103. FBI soon to be headed by a felon and a torturer and not many care

The population is asleep, easily manipulated and convinced of anything by the major media manipulators. People care more about Cheerios commercials than they do about all federal law enforcement being run by torturers.

The FBI will do whatever they want to do with the full blessing of our lemming population, whether anything is legal, moral or justified.