This was originally on gawker.com. H/T to Ajagbe for the heads up.
At a New York cyber security conference one day before the protest began, Loyd cited Occupy Wall Street as an example of a “newly emerging threat to U.S. information systems.” (In the lead-up to Occupy Wall Street, Anonymous had issued threats against the New York Stock Exchange.) He told the assembled crowd the FBI has been “monitoring the event on cyberspace and are preparing to meet it with physical security,” according to a New York Institute of Technology press release.
Meet the Guy Who Snitched on Occupy Wall Street to the FBI and NYPD
By Adrian Chen
The Occupy Wall Street protests have been going on for a month. And it seems the FBI and NYPD have had help tracking protesters’ moves thanks to a conservative computer security expert who gained access to one of the group’s internal mailing lists, and then handed over information on the group’s plans to authorities and corporations targeted by protesters.
Since the Occupy Wall Street protest began on September 17, New York security consultant Thomas Ryan has been waging a campaign to infiltrate and discredit the movement. Ryan says he’s done contract work for the U.S. Army and he brags on his blog that he leads “a team called Black Cell, a team of the most-highly trained and capable physical, threat and cyber security professionals in the world.” But over the past few weeks, he and his computer security buddies have been spending time covertly attending Occupy Wall Street meetings, monitoring organizers’ social media accounts, and hanging out with protesters in Lower Manhattan.
The crowd erupted in cheers upon the announcement: as of 6:30 this morning, Occupy Wall St. was not moving. Mayor Bloomberg and the NYPD postponed their plans to “clean” the park, and averted a confrontation with a 3000-strong occupation. We, raising our brooms in the air like peasants resisting tyrants, cheered and broke into spontaneous chants, beginning with: “We..ARE..the 99%!”
While recognizing that the threat is still looming, we celebrated this moment as an important victory, not just for New York, but for the other occupations. Facing our most serious threat thus far, we stood our ground and won. But let’s step back for a moment.
Twice, we have been brutalized by police and twice, we grew in support and numbers. With their third move, they backed down. For days, Mayor Bloomberg whipped up a campaign of lies about sanitation, crowding, harassment of business owners and people on their way to work, but it backfired.
This law student was arrested protesting in front of a major bank. Although you can’t hear what he’s saying in the video, here’s a brief account from Suzy Subways:
I saw this guy speak at the General Assembly on Sunday. He described his arrest: “I went up to the barricade, and I said, ‘This is the bank that took my parents’ house! Now take me!’ And they did.” He also said that his father is dying of cancer. He’s an incredible speaker, and the people’s mic made it even more dramatic. People were crying and holding each other afterwards. There was a sense of, THIS is why we want to occupy wall street.
People across the country called into Attorney General Holder and President Obama on August 29, in solidarity with Carlos Montes, a veteran Chicano activist with decades of work in the immigrants rights, antiwar, and social justice movements. Montes is the target of government repression and the FBI’s dirty tricks. When the FBI raided several Midwest homes and served subpoenas on September 24, 2010, Carlos Montes’ name was listed on the FBI search warrant for the Anti-War Committee office in Minneapolis – the organizing center for the 2008 Republican National Convention protests, where Carlos participated.
Then on May 17, 2011, the LA Sheriffs broke down Carlos’ door, arrested him, and ransacked his home. They took political documents, a computer, cell phones and meeting notes having nothing to do with the charges. The FBI attempted to question Montes while he was handcuffed in a squad car, regarding the case of the 23 Midwest anti-war and solidarity activists.
Attorney General John Ashcroft became a fitting symbol of police-state moves
The following piece by Clark Kissinger hit hard at the changes happening in the U.S. in the wake of 9/11. It gives a flavor of the times, and of the more radical responses.
There was more than just a whiff of fascism in the air.
This piece highlighted the special “Bad Moon Rising” issue of the Revolutionary Worker in July 2003.
The New Domestic Order:
What Has Changed, Why It Changed, and How It Matters
by C. Clark Kissinger
The America that we have known for many generations is quickly disappearing. Yet many do not yet recognize the full extent of what is taking place. People may hear about immigrants being secretly detained, or of a plan to give the Pentagon access to the financial, health and credit card information of every citizen. They may have a sense that the “checks and balances” of government are not working, and that the rule of law is increasingly being replaced by the rule of men — men with an extreme new agenda. They may sense that behind the campaign of “security” and “public safety” this extreme agenda is being implemented. The full picture remains obscure, but many people are deeply troubled.
Vice President Cheney has spoken of a “new normalcy” for America in the context of a war that may last for generations. What are the full dimensions of this, what are the implications, and where is it headed?
For ten years, the tragic events of September 11, 2001, have been used as a pretext for endless war — tens of thousands dead in Afghanistan; more than a million killed in Iraq; and a campaign of repression at home, carried out against thousands of Arabs, Muslims, and now, even the peace movement. The road from 9/11 led the FBI to my door, with an early morning raid on my home, and a secret grand jury investigating two dozen peace activists on terrorism charges.
When the Bush Administration used the events of September 11 to justify war against Afghanistan, I joined thousands to march against that war. How many of us knew it would become the longest war in US history? Costing tens of thousands of lives, and nearly 500 billion dollars, this war has lost the support of the majority of Americans. Even so, the Obama Administration continues Bush’s war, making it his own. Under his command, the war has expanded into Pakistan, and the “war on terror” is still offered as justification for aggressive military policies across the globe.
After 9/11, a war was launched on civil liberties inside the US. In an effort to clear the way for endless war abroad, the government created fear of an enemy within. I watched in shame as this unfolded first within Arab and Muslim communities — thousands of immigrants were rounded up and questioned, many detained or deported. This has become a permanent campaign of repression and it has now expanded beyond the Muslim immigrant community.
The PATRIOT Act, with 160 provisions, opened the door for unrestrained spying on American residents and citizens, authorizing the FBI and other agencies to tap our homes, read our emails, and comb through our trash. It laid the groundwork for a network of undercover agents hiding within our own communities, from mosques to peace groups. At the same time, we witnessed massive scale racial profiling, especially at airports, where Muslims, Sikhs, Arabs and South Asians were questioned and searched, sometimes denied boarding onto flights they had paid for.
Note: the Revolutionary Communist Party discussed in this piece is the RCP of Canada (which has no connection with the RCP,USA, despite their similar names).
The Revolutionary initiative wrote as their introduction:
“The following is a statement from the RCP Information Bureau concerning the arrest of four activists in Montreal, including a supporter of the RCP Patrice Legendre. It goes without saying that R.I. condemns the arrests and unequivocally supports the comrades and supporters of RCP, an organization with which we have fraternal relations and are in a unity struggle with. Let’s build a revolutionary movement to defend against and repel these attacks at all levels!”
Montréal, July 5th — On June 29th, 2011, the Anti-Gang unit of the Montréal Police Service’s Organized Crime Division arrested four political activists —including Patrice Legendre, a communist worker and supporter of the RCP. The police searched their homes and arrested them in connection with the most recent May First demonstration, organized by Montréal’s Anti-Capitalist Convergence (CLAC). Nearly 30 officers were involved in the operation, which occurred early in the day.
Radical Eyes suggested the following piece for posting on Kasama. It first appeared on Counterpunch.
Philadelphia’s Declaration of War on Black Youth
Flashmob Hysteria
by GEORGE CICCARIELLO-MAHER
The character of our present moment is undeniable, and the tangled web of causes and consequences is the same from London to Cairo to Santiago: budget cuts in the name of “austerity,” rising unemployment, increasing popular resistance, and an upsurge in racist violence and policing measures like “stop-and-frisk.” The failure of an economic system in the short and long term has generated an entire class of undesirables, living proof of that failure who must be contained, controlled, and silenced.
But even those who recognize the roots of distant rebellions are far more hesitant about upheavals closer to home. Philadelphia is currently in the grips of a bout of mob hysteria at least as virulent and far more racist than the backlash underway in London, to which the media, the police, the city government and the public have all contributed, and yet few have dared to call it what it is.
These are the last days of Black August 2011…. remembering George today and forever.
I can still taste my own tears on the moment we heard the terrible news. I remember our meetings where we asked each other how we could fill his place.
Gina climbed on a table in the factory, stopped the line, and explained to fellow workers the bitter killing that had gone down. In darkness across our city (and many cities) people worked to spread the word — with posters, spray-painting….. And more. There was more.
Hilda Erickson, Joe Hill's love, wrote a letter that might explain what really happened the night of the killing.
August 26, 2011–At Woodstock, Joan Baez sang a famous folk ballad celebrating Joe Hill, the itinerant miner, songwriter and union activist who was executed by a Utah firing squad in 1915. “I never died, said he” is the song’s refrain.
Hill’s status as a labor icon and the debate about his conviction certainly never died. And now a new biography makes the strongest case yet that Hill was wrongfully convicted of murdering a local grocer, the charge that led to his execution at age 36.
The book’s author, William M. Adler, argues that Hill was a victim of authorities and a jury eager to deal a blow to his radical labor union, as well as his own desire to protect the identity of his sweetheart.
A Salt Lake City jury convicted Hill largely because of one piece of circumstantial evidence: he had suffered a gunshot wound to the chest on the same night — Jan. 10, 1914 — that the grocer and his son were killed. At the trial, prosecutors argued that he had been shot by the grocer’s son, and Hill refused to offer any alternative explanation.
Mr. Adler uncovered a long-forgotten letter from Hill’s sweetheart that said that he had been shot by a rival for her affections, undermining the prosecution’s key assertion. The book, “The Man Who Never Died,” also offers extensive evidence suggesting that an early suspect in the case, a violent career criminal, was the murderer.
Hill, who bounced around the West as a miner, longshoreman and union organizer, was the leading songwriter for the Industrial Workers of the World, also known as the Wobblies, a prominent union that was widely feared and deplored for its militant tactics. He penned dozens of songs that excoriated bosses and capitalism and wrote the well-known lyric “You’ll get pie in the sky when you die.”
As police agencies, federal and local, expand their powers, it becomes more imperative that we learn to protect ourselves against illegitimate spying and intrusion. One area that requires more attention is digital technology as it has become an essential part of our everyday lives. It has made communication more convenient, but also more vulnerable.
How should we approach questions of security? What are the legal capabilities and restraints on government agencies? What kinds of methods and tools to they use? What methods and tools are available to us? The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Surveillance Self-Defense site addresses these and other crucial questions.
Below, we’ve excerpted from the first few parts of their website. We have not vetted their claims and recommendations for ourselves and cannot verify their accuracy. We are posting this because it is a topic of great interest.
This comes from the Electronic Frontier Foundation website.
The SSD Project
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has created this Surveillance Self-Defense site to educate the American public about the law and technology of government surveillance in the United States, providing the information and tools necessary to evaluate the threat of surveillance and take appropriate steps to defend against it.
Surveillance Self-Defense (SSD) exists to answer two main questions: What can the government legally do to spy on your computer data and communications? And what can you legally do to protect yourself against such spying?
NEW YORK (AP) — Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the New York Police Department has become one of the nation’s most aggressive domestic intelligence agencies, targeting ethnic communities in ways that would run afoul of civil liberties rules if practiced by the federal government, an Associated Press investigation has found.
These operations have benefited from unprecedented help from the CIA, a partnership that has blurred the line between foreign and domestic spying.
The department has dispatched undercover officers, known as “rakers,” into minority neighborhoods as part of a human mapping program, according to officials directly involved in the program. They’ve monitored daily life in bookstores, bars, cafes and nightclubs. Police have also used informants, known as “mosque crawlers,” to monitor sermons, even when there’s no evidence of wrongdoing.
Neither the city council, which finances the department, nor the federal government, which has given NYPD more than $1.6 billion since 9/11, is told exactly what’s going on.
This was originally on gawker.com. H/T to Ajagbe for the heads up.
