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marmar

(76,945 posts)
Tue Jan 1, 2013, 10:28 AM Jan 2013

How FBI Monitored Occupy Movement


from Consortium News:


How FBI Monitored Occupy Movement
December 31, 2012

The FBI and other federal agencies coordinated with banks and local authorities in reacting to the Occupy Movement, which was put in the category of a domestic terrorist threat despite the group’s advocacy of nonviolence, Dennis J. Bernstein reports.

By Dennis J. Bernstein


Newly obtained secret FBI documents show that the Feds treated the Occupy Movement as a criminal terrorist threat even though the movement rejected violence as a tactic, a fact that the FBI acknowledges in the files.

Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, the executive director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, which obtained the documents, discussed the FBI disclosures in an interview with me on Pacifica Radio’s “Flashpoints.”

DB: Before we get into some of the specifics talk a little bit about what motivated the request and your initial response to these heavily redacted documents that you did obtain.

MVH: The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund filed a series, or maybe more accurately a barrage of FOI (Freedom of Information) requests in the fall of 2011. At the point at which we could see, and the movement could see, that there was a coordinated crackdown against Occupy happening all over the country.

And we issued FOI demands against federal agencies including the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, the CIA and others, as well as against municipalities and police departments around the country. When we received these documents, which then have taken more than a year to obtain from the FBI, it was very clear to us and clearer, I think, to anyone reading these documents the very intense role that the FBI played in surveillance, mass surveillance operation against the peaceful Occupy Movement. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2012/12/31/how-fbi-monitored-occupy-movement/



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How FBI Monitored Occupy Movement (Original Post) marmar Jan 2013 OP
du rec. nt xchrom Jan 2013 #1
I think its important to not cultivate a victim narrative. napoleon_in_rags Jan 2013 #2
And then again -- another take on the same story... mojowork_n Jan 2013 #3
Oh yeah. napoleon_in_rags Jan 2013 #4
Perception Management is the battleground. mojowork_n Jan 2013 #5
Good read. napoleon_in_rags Jan 2013 #6

napoleon_in_rags

(3,991 posts)
2. I think its important to not cultivate a victim narrative.
Tue Jan 1, 2013, 10:50 AM
Jan 2013

Consider this:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/12/30/1174835/-They-planned-to-kill-us-if-deemed-necessary

This story details how radical groups were planning to assassinate OWS "leaders", and the FBI became aware of it, probably instrumental in defending against/disrupting the plot.

The older and wiser I get, the more I understand how POWERFUL non-violent movements really are. OWS doesn't have to concern itself with infiltration as its not a clandestine/military group. OWS only has to concern itself with education, and the moral inspiration of people involving themselves with it, including FBI, DHS, cops or wingers. The process of teaching inspiring and involving all people who become part of it can thus bring its influence into the upper reaches of government, and even begin positive influence in Republican circles.

Funny how much the eager ear of the spy looks like the small end of a megaphone. Something for non-violent folks to remember.

mojowork_n

(2,354 posts)
3. And then again -- another take on the same story...
Wed Jan 2, 2013, 05:45 PM
Jan 2013
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/12/28/fbi-ignored-deadly-threat-to-occupiers/

4 paragraph excerpt:

[div class="excerpt" style="margin-left: 1em; border: 2px solid #6600cc; border-radius: 0.4615em; box-shadow: 6px 6px 6px #999999;"]Commenting on this peculiar lack of action by the FBI and other national anti-terrorist organizations, Partnership for Civil Justice executive director Maya Verheyden-Hilliard says, “The documents we’ve obtained show that the FBI was acting as a private intelligence and protective agency for Wall Street and the banks against people who are engaged in First Amendment-protected free speech activities. Yet here you had a real terrorist threat, which, if the FBI were serious about combating and preventing terrorism it would have acted upon, and it did nothing!”

Indeed, since 9-11, there have been a number of prominent arrests and trials and even convictions of people who were alleged to have merely talked with FBI informants about some fanciful terror plot. These arrests are typically prominently publicized to the media, with the perps trotted out in front of cameras during the arrests. There was nothing like this done in the above case, though. No arrests, no publicity. The only reason we know about it at all was that the FBI was required to release its files on the bureau’s monitoring of the Occupy Movement, and this particular document surfaced among the pages that were released.

Could the FBI have been so close to the plotters, whoever they are, that it felt confident it could simply instruct them to call off their plan — or put it on hold? We can’t know from the heavily redacted documents that have thus far been pried loose from the bureau. But it would not be that surprising if it turns out there is some link between the would-be assassins and the government. It would just be Nixon’s COINTELPRO all over again, where local police were killing activists as part of a nationally organized campaign.

Verheyden-Hilliard says that the latest documents do show that “Well before Zuccotti Park was occupied and before the first protest began on Wall Street, you had the FBI meeting with leaders of the New York Stock Exchange and with the security organizations of the Wall Street banks to develop a coordinated strategy for dealing with the Occupy protests.”

...I don't want to suggest that "education.... moral inspiration... positive influence {even in 'Republican Circles!!!'}... etc., aren't an important part of the struggle for justice/change. But this specific question (what the OverLords were busying themselves with, to respond to the Occupy movement) is probably more complicated than we'll really know. (At least, that we're likely to know, or learn, or discover, any time soon.)

napoleon_in_rags

(3,991 posts)
4. Oh yeah.
Thu Jan 3, 2013, 01:18 AM
Jan 2013

Who knows whats going on behind the scenes. Whenever I get a little glimpse, it seems to be all about perception management, disinformation stuff. So the truth is murky, probably even for those in the know.

My main point is simply that OWS shouldnt forget what its achieved, it shouldnt forget its strength. Look at the cliff deal. O proposes tax increase on top 2%, gets bargained down to taxes on 1%. I log into DU to find people saying govt is against OWS. I'm watching news now. Christie (R) is angry about lack of Sandy relief, and how has OWS positioned itself in the eyes of these east coast R's? As the providers of relief, while govt fails. Win and win.

mojowork_n

(2,354 posts)
5. Perception Management is the battleground.
Thu Jan 3, 2013, 02:54 PM
Jan 2013

Doesn't matter what the decade -- or even the century -- might be.

It's the same old struggle. Between those few who would put as many of their
fellow citizens as possible to work at (similarly unequal) economic models of one
sort or another:


  • One Big Plantation
  • SovietStyleCollective
  • 19thCenturyRobberBaronCartelMonopolySweatShop
  • State-of-the-artTotallyFenced-InChineseFactoryWithNetsUnderTheWindowsOfWorkers'Housing
  • RaceToTheBottomRightToWorkForLess


...versus the rest of us.

The Latvian "modern economic miracle" appears to be one where The Few
have won. At least for the time being. (No matter what you might see hyped
in the paid-for media.)

Great article at one of the more challenging -- and occasionally, challenged --
web sites. I don't always agree with what they put out but it almost
always makes you think. Here's a good summary of a neo-liberal 'triumph'
from Michael Hudson and Jeffrey Summers:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/01/03/latvias-economic-disaster-as-a-neoliberal-success-story/

[div class="excerpt" style="margin-left: 1em; border: 2px solid #6600cc; border-radius: 0.4615em; box-shadow: 6px 6px 6px #999999;"]A generation ago the Chicago Boys and their financial supporters applauded General Pinochet’s anti-labor Chile as a success story, thanks mainly to its transformation of their Social Security into Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) that almost universally were looted by the employer grupos by the end of the 1970s. In the last decade, the Bush Administration, seeking a Trojan Horse to privatize Social Security in the United States, applauded Chile’s disastrous privatization of pension accounts (turning many over to US financial institutions) even as that nation’s voters rejected the Pinochetistas largely out of anger at the vast pension rip-off by high finance.

Today’s most highly celebrated anti-labor success story is Latvia. Latvia is portrayed as the country where labor did not fight back, but simply emigrated politely and quietly. No general strikes, nor destruction of private property or violence, Latvia is presented as a country where labor had the good sense to not make a fuss when faced with austerity. Latvians gave up protest and simply began voting with their backsides (emigration) as the economy shrank, wage levels were scaled down, and where tax burdens remained decidedly on the backs of labor, even though recent token efforts have been made to increase taxes on real estate. The World Bank applauds Latvia and its Baltic neighbors by placing them high on its list of “business friendly” economies, even though at times scolding their social regimes as even too harsh for the Victorian tastes of the international financial institutions.

napoleon_in_rags

(3,991 posts)
6. Good read.
Thu Jan 3, 2013, 10:57 PM
Jan 2013

I think the battle is between the ideologies of human exploitation and human optimization. To the former, people are just another natural resource to be used by a supposedly superior subclass of people. To the latter, humans are to be optimized to be the most they can, working for their interests in a system larger than any one person.

Perception management, in its involuntary forms like disinfo, are a tool of the former. Therefore the question isn't who is dumping junk into peoples uncritcal minds, the question is why are people's minds so uncritical. Why aren't people questioning what they think they know?

A rational thinking populous trained in science math and reason is tied to economic success. So there is great power in optimizing people. And damage incurred through something like the Latvian emigration is thus increased.

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