DHS Turns Over Occupy Wall Street Documents to Truthout

[Generic Other]

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) closely monitored the Occupy Wall Street movement, providing agency officials with regular updates about protests taking place throughout the country, responding to requests from fusion centers for intelligence on the group and mining Twitter and other social media for information about Occupy's activities, according to hundreds of pages of internal documents DHS released to Truthout Wednesday morning in response to our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

While the nearly 400 pages of documents do not contain any clear-cut evidence showing that DHS worked with local law enforcement and local government officials on the coordinated crackdown of Occupy encampments throughout the country last October, the materials provide deep insight into the agency's interest in OWS and its response to internal requests for intelligence on the group and fears from some agency officials that the agency's actions may have risen to the level of unconstitutional surveillance.

Click here to go to the documents. They are being uploaded as we receive them.

http://truth-out.org/news/item/8012-dhs-turns-over-occupy-wall-street-documents-to-truthout

[freshwest]

1. Wow! Just Wow!

[Generic Other]

2. They B-6'd all over it!

FOIA -- the Swiss Cheese version!

[freshwest]

3. Yeah, but Bush wouldn't have. We'll see how deep it goes.

One of the things that has been both a great organizing tool for activists recently but is vulnerable, is the use of Facebook and Twitter. That just goes straight to the Government, as far as I know, and it's voluntary, so no laws are broken.

Just like wireless has always been free to be intercepted, there's no privacy, the idea of a warrant is pointless when anyone who can gather it in can do so, not just the government. Think 'Enemy of the State' I guess.

So the government has known virtually everything all along, it's just a matter of getting able bodies in place to enforce.... whatever. A little more protected is uploading to youtube, but that has been taken over by google and everything there is being stored and shared without any explicit permission, except the one that anyone who has an account has already agreed to.

Since these are all corporate/shared with government entities, and we own none of them, either the corporation's profit motivation, or liabliity such as copyright, rules our communications. It was really no big deal for DHS to get all of this information, they had contracted doing so with the corporations providing FB, Twitter and youtube already.

The landscape has changed so much from say, the days of the Pentagon Papers and all the intrigue that went around the release of that to the public, that there is no comparison, save Bradley Manning.

I'm not sure how much this will or won't help Occupy, or if they are stalling. Or if their 'giving' this information changes much. It seemed like Anonymous gave a lot more information for a while there.

With Assauge running for public office in Australia, elements of Occupy may get into government and force some long term changes. John Kerry just spoke on the issue of the corporations taking in this data, but really, he's a day late and a dollar short on this issue.

This may or may not indicate future transparency, I just don't know. It may be a stalling tactic. But TruthOut is a pretty gutsy bunch and I'm sure if anything is of use they'll find it. I've been amazed at the information coming out on a daily basis now and how it's effecting the national consciousness. So I still think this may be a good thing.

[Zorra]

5. What you said!

[sabrina 1]

4. Thank you. All I can say is, don't these people have something better to do, like go after

real criminals eg? Wall Street Criminals would be a good place to start. War Criminals and corrupt police departments?

Watching ordinary people exercising their Constitutional rights seems like a waste of time and money. All they ever had to do was join them and start fighting FOR the American people instead of against them.

[freshwest]

6. I don't see this so much as government surviellence as corporate data mining. The info is for sale,

To whoever has an interest, be it for selling products, or increasingly, getting even more products and services paid by government. That is part of the hollowing out of the commons, their coming up with calls on the public purse for all these alleged threats...

Often against the corporations, and cajoling the public at every level of society into going along with it under the various guises of stopping crime or terrorism. Through churches, institutions of learning, businesses.

We've largely done this to ourselves, but we had little choice. Human beings need each other, need relationships to survive. They are parasites on us, infecting our necessary desire to make contact with each other for their own purposes. Are they all evil MOFO's?

I doubt it. Many people have been educated to make the tools used to oppress. The only solution is something bigger than all we've done before, changing the priorities of mankind and I believe that Occupy is a major part.

[sabrina 1]

7. Very good post, and I have wondered if that is really what it is all about, money.

Eg, I noticed lately that when I go to other websites, ads show up for places I have searched for on the internet. Eg, I was looking at comforters at Steve Maddens website. It spooked me to see those ads pop up when I was looking at political blogs, kind of creepy to think someone is watching what you are doing online. But it's probably marketing, I still don't like it, don't like people watching where I go online, without asking me.

But as you say, we are in part responsible for the way things are. And I too am hoping that we can change our priorities and that Occupy right now, is the only hope of doing that.

[Generic Other]

8. fight them with adblock

anything but google as a browser. opt out of google's data mining. confound them. I let my Japanese mother listen to music on my computer. WW2 era music. And if all else fails, click on stupid ass links in between normal ones. I read a hardhitting article about OWS, I click on a kim kardashian link to cover my trail. LOL. Data mine me and find nada worth knowing about me.

[sabrina 1]

9. I love this. Fight them back by misleading them.

Lol, I can do that. I know I should not use Google as a browser anymore, but I am so technically challenged as far as changing things, email, browser etc.

Thank you for the information on Adblock. I do like the idea of leading them astray though.