They planned to kill us "if deemed necessary."

[FourScore]

Sun Dec 30, 2012 at 10:26 AM PST
They planned to kill us "if deemed necessary."
by OllieGarkey





Image taken from documents received as part of a FOIA request to the FBI. You can search those documents here: http://www.justiceonline.org/commentary/fbi-files-ows.html

Naomi Wolf at the Guardian talked about this. These documents are verified by multiple media outlets. This is not a Conspiracy theory.

Someone planned to kill us, and the FBI knew. We don't know who it was. We don't know what the FBI did. We know they are supposed to inform political leaders when threats are made against them, but we were not informed of this particular threat.

Here's the thing: Occupy had no leaders. That's one of the reasons the movement is still kind of a shambles. That's why they couldn't do certain things effectively. That's why so many people are frustrated with occupy.

So the "leadership" in the minds of the people doing this work became anyone who talked to the press. Jesse Lagreca was pegged as one of those leaders. So was just about everyone else who talked to the press. We laughed about how the press was calling us leaders. Nothing happened unless the GA wanted it to happen, and most of our attempts to influence things were shot down. Most of everyone's attempts to influence things were shot down. A lot of the background stuff with the huge marches was most heavily organized by folks like Unions. People with a heirarchy who knew how to get things done.

We just held the park.

And that was enough for people to plan to assassinate us.

And the FBI did... what, exactly, when it recieved this information? Did it do anything at all? Was that written in the white box below? How is this not conspiracy to commit murder? How is the person or persons who planned this not being investigated? Someone planned to assassinate us. Who? He, She, or They would have carried out that task if deemed necessary. By whom? The FBI? Some bank?

Well at least I can have pride in the choices I've made. If they want us dead, we must be doing something right.

(Update) 11:25 AM PT: I'm still in kind of a state of shock, but facts matter, and there's a lot of wild speculation flying around. So let me point out what we know, and what we know that we don't know.

First: We do not know who "they" are. The FBI document does not tell us. This might be a lone actor, a terrorist organization, or a private security contractor. "If Deemed Necessary" seems to imply one of the latter two, because there was a decision making process that would potentially deem assassination necessary. "Suppressed sniper rifles" seems to suggest multiple shooters, and thus an organized group.

We do not know any of this. It could be any of these. This could have been a single actor, and an FBI agent who doesn't write very clearly. Bad writing happens.

What is clear, though, is that we need more information. We need answers.

We shouldn't jump to conclusions about any of this. What we know is bad enough. What we know is this:

1. "They" were planning an assassination of Occupy leaders.

2. The FBI knew of the plans, and did nothing to warn us, ignoring their own policies.

Anything more than that is conjecture.

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

[AldoLeopold]

1. It seems from these docs

which I read cover to cover, that the FBI was in an advisory role to local police and by this document was advising those police of these dangers.

I think they should have made the judgment call to tell you guys, but if you want to blame the FBI, blame Houston PD as well - cause, you know, they're Houston PD in the first place, but blame them for not taking precautions.

Or did they? I don't know. You tell me. The real question is - who was planning these attacks and why? Who would want to do that?

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Denials that this happened

In 3,2,1...

Like when it first broke.

[Zorra]

12. You mean when Naomi first broke the story in November, 2011?

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. Yup

Hubby and I were talking about it. It seems neither of us was paranoid.

[Zorra]

14. The fervent denials on DU back then would be comical if they weren't so naive.

Or orchestrated.

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. And this looks like a news dump

On Sunday...no less.

[creeksneakers2]

28. Have you read the documents?

The documents don't support the wild conclusions of Naomi Wolf. The documents are generally just routine passing on of threat infomation. The threats generally weren't from Occupy but other groups. Occupy is repeatedly described as peaceful. There is almost no follow up. Law enforcement is left entirely up to locals, unless they request assistance.

All the threat information comes from public web sites except one E-mail somebody received and in another case a protester went to the feds about individuals considering disrupting the Iowa caucuses. There was also a threatening letter sent to a governor. Monitoring websites is not intrusive and understandable when a group names themselves "Occupy." Occupation is a hostile criminal act. "Occupy" is a threat. Blocking ports is a threat.

Earlier claims that there was a federal conspiracy against occupy turn out to be based on one journalist's anonymous source. That story was contradicted officially.

Before you decide I'm orchestrated, look at some of the wild claims Naomi Wolf makes and try to find the documents to support them.

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

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

30. Alex Jones-ers like Wolf come up with their lie first, then try to force the "facts" to fit

Wolf was full of shit when she first "reported" this story last year, based solely on an anonymously-sourced article she read in the rightwing rag the Examiner.

And she's just as full of shit when she come up with these absurd conclusions from these documents.

But it will probably get her return visits to Alex Jones' and Savage Weiner's shows, where she can spew more of her black helicopter nonsense to their continued delight,

[JDPriestly]

39. What?

Occupation is a hostile criminal act. "Occupy" is a threat. Blocking ports is a threat.

Occupation and blocking ports are typical actions in protest movements and in strikes -- in all free countries in the world.

These are at most minor crimes, not "hostile criminal acts."

We don't need to take Naomi Wolf's word for it. The document posted in the OP says what it says.

[creeksneakers2]

44. When Germany "Occupied" France was it a hostile act?

Occupy means take over a place and refuse to leave. Blocking ports harms the economy. If we block the ports in Iran, would that be a hostile act? How would they react?

I agree with you the document in the OP is what it is. Naomi Wolf wrote a bunch of nonsense though about the other documents though, claiming there was a conspiracy by the feds and banks and others to destroy OWS.

[JDPriestly]

45. "Occupying" publicly owned land in your own country is not at all comparable to invading and then

occupying someone else's country. The comparison does not work.

Public property may be used by the public. It may, therefore, be "occupied" by the public.

If I go to the park and put lunch on a picnic table and invite 100 of my friends to join me, I am not violating any laws. I can pretty much stay there as long as I want as long as my occupation or stay is peaceful. It is public property. It belongs to me and my 100 friends. As long as there is room for others, and I don't exclude others who want to enjoy the park for any reason other than lack of room, no problem.

I've gone to parks with my picnic food and found no tables empty. Someone else is occupying the tables. It's first come, first serve in public spaces.

Blocking ports can harm the economy, if blocking the ports is the only effective means to defend a right (for example to unionize) or to obtain fair wages, then it blocking the ports is a a long respected tradition in free countries. The rights to assemble, to protest, to speak freely and sometimes to do it in ways that inconvenience others are part of the basic rights guaranteed in our Constitution.

I can't say one way or the other what is true about conspiracy theories with regard to crackdowns on Occupy. Banks were overly paranoid as were the police.

A lot of the Occupy supporters were either young students and kids just out of college or middle-aged and retired people not likely to become violent. The over-reaction of the authorities was absurd.

I don't think that our government listens to the people. If it did, it would have known that on all sides of the political spectrum -- from the Tea Party to the Occupiers, people are fed up with Wall Street and the bail-outs for the rich. People are horrified at the foreclosures on the poor and middle class that were mercilessly carried out over and over and on nearly every street in America.

It is an indication of a much bigger problem in our country than either the Tea Party rowdies or the Occupiers that our so-called leaders on all sides of politics have failed to address the anger of the voters about what happened in 2008 and since with regard to the bankers.

[Cleita]

55. I guess then according to you the Boston Tea Party was a hostile act.n/t

[creeksneakers2]

74. To the British it was

[Cleita]

76. So you get the comparison.

The original tea party was a protest against the corporate control of government by the East India Company. The Occupy Movement is a protest against the corporate control of our present government.

[randome]

77. Except the Boston TP didn't take years to get their objectives accomplished.

They didn't break for the Winter. They had leaders like Samuel Adams.

[creeksneakers2]

78. Yeah

But if it goes beyond free speech and peaceful assembly I don't blame our government for conducting non-intrusive monitoring.

[reACTIONary]

57. After reading her article - she's not a reporter, she's not an analyst, she's...

...a tendentious pundit willing to make make any leap of faith that supports her extremist point of view.

[villager]

32. both. though you forgot "sad and pathetic," too.

Good thing there's been so much change!

[creeksneakers2]

26. I don't deny what that document says

But don't reach the same conclusions about it with required certainty. Perhaps nobody was notified because there weren't specific enough targets. In another document in the collection, somebody sent a letter to the governor of Tennessee warning him a violent revolution would occur. The information wasn't acted on because there wasn't a specific enough threat. It also appears that since the threateners were still trying to figure out who the leaders were and what they looked like that the plot hadn't yet gone beyond early planning stages. Also, we don't know how credible the threat was, or if any further action was taken or not. I don't think its fair to jump to conclusions that law enforcement just sat back to let OWS members be murdered.

[nadinbrzezinski]

27. This s a part of the collection of documents

DHS coordinated violent action against a peaceful movement.

[creeksneakers2]

29. The documents aren't any such thing.

Read them. I did twice.

[nadinbrzezinski]

33. Yes they are

But hey, that's ok...like other non tasty bits of us history this is already down the memory hole.

[creeksneakers2]

35. Not down the memory hole here

There are plenty of people here who will blame Obama for it forever, even though it never happened.

I challenge you to find evidence of this claim in the documents: "The crackdown, which involved, as you may recall, violent arrests, group disruption, canister missiles to the skulls of protesters, people held in handcuffs so tight they were injured, people held in bondage till they were forced to wet or soil themselves –was coordinated with the big banks themselves."

There were a couple of meetings with banks. One was about the threat to occupy the New York financial district. It was advisory. The other was in a general meeting with bank personnel about more than one law enforcement matter. At the meeting the bankers were advised that somebody from Anonymous, or who claimed to be from Anonymous, made a threat about a cyber attack on the banks.

But please, show me a document where they feds discuss holding protesters in bondage with the banks.

[nadinbrzezinski]

51. I imagined the raids then

Or police misconduct or Mayor Quan spilling the beans... Alrighty then.

And let's be clear, this is party independent.

[OnyxCollie]

75. There are over 400 pages of documents there.

Either you are a quick reader or you're a liar.

[JDPriestly]

46. Problem is that the report, thanks to the blacked out portions, is not clear as to who

had made the threats. If it was private groups, then the problem is very different than if the threats came from some sort of official or quasi-official, say private contractor entities. That is what troubles me. If some looks were making the threats, then it is understandable that the police did not alert Occupy. But if some official or semi-official entities were making the threats, then there is a serious problem.

[creeksneakers2]

73. That would be an enormous problem

if it happened. Its a far fetched possibility though with no evidence it happened.

[HiPointDem]

3. kr

[cbrer]

4. Tea Baggers protests are protected

And we get THIS as a reaction to a progressive movement.

This hate thing is pretty powerful, huh Fox?

[The Straight Story]

5. You either trust ONLY the government (with guns,etc) or you do not

Right the now the battle is between we the people - many of whom either own guns (and are therefore bad and possible killers) or they are terrorists (tsa/muslim/religious/carrying bottled water on a plane/sudafed...whatever we think only some should have).

Our government is the one we must trust fully to protect us from each other.

If they tell me occupy is bad, they are - and those who do not agree are not liberals and should not be posting here.

They could do bad things that would hurt us or others. Register them, watch them, be afraid. Every single member of a group is exactly the same as the other (all gun owners are the same, all people in a movement are the same, etc).

Trust them with the guns, with intelligence, and only them.

Unless of course bush is the president and then we don't trust the government and we fight together to make sure we all have the rights we believe we deserve.

At one time we stood together against such things.

Now...well we kiss ass and make excuses and look at how each other is a potential problem we need to 'deal' with to save each other. All the while the real people that slip by doing things like killing civilians with drones and having another country take the blame goes down the memory hole of DU.

http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/yemeni-government-covers-up-us-responsibility-for-civilian-drone-deaths-121229?news=846610

Shhh, it is ok that the govt does this. We can trust them to make sure weapons are used only in a good way. Me and you though, we need to look out for.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. None s coming for your potato shooter

But the fantasy that we will stop the government with AR-15s is sheer fantasy.

[oldbanjo]

65. You don't even need an assualt rifle

why do you think that they have been training snipers to shoot the leaders of these groups, this training has been going on for many years. I saw a video about it 6 or 8 years ago.

[nadinbrzezinski]

70. As I said, you don't need an AR-15

But I will not discuss asymmetrical warfare techniques, tactics or strategy.

[snot]

7. K&R'd, and

could we please not turn this into another gun debate.

[FourScore]

16. +1000

[Spryguy]

62. Too late!

Another freeper death spewer lover comes creeping out of the woodwork. Will we take your instruments of murder? YES WE CAN!

[VOX]

8. Sadly, this isn't shocking or surprising in the least...

I lived through the public murders of JFK, MLK, RFK. Students were slain by state-sanctioned gunfire at Kent State. A U.S. president (Nixon) kept an "enemies list." Iran-Contra, and other assorted grotesqueries.

When I read of murderous intent directed at the Occupy Movement, it does not surprise or shock. That in itself is a tragedy.

[AzDar]

9. K & R

[L0oniX]

10. God Bless America...

[Undismayed]

11. We trust this organization to protect us?

We trust them with guns?

[pasto76]

17. uh, yeah. cause people 'planning sniper attacks' write like a 3rd grader.

this all rests on the basis that all cops are homicidal robots(funny, much like liberal assertions of soldiers almost daily here)
. I know dozens of LEOs. Not a single one of them would EVER fire on an unarmed protestor, or someone who was not committing a violent felony. Period.


jesus people your paranoia is on par with the birther shit. "if deemed necessary" means violent felonies are being committed in numbers and over an area not containable by dismounted or mounted LEOs. Sniper teams can reach out and touch someone. They can dominate a big piece of real estate. There wasnt any rioting by OWS people, was there? or are we still blaming that on police 'infiltrators', and not dumbshit losers who happened to be there with OWS? Uh yeah. Occams razor, people.

[cherokeeprogressive]

19. I think you may have indentified a large part of the problem.

But then, who am I to say?

[white_wolf]

20. The police response to Occupy has been brutal and disgusting.

I don't give any of them the benefit of the doubt they haven't earned it. The police can hide behind their pretty slogans of "to protect and serve" all they want, but we all know that's a lie. The police in this country have becoming nothing more than violent thugs and deserve nothing but scorn. So yeah I'm more inclined to believe in police infiltrators than I am to blame the people of Occupy. The Occupy movement has give me no reason to not trust them, whereas the police have given me plenty. The police need to abandon their culture of "us vs them" and stop viewing every citizen with suspicion if they want to earn back the people's trust.

[oldbanjo]

67. I 100% agree.

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. So DHS made that up?

The material is coming through freedom of information you know.

But I am all but shocked.

[RedCappedBandit]

22. uh, yeah, cause police never fire on innocent people

[FourScore]

23. Please provide even one single link from this site where "a liberal" asserts

that soldiers are homicidal robots. Even better, how about those "almost daily" links. With that kind of frequency they shouldn't be hard to find at all.

[JReed]

25. Are you suggesting

that there are not or never have been police 'infiltrators'?

You assert that you know "dozens of LEOs" which to me means at least 36, likely more. If that figure is inaccurate correct me.

Could you specify what an LEO is?

Are there also some LEOs on the planet that you do not know?

[Fumesucker]

34. I had to go back all the way to Dec 6 2012 to find this story

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/06/police-shoot-137-times-into-car-after-chase-killing-unarmed-couple.html

Police Shoot 137 Times Into Car After Chase, Killing Unarmed Couple

The phenomenon is common enough that there’s a name for it: High-Speed Pursuit Syndrome. It’s the “condition” police officers sometimes suffer from during a high-speed chase, when, as an ACLU spokesman once put it, they “get so angry and pumped up, and the adrenaline rush is such that … you see violence visited on suspects at the end of a pursuit.”

Rodney King was a prime example, but it happens all the time, and it rarely makes the national news. Take the Nov. 29 shooting deaths of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams in Cleveland: After leading police on a 25-minute chase through city streets, Russell found himself surrounded in a dead-end in East Cleveland. Police have said that they opened fire when Russell tried to run one of them over. That version may eventually be tested in court, but what is undisputed is that 13 officers unloaded a total of 137 bullets into Russell’s 1979 Chevy Malibu, killing both him and Williams.

[JDPriestly]

42. There wasn't any rioting by OWS people in LA that I am aware of.

I don't think there was any in Portland either. Yet the police came in full force. It was an ugly sight.

The problem is that if you want to invite people from the community to meet together, you have to rent a hall or a building. That means you have to have money. And when you need money, you have to beg for it.

To do something without having a lot of money (small donations are pretty much what Occupy had), you need to use public property. There simply is no place available for people to meet for extended periods of time unless they spend a lot of money.

Hence, Occupy. It provided locations for ordinary people and activists to simply meet and talk, march and get a message out to the public.

There was nothing even obnoxious about that conduct.

When I saw the tents at city hall in Los Angeles, I thought about a meeting I had attended there a year or so earlier. It was a discussion about certain property issues and I informally represented my neighbors with regard to a property near our homes. I was able to speak because I know how to do that. In addition to me, there were a lot of paid professionals representing property owners. It struck me that for the rich, for the experienced, for those educated to deal with government officials, access to our government is granted without a question or a frown.

The rich, the influential, the fortunate, the articulate can just call the office of the mayor or a councilman and get an audience, at least a telephone call.

But, the rest of the people, young students, homeless people, working people, the poor, don't know how to do that. And if they called, they would speak to an assistant of an assistant.

And so that is why we had Occupy. It provided a place for those who don't have access to politicians normally to at least get some attention.

I thought it was a good idea overall. I'm sorry the police reacted to it with so little understanding and so much paranoia.

That was a big mistake on the part of the police.

Rich people just walk in the front door and talk to the top players -- or meet them in the clubs and at parties. Ordinary people -- their names mean nothing. If they do get to say something, it will not be remembered.

That's one of the flaws in our "democracy."

[Blanks]

50. Good post.

I was disappointed to see video of the police 'breaking up' some of the protest. There are proper methods to dispense a mob (we watched video when I was in the guard). What I saw of the treatment of the protesters indicated that the LEOs were unfamiliar with those methods and instead were just trying to inflict damage and not disperse the mob.

This is not the way we should be treating our citizens who are trying to be heard (many of them for the first time).

[HiPointDem]

47. The historical record is rife with police who have fired on unarmed protesters, even in modern

times.

You don't know what individual policeman would do under the right circumstances, & they probably don't know either.

[Marrah_G]

58. Except maybe teargas canisters into a young man's head

A young man who was a former marine. Injured him badly.

Or pepper spraying people not resisting, not doing anything but sitting corralled up where the cops out them.

There were a number of cops at the protests who behaved very badly and who I wouldn't put anything past them.

And I am generally supportive of LEOs... lived with one for five years.

[Prometheus Bound]

61. I'm just wondering how you know what "if deemed necessary" means.

You were quite specific. Can you say where you got this information?

[oldbanjo]

66. It looked to me like the Police were trying to start a Riot.

Many years ago the military was training snipers to shoot leaders. I agree MOST police would not shoot an unarmed person, prior to OWS I would have said that the police would not spray pepper spray on caged protesters or sitting students. You can trust the police, I won't.

[obama2terms]

18. I wish this was an Onion headline....

[judesedit]

24. Believe me, for the last 10 years what Bushco calls "fusion camps" have been built to contain unruly

Americans. There are many all over the county. I just pray the National Guard protects the people, not the DC club, NRA, WallStreet, & moneybags like the Kochs, Rmoney, Trump assholes. They are the ones who created all of the problems in this country. Thank God Almighty Rob-me did NOT get in!

[former9thward]

60. Where are these "fusion camps"?

[AZ Progressive]

31. I'm surprised that so many of you are surprised

It has been well known that police have spies in liberal / progressive organizations (because quite a few were outed in the past.) It should have been known that the police would have spies and would be following OWS and creating dossiers much like in the 60s and 70s (and especially since after 9/11.) And it should be known that the establishment would do what it takes to protect its own power, yes, including even assassinating leaders (if not trying to imprison them at the least.)

This is why there can be no organized uprising in the United States, because the FBI and the DHS would already have spies infiltrating it and tear it apart before it could ever be a threat to the government. The only way would be that everyone involved in the organizing be completely loyal and secretive, which is not likely.

[DollarBillHines]

36. That's it, right there.

They were there, before it ever got started.

[Amonester]

37. Yep. And it's even one of the reasons OWS 'chose' not to have LEADERS to begin with.

So why would anyone be surprised over this I can't understand.

I still support the OWS movement, since I think their protests helped defeat the R/R one-percenters ticket, and even more so for their coordinated efforts to help hurricane Sandy's victims.

[AZ Progressive]

48. OWS was following the Egyptian Rebellion

Which was leaderless, as in one sentence described by the Huffington Post:

"The revolution was successful because it had no leaders, only coordinators of bottom up energy. Its use of social media was brilliantly conceived to meld online organizing with offline action, not supplant it."

-http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-hais-and-morley-winograd/victory-for-egypts-leader_b_822228.html

[randome]

63. 'OWS chose'? That's hilarious.

No one chose anything because...NO ONE WAS IN CHARGE!

[JDPriestly]

38. What if the people planning the sniper attacks on the "leaders" of Occupy

were part of the government?

That is also a possibility.

Maybe that is why the FBI did nothing.

[oldbanjo]

69. They were trained by the Gov. to kill leaders during Riots, years ago I saw a video

telling about it.

[Taverner]

40. Your government loves you.

Go back to sleep

[Amonester]

41. "Bad writing happens."

Perhaps it was written by another GD teabagster.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

43. Are there still Occupy occupations happening anywhere in the US?

I know they are still doing things like Occupy Sandy, etc., but are they still occupying parks and bank and government plazas?

[tama]

52. Yes nt

[Marrah_G]

59. I am betting the numbers will pick back up in the spring

[KansDem]

49. Let's see: "Dallas," "kill the leadership," "sniper rifles"

Has a strange familiarity to it...

[former_con]

53. Come on folks seriously?

This sounds like a bunch of tin foil hat stuff to me.... Now granted I didn't really understand the whole OWS movement since mainly I was still listening to rightwing propaganda at the time. I am still not quite sure I understand how trying to shut down capitalism results in more benefits to the people. Shouldn't we be supporting government incursion on our behalf i.e., forcing the government to take from those that have and create programs that benefits those that need?

[woo me with science]

54. K&R

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

56. We need a new years revolution.

[Coyotl]

64. I see something very wrong with this post, no skepticism regarding the document

How does anyone know if the documents is real. Is the piece of paper a fraud itself?
Is this a simple psy-op to tweek the Occupy activists?

[randome]

68. It's bullshit.

The link from Prosense in another thread.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/12/30/1174818/-Actually-read-the-documents-released-by-the-FBI-about-OWS

And here are some reader comments.

Should they be keeping an eye on OWS? Well... it depends. They note in many places that OWS itself is peaceful. They also note that OWS has been vulnerable to exploitation by groups with more violent aims, e.g. the Black Bloc. They also kept tabs on potential threats against OWS. (Yes, I see some possibility that the assassination threats that are mentioned are threats from within the government or even within the FBI, but I'm doubtful that that was the actual meaning of those notes. The FBI-as-conspirator reading doesn't fit the surrounding context of that note; not for me, anyway.)

How is it out of line for the FBI to follow up on evidence of an assassination attempt? What evidence is there that the person who was targetted was never informed?

They were sending information to local police about this threat - the threat that someone might try to assassinate an OWS leader.

Isn't that exactly what the FBI should be doing?

[Coyotl]

72. Yes the interpretation that this is an FBI doc insterad of a doc of unknown provenience is total BS

and not consistent with the evidence. It is a piece of f---ing paper and nothing more until more is in evidence.

[nadinbrzezinski]

71. Freedom of information

It's a wonderful thing.