Slashdot Mirror


Feds Helped Coordinate Occupy X Crackdowns

Lawrence_Bird writes "The Feds helped break up the Occupy protests by providing advice and assistance from the FBI and DHS. From the article: 'Oakland Mayor Jean Quan said on Monday that her city and others across the country coordinated their crackdowns of Occupy Wall Street camps. Rick Ellis, a Minneapolis-based journalist for Examiner.com, reports that these cities also had the help of the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation." In related conspiracy news, apcullen wrote in with a story by Time Magazine guest columnist Naomi Wolf who claims: "Instead of imminent safety issues, the timing of the crackdown was far more likely to do with the fact that the Occupy movement was planning something media-savvy at last: a 'carnival' on Wall Street on Thursday in which protesters would telegenically tell their individual stories of hardship, job loss and disenfranchisement. It is that event that posed a 'safety risk' — to the efforts of Wall Street and the Bloomberg administration to manage the narrative."

28 of 803 comments (clear)

  1. New boss, same as the old boss by damn_registrars · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We see what our new POTUS, with his new administration, does as head of state. Not that this comes as any surprise considering every thing he's done so far. Naturally, our federal government will continue to make decisions that favor their corporate sponsors, everyone else be damned.

    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    1. Re:New boss, same as the old boss by elrous0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Don't worry, I'm sure he'll be giving us a fresh new round of bullshit promises in the Fall when he needs us to vote for him again.

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    2. Re:New boss, same as the old boss by jasno · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Just off the top of my head, he's broken promises regarding:

      - Ending the wars. Regrettably Bush was responsible for the draw-down in Iraq. Obama just held to the agreement.
      - Human rights. He's deporting people in droves. He's murdering citizens based on the decisions of a secret council.
      - Transparency. His administration is seeking to weaken the Freedom of Information Act. He doubled-down on prosecutions of whistle-blowers. He's stonewalling on Solyndra and Fast-n-furious.
      - Guantanamo. Still going strong.
      - Medical Marijuana.

      Hell, he just added a new foreign base in Australia. Do we really need to expand our military into Australia?

      There are 3 pages of broken promises over at politifact: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/rulings/promise-broken/

      Sure, other presidents might have been worse. I don't care. I voted for a guy who promised he'd be different. He wasn't. He lied.

      --

      http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
  2. Suprised they went on as long as they did by elrous0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Did you really think you could threaten the powers-that-be and not have them turn the full force of the government they control on you at some point? Did you really think that just because they supported protests in the Middle East that they would tolerate them HERE against THEMSELVES? Come on.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    1. Re:Suprised they went on as long as they did by pixelpusher220 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Did you really think you could threaten the powers-that-be and not have them turn the full force of the government they control on you at some point?

      I believe both Gandhi and Rev. King counted on just that full-force response. It's rather the 'point' of a protest to get the powers that be to acknowledge you...and that acknowledgement, going back millennia, is usually full force/too far and results in the protesters getting some semblance of what they want, eventually anyway.

      The OWS movement will need to do what the Tea Party did...actively influence election outcomes. Granted they have to do it without massive funding of the Koch's and Fox's relentless propoganda. But it can be done.

      The mantra of the temperance movement back in the day comes to mind. "We don't need to win the election, just swing it to someone else". Once they show enough force to knock off a few incumbents, then the power starts flowing.

      --
      People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
    2. Re:Suprised they went on as long as they did by Hatta · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It doesn't say anything about turning a public park (privately owned I know) into an encampment for the convenience of the protesters.

      It doesn't say anything about NOT turning a public park into an encampment. Camping in a public park is a peaceable assembly, therefore Congress can make no law prohibiting it. End of story.

      Don't misunderstand, I fully support those advocating the fight against corp and govt corruption, cronyism etc.

      No, no you don't really. If you did, you'd realize that the inconvenience caused by OWS is negligible compared to the evil done by those on Wall Street. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brothers eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?

      I just don't agree they should be able to take over a public park and deny the rights of the other citizens access to it.

      OWS protesters are citizens too. You're advocating that they be denied use of the park. Do you not see the hypocrisy?

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    3. Re:Suprised they went on as long as they did by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I believe both Gandhi and Rev. King counted on just that full-force response. It's rather the 'point' of a protest to get the powers that be to acknowledge you...and that acknowledgement, going back millennia, is usually full force/too far and results in the protesters getting some semblance of what they want, eventually anyway.

      Yes. I'm blown away by the lack of understanding of how protest and civil disobedience works. It's SUPPOSED to be inconvenient, it's SUPPOSED to attract attention and disrupt society, it may very well involve BREAKING LAWS, so long as the law-breaking is non-violent, and it is SUPPOSED to elicit government response, perhaps violent response.

      Protest is not about politely asking for X, Y and Z, and the government saying "Hmm, let me think about it." Protest is about putting yourself in harms way to demand X, Y, and Z, and if you have to *non-violently* break laws to do that, then that's just part of the package. It's impossible to overstress how critical the "non-violent" part is. You? You're just standing there. The police? They're beating the crap out of you, spraying you, possibly shooting at you. No matter how much you disagree with somebody, a normal person will have a serious problem with the government brutalizing people who are doing nothing violent.

  3. Re:Occupy... by MarkGriz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You don't understand a thing about this protest do you?

    I think you can blame the protesters for that

    --
    Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
  4. Re:This begs an interesting question... by Kenja · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No, you can not go to any country in the world. See other countries are protective of their workers. Go ahead, try to go to India and work. Others have tried and found that it simply can not be done.

    --

    "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
  5. How is that possible? by khasim · · Score: 5, Insightful

    1. They were planning disrupting Wall Street. In other words, they were threatening the economy and even Bloomy can't allow that.

    Huh? How is it even possible for a small group like that to be "threatening the economy"? No, don't answer that. Real terrorists might read your answer and use it against America.

    2. The Occupy protests were jumping the shark and losing popular support as crime ramped up and local business suffered.

    How could crime have "ramped up" when there were so many cops standing around watching them?

    1. Re:How is that possible? by Pope · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Ask the folks in Oakland. Starting a bonfire in the middle of a street is not exactly brilliant, and neither was the vandalism.

      --
      It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
    2. Re:How is that possible? by DavidTC · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They were planning disrupting Wall Street. In other words, they were threatening the economy and even Bloomy can't allow that.

      Huh? How is it even possible for a small group like that to be "threatening the economy"?

      I think it's be adequately demonstrated that a small group of people in control of Wall Street can, in fact, utter destroy the economy.

      --
      If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
  6. Re:Go with the simple over complex theory by MrEricSir · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This.

    I've never seen so much negative press directed at a group of Americans exercising their first amendment rights. OWS clearly scares a lot of people. Even the Westboro Baptist Church doesn't generate this kind of negative publicity.

    --
    There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
  7. Re:Mayor Quan Denies This by GameboyRMH · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sure they just all did it at the same time (including Toronto). It was just a big coincidence, like telco SMS rate increases & bandwidth capping...

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
  8. "threatening the economy" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Note that this also implies that all that is left of "the economy" is Wall Street. How telling. How very appropriate.

  9. Interesting, but... by PowerCyclist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is nothing new to protests. They get cleared out all the time (even in the USA) and then regroup. Is the timing suspicious, a little, but you could have picked any day for the clearing and then said it was to harm a future event. I was never in the protests (none were near my location) but I hope they shrug this off and regroup. I also REALLY hope they get some fricken direction and organization. Simply being there isn't enough, they have to organize efforts on specific targets more than the few leaders have so far. Oh, and for the love of God take some control over the 'live feeds' and at least try to find someone with any amount of charisma and social skills to narrate them. The live streams I've watched so far were a painful raping of my eyes and ears.

  10. Re:Go with the simple over complex theory by Feyshtey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Apparently you didnt follow any of the coverage of the Tea Party.

    --
    "But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
  11. Interesting, isn't it? by khasim · · Score: 5, Insightful

    During a war, our military can "embed" reporters with front-line combat units.

    But with what appears to be a peaceful protest (in NYC), the police have to remove the media from the area.

    1. Re:Interesting, isn't it? by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Insightful

      But with what appears to be a peaceful protest (in NYC), the police have to remove the media from the area.

      Of course. If the police are about to do something they know is going to lead to violence and protest, they sure as hell don't want anybody there to report on it. They don't want an abundant supply of evidence to demonstrate that they violated laws and/or people's rights -- which that action is almost guaranteed to provoke.

      For the same reason that "free speech zones" aren't intended to foster free speech.

      My bet is that most of the people who got arrested will never be charged because there is no grounds for the arrest in the first place. Just some heavy handed police intimidation.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  12. Re:Go with the simple over complex theory by swanzilla · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to live in public or private spaces at the inconvenience of others, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

    Oh...there it is.

  13. Re:Go with the simple over complex theory by malilo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why do you have to paint the OWS as a monolithic entitity? I am a protester, a peaceful one, and I certainly was not advocating violence just as 99.9% of the protesters were not. Why can you not get it through your thick skulls that a very tiny minority of troublemakers (some anarchists, some planted sabateurs) do NOT REPRESENT the rest of the group? The cause is a legitimate one, and you are using very stupid reasons to turn your brain off to what the movement is about. Your loss, as I don't see anyone else fighting for what is right in this country.

    --
    "sometimes he felt that his whole life was a dream, and he wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it."
  14. Re:Go with the simple over complex theory by Desler · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You do realize that the first amendment has no qualifiers such as "as long as you never inconvenience anyone", right.

  15. Re:Occupy... by Vancorps · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Do us a favor, watch any news source that is not Fox News and come back to the table.

    Either your satire is lost on me or more likely given what I've heard from a lots of folks, people actually believe what you're saying and think that is what they are protesting. They are protesting corruption on a never before seen scale, companies that have grown too large for even the federal government to control. Bringing attention to the laws that have been bought and paid for is a noble goal and I'm not sure why you feel the need to belittle people that have the audacity to stand up and speak about the core issues of what is wrong with America these days. Wallstreet has unprecedented control over the country but of course they are not alone which is why you are seeing protests happen all over the place. There are many guilty people.

    You don't have to be jobless to see how banking laws have stacked the deck against American citizens. You don't have to be jobless to understand the ridiculous debt required to go into almost any professional field these days. Hell, I went almost 100k in debt to get my degree. I had no trouble paying it off because of a number of factors that simply don't apply to most people. When you are relying on the right people discovering you, landing a good job that actually let's you pay off a targeted college degree becomes like getting picked for the latest NBA draft when they aren't striking that is.

    This I got mine so fuck off attitude is extremely prevalent these days and it makes me sad to see what was one of the most generous nations on earth turning on itself because times are tough due to retarded policy decisions targeted toward Reaganomics which was a concept proven false even before it was ever deployed. You have 30 years of bad laws that have been building to this point and a congress unwilling to do anything for the President even when the President is proposing Republican ideals. We're one country, we're supposed to be on the same team, not fighting each other. I hear class warfare again and again from the likes of Fox News and Rush, forgetting that the war has been going on for decades and only now are people disenfranchised enough to speak up about it.

    Instead of drowning out their words try listening to them. It's a rally with lots of people so yeah, there are nut jobs, but that doesn't change the heart of the issue which is very real regardless of your membership status in the middle class or above.

  16. Re:This was a good thing by artor3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Right, because when stamping out freedom, you want to do it in the most professional and organized way possible.

    I suppose this is "a lot better" from the perspective of the fascists who want the protestors to disappear, but from the perspective of someone who's tired of the robber barons running the show, this is definitely worse.

  17. Re:civil disobedience by dave562 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you do civil disobedience, you expect to get hauled off to jail.

    Exactly. To add, the only way civil disobedience "works" is if people can get enough like minded people together so that when the arrests happen, there is not enough space to hold everyone in the jails and the cost of prosecuting all of the arrested people outweighs the benefits of prosecution.

    What the OWS folks really need to do is organize a huge, jurisprudence education campaign to inform people of their rights to judge the law itself. That way if the state decides to prosecute, they will find themselves saddled with juries who will not convict. THAT will deliver the message that the people stand with OWS and their goals. Once the state loses control of the judiciary and their ability to enforce unpopular laws, then we will have real change.

  18. Re:civil disobedience by Hatta · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This isn't civil disobedience. This is a constitutionally protected peaceable assembly. The ones breaking the law here are the city governments and police.

    --
    Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
  19. Protesting too much - by Darth+Snowshoe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm going go to out on a limb here and say that the level of animosity directed at OWS is more telling about Slashdot than about the movement itself. Take a look in the mirror for a moment - have you all really had bad firsthand experience with "hippy rapists crapping in the streets downtown" or whatever - or is it more true that OWS has hit a nerve here?

    The honest answer is a lot of Slashdotters are either IT people or programmers (or IT people wishing you were programmers) and you ARE part of the 99%. Your jobs CAN and HAVE been outsourced, to a large degree. Your current income level IS a product of outsourcing and capital flight. How much IT support comes from offshore?

    How many of you paid a big chunk for a CS degree and are now wondering how you're ever going to pay it off? Still renting? Living with friends? Living at home? Living without health care? Not yet confronted down-the-road looming expenses like kids, a mortgage, your parents' end-of-life care?

    Maybe put aside, for a moment, your epigrams about dirty hippies, and think about how OWS is relevant to your own situation.

    1. Re:Protesting too much - by Un+pobre+guey · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There's very few people here who are going to get rich in some new startup or writing the next Angry Birds.

      Nobody wants to hear that. Most people cherish the fantasy that one day they'll be rich, especially while they're young. After they've been in the workforce for a few years, been at startups, or have tried to start their own small businesses, they learn the details of how societies and economies work. They slowly realize that the accumulation of great wealth is very hard to do by strictly legal or ethical means. Very hard. Very very hard. So hard in fact that one comes to question whether it is even possible at all via strictly legal or ethical means.