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Leaked 'Standing Rock' Documents Reveal Invasive Counterterrorism Measures (theintercept.com)
An anonymous reader writes:
"A shadowy international mercenary and security firm known as TigerSwan targeted the movement opposed to the Dakota Access Pipeline with military-style counterterrorism measures," reports The Intercept, decrying "the fusion of public and private intelligence operations." Saying the private firm started as a war-on-terror contractor for the U.S. military and State Department, the site details "sweeping and invasive" surveillance of protesters, citing over 100 documents leaked by one of the firm's contractors.
The documents show TigerSwan even havested information about the protesters from social media, and "provide extensive evidence of aerial surveillance and radio eavesdropping, as well as infiltration of camps and activist circles... The leaked materials not only highlight TigerSwan's militaristic approach to protecting its client's interests but also the company's profit-driven imperative to portray the nonviolent water protector movement as unpredictable and menacing enough to justify the continued need for extraordinary security measures... Internal TigerSwan communications describe the movement as 'an ideologically driven insurgency with a strong religious component' and compare the anti-pipeline water protectors to jihadist fighters."
The Intercept reports that recently "the company's role has expanded to include the surveillance of activist networks marginally related to the pipeline, with TigerSwan agents monitoring 'anti-Trump' protests from Chicago to Washington, D.C., as well as warning its client of growing dissent around other pipelines across the country." They also report that TigerSwan "has operated without a license in North Dakota for the entirety of the pipeline security operation."
The documents show TigerSwan even havested information about the protesters from social media, and "provide extensive evidence of aerial surveillance and radio eavesdropping, as well as infiltration of camps and activist circles... The leaked materials not only highlight TigerSwan's militaristic approach to protecting its client's interests but also the company's profit-driven imperative to portray the nonviolent water protector movement as unpredictable and menacing enough to justify the continued need for extraordinary security measures... Internal TigerSwan communications describe the movement as 'an ideologically driven insurgency with a strong religious component' and compare the anti-pipeline water protectors to jihadist fighters."
The Intercept reports that recently "the company's role has expanded to include the surveillance of activist networks marginally related to the pipeline, with TigerSwan agents monitoring 'anti-Trump' protests from Chicago to Washington, D.C., as well as warning its client of growing dissent around other pipelines across the country." They also report that TigerSwan "has operated without a license in North Dakota for the entirety of the pipeline security operation."
The definition of "terrorist" is "anyone you don't like". And private contractors will turn people into proven terrorists, for a fee. Gotta love the free market.
Learn to love Alaska
Did the protestors engage in anything illegal?
Yes. We don't even have to get into the gigantic mountain of trash they left once they weather turned and they went home. They trespassed repeatedly, blocked public roads - plenty of illegal things. But because they were well funded and backed by know-nothing celebrities, the usual get-yourself-arrested stuff wasn't worth the trouble to prosecute. It was obvious they were going to pull an Occupy Everything and wander off when it became inconvenient to stay. But other people still had to spend weeks cleaning up after them and trucking off their trash and abandoned dogs.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
No, actually, the ACLU has fought for the KKK to get parade permits.
All hush-hush top secret shadow organizations have a web site.
http://www.tigerswan.com/
And twitter feed.
https://twitter.com/TigerSwan
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Anytime Americans have taken a stance that conflicts with the status quo, there has been violence:
The Haymarket Riot is just one of many occasions the US Government in it's many forms has used violence against workers.
In case anyone didn't read that story: It doesn't claim that "many of the protesters were proven to be paid". It claims that the organisers accepted donations.
Professional organisation is completely normal on all sides of politics. People are paid to organise both pro-Trump and anti-Trump rallies because they are complex events which require professional expertise to pull off successfully. This is especially true if you're doing it 100% legally, where there are regulations and permits to take care of. As protests scale up, you need people who know what they are doing. That's the nature of the beast.
This is not even remotely the same thing as paying people just to show up.
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Boy this is Deja Vu. It's exactly what happened with the Unions, the Pinkerton Detective agency and the tacit support of the US government in the early part of last century. Look up Eugene Debs in Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... He helped form the first nation wide trade union in the US (for the trains). And when they struck the Pullman company arranged with the complicity of the US govt to acquire the US mail contract making it a federal crime not to couple pulman cars to trains. Along the way someone set off a bomb (probably the pinkertons to frame the union strikers) and the entire union leadership was imprisoned. there's a nice picture of them all in their sunday best taken together in jail on the wikipedia site. (ironically in Woodstock, a place more known for 60s rock concerts now) . While in prison together Debs started reading various socialist literature and when they were release formed the Socialist party in the USA. He ran for president several times getting millions of votes (6% of the popular vote). He became famous for a stump speech saying no working class person should be going to fight in World War II because it's just a richmans war making the munitions makers richer and killing the poor. He was arrested for treason and sedition, sentenced to 10 years in prison, stripped of his own right to vote, and still ran for president (getting 3.4% of the popular vote while in his jail cell). In the court room when asked to recant he said
"Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free."
While in prison he started the Prison Reform movement, and President Harding pardoned him partly hoping to quash that. He was nominated for the Nobel peace prize for his astute portrayl of World War I as the Capitalist war.
Nearly every use of the Sedition act has been against political prisoners and frequently for union busting.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
You didn't do the math, did you. The tribal council accepted $375,000. Assuming they passed 100% on to the protesters, that comes to the lordly sum of $125 each. Wow, they must be living large now in their new Lambos.
Memorial Day is a good day to learn something new.
http://inter-american-law-revi...
You are welcome on my lawn.