I Spy An Occupy: Obama's DHS Monitors Legit Protesters

I Spy An Occupy: Obama's DHS Monitors Legit Protesters

Is nonviolent, albeit obstructive, citizen dissent truly an issue of national security?

If recent documents obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) are any indication, the Occupy Movement continues to be monitored and curtailed in a nationwide, federally-orchestrated campaign, spearheaded by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

In response to repeated Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests by the Fund, made on behalf of filmmaker Michael Moore and the National Lawyers Guild, the DHS released a revealing set of documents in April. But the latest batch, made public on May 3^rd, exposes the scale of the government’s “attention” to Occupy as never before.

The documents, many of which are partially blacked-out emails, demonstrate a surprising degree of coordination between the DHS’s National Operations Center (NOC) and local authorities in the monitoring of the Occupy movement. Cities implicated in this wide-scale snooping operation include New York, Oakland, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Denver, Boston, Portland, Detroit, El Paso, Houston, Dallas, Seattle, San Diego, and Los Angeles.

Interest in the Occupy protesters was not limited to DHS and local law enforcement authorities. The most recently released correspondence contains Occupy-related missives between the DHS and agencies at all levels of government, including the Mayor of Portland, regional NOC “fusion centers,” the General Services Administration (GSA), the Pentagon’s USNORTHCOM (Northern Command), and the White House. Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Executive Director of the PCJF, contends that the variety and reach of the organizations involved point to the existence of a larger, more pervasive domestic surveillance network than previously suspected.

These documents show not only intense government monitoring and coordination in response to the Occupy Movement, but reveal a glimpse into the interior of a vast, tentacled, national intelligence and domestic spying network that the U.S. government operates against its own people. These heavily redacted documents don’t tell the full story. They are likely only a subset of responsive materials and the PCJF continues to fight for a complete release. They scratch the surface of a mass intelligence network including Fusion Centers, saturated with ‘anti-terrorism’ funding, that mobilizes thousands of local and federal officers and agents to investigate and monitor the social justice movement.

The right to public assembly is a central component of the First Amendment. The Fourth Amendment is supposed to protect Americans from warrantless searches—with the definition of “search” expanded in 1967 to include electronic surveillance, following the Supreme Court’s ruling in Katz v. United States. Assuming the Occupy protesters refrain from violence—and the vast majority do, in accord with a stated tenet of the Occupy movement—the movement’s existence is constitutionally protected, or should be.

Nobody who cares about democracy wants to live in a world where simply engaging in vociferous protest qualifies any citizen to have his or her identity and life details archived by state security agencies. Specific, overt threats of civil disobedience or other law-breaking should be dealt with on a piecemeal basis—not by attempting to monitor everyone who might be moved to such actions, all the time.

What are your opinions regarding this issue?

It's no surprise that the government and the elite operate under the premise that any criticism is a threat to national security; it's no surprise that they'll capitalize on anything which they can paint to be a crisis to justify their objectives.

They can't say dissent = treason, so now they say dissent = terrorism.


R.C.
Remember to seriously read my signature down below and be sure you understand what I mean by it...

Legal opinion: I have no clue.

My personal subjective opinion: I don't like the Occupy "movement". They lack a platform. When there is no platform, there is no objective, no way to satisfy protestors. It seems like rebelling for the sake of rebelling. It appears that people of moderate or low income relish blaming those of high income. The "rich oppressing the poor" arguments are pretty cliche to me. It appears like people playing victim, en masse.

Whenever there are large groups of people getting very riled up, that is a matter of national security. They're non-violent now, but that could change any time.

I think protestors have a right to express themselves peacefully, WITHIN LIMITS. For example, there should be little disruption to traffic. Noise levels should be reasonable. There shouldn't be any intimidation (from anyone, including authorities).

I'm not convinced that the monitoring of such protestors wasn't excessive. If I was to speculate, it probably was/is. If I was to speculate, law enforcement and the DHS are probably trying to control and break down the "movement", which I don't think is right. They do have a right to monitor for security reasons though, IMO. On the other hand, I doubt protestors have been perfect angels either.

Human nature wise, in general, I think everybody just wants to be in control and run things their way.

I'm anything but an Occupier, Occupussy or what ever one is called. But this is wrong. So much for it being Bush's fault, BO seems to like the power as much as anyone.

I don't know, I haven't read up on this latest roolback of our freedoms, but I will do my best...that is all I can do, or be required,I give my life my fortune, my duty as an American citizen...Alright enough with that. Smith Act trials of Communist Party leaders - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, and this article on Clear and Present Danger,Clear and present danger - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The clear and present danger test was established by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in the unanimous opinion for the case Schenck v. United States,^[1] concerning the ability of the government to regulate speech against the draft during World War I:

"The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that the United States Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree. When a nation is at war, many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight, and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right."

We can't just yell fire in a crowded theatre even if it's free speech,because the amount of deaths...see, Cocoanut Grove fire - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The Communist Party Case is interesting if I remember right, the Red Scare was basically about Communism taking over the world, because that's what the Communist Party calls for and even Mao said Tse-Tung said "Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer in which we use to crush the enemy." Basically the Smith Trials said Communist Party leaders can be thrown in jail because the aim of the Communist Party is to overthrow the Government and that's treason, but a person in the Communist Party, like a secretary or a desk clerk, that has no real power and is on a lower rung of the ladder, there's got to be actual evidence that they're planning to overthrow the Government rather than paying bills. So, Occupy, it's not in the tradition of the women's rights movement or the Civil Rights Movement where there's an actual heaf, with a list of demands, it's just people showing up and causing traffic jams. They've made their point, they're hurting, they need to evolve to another point ,otherwise people need to live their lives.

@Brian1

But do they rise to the level of a clear and present danger?

R.C.
Remember to seriously read my signature down below and be sure you understand what I mean by it...

Sometimes. I don't think all the time, but if you take Occupy Movement,not just Occupy NY, but the whole movement, it's global, and different countries respond differently. I think it was Occupy Greece or Occupy Italy that protestors hurled bottles at police. Also, there's a difference between the Civil Rights Movement and Occupy, Civil Rights Movement had people like Martin Luther King who were inspired by Thoreau,Bernard Ruskin, A Philip Randolph, Civil Disobedience. Occupy just seems one foot serious one foot pop culture. Occupy drew inspiration from V is for Vendetta, the protagonist wore a mask of Guy Fawkes,many people in Occupy wear masks of Guy Fawkes, what they don't understand is that Guy Fawkes was part of the Gunpowder Plot, that was exposed as a plot to kill King James the I of Scotland. Now, people in Washington, have a tough time with crowd control already,now they need to put of with people who wear a mask of a failed assassin of a Head of State. And the police know more history than the protestors,because they have to research this stuff. How doesn't it rise to the level of clear and present danger. And I would say the Tea Party flew too close to the sun in some of their areas.

Originally Posted by Brian1

Sometimes. I don't think all the time, but if you take Occupy Movement,not just Occupy NY, but the whole movement, it's global, and different countries respond differently. I think it was Occupy Greece or Occupy Italy that protestors hurled bottles at police.

IMO it's incorrect and also very Amero-centric to view the protest movements in Italy and Greece as part of the "Occupy" movement. These movements have been around for much longer and have a very different political and social context.

Originally Posted by Brian1

Occupy drew inspiration from V is for Vendetta, the protagonist wore a mask of Guy Fawkes,many people in Occupy wear masks of Guy Fawkes, what they don't understand is that Guy Fawkes was part of the Gunpowder Plot, that was exposed as a plot to kill King James the I of Scotland. Now, people in Washington, have a tough time with crowd control already,now they need to put of with people who wear a mask of a failed assassin of a Head of State. And the police know more history than the protestors,because they have to research this stuff. How doesn't it rise to the level of clear and present danger.

Stupid Guy Fawkes masks have been in style since way before Occupy, Occupy did not get inspiration from V for Vendetta. What would their inspiration from that movie be, exactly? Occupy is a direction action protest movement and V for Vendetta is about a violent psychopath terrorist. Say what you will about Occupy and its effectiveness but a purveyor of effective political terrorism it ain't. If you seriously think that people in Washington are especially scared of people with a Guy Fawkes mask...that's just absurd. Half the federal government probably doesn't know who he is beyond those stupid masks, and the ones who do aren't such idiots that they can't distinguish between monarchist political activism and impressionable young people latching onto pop culture symbols.

This sort of stuff.. The Occupy Movement. Environmentalists and so forth.. It's not a question if I agree or not..
It's the methodology.
I end up thinking about a few things.
One of them is the saying.. Don't just come to me with a problem, come to me with a solution.
I see a lot of people talking about problems (real or imagined) But nobody is offering any kind of a real solution.
"We have to stop the corporations" OK.. From what and how? And what do we replace it with?
What will you do when you realize industry is what brings you cell phones, coffee, electric power and toilet paper?

This brings me to my next thought.
It's like a bunch of people are traveling on a airplane and they suddenly realize this machine runs off of harmful fossil fuels and their solution to this problem is to demand the pilot turns off the engines this instant.

I am all for protest but don't be a moron about it.. And occupy private land not public land.
Otherwise you are picking on the wrong people.

@Brian1

Should the Occupy movement be thought of as one movement, or as many smaller movements with some superficial commonalities on them? Keep in mind there are many kinds of colas, but not all are Coke

R.C.
Remember to seriously read my signature down below and be sure you understand what I mean by it...

Originally Posted by RobynC

@Brian1

Should the Occupy movement be thought of as one movement, or as many smaller movements with some superficial commonalities on them? Keep in mind there are many kinds of colas, but not all are Coke

R.C.
Remember to seriously read my signature down below and be sure you understand what I mean by it...

If they're doing it under the name, I don't see why not. Coke still owns the rights. Coke ,Pepsi and RC Cola, that's all you got.