Revealed: how the FBI coordinated the crackdown on Occupy

[Eugen Leitl]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-coordinated-crackdown-occupy?CMP=twt_gu 

Revealed: how the FBI coordinated the crackdown on Occupy

New documents prove what was once dismissed as paranoid fantasy: totally
integrated corporate-state repression of dissent
 
Naomi Wolf

guardian.co.uk, Saturday 29 December 2012 14.58 GMT

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Police used teargas to drive back protesters following an attempt by the
Occupy supporters to shut down the city of Oakland. Photograph: Noah
Berger/AP

It was more sophisticated than we had imagined: new documents show that the
violent crackdown on Occupy last fall b so mystifying at the time b was not
just coordinated at the level of the FBI, the Department of Homeland
Security, and local police. 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 bwas coordinated
with the big banks themselves.

The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, in a groundbreaking scoop that should
once more shame major US media outlets (why are nonprofits now some of the
only entities in America left breaking major civil liberties news?), filed
this request. The document b reproduced here in an easily searchable format b
shows a terrifying network of coordinated DHS, FBI, police, regional fusion
center, and private-sector activity so completely merged into one another
that the monstrous whole is, in fact, one entity: in some cases, bearing a
single name, the Domestic Security Alliance Council. And it reveals this
merged entity to have one centrally planned, locally executed mission. The
documents, in short, show the cops and DHS working for and with banks to
target, arrest, and politically disable peaceful American citizens.

The documents, released after long delay in the week between Christmas and
New Year, show a nationwide meta-plot unfolding in city after city in an
Orwellian world: six American universities are sites where campus police
funneled information about students involved with OWS to the FBI, with the
administrations' knowledge (p51); banks sat down with FBI officials to pool
information about OWS protesters harvested by private security; plans to
crush Occupy events, planned for a month down the road, were made by the FBI
b and offered to the representatives of the same organizations that the
protests would target; and even threats of the assassination of OWS leaders
by sniper fire b by whom? Where? b now remain redacted and undisclosed to
those American citizens in danger, contrary to standard FBI practice to
inform the person concerned when there is a threat against a political leader
(p61).

As Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the PCJF, put it, the
documents show that from the start, the FBI b though it acknowledges Occupy
movement as being, in fact, a peaceful organization b nonetheless designated
OWS repeatedly as a "terrorist threat":

"FBI documents just obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF)
b& reveal that from its inception, the FBI treated the Occupy movement as a
potential criminal and terrorist threat b& The PCJF has obtained heavily
redacted documents showing that FBI offices and agents around the country
were in high gear conducting surveillance against the movement even as early
as August 2011, a month prior to the establishment of the OWS encampment in
Zuccotti Park and other Occupy actions around the country."

Verheyden-Hilliard points out the close partnering of banks, the New York
Stock Exchange and at least one local Federal Reserve with the FBI and DHS,
and calls it "police-statism":

"This production [of documents], which we believe is just the tip of the
iceberg, is a window into the nationwide scope of the FBI's surveillance,
monitoring, and reporting on peaceful protestors organizing with the Occupy
movement b& These documents also show these federal agencies functioning as a
de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and Corporate America."

The documents show stunning range: in Denver, Colorado, that branch of the
FBI and a "Bank Fraud Working Group" met in November 2011 b during the Occupy
protests b to surveil the group. The Federal Reserve of Richmond, Virginia
had its own private security surveilling Occupy Tampa and Tampa Veterans for
Peace and passing privately-collected information on activists back to the
Richmond FBI, which, in turn, categorized OWS activities under its "domestic
terrorism" unit. The Anchorage, Alaska "terrorism task force" was watching
Occupy Anchorage. The Jackson, Michigan "joint terrorism task force" was
issuing a "counterterrorism preparedness alert" about the ill-organized
grandmas and college sophomores in Occupy there. Also in Jackson, Michigan,
the FBI and the "Bank Security Group" b multiple private banks b met to
discuss the reaction to "National Bad Bank Sit-in Day" (the response was
violent, as you may recall). The Virginia FBI sent that state's Occupy
members' details to the Virginia terrorism fusion center. The Memphis FBI
tracked OWS under its "joint terrorism task force" aegis, too. And so on, for
over 100 pages.

Jason Leopold, at Truthout.org, who has sought similar documents for more
than a year, reported that the FBI falsely asserted in response to his own
FOIA requests that no documents related to its infiltration of Occupy Wall
Street existed at all. But the release may be strategic: if you are an Occupy
activist and see how your information is being sent to terrorism task forces
and fusion centers, not to mention the "longterm plans" of some redacted
group to shoot you, this document is quite the deterrent.

There is a new twist: the merger of the private sector, DHS and the FBI means
that any of us can become WikiLeaks, a point that Julian Assange was trying
to make in explaining the argument behind his recent book. The fusion of the
tracking of money and the suppression of dissent means that a huge area of
vulnerability in civil society b people's income streams and financial
records b is now firmly in the hands of the banks, which are, in turn, now in
the business of tracking your dissent.

Remember that only 10% of the money donated to WikiLeaks can be processed b
because of financial sector and DHS-sponsored targeting of PayPal data. With
this merger, that crushing of one's personal or business financial freedom
can happen to any of us. How messy, criminalizing and prosecuting dissent.
How simple, by contrast, just to label an entity a "terrorist organization"
and choke off, disrupt or indict its sources of financing.

Why the huge push for counterterrorism "fusion centers", the DHS militarizing
of police departments, and so on? It was never really about "the terrorists".
It was not even about civil unrest. It was always about this moment, when
vast crimes might be uncovered by citizens b it was always, that is to say,
meant to be about you.