Demonstraties VS #5: Een jaar na de 1ste tweet.

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NY police arrest 80 Wall St. protesters

The New York police have arrested at least 80 people protesting against Washington's management of the American financial system as well as Wall Street practices.

The demonstrators took to the streets Saturday during the “Occupy Wall Street” protest and gathered near the New York Stock Exchange, the Associated Press reported.

The demonstrations, which began about a week ago, have brought hundreds of Americans to the most important US financial district, protesting against a number of economic issues, including bank bailouts, home loan crisis, and the widening gap between the very rich and those struggling in the aftermath of the US financial crisis.

"We've got a whole bunch of people sitting in Washington that can't figure it out," said Bill Csapo, a protest organizer.

As of June 16, 2011, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), 395 banks have been seized by the US government. At least 46 US banks have failed in 2011 so far, compared to 157 in 2010, 140 in 2009, and 25 in 2008.

Another incident that provoked protesters into action was the Wednesday execution of Troy Anthony Davis, an African American, in the State of Georgia over his alleged role in the 1989 killing of an off-duty police officer.

His execution by lethal injection took place despite many legal holes in his case as well as Davis's insistence until his execution that he did not commit the alleged murder.

The police forces tried to corral the demonstrators using orange plastic nets at Manhattan's Union Square.

According to police sources, most of the arrests were made for blocking traffic, though one person has been charged with attacking an officer.

Protest spokesman Patrick Bruner has lambasted the police response as "exceedingly violent,” emphasizing that protesters sought to remain peaceful.

"They're being very aggressive ... half the people here have no idea what's going on ... I'm actually very ashamed to be a New Yorker," said Ryan Alley, a New York resident.

Statistics published by the Stolen Lives Project estimate that the number of cases in the United States relating to police brutality has reached thousands.

Most Americans that suffer abuse by the police do not report the case. Those who do file complaints, soon discover that police departments tend to be self-protective and that the general public tends to side with the police.

In 2010, there were at least 2,541 reports of misconduct and brutality perpetrated by US police.

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Occupy Wal Street ook in Europa
De protestbeweging Occupy Wall Street begon een week of twee geleden in New York met enkele tientallen demonstranten. De aanhang groeit razendsnel, niet alleen in New York, maar ook elders in de Verenigde Staten. Het protest breidt zich nu ook uit naar Europa. Het heeft Ierland al bereikt en ook Nederland komt aan de beurt.
Verenigde Staten: Occupy Wall Street

Op Wall Street in New York begon het drie weken geleden als een bescheiden protest van een kleine groep activisten. Inmiddels is de beweging enorm gegroeid. Vorige week demonstreerden zo'n 5000 mensen bij Wall Street: tegen zelfverrijking in de financiële sector en de ongelijke verdeling van de welvaart.

Vakbonden, studentenorganisaties en bewonersgroepen hebben zich aangesloten bij het protest. De demonstraties verspreiden zich nu ook over het hele land. Op dit moment zijn er in 25 Amerikaanse steden betogingen.
Ierland: Occupy Dame Street

Geïnspireerd door de betogingen in de VS demonstreert een kleine groep activisten sinds dit weekend ook in de Ierse hoofdstad Dublin. Ze hebben zich verzameld op Dame Street, voor de Centrale Ierse bank.

De groep is nog klein, volgens de Irish Times waren er dit weekend zo'n tachtig mensen. Enkele demonstranten bivakkeren in tentjes voor de bank.
UK: Occupy the London Stock Exchange

Op de Facebookpagina Occupy the London Stock Exchange wordt opgeroepen om komend weekend deel te nemen aan een demonstratie in het financiële district van Londen. Meer dan 3000 mensen hebben zich via Facebook al aangemeld voor de demonstratie.

Kai Wargalla, een van de oprichters van de Occupy Londen Facebookpagina, vertelde over de acties aan de Amerikaanse zender NBC: "De protesten op Wall Street zijn de inspiratie geweest. Het is nu tijd om hier te beginnen. We hebben mensen nodig die opstaan en zich uitspreken".
Nederland: Occupy Amsterdam

Ook in Amsterdam en Den Haag worden in navolging van Occupy Wallstreet acties georganiseerd. Op 15 oktober willen demonstranten het Amsterdamse beursplein bezetten. De aanmeldingen voor de actie stromen binnen. Via de Facebookpagina Occupy Amsterdam hebben ruim 1200 mensen zich al aangemeld.
Madrid-Brussel: Mars van de Verontwaardigden

Tachtig dagen geleden begon een groep jongeren in Madrid aan een 1600 kilometer lange 'Mars van Verontwaardiging'. Ze liepen van Madrid naar Brussel waar ze gisteren aankwamen. De mars komt voort uit de Spaanse studentenprotesten.

Die protesten begonnen al veel eerder dan de protesten op Wall Street en de 'mars van verontwaardigden' verbindt zich dus niet direct aan de Occupy Wall Street beweging. Maar het sentiment van beide bewegingen is hetzelfde - beide ingegeven door de economische crisis en gericht tegen de elite die de macht heeft.

De Spaanse jongeren die nu in Brussel bivakkeren hebben op 15 oktober een grote demonstratie gepland voor het Europees Parlement. Die dag wordt beschouwd als een wereldwijde actiedag. Op de site 15oktober.net is te zien dat er in meerdere steden in de wereld acties staan gepland in navolging van Occupy Wall Street.

twitter:

OccupyWallStNYC twitterde op vrijdag 15-07-2011 om 17:04:22 Sept 17. Wall St. Bring Tent. http://t.co/txbf6zB #OCCUPYWALLSTREET reageer retweet

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Op zaterdag 14 juli 2012 23:23 schreef Bleekvoort het volgende:
Hebben ze daar al wel iets bereikt in tegenstelling tot het kansloze gebeuren in Nederland?

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#whilewewatch - Part II of the Occupy Wall St. Documentary

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WHAT WE’RE DOING:
Part I of #whilewewatch recorded the events that started on September 17, 2011 but since the movement continues, so does the documentary. As the one year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street nears, the grievances of the occupiers continue to go unanswered. They want to impact the 2012 election so we want to follow them to the Democratic and Republican National Conventions where they will continue their protest. To do this, we need YOUR help to cover traveling costs, film equipment, crew, eight weeks of editing, legal expenses, music rights, social media, and mainstream media file footage. Besides traveling to the conventions, we will be filming in New York up until the movement’s one year anniversary. We are also looking to conduct follow-up interviews with OWS leaders Priscilla Grim, Jesse LaGreca, Tim Pool, and Justin Wedes as well as interview prominent members of the community such as Cornel West, Tom Morello, Tom Brokaw, Pete Hamill, and Ben Cohen.

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ABOUT #whilewewatch Part 1:
A gripping portrait of the Occupy Wall Street media revolution, #whilewewatch is the first definitive film to emerge from Zuccotti Park with full access and cooperation from the masterminds behind the #OccupyWallStreet movement.

The #OccupyWallStreet media team had to contend with a critical city government, big corporations, hostile police, and unsympathetic mainstream media to tell their story. They endured rain, snow, grueling days, and uncomfortable nights - to inspire the world to take action. Fueled with little money, they relied on the power of social media: setting up Wi-Fi hotspots, sending out live video streams, and promoting international participation. As the film unfolds, we witness the birth of a new era of direct journalism.

WATCH THE FULL MOVIE ON SNAGFILMS: http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/while_we_watch

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Overcoming the fear.

The 'Davis Dozen' show Occupy the way forward.

One of the most inspiring recent actions against banks was pulled off by a group of students and faculty at the University of California, at Davis (UC Davis). Every day for two months, they sat in front of the entrance of a U.S. Bank branch in their student union. Last February the bank closed its doors and left the UC Davis campus for good. But, in a gesture intended to send a chill down the spine of student activists, a dozen of them — dubbed the ‘Davis Dozen’ — are now being criminally charged and face potential sentences of up to 11 years in jail and $1-million in fines. Will this scare students enough to stop an escalation of bank occupations on campus? Or will the systemic corruption recently revealed at the heart of global banking spur students everywhere on?

Samara Steele sends this dispatch from Davis:

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Justice Department Sues Telecom for Challenging National Security Letter

Last year, when a telecommunications company received an ultra-secret demand letter from the FBI seeking information about a customer or customers, the telecom took an extraordinary step — it challenged the underlying authority of the FBI’s National Security Letter, as well as the legitimacy of the gag order that came with it.

Both challenges are allowed under a federal law that governs NSLs, a power greatly expanded under the Patriot Act that allows the government to get detailed information on Americans’ finances and communications without oversight from a judge. The FBI has issued hundreds of thousands of NSLs and been reprimanded for abusing them — though almost none of the requests have been challenged by the recipients.

After the telecom challenged its NSL last year, the Justice Department took its own extraordinary measure: It sued the company, arguing in court documents that the company was violating the law by challenging its authority.

That’s a pretty intense charge, according to Matt Zimmerman, an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is representing the anonymous telecom.

“It’s a huge deal to say you are in violation of federal law having to do with a national security investigation,” says Zimmerman. “That is extraordinarily aggressive from my standpoint. They’re saying you are violating the law by challenging our authority here.”

The government’s “Jabberwocky” argument – accusing the company of violating the law when it was actually complying with the law – appears in redacted court documents that were released on Wednesday by EFF with the government’s approval. Prior to their release, the organization provided them to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported on the case Tuesday night. The case is a significant challenge to the government and its efforts to obtain documents in a manner that the EFF says violates the First Amendment rights of free speech and association.

It’s only the second time that such a serious and fundamental challenge to NSLs has arisen. The first occurred in 2004 in the case of a small ISP owner named Nicholas Merrill, who challenged an NSL seeking info on an organization that was using his network. He asserted that customer records were constitutionally protected information.

But that issue never got a chance to play out in court before the government dropped its demand for documents.

With this new case, civil libertarians are getting a second opportunity to fight NSLs head-on in court.

NSLs are written demands from the FBI that compel internet service providers, credit companies, financial institutions and others to hand over confidential records about their customers, such as subscriber information, phone numbers and e-mail addresses, websites visited and more.

NSLs are a powerful tool because they do not require court approval, and they come with a built-in gag order, preventing recipients from disclosing to anyone that they have even received an NSL. An FBI agent looking into a possible anti-terrorism case can self-issue an NSL to a credit bureau, ISP or phone company with only the sign-off of the Special Agent in Charge of their office. The FBI has to merely assert that the information is “relevant” to an investigation into international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.

The lack of court oversight raises the possibility for extensive abuse of NSLs under the cover of secrecy, which the gag order only exacerbates. In 2007 a Justice Department Inspector General audit found that the FBI had indeed abused its authority and misused NSLs on many occasions. After 9/11, for example, the FBI paid multimillion-dollar contracts to AT&T and Verizon requiring the companies to station employees inside the FBI and to give these employees access to the telecom databases so they could immediately service FBI requests for telephone records. The IG found that the employees let FBI agents illegally look at customer records without paperwork and even wrote NSLs for the FBI.

Before Merrill filed his challenge to NSLs in 2004, ISPs and other companies that wanted to challenge NSLs had to file suit in secret in court – a burden that many were unwilling or unable to assume. But after he challenged the one he received, a court found that the never-ending, hard-to-challenge gag orders were unconstitutional, leading Congress to amend the law to allow recipients to challenge NSLs more easily as well as gag orders.

Now companies can simply notify the FBI in writing that they oppose the gag order, leaving the burden on the FBI to prove in court that disclosure of an NSL would harm a national security case. The case also led to changes in Justice Department procedures. Since Feb. 2009, NSLs must include express notification to recipients that they have a right to challenge the built-in gag order that prevents them from disclosing to anyone that the government is seeking customer records.

Few recipients, however, have ever used this right to challenge the letters or gag orders.

The FBI has sent out nearly 300,000 NSLs since 2000, about 50,000 of which have been sent out since the new policy for challenging NSL gag orders went into effect. Last year alone, the FBI sent out 16,511 NSLs requesting information pertaining to 7,201 U.S. persons, a technical term that includes citizens and legal aliens.

But in a 2010 letter (.pdf) from Attorney General Eric Holder to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), Holder said that there had “been only four challenges,” and those involved challenges to the gag order, not to the fundamental legality of NSLs. At least one other challenge was filed earlier this year in a secret case revealed by Wired. But the party in that case challenged only the gag order, not the underlying authority of the NSL.

When recipients have challenged NSLs, the proceedings have occurred mostly in secret, with court documents either sealed or redacted heavily to cover the name of the recipient and other identifying details about the case.

The latest case is remarkable then for a number of reasons, among them the fact that a telecom challenged the NSL in the first place, and that EFF got the government to agree to release some of the documents to the public. The organization provided them to the Wall Street Journal, before releasing them on its web site, with the name of the telecom and other details redacted. The Journal, however, using details left in the court records, narrowed the likely plaintiffs down to one, a small San-Francisco-based telecom named Credo. The company’s CEO, Michael Kieschnick, didn’t confirm or deny that his company is the unidentified recipient of the NSL.

The case began sometime in 2011, when Credo or another telecom received an NSL from the FBI.

EFF filed a challenge on behalf of the telecom (.pdf) in May that year on First Amendment grounds, asserting first that the gag order amounted to unconstitutional prior restraint and, second, that the NSL statute itself “violates the anonymous speech and associational rights of Americans” by forcing companies to hand over data about their customers.

Instead of responding directly to that challenge and filing a motion to compel compliance in the way the Justice Department has responded to past challenges, government attorneys instead filed a lawsuit against the telecom, arguing that by refusing to comply with the NSL and hand over the information it was requesting, the telecom was violating the law, since it was “interfer[ing] with the United States’ vindication of its sovereign interests in law enforcement, counterintelligence, and protecting national security.”

They did this, even though courts have allowed recipients who challenge an NSL to withhold government-requested data until the court compels them to hand it over. The Justice Department argued in its lawsuit that recipients cannot use their legal right to challenge an individual NSL to contest the fundamental NSL law itself.

“It was eye-opening to us that they followed that approach,” Zimmerman says.

After heated negotiations with EFF, the Justice Department agreed to stay the civil suit and let the telecom’s challenge play out in court. The Justice Department subsequently filed a motion to compel in the challenge case, but has never dropped the civil suit.

“So there’s still this live complaint that they have refused to drop saying that our client was in violation of the law,” Zimmerman says, “presumably in the event that they lose, or something goes bad with the [challenge case].”

Justice Department spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle declined to comment on the case.

The redacted documents don’t indicate the exact information the government was seeking from the telecom, and EFF won’t disclose the details. But by way of general explanation, Zimmerman said that the NSL statute allows the government to compel an ISP or web site to hand over information about someone who posted anonymously to a message board or to compel a phone company to hand over “calling circle” information, that is, information about who has communicated with someone by phone.

An FBI agent could give a telecom a name or a phone number, for example, and ask for the numbers and identities of anyone who has communicated with that person. “They’re asking for association information – who do you hang out with, who do you communicate with, [in order] to get information about previously unknown people.

“That’s the fatal flaw with this [law],” Zimmerman says. “Once the FBI is able to do this snooping, to find out who Americans are communicating with and associating with, there’s no remedy that makes them whole after the fact. So there needs to be some process in place so the court has the ability ahead of time to step in [on behalf of Americans].”

It remains to be seen, however, whether that issue will finally get its day in court.

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Seattle woman weds corporation to protest corporate personhood

Seattle resident Angela Vogel was given state permission to proceed with a planned wedding after officials in King County, Washington this week signed off on a marriage license between the beautiful bride-to-be and one Mr. Corporate Person: a one-and-a-half-month-old corporation established earlier this year. Jeff Reifman, a Seattle-based technologist and writer, is listed on Corporate Person’s official papers as its registered agent.

King County Executive Dow Constantine authorized a marriage license between Vogel and Corporate Person this week, and the bride and groom just couldn’t be happier.

“I’m incredibly excited,” Vogel tells reporters from Seattle’s The Stranger. “I’m drinking.”

Mr. Person — well, Mr. Reifman — adds to the Washington Bus blog that it wasn’t exactly the easiest thing to have his corporation legally permitted to wed a human, but if the US justice system can allow big businesses the same rights as people under the Citizens United ruling, frankly, it only makes sense. And if you think otherwise, take it up with Mitt Romney.

“I was really thrilled and the ceremony was wonderful,” Reifman tells Washington Bus. “It was a little difficult to get them to do it, but they took my money and they provided a marriage license. We talked to them about the Supreme Court offering corporate personhood.”

“The Supreme Court has said that corporations are persons with equal protections under the Fourteenth Amendment, which means they have all the same rights as you or me (unless you happen to be gay or lesbian).So a corporation has just as much right to marry a woman that I have to marry a woman,” Reifman adds.

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Seattle woman weds corporation (PHOTOS)

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The bride and corporation exchanged vows in a ceremony proceeded over by Rev. Rich Lang, who is both a pastor and columnist.

“Corporate Person and Angela, may your children become sacrifices in war for greater market gain, may your wealth be without end, may your desire for more always be insatiable,” Rev. Lang wished the couple. “May you begin every day in expectation of profit, and end every night resting secure in each other’s bank accounts. May your continuous lies never be revealed, may your lawlessness never be held accountable, may your theft be forgiven, and may you own this nation lock, stock and barrel until freedom is no more.”

Reifman is behind an initiative in Seattle that, if passed, would strike down the corporate personhood guarantees created under last year’s Supreme Court ruling between Citizens United and Federal Election Commission. When America’s top justices signed off on the decision, corporations were guaranteed some of the same constitutional rights assigned to the American public.

"If they were to reject the license, they would be facing a lawsuit from Corporate Person, and the city shouldn't waste money defending yet another lawsuit," Reifman adds.

Only moments after Reiman made that statement, however, the City of Seattle came down hard and now might actually have some legal hoops to hop through. In a statement made to the Stranger after the certificate was signed, Cameron Satterfield of the Department of Executive Services revealed that the city is already attacking the happy couple.

"King County Records and Licensing Division reviewed today’s events and determined that the clerk accepted the marriage application in error. After checking with the Washington State Department of Health, and pursuant to RCW 26.04.130, we have voided the license and will refund the $64 application fee,” Satterfield explains.

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Wealth doesn't trickle down – it just floods offshore, new research reveals

A far-reaching new study suggests a staggering $21tn in assets has been lost to global tax havens. If taxed, that could have been enough to put parts of Africa back on its feet – and even solve the euro crisis

The world's super-rich have taken advantage of lax tax rules to siphon off at least $21 trillion, and possibly as much as $32tn, from their home countries and hide it abroad – a sum larger than the entire American economy.

James Henry, a former chief economist at consultancy McKinsey and an expert on tax havens, has conducted groundbreaking new research for the Tax Justice Network campaign group – sifting through data from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and private sector analysts to construct an alarming picture that shows capital flooding out of countries across the world and disappearing into the cracks in the financial system.

Comedian Jimmy Carr became the public face of tax-dodging in the UK earlier this year when it emerged that he had made use of a Cayman Islands-based trust to slash his income tax bill.

But the kind of scheme Carr took part in is the tip of the iceberg, according to Henry's report, entitled The Price of Offshore Revisited. Despite the professed determination of the G20 group of leading economies to tackle tax secrecy, investors in scores of countries – including the US and the UK – are still able to hide some or all of their assets from the taxman.

"This offshore economy is large enough to have a major impact on estimates of inequality of wealth and income; on estimates of national income and debt ratios; and – most importantly – to have very significant negative impacts on the domestic tax bases of 'source' countries," Henry says.

Using the BIS's measure of "offshore deposits" – cash held outside the depositor's home country – and scaling it up according to the proportion of their portfolio large investors usually hold in cash, he estimates that between $21tn (£13tn) and $32tn (£20tn) in financial assets has been hidden from the world's tax authorities.

"These estimates reveal a staggering failure," says John Christensen of the Tax Justice Network. "Inequality is much, much worse than official statistics show, but politicians are still relying on trickle-down to transfer wealth to poorer people.

"This new data shows the exact opposite has happened: for three decades extraordinary wealth has been cascading into the offshore accounts of a tiny number of super-rich."

In total, 10 million individuals around the world hold assets offshore, according to Henry's analysis; but almost half of the minimum estimate of $21tn – $9.8tn – is owned by just 92,000 people. And that does not include the non-financial assets – art, yachts, mansions in Kensington – that many of the world's movers and shakers like to use as homes for their immense riches.

"If we could figure out how to tax all this offshore wealth without killing the proverbial golden goose, or at least entice its owners to reinvest it back home, this sector of the global underground is easily large enough to make a significant contribution to tax justice, investment and paying the costs of global problems like climate change," Henry says.

He corroborates his findings by using national accounts to assemble estimates of the cumulative capital flight from more than 130 low- to middle-income countries over almost 40 years, and the returns their wealthy owners are likely to have made from them.

In many cases, , the total worth of these assets far exceeds the value of the overseas debts of the countries they came from.

The struggles of the authorities in Egypt to recover the vast sums hidden abroad by Hosni Mubarak, his family and other cronies during his many years in power have provided a striking recent example of the fact that kleptocratic rulers can use their time to amass immense fortunes while many of their citizens are trapped in poverty.

The world's poorest countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, have fought long and hard in recent years to receive debt forgiveness from the international community; but this research suggests that in many cases, if they had been able to draw their richest citizens into the tax net, they could have avoided being dragged into indebtedness in the first place. Oil-rich Nigeria has seen more than $300bn spirited away since 1970, for example, while Ivory Coast has lost $141bn.

Assuming that super-rich investors earn a relatively modest 3% a year on their $21tn, taxing that vast wall of money at 30% would generate a very useful $189bn a year – more than rich economies spend on aid to the rest of the world.

The sheer scale of the hidden assets held by the super-rich also suggests that standard measures of inequality, which tend to rely on surveys of household income or wealth in individual countries, radically underestimate the true gap between rich and poor.

Milorad Kovacevic, chief statistician of the UN Development Programme's Human Development Report, says both the very wealthy and the very poor tend to be excluded from mainstream calculations of inequality.

"People that are in charge of measuring inequality based on survey data know that the both ends of the distribution are underrepresented – or, even better, misrepresented," he says.

"There is rarely a household from the top 1% earners that participates in the survey. On the other side, the poor people either don't have addresses to be selected into the sample, or when selected they misquote their earnings – usually biasing them upwards."

Inequality is widely seen as having increased sharply in many developed countries over the past decade or more – as described in a recent paper from the IMF, which showed marked increases in the so-called Gini coefficient, which economists use to measure how evenly income is shared across societies.

Globalisation has exposed low-skilled workers to competition from cheap economies such as China, while the surging profitability of the financial services industry – and the spread of the big bonus culture before the credit crunch – led to what economists have called a "racing away" at the top of the income scale.

However, Henry's research suggests that this acknowledged jump in inequality is a dramatic underestimate. Stewart Lansley, author of the recent book The Cost of Inequality, says: "There is absolutely no doubt at all that the statistics on income and wealth at the top understate the problem."

The surveys that are used to compile the Gini coefficient "simply don't touch the super-rich," he says. "You don't pick up the multimillionaires and billionaires, and even if you do, you can't pick it up properly."

In fact, some experts believe the amount of assets being held offshore is so large that accounting for it fully would radically alter the balance of financial power between countries. The French economist Thomas Piketty, an expert on inequality who helps compile the World Top Incomes Database, says research by his colleagues has shown that "the wealth held in tax havens is probably sufficiently substantial to turn Europe into a very large net creditor with respect to the rest of the world."

In other words, even a solution to the eurozone's seemingly endless sovereign debt crisis might be within reach – if only Europe's governments could get a grip on the wallets of their own wealthiest citizens.

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US poverty on track to rise to highest since 1960s

Associated Press= WASHINGTON (AP) — The ranks of America's poor are on track to climb to levels unseen in nearly half a century, erasing gains from the war on poverty in the 1960s amid a weak economy and fraying government safety net.

Census figures for 2011 will be released this fall in the critical weeks ahead of the November elections.

The Associated Press surveyed more than a dozen economists, think tanks and academics, both nonpartisan and those with known liberal or conservative leanings, and found a broad consensus: The official poverty rate will rise from 15.1 percent in 2010, climbing as high as 15.7 percent. Several predicted a more modest gain, but even a 0.1 percentage point increase would put poverty at the highest level since 1965.

Poverty is spreading at record levels across many groups, from underemployed workers and suburban families to the poorest poor. More discouraged workers are giving up on the job market, leaving them vulnerable as unemployment aid begins to run out. Suburbs are seeing increases in poverty, including in such political battlegrounds as Colorado, Florida and Nevada, where voters are coping with a new norm of living hand to mouth.

"I grew up going to Hawaii every summer. Now I'm here, applying for assistance because it's hard to make ends meet. It's very hard to adjust," said Laura Fritz, 27, of Wheat Ridge, Colo., describing her slide from rich to poor as she filled out aid forms at a county center. Since 2000, large swaths of Jefferson County just outside Denver have seen poverty nearly double.

Fritz says she grew up wealthy in the Denver suburb of Highlands Ranch, but fortunes turned after her parents lost a significant amount of money in the housing bust. Stuck in a half-million dollar house, her parents began living off food stamps and Fritz's college money evaporated. She tried joining the Army but was injured during basic training.

Now she's living on disability, with an infant daughter and a boyfriend, Garrett Goudeseune, 25, who can't find work as a landscaper. They are struggling to pay their $650 rent on his unemployment checks and don't know how they would get by without the extra help as they hope for the job market to improve.

In an election year dominated by discussion of the middle class, Fritz's case highlights a dim reality for the growing group in poverty. Millions could fall through the cracks as government aid from unemployment insurance, Medicaid, welfare and food stamps diminishes.

"The issues aren't just with public benefits. We have some deep problems in the economy," said Peter Edelman, director of the Georgetown Center on Poverty, Inequality and Public Policy.

He pointed to the recent recession but also longer-term changes in the economy such as globalization, automation, outsourcing, immigration, and less unionization that have pushed median household income lower. Even after strong economic growth in the 1990s, poverty never fell below a 1973 low of 11.1 percent. That low point came after President Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty, launched in 1964, that created Medicaid, Medicare and other social welfare programs.

"I'm reluctant to say that we've gone back to where we were in the 1960s. The programs we enacted make a big difference. The problem is that the tidal wave of low-wage jobs is dragging us down and the wage problem is not going to go away anytime soon," Edelman said.

Stacey Mazer of the National Association of State Budget Officers said states will be watching for poverty increases when figures are released in September as they make decisions about the Medicaid expansion. Most states generally assume poverty levels will hold mostly steady and they will hesitate if the findings show otherwise. "It's a constant tension in the budget," she said.

The predictions for 2011 are based on separate AP interviews, supplemented with research on suburban poverty from Alan Berube of the Brookings Institution and an analysis of federal spending by the Congressional Research Service and Elise Gould of the Economic Policy Institute.

The analysts' estimates suggest that some 47 million people in the U.S., or 1 in 6, were poor last year. An increase of one-tenth of a percentage point to 15.2 percent would tie the 1983 rate, the highest since 1965. The highest level on record was 22.4 percent in 1959, when the government began calculating poverty figures.

Poverty is closely tied to joblessness. While the unemployment rate improved from 9.6 percent in 2010 to 8.9 percent in 2011, the employment-population ratio remained largely unchanged, meaning many discouraged workers simply stopped looking for work. Food stamp rolls, another indicator of poverty, also grew.

Demographers also say:

—Poverty will remain above the pre-recession level of 12.5 percent for many more years. Several predicted that peak poverty levels — 15 percent to 16 percent — will last at least until 2014, due to expiring unemployment benefits, a jobless rate persistently above 6 percent and weak wage growth.

—Suburban poverty, already at a record level of 11.8 percent, will increase again in 2011.

—Part-time or underemployed workers, who saw a record 15 percent poverty in 2010, will rise to a new high.

—Poverty among people 65 and older will remain at historically low levels, buoyed by Social Security cash payments.

—Child poverty will increase from its 22 percent level in 2010.

Analysts also believe that the poorest poor, defined as those at 50 percent or less of the poverty level, will remain near its peak level of 6.7 percent.

"I've always been the guy who could find a job. Now I'm not," said Dale Szymanski, 56, a Teamsters Union forklift operator and convention hand who lives outside Las Vegas in Clark County. In a state where unemployment ranks highest in the nation, the Las Vegas suburbs have seen a particularly rapid increase in poverty from 9.7 percent in 2007 to 14.7 percent.

Szymanski, who moved from Wisconsin in 2000, said he used to make a decent living of more than $40,000 a year but now doesn't work enough hours to qualify for union health care. He changed apartments several months ago and sold his aging 2001 Chrysler Sebring in April to pay expenses.

"You keep thinking it's going to turn around. But I'm stuck," he said.

The 2010 poverty level was $22,314 for a family of four, and $11,139 for an individual, based on an official government calculation that includes only cash income, before tax deductions. It excludes capital gains or accumulated wealth, such as home ownership, as well as noncash aid such as food stamps and tax credits, which were expanded substantially under President Barack Obama's stimulus package.

An additional 9 million people in 2010 would have been counted above the poverty line if food stamps and tax credits were taken into account.

Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, believes the social safety net has worked and it is now time to cut back. He worries that advocates may use a rising poverty rate to justify additional spending on the poor, when in fact, he says, many live in decent-size homes, drive cars and own wide-screen TVs.

A new census measure accounts for noncash aid, but that supplemental poverty figure isn't expected to be released until after the November election. Since that measure is relatively new, the official rate remains the best gauge of year-to-year changes in poverty dating back to 1959.

Few people advocate cuts in anti-poverty programs. Roughly 79 percent of Americans think the gap between rich and poor has grown in the past two decades, according to a Public Religion Research Institute/RNS Religion News survey from November 2011. The same poll found that about 67 percent oppose "cutting federal funding for social programs that help the poor" to help reduce the budget deficit.

Outside of Medicaid, federal spending on major low-income assistance programs such as food stamps, disability aid and tax credits have been mostly flat at roughly 1.5 percent of the gross domestic product from 1975 to the 1990s. Spending spiked higher to 2.3 percent of GDP after Obama's stimulus program in 2009 temporarily expanded unemployment insurance and tax credits for the poor.

The U.S. safety net may soon offer little comfort to people such as Jose Gorrin, 52, who lives in the western Miami suburb of Hialeah Gardens. Arriving from Cuba in 1980, he was able to earn a decent living as a plumber for years, providing for his children and ex-wife. But things turned sour in 2007 and in the past two years he has barely worked, surviving on the occasional odd job.

His unemployment aid has run out, and he's too young to draw Social Security.

Holding a paper bag of still-warm bread he'd just bought for lunch, Gorrin said he hasn't decided whom he'll vote for in November, expressing little confidence the presidential candidates can solve the nation's economic problems. "They all promise to help when they're candidates," Gorrin said, adding, "I hope things turn around. I already left Cuba. I don't know where else I can go."

---

Associated Press writers Kristen Wyatt in Lakewood, Colo., Ken Ritter and Michelle Rindels in Las Vegas, Laura Wides-Munoz in Miami and AP Deputy Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.

---

Online:

Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov

National Association of State Budget Officers: http://www.nasbo.org

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Caught on camera: The moment police fired at women and children with rubber bullets in LA 'riot' and as they battled angry mob over man's shooting

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Shocking video has emerged which depicts police officers firing rubber bullets into a rioting crowd which includes women and children.

The footage also shows a police dog rushing in to the fray and nearly knocking over a mother who was pushing her baby in a stroller.

The violent scenes came in the wake of an incident where a 24-year-old man was shot dead after running away from police, two of whom have now been suspended.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.u(...)n.html#ixzz21SXsIdpd

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Anaheim protesters clash with riot police over shooting of unarmed man

Violence erupts during fourth night of protests after death of Manuel Angel Diaz, who was shot by police on Saturday

Protesters clashed with police in Anaheim, California on Tuesday during the fourth night of demonstrations following the shooting death of an unarmed man.

Police fired pepper-spray projectiles and rubber bullets after some 500 people had gathered at city hall. Shop windows were smashed by some protesters and there were 24 arrests, police said.

Manuel Angel Diaz was shot dead by police on Saturday afternoon in Anaheim. Officers have admitted Diaz was not carrying a gun when he was killed.

The violence broke out after protesters demonstrated outside a meeting at city hall to discuss Diaz's shooting. Police prevented people from attending the meeting when it became too crowded, before issuing a dispersal order at about 9pm.

NBClosangeles.com reportedreported that "within minutes" protesters were fleeing the area as police fired pepper balls at the crowd. Police also used batons to clear protesters, some of whom threw objects and chanted at the police, according to reports.

Fires broke out as the evening progressed, while officers with shotguns guarded shops after protesters smashed the windows of at least six stores. A witness told Reuters that protesters had thrown chairs through the windows of a Starbucks.

Anaheim police spokesman Sergeant Bob Dunn said 20 adults and four minors were arrested. He said a police officer, two members of the media and some protesters were injured, but no one was taken to hospital.

One man who was in the crowd, Geoffrey Giraffe, wrote on Twitter that a man had been shot in the head by a rubber bullet while retreating from police. He posted a picture which showed a man bleeding from a cut to the back of his head.

An Anaheim resident who lives close to where the protests took place told the Guardian she could hear sirens and helicopters all afternoon and into the night.

"I was very concerned, since I live near and shop in the shopping center which had broken windows," said the woman, who did not want to be named. She said she was forced to stay in as "many of the major streets near my house were blocked off", however she added that the protests "seemed to be disorganised".

Police say Diaz, 25, had fled from officers who approached him as he stood by a car in an alley with two other men. Police said he was a known gang member but have admitted he was not carrying a gun when he was killed. Video footage showed officers standing over his body.

Residents have accused police of racial profiling, and Diaz's mother, Genevieve Huizar, filed a civil rights and wrongful death lawsuit against the city and the police department on Tuesday. The suit alleges that the unarmed Diaz was shot execution style with a shot to the back of the head after he had already been shot in the leg, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Another man, Joel Mathew Acevedo, was shot and killed after he fired at an officer on Sunday night, police said. The police union has issued a statement defending the officers involved in the shootings. It said both men killed were gang members who had criminal records. FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said the agency is conducting a review to determine whether a civil rights investigation is warranted.

Diaz and Acevedo's deaths bring to five the number of people killed by police shootings in Anaheim this year. There have been eight shootings in the city this year involving the police, according to officials.

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Accusations of Police Misconduct Documented in Lawyers’ Report on Occupy Protests

During Occupy Wall Street protests New York police officers obstructed news reporters and legal observers, conducted frequent surveillance, wrongly limited public gatherings and enforced arbitrary rules, a group of lawyers said in a lengthy report issued on Wednesday.

The group, called the Protest and Assembly Rights Project, which included people involved with the law clinics at New York University School of Law and Fordham Law School, said that they had cataloged hundreds of instances of what they described as excessive force and other forms of police misconduct said to have taken place since September, when the Occupy Wall Street movement began.

Although the report referred to some well-known events, including Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna’s use of pepper spray, it also detailed specific instances of alleged misconduct that had not appeared in news reports.

For instance, the report described a cafe employee stepping out of his workplace on Sept. 24 and using a camera to document arrests near Union Square before being confronted by a senior officer. The report went on to state: “Video then shows the officer grabbing the employee by the wrist, and flipping him hard to the ground face-first, in what was described as a ‘judo-flip.’ The employee stated that he was subsequently charged with ‘blocking traffic’ and ‘obstructing justice’.”

In a more recent episode, Sarah Knuckey, a law professor and one of the report’s authors, said she witnessed a police commander grab a man who was complaining of an injured shoulder while being arrested during a student march on May 30. Ms. Knuckey said that the commander repeatedly shoved the man’s shoulder while handcuffing him, then cursed and accused him of lying, when he shouted in pain. Shortly afterward, Ms. Knuckey said, emergency medical technicians determined that the man had a broken clavicle.

The report complained that there had been “near-complete impunity for alleged abuses” and said that the conduct amounted to a “a complex mapping of protest suppression.”

There have been hundreds of gatherings and marches and more than 2,000 arrests in New York City since the Occupy protests began last fall. During that time, Ms. Knuckey said, many police officers had acted in an exemplary fashion. But, she added, multiple episodes of intimidation had created a pattern of disturbing and unlawful behavior.

A police department spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The report’s authors said that senior members of the police department cited continuing litigation in declining to talk with them.

In May, an assistant deputy commissioner in the police department’s legal bureau wrote to the authors, saying that the Police Department considered its actions lawful and added that the police “had accommodated on an almost daily basis since last fall numerous large groups of demonstrators and marchers, all with virtually no cooperation, notice or advance planning from Occupy Wall Street representatives.”

In addition to detailing 130 instances of what was described as excessive or unnecessary force, the report said that officers often stopped news reporters or legal monitors from witnessing such events.

The report also describes instances in which the authors say officers have chilled First Amendment expression through near constant surveillance with video cameras and by sometimes questioning protesters about political activities. The report also described a common practice of preventing protesters from gathering in areas that are open to the public, like parks, plazas and sidewalks.

“Attempts by protesters to understand the basis for the closure, or obtain clear directions from the police are most often ignored or answered perfunctorily,” the report stated. “Sometimes queries are answered with an arrest threat or an arrest.”

The authors called for the city to establish an inspector general to oversee the police department, a review of the city’s response to the protests, the prosecution of officers found to have broken laws and the creation of new guidelines for policing protests. If the city did not respond, the authors said, they would ask the United States Department of Justice to investigate their complaints.

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Hundreds protest against Anaheim police

(CBS/AP) In the ninth consecutive day of protests more than 200 people gathered outside Anaheim Police Department headquarters Sunday, to demonstrate against recent officer-involved shootings and to issue a call for community peace.

The Orange County Register reports a separate group of about 100 people silently marched along a two-mile stretch of a main thoroughfare.

Nine people were arrested in the mostly-peaceful demonstrations. Sgt. Bob Dunn says most of those arrested face minor charges including failure to disperse and blocking traffic.

This was in marked contrast to protests last weekend and Tuesday, when tensions were extremely high and dozens were arrested. Police shot crowds with bean bags and rubber bullets last Saturday and accidentally released a police dog on one man.

Sunday's demonstrations occurred just hours before an evening memorial service for Manuel Diaz, a 25-year-old man who was shot dead July 21.

The fatal shooting touched off days of violence, and preceded another police shooting the next day, when police shot to death Joel Acevedo, a suspected gang member they say fired at officers following a pursuit.

Last Tuesday, more than 20 businesses were damaged when protest turned to riot. Windows were broken at police headquarters and City Hall, and scores of protesters threw rocks and bottles at police cruisers.

Sunday's protest began around noon outside Anaheim police headquarters.

KCAL correspondent Bobby Kaple reports police were ready for the crowds, noting, "They are in battle gear."

The police presence was heavy. Many were on horseback and there were tactical units on several key rooftops.

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DHS gears up for civil unrest prior to presidential elections

The Department of Homeland Security has ordered masses of riot gear equipment to prepare for potential significant domestic riots at the Republican National Convention, Democratic National Convention and next year’s presidential inauguration.

The DHS submitted a rushed solicitation to the Federal Business Opportunities site on Wednesday, which is a portal for Federal government procurement requisitions over $25,000. The request gave the potential suppliers only one day to submit their proposals and a 15-day delivery requirement to Alexandria, Virginia.

As the brief explains, “the objective of this effort is to procure riot gear to prepare for the 2012 Democratic and Republican National Conventions, the 2013 Presidential Inauguration and other future similar activities.”

The total amount ordered is about 150 sets of riot helmets, thigh and groin protectors, hard-shell shin guards and other riot gear.

Specifically, DHS is looking to obtain:

- “147 riot helmets” with “adjustable tactical face shield with liquid seal”

- “147 sets of upper body and shoulder protection”

- “152 sets of thigh and groin protection”

- “147 hard-shell shin guards” with “substantial protection from flying debris, non-ballistic weapons, and blows to the leg” and “optimized protective design for severe riot control or tactical situations.”

- “156 forearm protectors”

- “147 pairs of tactical gloves”

The riot gear will be worn by Federal Protective Service agents who are tasked with protecting property, grounds and buildings owned by the federal government.

The urgency of the order can be explained by the fact that there is a growing anticipation that many demonstrators will travel to the Republican National Convention (RNC), scheduled for August 27-30 in Tampa Bay, Florida, and Democratic National Convention (DNC), planned for September 3-6 in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The RNC itself, for example, will have free speech zones, which will serve as containment quarters for the protesters by not allowing them to leave the designated areas and cause trouble.

Another recent DHS move to gear up was back in March of this year, when it gave the defense contractor ATK a deal to provide the DHS with 450 million .40 caliber hollow-point ammunition over a five year period.

On top of that, the DHS has recently purchased a number of bullet-proof checkpoint booths and hired hundreds of new security guards to protect government buildings.

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[UPDATE: VIDEO PROOF] Was There a Police Plant at the Anaheim Protests Who Threw Bottles at Officers to Incite a Riot?

ORIGINAL POST, JULY 27, 10:26 A.M.: Facebook is currently abuzz with members of Kelly's Army who were at the Anaheim protest on Tuesday alleging that they caught a police plant.

According to onlookers, a blonde woman was shouting pro-police slogans in front of City Hall, at one point flashing her wrist and showing off a tattoo that seemed to be a badge number. But an hour later, they claim the same woman was seen yelling anti-police slogans and throwing water bottles at the police.

Witnesses tell the Weekly she was parading in front of the police line outside of City Hall, saying "These are good cops. You don't know the hard work they do. They're getting rid of gangsters."

Afterward, though, onlookers claim she began throwing bottles later that night. Multiple people saw her, and there's apparently video of the same woman playing the part of anarchist.

No one at the scene knew who this woman was.

"Prior to our friend...exposing her as a cop in front of national cameras, she was inciting a group of Anaheim protesters by throwing a water bottle and chanting aggressive orders pretending to be a protester," someone wrote on Facebook. "Had others followed her lead, and had [members of Kelly's Army] not called her out and kept the peace, 20 cops in riot gear would have been unleashed on the crowd. She had her badge # tattooed on her wrist.. Not only is she a provocateur she has really shitty taste in tats."

HA!

woman accused of being a provocateur in #Anaheim

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UC Davis pepper-spray officer fired despite being cleared by internal panel

University police chief rejects internal affairs findings and fires John Pike, 39, for ignoring orders to use minimum force

The campus police officer who pepper-sprayed students during an Occupy protest at the University of California, Davis, has been fired despite being cleared of wrongdoing by an internal affairs investigation.

The university dismissed Lt John Pike on Tuesday, it has emerged, eight months after video footage of his use of the spray on seated students triggered worldwide indignation.

The incident on November 18, in which Pike appeared to casually use the spray on students who posed little or no threat, was viewed millions of times on the internet and put huge pressure on the university.

Authorities put the officer on paid leave pending investigations into his conduct and this week terminated his $110,000-a-year contract.

"The needs of the department do not justify your continued employment," UC Davis police chief Matthew Carmichael said in a leaked letter.

But in an unexpected development the Sacramento Bee reported that an internal affairs investigation concluded Pike, 39, who served on the campus force for 11 years, had acted reasonably. The 76-page report by a Sacramento law firm and private investigator hired by UC Davis interviewed at least 27 police officers, including Pike, plus chancellor Linda PB Katehi and other university leaders.

"For reasons detailed in this report, we conclude that Lieutenant Pike's use of pepper spray was reasonable under the circumstances," it states. "The visual of Lieutenant Pike spraying the seated protesters is indeed disturbing. However, it also fails to tell other important parts of the story."

The report, dated March 1, said Pike repeatedly warned students who had gathered on the quad to protest against rising tuition costs that they would be sprayed if they did not disperse, and that "the police officers were fully encircled by protesters who had locked arms and would not let the officers exit".

It concluded that Pike voiced serious concerns about plans to remove the protesters and wanted the operation called off.

Asked by investigators about perceptions of his "nonchalant demeanor" as he sprayed the students, Pike replied: "I take my job very seriously. Any, any … any application of force … umm … for me it's not a … it's not a thrill ride … it's not 'woo hoo, this is gonna be fun, I get to hurt somebody.' That's not it."

His goal was "to gain compliance, so that I can get my troops out of there, my suspects out of there, and get a job done," he told investigators.

"So, if that's a critique, that I did my job in a manner-so-factly that I looked relaxed, well, then, maybe let's say that I'm relaxed because I'm professional."

Spraying was "appropriate" and "prevented further escalation" of the incident, he said. "Grappling [with students] would have escalated the force, whereas pepper spray took 'the fight out of them."

Other officers endorsed the view that they were under threat. Students have disputed that, saying the protest was peaceful.

A review of the report by a separate panel comprising a UC Davis police captain and the campus chief compliance officer was more critical of Pike.

In recommendations issued on April 2 it found some of Pike's actions "were not reasonable and prudent", that he lost "perspective on the operation as a whole" and showed "serious errors of judgment and deficiencies of leadership". It urged an "exonerated finding" and punishment ranging from demotion to a suspension of at least two weeks.

However, Carmichael, who took over the campus police earlier this year, rejected both reports. In a letter dated April 27, according to the Sacramento Bee, he accused Pike of ignoring orders to use minimum force and said he would be fired.