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

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The Self-Destruction of the 1 Percent

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Historically, the United States has enjoyed higher social mobility than Europe, and both left and right have identified this economic openness as an essential source of the nation’s economic vigor. But several recent studies have shown that in America today it is harder to escape the social class of your birth than it is in Europe. The Canadian economist Miles Corak has found that as income inequality increases, social mobility falls — a phenomenon Alan B. Krueger, the chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, has called the Great Gatsby Curve.

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“Glitch” wipes out 1,000 early votes in black FL neighborhood

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There was a story over at NBC’s The Grio three days ago noting that at one Florida polling location, in a heavily black neighborhood, the number of people who voted early was suddenly “revised” from 2,945 to 1,942 – that’s a 34% decrease.

At first, polling officials blamed it on a “computer glitch.” Uh huh. And what glitch would that be?

The local supervisor of elections (SOE) didn’t inspire a lot of hope when speaking about another, smaller, change to the early voting numbers at another polling location:

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Jury says journalist arrested while videotaping police is not guilty

A jury acquitted a Florida photojournalist who was arrested on January 31 while documenting the eviction of Occupy Miami protesters. The police accused Carlos Miller, author of a popular blog about the rights of photojournalists, of disobeying a lawful police order to clear the area. But another journalist testified he had been standing nearby without incident.

After Miller's January arrest, the police confiscated his camera and deleted some of his footage, including video documenting his encounter with the police. That may prove to be an expensive mistake. Miller was able to recover the footage, which proved helpful in winning his acquittal. He says his next step will be to file a lawsuit charging that the deletion of the footage violated his constitutional rights.

"I was questioning their orders. That's what I do"

The one-day trial occurred on Wednesday. In a Thursday interview, Miller told us that the prosecution accused him of "being antagonistic to police because I was questioning their orders." However, he said, "that's what I do. I know my rights. I know the law."

During the trial, Miller's attorney, Santiago Lavandera, admitted that Miller used some coarse language with the police officers at one point during the evening. But he stressed that it wasn't the job of a journalist to meekly obey police orders.

"When you’re a journalist, your job is to investigate," Lavandera told the jury. "Not to be led by your hand where the police want you to see, so they can hide what they don’t want you to see. As long as you are acting within the law, as Mr. Miller was, you have the right to demand and say, ‘no, I’m not moving, I have the right to be here. This is a public sidewalk, I have the right to be here.’"

Miller told us the jury deliberated for only about half an hour before returning a verdict of "not guilty." He said his case was helped by the footage he recovered from his camera. That footage, he told us, clearly showed that there were other journalists nearby when he was arrested.

One of them was Miami Herald reporter Glenn Garvin, who testified in Wednesday's trial. According to Miller, when Garvin saw Miller being arrested by Officer Nancy Perez, "he immediately thought he was going to get arrested, so he asked Nancy Perez if it was alright for him to be standing there and she said, yes, he was under no threat of getting arrested."

There's a history of confrontations between Miller and the police, and Miller said the police had singled him out for that reason. An e-mail disclosed during the trial showed the police had been monitoring Miller's Facebook page and had sent out a notice warning officers in charge of evicting the Occupy Miami protestors that Miller was planning to cover the process.

Constitutional challenge

Now that Miller doesn't have a jail sentence hanging over his head, he's planning to turn the tables on the Miami-Dade Police Department. He plans to file a lawsuit arguing the deletion of his footage by the police violated his constitutional rights.

According to Miller, such incidents are disturbingly common around the country. As camera-equipped cell phones have proliferated, ordinary Americans have increasingly used the devices to document how police officers do their jobs. And he said he heard of numerous incidents in which the police confiscate these devices and delete potentially embarrassing footage.

Miller told us most victims don't stand up for their rights in court. In many cases, people are happy simply to have the police drop the charges against them. But Miller isn't so easily cowed.

If Miller files his lawsuit, he will join a handful of other plaintiffs who have gone to court to vindicate their rights to record the activities of police officers. Judges in Massachusetts and Illinois have held it unconstitutional to arrest people for recording the activities of police. A Baltimore man has sued the police for deleting his footage from his cell phone. The Obama administration filed a brief in the case arguing that deleting such footage violates the Fourth Amendment.

Miller points out that if an ordinary citizen deleted footage relevant to an alleged crime, he could be charged with destruction of evidence, a felony. He believes that police officers should also be held accountable when they seize cameras and delete footage.

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15 States including Texas have filed a petition to secede from the United States

As of Saturday November 10, 2012, 15 States have petitioned the Obama Administration for withdrawal from the United States of America in order to create its own government.

States following this action include: Louisiana, Texas, Montana, North Dakota, Indiana, Mississippi, Kentucky, North Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, Colorado, Oregon and New York. These States have requested that the Obama Administration grant a peaceful withdrawal from the United States.

These citizen generated petitions were filed just days after the 2012 Presidential election.

Louisiana was the first State to file a petition a day after the election by a Michael E. from Slidell, Louisiana. Texas was the next State to follow by a Micah H. from Arlington, Texas.

The government allows one month from the day the petition is submitted to obtain 25,000 signatures in order for the Obama administration to consider the request.

The Texas petition reads as follows:

The US continues to suffer economic difficulties stemming from the federal government’s neglect to reform domestic and foreign spending. The citizens of the US suffer from blatant abuses of their rights such as the NDAA, the TSA, etc. Given that the state of Texas maintains a balanced budget and is the 15th largest economy in the world, it is practically feasible for Texas to withdraw from the union, and to do so would protect it’s citizens’ standard of living and re-secure their rights and liberties in accordance with the original ideas and beliefs of our founding fathers which are no longer being reflected by the federal government.

As of 12:46 am, Sunday, signatures obtained by Louisiana, 7,358; Texas, 3,771; Florida, 636; Georgia, 475; Alabama, 834; North Carolina, 792; Kentucky, 467; Mississippi, 475; Indiana, 449; North Dakota, 162; Montana, 440; Colorado, 324; Oregon, 328; New Jersey, 301 and New York, 169. Many more States are expected to follow.

A petition is not searchable at WhiteHouse.gov until 150 signatures have been obtained. It is the originator's responsibility to obtain these signatures.

The Texas petition can be reviewed and/or signed by clicking here.

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The Surveillance State Takes Friendly Fire

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Last March, in a speech he delivered at a gathering orchestrated by In-Q-Tel, the venture-capital incubator of the Central Intelligence Agency, David Petraeus, the Agency’s director, had occasion to ruminate on “the utter transparency of the digital world.” Contemporary spooks faced both challenges and opportunities in a universe of “big data,” but he had faith in the “diabolical creativity” of the wizards at Langley: “Our technical capabilities often exceed what you see in Tom Cruise movies.” In the digital environment of the twenty-first century, Petraeus announced, “We have to rethink our notions of identity and secrecy.”

For those of us who have been less bullish about the prospects of radical transparency, the serialized revelations that have unfolded since Friday—when Petraeus, who left the military as a four-star general, resigned from the C.I.A. because of an affair—are, to say the least, honeyed with irony. In the decade following September 11, 2001, the national-security establishment in this country devised a surveillance apparatus of genuinely diabolical creativity—a cross-hatch of legal and technical innovations that (in theory, at any rate) could furnish law enforcement and intelligence with a high-definition early-warning system on potential terror events. What it’s delivered, instead, is the tawdry, dismaying, and wildly entertaining spectacle that ensues when the national-security establishment inadvertently turns that surveillance apparatus on itself.

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But our spymasters should give some thought as well to how it feels to be thoroughly and mercilessly laid bare at the hands of a legal and technological surveillance apparatus that is their own creation.

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Walmart hit by walk-outs in build-up to 'Black Friday' disruptions

Workers plan week of action ahead of major shopping day in response to perceived greed from the retail giant

Strikes and protests aimed at disrupting the retail giant Walmart during next week's Black Friday sales events began on Thursday with walk-outs at a number of stores and the promise of more actions in the lead-up to what is traditionally the busiest shopping day of the year.

The news comes amid controversy about plans by Walmart and other large chains to open on Thanksgiving evening, kicking off Black Friday a day early. It also comes as another strike has hit part of Walmart's warehouse supply chain in southern California.

At least 30 workers from six different Seattle-area Walmarts have gone on strike, organisers and Walmart staff from the OUR Walmart group said. The group, which is not a union but has close ties with the labour movement, is seeking to protest what it says is low pay, too few hours and retaliation by managers against workers who speak out.

Seattle Walmart worker Sara Gilbert said she had taken the decision to go on strike to protest the fact that she could only make around $14,000 dollars a year. Despite working as a customer service manager, she said, her family remained reliant on food stamps and other benefits. "I work full time at the richest company in the world," she said.

The Seattle strike is aimed at kickstarting a series of protests in the run-up to Black Friday, when more than a thousand separate demonstrations ranging from walk-outs to leafleting to flash mobs are planned. So far they are set to hit Walmart stores in Illinois, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Washington DC.

But organisers say they expect it eventually to be country-wide. "You are going to see unprecedented activity starting now and going into the holiday season. This is going to continue this year and next year," said Dan Schlademan, director of the union-backed Making Change at Walmart group which is helping organise the effort.

Members of OUR Walmart are demanding better wages, better access to benefits and an end to what they say is retaliating against their members who protest or organise. Last month the group helped organise one of the biggest sets of protests to ever hit the retailer when workers held strikes at more than 12 different stores, earning national headlines across the US.

Walmart has said that the complaints of OUR Walmart members represent only a tiny fraction of its huge workforce of 1.3 million people. "There have been a very small number of associates raising concerns about their jobs," said Walmart spokesman Steve Restivo. "When our associates bring forward concerns, we listen. Associates have direct lines of communication with their management team and we work to understand their concerns," he added.

But the Black Friday protests are only one of several areas of controversy to hit Walmart in recent months. The company has also been struck by a series of strikes and protests in its warehouse supply chain, some of which is outsourced to third party logistics firms and staffing agencies.

Those outside companies have been accused by some campaigners of poor safety standards, meagre wages and also retaliating against workers who complain. A group of warehouse workers at a Walmart supply chain warehouse in southern California have also launched a strike action this week following a previous protest in September.

Some 30 workers held a picket outside a huge warehouse in Mira Loma, California, saying that previous strikers had been sacked or had their hours reduced. Javier Rodriguez, a forklift driver at the facility, said managers had drastically cut his hours after the last protest. "This is the form of retaliation that they use for me. It makes it hard to earn enough to feed my family and run my car," he said.

The strike on Thursday saw six supporters of the protest, including a pastor, arrested after sitting down in the middle of a road in front of the warehouse.

"This isn't just for warehouse workers. Your efforts benefit all working people," Reverand Eugene Boutilier told a group of supporters before being handcufffed by local police.

The warehouse is run by logistics giant NFI but supplies goods only to Walmart. An NFI spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment but the firm has said previously that it adheres to all legal labour standards.

Meanwhile in Illinois, workers at another Walmart supply chain warehouse near the small town of Elwood filed charges to a state labour relations board alleging unfair practises by four different firms involved in the running and staffing of the warehouse. They also relate to claims of retaliation against workers who had previously gone on strike to protest an alleged practise of "wage theft" where employees are not paid for all the time they work.

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Walmart Strike Memo Reveals Confidential Management Plans

Walmart launched a large-scale response this week to a series of unprecedented labor strikes, according to a confidential document obtained by The Huffington Post.

The seven-page internal memo, issued Oct. 8, is intended for salaried employees only, and contains instructions on how to respond to strikes by hourly workers that spread to 28 Walmart stores in 12 cities earlier this week. The strikes were the first by Walmart retail employees in the company’s 50-year history.

The memo makes clear that Walmart, the world's largest private employer, views the labor protests as a serious attack, a message that runs contrary to the company's public comments that the strikes are mere "publicity stunts," as Walmart's vice president of communications David Tovar told The Huffington Post Tuesday.

"As you know,” the memo opens, “activists or union organizers have been trying for years to stop our Company’s growth and to damage our relationship with our customers and members. One of the activists’ or union organizers’ tactics is to try to disrupt the business by urging our associates to participate in a walkout or other form of work stoppage.”

The majority of the memo is aimed at instructing managers not to violate workers' legal right to engage in concerted activity, or non-union labor organizing. Managers are directed not to “discipline” employees who engage in walkouts, sit-ins or sick-outs.

Legal experts said the confidential memo shows an unprecedented level of caution from a company that has taken harsh stances towards employee attempts to organize in the past.

“Walmart probably has in mind that the Obama NLRB [National Labor Relations Board] often sides with unions over management,” said Lance Compa, a labor law professor at Cornell University’s School of Industrial Relations in Ithaca, N.Y. “So they’re being extremely cautious.”

The memo is peppered with Walmart management jargon, offering a window into the secretive corporate culture built by founder Sam Walton. Managers are reminded over and over of the acronym TIPS (Threaten Intimidate Promise Spy) when dealing with potential labor organizing by hourly-wage "associates." The widely used human resources term serves to remind managers that they cannot, by law, threaten or intimidate workers who organize, promise them benefits if they stop organizing, or spy on their activities.

What managers can legally do, however, is what Walmart calls FOE -- offer workers Facts, Opinions, and Personal Experiences about labor organizing. Walmart offers a sample opinion that says, "I don't think a walkout is a good way to resolve problems or issues." According to Compa, this is a boilerplate tactic for companies looking to discourage unionizing without breaking the law.

The historic retail worker strikes began last Friday in Los Angeles, when 60-some people walked off work, and they quickly spread across the country. Earlier in September, workers at warehouses owned by Walmart in Illinois and California also went on strike.

Striking workers are demanding that Walmart end retaliatory practices against employees who attempt to organize by Nov. 23, Black Friday. If not, they will strike again on the biggest shopping day of the year, according to Colby Harris, a Walmart worker from Dallas, who participated in Tuesday’s strike.

Walmart spokesman Dan Fogleman said the strikes were largely publicity stunts. "We've seen the unions hold these made for TV events outside our stores for about ten years now," he told HuffPost, "and they want the publicity to help further their political and financial agendas. There is a very small number of associates raising these concerns, and they don't represent the views of the vast majority of our 1.3 million associates."

According to Compa, the memo reflects Walmart's concern over the 20-some charges of unfair labor practices that Walmart workers filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) over the past 8 weeks in concurrence with the strikes.

The charges include dozens of allegations from employees who claim they were subjected to harassment, cut hours and other disciplinary actions when Walmart higher-ups learned that they supported OUR Walmart, the United Food and Commercial Workers-backed worker group that organized the recent strikes. If the NLRB sides with the workers, Walmart may eventually be forced to pay a huge settlement in back pay, the specific amount of which would vary for each individual case.

Fogleman said the company has "very strict policies against retaliation. If an associate feels that they have been retaliated against, we want to know that. That allows us the opportunity to look into it and take appropriate action."

Politics may also play a role in the company's newfound caution. Top positions at the NLRB are appointed by the president, and Democrats have traditionally been more sympathetic to labor organizers.

Notably, the leaked memo lacks many of Walmart’s famously tough labor policies.

In the past, internal Walmart documents instructed managers to remind employees that they could be permanently replaced if they went on strike, as well as provided talking points on the false guarantees unions make to workers, according to a 2007 report by Human Rights Watch that examined 292 NLRB charges against Walmart. The new document bears no mention of replacing employees.

At one point, Walmart is even more cautious than the law requires. The document does not instruct managers to evict employees conducting a sit-in on company property, as is within their legal right, according to Compa, who also serves as a consultant to Human Rights Watch.

Still, a few of the strategies that made Walmart famous as a union-buster rear their heads in the document. Tacked onto the end of the memo is a definition of the term, “Coaching By Walking Around” (CBWA), or “when managers walk through their facility or department everyday just to visit with associates,” as Walmart explains it. While it may sound benign, the verb "to coach" in Walmart lexicon also means to discipline employees. According to workers interviewed by Human Rights Watch, Walmart managers have used CBWA as a surveillance tactic to monitor and deter labor organizers.

Have you worked at Walmart? The Huffington Post wants to know about your experience. Email us. Information will remain confidential.

Fogleman, the Walmart spokesman, defended the CBWA, saying that management uses it as a tool to "remain engaged with everyone working for them and with environment. It helps foster the channels of open dialogue that set us apart as an employer."

It remains to be seen whether the new directives will have a long-term impact on Walmart managers. "I think it's one thing to get a piece of paper, but in practice that's not what people have experienced in these stores," said Sarita Gupta, executive director of Jobs with Justice, a nonprofit workers rights group. Gupta cautions that one document is unlikely to alter five decades of anti-union corporate culture. “What I worry about is that our experience with Walmart management is they say they'll respect workers, and then their actions tell a different story."

Walmart also could have ulterior motives for considering workers rights, such as covering itself in upcoming Unfair Labor Practice proceedings. “Walmart could say, in effect, 'Look, it says right here, we told our supervisors ‘don’t retaliate’ –- so we must be innocent,” said Compa, the law professor. Compa noted that this is a possible motivation for Walmart to have put such “extremely circumspect” manager instructions down on paper at a time like this.

For Dan Schlademan, director of the UFCW’s Making Change at Walmart campaign, the motives of the memo are less important than its overall effect on workers. "I've been doing this work for 20 years, and I've never seen a document like this.”

"What's important about this piece of paper is that it solidifies what people saw for the first time during the strikes, which is that Walmart employees were able to walk out in protest, and the next day were able to return to work. For many of them, that was amazing to see."

SEE THE WALMART DOCUMENT HERE.

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Walmart strikes result in arrests as store claims Black Friday sales success

Nine protesters detained in California as protest group co-ordinates action across US on busiest shopping day

Police arrested nine people outside a California Walmart late on Friday, at a protest that was part of a nationwide series of walk-outs and demonstrations against labour conditions at the retail giant. The protests were held to mark Black Friday, the busiest shopping day in the American calendar. Organisers claimed that at least 1,000 actions took place across 46 states.

The biggest protest seemed to be in Paramount, California, where more than 1,500 people gathered in the streets to chant protest songs in opposition to what they say are low wages that keep Walmart workers in poverty. Organisers have also complained of retaliation by the company against people who speak out.

The nine people arrested refused to leave the street and were peacefully detained, said Captain Mike Parker of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Three of those arrested were striking Walmart workers, said OUR Walmart, which is organising the protests and is backed by the United Food and Commercial Workers' Union. The others were local community supporters.

Protests were staged all over the country and attracted some high-profile supporters. In Florida, congressman Alan Grayson joined a picket line, as did congressman George Miller in California. Demonstrations hit Walmart outlets in major cities across America.

In recent months the company has also been hit by strikes and protests in its US-based supply chain in Southern California and Illinois, where much work is outsourced to third parties which are accused of paying low wages and operating in unsafe conditions.

Despite the unrest, Walmart said it had experienced its best Black Friday ever and that the majority of protesters were not Walmart workers. Certainly the protests did not disrupt trade at the nation's Walmart stores when they controversially opened late on the Thanksgiving holiday itself, or in the early hours of Friday morning. There were the usual scenes of long lines, crowded checkouts and shoving and pushing as shoppers battled to snap up bargain buys.

"We had very safe and successful Black Friday events at our stores across the country and heard overwhelmingly positive feedback from our customers," said Bill Simon, Walmart's US president and chief executive officer.

Protesters vowed to keep the protests going into the holiday season. Dan Schlademan, director at lobby group Making Change at Walmart, said: "This has been an amazing moment but we are just at the starting point of what we are doing."

Mary Pat Tifft, an OUR Walmart member and 24-year associate who led a protest on Thursday evening in Kenosha, Wisconsin, said: "For Walmart associates this has been the best Black Friday ever. We stood together for respect across the country."

Others agreed. "Our voices are being heard," said Colby Harris, an OUR Walmart member and three-year associate who walked off the job in Lancaster, Texas, on Thursday evening. "And thousands of people in our cities and towns and all across the country are joining our calls for change at Walmart. We are overwhelmed by the support and proud of what we've achieved so quickly and about where we are headed."

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Oakland officials sued by war veteran who alleges neglect after Occupy arrest

Kayvan Sabeghi says he was left in a jail cell with a ruptured spleen for 18 hours after being beaten by police at Occupy rally

A war veteran who claims he was falsely arrested, beaten, and almost died due to neglect in an Oakland prison has launched legal action against the jail, claiming his pleas for help were ignored.

Kayvan Sabeghi, 33, was arrested during an Occupy rally in Oakland, California, in November last year. Video footage shows him being beaten with batons and he suffered a lacerated spleen which his attorney Dan Siegel says almost killed him after he was left without treatment for 18 hours in prison.

Siegel estimated damages in the case will be upwards of $1m but said his main aim was to change the practices at the jail. "The greater concern that he has is that there be some changes at the jail. It's a big problem that the county has privatised health services in a public jail and that the company that's doing it is more concerned about making money than providing quality care."

A private company, Corizon, is hired by the prison authorities to take care of the medical needs of prisoners at Glenn Dyer. Corizon is named as one of the defendants in the suit, along with the county of Alameda, Sheriff Gregory Ahern and an officer at the county sheriff's office.

On arrival at the prison Sabeghi told medical officers that he had been beaten by police and he offered to show them his injuries.

Corizon staff are accused of refusing to look at Sabeghi's injuries.

The suit claims that his condition deteriorated and that despite showing severe distress and vomiting, Sabeghi did not receive treatment for 18 hours and was mocked by prison guards who dismissed his suffering as heroin withdrawal symptoms. It further claims that one officer filmed Sabeghi as he lay on the floor in agony and vomiting.

By the time his friends posted his bail, at 2pm the following day, he was so ill he could not lift himself from the concrete floor of his cell. Four hours later his friends came to the prison to get him out and an ambulance was called.

"There are a lot of people taken to jail who have substantial medical problems," said Siegel. "There are a lot of people with drug and alcohol problems and they need to be adequately cared for … When you have guards who ridicule people with health problems, that's a setup for failure. Maybe there are some who exaggerate their symptoms but I think they should all be checked out and if someone continues to complain, they should be given the benefit of the doubt. At least get a doctor."

The suit further claims that a medical staffer did take Sabeghi's blood pressure but reported, wrongly, that he was a diabetic and alcoholic and sought no further treatment for him.

But the authorities in Oakland have rejected the claims. Sgt JD Nelson, a spokesman for the sheriff's office, denied any mistreatment and insisted video footage would show officers promptly assisting Sabeghi and arranging an examination. "As his condition worsened, we got an ambulance there," Nelson said.

Yet Siegel responded that it was clear to other prisoners that Sabeghi was in genuine distress and they asked guards to get help but were ignored.

He added: "Contrary to what the sheriff department's spokesperson said, it was not the case that they responded with any urgency. They only took it seriously when his friends bailed him out and he was unable to leave.

"He came close to dying. His doctors said so. He had a ruptured spleen and he was bleeding internally, which is why he got progressively weaker."

Sabeghi served tours as a ranger in Afghanistan and Iraq and is no longer in the army. On his return to civilian life he ran a bar in Oakland for a time but has since given that up.

He has said he was not participating in the Occupy rally the day he was arrested, but merely trying to get home when he was confronted by police in riot gear. When he refused to change direction he was beaten.

Video footage posted on YouTube shows him receiving a number of blows with police batons before being arrested. He was not charged with any crime.

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FBI Spy files says Occupy wall street protesters are Terrorist

With no surprise, Anonymous has come out with yet another leak exposing FBI's bligrint behavior twards amarican citizins and there civl liberties. A leak involving "FBI's Spy files" was tweeted today by "@AnonymousIRC" a popular twitter user account with over 285 thousand followers. FBI is aperently taking an interest in finding ways to suppress citizens' freedom and liberties by conducting secret investigations on large numbers of people with little to no grounds of suspicion other then the petty excuse like using big words such as suspected "Terrorist" activity as a means to trample on civle rights.

For those of you who don't know or may have been sleeping under a rock, Occupy Wall Street (OWS) is the name given to a protest movement that began on September 17, 2011 in Zuccotti Park, located in New York City's Wall Street financial district.

In the text the "FBI Spy files" stated:

"Referencing the demonstrations of the 2011 Arab Spring events, the Day of Rage' desires to mimic the revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests which have occurred in the Arab world. The overall goal of the Day of Rage' protests is to conduct unorganized protests in major metropolitan areas with special attention on banking and financial institutions. [...] While Day of
Rage' does not condone the use of violence during the events, their website provides activists with information and training on "direct action, civil disobedience, how to deal with violence, and jailhouse solidarity", suggesting that violence and/or illegal activity is expected by event organizers."

I love how they word this to slant the investigations there way. Makes me mad and laugh at the same time. For example they associated "2011 Arab Spring events" with "revolutionary wave." Essentially calling the protesters terrorist. When in they are doing what our founding fathers would have done in the face of debt slavery.

But wait it gets better the phrase "information and training on "direct action, civil disobedience" is reference to "violence and/or illegal activity."

You can't make this stuff up.

The definition of "Civil Disobedience" is:

"The refusal to comply with certain laws or to pay taxes and fines, as a peaceful form of political protest."

I love how the FBI totally twisted and manipulated this whole investigation like they where trying to satisfy the status quo. According to the FBI's logic they can do what ever they want. Even if it means disregarding citizens right to privacy all in the name of "National Security" and fending off the evil "terrorist" boogeyman.

As of October of 2011 A request was filed and granted on behalf of the "Freedom of information act" to show that the FBI was investigating Occupy Wall Street protesters posted on MuckRock News.

While Terrorism in the United States can be a reality like the 9/11 incident, the sad reality is our government openly supports Terrorism, as admitted buy Obama recently. The United States government is creating a blow back and using fear as a weapon to expand social and political influence, just like al Qaeda terrorist, whom Obama now openly supports. Because of the blow back caused by the United States over "nation building" our government has made its country a target to major terrorist groups it has created. The sad part is, the United States created these monsters. The US and its western allies give them money to create Terrorism and destabilization in regions such as Syria and libya. Then, after the terrorist are finished being 1984 pawns, the United Sates government fights them in some kind of twisted hero vs villain game while using main stream news to make there actions look noble and just .

The united states government seems to be more invested in preventative crime rather then the right to due process. Currently, Protesters are being targeted as "Urban Terrorist" and many fear being harassed by the united states government, who is supposed to be protecting the peoples' constitution.

I like how the United Sates founding father, Benjamin Franken, phrased it when he said:

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."

Maybe next we will see law enforcement raiding little girls lemonade stands. Oh wait, this already happened. Oh well, at least this story further exemplifies how tyrannical this government really is. Good job big government, democracy could not be more safe with out you.

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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

It was more sophisticated than we had imagined: new documents show that the violent crackdown on Occupy last fall – so mystifying at the time – 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 –was 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 – reproduced here in an easily searchable format – 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 – 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 – by whom? Where? – 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).

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FBI Occupy Wall Street Memos Skip Infiltration Of Occupy Cleveland

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Shaquille Azir, ex-con, bank robber, forger, passer of bad checks, and FBI informant, first visited Occupy Cleveland the night the activists were evicted from their camp. The young men were homeless, looking for a cause and a paycheck. At best they were failed gutter punks.

It took months of convincing by Azir to get the plot in motion. After the camp folded, Azir gave the penniless Occupy activists construction jobs, and plied them with beer while they worked. He sent them home, according to a Rolling Stone magazine account, with more beer, weed and prescription drugs. At first, the activists rebuffed Azir's arms-dealer friend, who was an FBI agent. Azir continued to press them.

When the Occupiers waffled, Azir pushed back. Eventually, Stevens and the others gave in. "They were kind of hooked into this guy," Stevens' attorney, Terry Gilbert, told HuffPost. "When Occupy disbanded, it took a chunk of meaning out of their lives -- to the point where they were kind of dangling out there with nothing to do. They were disaffected. ... One day it's all over and it's like where do I go now. That's when they started really working on these kids -- the FBI."

After the activists attempted to set off the fake bombs, agents swooped in on April 30. Four of the five defendants, including Stevens, pleaded guilty. The fifth defendant's case has been delayed for a psychological evaluation.

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The paranoia of the superrich and superpowerful

_{[This piece is adapted from "Uprisings", a chapter in Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to US Empire, Noam Chomsky's new interview book with David Barsamian (with thanks to the publisher, Metropolitan Books). The questions are Barsamian's, the answers Chomsky's.]}

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The main founder of contemporary IR [international relations] theory, Hans Morgenthau, was really quite a decent person, one of the very few political scientists and international affairs specialists to criticise the Vietnam War on moral, not tactical, grounds. Very rare.

He wrote a book called The Purpose of American Politics. You already know what's coming. Other countries don't have purposes. The purpose of America, on the other hand, is "transcendent": to bring freedom and justice to the rest of the world. But he's a good scholar, like Carothers. So he went through the record. He said, when you study the record, it looks as if the United States hasn't lived up to its transcendent purpose.

But then he says, to criticise our transcendent purpose "is to fall into the error of atheism, which denies the validity of religion on similar grounds" - which is a good comparison. It's a deeply entrenched religious belief. It's so deep that it's going to be hard to disentangle it. And if anyone questions that, it leads to near hysteria and often to charges of anti-Americanism or "hating America" - interesting concepts that don't exist in democratic societies, only in totalitarian societies and here, where they're just taken for granted.

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KitOConnell twitterde op zondag 03-02-2013 om 21:32:33 Our zine library at Austin City Hall. Come share some revolutionary literature. #oatx #ows #f3 #OccupyAustin http://t.co/9ExlJ16u reageer retweet

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10 Indications The United States Is A Dictatorship

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For a people to be free, they must first be honest with themselves, their government, and the world at large. History is filled with stories of free nations that fell under the spell cast by their governments who exploited the threat of terror.

In fact, numerous presidents in American history already have used various specific threats to sidestep their Constitutional restraints. Today we are entering a nebulous world where our "enemy" cannot be defined, has no particular allegiance to one country, and is able to adopt new leaders at will. Rather than encourage a sense of resilience and independence in its citizens, America has chosen to amplify the terror threat in order to concentrate power in the hands of the State. The very first signpost on this historically familiar road to tyranny is an atmosphere of hate, suspicion, and vindictiveness. It first begins as an outwardly directed aggression and then rather abruptly turns inward upon itself.

The good news is that freedom is won and lost in our hearts and minds. It is for this reason that we must state the obvious: we have clearly passed through the first "atmospheric" stage of approaching dictatorship, and have now entered the second -- the open behavior of a dictatorship in the United States.

It will never be announced on the evening news, and it is not likely to continue under an authoritarian leader in the mold of a Stalin, Hitler, or Mao. Likewise, it is not to say that Barack Obama is the first dictator of The United States, but rather is part of a continued expansion of executive power that is now so great that by all measures America can no longer be called a Land of the Free ruled by We the People. We stand no chance of reversing this forced march by false democracy until we understand where we are headed, who is leading us there, and for what purpose.

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Occupy Denied Day In Court

It took more than a year for Suffolk County prosecutors to come to their senses. With Nemo bearing down on New England and the media buried in storm coverage, the DA's office quietly dropped all charges against more than two dozen Occupy Boston protesters, whose cases — as the Phoenix has previously reported — have been kicked through a legal labyrinth, their right to a speedy trial denied.

These 27 cases were the final remnants of the mass arrests that took place during separate incidents in Dewey Square and on the adjoining Rose Kennedy Greenway in late 2011. Over 100 of the demonstrators took plea deals; but the rest, refusing to concede guilt, chose to fight their cases — five of which were scheduled to commence at trial this month. "So why," asked a headline on the Occupy Boston Radio blog, "aren't we celebrating?"

Put simply, it could have been infinitely more fruitful for Occupiers to proceed in court. Through the discovery process and via other legal maneuvers, their National Lawyers Guild (NLG) attorneys had begun to pry open the Pandora's box of authoritative shenanigans that have enshrouded these charges since day one. At trial, the city would have likely been made to produce everything from surveillance videos that show police misconduct to evidence of deliberate press suppression. With the Occupy charges vacated, that white whale may now be impossible to catch.

In a press release issued hours after prosecutors absolved the Hub Occupiers, NLG-Massachusetts Executive Director Urszula Masny-Latos explained the bittersweetness of what she describes as an "unscheduled, unilateral action." "Defendants and their NLG lawyers spent months working to prepare a case that could potentially embarrass the City, and set valuable precedent that would reaffirm the constitutional rights of free speech and assembly," wrote Masny-Latos. "[Suffolk County prosecutors] have employed yet another way to trample upon those who voice dissent."

The NLG has an admittedly radical agenda, and had requested loads of documents and cop recordings from the Greenway showdowns. But the prosecution of the Occupiers had reeked of political pugilism from the start; the NLG was just making lemonade. There's also the issue of how plausible these charges ever were — some protesters were slapped with "disturbing the peace" for occupying public space; others, all of them male, were cited for "resisting arrest." Masny-Latos says the NLG is "exploring various legal options" to keep these Occupy cases in the court system; meanwhile, after 14 months of stalling proceedings and dodging full compliance on discovery, the DA's office — at least in its own mind — has wiped its hands of this mess.

Reached by the Phoenix, DA spokesman Jake Wark said that the Occupy Boston cases are unprecedented — that he can't think of a comparable trespassing case, with multiple defendants, ever going to trial. Wark also told the Globe that advancing the prosecution would consume even more valuable resources that could be used to litigate violent crime — this in the wake of so much frustrating pre-trial rigmarole, and despite the fact that Suffolk could have made this move a year ago. Whatever their official reasoning might be, though, it's obvious that the DA's office understands the ridiculousness of the situation, and as such we can count these dismissals as an admission that the Occupy Boston defendants shouldn't have faced heat in the first place. But with that small win aside, after so much time and tedium, the DA's sketchy, sudden gesture is hardly consolation for denying us a First Amendment legal precedent, or for depriving us of whatever dirt the NLG was sure to dredge up at trial.

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Jury Finds Occupy Wall Street Protester Innocent After Video Contradicts Police Testimony [Updated: VIDEO]

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In the first jury trial stemming from an Occupy Wall Street protest, Michael Premo was found innocent of all charges yesterday after his lawyers presented video evidence directly contradicting the version of events offered by police and prosecutors.

Premo, an activist and community organizer who has in recent months been a central figure in the efforts of Occupy Sandy, was one of many hundred people who took part in a demonstration in Lower Manhattan on December 17 of 2011, when some protesters broke into a vacant lot in Duarte Square in an attempt to start a new occupation.

After police broke up the action in Duarte Square, hundreds of protesters marched north,
playing a game of cat and mouse with police on foot and on scooters, who tried to slow and divide the column of marchers. At 29th Street near Seventh Avenue, police finally managed to trap a large number of marchers, kettling them from both sides of the block with bright orange plastic netting. After holding the crowd in the nets for some time, a few people managed to escape, and police rushed in to the crowd with their hands up. In the commotion, Premo fell to the ground and attempted to crawl out of the scrum. (Covering the march, I was also kettled on this block for a time, though I only witnessed Premo's arrest from a distance.)

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Even more importantly, the Democracy Now video also flipped the police version of events on its head. Far from showing Premo tackling a police officer, it shows cops tackling him as he attempted to get back on his feet.

After watching the video, the jury deliberated for several hours before returning a verdict of not guilty on all counts.

This isn't the first time someone arrested during an Occupy Wall Street march has gone free after video evidence undercut prosecutors storyline and sworn police testimony. Photography student Alexander Arbuckle was acquitted in May after a livestreamer's footage showed police weren't telling the truth about his arrest.

Speaking after yesterday's verdict, Maurus said the case highlighted the significance of having the press, livestreamers and professional video journalists, present during demonstrations.

"That was really important," Maurus said. "Without that evidence, this would have been a very different case. There are many, many cases that don't have so much video evidence to challenge the police version of events, but in this case, we did."

For Premo, being found innocent affirms something even more fundamental:

"The biggest thing for me coming out of this," he told the Voice, "is not being discouraged by the attempts of New York City to quell dissent and prevent us from expressing our constitutional rights."

On Twitter and Facebook, Premo celebrated his not-guilty verdict by quoting the lawyer Elizabeth Fink: "There is no justice in the American justice system, but you can sometimes find it in a jury."

Update: Here's the video shot by Jon Gerberg, then freelancing for Democracy Now, that was central to Premo's acquittal:

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Latest 'Occupy' Movement Targets Goldman Sachs

From the people that brought you Occupy Wall Street, comes a new chapter in American financial follies. This one targets Goldman Sachs in particular.

The Vancouver-based magazine Adbusters put out an email alert to their followers on Thursday announcing the start of what they defined as a “game” to shut down Goldman offices worldwide. “Points will be awarded for speed, spectacle, courage, and innovation,” the Adbusters email said.

The target: three Goldman offices in Canada and four in the United Kingdom; 8 in China; two in Madrid and 19 scattered across the United States.

The Occupy Wall Street movement began in 2011. Its creator, Kalle Lasn, told Forbes in an interview in October that he was inspired by Arab Spring protesters to do something similar in the U.S.

Robert Greenwald's "Koch Brothers Exposed" (Full)

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“Koch Brothers Exposed”

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Koch Brothers Exposed is a hard-hitting investigation of the 1% at its very worst. This full-length documentary film on Charles and David Koch—two of the world’s richest and most powerful men—is the latest from acclaimed director Robert Greenwald (Wal-Mart: the High Cost of Low Price, Outfoxed, Rethink Afghanistan). The billionaire brothers bankroll a vast network of organizations that work to undermine the interests of the 99% on issues ranging from Social Security to the environment to civil rights. This film uncovers the Kochs’ corruption—and points the way to how Americans can reclaim their democracy.

What can you do to fight back? Get the film. Host a screening. Tell your friends. Get the Koch brothers out of the shadows and into the spotlight.

10 Shocking Facts on the Kochs

Koch Industries, which the brothers own, is one of the top ten polluters in the United States — which perhaps explains why the Kochs have given $60 million to climate denial groups between 1997 and 2010.

The Kochs are the oil and gas industry’s biggest donors to the congressional committee with oversight of the hazardous Keystone XL oil pipeline. They and their employees gave more than $300,000 to members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in 2010 alone.

From 1998-2008, Koch-controlled foundations gave more than $196 million to organizations that favor polices that would financially enrich the two brothers. In addition, Koch Industries spent $50 million on lobbying and some $8 million in PAC contributions.

The Koch fortune has its origins in engineering contracts with Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union.

The Kochs are suing to take over the Cato Institute, which has accused the Kochs of attempting to destroy the group’s identity as an independent, libertarian think and align it more closely with a partisan agenda.

A Huffington Post source who was at a three-day retreat of conservative billionaires said the Koch brothers pledged to donate $60 million to defeat President Obama in 2012 and produce pledges of $40 million more from others at the retreat.

Since 2000, the Kochs have collected almost $100 million in government contracts, mostly from the Department of Defense.

Koch Industries has an annual production capacity of 2.2 billion pounds of the carcinogen formaldehyde. The company has worked to keep it from being classified as a carcinogen even though David Koch is a prostate cancer survivor.

The Koch brothers’ combined fortune of roughly $50 billion is exceeded only by that of Bill Gates in the United States.

The Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs accused Koch Oil of scheming to steal $31 million of crude oil from Native Americans. Although the company claimed it was accidental, a former executive in this operation said Charles Koch had known about it and had responded to the overages by saying, “I want my fair share, and that’s all of it.”

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No charges for NYPD cops filmed punching, pepper-spraying Occupy protesters

Two New York City Police officers will not face charges after the Manhattan District Attorney decided that widely circulated videos of them punching and pepper-spraying protesters amounted to insufficient evidence that they had done so.

Anthony Bologna, the now-infamous NYPD inspector, was filmed in September 2011 spraying a group of female Occupy Wall Street protestors who had already been isolated and immobilized by a screen held by other officers. The video, which received well over a million views online and was skewered on late night television, became emblematic of the brutality endured by OWS demonstrators who found themselves on the receiving end of aggressive police tactics.

In the same statement, quietly issued on the Friday that came at the end of the heavy news week that included the Boston Marathon bombings, the District Attorney’s Office announced no charges would be filed against Deputy Inspector Johnny Cardonna. Cardonna was filmed in October 2011 punching protestor Felix Rivera-Pitra seemingly without provocation.

“The District Attorney’s Office has concluded, after a thorough investigation, that we cannot prove these allegations criminally beyond a reasonable doubt,” said Erin M. Duggan, the chief spokeswoman for District Attorney Cy Vance. “We have informed the Police Department, the complainants, and the City of our decision.”

Cardonna was not disciplined by the NYPD for his actions, while Bologna was stripped of 10 vacation days and reassigned to a post on Staten Island. Bologna is also being sued in a civil court by the nonviolent women he pepper-sprayed, where he’ll be represented by city lawyers, according to DNA Info.

“It was clear from the evidence that their actions were not justified,” a “source with knowledge of the prosecutor’s decision” told Gothamist. “These two were on-duty members of law enforcement, reacting during a chaotic scene that included much more than the short video clips that most people have seen.

Shortly after the second incident the NYPD claimed that Rivera-Pitra had tried to elbow Cardonna before the police officer lunged at him. Rivera-Pitra, whose earring was torn off in the assault, later came forward to advise Cardonna to get tested for HIV.

While some media outlets have implied that the DA’s refusal to pursue both officers indicates professional favoritism, law experts said the decision could be based on the difficulty of prosecuting cops in American courts. Former Manhattan prosecutor Thomas J. Curran, speaking to The New York Times, admitted that it’s difficult for prosecutors to convict police personnel because using force is “part of their job.”

“The use of force would have to be a complete departure from any legitimate police activity,” said Curran, who now practices as a defense lawyer. “You’d have to show an intent to assault, and you have to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt, as opposed to using force as allowed pursuant to police activity. It’s very difficult to do.”

But that refusal to hold police accountable is what still surprised Kaylee Dedrick nearly two years after she was pepper-sprayed by Inspector Bologna. Dedrick’s lawyer told the Times that the DA’s decision was “cowardly and despicable.”

“Part of me expected that he wouldn’t be prosecuted, but I’m still pretty shocked, with all the evidence against him,” Dedrick said.

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AP boss condemns US government for 'unconstitutional' phone seizures | World news | guardian.co.uk

Gary Pruitt tells CBS Justice Department grab sends message that 'if you talk to the press, we are going to go after you'


The Obama administration's decision to seize phone records from the Associated Press was "unconstitutional" and sends a message that "if you talk to the press, we are going to go after you", the news agency's boss Gary Pruitt said Sunday.

AP revealed last week that the Justice Department had obtained two months' worth of phone records of calls made by reporters and editors without informing the organisation in advance. The move was an apparent effort by US officials to identify the source of a story about the CIA foiling an alleged terrorist plot by an al Qaida terrorist affiliate in Yemen.

News of the seizure has caused a political firestorm and comes amid a widening scandal into the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of Tea Party groups over their tax exemptions and the White House's handling of the Benghazi terrorist attack last year.

Speaking on CBS's Face the Nation, Pruitt, AP's president and chief executive officer, said the government's seizure of the phone records was "unconstitutional" and was already clearly harming the press's ability to do its job.

"We don't question their right to conduct these sort of investigations. We just think they went about it the wrong way. So sweeping, so secretly, so abusively and harassingly and over-broad that it constitutes, that it is, an unconstitutional act," he said.

"We are already seeing some impact. Already officials that would normally talk to us and people we talk to in the normal course of newsgathering are already saying to us that they are a little reluctant to talk to us. They fear that they will be monitored by the government. We are already seeing that. It's not hypothetical," said Pruitt.

The government investigation was seemingly triggered by an AP exclusive about a joint US-Saudi spy operation that had foiled a plot involving an improved version of the "underwear" bomb that failed to detonate properly on a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day 2009. AP agreed to delay publication after officials cited national security concerns.

Pruitt said he would normally expect dialogue with government officials ahead of any decision to ask for or demand records relating to the news organisation's activities. Those requests would usually be subject to negotiation and if an agreement could not be reached, they would be put before a judge, he said.

In this case, the Justice Department has claimed it made every reasonable effort to obtain the information through alternative means, as is required by law. "Because we value the freedom of the press, we are always careful and deliberative in seeking to strike the right balance between the public interest in the free flow of information and the public interest in the fair and effective administration of our criminal laws," it said in a statement.

Pruitt said he had not received any explanation as to why AP had not been consulted ahead of the seizure. "I really do not know what their motive is. I know what the message being sent is, it's that if you talk to the press, we are going to go after you," he said.

Pruitt said the Justice Department had acted "as judge jury and executioner, in secret".

If the government restricts the "news gathering apparatus" then "the people of the United States will only know what the government wants them to know. And that's not what the framers of constitution had in mind when they wrote the first amendment," Pruitt said.

The White House has denied knowledge of the Justice Department's move. It comes as officials face mounting criticism over an IRS investigation into Tea Party groups. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell told NBC's Meet the Press Sunday that the IRS controversy demonstrated a "culture of intimidation" by the administration.

Bron: www.guardian.co.uk

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US government targeted Fox News reporter as 'co-conspirator' in spying case | World news | guardian.co.uk

Washington Post reports FBI sought phone records and emails of James Rosen as part of spying case against goverment official

The Obama administration has investigated a reporter with Fox News as a probable "co-conspirator" in a criminal spying case after a report based on a State Department leak.

The Justice Department named Fox News's chief Washington correspondent James Rosen "at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator" in a 2010 espionage case against State Department security adviser Stephen Jin-Woo Kim. The accusation appears in a court affidavit first reported by the Washington Post.

Kim is charged with handing over a classified government report in June 2009 that said North Korea would probably test a nuclear weapon in response to a UN resolution condemning previous tests. Rosen reported the analysis on 11 June under the headline 'North Korea Intends to Match UN Resolution With New Nuclear Test'.

The FBI sought and obtained a warrant to seize all of Rosen's correspondence with Kim, and an additional two days' worth of Rosen's personal email, the Post reported. The bureau also obtained Rosen's phone records and used security badge records to track his movements to and from the State Department.

Rosen has not been charged with a crime in the case. Kim was indicted in August 2010 on charges of violating the Espionage Act of 1917, one of a batch of six cases in which the Obama administration began to use the first world war-era spying law to prosecute suspected government whistleblowers.

Even in cases of historic import in which the Espionage Act was used to prosecute whistleblowers, notably the 1971 Pentagon Papers case, the government did not, in spite of strenuous efforts, find grounds to prosecute the media for publishing the results of a leak. The government has not charged WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for the publication online of an unprecedented amount of classified material. However, Assange, who has taken refuge at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, has said he expects to be charged.

The government has prosecuted and even imprisoned journalists in leak cases in the past for the journalists' refusal to disclose a confidential source. In such cases, notably the 2005 Judith Miller case, journalists have been charged with contempt of court.

Instead of relying on the threat of a contempt charge to get journalists to divulge their sources, the Obama administration has used warrantless wiretapping and dragnet records seizures to identify who is talking to whom.

Last week it emerged that the Department of Justice had seized phone records for more than 20 lines used by the Associated Press, in possible violation of regulations governing such seizures. There have been no reports of the government accusing journalists of criminal activity in that case.


Bron: www.guardian.co.uk