guardian | 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).
"FBI
documents just obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund
(PCJF) … reveal that from its inception, the FBI treated the Occupy
movement as a potential criminal and terrorist threat … The PCJF has
obtained heavily redacted documents showing that FBI offices and agents
around the country were in high gear conducting surveillance
against the movement even as early as August 2011, a month prior to the
establishment of the OWS encampment in Zuccotti Park and other Occupy
actions around the country."
"This production [of documents],
which we believe is just the tip of the iceberg, is a window into the
nationwide scope of the FBI's surveillance, monitoring, and reporting on
peaceful protestors organizing with the Occupy movement … These
documents also show these federal agencies functioning as a de facto
intelligence arm of Wall Street and Corporate America."
The
documents show stunning range: in Denver, Colorado, that branch of the
FBI and a "Bank Fraud Working Group" met in November 2011 – during the
Occupy protests – to surveil the group. The Federal Reserve of Richmond,
Virginia had its own private security surveilling Occupy Tampa and
Tampa Veterans for Peace and passing privately-collected information on
activists back to the Richmond FBI, which, in turn, categorized
OWS activities under its "domestic terrorism" unit. The Anchorage,
Alaska "terrorism task force" was watching Occupy Anchorage. The
Jackson, Michigan "joint terrorism task force" was issuing a
"counterterrorism preparedness alert" about the ill-organized grandmas
and college sophomores in Occupy there. Also in Jackson, Michigan, the
FBI and the "Bank Security Group" – multiple private banks – met to
discuss the reaction to "National Bad Bank Sit-in Day" (the response was
violent, as you may recall). The Virginia FBI sent that state's Occupy
members' details to the Virginia terrorism fusion center. The Memphis
FBI tracked OWS under its "joint terrorism task force" aegis, too. And
so on, for over 100 pages. Fist tap Arnach.