Report from the Frontlines: Origins of the 99% Movement

Global Research, 9/29/11:

A Report from the Frontlines: The Long Road to #OccupyWallStreet and the Origins of the 99% Movement

How Anonymous, AmpedStatus, the NYC General Assembly, US Day of Rage, Adbusters and Thousands of Individual Actions Led to the Occupation of Liberty Park and the Birth of a Movement

As the occupation of Wall Street moves into its third week, there are many questions about the organizers behind the ongoing protests and the origins of the 99% Movement. As one of the many people who actively supported the effort, and helped launch the 99% Movement, I will give my perspective on the events leading up to the occupation of Liberty Park.

As I understand it, the #OccuppyWallStreet 99% Movement is a decentralized non-violent rebellion against economic tyranny. It is a leaderless movement that has been dependent upon tens of thousands of individuals taking it upon themselves to take action and fight back against their own personal financial hardships, and in defense of their family and friends who are desperately struggling to make ends meets.

The road that led to the successful occupation has been a long, hard and winding one. When you go to Liberty Park, into the heart of the occupation, you will see a very diverse group of people with opinions across the entire political spectrum. It is the very essence of a ground-up grassroots decentralized movement. Everyone there has their own individual story on what brought them to take such a strong and inspiring stand in support this action. I urge members of the press and people interested in the movement to begin a dialogue with any one of the people taking part. There are many fascinating stories to be heard and a deeper understanding of what’s happening is impossible without hearing from a plurality of voices.

To give some background information, the following is a timeline of my 19-month long personal experience within the movement:

The Birth of the 99% Movement

On February 15th, 2010, AmpedStatus.com published the first-part of an extensive six-part series that I wrote detailing the financial destruction of the US economy. The report is entitled, “The Economic Elite Vs. The People of the United States.” The first sentence reads:

“It’s time for 99% of Americans to mobilize and aggressively move on common sense political reforms.”

The introduction goes on to say:

“It has now become evident to a critical mass that the Republican and Democratic parties, along with all three branches of our government, have been bought off by a well-organized Economic Elite who are tactically destroying our way of life. The harsh truth is that 99% of the US population no longer has political representation. The US economy, government and tax system are now blatantly rigged against us.

Current statistical societal indicators clearly demonstrate that a strategic attack has been launched and an analysis of current governmental policies prove that conditions for 99% of Americans will continue to deteriorate. The Economic Elite have engineered a financial coup and have brought war to our doorstep… and make no mistake, they have launched a war to eliminate the US middle class.”

The report quickly went viral and many popular websites picked it up and published it. AlterNet.org featured an adapted excerpt from the report with the headline, “The Economic Elite Have Engineered an Extraordinary Coup, Threatening the Very Existence of the Middle Class.” It became one of the most popular reports that they have ever published. In aggregate, across many websites that have publish sections of the report, it has received an estimated five million page views.

Soon after the report was released, AmpedStatus formed the 99% Movement based on a general platform put forth in part-six of the report, entitled “How to Fight Back and Win: Common Ground Issues That Must Be Won.”

As the movement began to build over the course of the next ten months, after a series of TV interviews in which I supported the 99% Movement and called for acts of non-violent civil disobedience, the AmpedStatus.com website was attacked and repeatedly knocked offline. The source of the attacks remains unknown. After publishing investigative reports detailing the fraudulent activities of Wall Street; the destructive impact the financial elite have had upon the American people; revealing direct connections between economic hardships in the US and the uprisings that, at the time, were just beginning to take shape throughout Northern Africa, the Middle East and Europe, it was obvious that we were upsetting many powerful forces.

As AmpedStatus was pushing for a decentralized global rebellion against Wall Street and actively supporting the Egyptian uprising against the IMF and Federal Reserve, the attacks on the site escalated. In what appeared to be a fatal blow, the entire ISP network that the AmpedStatus.com site was hosted on was knocked offline, hundreds of sites were also affected and the AmpedStatus.com web hosting provider said that they would no longer be able to host the site unless it was moved to a service that was significantly more than we were paying or could afford. With a very limited budget, and in complete desperation, AmpedStatus put out a call for help.

Anonymous Rides to the Rescue…

As AmpedStatus.com came under attack, Anonymous was playing a key role in supporting the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. When no one else with the needed technical expertise would help us and it became apparent that we would have to shut down our operation, several Anonymous members stepped up and offered to support and defend AmpedStatus.com from further attacks. They assisted in setting up a new hosting account and helped develop a new Independent social network for the 99% Movement. From that point on, AmpedStatus.com has not once been knocked offline due to an attack.

Once we regained our First Amendment rights and knew that we had backing from Anonymous members, we then defiantly released another extensive report in February, 2011 entitled, “Analysis of the Global Insurrection Against Neo-Liberal Economic Domination and the Coming American Rebellion – We Are Egypt.”

The introduction states:

“If you think what’s happening in Egypt won’t happen within the United States, you’ve been watching too much TV. The statistics speak for themselves.

In previous Revolution Roundups, before we were knocked offline, we featured mass protests by the people of Ireland, Italy, Britain, Austria, Greece, France and Portugal, as the Global Insurrection contagion spread throughout Europe. And now, as we have seen over the past month, North African and Middle Eastern nations have joined the movement as the people of Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Morocco, Gabon, Mauritania, Yemen, Bahrain, Libya, Palestine, Iraq, Sudan and Algeria have taken to the streets en masse.

The connection between this latest round of uprisings and the prior protests throughout Europe is one the mainstream media is not making. We are witnessing a decentralized global rebellion against Neo-Liberal economic imperialism. While each national uprising has its own internal characteristics, each one, at its core, is about the rising costs of living and lack of financial opportunity and security. Throughout the world the situation is the same: increasing levels of unemployment and poverty, as price inflation on food and basic necessities is soaring.

Whether national populations realize it or not, these uprisings are against systemic global economic policies that are strategically designed to exploit the working class, reduce living standards, increase personal debt and create severe inequalities of wealth. These global uprising, which have only just begun, are the first wave of the inevitable reaction to the implementation of a centralized worldwide Neo-Feudal economic order.
The global banking cartel, centered at the IMF, World Bank and Federal Reserve, have paid off politicians and dictators the world over — from Washington to Greece to Egypt. In country after country, they have looted national economies at the expense of local populations, consolidating wealth in unprecedented fashion…”

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An Emergency Program for Anti-Wall Street Protestors: Don’t Let Soros Hijack the Movement

Webster Tarpley on September 29, 2011:




Political mass strike dynamics have been at work in the United States since the Wisconsin and Ohio mobilizations of February and March. Now, there are demonstrations in lower Manhattan and Boston specifically directed against the Wall Street banks. Another protest demonstration is scheduled for Washington, DC, starting on October 6. Good: a political challenge to Wall Street is indeed long overdue.

The Occupy Wall Street demonstrators are skeptical in regard to Obama. There is no sizable constituency for Ron Paul, and the crackpot Austrian school of economics is hardly represented. Above all, there is a desire to break the power of Wall Street. This much is promising, but still not enough to win.

The demonstrations appear initially as leaderless groups, engaged in an organic process of discussion from which specific demands are supposed to emerge. But so far, these demonstrations have put forth no specific demands, reforms, or concrete measures whatsoever to fight Wall Street. This is a fatal political weakness. A movement that attempts to go forward with vague slogans like “Freedom” or “Abolish capitalism” is likely to become easy prey for foundation-funded operatives on the left wing of the Democratic Party.

If a movement pretends to have no leaders, then it is the corporate media, themselves controlled by Wall Street, who will choose the leaders. A few days ago, a Wall Street protester named Kelly Heresy was anointed as principal honcho by Keith Olbermann, who used to work for the hedge fund called General Electric, and who now works for Al Gore. This is no way to select leaders.

The demonstrations may appear spontaneous, but it is easy to see gatekeepers and countergangs operating in their midst, often with a frank counterinsurgency agenda. Occupy Wall Street in particular shows the heavy influence of union bureaucrats from the Service Employees International Union, as well as Acorn – both parts of the Obama machine. The goal of these operatives is to keep the focus of the protests vague and diffuse, so that no demands emerge that might be embarrassing to the Wall Street puppet Obama and his reelection campaign. Their ultimate goal is to absorb the protests as the left wing of the Obama 2012 effort. That means supporting an administration which not only refuses to fight Wall Street, but which is packed with Wall Street executives in its highest positions.

Dubious Hollywood figures like Susan Sarandon and Michael Moore are attempting to gain publicity for themselves by showing up at the demonstrations. Michael Moore, who is not very popular with the demonstrators, was instrumental in leading the antiwar and impeachment movements of the past decade back into the Democratic Party to support Obama. Journalist Matt Taibbi, another newly minted expert on the movement, is remembered for his hatchet jobs in favor of the Bush administration theory of terrorism.

The organizers of the Wall Street action say they want to imitate recent protests in other countries. Their favorite is the Tahrir Square agitation in Egypt in February. But if you go to Cairo today, veterans of those demonstrations will tell you that these efforts accomplished relatively little, and mainly had the effect of ousting an oppressive civilian government in favor of an even more oppressive military government of weak CIA puppets which is still operating under martial law, even as benighted religious fanatics gather strength. In Greece, it is true that the trade unions have mounted a dozen general strikes, but all of these have failed to oust Prime Minister Papandreou, the main enforcer of austerity cuts demanded by the International Monetary Fund, and so the brutal austerity continues. The same thing applies to Spain, where the indignados became so self-absorbed in their discussion and consensus process that they never put forward a program to save Spanish society from the bankers. In Iceland too, the anti-bank movement was never able to go beyond mere protest to advance a series of concrete measures that would allow them to contend for power, take power, and hold onto it for the public good.

The lesson of all of these situations is that, in a severe world economic depression of the kind we have today, mere protest is not enough. Desperate populations are looking for political leadership with solutions capable of solving the life or death issues facing nations today. A movement which is incapable of specifying what it intends to fight for is an immature movement which no intelligent person will take seriously.

The secret of a mass strike upsurge is that crisis conditions will propel many apolitical people into activism. This makes them vulnerable to manipulation by demagogues, including those of the extreme right. The mass strike upsurge by itself solves nothing. The question is whether any coherent group of people can intervene into the mass upsurge and push aside bankrupt and failed leaders with the kind of radical reform program that can actually get the society out of the crisis. The masses cannot discover this program on their own – they are too busy with the struggle for daily existence. College students therefore have a special responsibility to provide ideas for the benefit of the entire society. If an adequate program becomes dominant, the nation can survive. Otherwise, nothing guarantees that civilization itself will not collapse – look at the Tea Party if you don’t believe this. Soros, Koch, and the other finance capitalists have a good working understanding of how these things work, which is why they are sending in their operatives to make sure that this movement will have only the vaguest demands, or no demands at all, to fight for. Let that happen, and Wall Street will rule the day once again.

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Beyond Bologna

As published at OpEd News, Common Dreams, Dissident Voice, Intrepid Report, Information Clearing House and CounterPunch, 9/28/11:





At the Wall Street protest, a young woman carried a sign, “REVOLUTION IS FUN,” and I don’t doubt that she was having a great time, because it can be exhilarating to engage in a just and noble fight, and to feel that you are an agent of change, a participant in history even, and not just one of its faceless victims, as is the common lot. So fun, yes, at least for her, and at least up to that moment, until the violence explodes, as nearly always happens in anything approaching a political revolution.

The violence of September 24th, the 8th day of the anti-Wall Street Protest, appears to not have caused severe or permanent injuries, though it was brutal enough, and some outrage has even flared in the mainstream media. Anthony Bologna, a 28-year-veteran of the New York Police Department, has emerged as a clear cut villain. Without provocation, he pepper sprayed two young women in the faces, and for this he should certainly be fired, then locked up, but this commotion has overshadowed, at least momentarily, the real target and meaning of this protest. Though police brutality is never to be taken lightly, Occupy Wall Street is aiming to expose and hold to account goons much more vicious than any garden variety Anthony Bologna. Though they maim and cripple countless households, even entire countries, these bigger thugs are rarely condemned and never indicted. In fact, some are given plush jobs in the US Treasury, if not a Cabinet appointment.

Who am I talking about, exactly? Here is where it gets murky, and all by intention. (Theirs, not mine.) When people say Wall Street, as in Wall Street has ruined this country, and it certainly has, what do they mean, exactly? Though there are those who object to financial speculation of any kind, most people have in mind the biggest banks when they rail against Wall Street. They’re really talking about Citibank, for example, that gargantuan money-laundering house, or Goldman Sachs, the world’s leading swindling outfit. Their criminality is well documented, though hard to untangle, since most of us are fairly clueless about the intricacies of the dismal science, and since financial, white collar crimes aren’t as vivid as, say, a middle-aged cop pepper spraying the eyes of two defenseless young women, then calmly walking away as they collapse and scream.

But consider this: there are those who defend Bologna even now and think that these “hippie chicks” got what they deserved, just as there were those who saw nothing wrong with cops whacking Rodney King with a baton 56 times, kicking him 6 times, then bragging and joking about it afterwards, and even the sadism of Abu Ghraib was cheered by many Americans, so it often comes down to where you’re coming from, but what kind of bias can blind anyone to the fact that it’s criminal for Stephen Friedman, Chairman of the New York Fed and a former CEO of Goldman Sachs, to give 10 billion dollars of our money to Goldman Sachs? Bad publicity over conflict of interest forced Friedman to resign, but if you really think about it, there was no conflict. The Fed can give money to these monster banks because the Fed is owned by these monster banks. If you grant private banks the monopoly to create money, of course they will shower themselves with cash, year in and year out, and use this unlimited power to buy up all of our politicians.

So protest police brutality, media whoredom or governmental corruption all you want, but if you’re willing to overlook the fact that our money supply is controlled by an elite group of criminal bankers, nothing will change. And don’t hold your breath waiting for “our” Attorney General, Eric Holder, to prosecute any of these banksters. Where is Eric Holder, by the way? Has anyone, in any time zone, seen him lately? In any case, the last thing Holder would want to do is to inconvenience, in any way, his true bosses.

Considering the violent police reaction to protesters marching from Liberty Plaza to Union Square, what would have happened had they gone to the Goldman Sachs Headquarters instead? Surely the foot soldiers of empire would not allow the unruly riff raff to desecrate this tall, dignified temple to computerized and three-piece-suited mugging. Kitty-corner from the site of the pulverized Twin Towers, it’s also a Ground Zero. Live, in real time, this is the epicenter of the destruction of the American economy.

Remember that Smith Barney commercial where a sonorous, no-nonsense elderly gentleman intoned, “We make money the old fashioned way. We earn it”? Yeah, right, as in generating money out of nothing, then lending it at interest? As in laundering bloody cash for pushers of heroin or weapons of mass destruction? Smith Barney was owned by Citigroup, a main player in the Federal Reserve. You can’t say these boffo mofos don’t have a fine, sick sense of humor.

Though the mainstream media have stayed clear of this topic, the truths about the Fed are leaking out all over the web, so Big Brother has a solution. The New York Fed is seeking a vendor to help it monitor online conversations about the Federal Reserve. It wants “an alerting mechanism that automatically sends out reports or notifications based [on] predefined trigger[s].” This cyber spook will “provide sentiment analysis (positive, negative or neutral) around key conversational topics" and "identify and reach out to key bloggers and influencers.” With the Fed all eyes and ears, even this trifling article may appear on its radar, so I will take this opportunity to send out an unequivocal greeting to all of our fine banksters, “Gentlemen, for enslaving hard working people, taking food from children, stealing money from senior citizens and degrading countless communities, may all of you be locked up as soon as possible, then rot in hell into eternity.”






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Occupy Wall Street: Its Objects, Issues, and Political Meaning --By definition, the ruling class will always rule.

Michael Rectenwald at www.legitgov.org 26 Sep 2011:




The Occupy Wall Street protest states its objectives: "to stop corporate greed and corruption on Wall Street and in our political process."

The simple statement and the protest that expresses it appears a reasonable extension of contemporary political discourse, an announcement of complaints that has been voiced by presidential candidates and activists for decades. However, under capitalism, there is no way to remove greed and corruption from Wall Street, or to "get money out of politics."

As for the first prong of the stated demands, ending corporate greed and corruption on Wall Street, one should only note what in fact Wall Street is and does. Wall Street is the exchange house of capitalist expropriation of value. Wall Street exchanges as abstract commodity in a worldwide marketplace profit extracted from the labor process. It also exchanges, through ever-growing layers of speculation, financial products that are further and further removed from the labor process, but which are nevertheless theoretically underwritten by it. Gains and losses on the market by buyers and sellers have to do with bets placed on the exchange value abstracted, however far removed, from labor.

Given that profit is already embedded in the "goods" exchanged on Wall Street, "greed" is utterly, totally, and necessarily intrinsic from the very outset. Capitalism is the systematization of greed and Wall Street is its figural and fiduciary embodiment. Trying to remove greed from Wall Street is like trying to take the blood out of a body and compelling it to walk around. Greed is the blood of capitalism and Wall Street is its heart. To eradicate the domination of systemic greed, we can't remove greed from Wall Street; we must remove Wall Street from the world itself.

Further, capitalism is in a state of systemic crisis. Its paroxysms are felt across the globe and in every locality thereof. Reforms of the FDR variety are being rolled back rather than extended. The era of "progressive" reformism is over and it is not going to return. This is clear if one looks at Europe, where age-old reforms are being undone in nation after nation. Some reform may be necessary and possible in China and India, but in the US and Europe, the political momentum is moving precisely in the opposite direction, and it will not be reversed by "demands" made on reformist terms. The levelling of the international workforce is the order of the day. Rather than curbing the appetite of the capitalist class, the political establishment, in both of its big business parties in the U.S., is involved in feeding it through attacks on the living standards of the vast majority. There will be no reforms of Wall Street that will not be beneficial to Wall Street itself, no matter how they are packaged by the political establishment. Further, the "instruments" of the speculative marketplace multiply faster than any regulators could possibly monitor.

As for the second prong of the demands: removing the influence of money from the political sphere would seem to be a noble and achievable goal. Although the political sphere is separated from the economic sphere by layers of mediation, it should be clear why under existing conditions money cannot and will not be removed from politics. By definition, the ruling class will always rule. And how does the capitalist class express itself politically, if not by means of capital itself? The capitalist class is not going to be hampered by demands that it not express itself politically, using all the means at its disposal. The means at its disposal are many and sundry and include the arsenal of media outlets, capitalist ideology, and the direct political peddling of corporate lobbies, among others. If one outlet is temporarily or partially blocked, the expression will take other routes and the ruling class's interests will nevertheless be represented in the political establishment, which it controls. Given the vast reserve capital holdings of US corporations at present – over two trillion dollars – the ruling class has plenty at its disposal and its expression will not be denied – under existing conditions.

So where does this leave us with regards to Occupy Wall Street? One can rightly remark that the protest is idealist—but not simply in the sense of wearing rose-colored glasses. It is idealist in the sense that it fails to grasp a materialist conception of history. Despite its apparent linking of economics and politics, the protest fails to grasp the economic determinations of the political realm. And so it appears idealistic in the other sense – of demanding what it cannot, by definition, achieve. It lacks a coherent theory and thus its praxis is also flawed. As such, it embarks on an "occupation" that pits an army of police against its vanguard, and exposes that vanguard to police brutality, arrest, incarceration and long-term criminal branding. This is often the case for any political and social unrest under capitalism, but, given that it is not organized as labor, the movement’s demands are easily dismissed by the targets of the protest. No factory owner stands to lose productive capacity due to a labor strike. No Wall Street brokerage firm will be hindered in its trading operations. The protesters are not directly withholding productive capacity from the economic sphere, nor interrupting the exchange of its commodities. Thus, the protest will have no immediate effect on the political sphere. At most, the movement may be awarded a rhetorical nod by the political establishment, but even this appears unlikely.

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Wall Street 'enemy' of US economy

Iran's Press TV, Sep 26, 2011:

An American activist and author says the enemy of the United States is “within” the country. Linh Dinh says the “enemy is Wall Street which has been protected by a very corrupt government.”

In his interview with Press TV's U.S. Desk on Monday, Dinh added that anti-Wall Street protesters in New York have "every right to blame Wall Street" for the economic problems it has caused during the past years.

A peaceful sit-in, called 'Occupy Wall Street' protest, began in New York City's financial district last week but it turned violent after police clashed with demonstrators on Saturday arresting dozens of them.

Dinh also accused the U.S. government of "knowing" about Wall Street's wrongdoings but "doing nothing" about them. He noted that the government used American "taxpayers' money to bail out banks" as many investors across the world were losing their savings because of Wall Street policies.



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Identified: NYPD Officer Who Maced Peaceful Protesters

Common Dreams, 9/26/11:

A photographer has identified the cruel and cowardly NYPD supervisor who point blank maced a penned in group of young women and then slinked away Saturday at the Occupy Wall Street protests:

Deputy Inspector Anthony V. Bologna of the NYPD Patrol Borough Manhattan South.

TAKE ACTION
If you think Deputy Inspector Bologna should be fired and prosecuted for his abuse of power, file an on-line complaint:

• Mayor Michael Bloomberg: http://www.nyc.gov/html/mail/html/mayor.html
• and NYPD Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly: http://www.nyc.gov/html/mail/html/mailnypd.html
• and the NYC Civilian Complaint Review Board: https://www.nyc.gov/html/ccrb/html/complaint.html
  

Photo/ http://davidscameracraft.blogspot.com

Photo/ http://www.thevillager.com/villager_113/afteryearsoftrouble.html

James Fallows at The Atlantic writes:

According to the NYT, the chief police spokesman, Paul Browne, said that the policeman used pepper spray "appropriately." Great. On the video we can't hear what either side is saying. But at face value, the casualness of the officer who saunters over, sprays right in the women's eyes, and then slinks away without a backward glance, as if he'd just put down an animal, does not match my sense of "appropriate" behavior by officers of the law in a free society.

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The Federal Reserve Plans To Identify “Key Bloggers” And Monitor Billions Of Conversations About The Fed On Facebook, Twitter, Forums And Blogs

The Economic Collapse Blog, 9/25/11:

The Federal Reserve wants to know what you are saying about it. In fact, the Federal Reserve has announced plans to identify "key bloggers" and to monitor "billions of conversations" about the Fed on Facebook, Twitter, forums and blogs. This is yet another sign that the alternative media is having a dramatic impact. As first reported on Zero Hedge, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has issued a "Request for Proposal" to suppliers who may be interested in participating in the development of a "Sentiment Analysis And Social Media Monitoring Solution". In other words, the Federal Reserve wants to develop a highly sophisticated system that will gather everything that you and I say about the Federal Reserve on the Internet and that will analyze what our feelings about the Fed are. Obviously, any "positive" feelings about the Fed would not be a problem. What they really want to do is to gather information on everyone that views the Federal Reserve negatively. It is unclear how they plan to use this information once they have it, but considering how many alternative media sources have been shut down lately, this is obviously a very troubling sign.

You can read this "Request for Proposal" right here. Posted below are some of the key quotes from the document (in bold) with some of my own commentary in between the quotes....

"The intent is to establish a fair and equitable partnership with a market leader who will who gather data from various social media outlets and news sources and provide applicable reporting to FRBNY. This Request for Proposal ("RFP") was created in an effort to support FRBNY's Social Media Listening Platforms initiative."

A system like this is not cheap. Apparently the Federal Reserve Bank of New York believes that gathering all of this information is very important. In recent years, criticism of the Federal Reserve has become very intense, and most of this criticism has been coming from the Internet. It has gotten to the point where the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has decided that it had better listen to what is being said and find out who is saying it.

"Social media listening platforms are solutions that gather data from various social media outlets and news sources. They monitor billions of conversations and generate text analytics based on predefined criteria. They can also determine the sentiment of a speaker or writer with respect to some topic or document."

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York intends to listen in on "billions of conversations" and to actually determine the "sentiment" of those that are participating in those conversations.

Of course it will be those conversations that are "negative" about the Federal Reserve that will be setting off the alarm bells.

"Identify and reach out to key bloggers and influencers"

Uh oh. So they plan to "identify" key bloggers and influencers?

What exactly do they plan to do once they "identify" them?

"The solution must be able to gather data from the primary social media platforms –Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Forums and YouTube."

Hopefully you understand this already, but nothing posted on the Internet is ever anonymous. Everything on the Internet is gathered by a vast host of organizations and is used for a wide variety of purposes. Data mining has become a billion dollar industry, and it is only going to keep growing.

You may think that you are "anonymous" when you criticize organizations like the Fed, but the truth is that if you are loud enough they will see it and they will make a record of it.

"The solution must provide real-time monitoring of relevant conversations. It should provide sentiment analysis (positive, negative or neutral) around key conversational topics."

Why do they need to perform "sentiment analysis"?

If someone is identified as being overly "negative" about the Fed, what will they do about it?

"The solution should provide an alerting mechanism that automatically sends out reports or notifications based a predefined trigger."

This sounds very much like the kind of "keyword" intelligence gathering systems that are currently in use by major governments around the globe.

Very, very creepy stuff.

Are you disturbed yet?

For those of us that write about the Federal Reserve a lot, this is very sobering news.

I wonder what the Fed will think about the following articles that I have posted on this site....

*Unelected, Unaccountable, Unrepentant: The Federal Reserve Is Using Your Money To Bail Out European Commercial Banks Once Again

*Celebrating Independence Yet Enslaved To Debt

*19 Reasons Why The Federal Reserve Is At The Heart Of Our Economic Problems

*Is Ben Bernanke A Liar, A Lunatic Or Is He Just Completely And Totally Incompetent?

*10 Things That Would Be Different If The Federal Reserve Had Never Been Created

What is their "Social Media Monitoring Solution" going to think about those articles?

Unfortunately, this is all part of a very disturbing trend.

Recently, a very creepy website known as "Attack Watch" was launched to gather information on those saying "negative" things about Barack Obama.

Suddenly, everyone seems obsessed with what you and I are saying.

This just shows how the power of the alternative media is growing.

Not only that, but it seems as though the government also wants to gather as much information on all of us as possible.

For example, a new rule is being proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services that would force health insurance companies to submit detailed health care information about all of their customers to the federal government.

Every single day our privacy is being stripped away a little bit more.

But now it is often not just enough for them to know what we are doing and saying. Instead, the "authorities" are increasingly stepping in to silence important voices.

One of the most recent examples of this was when Activistpost was taken down by Google. We are still awaiting word on why this was done.

Sadly, the silencing of Activistpost is far from an isolated incident.

Hordes of YouTube accounts have been shut down for their political viewpoints.

Quite a few very prominent alternative media websites have been censored or attacked because of what they stand for.

So why is this happening? Well, it turns out that the power of the alternative media is growing. According to a new survey by the Pew Research Center for The People & The Press, 43 percent of Americans say that they get their news on national and international issues from the Internet. Back in 1999, that figure was sitting at just 6 percent.

The American people are sick and tired of getting "canned news", and they are increasingly turning to the Internet in a search for the truth.

As I have written about previously, the mainstream media in this country is overwhelmingly dominated by just 6 very powerful corporations....

Today, ownership of the news media has been concentrated in the hands of just six incredibly powerful media corporations. These corporate behemoths control most of what we watch, hear and read every single day. They own television networks, cable channels, movie studios, newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, music labels and even many of our favorite websites. Sadly, most Americans don't even stop to think about who is feeding them the endless hours of news and entertainment that they constantly ingest. Most Americans don't really seem to care about who owns the media. But they should. The truth is that each of us is deeply influenced by the messages that are constantly being pounded into our heads by the mainstream media. The average American watches 153 hours of television a month. In fact, most Americans begin to feel physically uncomfortable if they go too long without watching or listening to something. Sadly, most Americans have become absolutely addicted to news and entertainment and the ownership of all that news and entertainment that we crave is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands each year.

The "news" that we get from various mainstream sources seems to always be so similar. It is as if nearly all mainstream news organizations are reading from the same script. The American people know that they are not getting the whole truth and they have been increasingly looking to alternative sources.

The monopoly over the news that the mainstream media once possessed has been broken. The alternative media is now creating some huge problems for organizations that were once very closely protected by the mainstream media.

The American people are starting to wake up and they are starting to get very upset about a lot of the corruption that has been going on in our society.

But it turns out that the "authorities" don't like it too much when Americans try to actually exercise free speech in America today. For example, you can see recent video of female protesters in New York City being penned in by police and then brutally maced right here.

Are you sickened by that?

You should be.

What the "authorities" want is for us to shut up, sit in our homes and act as if nothing wrong is happening.

Meanwhile, they seem determined to watch us more closely than ever.

So are you going to be afraid to talk negatively about the Federal Reserve now that you know that they are going to be watching what you say on the Internet?

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Wall Street vs. Everybody

As published at OpEd News, Common Dreams, Dissident Voice, Reader Supported News, CounterPunch, Intrepid Report and River Cities' Reader, 9/25/11:

“Wall Street got drunk [...] It got drunk and now it’s got a hangover.”—George W. Bush

As usual, Bush got it wrong. Wall Street soberly and cynically got the rest of us drunk on dreams of homeownership, a robust stock portfolio and a cozy retirement. This slurry bacchanal was fueled by the housing bubble and, when that exploded in our faces, bailouts saved Wall Street from any hangover, so it’s us who will suffer through a torturous, decades-long headache of a ruined economy.

But who are us, exactly? Us are the poor and the middle class, unions, retirement funds and governments at all levels, federal, state and city. Us are 99%, according to the mostly young protesters at Liberty Park in NYC. Nearly everyone got ripped off, including the cops guarding these protesters. As a protest sign sweetly and innocently demands: “Say Sorry! To All of Us!”

After eight days of protest, over a hundred people have already been arrested. Several have been roughed up, with cops being caught on still and video cameras pepper spraying or yanking the hair of young women, or slamming people to the ground. Sadly, these cops are fighting against their own interest. Bankrupted by Wall Street, cities all over America are laying off policemen left and right. Why defend the crooks of Wall Street, cops, when they have directly caused many of your colleagues to be thrown onto the streets? When you yourself may end up on a park bench in the near future?

The conflict between cops and protesters can be partly attributed to a clash of styles, to the eternal jocks vs. freaks dichotomy, but dear policemen, these young people are actually on your side. In spite of their colorful or eccentric clothing, odd haircuts, tattoos or piercings, they are fighting for you, too. To their credit, the protesters have made overtures to these cops by offering them coffee and water, but the cops, keen to maintain separation, have declined.

During the massive protest at Tiananmen Square, there was initially much fraternization between protesters and soldiers. They conversed, established common cause and did not wish to harm each other, so the government had to truck in troops from distant provinces, many of them not even Han Chinese, to commit the massacre. Also, in that famous photo of the protester who stopped a line of tanks, recall the restraint of that tank driver. Though trained and brought in to kill, this soldier couldn’t do it, at least in that instance.

With these Wall Street skirmishes, and many more battles to come, one has to hope for that solidarity and fraternization. Though the belligerent will always gravitate towards jobs that allow them access to weapons, incorrigible psychotics are relatively few, for even in a gung ho uniform, most men aren’t overeager to inflict pains on another. In fact, before the Vietnam War, most soldiers did not even fire their rifles during battles, though improved reflexive trainings have “corrected” this natural reluctance to kill. United we must stand, Americans, clean cut cops and tattooed protesters alike, against that destroyer of America, Wall Street.

Last wednesday, there was a NYC protest against cuts to the public schools. It took place at Tweed Courthouse, only half a mile from the Occupy Wall Street rally, but unlike the anti-Wall Street activists, these protesters were mostly above 35-years-old, with many of them Black or Hispanic. It would have been wonderful had these public school teachers marched over to the Wall Street protest, for it is precisely Wall Street that has bankrupted their state and city, putting their jobs in jeopardy. Dear teachers, do join these brave young protesters, because Wall Street is also your enemy. Dearest everybody, Wall Street is the vampire who's draining blood from all of our bodies.

Several commentators have pointed out the lack of clarity of the anti-Wall Street rally. What reforms are they after, exactly? Among the many signs at the site, there are those that attack the Federal Reserve, bank bailouts and Corporate Personhood, and for the restoration of the Glass-Steagall Act, but these key demands are either diluted or enlivened, depending on your temperament, I suppose, by signs that are merely whimsical, vaguely philosophical or even antithetical to this protest. Though I smiled at “OPPOSITION IS TRUE FRIENDSHIP,” I had to cringe at “FREE IRAN! MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD IS NOT MY PRESIDENT!”

Whether Iran needs to be liberated or not, it’s not for me to say, but it is surely genocidal to appeal to Americans to “free” yet another Islamic country, and one that has been in Uncle Sam’s crosshair ever since it had the temerity to oust that CIA favorite, the Shah.

In addition to the many, many signs, there are also teach ins and book discussions, so a primary aim of this protest is to educate the public about the flaws of our system, and to articulate possible remedies. It’s crucial, then, that the most important messages not be drown out by irrelevancies and contradictions. There must be a way to keep the main points front and center at all times, so that even the most casual tourist will know what it is he is witnessing.






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PEACEFUL FEMALE PROTESTORS PENNED IN THE STREET AND MACED!-

#OccupyWallStreet:

"While on a peaceful march near Union Square in downtown Manhattan, multiple female protestors were penned up in the street by orange mesh baricade, then maliciously maced.

The women were peaceful and unarmed. They were secured by barricade with an overwhelming police presence. And they were then sprayed directly in the face with pressurized mace...

WeAreTheOther99 continues to peacefully occupy lower Manhattan to begin a dialogue with the Top 1% with the goal of a peaceful transition of power back to the People.

This can no longer be stopped. But be advised, this will not be televised..."





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Day 4 of OccupyWallStreet: At least five arrested, one may be in critical condition

Published 2011-09-20 05:01:04 UTC by OccupyWallSt

Early this morning at least five protesters were arrested by NYPD.

The first arrest was a protester who objected to the police removing a tarp that was protecting our media equipment from the rain. The police said that the tarp constituted a tent, in spite of it not being a habitat in any way. Police continued pressuring protesters with extralegal tactics, saying that a protester on a bullhorn was breaking a law. The protester refused to cease exercising his first amendment rights and was also arrested. Then the police began to indiscriminately attempt to arrest protesters, many of them unsheathed their batons, in spite of the fact that the protest remained peaceful. One of the protesters received a large gash on their leg, another lost a tooth. Multiple police tackled a protester and sat on him as he continually warned them that he was experiencing an asthma attack. One of the medics on site informed the police that they needed to call an ambulance because this was a potentially fatal circumstance. They ignored him. We have no current information on this protester, but we hope that he hasn't been murdered by the police.

We are determined to remain a peaceful protest, in spite of the brutality we have witnessed.

Updates will be posted as we receive them.

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This Constant Mind Rape

As published at OpEd News, CounterPunch, Dissident Voice, Information Clearing House, Intrepid Report and Loza Bez Tajemnic, 9/18/11:





The physical violence of a crime is often accompanied by another kind of violation, an assault against the mind, for the criminal must disguise his evil deed. A murderer, rapist or merely adulterer will lie and spin, to conceal and/or rationalize what he has done.

For an empire, then, whose crimes are myriad, for it takes so much violence to maintain worldwide dominion, this assault against the mind is relentless, a blanket of nonsense that suffocates night and day, a miasma of photo ops and jive that poisons the conscience.

Thus, a chirpy CNN reporter talked about “terrorists” attacking the US Embassy in Afghanistan. She didn’t even called them “insurgents,” but simply and unequivocally “terrorists,” “terrorists,” “terrorists,” like a mantra, as she excitedly recounted how they had disguised themselves as women before overwhelming Afghan cops guarding a unfinished high-rise, killing them. Their aim was to gain a vantage point to rain rockets onto the US Embassy.

Of course, the CNN reporter could not point out that these men were classic nationalists, for a nationalist is one willing to defend his homeland against a foreign invader. Also, this paid-for mouth piece could not admit that these men were courageous and bold, as well as noble and selfless, for they had no escape plan. They were trapped inside that building. They knew that as they attacked, they would be surrounded by American soldiers, yet to do what was just and laudable to their own people, these brave individuals were willing to be killed by their hated enemy. They chose death and honor before subjugation and humiliation. Patrick Henry should be proud of them.

After this incident, US officials accused Pakistan of being the mastermind. Besides justifying continued drone and missile strikes against Pakistan itself, this charge also discredited the attackers as foreign agents and mercenaries, but let’s think about this for a second. A mercenary fights for money. He doesn’t choose certain death. Any Afghan willing to die battling foreign invaders, be them Americans or Soviets, is a nationalist, period.

Similarly, a Libyan is a nationalist if he’s fighting the vast American-led coalition, this oil-soaked crusade of mostly white, Christian countries that’s been attacking Libya for over six months now, but, no, the American media are calling him a “Gaddafi loyalist.”

Such deformation of facts also affects American victims of empire. When Pat Tillman was shot at close range by an American soldier, he was presented as a hero killed in action, a victim of the Taliban. A death loses its meaning and dignity when it’s perverted to serve someone else’s interest, and when a corpse is used to glorify the murderer, you have one of the worst of possible crimes, something akin to necrophilia. The empire will kill you, then screw you. It will derive pleasure from your cadaver.

Likewise, though it has been proven in court that the US government was behind the killing of Martin Luther King, he now has a huge statue on the National Mall, the very Mall where he organized Resurrection City, a poor people’s protest which hastened his assassination. With typical cynicism, our government is celebrating and appropriating a man it exterminated in cold blood.

Likewise, 9/11. It was nauseating for me to watch the ten-year commemoration of that tragedy without any airtime given to those who desperately wanted to probe deeper into exactly what happened. The many architects, engineers, pilots, first responders and relatives of victims who doubted the official version 9/11 were shunted aside so a self-justifying and congratulatory narrative from this criminal government could proceed without interruptions. This was the moment for sinister butchers like Bush and Obama to appear caring and statesmanlike, as father figures consoling us in our moment of grief, when they are in fact the authors of so much past and ongoing grief.

The truths about many key events in this nation’s history, Pearl Harbor Attack, Gulf of Tonkin Incident, Martin Luther King’s, John’s and Bobby Kennedy’s assassinations, etc., have never fully come out, or only came out decades after the fact, so Americans should have learnt to suspect, by now, routine duplicity from Washington, yet many of us continue to believe. Such is the power of brainwashing. As they kill and lie in our names, we keep nodding and nodding.

We are not expected to ask questions, but merely to swallow whole the spoon-fed kitsch and bullshit. Recently, Americans were shown a photo of a dog that refused to leave the coffin of his master, a dead SEAL member, one of those “heroes” who supposedly killed Bin Laden. Though there was no physical proof whatsoever, no corpse, film or photo, we were told that a successful raid had occurred, and though an American helicopter tail was left behind, no American had died, incredibly, then we were told, three months later, that 22 of the SEALs involved, i.e., potential witnesses who could contradict the official narrative, were conveniently killed in an unprecedented attack by the Taliban.

These fairy tales are so bizarre but, before you can pause to parse one, if you’re so inclined, and most of us are no longer inclined or capable, another one comes down the chute, then another, then another. When one commits as many killings, lootings and rapes as this government does, one must lie constantly.







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9/11: A Conspiracy Theory

James Corbett, 9/11/11:

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The "Critics" of 9/11 Truth. Do They Have a Case?

Paul Craig Roberts at Global Research, 9/13/11:

The short answer to the question in the title is no.

The 9/11 truth critics have nothing but ad hominem arguments.

Let’s examine the case against "the truthers" presented by Ted Rall, Ann Barnhardt, and Alexander Cockburn.

But first let’s define who "the truthers" are.

The Internet has made it possible for anyone to have a web site and to rant and speculate to their heart’s content. There are a large number of "9/11 conspiracy theorists".

Many on both sides of the issue are equally ignorant. Neither side has any shame about demonstrating ignorance.

Both sides of the issue have conspiracy theories.

9/11 was a conspiracy whether a person believes that it was an inside job or that a handful of Arabs outwitted the entire intelligence apparatus of the Western world and the operational response of NORAD and the US Air Force.

For one side to call the other conspiracy theorists is the pot calling the kettle black.

The question turns not on name-calling but on evidence.

The 9/11 Truth movement was not created by bloggers ranting on their web sites. It was created by professional architects and engineers some of whom are known for having designed steel high rise buildings.

It was created by distinguished scientists, such as University of Copenhagen nano-Chemist Niels Harrit who has 60 scientific papers to his credit and physicist Steven Jones.

It was created by US Air Force pilots and commercial airline pilots who are expert at flying airplanes.

It was created by firefighters who were in the twin towers and who personally heard and experienced numerous explosions including explosions in the sub-basements. It was created by members of 9/11 families who desire to know how such an improbable event as 9/11 could possibly occur.

The professionals and the scientists are speaking from the basis of years of experience and expert knowledge. Moreover, the scientists are speaking from the basis of careful research into the evidence that exists.

When an international research team of scientists spends 18 months studying the components in the dust from the towers and the fused pieces of concrete and steel, they know what they are doing. When they announce that they have definite evidence of incendiaries and explosives, you can bet your life that that have the evidence.

When a physicist proves that Building 7 (the stories not obscured by other buildings) fell at free fall speed and NIST has to acknowledge that he is correct, you can bet your life that the physicist is correct.

When fire department captains and clean-up teams report molten steel--and their testimony is backed up with photographs--in the debris of the ruins weeks and months after the buildings’ destruction, you can bet your life the molten steel was there.

When the same authorities report pumping fire suppressants and huge quantities of water with no effect on the molten steel, you can bet your life that the temperature long after the buildings’ destruction remained extremely high, far higher than any building fire can reach.

When the architects, engineers, and scientists speak, they offer no theory of who is responsible for 9/11. They state that the known evidence supports neither the NIST reports nor the 9/11 Commission Report. They say that the explanation that the government has provided is demonstrably wrong and that an investigation is required if we are to discover the truth about the event.

It is not a conspiracy theory to examine the evidence and to state that the evidence does not support the explanation that has been given.

That is the position of the 9/11 Truth movement.

What is the position of the movement’s critics? Ted Rall says: “Everything I’ve read and watched on Truther sites is easily dismissed by anyone with a basic knowledge of physics and architecture. (I spent three years in engineering school.) http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29113.htm

Wow! What powerful credentials. Has Rall ever designed a high rise steel building? Could Rall engage in a debate with a professor of nano-chemistry? Could he refute Newton’s laws in a debate with university physicists? Does Rall know anything about maneuvering airplanes? Does he have an explanation why 100 firefighters, janitors, and police report hearing and experiencing explosions that they did not hear or experience?

Clearly, Ted Rall has no qualifications whatsoever to make any judgment about the judgments of experts whose knowledge exceeds his meager understanding by a large amount.

Ann Barnhardt writes: “I gotta tell you, I’ve just about had it with these 9/11 truthers. If there is one phenomenon in our sick, sick culture that sums up how far gone and utterly damaged we are as a people, it is 9/11 trutherism. It pretty much covers everything: self-loathing, antisemitism, zero knowledge of rudimentary physics and a general inability to think logically.” She goes down hill from here. http://barnhardt.biz/

Amazing, isn’t she? Physics professors have “zero knowledge of rudimentary physics.”

Internationally recognized logicians have “a general inability to think logically.” People trained in the scientific method who use it to seek truth are “self-loathing.” If you doubt the government’s account you are antisemitic. Barnhardt then provides her readers with a lesson in physics, structural architecture and engineering, and the behavior of steel under heat and stress that is the most absolute nonsense imaginable.

Obviously, Barnhardt knows nothing whatsoever about what she is talking about, but overflowing with hubris she dismisses real scientists and professionals with ad hominem arguments. She adds to her luster with a video of herself tearing out pages of the Koran, which she has marked with slices of bacon, and burning the pages.

Now we come to Alexander Cockburn. He is certainly not stupid. I know him. He is pleasant company. He provides interesting intellectual conversation. I like him. Yet, he also arrogantly dismisses highly qualified experts who provide evidence contrary to the official government story of 9/11.

Cockburn avoids evidence presented by credentialed experts and relies on parody. He writes that the conspiracists claim that the twin towers “pancaked because Dick Cheney’s agents--scores of them--methodically planted demolition charges.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/09/02/the-911-conspiracists-vindicated-after-all-these-years/

Little doubt but there are bloggers somewhere in the vast Internet world who say this. But this is not what the professionals are saying who have provided evidence that the official account is not correct. The experts are simply saying that the evidence does not support the official explanation. More recently, an international team of scientists has reported finding unequivocal evidence of incendiaries and explosives. They have not said anything about who planted them. Indeed, they have said that other scientists should test their conclusions by repeating the research. After calling experts “conspiracy kooks,” Alex then damns them for not putting forward “a scenario of the alleged conspiracy.”

Moreover, not a single one of the experts believes the towers “pancaked.” This was an early explanation that, I believe, was tentatively put forward by NIST, but it had to be abandoned because of the speed with which the buildings came down and due to other problems.

Unlike Rall and Barnhardt, Cockburn does refer to evidence, but it is second or third-hand hearsay evidence that is nonsensical on its face. For example, Cockburn writes that Chuck Spinney “tells me that ‘there ARE pictures taken of the 757 plane hitting Pentagon--they were taken by the surveillance cameras at Pentagon’s heliport, which was right next to impact point. I have seen them both--stills and moving pictures. I just missed seeing it personally, but the driver of the van I just got out of in South Parking saw it so closely that he could see the terrified faces of passengers in windows.’”

If there were pictures or videos of an airliner hitting the Pentagon, they would have been released years ago. They would have been supplied to the 9/11 Commission. Why would the government refuse for 10 years to release pictures that prove its case? The FBI confiscated all film from all surveillance cameras. No one has seen them, much less a Pentagon critic such as Spinney.

I have to say that the van driver must have better eyes than an eagle if he could see expressions on passenger faces through those small airliner portholes in a plane traveling around 500 mph. Try it sometimes. Sit on your front steps and try to discern the expressions of automobile passengers through much larger and clearer windows traveling down your street in a vehicle moving 30 mph. Then kick the speed up 16.7 times to 500 mph and report if you see anything but a blur.

Cockburn’s other evidence that 9/11 truthers are kooks is a letter that Herman Soifer, who claims to be a retired structural engineer, wrote to him summarizing “the collapse of Buildings 1 and 2 succinctly.” This is what Soifer, who “had followed the plans and engineering of the Towers during construction” wrote to Alex: “The towers were basically tubes, essentially hollow.” This canard was disposed of years ago. If Alex had merely googled the plans of the buildings, he would have discovered that there were no thin-walled hollow tubes, but a very large number of massively thick steel beams.

Cockburn's willingness to dismiss as kooks numerous acknowledged experts on the basis of a claim that a van driver saw terrified faces of passengers moving at 500 mph and a totally erroneous description in a letter from a person who knew nothing whatsoever about the structural integrity of the buildings means that he is a much braver person than I.

Before I call architects kooks whose careers were spent building steel high rises, I would want to know a lot more about the subject than I do. Before I poke fun at nano-chemists and physicists, I would want to at least be able to read their papers and find the scientific flaws in their arguments.

Yet, none of the people who ridicule 9/11 skeptics are capable of this. How, for example, can Rall, Barnhardt, or Cockburn pass judgment on a nano-chemist with 40 years of experience and 60 scientific publications to his credit?

They cannot, but nevertheless do. They don’t hesitate to pass judgment on issues about which they have no knowledge or understanding. This is an interesting psychological phenomenon worthy of study and analysis.

Another interesting phenomenon is the strong emotional reactions that many have to 9/11, an event about which they have little information. Even the lead members of the 9/11 Commission itself have said that information was withheld from them and the commission was set up to fail. People who rush to the defense of NIST do not even know what they are defending as NIST refuses to release the details of the simulation upon which NIST bases its conclusion.

There is no 9/11 debate.

On the one hand there are credentialed experts who demonstrate problems in the official account, and on the other hand there are non-experts who denounce the experts as conspiracy kooks.

The experts are cautious and careful about what they say, and their detractors have thrown caution and care to the wind. That is the state of the debate.

Further reading at:

	THE 9/11 "BIG LIE". WHEN FICTION BECOMES FACT - by Global Research - 2011-09-11
	Articles and documentation on 9/11 from Global Research

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Even a top cop concedes a right to video arrests - but the street tells a different story

Philadelphia Daily News, Sep. 3, 2011:

TAMERA MEDLEY begged the police officer to stop slamming her head - over and over - into the hood of a police cruiser.

Thinking they were helping, passers-by Shakir Riley and Melissa Hurling both turned their cellphone video cameras toward the melee that had erupted on Jefferson Street in Wynnefield, they said.

But then the cops turned on them.

Riley had started to walk away when at least five baton-wielding cops followed him, he said, and they beat him, poured a soda on his face and stomped on his phone, destroying the video he had just taken.

Meanwhile, two officers approached Hurling, urged her to leave and, after exchanging a few words, slammed her against a police cruiser, Hurling said. They pulled her by her hair before tossing her into the back of a cop car, she said.

Although it's legal to record Philadelphia police performing official duties in public, all three were charged with disorderly conduct and related offenses, and officers destroyed Hurling and Riley's cellphones, erasing any record of Medley's violent arrest, the pair said.

Charges against Hurling and Riley were dismissed, but Medley was found guilty last month of disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, harassment and related offenses. She was fined $500 but has filed an appeal.

Echoes of the incident, which was corroborated by a half-dozen witnesses, have been reverberating nationwide in recent years as the combination of cellphone video and police officers has simmered into what is an increasingly explosive formula. A growing number of bystanders have been misled, arrested or worse for using their cellphones to record what they perceive as excessive force by cops making arrests, watchdogs say.

"I grew up in the neighborhood and I saw stuff go down but it never happened to me," Riley said recently, adding that he did nothing wrong. "They stomped my phone and said it was a federal offense."

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Photographing a Rittenhouse cop leads to disorderly conduct charge - later dismissed

Philadelphia Daily News, Sep. 3, 2011:

BEING LED out of Rittenhouse Square in handcuffs wasn't on Coulter Loeb's list of things to do during his summer in Philadelphia, but that's what happened last month to the University of Cincinnati student.

The reason? Police said he was interfering with a police investigation when he tried to photograph a cop escorting a transient woman out of the park on July 14.

"He said I needed to stop taking pictures and walk away," Loeb recalled recently.

With the advancement of digital technology, Loeb's story demonstrates a growing trend locally and nationally of clashes between civilians and the police officers they record or photograph.

Loeb, 23, a senior and a photographer at the university's student paper, was staying with a friend on Bainbridge Street near 22nd when he decided to take pictures in the square.

According to a police report, it was about 1 p.m. and police were conducting pedestrian investigations at the park when Loeb approached the officer and the woman, later identified as Sydni. Loeb asked Sydni if he could take her picture, the report says.

Loeb said he was trailing at least 20 feet behind the pair when the cop ordered him to walk in another direction. Loeb told the Daily News that he refused the order.

"As this was interfering with the police actions, police stated to defendant that he may take all of the pictures he wanted but he must leave the immediate area," the report continued.

Loeb, who had his press credentials in his back pocket, was arrested after he didn't heed the officer's requests and was charged with disorderly conduct. That charge was dismissed last week.

He hasn't filed a complaint with Internal Affairs, but he wrote a letter to the Police Department and sent it to the local website Philebrity, which posted it online.

"To me, I thought that it was my civil right to document how the agents of the people's government treat our least fortunate citizens," wrote Loeb. "To you, I was 'interfering with a police investigation' - causing enough distress that you felt it necessary to intimidate, restrain and arrest me after telling me that I could not take pictures."

Loeb has been in contact with the American Civil Liberties Union. "It was definitely intimidation by the police," Loeb said in an interview. "He didn't like me doing something that was my right."

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The decade's biggest scam

Glenn Greenwald, 8/29/11:

The Los Angeles Times examines the staggering sums of money expended on patently absurd domestic "homeland security" projects: $75 billion per year for things such as a Zodiac boat with side-scan sonar to respond to a potential attack on a lake in tiny Keith County, Nebraska, and hundreds of "9-ton BearCat armored vehicles, complete with turret" to guard against things like an attack on DreamWorks in Los Angeles. All of that -- which is independent of the exponentially greater sums spent on foreign wars, occupations, bombings, and the vast array of weaponry and private contractors to support it all -- is in response to this mammoth, existential, the-single-greatest-challenge-of-our-generation threat:

"The number of people worldwide who are killed by Muslim-type terrorists, Al Qaeda wannabes, is maybe a few hundred outside of war zones. It's basically the same number of people who die drowning in the bathtub each year," said John Mueller, an Ohio State University professor who has written extensively about the balance between threat and expenditures in fighting terrorism.

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