Excerpt:
11 January 12
Wednesday: Protest Against State Repression at the NYC Nigerian Consulate
11 January 12
Wednesday, January 11th3pm-4pm leafletting at 43rd St and 7th Ave
4pm March to the Nigerian Consulate at 44th St and 2nd Ave
5pm Rally at the Nigerian Consulate
On Facebook
Called by an affinity group of participants in the Occupy Movement in NYC working against the NDAA:
This upcoming Wednesday, January 11th is the 10 year anniversary of the opening of Guantanamo Bay Prison. This day is a somber recognition of previous repressive state measures that violate not only people on individual levels, but our international agreements on Universal Human Rights. We will be protesting in solidarity with others all over the world.
The Nigerian people are striking that same day, after the Nigerian government cut oil subsidies for citizens January 1st 2012. In response, Occupy Nigeria blocked the shipping routes and shut down petrol stations this past Tuesday. Though it was a peaceful protest, the state attacked the protesters with teargas and gunfire, killing 23 year old Mustapha Opobiyi. This mirrors the systemic state violence witnessed world-wide over the past year since the beginning of the Arab Spring -- but this ongoing repression builds resistance.
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Occupy Wall Street Returns to Zuccotti Park
12 January 12
Security guards working for Brookfield Properties took down a cordon of metal barricades surrounding Zuccotti Park on Tuesday evening, but entered the park later that night to enforce rules forbidding anyone to lie down.The police arrested three people late Tuesday, a woman and two men, and charged them with trespassing, obstructing governmental administration and resisting arrest.
More than 200 Occupy Wall Street protesters milled inside the park past midnight, celebrating the removal of the barricades, which some lawyers had said violated city laws.
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Charges Against 21 Occupy Wall Street Protesters Are Dropped
09 January 12
Prosecutors dropped charges on Monday against nearly two dozen people picked up in the first mass arrest of Occupy Wall Street demonstrators. About 50 other cases are headed to trial.The Manhattan district attorney’s office asked a judge to dismiss 21 cases stemming from a Sept. 24 march to Union Square, during which some protesters marched in the street without a permit.
Prosecutors said they could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the conduct in those cases was illegal. The people had faced charges of disorderly conduct.
The march came a week after the protest began at Zuccotti Park. The about 80 arrests helped draw attention to the movement after activists posted online a video that showed a police officer using pepper spray on a group, mostly women, whom officers had corralled behind orange netting near Union Square.
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Occupy Our Homes Action in New York City Enters Second Month
10 January 12
In New York City, an occupation of a vacant home has entered its second month. Community organizations, church groups and Occupy Wall Street protesters took over the property on December 6 during an Occupy Our Homes action to reclaim foreclosed homes from bailed-out banks. The home is located in Brooklyn's East New York neighborhood, which is marked with high rates of foreclosures and abandoned property. Alfredo Carrasquillo says he hopes to inspire similar actions across the country.READ MORE
Occupiers Target 'Mayor 1% Emanuel's' Anti-Protest Ordinance
10 January 12
Occupy Rogers Park, Occupy the South Side campaign against Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's NATO/G-8 ordinance; "This measure is a permanent attack on public protest in the City of Chicago." Last month Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel introduced anti-protester legislation for the upcoming NATO and G-8 summits in Chicago.Chicago's WBEZ reported: "During the summits, which could draw thousands of protesters, Emanuel wants to increase the minimum fine from $25 to $200 and double the maximum fine to $1,000. His proposed ordinance would also close parks, playgrounds and beaches overnight for longer periods of time."
This past Tuesday, Emanuel clarified that these measures would in fact be permanent, and not just during the time of the summits. From WBEZ: In fact, Emanuel said his proposal to dramatically increase fines for protesters who resist arrest - even passively - should be permanent. Some of the other sweeping powers the mayor is seeking - one would allow his office to unilaterally approve some city contracts - would expire once the May summits are over, he said.
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As 'Right to Work' Law Looms, Indiana Occupiers Brace Limestone Strikers
10 January 12
An unexpected alliance is blooming seven weeks into a hard winter strike by 50 Millworkers at the Indiana Limestone Company: The participants of Occupy Bloomington in that nearby college town are rallying to their cause. The millworkers, members of Local 8093 of the Carpenters Industrial Council in Oolitic, Indiana, rejected a concessionary contract and by unanimous vote went on strike November 15.Union negotiators had been expecting the company, once family-owned but now part of a private equity firm, to move on some of its demands for work rule concessions. The company had proposed ending weekly safety meetings in a job where Millworkers operate heavy machinery, precision cutting tools, and move limestone pieces that weigh in excess of 6 tons. The company had also demanded an end to just cause standards for discipline and radical changes in attendance policies.
Instead the company upped the ante: Not only did the concessions remain, but management now wanted to cancel basic seniority rights. Local 8093 members decided to make a stand and hit the picket line, supported by 18 members of the Journeymen Stonecutters and Machinists who perform the skilled task of fabricating the end product at the mill. The Stonecutters negotiate separately but felt their bargaining position was bound up in solidarity with the Millwrights.
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What Occupy Can Learn From Dystopian Fiction
10 January 12
"YOU CAN’T EVICT AN IDEA," proclaim the banners fronting an otherwise dull building in east London, owned by banking giant UBS but inhabited and decorated by squatters from the Occupy movement. They've adapted the phrase from Alan Moore and David Lloyd's graphic novel "V for Vendetta," in which the titular terrorist explains his seeming immortality to a detective who has just shot him: "Ideas are bulletproof." A poster of V's trademark Guy Fawkes mask smiles eerily at all who walk into the foyer of 8 Sun Street, now dubbed "The Bank of Ideas" and used as a community center. The caption underneath reads, "We are the 99%, and so are you."It's fitting that the Occupy movement should have drawn inspiration from dystopian fiction, an increasingly popular genre for teenagers and young adults in particular.
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'Wild Old Women' Close San Francisco Bank of America Branch
10 January 12
It was a slow-moving Occupy Wall Street protest, but it was an effective one. A dozen senior citizens calling themselves "the wild old women" succeeded in closing a Bank of America branch in Bernal Heights Thursday.The women, aged 69 to 82, who live at the senior home up Mission street from the Bernal Heights Bank of America branch, decided to hold their own protest by doing what they called a "run on the bank."
Tita Caldwell, 80, who led the charge of women with walkers and wheelchairs, said that they're demanding the bank lower fees, pay higher taxes, and stop foreclosing on, and evicting, homeowners.
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Occupy Albany Settles In, Rents Office Space
09 January 12
ALBANY — Since their rough eviction from a park near the state Capitol on the first day of winter, the Occupy Albany movement has regrouped out of a storefront a few blocks away, where members meet and organize protests and marches to help correct what they consider American democracy bent to favor the rich.The small office on a downtown street of mostly residential brownstones has the movement's name stenciled on the window and a poster next to it that says, "Tax the 1 percent." Fliers are neatly laid out on a table, protest signs stacked against a wall, and one utilitarian desk has a computer, connected to the Internet where the movement maintains a Web site and Facebook page and uses other social networks to connect.
"We're in it for the long term," said Colin Donnaruma, one of the protesters pepper sprayed during a confrontation with police when the outdoor encampment was dismantled. "The movement isn't contingent on physically occupying a place."
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Occupy Oakland Plans More Anti-Police Rallies
09 January 12
Tensions between Oakland police and Occupy protesters escalated Sunday, a day after an antipolice rally downtown turned violent and resulted in six arrests.Protesters pledged to hold weekly demonstrations against the police, who they say have been overzealous in enforcing no-lodging, trespassing and other laws to break up Occupy encampments.
"The solution is very obvious. All (Mayor Jean Quan) has to do is stop enforcing these laws," said Occupy Oakland activist Phil Horne. "If they set reasonable rules, we'll abide by them."
Clashes with police have been a hallmark of Occupy Oakland since October, when police made their initial clearance of a camp in front of City Hall that had become a gathering spot for economic injustice protests modeled on Occupy Wall Street.
Saturday night, protesters marched peacefully from City Hall seven blocks to police headquarters carrying "F- the police" banners, hoping to draw attention to what they described as ongoing police harassment, oppression and abuse.
As protesters approached the police station, officers in riot helmets stopped marchers along Washington Street near Seventh Street, where protesters started a bonfire and some threw bottles at officers from the back of the crowd. During the protest, protesters spray-painted a letter "A" with a circle around it - the symbol for anarchy - on a media van, and broke windows at a Starbucks coffee shop and on patrol cars, authorities said.
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Livestreaming Journalists Want to Occupy the Skies With Cheap Drones
07 January 12
It may not sound like much: A video blogger bought a toy helicopter.But the blogger is 25-year-old Tim Pool - an internationally known journalist who attracts tens of thousands of viewers to his live-stream broadcasts from Occupy Wall Street protests in New York, DC, LA and other cities. (His feeds and archival footage are also aired on mainstream networks such as NBC.) He and his partners hope that the toy chopper - the $300 Parrot AR Drone - will be one step toward a citizen-driven alternative to mainstream news.
Along with "general assembly" and "99 percenters," Occupy Wall Street has brought the phrase "livestreaming" to the forefront. Rising-star reporters - known best by their Twitter and Ustream handles - such as Pool (timcast) in New York City and Spencer Mills (oakfosho) in Oakland are passionate, deeply embedded correspondents who provide live video reporting - sometimes lasting a dozen hours or more - of protests, general assemblies and other Occupy events. Instead of using a satellite truck, they broadcast live "TV" coverage from 3G- and 4G-equipped smartphones over video networks such as Ustream.com and Livestream.com.
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Occupying Grand Central Station
07 January 12
Tuesday, occupiers mobilized against the National Defense Authorization Action signed by President Obama on New Year's Eve. After a lunchtime march to the offices of New York senators, occupiers gathered in the Grand Central train station, where multiple people were arrested while leading "People's Mic" recitations of an anti-NDAA script. The indefinite detention provisions of the NDAA have become a lightning rod for Occupy actions, including Philadelphia-where activists presented "Fascist of the Year" awards to actors portraying their Senators-and Iowa, where they occupied the hotel headquartering the DNC.READ MORE
Occupy Oakland Activists Barred from City Hall
06 January 12
Police arrested a dozen Occupy Oakland protesters and dismantled a tepee outside City Hall late Wednesday, prompting an unsuccessful attempt by demonstrators Thursday to confront Mayor Jean Quan in her office.Officers in riot helmets converged on Frank Ogawa Plaza about 11:50 p.m. and arrested the protesters, some of whom had been sleeping near the tepee in violation of a temporary permit that the city had revoked two days earlier, officials said. The 12 were booked on suspicion of resisting police.
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National Lawyers Guild Demands OPD End Harassment of Occupy Oakland Protesters
05 January 12
SAN FRANCISCO - As an organization dedicated to upholding human rights and social justice, the National Lawyers Guild San Francisco Bay Area Chapter (NLGSF) is alarmed by the Oakland Police (OPD) and Alameda County Sheriff's Departments' ongoing violence, harassment, and unconstitutional arrests of Occupy Oakland protesters.Last night, January 4, 2012, video footage again showed OPD violating its own Crowd Control policy by raiding the Occupy Oakland demonstration at Oscar Grant/Frank Ogawa Plaza and grabbing select individuals for arrest, without warning and for no apparent reason. OPD has repeatedly targeted well-known Occupy Oakland activists for arrest, mostly without legal grounds or on petty offenses, in an apparent attempt to suppress the Occupy movement's legitimate First Amendment activity. Over the past three weeks, OPD has repeatedly raided the lawful protest vigil at Oscar Grant Plaza, using selective and bizarre interpretations of city and state ordinances to justify aggressively arresting and jailing the demonstrators. Again and again, the police have charged into crowds of peaceful protesters and grabbed individuals protesters who were doing nothing wrong and posed no threat.
"We have already had to sue the Oakland Police twice in the past year for violating their own Crowd Control Policy, but the violations continue," explained attorney Mike Flynn, president of NLGSF. “We have ongoing litigation in federal court to stop the unconstitutional arrests, violence against, and illegal prolonged detention of demonstrators in the Alameda County Jails. Yet, OPD has continued to assault Occupy Oakland protesters, confiscate their food and belongings, and hold them under cruel conditions in jail for days at a time, only to release most with no charges or with only very minor violations.”
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Occupy Oakland Activist May Face Three Strikes, Life in Prison
05 January 12
The threat of life imprisonment looms for Occupy Oakland activist Marcel Johnson - better known by his alias, Khali - after a third-strike arrest during the demonstration. Having spent about 15 years incarcerated already, 38 year-old Khali said he was trying to turn his life around by distributing food to the needy at the Occupy Oakland encampment, where he was a frequent, vocal, sometimes endearing presence. On December 16 he was arrested outside City Hall for violating anti-encroachment laws - namely, for a dispute about a blanket - which normally wouldn't have warranted more than a few hours jail time. Since Khali was in fact violating his probation terms for a different case in Sacramento, he was taken to Santa Rita and made to serve some jail time in lieu of going to trial, his attorney Dan Siegel explained. There, Khali was held in solitary confinement and not given his psychiatric medications, which might explain why he got into an altercation with a peace officer - the exact circumstances of which are still widely disputed. Now, Khali faces a felony assault charge in place of his original misdemeanor. As of Friday, December 23, Khali's bail was set at $580,000, according his attorney, Dan Siegel."So he's basically arrested for littering, and a week later he's facing felony charges," Siegel said, in an interview on December 23.
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Detention Provisions of Defense Bill Spark New York 'Occupy' Protest
04 January 12
Occupy Wall Street protesters in New York City stormed Grand Central Station during rush hour Tuesday evening, rallying against the Defense Authorization Act.The protesters were objecting to provisions in the bill, which President Obama signed into law on Saturday, that civil liberties groups say allow the United States to detain American citizens indefinitely in military custody.
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Occupy the Courtroom: Activists Put Guantanamo on Trial
03 January 12
A jury trial for five anti-torture activists begins on Tuesday, January 3, 2012 in D.C. Superior Court before Judge Fisher on a charge of unlawful conduct.“Our strategy is to put Guantanamo on trial,” says Josie Setzler, a human rights advocate and grandmother from Ohio, “to demand action from our elected Representatives and our President, to see Guantanamo shut down and this travesty ended.” On June 23, 2011, as the House of Representatives voted on an appropriations bill containing a measure to strip funding from any efforts to repatriate Guantanamo detainees, the activists stood one by one and addressed the men and women elected to represent their interests.
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On Occupy Wall Street’s Radical Roots
28 December 11
As it moves into a new year, and an election year no less, the Occupy movement will likely be claimed by more and more hopefuls in the mainstream trying to benefit from it, and to sanitize it in the process. I guess that’s why I’ve found myself writing a lot lately about the movement’s radical roots, radical ambitions, and radical tactics—to remind us that if it had played by the rules some now want it to play by, it wouldn’t have gotten where it is in the first place.For the occasion of a recent panel discussion at Columbia Law School on Occupy Wall Street and the First Amendment, I wrote this essay, subsequently published on the website of Harper’s Magazine. It argues that one should not take the movement’s appeals to the Bill of Rights too literally in legal terms, and that its tactics and aims have always been infused with an impulse more revolutionary than the law could ever accommodate. The whole discussion at Columbia, which also included WNV contributor and legal scholar Jeremy Kessler, can now be watched here:
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Protesters Inspire 'Occupy 101' University Course
04 January 12
Columbia University is offering a new course next semester based on the ‘Occupy’ movement.Run by the Anthropology department, the class is taught by Dr. Hannah Appel, who has previously spent time camped out in Zuccotti Park with Occupy Wall Street protesters. Even though Appel is a participant, the lecturer believes she can teach the course in an objective manner.
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NYPD Marks New Year by Arresting, Throwing Around Occupy Wall Street Protesters
01 January 12
The New York Police Department (NYPD) responded with brute force in the first hours of the New Year to Occupy Wall Street’s attempt to re-take Zuccotti Park. The police went after live streamers, others with cameras and even bystanders and a National Lawyers Guild (NLG) observer.At least 68 were arrested. Updates posted on the action by Occupy Wall Street that unfolded indicate NYPD threw around livestreamers and bystanders as they were removing people and making arrests. The police also blockaded the sidewalk stopping a march and told Occupy Wall Street demonstrators they were “blocking traffic.” They brought in horses. They searched for individuals with “official press passes,” ready to eject citizen journalists who wanted to remain and bear witness to the NYPD’s aggressive policing.
Again, a member of the Global Revolution livestream team was seemingly targeted and arrested. NYPD has seemingly targeted Occupy Wall Street media team members in the past months. In December, NYPD targeted 17 people, who all had some level of involvement with media. They had been covering a flash mob action in Brookfield Properties’ Winter Garden.
An NLG legal observer was “ejected” and left as ordered. When the observer made a phone call, the NYPD ordered the observer to put down the phone. The observer was then arrested.
Police arrested people for simply crossing the street. They had been ordered to cross and when they did cross they were subsequently arrested.
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Occupy The Caucus’ Activists Target Iowa Campaign Headquarters
01 January 12
99 Percenters allied to Occupy Wall Street have launched what they call “Occupy The Caucus” to protest against corporate influence in American politics by occupying the offices of various campaign headquarters in the state of Iowa.Scores of protesters marched on the campaign headquarters of candidates including Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich (the “lobbyist” of the one percent). Eighteen demonstrators were arrested on Saturday, as demonstrators called for kicking money out of politics. Watch protesters get arrested outside Bachmann’s office.
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Occupy the Rose Parade
01 January 12
OTRP's Main Action is the Occupy "People's Parade" which will be on Monday from 7am - 2pm. Details for the People's Parade are in the PDF schedule and further below. Please note that there is also an ongoing "hangout area" at Memorial Park for Occupiers from 6 am to 10 pm on Jan 1st & Jan 2nd. Please note that -- for several logistics reasons -- the locations for the "Corporate Accountability", "End Corporate Personhood" & "Stop Foreclosures" discussions have been recently shifted to Memorial Park at earlier times. However, the main "Discussion on Faith-Based Institutions" will be still at All Saints Church from 3:00 pm - 6:00 pm (location details in PDF file). Please contact the Phase 1 coordinator, Dan Niswander, if you have any questions. Dan can be reached at niswandermusic@gmail.com and 323-640-1805.READ MORE
Occupy's Rose Parade Float: 70-foot Octopus of Corporate Greed
30 December 11
The octopus, said activist Mark Lipman of Los Angeles, represents Wall Street's stranglehold on political, cultural and social life, with tentacles "that reach into your pocket to get your money and a tentacle to get your house.""This is the real Rose Parade, and the other is the Rose Charade," said Pete Thottam, 40, an Occupy activist.
Protesters will march the parade route after the floats and marching bands have passed. The group has been working with Pasadena police and Tournament of Roses officials on how not to disrupt the parade.
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Occupy Iowa: We Aren't Trying to Disrupt Caucuses
29 December 11
On Thursday night - after protesters lined up for free food provided with donations to the movement - occupiers gathered for a performance and civil rights panel that attracted perhaps 70 occupiers. (A small occupy tent city has been set up a few blocks away, though protesters spent $1,000 to rent the indoor space for the week.) About five hours earlier, 12 occupiers had been arrested at the Iowa Democratic Party headquarters after they refused to move out from in front of the front door of the building, including a 14-year-old who was released into the custody of her father.The occupiers don't see much distinction between the Democratic and Republican parties, though the fact that President Obama is effectively unopposed for reelection gives them little in the way of targets on the Democratic side. Emily Allison of Des Moines, who was among those arrested Thursday, said she felt "betrayed" by Mr. Obama for his unwillingness to veto the National Defense Authorization Act and for not closing the Guantanamo Bay prison facility.
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Boston DA Subpoenas Twitter Over Occupy Boston, Anonymous
30 December 11
The subpoena also includes a request for confidentiality from the Special Prosecutions Unit, but had no actual legal gag order. Without legal orders, the request for confidentially had no more enforceability than if Assistant District Attorney Benjamin Goldberger had also asked Twitter to send him a cupcake.It's Twitter's policy to forward a subpoena to its target in order to give the user a chance to fight it, unless the company is specifically gagged. It appears that @p0isan0n received a copy from Twitter and posted it to Scribd.
ACLU attorney Peter Krupp, who is representing user @p0isan0n, filed a motion to quash the subpoena on First Amendment grounds. But Thursday, the ACLU seemed to be dealt a defeat when Suffolk Superior Court Judge Carol Ball issued an impoundment order after hearing the case mainly in chambers.
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Occupy Activists Prepare for Rose Parade March
29 December 11
An army of volunteers from across the nation has once again descended upon Pasadena's Rose Palace, where several floats are being covered with flowers.Half a mile away in Singer Park, dozens of Occupy activists worked Thursday to prepare for a protest.
The activists, part of a movement whose encampments across the country grabbed headlines for months, are trying to take their message into 2012 with a high-profile foray into the Rose Parade.
While volunteers at the Rose Palace were armed with scissors, thousands of gallons of glue and millions of flower petals, Occupy activists worked with plastic pipe and banners.
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Occupy the Caucuses Group Blocks Democratic Party Headquarters
29 December 11
Democrats were the target Thursday afternoon of Occupy the Caucuses demonstrators who attempted to highlight the role of corporate cash in politics by taping dollar bills over their mouths.Protesters blocked three entrances to Iowa Democratic Party headquarters in Des Moines. Twelve people were arrested after they refused to leave. Earlier Thursday, five Occupy the Caucuses demonstrators were arrested at Ron Paul’s offices in Ankeny.
Thursday marked the second day of protests by members of Occupy the Caucuses. Protests are expected to continue today, four days before the Iowa caucuses, with events at various campaign offices of Republican presidential candidates, organizers said.
Demonstrators said they believe their arrests highlight and add urgency to their message. Tactics of civil disobedience, they say, have been used in all of the nation’s successful social movements.
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Police Arrest 4 Protesters, Clear Occupy Camp in Bellingham, Wash
28 December 11
BELLINGHAM, Wash. — Police dressed in riot gear cleared the Occupy Bellingham camp at Maritime Heritage Park, arresting four protesters who refused to leave Wednesday.Shortly after 1 p.m. PST police moved the last of the protesters from the park, where they had been camping since late October.
No weapons were used and there were no injuries.
Protesters gathered on the sidewalk, then marched to City Hall where they met to discuss their next move.
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Occupy Protesters Arrested Outside Romney's Iowa Headquarters
28 December 11
Occupy activists kicked off their first day of direct actions in the week leading up to Iowa's January 3 caucuses with a protest outside Mitt Romney's Des Moines headquarters, where seven protesters were arrested on criminal trespassing charges on Wednesday. About 70 others chanted familiar occupy slogans and protested Romney's ties to Wells Fargo. (Employees and executives of the San Francisco-based banking giant have given $61,500 to Romney thus far in the 2012 election cycle.)Before the protest, several dozen occupy activists met at their own headquarters near the State Capitol, where they decided to protest outside Romney's campaign office because of its vicinity to a Wells Fargo just a few doors down the same street. The occupiers were joined by about a half-dozen police officers from the Des Moines area, who were invited in the interest of open communication.
As police arrested the seven protesters who refused to move to the sidewalk during the Romney protest, Des Moines Sergeant Chris Scott told reporters, "Up to this point, we've had an excellent relationship with the Occupy Des Moines folk. If there's any concerns they call us, and vice versa." He said that police have also been in regular contact with presidential campaign offices in the city.
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Occupy the Classroom?
12 December 11
CAMBRIDGE – Early last month, a group of students staged a walkout in Harvard’s popular introductory economics course, Economics 10, taught by my colleague Greg Mankiw. Their complaint: the course propagates conservative ideology in the guise of economic science and helps perpetuate social inequality.The students were part of a growing chorus of protest against modern economics as it is taught in the world’s leading academic institutions. Economics has always had its critics, of course, but the financial crisis and its aftermath have given them fresh ammunition, seeming to validate long-standing charges against the profession’s unrealistic assumptions, reification of markets, and disregard for social concerns.
Mankiw, for his part, found the protesting students “poorly informed.” Economics does not have an ideology, he retorted. Quoting John Maynard Keynes, he pointed out that economics is a method that helps people to think straight and reach the correct answers, with no foreordained policy conclusions.
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Oakland’s Reins Blister a Mayor Raised on Protest
28 December 11
In a dizzying series of reversals, Ms. Quan initially embraced the protest, then ordered the camp cleared, then allowed the demonstrators to return after the police seriously injured one of them, a Marine veteran. Two weeks later, she ordered the plaza cleared again, citing reports that “anarchists” were fomenting violence.Now, Frank H. Ogawa Plaza remains empty most days, but Ms. Quan’s mayoralty is teetering. In a city known for its flamboyant and colorful mayors, she has emerged as one of its most controversial. Conservatives accuse her of coddling the protesters, while former allies on the left are incensed that she ordered the plaza cleared at all.
And now two rival groups, one started by a black community activist, the other by a white former mayoral candidate, are vying to have her recalled.
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Twitter Subpoena Reveals Law Enforcement Monitoring OWS Via Social Media
27 December 11
Twitter has been subpoenaed for information related to Occupy supporters' accounts, proving that law enforcement agencies have been monitoring OWS supporters' activity on social media. The Suffolk County District Attorney's Office in Massachusetts is fed up with being mocked, ridiculed, and criticized by faceless Tweeters, so it's taking matters into its own hands.Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney Benjamin A. Goldberger sent a subpoena on Dec. 14 to Twitter's headquarters in San Francisco requesting information on a number of accounts and hashtags associated with the Occupy Boston protest movement to assist authorities with an "official criminal investigation."
After receiving the subpoena, Twitter released it to a user listed in the subpoena per company policy, despite the fact that the D.A.'s office requested that "in order to protect the confidentiality and integrity of the ongoing criminal investigation, this office asks that you not disclose the existence of this request to the subscriber."
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Occupy Everywhere – But Not at the Mall
28 December 11
“The state and city pretty much shut us down at the historic ‘public square’ at the Capitol,” said Roger Ehrlich, an Occupy Raleigh activist, “so it seemed reasonable to assemble at the modern, corporatized version – the mall.” Ehrlich and I were among six people arrested on Black Friday during an Occupy Raleigh protest at the Crabtree Valley Mall.The Occupy tent occupations provided a public forum for democratic protest and created a space for envisioning new communities. Then, police began to crack-down on encampments, disinformation campaigns grew and public support waned. As a result, many Occupy movements have expanded tactics from long-term public occupations to short-term direct actions on private property, such as ports, banks, homes, and malls. What are the implications of this shift to the power hubs of the 1%?
First, this transition from the public to the private directly exposes the collusion between government and corporations.
As a resident of Oakland and a doctoral candidate at the University of California-Berkeley, I had survived the police brutality in the public spaces of Occupy Oakland and Occupy Cal. Yet I ended up being arrested on private property by a planned coordination between mall cops and the city police.
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OWS Press Team: Cash Corrupted Congress
28 December 11
It’s always been about the money. Occupy Wall Street chose to set up its 24-hour outpost of political dissent on the doorstep of the finance industry primarily to underscore the simple fact that money has corrupted our political process so completely that the seat of power in the U.S. isn’t even in Washington, D.C. any more. That said, the Capitol continues collecting its cut, as evidenced in this week’s double-barreled dispatches, in the Washington Post and the New York Times, on the exploding wealth gap between our ever-more affluent representatives in Congress and the financially flat-lined citizens they represent.From its inception, OWS has focused on the concept of legalized bribery, as the continually rising cost of a political campaign—an average of $1.4 million for a successful House run, up fourfold in real dollars since 1976, and nearly $10 million for a Senate seat—has been largely subsidized by wealthy donors, corporations and special interests, in return for legislation that favors their interests. It’s a form of regulatory capture that most first-world democracies outlaw as corruption, but that Americans know as “the way things are,” along with “ask your doctor” pharmaceutical ads and campaigns pitching products directly to young children. The result is an almost total lack of confidence in our elected officials, as reflected by Congress’ almost impossibly low 9 percent approval rating.
Even insider-trading laws don’t apply to our lawmakers, despite their regular access to valuable market information Joe Citizen will never hear, not to mention their power to tilt markets and pick winners and losers by removing a sentence from this piece of legislation, or adding a clause to that one.
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Occupy Oakland Sets Up New Camp
28 December 11
OAKLAND -- A new Occupy Oakland encampment sprang up in West Oakland on Tuesday and already there are more than a dozen tents.The new camp is located in a vacant lot on the 2000 block of Peralta Street near Mandela Parkway and is being called the Cypress Triangle, according to the Occupy California website.
Oakland has been without an Occupy encampment for more than a five weeks. The last camp, also in West Oakland, was cleared out by police late Nov. 22. Protesters had taken over a vacant lot at 18th and Linden streets a day earlier but left when police directed them to clear out.
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Occupy Wall Street | How Cash Has Corrupted Congress
28 December 11
It’s always been about the money. Occupy Wall Street chose to set up its 24-hour outpost of political dissent on the doorstep of the finance industry primarily to underscore the simple fact that money has corrupted our political process so completely that the seat of power in the U.S. isn’t even in Washington, D.C. any more. That said, the Capitol continues collecting its cut, as evidenced in this week’s double-barreled dispatches, in the Washington Post and the New York Times, on the exploding wealth gap between our ever-more affluent representatives in Congress and the financially flat-lined citizens they represent.READ MORE
Anonymous to Publish Emails Stolen from Stratfor
27 December 11
(Reuters) - Hackers affiliated with the Anonymous group said they are getting ready to publish emails stolen from private intelligence analysis firm Strategic Forecasting Inc, whose clients include the U.S. military, Wall Street banks and other corporations.Strategic Forecasting Inc, which is also known as Stratfor, disclosed over the weekend that its website had been hacked and that some information about its corporate subscribers had been made public.
The hacking group known as Antisec has claimed responsibility for the attack and promised to cause "mayhem" by releasing stolen documents.
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Occupy Geeks Are Building a Facebook for the 99%
27 December 11
“I don’t want to say we’re making our own Facebook. But, we’re making our own Facebook,” said Ed Knutson, a web and mobile app developer who joined a team of activist-geeks redesigning social networking for the era of global protest.They hope the technology they are developing can go well beyond Occupy Wall Street to help establish more distributed social networks, better online business collaboration and perhaps even add to the long-dreamed-of semantic web — an internet made not of messy text, but one unified by underlying meta-data that computers can easily parse.
The impetus is understandable. Social media helped pull together protesters around the globe in 2010 and 2011. Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak so feared Twitter and Facebook that he shut down Egypt’s internet service. A YouTube video posted in the name of Anonymous propelled Occupy Wall Street from an insider meme to national news. And top-trending Twitter hashtags turned Occupy from a ho-hum rally on Sept. 17 into a national and even international movement.
Now it’s time for activists to move beyond other people’s social networks and build their own, according to Knutson.
“We don’t want to trust Facebook with private messages among activists,” he said.
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DC Lobbying Firm Outlines Plan for Coordinated Smear of Occupy Wall Street. Price: $850,000
27 December 11
A well-known Washington lobbying firm with links to the financial industry has proposed an $850,000 plan to take on Occupy Wall Street and politicians who might express sympathy for the protests, according to a memo obtained by the MSNBC program "Up w/ Chris Hayes."The proposal was written on the letterhead of the lobbying firm Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford and addressed to one of CLGC's clients, the American Bankers Association.
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Occupy Barcelona
27 December 11
On a recent trip I took to the countryside north of Barcelona I stared out the window of our economy car and wondered at the quantity of chabolas (shanty towns) that had sprung up on the hillsides along the AP-7 highway. Had there always been so many? Or was it just that I was noticing more of them now that autumn had swept summer's foliage from the trees? There they were, spouting smoke from makeshift stacks, pathetic hovels consisting of scavenged slabs of metal, old boards, tires, tarps. It was a stormy day, and I imagined pools of rainwater collecting in and around these homes.Everyone needs a place to stay, but paying rent in Barcelona is hard for a lot of Spaniards due to the economic crisis and country's 20 percent unemployment rate. It's hard to pay down a mortgage if you're suddenly out of work, a situation some Americans know all too well these days. The difference is that in Spain when homeowners can’t make their payments, the bank takes the house and the once-owner keeps all the debt. The unlucky individual is rendered jobless, homeless, and a good €200,000 in the hole. Many see this deal as abusive, and organizations like Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH) protest and have managed to stop more than 100 evictions since 2010. Still, about 300 families a day lose their homes across the country.
While PAH takes to the streets in protest, Okupas take to the many empty buildings. "These days with the housing crisis they estimate that there are 80,000 apartments standing empty in Barcelona," says Iñaki García García of El Local, an alternative bookshop in El Raval connected to the Okupa movement. While Okupas move into buildings for many reasons, bringing awareness to the Spanish constitutional right to housing is a big one.
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Is New Haven a Model for Occupy Unity?
27 December 11
By the time the Occupy movement came to New Haven in October, New York City police had already made headlines when a video of a high-ranking cop pepper-spraying female protesters went viral. This was on the mind of Officer David Hartman, the press spokesman for the New Haven Police Department. Every time a redneck cop cracks some skulls, he said, cops everywhere become the bad guys. So when more than a thousand people gathered on the city's historic Green to launch Occupy New Haven, Hartman was bracing himself for the worst."But it never happened," he said. He recalls a moment when he saw "a little old lady with white hair" chanting with the crowd. In response to the call of "We are the 99 percent," the woman turned to face him. She screamed: "And so are the cops!" Hartman, who agreed with her, could only smile.
"The smiles continued that day, and I thought to myself, 'This is going to be an easy gig.'" The physical occupation in New Haven has flourished as its counterparts nationwide have been stymied or crushed.
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Occupy Wall Street Becomes Highly Collectible
25 December 11
NEW YORK (AP) — Occupy Wall Street may still be working to shake the notion it represents a passing outburst of rage, but some establishment institutions have already decided the movement's artifacts are worthy of historic preservation.More than a half-dozen major museums and organizations from the Smithsonian Institution to the New-York Historical Society have been avidly collecting materials produced by the Occupy movement.
Staffers have been sent to occupied parks to rummage for buttons, signs, posters and documents. Websites and tweets have been archived for digital eternity. And museums have approached individual protesters directly to obtain posters and other ephemera.
The Museum of the City of New York is planning an exhibition on Occupy for next month.
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