Protest // Current TV

The First Amendment and the Obligation to Peacefully Disrupt in a Free Society

By Naomi Wolf
Posted: 10/22/11 04:03 PM ET

Mayor Bloomberg is planning Draconian new measures to crack down on what he calls the "disruption" caused by the protesters at Zuccotti Park, and he is citing neighbors' complaints about noise and mess. This set of talking points, and this strategy, is being geared up as well by administrations of municipalities around the nation in response to the endurance and growing influence of the Occupation protest sites. But the idea that any administration has the unmediated option of "striking a balance," in Bloomberg's words, that it likes, and closing down peaceful and lawful disruption of business as usual as it sees fit is a grave misunderstanding -- or, more likely, deliberate misrepresentation -- of our legal social contract as American citizens.

Some kinds of disruption in a free republic are not "optional extras" if the First Amendment governs the land, as it does ours, and are certainly not subject to the whims of mayors or local police, or even DHS. Just as protesters don't have a blanket right to do everything they want, there is absolutely no blanket right of mayors or even of other citizens to be free from the effect of certain kinds of disruption resulting from their fellow citizens exercising First Amendment rights. That notion, presented right now by Bloomberg and other vested interests, of a "disruption-free" social contract is pure invention -- just like the flat-out fabrication of the nonexistent permit cited in my own detention outside the Huffington Post Game Changers event this last Tuesday, when police told me, without the event organizers' knowledge and contrary to their intentions, that a private entity had "control of the sidewalks" for several hours. (In fact, the permit in question -- a red carpet event permit! -- actually guarantees citizens' rights to walk and even engage in political assembly on the streets if they do not block pedestrian traffic, as the OWS protesters were not.)

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/occupy-wall-street-bloomberg-free-speech-right-to-disruption-_b_1026535.html

"Pretty good information and well worth reading... Thanks queenofit for the recommendation..." =)By Naomi Wolf Posted: 10/22/11 04:03 PM ET Mayor Bloomberg is planning Draconian... more

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The Average American Has Been Getting Screwed For Decades (CHARTS)

Everyone works hard not to get cheated out of their fair share. In the past 30 years,... more

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POWERFUL! This Is Exactly Why Wall Street Is To Blame (VIDEO)

This POWERFUL CLIP is EXACTLY why we SUPPORT OCCUPY WALL STREET. Featuring some strong... more

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'Media Matters' senior editor Joe Strupp analyzes Occupy Wall Street coverage

Cenk Uygur and "Media Matters" Senior Editor Joe Strupp meet in the middle... more

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'Poorman's Nation' helps Occupy Wall Street find a voice on the radio

Most days, "Poorman" Jim Trenton gives Occupy Wall Street protestors a... more

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30 Police officers pissing on the first amendment.

This isn't the thirties, Despite what the NYPD might think.

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Chris Hedges: "This one could take them all down"

Chris Hedges: "What happens is in all of these movements ... the foot soldiers of... more

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Meet the Guy Who Snitched on Occupy Wall Street to the FBI and NYPD

The Occupy Wall Street protests have been going on for a month. And it seems the FBI and NYPD have had help tracking protesters' moves thanks to a conservative computer security expert who gained access to one of the group's internal mailing lists, and then handed over information on the group's plans to authorities and corporations targeted by protesters.

Since the Occupy Wall Street protest began on September 17, New York security consultant Thomas Ryan has been waging a campaign to infiltrate and discredit the movement. Ryan says he's done contract work for the U.S. Army and he brags on his blog that he leads "a team called Black Cell, a team of the most-highly trained and capable physical, threat and cyber security professionals in the world." But over the past few weeks, he and his computer security buddies have been spending time covertly attending Occupy Wall Street meetings, monitoring organizers' social media accounts, and hanging out with protesters in Lower Manhattan.

As part of their intelligence-gathering operation, the group gained access to a listserv used by Occupy Wall Street organizers called September17discuss. On September17discuss, organizers hash out tactics and plan events, conduct post-mortems of media appearances, and trade the latest protest gossip. On Friday, Ryan leaked thousands of September17discuss emails to conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart, who is now using them to try to smear Occupy Wall Street as an anarchist conspiracy to disrupt global markets.

What may much more alarming to Occupy Wall Street organizers is that while Ryan was monitoring September17discuss, he was forwarding interesting email threads to contacts at the NYPD and FBI, including special agent Jordan T. Loyd, a member of the FBI's New York-based cyber security team.

On September 18th, the day after the protest's start, Ryan forwarded an email exchange between Occupy Wall Street organizers to Loyd. The email exchange is harmless: Organizers discuss how they need to increase union participation in the protest. "We need more outreach to workers. The best way to do that is by showing solidarity with them," writes organizer Jackie DiSalvo in the thread. She then lists a group of potential unions to work with.

Another organizer named Conor responds: "+1,000,000 to Jackie's proposal on working people/union struggles outreach and solidarity. Also, why not invite people to protest Troy Davis's execution date at Liberty Plaza this Monday?"

Five minutes after Conor sent his email, Ryan forwarded the thread—with no additional comment—to Loyd's FBI email address. "Thanks!" Loyd responded. He cc'd his colleague named Ilhwan Yum, a fellow cybersecurity expert at the agency, on the reply.

More @ link http://gawker.com/5850054/meet-the-guy-who-snitched-on-occupy-wall-street-to-the-fbi-and-nypdThe Occupy Wall Street protests have been going on for a month. And it seems the FBI... more

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Citibank Protester Talks About Undercover Infiltration In Occupy Wall Street

Well, this is sort of a scary story: Marshall Garrett, one of the protesters who was arrested during Saturday’s Occupy Wall Street march for trying to hold a General Assembly in Citibank, told the Village Voice what went down that day. Apparently a plainclothed cop had been very well informed of the situation ahead of time and hidden himself in the crowd.

Here’s what Mr. Garrett told the paper:
But what was unknown to us and to a lot of people that day, including those in Times Square, was that there were undercover cops already there, paid to be disruptive and to be loud. One undercover cop present [at Citi] was louder than the entire group.

How did you know he was an undercover cop?

He arrested one of the protestors outside, and slammed her into the wall, and pushed her back into the bank. We all saw him at the precinct with us. He was laughing with the fellow white shirt cops, telling them about what we’d been saying, basically. It was a bit startling how inside their information was – how they were being paid to go to these protests and put us in situations where we’d be arrested and not be able to leave.

Now, it didn’t require a lot of researching to figure out Occupy Wall Street’s plans for Saturday. They had broadcasted a lot of the information out on their website, OccupyWallSt.org. But when it came down to which banks would actually be targeted for protests, you would have needed to be in Washington Square Park that day in order to be given instructions. (Protesters were split into groups and told to go and close their accounts in either Chase or Citibank.)

So either the Washington Square Park police were able to find out and radio ahead to plainclothes detectives which locations to situate themselves in, or the Occupy Wall Street movement has a couple of NYPD detectives moving inside of their ranks already. Or, Option C, as presented in the blog Red Green and Blue: the kids that were planning the runs on the bank just talked too much about it on social networks.

Update: Or, you know, the cops could have figured it out from Thomas Ryan, who has been forwarding all the Occupy Wall Street listserve information to the FBI, NYPD, and Andrew Breitbart.Well, this is sort of a scary story: Marshall Garrett, one of the protesters who was... more

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Obama Does Not Get It

Mr. Cool is clueless.

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Occupy Wall Street: second senior NYPD officers faces investigation

A second senior New York police officer is being formally investigated over allegations that he assaulted an Occupy Wall Street protester, raising fresh questions over the NYPD's deployment of supervisors on the front line in volatile public order situations.

The officer, who has been named in news reports as deputy inspector Johnny Cardona, was filmed on Friday grabbing the protester from behind, spinning him round and appearing to punch him in the face so hard that he fell to the ground.

The New York Civilian Complaint Review Board, an independent mayoral agency that deals with allegations of excessive or unnecessary force against police, is now investigating the incident, along with a number of other complaints over policing of the protests.

This is the second inquiry the board has launched in the last month into an alleged assault by a senior NYPD officer on Occupy Wall Street protesters. It is also investigating the use of pepper spray on peaceful female protesters by another deputy inspector, Anthony Bologna, who is also the subject of an internal NYPD inquiry.

Linda Sachs, a spokeswoman for the CCRB, said she could not comment on individual officers, but confirmed that the alleged assault was among several being investigated.

"We have several ongoing investigations involving police interactions with protesters. That includes events that occurred on Friday. Those events were videotaped," Sachs told the Guardian.

The victim of the alleged assault, Felix Rivera Pitre, has called for an investigation into Cardona's conduct. Over the weekend, new video was released of an earlier demonstration which appears to show him roughly handling a female protester from the same group that was later pepper-sprayed by Bologna.

Pitre's lawyer, Ron Kuby, who specialises in cases of alleged police brutality, has written to the New York district attorney, Cyrus Vance, demanding a "full, complete and lengthy investigation" into Friday's incident.

The NYPD has neither confirmed nor denied the identity of Cardona as the officer involved in both incidents. A senior police spokesman, Paul Browne, said Rivera was wanted for questioning for allegedly having provoked the confrontation by trying to elbow a police officer, which the officer deflected.

More @ link http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/17/occupy-wall-street-cardona-investigationA second senior New York police officer is being formally investigated over... more