Police State

New documents show how the DHS and the FBI worked with big banks and local law enforcement to crush the Occupy movement nationally.

"The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, in a groundbreaking scoop that should once more shame major US media outlets (why are nonprofits now some of the only entities in America left breaking major civil liberties news?), filed this request. The document – reproduced here in an easily searchable format – shows a terrifying network of coordinated DHS, FBI, police, regional fusion center, and private-sector activity so completely merged into one another that the monstrous whole is, in fact, one entity: in some cases, bearing a single name, the Domestic Security Alliance Council. And it reveals this merged entity to have one centrally planned, locally executed mission. The documents, in short, show the cops and DHS working for and with banks to target, arrest, and politically disable peaceful American citizens."

If Guardian wants us to take this report seriously, it must acknowledge the Occupy protests were not peaceful.

"The documents, released after long delay in the week between Christmas and New Year, show a nationwide meta-plot unfolding in city after city in an Orwellian world: six American universities are sites where campus police funneled information about students involved with OWS to the FBI, with the administrations' knowledge (p51); banks sat down with FBI officials to pool information about OWS protesters harvested by private security; plans to crush Occupy events, planned for a month down the road, were made by the FBI – and offered to the representatives of the same organizations that the protests would target; and even threats of the assassination of OWS leaders by sniper fire – by whom? Where? – now remain redacted and undisclosed to those American citizens in danger, contrary to standard FBI practice to inform the person concerned when there is a threat against a political leader (p61)."

This shows what many of us have long said: the local police work for the so-called federal government, and corporations are nothing more than agencies of the federal government. There is no federal government any more. This is only a monstrous central government that controls all state and local governments and corporations.

"The documents show stunning range: in Denver, Colorado, that branch of the FBI and a "Bank Fraud Working Group" met in November 2011 – during the Occupy protests – to surveil the group. The Federal Reserve of Richmond, Virginia had its own private security surveilling Occupy Tampa and Tampa Veterans for Peace and passing privately-collected information on activists back to the Richmond FBI, which, in turn, categorized OWS activities under its "domestic terrorism" unit. The Anchorage, Alaska "terrorism task force" was watching Occupy Anchorage. The Jackson, Michigan "joint terrorism task force" was issuing a "counterterrorism preparedness alert" about the ill-organized grandmas and college sophomores in Occupy there. Also in Jackson, Michigan, the FBI and the "Bank Security Group" – multiple private banks – met to discuss the reaction to "National Bad Bank Sit-in Day" (the response was violent, as you may recall). The Virginia FBI sent that state's Occupy members' details to the Virginia terrorism fusion center. The Memphis FBI tracked OWS under its "joint terrorism task force" aegis, too. And so on, for over 100 pages."

Clearly the Occupy movement was not a terrorist organization, but neither was it peaceful. Occupation of the property of others cannot be peaceful, and violence was widespread across Occupy camps. But this exposes that all the government's anti-terrorist apparatus is really aimed at US citizens, not al Qaeda or other terrorists. It shows that the government is already waging war against Americans, and the purchase of over 1 billion rounds of ammunition by DHS and additional purchases of rounds by other agencies is preparation for that war heating up as the scales fall from the eyes of Americans. In other words, things are as bad as I've been saying all along.

"Why the huge push for counterterrorism "fusion centers", the DHS militarizing of police departments, and so on? It was never really about "the terrorists". It was not even about civil unrest. It was always about this moment, when vast crimes might be uncovered by citizens – it was always, that is to say, meant to be about you."

They got the summary right.

Because surveillance drives drone strikes, helping surveillance means helping kill people.

DHS sent a list of suspicious activities to hotel operators and told them to watch out because they might signal the customer is a terrorist. But people do all these activities. More evidence that the government security apparatus is targeted at us, not terrorists.