Did the Department of Homeland Security spy on the Occupy Wall Street protesters across America? Apparently so!
The DHS report entitled “SPECIAL COVERAGE: Occupy Wall Street,” explained how they kept tabs on OWS movements across the country.
Examined by Rolling Stone Magazine and WikiLeaks, the leaked documents focused on the history of Occupy Wall Street and assessed its “impact” on everything from financial services to government facilities.
For instance, one case caught their eye when five women in Chicago were arrested after dumping garbage taken from a foreclosed home owned by Bank of America in the lobby of one of the bank’s branches.
One of the most damaging parts of the report comes in its final paragraph, which illustrates why they spied on OWS camps:
“The growing support for the OWS movement has expanded the protests’ impact and increased the potential for violence.
While the peaceful nature of the protests has served so far to mitigate their impact, larger numbers and support from groups such as Anonymous substantially increase the risk for potential incidents and enhance the potential security risk to critical infrastructure (CI).
The continued expansion of these protests also places an increasingly heavy burden on law enforcement and movement organizers to control protesters.
As the primary target of the demonstrations, financial services stands the sector most impacted by the OWS protests.
Due to the location of the protests in major metropolitan areas, heightened and continuous situational awareness for security personnel across all CI sectors is encouraged.”
Today the moevement got a shot in the arm after when 10 OWS demonstrators were arrested in New York City on Wednesday aftre about 50 of them marched from a park outside the New York Public Library to the world headquarters of Pfizer Inc and back.
They denounced Pfizer as a corporation that lobbies for legislation to create tax breaks and other benefits for large businesses.
“Shame on Pfizer! You’re a bunch of liars!” chanted the protestors as they milled around barricades in front of Pfizer, the world’s largest drug maker.
With the heightened security since the 9/11 attacks, civil liberties have all but been abolished when it comes to surveillance operations and law enforcement.
We are seeing it now as the NYPD conducted surveillance operations on Muslim residents in New York and New Jersey. Is anyone surprised that the DHS spied and kept tabs on the OWS movement?
