FBI knew of assassination plot against Occupy but gave no warning

[Behind]

WTF?! Is really USA that fucked up??

The Federal Bureau of Investigation knew of a plot to assassinate members of the Occupy Wall Street at protests around the United States but did not inform the potential victims of the threats to their lives.
The shocking revelation was buried deep within documents released to the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF), a human and civil rights advocacy organization, after the group filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
Last week, Digital Journal reported that the documents obtained by PCJF detailed how the FBI cooperated with the Department of Homeland Security, US military and private corporations to monitor and investigate Occupy Wall Street protesters as "domestic terrorists" and "criminals." The documents prove that federal agencies are "functioning as a de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and corporate America," PCJF said.

Thorough analyses of the documents has now revealed a heavily redacted file that clearly mentions a plan to use snipers to assassinate Occupy protesters. The names of the groups or individuals involved in the murderous plot have been redacted, so it is impossible to identify them at this time. What is known is that the FBI never alerted any of the potential victims of the danger to their lives.
From an FBI document marked "SECRET":
An identified [redacted] of October planned to engage in sniper attacks against protesters in Houston, Texas, if deemed necessary. An identified [redacted] had received intelligence that indicated the protesters in New York and Seattle planned similar protests in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, Texas. [Redacted] planned to gather intelligence against the leaders of the protest groups and obtain photographs then formulate a plan to kill the leadership via suppressed sniper rifles.

Source: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/340232

 

[updog]

if this was a movie, that probably happened because the snipers were FBI as well.

 

[He's Dead, Jim]

Source: Some newspaper nobody has ever heard of. I somehow doubt the authenticity of this, or at least the investigative analysis.

 

[egan.]

With so little information and so much redacted it's at least possible that no one was ever notified because the plotters were arrested. We simply don't know at this point. It may well be the worst possible situation or it may not. The fact that the FBI didn't redact the who thing is interesting in and of itself.
That said, there is this from a mainstream source so we know the FBI was closely tracking the movement. Typically the bloggers will find this stuff and it will trickle into mainstream outlets. Lets see if this story is on NYT in a couple of days.

 

[Mutant]

The main difference between small and huge media is that the small media don't have to worry about their good reputation because they have none, so they can publish any unconfirmed hearsays and other bullshit.

So as always take it with at least three thousand grains of salt.

 

[Behind]

You asked for it, you got it.

Source: The Guardian

I have a couple of reasons why it's not mainstream in the USA. Go imagine.

It was more sophisticated than we had imagined: new documents show that the violent crackdown on Occupy last fall – so mystifying at the time – was not just coordinated at the level of the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and local police. The crackdown, which involved, as you may recall, violent arrests, group disruption, canister missiles to the skulls of protesters, people held in handcuffs so tight they were injured, people held in bondage till they were forced to wet or soil themselves –was coordinated with the big banks themselves.

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.

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).

As Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the PCJF, put it, the documents show that from the start, the FBI – though it acknowledges Occupy movement as being, in fact, a peaceful organization – nonetheless designated OWS repeatedly as a "terrorist threat":

"FBI documents just obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) … reveal that from its inception, the FBI treated the Occupy movement as a potential criminal and terrorist threat … The PCJF has obtained heavily redacted documents showing that FBI offices and agents around the country were in high gear conducting surveillance against the movement even as early as August 2011, a month prior to the establishment of the OWS encampment in Zuccotti Park and other Occupy actions around the country."

Verheyden-Hilliard points out the close partnering of banks, the New York Stock Exchange and at least one local Federal Reserve with the FBI and DHS, and calls it "police-statism":

"This production [of documents], which we believe is just the tip of the iceberg, is a window into the nationwide scope of the FBI's surveillance, monitoring, and reporting on peaceful protestors organizing with the Occupy movement … These documents also show these federal agencies functioning as a de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and Corporate America."

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.

Jason Leopold, at Truthout.org, who has sought similar documents for more than a year, reported that the FBI falsely asserted in response to his own FOIA requests that no documents related to its infiltration of Occupy Wall Street existed at all. But the release may be strategic: if you are an Occupy activist and see how your information is being sent to terrorism task forces and fusion centers, not to mention the "longterm plans" of some redacted group to shoot you, this document is quite the deterrent.

There is a new twist: the merger of the private sector, DHS and the FBI means that any of us can become WikiLeaks, a point that Julian Assange was trying to make in explaining the argument behind his recent book. The fusion of the tracking of money and the suppression of dissent means that a huge area of vulnerability in civil society – people's income streams and financial records – is now firmly in the hands of the banks, which are, in turn, now in the business of tracking your dissent.

Remember that only 10% of the money donated to WikiLeaks can be processed – because of financial sector and DHS-sponsored targeting of PayPal data. With this merger, that crushing of one's personal or business financial freedom can happen to any of us. How messy, criminalizing and prosecuting dissent. How simple, by contrast, just to label an entity a "terrorist organization" and choke off, disrupt or indict its sources of financing.

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.

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

You people who cry "conspiracy theory" at everything will be denying your actions (or lack thereof) in 50 years. Mark my words.

When will the public start taking Occupy seriously? Occupy is your friend. Why do people hate it so? What has Occupy done to harm anyone? A few broken business windows. Small price to pay. Why are people having such a hard time seeing what is happening? It's right in front of our eyes yet we do nothing.

 

[He's Dead, Jim]

Nah, if something really happens with this case I'll admit I was wrong. I just tend to distrust things that sound cooked up, and this sounds cooked up.

Also, Occupy is a joke. Something needs to be done to better distribute the dividends of globalization, but Occupy had no unifying political agenda and for that reason (in addition to the fact that, let's be honest, it was basically organized by a bunch of crunchy, unemployed hipsters in major metropolitan areas) it completely failed. If it really wanted to do something it would vigorously pressure Democratic lawmakers or start a Super PAC to make supporting regulation (or whatever else the Occupiers wanted) a viable policy item.

There's also the fact that, like it or not, mega-banks have become a humongous driver of global economic growth since the 1970s, like it or not. You can't just wish them away or regulate them to death.

 

[egan.]

I think conspiracy theories are generally idiotic in that they seek the most provocative answer instead of the most likely answer however this isn't some cooky theory but information from released FBI document. There is a great deal we don't know but you can read the documents on several websites.
It's weird that so many people are talking about how dumb OWS is as though that somehow makes it cool that the FBI was tracking large groups of US citizens and then apparently not warning them about potential violence against them. What if it were the tea party or NAACP or the NRA or AIPAC or whoever you deem acceptable instead of OWS?

 

[He's Dead, Jim]

I think conspiracy theories are generally idiotic in that they seek the most provocative answer instead of the most likely answer however this isn't some cooky theory but information from released FBI document. There is a great deal we don't know but you can read the documents on several websites.
It's weird that so many people are talking about how dumb OWS is as though that somehow makes it cool that the FBI was tracking large groups of US citizens and then apparently not warning them about potential violence against them. What if it were the tea party or NAACP or the NRA or AIPAC or whoever you deem acceptable instead of OWS?

Entirely agree with your first point. I do have a problem with the FBI tracking OWS people, but I just doubt how widespread it was. You'd be surprised how segmented things can be in the intelligence and national security community. It could have been one dude at FBI checking up on OWS; we don't know. I find it really, really hard to believe that with all the things on their plate, these organizations are focusing on OWS. I'd be more appalled at the waste of resources than the alleged infringements on civil liberties, which I don't really think are manifest in this case since we know so little.

 

[Mutant]

It is their duty to watch every group they see as a potential threat to public safety.
Some of the things some of these occupy people said were very worrying.
It was the main problem that there were no clear leadership that would have a strict monopoly on speaking about their demands and proposed ways to solve all the problems they stood up against.
If only one dumb fuck admits that he is a member of a group and then says something about taking up arms (yes i heard some of them saying such things), revolution and other bullshit, all the agencies HAVE to check if the threat is real or not real.
And not notifying the potential targets about the danger would depend on many variables and i can't judge if it was justified or not because i don't know these variables, so no comment on that.

---

Why the movement failed ?
They completely misunderstood how the democracy works.
The claimed 90% approval... LOL what a big lie !
If you have such an overwhelming majority, just friggin form a real political party and enter the House and the Senate, lol even have your own president elected AND SOLVE EVERYTHING BY MAKING NEW LAWS !
Thats how the system works.
Trying to do anything by occupying streets is just a big waste of time, a major example of stupidity and pissing on democracy - one of the biggest pillars on which the country is built on.

 

[egan.]

Mutant, street protests and rallies coupled with politics are how we got every major civil rights change in the twentieth century. I'm somewhat ambivalent towards this movement but you are showing a misunderstanding of effective political movements in US history. The freedom to freely assemble and speak was enough of a pillar to warrant protection under the first amendment.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

I don't think the occupy movement was total bunk, just REALLY poorly put together. Throw up a legit leader of the movement and it probably would have taken better.

 

[Mutant]

Egan Exactly "coupled" was the thing that was missing here.
Don't get me wrong i am not against some changes and definitely not against sensible protesting and sensible solutions, i was only against wasting time on something that will have absolutely 0 effect in this situation.

 

[egan.]

I agree that their lack of leadership or clear goals undermined their ability to accomplish anything AND made it easy for their critics to assign stupid/dangerous/absurd goals to them to discredit them.

 

[colonel kurtz]

maybe someday hippies will learn that in order to fight the power, you have to BE the power...

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

maybe someday hippies will learn that in order to fight the power, you have to BE the power...

Not as much fun as camping and complaning to the press though.

 

[colonel kurtz]

or drum circles

nothing riles up the man like drum circles!