Nothing like using bullshit warrants to bust down the doors of potential protestors in order to intimidate and bully them into not causing trouble. This is what Bloomberg and his thugs are doing. American citizens are no longer allowed to protest or voice dissent against the ruling oligarchy. The saddest part isn’t the Orwellian police state that we have become. It’s the fact that most Americans don’t give a shit. As long as their credit card doesn’t get declined and their iPhone is charged and American Idol doesn’t get cancelled, all is well. So it goes.
NYPD Raids Activists’ Homes Before May Day Protests
A day before Occupy Wall Street hopes to shut down New York and cities across the country in massive May Day protests, the NYPD visited at least three activist homes in New York and interrogated residents about plans for tomorrow’s protest.
Today “there was definitely an upswing in law enforcement activity that seemed to fit the pattern of targeting what police might view as political residences,” said Gideon Oliver, the president of the New York Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, which offers legal to support to Occupy Wall Street. “They were asking what are your May Day plans, do you know who the leaders are—these are classic political surveillance questions.”
Oliver said the National Lawyer’s Guild is aware of at least five instances of NYPD paying activists visits, including one where the FBI was involved in questioning. (He wouldn’t elaborate.) We spoke to three of these activists.
In the first case: activist Zachary Dempster said that six NYPD officers broke down the door of his Bushwick, Brooklyn apartment at around 6:15am this morning. Dempster said they were armed with a warrant for the arrest of his roommate, musician Joe Crow Ryan, for a six-year-old open container violation. But Dempster believes this was an excuse to check in on him, as he’d been arrested in February at an Occupy Wall Street Party that was broken up by cops, and charged with assaulting a police office and inciting a riot.
After running his ID, a detective questioned Dempster in his bedroom for about five minutes about tomorrow’s May Day protest, he said.
“They asked what I was doing tomorrow, and if I knew of any activities, any events—that was how the conversation started,” Dempster said. Dempster said he’s not planning doing much, as his case from February is still open. Dempster’s roommate was also asked about him and May Day.
About an hour later, an activist friend of Dempster’s who runs in anarchist circles said his apartment in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, where he lives with a half-dozen other activists and Occupy Wall Street organizers was visited by six NYPD cops—possibly the same ones. The activist said police used arrest warrants for two men who no longer lived there as pretext for the raid. The officers ran the IDs of everyone who was in the apartment, then booked our source when they discovered he had an outstanding open container violation. Police never asked about Occupy Wall Street or May Day, but our source said the message was clear: We’re watching you.
“We obviously don’t think it’s an accident that it happened the day before May Day, where people in the house are organizers,” he said.
This afternoon, NYPD also visited the home of Greek anarchist artist Georgia Sagri, who has been part of Occupy Wall Street from the beginning and led the occupation of a SoHo art gallery last October. Turns out she was giving a press conference about May Day at Zuccotti Park at the time. Police waited for about an hour outside her home, then left.
“My roommate gave me a call and told me the NYPD was looking for me,” Sagri said. “Since that time, I didn’t go home. So I’m basically on the street. My May Day has already started which is fine, I don’t mind.” She said she has no idea why NYPD visited her.
This isn’t the first time NYPD has been criticized for aggressive surveillance of protesters: The NYPD infiltrated activist groups around the country before 2004′s New York Ciy Republican National Convention. And The New York Times has ably detailed the extent to which NYPD has harassed and spied on Occupy Wall Street protesters.
“The intention behind this I’m sure is to try to create fear and silence dissent,” said Marina Sitrin, a lawyer and member of Occupy Wall Street’s legal working group, “and to keep people from coming out into the streets.”
FTL says:
Martial Red Zone In America: Heavily Armed Security Teams To Patrol Chicago, Feds Prepare for Mass Detentions, Evacuation Planning Underway.
Mac Slavo – April 30th, 2012
If Transportation Security pat downs at public venues, thousands of drones over the skies of America, and the National Security Agency’s new Echelon-like listening center in Utah weren’t enough to convince you that we’re living in a police state, then perhaps the latest news out of Chicago will change your mind.
As world leaders prepare to meet in the windy city for their annual NATO summit, U.S. federal officials are working feverishly to implement a security net so broad that it encompasses the entirety of Cook County, Illinois. While international summits are traditionally met with a larger police presence and preparations for the possibility of protests or rioting, what’s taking place on American soil in anticipation of the May 20 meeting in downtown Chicago can be interpreted in only one way – the implementation of regionalized martial law.
Continued: http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/martial-red-zone-in-america-heavily-armed-security-teams-to-patrol-chicago-feds-prepare-for-mass-detentions-evacuation-planning-underway_04302012
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1st May 2012 at 4:08 pm
Wyoming Mike says:
Unfortunately, there is no shortage of douchebags who like to squash freedom out there.
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1st May 2012 at 4:10 pm
Kill Bill says:
Its pains me to think that we are going to have to go the complete insane route, like Germany, before Americans realize just how screwed up we have become.
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1st May 2012 at 4:23 pm
ThePessimisticChemist says:
Wonderful
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1st May 2012 at 4:35 pm
AWD says:
The next step is these “agitators” disappear forever, then their friends and associates, after they are waterboarded for days to give up names. We’ve all seen the show before, be it Nazis or Stalin. People just don’t care, as long as they get their SNAP and can go to McShits 5x a day, and Facebook works. We are a pathetic nation. Where are the barbarians when we need ‘em?
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1st May 2012 at 4:46 pm
ThePessimisticChemist says:
The internet offers the modern human a unique way to interact with other dissatisfied residents. Despite CISPA/SOPA we still have access to more information now than anyone in previous history has had.
Autocratic rule wouldn’t be hard to institute, but it would be damned hard to maintain. While I may not approve of Anonymous, they highlight a major flaw with our nation’s security: Just because people in 3rd world countries struggle with US tech doesn’t mean its own citizens would.
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1st May 2012 at 4:58 pm
Hope@ZeroKelvin says:
I said in earlier posts that this Occupy business was just a dry run, a precedent setting exercise to test out the security apparatus constructed over the last 5 years.
Occupy will create (is creating) mayhem and chaos in the cities, the sheeple will get frightened and cry out for help. The whole mess will be met with an overwhelming/disproportionate police response and the “security” net will be drawn ever closer around the whole country.
The unionistas, the socialists/anarchists, the generally clueless libs/progressive and the moronic college students that are the shock troops of Occupy will end up with jail time, if they are lucky, or a serious beatdown if not. There will be blood.
In the end, what will change? Not a fucking thing. The collapse is too far along, the corruption too deep, the vast majority of people still asleep.
Occupy Insanity, yeah, that’s about right.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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1st May 2012 at 5:33 pm
The Watchdog says:
@HZK,
Now THAT’S must see TV! Way better than American Idol. Pull up a chair, grab your favorite box of wine and let The Hunger Games begin. Embrace the doom, and party like it’s 2012!
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1st May 2012 at 6:23 pm
Hope@ZeroKelvin says:
@Watchdog: I am not trying sarcasm here, I am truly disturbed that a perfectly legitimate protest against the wallstreet-fed.gov corruption is morphing into something really really ugly – with dire effects for everybody.
People are already getting hurt/arrested, property destroyed, the authorities cracking down all over the place.
You watch: You think the police state in America is bad NOW? Just wait until the end of May after 31 days of #Occupy Insanity.
I hope I’m wrong and I am looking forward to a record number of thumbs down for my position, heh.
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1st May 2012 at 6:32 pm
The Watchdog says:
@HZK,
I feel your pain. Gallows humor is how I cope.
Things will get ugly, but awareness is growing and awareness will lead to positive change in the long run.
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1st May 2012 at 7:05 pm
Muck About says:
Just wait and be patient until the so called “national” political conventions convene. Tampa is already so up tight over it, they are asking for drones and tanks. Really!
I’d expect Florida to lose all Internet access for the duration of the convention in Tampa. Twitter and Facebook are too efficient in allowing demonstrators to sidestep the cops, national guard and the TSA gestapo. Communications is everything, so that’s what TPTB will try to cut..
MA
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1st May 2012 at 8:44 pm
Game Over says:
Shit is Fucked Up And Bullshit.
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1st May 2012 at 9:52 pm
Kill Bill says:
Where is Crazy Eddie when you need him?
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1st May 2012 at 9:55 pm
TeresaE says:
The screw continue to tighten.
Hey, forgot to tell you all about a government security program that I did not know existed (nor did I know it was lawful, but what a squashed Constitution between inmates!)
Last year the TSA along with the DoT and state & local cops conducted over 8000 (!?!) RANDOM searches/”safety checks” at truck stops, rest stops and bus/train stations across the country.
They stop people that are doing NOTHING other than using the facilities on our nation’s highways, search their person, their bags, their cars with agents, scanners AND dogs.
WTF!
Why aren’t we hearing about this shit!
Oh yeah, I forgot, those that had nothing to hide say nothing because “it is for our safety.” and those that are caught with a joint are hauled off and arrested, thus making anything they have to say moot, because they are criminals and deserve to be arrested.
First they came for the protestors, but I wasn’t protesting, so I did nothing….
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1st May 2012 at 12:19 pm