occupyallstreets:

WikiLeaks Uncovers Homeland Security Report on Occupy Movement

The transparency organization WikiLeaks has published an assessment report from the Homeland Security Department (DHS) on the Occupy movement that was put together in October of last year. The assessment was attached to a Stratfor email, one of five million or so emails the organization obtained and has been releasing since February 27.

The release of the report is timely, as it is being released just as Occupy supporters are mobilizing for demonstrations against the suppression of the Occupy movement by law enforcement and political leaders in the United States.

Put together by the Office of Infrastructure Protection under DHS, the report seems to have put together with the following presumption in mind, which appears in bold at the top of the report:

“Mass gatherings associated with public protest movements can have disruptive effects on transportation, commercial, and government services, especially when staged in major metropolitan areas. Large scale demonstrations also carry the potential for violence, presenting a significant challenge for law enforcement.”

The report proceeds to break down the risks and threats the Occupy movement poses to “critical infrastructure” by looking at their “impacts” on financial services, commercial facilities, transportation, emergency services and government facilities. The breakdown relied on news reports from sources like the New York Daily News, CBS, Associated Press, CNN, Chicago Tribune, Reuters, New York Times, Boston Globe, etc.

In the report’s summary, DHS concluded:

“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.”

Much like the threat government officials might allege WikiLeaks releases pose to national security, the threat is, for the most part, hype. Though the protests had been “peaceful,” Homeland Security determined that the fact that more and more citizens were turning out to support the cause of Occupy posed a possible threat to critical infrastructure and public order. The presence of supporters of Anonymous, which the FBI has been investigating, led Homeland Security to believe “potential incidents” or “potential security risks” could transpire. But, while Anonymous has claimed responsibility for cyber attacks, it has absolutely no history of violence in the world of non-virtual reality.

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I have to be honest: my response to this is “So?” 

OWS could always potentially be a threat to all the things they say. They have to make the assessment. Public order is one of the important aspects of governance. 

Sure, OWS was non-violent. Sure it said it was. But they have to do a threat assessment anyway, just in case. Besides, it flouted the social and political system, which indeed is a “danger to public order” no matter how deserved. Is anyone actually surprised? 

cognitivedissonance:

You know what to do, Tumblr. As of 11:50 PM EST:

I always, always, always hate how Fox phrases their polls. 

It’s obviously slanted to subconsciously determine a slanted result. 

The comments are fascinating. Of course, comments on any page always have the potential of being of YouTube quality so it’s not always the best indication, but nevertheless a few choice ones: 

穷人就是穷人，在哪都是穷人
Poor people are poor people, always poor people wherever they are.

老美真厉害，强制驱逐都打着民主自由的口号！
Americans are so incredible, where even forcefully clearing out people is called democracy and freedom!

Ooh, this is brilliant. This long one has a few responses below it:

美狗与日杂日常跟贴工作条例：1、对于中国的社会矛盾和黑暗面要无限放大，进而抨击政府，降低其公信力；2、要充分利中国的社会矛盾刺激网民的情绪，越激烈越好，并将矛头引向政治制度；3、对于任何中国政府的决策、行动、政策，都要煽动网民与之唱反调，增大其施政难度；4、对于中国取得的任何成就，哪怕是一点点进步，也要极力贬低，最大限度地打击网民的对国家的信心；5、要尽量贬低中华民族，打击民族自尊心，避免民族主义情绪的形成；6、尽量用消极、自暴自弃的态度去影响中国网民，使之看不到任何希望；7、在剥夺中国网民希望的基础上，极力鼓吹美国和日本，使中国网民渐渐向希望寄托给美国和日本，从而达到影响和渗透的目的；8、对于任何正面、积极的言论都要予以打击，扣上五毛的帽子，将其与普通网民割裂，削弱其言论的影响力。最后，须牢记一点，拥有自信和希望的中国是不可战胜的！！
The daily post commenting guidelines for American running dogs and Japanese-loving scum: 1. Exaggerate without limits the conflicts and ills of Chinese society, then attack the government and lower its credibility; 2. Make the most of China’s social problems to provoke netizens’ emotions, the more intense, the better, and direct it towards the political system; 3. Incite netizens to oppose any decisions, actions, and policies of the Chinese government, increasing the difficulty of governance; 4. Play down to the utmost any achievement by China, even if it is the tiniest amount of progress, and strike to the maximum extent against netizens’ confidence in their country; 5. Belittle the Chinese people as much as possible, striking against the people’s self-respect, to avoid the formation of nationalistic sentiment; 6. Use a negative, hopeless despairing attitude to influence Chinese netizens, making it so that they cannot see any hope; 7. On the foundation of depriving Chinese netizens of hope, strongly talk up America and Japan, making Chinese netizens gradually entrust their hope in America and Japan, to achieve the goals of influence and penetration; 8. Anything positive and any positive comments must be attacked and labeled as “wumao” to separate and divide them from ordinary netizens, weakening the influence of those comments. Finally, we must remember one thing, a China with confidence and hope is unconquerable!!!

坐等五毛高潮^_^
Sitting here waiting for the wumao wave [could also be “orgasm”] ^_^

It’s always interesting to me to hear the Chinese nationalist perspective. Slightly worrying to hear it, but interesting all the same.

We get so used to American patriotic nuts, or European nationalist nuts, that sometimes it’s a refreshing change in point of view to hear a Chinese person do the same thing.  

Oh, and thanks to the website (also Google) for translation. 

An interesting article. 

The accompanying video is irritating though. I forgot how annoying American news channels can be when they’re trying to be clever. 

politicalprof:

The top photo places the rise of Occupy Wall Street coverage on a time line, highlighting key events. The second photo charts the comparative coverage of Occupy Wall Street versus the Tea Party over the first three weeks their protests began.

From: Nate Silver, fivethirtyeight.com

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Speaks for itself. 

cognitivedissonance:

jayrosen:

A CNN Business reporter, Alison Kosik, summarizes what she thinks the purpose of Occupy Wall Street is.

Here is her Twitter post.

UPDATE: Kosik deleted her tweet.  That’s the kind of confidence she had in her observation, I guess. 

And to further unfold the attitude at CNN, do watch this clip of Erin Burnett reporting on Occupy Wall Street. (“What are they protesting? No one seems to know.”)

Maybe that was her purpose for being there… I’m pretty sure she found no one occupying Wall Street with that specific purpose in mind. I mean, you can do that in your basement.

Astute observation, Captain Bourgeois.

CNN International is bearable for the most part, but CNN domestic is a horrible organization. It suffers just as much as all American news channels do, of sensationalism and lazy reporting. 

theoceanandthesky:

i am a writer and educator who constantly worries my life choices are impractical. i have over $55K in student loan debt and $6K in credit card debt. because of an atrocious lack of affordable housing, my rent has always been more than 60% of my monthly income. i am tempted by credit card offers in the mail every day. i have no savings. i know no creative person can thrive in this economy. you will lose us. i am the 99%. occupywallst.org. 

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One of the things that Obama and any number of other economists and politicians who talk about innovation and progress… and also political analysts who are concerned about competition with China… They all say that there aren’t enough inventors, engineers, technological innovators. 

They express concern that there’s too much focus on “soft” subjects, essentially Liberal Arts. 

I won’t deny that engineers, scientists and mathematicians create the future in solid, defined ways, but I still rather resent the implication that our “soft” pursuits are so much less economically viable. What would the world be without writers?