Courtesy of Pam Martens.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly Inside the Surveillance Center in Lower Manhattan. The Center Is Staffed Jointly By NYPD and Wall Street Employees
The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) has released new documents it obtained under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) filing with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The documents show that DHS, the sprawling Federal agency ostensibly created to combat terrorism after the September 11 attacks, routinely spies on peaceful First Amendment activities and required daily briefing on the extent of media attention being given to Occupy Wall Street activities.
Media coverage both inside and outside of New York City was of concern to DHS. On October 7, 2011, a special agent sent a memo to inquire about Kansas City, asking: “Has there been any media attention given to the Occupy KC protests?”
A DHS employee expressed concern in an October 27, 2011 memo that Federal Protective Service personnel, a division of DHS, may have been caught on camera, writing: “Was there media coverage of the events last night which may show FPS involvement?”
As we previously reported, the Department of Homeland Security funded a high-tech, joint spy center in the heart of Wall Street where too-big-to-fail bank personnel work alongside NYPD officers to spy on the activities of Occupy Wall Street protesters as well as law abiding citizens on the streets. When the acclaimed CBS news program, 60 Minutes, became aware of the joint spy center, it presented a fawning program on its presence in lower Manhattan, neglecting to mention that Wall Street personnel were bizarrely spying on citizens alongside law enforcement personnel.
The new documents released by PCJF also show that DHS was interested in the Occupy movement’s ability to gain momentum through social media. In an October 2011 memo, an agent wrote:
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