Revealed: how the FBI coordinated the crackdown on Occupy

Police bust up Capitol Hill 'dance party' protest -- UPDATE (Images: CHS) Using a heavy presence of uniformed officers on the street and with SWAT teams at the ready, Seattle’s East Precinct clamped down on an annual Pride weekend demonstration early Sunday morning, putting an end to the Capitol Hill march by hitting the crowd with pepper spray and taking six people into custody on E Madison. All details at this point are preliminary and have not been confirmed with SPD. According to police radio, six people were taken into custody and transported to the East Precinct headquarters at 12th and Pine. On a night when nearby streets were crowded with Pride beer gardens and thousands of revelers, a crowd of around 50 people marched onto E Pike and met a phalanx of Seattle police in riot gear in the 10th Ave intersection around 1a. In 2011, a much larger group roamed Pike/Pine and Broadway inflicting damage to windows, cars and walls. Seattle Fire was was called to the precinct to treat at least four people for pepper spray exposure.

FBI Investigated 'Occupy' As Possible 'Terrorism' Threat, Internal Documents Show According to internal documents newly released by the FBI, the agency spearheaded a nationwide law enforcement effort to investigate and monitor the Occupy Wall Street movement. In certain documents, divisions of the FBI refer to the Occupy Wall Street protests as a "criminal activity" or even "domestic terrorism." The internal papers were obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice fund via a Freedom of Information Act Request. The fund, a legal nonprofit that focuses on civil rights, says it believes the 112 pages of documents, available for public viewing on its website, are only "the tip of the iceberg." "This production ... is a window into the nationwide scope of the FBI’s surveillance, monitoring, and reporting on peaceful protestors organizing with the Occupy movement," wrote Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, the fund's executive director, in a press release Saturday. The FBI did not immediately respond to The Huffington Post's requests for comment Sunday. Also on HuffPost:

Four Pacific Northwest ports headed for possible labor clash December 22, 2012|Laura L. Myers and Teresa Carson | Reuters SEATTLE, PORTLAND, Oregon (Reuters) - Nearly 3,000 union dock workers at four Pacific Northwest ports began voting on Friday on a "final" contract offer presented by grain shippers, setting the stage for a possible labor clash should workers reject the proposal, as urged by union leaders. The potential stalemate has fueled speculation that the shipping companies might move to impose a lockout of union members and keep the grain terminals operating with replacement workers in the event management's offer fails to win approval. The U.S. Coast Guard said earlier this week it was preparing to establish buffer zones to keep union-related protests from interfering with navigation around two of the ports in question. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) said it expects to announce results of the vote on Monday. The union dock workers at those six terminals have been without a contract since September 30.

Public manipulation by the mainstream media One week has passed since a small protest took place during a Remembrance Day ceremony outside of Old City Hall in Toronto. On this day, two Afghan-Canadian peace activists, Laila Rashidie and Suraia Sahar, were in attendance with a banner to remember Afghans killed by Canadian troops. These two women did not attend the ceremony with an intent to cause a disruption. I contacted one of the women involved and asked Laila several questions about the incident. You can read her responses [ HERE ]. Laila and Suraia with their banner outside Nathan Phillips Square. It is important to note that there were two other small protest groups in attendance. Police initially became aggressive with the anti-fascism group and confiscated their banner. Derek Soberall was standing next to the protest groups and began filming the confrontation with his cell phone. Several men attending the ceremony then approached the protesters. White haired man and Logan (from Paris, Ontario) assaulting a protester.

Sadie's Dream For The World TransGriot Note: While the GL community was justifiably jumping up and down excited because President Obama mentioned them in his second inaugural address, an 11 year old transkid in the western US was writing her own essay on this inaugural day that also happened to fall on MLK, Jr Day. Sadie's essay highlights who we adult transpeople are really fighting for when we push for trans human rights here in the United States and around the world. Let's redouble our efforts to make trans human rights a reality for Sadie Croft and ourselves. Sadie's Dream for the World. "The world would be a better place if everyone had the right to be themselves, including people who have a creative gender identity and expression. Transgender kids like me are not allowed to go to most schools because the teachers think we are different from everyone else. When they grow up, transgender adults have a hard time getting a job because the boss thinks the customers will be scared away.

3 Occupy Wall Street Protesters Win $50K Settlement Over "Thought Crime" Arrest The city has settled a lawsuit brought by three Occupy Wall Street protestors who accused the NYPD of arresting them without cause, detaining them for almost 24 hours, and forcing them through a humiliating strip search. On November 17th 2011, 20-year-old Kira Moyer-Sims was buying coffee on the Lower East Side while three friends waited in a nearby car. Suddenly 30 police officers swooped in and arrested them, and later drilled them on their relationship with the movement while they were in custody. “I felt like I had been arrested for a thought crime,” Moyer-Sims said at the time. Taxpayers will now give her $15,000 to make up for it. According to the settlement, the city will pay $50,000 total to Moyer-Sims, Angela Richino, and Matthew Vrvilo. "They were arrested on the belief that they were about to go to a protest," their attorney Vijayant Pawar tells us. Pawar says his clients are satisfied with the settlement, but that it doesn't make up for the NYPD's actions.

Committee Against Political Repression Welcome to Canada’s ‘wageless recovery’ The Harper government likes to remind Canadians that we’ve done better than most developed nations in bouncing back from the global economic crisis. But digging into the data shows why many people might be having trouble cheering this news: wages have not kept pace with inflation, and new hires are making 40 per cent less than the average worker. Tiff Macklem, senior deputy governor of the Bank of Canada, recently brought home the official storyline: The level of employment is now higher than it was before the crisis; jobs are mostly being created in the private sector, most are full-time and are emerging in industries that pay above-average wages. These are upbeat metrics, but they are irrelevant to the one thing that matters most to Canadian households and a sustained, broad-based recovery: how much people get paid. On that count, the data reveal that purchasing power is falling for most Canadians since the recovery began. Don't be fooled by job creation stats.

Witnesses of Central District Bar Shooting Recount Horrific Event | New City Collegian Police Outside Twilight Exit/Tom Fucoloro (CDNews) Last evening shots rang out at the Central District’s Twilight Exit bar, the shooting led to the death of the gunman by Seattle Police. The gunman shot a bouncer, last reported to be in the ICU with a gun-wound to the leg, and a woman who is allegedly the gunman’s ex, suffered multiple gun shot wounds . We have spoken with witnesses who were in the bar at the time of the shooting, and two New City Collegian staffers who were on scene expressed their views on the deadly shooting. Arielle Chilcote-Barnard was in the Twilight during the shooting describes her horrific run in with the gunman and a conversation he had with his alleged ex. Another witness, who spoke to NCC on the condition of anonymity, describes his account of the deadly shooting. The witness initially arrived at the bar at 10 p.m., about fifteen minutes before the incident. “I just looked around for an exit.” Koch told The Seattle Times: A few of my friends got drinks.

How did Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary make his fortune? Kevin O’Leary plays the villain on Shark Tank, and that’s the way he likes it. He likes to be stopped on the street and called names. He likes to say cryptic and sinister things about how he would cut staff to improve efficiency in a company he’s thinking about making a controlling investment in. The Greater Fool theory of investing states that what matters in an investment is not whether it generates real value but whether it can be sold at a profit to the next fool who is eager to get a piece of the action. As he tells his story, O’Leary’s (or “Mr. According to a profile of O’Leary in Rob Magazine of the Toronto Globe and Mail, O’Leary’s backstory is a little more complicated than that mythology. In 1995, Softkey Software Products acquired The Learning Company and adopted its name. O’Leary’s company (now called The Learning Company) continued to grow through acquisitions, but it recorded significant losses in 1996 – 1998.