What the Stratfor Emails Reveal Re- Efforts Against Wikileaks & Assange

Per Raw Story,

In an email published by WikiLeaks on Tuesday morning, Stratfor vice president Fred Burton writes that his firm has “a sealed indictment on Assange” . . . . In another email, Burton suggests that authorities could “lock him up” by having Assange detained as a material witness. [c-Blog note: the US Dept. of Justice has refused to confirm whether such an indictment has been issued; some have speculated it's because extradition proceedings are still ongoing in the UK, where the law might bar extradition if it were shown that Sweden is likely to permit extradition to a country {the US} where Assange could face capital punishment.]

Burton’s email was sent in response to a discussion about reports that U.S. prosecutors have not been able to hang the case against Pvt. Bradley Manning on any direct contact with Assange [c-Blog note: which would be required in order to show that Assange had violated US law].

* * * * *

Other Stratfor emails that discuss WikiLeaks hint that sexual assault allegations against Assange might not be entirely legitimate. One message shows Stratfor President George Friedman . . . replying to analyst Chris Farnham, who openly questioned the veracity of the charges and alleged that a “close family friend in Sweden who knows the girl that is pressing charges” against the WikiLeaks founder allegedly said “there is absolutely nothing behind it” aside from a pair of eager prosecutors.

(Emphasis supplied.) More at Raw Story.

Wikileaks to Reveal: Private Spy Network Paid Gov't Officials et Al. for Profitable Secrets, Etc.

Per a twitter source, Wikileaks will begin publication tomorrow of some 5 million emails from the files of an entity called Stratfor:

Government and diplomatic sources from around the world give Stratfor advance knowledge of global politics and events in exchange for money. The Global Intelligence Files expose how Stratfor has recruited a global network of informants who are paid via Swiss banks accounts and pre-paid credit cards. Stratfor has a mix of covert and overt informants, which includes government employees, embassy staff and journalists around the world.

The material shows how a private intelligence agency works, and how they target individuals for their corporate and government clients. For example, Stratfor monitored and analysed the online activities of Bhopal activists, including the "Yes Men", for the US chemical giant Dow Chemical. The activists seek redress for the 1984 Dow Chemical/Union Carbide gas disaster in Bhopal, India. The disaster led to thousands of deaths, injuries in more than half a million people, and lasting environmental damage.

Per Gizmodo,

Wikileaks says that the emails also reveal the creation of a parallel organization called StratCap. Apparently, this organization would use Stratfor's network of informants to make money in financial markets. Wikileaks claims that the emails show how then-Goldman Sachs Managing Director Shea Morenz and Stratfor CEO George Friedman put StratCap in motion in 2009.

* * * * *
Stratfor CEO has resigned following this clusterfuck. It seems the company's security hasn't been fixed yet, because Anonymous has captured and published his resignation email.

[Emphasis above and below in this post is supplied.] More at the links above.

A press release from the Yes Men notes,

Many of the Bhopal-related emails . . . reveal concern that . . . the Bhopal issue might be expanded into an effective systemic critique of corporate rule, and speculate at length about why this hasn't yet happened – providing a fascinating window onto what at least some corporate types fear most from activists.

"[Bhopal activists] have made a slight nod toward expanded activity, but never followed through on it—the idea of 'other Bhopals' that were the fault of Dow or others," mused Joseph de Feo, who is listed in one online source as a "Briefer" for Stratfor.

"Maybe the Yes Men were the pinnacle. They made an argument in their way on their terms—that this is a corporate problem and a part of the a [sic] larger whole," wrote Kathleen Morson, Stratfor's Director of Policy Analysis.

"With less than a month to go [until the 25th anniversary], you'd think that the major players – especially Amnesty – would have branched out from Bhopal to make a broader set of issues. I don't see any evidence of it," wrote Bart Mongoven, Stratfor's Vice President, in November 2004. . . .

Mongoven even speculates on coordination between various activist campaigns that had nothing to do with each other. "The Chevron campaign [in Ecuador] is remarkably similar [to the Dow campaign] in its unrealistic demand. Is it a follow up or an admission that the first thrust failed? Am I missing a node of activity or a major campaign that is to come? Has the Dow campaign been more successful than I think?" It's almost as if Mongoven assumes the two campaigns were directed from the same central activist headquarters.

Just as Wall Street has at times let slip their fear of the Occupy Wall Street movement, these leaks seem to show that corporate power is most afraid of whatever reveals "the larger whole" and "broader issues," i.e. whatever brings systemic criminal behavior to light. "Systemic critique could lead to policy changes that would challenge corporate power and profits in a really major way," noted Joseph Huff-Hannon, recently-promoted Director of Policy Analysis for the Yes Lab.

(You can see a Yes Man impersonating a Dow Chemical spokesman in an interview with an unwitting BBC here, accepting full responsibility for the 1984 Bhopal disaster.)

A Useful Summary of Recent Police Violence Against Protesters in the US

. . . is available on Alternet (with visuals).

Great Signs from Today's Gov. Scott Walker Recall Rally in WI

More photos here.

Per the Brookfield Patch, 25,000 to 30,000 showed up at the rally, and organizers say they've collected more than 105,000 signatures on recall petitions.

The Day After the Pepper-Spraying at U.C. Davis

Another one I've got to re-blog. As Xeni Jardin at BoingBoing put it,

I thought I wouldn't see a more dramatic video than the ones yesterday of the pepper-spraying of students by police at UC Davis [see video of the spraying, here]. I was wrong.

In the video [below in this post] UC Davis students [silently] confront Chancellor Linda Katehi just one day after the incident. It's hard to tell exactly how many of them are present, but there they are, a huge crowd. They're seated in the same . . . position [on the ground, with crossed legs and linked arms] their fellow students were [in] yesterday just before Lt. John Pike pulled out a can of pepper-spray and pulled the trigger.

From lhfang86, the guy who shot the video:

A press conference, scheduled for 2:00pm between the UC Davis Chancellor and police on campus, did not end at 2:30. Instead, a mass of Occupy Davis students and sympathizers mobilized outside, demanding to have their voice heard. After some initial confusion, UC Chancellor Linda Katehi refused to leave the building, attempting to give the media the impression that the students were somehow holding her hostage. A group of highly organized students formed large gap for the chancellor to leave. They chanted “we are peaceful” and “just walk home,” but nothing changed for several hours. Eventually student representatives convinced the chancellor to leave after telling their fellow students to sit down and lock arms.

FOIA Request for Info on Nationwide Crackdown on OWS

One observer has suggested that the real reason for the crackdown on the Occupy camps was that "[t]he camps were the beginnings of a community . . . the community needed for a culture of resistance." Highly ironic if, as seems likely (see, e.g., here and here), the Obama's administration was instrumental in coordinating the crackdown.

Civil liberties groups have filed a FOIA request for info: "'The severe crackdown on the occupation movement appears to be part of a national strategy to crush the movement,' said Mara Veheyden-Hilliard, Executive Director of the Partnership for Civil Justice and the co-chair of the National Lawyers Guild’s National Mass Defense Committee. 'This multi-jurisdictional coordination shows that the crackdown is supremely political.'" More at Common Dreams.

What Happened to the OWS-er's Property

When the NYPD evicted the OWS-er's camp from Liberty Square (f.k.a. Zuccotti Park), the property was reportedly tossed into garbage trucks and dump trucks; but the reality may be worse. Motherboard suggests the laptops look like they were attacked with a baseball bat (but not, one imagines, before their contents had been downloaded; note the label scrawled on the blue laptop). (More info and pics at Motherboard.)

(Yes, any deliberate destruction of property or unreasonable search of the laptops would be, like the NYPD's defiance of the court order to allow the OWS-er's back into the park, against the law.)

Fairey's ReMixed "Hope"; Occuprint

Click on the image for a larger version, or go to Fairey's site.

In related news, here's a site for posters re- the OWS movement.

"Pepper Spray" Video

I usually avoid re-blogging what's been on other popular sites, but this remarkable document is not to be missed (by terrydatiger) – it's worth watching the whole thing, though events unfold gradually. The incident occurred in connection with the eviction of OWS campers at UC Davis.

One of the students sprayed was still coughing up blood 45 min. later (see Bicycle Barricade). It's been speculated that the unnecessary spraying was done in an effort to incite a riot.

UPDATE: Excellent interview with one of the pepper-sprayed students on BoingBoing.

FURTHER UPDATE: Peter Kim has created an excellent graphic showing just how dangerous pepperspray is, here.

Learning Curve (Egyptians Respond to OWS Offer of Election Monitors)

"Why . . . should our elections be any cause for celebration, when even in the best of all possible worlds they will be just another supposedly 'representative' body ruling in the interest of the 1% over the remaining 99% of us? This new Egyptian parliament will have effectively no powers whatsoever, and—as many of us see it—its election is just a means of legitimating the ruling junta’s seizure of the revolutionary process. Is this something you wish to monitor?

"We have, all of us around the world, been learning new ways to represent ourselves, to speak, to live our politics directly and immediately, and in Egypt we did not set out to the streets in revolution simply to gain a parliament. Our struggle—which we think we share with you—is greater and grander than a neatly functioning parliamentary democracy; we demanded the fall of the regime, we demanded dignity, freedom and social justice, and we are still fighting for these goals. We do not see elections of a puppet parliament as the means to achieve them.

"But even though the idea of election monitoring doesn’t really do it for us, we want your solidarity, we want your support and your visits. We want to know you, talk with you, learn one another’s lessons, compare strategies and share plans for the future. . . . "

More at jadaliyya.com (thanks, Noah!)

Occupy London Takes Over Empty Bank; Occupy Dallas Evicted

Per their website:

Occupy London has taken over a huge abandoned office block in the borough of Hackney belonging to the investment bank UBS, in a move it describes as a "public repossession."

* * * * *
The multimillion pound complex, which has been empty for several years, is the group’s third space and its first building, adding to its two camps at St Paul’s Courtyard – near the London Stock Exchange in the heart of the City – and at Finsbury Square . . . .

The group say the space will be reopened on Saturday morning as the "Bank of Ideas." . . . An events programme is being lined up, including talks from Palestinian activists, comedy from Josie Long and a session led by trader Alessio Rastani, who sent shockwaves through the media following a provocative interview on the Eurozone crisis. . . .

Sarah Layler of Occupy London added: "The Bank of Ideas will host a full events programme where people will be able to trade in creativity rather than cash. We will also make space available for those that have lost their nurseries, community centres and youth clubs to savage Government spending cuts."

More at the link; see also The Guardian.

Meanwhile, notwithstanding that Dallas Occupiers had allegedly reached an agreement with City officials that their camp could remain behind City Hall until mid-December, a force including a SWAT team and mounted police evicted them at 11:45PM Wed. night on 15 minutes' notice, apparently on orders by the City Manager. (Photo by Justin Terveen, from The Dallas Observer.)

The eviction was allegedly based on escalating problems in the camp; but I visited the camp twice and found it clean and orderly, and no actual crime has been cited other than an assault that took place during a scuffle between two camp members at another location, the perpetrator of which vanished some time ago. More here.

Occupy California Circumvents Prohibition Against Raising Tents

. . . by floating them. (Image from @abc7newsBayArea.)

A Murmuration of Starlings

Context for the emerging OWS movement.

Homeland Security Coordinated 18-City Crackdown on OWS Camps

Per Washington's Blog, quoting Wonkette:

Remember when people were freaking out over the Patriot Act and Homeland Security and all this other conveniently ready-to-go post-9/11 police state stuff, because it would obviously be just a matter of time before the whole apparatus was turned against non-Muslim Americans when they started getting complain-y about the social injustice and economic injustice and income inequality and endless recession and permanent unemployment? That day is now . . . .

Additional info and sources at Washington's Blog.

UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald agrees, "the U.S. has para-militarized its police forces is precisely to control this type of domestic unrest" (at Salon.com).

Another N17 Projection, Visible from Brooklyn Bridge:

Photo from This Is The Right One (thanks!) (Click on the image for a larger version.) Per the UK Guardian:

A massive projection is being displayed on the Verizon building . . . . In a series of shots it reads, "We are the 99%, Look around, you are a part of a global uprising...We are unstoppable, another world is possible...We are a cry from the heart of the world...It is the beginning of the beginning." The projection then goes on to display the names of occupations around the country in rapid-fire succession with the final name reading, "Occupy Earth." With a chorus of honking cars in the background, the crowd erupts in cheers and reads the display in unison as they pass."

UPDATE: Good interview with creator of the projection here.

Estimated 36,000 OWS-er's Converge in New York

The November 17 march began at Liberty Square (f.k.a. Zuccotti Park); proceeded to Union Square where it picked up striking NYU and other students; and then to Foley Square, where it picked up the unions. From there, they proceeded to Brooklyn Bridge.

The police presence has been massive, but they seem to have limited themselves mainly to trying to split up and divert the marchers.

Bloomberg reportedly stated he only expected 1,000 people. Maybe he just meant cops.

Best coverage today has been via TheOther99 on ustream – that's their Channel 1 (w/ Tim Pool); Channel 2 is here (w/ Henry James Ferry {sp?}) – two guys with cell phones, leaving the corp. media in the dust. (Support TheOther99 here!)

The first two window grabs are from the stream from Union Square earlier today.

The third is from near Brooklyn Bridge, at 7:04PM Eastern time; projected onto the building wall is, "99%." The fourth is from the pedestrian way on the bridge (where the cars below were honking their support).

Today was the second monthly anniversary of the beginning of OWS.

PS: Tim Pool has a documentary project, "The Occumentary," that will probably be worth checking out.

PPS: More, "real" photos here.

Came across a nice gif today:

From Agent 23, who explains, "I copied it from an NYPD chat forum. This is the sort of thing some police officers dream of doing to 'protesters,' apparently."

OWS New York Evicted; NYPD in Contempt of Court

At 1AM last night, police cleared Zuccotti Park, allegedly violently – again, after clearing out the media ("for their own safety"). Reports are that the occupiers' computers and other hardware, as well as their tents, were dumped into garbage trucks and hauled off.

At 7-something this morning, a NY court issued an injunction ordering that the protesters must be allowed back into the park pending a fuller hearing at 11:30AM today. Mayor Bloomberg was reportedly informed, and the protesters have one or more copies of the court order, which they showed to the NYPD.

The protesters then returned to Zuccotti, to find it still barricaded.

All times stated in this post are Eastern time.

UPDATE: Per CNN and HuffPo as of 3:33PM: the NY S. Ct. has ruled in favor of OWS.

Further update: That report proved false, at least in part. The ruling was that the protesters should be re-admitted to the park but would no longer be allowed to camp there in violation of rules imposed after the occupation began.

It would be interesting to know the source of the earlier report. {It turns out the confusion arose when CNN belatedly reported the issuance of the TRO some 6 hrs. after it issued and 1.5 hrs. after the subsequent hearing was to have begun, and OWS-er's assumed that this was the decision based on the hearing.}

To fill in a few more details: After the eviction, a temporary restraining order was issued by Judge Lucy Billings holding that OWS must be allowed back into Zuccotti pending the results of a hearing to be held later in the day. This order was issued at 6:30AM and, one source says, was served on Mayor Bloomberg by 7:50AM. The protesters returned to the park to re-occupy the park, but police had blockaded it off and refused to let them in notwithstanding the court order. For reasons as yet unclear, prior to the scheduled hearing, the case was transferred to Judge Michael Stallman. That judge held in favor of the City at approximately 4:30PM.

So for nearly nine hours, Mayor Bloomberg and the police – all of whom had no doubt sworn to uphold the Constitution and laws – were in contempt of court.

Further FURTHER update: The Guardian reports that not only did NYC authorities clear the media from the park grounds before commencing the eviction . . .

. . . the city closed airspace in lower Manhattan to prevent news helicopters taking aerial shots of the scene. Vans were used to obscure views of the park and a police cordon effectively blocked accredited media from reaching the site. Some of those members of the press who were in the park or were able to get there say they were arrested, pepper sprayed or treated aggressively.

One of the few reporters on the scene when the police moved in was Josh Harkinson, a writer for Mother Jones magazine. As police used tear gas to remove the last protesters from the park Harkinson identified himself as a member of the media and was physically dragged out of the park. He was told that reporters had to stay in a "press pen".

Reporters tweeted their frustration using the hashtag #mediablackout and said police were ignoring and even confiscating press passes.

A New York Post reporter was "roughed up" according to the New York Times' Brian Stelter. Lindsey Christ, of local cable-news channel NY1, said on-air this morning that "the police took over, they kept everybody out and they wouldn't let media in. It was very planned."

(Emphasis supplied.)

Occupy Portland Supporters "Too Big to Jail"

Watching Occupy Portland livestream. The mayor had decreed the eviction of the camp tonite, but 7,000 Portlanders came out in support of the occupiers. Police are overwhelmed (so far).

(Image thanks to Occupy Portland livestream.)

UPDATE: Observers report that at one point, the crowd chanted to police, "You're sexy, you're cute. Take off your riot suit!"

FURTHER UPDATE: AS OF 4PM the next day (Sun.), the police are back, determined to clear park; media have been evicted; police have announced they WILL use gas and projectiles if necessary.

Further FURTHER UPDATE: (9PM Sun.) The park has been cleared, but protesters are holding a General Assembly nearby to discuss where to reconvene, etc.

Occupy Dallas: Artists for Teachers, Teachers for Arts March

Maybe 50 protesters, not bad for Dallas, considering the camp conducts marches daily, so there's probably a certain burn-out rate.

It's hard to imagine any actual crime occurring in or near the camp, as alleged, given that our march was surveilled by at least eight cops in or on 5 vehicles, wielding still and video cameras – nearly one cop per each half-doz. protesters! If only they watched the bankers so well.

By the way, the camp was (again) immaculate.

Photos by Ben Britt (thanks, Ben!)