The Training

Things up at Standing Rock got pretty odd once the Veterans showed up.

Almost immediately, the ACoE denied the easement to drill under Lake Oahe/Missouri River; Dave Archambault II told everyone to go home; a fierce blizzard came up making it effectively impossible for anyone to go home; the camps split over the order; the police hid behind their barricades; Wes Clark, Jr. and a number of other Veterans knelt and apologized for the numerous atrocities and the genocide perpetrated against Natives by their predecessors; many, perhaps, most of the Veterans left the camps; thousands of other Water Protectors and allies also left the camps when the weather permitted; reports surfaced that the Standing Rock Tribal Council was hoarding supplies meant for the camps; Chad Iron Eyes took the opportunity in the chaos to look after the welfare of those remaining in the camps; it turned out that Dave Archambault's sister served in the Obama White House as an advisor on Indian Affairs; there are still reports that Energy Transfer Partners is drilling anyway; an incident in Bismark went viral when an Anglo confronted an Indian at the Mall and demanded that he explain himself, and within minutes, the Indian was assaulted -- as were several others who tried to protect him -- by a masked Anglo Indian hater (who has since they say been arrested).

Meanwhile the Morton County Sheriff continues to fabulate and lie about the Water Protectors.

Ah yes, the training.

Indeed. I've thought all along that the "law enforcement" operations against the Water Protectors -- which have always seemed to be way out of proportion to the needs thereof -- have been a training exercise for the eventual suppression of a more or less general popular uprising.

Why that might be necessary or desirable didn't become clear until the recent (s)election follies. Oh. Right.

Myself, I don't think there is likely to be a general uprising, whether or not Himself is allowed to ascend to the (no doubt by now gold-plated) Throne. No doubt there will be sporadic disturbances, as there always are, but a general uprising is about as likely as a general strike. Not very.

Nevertheless, prudence indicates that "law enforcement" should be ready come what may, and what better training for them than to go against anarchists and Indians in the wilds of North Dakota? I mean really.

So comes now what amounts to a FEMA training manual for the suppression of protest.

It was sent to the "authorities" in North Dakota in September, no doubt to give them courage and fortitude in the face of the raging savages.

Here 'tis. (135 pg PDF, be warned)

When I get a chance today -- or maybe tomorrow -- I'll try to study it in detail.

Meanwhile, after the incident in Bismark, Chris Lemke and Shiye Bidziil got together at the Standing Rock Casino and posted a YouTube appeal to "both sides" to cool it.



The precipitating incident is referenced in the "White Men Behaving Badly" post from December 6.

Interesting.

So many people are so much better than we might believe from the media depictions and narratives.

Authorities Detained and Questioned Over 60,000 Individuals at British Airports Under Terrorism Statutes

Just saying.

It's fine to focus attention on one individual who was detained and questioned by British authorities at Heathrow last year, but without a recognition of how often British officials use their detention and questioning authority at ports of entry and transit, what happens to an individual lacks context.

Of course, sometimes that lack of context is deliberate.

According to varying reports, between 60,000 and 70,000 people were detained and questioned at  British ports of entry and transit during the 2012/2013 period studied. Most of these incidents required less than an hour for resolution while some 40 or so required 6 hours or more to resolve. There were as nearly 700 detentions (one assumes longer than 9 hours, the length of time British authorities can hold someone without actually arresting them).

There has been extensive reporting regarding what's been characterised as the overuse of Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act of 2000 -- which has led to tens of thousands of travelers being detained and questioned under the Terrorism Act, even if there is no reasonable suspicion that they are terrorists.

Understanding how often and how broadly this statute is applied aids in understanding what needs to be done about it.

A "journalist exception" is probably not the answer.

The Phoenix Thing -- and Why This Surveillance Thing Matters

Phoenix Po Po -- illustration by Justin Renteria for the Phoenix New Times

I've been meaning to deal with the Phoenix Thing for some time but haven't gotten around to it because of all the hullabaloo over Greenwald's latest pissing matches on Twitter, and the Snowden Thing's endless twists and turns. I mean, there are priorities here, no?

In all the screaming about "Pay attention to the NSA! Only that! Nothing else! It's the only thing that matters!" it's been obvious to me that the NSA is not  the only thing that matters. This story will never really resonate with the People (as opposed to "Civil Liberties Extremists" -- who are not particularly representative of the popular interest and will in this country) unless they are able to see how it affects them.or the people they know personally.

Those stories are starting to be told, but you will not find them in the major mass media -- at least not for quite some time to come -- and you're even unlikely to find them in the Guardian, focused as it is on the Global Saga of Edward Snowden and the Other Players.

 So. What's been going on that might affect everyday people, and why should they care about it?

The story of the Phoenix Thing is one element; there are many hundreds of others, and when they are all put together, there is no one who is untouched in some way and on some level by the massive domestic surveillance apparat, no one who hasn't felt its consequences.

The Phoenix Thing is the story of what happened to Occupy Phoenix -- and by extension the Occupy Movement as a whole in this country -- as authorities assembled the necessary information and tools to brutally crush its public aspects and to turn its internal workings against itself.

The story is told in great detail by Monica Alonzo in the Phoenix New Times, based on interviews with some of those involved and documents pried out of officials. It is a harrowing tale of surveillance and official coordination for the suppression of dissent. Alonzo's report is based in part on material assembled by the Center for Media and Democracy, published by DBA Press in late May of 2013 titled:

Dissent or Terror: How the Nation’s Counter Terrorism Apparatus, in Partnership with Corporate America, Turned on Occupy Wall Street

Of course, there's been a certain level of "Oh, we knew that," casual indifference to the revelations and documentation, because in fact, most of those involved with Occupy knew from the outset that their actions and communications would be subject to intense surveillance by the authorities, and that those authorities were likely to include Our Fatherland Security Apparat.

Sure enough.

I think we were surprised, however, at the coordination and the brutality of the crackdown that ensued.

Phoenix and Sacramento may have been the first cities riot-clad police squadrons were deployed to suppress Occupy from the get go. Both, of course, are capital cities which may have had something to do with it. On the other hand, our dauntless po po, wherever they are, have to try out their intimidation gear and tactics in order to see if they work, and what better than to use them on such willing subjects?

The bulk of the Dissent or Terror report focuses on Arizona, particularly on Phoenix, and this is the description in the Phoenix New Times report:

Freelance reporter and DBA Press publisher Beau Hodai's in-depth report "Dissent or Terror" details how law enforcement officials used the resources of the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center, its Terrorism Liaison officers, and an intelligence analyst to track and report on the movements of individuals affiliated, or believed to be affiliated, with the Occupy Phoenix movement.

And, the author reports, this information — obtained using these taxpayer-funded resources — promptly was shared with those whom Occupy organized to protest. Police officials passed along details to downtown Phoenix bank executives and the American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization that joins corporate executives and lobbyists with lawmakers to produce conservative "model" laws. For instance, ALEC created the framework for Arizona Senate Bill 1070, the state's draconian anti-immigrant law.

Beginning to see how no one, ultimately, is immune from the gentle ministrations of the Police State?

As was the case elsewhere in the country, the crackdown on the extremely modest Occupy Phoenix effort was coordinated through the anti-terrorism Fusion Centers, some 70 of which have been established around the country with funding provided by the DHS.

Monitoring protesters isn't exactly what the feds had in mind as they poured as much as $1.4 billion since 2003 into creating and expanding 70 fusion centers across the United States.

In fact, a bipartisan probe in [October of] 2012 by a U.S. Senate subcommittee was critical of fusion centers for wasting money, getting used in ways that weren't strengthening counter-terrorism efforts, and stepping on Americans' freedoms.

I would, however, question just what it was the Feds had in their minds when setting up these Fusion Centers, because it appears their primary function has been to surveille and monitor leftish protesters and dissenters and to provide law enforcement coordination for the inevitable -- and often brutal -- crackdowns against demonstrators.

To continue:

The subcommittee investigation found the intelligence coming from the centers was "oftentimes shoddy, rarely timely, sometimes endangering citizens' civil liberties and . . . occasionally taken from already-published public sources, and more often than not unrelated to terrorism."

 Yes, well. Just redefine "terrorism" and they're home free.

Which is essentially what's happened over the past decade or so. Terrorism now includes practically any action or public statement which challenges authority (as long as it's from the "left"), or even, as I found out when dealing with  former revolutionary firebrand Mark Rudd at an Occupy event in Albuquerque, the wearing of certain clothing (let's say black) and disguises (such as Guy Fawkes masks and, most especially, bandanas.) All of these things and more can easily lead to a suspicion or determination of terrorism or at least terrorist "intent."

The Phoenix story details one part of a massive and intrusive surveillance infrastructure that goes far beyond the current focus on NSA surveillance. By comparison, in some ways NSA surveillance is probably less intrusive and pervasive than surveillance conducted at ground level by local and state police, National Guard  and military forces, and various other agents of state and -- more and more -- corporate power.

This surveillance drills right down to the individual and household level -- something NSA surveillance ordinarily doesn't do -- and combined with various other aspects of the Surveillance State can be as chilling as anything undertaken by surveillance/police states of past infamy. You think the Stasi was bad? Well, hang on, then.

Combined with McClatchy's reports on the Federal Services' institution of the "Insider Threat" program,  these reports of what is really being done day to day to keep tabs on the People on the one hand and to enforce conformity and compliance the other should be alerting everyone to the reality that we are living in a police state.

Instead of focusing on Glenn Greenwald's latest pissing match on Twitter, or Edward Snowden's dramatic revelations and escapes, or even on the various NSA surveillance programs, I think it would be much more useful to pay attention to what is going on in our own backyards, and what has been going on for years now.

How surveillance is being undertaken and used as a tool of suppression by local, state and corporate authorities has more direct effect on all our lives than what the NSA is doing on a national and international scale.

Which is not to say that the various Shadow-Surveillance and Super-Spy programs don't need attention and curbing as well. But if we're actually to have an informed debate about these things, it's worthwhile to know just how close the issue is to every one of us.

Here's Democracy Now's coverage of the Dissent or Terror report: