Category Archives: Civil Rights

New York City Police Attack and Destroy Occupy Wall Street Encampment

by Cimaxion | 1 Comment

On the orders of New York mayor Bloomberg, the NYPD staged a brazen and unwarranted attack on the Zuccotti Park protesters of Occupy Wall Street late last night, removing and destroying the entire camp. This assault on Occupy Wall Street appears to be a coordinated nationwide effort with police departments in various cities operating in near concert.

New York has been foolish. The police should not have done this.

There are major protest activities approaching this week. The police assaults may be an effort to head things off before any more major statements can be made by the movement. However, it would be my guess that now all the gloves come off. It would not be unreasonable for massive numbers of protesters to shut down the entire Wall Street area. I think now the movement will be justified in the general public opinion when it escalates its actions. My guess is that if it wasn’t yet, Wall Street is about to become ground zero.

It does appear that there is a court order against New York to allow the protesters back into the park with their tents.  However, Mayor Bloomberg is ignoring the court’s order.

It is also reported that the police destroyed the protesters’ library of 5,000 books during their raid. Get it? That’s basically a book-burning.

It looks like the police also prevented press coverage of the attack. Network news helicopters were prevented from flying and journalists were roughed up and kept away.

However, it has now become clear that the Zuccotti Park protesters last week surrounded an emergency medical technician to prevent him from taking a mentally ill patient to hospital.  The EMT’s leg was broken in the scuffle.  That story fits in perfectly with the experience of a Rolling Stone reporter who was surrounded and prevented from interviewing someone.  One of those acts is a serious crime committed by the protesters against an emergency worker.  The other is an infringement of the right to freely speak with another person.  It is also an attempt to prevent a journalist from doing his or her job. I do not support such actions on the part of the protesters. But those are not reasons to destroy their encampments.

Here is Keith Olbermann excoriating mayor Bloomberg for his raging stupidity:

Here’s a television news report about the NYPD raid:

Here’s a live feed from the Zuccotti Park area:

Watch live streaming video from globalrevolution at livestream.com

Saturday November 5 Is Bank Transfer Day

by Cimaxion | 1 Comment

Tomorrow, Saturday November 5, 2011, is Bank Transfer Day. That means that Americans everywhere are moving their money out of big banks and putting them into smaller local banks and credit unions that are FDIC insured. The Occupy Wall Street movement is having serious consequences and is beginning to wake people up to how easy it is to change things when millions decide to act. The big banks have been making life very difficult for many people through absurd fees, rates and indecipherable rules meant to empty pockets. But the problem is actually much more serious than that. Big banks are actually putting lives at risk through illegal foreclosures all across the United States. Masses of people are boiling with anger that is going to reach a critical overload. Moving money out of these banks into credit unions is a common sense approach to smacking big banks. But this event is just a warm-up. What we are practicing for is the eventual ability of the population to move almost overnight to totally destroy a chosen corporation. The ability to do so is almost here and will make itself apparent in very short order. I’m talking about a population that will be able to pick a corporation – say a major auto manufacturer for instance – and totally liquidate that corporation. This will be a weaponized and highly focused form of boycott, but it will be characterized by extremely sudden mass decision-making unlike anything ever seen in history. Get ready for it. Start your warmup tomorrow by moving to a credit union or small local bank.

The Bank Transfer Day Facebook page.

A Salon article about why Bank Transfer Day is only the beginning and the power of social media.

Oakland Police Smash Skull of Iraq War Veteran at Peaceful Protest

by Cimaxion

MATURE CONTENT – DISTURBING IMAGES AND LANGUAGE
In Oakland, Tuesday evening, police fractured the skull of Occupy Oakland protester Scott Olsen who is an Iraq war veteran.  Police apparently fired a projectile at his head. Mr. Olsen is in critical condition.

Oakland is an American city where police will lay a person out on a subway platform and brutally murder them with a bullet through the back. They are now firing deadly projectiles at Occupy Oakland protesters.

The use of projectiles by police against crowds is in fact a use of potentially deadly force and should be defended against as such. Any firing of a projectile toward crowds or individuals must be viewed as potentially deadly. The protesters would now seem to have a legal argument for self defense.

I predict that this protester and his injuries will soon cost the city Oakland tens of millions of dollars in damages.

That’s the thing about this movement.  It’s got a lot of very smart and well-educated people involved and they have really powerful attorneys who are going to rip Oakland a great big new asshole.

Oakland police were also filmed firing projectiles at people who went to administer first aid to the seriously injured Olsen. You can see that toward the end of the following video. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything quiet like that, but I am very certain that the police officer who fired this projectile at people rendering assistance to an injured person can face serious criminal charges.

Musician and Activist Tom Morello Talks to Press About Occupy Wall Street

by Cimaxion

Former Rage Against the Machine member, Tom Morello, who has been playing for and talking to Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Los Angeles, speaks with reporters about what is going on with this explosive movement.

And here is a repost of my film, ‘One Day Occupy L.A.,’ which features an incredible live soundtrack of Morello playing for the protest in Los Angeles just this week.

Occupy Wall Street Movement Must Aim Toward Constitutional Amendment Enforcing Separation of Corporations and State

by Cimaxion

I believe that the eventual success of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which is spreading to many cities across the United States, depends upon its ability to change law. Ultimately, the movement must lead toward an amendment to the Constitution that bans corporate mixture with and influence over the state. It will resemble the separation of church and state, but it will be somewhat more precisely worded.

One Day Occupy L.A.: A Film by Alessandro Cima

by Cimaxion

I went down to the demonstration to make a film. I liked the people there. They were very focused and happy. They were talking, explaining, arguing, educating, dancing, singing, playing, making signs, painting, photographing. Some of them made speeches at the microphone. Some read poems. There were lots of cameras.

The music and words in this film are by Tom Morello (http://nightwatchmanmusic.com), former Rage Against the Machine guitarist. He sings his own ‘Maximum Firepower’ and Woody Guthrie’s ‘This Land is Your Land.’

The mood at City Hall was high energy and cheerful. The underlying anger and frustration of the movement seemed to be moving through a positive channel. It was exciting but also comfortable there because of the people and their open attitudes.

The Los Angeles police headquarters is directly across the street from the protest grounds. That’s where I began shooting my film – right into the windows of police headquarters. Several squad cars drove up First Street, but there was not a single cop anywhere near the protest area. The crowd is organized and respectful, but also very serious about its messages which are various and multifaceted.

The city has taken a protective stance over its protesters. I’m very proud of Los Angeles for this.

Occupy Los Angeles is one of the spreading protests coming out of the Occupy Wall Street protest in New York. Hopefully, the incredible momentum of the movement will continue and be heard very clearly across the country and the world.

The simple messages that I get from the protests are that government cannot function while it is under the control and influence of corporations. The economy cannot function properly while corporations and their extremely wealthy owners are allowed to operate without oversight and control. The country cannot pave its roads or build its schools or house its people while corporations and the wealthy play with money that is nearly tax-free, removing it entirely from the real world economy. The country cannot function as a democracy while its politicians and Supreme Court justices are working for corporations. The country cannot be free while racism and bigotry are increasingly seen as legitimate reactions to change. The country cannot be secure while corporations are given the power to run wars and people’s basic privacy rights are removed.

That’s what I see in the Occupy movement.

If every city in the U.S. could have as fine an Occupy movement as Los Angeles, they would be very lucky indeed.

Right Here All Over (Occupy Wall Street): A Film by Alex Mallis

by Cimaxion

This film shows how the protesters of the Occupy Wall Street movement organize themselves in lower Manhattan. They seem to be forming something like a little community with food services, minor first aid, a library, battery charging and even video editing services for all the people covering the action. These people are working hard and have an uncommon seriousness about them. This is something new. These are mainly young people. They are waking up from iPod oblivion and showing the world that they can make a difference in a democracy decayed by a corporate stranglehold over the government. These are people who can see that corporate management structures have totally occupied and taken over the United States government all the way up to and including its Supreme Court. In fact, there is no other way to dismantle this criminal structure. It can only be broken up by massive groups of angry protesters who simply never stop coming.

The film was shot and edited by Alex Mallis.

Here’s a simple and clear opinion piece about the reform movement represented by Occupy Wall Street.

PEOPLE ARE THE PRESS: Federal Court Rules it is Not Illegal to Film Police or Government Officials

by Cimaxion | 1 Comment

In what I consider the most important recent news event, the Federal First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston ruled that citizens have the legal right to film police while they are performing their public duties.

The case involved attorney Simon Glik in Boston who observed an arrest in the Boston Common that he thought was abusive.  So he flipped out his cellphone camera and filmed the cops.  They arrested him.

The Court has responded to this – one of the increasing number of cases nationwide in which cops try to take cameras from or arrest citizens who try to record them during arrests – by affirming a lower court ruling in Glik’s favor.  In this case, as in most similar cases, the police attempted to charge someone with ‘wiretapping’ because the video cameras are ‘secretly’ recording audio.  Of course any court recognizes that only a simpleton would associate using a video camera with wiretapping.

The Court stated:

The filming of government officials engaged in their duties in a public place, including police officers performing their responsibilities, fits comfortably within these principles [of protected First Amendment activity]. Gathering information about government officials in a form that can readily be disseminated to others serves a cardinal First Amendment interest in protecting and promoting the free discussion of governmental affairs.

Episodes of police misconduct, brutality and murder are increasing nationwide. Police powers are growing, government agencies are eavesdropping on Americans without warrants, personal data is being pulled into government databases, and security paranoia is reaching nearly hysterical levels. The fact is that the police are committing crimes – including murder – at an alarming rate. Cops are using violence against innocent demonstrators. They are killing helpless people in the subways of Oakland. They are beating homeless people to death in Fullerton, California. They are raiding political activist groups before and during public events on the chance that these groups might be planning something illegal. Filming these cops is absolutely the least that citizens should be doing.

The Court has made it abundantly clear that citizens have always had the legal right to use video cameras on the police and that arrests of citizens in these circumstances is illegal.  That is why all cases nationwide that police forces have brought against people with video cameras have been thrown out of court.

It should now be clear that police departments arresting people for filming are liable in civil courts.

The Court went further than its decision on filming police activities. It also stated that citizens recording police or government officials have the same legal protections afforded to the press. In other words: citizens are journalists.

The Court said:

Moreover, changes in technology and society have made the lines between private citizen and journalist exceedingly difficult to draw. The proliferation of electronic devices with video-recording capability means that many of our images of current events come from bystanders with a ready cell phone or digital camera rather than a traditional film crew, and news stories are now just as likely to be broken by a blogger at her computer as a reporter at a major newspaper. Such developments make clear why the news-gathering protections of the First Amendment cannot turn on professional credentials or status.

There is no legal definition of or requirement for being a journalist.  In fact, much of CNN’s video coverage comes from ‘iReporters’ who are citizen journalists filming events around the world and sending in their footage via the CNN web site.  Those people are fully protected by all the same laws that protect journalists and their sources.

I think this is a long-overdue and definitive ruling that clarifies legally what has been obvious all along.  People always have the right to film their police officers doing the public duties that public monies pay for.

Finally, and most important: People Are the Press.