The Mall of America security team accosts and interrogates an average of 1200 shoppers a year

max blumenthal offers a chilling vision of how our domestic police and security forces have become increasingly militarized along the israeli model...

al akhbar...

The Israelification of America’s security apparatus, recently unleashed in full force against the Occupy Wall Street Movement, has taken place at every level of law enforcement, and in areas that have yet to be exposed. The phenomenon has been documented in bits and pieces, through occasional news reports that typically highlight Israel’s national security prowess without examining the problematic nature of working with a country accused of grave human rights abuses. But it has never been the subject of a national discussion. And collaboration between American and Israeli cops is just the tip of the iceberg.

Having been schooled in Israeli tactics perfected during a 63 year experience of controlling, dispossessing, and occupying an indigenous population, local police forces have adapted them to monitor Muslim and immigrant neighborhoods in US cities. Meanwhile, former Israeli military officers have been hired to spearhead security operations at American airports and suburban shopping malls, leading to a wave of disturbing incidents of racial profiling, intimidation, and FBI interrogations of innocent, unsuspecting people. The New York Police Department’s disclosure that it deployed “counter-terror” measures against Occupy protesters encamped in downtown Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park is just the latest example of the so-called War on Terror creeping into every day life. Revelations like these have raised serious questions about the extent to which Israeli-inspired tactics are being used to suppress the Occupy movement.

The process of Israelification began in the immediate wake of 9/11, when national panic led federal and municipal law enforcement officials to beseech Israeli security honchos for advice and training. America’s Israel lobby exploited the climate of hysteria, providing thousands of top cops with all-expenses paid trips to Israel and stateside training sessions with Israeli military and intelligence officials. By now, police chiefs of major American cities who have not been on junkets to Israel are the exception.

[...]

Given the amount of training the NYPD and so many other police forces have received from Israel’s military-intelligence apparatus, and the profuse levels of gratitude American police chiefs have expressed to their Israeli mentors, it is worth asking how much Israeli instruction has influenced the way the police have attempted to suppress the Occupy movement, and how much it will inform police repression of future upsurges of street protest. But already, the Israelification of American law enforcement appears to have intensified police hostility towards the civilian population, blurring the lines between protesters, common criminals, and terrorists.

we're all terrorists now...

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NYPD Captain Ray Lewis joins OWS [correction]

good stuff and very interesting... an obviously very intelligent and thoughtful guy...


Police Capt Ray Lewis Joins Protest - Says Police Are Corporate Mercenaries!



[Correction]

ray lewis is a retired captain with the philadelphia police, not the nypd...

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Peaceful, lawful protest -- if it is effective -- IS innately disruptive of "business as usual." That is WHY it is effective.

naomi wolf reminds us of what the first amendment really means and why it is such a strong tool in our push back against the super-rich elites who are doing their damnedest to vacuum up every last scrap of the world's money and power...

from the huffington post via information clearing house...

I want to address the issue of "disruption," as Bloomberg is sending this issue out as a talking point brought up on Keith Olbermann's Countdown last night: the neighbors around Zuccotti Square, says Bloomberg, are feeling "disrupted" by the noise and visitors to the OWS protest, so he is going to crack down to "strike a balance" to address their complaints. Other OWS organizers have let me know that the Parks Department and various municipalities are trying to find a way to eject other protesters from public space on a similar basis of argument.

Please, citizens of America -- please, OWS -- do not buy into this rhetorical framework: an absolute "right to be free of disruption" from First Amendment activity does not exist in a free republic. But the right to engage in peaceable disruption does exist.

Citizens who live or work near protest sites or marches have every right to be free of violence from protesters and they should never be subjected to destruction of property. This is why I am always saying to OWS and to anyone who wants to assemble: be PEACEFUL PEACEFUL PEACEFUL. Be respectful to police, do not yell at them; sing, don't chant; be civil to pedestrians and shop owners; don't escalate tensions; try to sit when there is tension rather than confront physically; be dignified and be nonviolent.

But the First Amendment means that it actually is not up to the mayor or the police of any municipality, or to the Parks Department, or to any local municipality to prohibit public assembly if the assembly is peaceful but disruptive in many ways.

Peaceful, lawful protest -- if it is effective -- IS innately disruptive of "business as usual." That is WHY it is effective.

[...]

Most of us need to remember, or learn for the first time (since this information is usually concealed from us) that the First Amendment, and the Constitution in general, supersedes all the laws of municipalities in violation of the constitution, as stated in the 1925 Gitlow v. New York ruling. So the First Amendment supersedes the restrictive permit laws now being invoked against protesters. The First Amendment was designed to allow for disruption of business as usual. It is not a quiet and subdued amendment or right.

[...]

Bloomberg is flat wrong, and he doubtless knows it but hopes you won't notice: New Yorkers have no right to be free of any disruption from the peaceful but disruptive free-speech actions of their fellow citizens, and how New Yorkers lawfully and peacefully assert their First Amendment rights is actually not up to him. There is a higher authority than Michael Bloomberg, or than the NYPD, or even than the guy in the white shirt who signaled to his colleagues to handcuff me earlier this week when I stood peacefully on a sidewalk, obeying what I had confirmed to be the law: and that higher authority is called the Constitution of the United States of America.

our super-rich elites and their bought-and-paid-for governmental puppets (one and the same in bloomberg's case) will stop at nothing to maintain their twisted status quo...

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Assuming that al Qaeda and its "sympathizers" are constantly plotting against us

therefore, we are ALL under suspicion at ALL times...


A heavily armed Hercules team makes a show of
force outside a midtown Manhattan office building

it's absolutely amazing just how fast we're moving to out-and-out fascism... (but it's all for our SAFETY, dontcha know...)

No one sees them coming. There are no flashing lights, no sirens. The black Suburban simply glides out of Fifth Avenue traffic and pulls into a no-parking zone in front of the Empire State Building. Moments later, four men spill out in combat helmets and heavy body armor: Two carry submachine guns; the others, snub-nosed shotguns.

Camera-toting tourists stop jabbering and stare at this intimidating new presence, their faces a mixture of curiosity and fear. Even jaded New Yorkers, many of whom work inside the midtown Manhattan landmark, look impressed.

A stone's throw down the sidewalk, Abad Nieves watches the scene unfold. Nieves is a detective with the Intelligence Division of the New York Police Department (NYPD). Casually clad in slacks and a black leather jacket, he monitors the response of people loitering in the area. Is anyone making notes or videotaping? Does anyone seem especially startled by the out-of-the-blue appearance of a heavily armed NYPD squad?

On this day, Nieves doesn't see anything overly suspicious, but he is pleased that the deployment created a strong impression. Known as a Hercules team, it makes multiple appearances around the city each day. The locations are chosen either in response to specific intelligence or simply to provide a show of force at high-profile sites.

"The response we usually get is, 'Holy s---!'" Nieves says. "That's the reaction we want. We are in the business of scaring people--we just want to scare the right people."

[...]

"Clearly, New York is way in front on this," says Brian Michael Jenkins, a terrorism expert with the Rand Corp. "As the threat gets more diffused, we are going to have less of the kind of intelligence that can be picked up by the feds. We are dealing now with threats that are deliberately operating under the radar. Therefore, we have to aim the radar lower, to the local level."

Although there have been no attacks in New York since 9/11, police officials work under the assumption that Al Qaeda and its sympathizers are constantly plotting against the city.

ah, yes... it's all so terribly LOGICAL... bring it on, and we'll BEG for more...

a commenter to the article...

#27 Its called PROACTIVE police work! I don't understand how some people think, when something bad happens and the police show up they get blamed for not being able to prevent it. When the police become proactive and prevent crimes from happening they receive even more negative criticism (we will never really know how many crimes police officers prevent by them simply being more visible to the general public). In case people forgot New York was ATTACKED on 09/11/01, you think the NYPD wants to relive that again! The police are referred to as our nation's first line of defense for a reason, thats because their job is to protect us from any threat. IF they don't neutralize that threat then history will repeat itself and I'm not talking about the police turning into Nazi Germany. Sometimes you have to think outside the box, great job NYPD and keep up the good work!

yep, yep, yep... keep it comin'...!

(thanks to kevin at cryptogon...)

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