SALON

Wednesday, Feb 29, 2012 11:15 PM UTC

Was DHS really spying on Occupy?

Or was it just reading the lame newspaper coverage of the movement's early days?

By

Topics: Occupy Wall Street, Michael Hastings, Department of Homeland Security, ,

Was DHS really spying on Occupy?An Occupy Wall Street protester chants during an Occupy protest in January. (Credit: Reuters/Stephen Lam)

It was sadly unsurprising to discover that the Department of Homeland Security has been keeping tabs on Occupy Wall Street for some time. Michael Hastings reveals in Rolling Stone that an internal DHS report, released by WikiLeaks, titled “SPECIAL COVERAGE: Occupy Wall Street,” offers broad, largely “benign” observations about Occupy in its early stages. Hastings notes:

“While acknowledging the overwhelmingly peaceful nature of OWS, the report notes darkly that ‘large scale demonstrations also carry the potential for violence, presenting a significant challenge for law enforcement.’”

Any mass political movement outside the realms of the party political system will garner the attention of government agencies. Occupiers shocked by the attention of DHS need a wake-up call and history lessons in federal intelligence fusion centers and J. Edgar Hoover.

My shock is rather at the cursory and complacent nature of the document. This is spying? The sources cited for Occupy information are almost entirely mainstream media reports (from the AP, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, Reuters and others). These are some of the very outlets that the Occupy movement rightly criticized for  skewed or superficial or nonexistent coverage. They’re not exactly inside sources.

In a brief mention of one of Occupy’s catalytic moments — the march onto the Brooklyn Bridge roadway, which led to over 700 arrests — the DHS document even notes the wrong date. The bridge action took place on Saturday Oct. 1, but DHS dates the event on “September 30.”

If the leaked document is much to go by (and I’m not sure it is), DHS wasn’t paying all that close attention back in October. However, as Hastings rightly notes, “there is not much of a bureaucratic leap, if history is any guide, between a seemingly benign call for ‘continuous situational awareness’ and the onset of a covert and illegal campaign of domestic surveillance.”

And it should not be forgotten that DHS is primarily charged with protecting the U.S. from terrorist attacks. As such, any internal document about Occupy, however slapdash, is sad evidence of the sparse tolerance for dissent in this country.

Natasha Lennard is an assistant news editor at Salon, covering non-electoral politics, general news and rabble-rousing. Follow her on Twitter @natashalennard, email nlennard@salon.com. More Natasha Lennard.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • This photo. President Barack Obama has a laugh during the unveiling of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, Tx., Thursday. Former first lady Barbara Bush, who candidly admitted this week we've had enough Bushes in the White House, is unamused.
    Reuters/Jason Reed

  • Rescue workers converge Wednesday in Savar, Bangladesh, where the collapse of a garment building killed more than 300. Factory owners had ignored police orders to vacate the work site the day before.
    AP/A.M. Ahad

  • Police gather Wednesday at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to honor campus officer Sean Collier, who was allegedly killed in a shootout with the Boston Marathon bombing suspects last week.
    AP/Elise Amendola

  • Police tape closes the site of a car bomb that targeted the French embassy in Libya Tuesday. The explosion wounded two French guards and caused extensive damage to Tripoli's upscale al-Andalus neighborhood.
    AP/Abdul Majeed Forjani

  • Protestors rage outside the residence of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Sunday following the rape of a 5-year-old girl in New Delhi. The girl was allegedly kidnapped and tortured before being abandoned in a locked room for two days.
    AP/Manish Swarup

  • Clarksville, Mo., residents sit in a life boat Monday after a Mississippi River flooding, the 13th worst on record.
    AP/Jeff Roberson

  • Workers pause Wednesday for a memorial service at the site of the West, Tx., fertilizer plant explosion, which killed 14 people and left a crater more than 90 feet wide.
    AP/The San Antonio Express-News, Tom Reel

  • Aerial footage of the devastation following a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in China's Sichuan province last Saturday. At least 180 people were killed and as many as 11,000 injured in the quake.
    AP/Liu Yinghua

  • On Wednesday, Hazmat-suited federal authorities search a martial arts studio in Tupelo, Miss., once operated by Everett Dutschke, the newest lead in the increasingly twisty ricin case. Last week, President Barack Obama, Sen. Roger Wicker, R.-Miss., and a Mississippi judge were each sent letters laced with the deadly poison.
    AP/Rogelio V. Solis

  • The lighting of Freedom Hall at the George W. Bush Presidential Center Thursday is celebrated with (what else but) red, white and blue fireworks.
    AP/David J. Phillip

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 17 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: "The Shelter Cycle": Raised in a cult

Recommendations