Anonymous Clashes With D.C. Police During Million Mask March 388
Daniel_Stuckey writes "Scheduled to coincide with Guy Fawkes Night, a centuries-old day of remembrance typically celebrated in Great Britain, the Nov. 5 protest is something of a tradition for the hacktivist collective. Anonymous, which is often identified by the Fawkes mask used in the Hollywood blockbuster V for Vendetta, hosted a similar rally in 2011, dubbed 'Night of a Thousand Masks.' Protesters in Washington, D.C. clashed with police before noon. By approximately 10am, an arrest was made. The incident was livestreamed, and Anonymous claimed that the individual was grabbed and arrested after stepping off a sidewalk and into the street. A spokesperson for the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department declined to comment."
Re:Arrest them all (Score:5, Interesting)
The establishment really ought to love "Anonymous". Unlike every successful movement, it has no direction and no organisation, therefore it will make no progress. It's just a bunch of kids saying, "We're not very happy about stuff and we think someone should do something about it!"
London too (Score:4, Interesting)
Occupy Sandy (Score:3, Interesting)
Did you catch the NYTimes article on undercover agents at these protests, it's so bad in New York, that undercover officers infiltrate 'Occupy Sandy' the hurricane relief effort!
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/11/nyregion/undercover-just-about-everywhere.html?_r=0
But the agent provocateur problem is more serious, officers starting or attempting to provoke crimes that can be used to justify mass arrests, e.g. from the NYT article:
"One of the large, undiscussed questions of such surveillance is how civic dialogue can be influenced or distorted by police agents — perhaps as provocateurs, or possibly with no motive beyond maintaining cover. During the Republican convention, after a group making a film was arrested, a redheaded man standing on the street pounded on the back window of a police van, urging that the people inside be let go. A day later, the same man was videotaped being briefly put under a fake arrest, leading to tumult in the street from others who objected to his incarceration. They were unaware that the man was an undercover police officer who was walked down the street by uniformed officers, hands behind his back but uncuffed, and sent on his way: catch and release. "
Re:Occupy Sandy (Score:5, Interesting)
Just wondering: what exactly are the legalities of the use of agents provocateur? At the very least the agents themselves could be charged with inciting riots, but someone is giving them orders, and that someone is following someone else's policy or "polite request", it seems to me that some very serious charges could be levelled at the people up the command chain. That is, if anything ever came of inquiries into such matters.
Re:Stay behind the line! (Score:0, Interesting)
As someone who was arrested for something a bit more serious than criminal trespassing and is now both a government contractor with security clearance and federal firearms licensee, you are absolutely incorrect and a moron.
Re:Stay behind the line! (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is that in America, even with the government doing 'horrible' things ... life is WAY to good to rock the boat very much for 99% of the population. You still wake up in a warm bed, with food and drink, and a job (or you can get a job if you put even a tiny amount of effort in it). America, for all its problems, is just a fucking awesome place to live.
Somalians have something to protest about. Kenyans have something to protest about. American's are whiney bitches too lazy to do anything other than bitch about ... and too lazy to even bother voting properly ... thats how little Americans ACTUALLY care about the 'causes' that these protests are for.
That reasoning doesn't stand. How nice or how awful a place is, is not an objective criterion; people in XI century Europe lived worse than present Kenyans or Somalians and in half a millenia, the poorest in the world will probably live better than current Americans do.
How much a person cares about his situation is not based on the situation alone but on the expectations of that person. Those expectations come from the world he lives in but also from the world he's capable of imagining. A person may well decide to revolt against the best existing current reality if in his mind he sees what could be better, instead of comparing himself with how worse it could be, or is somewhere else.
Re:Stay behind the line! (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone care to comment?
I will share a bit of my experience with the Occupy WS Movement, along with my arrest as I was a part of the initial movement in Zuccotti park on September 17, 2011 (I was there for three months)~
Towards the end of my stay in NYC there was a large march that deviated from our usual path around the nearby adjacent streets that usually navigated around the Financial District of downtown. On this day we vastly expanded our coverage, marching around a much larger radius of downtown and for the first time spilling out freely into the streets after (easily) getting around the police blockade using sheer force of numbers. The police were scrambling to contain us, making arrests en-mass but only in small areas at first since they were initially overwhelmed with our “spontaneous” deviation from the normal paths taken. I was within view of the leaders who were directing the general group, within the front hundred members of the march (I could not see the back-half of people since the march was large and wrapped around blocks).
Individual police officers were video recording us as we passed, while the larger coordinated police efforts were stuck in traffic and could not keep up with us as we danced, sang, cheered and chanted about throughout the city. We made it about eight or nine blocks away from our home-base when the march leads began steering us back to camp. There was a side-street that they directed us down to link us back up with the main stretch that would take us back home. It was on this side-street that the police made their move. They brought out their red “fishing” nets for the first time that day, first blocking off the exit to the side-street that we were attempting to leave from. The man ahead of me was the last to run free of this net, and I was seconds away from “freedom.” An officer grabbed me and threw me back into the side-street just as the red net finished closing off our exit. Without hesitation I turned and sprinted towards the other end of the side-street where we came in. As I neared my last chance of escape I saw in dismay the second red net had already been put in-place I was stuck. There were well-over 300 of us stuck in this side-street between nets, along with other non-Occupiers as well (what a surprise for them!). Scrambling about we were all trying to find that perfect hiding spot to avoid what was to come next. Sure enough, the officers in full crowed-control entered and started beating, macing, and ziptieing everyone starting from the side-street entrances/exits inwards.
“Innocents” and “terrorists” alike, I witnessed police brutality at its finest (commonplace during this movement). I saw old women getting attacked, mothers and children getting maced, as well as one particularly unlucky young woman get tackled, ziptied, and arrested after walking out of the Barnes and Nobles bookstore with her brand-new book still in-hand, completely unaware of any Occupy march. Watching the chaos unfold around me I sat down with didgeridoo in hand, waiting for my turn. I was eventually pushed down on my stomach, zip tied (luckily with my didgeridoo still in hand, which I must add survived the entire ordeal and even made it back to Michigan with me afterwards) and put into the back of a van with 9 others. We were driven around NYC for hours as all the jails were completely full they didn’t know what to do with us! We were (finally) taken to a holding cell in Brooklyn I believe after a few of us nearly passed out from pain due to the zip ties being too tight and cutting off circulation (the officers in our van didn’t have the release key).
I sat in jail for just over 12 hours without any official cause. None of the officers would answer any of our questions. They started releasing small groups of people every few hours, with my turn finally being with the last group to be released. I was handed a ticket (obstructing a sidewalk or something like that), given back my didgeridoo, and sent along my way to walk back to Zuccotti Park, once again “free.”
This event has made no impact on my employment since, only on my awareness and mentality.