A truly powerful video...it really is must-see t.v. for every social activist in this country...
Glenn Greenwald: Why Privacy Matters
Glenn Greenwald
TED Talk
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
October 10, 2014
Speaking of "powerful," there's an outstanding post on the Rec List, as I write this, about the powerful and peaceful social protest in St. Louis over the weekend. But, while the initial "Ferguson October" weekend may be over, we're not even halfway through October; and, we're just a few weeks away from hearing from that grand jury that was empaneled by St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch to look into the murder of Mike Brown "matter."
Not to worry, protestors! Local law enforcement and the FBI are "preparing" for the announcement of the status quo's Grand Jury's findings...
Exclusive: Missouri police plan for possible riots if Brown cop not charged
By Tim Reid
Reuters
Tue Oct 7, 2014 6:37pm EDT
FERGUSON, MISSOURI–
(Reuters) - Missouri authorities are drawing up contingency plans and seeking intelligence from U.S. police departments on out-of-state agitators, fearing that fresh riots could erupt if a grand jury does not indict a white officer for killing a black teen.
The plans are being thrashed out in meetings being held two to three times a week, according to people who have attended them. The FBI said it was also involved in the discussions.
Details of the meetings and intelligence sharing by Missouri police agencies and their counterparts around the country have not been reported before...
...
...If charges are not brought against Wilson, police fear an outbreak of violence not just in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, but across the greater metropolitan area and even in other U.S. cities, according to St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar and others involved in the planning meetings.
James Knowles, the Ferguson mayor who has attended the meetings, told Reuters the concern is "the unrest is going to be far beyond the city of Ferguson."
Ferguson today is a city on the edge...
...
..."We know outside groups visited us in August. We are expecting that different people will come in from outside the St. Louis area," if the grand jury decides not to indict Wilson, Belmar said.
One focus of the meetings has been on how to respond in the event of riots...
...
...Representatives of the Missouri State Highway Patrol, St. Louis County Police, St. Louis city police and Ferguson police have been attending the meetings, Belmar said. The top FBI official in St. Louis, Agent William Woods, attended a strategy meeting last week, said St. Louis FBI spokeswoman Rebecca Wu.
Plans have not been finalized...
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Activists from both inside and outside the community are preparing, as well...
Ferguson protest leaders: 'We'll take our anger out on people who failed us'
Organisers tell New York rally not to expect a ‘casual revolution’ and vow greater demonstrations over police shooting of teen
The Guardian
October 8, 2014
Organisers of demonstrations in Ferguson, Missouri, promised to intensify their protests over the killing of Michael Brown if the officer who shot him does not face criminal charges, warning police that they are prepared to die on the streets for their cause.
Three prominent members of the protest movement that sprung up after the deadly police shooting of Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old, told a rally in New York on Tuesday night that there would be a fierce backlash if a grand jury declined to indict officer Darren Wilson.
“If they can’t serve justice in this, the people have every right to go out and express their rage in a manner that is equal to what we have suffered,” said Ashley Yates, a co-founder of Millennial Activists United, who was arrested last week while protesting in Ferguson.
Yates spoke alongside Tef Poe and Tory Russell, activists for Hands Up United and the Organisation for Black Struggle, hours after it emerged that authorities in Missouri were making plans to deal with potential riots in the event of Wilson avoiding prosecution…
...
...They also dismissed a distinction drawn by the police between “good protesters” and so-called “outside agitators” blamed for causing trouble in August. Russell, who was also arrested during the protests, said 20th century civil rights pioneers such as Martin Luther King Jr, were “outside agitators”. He said: “Don’t be afraid to come from outside and help us do this work. Don’t be afraid to be an outside agitator for some true change.”...
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Meanwhile, from a couple of weeks ago, here's a little Twitter insight into some of the less-publicized realities concerning what's going on behind the scenes with regard to all of this, in and around St. Louis...
(h/t to PrivacySOS.org)
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Here's a little "educated speculation" about this from PrivacySOS...
Journalists: Take a look at the surveillance going on in Ferguson
Submitted by sosadmin
PrivacySOS.org
Fri, 09/26/2014 - 18:43
An enterprising journalist should look into what kinds of surveillance technologies the Ferguson and St. Louis police departments are using to track and monitor activists in wake of the Mike Brown protests. My guess is that they include the following, some or all of which could have been paid for with federal grant monies:
• automatic license plate reader databases to track the movements of activist motorists;
• Stingray cell phone sniffing devices, to download lists of people in attendance at demonstrations;
• social media analytics to monitor people locally (and worldwide) who are producing and sharing information about the protests, as well as to mock up graphs and charts to identify key activists through associational data mining;
• the use of undercover police; and
• fusion center centered information sharing about protesters among local, state, and federal law enforcement.
There's been a lot of attention paid to the military hardware cops brought out to crush the protests in Ferguson, but almost no one is asking about the surveillance technologies in use there. Like with military equipment, federal agencies have over the past decade plus been providing state and local law enforcement with billions of dollars to bulk up surveillance powers. I would bet a substantial sum of money that the toys granted to and spy offices established in Ferguson and St. Louis in the wake of the creation of the Department of Homeland Security have been put to work monitoring and possibly disrupting organizing after Brown's killing.
Journalists should look into it.
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Yup. Martin Luther King, Jr. was an "outside agitator," too.
(If you haven't taken the time to view Greenwald's video--available at the top of this post--I strongly encourage all readers to do so.)
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