This looked like significant OWS News to me ... so I thought I'd share ...
National Lawyers Guild Files FOIA Requests Seeking Evidence of Federal Role in Occupy Crackdown
by Dave Lindorff, thiscantbehappening.net -- Fri, 11/18/2011
With Congress no longer performing its sworn role of defending the US Constitution, the National Lawyers Guild Mass Defense Committee and the Partnership for Civil Justice today filed requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) asking the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the CIA and the National Parks Service to release "all their information on the planning of the coordinated law enforcement crackdown on Occupy protest encampments in multiple cities over the course of recent days and weeks."
[...]
National Lawyers Guild leaders, including Executive Director Heidi Beghosian and NLG Mass Defense Committee co-chair and PCJ Executive Director Mara Veheyden-Hilliard both told TCBH! earlier this week that the rapid-fire assaults on occupation encampments in cities from Oakland to New York and Portland, Seattle and Atlanta, all within days of each other, the similar approach taken by police, which included overwhelming force in night-time attacks, mass arrests, use of such weaponry as pepper spray, sound cannons, tear gas, clubs and in some cases "non-lethal" projectiles like bean bags and rubber bullets, the removal and even arrest of reporters and camera-persons, and the justifications offered by municipal officials, who all cited "health" and "safety" concerns, all pointed to central direction and guidance.
[...]
The NLG says the Occupy Movement, which is now in over 170 cities around the U.S., "has been confronted by a nearly simultaneous effort by local governments and local police agencies to evict and break up encampments in cities and towns throughout the country."
Veheyden-Hilliard says, "The severe crackdown on the occupation movement appears to be part of a national strategy," which she said is designed to "crush the movement," an action she describes as "supremely political."
Maybe it was just "a coincidence" ... you know the 2 month "expiration date" was over, or something? ... then again, maybe not ...
In the wake of Occupy crackdown, NLG taps feds for information
-- Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Co-Chair, NLG Mass Defense Committee
National Lawyers Guild -- Washington, D.C. -- 11/17/2011
[...]
“The FOIA requests seek critical information regarding the role of federal law enforcement agencies,” Verheyden-Hilliard explained. “The Occupy demonstrations are not criminal activities, and police should not be treating them as such. This protest movement for social and economic justice has captured the imagination of the country. The coordinated effort of law enforcement to suppress it is a reflection of its political challenge to the status-quo.”
“We see the scapegoating of these movements, the attacks at night, and in general, tactics designed to terrorize and to scare protesters away,” said Heidi Boghosian, Executive Director of the National Lawyers Guild. “This request is critical to the transparency that is required in order for the people of the United States to be informed as to the U.S. government’s action in regard to free speech activities.”
-- The National Lawyers Guild was founded in 1937 and is the oldest and largest public interest/human rights bar organization in the United States. Its headquarters are in New York and it has chapters in every state.
You know what they say, where there's smoke, there is usually fire ...
Where there is simultaneous, coordinated use of identical techniques and tactics and weapons, there probably is some Coordination behind it.
Who is the real threat to public safety, those with the coordinated special ops tactics and weapons, ... or those only armed, with the power of their ideas ?