> New York City Police Department documents obtained by The Verge show that police camera teams were deployed to hundreds of Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street protests from 2011–2013 and 2016. Originally acquired through a Freedom of Information Law request by New York attorney David Thompson of Stecklow & Thompson, the records are job reports from the NYPD’s Technical Assistance Response Unit (TARU) that document over 400 instances in which the unit’s video team attended, and sometimes filmed, demonstrations. More important than the records the NYPD turned over, however, are those that it claims it cannot find: namely, any documents demonstrating that legal reviews and authorizations of these surveillance operations took place.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/22/15016984/nypd-video-surve...

The MUCH bigger story is FBI standing ready to kill protestors with snipers "if deemed necessary". All of these disruption tactics articles are just "soft" news to gently irritate the public and convince it that the truth is known, is regularly leaked and the press will keep the public informed. The real truth (the planned murder of activists MLK-style) is mostly NOT known, virtually no news outlets write about it, and FBI refused to declassify it. The truth is this: If somebody is a real threat to established order they get killed, plain and simple. This should be the discussion, not "disruption" tactics of the police and how allowable/legal they are.

> Department of Homeland Security documents released in April prove a "systematic effort" by the agency "to surveil and disrupt peaceful demonstrations" linked to Occupy Wall Street, according to the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF).

> Similarly, FBI documents confirmed "a strategic partnership between the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the private sector" designed to produce intelligence on behalf of "the corporate security community." A PCJF spokesperson remarked that the documents show "federal agencies functioning as a de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and Corporate America."

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2013/j...

Variations of this tactic (disrupt the leader before they create a useful coalition) used to be called COINTELPRO[1]. The methods used changed as technology changed, but the core tactic is still used in many places. GCHQ even has an entire department dedicated to this type of disruption: JTRIG[2].

> then it has truly horrific consequences for social organization and the peaceful transition of power (democracy).

Snowden tried to tell everybody that. I recommend reading the actual documents in [2]; they paint a very clear picture about the tactics being used.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO#Intended_effects

[2] https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/

Similar response to the one I made to other commenters in the thread. The MUCH bigger story is FBI standing ready to kill Occupy protestors with snipers "if deemed necessary". All of these disruption tactics articles are just "soft" news to gently irritate the public and convince it that the truth is known, is regularly leaked and the press will keep the public informed. The real truth (the planned murder of activists MLK-style) is mostly NOT known, virtually no news outlets write about it, and FBI refused to declassify it. The truth is this: If somebody is a real threat to established order they get killed, plain and simple. This should be the discussion, not "disruption" tactics of the police and how allowable/legal they are.

See my response above to the comment you are replying to. It is MUCH MUCH MUCH worse than that. The government had tasks force with snipers ready to eliminate the leaders "if deemed necessary". FBI refused to disclose who those snipers were, but since no arrests were made it is quite obvious the snipers are not some local criminal gang. This has been going on since the early 20th century and has to do with money. Not race, and not human rights. Money, and only money. Class warfare of the purest kind. Both MLK and Kennedy are probably the most notable examples of people who were quickly killed when they tried to change the system and enfranchise the poor. You probably think of MLK as a racial rights leader, but that's only 10% of the story. The other 90% are his efforts to end the oligarchy that rules America and as soon as he started talking about poor vs. rich instead of black vs. white, he was promptly killed. I am not even sure why we are even having these discussions, as not much can be done about it. The world is basically an international fascist regime, and the presence of separate countries is largely meaningless. We are all ruled by a handful of multi-national corporations that obey no laws, and are accountable to nobody. See the recent news about J&J knowingly selling for decades baby powder contaminated with asbestos. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18684384

If something so horrible (knowingly killing babies) can happen so habitually and be concealed for decades, then who the hell cares about freedom of speech or your civil rights?!? Seriously, wake the fk up!

I mean, you see a camera pointed at a crowd, then they stop on one person, and cops push through to arrest a specific person, its pretty easy to figure out what's going on. They used a lot of techniques, honestly, that until that point I thought were in the realm of Hollywood speculation, not actual reality. This was not the most concerning thing that happened, by a long shot.

I think you're right, for the exact reason that you stipulated in your other post. I also think that our society is embracing technology in a way that makes this an increasingly difficult problem going forward. I don't want to put Kaczynski on a pedestal, as I significantly disagree with both his actions, and the conclusions he came to, but I think he and others were right to identify this as _the_ issue for western society going forward, when combined with wealth inequality.