FBI Treated Occupy Movement Like a Terrorist Threat
The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF), via the Freedom of Information Act, obtained FBI documents revealing that the FBI considered the Occupy Wall Street movement, which began Sept. 17, 2011, a terrorist threat — even as they pointed out that the organizers called for peaceful protests and did “not condone the use of violence.” According to Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the PCJF, “These documents show that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security treated protests against the corporate and banking structure of America as potential criminal and terrorist activity.”
Big Brother Watched and Watched
The perception of Occupy Wall Street as “terrorism” engineered extreme measures taken to undermine the group’s peaceful protests, including constant spying. FBI agents had OWS in their crosshairs as early as a month before the protesters took up camp at New York’s Zuccotti Park. “This production, which we believe is just the tip of the iceberg, is a window into the nationwide scope of the FBI’s surveillance, monitoring and reporting on peaceful protesters organizing with the Occupy movement,” stated Verheyden-Hilliard. She expressed how the documents also reveal how the federal agencies function as a de facto intelligence arm for Wall Street and Corporate America.
