Occupy Portland protesters gather outside City Hall in November. Don Ryan/AP
Homeland Security communicated with local officials about Occupy
Documents reveal the agency tried to coordinate with local police departments.
If Occupy Wall Street activists were worried about the Department of Homeland Security monitoring their activities, wait until they get a load of this. According to new DHS documents obtained from a Freedom of Information Act request by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF), DHS officials were also communicating with local authorities in cities where Occupy Wall Street protests occurred.
PCJF, a civil rights legal group working on behalf of filmmaker Michael Moore, says the documents reveal a "vast, tentacled, national intelligence and domestic spying network that the U.S. government operates against its own people." One of its examples is from November when the DHS sent a request from the Chicago police department, in the words of PCJF, "requesting coordination and information-sharing about Occupy encampments and arrest charges in New York, Oakland, Atlanta, Washington, D.C. Denver, Boston, Portland OR, and Seattle."
Read the full story at The Atlantic Wire.