03/23/12 – Jason Leopold – The Scott Horton Show

All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's Anti-War Radio.
And our first guest today comes from Truthout.
It's Jason Leopold, DHS, turns over Occupy Wall Street documents to Truthout.
Really, why would they even bother?
What were you gonna do about it?
Welcome back to the show.
Sorry, I just...
I'm always surprised when the government complies with some demand of a citizen.
Well, you know, I have to say, Scott, it's...
I filed probably about...nearly 100 FOIA requests last year.
Much of that has to do with issues revolving around national security, counter-terrorism, torture, etc.
I haven't really received much, and in fact, I'm still waiting for some of those to be processed.
So I was quite surprised that DHS, Department of Homeland Security, turned over the first batch of documents, which totaled about 400 pages, related to Occupy Wall Street.
And there's a lot of interesting, important information in there.
I just want to note that in a few weeks, they'll, you know, they're scheduling another release of documents.
So they actually have quite a bit of information.
Their info is redacted throughout these documents, but they're...
Well, so what, are they following some acolytes of the blind shake around, making sure that they don't hearth the American peaceful protesters?
Yeah, well, you know, these...
It leaves no question, put it this way, that Department of Homeland Security was closely, closely monitoring Occupy Wall Street, the...you know, the movement from the days that... the very first day that it started.
That, you know, there were threat assessments in there.
There was even some reports from the Secret Service.
The Secret Service monitored the first protest on September 17th and put together a little case summary.
There is information in there showing that, you know, there was some activity happening in Pittsburgh in which they put a threat assessment together there.
What's very interesting is that there's actually some people within the Department of Homeland Security who were skittish about what, you know, what the agency was doing with regard to Occupy Wall Street and verbalized their concern by stating that, you know, they feared that some of these actions rose to the level of unauthorized surveillance.
Many of the fusion centers, you know, felt that, you know, they needed intelligence or wanted intelligence.
You know, fusion centers which were scattered throughout the country.
So they would, you know, send notes or emails to headquarters asking for, you know, quote, intelligence products on Occupy Wall Street.
And I will say that, you know, some of the more top, you know, senior officials within the agency said, look, you know, we're not supposed to do this.
This is not our job.
So when you get requests like this from fusion centers, you just tell them that, no, this is a law enforcement, a local law enforcement matter.
So there's, you know, you could see within the documents that they, you know, that they struggled.
What's very interesting though, first let me just point out what's also very important, is statements.
Statements to the media that are in these documents are carefully worded.
One of the most important, for the people who have been, you know, monitoring Occupy Wall Street, one of their, you know, most important pieces of information for them was to find out whether the agency was involved in that crackdown that took place in October.
What would appear to be a coordinated crackdown of Occupy encampments and the protests throughout the country.
There was, I think, within a dozen or so cities.
And it was very, very violent, if you recall.
And so people speculated that this had to be coordinated with the Department of Homeland Security.
So the documents say that, well first let me just point out, there's no smoking gun in the documents that say, or that shows the, you know, that the agency was involved in that.
But there are more documents that come, so who knows.
But it does, you know, show that Federal Protective Services were, Protective Service was on the scene at many of these protests.
They were, the documents say the only, the only one that they were involved in was...
What the hell is the Federal Protective Services?
I've never even heard of that one, I don't think.
Yeah, it's, you know, the vehicles that you see, or that if you've heard that there's any vehicles out there with Department of Homeland Security, it's basically, you know, they're the folks that monitor, you know, what takes place on, you know, if there's anything that's happening on the federal property, federal...
There's security for government buildings, basically.
Exactly.
Okay, I gotcha.
And so, you know, they, they're part of the agency, and it, you know, the other thing that these documents show, Scott, is that it's such a, Department of Homeland Security, what a massive bureaucracy.
Massive, massive.
You know, the fact that you have so many different offices within this agency, that some people don't know, frankly, what their job is, you know, what they're supposed to do.
You know, the Department of Homeland Security is supposed to monitor threats, you know, threats to the homeland.
That's basically what it says on their website.
There are some people that felt like, hey, look, you know, there's a protest happening.
There's a movement that's being organized, and we should have intelligence on them, and we should be able to do that.
And, you know, as I indicated, there's... that they're not supposed to do that, but some within the agency felt that they are.
And then you get to the point where you, in these documents, where you have the media contacting the agency to find out what their role was within the, you know, within this crackdown.
And, you know, these spokespeople at the agency, you know, have no idea.
So, you know, they're sending notes back and forth to higher-ups and saying, well, how would we describe our activities with Occupy Wall Street?
And, you know, they're getting the responses and giving the media carefully worded statements and misleading them a bit, providing information on background.
And then later, you see that the, you know, that these reporters, you know, simply published it wholesale.
Well, can you share with us a little bit more specifically some of those statements?
Sure.
It's, you know, there were some inquiries that, right around November, there were inquiries that they received from CBS, Associated Press, AP, Reuters.
And I'm just, you know, bringing this up on the documents.
And, again, these inquiries were, what does, you know, is the Department of Homeland Security involved in the crackdown?
And then, you know, the spokespeople would write to their, you know, their bosses or their, the higher-ups, and basically say, what should we say?
And these, you know, statements said, the Department of Homeland Security is not involved in, you know, in any coordinated crackdown with Occupy Wall Street.
If anything takes place on federal land, and then only to ensure the safety of individuals, then, you know, that's when we will step in.
But we leave this as a law enforcement matter.
And then on background, a law enforcement, meaning local law enforcement, and then on background, they would provide the reporters with information.
Federal Protective Services was involved in only one crackdown.
That was in Portland.
And because, you know, something took place on federal property there.
That's that annoying bumper music coming in here.
We've got to go out and take this break, but we'll be right back on the other side with Jason Leopold from Truthout.org.
He got a giant pile of Homeland Security documents through the Freedom of Information Act, all about their surveillance of the Occupy Wall Street protest move.
We'll be right back.
All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
Got Jason Leopold on the line from Truthout.org.
The article is, DHS turns over Occupy Wall Street documents to Truthout.
And there's a link to the actual files right there at the top of the page for you.
And go write your own article all about it if you want.
This is, it has a flavor of being continually updated as we learn more, as we continue sifting through this thing together.
Pretty quick summary of what you have in the documents.
Where were we when the music started?
Yeah, it's being updated regularly, and we're putting out some separate reports as well.
And we were talking about what some of these statements were to the media.
And internally, what some of the DHS officials told us, at least the Public Affairs Office was, when these calls came in, what are you guys doing?
Are you involved with the crackdown?
And one statement here says, quote, we are working with GSA, General Services Administration, which is the agency that approves permits for protests on federal property.
We are working with GSA and each city government to ensure that all parties concerned are safe and secure.
DHS has held standard coordination calls and face-to-face meetings with our partners to ensure that the proper resources are available for operation, such as street closures, etc.
Again, what can one take from that statement, which is basically, it's deniability.
Yeah, we were there, but we were doing a different mission.
Exactly.
And then in one case, and this is again a carefully worded statement, where specifically, were you involved, were you DHS involved in the crackdown?
And one of the officials says, this is not taking place in any wholesale manner.
So again, reporters would take that, reprint it, and not really dig into what that means, any wholesale manner.
So it certainly does indicate that something was happening.
And during the protests, many folks were tweeting about these vehicles that they saw.
And some of the vehicles, as I indicated, were Federal Protective Service.
And nobody knew exactly why they were there, but these documents indicate now that, well, they were there specifically because they were monitoring the protesters, monitoring the activity, and putting together, as I indicated, threat assessments in some cities, where Occupy felt that there was a threat.
So it's very interesting to see that this is still taking place.
The response has been, to some of these revelations, well, that's what the Department of Homeland Security is supposed to do.
We've spoken about this before.
The public seems to be accepting, for the most part, of, hey, this is the way it is, this is what our government does, and they're supposed to monitor for threats.
No, they're not supposed to do that.
They're not supposed, well, at least dissent.
This was monitoring, in some cases, to suppress the First Amendment, constitutionally protected rights of these protesters and their First Amendment rights.
Well, and the government doesn't have any claim on this level of paranoia at all, as though the Occupy Wall Street movement was about to turn into the riot in Cairo that overthrew Mubarak, or something, and brings down the U.S. government.
Like, this is the first Red Scare, and massive strikes crippling the nation's economy.
It's nothing like this at all.
It's a protest movement of disaffected Democrats, who have good reason to be disaffected, but who are basically up to nothing.
Right.
No offense.
Exactly.
No offense taken.
So the cop's job is protecting their rights.
That's it.
This is America, and so the cops are there to provide security, because that's the only excuse they have for existing.
Other than that, what is this?
Unless they have an al-Qaeda threat to the poor, innocent protesters, why do the feds have any involvement whatsoever?
Does the NYPD matter?
Right, yeah.
It's true.
In fact, I have filed an open record back request with NYPD to try to get some of those documents.
I actually think that those documents, those materials, whatever they have internally, would be the materials that are more revelatory in terms of what's happening.
And let me just point out that just about an hour ago, there was a report that came out about NYPD infiltrating what the news organization characterizes as liberal groups.
So these are new revelations that this activity has been taking place in the past couple years.
Yeah, I'm sorry.
I hope I didn't sound like I was implying local means, not corrupt or anything.
No, I don't think you're applying that at all.
And I think that in the big picture for me, what's important here, or what I'm interested in, and what I want to impress upon my readers, is that first of all, the use of the Freedom of Information Act.
It's actually a very important tool, and it can be, when used properly, a powerful tool.
And as such, I used it in order to pry loose information that otherwise may not have been revealed publicly.
So that's important, and it shows what our government is up to, and what the taxpayer dollars are being used for.
And when we look at all this historically, though, in a historical context, this is nothing new.
You more or less indicated that.
First of all, this type of activity monitoring has been going on for decades.
Essentially, one can just go onto the FBI's website and look at all their old records about spying on the anti-war movement.
So this has been taking place for decades.
What's interesting, again, to me now, is the massive bureaucracy, this behemoth of a federal agency, the power that they have, the money that they're using and wasting, and to put together these assessments on whether this movement will turn into a threat, when there are obviously perhaps some legitimate threats out there.
And I understand that when you have something this size, that you do have to pay attention to it.
I think that what was happening here, they were going a little bit, in some cases, some folks were trying to go beyond that.
One of the other pieces of information within the documents that stood out to me is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.
They wanted information as to whether any federal law enforcement officer had confiscated, or if they've seen information about whether any of these protesters carried Molotov cocktails, guns, knives, unconventional and conventional weapons.
They were very interested in that.
Obviously, perhaps they can...
Yeah, they just want to get their camel nose into the tent, that's all.
Exactly.
So, you know, it's all, I think that the whole thing is just, when you look at this in the big picture, should anyone be surprised?
No.
I think part of the surprise out there is that, you know, or in the documents, is the fact that there was dissent within the agency as to, you know, what they were doing, or people that actually felt that, you know, they were crossing the line.
I will point out, however, that these individuals noted in some of their emails that, quote, they've just learned that the emails and some of the information that they've been disseminating was subject to a FOIA request.
So they were very conscious of, you know, of what they were doing, of what they were doing, what they were saying, that would eventually become public, or could become public.
So, you know, it's worth noting.
Right.
Yeah, plant a little exculpatory evidence in there for themselves for later.
Jason Leopold's gonna come knocking from truthout.org.
Right, right.
All right, hey, thanks a lot for your time, man.
I really appreciate it, and your work.
Appreciate it, Scott.
Have a great weekend.
You too, man.
All right, everybody, that's the great Jason Leopold, truthout.org.
DHS turns over some Occupy Wall Street documents.