discipline posted:
thanks! I'd like to keep my security dossiers limited to the number of fingers on one hand, oh who am I kidding
lol the hubris and paranoia of communist hipsters
Edited by babyfinland ()
say what you want about corporate fascism but thats the owningest thing
babyfinland posted:discipline posted:
thanks! I'd like to keep my security dossiers limited to the number of fingers on one hand, oh who am I kiddinglol the hubris and paranoia of communist hipsters
Yeah we get it, your boys are too incompetent to properly carry out their paranoid fantasies
cleanhands posted:
my lil brother is gonna be stewarding at the beach volleyball, like basically hell be the eyes on the ground for the brand police so if he sees you drinking pepsi instead of coke (or whatever) he'll radio some uniformed thugs who will forcibly confiscate your illegal beverage
say what you want about corporate fascism but thats the owningest thing
Lmao
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/03/olympic-preparations-for-london-2012/100257/
Britain truly is an Orwellian nightmare, and I don't use that word lightly.
Ironicwarcriminal posted:
just look how grey these people are
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/03/olympic-preparations-for-london-2012/100257/
Britain truly is an Orwellian nightmare, and I don't use that word lightly.
you dont even live here, you dont know the half of it
for all the shit we gave china about propaganda this is on a different level entirely
An "experiment" which involved using homeless people as mobile wi-fi hotspots has attracted criticism, forcing the advertising agency behind it to defend itself.
cleanhands posted:
my lil brother is gonna be stewarding at the beach volleyball, like basically hell be the eyes on the ground for the brand police so if he sees you drinking pepsi instead of coke (or whatever) he'll radio some uniformed thugs who will forcibly confiscate your illegal beverage
say what you want about corporate fascism but thats the owningest thing
that's cool as hell
discipline posted:During the Games themselves, so-called "Olympic Divides" are especially stark. In London, a citywide system of dedicated VIP "Games lanes" are being installed. Using normally public road space, these will allow 4,000 luxury, chauffeur-driven BMWs to shuttle 40,000 Olympic officials, national bureaucrats, politicians and corporate sponsors speedily between their five-star hotels, super-yachts and cordoned-off VIP lounges within the arenas. It has recently been shown that wealthy tourists will be able to enter the VIP lanes by purchasing £20,000 package trips.
Ordinary Londoners, meanwhile – who are paying heavily for the Games through council tax hikes – will experience much worse congestion. Even their ambulances will be proscribed from the lanes if they are not running blue lights.
More broadly, a huge increase in land values tends to benefit only the wealthy property speculators and financiers that are best placed to ride the wave. Already, the Qatar royal family have bought the 1,400 homes of the Olympic village in a deal worth £557m.
'ordinary londoners' dont experience congestion because of the congestion charge, and the council tax hikes in the various boroughs would have happened anyway, but other than that my response is "yeah basically"
tpaine posted:discipline posted:
be so so soooooo happy all the world's oligarchs are descending to pick your bones clean in this year of our lord 2012, a year of unprecedented austerity and sufferingyeah yeah whatever have you seen how far that thai chick can shoot a god damn ARROW? ...jesus fuck...
Crow posted:babyfinland posted:discipline posted:
thanks! I'd like to keep my security dossiers limited to the number of fingers on one hand, oh who am I kiddinglol the hubris and paranoia of communist hipsters
Yeah we get it, your boys are too incompetent to properly carry out their paranoid fantasies
this isnt russia boy, expending resources on teenagers who read books isnt useful nor does it respect their rights as citizens of this great country.
babyfinland posted:Crow posted:babyfinland posted:discipline posted:
thanks! I'd like to keep my security dossiers limited to the number of fingers on one hand, oh who am I kiddinglol the hubris and paranoia of communist hipsters
Yeah we get it, your boys are too incompetent to properly carry out their paranoid fantasies
this isnt russia boy, expending resources on teenagers who read books isnt useful nor does it respect their rights as citizens of this great country.
Spying on Occupy: Prosecutors Subpoena Tweets, NYPD Arrests Protesters for ‘Thought Crimes’
BY ALLISON KILKENNY
Several stories in the news this week – and it's only Tuesday – reveal the scope of the spying and surveillance activities of the NYPD and DA's office, who are monitoring Occupy Wall Street.
Taken individually, these stories may not seem earth-shattering. Yes, the NYPD was monitoring Occupy, but the NYPD is sort of legendary for its overzealous spy and harassment programs (just ask any Muslim New Yorker or victim of the Stop and Frisk policy). But examined together, it becomes clear that the NYPD and District Attorney's office are devoting enormous resources to spying, harassing, and intimidating what has thus far proven itself to be an overwhelmingly peaceful protest group.
Kira Moyer-Sims told her story of police harassment to the New York Times. On Nov. 17, Moyer-Sims was near the Manhattan Bridge, buying coffee while her friends waited in a nearby car. The fact that she was more than a dozen blocks away from an Occupy Wall Street protest didn't stop police officers from surrounding her and the people in the car. All four were arrested and taken to a police facility in the East Village where, according to their lawyer, Vik Pawar, they were strip-searched and had their requests for a lawyer ignored.
"I felt like I had been arrested for a thought crime," Moyer-Sims told the Times.
Pawar said the police charged Moyer Sims, Angela Richino and Matthew Vrvilo with obstructing government administration, though the DA's office declined to prosecute them.
Reporter Colin Moynihan goes on to recap how over the past few months, according to protest organizers, police officers or detectives have been posted outside buildings where private meetings were taking place, have visited the homes of organizers, and have questioned protesters arrested on minor charges.
“The N.Y.P.D. surveillance does not appear to be limited to unlawful activity,” said Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. “We count on the police, of course, to be on the lookout for terrorists and terrorism, but to think you could be on that continuum just by going to a peaceful protest is nuts.”
One of the examples of harassment in the article is an allegation from an OWS organizer named Sandy Nurse, who arrived at her apartment building in Bushwick Dec. 16 to find uniformed officers outside. The officers told Nurse they were there to conduct a "security check" for a condition they would not identify.
Nurse told them they could not enter, but an officer nonetheless used his foot to prevent the front door from closing behind her, followed her into the entryway vestibule, and threatened to arrest her for obstruction of government administration. Nurse does not see this visit as a coincidence, but rather directly tied to her activities with Occupy.
“It means that they are watching us,” she told the Times. “They know who we are, where we live and where we are organizing.”
Prosecutors have been busy this week subpoenaing the Twitter records of a previously arrested Occupy Wall Street protester, Jeff Rae, whose tweets I've referenced many times in this blog. Yesterday, Rae tweeted "URGENT: The District Attorney in NY has subpoenaed my twitter account," and linked to an image of the notice from Twitter that reads:Dear Twitter User:
We are writing to inform you that Twitter has received legal process, dated March 8, 2012, requesting information regarding your Twitter account, @jeffrae. A copy of the legal process is attached. The legal process requires Twitter to produce documents related to your account.
Please be advised that Twitter will respond to this request in 7 days from the date of this notice unless we receive notice from you that a motion to quash the legal process has been filed or that this matter has been otherwise resolved.
To respond to this notice, please reply directly to this email.
This notice is not legal advice. You may wish to consult legal counsel about this matter.
Sincerely,
Twitter Legal
Attached below is a copy of the DA's subpoena that reveals Rae is one of five total accounts subpoenaed.
In October, Rae was arrested during the mass protest on the Brooklyn Bridge.
While it's not yet clear who the other four Occupy defendants are, in January prosecutors filed a similar subpoena against Malcolm Harris, another arrested protester.
"I was a little bit blown away," Rae told Reuters. "It's interesting that in places like Egypt our leaders applaud people for using Twitter and social media for their movements. Here, I'm being subpoenaed for using social media."
Rae says his attorney, Paul Mills of the National Lawyers Guild, would file a motion to quash.
Martin Stolar, a NLG lawyer representing Harris, filed a motion to quash as well, but that motion is still pending.
What's most outrageous about these subpoenas is that prosecutors haven't revealed why they're collecting these tweets or what evidence they hope to gain from rifling through them. In the meantime, the collective effect on the Occupy community is a chilling one. Obviously, being told by the DA's office that you're being treated as an effective suspect in an unknown crime is intimidating.
In speaking with Occupiers, it's clear many protesters operate under the assumption that the police are always watching them, and that everything they say and put on the internet is probably being monitored. The psychological toll is great. And again, these are largely peaceful protesters who have done nothing except dare to attempt to exercise their First Amendment rights. If prosecutors or police know of some plotting crime cell, then they should make that information public, but if they're investigating future crimes, or "thought crimes," then what they're doing is tantamount to systematic harassment.
it doesn't feel militarised (or more militarised than usual) yet. really the main thing is that boris johnson is doing a good job of making london feel like new crobuzon or something
Ironicwarcriminal posted:
Are people genuinely annoyed at the expense being spent on the Games in contrast to the state of the economy or are they just going to do their sad-faced "musn't grumble" schtick and push on with a tawdry faux-Edwardian stoicism?
you suppose a briton has any other way of expressing dissatisfaction with something
littlegreenpills posted:Ironicwarcriminal posted:
Are people genuinely annoyed at the expense being spent on the Games in contrast to the state of the economy or are they just going to do their sad-faced "musn't grumble" schtick and push on with a tawdry faux-Edwardian stoicism?you suppose a briton has any other way of expressing dissatisfaction with something
they can surprise you sometimes
Ironicwarcriminal posted:
Are people genuinely annoyed at the expense being spent on the Games in contrast to the state of the economy or are they just going to do their sad-faced "musn't grumble" schtick and push on with a tawdry faux-Edwardian stoicism?
well, like everything else here, it varies with social class. the middle classes and up are mostly just grumbling, although some sections probably generally support them.
lower down though.... well, let's just say the olympics were pretty much universally given as one of the reasons for the anger that precipitated the riots by those involved. canary wharf has a really powerful psychological effect on the desperately poor communities that surround it (iirc the poorest council wards in the uk are within like a mile or two of that place), and the olympic site is just having an even more extreme effect. for example, simultaneous to the olympic site being developed, another westfield shopping centre opened up in stratford. it follows the model of the other westfield, in west london, that's pretty much just high-end boutiques and shit. completely alienating.
jools posted:Ironicwarcriminal posted:
Are people genuinely annoyed at the expense being spent on the Games in contrast to the state of the economy or are they just going to do their sad-faced "musn't grumble" schtick and push on with a tawdry faux-Edwardian stoicism?well, like everything else here, it varies with social class. the middle classes and up are mostly just grumbling, although some sections probably generally support them.
lower down though.... well, let's just say the olympics were pretty much universally given as one of the reasons for the anger that precipitated the riots by those involved. canary wharf has a really powerful psychological effect on the desperately poor communities that surround it (iirc the poorest council wards in the uk are within like a mile or two of that place), and the olympic site is just having an even more extreme effect. for example, simultaneous to the olympic site being developed, another westfield shopping centre opened up in stratford. it follows the model of the other westfield, in west london, that's pretty much just high-end boutiques and shit. completely alienating.
Yeah sorry for unleashing Westfield on you, it's a Sydney institution, we've got 13 of them, albeit mostly not as upscale as the London ones and more appropriate for our suburban fabric.
I noticed that about Canary wharf when I was there, riding the DLR through a forest of grim tower blocks to the imposing citadel of skyscrapers. And yet when you get close, on a wet late January day like I did, it really doesn't seem that way to me. Apart from the underground station (which was cool), there was a cheap tawdriness and hollowness to the whole area, like it was a film set as fragile and 2 dimensional as the credit default swaps that built it. What with it's twee little "heritage trail" signage and such.
I see what you mean about the psychological effects it must have on the ghettos around it though, that inaccessible wealth and power looming over you and mocking you for your inability to ever be a part of it. I imagine residents of Detroit feel the same way.
It's really depressing that the media and people will still gobble up truisms about the site "regenerating" East London or whatnot, despite evidence to the contrary clearly presented not only in the Docklands but every other piece of tacky, Blairite shit that went up across the regional cities in the "boom".