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Occupy Rochester
Police in Rochester have received an order to go to Occupy Rochester every night from this day forward and have occupiers show IDs.
Last night, at 2 am ET last night when police showed up at Occupy Rochester. They woke occupiers up (which is not surprising since it was 2 am). The police then asked occupiers for IDs.
A video posted has audio from the incident.
“What is the purpose of suddenly asking for our IDs?” an occupier asks.
A police officer responds that police in the Rochester Police Department got an email to start checking today. That’s what we were discussing earlier.”
“I’m just kind of questioning why we suddenly had to have IDs,” an occupier says.
Another officer says, “It’s going to be a nightly thing so just make sure you have it.”
“What time is it?” an occupier asks.
“2 o’clock,” the officer replies.
The officers leave and the occupier says, “What should we do about this? Is there any recourse?” They say they are trying to contact their city liaison.
This is obviously a gross violation of civil liberties. The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) put out a statement:
According to reports from witnesses in the park, police officers entered the park after 2 a.m. and began rousting sleeping protesters and demanding to see their IDS. They further demanded to search the protestors’ tents and other personal property. The police officers said they were acting under orders of the Rochester Police Department’s “deputy director” and that they would return nightly to conduct similar identification checks and searches. The officers also said they would return nightly from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m.
In a letter sent today, the NYCLU calls on Mayor Thomas Richards to instruct the Police Department to stop harassing peaceful protestors and to comply with the terms of the agreement the city signed with Occupy Rochester in November.
KaeLyn Rich, director of the NYCLU’s Genessee Valley Chapter, plans to visit the Occupy Rochester site tonight and says what the police did is “pure harassment and an outrageous affront to free speech.” She also stated, “There is no good reason for police to be harassing peaceful protesters in the dead of night. It flies in the face of both the First Amendment and the agreement between the city and Occupy Rochester that allows the demonstrators to camp in the park.”
NYCLU sent Mayor Thomas S. Richards a letter. The letter said, “There is no reasonable explanation for identification checks and searches of peaceful protestors in the middle of the night. These aggressive tactics fly in the face of both the First Amendment protections accorded to political protest activity, and the agreement between Occupy Rochester and the City to permitthe protestors’ use of Washington Square Park.”
So, why are police suddenly demanding occupiers show IDs? Why are polcie coming at 2 am in the morning? Why couldn’t they check IDs during the daytime?
Each of these questions are posed with good reason, but their answers are largely irrelevant when considering the real issue here, which is that occupiers are being treated like second-class citizens. Somehow engaging in a public assembly, which is happening with the consent of the city, means one gives up civil liberties or rights that one typically would enjoy if they were not an occupier exercising their First Amendment rights.
This is what law enforcement officers like Sheriff Joe Arpaio claim they must be allowed to do to Latino immigrants in Arizona. Under SB1070, anyone who looks like an immigrant can be asked to show their papers to prove they are a US citizen. ACLU staff attorney Omar Jadwat said in opposition to the law America is “not a ‘show me your papers country,’ nor do we believe in subjecting people to harassment, investigation and arrest simply because others may perceive them as foreign.”
Or, it is what Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin would force the homeless to do. Currently, Wisconsin has a voter ID law, which the ACLU and the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty filed a lawsuit against last December. Heather Johnson, a civil rights attorney at the NLCHP, stated, ”Protecting homeless persons’ right to vote is crucial, since voting is one of the few ways that homeless individuals can impact the political process and make their voices heard…By limiting participation to Wisconsin residents with photo identification, this law effectively silences homeless persons’ voices. With homelessness rising by 12 percent in Wisconsin since the recession began, we cannot allow the state to set this dangerous and unconscionable precedent.”
What exactly does the city plan to do if Rochester occupiers are found to not have IDs? Are they going to ban them from “occupying” Washington Square? Why should the city be allowed to carry out a routine against occupiers that clearly is only justified by fear?
Finally, the order is suspect. The officer says in the video officers received an email that this is something they have to start doing. From whom did they receive this email? Did it come from a federal government agency? Or did the mayor just decide to start doing this?
I doubt the local police of Rochester would just randomly start showing up in the middle of the week to force occupiers to show ID. I do, however, believe the FBI or Homeland Security might start directing police departments to ID any people who remain at Occupy sites. I do think that a federal government would direct cities to help them fill a database of occupiers so they could track them out of some largely unfounded fear of “domestic terrrorism.”
Now, is that why Rochester police started showing up to violate occupiers’ civil liberties?
28 Comments
Go to #Occupy, get carded.
“It’s 10PM – Do you know where your children are?“
seems like there is a coordinated attack going on against the occupy movement,they are scared of us pulling back the curtains and exposing what they have been doing to screw us for the last 40 yrs
It’s the way Fascists roll. *g**
Righto.
Get IDs for every person there (I’ll donate if money is a problem), enlarge them to poster size, put them on outside of tents.
Make the fascists work for their masters.
So here’s the thing. I have more camping gear to donate after my sleeping bags were trashed when Zucotti was raided by cops. Kevin put me in touch with Chicago guy bc I think that might be a crucial showdown & would like to contribute. He enabled me to put into words why Zucotti donation trashing hurt so much: I had a lot of emotional baggage tied up in those sleeping bags. Though they could have gone to the dump in no better a cause as they were doing no one any good in my attic.
The rest of the camping gear not so much.
Have time to decide what to do with the rest of the stuff, but bloviating about it on various threads to help myself get through both the emotional & intellectual issues.
I’m glad that Gov. Cuomo and Mayor Richards have so much free time on their hands that they can spend it coming up with new ways too infringe on the rights of citizens.
It’s not as though they have anything better to worry about:
Comptroller Paints Bleak Picture of State’s Economy
I, as a NYSer, characterize Cuomo as to the right of Christie.
Sleep interruption and deprivation to wear them down …
Ya got that right. Learned torture techniques, practiced a lot in U.S. hospitals.
Indeed.
Those are exactly the right questions to ask. If the order came from an agency of the federal government, we’ll see more of this. Is it legal for the police to record the peeps names whose ID’s they check? Is it legal for the police pass that information along to the federal government?
Its that rat-bastard Obama, the grinning Oilbomber and his Henchmen, Eric The Sack Holder, and General Petrayeus baby killer now of the CIA.
Excellent observation.
That was one of my first thoughts, too.
Have a night shift manning the guard. Photo the cops who come, record their badge numbers, have the list of Occupiers IDs handy (see my prior comment), engage them (the cops) in conversation (why do you think you are being asked to do this ID check in the middle of the night at 2a instead of 2p, have you ever been asked to do it before, what do you think of the income distribution and the distribution of power in the U.S.). Just ask Qs, don’t lecture. If cops say they are just doing their jobs, agree, and say that Occupiers are just trying their best to figure out what the rules are, to comply with them, while exercising their free speech rights.
Not to mention that Mueller of the FBI is perfectly capable of thinking this up without being told.
And then there’s Rand Beers’s operation in DHS (which includes FPS).
Not to mention internal networks of police through the police unions and police chiefs through IACP and PERF.
Lots of suspects.
Yeah, the ID checks should be recorded for future use, if necessary. I wonder if this effort is more psyops against occupiers or actual intelligence gathering to file away for some nefarious harassment yet to come.
Righto.
Prolly both. But if enlarged photo IDs on outside of tents, perhaps (heh she said knowing it isn’t so) it would disengage cops from collecting info.
In any event, recording all of what goes on goes a long way in future usage. Drop documentation into an envelop, mail it to yourself, keep the sealed envelop with the mailing info stapled onto your copy. Best way ever of making sure you have real time docs. Edocs can be forged. Not so USPS. One of the many reasons reich wing wants to destroy USPS.
You can turn off the volume button in the right video window when you get tired of the auto forward between videos but check out today’s WIBV clip of Cuomo making statements about “pension reform.” Next, there’s a WIBV video clip about Schumer wanting to “give police more help to battle domestic violence.”
If you don’t mind I’ll save myself the agita.
No problem.
Some good news is that WA Staters may be on a real roll with yesterday’s historic enfranchisement legislation and now “Washington Republicans want to repeal NDAA” (RT.Com, Feb. 3, 2012). Meanwhile, where the hell is the OR State Leg?
More on Stratfor and TX state trooper infiltrating Occupy Austin. *This* is what concerns me about police checking ID’s at Occupy.
The authorities sure seem to be going to great Stasi-like lengths to kill an allegedly dead movement.
Wall Street will make OWS protestors wear yellow ribbons and put them on trains to protect capitalism.
Papers please.
The link is broken but I think I figured it out: “Anonymous claims Stratfor spied on OWS” (RT.Com, Jan. 27, 2012)
@ Phoenix Woman February 3rd, 2012 at 9:13 am: Indeed.
This is insane and I think OWS needs to respond justly. Have the occupy camps create their own OWS ID’s with their psuedo names on them. Hang them on lariats, then tell the cops the organization has responded to their requests.
You know, there are many ways to skin a badger. Direct Democracy does not depend on a freaking state issued ID.
As you all probably know, Occupy Charlotte, NC was removed from their space. The news reports were flying that they defecated and pissed the storm drains. The Police Department put out a cost report saying the occupiers cost the city a half million dollars. Well, even the right winger radio shows are calling bullshit on that. They say that regardless of what activity is going on it is the Police Departments job to cover and those officers would have been paid regardless of whether they were watching the encampment or on another beat.
There are many tactics the cities are using to bad mouth what is going on. Besides, they say. If the cops were watching 24/7 why did they not see the dump in the storm drains? Yeah, well that was discussed on the rightie nightie show. Amazing, that even in these red mad hatter states that people are opening their eyes to what may be real and what is propaganda.
“Your papers Please!!!”
Speaking of which, I saw a report on corporate news that said TSA was bringing the infamous body scanners used at airports to the Super Bowl in an effort to surround the event with “unprecedented security”. We really are headed down a very slippery slope here. How long before such things are common place at bus and train stations? How much is this conditioning the sheeple among us to accept such police-state tactics as the new normal?