(NEW YORK) MintPress — The infiltration of political movements by governments and law enforcement agents has been standard practice for centuries. Prominent targets in recent years have included environmental organization Greenpeace and human rights advocate Amnesty International. Also under surveillance have been gay and lesbian rights activists, animal rights groups, Middle East organizations and unions.
Now there’s one more name on the list: Occupy Wall Street. “In the first five months, the Occupy movement has had major victories and has altered the debate about the economy. People in the power structure and who hold different political views are pushing back with a traditional tool – infiltration,” write Occupy DC organizers Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers in a piece posted on the group’s website.
The pair surveyed and spoke with Occupy members around the country. “We have been getting reports from groups in big cities and smaller towns, so we believe it’s widespread,” Flowers told MintPress in a telephone interview.
First hand accounts
Flowers recalls that early on, a number of people came into the General Assembly meetings in Freedom Park and attempted to disrupt the proceedings. More concrete damage has been done by opponents who work in the Occupy offices. “Volunteers come in and then when we give them access to social media, they abuse it,” she claims.
On one occasion, they gave a trusted worker access to Occupy DC’s “Stop the Machine” Facebook page, with more than 7,000 followers, and she removed the organizers as administrators, denying them access.
Other tactics, says Flowers, have included personal attacks on organizers. One of Occupy LA’s lawyers wrote in an online comment of an “ongoing campaign of harassment and coercion against the Occupy L.A. participants and volunteers. Each day is a fresh set of victims.” She describes the use of Twitter, Listserv and blogs to defame anyone helping the group.
“There is the very strong belief that some among them are FBI or DHS agents placed there to start the group, egg it on, control it,” she claims.
Police as protesters
The most common form of infiltration, in fact, was by law enforcement agencies. In New York, for example, a protester described how undercover police infiltrated a protest at Citibank and were the loudest and most disruptive protesters. Later, after going to the station and listening to the police, the protester said, “It was a bit startling how inside their information was – how they were being paid to go to these protests and put us in situations where we’d be arrested and not be able to leave.”
In Oakland, California, the group CopWatch had an audiotape of a police officer talking about how police departments all over the country infiltrate, not just to monitor protesters but to manipulate and direct them.
The Dow Chemical connection
Flowers and Zeese, however, maintain that other detractors include corporations whose dominance it seeks and to end right wing groups allied with corporate interests.
Just last night, in fact, Wikileaks revealed a massive trove of e-mails from the corporate intelligence firm Stratfor. The e-mails show that the company, working on behalf of chemical giant Dow Chemical, closely monitored news coverage of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Stratfor relayed the activities of people seeking redress for the 1984 Dow Chemical/Union Carbide gas disaster in Bhopal, India, which resulted in the death of thousands of people as well as lasting environmental damage. Many Bhopal activists have joined the ranks of the Occupy movement in recent months.
Stemming the damage
“We can’t stop it,” says Flowers of the disruptions and provocations. “If we are secretive about what we are doing, that creates problems of trust. We just have to find ways to prevent them from having the opportunity to cause trouble.”
Some supporters of the Occupy movement have suggested that members run for public office as a way to gain more control. But Flowers says organizers have rejected that idea. “If we want to effect changes, we have to be independent and hold those in office from both parties accountable.”
She says the system is stacked against third party candidates. They are, however, considering greater involvement in local government down the road, including seeking positions such as county council member.
Coming up: NOW
In the meantime, members around the country are busy organizing the National Occupation of Washington, D.C. (NOW) beginning March 30th.
The plan, says Occupy DC on the website, is to “demonstrate the failure of the Democrats and Republicans in Congress to represent the views of the majority of people, the Supreme Court for allowing the Constitution to be perverted and for ignoring the rule of law and the Chamber of Commerce and lobbyists on K Street for dominating the political process in favor of the 1% at the expense of the 99%.”