WASHINGTON (PNN) - January 7, 2013 - Shannon McLeish of Florida is a 45-year-old married mother of two young children. She is a homeowner, a taxpayer, and a safe driver. She votes in every election. She attends a Unitarian Universalist church on Sundays. She is also, like nearly all who have a relationship with the Occupy movement in the Fascist Police States of Amerika, being monitored by the federal government. She knows this because when she read FBI documents obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund through the Freedom of Information Act, she was startled to see a redaction that could only be referring to her.
McLeish’s story is the story of hundreds of thousands of people - perhaps more - whose lives are being invaded by the State. It is the story of a security and surveillance apparatus - overseen by the fascist executive branch under Barack Obama - that has empowered the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security to silence the voices and obstruct the activity of citizens who question corporate power.
Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the PCJF, said in a written statement about the released files, “This production [of information], which we believe is just the tip of the iceberg, is a window into the nationwide scope of the FBI’s surveillance, monitoring and reporting on peaceful protesters organizing with the Occupy movement. These documents show that the FBI and Department of Homeland Security are treating protests against the corporate and banking structure of Amerika as potential criminal and terrorist activity. They also show these federal agencies functioning as de facto intelligence arms of Wall Street and Corporate Amerika.”
The FBI documents are not only a chilling example of how widespread this surveillance and obstruction has become, they are an explicit warning by the security services to all who consider dissent. Anyone who defies corporate power, even if he or she is nonviolent and acting within constitutional rights, is a suspect. These documents are part of the plan to make us fearful, compliant and disempowered. They mark a government attempt to end peaceful mass protests by responding with repression to the grievances of Amerikans.
The combination of intimidation tactics by right-wing fringe groups, which speak in the language of violence and hate, with the state’s massive intrusion into the personal affairs of the citizen is corporate fascism; and we are much farther down that road than many of us care to admit.
