{"id":7163,"date":"2012-05-21T22:27:19","date_gmt":"2012-05-22T00:18:06","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-05-21T22:27:19","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=7163","title":{"rendered":"Business Insider: &#8220;I Spy An Occupy: Obama\u2019s DHS Surveils Legit Protesters&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Business Insider: <a href=\"http:\/\/whowhatwhy.com\/2012\/05\/21\/i-spy-an-occupy-obamas-dhs-surveils-legit-protesters\/#ixzz1vYqj7mLG\">I Spy An Occupy: Obama\u2019s DHS Surveils Legit Protesters<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Remember the Occupy Movement? Since last November, when the NYPD closed the Zuccotti Park encampment in downtown Manhattan-\u2013the Movement\u2019s birthplace and symbolic nexus\u2014-Occupy\u2019s relevance has seriously dwindled, at least as measured by coverage in the mainstream media. We\u2019re told that this erosion is due to Occupy\u2019s own shortcomings\u2014-an inevitable outcome of its disjointed message and decentralized leadership.<\/p>\n<p>While that may be the media\u2019s take, the U.S. Government seems to have a different view.<\/p>\n<p>If recent documents obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) are any indication, the Occupy Movement continues to be monitored and curtailed in a nationwide, federally-orchestrated campaign, spearheaded by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).<\/p>\n<p>. . .<\/p>\n<p>The right to public assembly is a central component of the First Amendment. The Fourth Amendment is supposed to protect Americans from warrantless searches\u2014with the definition of \u201csearch\u201d expanded in 1967 to include electronic surveillance, following the Supreme Court\u2019s ruling in Katz v. United States. Assuming the Occupy protesters refrain from violence\u2014and the vast majority do, in accord with a stated tenet of the Occupy movement\u2014the movement\u2019s existence is constitutionally protected, or should be.<\/p>\n<p>The DHS\u2019s monitoring, documenting, and undermining of protesters may in fact violate the First Amendment. In a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dissentmagazine.org\/atw.php?id=760\">recent piece for Dissent Magazine<\/a>, sociologist James B. Rule explains the fundamental importance of a movement like Occupy in the American political landscape.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>b2evALnk.b2WPAutP <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=7163\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"pingsdone","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7163\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}