Category Archives: Occupy Censorship

High Court Denounces Evictions; Vindicates Occupy Auckland

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They say the wheels of justice turn slowly but indeed they are turning.

At long last, some measure of vindication for the countless legitimate protesters victimised by Auckland Council.

At the close of business today March 6th 2013 the corporate media began reporting that the High Court in Auckland has finally found in favour of Occupy Auckland.

The extremely sparse media reports (no more than a few short paragraphs and almost uniform wording across a slew of mainstream news sources) don’t tell you much other than that the violent evictions imposed by the Council despite our pending court appeal “went too far“.

Indeed, lawyer Ron Mansfield suspected as much, when he warned us that the conduct of the Council surrounding the evictions may have breached the terms of their own by-laws. That stealing and storing our belongings in a supposedly “vacant” hangar at the same airforce base the FBI were flying in and out of that very week; miles out of town; may be onerous.

That their demanding private information about anyone who did manage to get out to the airbase to “claim” their belongings; may not be legal.

The human cost of the evictions is impossible to calculate and goes far beyond the dozens of arrests on January 23rd & 26th, 2012.

The evictions crippled the physical presence and daily functioning of the four simultaneous and autonomous occupations in Auckland Central – (Occupy Aotea Square; Occupy Te Herenga Waka at Victoria Park; Occupy Albert Park and Occupy Queen Street)

The occupations created organising hubs for the public to engage in political activism that should be encouraged in any healthy democracy and indeed is enshrined in our Bill of Rights.

From the homeless protester in his 80s who suffered multiple heart attacks and was hospitalised after his heart medication was unlawfully seized by “security”, and the Occupy liaisons who frantically tried to negotiate with the Council for the return of the medication, only to wait 48 hours for a response…

…to the middle-aged grandmother who had never been arrested in her entire life until Occupy, never had a tent or stayed overnight at an occupation, but was named in litigation by Auckland Council and hauled relentlessly through Court, unjustly…

…to the intelligent and sincere young man, of whom images were plastered all over the national media after he was lifted off the ground by his neck by police alongside mercenary corporate private security companies hired by Auckland Council at ratepayers’ expense…

…to his petite girlfriend, trapped outside the temporary fencing Auckland Council erects on a whim at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars, screaming with raw fright and fear as she witnessed what was happening to her partner before her very eyes…

…to a little 5 year old boy, who the police and Auckland Council staff alike, left in the middle of Aotea Square; after they arrested his father in front of him, without even noticing the child…

…to the woman who scooped up the child onto her hip, marched into the congregation of police officers outside the paddy-wagon-filled Auckland Council carpark and publicly scolded the Inspector in charge for the display of utter negligence…

…to the uni student, who was one of the first to feel the cold touch of publicly-funded Council-ordered surveillance, so early on in Occupy that he was not believed; surveillance that, although later confirmed by the Council to have been undertaken, escalated until his entire life fell apart around him. Despite being so young, he was forcefully institutionalised and temporarily drugged into apathy… all on our tax dollars… his persecution paid for by our rates…

…those who suffered profound loss because of Auckland Council are too many to be counted on all our fingers and toes. Thousands of people per week became active in their communities at grassroots level because of Occupy and collectively housed, fed, educated and cared for hundreds residing in the occupations.

…to every person who ever learned something because of Occupy; taught someone because of Occupy; fed someone because of Occupy, was fed by Occupy – to everyone who for the first time in their lives saw that we CAN provide for each other and we CAN provide for ourselves…

…to those who were slandered, libelled, suppressed, oppressed, victimised by many of the mechanisms of the state, most visibly, Auckland Council.

The very body that is supposed to represent our interests.

Whether there can ever now be reparation remains to be seen. So much was lost that cannot be returned. Many occupiers may now not even be alive. Many have had such financial pressure and mental stress applied to them that they have lost or are losing what assets and opportunities they had.

Many have been served with questionably legal trespass notices; intimidated out of returning to the CBD or outright threatened in various forms.

Last October 15th, 2012, the 1 year anniversary of Occupy Auckland, protesters performed flash occupations at the original sites and at other places of significance to our movement.

But of course, Auckland Council got a visit.

Occupy Auckland Council As did TVNZ, the national broadcaster who had participated in the corporate media blackout, and then smear campaign against Occupy.

TVNZ, who utterly failed to fairly represent the voices of the people, or to sufficiently educate the public as to the global and viral nature of the movement, found their staff entrance temporarily occupied.

Occupy The MediaBut also on the flash occupation list was the High Court in Auckland.

High Court
Yet this recent ruling begins a process of restoring the faith instilled in us by the human rights lawyers at Occupy Auckland, so long ago.

We DO have the right to the basic necessities of human life even though Auckland Council denied us water, power and the tools of communication.

For we do and should have the right to peacefully assemble. The right to free association.

The right to dissent and the right to seek redress from our systems of Government.

We have the legal right not to be discriminated against on the basis of our political opinion.

We have the right to participate in our democracy. All of us.

And we must. For the viability of the continued existence of our entire planet, depends upon what we do now.

E tu Aotearoa. Stand up and fight back. Don’t let them sell what scraps they have not already stolen. This is our country. It is priceless.

Rise like lions and roar.

OCCUPY AUCKLAND MEDIA TEAM

LEAK: NZ Cops Brag About Bashing TPP Protesters – U.S. Embassy “Happy”

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This week the NZ corporate media, in concert with the NZ police, put forward a young female protester as a scapegoat for the repeated violence demonstrated by officers & security guards at the December 8 TPPA Shutdown protest at Sky City, in Auckland.

The combined protest movements of It’s Our Future, Occupy New Zealand, Aotearoa Is Not For Sale and Socialist Aotearoa, among others, were depicted as violent, framed as volatile and dangerous and falsely accused of wanton assaults on police officers.

Despite this Occupy NZ flooded the alternative media sphere with THE TRUTH:

* multiple sets of unedited live coverage thanks to Occupy Eye & Redstar309z

* comprehensive info-filled blogpost

* resources / viewing guides/analysis

But never did we dream that the protesters written about so libelously in the national media would now be suddenly exonerated in so spectacular a fashion as has unfolded!

Global Peace & Justice Aotearoa has published a press release containing a leaked tape.

The tape is of internal police conversations regarding the approval of the U.S. Embassy of the police actions that day, a tape of which GPJA says;

In the recording the officer acknowledges Saturday’s melee was sparked when an officer “broke ranks” and ran into the crowd.

The admins on Occupy Auckland & Occupy New Zealand have had a hell of a week. Not only have they had to deal with constant paid trolls on You Tube videos posting false “witness testimony” (sure they were there! With a uniform on…) we have also had to deal with many of our own loyal supporters who weren’t present, and who took the corporate media/police line at face value.

It seems the entire country forgot our track record of a year straight of non-violent protest actions.

As with the violence displayed at the Occupy Auckland evictions and the constant bashings dished out by police at Glen Innes Housing protests, there was already a mountain of evidence that the blame for the TPPA unrest lay at the feet of authorities.

For an organisation that has promised to change its culture surrounding the handling of crimes committed by its employees, it needs to take a serious look at why it is expending its resources targeting normal legislative democratic dissent and not dealing to the abysmal social issues that continue in Auckland seemingly unabated.

When the police make the general public the enemy, who is left for them to protect and serve?

It is difficult for someone not involved to realise the full significance of this now-famous photo of Motorbike Cop – NZ’s own version of Pepper Spray Cop.

"What kind of a cop is this? No ID, No badge, No uniform, A crash helmet. He roamed around beating up on young girls." says an eye-witness http://t.co/eFWWrKH9 #tpp #tppa #d8

“What kind of a cop is this? No ID, No badge, No uniform, A crash helmet. He roamed around beating up on young girls.” says an eye-witness http://t.co/eFWWrKH9 #tpp #tppa #d8

The member of the public in the above photo is wearing a Power Shift t-shirt. Power Shift had an event at the university on the morning of the TPPA protest, and are a very straight-laced coalition of climate change protesters, many of whom then attended the TPPA shutdown on a whim.

While to corporate eyes the young man’s skin colour may condemn him, as with the other victims of Motorbike Cop he was quite obviously undeserving of the ill-treatment so publicly meted out to him.

Likewise some police may have been fooled into thinking it is an accomplishment to hit John Minto. To us, it is the utmost shame to beat a man of his age. Those who physically abuse someone they can’t outmatch intellectually are the definition of thugs.

The city cops that policed Occupy Auckland for the first four months of our occupations, were the opposite of the thuggery displayed at the TPPA negotiations.

It seems whenever police are imported from other locations there is brutality, but the regular city cops especially under the guidance of Inspector Danny Meade, have been constantly affable, supportive and generated goodwill amongst activists.

To have those efforts so callously destroyed for the sake of testosterone and blatant political discrimination, let alone on the world stage where it is being played out, is pure embarrassment.

This month we have worked so hard to move the world to analyse and reject the TPPA, with great success. Even going so far as to host foreign citizen journalists, to spend money filming and documenting the momentous events here, creating a pure historical record.

Occupier Kereru of Occupy Auckland said: this is the year of instant karma. All actions will be held immediately accountable.

It seems this is precisely what has played out here. Despite the police and corporate media machines being set firmly against us – the truth has slipped through the cracks and the perpetrators have revealed themselves and their intentions, to the world.

Mana Party: “Feed The Kids” – Glen Innes Branch AGM

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We were pleased to be invited to attend the Mana Movement Glen Innes Branch AGM last Thursday 15th November at Te Kura Kaupapa Maori O Puau Te Moananui-a-kiwa in Glen Innes, Auckland.

Having attended and covered many of the Glen Innes Housing Defense protests in G.I. (as Aucklanders call it) it was important to us to have a chance to hear the korero (talk, messages) from the speakers present, many of whom have openly supported Occupy in New Zealand, since our inception.

As with such events, it is the finishing touches that really count, and we were extremely impressed by the organisation and generosity of the members, many of whom were familiar faces from protest actions.

Despite being “outsiders” we have been embraced by the G.I. community, with Mana granting us spontaneous filming, photographing and reporting rights, even allowing us to livetweet the event.

It is, to our knowledge, unprecedented for a political party, to be so open and transparent at an annual General Meeting. We certainly weren’t extended the same privileges at the recent (ruling) National Party Convention!!

What impressed us the most is how down-to-earth the proceedings were. Informal yet intimate setting, combined with grassroots marketing ingenuity; instead of glossy brochures and expensive advertising, hosts furnished the attendees with bags of kai (food) and asked us to make sure it went to people who needed it, if we ourselves didn’t.

That finishing touch reflected the drawing in Parliament of Mana Movement’s “Feed The Kids” bill – a piece of legislation that aims to bring New Zealand in line with other foreign countries by having our public education system be responsible for providing basic nourishment to children within school hours.

Web search “Child Poverty In New Zealand” to read about our appalling track record, with 100s of 1000s of children living below the breadline. Congratulations to Mana for seeking to address this and as they say, truly “Walking The Talk”.

Highlights from the livetweet:

Here is the video interview with John Minto – highly suggest viewing it from mobile phone!! Because for unknown reasons when we “rotated” it to the correct appearance in the video editor it cut the video in half! The conversation is great though and well worth listening to. Kia ora everyone involved in the AGM. You did a great job.

COINTELPRO & Occupy: The War Within

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THE INFILTRATION OF THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT IN NEW ZEALAND, AND THE WORLD.

FOIA responses from the DHS have revealed exactly that which we feared in earlier days of the Occupy movement; the existence of a federally/nationally and likely internationally coordinated (probably through co-operation agreements) attempt to dismantle Occupies from the inside and otherwise infiltrate and sabotage related non-violent democratic groups.

This counter-democratic practice extends to the use of private contracting corporations performing traditional police and military intelligence functions, is now undeniable and even more sophisticated than we “conspiracy theorists” had dared suspect.

It is unsurprising considering the scale of the opposition to the success of Occupy; but our nemeses are moles of superior resources and co-ordination, spreading constant disinformation and infiltrating organisations of social change, to disrupt and subvert.

We watch in horror as the tales of the sabotage of various international occupations emerge – and in 99% of cases the events parallel precisely what occurred here in New Zealand.

Any who still doubt that the methods employed against Occupy overseas were used here, need only look at the surrounding political landscape.

Specifically;

* the timely training of our police forces by the U.S.A.
* the presence of the FBI during the Kim Dotcom raid and during the two evictions of our four Auckland occupations, where police were proved to be wearing fake badge numbers, perfect replicas of real ones;
* the May Day “visit” by Janet Napolitano, head of the Department of Homeland Security
* this week’s “visit” by, of all people, Leon Panetta;
* the recent stationing of 2,500 U.S. military troops in Northern Australia;
* a suggestion by the United States to establish a military base here in New Zealand, a Commonwealth Country; in surplus to the Waihopai Spy Base we already host;
* the latest development; further illegal conduct against Kim Dotcom by the GCSB, currently under retributive attack by Anonymous (multiple reports of gcsb.govt.nz down);

collectively set the dramatic backdrop to this monumental phase of New Zealand’s sociopolitical history.

With the benefit of hindsight & the FOIA releases a more clear picture of how methods of suppression are applied globally, and of what Occupy has endured and still is enduring, is emerging. The end result of these methods, can be analysed by their narcissistic echoes in social media; open destruction and negativity in a movement entirely based on the opposite – a new possibility; positivity. Creation. Change.

These historic internal sentiments within the movement can be mapped by repeated fixed narrative or attitude shifts at a given time. Attitudes that in retrospect, are without merit.

While initially triumphant and embracing its quick spread to nearly 2,000 cities and towns worldwide, the Occupy movement was rocked by the month-and-a-half-late emergence of the “Oakland Liberation Front” Black Bloc leaflets, shown in countless You Tube videos to be the tactics of infiltrators. This time in Occupy history represented the first major effort by the 1% to tar Occupy as a violent movement; prior to the forceful violence inflicted upon it during the evictions that occurred later.

Despite this, the founding principle of Occupy that brought people together was in fact non-violence. This was stipulated time and time again in the founding documentation of Occupies throughout the world. It was the basis for the solidarity occupations. Those who claim Black Bloc are a core component of the movement, forget the founding premises.

They similarly need to question the gap in time between the inception of the movement in September 2011, and the appearance of organised Black Bloc immediately prior to the 1st West Coast Port Shutdown/General Strike in November.

The targeting of livestreamers for suspicion was one of the many minor successes of the counter-Occupy COINTELPRO. With Black Bloc they neutralised the “peaceful protester” images from their Antony Bologna/Brooklyn Bridge P.R. disasters; which had recruited countless thousands more occupiers to the cause.

However with the attacks on livestreamers, saboteurs in several cases successfully dismantled some Occupy Media groups or sufficiently pressured key members of legitimate Occupy Media into dissipating, or turning away from the movement.

The Twitter hash-tag #WithoutLivestreamers was our community response to attacks on Occupy Live-streamers as perpetuating “surveillance” or “supplying evidence”. The anti-Live-streamer attacks came from a sector of false-Occupiers within the movement, proven the greatest of folly in light of the #TrapWire revelations, that indeed, security cameras are being actively used against democratic protesters.

Not only by civil and police authorities, but by third parties including corporates/”private” contractors and potentially their subcontractors, as revealed in the TrapWire scandal that implicated “corporate intelligence”, “market intelligence” and “asset tracking” agencies like Cubic Defense, Abraxas Corp, and potentially countless other similar military-industrial-complex interfacing companies around the globe.

We have seen proof that yes, modern surveillance cameras can zoom. Yes, they can pan. Yes, they can tilt. Yes they can target specific individuals/groups for both audio and visual reconnaissance and yes, their footage is potentially going off-shore and/or circulating around private & governmental intelligence agencies worldwide.

Yes, it is all happening on public dollars. Happening TO the public. We are the unwitting purchasers of technology that turns us into international commodities for the incestuous trading of for-profit intelligence agencies.

In this light, the idea that Joe Bloggs filming on his cellphone is going to be of any more use to law enforcement than their military-grade state-of-the-art capabilities, is ironic at best.

The truth is, Livestreams are Occupy’s single greatest recruitment tool.

Droves of new occupiers are brought into the movement by the viral nature of the live-streams, which allow us to eye-witness what the corporate media do NOT put in their made-for-TV fairy-tales dressed as news broadcasts.

Occupy Wall Street was suppressed by the global corporate media for over three weeks.

Those of us eye-witnessing the live-streams then visiting corporate news websites only to discover the blackout, were irrevocably shown that our conventional world view of the status quo is wholly malleable; and indeed is manufactured by corporations.

It appears that blackouts are created whenever events on the ground outpace the information systems that the elite 0.1% rely on, to maintain societal control.

The blackout occurred because the international media monster took time to be fed tactical instructions on how to dress and package what was unfolding in a way that would inhibit or prevent its further growth, creating an information vacuum that was filled by ordinary people.

This was a golden period of time for Occupy, one reflected in its high intake of donations and its fast growth around the globe.

However, the corporates-that-be soon got a handle on the situation and out came the Reuters and A.P. faxes to the international media who used untold thousands of outlets to saturate media markets with suitably derogatory soundbytes and vacant stereotypes, simultaneously.

The constant “24 hour news echo-chamber” post-eviction monotone drone of “Occupy is dead, Occupy is dead, Occupy is dead“, wasn’t just a voice that came from the corporate media. It was a voice which came from within the movement itself. Upon reflection, we notice the individuals who most fervently purport that the movement is over, are the same people who made and/or supported proposals to G.A.’s to deconstruct & not to construct.

To constrain and not to free. To centralise, and not to decentralise. To usurp key infrastructure. To fire media teams wholesale. To control and usurp finances.

Their malignancy flew in the face of the resources, time, care, love and attention poured in by genuine Occupiers around the world.

These subversives are people with names (albeit often fake ones), and often self-styled titles, who court an obviously corrupt corporate media for their own ends. Who stage Astroturf events, who create new media that ostracises participants, derides/degrades the movement or violates its core principles.

Sometimes even the alternative media that we love so dearly and promote with such fervour, and in all fairness have largely legitimately served us well under the most trying of circumstances, still, in some cases fail us.

Our most early experience of this was back in November of 2011, when the first photos were emerging of DHS presence at Occupy events and evictions.

We had a tweet exchange with Alternet editor Joshua Holland who called it a “non-story” and Mother Jones contributor Gavin Aronsen thought the situation confined to PERF. The general overtone from Joshua was that the fears were unfounded, despite the tweets of pics and videos from eye-witnesses on the ground.

Photos like this make it unlikely DHS participation was limited to an advisory role.

Joshua Holland subsequently publicly raked Naomi Wolf over the coals for suggesting as much, then after she responded over the sourcing of an article questioning DHS in an Occupy context, he did so again, through Alternet.

Witnessing the exchanges on-line, a member of Occupy Auckland Media Team made a short video questioning the vitriolic nature of Joshua’s “articles”, and noting the stark discrepancy between the 24/7 Occupy info spread by Naomi, by comparison to the relatively benign “going to walk my dog”-esque timeline of Joshua Holland.

Indeed, search @NaomiRWolf on Topsy.com then sub-search “DHS” and you’ll find a wealth of fascinating related information, whereas if you search @JoshuaHol then “DHS” you’ll see 6 total tweets, three of which are denials of stories. Search @JoshuaHol then “Dog” & there’s 6 pages.

Mysteriously, our direct Twitter exchanges with him from that time, have disappeared from Topsy entirely. So has his most recent tweet on the subject; a 180 degree turn that suggested he had been somehow vindicated by the March & May 2012 FOIA responses.

Time warp back to this Counterpunch article: “there was and is a nationally co-ordinated campaign to disrupt and crush the Occupy movement.” A far cry from Joshua’s original position; spot on Naomi’s.

Well Joshua is right that the FOIA’s cleared up the issue. Indeed they did. With the added bonus of exposing that even some members of the alternative media were involved in suppressing what was happening, as it was happening.

That even the most extreme of “tin-hat conspiracy theorists” couldn’t concoct the full extent of the reality on the ground.

Yesterday’s Vinny “GuerillaMedia MrNews” Eastwood interview of activist Penny Bright in the wake of her expulsion from several major Auckland movements, is another example of the alternative news that should represent us, being used to promote a personal agenda that is ultimately detrimental to the interests of the movement as a whole.

The interview with Penny is billed as “Exposing NZ Cointelpro”. Unfortunately it does nothing of the sort. Just harps on about her beef with one woman. Completely ignoring the larger geopolitical picture, and wasting the opportunity to inform listeners of it.

As with Holland’s Alternet pursuit of Naomi Wolf, Penny Bright’s use of an alternative media source postured as friendly to Occupy, as a tool of revenge in her personal crusade against Occupy and the uber-successful “Aotearoa Is Not For Sale” campaign, completely and utterly misses the wider plot.

Occupy does not face the work of singular saboteurs; unless they are of the unwitting variety. What it faces is the systemic application of state-sanctioned public-funded anti-terrorism networks and resources; whole “Fusion centres” co-ordinating teams of operatives infiltrating meetings and surveilling activists’ convergence points, staging events and arrest situations, and reporting back to the central government hive for resources and further instruction.

Whether Occupy is infiltrated by these teams of paid saboteurs is no longer a debatable question. Whether or not we can re-embrace our core concepts of non-violence and decentralisation sufficiently to (non)combat it; is.

Chris Hedges said that as high as it was, the ratio of Stasi informants to genuine protesters couldn’t prevent the fall of the Berlin Wall. In articles like this, Hedges defines Occupy with every fibre of his being.

Hedges, Wolf, and Occupy New Zealand share something in common. All are compelled to speak, spread and share the messages of Occupy. To awaken others as we ourselves awoke. Therefore related information bursts from us at every possible opportunity.

The infiltrators demonstrate no such compulsion.

They live by sound bytes, endlessly self-promote and betray themselves in their own speech and actions.

It takes less than 2 minutes of the Vinny Eastwood interview for Penny to give herself away. “I’ve never been treated this way by police. By local or central government. These are people who want to have a better society? I think I’d rather have what we’ve got now actually.” Penny Bright. Self-styled #1 NZ anti-corruption campaigner and ex mayoral candidate.

Sound anything like Chris Hedges? Or Naomi Wolf? Or Occupy Media? Or even, as she claims to be, “a professional protester”?

Not even slightly.

Hopefully reading this article will bring her up to speed with what Occupy has REALLY been facing, and we will include the rest of the Cointelpro links we harvested at the end of the article for reference.

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Occupy needs to leave the “anti-livestream”-type whining in the dust. To stop giving traffic and hits to corrupt corporate/MSM news sources. Even when they outrage us with their widespread and all but transparent self-hypocrisies.

We must find a way to re-engage the purity of our original mission – to find and institute a better societal framework for humankind and for the sake of the entire Earth, in order to attain lasting progress for Occupy.

We have long-since said that Occupy is a “true truth-and-reconciliation process” due to its ability to bridge massive social, racial, ideological and geographic divides.

We have also long said: “Global Solidarity – Local Governance”.

The decentralisation of power and control guarantees sovereignty at a local level & the rights of the inhabiting peoples as being above the rights of corporations. It also insulates against a “One World Government” scenario, while we break down the walls of prejudice and competition, built by our corrupt modern materialist/consumer social conditioning.

Global Solidarity is what has ultimately held the Occupy movement together. It is the super-glue that once experienced cannot be unstuck. It pushes the snowball of the awakening, and makes Occupy invincible to the types of pettiness above.

Because Occupy is not a single person; who can be pressured to quit. Permanently smeared or culled.

Occupy is an idea that never stops evolving. An idea that belongs to all of civilisation.

An idea that has spread like a virus. An idea which cannot be killed.

An idea whose time has come.

Expect us. :)

OCCUPY NEW ZEALAND MEDIA TEAM
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Further related links:

The Freedom Archives - Documentary

The Freedom Archives – Cointelpro Resource list

Cointelpro Documentary Circa Dr Martin Luther King+

Anonymous Hack Reveals LEA’s Spied on Occupy & Shared Info with Stratfor

FBI Training Classifies Animal Rights Activists, Environmental Activists, Anarchists, As “Domestic Terrorists”

FBI Vs. Indigenous Movements & The Black Panther Party

“The War At Home: Covert Action Against Activists And What We Can Do About It”

“How Your Government Destroys We The People”

Sabotage At Occupy Sydney

Thompson Clarke Investigations Ltd Involved In Subversion Of Climate Change Movement

& 1000s more if you web & video search. The truth is out there.

How To Recreate The Occupied NZ Herald If We Or It Disappear

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HOW TO RECREATE WWW.OCCUPIEDNZHERALD.CO.NZ: YOURSELF if anything should ever happen to us/it, here is how we set it up & anyone in the country can do it. Hell, in the world for that matter.

Welcome to the wonders of decentralisation. If you, our supporters, have our backs, our newspaper can NEVER be taken offline.

The Occupied NZ Herald Kaupapa: we publish left, right, center, and none of the above news; giving multiple different views of each story. We publish fearlessly; never putting ourselves between the public & free information, the way traditional media does.

TO SET UP A CLONE OF THE ONZH: start an Anonymous twitter account. Using whatever name/new email details you want. Create a Twitter list. To create the list, click on the icon of a person (where all your options are) go to Lists then Create & Name your new list. Then type in the names of the accounts you want to add to the list (these are the sources your newspaper will pull content from) by typing each of them into the search bar, pressing enter, then selecting the right account under where it will say “People” on the left. Then click on the mini-person icon next to the ‘Following’ bar and select “Add or remove from lists” then select the list & tick the check-box. Bingo that account is now on your source list.

Go to http://www.paper.li & set up an account. It is pretty easy and straightforward. Start a newspaper. Call it The Occupied NZ Herald & if it won’t let you do that, call it something extremely similar so people will realise what it is. In the Paper Settings, under Content, Edit Sources, add your List name. The format for adding the list name is @(youraccountname)/(yourlistname)

For us it reads @OccupyNZ/ONZH

You can also manually add source accounts though it’s not as reliable & you can also if you’re really clever, use RSS feeds to do the entire thing. Don’t necessarily have to use Twitter, though it’s the easiest way to pull large amounts of content that we know of.

OUR CURRENT ONZH SOURCE LIST: names to search & add:

@OccupyWallST @OccupyDavis
@OOMedia @punkboyinsf
@Min_Reyes @ElleryMitten
@keyweekat @Mz_Chief
@endarken @OccupyNZ @OccupyAuckland

If for some reason any of the above accounts have gone black (no longer tweeting content) you can use almost any active Occupy account in your source list. We always tweet the person and ask their permission to include them as we personally don’t believe in blindly adding people & if you tell them why you are wanting to add them any true Occupy media person/group is highly likely to agree to being included. However there are SOME newspapers which source from literally 1000s of accounts so there is no limit to what you can put in, it will just be more time-consuming to edit come publishing time.

To find other Occupy Media sources just type @Occupy into Twitter search and “Follow” all the results that are obviously legitimate accounts that actively tweet links to Occupy-related material.

As it is, if you set default publishing times, it’s not the end of the world if you don’t edit it at all (as long as your sources are reliable and good) but for best results you should log in after each auto-update and remove any irrelevant or blatantly false articles/pics/links, and put the most current/important stuff at the top of the headlines page. (Just mouse over bottom right of each article blurb on each page of the paper for the options)

If you, Aotearoa, do the above… they can never kill the Occupied NZ Herald. It will just be replicated and replicated over and over again.

HOW TO PROMOTE IT ONCE YOU’VE DONE THE ABOVE: tweet the link, through the paper page, to the hashtags relevant to that day’s edition, tweet it to the individual sources used in the paper (for example, tweet New edition of The Occupied NZ Herald! (paper.li link) Thx @OccupyWallSt …. etc etc) & then post your paper.li newspaper link onto every page on Facebook you can find, namely all the Occupy pages for a start.

It is time we, the people, took control of our access to public information back, and via this method or similar, the information can never be restricted from us again.

Encourage everyone you know to read & be aware of the above and collectively, they can never silence us. Oh the beauty of decentralised media.

Kia ora thank you so much for reading this.

OPEN LETTER: Occupy NZ Tell Corporate Media: “You Need Not Fear Becoming Julian Assange”

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To the employees of our National media outlets;

in our naive shock and disbelief at the inaccuracies, favouritisms and false representations made to the international public concerning the inception and continuation of the Occupy movement globally; we have wronged YOU.

You, the individual corporate media employee, denied the right to unionise in a meaningful pursuit of the BARE MINIMUM in appropriate work conditions – encouraged, institutionalised and coerced to the MISpursuit of truth by the industrial framework and management environment that rewards false things over integrity, covets facets and image over substance, and above all covets the almighty advertising dollar..

You work in a broken, defunct system that is being made collectively redundant by the indisputable NEED of the people to obtain and ratify and share, when you don’t, the TRUTH of what is happening to our world at ground level – to the extent that of sheer desperation, members of the public band together and against any natural inclination embrace REAL journalism, UNPAID… replacing & exposing hypocrisy and whistleblowing on the facts you won’t report..

Even we the public see the lay-offs happening to you, the media being fed like minced meat grinding through the insatiable machine of corporate takeovers, mergers and asset-stripping. We see the patriarchy and the old boys club. We see 4 white males & a white female on slick 1ZB promo pics. Even to those of us born “white”, these things are no longer able to be ignored or tolerated, they are unneccesary relics of an ignorant past.

To you the “media”, we the “new media”, say:

You are the intended voice of the people.

Not your employer. Collectively, you.

You need no longer be the voice of the corporations. Nor of a specific ruling Government.

Your objectivity and veracity for truth-seeking and your moral indenture to the public you service should be on par with that of a scientist or a medical professional; your duty of care and ethical obligations the same.

Lives and deaths and the fate of nations depend on you and your collective influence is beyond the ability of even any Government to challenge; let alone any corporation. You could shame a corporation and end its profitability overnight as easily as you are now regurgitating the AP or being fed stories by corrupt Government officials, undisclosed conflicts of interest abounding…

You can bring down a Government, with the truth, and the power of a UNIFIED and RELENTLESS media is untamable.

We think you know it has reached the time where if you do not respect the core values of journalism we will replace you. What you haven’t yet realised is that we do not actually want to.

The purpose of Occupy is NOT to destroy it is to build. Occupy is about resolution not destruction.

But until you report on what is common knowledge amongst YOURSELVES but not amongst the public at large – for example the 380 cities protesting May 15th globally – and begin to explain to the public truly why the vast majority of the planet is simultaneously erupting against austerity measures, asset sales, privatisation, racism, against colonialism and the never-ending imperialistic wars to blatantly steal resources -

we have to do your job for you. Even suffering the full weight of local/national/international Government slander, surveillance and sabotage, the information is already too widespread to suppress. The cat is out of the bag.

You have a unique opportunity right now; to be amongst the first to recognise and embrace it; or to make yourselves defunct.

You need not fear becoming Julian Assange. Exposing yourselves to the pressures and invasions of privacy that many involved initially in Occupy around the world have. For even Governments are limited in their ability to interfere with revolution; and every day the snowball grows bigger. It has long since gained its own momentum, perpetual motion. As each mind is awakened to the hive, the potential to suppress it diminishes.

As you watch, “enthralled” by us, we will continue to watch you. But we do so as colleagues of conscience.

Awaiting your awakening. For you must

“rise like lions after slumber, in unvanquishable number, shake your chains to earth like dew: which in sleep have fallen on you: Ye are many — they are few.” (Shelley)

http://metanoia-films.org/rise-like-lions/

Your time is now. Contact us in good faith and you can write under the Occupy banner. You need not be shackled by professional limitations. Journalism is not merely a profession it is a mindset, and a quest. Embrace it.

Kia kaha. (Stand strong/stay strong)

Journalist Barred From Inquirer & Daily Mail Offices For Interviewing Their Staff

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WHYY reporter Elizabeth Fielder had her photo posted yesterday in the security station at the entrance of the Inquirer and Daily News building, along with instructions that she is not to be allowed on the premises.

This comes after Inquirer and Daily News reporters and editors had scheduled on-the-record interviews with Fielder about changes underway for the papers and Philly.com as the company simultaneously downsizes and prepares itself for sale.

http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/off-mic/item/34913

Facebook Silences Satire of Privacy Policy

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Facebook’s trademark cops have shuttered an online art project critiquing the social media giant’s peepshow privacy policy.

Last Friday, German artist Tobias Leingruber launched a website, FBbureau.com, on which he proposed issuing unofficial Facebook ID cards, based on users’ profiles, that could one day replace driver’s licenses and passports. It was obvious satire – a way to comment on the astronomical amount of personal data that wafts around on Facebook.

Then three days ago, Facebook sent Leingruber a cease-and-desist letter, citing trademark violation. Leingruber complied and took the site down, after “a friendly conversation” with one of the company’s lawyers.

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1669173/facebook-bullies-artist-into-shuttering-satire-of-fb-privacy-policy

Syria: Tanks Filmed Heading For Homs

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The Telegraph has released a video showing tanks carried on the back of trucks, apparently heading through a suburb of Damascus, Syria, on their way to the besieged city of Homs.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9114663/Syria-tanks-filmed-heading-for-Homs.html

Meanwhile, contrasting opinions have been put forward by citizen journalists including Australians for Syria and Information Clearing House.

http://australiansforsyria.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/letter-to-abc-audience-and-consumer-affairs-august-2011/ 

The following article is one woman’s opinion on the complex situations facing Syria.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30613.htm

Pastebin Subject to DDos Attacks

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Pastebin.com, a site originally used by programmers to share code has recently been subject to a series of ongoing DDos attacks by a group of zombie computers known as botnet.

Pastebin, although intended for use by programmers, has become a haven for hackers such as Anonymous to post data they’ve acquired during their operations. Wikileaks, are also known to use Pastebin for their information ‘dumps’.

More recently, Pastebin has become more mainstream, as users discover they do not have to register or sign up for an account – can merely hit the site, paste, then copy the link wherever they like. Pastebin has become a much-loved resource in a time of commercial sites demanding & then utilising consumer information for their own purposes.

It looks like somebody who doesn’t want sensitive information being accessed by the general public has been attacking Pastebin in an attempt to shut the site down.

 http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/250580/hacker_billboard_pastebin_struggles_with_ddos_attacks.html