Exposed: Undercover Agents at Occupy Austin Entrapped Protesters, Endangered Activists

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/activism/exposed-undercover-agents-occupy-austin-entrapped-protesters-endangered-activists?akid=9339.277129.xcDUIw&rd=1&src=newsletter704563&t=18



Activists with Occupy Austin revealed Wednesday that an Austin Police Department detective’s entrapment led to the seven arrests on Dec. 12, 2011, during the Gulf Port Action in Houston, Texas. The seven protesters are facing up to two years in state prison, and one activist, Iraq war veteran Eric Marquez , has been in jail since December as a result of the charges.

The nationwide December 12 action originated in Oakland, when Occupy activists called for the shutdown of the ports to show solidarity with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which was embroiled in a labor dispute. In Houston, 20 people chose to lie down at the entry to the main office of the port. Seven of these protesters used lockboxes called "sleeping dragons," which are segements of PVC pipes used to link their arms together. Lockboxes, which originated during the early environmental movement, are a common tactic of nonviolent civil disobedience that is used to slow down arrests and prolong blockades since lockboxes force officers to cut protesters out with power tools.

The Huston arrests drew national attention because the police placed a large red tent over the seven activists as they were extracted from the lockboxes. Activists and their lawyers asserted that law enforcement used the tent to conceal their actions from the media, while Houston officials claimed the tent was used to contain sparks produced as the lockboxes were sawed apart. Activists also claimed that both inside and outside the tent, officers illegally covered their names and badge numbers with tape.

The seven activists involved in the lockdown were initially charged with a Texas state felony, unlawful use of a criminal instrument , which carries up to two years in state prison. The charge is an antiquated and little-used Texas law that the state wrote in efforts to shut down movie theaters showing the X-rated film Deepthroat in the early 1970s. According to National Lawyers Guild attorney and former Texas ACLU president Greg Gladden, the charge was designed to turn the movie projectors showing the illcit film into “criminal instruments.”

[marions ghost]

1. Outrageous

We really have to worry when police start using stealth tactics like these...

No surprise the cops are going to do this. They've been given the green light to use whatever means they think necessary.

[raouldukelives]

2. Imagine if they started using these techniques against the real criminals.

Undercover agents on Wall St. Posing as insiders. Luring the most detestable and vacuous into taking the bait and exposing them for the money over country bastards they are.
I imagine the chances of the most despicable and underhanded tactics used against the least being allowed in the courtroom if it happened to someone connected and wealthy to be fairly slim.
Oh well, at least we know our civil liberties are safe. For now. Probably.

[xchrom]

3. +1

[woo me with science]

4. We are in deep, deep trouble in this country,

all the rah rah notwithstanding. Our civil rights are being stripped from us and truth tellers targeted by our own government....and it is bipartisan.

[xchrom]

5. ...

[jsr]

6. APD cops:

http://jalopnik.com/5914847/this-photo-of-a-police-car-dragging-a-gas-nozzle-is-real

[Octafish]

7. STASI tactics.

False Flag strategy.