Santa Cruz, CA Police Caught Spying on Peaceful Grassroots Group

[emlev]

The national spying scandal goes local:

A grassroots group of locals put together a peaceful, creative and inspiring "Last Night DIY Parade" for New Year's Eve, replacing the First Night event that died this year for lack of funding. The group putting on the Do-It-Yourself event recently learned that the Santa Cruz Police Department had infiltrated their planning meetings! Not only did police officers present fail to identify themselves honestly, they gave false names and participated in meetings, including in decisions being made.

Yesterday, January 10, a rally was held outside the City Counli Chambers to protest the infiltration and the Council's lack of appropriate response. Then folks went inside and spoke at the City Council meeting. Protesters included a former mayor and a former City Council member.

Here's a link to the story on Indymedia:
http://santacruz.indymedia.org/feature/display/17267/index.php

and a link to my blog entry on the topic:
http://www.writingup.com/juice_for_justice/dont_reign_on_my_parade

[NorCalDem]

1. But...but...but ....

they're only spying on terra-ists. :sarcasm:

[DinahMoeHum]

2. Another case of "standing on a brick to kick a duck in the ass". . .

Santa Cruz PD - buncha dumb fucks.

:evilfrown:

[mod mom]

3. What do you think Emlev, us election reformers on the list?

When you have the AZ SOS calling those who advocate transparent and verifiable elections anarchists, you have to wonder in this topsy turvy world.

[emlev]

6. I imagine so

I keep thinking about how, in the eighties, someone I worked with in the anti-nuclear movement tried to find out if they had a "file" at some federal agency or other. I believe they filed a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request. What they got back was a response that said basically this: We don't know what file to look in. Tell us what you THINK we have and we'll tell you if we have it.

Yeah, and while you're at it, bring us a stick to hit you with.

[Joe for Clark]

4. Not in California!!

I don't know two people here that would openly admit they support the asshole.

You are upsetting my reality.

Joe

[cascadiance]

5. Were these the same set of cops that got caught on video earlier...

... on a forceful clampdown on a protest some months back? I recall that and the video had it look like they were going a bit too far.

[emlev]

7. Not sure, but a commenter on my blog thinks we should pity 'em

because not only did they have to sit through some boring meetings where nothing juicy happened, but then they had to go back to the office and file reports! Would anyone enjoy responding to that?

And where can I get one of those stamps?!

[cascadiance]

8. Well, go ahead and grab the image... I don't care about that...

I tried to get stamps.com and/or cafepress.com to allow me to make them (or a variant of them) for real (they now have "photo stamps" you can buy), but they have pretty strict restrictions on "political message" stamps that would probably not allow me to do so. I still might try to work around these restrictions later, though it wouldn't be quite as good as I'd hope as I'd have to take out the "action" statements like "Free Sibel Edmonds" and find some way to justify her image there too, since it sounds like they don't allow any celebrity's or "known person"'s image, even with permission. Otherwise, I'd try to make sure that all of the bulk mails you are getting from the ACLU, DU, etc. would have these postage in some way.

[maveric]

9. I always thought that Santa Cruz was a cool town till I spent a week there

Cops are rednecks, city is delapitated, gangs, not many "good" restaurants...
I was very disapointed.

[emlev]

10. Sounds like you had the wrong tour guide, there's lots of good here

Lots of caring people doing great work, innovative stuff, growing arts community, beautiful beaches and forests...sorry you had a bad experience. I didn't mean for this thread to denigrate my town! I wouldn't want to judge any community by its PD!