Category Archives: Almost Seven Wonders

The Almost Seven Wonders files

NYPD surveillance prior to the 2004 GOP convention: a list

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About 600 pages of previously secret documents were released this week, records of the NYPD’s surveillance activities in advance of the 2004 GOP convention.

The NY Times has published the Intelligence Digests here, with links to .pdf files of the original declassified documents. I thought it would be handy, though, if somebody went through and made a list of every name that comes up, so here.

Absolutely do not leap to conclusions. Just because a name here appears does not mean that the person or group was under extensive, active surveillance. In many cases, the NYPD clearly got their information from press releases and public press conferences. This is obvious from reading just a handful of the pdfs.

Then again, there clearly was also a lot of spying involved, too. The Times has already reported that the NYPD sent officers nationwide and across half of Canada, and the vast majority of their targets were peaceful groups operating fully within the law — primarily church groups, environmentalists, peace activists and other organizations whose opposition to the GOP is supposed to be completely protected by the United States Constitution.

Predictably, most of the groups fall politically somewhere between Barack and Che, but the names aren’t just all left-leaning. You’ll also find the Klan, Randall Terry, and Fred Phelps’s nutball gay-hating church in here. And many of the names don’t even need surveillance, unless MSNBC, the Quakers, and the American Gas Association are planning to gang up and knock the windows out of Starbucks.

A few of the names are also pretty wonderful, just by themselves. I mean, who wouldn’t want to party with the Zombie Flash Mob, Dogs Against Republicans, the Johnny Cash Bloc, the Surveillance Camera Players, or — my favorite name — the Shadowy Revolutionary Cell? I mean, come on. Those all sound like fun people.

So, anyhow, for other people’s convenience and because I was curious myself, and with no pretense of knowing what any of this means — that’s for you to sort out — here’s the list of names that come up in the documents, completely unfiltered, presented roughly in alphabetical order. Some of these names may be slightly misidentified, and it’s probable that one or two appear more than once here. I repeat: just because a name appears does not mean that the person or group was under extensive, active surveillance.

But they might have been. You’ll have to check further yourself.

1199 Bread and Roses Culture Project
9/11 Family Group
A31 Action Coalition
Aaron "Pieman" Kay
Accountability Project
ACLU
Act Now To Stop War and End Racism (A.N.S.W.E.R.)
Act Up
Act Up New York
Act Up Philadelphia
Act Up Washington DC
Activists for the Liberation of Palestine
American Friends Service Committee
American Gas Association
Anarchist Black Cross Federation
Anarchist People of Color
Ann Stauber
Anthony Weiner
Arab Muslim American Foundation
Atheists NYC
Axis of Eve
Bands Against Bush (at the Knitting Factory)
Bands Against New York
Bergen Action Network
Big Noise Films
Bike Blocs
Bill Perkins
Billionaires for Bush
Black Tea Society
Books Not Bombs Peace Convergence
Buddhist Peace Fellowship
Burdock 2004
Burning Desire Cluster
Cabbies Against Bush
Camp Shutdown
Campaign to Demilitarize the Police
Campaign to Stop Killer Coke
Canadian Federation of Students
Center for Anti-Violence Education
Charles Barron (Brooklyn city councilman)
Charles Rangel (Democratic Congressman from NY)
ChicagoNewYork.net
Chinatown Justice Project
Christian Defense Coalition
Christopher Hackett
Coalition of Artists and Activists
Coalition of Fire and Police Unions
CODEPINK: Women for Peace
Commercial Driver Group Calling
Committee for Social Justice in Columbia
Community Coalition
Constitutional Rights Enforcement & Support Team (C.R.E.S.T.)
Continental Direct Action Network
Counter Convention.org
Crimethinc Black Hat Hacker’s Bloc
Critical Mass
Critical Resistance
CUNY Students and Faculty
Daniel Andreas
Darfur Rehabilitation
David Weprin
Deep Dish TV
Democratic National Committee
Dennis Griggs
Direct Action Democracy
Direct Action Network
Disabled American Veterans
DNC2RNC
Dogs Against Republicans
Earth Activist Training (E.A.T.)
Falun Gong
Federation of East Village Artists
Food Not Bombs
FrontPageMagazine.com
Gabriela Network
Gays Against Bush
Geoffrey Blank
Grandmothers Against War
Grassroots Coalition Against Media Organizations
Green Bloc
Green Dragon
Green Party
Greenpeace
Hacktivists
Haitian Batay Ouvriye Solidarity Network
High Grounds Veteran Reunion
High Times
Hip Hop Summit Action Network
Human Rights Campaign
Huntingdon Life Science
Immigrant Solidarity Network
Independent Media Center of New York
Industrial Workers of the World
Indymedia
Infernal Noise Brigade
Information Liberation Front
Interfaith Ring of Hope
International Action Center
International Answer Center
International Solidarity Movement
Jaggi Singh
Jason Blank
Jeremiah Gutman
Jeremy Conrad
Jerry Goralnick
Jews for Racial and Economic Justice
Jim Lesczynski
Joel Meyers
Johnny Cash Bloc
Jonathan Jackson (independent filmmaker)
Judson Memorial Church
Justice Not War in the Phillippines Campaign
Kensington Welfare Rights Union
Ku Klux Klan
Lawrence Anarchists
Leslie Cagan
Liberty Rising
Light Up the Sky
Lisa Fithian (Continental Action Network)
Living Theatre
Long Island Peace Train
Lower East Side Collective
M27 Coalition
Madagascar Institute
Man & Woman In Black Bloc
Manhattan Libertarian Party
Manhattan Neighborhood Network
Mass Defense Committee of the National Lawyer’s Guild
Medical Activists of New York City
Millions for Reparations
Miriam "Starhawk" Simos
Mobilization 2004
Mothers Opposing Bush
Mouse Bloc
MSNBC
National Council of Arab Americans
National Immigrant Solidarity Network
National Lawyers Guild
National Youth and Student Peace Coalition
New Democratic Majority
New Immigrant Coalition
New Jersey Anti-Racist Action
New York ANSWER
New York City Anarchist Tribes
New York Civil Liberties Union
New York Host Committee
New York Lawyers Guild Mass Defense
New Yorkers Against Gun Violence
No Police State Coalition
No RNC Clearing House
No RNC Welcoming Committee
North American Anarchist
North Star Foundation
Northern Manhattan Democrats for Change
Not In Our Name
NOW-National Organization for Women
NY Metro Area Postal Unions
NY Peoples Law Collective
NY Youth Bloc
NYC AIDS Housing Network
NYC Atheists
NYC Central Labor Council
NYC Comms Collective
NYC Direct Action Network
NYC Labor Against the Law
NYC Life After Capitalism
NYC Peoples Law Collective
NYC War Tax Resistance
One People’s Project
One Thousand Coffins
Operation Witness
Outreach
Pagan Bloc
Pagan Cluster
Palestine Action Union Square East
Paper Tiger
Party Liberation Front
Patrick Dillon
Pax Christi
Peace Fresno Anti-War Activist Group
People’s Free Space
People’s Law Collective
Picture the Homeless
Planned Parenthood Federation of America
Planned Parenthood NYC
Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign
Pretty Good Privacy
Prometheus Radio Project
Protest Warriors
Queer Bloc
Queers for Peace and Justice
Randall Terry
Rant Collective
Reclaim the Streets
Restaurant Opportunity Center of New York
Revolutionary Cells – Liberation Brigade
Ring Out
Rise We Rise
Rise Up
RNC Not Welcome
RNC Shut Down Coalition
RNC Youth
Root Activist Training Network
Ruckus Society
Run Against Bush
Ryan Perry
San Francisco Video Activist Network
School of the Americas Watch
Seeds of Peace
Septembter 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows
Shadowy Revolutionary Cell
Sierra Club
Singles Against the War Party
Socialist Party
Society for Truth and Justice
Still We Rise Coalition
Storm Collective
Student Peace Coalition
Stuyvesant High School Students
Suffolk Peace Network
Surveillance Camera Players
Syracuse Peace Council
Take Back the Future
Ted Rall
Tejas Bloc
Theaters Against War
Times Up
Un-Conventional TV
Union Square Middle East Peace Coalition
United for Peace and Justice
Veterans for Peace
Vietnam Veterans Against War
Viking Bloc
War Resisters League
Westboro Baptist Church (Rev. Fred Phelps)
Wetlands Preserve
Why-War.com
Women in Black
Young Democratic Socialists
Youth Bloc
Youth Channel
Zombie Flash Mob

Friday pudublogging: The Sisseroudu

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This week’s installment is another fascinating beast, the endangered Sisserou Parrot of Dominica, which adorns the country’s flag and can be hard as hell to spot in the wild.

Here’s one, spotted completely thanks to blind, dumb luck as it flew from tree to tree.  I got exactly one good picture.  See it?

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OK, it’s almost exactly the same color as the foliage.  Fortunately, I was shooting with a decent camera, so let’s zoom in a bit.  See it now?

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No?  Me neither.  In fact, while processing the photo, it took me a few minutes to spot him myself, even though I knew exactly where to look.  I started worrying maybe the little fellow ducked behind some leaves just as I snapped the shutter.  Let’s zoom in some more.  How about now?

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OK, so before this turns into Highlights For Children, if you still don’t have it, let’s zoom in further, one final time:

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Gigantic bird, actually.  But look back at that first picture and try to spot it. 

Pure dumb luck is pretty cool sometimes.

Your Lawless Government

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Keeping it as simple as possible, since it’s a new Watergate almost every day with this crowd:

(1) Alberto Gonzales’s Justice Department considered firing 26 US Attorneys, not just the eight that Gonzales testified to under oath just last week. If you came in late, the Bush administration has sought to stuff the federal justice system, Third World autocracy style, with party loyalists, and the Attorney General of the United States is a liar.

(2) On a separate issue, Gonzales also pushed his predecessor, John Ashcroft, to sign off on a plainly illegal domestic surveillance program. But Ashcroft — John freaking "Let The Eagle Soar" Ashcroft — wouldn’t go for it, and the Justice Department — which had itself concluded that the program was illegal — damn near had mass resignations in protest of the program. But the illegal warrantless eavesdropping continued.

Ashcroft was in the hospital at the time, and his duties had been assumed by Acting Atty. Gen. James Comey, whose testimony this week might soon equal John Dean’s in historic importance. Gonzales’ rush to Ashcroft’s bedside — accompanied by Bush’s Chief of Staff Andrew Card — was an attempt to circumvent Comey’s input and get a signature from a previously reliable Bush team player.

Bush was asked today, point-blank, about his personal involvement, his answer was a complete dodge, hiding behind 9-11 while refusing even to address the simple inquiry about propriety and his own responsibility.

Watch for yourself:

(3) As Glenn Greenwald points out, since we can be certain that Bush ordered the surveillance to continue, despite his own Justice Department’s conclusion that the program was illegal, the US President knowingly broke the law.

PS — As of the evening of May 17, neither ABC nor CBS have so much as mentioned Comey’s testimony.