FOIA docs show DHS's Fusion Centers were alerted to the newssite ThisCantBeHappening! being a 'threat' -- the threat being that TCBH! was exposing the Fusion Center role in crushing Occupy, writes TCBH! founder Dave Lindorff

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By Dave Lindorff

The staff of the ThisCantBeHappening! collective have just learned that our little news organization was listed, in an alert fired off to all 78 Fusion Centers by Kelly Wilson, Director of the Washington DC Fusion Center's Regional Threat and Assessment Center, as a potential threat.

The stated role of the Fusion Centers, which were created (and lavishly funded) in the wake of 9-11, was to link federal, state and local law enforcement agencies in order to better detect and combat terrorists inside the US. So what about this threat posed by ThisCantBeHappening!, though? Well, as Threat Assessment Director Wilson explains in her alert, the threat is that TCBH! published an article suggesting that the Fusion Centers played a central role in orchestrating the attacks on Occupy Movement actions in cities all across the US.

As she states in her alert:

"Although at this time these reference to fusion centers and Occupy seems [sic] to be compartmentalized I wanted to make you aware of these references in case the national news media begins [sic] speculating about fusion center involvement."

Wilson includes in her alert a headline and several key paragraphs from our Nov. 15, 2011 article (which was later proven by us and others to be totally accurate), as well as a link to our entire article on those connections. The selected quotation she chose read as follows:

Police State Tactics: Signs Point to a Coordinated National Program to Try and Unoccupy Wall Street and Other Cities

"...Shortly afterwards, on Oct. 25, [Oakland Mayor Jean] Quan authorized the first brutal police assault on Occupy Oakland. It led, among other things, to the critical wounding of Scott Olsen, an Iraq War veteran who was among the protesters, and was hit in the forehead by a police tear gas canister fired at close range.

"Who organized that critical conference call [among 18 mayors]? Was it Quan or one of the other mayors, or was it someone in the federal government? [Oakland attorney Dan] Siegel says he doesn't know, and Quan isn't saying.

"But both Siegel and [National Lawyers Guild Executive Director Heidi] Boghosian say they strongly suspect federal involvement in the planning of the recent spate of police violence against the occupiers. Says Siegel[who resigned in disgust from his post as an advisor to Quan following the brutal OPD assault on Occupy Oakland], 'It's only logical to assume that the Fusion Centers are involved, [Wilson's emphasis] especially after the Oakland occupiers shutdown of the port in Oakland...'"

We can see then that the exposing of a federal role in the brutal crushing of the peaceful and Constitutionally-protected Occupy Movement nationally, or even suggesting such a thing, in today's America, is now considered to be a "threat" by the Department of Homeland Security and its Fusion Centers...

For the rest of this article (including an image of the original FOIA document) by DAVE LINDORFF in ThisCantBeHappening!, the new, "threatening," four-time Project Censored Award-winning online alternative newspaper, please go to: www.thiscantbehappening.net

(Article changed on June 8, 2014 at 13:36)

(Article changed on June 8, 2014 at 13:50)

Authors Website: http://www.thiscantbehappening.net

Authors Bio:

Dave Lindorff, winner of a 2019 "Izzy" Award for Outstanding Independent Journalism from the Park Center for Independent Media in Ithaca, is a founding member of the collectively-owned, journalist-run online newspaper www.thiscantbehappening.net. He is a columnist for Counterpunch, is author of several recent books ("This Can't Be Happening! Resisting the Disintegration of American Democracy" and "Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Penalty Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal"). His latest book, coauthored with Barbara Olshanshky, is "The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office (St. Martin's Press, May 2006).