On September 25, 2011, eight days after the Occupy Wall Street protests began in Zuccotti Park, 60 Minutes aired a fawning look at thousands of surveillance cameras affixed to buildings and lampposts throughout New York City. The cameras feed live images of people going about their everyday lives to a $150 million computer center equipped with artificial intelligence to integrate and analyze the daily habits of mostly law-abiding Americans.
The thrust of the 60 Minutes program was the fine job of counter terrorism being done by the NYPD and its Commissioner. It was a triumph in public relations for a police department about to go on an assault spree, pepper spraying and punching peaceful protestors; kicking, ramming and arresting journalists attempting to cover OWS demonstrations.
Reporter, Scott Pelley, said the surveillance center was "housed in a secret location," run by the NYPD. As it turns out, neither of those assertions were accurate.
The New York Times, the AFP, Wired Magazine, the New York City Council had all previously reported the location of the supposedly super secret counter terrorism center at 55 Broadway in the bowels of the financial district. What was a secret and not reported by 60 Minutes is that the center is jointly staffed and operated by the NYPD along with the largest Wall Street firms, the same firms under investigation in 50 states for mortgage and foreclosure fraud and widely credited with causing the Nation's economic collapse. The Wall Street firms that were involuntarily bailed out by the 99% are now policing the 99%.
The $150 million of taxpayer money that's funding this corporate/police spying operation comes from both city and Federal sources, with the cost rising daily as more technology is added.
Not only is it unprecedented for corporations under serial and ongoing corruption probes to be allowed to spy on law abiding citizens with the largest police force in the country, but the legality of the operation by the NYPD itself is highly questionable. Both New York Law and the recent SCOTUS GPS case explicitly prohibit this type of Government intrusion into our privacy.
The largest police force in the country has secretly deputized as partners the same giant Wall Street firms that are serially charged with looting the public but never prosecuted, no matter how big the crime. The largest police force in the country has tapped the public coffers to the tune of $150 million to operate what legal experts say is an illegal program.
In a "Prosecuting Wall Street" story, 60 minutes sheds light on systemic corruption at Citigroup made by a Vice President of the firm, Richard Bowen; a man so confident of his facts that he testified before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. Mr. Bowen had his duties reassigned and was retaliated against and told to remain off the premises once he brought the corruption to the attention of the most senior executives at Citigroup.
Charges like these have been made for over a decade against Citigroup by other key employees. No senior executives have ever been prosecuted. Now a Citigroup representative sits alongside police in a high tech center where it can monitor the comings and goings of pedestrians, including potential whistleblowers. If that's not significant, I don't know what is.
excerpted from Pam Martens
