In 2009, NYPD Issued 'Surveillance Request' To 'Identify' Anonymous Members During Their Anti-Scientology Rally

from the people-wearing-masks-are-inherently-suspicious dept

Recently, Adrian Chen tweeted out something interesting: a link to an internal NYPD document detailing a "surveillance request" to stake out a rally by Anonymous at the Church of Scientology. Its purpose? To "identify as many members of as possible." The report goes on to note that the difficulty level of this task might be upped significantly.

Please note that members of the group frequently wears masks covering their entire faces.
This is an important distinction, as certain members of the surveillance unit might have been more inclined to snoop on more easily identified, unmasked citizens. Now, I can understand why the NYPD might want to uncover the identities of Anonymous members as the (not really an) organization has wreaked a lot of havoc in various areas, most of them online. But there is something unsettling about a police force attending demonstrations and rallies to perform intel rather than to keep the peace.

But actions taken during Occupy Wall Street show that the PD's agenda usually means treating protesters (as well as anyone with a camera) as criminals. And attempting to "unmask" participants in an Anonymous rally lumps all attendees in with the activist group, even if many of them have never actively participated in any illegal activities. It also shows a fundamental misunderstanding of Anonymous' "structure," i.e., there is none. There's no "head" to capture and mount on the metaphorical wall. There's also no "tail" to drag off to HQ and sweat down in hopes of it offering up higher-ranked members.

While it's true that you may find some criminals within the ranks of protesters for any cause, heading into protests with the intent of compiling a "To Arrest" list puts police officers into entirely the wrong mindset. There's enough "us vs. them" attitude floating around already. This simply creates an antagonism that skews the perception of every witnessed activity. Peaceful protests are now just riots waiting to happen. It's not people united for a single cause, it's a hive mind operating under a devious directive. The whole thing is unhealthy for both the police and the public.

Also worth noting is the fact that this occurred before the Occupy protests, when Anonymous targeted the NYPD for its acts of brutality against the protesters, meaning this attempt to unmask members wasn't a retaliatory act (which isn't OK but is at least a rationale) or an attempt to find those who made threats against the department.

That being said, the surveillance request (what there is of it) contains the following sentence, which is notable both for a.) the inventive disgustingness of the act and b.) not being accompanied by a drunk and disorderly citation.
Most recently, a member ran into the church covered in vaseline and pubic hairs.
Yeah. This actually happened. And it also included nail clippings. This extremely random act of civil disobedience was denounced by irritated, non-Anonymous Scientology critics and the greased-up pube delivery system was arrested, briefly investigated and discharged by the NYPD.

Most notably, there's no reason given for the surveillance unless you count Vaseline Man as a valid impetus. The entire form is almost completely blank, giving the whole thing an appearance of "just because." Maybe the NYPD felt No One's Personal Army posed a threat to Mayor Bloomberg's Personal Army. Or maybe the Church of Scientology wields just as much power as people attribute to it.

Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: anonymous, nypd, protests, rallies, scientology


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 4 Sep 2013 @ 5:30am

    NYPD is scientologys' bitch - lol

    Way to go Bloomberg, what's next ... helping the wackos at WBC?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 4 Sep 2013 @ 7:58am

      Re:

      It is more like NYPD is anti any kind of demonstrations or people thinking about doing anything they do not like. To me it is a wrong mindset to try to actively stop something before anything gets from pure thoughts to suspect actions. The possibility that NYPD will take actions against innocents on account of mistaken interpretations is just not a good thing for NYPDs respect among the people or their budget...

      It is a sign of a very bad administration when they cannot tolerate people with other opinions than their own. Bloomberg draws clear resemblance to autocrats with his disregard for the legal system and peoples rights.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 4 Sep 2013 @ 5:42am

    given the fact that we are so close to being a Police State, the only thing missing being the admission of such by Government, this was just an excuse to go and infiltrate and act as if the Police State is actually already here!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Oblate (profile), 4 Sep 2013 @ 5:54am

    > "...covered in vaseline and pubic hairs."

    Next time don't take the subway.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 4 Sep 2013 @ 6:12am

    [...]the greased-up pube delivery system was arrested, briefly investigated and discharged by the NYPD.


    I see what you did there.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 4 Sep 2013 @ 6:44am

    So when do we get situations where one police org starts something like a protest and then others infiltrate it only to find out that the only people protesting are cops.

    This sounds like the plot of a game I once played

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    anonymouse, 4 Sep 2013 @ 7:14am

    You can read over a lot of the internet about how people are against wearing the Guy Fawkes mask, All of those people misunderstand why the mask is popular and are actually doing the regimes job for them by trying to stop people using them,I would suspect most who say the mask is stupid are professional shills trying and succeeding in many cases to shame people into not wearing the masks so they can identify them. I would say the masks are the best way to retain your identity and if most are wearing them they cannot or will not arrest all of them and if they do well it just proves the case more and more that we live in a police state.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      John Fenderson (profile), 4 Sep 2013 @ 8:59am

      Re:

      What's wrong with the masks? They're much more stylish than the old-fashioned bandannas.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Rikuo (profile), 4 Sep 2013 @ 9:42am

        Re: Re:

        Well, one thing wrong with the Guy Fawkes masks is that they're trademarked by one company (can't remember who), so even if you were to protest that company in full costume, they wouldn't really care. Each and every protester just gave them a few quid.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Rich, 4 Sep 2013 @ 9:57am

        Re: Re:

        I think it's ironic people use the masks to fight oppression. Guy Fawkes' intent was to install a theocracy.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 4 Sep 2013 @ 8:18am

    Infiltration?

    The "church" effected the biggest infiltration of the federal government, ever. If i rember correctly it was called operation snow white.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 4 Sep 2013 @ 10:11am

    Anyone who participates in protests, against corporations or governments, are considered 'extremists' according to a Department of Defense training manual. The Founding Fathers of the United States are listed as 'extremists' in this manual.

    "A Department of Defense teaching guide meant to fight extremism advises students that rather than “dressing in sheets” modern-day radicals “will talk of individual liberties, states’ rights, and how to make the world a better place,” and describes 18th-century American patriots seeking freedom from the British as belonging to “extremist ideologies.”

    http://dailycaller.com/2013/08/23/defense-department-guide-calls-founding-fathers-ex tremist/

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    James (profile), 4 Sep 2013 @ 10:53am

    from the "I didn't speak up because I wasn't ____________" dept.

    Ask any motorcyclist who's been riding for more than 15 years or so, and this kind of behavior will bring back (not so fond) memories.

    Any gathering of more than, say, a dozen bikes would draw the attention of the local constabulary. There were a handful of times I saw cops going down a line of bikes, taking down license plate numbers and sometimes checking VINs.

    Not for any enforcement action ... simply because there were a lot of bikes around, and that meant danger.

    Never mind that I, and the people I rode with, didn't belong to motorcycle clubs (in the gangster sense), and the most illegal thing we did was ride too fast.

    But actions taken during Occupy Wall Street show that the PD's agenda usually means treating protesters (as well as anyone with a camera) as criminals. And attempting to "unmask" participants in an Anonymous rally lumps all attendees in with the activist group, even if many of them have never actively participated in any illegal activities. It also shows a fundamental misunderstanding of Anonymous' "structure," i.e., there is none. There's no "head" to capture and mount on the metaphorical wall. There's also no "tail" to drag off to HQ and sweat down in hopes of it offering up higher-ranked members.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    gorehound (profile), 4 Sep 2013 @ 2:55pm

    Anyone in their 50's here ? If so then you remember how the Government snail spied on us back in the "Old Pre-Computer" Days !Spying on us Protestors ! Still up to their old tricks as usual but now they are loaded with the high-Tech Arsenal......all geared against us Citizens.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Rick Mycroft, 4 Sep 2013 @ 8:15pm

    What masks?

    The Anonymous protestors who protest at the New York Scientology don't wear full masks. You'd think that would be a tip-off that these are not the Anonymous you are looking for?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Postulator (profile), 5 Sep 2013 @ 1:57am

    So why isn't the NYPD looking to infiltrate Scientology?

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.