TransCanada Caught Training Police to Treat Peaceful Anti-Keystone XL Activists as 'Terrorists'

[G_j]

https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2013/06/12-1

HOUSTON - June 12 - In the midst of recent national controversy surrounding government surveillance of the public, a recent Freedom of Information Act request to the Nebraska State Patrol has exposed evidence that TransCanada provided trainings to federal agents and local Nebraska police to suppress nonviolent activists protesting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline by arresting them on “anti-terrorism statutes.” The presentation slides, obtained by grassroots landowner advocacy group Bold Nebraska, target Tar Sands Blockade activists by name.

“This is clear evidence of the collusion between TransCanada and the federal government assisting local police to unlawfully monitor and harass political protestors,” said Lauren Regan, legal coordinator for Tar Sands Blockade and executive director of the Civil Liberties Defense Center. “These documents expose the truth that the government is giving the nod to unlawful corporate spying. By slinging false allegations against peaceful activists in this presentation, TransCanada puts them at risk of unwarranted prosecution.”

Although TransCanada’s presentation to authorities contains information about property destruction, sabotage, and booby traps, police in Texas and Oklahoma have never alleged, accused, or charged Tar Sands Blockade activists of any such behaviors. Since August 2012, Tar Sands Blockade has carried out dozens of successful nonviolent direct actions to physically halt construction of the Keystone XL pipeline in Texas and Oklahoma. All of these acts, as well as every pipeline protest in Nebraska, have maintained strict commitments to nonviolence.

“Try as TransCanada might to slander Tar Sands Blockade and our growing grassroots movement, we know who the real criminals are.” said Ron Seifert, a spokesperson with Tar Sands Blockade who was pictured in the slideshow. “The real criminals are those profiting from this deadly tar sands pipeline by endangering families living along the route and pumping illegal levels of air toxins into fence-line communities.”

..more..

[think]

1. Transcanada's woeful record of oil spills is more of a domestic threat than peaceful protestors

will ever be.

After 12 Oil Spills in One Year, TransCanada Says Proposed Keystone XL Pipeline Will Be Safest in U.S.
By Stephen Lacey on Aug 17, 2011 at 12:00 pm

“Construction and operation of the Keystone Pipeline system will continue to meet or exceed world-class safety and environmental standards.”

That was a statement from TransCanada CEO Hal Kvisle in June 2010 about the commissioning of the company’s new Keystone pipeline built to bring Canadian tar sands crude from Alberta to refineries in the Midwest. One year later, the company has seen twelve oil spills from its brand new, state-of-the art pipeline — with one “six-story geyser” dumping 21,000 gallons of oil in North Dakota.

Today, TransCanada is looking to build another pipeline, Keystone XL, to bring tar sands crude all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. The company is again selling it as “the safest pipeline in the U.S.”

Company executives were in Montana yesterday, trying to re-assure residents who are concerned about the environmental impact of another pipeline after Exxon spilled 1,200 barrels of oil into the Yellowstone river in early July:....

~Snip~


Full article:

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/08/17/297576/oil-spills-transcanada-keystone-xl-pipeline/

[bvar22]

2. There was a thread on DU yesterday:

How police track your driving

"At a rapid pace, and mostly hidden from the public, police agencies throughout California have been accumulating millions of license-plate readings from devices placed atop patrol cars and feeding them into intelligence centers operated by local, state and federal law enforcement, the Center for Investigative Reporting has found.

<snip>

A year ago, the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center — one of dozens of law enforcement intelligence-sharing centers set up after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 — signed a $340,000 agreement with the Silicon Valley firm Palantir [font size=3]to construct a database of license plate records flowing in from police using the devices across 14 counties,[/font] documents and interviews show.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023118559

This thread was accompanied by the usual advocates for a Total Surveillance/Security State.

These dots are not hard to connect.

*In this OP, we are seeing the desensitization of America toward labeling legal protesters as "Terrorists", and targeting those who would obstruct Corporate Dominance in any way.
(ALSO SEE: Coordinated, militarized, violent suppression of OWS)

*The NDAA has given the White House legal cover to deprive Americans of those inalienable rights bestowed by their creator (Constitutional Protections from our Government) by secretly labeling them "terrorists", without evidence or oversight.

*The Government claims the right to track our movements, and keep that information in a searchable database.

*The revelations last week about how extensive the surveillance and data collection of law abiding citizens has become in this country.
(and this is "only the Tip of the Iceberg.)

*The fact that Government Officials have repeatedly lied to Congress and the American People about this issue.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-june-10-2013/good-news--you-re-not-paranoid---nsa-oversight


....GEE, does anybody else see The Problem here?

I remember a time when I could travel freely around the USA,
associate with whomever I wished without the Government tracking me and keeping a file on my movements.

[G_j]

3. +1000

[Fire Walk With Me]

4. K&R!

[Berlum]

5. Corporate Facism is unfunny, even when it involves the Keystone Kops