In the lead up to the US elections less than a year ago, protesters gathered at the party conventions.
The police were waiting for them at the DNC convention in Denver:
Before the RNC convention even began, however, police had pre-emptively raided and arrested those planning 'disruptive protests':
The group of 'disruptive' protesters arrested above were, in fact, iWitnessVideo, who had traveled from New York to St. Paul in order to record and witness any incidences of state repression, like, for example, police brutality. Due to their detention, however, the group were unable to witness the events captured in the images taken below.
A picture of photographer experiencing 'pain compliance' before being charged with 'rioting' at the Republican National Convention.
A group of protesters and a journalist being pepper sprayed by police. The journalist was also later charged with 'rioting.'
>A policeman stands on a bridge waiting for protesters, journalists and bystanders who are being corralled onto the bridge from which there is no escape:
Police on the bridge then mass arrest the corralled journalists, bystanders and protesters where they had been cornered:
By the end of the event, the organizers of the protests had been charged with "furthering terrorism" (charges later dropped) and only embedded journalists had not been pepper sprayed or arrested:
Amy Goodman, for example, was not an embedded journalist:
But, unlike protesters in other nations, our own protesters turned out to be (as always) "anarchists" who the "police had to pepper spray:"
I wonder, where was the twitter outrage for stuff happening in our own backyard?
Update: And our protesters are "low level terrorists," according to the Department of Defense.
Antiterrorism training materials used by the Department of Defense teach that public protests should be regarded as "low-level terrorism," according to a letter of complaint sent to the department by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.
"Teaching employees that dissent on issues of public concern is something to be feared, rather than encouraged, is a dangerously counterproductive use of scarce security resources, making us less safe as a democracy," Northern California ACLU staff attorney Ann Brick and ACLU Washington national security policy counsel Michael German wrote in the letter to Gail McGinn, acting undersecretary of Defense for personnel and readiness.
Update 2: Here is a list of the fifty five journalists arrested at the RNC on charges ranging from "unlawful assembly" to "suspicion of felony riot."
Again, I wonder, where was the twitter outrage for stuff happening in our own backyard?