Student associations at schools in the northeastern United States have demanded the attorney general probe the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) “secret surveillance” of students in their associations. The demand comes after investigative reporting published by the Associated Press revealed the NYPD conducted surveillance of Muslim students at Rutgers University, Yale, Columbia, New York University (NYU), University of Buffalo and other schools.

The barricades around Zuccotti Park were finally taken down after NYCLU took issue with how the presence of the barricades were in violation of Brookfield Properties’ zoning permit and wrote a letter. The removal led many Occupy Wall Street protesters to return to the park to “reclaim” it. They ordered free pizza to distribute. They brought the People’s Library back out (which bothered the Brookfield guards on duty immensely). They also sat and lied down on benches in the park and anyone who refused to get off the benches was arrested.

Global Revolution, the team that has been doing media coverage for Occupy Wall Street since the first day of occupation, has been evicted from space it had in Brooklyn. The group was evicted from the building they were using by NYPD for “safety reasons,” however, other individuals using the building were not told to “vacate.”

New York Police Department officers arrested seventeen people at an Occupy Wall Street flash mob action in Brookfield Properties’ Winter Garden yesterday. Those seventeen people each have something in common: they all are somehow involved with media. At the action, they were taking photos, video and tweeting out updates on the action. And, now, more than thirty-six hours later, they have finally been released from jail.

The Occupy 17, as they are being referred to on Twitter, will have plenty to say when they get out. In the meantime, audio recently posted by Occupy Info that was recorded hours ago provides a first glimpse into what those arrested have been experiencing in jail.

Republican Governor Scott Walker has proposed a new policy “to require future protesters to pay in advance to stage an event, at a cost of $50 per hour, per Capitol Police officer.” Not only would protesters be on the hook for that, but they would also possibly have to pay for liability insurance or bond and even the cost of cleanup following the protest.

An AP report on costs cities are facing for police to deal with occupations raises more questions than the AP report mentions. Cities need to be asking whether they wish to be spending money on police actions that have often been unnecessary, highly questionable or worse, as the contrast between different cities shows.

Having witnessed brutal crackdowns on occupations in Oakland, Portland and New York, where Occupy Wall Street began and inspired citizens to launch occupations in their own community, legal teams are going to court to obtain court orders to protect occupations from being forcefully dispersed suddenly in the dark of night. Reporters tend to only report when there are arrests. Anytime there are arrests, it is said there were “clashes with police and protesters.” Rarely do reporters note how police escalate a situation to the point where force is likely to be used.

When I heard Jean Quan offhandedly drop that she was on a multi-mayor conference call during a BBC interview, I knew I had heard something of note. The rapid succession of similar crackdowns on Occupy encampments in several US cities seemed like more than a coincidence, and so it was kind of a smoking gun.

One of the themes of people like Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Cuomo as well as many other mayors and governors around the country is how things are so bad economically that the states must cut back in so many services, laying off teachers, first responders, cutting Medicaid eligibility, rolling back unemployment benefits, and generally destroying both the social safety net and wages and benefits for state workers. Yet here it is, New York City can incur millions of dollars in overtime costs going after unarmed, mostly peaceful protestors (according to this from WNYC it was over $5M by late October), yet city agencies are scrambling for funds:

Journalists have been increasingly targeted at Occupy protests, especially during police operations to evict occupations. The eviction of Occupy Wall Street featured a number of egregious incidents, where NYPD not only did not allow the press to cover the eviction but arrested reporters and photographers for being on the scene. In fact, the day was the worst day for members of the press since Occupy Wall Street began.