An account of events at Zuccotti Park on the night of March 17, 2012. #OWS #M17

The release of “newly obtained documents” that clearly show the New York Police Department engaged in ethnic profiling and explicitly targeted Muslims seems to have become a weekly event. Each week, the Associated Press has some “secret files” that make it even more clear how illicit the acts of the NYPD were in the surveillance of communities. And each week Mayor Michael Bloomberg, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly and others come out and defend the spying as necessary.

Privacy rights and civil liberties advocates know that businesses and politicians have put America on a path toward the acceptance and normalization of drone use in domestic airspace. And, the concern about increased drone use being inevitable, especially after President Obama signed a law that requires the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to “integrate drones into American airspace by 2015,” has spurred necessary discussion because there currently exists no good set of established protections to prevent authorities from abusing their power when using drones for surveillance.

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.