Members of the hacktivist group Anonymous have released sixty hours of footage of the raid by the New York Police Department against Occupy Wall Street on November 15, 2011. The footage posted is from the NYPD’s Technical Assistance Research Unit (TARU), a surveillance unit that is regularly present at political demonstrations to film police actions. It was posted as a torrent for download late in the evening on September 23, 2012. A tiny sample of the footage, including a statement read by a member of Anonymous, was posted on YouTube.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York Police Department (NYPD) Chief Ray Kelly, the NYPD, and Microsoft unveiled software yesterday that, with new developed capabilities, transforms the department’s already expansive network of surveillance cameras in Manhattan into a supercomputer system that seems like something straight out of a 1970s science fiction movie.

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.

Ray Kelly’s NYPD has treated the Occupy Wall Street protests in a manner glaringly different from how they treated a protest organized by Liz Cheney. Liz Cheney’s protest against holding terror trials in NYC was greeted with open arms, but Occupy Wall Street has been walled off and maced.

Was it just a year ago when we were told it was impossible to hold a civilian terrorist trial in NY?

Oh this is rich. After NYPD Police Commissioner Ray Kelly got the residents and businesses surrounding the federal courthouse all ginned up with fear of holding the terrorism trial of Kalid Sheik Mohammed in NYC federal court, he has now brought a case to be tried in a NYS courthouse right next door.

If so, and Kelly is indeed nominated, this is a contemptible plan.