Civil Liberites/Constitution

by George Joseph, Intercept
In response to The Intercept’s FOIA request, for example, last month the DHS’s Office of Operations Coordination released over 40 pages of documents (archive 1, archive 2) detailing live updates and Google Maps images of Black Lives Matter protestors’ movements during an April 29^th protest in Washington, DC.

An April 29th email from the DHS National Operations Center also mentions planned surveillance of three seemingly innocuous events, two of which were associated with historically black neighborhoods. According to the email, the DHS-funded DC Homeland Security & Emergency Management Agency decided to conduct “a limited stand-up… to monitor a larger than expected Funk Parade and two other mass gathering events” in case “any Baltimore-related civil unrest occurs.” It appears that the only Funk Parade in DC occurs in the historically black neighborhood of U Street. The other two events, according to another report, produced by the DHS National Capital Region‘s Information Collection and Coordination Center, were a community parade in Congress Heights, a predominantly black neighborhood, and the Avon 39-Walk to End Breast Cancer. Full article

Model for 'best practices' in policing demonstrations U.S. District Court issues preliminary approval for class action settlement After more than 12 years of class-action litigation, the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) has reached an unprecedented settlement with the Justice Department and the Department of the Interior that will significantly change the handling of mass protests. Presiding Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has issued preliminary approval for the settlement.

On Sunday, the 3ed of May, Baltimore's Mayor announced she was giving up on the 10PM curfew and lifting it effective immediately. Also, the National Guard and out of jurisdiction cops are now supposed to be "drawn down." Since Tuesday, April 28 the curfew had been directly responsible for provoking civil disobediance protests, arrests, and fighting that at least once escalated to "rubber" bullets. The last two nights of the curfew featured civil disobediance arrests of mostly white allies near City Hall and police assaults on African-American curfew protesters elsewhere

RT Liveleak video: police fire pepper spray point blank at African-American curfew protesters Saturday night