We've known for some time about local and state police interference with occupy camps and activists nationwide. Last week the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund released a first round of FBI documents it received in response to a FOIA request seeking information pertaining to monitoring of the movement. The files clearly show that the bureau has carried its nearly one hundred year old tradition of spying on the political left into the 21st century. The documents reveal close cooperation regarding surveillance and monitoring of the activists among the federal government and various major corporations, organized through a private-public partnership called the Domestic Security Alliance Council (DSAC). (An NYPD-Wall Street cooperation looks like a city-level incarnation of that much larger, national project.)

Investigative journalist Jason Leopold of Truth Out has an outstanding request with the FBI for similar documents. In May 2012 Truth Out published DHS documents pertaining to occupy monitoring. In October, the ACLU of Massachusetts published a report about the Boston Police Department's spying on First Amendment protected anti-war speech.

Take a look at the PCJF documents here. Watch DemocracyNow! discuss the revelations in the video above. And stay tuned for further analysis on these files once I get a chance to read through all of them.