On April 25, roughly a week before the Occupy movement’s May 1 general strike action, Bloomberg News reported that the big banks and other Wall Street firms had hired a private security firm named Securitas AB to track down activist “wolves” deemed a “business disruption” on Occupy’s May Day action, as well as during the upcoming NATO Summit protests in Chicago.
“The world’s biggest banks are working with one another and police to gather intelligence as protesters try to rejuvenate the Occupy Wall Street movement with May demonstrations,” explained Bloomberg. “Banks are preparing for Occupy demonstrations at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) Chicago summit on May 20 and 21 by sharing information from video surveillance, robots and officers in buildings.”
Securitas AB is a Sweden-based firm with a subsidiary named Pinkerton Consulting and Investigations, which was once Pinkerton National Detective Agency — the famed strikebreakers and union-busters behind such historical labor events as the Haymarket Affair of 1886, the Homestead Strike of 1892 and the Great Railroad Strike of 1877.
Since its formation in 1852, Pinkerton has been one of the go-to bodyguards and detectives of the 1-percent. So, perhaps it is only appropriate that they have resurfaced in the attempt to co-opt and repress the Occupy movement.
Today, Pinkerton is a private sector espionage firm, with services including general surveillance, cybersurveillance, executive protection, event management, crisis management and undercover operations. Its modus operandi has stood the test of time: divide and conquer burgeoning democratic movements.
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