Freedom of Information

The #N-17 'Day of Action' called for by #OccupyWallSt to protest for the violent eviction of the camp at Liberty Sq. on the 15th started early: at 7:00 AM hundreds of protesters blocked the intersections leading into Wall Street, actually managing to delay the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange by more than 30 minutes. There have been widespread reports of police violence against protesters practicing peaceful civil disobedience. The NYPD has created a partially militarized zone in downtown New York, after bringing out an LRAD audio cannon to disperse protesters and disallowing people to walk on certain streets, despite presenting valid IDs and press passes. There are at least 100 confirmed arrests, although the number could actually be much higher. Once again there have been reports of violence against members of the press. At 3:00 PM EST protesters will attempt to #Occupy the Subway, later they will head to Foley Square.

At around 1:00 AM, November 15th, police forces arrived in full riot gear, batons, pepper spray and tear gas as well as bulldozers to clear out the park. Protesters resisting peacefully chanting “Whose park? Our park!”. Media was systematically blocked from reporting after being penned in, they complained from receiving rough treatment from police, their credentials were ignored and airspace was closed for helicopters.

Liberty Square (a.k.a. Zuccotti Park) after being evicted.

NB: See end of story for updates, now including an official reply by The National Library of Australia & the US Library of Congress. Additional contact details for National Library and Archives Canada as well as the US Library of Congress have been added.

Submitted by @nyxpersephone.

This article would not have been possible without the help of many Twitter users, most notably @Asher_Wolf, @carwinb, @CassPF, @dexter_doggie, @issylvia, @jaraparilla, @JLLLOW, @m_cetera, @NOH8ER.

A Cataloguing-in-Publication (CiP) record is what you usually see on the second page of a book, right after the title page. It is similar to the catalogue record of a book in a library and contains basic information on the book, such as the author's name and the title of the book. It also contains "keywords" ("subject headers") that may be used by librarians and other information professionals to classify the book in their collections.

CiP records are usually provided upon request by national libraries and/or national bibliographic databases, such as the National Library of Australia (NLA) and the Library of Congress (LOC). So the CiP is a useful thing, albeit rather boring and usually only of interest to librarians and information professionals.

However, in the case of WikiLeaks and Andrew Fowler's book "The Most Dangerous Man in the World", the CiP makes for an interesting story. Examining the keyword section headers of the CiP-record on Fowler's book, one cannot help but notice the last one: "Extremist web sites".

Despite the obfuscation of information by major outlets in traditional media and Internet, the movement born in Europe on the past 15th of May is spreading all across the continent, each day with more intensity and popular support. The repercussions, both in economic and political scenario are still unknown, in the same way the effects of the Cablegate episode of November 2010 were difficult to apprehend in that date but step by step shows its importance to contemporary society. The revolution lead by the European youth holds all Western economical and political structures as its enemy and is the type of social movement that does not have its shelter- an essential characteristic of a revolution. Relevant information of the gatherings, protests and projects are provided uniquely by independent media, and in some occasions these are being boycotted. The website for the Real Democracy Now platform in Berlin claimed that they were attacked, and the independent media site, www.europeanrevolution.com was finally put offline illegally, after having been blocked via DNS in, at least, France and Belgium. Below is a recollection of information from past events in different countries.

Truthout has an article about quickly crumbling legitimacy of US empire written by Francis Shor:

Perhaps the drive to shut down WikiLeaks and prosecute Julian Assange is the last gasp of a dying empire to shore up its fading legitimacy in the world and among its own citizens. Hence, the hyperbolic criticism by US Attorney General Eric Holder that WikiLeaks has put "the lives of people who work for the American people at risk; the American people themselves have been put at risk." As the WikiLeaks publications make clear, the diplomatic corps is just another instrument of the US empire. Indeed, it is the empire itself that is putting its own citizens at risk through the reckless, illegal and immoral actions perpetrated around the globe.