September 22, 2011

Last Saturday, over 2000 people marched toward Wall Street in New York City to express anger at the American financial system, which they believe works solely to benefit the wealthy, and is propagated on the backs of the rest of the population.

As stated on the coordinating website Occupy Wall Street: "The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99 Percent that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the one percent".

Inspired by the protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square that led to the resignation of then-President Hosni Mubarak in February of this year, protestors rallied by Adbusters magazine and the hacktivist group Anonymous hoped to "flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months."

Police, however, blocked street access to the New York Stock Exchange and surrounding area in Lower Manhattan, so the protestors set up camp in nearby Zuccotti Park, where hundreds of people have been staying since the weekend, using the location as a base for daily peaceful protest marches through Wall Street.

The overall situation hasn't been entirely peaceful, though. Over 20 protestors have been arrested in the past six days, for offenses like drawing chalk slogans on the sidewalk (graffiti) and wearing masks in public (the anti-mask-wearing law dates back to 1845, but was amended in 1965 to prevent masked gatherings of two or more people - you know, unless you're at a Halloween party or Eyes Wide Shut-type sexy masquerade thing).

Here's a video of two arrests from the protests. One man is dragged along the sidewalk by New York City police, while another with ZipTied hands is denied his asthma inhaler.

In response to the arrests, Anonymous (or someone presenting themselves as Anonymous - the nature of the group makes it difficult to say) posted an announcement on Pastebin that stated September 24, 2011 will be a nationwide "Day Of Vengeance", in which they plan to launch a series of cyber attacks against the New York City Police Department, banking institutions like Goldman Sachs, and other Wall Street targets.