More on the Banksters and their personal security firm

I find the close relationship between New York City finance capital and the New York City Police Department disturbing, to put it mildly. After all, polities have police departments to promote a public order congenial to everyone. It is clear, however, that the NYPD does not pursue that goal. As Pam Martens explained:

Wall Street’s audacity to corrupt knows no bounds and the cooptation of government by the 1 per cent knows no limits. How else to explain $150 million of taxpayer money going to equip a government facility in lower Manhattan where Wall Street firms, serially charged with corruption, get to sit alongside the New York Police Department and spy on law abiding citizens.

According to newly unearthed documents, the planning for this high tech facility on lower Broadway dates back six years. In correspondence from 2005 that rests quietly in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s archives, NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly promised Edward Forst, a Goldman Sachs’ Executive Vice President at the time, that the NYPD “is committed to the development and implementation of a comprehensive security plan for Lower Manhattan…One component of the plan will be a centralized coordination center that will provide space for full-time, on site representation from Goldman Sachs and other stakeholders.”

Moreover:

At the time [2005], Goldman Sachs was in the process of extracting concessions from New York City just short of the Mayor’s first born in exchange for constructing its new headquarters building at 200 West Street, adjacent to the World Financial Center and in the general area of where the new World Trade Center complex would be built. According to the 2005 documents, Goldman’s deal included $1.65 billion in Liberty Bonds, up to $160 million in sales tax abatements for construction materials and tenant furnishings, and the deal-breaker requirement that a security plan that gave it a seat at the NYPD’s Coordination Center would be in place by no later than December 31, 2009.

The name for this corporate welfare hotel: The Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center. The name of the program: The Lower Manhattan Security Initiative (LMSI). In the NYPD’s own words:

The Lower Manhattan Security Initiative (LMSI) is a networked surveillance project designed to detect threats and perform pre-operational terrorist surveillance south of Canal Street in Lower Manhattan. LMSI combines an increased police presence with technology to accomplish its mission. At the heart of this initiative is the public-private partnership fostered amongst the NYPD, private entities, and public agencies in Lower Manhattan to create an information sharing environment and better defend against potential threats to the nation’s financial capital. The Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center (LMSCC), staffed 24/7 by NYPD officers, recently opened in November 2008 and serves as the central intake facility for all information gathered by the surveillance technology deployed south of Canal Street. Private and public partners are offered seats in the Coordination Center’s Operations Center.

The banksters have their eyes on you! And there you were with your silly belief that you were anonymous when you bugalooed down Broadway. You say you gave the finger to The Bull! Caught!

Martens concluded with:

Wall Street is infamous for perverting everything it touches: from the Nasdaq stock market, to stock research issued to the public, to auction rate securities, mortgages sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, credit default swaps with AIG, and mortgage securitizations. Had a public hearing been held on this massive surveillance sweep of Manhattan by potential felons, hopefully someone might have pondered what was to prevent Wall Street from tracking its employee whistleblowers heading off to the FBI offices or meeting with a reporter.

One puzzle has at least been solved. Wall Street’s criminals have not been indicted or sent to jail because they have effectively become the police.

A Bloomberg family friend briefly demonstrated for the public the surveillance system and its capabilities:

Related articles

• Financial Giants Put New York City Cops On Their Payroll (redantliberationarmy.wordpress.com)
• Andy Borowitz | A Letter from Goldman Sachs Concerning Occupy Wall Street (yubanet.com)
• Meet the Guy Who Snitched on Occupy Wall Street to the FBI and NYPD [Occupy Wall Street] (gawker.com)
• Financial Giants Put New York City Cops On Their Payroll (jhaines6.wordpress.com)
• Occupy Wall Street Arrests in NY, Denver, and Seattle: Zuccotti Park Closing Postponed (VIDEO) (blippitt.com)
• NYPD can take down planes, police commissioner says (cnn.com)
• 1,000 protesters march from Wall Street to NYPD (cbsnews.com)
• Meet the Breitbart Stooge Who Hacked #OWS for the FBI and NYPD (crooksandliars.com)
• NYPD equipped to take down planes (nydailynews.com)
• How ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Started and Spread (usnews.com)