Since 2008 the US Army has had a "battle group dedicated to"quelling domestic disturbances".

"... I'm there will be contingency plans."

Long since drawn up. Do a search for "Bush + NORTHCOM + Halliburton camps"

In the fading weeks and months of the Bush Junta, the 'Posse Commitatus' .act was thrown aside, and NORTHCOM, or 'North American Army Command' was formed, for the express purpose of crushing any public insurrection. And Obama never rescinded that order.

From the Wikipedia article: "The Military Commissions Act of 2006 lifted many restrictions placed on the military to support civilian administration by the Posse Comitatus Act, however the US Supreme Court ruled in June 2008 that significant portions of the MCA were unconstitutional. The "John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007" H.R. 5122 (2006) effectively nullified the limits of the Insurrection Act when it was passed; however, the bill was amended in 2008.

On 1 Oct. 2008, the 3rd Infantry Division (United States)’s 1st Brigade Combat Team was assigned to U.S. Northern Command, >>>marking the first time an active unit had been given a dedicated assignment to Northern Command<<<. The force will be known for the first year as a CBRNE Consequence Management Response Force, and >>>will serve as an on-call federal response force for terrorist attacks and other natural or manmade emergencies<<< and disasters."

Or this article: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/bacon3.html

Here's the good bit: "Note that the President doesn't even need a state of emergency to call out the troops. But a state of emergency would help, and has customarily been used by state governments after catastrophic acts of nature, for example, to call up the National Guard and to ask for federal support."

"The new domestic military command, NORTHCOM, was set up for this purpose. NORTHCOM includes a task force which consists of active, Guard and Reserve military members drawn from all service branches, as well as civilian personnel, who are commanded by a federalized National Guard general officer. From its mission statement: "USNORTHCOM plans, organizes and executes homeland defense and civil support missions."

"Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs on NORTHCOM: “The command also has maturing relationships with agencies inside our country, the FBI for instance.”

"Oh goody, domestic military forces which are ready to provide "civil support" have "maturing relationships" with organizations that spy on US citizens and keep files on them. But what about the Posse Comitatus Act (Title 18, U.S. Code, Section 1385), which states: "Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both." Posse Comitatus is supposed to keep troops in the barracks regarding domestic situations, right?"

"Well, no, according to Homeland Security: "The Posse Comitatus Act is often cited as a major constraint on the use of the military services to participate in homeland security, counterterrorism, civil disturbances, and similar domestic duties. It is widely believed that this law prohibits the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps from performing any kind of police work or assisting law enforcement agencies to enforce the law. This belief, however, is not exactly correct. . . . The biggest error is the common assertion that the Posses Comitatus Act was enacted to prevent the military services from acting as a national police force."

On the subject of the Halliburton camps, there is no end of 'tin-foil-hat-conspiracy' criticism, but... : http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13554

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12078.htm

Ooooo, this is a good one! From Project Censored: http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/14-homeland-security-contracts-kbr-to-build-detention-centers-in-the-us/

" It is relevant, says Scott, that in 2002 Attorney General >>>John Ashcroft announced his desire to see camps for U.S. citizens deemed to be “enemy combatants.”<<< On February 17, 2006, in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Defense Secretary >>>Donald Rumsfeld spoke of the harm being done to the country’s security, not just by the enemy, but also by what he called “news informers” ( (!) Did he mean bloggers?) who needed to be combated in “a contest of wills.<<<”

"The contract of the Halliburton subsidiary KBR to build immigrant >>>detention facilities is (are) part of a longer-term Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the removal of “all removable aliens” and “potential terrorists.” <<< In the 1980s Richard Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld discussed similar emergency detention powers as part of a super-secret program of planning for what was euphemistically called “Continuity of Government” (COG)..."

So boys and girls, the PTB have been engaging in some long range planning for when 'We The People' start to get uppity.

I hope you're ready for a long haul...

;)

Getting arrested is not 100% good, clearly. Arrests take up time and the resources of volunteer lawyers. People are often injured. Sometimes arrests just happen unprovoked and nothing can be done about that. In my opinion, it is a good thing when the reason is clear and the group agrees in advance. .

It is not clear to me why some decided to split off from the main march and go onto the roadway. I am not clear either whether that was the only group arrested. Others may have been detained for no reason at all. These occupiers review and discuss everything, so I suppose they will come to their own conclusions.

According to what I know from having been there, the cops split our group and led part of the group onto the road -- and the rest of us remained on the pedestrian walkway. At that time, there was one lane open to traffic, albeit a very slow lane. Then, the protesters took the bridge -- OUR BRIDGE -- and about halfway across, the cops were prepared to begin arrests, en masse.

I was told that a New York Times reporter was arrested. If true, this is great news! We also heard that a couple of kids were arrested -- a twelve-year-old and a thirteen-year-old. Of course, protesters were outraged. But, think about it for a moment. The U.S. military forces in the Middle East arrest boys, why should it be any different here? It's the same system.

All of this news came through when we were still walking across the bridge on the pedestrian walkway.

When we reached the park, we learned that as many as 400 protesters had probably been arrested. After we were in the park for about an hour, still waiting for the people who were walking across on the pedestrian walkway, we were told that the cops had closed off the pedestrian walkway and were also arresting those people.

Suddenly, the cops began to come into the park, and several of them spread out around us protesters. Then, we heard that they were bringing in buses and planned to arrest those of us in the park. At that point, the crowd began to disperse. The leaders, or however they refer to themselves, announced that they would make sure that anyone from out-of-town got back to Manhattan safely.

We were forced to use the subway to get back to Manhattan. We had planned on walking back across the bridge. No doubt, the details will be more clear tomorrow morning, after all the facts and stats are sorted.