Thousands crossed the Brooklyn Bridge tonight, as union workers joined the OWS protesters. NYPD arrested hundreds today, it's a scene that is replaying all across the country.

• Good photos here
• Photos of New York Arrests here
• Live cam (thankfully no sound) at Brooklyn Bridge here.
• Listen to NYPD Special Operations Division and Traffic Scanner live here
• Follow arrests at #OccupyArrests.

Here's the ruling of Judge Michael Stallman finding the Occupy Wall Street protesters have no First Amendment right to remain in Zuccotti Park and denying their request for a restraining order against law enforcement.

The case is Matter of Waller v City of New York, Index No. 11295712011. While the court said it assumes that the First Amendment applies to the owners of Zuccotti Park, the owner has the right to adopt reasonable rules to maintain a safe and clean publicly available space. It said the movant (protesters) had not demonstrated "the rules adopted by the owners of the property, concededly after the demonstrations began, are not reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions permitted under the First Amendment." [More...]

Secure Communities is not just about Homeland Security, ICE and immgrants. It's also about the FBI and you.

The latest information revealed in documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the Center for Constitutional Rights and Benjamin Cardozo Immigrant Justice Clinic: The FBI “views massive biometric information collection as a goal in itself” as a part of the Next Generation Identification (NGI) system."

The NGI system aims to collect fingerprints, palm prints, iris scans, identifying marks, scars, tattoos, facial characteristics and voice recognition. These are not necessarily collected from arrested suspects but also from mobile biometric scanning devices and fingerprints left anywhere and everywhere.

[More...]

Occupy Oakland is the news tonight. There are 4,500 protesters at the Port, which is effectively shut down. Police are being called in from other jurisdictions.

The action is part of the general strike called by Occupy Oakland, which intended to shut down the city for the day in a rally cry against corporate greed, widespread unemployment and wage inequality. The general strike is the first event of its kind in Oakland since 1946.

...Several businesses, including Tullys, the Men's Wearhouse and the Grand Lake Theater, closed to support the general strike to protest the inequality of wealth and power.

Reuters has more here. You can watch live here at CNN. Is anyone keeping lists of these supporting businesses, so people can show appreciation by choosing them over competitors when they shop?

The ACLU has released a downloadable guide explaining the legal rights of protesters. It's available here.

The Denver Post has excellent photos here of Saturday's unpleasant encounter between the Occupy Denver protesters and the police, during which 20 people were arrested. Police say they were attacked and reacted, the protesters say police over-reacted and attacked them. Westword has more and additional photos.

There was a peaceful march by 2,000 protesters earlier in the day. It moved to the state capitol where tensions began to rise:

A group of the marchers advanced toward the building and some tried to make their way up the steps. About eight officers scuffled with a group of protesters and police confirmed that they used Mace and fired pepper balls — hollow projectiles filled with the chemical irritant — to break up the crowd. Protesters told the paper at the time that they believed police used rubber bullets.

[More...]

"We don't need a warrant, we're ICE" said the officers as they broke down the doors of an apartment in Nashville.

Without a search warrant and without consent, the ICE agents eventually knocked in the front door and shattered a window, shouting racial slurs and storming into the bedrooms, holding guns to their heads. When asked if they had a warrant, one agent reportedly said, "We don't need a warrant, we're ICE," and, gesturing to his genitals, "the warrant is coming out of my balls."

It wasn't just one apartment, but a complex. ICE agents and Metro Nashville police officers are now being sued by the ACLU on behalf of 15 residents, including American citizens and children. [More...]

The ACLU unveiled "Mapping the FBI" today, a project documenting surveillance abuses and racial profiling by the FBI, particularly in Muslim communities.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is collecting racial and ethnic information and “mapping” American communities around the country based on crude stereotypes about which groups commit different types of crimes. Nationwide, the FBI is gathering reports on innocent Americans' so-called “suspicious activity” and sharing it with unknown numbers of federal, state and local government agencies.

The ACLU has posted all the supporting documents, and they are searchable by numerous categories. [More...]

Secure Communities by the Numbers: An Analysis of Demographics and Due Process, a new report the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy of the University of California-Berkley, analyzes data from ICE on the Secure Communities program, received through a FOIA lawsuit and finds numerous problems. Among them:

Approximately 3,600 United States citizens have been arrested by ICE through the Secure
Communities program.

[More...]

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton today announced the number of people deported from the U.S. in fiscal year 2011 (which ended in September.) The total, which is the highest number yet: 400,000. (ICE press release here.)

According to ICE, "55 percent of the 396,906 individuals deported had felony or misdemeanor convictions." It could not answer how many of the felonies were immigration offenses like illegal re-entry which don't require the commission of a separate crime:

Individuals can be convicted of a felony just for returning to the U.S. or being found in the U.S. after the government orders them to leave.

[More...]

The ACLU has obtained a chart from the Department of Justice showing what types of records the major cell phone carriers keep and for how long. The chart is here. It was prepared for law enforcement to assist them in obtaining cell phone records.

The ACLU filed 381 requests in 32 states with local law enforcement agencies in an attempt to determine when, why and how they are using cell phone location data to track Americans.

Here's a map where you can click on your state to learn more. Here's why it's a problem. [More..]

Police arrested 500 protesters participating in Occupy Wall St. at the Brooklyn Bridge today. The NY Times reports many felt they were tricked.

Protesters who used the Brooklyn Bridge walkway were not arrested,” said the head police spokesman, Paul J. Browne. “Those who took over the Brooklyn-bound roadway, and impeded vehicle traffic, were arrested.”

But many protesters said that they thought the police had tricked and trapped them, allowing them onto the bridge and even escorting them across, only to surround them in orange netting after hundreds of them had entered.

Earlier in the afternoon, 10 buses from the Department of Corrections at Rikers Island were dispatched to the site.