In a real-life situation reminiscent of many an Arnold Schwarzenegger flick, banks are using information gleaned from robots to fend off the Occupy movement.
Big banks are giving each other information they got from robots, security officers, and video surveillance as they brace for Occupy Wall Street's planned protests at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Chicago in May, Bloomberg reports. Starting May 1, about 50,000 demonstrators plan to camp out in Chicago for a month to protest the NATO meeting, according to Adbusters Magazine, which first coined the phrase "Occupy Wall Street."
This isn't the first sign of a collaborative effort to obtain information about the Occupy movement. first Last fall, rumors floated of an organized national crackdown by city officials on Occupy Wall Street -- most notably in New York, Oakland, Denver and Portland -- after police evacuated Zuccotti Park in the middle of the night. Emails obtained in January showed the U.S. Conference of Mayors surveyed city administrations across the country about the movement.
Occupy organizers plan to revitalize the protest movement and "stand together for economic justice" by organizing strikes in more than 125 cities around the country on May Day, or May 1, according to Occupy Wall Street's website. The Occupy movement has been less visible in recent months, as cold weather and police clashes have pushed protesters away from many of the spots they initially occupied, including Zuccotti Park where the movement began.
On the same day as the Occupy launch in Chicago, Occupy protesters in New York City plan to target JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, as two of 99 targets in midtown Manhattan, according to Bloomberg News and an Occupy Wall Street blog. Tom Morello, the guitarist from Rage Against the Machine, will host a guitar workshop in Bryant Park for Occupy Wall Street protesters that day, according to Occupy Wall Street's website.
The protest movement has already staged some actions in recent weeks as part of its comeback. College students supporting Occupy Wall Street protested student loan debt in 20 cities nationwide on Wednesday. Occupy Wall Street activists protested General Electric's low tax rate during a speech by Jeffrey Immelt, GE's CEO, in Detroit on Tuesday. Also on Tuesday, hundreds of Occupy Wall Street protesters tried to crash Wells Fargo's annual shareholders meeting in San Francisco, and police said that 24 were arrested.