NATO 2012 - Just The Facts and where precisely to find them all weekend.

(Mods..I know threads a plenty exist for this subject. My attempt here is a 100% fact based and raw assessment. I hope this is allowed to stand as an addition to other material here. People are at risk up there and I hope to help give the protesters a little edge to be as free and healthy Tuesday morning as they are now, a few hours before game time.)

Well guys, I've been a busy bunny tonight in the pre-game shows for the big event starting in a few hours. Unfortunately it hasn't been a sort of busy that lends itself to being around keyboards and internet connections to share, and right now I'm dead on my feet and looking to crash hard before the real event kicks off.

Tonight was....confirmation. That is a good way to put it. In hearing DHS, SS and CPD chatter most of the night, I am sure of two things here.

First, however much fun Occupy thinks this is, they opposition is having far more fun with the distraction Occupy provides. Hearing the banter and casual comments to that effect was enlightening. I can't say I've ever had the pleasure of listening to 100% open and candid radio traffic from out of the inicdent command centers to and from the street DURING an Occupy event. Hearing both sides of things, in real time and side by side is just an experience I'd suggest everyone try this weekend. It gives entirely new perspectives.

Second, the force assembled in Chicagoland is BEYOND what I thought it was and that is saying something. I knew they had force sufficient to take multiple Munich Olympic or OPEC take over type events at once. They have enough to look on something like that as a distraction to handle while ready for a main event, it would seem.


Now.. I'll add more tomorrow. I'm just too tired to see straight and really, I'm not getting into things beyond that on my personal situation. I'm online as much as I can be, this weekend, to try and share the news as I hear and see it. It isn't about being the subject of it.


Let me help us all get onto the same page though. My thread here began with the Radio Freq's for standard CPD channels and such across a broad spectrum. Some live players to broadcast. Some not. Well, I have more to add... Much more..

First, the event. For those who aren't aware of the data contained here, I offer this link:

NATO 2012 Command Center locations, layout, staffing and radio communications details.

^^ Within that site are photos of everything (with 2 exceptions I may get into tomorrow when I'm awake enough) that is relevent for where incident command for Chicago is being handled and who is staffing which Command centers. There are several and they each serve their own purpose.

Next, lets see WHY all this fuss is happening, beyond the background the link above showed:

World Political and Military leaders / Heads of State in Downtown Chicago this weekend

^^ That is as close to a whos who list of Western Political and Military power on this planet that I've seen assembled in one place, at one time outside of traditional secure areas like the UN HQ Building in New York or the facilities in Geneva. WoW doesn't touch the raw concentration of power within a few square miles. This is why Chicago has armed drones overhead and has now for at least 7 days.


Speaking of drones..... Here is a link for those who may see something but not know what it was to say something. (lemmie know if more is desired. I wrote a long piece at the site I work at with pics of more than this shows BEFORE I found this had been put out today at this other site)

A Crash Course in Modern American UAV/UAS and Water Borne drones


Additionally, here is an additional resource site for live radio traffic from "TPTB" in Chicagoland over the next 48 hours. This was fascinating to hear the traffic over the Police radios while watching the Occupy perspective where few if any of them had that same 'God View' perspective of the total picture as it was happening.

Live running feeds and recordings of the highlights for specific NATO 2012 LEO Radio traffic


For anyone else who is actually in North Illinois right now and needs local, immediate and USEFUL data that carries beyond the entertainment of online scanner streams, here is the PDF detailing for Scanner users what is refereed to as StarCom 21. This is essentially a Unified communications system and directory covering anything valuable in the State of Illinois. It covers everything from CPD tactical channels to the internals used by the jails. Pretty much everything....and laid out FOR the Scanner user, by scanner hobbyists.

PDF detailing Frequencies and Talk Groups for StarCom 21



There is an additional note worth mentioning as an aside. On Friday, NORAD and Northern Command staged readiness exercises in and around the Chicago area. These weren't civilian helicopters and absolutely were not limited to Coast Guard assets. The best known and visible was a morning event that coordinated the air combat patrol assets with local authority assets to confirm all could play well together and get along. It's also been announced as I'm sure many know, that Combat Air Patrols will either be over Chicago the entire period from Friday through the wrap up at the end of the Summit......or in slow times, will be on immediate alert status 'somewhere' near by.

Everyone who is up there... Stay safe and please, take NOTHING for granted. Your movement has as many cops INSIDE IT as media people covering it from the edges. 3 Occupy protesters are facing terrorism charges thanks to real stupid conversations and a cop who listened to it. I have no idea which agency...but look at who they released and thank one of them. It couldn't have happened without 'em. The Police I knew in the St Louis Occupy camp in October of last year were there to HELP and PROTECT far more than anything else. These ones in Chicago, as we have seen, are there to disrupt and destroy....as much for the statement as for any substantive reason or legitimate need to do this.

Police were also heard chattering about this on CPD channels as well as a later visual confirmation that went out over twitter feeds of Uniformed Officers seen changing into Protester Garb and with the accouterments of the Anarchist Black Flag/Bloc movement within the overall protests. Just keep your eyes open folks. If someone wasn't known to you PERSONALLY before this event, trust is a personal decision...but I'd not carry it to the point of becoming vulnerable. There is plenty of time AFTER this ends to build a long friendship. If those new people don't just change back into Federal or LEO Uniforms and get back to earning a living at their full time job after Monday.

Take care all and I'll be back tomorrow when I've slept a bit. If anyone else has factual and entirely resource-driven links to share for others to stay informed, free and safe, please share. Thanks!

Well good morning my fellow ATS'er and Occupy protesters across the greater Chicago area! How is everyone? Alive, healthy and still free I hope. Those who aren't, sure aren't reading this thread..so I can assume a great resounding agreement to the 3 conditions above is felt by all who are here.

Another day, another protest and another round of whack-a-mole! Who is the mole and who is the whacker? I suppose the day will show that as things progress. So far and in considering the sources..I think Occupy is the side getting whacked pretty hard right now. Then again, this never was anything even remotely like a fair match-up and so brings my little effort in the whole thing. If it may benefit just a few, it's enough and I'm off to collect the data which may help folks in a meaningful way to remain Alive, Healthy and Free!

Anything else mentioned by myself on other threads this morning not withstanding, I'll check back in at various times, today and tomorrow. Figure I'm touching base back to this thread at least once this afternoon and a greater depth put into it around dinner time for any important updates and relevant information before the real fighting of the overnight hours kicks off. It always seems to..starting a couple hours after dusk, eh?

Until I get back. Stay Safe! Stay Watchful! Remember, trust *NO ONE* and I mean *NO ONE* entirely, whom you didn't know as a personal contact at some level well before the Summit was a planned protest event! Not everyone has a LEO ID hiding in a back corner of their wallet, but enough do among the protesters to make trust a fools concept in this thing! (hops off to the wars)

I work stupid hours so I'm a bit behind on Occupy NATO (I guess it's called). Are these the same Occupy clowns that were protesting prosperity...er...Wall Street? Or are they actually anti-war protestors (something conspicuously absent during our current Megalomaniac-in-Chief's reign of terror)? If the former, they can flush themselves down a toilet. If the former, I might take a couple days off and go join them.

/TOA

I just want to know what's so bad about NATO as opposed to the UN.

Lots of people seem to be protesting, but I don't have any real clue what they're protesting about. They seem to be protesting just to be protesting something.

reply to post by The Old American


Ahh... I popped back to grab some images in my member file area and happened to catch this. If I may share what I have observed of the Chicago unrest thus far.

Occupy is there in all it's glory and shame. I use both words because across the hours I watched last night, I saw both the best types I recall proudly standing with myself and I saw the worst I'd still return to St Louis, if ever asked, and testify against if someone grows the pair to put those criminals down.

Moving on... Anarchists/Black Bloc/Black Flag people are there as well and there in higher numbers than I can ever recall seeing in a U.S. based event. I've watched those concentrations of the Anarchy movement in other nations where Global conferences have been held, but this is a first for seeing such concentration here. I sincerely hope it's the last time, as well. In my personal view, those people are as toxic as cyanide to everything Americans are trying to accomplish with change in this nation. The folks in the bandit style covers over their faces don't want change. They want destruction. Total, absolute and irrevocable obliteration to everything we know and love about a system that WE ALL AGREE is headed in bad directions and MUST change.


Finally though..and why I believe I just can't help myself but try. I saw more of a whole different category last night in the streets and those people are worth helping in every way any of us can manage to offer support. However minor it may be. Those were a large % of people just like me. late 20's to early 40's, clean cut without being Cop clean, and well groomed with a general air of self respect and conviction to how they held themselves and moved.

I watched closely...as some of what I'm digging into to help in this could get *ME* arrested with how they are just raiding places and bothering with justification later. Nothing illegal, but hey, what does that matter these days?? Anyway... In watching the street marches and "mobs" I really keyed HARD on a detail I'm not sure everyone may have been looking for. The crowds of protesters flowed in, around and among "civilians" in cars and on foot who had nothing to do with this whatever. In places like Oakland, violence has resulted as those un-affiliated people became targets of opportunity. Not here. I didn't even see hostility displayed outside of the damn black bloc terrorists. (And I will never apologize for that term, I call it like I see it).



So... You have the good, the bad and the ugly. Quite literally and ..oddly enough, all three distinctly and very definitely represented. If the musings and observations of one little bunny in the darkness matter, that's my take.