Seven hundred people participating in the The Occupy Wall Street protests were arrested this weekend. Protests are taking place in several cities, see and with live streaming at.

NATHAN SCHNEIDER, nathan at wagingnonviolence.org
Schneider is an editor of the website Waging Non-Violence; one of his recent pieces is “Mass arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge: is this what civil disobedience looks like?” He is able to do interviews as well as coordinate media with protesters, including those who have been arrested.

MARGARET RATNER KUNSTLER, margaret at kunstlerlaw.net
Margaret Ratner Kunstler is an attorney and co-author of the just-released “Hell No: Your Right to Dissent in 21st Century America.” She said today: “The mass arrests of 700 marchers coming from Occupation Wall Street was utterly illegal and part of a larger program by the state to shut down the most effective means people have of making fundamental changes. It was illegal because almost none of those arrested were warned that arrest might ensue unless they left the bridge. Those arrests should be seen for what they were: a shot over the bow to all who would take to the streets — the protests can only go so far.

“The powers that be — Wall Street and friends — fear that because of the dire economic circumstances in this country people will take to the street s as they did in the Arab Spring. We saw similar police activity in 2004 in New York where 400 people were netted and illegally held in custody for days; we saw how the protests in Pittsburgh at the G20 protests resulted in arrest after arrest and we saw the Seattle World Trade Organization protests, where police violence was the order of the day. The biggest, greatest fear of the establishment is that people will take to the streets. The message we must send them is: Yes, we will.”