The First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

Notice there is nothing in there about "free speech zones," or city permits, or pepper-spray. Notice there is nothing in there about turning away journalists -- regardless of their credentials.

Despite our nation's strict constitutional protection of free speech and a free press, intimidation is occurring.

Perhaps even more unsettling, I've unearthed what could be a widespread, coordinated misinformation campaign to make the NDAA and SOPA -- two of the most controversial bills ever drafted by Congress -- seem less harmful than they actually are.

But first: the intimidation. Some people were not willing to go on the record, and I respect that. The last thing an unemployed person looking for work needs is an article about police harassment appearing at the top of search results. "Not a team player," some dull HR manager would think, casting your resume into the trash.

Luckily, some were willing to go on record.

"On the night of the raid of OWS, I was told multiple times to leave the area or face arrest and saw the NBC guy [reporter Chris Glorioso] get his pass pulled," wrote Bucky Turco, editor-in-chief of popular Manhattan blog Animal. (He took some great, chilling photos of police deterring journalists -- check them out here.)

Journalism student Bill McEwen, who covered an Occupy protest, wrote that a "cop stopped me from going into [the] arrest scene, threatened to record and got let in."

Intimidation is occurring in other ways as well. International Business Times' Connor Adams Sheets yesterday reported that law enforcement agencies are, in fact, subpoenaing for information on Twitter users who post about the Occupy movement.

"Twitter has been subpoenaed for information related to Occupy supporters' accounts, proving that law enforcement agencies have been monitoring OWS supporters' activity on social media," the paper reported, confirming the worst suspicions of the online community.

It is my belief that these subpoenas are a tool of intimidation, designed to silence wider discussion of the protests. They don't serve any legitimate law enforcement or investigative purpose, in my view -- writing about a peaceful protest in your area isn't against the law. Not yet, anyway.

Now, onto the NDAA and SOPA misinformation campaign. As online public awareness of these bills reached fever pitch a few days ago, I began to notice a recurring and bizarre phenomenon. On the most popular online discussion forums, a user would emerge and spout off seemingly legitimate commentary explaining that SOPA isn't at all a censorship bill, it's just a way to protect copyright holders from piracy.

And that NDAA is nothing to worry about, because it clearly exempts American citizens (it does not), and if it were ever misused it would be swiftly challenged by the Supreme Court (also not true; without a court case, advancing the issue to the Supreme Court would be difficult, if not impossible).

At first, I assumed these were just misinformed commenters -- the Internet is full of such people, after all.

Digging deeper, though, I didn't like what I found.

Many of these users had comment histories that ONLY discussed NDAA and SOPA -- repeated distribution of the same kinds of misinformation, marginalizing real experts at the ACLU, Amnesty International, reporters, constitutional lawyers and others who have stated the dangers posed by the NDAA's indefinite detention language.

Furthermore, a few of these online identities appeared to be fabricated. I browsed one user's blog. The domain was registered through a privacy shield/proxy service. At first, the blog's content all seemed OK: a post about NDAA, mixed in with some personal posts about arguing with a boyfriend/girlfriend, work frustrations, etc.

But giving it a closer read, the personal posts seemed rushed and just artificial, for lack of a better word. It sent a chill down my spine. A fake identity, designed to spread fake information and divide the public's opposition?

At this point, I really do believe there are PR firms working on behalf of pro-NDAA defense interests, and pro-SOPA entertainment industry interests, to try to "turn" public opinion in favor of these dangerous bills.

Say the same lie enough times, in enough places, and it becomes fact.

Additionally, as this story goes live, I've seen reports that one of the Occupy DC Twitter accounts with more than 3,000 followers is a "troll account" being used to discredit the Occupy movement. He is tweeting insults to users, including homophobic epithets that seem uncharacteristic of the Occupy movement's typical message.

Also, I've heard reports that some Occupy protests are being "infiltrated" by law enforcement or other persons with an agenda of some kind -- they are doing things like preaching violence, flying Hamas and Hezbollah flags on protest grounds, etc. All to turn the public against the Occupy movement?

To frame these passionate college kids and broke unemployed people and outraged American citizens as dangerous dissidents?

Draw your own conclusions. I'm just here to report.

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