When I arrived in New York City last Tuesday, preparations forthe demonstrations against the Republican NationalConvention were in full swing, with local organizersco-ordinating housing for the thousands of protestersdescending on NYC. Within hours of posting a notice ona housing board, I was offered a place to stay by aBroadway director.

Unconcerned that I was a stranger,and that I would be arriving at his pad on CentralPark West while he was out of town, he told me overthe phone: “I’ll just leave the keys to the apartmentwith the doorman.” He explained that he wanted to dowhatever he could to help the anti-Bush cause.

However, with a massive intelligence, security andpolice presence, the American government is also wellprepared for the demonstrations. By Friday, the arrestshad begun.

Hundreds of thousands of protesters arein New York City,the site of the Republican National Convention (RNC),They have been greeted by numerous police andsecurity forces. Four days before the opening of theconvention, scores of anti-Bush protesters had already beenarrested.

On Thursday, the New York Police Department (NYPD)arrested demonstrators at three separate anti-Bush actions. Four activists who draped a banner featuringthe words “Bush” and “truth,” pointing in oppositedirections, on Manhattan’s Plaza Hotel are facingcharges of felony assault after a police officer wasinjured on the scene of the banner-hanging. Thegroup’s lawyer Gerald B. Lefcourt has denounced it asa “bogus charge;” the lawyer maintains that theofficer fell through a skylight one of the protesters hadwarned him was cracked. He saw it as an attempt “totry to scare off future demonstrations.”

According to the New York Police Department (NYPD),10,000 officers are being deployed for security forthe convention. The NYPD will be joined by the NewYork National Guard, the FBI, and 200 officers fromthe Federal Protective Services of the Department ofHomeland Security. Many of the latter will beoutfitted with helmets with built-in videosurveillance cameras, which will send live footage toa central control room, enabling greater coordinationbetween different agencies.

Ann Roman, a U.S. Secret Service spokesperson, statedthat Secret Service agents expect to respond to anincrease in possible domestic threats againstPresident Bush and other dignitaries.

“How we do that specifically, I’m not going to gointo,” Roman said last week to CNN.

However, for weeks federal agencies and local policehave been tracking certain activists, makingunannounced visits to people’s homes, conductinginterviews, monitoring web sites and infiltratingmeetings with undercover agents.

People affiliated with anarchist groups from Colorado,Kansas and Missouri have complained about beingharassed by the FBI about the convention.

NYC has never been known as a bastion of Republicansupport. This will be the first Republican conventionin the city, and activists are calling the choice oflocale, and the convention’s timing (just prior to theanniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11,2001) “a shallow attempt at exploiting the lives lostat the World Trade Center,” as the No RNC website put it.

The City refused to grant a permit for the largestrally, which was to take place Sunday on the GreatLawn in Central Park, citing possible damage to thelawn. However, dozens of events are set to unfold overthe next several days. Rallies, teach-ins, actions,street theatre performances, and music and art showstargetting Republican policies have been ongoing sinceearly August. A big march was scheduled for Sunday, andMonday is a day of civil disobedience.

On August 25, State Supreme Court Judge JacquelineSilberman ruled against United For Peace and Justice(UFPJ) and blocked the group’s attempt to hold amassive anti-war rally in Central Park on Sunday, oneday before the start of the Republican NationalConvention. The judge decided to uphold New YorkCity’s decision to deny a permit for the rally. Thecity had denied the group a permit on the grounds thata large rally would damage the grass.

OFPJ spokesperson Bill Dobbs stated that “The failureof the court to uphold our right is a slap in the faceto the Constitution.” UFPJ had hoped to be granted apermit to ensure that a maximum number of people cameout to the rally to raise their voices against theBush agenda. Dobbs added that “in the midst of theoccupation of Iraq the mayor has somehow turned thisinto a matter of lawn care.”