An anti-Israel group calling themselves the Transit Liberation Front have attacked multiple subway turnstiles in New York causing “$40,000 in damage.”
According to a thread on Twitter posted by a New York writer called Ash Agony the group has targeted 10 contactless fare payment systems being use on public transport in New York over the system’s alleged tenuous links to Israel.
The Transit Liberation Front said they targeted the OMNY machines after a different group called Black revolutionaries, based in Atlanta, called for a “summer of resistance” against the US and Israel.
They encouraged others to do the same in a statement suggesting “disabling these machines is just one small act of resistance, one that requires no more than a good, heavy hammer (16 oz. or more, no wooden handles), some safety equipment (goggles and protective gloves), and a solid plan for concealing your identity.
“Bring a friend to watch your back and go to town.”
Ash Agony said he had been sent pictures of the damage caused by the Transit Liberation Front along with a statement about their action.
The statement said: "Recently, Black Revolutionaries in Atlanta sent out a call for a Summer of Resistance, a sustained, militant, and decentralised campaign targeting the multitude of appendages of the settler-colonial so-called United States, its Zionist client government, and their many accomplices in promoting a genocidal agenda in Palestine that is killing tens of thousands."
The Transit Liberation Front said it chose to target The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), because it was trying “to shove” the contactless system “down New Yorkers' collective throat."
The Transit Liberation Front said the contactless payment system was “an obvious ploy to increase surveillance and further violate our communities by policing the main arteries of transit for everyday New Yorkers.”
The group added: “As if the subways weren't f*****g crawling with police already.
“We smashed ten of these machines in multiple subway stations across the city. We estimate that this is equivalent to about $40,000 in damage."
The group said it had chosen the OMNY payment system because it was part of a “contract between the MTA and Cubic Corporation.”
Cubic Corporation is an American multinational defence and public transport equipment manufacturer.
The Transit Liberation Front said it targeted the turnstile system because Cubic Corporation was owned by the private equity firm Veritas Capital, whose “portfolio also includes Peraton, which is working with the Department of Homeland Security to build HART."
The Transit Liberation Front said The Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology System (HART) was “facilitating DHS's campaign of terror against immigrants and communities of colour.
“This database, of course, will soon be open to Zionist security forces through DHS's Enhanced Border Security Partnership, which promises rapid mutual biometric intelligence sharing among the Zionist entity, US, UK, and EU."
The group claimed that other contactless payment systems in other countries were also part of a wider “imperialist” project “from Palestine to Mexico.”
They said: "If your city has a public transportation system, it is likely to be linked to Cubic and Veritas. Chicago's Ventra system, London's Oyster, the Breeze card in Atlanta, and countless other systems inside and outside of the US are all Cubic endeavours.
"Your governments are selling you out to a private company that actively promotes the imperialist projects from Palestine to Mexico. Why? In our view, they are rolling out an ever-more militarised version of the already extant police state.
"Cops flooding the subway and National Guard bag-checks are only the beginning. They are relying on us growing accustomed to being controlled in every aspect of our lives, of us willingly giving up our privacy in exchange for their rotten idea of ‘safety.’
"There is no safety under occupation, and we are indeed living on occupied territory."
They added: "We may not yet face the same violence in the metropole as we see at the margins, but, as the resistance grows and the intifada is globalised, they are certainly getting ready in case we get too rowdy, too ungovernable. We are the frogs in the slowly heating pot."
