"Occupy Google" Protesters Arrested Outside Tech Giant's Mountain View Headquarters

6/26/2014

Video posted to YouTube by "Buzz Sourse" appears to show protesters being taken into custody

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Ten protesters were arrested outside of Google's Mountain View headquarters Tuesday night as part of an "Occupy Google" protest to pressure the company to take a stronger stand for unrestricted access to the Internet, police said Wednesday.

Google had allowed protesters to remain on the property at its headquarters at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway throughout the day but had asked that they leave for the night and offered to allow them to return in the morning, according to police.

The group of about 20 protesters was warned starting at about 9 p.m. to leave the area by 9:30 p.m. but they refused. By about 11 p.m., Mountain View police had convinced the group to pack up and leave, but two protesters sat down and refused, police said.

As those two were arrested, some of the other protesters left but about eight more remained in the area and they were arrested as well. The 10 protesters were booked into San Jose Main Jail, police said.

The protesters said Monday that they were there not to protest against Google, but to "urge Google to support net neutrality," according to protester Vaigham Kabir.

The group is worried about a proposal by Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler to create a "two-tier" system permitting service providers to offer fast connection speeds for fee-paying content providers and a second, slower speed for others.

The FCC will be taking comments about the proposal until July 15.

Occupy Google organizers are calling for a day of action and online protest on July 10, urging website operators to "blackout" their sites for the day and instead post links to online petitions and the FCC's comments page for people to express support for net neutrality.

Protesters also plan to gather outside the Google Developers Conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco Wednesday morning -- this time to call for Google to support good jobs for security officers and affordable housing development.

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