Twitter Revolution made in USA:
Tweet about the police, get arrested.
Date: October 4, 2009 10:22:03 PM GMT+02:00
What will the web 2.0 visionaries say about this? My hunch: Nothing!
(((Well, I'm kind of a "Web 2.0 visionary," and I'm American to boot,
so I'm gonna horn in and help ol' Felix out here. There's a lot of this
material available. Ton o' links. Oodles. More than you wanna see.)))
But, perhaps the even sadder story is that having a picture of Marx and
Lenin at home is taken as 'evidence'. – Felix
(((Well, no; I'm pretty sure the federal cops really wanted the
backups and hard disks, this being the sort of thing they've been
into for donkey's years now.)))
(((American electronic civil libertarians on the case, the EFF being
a veritable hive of Web 2.0 visionaries:)))
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/10/man-arrested-twittering-goes-court-eff-has-documen
(((Now for the press coverage!)))
New York man accused of using Twitter to direct protesters during G20
summit
Elliott Madison arrested by FBI and charged with using social networking
site to help demonstrators evade Pittsburgh police
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/04/man-arrested-twitter-g20-
us/print
A New York-based anarchist has been arrested by the FBI and charged with
hindering prosecution after he allegedly used the social networking site
Twitter to help protesters at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh evade the
police.
Elliot Madison, 41, from Queens, had his home raided and was put on
$30,000 (£19,000) bail after he and Michael Wallschlaeger, 46, were
tracked to the Carefree Inn motel in Pittsburgh during the summit
on 24 and 25 September.
The pair were found sitting in front of a bank of laptops and emergency
frequency radio scanners. They were wearing headphones and
microphones and had many maps and contact numbers in the room.
(((If you're in the movie biz, you have gotta love that image.)))
(((Having the cops show up and bust the living daylights out of
computer-toting protesters is not a new deal – even when the hackers
are kilometers away from the teargas and not doing anything but
moving their fingers up and down. Check out this account from
distant 2001, in Genoa.)))
http://www.urban75.org/genoa/009.html
(((You might also note that even the IRANIAN police get it about
Twittering. Heard anything out of the Iranian Twitter Revolution lately?)))
Official police documents allege the two men used Twitter messages to
contact protesters at the summit "and to inform the protesters and
groups of the movements and actions of law enforcement".
In all, almost 200 protesters were arrested during the two-day summit,
which brought world leaders to Pittsburgh to discuss the global economic
meltdown and other matters of common financial interest.
About 5,000 protesters were estimated to have taken part in
demonstrations in the city.
Twitter has rapidly established itself as an important tool in the
armoury of protest groups and demonstrators. During the summit,
the police openly monitored Twitter to listen in to the protesters'
communications.
(((That doesn't even count the police who like to twitter, and
the informants who are infiltrating protest groups and retweeting to the
police.)))
The FBI said that as well as the computers and radio scanning equipment
discovered at the motel, they also confiscated from Madison's home 11
gas masks, five pairs of goggles and test tubes and beakers. They said they
also took away anarchist books and pictures of Marx and Lenin.
(((Typical computer raid, very old school: take everything. In Mr.
Madison's case, I'd be guessing the five pairs of goggles were BRASS
goggles, because Mr Madison is a steampunk activist named "Dr.
Calamity." Really? Why yes!)))
Madison is a social worker with a Manhattan-based programme attached
to a psychiatric hospital. He is said to be a member of the People's Law
Collective, a voluntary group that advises protesters on legal issues
arising from actions. Wallschlaeger produces a talk show on radio called
This Week in Radical History.
(((Are they anarchists? Heaven forfend!)))
http://rawstory.com/2009/10/g20-protester-arrested-for-twitter/
ACLU: Arrest of G20 Twitterer part of ‘war on demonstrators’
By David Edwards and Stephen Webster
Monday, October 5th, 2009 – 7:45 pm
When the FBI staged a terror raid on the New York home of 41-year-old
Elliot Madison, they were not looking for weapons of war, deadly
chemicals or the keys to unlocking a nefarious terror plot. Instead,
they came looking for books, files, data, film and something called the
"instruments of crime."
According to officials, the search was instigated after Madison was
found in a Pennsylvania hotel room on Sept. 24, listening to police
actions during Pittsburgh's G20 summit, then Tweeting to protesters
seeking to avoid authorities.
Vic Walczak, legal director for the Pennsylvania ACLU, sees the FBI's
action as pure "intimidation," and part of a "much bigger war on
demonstrators" in Pittsburgh.
He made the remarks during a Monday interview on CNN's Newsroom.
"What you have here is folks who are charged with hindering
apprehension of people who were engaging in criminal activities,"
he said. "The criminals identified in the warrant are protesters against
the G20. Their crime? They were demonstrating in the street without
a permit."
Madison, who has widely been described as an "anarchist" by media
parroting FBI claims, (((besides the fact that his chosen handle is
"Dr Calamity" – perhaps "Dr Law Abiding Citizen with Friends
in the EFF" would have been a cannier tactical choice)))
is a social worker in New York who holds two
masters degrees from the University of Wisconsin.
Walczak continued: "The police said, 'Get out of here,' and apparently
they did. Somebody was trying to help them not go where the police are.
Instead of saying 'thank you, you're helping these folks disperse,' they
now get charged with what is really a felony."
In other words: "Be careful what you twit for, because your 140
characters could land you in the slammer," quipped Andrew Belonsky at
Vallywag.
[http://gawker.com/5374226/g+20-tweets-invite-judicial-hammer ]
"Though the FBI says so, it's not entirely clear from the complaint that
Madison's tweets were actually illegal," noted Ars Technica
[http://tinyurl.com/yby2axn ]. "Madison's lawyer told the
New York Times
[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/nyregion/05txt.html ]
on Saturday that he and a friend were merely 'part of a communications
network among people protesting the G-20.' As implied through the
Times piece, Madison's tweets merely directed protesters as to where
the police were at any given time and to stay alert. 'There’s absolutely
nothing that he’s done that should subject him to any criminal liability.'"
Eileen Clancy with I-Witness Video
[http://iwitnessvideo.info/blog/117.html ] added: "There are myriad
examples of governments in other countries cracking down on activists
who share information on the Internet. After Moldova's short-lived
'Twitter revolution,' journalist Natalia Morar was charged
[http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/publisher,RFERL,,MDA,4a014a9d5,0.html ]
with organizing an anti-Communist flashmob and spent three weeks under
house arrest. In Guatemala a man was charged
[http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=43887 ]
with advising in a Tweet that people should take their money out of a
corrupt government bank. According to Hadi Ghaemi, who runs the
International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, many people have
been arrested for Internet activity in Iran
[http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=43887 ]."
(((In other words, messing with Twitter is like wiretapping yourself
and yelling the results at passing cops through a megaphone.)))
"This is the first time we've heard of charges like this against people
who are using Twitter [...]" said Walczak. "If this happened in Iran or
China, where we know Twitter has been widespread because people in this
country have been relying on it to find out what's going on. If it was
used there, we'd be crying foul, we'd be calling it a human rights
violation. And when the same thing happens in this country, all of the
sudden it's a crime. There's a real problem here."
Copies of the search warrant and Madison's lawyer's motion for return of
seized property were posted to the Internet by the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, available here [http://tinyurl.com/y8axwaj ].
*****
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/nyregion/05txt.html?bl
October 5, 2009
Arrest Puts Focus on Protesters’ Texting
By COLIN MOYNIHAN
As demonstrations have evolved with the help of text messages and online
social networks, so too has the response of law enforcement.
On Thursday, F.B.I. agents descended on a house in Jackson Heights,
Queens, and spent 16 hours searching it. The most likely reason for the
raid: a man who lived there had helped coordinate communications among
protesters at the Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh.
(((I'd be guessing they spent 16 hours DOCUMENTING the site and are
gleefully uploading pix of the sinister Anarchist HQ onto the anti-
alterglobalista international cop wiki. FBI agents don't accidentally go
raid guys for 16 hours because they are tweeting. This raid was planned.)))
The man, Elliot Madison, 41, a social worker who has described himself
as an anarchist, (((O RLY?))) had been arrested in Pittsburgh on
Sept. 24 and charged
with hindering apprehension or prosecution, criminal use of a
communication facility and possession of instruments of crime. The
Pennsylvania State Police said he was found in a hotel room with
computers and police scanners while using the social-networking site
Twitter to spread information about police movements. He has denied
wrongdoing.
(((Amazing that the cops actually charged the guy with something,
instead of merely carting off all his hardware. I'm keen to see an American
political show trial that involves "hindering apprehension or prosecution,
criminal use of a communication facility and possession of instruments
of crime." That's one of the goofiest, most nebulous electronic-crime
charges I've ever seen.
(((Why don't they just spool out the the guy's tweets (I'm sure they
recorded them) and charge him with aiding and abetting an attempted
riot?)))
(((Maybe because there WASN'T any riot? Maybe they could charge him
with "watching as American protesters get blasted like guinea pigs
with awesome new forms of American police-owned tactical media:")))
(((Imagine if you had one of those crowd-blasting sonic trucks
hooked up to a Twitter feed and aimed at the delegates. Hey,
"Our Streets, Our Streets.")))
American protesters first made widespread use of mass text messages in
New York, during the 2004 Republican National Convention, when
hundreds of people used a system called TXTmob to share information.
Messages, sent as events unfolded, allowed demonstrators and others
to react quickly to word of arrests, police mobilizations and roving rallies.
Mass texting has since become a valued tool among protesters,
particularly at large-scale demonstrations.
(((That was then, this is now. Think what's happened to other
American media during those years: television, magazines, newspapers.)))
And police and government officials appear to be increasingly aware of
such methods of communication. In 2008, for instance, the New York City
Law Department issued a subpoena seeking information from the graduate
student who created the code for TXTmob. Still, Mr. Madison, who was
released on bail shortly after his arrest, may be among the first to be
charged criminally while sending information electronically to
protesters about the police.
A criminal complaint in Pennsylvania accuses him of “directing others,
specifically protesters of the G-20 summit, in order to avoid
apprehension after a lawful order to disperse.”
“He and a friend were part of a communications network among people
protesting the G-20,” Mr. Madison’s lawyer, Martin Stolar, said on
Saturday. “There’s absolutely nothing that he’s done that should subject
him to any criminal liability.”
(((Well, the whole point of this tactic is to get out of the way of the
cops and INTO THE WAY OF THE DELEGATES, so as to prevent
official events from taking place, and causing keen political
embarrassment.
(((It's like watching some kind of delicate New Age street war where
the combatants engage one another with plastic Rock 'Em Sock 'Em
robots.)))
(((Meanwhile, over in Los Angeles, site of the largest riot in American
history:)))
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVA-xTBeHyM&feature=fvw
(((You think that video is violent, spooky and bonkers-looking? Check
THIS out:)))
http://vigilantcitizen.com/?p=1948
(((A society where folk-politics looks this deranged doesn't have to
fret much about the awesome Leninist menace of Tweeting, I'm thinkin'.)))
A search warrant executed by the F.B.I. at Mr. Madison’s house
authorized agents and officers looking for violations of federal rioting
laws to seize computers and phones, black masks and clothes and
financial records and address books. Among the items seized, according
to a list prepared by the agents, were electronic equipment, newspapers,
books and gas masks. The items also included what was described as a
picture of Lenin.
Since the raid, no other charges have been filed against Mr. Madison. On
Friday, Mr. Stolar argued in Federal District Court in Brooklyn that the
warrant was vague and overly broad. Judge Dora L. Irizarry ordered the
authorities to stop examining the seized materials until Oct. 16,
pending further orders.
Mr. Stolar said that the reason for the Jackson Heights raid would not
be clear until an affidavit used to secure the search warrant was
unsealed. (((Don't hold your breath.)))
But he said that commentary among agents indicated that it was
related to Mr. Madison’s arrest in Pittsburgh, where he participated in
the Tin Can Comms Collective, a group of people who collected
information and used Twitter to send mass text messages describing
protest-related events that they observed on the streets.
There were many such events during the two days of the summit.
Demonstrators marched through town on the opening day of the gathering,
at times breaking windows and fleeing. And on both nights, police
officers fired projectiles and hurled tear gas canisters at students
milling near the University of Pittsburgh.
After Mr. Madison’s arrest, other Tin Can participants continued to send
messages, now archived on Twitter’s Web site. Many of those messages
tracked police movements. One read: “SWAT teams rolling down 5th Ave.”
Another read: “Report received that police are ‘nabbing’ anyone that
looks like a protester / Black Bloc. Stay alert watch your friends!”
But even as protesters were watching the police, it appeared that the
police were monitoring the protesters’ communications. (((No,
really, wow, beggars belief, gosh all fish-hooks, etc.)))
Just after 1 p.m. on Sept. 24, a text message stated: “A comms facility
was raided, but we are still fully operational please continue to submit
reports.” Nine hours later, a text read: “Scanner just said be advised
we’re being monitored by anarchists through scanner.”
(((Pretty good stuff, eh? It's so late-80s Hollywood cyberpunk!)))
On Sunday night Mr. Madison said that the search of his home was an
effort to “stifle dissent,” and added that several groups in Pittsburgh,
including the summit organizers, had used Twitter accounts to describe
events related to the meetings.
“They arrested me for doing the same thing everybody else was doing,
which was perfectly legal,” he said. “It was crucial for people to have
the information we were sending.” (((Then why not put the cops
on the mailing list from the get-go?)))
*****
(((And now, the final fillip: the steampunk angle. That's right,
I said STEAMPUNKS. Up against the steamy wall, oppressors.)))
Mon 5 Oct 2009
SteamPunk’s Professor Calamity faces multiple felonies for twittering
Posted by Magpie under Activism, Anarchism, Steampunk
Update: Professor Calamity on Democracy Now
SteamPunk Magazine author (and, honestly, the inspiration for
SteamPunk Magazine) Professor Calamity is facing two felonies for
allegedly running a Twitter account.
He has been accused of running a twitter feed of police movements
during the Pittsburgh G-20 protests, protests for which the police
are already being sued.
To add insult to felony charges, they raided his house in NYC for 16
hours, confiscating everything from hammers to computers to
SteamPunk Magazine.
Their lawyer has already convinced a judge to put a stop on the police
searching of their personal possessions, because the raid is absolutely
insane.
Okay, Steampunk, here’s your chance to prove you’re a community.
Professor Calamity is one of our founding thinkers. Even if he wasn’t,
he’s one of us, and he’s facing absolutely batshit bullshit charges and
ought to be supported. I’m asking that we make this news, because
it ought to be news. This is insane.
Below is a report from one of the people who was present during the
house raid in Queens:
On October 1st, 2009, at 6:00am, the Joint Terrorism Task Force
(a union of local police departments and the FBI), kicked out the
front door to our home—an anarchist collective house in Queens, NY,
affectionately known as Tortuga. The first crashes of the battering ram
were quickly followed by more upstairs, as the police broke in on
3 sleeping people, destroying bedroom doors that were unlocked.
Three more people, awoken by the most unpleasant means of bounding
footsteps, splintering wood, and shouting voices, waited in the
basement— their turn at drawn guns and blinding lights came quickly.
We put our hands out where they could see them. They ordered us out of
bed. They wouldn’t let us dress, but they did put a random assortment of
clothes on some people.
We were handcuffed, and although the upstairs and downstairs groups
were kept separate initially, we were soon all together, sitting in the living
room, positioned like dolls on the couches and chairs. We were in
handcuffs for several hours, and we were helpless as our little bird,
a Finch we had rescued and were rehabilitating,
flew out the open door to certain death, after his cage had been
battered by the cops in their zeal to open the upstairs bedroom doors
by force. We shouted at them, but they stood there and watched.
(((The little injured finch in his cage is one of those touches you
couldn't put in fiction. I wonder about the little baby sparrows in
the Pittsburgh trees who were having their tiny sparrow eardrums
blasted by semi-experimental sonic street-clearing weapons.
If I were the driver of that thing, I think I'd get a songbird logo
for my uniform right away.)))
And they stood and watched us for hours and hours and hours.
16 hours to be precise, 16 hours of the NYPD and FBI traipsing through
our house, confiscating our lives in a fishing expedition related
to the G20 protests of September 24th and 25th.
The search warrant, when we were finally allowed to read it,
mentioned violation of federal rioting laws and was vague enough
to allow the entire house to be searched. They kept repeating
that we were not arrested, that we were free to go.
But being free meant being watched by the FBI, monitored while using
the bathroom, not allowed to make phone calls for hours or to observe
them ransacking our rooms.
Being free meant they took two of us away on bullshit summonses,
and even though this was our house, where we lived, if we left, we
could not re-enter.
Three of us stayed to the bitter end. Three of us stayed to watch the
hazmat team come in to investigate a child’s chemistry set, to see
them search the garage on an additional warrant,
to sign vouchers for all the things they confiscated as “evidence” —
Curious George plush toys, artwork, correspondence with political
prisoner Daniel McGowan, birth certificates, passports,
the entire video archive of a local media collective, tax records,
books, computers, storage devices, cell phones, Buffy the
Vampire Slayer DVDs, (((that's just the greatest. Are you listening,
nettime list? Wow))) flags, banners, posters, photographs and more
than can be recounted here.
(((And Lenin. Don't forget Marx and Lenin.)))
The apparent impetus for this raid came over a week ago, when two
members of our household were arrested, once again at gunpoint,
in the suburbs of Pittsburgh.
They are accused of being devious masterminds, of “directing” the
rollicking G-20 protests, of using technology such as Twitter to
“hinder apprehension” of protesters.
The two were held on bail, one fetching the ridiculous amount of
$30,000 cash, and released 36 hours later after the bond was posted.
As of this moment, no additional charges have been levied against
the two, nor against any other housemates in the aftermath of the raid.
As anarchists, (((oh wait a minute, are these guys anarchists? I
figured they were all social workers with advanced degrees)))
we are under no illusions about what the State is capable of.
We are not the first anarchists to have our house raided,
(((well, no; it's kind of a badge of honor, frankly, and something you
can tell your dreadlocked anarchist grandchildren))) and unfortunately
as long as the State remains, will not be the last. (((How old ARE 'states,'
exactly? About 5,000 years old, am I right? Well, next week though,
a rush and a push and the land is ours!)))
We are, along with other targeted individuals like David Japenga,
the outlets for the impotent rage the authorities feel when they
lose control, as they did during the G-20 in Pittsburgh. We, that
beautiful we, that include Tortuga House and
all who find affinity with us, refuse the rigid forms the authorities
try and cram a world bursting with infinite possibilities into—
He is not a leader, she did not act alone, they are not being directed.
Repression is a strategy that the state uses to put us on the defensive,
to divert our energies from being a proactive force and instead deal
with the terms it has set.
We will not lie and say this has not left us reeling, but as time and
our dizziness pass, we know that friends surround us. Our resolve is
strengthened by this solidarity, and we will not be deterred by this
state aggression. (((Yeah, I'd be guessing this incident
has put anarchism in Queens shoulder to shoulder with the dropout
legions of London, Amsterdam, Berlin and Hannover. Small in numbers,
great in spirit and some of the awesomest steampunk memorabilia
you're ever likely to see.)))
We wish to thank all of our friends and comrades who have stood by us
in these difficult few days. Our lawyer filed an injunction on the raid the
next morning (October 2nd) that was surprisingly granted- it forbids the
authorities from fishing through our belongings until we head back to
court on the 16th.
In the weeks and months to come we will do our best to share
developments as they occur.
If you want to keep in touch or find out how you can help please
email us at: [email protected].
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(((This just in, in case all that wasn't enough for you:)))
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists (((and, uh, harmless
social workers in asylums who have two masters degrees)))
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/07-4
Wednesday, October 7, 2009 by The Oregonian
Watch What You Tweet
by Amy Goodman
A social worker from New York City was arrested last week while in
Pittsburgh for the G-20 protests, then subjected to an FBI raid this
week at home – all for using Twitter. Elliot Madison faces charges of
hindering apprehension or prosecution, criminal use of a communication
facility and possession of instruments of crime. He was posting to a
Twitter feed (or tweeting, as it is called) publicly available
information about police activities around the G-20 protests, including
information about where police had issued orders to disperse.
While alerting people to public information may not seem to be an
arrestable offense, be forewarned: Many people have been arrested for
the same "crime" – in Iran, that is.
Last June 20, as Iranians protested against the conduct and results of
their national election, President Barack Obama said in a statement,
"The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and
the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights."
His statement was released in English, Farsi and Arabic and posted on
the White House's very own Twitter feed. His tweet read, "We call on the
Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its
own people."
U.S. Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., wrote to
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, urging her to pressure European
nations to restrict sales of eavesdropping technology to Iran. They
wrote: "Following recent elections, the Iranian government has used a
new communications monitoring center to interfere with and suppress
Internet and cell phone communications as part of efforts to crackdown
on Iranian citizens peacefully demonstrating ... including voice calls,
email, text messaging, instant messages, and Web traffic, as well as
posts to social networking sites such as Twitter, MySpace and Facebook."
The U.S. State Department, impressed with the importance of Twitter to
Iranian protests, asked Twitter to delay system maintenance that might
have interrupted the service during the Iranian protests.
While Madison optimistically mused, "I'm expecting the State Department
will come out and support us also," his lawyer, respected civil rights
attorney Martin Stolar, said: "This is just unbelievable. It is the
thinnest, silliest case that I've ever seen. It tends to criminalize
support services for people who are involved in lawful protest activity.
And it's just shocking that somebody could be arrested for essentially
walking next to somebody and saying: 'Hey, don't go down that street,
because the police have issued an order to disperse. Stay away from there.'"
Madison, his wife and housemates were roused from sleep during the
weekend when the Joint Terrorism Task Force (((
