Twitter Revolution made in USA: Tweet about the police, get arrested.

[Felix Stalder]

What will the web2.0 visionariessay about this? My hunch: Nothing!

But, perhaps the even sadder story is that having a picture of Marx and
Lenin at home is taken as 'evidence'.  

Felix



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.

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.

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.

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.





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The degree of repression of civil dissent at the Pittsburgh G20 has
only one parallel that I know of: the same exact degree of abuse
at the Republican National Convention in St Paul last year. Police
forces (including huge numbers brought in from outside the city)
are coordinated with Emergency Operations Centers that can survey
everything from an integrated command-and-control post. They mandate
the use of Homeland Security techniques worthy of an Orwellian
dictatorship. The difference between St Paul and Pittsburgh is that
some new "less lethal" weapons were used this time:

http://tinyurl.com/less-lethal-than-what

Obviously the phrase is used to indicate that there are also
"more lethal" weapons. It's worth looking closely at this video
in particular, to see how a protester may be treated if s/he is
determined to be a national security threat (by whom? acting under
whose oversight? we will probably never know):

http://tinyurl.com/your-rights-in-USA

Finally, this blog post develops the same analogy with Iran as Felix
does:

http://tinyurl.com/Iran-as-the-trendsetter

I think that Gandhi-esque non-violent protest tactics will have to be
invented to gather together elements from the entire citizenry and
totally delegitimate our police state, otherwise it's curtains for
popular democracy. Sit back and enjoy your elected King for another
four years is the message! It's a shame, it has nothing to do with
what a majority of the people want or expect, and it is now standard
operating procedure in Amerikkka.

tears, BH







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