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| Dan Clore... |
 Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2009 12:13 am |
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News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
How Could It Be Against the Law to Spread Public Information?
By Charles Mostoller, AlterNet
Posted on October 29, 2009, Printed on October 29, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/143461/
The hazmat team rushed into Elliot Madison's home in Queens, N.Y., and
headed straight for the kombucha tea brewing in a corner, assuming that
the outspoken anarchist was concocting a chemical weapon.
Now Madison, 41 -- who is under investigation by a federal grand jury
for violations of a rarely used anti-riot statute -- has denounced the
probe as politically motivated and in violation his constitutional rights.
Madison was arrested on Sept. 24 at a hotel outside Pittsburgh, accused
under Pennsylvania law of aiding protesters at the G20 Summit by
listening to a police scanner and then sending out Twitter feeds on the
location of police, helping protesters to avoid arrest.
Madison denied any wrongdoing and said his use of Twitter is speech
protected by the First Amendment. His lawyer said that Madison is being
persecuted for his beliefs and activism.
"It's purely political," his lawyer, Martin R. Stolar, said. "The
government is trying to say that anarchists are the equivalents of
terrorists, just like it is trying to say that protesters are the
equivalents of terrorists."
On Oct. 16, a federal grand jury in the Brooklyn Eastern District Court
announced a separate investigation into Madison -- an outspoken
proponent of anarchism and political dissent -- for violations of the
Anti-Riot Act.
The act was first used to prosecute Abbie Hoffman and the Chicago Seven
after protests at the Chicago Democratic National Convention in 1968 and
has rarely been used since.
One of the lawyers who defended the Chicago Seven in court 40 years ago,
Leonard I. Weinglass, said the government's attempt to silence
social-media communication by demonstrators at the G20 protests was
hypocritical.
"In Iran, demonstrators were lauded for using it," he said. "Now that it
is being used here for identical purposes it is being criminalized."
The FBI and a joint terrorism task force searched Madison's Jackson
Heights home on Oct. 3 for over 16 hours. Agents scoured the property
and took dozens of items, including books on anarchism written by
Madison, political posters, an antique gas mask, his marriage
certificate and a Curious George plush doll.
Stolar has filed an injunction for the return of the property, saying
that the warrant was too broad in scope and as such violates Madison's
Fourth Amendment rights. The warrant authorized police to seize any
evidence of violations of the Anti-Riot Act.
"A warrant is supposed to tell them what they're supposed to take,"
Madison said. "That is why our Founding Fathers put it in, because they
didn't like that the English would use 'Crown warrants,' where they
could go in and look for anything they wanted."
Madison said the officers who searched his home had no idea what they
were looking for.
"They would point to something, like 'Do we take this Curious George
plush toy?' and another would say, 'Yes take it,'" he said.
Stolar also questioned the constitutionality of the Anti-Riot Act
itself, which was added into the Civil Rights Act of 1968 in response to
the race riots of the mid-1960s and has only been used a few times in
the early 1970s to prosecute political activists.
"It's a law that basically targets people who are involved in protests,"
he said. "Nobody even knows what the law means."
The law itself is vague. It prohibits traveling in "interstate or
foreign commerce … with intent to incite a riot" or to "aid or abet any
person in inciting or participating in or carrying on a riot."
Weinglass, who is also a lawyer for the Cuban Five and was once Mumia
Abu Jamal's counsel, said that the act is essentially a prohibition on a
"state of mind" and directed at those who protest the policies of
government.
"It's a tool of social and political control," he said. "If you have no
other way of prosecuting demonstrations and discourse that are otherwise
protected by the First Amendment, then you reach for the Anti-Riot Act."
Madison defended his actions in Pittsburgh, saying the information he
stands accused of distributing was both factual and already available to
the public. He also said there were at least 23 other Twitter feeds
active during the protests.
Madison is intelligent, soft-spoken and clearly offended by the
government's attacks on him and his family. An outspoken anarchist, he
does not hide his beliefs. But contrary to the public's stereotype of
anarchists as violent malcontents, Madison appears more prone to
rambling than to causing trouble.
He says he did not take information overheard from a police scanner on
the location of police and post it to Twitter, but admits that someone
who was actually at one of the protests could have submitted such a post
from his or her cell phone.
But even if Madison had done what the police allege, his lawyer said, he
would be protected by the First Amendment.
"Twitter is no different than speech, no different than picking up the
phone," Stolar said. "It's protected speech, especially something that
the police have put out on the public airwaves."
What he did is really no different from what journalists do, Madison
said. There were CNN crews reporting on the protests and movements of
police as well, he said, and so his arrest sets a dangerous precedent
for reporters.
"It's terrible for the media," he said. "The police are claiming we did
the same as what CNN did."
Madison said that the government is persecuting him not only because of
his outspoken beliefs but because of its inability to shut down Twitter
and text messaging during the G20 Summit protests.
"They didn't understand the power of social networking," Madison said.
"They thought that by arresting us the Twitter feeds would stop, but
none of them did."
He had hoped the Obama administration would be more tolerant of dissent,
especially after supporting protest movements in other countries,
Madison said.
"But you can't stop people from communicating," he said. "And that's
what really drives repressive governments really mad, so they strike back."
Madison will be in court in Pennsylvania on Nov. 17 for a preliminary
hearing on charges of hindering prosecution, criminal use of a
communication facility and possessing criminal instruments.
Eastern District Judge Dora Irizzarry will decide on Nov. 2 whether the
property taken from Madison's house can be admissible as evidence before
the federal grand jury.
The U.S. prosecutor in the case, Andrew Goldsmith, was not available for
comment. Despite statements by prosecutors that police found books on
poison and tire-spikes in his home, Madison said he does not think he
will be indicted because he was doing nothing illegal.
"Since they didn't find anything in our house," Madison said, "I guess
this will go on to the next house, and they'll fish for something there.
That's how these things work."
Charles Mostoller is a student journalist and photographer enrolled at
the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City.
See his work at http://CharlesMostoller.com
--
Dan Clore
New book: _Weird Words: A Lovecraftian Lexicon_:
http://tinyurl.com/yd3bxkw
My collected fiction: _The Unspeakable and Others_
(Wait for the new edition: http://hplmythos.com/ )
Lord We˙rdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://tinyurl.com/292yz9
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Skipper: Professor, will you tell these people who is
in charge on this island?
Professor: Why, no one.
Skipper: No one?
Thurston Howell III: No one? Good heavens, this is anarchy!
-- _Gilligan's Island_, episode #6, "President Gilligan" |
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