[iDC] hello & more on G20: twerrorism

[Dara Greenwald]

Hi,

In the spirit of recent re-intros, my name is Dara, I am a media  
artist living in Brooklyn and finishing up the controversial practice- 
based PhD at RPI.
I don't post much on listservs but I love an in-person discussion.  
(BTW, I thought the panel on Changing Labor Value was great! And I  
plan to attend the Digital Labor conference.)

I wanted to let the list know about a recent case that has  
implications for the use of social media, the repression of dissent,  
and is a follow up to the last post on police tactics at the G20.

Last week in Queens, NY a house was raided by the FBI for 16 hours in  
connection to the arrest of man who was using Twitter at the G20  
protests. Some of the residents of this group house are artists and  
all of their video, books, computers, pictures, etc were seized even  
though they were not the subject of the investigation. (The mainstream  
reports even mention that "pictures of Lenin were seized" bizarre that  
the police chose to report that to the media...). Many commentators  
have pointed out the hypocrisy of celebrating the use of Twitter in  
protests in other countries and then users being arrested when  
connected to protests in the US.

Here are links to both corporate and independent coverage of this case.
http://rawstory.com/2009/10/g20-protester-arrested-for-twitter/
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/nyregion/05txt.html
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/6/twitter_crackdown_nyc_activist_arrested_for
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/queens/queens_terror_raid_hits_anarchist_ZF8dAa71wIlmwyUXf9S5EO

coverage of police tactics at G20
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JySzR9G5KNc

Best, Dara