punditman says...When you look for evidence of creeping fascism, sometimes you have to take a closer look at our brave new world. Here's an interesting article that ends up equating P2P file sharing with activists who monitored police scanners at the recent G-20 summit and told other demonstrators about police movements via Twitter—and got themselves arrested. Some might say they should have been arrested. But what if the police were acting illegally? What if the governments of the G-20 were acting like criminals? Who are the real crooks here. What if punditman forgot a question mark or three. Is that a crime.
New technologies, old battles. What will happen to the Pittsburgh Two? From Iran to the US, apparently the Revolution will not be tweeted...
… at least not if “law enforcers” get their way.
During the G-20 summit in the Pittsburgh area last week, police arrested two activists. These particular activists weren’t breaking windows. They weren’t setting cars on fire. They weren’t even parading around brandishing giant puppets and chanting anti-capitalist slogans.
In fact, they were in a hotel room in Kennedy, Pennsylvania, miles away from “unsanctioned” protests in Lawrenceville … listening to the radio and availing themselves of the hotel’s Wi-Fi connection. Now they stand accused of “hindering apprehension, criminal use of a communication facility and possessing instruments of crime.”
The radio they were listening to was (allegedly) a police scanner. They were (allegedly) using their Internet access to broadcast bulletins about police movements in Lawrenceville to activists at the protests, using Twitter.
Is that a crime? Should it be a crime?
