Waiting For The Moon

Wired: Threat Level Covers Twitter Arrest

Wired Magazines Threat Level Blog has a good over view and latest news on the Elliot Madison arrest. It is clear to me there is a disconnect between the general public, the Obama Justice department and the murky world of law enforcement. There are so many different policing and intelligence services that share information and go off on a “terror” arresting people and invading their privacy; most Americans have no idea. First and fourth amendment rights are in great jeopardy today.


Elliot Madison
Photo by Bryan Derballa/Wired.com

Ruling Expected on Twittering Anarchist Raided Under ‘Rioting’ Laws
By Ryan Singel October 23, 2009

….. the U.S. Attorney’s Office defended the search in court, arguing that the broad search was just like those used in drug warrants, which were increasingly broadened over the last quarter century’s ill-fated War on Drugs.

The affidavits that supported the search warrant are under court seal, because the grand jury investigation is “complex and multi-state,” according to the prosecution.

The federal anti-rioting statute is serious business, and is seemingly easy to violate. For instance, it is a felony to “organize, promote, encourage, participate in, or carry on a riot; or […] to aid or abet any person in inciting or participating in […] a riot.” By that token, simply telling a person fleeing cops with batons which way to run makes you a felon.

One wonders how the Southern Christian Leadership Council and Martin Luther King, Jr. would have fared under that law, when he was in a Birmingham jail, writing letters urging people to support the direct-action program of sit-ins and marches. Those protesters were later attacked by police using dogs and fire hoses on the orders of Birmingham Sheriff Bull Connor.