[Surveillance-Studies-l] Fwd: IAA under attack

[Nils Zurawski]

interessante geschichte....

grüße

nilz

>Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 2008 12:44:53 -0700
>Reply-To: Torin Monahan <torin.monahan at ASU.EDU>
>Sender: Research and teaching on surveillance <SURVEILLANCE at JISCMAIL.AC.UK>
>From: Torin Monahan <torin.monahan at ASU.EDU>
>Subject: IAA under attack
>To: SURVEILLANCE at JISCMAIL.AC.UK
>
>
>Colleagues,
>
>Some of you might recall the wonderful chapter 
>by the Institute for Applied Autonomy in my 
>Surveillance & Security book, in which they 
>describe the use of a text-messaging system for 
>organizing protesters at the Republican National 
>Convention in New York City in 2004. It now 
>appears as if these "defensive surveillance" 
>tactics are under legal attack by NYC, which is 
>subpoenaing IAA for their data on those who used 
>the TXTmob system during the protest. I'll paste 
>a New York Times story about this below. I'll 
>also inquire as to whether IAA has a legal 
>defense fund set up; if they do, I'll pass that 
>information on to you.
>
>Best wishes,
>Torin
>
>Torin Monahan, Ph.D.
>Assistant Professor
>School of Justice & Social Inquiry
>Arizona State University
><mailto:torin.monahan at asu.edu>torin.monahan at asu.edu
><http://www.torinmonahan.com/>www.torinmonahan.com
>__________
>The New York Times
>
>March 30, 2008
>City Subpoenas Creator of Text Messaging Code
>By COLIN MOYNIHAN
>
>When delegates to the Republican National 
>Convention assembled in New York in August 2004, 
>the streets and sidewalks near Union Square and 
>Madison Square Garden filled with demonstrators. 
>Police officers in helmets formed barriers by 
>stretching orange netting across intersections. 
>Hordes of bicyclists participated in rolling 
>protests through nighttime streets, and 
>helicopters hovered overhead.
>
>These tableaus and others were described as they 
>happened in text messages that spread from 
>mobile phone to mobile phone in New York City 
>and beyond. The people sending and receiving the 
>messages were using technology, developed by an 
>anonymous group of artists and activists called 
>the Institute for Applied Autonomy, that allowed 
>users to form networks and transmit messages to 
>hundreds or thousands of telephones.
>
>Although the service, called TXTmob, was widely 
>used by demonstrators, reporters and possibly 
>even police officers, little was known about its 
>inventors. Last month, however, the New York 
>City Law Department issued a subpoena to Tad 
>Hirsch, a doctoral candidate at the 
>Massachusetts Institute of Technology who wrote 
>the code that created TXTmob.
>
>Lawyers representing the city in lawsuits filed 
>by hundreds of people arrested during the 
>convention asked Mr. Hirsch to hand over 
>voluminous records revealing the content of 
>messages exchanged on his service and 
>identifying people who sent and received 
>messages. Mr. Hirsch says that some of the 
>subpoenaed material no longer exists and that he 
>believes he has the right to keep other 
>information secret.
>
>"There's a principle at stake here," he said 
>recently by telephone. "I think I have a moral 
>responsibility to the people who use my service 
>to protect their privacy."
>
>The subpoena, which was issued Feb. 4, 
>instructed Mr. Hirsch, who is completing his 
>dissertation at M.I.T., to produce a wide range 
>of material, including all text messages sent 
>via TXTmob during the convention, the date and 
>time of the messages, information about people 
>who sent and received messages, and lists of 
>people who used the service.
>
>In a letter to the Law Department, David B. 
>Rankin, a lawyer for Mr. Hirsch, called the 
>subpoena "vague" and "overbroad," and wrote that 
>seeking information about TXTmob users who have 
>nothing to do with lawsuits against the city 
>would violate their First Amendment and privacy 
>rights.
>
>Lawyers for the city declined to comment.
>
>The subpoena is connected to a group of 62 
>lawsuits against the city that stem from arrests 
>during the convention and have been consolidated 
>in Federal District Court in Manhattan. About 
>1,800 people were arrested and charged, but 90 
>percent of them ultimately walked away from 
>court without pleading guilty or being convicted.
>
>Many people complained that they were arrested 
>unjustly, and a State Supreme Court justice 
>chastised the city after hundreds of people were 
>held by the police for more than 24 hours 
>without a hearing.
>
>The police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, has 
>called the convention a success for his 
>department, which he credited with preventing 
>major disruptions during a turbulent week. He 
>has countered complaints about police tactics by 
>saying that nearly a million people peacefully 
>expressed their political opinions, while the 
>convention and the city functioned smoothly.
>
>Mr. Hirsch said that the idea for TXTmob evolved 
>from conversations about how police departments 
>were adopting strategies to counter large-scale 
>marches that converged at a single spot.
>
>While preparing for the 2004 political 
>conventions in New York and Boston, some 
>demonstrators decided to plan decentralized 
>protests in which small, mobile groups held 
>rallies and roamed the streets.
>
>"The idea was to create a very dynamic, fluid 
>environment," Mr. Hirsch said. "We wanted to 
>transform areas around the entire city into 
>theaters of dissent."
>
>Organizers wanted to enable people in different 
>areas to spread word of what they were seeing in 
>each spot and to coordinate their movements. Mr. 
>Hirsch said that he wrote the TXTmob code over 
>about two weeks. After a trial run in Boston 
>during the Democratic National Convention, the 
>service was in wide use during the Republican 
>convention in New York. Hundreds of people went 
>to the TXTmob Web site and joined user groups at 
>no charge.
>
>As a result, when members of the War Resisters 
>League were arrested after starting to march up 
>Broadway, or when Republican delegates attended 
>a performance of "The Lion King" on West 42nd 
>Street, a server under a desk in Cambridge, 
>Mass., transmitted messages detailing the 
>action, often while scenes on the streets were 
>still unfolding.
>
>Messages were exchanged by self-organized 
>first-aid volunteers, demonstrators urging each 
>other on and even by people in far-flung cities 
>who simply wanted to trade thoughts or opinions 
>with those on the streets of New York. Reporters 
>began monitoring the messages too, looking for 
>word of breaking news and rushing to spots where 
>mass arrests were said to be taking place.
>
>And Mr. Hirsch said he thought it likely that 
>police officers were among those receiving 
>TXTmob messages on their phones.
>
>It is difficult to know for sure who received 
>messages, but an examination of police 
>surveillance documents prepared in 2003 and 
>2004, and unsealed by a federal magistrate last 
>year, makes it clear that the authorities were 
>aware of TXTmob at least a month before the 
>Republican convention began.
>
>A document marked "N.Y.P.D. SECRET" and dated 
>July 26, 2004, included the address of the 
>TXTmob Web site and stated, "It is anticipated 
>that text messaging is one of several different 
>communications systems that will be utilized to 
>organize the upcoming RNC protests."
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-- 
Dr. Nils Zurawski
Universität Hamburg
Inst. für kriminologische Sozialforschung
Allende-Platz 1
20146 Hamburg
Germany
tel. +49 (0) 40 42838 3329
fax. +49 (0) 40 42838 2328

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