G20 Resistance: Friends of Tortuga Twitterers

Re: G20 Resisters arrested for running communications HQ to inform protesters of police movements, etc.
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Judge gives go ahead to search items seized by the FBI November 5, 2009

Posted by friendsoftortuga in Uncategorized.

From Wired:

Federal authorities can resume combing through the notebooks, memory cards and computers of a twittering anarchist being investigated for violating an anti-rioting law, a federal judge in Brooklyn ruled Monday.
U.S. district court judge Dora L. Irizzary found no reason to throw out the government’s search of the home of a 41-year old social worker who used the micro-publishing service Twitter to help anti-globalization protestors at the recent G-20 convention, clearing the way for the feds to look through the evidence they collected. Madison and his attorney sought to have his possessions returned unexamined, on the grounds the search violated his constitutional rights to free speech.
Read the article

Tortuga House Update: Pennsylvania Drops All Charges Against Madison & Wallschlager for Twittering November 3, 2009

Posted by friendsoftortuga in Uncategorized.

In the face of a PR nightmare, Pennsylvania authorities have withdrawn all charges against two members of Tortuga accused of using Twitter to aid protesters at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh.  At a hearing today, instead of oral arguments regarding a defense motion to unseal the secret 18-page affidavit authorizing the arrests of Elliott Madison and Michael Wallschlager at a motel just outside of Pittsburgh, the prosecution immediately moved to withdraw all charges against the two before the defense had a chance to argue its case.  Although clear from the beginning that these charges were absurd based on the State’s very own laws, our housemates were incarcerated for 36 hours, had their van towed and belongings confiscated, and one house member was given $30,000 in straight bail.

The District Attorney and his spokesperson were at pains to explain why the State would drop all charges against these dangerous twitterists and of course, refused to admit that these charges were unconstitutional and a heavy-handed attempt to scare anarchists and others from protesting in ways unsanctioned by the government.  Instead, the prosecution says they decided that pursuing the charges “would be unwise” after consulting other law enforcement agencies and because of other pending investigations. The secret affidavit authorizing the arrests in Pennsylvania is set to become public on Nov. 23^rd. We imagine the Pennsylvania State Police will seek an extension to keep this document sealed—perhaps in order to hide the flimsiness of their secret evidence?  However, no matter the reason, we will fight to unseal this document and we will not let the State hide behind sealed evidence, obscure innuendo, and other traditional tactics used by secret police.

Though it is a victory that all the charges against our two housemates were dropped in Pennsylvania, we cannot forget that there is still a mysterious grand jury and other “ongoing investigations” out there. While we may be free from criminal proceedings now, we are still under the threat of future charges/indictments. What these might be, when they might happen, and what cause the State has is, of course, secret.  Although our only option is to wait and see, we refuse to let them go about their business ruining our lives in peace and quiet and will continue fighting them every step of the way.

For more information and updates, please go to friendsoftortuga.wordpress.com

Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project

Another take on the G20 resistance, via the Phoenix Anarchist Coalition:

Sept. 24: Mass March on the G-20 

Summit: The People’s Uprising!

Capitalism isn’t in crisis, capitalism IS the crisis…

For a present and future worth living we must act…

For a world based on dignity, love, compassion and sustainability we must work to build it…

Against all systems and relations of injustice, exploitation and oppression we endlessly and uncompromisingly rebel…

Meet: 2:30pm at Arsenal Park (40th Street & Penn Avenue in Lawrenceville)

We invite you to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Sept. 24 for a global justice convergence coinciding with, and occurring alongside, resistance to the G-20 summit descending on our city that same week.

For four days, thousands of people from all walks of life will be active participants in actions and dialogues that go beyond the G-20 summit to the heart of what matters: why is the world the way it is and what can we do about it? The summit offers a strategic opportunity to answer these questions and demonstrate our ongoing resistance to the existing social order.

During this convergence there will be community gatherings, labor marches, climate justice actions, events to connect global injustice to local institutions, and dozens of other activities. This is a gathering of those disaffected who are far from demoralized. A coming together of those who refuse to be crushed by this system’s violence and exclusion, who desire something more than to live their lives and observe the world around them through a pane of glass.

On Thursday, September 24, the G-20 summit officially begins and we will hold a mass march to their walled off meeting site downtown. This march will not be state-sanctioned; it is unpermitted and intended to allow people the space and freedom to oppose the G- 20 how they see fit. The rest is up to you! There will be different contingents focusing on workers, students and climate issues, alongside other feeder marches, bands, and hundreds engaged in a collective effort to disrupt the summit. The summit is much more than a meeting; it is the creation of a spectacle, legitimizing the ability of the few to wield power in the minds of the population and that is far more important to contest than an event that could conceivably occur as a giant conference call.

This march is the main event on Thursday, something that has been acknowledged by other sectors mobilizing against the summit. Some of our comrades have had experiences with going to protests in which 150 or 300 people, mostly wearing black, attempt to disrupt an event and are attacked by police only to find themselves isolated and without support in the broader community. We can't stress enough that this is not what's going to go down in Pittsburgh. We believe it is time for our movements to once again realize our power and to start thinking and planning with that strength in mind. We’re not going to settle for ducking behind others’ events. We’ve got numbers and we don’t need that kind of cover. Not to mention, if you live in the Steel City, you’re familiar with the overlap, the same faces at both liberal and radical events. Planning a march at the same time would only serve to decrease our numbers on both fronts. And ultimately, we aim to show solidarity based on respect for a political diversity within this struggle. We’ll be living and working alongside other Pittsburgh communities of resistance long after the pepper spray has cleared the air and the out-of-towners have headed home. We want to respect the stated goals of our neighbors, to protest the destructive, undemocratic policies of the G-20 and demonstrate that a better world is possible. Diversity of tactics works best when the space is available for that diversity to actually occur.

At its heart, this mass march springs from an understanding that our miseries and the myriad of injustices we see and experience are all consequences of the way in which society is structured. Profit is extracted from others’ labor and to achieve a maximization of profit necessitates a division of people along socially constructed lines, that decision-making and privilege are hierarchically arranged, that competition and the desire for total control necessitate ever expanding apparatuses of oppression and fear.

This is therefore not simply an “appeal” to the political process for universal health care, for an end to attacks on workers’ rights to organize, for an end to occupations of others’ lands, for clean water, for accessible education for all, for sustainability to forestall ecological collapse, or for a break with corporate power. It rejects both a singular focus on single issue organizing and the false notion that our world vision is about bringing together a bunch of complaints about the way things are. This march is our statement that our solutions must be as systemic as the problems we face, that our future lies in a “movement of movements” that work synergistically with one another to produce victories based on the interconnected nature of solutions. And so we don’t come to ask, beg or negotiate, we come to find strength in one another to work towards a society in which the injustices and indignities with which we struggle every day can finally be addressed.

In solidarity,
Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project

Web: http://www.resistg20.org
Convergence Center: 4374 Murray Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15217 (at the corner of Murray and Hazelwood in Greenfield).