Date: March 30, 2008 12:44:53 PM
MST
Subject: IAA under
attack
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
__________
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.”
****************************************************
This is a message from the SURVEILLANCE listserv for research and teaching in
surveillance studies. To unsubscribe, please send the following message to
<
[log in to unmask]>: UNSUBSCRIBE SURVEILLANCE For further help, please
visit:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/help
****************************************************<
[log in to unmask]>