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NYC Lawyers Subpoena Code
RonMcMahon writes "Lawyers for the city of New York have subpoenaed the text message records of thousands of people involved in demonstrations at the 2004 Republican National Convention. Tad Hirsch, creator of the TXTmob code that enabled convention demonstrators to transmit messages to thousands of telephones, has been instructed to release the content of messages exchanged on the service and to identify people who sent and received messages. Hirsch argues that release of such information would be a violation of users' First Amendment and privacy rights. 'I think I have a moral responsibility to the people who use my service to protect their privacy,' said Hirsch."
...have the missing White House e-mails been located yet?
For those who have forgotten (or never heard about) the whole unconstitutional ordeal.
http://www.2600.com/rnc2004/index.html
Down with Amurkan fascists! And their plastic orange fences.
We have all gone to look for America.
Not everybody is a Ghandi, or a Martin Luther King. Some of us are not willing to go to jail, and breaking the law anonymously, and encouraging others to do so, is an important step that we can take to obtain freedom.
I totally agree with you about taking away citizen's voting rights.
How many people who want to exercise their legal right to protest will sit home next time because their career ambitions include jobs where even being on the same street as a protest could knock them off the hiring list?
Protesting is a waste of time, a hobby for the ineffective and unemployed.
Want to know their real angle? Imagine being a traveling professional who is unable to travel because of the "do not fly" list. Or runs the risk of missing flights and having corporate property stolen or destroyed because some TSA goon sees them on a "person of interest" list.
Restriction of travel is the most effective way to keep people with influence in line. Unlike censorship, the average person doesn't seem to care.
You're correct to a point. I should have clarified as 'inciting to violence' rather than inciting to break the law. Civil disobedience is a good thing. For that matter, there sometimes comes a point where violent revolution is a good thing as well (prior art: The American Revolution).
I am basically of the mind that you just have to follow the course of the three boxes. Soap Box, then Ballot Box, then Ammo Box. I also hope and pray that the latter option is never really required. I would far prefer a political revolution to an armed one.
IIRC, the subpoena is generally signed by a clerk of court. The party being subpoenaed can file a motion to quash the subpoena, in which case the judge looks at it. If the subpoena is vastly overbroad, there may be sanctions against the party trying to enforce it.
I don't really see any problems with this. The city is trying to defend itself in a series of lawsuits about its arrests of a bunch of protesters. One of the elements of its defense is probably that the people who were arrested were not just innocent bystanders caught up in the spur of the moment, but had planned and coordinated their effort. And, that's most easily discovered by subpoenaing records of that planning and coordination. Perfectly legitimate.
People actively and purposely violated a law in new york. This cost the city money and created semi-unsafe situations. The organizers of this lawbreaking can be charged in much the same way organized crime is charged.
Currently, people are suing the city because they where arrested back in 2004 in connections to illegal protests surrounding the RNC convention. The city wants this information to be able to prove or disprove their connections to willfully violating the laws which would make the suits meaningless or point to an avenue of settlement.
Similar to this;
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2007-10-18/news/breathtaking-abuse-of-the-constitution/
The local prosecutors office ordered and conducted the arrest of the newspaper editors for disclosing the fact that they had been requested, through the act of a horrifically crooked grand jury subpoena (which neither the judge nor jury had approved or even seen), to turn over a list of their entire readership and website visitors over a period of years.
I hope for a similar, if not stronger, reaction.