top
East Bay
East Bay
Indybay
Indybay
Indybay
Regions
Indybay Regions North Coast Central Valley North Bay East Bay South Bay San Francisco Peninsula Santa Cruz IMC - Independent Media Center for the Monterey Bay Area North Coast Central Valley North Bay East Bay South Bay San Francisco Peninsula Santa Cruz IMC - Independent Media Center for the Monterey Bay Area California United States International Americas Haiti Iraq Palestine Afghanistan
Topics
Newswire
Features
From the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature

UCPD and Feds Raid Long Haul

by Frenzy
At around 10:30am Police from 3 departments forced entry into the Long Haul Infoshop in Berkeley
p1010043.jpg
At around 10:30am, 5-6 Officers made there way into the Longhaul Infoshop and broke down every door and stole every single computer on the property (including those used by the Slingshot collective and East Bay Prisoner Support). They also raided cabinets, cut locks and mis-sorted our mail.

People arrived after being informed of the situation, and demanded that the police show a warrant. The police said they would show one once they were done, and they did. Both copwatch and the Daily Planet were there to cover the incident. The departments involved were 4 UC Berkeley cops, 1 Alameda County Sheriff, and 1 Federal agent. The police never explained there reason for the raid other than that the computer equipment "may have been used to commit a felony". This is the first time the infoshop has been raided.

Video and Copies of the warrant will be posted later today, here are a few pictures.

We are asking that the community come out tonight and enjoy a movie at the long haul about the Chicago 10 and see the damage.

WE WILL NOT BE SILENCED!
§A UC cop
by Frenzy
p1010012_1_1_1.jpg
§Another UC cop
by Frenzy
p1010013_1_1_1.jpg
Another UC cop
§taking broken computers
by Frenzy
p1010032.jpg
§damaged locks
by Frenzy
p1010037_1_1_1.jpg
§again
by Frenzy
p1010038.jpg
§EBPS
by Frenzy
p1010039_1_1_1.jpg
§nothing but monitors
by Frenzy
p1010040.jpg
§back door
by Frenzy
p1010044_1_1_1.jpg
§back gate
by Frenzy
p1010045_1_1_1.jpg
§lh raid
by kathryn
it's 2:30 as of this writing. please show your support by getting the word out. the cops are no longer at the long haul, though, so no need to go there right now. (unless you are a lawyer) the LH collective has not officially decided to, but there will be folks gathering at 6pm tonight at the LH. thanks for all the support so far!
§Video of the Long Haul Raid
by frenzy
Copy the code below to embed this movie into a web page:
video of computers being ceased
§Explaination Of Video
by frenzy
The video features the UC cops helping two plain clothes officers who refused to give any information. The female cop was spotted with an FBI logo, but took it off later. It was also reported that the male plain clothes officer was from the Alameda county sheriff's office.
Add Your Comments

Comments (Hide Comments)
by LH volunteer
Did anyone write down badge numbers of the police present? I recognised Officer Kasiske (his name was also on the search warrant) and one other female UC officer, and Judge Ford gave the UC permission to pursue this search.

Please come by The Long Haul and show your support!
Many thanks.
by community member
Any advice on how to donate computers to Long Haul?
by unsure
I would have thought they had jurisdiction on campuses and other UC properties, but seems they can just raid anything anywhere they want with the permission of some judge.

wut up with that?
by wikipedia it
re: 'can UC raid anything they want anywhere?'

The UCPD is one of several police agencies in California having a state-wide jurisdiction and authority (other examples include the California Highway Patrol, the California State University Police Department, and the California Department of Fish and Game). UCPD officers, like most California police officers, are empowered by section 830.2(b) of the California Penal Code, giving them authority as duly sworn peace officers throughout the state of California[1]. As specified by section 92600 of the California Education Code, they are given wide geographical range to enforce the laws of the state[2].

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_California_Police_Department
by Anarchist
The actions of these pigs is an outrage that cannot be tolerated! What to Berkeley people think about people organizing a national day of protest and mobilization in support of Long Haul? I live outside California and would be willing to devote my time to supporting Long Haul and opposing the police state,
by Leni
eek. Okay - I'm making a connection, which could be wrong, due to the pixelated nature of the film clip. Is that the same gray Dodge Charger that they were using at the raid on the Riverside street house in Santa Cruz after there was a double firebombing (of a stem cell neurologist who uses a mouse model, and also supposedly of a yeast geneticist (the second researcher was less often mentioned)).
When B took these photos of them removing , a lot of people took note of the creepy high horsepower automobile used by the federal agents. see:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/08/07/18523836.php?show_comments=1

I am looking at the film clip at 3-3:30, where you very briefly can see the grille for just a second, and never very clearly. It appears to have the cross pattern of a charger. Primarily, I'm comparing the rear end of the vehicle as they turn the car around, and rear bumpers are a bit more generic among vehicle makes.
http://www.vsp.state.va.us/images/DodgeCharger2006.jpg

So, even though I phoned someone who said that locals believe this is connected with the tree sit in some way (because oaks treesitters sometimes come eat or volunteer or use the computer there or something?) , I'm mentally taking a leap because of this Dodge Charger and thinking this is related to the Santa Cruz firebombings or the home-demo animal rights stuff.
Also, look... what could the tree sitters have done that was so serious, recently? Probably someone at the scene could answer this very quickly. We all know, however, that there was a big response to this stupid firebombing, and they're really angry and there are FBI at both the Berkeley and Santa Cruz campuses.
I feel really bad about the Long Haul getting sucked into this. I recognize the voices of the people taking this tape, and they are all pretty wise, effectual, reliable folks, who are in it for the 'Long Haul'. I have many great memories of the Long haul, and I rarely encountered unreasonable fanatics or nuts there. Slingshot is a great magazine, often with much better writing than the local movie papers. It's nationally known. The Long Haul has one of the best Food not Bombs supply lines, with gourmet donated juices and sushi and sandwiches, yet people rarely discuss how vegan or whatever everyone is there. Incidentally, I was a biological researcher at Cal with invertebrates, vertebrates and plants.
by Leni
Also, there is a resemblance between a man with whitish brown hair, and a woman with brown hair who tucks her shirt in and carries items on the belt, in both of these Charger-style vehicles at the Riverside scene and the Long Haul scene. Again, the photos are backlit with sun, or are moving too quickly through the scene to truly tell.
Look first at the man who has a gray shirt in the photo 19 from the top or 7 from bottom here. He is also in most photos at the top.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/08/07/18523836.php?show_comments=1
Then look at the guy with more of a bulletproof vest in your video at the end of minute 2. He has the same body shape at least. The face looks a bit different in the 'cell phone while driving' photo 3 from the bottom, but I think it's the same guy. The woman sitting in the rear seat in that photo is probably the one with shoulder length hair and gray shirt who is in many photos.
What do you think?
by photos and video
The Charger used in Santa Cruz
http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2008/08/07/riverside11_8-7-08.jpg

And these people
http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2008/08/07/riverside19_8-7-08.jpg

Do appear to be the same people in the same Charger in Berkeley, based on the video
http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2008/08/27/policeraid1.mov
by San Jose Merc.
This article just appeared in the local newspapers online. They say that the UC police finally are saying that this is about an animal rights person who might have emailed something from one of the free terminals that they offer there. That really sucks. Quite a few groups who shouldn't be included on the same warrant had their property taken now. There are several completely different, nonoverlapping organizations in there.
http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_10321013

What would happen if the animal rights person had driven around with a laptop until he found an unprotected wireless internet source coming from a house on a random street? Could they look in that house?
by Max
Thursday 7pm@ Long Haul(3124 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley)

Anarchist folk from...

Jessie Williams
myspace.com/thesuburbanrevolt

Colton Saylor
Myspace.com/coltonsaylormusic

Andy Herrada
myspace.com/imahobofolkshit

Long Haul was raided by FBI, Alameda County Sheriff and UC Berkeley Police this morning at 10:30am.

They took all of our computers(over a dozen). They broke into all of our offices. They used a crow bar on the fence and doors.

We need computers, we need money to pay for damages, we need support from our friends and community!
by b
i just read reporting, not whining.
thanx for the report...people are familiar w/ this collective all over due to slingshot - you got support!!!
by Mothra
I was finally able to reach someone who claims to have assembled some of those computer systems. It wasn't easy because he is a grim fellow with engineering training, living halfway off the grid in a tent somewhere. He said he hopes they come back for the speakers and audio equipment, if they didn't take that, so that the Long Haul can start anew, and would really like either a description or a video of the process by the whichever unfortunate FBI computer technician has to actually start up those computers.
Apparently many of them average a vintage of 1994 because the Long Haul doesn't throw things out too often. Inside are a hacked hodge-podge of hardware parts from different salvaged computers.
Some have very unstable systems and can only even be booted up with lots of care and coaxing, as years of homeless people and travelers have come through to use the free computers, spreading scabies-like viruses from their flash drives or from email. The computers he donated tend to be all anticorporate debian operating system, but they tend to offer the user-experience like Windows 95 or similar. First, he'd like to know if they can locate motherboard batteries to get them started, because they might not be manufactured any longer. Does the FBI have specialists for this sort of thing? Good luck.
by chuckling


Are you serious when you suggest that this computer guru living in his tent has the ability to access his system, but the FBI will probably have trouble getting into it?
by nr5667
Truthfully, they take the whole thing, but they'll probably just take out the hard drives and possibly the memory and just plug'm into some special hardware -- so the rest of the computer and how well it functions is farily irrelevent.
by Bay Area National Anarchist
This is outrageous, did they have a warrant? What was it for? Do you need replacement computers?

For revolution,
BANA
by Mothra
"the FBI will probably have trouble getting into it?"
---------------------------------
The Long Haul definitely had several valuable and well maintained computers for its major projects. However, if they removed 14 computers, that probably included at least 3 older machines from the corner with rather stylized elements and counterintuitive steps for operation, if they turn on at all. I would visualize them getting back to their office or warehouse (who knows what sort of building the FBI has), and plugging them in. Maybe one will make a fan sound and bootup sounds but never comes to life, and another one will go through some startup screens but then come to a stop at a blank screen with a cursor or something. It doesn't seem likely that they would just set the broken machines aside, assuming they probably weren't used recently, and instead they'd have to set about diagnosing and fixing the problems so they can get at the browser cache. Surely they can do it, but it might take a few hours.
Can they just remove a hard drive and plug it into something else, and the operating system isn't an issue - they can just vacuum out all the emails and list of visited websites? It's probably true- I don't really know anything about the process.
Yep, just plug it into another computer, if it's an older computer, you have to change the jumper to slave, but that's it...

...There's all sorts of forensic software out there for recovery data on hard drives that have been formatted multiple times, and other methods.
by control us
Well, someone said that tent-guru-guy set all the computer's up on a non-corporate system. So clicking master to slave won't be as straightforward if it isn't even the same operating system, right?

The first computers were invented for gov't use; they've been in this game since the start. I doubt anything short of deep encryption or a magnetic wipe will be able to keep a fed away.
by scott lyons
Can there be any doubt remaining that we live in a fascist police-state, despite the high phrases and promises in Denver Thursday night?
by not a problem...
"Well, someone said that tent-guru-guy set all the computer's up on a non-corporate system. So clicking master to slave won't be as straightforward if it isn't even the same operating system, right?"

It's not the OS, it's the file system that counts. I have a hunch that the FBI probably knows how to extract data from a Unix based OS, common as they are... 'sides, Unix is a corporate OS (developed by Bell Laboratories in 1969), and Linux is a somewhat close relative (which has corporate versions)... So I'm not sure a non-corporate OS really exists...

I suppose it could, but it would be close to useless since each individual piece of hardware has to have software written so it'll work... Which is why Windows is actually pretty impressive... MAC OS just has to work on a few Apple Computers, Windows has to work on literally millions of different hardware configurations... But I digress...
by Yes there can...
"Can there be any doubt remaining that we live in a fascist police-state, despite the high phrases and promises in Denver Thursday night?"

The police had a warrant, if this goes to court, and the warrant was found to be granted based on insufficient evidence, the case can be thrown out (even if the charged party is guilty!).

Innocent until proven guilty, and due process. It may not always be pleasant or perfect, but it works pretty well, when you get down to it.
by JMG
"The police had a warrant, if this goes to court, and the warrant was found to be granted based on insufficient evidence, the case can be thrown out (even if the charged party is guilty!).

Innocent until proven guilty, and due process. It may not always be pleasant or perfect, but it works pretty well, when you get down to it."

Due process, eh? Sure, no problems. We can rely on habeus corpus, right? Well, not since MCA. We don't have to worry that simply expressing dissatisfaction with the war and economic collapse brought on by the pigmen will get us labeled as enemy combatants under the Homegrown Terrorism Act. You probably think all cops tell the truth on the stand, too, huh?

I suppose you're going to deliver the old, "it isn't perfect, but it's better than anything else out there." And failing that, "love it or leave it."
by Indeed?
How many people have been arrested under terrorism charges simply for having an anti-war stance?

Don't flatter yourselves, you really aren't that important...

As for the MCA, section 7 was ruled unconstitutional.

by Fiona
That's BS, that a judge will eventually decide whether the warrant was ok. By that time, the damage (really!) will be done, the targets will have suffered, and the remedies non-existent. Imagine the cops saying, Sorry about that.
The cops will already have extracted any info on the drives that they want, unless they really took a rather bumpy road back to their lair.
Even if we got that dreadful jurisdictional authority of the UC cops trimmed, there is still the FBI and the Sheriff and the Berkeley cops. They have the firepower to spare. And don't forget Homeland Security, Fish and Game, and Airport Security. And, in case you overlooked it, the National Guard under the authority of the Gov, unless federalized by the big Gov. But don't despair...organize.
by anyMouseWillDo
Basically y'all need to stop talking about the g-d computers, k? The most important issue is that a NEWSPAPER, and COMMUNITY CENTER got raided by the Feds over a supposed email, sounds like a crock. Its not about ONE EMAIL or whatever, its about control. These pigs want full control full information awareness, all this crap to keep the people on lock down. I don't mean to sound like a loon, or a wingnut or whatever, but the fact of the matter is the goal of a state is to perpetuate the dominant ideology. Anti-statist community building will be met with oppression (Churches are influenced by all states all the time).

It sucks because I've seen amazing shows at the Long Haul (and played crummy ones there), cooked a few meals, watched movies, stamped a few mailers, and though I always felt a little removed in a sense; I always have appreciated what they've done and the base intention for the fight for peoples' power (or ecology or whatever, I'm not the most formally formulated philosopher around, and wouldn't want to try to cast a net around all the subjectivities that have housed their heads within those hallowed halls.)

The Longhaul fed people, for free, entertained people, for free, enlightened people, for free, allowed people access to base needs like toilets, for free, empowered people, for free, published a paper, for free, and sold t-shirts and pins and zines and other ephemera for nominal fees.

why would THEY (THE MAN, you know...) do this.... well all of the above being moral and kind have nothing to do with the state.

I'm rethinking how much I've sold out. Alot.

LOVE AND SOLIDARITY FROM MY SOUL

by Sam Jennings

This might be helpful.

The Fourth Amendment
The right of the people to be secure in their persons,
houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable
searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and
no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause,
supported by Oath or affirmation, and _particularly_
describing the place to be searched, _and_
the persons or _things_ to be seized

A description of the actual warrant:
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/eve/826067505.html

fta: "The warrant, which was produced after the raid, had little relevant information (claiming the officers were searching for 1 - Property or things used as a means of committing a felony; 2 - Property or things that are evidence that tends to show a felony has been committed, or tends to show that a particular person has committed a felony). "

The warrant [regarding the things to be seized] seems vague. It certainly does not _particularly_ describe anything. In fact, it looks like a blank check warrant to me.

In fact, I believe that any warrant issued with such vague phrasing should be ruled null and void, according the the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Perhaps you can get the ACLU to agree with that.

ACLU Contact information:
http://www.aclu.org/affiliates/californianorthern.html

I hope this helps,
Sam

PS. I hope there wasn't actually a serious crime committed from any of those computers. There might be some folks in the world who view anarchism as an excuse to do nasty things. However, the ideal is dead unless guided by the unwavering principles of love, respect, living righteously, never seeking revenge or embracing evil-for-the-end-result, and showing kindness to all people, and ESPECIALLY for our enemies.

by jane
i think it's important to note the danger of BEING a revolutionary org as well as having non-profit, or 501c3 status.

This is not to degrade the struggle, but to recognize that you immediately compromise your safety from the state apparatus by surrendering records to them annually, money info, etc. it's dangerous.

it's a good thing to discuss anyway. we are limited because we are grassroots, financially, but can't we work out of the non-profit framework?
by gorlf donusky
gee great pictures. were they taken on a cell phone camera?

and is anyone else a little nervous about having used those computers? i hope the feds don't find out what jobs i applied for on craigslist or what articles off dailyrotten.com i was reading back in november 2007
by Mr. E
I hope that the lawsuit against the GM humans prevails
We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!

Donate

$80.00 donated
in the past month

Get Involved

If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.

Publish

Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.

IMC Network