Feature Archives

On Sept. 18th, the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a lawsuit in federal court against the NSA on behalf of five AT&T customers to stop the ongoing surveillance of their telephone and internet communications. The plaintiffs are also suing the President, Vice President and other officials who ordered or participated in the warrantless wiretapping.

On Tuesday, September 16, a reportback with video from the mobilizations against the political conventions will be held in San Francisco at 7:30pm. "As the dust settles around the storm of protests surrounding the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, Bay Area activists who were on the streets of Denver and the Twin Cities are coming together to talk about their experiences."

Following last month's raid of the venerable Long Haul Infoshop in Berkeley, UCPD is still holding the computers and data storage devices seized from the computer lab, Slingshot newspaper and other tenants for analysis by a forensics team. The San Francisco chapter of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) says it is working with EFF on a legal response on behalf of the Long Haul.

On September 3rd, police preempted the weekly gathering in Parking Lot #4 alongside the Santa Cruz Farmer's Market by occupying the space under the trees usually used by the drum circle and Food Not Bombs. Invitations were posted to Santa Cruz Indymedia calling for people to participate on September 10th at around 3:00pm in solidarity with drummers, other musicians and friends playing music together.

On Tuesday, September 2nd, Palestinian professor and activist Sami Al-Arian was released from prison after more than five-and-a-half years behind bars. Immigration authorities released him on bail after they failed to explain his continued detention pending a trial for refusing to testify before a grand jury about a cluster of Muslim organizations in northern Virginia. But while he is out of prison, Sami Al-Arian is not free. He must remain under house detention at his daughter Laila's residence in Virginia, pending trial.

The 2008 Republican National Convention was held in St. Paul, Minnesota, September 1st through September 4th. In the Twin Cities, the RNC Welcoming Committee and a number of ad hoc regional activist groups made plans to demonstrate on the first day of the convention, September 1st. Twin Cities and Federal authorities moved hard against the activists by pre-emptively raiding a convergence space and numerous houses, confiscating equipment, and making arrests. After the convention began, police used tear gas, pepper spray, beanbag projectiles, and other weapons against demonstrators throughout St. Paul.

On August 29th at approximately 2:00pm, an FBI agent posing as a neighbor knocked at the door of a home in Oceanside, CA, lured Nathan Pope/Knoerl from his mother's house, and arrested him. The only known charge at this point is felony perjury. He is being held on $100,000 bond. Nathan is a resident of the house on Riverside Avenue in Santa Cruz that has been raided twice in the past six months.