Feature Archives

On November 23rd, immigrant rights groups held actions in San Francisco and Washington D.C. to expose the unjust treatment of immigrants in both Congressional and Senate health care bills. In San Francisco, hundreds of people joined a vigil at House Speaker Pelosi’s office to urge her to fight against anti-immigrant amendments to the bills. The same day, a group of Asian Americans and Latinos confronted staff in the office of US Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina.

On October 13th, two Minneapolis, MN activists were subpoenaed to appear before an Iowa Grand Jury, ostensibly investigating a November 2004 Animal Liberation Front raid of a University of Iowa psychology department animal laboratory. Twice they refused to testify and were then ordered jailed for contempt by a federal district judge on November 17th. On November 19th, Scott DeMuth was additionally charged with conspiracy to commit animal enterprise terrorism in Davenport, Iowa federal court.

A police fishing expedition has been fought successfully over the course of the past year by one of the Indymedia.us system administrators and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), largely in secret due to dodgy gag orders. Earlier this year, U.S. attorneys issued a federal grand jury subpoena to Indymedia.us sysadmin Kristina Clair demanding “all IP traffic to and from www.indymedia.us" for a particular date, potentially identifying every person who visited any news story on the Indymedia site. EFF argued that the overly broad demand for Internet records not only violated federal privacy law but also violated Clair’s First Amendment rights, by ordering her not to disclose the existence of the subpoena without a U.S. attorney’s permission.

q@ writes: "On September 24th some of the most militant politicized street protests the States have seen in nearly a decade countered the G20 summit in Pittsburgh. Anarchist Queers and Trannies were on the frontlines of this struggle; bringing the numbers, the flare, and the wrecking crews. A days worth of tear gas, rubber bullet attacks, and fending off straight-idiot-liberals, set the tone for what would be a night of ravenous Queer revenge."

Fifteen people occupied the San Francisco office of Speaker Nancy Pelosi on November 3rd, stating they would remain there, risking arrest, until Pelosi explained why she has turned her back on key promises related to health care reform. After three hours twelve people inside Pelosi's office were arrested for creating a disturbance on federal property. The charge against them was based on a technicality; singing and chanting for single payer was deemed not in accord with the rules and regulations of the federal building.

Canadian authorities, acting at the behest of U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency officials, arrested seed distributor, activist and magazine publisher Marc Emery, often referred to as the "Prince of Pot", on July 29th, 2005 on charges of conspiracy to distribute marijuana seeds, conspiracy to distribute marijuana and conspiracy to engage in money laundering. His arrest was politically motivated, based on drug legalization efforts. Emery and supporters spent years fighting extradition, however he surrendered into the custody of the British Columbia Supreme Court on September 28th, 2009 and is awaiting extradition to a US federal prison.

On September 24th, San Francisco-based Twitter.com shut down an account that was monitoring the movement of police and military through the city of Pittsburgh during protests against the G-20 summit on September 24th and 25th. The Pennsylvania State Police also arrested Elliot Madison and Michael Wallschlaeger and accused them of "criminal use of communication facility" and other charges. On October 1st, the FBI raided Elliot's home in Queens.