The OB Media Rundown for 12/28/11

BPD Subpoenas Occupy Boston Twitter Accounts, Mistakenly Confuses Handles & Hashtags

Perhaps what’s most interesting about the subpoena, though, is that the BPD and the DA don’t seem to understand Twitter at all. First, “Guido Fawkes” is the user name associated with the account @p0isAn0N, not a separate account. On top of that, @p0isAn0N tweeted earlier today that the BPD actually meant to target @p0isAnon, a different account associated with Anonymous.

Second, @OccupyBoston is an account that has been inactive since March 2010. The subpoena most likely meant to target @Occupy_Boston, the unofficial official account for the Occupy Boston movement. Similarly, for #d0xcak3, they most likely meant user @DoxCak3, who has ties to Anonymous, although it’s unclear.

http://tinyurl.com/d7umsme

Twitter Subpoena Reveals Law Enforcement Monitoring OWS Via Social Media

Twitter has been subpoenaed for information related to Occupy supporters’ accounts, proving that law enforcement agencies have been monitoring OWS supporters’ activity on social media. The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts is fed up with being mocked, ridiculed, and criticized by faceless Tweeters, so it’s taking matters into its own hands.

http://tinyurl.com/7jmnh2e

DA cautioned over Twitter subpoenas

A prominent civil liberties -advocate is warning prosecutors to tread lightly as they subpoena information on the Twitter handles linked to the hacking of -Boston police email. The Suffolk District Attorney’s Office asked Twitter to stay mum abut its subpoena for user information, but one user targeted was among the first to post a link to a copy of the -subpoena.

“Never declare war on the young,” said Harvey Silverglate, a noted civil libertarian. “They’ll outlast you. They’ll outthink you. They’ll outdo you. … That may be the lesson the DA’s office is about to learn.”

http://tinyurl.com/83z3twb

After “People’s Caucus,” 100 or more say they will protest at candidates’ offices

About 200 people were at Occupy Des Moines’ rented space Tuesday for the group’s “People’s Caucus.”

As the event wrapped up around 9 p.m., 100 or more of those indicated they would protest at the offices of presidential candidates. Thirty people each said they would protest at the campaign headquarters of President Obama and Mitt Romney; 18 people planned to protest at Ron Paul’s campaign offices; 10 people each said they would protest at the offices of Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich; seven people planned to protest at Michele Bachmann’s office; and one person said they would be at Rick Santorum’s office.

http://tinyurl.com/6ux46fb

Occupy movement strengthening its connections nationally through InterOccupy

Local occupations around the country are linking up through frequent, massive conference calls, tightening what is now an extremely loose national network that operates under the Occupy banner into a more focused force.

The effort, now known as InterOccupy, started out of Occupy Wall Street in New York in mid-October. It has since grown into an elaborate website with multiple weekly phone calls during which occupiers trade ideas, coordinate multistate actions, and plan for the future. Participants at about 150 occupations around the country (and a few internationally) have now participated in the calls, organizers tell me.

http://tinyurl.com/6of4b93

Occupy Geeks Are Building a Facebook for the 99%

Now it’s time for activists to move beyond other people’s social networks and build their own, according to Knutson. “We don’t want to trust Facebook with private messages among activists,” he said.

The same thinking applies to Twitter and other social networks – and the reasoning became clear last week, when a Massachusetts district attorney subpoenaed Twitter for information about the account @OccupyBoston and other accounts connected to the Boston movement. (To its credit, Twitter has a policy of fighting such orders.)

http://tinyurl.com/6qq554x

Former Obama supporters now occupying Iowa caucuses

Goodner is a volunteer with the local movement (they don’t have titles), and this week will be joining what activists here hope will be hundreds of people trying to transmit their message of income inequality while GOP candidates crisscross the state before the Jan. 3 caucuses.

The goal, Goodner and others here said Monday, is not to disrupt or interfere with the caucuses, but to spend the week beforehand taking “direct action” around Des Moines, something likely to involve marches, sit-ins and perhaps arrests. “We’ll be laying a little human equity on the line,” Goodner said.

http://tinyurl.com/7vb2xab

With So Many Voices, Will Occupy Still Be Heard?

There’s one thing the Occupy movement has going for it, Gitlin says. “The civil rights movement was very unpopular with Americans for much of its duration,” he says. “The anti-war movement represented little more than 10 percent of public opinion when it began.”

Still in its infancy, the movement has majority support in many polls. And there are often periods of quiescence in social movements. Early in the civil rights movement, people would often say it was over before it had really begun. So don’t believe any pundit who tells you he knows the future of the Occupy movement.

http://tinyurl.com/87r9cer

Occupiers Lack Support Of Social Agencies

Occupy Hartford was evicted from Turning Point Park on Dec. 6. One supporter, Rachel Hiskes of Vernon, who arrived to help pack up before the police barricade was fully established was arrested for trespassing. Her employer, NAFI [North American Family Institute] CT, a prominent Connecticut nonprofit human service agency, fired her.

It’s no surprise that the city’s CEOs failed to mosey on down to Turning Point Park, but why the lack of support and even outright hostility from human service organizations? Many of their mission statements point to common cause with the Occupy movement’s overarching goal of dismantling social and economic injustice for all people. And yet few made any overtures to support or collaborate. Maybe the Occupy tactics are too extreme or unconventional. Perhaps some are waiting for the movement to build enough momentum to make it a surer thing. I believe the real reason is money.

http://tinyurl.com/7w2nbja

‘US media pretend OWS no longer exists’

The US eviction of Occupy encampments is in coordination with the country’s corporate media which just treat the Occupy movement as if it no longer exists, an activist tells Press TV.

“But those who are participants in the Occupy movement are learning a lot from the experience. They’re learning a lot about the role of the police and the role of the corporate media and what their own potential is – to develop alternative means and to take direct action – that is what their greatest potential is,” said Sara Flounders, a New York based Occupy Wall Street activist.

http://tinyurl.com/d6tygfo

Economic Downturn Took a Detour at Capitol Hill

Largely insulated from the country’s economic downturn since 2008, members of Congress – many of them among the “1 percenters” denounced by Occupy Wall Street protesters – have gotten much richer even as most of the country has become much poorer in the last six years, according to an analysis by The New York Times based on data from the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit research group.

http://tinyurl.com/732kqfv

Food banks seek state help to address rising demand, USDA cutbacks

“If we don’t get more food we will have a social problem on our hands the likes of which we haven’t seen in a while,” said Andrew Morehouse, executive director of The Food Bank of Western Massachusetts.

Catherine D’Amato, president and chief executive officer of The Greater Boston Food Bank, said food received under the USDA’s emergency food assistance program is down 35 percent.

The Congressional Super Committee’s failure to reach consensus means more cuts to food programs, which took a 20 percent decrease in the current federal budget, she said.

http://tinyurl.com/76xb5et

Putin calls Russia protesters ‘leaderless’

Russia’s prime minister has belittled the country’s protest movement as lacking clear aims or leaders and rejected their demands for a review of the results of disputed parliamentary polls.

“They have no united programme, clear ways of reaching their aims – which are themselves not clear – or people who could achieve something concrete,” Vladimir Putin said in comments broadcast by state television.

http://tinyurl.com/79ru85z