Elliot Madison Accused Of Using Twitter To Tweet Police Actions At G-20 Protests

NEW YORK — A self-described New York City anarchist has been accused of tweeting the location of police officers to protesters trying to evade them during the Group of 20 economic summit in Pittsburgh.

Pennsylvania State Police arrested Elliot Madison alleging he used Twitter to direct the movement of protesters and inform them about law enforcement actions at last month's summit.

The New York Post reported the arrest in Saturday editions.

Court papers filed by Madison's attorney say FBI agents executed a search warrant at the 41-year-old's Queens home on Thursday. They seized computers, political writings and anarchist literature.

Madison faces charges including hindering prosecution.

His attorney didn't immediately return a call requesting comment Saturday.

Comments

[Eris23Skidoo]

Welcome to Iran.

[CraigBurton]

2009: "He used twitter to help fellow protesters."
In 2010 it will be "He used his phone help fellow protesters."
In 2011 it will be "He used his VOICE to help fellow protesters."
In 2012 it will be "We believe he was thinking about an unrelated group of protesters."

[FreeinTX]

They're setting a precident! Madison should not only sue everyone involved in the decision to arrest him, he should also file CRIMINAL COMPLAINTS against everyone involved in this TYRANNY! "Hindering prosecution?" That is COMPLETELY REDICULOUS!!!
But people need to WAKE UP! Realize what is going on here. This is TYRANNY defined! The ONLY mischief that occured in Pittsberg, occured at the hands, and by the hands, of the Pittsberg police, the National Guard, the US ARMY, and PARAMILITARY PRIVATE SECURITY like Xe. The Pittsberg cops and the cops from all over the country on a JTFO, dressed unidentifiably in black storm trooper outfits would corral crowds into groups, call the groups 'unlawful assemblies,' order them to disburse, provide them no outlet to disburse, then, when the crowd failed to disburse, they would come in and tear the crowd apart, and arrest everyone, including students who were not even demonstrating. Cops were even caught sending in AGENTS PROVACATEUR, and broke laws, themselves, to justify the storm trooper's actions. And let's also mention here the "snatch and grab" operations where cops, dressed in military camoflauge, unidentifiable, no name tags, no id's, pull up in an unmarked car, grab you, throw you into the car, and drive off. Right out of KGB Russia. A complete RIGHTS VIOLATION!
People at all levels of government need to be arrested for their HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS!!! Get them out of our government, and out of our lives. Until we do, NOTHING is gonna get better!

[amdezurik]

The militarization of our "police" is almost complete. The crapublicant's will have exactly what they want and "police" forces will not have to answer to anyone about anything unless it impacts the very very rich.

[WiseLonghorn]

Patriot Act.....

[iLoveOldNY]

Welcome to China.

[ImaLibDem]

It's gotta be embarrasing for the police' favorite doughnut hangout to be so well documented.

[EminemsRevenge]

This story made absolutely NO SENSE to me...what laws are being broken?

[watchTVgetSTUPID]

Welcome to Comunist China. Any resistance to the New World Order will be delt with harshly.

[CoronaDischarge]

I don't think there is any question that they are overreaching with these charges. I think they are just PO'ed that someone was making their activities more difficult. It depends too, if the Twittering represented some attempt to direct the activities of the protesters, potentially a crime if he was directing them in the commission of a crime, or merely reporting their positioning on public streets generally to the public. Reporting would seem to fall more squarely on issues relating to free speech.

As to suppressing free speech by seizing literature, I think they only seized evidence to establish motive for commission of the alleged crimes, nothing more sinister than that. If they confiscated a warehouse of printed material than that would be different.

[nachtengel]

My favorite part to this is that now people will be much smarter about how they do this. Much much more clever about how they obfuscate connectivity. The police are only asking to be in the proverbial dark the next time.

This is a very clever country (and world!) we live in, and we are living in a world where a large team spending millions of dollars a year to encrypt the iphonel, are loosing to 15 yr olds who crack the iphone OS in under 15 minutes by.

Who do the police think they are, and why aren't they learning by the mistakes that the RIAA made (by introducing a now untraceable torrent system, caused by destroying weaker systems that were much easier to trace).

Police states lead to innovation through obfuscation, so i say bring it on.

[lakeqi]

You can intellectualize this crap if you want to- but the first words that came to my mind after reading this were "police state", like I said, the only reason our masters havent put us in more traditional work camps is that they like efficiency and we make them more this way. If we could make them more through more traditional forms, we'd all be screwed, and it may come to that. This is the Matrix all over again.

[BlackYowe]

This is truly disturbing!

[arimoore]

people can't tell people where the police are? were the police in a secret location? and since when is anarchist literature something that is confiscated in america?

[paulbikes]

hindering apprehension or prosecution, criminal use of a communication facility and possessing instruments of crime.

Police state.

[BlackYowe]

1984

[Citizen4Justice]

A shining example of an efficient police state.

[TheIvoryPoacher]

Wait.. What was his crime? How much time is he facing? Does using Twitter warrant a search?

1984, here we come.