Protest Only Cellphone

Originally Published October 18, 2011; Last Updated November 28, 2016; Last Republished November 28, 2016

In light of Governor Brown's recent veto of  legislation requiring California authorities to obtain a judge issued warrant1 prior to searching the contents of a cellphone, the irresistible tendency of all authorities to search cellphones (and anything else) incident to your arrest2, and EFF's, Cell Phone Guide for Occupy Wall Street Protesters (and Everyone Else) it seems wise to designate a cellphone as your protest only cellphone, particularity if you plan to play a publicly prominent role in a protest.

It may be useful to periodically remind yourself that until just before these "occupy" protests many Americans (and others) thought exercising our beautiful First Amendment meant saying "good morning" to your neighbor in the Time, Manner, and Place prescribed by our authorities.

It's wonderful to observe a significant number of Americans (and others) beginning to disabuse themselves and others of such tepid First Amendment notions—our magnificent and majestic First Amendment, by definition is meant to disrupt, notwithstanding any Time, Manner, and Place concepts imposed by our mostly well-meaning authorities.

As a bonus all meaningful exercise, by our citizen's, of their First Amendment rights provide addition opportunities to reinforce and expand its scope.

Twit: 

UPDATED 11/28/2016 @ProPubPrivacy; #OccupySF; #BlackLivesMatter;

Web:


UPDATED 11/28/2016 Ted, Your smartphone is a civil rights issue; Christopher Soghoian

Today, a responsible government will recommend, encourage, and promote default strong encryption for all communication devices used by its citizenry.

UPDATED 08/28/2012 CNet, Twitter renews privacy fight in Occupy Wall Street case
UPDATED 07/26/2012 TedTalk, Your Phone Company is Watching

UPDATED 07/09/2012 Reuters, Occupy protester's tweets must be handed over: judge

UPDATED 06/01/2012 MSNBC, First Amendment rights can be terminated': When cops, cameras don't mix
 ACLU, Know Your Rights: Photographers and ACLU, You Have Every Right to Photograph

Our police officers have a tough job, particularly when improperly or inadequately trained to professionally perform their job when citizens and reporters exercise their oversight responsibilities by video tapping their activity.

Unfortunately too many of our nation's police officers understand policing in terms of confrontation—an understanding that is ineffective, unprofessional and authority eroding. It's worth noting that police officers will often or always assert qualified immunity when answering any complaints for their unprofessional conduct (e.g. Simon Glik v. John Cunniffe et al.). It will be helpful if our courts, as in Simon begin expecting more professional and less unprofessional conduct from our police officers.

The above video can be added to the growing number of videos under the category of unprofessional and costly conduct by a police officer.

UPDATED 04/25/2012 Reuters, GE annual meeting interrupted by 99 Percent protesters

UPDATED 03/27/2012 SF Examiner,  SFPD wants to keep its FBI ties covert

UPDATED 03/23/2012 WSJ, Documents show NYPD infiltrated liberal groups

Deju Vu—our law enforcement agencies seem incapable of self-restraint with respect to spying on citizens.


UPDATED 03/09/2012 Reuters, Judge sets stage to take over Oakland's troubled cops

UPDATED 01/30/2012 Reuters, Arrests in Oakland protests rise to more than 400 and MoJo, Journalists—Myself Included—Swept Up in Mass Arrest at Occupy Oakland

Protesters intentionally inflicting property damage seems as non-productive as Oakland Councilman Ignacio De La Fuente's statement that the protesters are engaging in "domestic terrorism"—perhaps  the councilman  has been overly influenced by a “CIA Helper” or hyperactive imagination or fear?

Deployment of a paramilitary police force does not seem like an optimal or useful solution to the ongoing “Occupy Protests”—in fact it's a bit of a mystery how our police forces have become so militarized. Perhaps the "logical extension" of our nation's pathological propensity to substitute force and violence for solutions to many of our problems? A propensity that seems to have permeated, saturated and harmed local governments.

In any event, Oakland’s paramilitary police force seems particularly handicapped by its history⁵ of systemically provoking and engaging in cyclical force and violence against segments of Oakland’s citizenry and residents.

UPDATED 01/28/2012 SJM, More than 100 Occupy Oakland protesters arrest, tear gas deployed, American flag burned

UPDATED 11/21/2011 UPI, 32,000 Occupy protesters march in N.Y. (24 images)  and

Authorities brutally pepper spray then maul UC Davis students nonviolently protesting Wall Street's looting⁴ of their education funds, which has jeopardized both their and our nation's future.

Chancellor Linda Katehi has declined calls for her resignation promising instead to investigate the incident. Perhaps the investigation will inquire into why our authorities seem so incapable of resolving problems without resorting to force.

UPDATED 11/5/2011 SFGate, Jean Quan resists use of police on Occupy camp

If Mayor Quan will surrender to her critics and engage the police's de rigueur authoritarian, coercive, and confrontational response we might be able to collect some statistical data for comparison with San Francisco's more progressive accommodating with dialogue response³?

UPDATED 10/28/2011 UPI, Canada Occupy protesters prepare for winter


UPDATED 10/27/2011 UPI, Occupy' protests spread worldwide (36 images) and Yahoo Photos, Occupy Oakland rallies around wounded vet 


UPDATED 10/26/2011 Disturbing video of excessive aggressive treatment of OWS Oakland protesters (also Guardian, Occupy Oakland: Iraq war veteran in critical condition after police clashes): 

It's probably a good time to demand that our authorities completely cease all application of force when interacting with our citizens.


In light of Oakland police's history of reflexive application of aggressive tactics, simply replace the entire Oakland police department so credible connections with the community can be reestablished and rebuilt.

UPDATED 10/24/2011 RT, Gorbachev wants perestroika for America

ProPublic, Just How Much Can the State Restrict a Peaceful Protest?


-----notes-----

1. Expectations of privacy or more specifically the Supreme Court's understanding of expectations of privacy is a key concept in deciding the scope of privacy protection—stated differently, expect more privacy get more privacy.

2. Prominent protest participants should assume our authorities have been taught and will seek intelligence, including how to use arrests, even illegal arrests as one means of obtaining intelligence.

Think of a "CIA helper" or whatever they are calling him these days (press has been asked to withhold his name), yelling: "No! No! How many times do I have to tell you focus on the intelligence not the arrest".

UPDATED 01/26/2012 Newsday, CIA to pull officer from NYPD after internal probe

3. It should be noted that San Francisco (Mayor Lee) also initially responded with reactionary force before its Board of Supervisors resolved to urge accommodation and dialogue.

It's difficult to overstate how fast governance models that depend on  force have become obsolete.

A huge problem is that neither our national nor local governments have developed and learned to apply models enabling them to effectively govern without force. Thus, both Oakland and San Francisco's initial reactionary response is the application of force.

Fortunately, force models have become economically, politically, and legally unsustainable. Unfortunately, they are the dominant models our leaders have learned, rehearsed, habitually used, and know very well.

Encouragingly, it took some of San Francisco and Oakland's leaders less than 48 hours to redirect their initial application of force, but their new learning curve will likely be steep and discontinuous.

4. Of course Wall Street prefers to understand their serial securitization of debt, Bayesian calculations,  and continuing bailouts as "financial innovation".

Sadly, as exhausted national, state, and local treasury accounts push education costs skyward Wall Street is ready with an inexhaustible supply of "financial innovations".

Perhaps the best protest our students can launch and maintain is to ensure they responsibly innovate on behalf of their nation far from the toxic (some might say criminal, deceptive, fraudulent, and opaque) Wall Street or similar environment?

5. A history that now requires federal court monitors for the Oakland Police Department (OPD)—the same court has recently expressed concern about OPD’s slow implementation of agreed reform:

"...Turning to more substantive matters, the Oakland Police Department is, without a doubt, better off now than when these cases were filed in 2000 and 2001. Also without a doubt, however, much significant work remains if the Department is ever to achieve the promises of the Negotiated Settlement Agreement (“NSA”) reached by the parties in 2003. The Court remains in disbelief that Defendants have yet – nine years later – to achieve what they themselves agreed was doable in no more than five years. Moreover, this is not a case where the end goals were originally out of reach or in any way extraordinary. To the contrary, as two different independent monitoring teams, both of whom were selected by Defendants, have explained, the NSA represents a collection of standard good police practices, and this Department finds itself woefully behind its peers around the state and nation....--District Court Judge Thelton Henderson--

Also reported in the New York Times, An Order in Oakland and SFGate, Oakland police could face federal takeover