Archive | August, 2004

Writer and blogger Paul Schmelzer has posted a “writer’s cut” of a piece he’s written for the upcoming issue of Adbusters that gives an overview of the guerrilla technologies that will be used by RNC protesters.

Two of the technologies use unlicensed radio to spread information. The more interesting, and disruptive, application is:

Flash radiojacking: Jeremijenko and the Bureau of Inverse Technology (BIT), will use a special transmitter to break into radio frequencies reserved for corporate stations, giving bursts of information so brief that the FCC canÂ’t lock onto their transmission location.

I’m curious to know how much power they plan to use. It’s easy to blot out a full-power station for just a few blocks with a micropower transmitter under 100 watts, but it’s harder to overwhelm a multi-kilowatt commercial station for a bigger area, especially if the transmitter is on the ground. But the unique topographical environment of Manhattan, with all the tall buildings, should make for interesting results.

From the looks of things at this point, I think it’s fair to say that planning and strategy for anti-RNC protests are probably better organized than any mass actions in th US since the WTO in Seattle and the 2000 RNC.

There’s a little bit more information on Radical Reference from the NYC IMC.

My partner, Ellen Knutson, is one of the radical librarians fielding questions. She is one of the founding radical librarians at the U-C IMC Library, as is another one of the radical reference librarians, James Jacobs, who has since moved on to sunnier pastures. Ellen has been hard at work already this past week answering questions that have been streaming into the site, and the RNC is still a couple of weeks away.

The New York Sun has a short article on the Radical Reference effort, including short quotes from some of the principals.

There’s even a tidbit of information I didn’t know (even though I share a house with one of the radical librarians):

But Radical Reference is more than a Web site. During the convention, it plans to have 20 librarians roaming the protest pens, answering questions.

They are fulfilling an important function, said Jessamyn West, a public librarian from Vermont who played a similar role at the WTO protest in Seattle in 1999. “We need sane people providing accurate information in what could be a chaotic situation,” Ms. West said. “If someone says the cops are using rubber bullets, we need to verify that information to prevent panic. I call it rumor control.”