Computer Hacker Severely Beaten after Criticizing Prison Conditions

Target of Campaign by U.S. Secret Service

Planned Protest

We spoke to the Northamton County Executive's office today. We do *not* need to file for a permit to hold a peaceful demonstration. The county sheriff advises:

1. Please call him, the warden, and the county executive a day in advance so that they can set up appropriate additional security at their sites.
2. No megaphones allowed.
3. No blocking of pedestrian or vehicular traffic.
4. No violence.

They also advised us to phone the City of Easton to see if they have any specific rules or permits for demonstrations.

We are tentatively planning a protest for a week from Thursday (9/19) with a bus leaving from Long Island and picking people up in New York City. This would be occurring in the morning starting at around 9. What we need to know now is how many people will be committing. We won't be charging anyone for the trip but we'll take donations at some point. That way, cost won't be a factor for anyone. By scheduling it this far in advance, we'll have enough lead time for the word to get out and also allow people to get out of things like school and work. It's essential that we have this on a weekday since our visibility would be greatly reduced if we did this on a day the courthouse wasn't open.

We also need to know if people will be coming to this thing from other places. We've been getting lots of responses from all over but we need to translate this into actual numbers. If the numbers are big enough we may be able to get additional buses.

The plan at this point is to be at the courthouse/prison in Easton, PA where Ed is currently being held and where the sentencing was imposed. We'll post the exact address as the date gets closer. We are also planning to protest at other sites on that day such as the Secret Service headquarters in Philadelphia. If we decide to picket outside the homes of those involved, we won't be announcing that in advance. Having a bus or two of protestors show up outside your door unannounced is something you remember for the rest of your life. Announcing it in advance would spoil that special feeling. :)

The protest in Easton is scheduled to start at around 12 or 1. At this point, please email us at protest@2600.com to let us know if you can come or not. To join our mailing list, email listproc@2600.com and enter as the first line of text (not the subject) the following:

SUBSCRIBE PROTEST-L USERNAME 

where username is your email address. Once you have signed up you can send mail to the entire list by mailing to protest-l@2600.com. 

More information on this case can be found on the following web site: http://www.2600.com.