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Slingshot #102<br><br>
<a href="http://slingshot.tao.ca/displaybi.php?0102014" eudora="autourl">
http://slingshot.tao.ca/displaybi.php?0102014<br><br>
</a>The Long Haul community space in Berkeley beat a government motion
to<br>
dismiss its federal lawsuit November 30, 2009 meaning that the
government<br>
defendants have to answer the lawsuit and a trial is now scheduled for
May<br>
16, 2011. Long Haul filed suit a year ago against all law
enforcement<br>
involved in an August 27, 2008 police raid on the space by a joint<br>
terrorism task force composed of University of California police,
sheriffs<br>
and the FBI. The police seized all computers at Long Haul after
breaking<br>
in with guns drawn to execute a search warrant as part of an
investigation<br>
of threatening emails allegedly sent to UC Berkeley animal
researchers<br>
from a public-access computer connected to the internet at Long
Haul.<br><br>
Long Haul is a non-profit organization that publishes Slingshot and<br>
operates an infoshop and library at 3124 Shattuck in Berkeley. It is
clear<br>
that the police never would have gotten such a broad search warrant
to<br>
seize every computer at the Berkeley Public Library if the email in<br>
question had come from the public library, rather than at a radical<br>
Infoshop. While the police perhaps intended their raid to intimidate
local<br>
activists, Long Haul was able to reopen the night of the raid. The<br>
public-access computer room reopened a month later with new (used)
donated<br>
computers. The police searched and copied hard drives from the
seized<br>
computers.<br><br>
The lawsuit, filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU
of<br>
Northern California, seeks relief against law enforcement using the
data<br>
from the seized computers for improper purposes. While the legal
process<br>
has so far moved very slowly, the struggle goes on to push back
against<br>
big brother police tactics against activist spaces.<br><br>
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<font size=3 color="#FF0000">Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#008000">415 863-9977<br><br>
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<a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/" eudora="autourl">
www.Freedomarchives.org</a></font><font size=3> </font></body>
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