[IMC] State subpoenas Twitter of Columbus Day Activists (ACAC 19)

[ACAC 19]

*For Immediate Release: **December 5, 2012*

Contact: Steven Angell 510-590-6467
Tony Marks-Block 415-238-1359
Email: supporttheacac19 at riseup.net

*SFPD subpoenas organizers' Twitter accounts *

Two of the nineteen demonstrators arrested in SF at the Columbus Day
protest received word last week that their Twitter accounts have been
subpoenaed by the San Francisco Police Department for the State of
California. The two are a part of the Anti-colonial Anti-capitalist 19
(ACAC 19), a group of protesters initially charged with felony conspiracy
and felony inciting a riot on October 6, 2012, at a march in downtown San
Francisco.

"This invasion of privacy is part of a current wave of political repression
on the West Coast," stated Marion Delgado, a member of the ACAC 19's
support committee. "The federal Grand Jury investigations in the Pacific
Northwest and this attempt to stop us from using social media are
connected. We've been attacking capitalism; they're attacking back." In
April of this year, a prior attempt to gain Twitter records from an Occupy
Wall Street participant, Malcolm Harris, saw Twitter fight the subpoena in
court for several months. Harris was accused of using the social media tool
as he was arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge on October 1, 2011 with 700 other
OWS community members.

"This is not the first time the online information network has been used as
a resource for state repression of political activity. This is a part of an
ongoing effort to chill political movements in the Bay Area and beyond,"
Delgado continued.

The ACAC 19 were arrested during a march which occurred as part of a
West Coast Anti-Colonial, Anti-Capitalist Convergence. Organizers of the
convergence stated that they wished to draw attention to resource
extraction, the poisoning of the Earth, the genocide of Indigenous peoples
through the Columbian Exchange, and the proliferation of present-day
colonial projects, such as the Israeli occupation of Gaza. Members of the
ACAC 19 have documented injuries including a broken nose, deep facial cuts
requiring stitches, and multiple hematomas which the ACAC 19 state are the
result of being beaten by the SFPD during their arrests. Despite being
charged with multiple felony counts and being held on a total of over
$735,000 in bail, the DA has since filed only misdemeanor charges against
the defendants. Shortly after the arrests on October 6, SFPD released the
mug shots and the home addresses of the ACAC 19 to media outlets, along
with allegations not substantiated by the provided evidence or charges. As
a result, some members of the ACAC 19 found threatening leaflets in their
neighborhood with their home addresses

and photos printed on them.

At least one member of the ACAC 19 has also experienced police harassment
at their workplace in the past month. Members of the ACAC 19 have filed
motion
  [image: page2image14552]

to quash these Twitter subpeonas in a San Francisco misdemeanor court this
Friday. Their trial is expected to begin early next year. They deny all
charges and have maintained their previous political efforts.

*The ACAC 19 Support Committee* is a group of Bay Area radicals who are
organizing together to support nineteen anti-colonial, anti-capitalist
comrades (the ACAC 19) who were beaten, arrested and subjected to a media
smear campaign by the San Francisco Police Department on and after October
6, 2012. http://supporttheacac19.wordpress.com/
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