There's no doubt that social media has played a huge and vital role in the 'Arab Spring', in OWS's beginings, in Greece's uprising, in Spain, in many others this past couple of years. But as the Commondreams Article about warrentless surveillance points out, as Harper's Bill C-30 shows and as years of experience in Latin America clearly teaches us-the only really safe communications route is small scale face to face contact with trusted companions.
Social media worked well to get the ball rolling because the empire's security apparatus was behind the curve of the new media, this is no longer true. The web is an open pipe in all directions. As groups like Anonymous have shown it can be an effective tool of resistance. But the success of Anonymous, who organizies its attacks behind the scenes, also shows how they've already learned the lesson of the security limits of social media.
Spring will be on us here in the northern hemisphere soon and with it will bloom the next season of protests. mr. mud hopes that this years crop of protests will have evolved new traits in response to last year's conditions and that some of those new traits include new tactics that will have learned, as the flaura and fauna around them do each year, to anticipate the coming climate of increased repression and warrrentless surveillance ahead.
Warrantless Surveillance?: Gov't Subpoenas OWS Activist's Twitter Records - Allowing the government to gets its hands on this data with nothing more than an administrative subpoena renders the Fourth Amendment meaningless. Only with the protection of a search warrant, and the heightened judicial supervision that comes along with it, can the voracious appetite of law enforcement be curbed.
