Via Mark Crispin Miller (check out Miller's blog for the best info on Election Fraud and the massive problems with digital voting machines);

Dear Beloved Citizens of the World,

The Long Haul Infoshop (3124 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley, California) was recently raided by the FBI, who confiscated all 12 of the computers that were in the office. In response, we need to help support them, and stand united against arbitrary police injustice!

What is the Long Haul? It is a non-hierarchical community space and resource center. It is an all-volunteer, anti-profit, collectively run, consensus-based organization. It provides office space for various groups including the Infoshop, Slingshot Newspaper, East Bay Food Not Bombs, [Emphasis mine. -rep.] East Bay Prison Support, Cycles of Change, and more.

What is the Infoshop? It hosts a community library and reading room. It is an information distribution center featuring many periodicals, zines, pamphlets, videos, and books, not to mention free public internet access. You can post flyers for upcoming actions on the community bulletin board, create a zine in the loft, or make some food in the cooking area. It is a great place to meet and network with your community.

1. The facts

At 10:30 am on Wednesday, August 27th, the UC Berkeley police, plainclothes FBI agents, and an Alameda County sheriff raided at gunpoint the Long Haul, a long-standing community library and info shop.

Police spent at least an hour and a half searching the premises without allowing Long Haul members entry to their building. More than a dozen computers and other equipment were seized in the morning raid. Having made no attempt to contact Long Haul members, agents forced their way into the building by entering a neighboring nonprofit office with guns drawn.

Police refused to provide a search warrant until after the raid was over and property was seized.

The police went through every room, both public and locked - cutting or unscrewing the locks - and removed every computer from the building. Most of the computers taken were removed from an unmonitored public space where people come to use the computers just as they would at a public library. The remaining computers were taken from closed offices where they are needed for the day-to-day operation of the work done by members. Offices were rifled through, and a list of people who had borrowed books from the library was checked, as was the sales log.

The warrant, which was produced after the raid, had little relevant information. It claimed that the officers were searching for (1) property or things used as a means of committing a felony; and (2) property or things that are evidence that tends to show a felony has been committed, or tends to show that a particular person has committed a felony.

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"Property or things used as a means of committing a felony?"
What "things"?
A "search warrant" has to cite, with some specificity, the items being searched, on a basis of demonstrated, probable cause.
What "felony"?
Will just any old hypothetical felony do?
What "judge" signed this?! --da
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2. Here's what you can do to support:

(1) If you have a computer that you can donate or loan to the Long Haul, please call them at (510) 540-0751.

(2) Please call UC Berkeley Police Chief Victoria Harrison at (510) 642-1133. Let her know what you think of this raid, and demand that all seized property be returned immediately.

(3) Please call the San Francisco regional FBI headquarters at (415) 553-7400, and tell them to keep their hands off our activist communities.

(4) Please invite your friends to the facebook group (of course, monitored by them), and help spread the news of this event far & wide!

(5) Do you know any firm/lawyer who would like to do some pro bono work? Please call (510) 540-0751

(6) [There was a demonstration in support yesterday, I got this note a little late. -rep.]

3. Planetizing the movement

There are thousands of Long Hauls-like organizations all over the globe.

It's Collective Intelligence, the Invisible Revolution. They won't be able to stop it. Armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come (i.e. internet, Peer2Peer, permaculture, farmers markets, preventive medicine, nonviolence, Love in Action . . .).

What they don't know is that we are doing it for them, for their children, and for their children of their children who whisper in our dreams: What are you doing to protect our home, the Earth?