Jamie writes "Agnese Trocchi analyses the recent Pisanu report on 'diffuse political illegality' for Metamute. See the latest Metamute webexclusive, published today. Including translation of the Disobedienti response by Matthew Hyland."

This week, in anticipation of imminent conflict in Iraq, the Italian Minister of Internal Affairs Giuseppe Pisanu has decided that the moment is right to deal a blow against voices in disagreement with the war.

pisanu

In a document entitled 'Internal and International Terrorism', presented to the Italian Parliament's Commission of Defence and Constitutional Affairs on the 27th of January 2003, Pisanu outlines some disturbing new strategies intended to counter the perceived danger of terrorism from internal and external quarters. He points to the threat of what he calls 'international Islamic terrorism', and highlights the relationship between this 'terrorism' and the so-called 'subversive groups of the extreme left' in Italy - for example, certain insurrectionary anarchist groups and the Red Brigade, which purportedly murdered politician Marco Biagi last year. Such groups, Pisanu argues, are part of a 'diffuse political illegality' - and amongst them, he says, the 'Disobedienti movement' is particularly culpable.

Read the rest at Metamute

Anonymous Comrade writes "" 'Black Bloc' Protesters Make Their Mark in San Francisco: Anarchists in Masks Responsible for Peace March Vandalism, Police Say"

Tom Abate, [San Francisco] Chronicle Staff Writer, Monday, January 27, 2003

ludd.net writes:

"Stop the Madness of King George:

A Dispatch from San Francisco"

Iain A. Boal

Saturday January 18th dawned clear and cloudless in San Francisco. The news coming to us from the East Coast over the Pacifica airwaves, the independent radio network founded half a century ago on the eve of the Korean War, was of a bitterly cold day in Washington, DC. Despite the weather, half a million people, according to a later estimate of the Washington Post, were filling the streets of the capital with one message in a thousand versions -- "No war on Iraq".

State to Save Billions on Software:

Crippling Licence Fees Will Be Avoided by Using Free
Open-Source Programs

http://www.bday.co.za/bday/content/direct/1,3523,1 266306-6099-0,00.html>

Information Technology Editor

When Microsoft introduced a new licensing model for its
software late last year, simmering resentment within
government finally boiled over.

Antimilitarist Solidarity Network / Turkey

The common statement of our friends who will stand declare their anti-war

stance through 'conscience objection' and 'total objection' on Friday:

Anonymous Comrade writes "[Here is the founding declaration of
United States Labor Against the War,
a new american pacifist syndicalist
organisation. Communicated by the
postal service union people from
NEFAC - North Easy Federation of
Anarcho Communists]

Over 100 unionists from across the country met in Chicago this
weekend to form the organization to promote antiwar sentiment
and organizing throughout the labor movement.
They approved the following statement of unity:

Anonymous Comrade writes:

Ed Rosenthal's Federal Trial Begins

Feds Falter on Pot Plant Count

Tuesday, January 21 -- In the midst of a minor media blitz, the cultivation trial of marijuana activist and noted author Ed Rosenthal got underway in San Francisco federal court today. Assistant U.S. Attorney George Beven outlined the case against the man known as the foremost expert on marijuana growing, without actually discussing what Mr. Rosenthal was doing -- providing small starter clones of high-potency female plants to local marijuana dispensaries for distribution to qualified patients. The result was a disjointed opening argument.

NOT BORED! writes :

Pete Townshend Gets His Wish

As far as I know, this shit started in 1986, when Michael Jackson allowed the Nike Corporation to abuse the Beatles' song "Revolution" in one of its TV commercials. I'm sure that plenty of great rock 'n' roll songs had been licensed for commercial use before 1986, but Nike's use of "Revolution" was a watershed event, and not only because its composer, John Lennon, had died six years previously and no doubt would have been violently opposed to the idea had he been alive to hear it. (Neither Paul McCartney nor Yoko Ono were able to do anything to stop Jackson, because he'd successfully outbid them both to acquire the rights to all of the Beatles' songs.) The commercialization of "Revolution" was a watershed event because the song itself was so obviously ill-suited for use in a commercial.

Anarchist Prisoners' Legal Aid Network writes "On Tuesday January 7, 2002, Misconduct Reports were delivered to anarchist prisoners Rob los Ricos (Robert Thaxton) and Brian McCarvill at Oregon State Penitentiary (OSP). They were subsequently transferred to Disciplinary Segregation ("The Hole"). Rob was written up for "Disobedience of an Order I" and "Unauthorized Organization I"; we assume that Brian's charges are similar and he has also been sent to the Hole. Rob now expects "4 months in a box" and both Rob and Brian may be transferred to another Oregon Department of Corrections (ODOC) institution.

hydrarchist writes:

"The Fight Against GM Foods"

René Riesel Support Committee

On 19 November 2002 the Appeals Court confirmed the sentencing of both José Bové and René Riesel to fourteen months in prison and payment of 19,725 British pounds each in legal costs, interest and fines; Dominique Soullier received a six-month suspended prison sentence and a fine. Their crime was the destruction of a transgenic-rice nursery at the state-supported CIRAD research centre in Montpellier in June 1999.