I feel like I should point out that according to federal law, it is an illegal use of a police scanner to "use information received to aid in the commission of a crime, or disclose information received to other persons."
There are ethical and legal considerations concerning whether or not the protests were illegal, but I think as it stands now the defendant is very close to being on illegal footing.
Tin Can Comms Collective is a collection of communication rebels seeking to provide useful free tools for activists fighting the State and Capitalism. We are an anarchist group that has come together to help with the communication infrastructure for the the Anti-G-20 protests this September in Pittsburgh, because: People and Information want to be Free!
Hmmm. The fact that he attributes volitional desire to information makes me wonder if he could use a freedom of religion-based defense, rather than just a political ideology one. Courts are rarely sympathetic to "anarchism" but frequently eager to demonstrate tolerance of "beliefs" and "worldviews."
I gave a link to Wikipedia (which lists the actual legal sources). I wasn't passing judgement, just saying that what he did seems to be illegal if you accept the fact that the protests were illegal.
And I wasn't passing judgement on you. I figured that everyone hadn't seen his site, and that his own declared intent would help provide context to if he was aiding crime or not, since that's what he's being charged with.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanner_(radio)#Legal_issues_in...
There are ethical and legal considerations concerning whether or not the protests were illegal, but I think as it stands now the defendant is very close to being on illegal footing.