The Twin Cities Independent Media Center was just raided by the police and shut down. Having worked extensively with TC Indymedia folks for years, I know first-hand that they are avid journalists who have a multi-year history of covering important local stories. Ongoing coverage is available at: http://twincities.indymedia.org

Details are still coming in, but the official line appears to be that they're shutting the place down for building code violations. The fact that they raided the space, handcuffed people, photographed people and took down information from their IDs, and confiscated hard drives and laptops seems to contradict this official reasoning. It looks like the police have also raided (as of two hours ago) the Food Not Bombs house (a group of vegans that hands out food and opposes war) and a second house (just an few minutes ago).

This is going on right now. This is clearly a very wide-reaching and well-orchestrated police action to shut down independent media coverage and disrupt local organizing efforts ahead of the RNC. First Amendment be damned.

Please help spread the word.

[UPDATE01]A third private residence was just raided by the police.

[UPDATE023]Another location raided by police bringing the total to 45:

• 2301 23rd Ave South (home to Minneapolis chapter of Food Not Bombs)
• 3240 17th Ave South
• 3500 Harriet Ave South
• 627 Smith Avenue (RNC Convergence Space)
• 951 Iglehart

[UPDATE04]Just when you thought it couldn't get more big brotherly, legal observers have now confirmed that "snatch squads" in unmarked cars have been grabbing people off the streets in the Twin Cities. Lawyers on the scene at 3240 17th Ave are also reporting that the city says the house "will stay boarded up unless code violation is fixed by 6pm" -- the code violations being that the doors were kicked in by police during their raid today. One of the people detained by police during their 951 Iglehart raid is a reporter for "Democracy Now!" -- ironically, I had e-mailed Amy Goodman earlier today with a heads-up about what was happening in the Twin Cities.

--Sascha

That's right, you read the title correctly, an internal Verizon content-guideline document was leaked to the Wall Street Journal, who reports, "A Verizon Wireless content-guideline document, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, shows that the company has developed a long list of restrictions, including off-limits expletives and curse words, highly specific rules for how much bare skin models can show, and a ban on any derogatory references to Verizon Wireless itself."

According to the WSJ, "the Verizon Wireless rules cover all content -- text, music, pictures, video, audio, games -- even the names of the digital content files people download." Cingular and Sprint Nextel have similar documents already. I can see it now, Beastie Boys' "Get it Together" (from their excellent Ill Communication album) removed from cellular play lists because of their "I'm Like Ma Bell, I Got The Ill Communication" lyric. Because, yes, that's what this Verizon document does -- got a lyric that busts on the company, they will ban it from their network. These aren't "decency" standards, they're straight up censorship.

Educate yourself -- here's more from the Wall Street Journal:

Read more...

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Seems everywhere I turn I can't help but notice that Google's business decision to collaborate with the Chinese government to censor Internet content has been widely frowned upon. So it's with great trepidation that I read about possible censorship of content by Google right here in the US (thanks to Stephen Mansour for passing this info along):

From: www.travolisblog.com

News stories have reported Google’s decision to censor content within China. But is Google also censoring content in the USA? Searching for "big boom" on Google’s own video search service returns a listing for this video of an IED explosion. The description is as follows:

17 sec - Oct 25, 2004
"Detonation of Improvised Explosive Device used against Coalition forces. We found this one before they could use it against us."

 Instead of a video playing, a message appears, stating:

"This video is not playable in your country."

In your country? My country is the United States of America! This is a standard Cox Communications cable connection located in Virginia, USA. Checks with several friends indicate that this "not available" message is showing up in the United States, but friends in Canada and South America are able to view the video. Military operations are certainly a point of controversy right now, but I would expect Google to present all available information within our democratic borders. Is Google censoring information in the United States? 

Update: There are several of these censored videos.