[NYC] NYU Occupation Suspensions Overturned!

suggested by Elliott, re-posted from TakeBackNYU.com

See You Monday! 02/27/09

WE DID IT!!!! In the wake of the NYU administration’s draconian response to student protest, we called out for help and you answered our cry. You stood behind us, and rallied in defense of accountability and student democracy. You made calls, you wrote letters, you signed petitions, you made our cry heard across the globe, and it worked!! The administrations has agreed to end our undue suspensions and reinstate us in good standing. We would like to thank you all for your steadfast support, and for your unwavering commitment to change at NYU and around the world. But it’s not over yet! The NYU administration remains as obstinate and secretive as ever, and the struggle for student power and global justice has just begun. It is more crucial then ever that we make our voices heard and stand up to those who profit from our silence. Organize! The time has come to question what you think you can’t change, and to demand the answers you deserve. Start conversations, engage in dialogue and question what you are told to blindly accept. Take action! Do not sit by and let your rights wither away from lack of use. This is your school, your community and your world, and it’s up to you to take it back!

[U.S.] Critical Resistance Victories in Oakland & NYC

re-posted from Critical Resistance mailing list

February 2009 Victories!

Dear Friends,

One thing we want to do better this year is to share good news when we have it. Just this month, CR helped lead the way to four significant victories against the prison industrial complex that we want to make sure you know about, and know how to support.From prison construction to youth curfews, we know that we have to continue squeezing the PIC from every direction we can. If you have an hour, a dollar, an idea, or a question, please share it with us!

With hope,
Critical Resistance

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CR's work to stop new prison construction helps compel historic prisoner release order!
For nearly a decade, Critical Resistance has prioritized stopping new prison construction. We know that if you build them; you fill them. In early February, a federal court ruled that overcrowding was the primary cause of unconstitutional medical and mental health care for people in California prisons, causing needless deaths every week. The Court ordered what we have been arguing for years is the only real solution: reducing the number of people in prison. Our role in stopping new prison construction helped lead the court to reject the state's position that it would build its way out of overcrowding, declaring that "there is no relief other than a prisoner-release order that will remedy the unconstitutional prison conditions." Noting that no new beds had been built, instead of building, the Court's order could reduce the number of people in prison by up to 56,000.

That's not to say this fight is over. We need to work harder than ever in the coming weeks and months to make sure that the state sends our people home, doesn't drag its feet, waste time with endless appeals, or, worst of all, proceed with prison construction to try to avoid sending people home or sending fewer people home. It is more important than ever that we stop AB 900, California's massive prison construction plan. This is a huge win and a huge opportunity, and we can't miss it.

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CR Oakland helps defeat proposed youth curfew following the police execution of Oscar Grant.
On February 10, CR Oakland helped mobilize over 100 people to defeat a frightening proposal for a youth curfew in Oakland. The proposal came on the heels of mass arrests during the protests of the videotaped execution of Oscar Grant by police. The ordinance would also make it a misdemeanor for a parent to allow a young person to violate the ordinance, and even expose business owners to prosecution if they knowingly allow youth on their premises during curfew hours.

"After what happened to Oscar Grant and many other youth killed by the police, how could we consider giving police yet another opportunity for racial profiling. Who will Oakland police stop at 10 p.m.? What neighborhoods will see a lockdown from 10 p.m. to 5 a. m.?," said CR member Ritika Aggarwal, 24.

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Drop the Charges
Since Oscar Grant's murder, CR has also worked hard to make sure that our ability to protest and organize out of this tragedy isn't shut down by the police and city officials. Since early January, we have worked to defend every single one of the more than 130 people arrested protesting Oscar Grant's murder; to make sure that youth of color aren't further criminalized protesting police violence, and to make sure that the focus stays where it should be: on the real effects of policing, whether they're caught on tape or not.

Working with the National Lawyers Guild and the Oakland 100 Committee, we have organized a call-in campaign and court solidarity for every arraignment. From more than 130, there are now only 4 people facing charges. Over the next few weeks, we'll be back to stay with those final defendants until every case is dismissed.

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No Jail in the Bronx or in Brooklyn
Finally, this month saw the Brooklyn House of Detention Coalition (BHOD) block plans to expand the Brooklyn House of Detention. CR-NYC played a big support role in this victory, sharing the strategies we used to stop jail construction in the Bronx with our neighbors. This marks the second victory in two years for the City's plan to build a new jail in every borough, and shows just how far we have come in the fight against endless cage building.

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THIS WORK IS ONLY THE BEGINNING OF WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN IN 2009.
Please, take a moment to help us - and yourself - in two important ways:

1. Get Involved! There is nothing more important to CR than our volunteer power. No matter where you live or what you like to do, we need your help. Find us at 510 444 0484, or email crnational@criticalresistance.org today.
2. Donate! Not in spite of but because of how bad the economy is, we need to pull our resources together more than ever. Please click here to give a gift that doesn't hurt your bank account, but does help us all - including you!

[Connecticut] Anti-Nuke Beauty Contest

This isn't necessarily good news, it's just funny... Maybe you want to give it a whirl.

re-posted from "Danger Room: What's Next in National Security?" of the Wired Blog Network

The Anti-Nuke Beauty Contest
by Nathan Hodge, 02-25-09

Miss Atom, the beauty contest for the Russian nuclear industry, has earned a fair amount of press, in part because of the now-infamous photo of a post-Soviet hottie posing in front of some cooling towers. But the anti-nuke crowd has its own contest: The Environmentals.

The rules? "Use real nuclear power plants as backdrop for fashion or glamor shots! No lab montage or Photoshop!" Clothing, as this shot from the decommissioned Trojan nuclear power plant in Oregon demonstrates, is optional. (Some of the originals, obviously, are NSFW.)

Thus far, the contest has received only seven entries; Miss Atom, on the other hand, has dozens of contestants. Voting is still ongoing at Miss Atom, by the way. Yulia Nechayeva of Polyarnye Zori is in the lead with 1,149 points; DANGER ROOM favorite Alyona Kirsanova is in fourth place.

[Lacey, Washington] Commission OKs Tent City

re-posted from Save Feral Human Habitat and The Olympian

Council will decide whether to allow homeless shelters
By Christian Hill | The Olympian

The city planning commission unanimously recommended an ordinance that would permit homeless tent cities on church property, and allow the encampments to be within 300 feet of a school or day care center.
Both of those practices are banned under the city’s current law, passed by the City Council in April. The planning commission’s recommendation, issued during a meeting Tuesday night, sets up another City Council vote on the issue for the second time in less than a year.

The council can adopt the commission’s recommendation, change it or ignore it.

“We’ve done our best,” Commissioner Carolyn St. Claire said. “It’s just time to send it on.”

“They can take them or leave them,” Don Melnick, the commission’s vice chairman, said about the City Council. “We know that.”

Commissioner O’Dean Williamson abstained from Tuesday’s vote because he was absent during the commission’s discussion earlier this month.

The commission said it concluded based on testimony from church leaders and other information that the indoors requirement is unworkable because churches don’t have adequate space.

It also noted that, based on an analysis by the city building official, the requirement might not be safer for camp residents because some churches might not be designed for use as an overnight shelter.

When they approved the city’s current homeless-encampment law, council members argued that the homeless would be provided more safety and dignity if they were housed indoors.

The planning commission also raised a concern about the requirement under the federal Religious Land Use and Institutional Persons Act, which bars governments from imposing land-use policies that place a substantial burden on the religious exercise of a church.

It noted that the distance requirement could perpetuate unfounded negative stereotypes of the homeless. The ordinance requires prospective tenants to undergo criminal background screening and sign and abide by a code of conduct. The commission recommends instead requiring some type of visual screening between an encampment and a neighborhood.

Two Lacey churches have expressed interest in serving as a host for Camp Quixote, a two-year-old tent city in Olympia.

Time line

•Late 2007: The Lacey Planning Commission recommends an ordinance that allows churches to house the homeless outdoors in tents, similar to ordinances enacted in Olympia and Tumwater.

•April 2008: The council adopts the ordinance with a 4-3 vote, but it makes a late change requiring churches to house the homeless indoors.

•October: After advocates for the homeless challenge the ordinance on procedural grounds to a state growth hearings board, the board concludes that the late change without a public hearing violated the law and remands the ordinance to the city.

•January 2009: The planning commission has a public hearing.

•Today: FEB 18, a state House committee, will have a hearing on a bill drafted in response to the council’s action that prohibits local governments from requiring churches to house the homeless indoors.

•March 2009: The Lacey City Council will consider the planning commission’s latest recommendation during a work session. A vote would occur at a future meeting.

[New Jersey] Long Lost Brother Found at Tent City

re-posted from Philadelphia Inquirer & Save Feral Human Habitat

For a homeless man, rescue from the streets
By Matt Katz, Philadelphia Inquirer, 02-14-09

All heart and determination, Yolanda Shorts marched by the pile of garbage bags, ducked through the bare branches, and looked over the tents she had read about in a news story online.

“Hey, do you know who I am?” Shorts asked, peering into one of several blue tarpaulins at Tent City, a self-governing homeless community in the woods off a Camden highway.

Squinting in the dawn sunlight, Neal Floyd peeked out from beneath the cold, damp plastic. Homeless for two years, he had not seen his family in at least six, and his eyes did not immediately register what he saw: his mother, his brother, his nephew, his stepfather, a young niece he barely knew, and two sisters - including Shorts.

Shorts had driven through the night from her home in North Carolina to Camden, where a decade ago she donated a kidney to save Floyd’s life.

At the crack of dawn yesterday, she returned to try to save her big brother’s life once again and to tell him this: “You don’t have to be out in the cold no more.”

She had come to bring him home.

Floyd stood. He smiled. He laughed.

“How’d y’all find me?” he asked, over and over.

“You got my kidney, you know I’m going to find you,” Shorts said. “We love you.”

“Praise the Lord,” he said, grabbing a backpack. “Let’s move it.”

He hugged his mother. “We’ve always been looking for you,” Jean Williams said, sweetly.

“Where’s my hug?” teased another sister, Monique Floyd, who had traveled from upstate New York. “Thank you, Jesus!”

“Leave all those bad memories in that tent,” said Floyd’s stepfather, Kenzie Williams, who was once homeless in Camden himself.

As they walked toward the warm rental van that would take him off the cold streets, Floyd began his testimonies to God.

“I’ve been praying all this time. I knew he was going to do something for me. I knew he was going to bring me out of there,” he said. “I never stopped believing.”

“That’s right, Neal,” Shorts answered between sobs.

Then she reminded him about the piece of her that will always be in him: “You’ve got my left side. . . . You know I was going to find you.”

Floyd, the oldest of six growing up in Albany, N.Y., was a quiet child who laughed a lot and was infatuated with model cars. He left home at 15, according to his family, and his first daughter was born when he was about 17.

He had a brief career as a professional boxer - boxrec.com says he was a light welterweight with a 1-2 record. He later married and had two more daughters.

At some point Floyd got hooked on alcohol and crack, Shorts said. She said she believed this contributed to his kidney failure.

Before he got sick, Floyd found God, quit drugs, and worked as a truck driver in Florida. When his kidneys failed in 1997, he moved into his mother’s house in Paulsboro.

In 1999, Shorts gave blood at a hospital in North Carolina to see if she could give Floyd one of her kidneys. “We were a perfect match,” she said.

Despite a few medical complications afterward, life was working out for Floyd.

He met a homeless woman named Nikki, helped her get off drugs, and moved her into his mother’s house. They married, she got work as a nurse’s aide, and they moved to a house across the street from his mother’s.

Floyd was getting disability payments, and he took some odd jobs to make ends meet. Nikki regained custody of her three children.

“They were getting back on their feet,” Shorts said. “They wanted to be a family. . . . Everything seemed to be going well.”

But one day in 2006, Floyd went to pick his wife up at work. “They told him, ‘Mr. Floyd, your wife is deceased,’ ” Shorts said.

Nikki had had a heart attack. She was 36.

“It was like overnight, everything he got was taken from him,” Shorts said. “It was crazy.”

Shorts spoke to her brother a few days after his wife died, and then he was gone. She assumed he had turned back to drugs.

At that point, their mother had moved to North Carolina, so “he didn’t have anyone there to turn to, or anyone to say, ‘Hey, Neal, come on.’”

Shorts said anyone in the family would have helped him. “But he has his pride,” she said.

Since then, no one had known where he was, or even if he was alive.

On Jan. 29, The Inquirer published an article about Tent City, a homeless encampment of nearly 20 people inside the I-676 exit onto Federal Street.

Floyd, 53, was quoted.

“I still have dreams,” he said. “I still want to be a father, a family man. I don’t plan to stay here all my life.”

He spoke of camaraderie in Tent City: “That’s all we got is each other.”

And hope: “I just keep looking up, keep hoping things get better for us.”

It was raining that day, and Floyd professed, “It can’t stay rainy every day.”

Ten days later, Shorts was at her computer at Fort Bragg, N.C., where she works in a civilian job helping military families with their housing.

“My mother would always say, ‘Why don’t you see if you can find Neal on the Internet?’ ” Shorts said.

So every once in a while, she would do a search for his name.

“I don’t know why that particular Sunday I punched in his name,” she said. “All of a sudden, I see that article. My heart stopped. I was like, ‘Oh my God, Neal.’ “

The Associated Press also interviewed Floyd that day, and Shorts was particularly struck by an accompanying photograph of him lighting a fire by his tent.

“Seeing his little tarp, it was heart-wrenching,” she said. “I was fixated on that picture. I wanted to keep looking at it. I wanted to get closer to his face.”

That’s when Shorts decided to round up the seven family members and head to Camden. By 9 p.m. Thursday she was on the road, and just after 6 a.m. yesterday she was in downtown Camden.

Shorts knew that one of the first things she wanted to ask her brother was related to a piece of Scripture he had told her about years ago: “If we fail to praise him, the very rocks will cry out.”

“I can hear his voice, ‘Ain’t no rock going to cry out before I cry out to praise God,’ ” she said.

So after Floyd came out of his tent yesterday morning, Shorts asked, “You going to let the rocks cry out?”

Floyd smiled. And laughed.

“Come here,” she said, pulling him toward her.

“How y’all doing?” he asked his family after hugs. “I’m OK. I’m out here on the street. I had nothing else to do. I had no way to make a living.”

He said he was not on drugs again; he was just broke.

Floyd collected his belongings, said goodbye to his tent mate, and gave a bear hug to the unofficial mayor of Tent City, Lorenzo “Jamaica” Banks. Floyd told Banks to redistribute his blankets and tent.

“That’s one gone, so that’s good,” Banks said. “It’s a blessing.”

For Floyd’s mother, it was a blessing answered.

“Every Sunday I’d go to church and ask the Lord to bring him home,” said Williams, 71. “Thank the Lord.”

The thanks that brought tears to Floyd’s eyes, though, were reserved for his family.

“I’m just so glad you all came and got me,” he said, his voice cracking. “I just didn’t want to be out there no more in the cold.”

When reminded of his comment just two weeks earlier - “it can’t stay rainy every day” - Floyd flipped it.

“The sun’s got to shine sometime,” he said. “My baby sister’s come and got me.”

And with that, the family left -to a diner for breakfast, to a store for new socks, and this morning, home to North Carolina.

“To a new beginning,” Shorts said.

[U.S.] Increase in Earth & Animal Rights' Attacks on Industry

re-posted from Drovers.com

Extremist attack on global food chain increases, 02-25-09

Attacks on the global food chain from animal-rights and environmental extremists jumped 42 percent — from 155 in 2007 to 220 in 2008 — according to Arlington, Va.-based Animal Agriculture Alliance. Worse yet, claimed attacks on food retailers in the United States from groups like the Animal Liberation Front exploded 377 percent.

The alliance indicated that Bite Back magazine was its main source for compiling data on terrorist acts claimed by Animal Liberation Front; Earth Liberation Front; DBF, a branch of ALF found in Sweden and the Netherlands; and other animal-rights terrorist groups. But independent media reports and state agriculture groups also provided critical information.

The information compiled by the alliance showed that ALF, ELF, DBF and related groups claimed a total of 640 acts of sabotage, vandalism and arson in 2008, up from 467 in 2007, an increase of over 35 percent. The overall level of animal-rights extremist attacks in the United States on businesses that use animals — including medical research, consumer product safety, pets, circuses, rodeos, fur shops, hunting stores, farmers, ranchers, food retailers — surged nearly 40 percent. An even more troubling development is the massive expansion of damages inflicted upon food retailers. Claimed attacks on food retailers in the United States, especially the brand names of McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC and Hardee’s, increased from 9 in 2007 to 34 in 2008, an increase of 377 percent.

Destruction or defacement of property — especially smashing windows, etching windows, and painting (or paint bombing) windows, buildings, vans and billboards — were the techniques most frequently used by extremist groups in their attempts to intimidate food chain businesses to shut down. The groups also adopted a new unsavory technique this year, using sponges to block toilets and urinals to cause expensive flooding and extensive clean-up.

In terms of terrorist activities, global animal-rights extremist groups combined to claim over 600 separate terrorist acts, including:

• Arson
• Firebombing autos and trucks
• Paint bombs
• Death threats
• Theft
• bomb threats
• Product tampering hoaxes
• Vandalizing gravesites
• Acid-etching windows
• Gluing locks
• Paint stripping cars
• Slashing tires
• Flooding facilities
• Cutting off utilities to restaurants
• Hacking web sites
• Damaging equipment

Extremists claimed responsibility for the “liberation” of thousands of animals during the year and millions of dollars in damage. Mexico appears to be an emerging center for animal-rights terrorism. In 2008, extremist groups in Mexico claimed more than double the amount of attacks than were claimed in the United States.

As disturbing as this news might be, the geographic array of attacks in the United States is equally disturbing. “We have seen a significant change in extremist activity directed against the food chain,” said Kay Johnson Smith, executive vice president of the Animal Agriculture Alliance. “The numbers of attacks against food retailers in hotbeds of extremism like California and New York were noticeably lower, while attacks in other areas not widely associated with animal-rights extremism increased markedly. For instance, the greater Kansas City, Kan., area appears to be the new home of an ALF cell, with two attacks having been claimed in the second half of 2008, one in Lenexa and the other in Overland Park. An ALF cell in Georgia claimed five actions. One targeted a butcher shop, another hit a meat company and three more were aimed at quick-serve restaurants. Further, ALF cells in North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah and Texas all claimed actions. were noticeably lower, while attacks in other areas not widely associated with animal-rights extremism increased markedly. For instance, the greater

“The message is loud and clear that the agenda of these groups is focused solely on advancing a vegan agenda through destruction and intimidation,” Johnson Smith said. “The fact that extremists are willing to massively increase their attacks on the food chain during a serious economic downturn should cause major alarm for all companies and organizations responsible for feeding people. The exponential escalation of attacks is shocking and disturbing. All companies in the food chain need to be vigilant, enhance their security efforts and be sure to report all incidents to their local police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

For more information on securing your facilities, contact the Animal Agriculture Alliance at info@animalagalliance.org or visit the Web site at www.animalagalliance.org.

[Indiana] Bloomington Security Camera Map Launched

re-posted from AnarchistNews.Org

Bloomington Security Camera Map Launched, 02-24-09

We're excited to announce the launching of the Bloomington Security Camera Map. It can be found at http://bloomingtonsecuritycameras.com . We hope there will be a number of print versions in various locations in Bloomington within in the next couple of weeks.

This project is intended to bring into the public consciousness the level to which we are observed and monitored, to help those who don't want to be seen stay hidden, and to inspire action to dismantle the policing and surveillance mechanisms that are ruining our communities.....

Please send any questions, comments, critiques or other such comments to admin@bloomingtonsecuritycameras.com.

[México] Two Days of Rioting at Bullring

re-posted from IllVox.org

Two Days of Rioting at Bullring in Plaza de Toros México

anonymous communique (translation):

“Autonomous individuals for the abolition of tauricide claimed acts of sabotage and vandalism during the February 1st march at the ‘monumental’ Plaza de Toros México:

- The painting of a police van with the words Torturers!, at a checkpoint on the outskirts of the inquisitorial plaza.

- Muriatic acid bombs were thrown inside it, which shocked the accomplices of bullfighting.

- Bulbs of red paint and oil were thrown on the walls.

- Rotten fruit was thrown at people who were prepared to enjoy themselves at the cost of the humiliating death of an animal.

- And finally a couple of reporters from the mainstream media of misinformation were bathed in urine.

We hit the walls of the plazas de toros!”

———————————————-

anonymous communique (translation):

“During the demonstration on February 5 (the date on which the bullfighters celebrate the anniversary of the largest bullring in Mexico) various direct action groups demonstrated that the radical movement for total liberation is growing day by day.

The riots began when police attempted to arrest one of the activists; after getting away from the police ring, the walls of the arena were stained with red, black, green and other colors of paint thrown in glass bottles; the windshields of bullfighter’s cars were smashed by stones and sticks; ‘Shitty speciesists!’ was painted on one of the arena’s great walls; the walls of the square shook with the roar of a large homemade bomb, excrement was hurled at a barbecue that was being held by animal torture sympathizers; one of those anthrocentric bastards was physically attacked; there was a small clash between activists and the repressive police force; much later in the bullfighting museum their ‘beautiful’ decorations were attacked, smelly rotten fruit was thrown into the building and stones were thrown at one of the imbeciles dominating the earth and its inhabitants.

At the conclusion of the demonstration, 13 activists had been arrested and deprived of their liberty, so it is because of this that in this communique we express our full solidarity and support.

Freedom to people arrested for animal liberation!

Fire to the police, the bullrings and the prisons, along with their jailers!”

———————————————-

Communiques reported to Bite Back Magazine - directaction.info

[NYC] NYU Building Occupation

suggested by APOC listserv, re-posted from TakeBackNYU.com

ACTUALLY, THAT'S MINE.
or why we finally, really took back nyu.

WHAT’S MINE? THE UNIVERSITY, OF COURSE. IT’S YOURS, TOO!

A group of student-empowering, social-justice-minded rabblerousers have occupied the Marketplace at Kimmel and we refuse to move until our demands are met. All are encouraged to join us on the third floor and help us sustain this occupation until NYU complies with our demands. Our demands are as follows:

-Full, annual disclosure of NYU’s operating budget and endowment.

-The election of a student body whose purpose is the socially responsible investment of NYU’s funds and all of whom are full, voting members of the Board of Trustees. That this body investigate NYU’s investments in war and genocide profiteers, specifically the Israeli occupation of Gaza.

-That tuition be stabilized; that no student pays more tuition than they did their first year. That the University meet 100% of students’ government-calculated financial need.

-That all NYU employees, including graduate students, are granted union rights, and that work study employees are allowed collective bargaining rights.

-That NYU provide humanitarian aid to Gaza, and that it offers scholarships for 13 Palestinian students annually.

-That NYU grant public access to Bobst Library and that student groups get priority when reserving space in all NYU-owned or –leased buildings.

We apologize for inconveniencing the loyal lunchgoers of the Kimmel Marketplace, but we are not sorry for causing a disruption! Established channels have been insufficient to make our voices heard by the administration, and we have waited too long to be taken seriously. By disrupting the University’s functioning now, we are forcing the administration to deal with those people it depends upon the most—we, the students!

Our demands, though many and varied, are united by the desire to empower students to take part in the governance of their University.

By making public the endowment and budget, and establishing a student voice in the investment of funds and on the Board of Trustees, we are creating a means for active student participation in the administration of the University. By providing union rights for graduate students and collective bargaining rights for work study employees, we are guaranteeing that the students upon whom the University depends for labor are treated and compensated fairly.

By drastically reducing the amount that tuition can increase, we are forcing the University to reassess its spending and cut back appropriately (instead of making a low-income student take out more loans, perhaps the University can build one less abroad site). By forcing the University to meet 100% of students’ financial need, we are ensuring that students spend less time working multiple jobs to make ends meet and more time making the University a place where active minds flourish.

By demanding investigation into war and genocide profiteers, providing aid to Gaza, and offering scholarshipts to Palestinian students, we are demanding that the University heed our own voices immediately. Through these demands we are also stating our solidarity with the students who have occupied their universities in the United Kingdom and elsewhere demanding aid for war-torn Gaza.

By demanding students have priority in reserving space in NYU buildings, we are literally making space for ourselves in the University, and putting students above groups who rent out space in our buildings. By allowing the public access to Bobst Library and the wealth of knowledge it contains we are building a bridge between NYU and the community it so often displaces, while empowering students of all universities (as well as alums of our own) to take part in information that is too often consolidated in the Ivory Tower.

We have waited too long for the University to respond of its own volition. We have let administrators push us around through endless red tape, through never-ending tuition hikes, through unfair labor practices, through secrecy and lies, through power being consolidated in a tiny group of (mostly) rich white dudes who know nothing about our lives as students. We wrote John Sexton a nice letter and struggled to contain our rage in Town Hall after Town Hall; we’ve agitated and tabled and built our coalition. Our demands serve and concern all students. We refuse to dignify the University’s lack of response with our own inaction.

So we take action! We’ve got food and sleeping bags and good friends and we are not going anywhere. Join us! This is a sleepover for student empowerment, a party for participation in the University, a disruption for democracy, an occupation for all!


Love and rage,

Take Back NYU!
www.takebacknyu.com

[TX] Hackers Crack Road Sign, Warn of Zombies Ahead

Apologies for not updating in so long, I had a rough start back at school.

suggested by Corey, re-posted from FoxNews, 01/29/09

Transportation officials in Texas are scrambling to prevent hackers from changing messages on digital road signs after one sign in Austin was altered to read, "Zombies Ahead."

Chris Lippincott, director of media relations for the Texas Department of Transportation, confirmed that a portable traffic sign at Lamar Boulevard and West 15th Street, near the University of Texas at Austin, was hacked into during the early hours of Jan. 19.

"It was clever, kind of cute, but not what it was intended for," said Lippincott, who saw the sign during his morning commute. "Those signs are deployed for a reason — to improve traffic conditions, let folks know there's a road closure."

"It's sort of amusing, but not at all helpful," he told FOXNews.com.

Tampering with portable road signs is illegal and potentially dangerous to drivers. It is a misdemeanor in Texas, with penalties ranging from fines to potential jail time.

Lippincott said the hacked sign — manufactured by IMAGO — is owned and operated by the city of Austin. Texas Department of Transportation signs have not been affected, he said.

"It is always possible that it could occur, but we attempt to prevent hacking incidents," Lippincott wrote in an e-mail. He declined to comment on security measures to protect the state's signs from hackers.

Austin Public Works spokeswoman Sara Hartley said the incident was not initially reported to police, but will be shortly. The sign was reverted back to its original message within hours, according to Hartley, who insisted the signs are tamper-resistant and equipped with external locks.

"This sign was broken into, it was not just a 'walk up and change the sign' kind of thing," Hartley told FOXNews.com. "This is a new one for us, we've never had it happen before."

She said she did not know whether any other signs in the area had been altered.

According to the blog i-hacked.com, some commercial road signs, including those manufactured by IMAGO's ADDCO division, can be easily altered because their instrument panels are frequently left unlocked and their default passwords are not changed.

"Programming is as simple as scrolling down the menu selection," i-hacked.com reports. "Type whatever you want to display … In all likelihood, the crew will not have changed [the password]."

I-hacked.com warns readers not to try to alter the signs, which cost roughly $15,000.

ADDCO Chief Operating Officer Brian Nicholson told FOXNews.com that the company is sending out notices to customers on the potentially dangerous security flaw.

"It's incumbent upon users to change the default password and secure the sign with a padlock," Nicholson said. "We're having our engineers review this information."

In the meantime, if you're driving in Austin, you can rest assured: There are no zombies ahead.