This is wireless technologies (and, ideally community wireless networks) are so important. They help us to organize and communicate with each other.
This time it was to organize the protest. Next time it might be to discuss an important issue or to provide eye witness accounts of some other event that has just taken place. To let loved ones know that you’re okay — or to tell friends and neighbors where not to go when there’s an emergency.
Wireless can help us get organized — which is what it’s all about right now.
Power To The People! 🙂
Protesters relying on wireless, Web tools
By Jessie Seyfer for the Mercury News.

Sent from the thick of Thursday’s massive demonstrations, these messages are an example of how protesters are using the latest technology to communicate and coordinate their activities.
Over the past three days, activists created pirate radio broadcasts that streamed live on the Web and were rebroadcast at numerous sites across the world. They uploaded live video of marches to the Internet and sent hundreds of digital images of clashes with police to the Web. And they communicated on those cell phones to keep close track of one another’s whereabouts.
Instant communications helped the protesters stay ahead of events and solidify their community…
“Every desktop is a publishing station now, and so is every telephone, every PDA, every laptop with a wireless connection,” said Howard Rheingold, author of the book “Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution.”
Police officers have used walkie-talkies and wireless radio communications for decades. Now, the digital revolution has put mobile technology in just about everyone’s hands, he said. Thursday, demonstrators used it to play a cat-and-mouse game with police. Once protesters were forced out of one intersection, they coordinated by cell phone and swarmed another intersection, Rheingold said.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/5462381.htm
Posted on Sun, Mar. 23, 2003 story:PUB_DESC
Protesters relying on wireless, Web tools
By Jessie Seyfer
Mercury News
The bulletins came rapid-fire, straight from a San Francisco protester’s wireless handheld device to a Web page for all the world to see.
“6:47 p.m.: Fremont street on-ramp shut down by demonstrators.” “8:00 p.m.: 6,000 strong at Castro and Market.” “10:00 p.m.: 500 marching down Howard.”
Sent from the thick of Thursday’s massive demonstrations, these messages are an example of how protesters are using the latest technology to communicate and coordinate their activities.
Over the past three days, activists created pirate radio broadcasts that streamed live on the Web and were rebroadcast at numerous sites across the world. They uploaded live video of marches to the Internet and sent hundreds of digital images of clashes with police to the Web. And they communicated on those cell phones to keep close track of one another’s whereabouts.
Instant communications helped the protesters stay ahead of events and solidify their community. But whether they went beyond the ranks of committed activists to reach a public that, polls show, support the war by ever-widening margins, remains to be seen.
Within the movement, the technology that is bringing the 1960s adage “Do your own thing” back to life is spreading around the globe, to hundreds of Web sites and makeshift newsrooms from Idaho to Jerusalem.
Experts say the technology-enabled, do-it-yourself “Independent Media Center” concept was born during the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle. All this digital documentation represents the face of the movement that is opposing the war in Iraq.
“It’s now possible for us to create our own media,” said a 26-year-old “Otto,” who was shooting video at a march Saturday in San Francisco for the Web site Indybay.org. “We don’t have to rely on the mainstream media to tell us what’s going on, or have someone else filter what is happening. We can do it ourselves.”
Thursday’s bulletins from a protester’s handheld, for example, were sent to sf.indymedia.org, a Web page where demonstrators are encouraged to self-publish in just about any possible way.
“Every desktop is a publishing station now, and so is every telephone, every PDA, every laptop with a wireless connection,” said Howard Rheingold, author of the book “Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution.”
Police officers have used walkie-talkies and wireless radio communications for decades. Now, the digital revolution has put mobile technology in just about everyone’s hands, he said. Thursday, demonstrators used it to play a cat-and-mouse game with police. Once protesters were forced out of one intersection, they coordinated by cell phone and swarmed another intersection, Rheingold said.
Mercury News Staff Writer Dana Hull contributed to this report. Contact Jessie Seyfer at jseyfer@mercurynews.com or (650) 688-7531.