Next Event? (was Re: [free-sklyarov] Chicago Protest Report)

[Peter A. Peterson II]

Quoting Klepht:
> Talking today after the event, some of us here in SF think we can make an
> _even_bigger_ event with a little more lead time (e.g., more than 3
> business days). None of us want him to be in prison that long, but
> it's probably the best to start planning around that kind of lead
> time.

Agreed.

> Of course, the challenge is to keep Dmitry in the public eye during
> that time. Perhaps doing some work to get statements from prominent
> friendly organizations over those N weeks (e.g., American Library
> Association, academic freedom organizations, ACLU, Amnesty) would keep
> Dmitry's name in the news until the next big event.

Again, agreed. I think that local groups should focus on letter-writing
campaigns (i.e. get everyone on your list to write a letter to your two
senators. That's 100 letters on my dinky Chicago list!), continued
leafletting, and media-baiting.

For example, who on your list has contacts to local media sources that
might be exploited? What about contacts with state or federal
legislators? These kind of resources can be poked at while actual events
are planned.

I know for myself it's easy to leaflet downtown on a Saturday, but I
can't (for work reasons) do every Monday.

In Chicago, we're toying around with a kind of coverage scheme for
leafletting in a downtown area, by putting one or preferably two people
on each opposing streetcorner with a big sign and a handful of flyers.
If you have a handful of people, you can totally cover several
intersections and therefore present large coverage for multiple blocks.
This might have a nice effect -- walking through the city puts Free
Dmitry people everywhere you look!

This though, may be too organization-intensive. Target leafletting in
specific, high-traffic areas is still highly effective. It's not that
hard to pass out 300 flyers in two hours.

Still, I think that letter writing is a big grail that nobody's really
touched yet.

> As usual, it seems like we make more of a splash when we synch up our
> events across the country. I'm wondering if maybe setting up an
> IRC-based "global summit" of protest groups (maybe on Wednesday
> night?) to pick a good date say 2-3 weeks from now would make sense.

Again, agreed. When and where?

pedro

-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------
   FREE DMITRY SKLYAROV -- FBI has imprisioned a Russian software 
   engineer for promoting and teaching the concept of "fair use".
Read more: http://www.eff.org/alerts/20010719_eff_sklyarov_alert.html