http <http://www.guardian.co.uk/salon/story/0,14752,1280907,00.html>://www.guardian.co.uk/salon/story/0,14752,1280907,00.html
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/salon/story/0,14752,1280907,00.html>New York lockdown
While anti-Bush activists in New York are adopting new techniques to try and disrupt the Republican party convention later this month, the police have got some new strategies of their own, writes Michelle Goldberg Michelle Goldberg Wednesday August 11, 2004
The Guardian If you're a delegate attending the Republican national convention at Madison Square Garden later this month, Jamie Moran knows where you're staying. He knows where you're eating and what Broadway musical you plan on seeing. For the past nine months, Moran has been living off savings earned as an office manager at a nonprofit and working full-time to disrupt the RNC.
His small anarchist collective, RNCNotWelcome.org, runs a snitch line and an email account where disgruntled employees of New York hotels, the Garden and the Republican party itself can pass on information about conventioneers. So far, the collective has received dozens of phone calls and hundreds of emails with inside dirt on GOP activities.
Recently, a woman with a polished, middle-aged sounding voice left a message saying, "For some God-unknown reason I'm on the Republican mailing list, and they sent me what they call a list of their inner-circle events." The events hadn't been publicised elsewhere, she said, and she wanted to fax the list to Moran.
Moran feeds information like this to a cadre of activists desperate to unleash four years' worth of anger at the Bush administration. By dogging the delegates wherever they go, RNC Not Welcome hopes to make the Republicans' lives hell for as long as they're in New York.
"We want to make their stay here as miserable as possible," says Moran, who has sandy hair, a snub nose and a goatee. The son of a retired Queens cop, he's 30 but looks younger. "I'd like to see all the Republican events - teas, backslapping lunches - disrupted. I'd like to see people from other states following their delegates, letting them know what they think about Republican policies. I'd like to see impromptu street parties and marches. I'd like to see corporations involved in the Iraq reconstruction get targeted - anything from occupation to property destruction."
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