is this real? did they give a copy of the warrant?

Yes it is real and no there was no warrant!

There are many people by the name of Luke Wilbur. It was not me. I am at my farm. So, this is bogus. But, I would like to know who wrote this?

I am not "Luke Wilbur" I am another Luke in DC, well known to the activist community-and as you can see I wrote this myself.

This is real: A warrant was shown to my elderly mother at home, but none to me on the street.

Sorry. That was just weird coincidence. I run DCMessageBoards.com and get strange posts like this. I thought someone was trying to slander me. Thanks for clarification.

I can't believe that the cops would be that rude. What have you done to bring such attention to yourself??

lucky he was not "detained".patriot act, military commissions act, want to be terrorized? check out the above for the new federal laws.

Luke, stay in touch with people. We want to be aware if you are arrested. This could be the beginning of something ugly. Washington Peace Center: 202-234-2000.

If you're an activist and you use a computer, you shouldn't leave anything that could even remotely tie you to your actions or even your political views "in the clear" on media.

Ideally, you should use a Free Software operating system like GNU/Linux (and Ubuntu just had a great release a few weeks ago), but on any system, encryption is necessary to secure both you and all those you work with.

I don't know if Luke used encryption, but if he did, than he can rest easy knowing that the cops won't be able to see what's on his hard drives any time in the next few millennia.

For free software cross-platform (windows, GNU/Linux and OS X) encryption, check out Truecrypt at www.truecrypt.org/ .

Truecrypt can be used on any media; flash drives, hard disk drives, even CD's or DVD's. I HIGHLY recommend using a Free Software operating system with either it or that operating system's encryption functionality. With proprietary or closed-source software, you have no idea whether the NSA is watching or not (and with digital "wiretapping" legislation, that's a very real possibility for Windows or Mac OS users).

the government can decrypt essentially anything. but encryption is good to use anyways for other reasons.

Even if that's true (and that would imply the NSA having made significant advances in number theory and keeping them quiet - which isn't out of the imagination, considering they are the world's largest employers of mathematicians) the government would not show their hand by breaking strong encryption for just about any case in US legal jurisdiction, and they probably wouldn't act on anything they received via that means that they couldn't have gotten via some other means (after all, if people knew that they could break the encryption, they'd stop using it)

I would argue that anything that fits US guidelines for encryption for SECRET or TOP SECRET documents is strong enough where, if the government could break it, unless you're plotting to do something on an international scale, you don't need to be too concerned currently. But don't take needless risks and keep/transmit things that you don't need to, just because they're encrypted.

Cryptographers say that one of the easiest ways of getting around modern encryption is what they call 'rubber hose cryptanalysis' - extracting encryption keys from the user with the motivating force of a rubber house.

You obviously know nothing about cryptography.

With AES and a 256-bit key, that's a brute force that needs to try 2^256 possible keys.

While it is true that weak passwords will screw you over, that can be easily solved by not using an insecure password.

Like the previous commenter said, the feds would never admit to being able to break crypto like AES. If they were doing it, it'd be for the decryption of big-deal interceptions, but that probably won't happen.

If you're really paranoid, use something like Serpent or another AES finalist, because the criteria for choosing Rjindael for AES were a bit questionable.

i'll bet this order came directly from dick cheney at the white house. did you get any audio or video?

What's the update, Luke?

What were the alleged crimes that were the basis of the warrant?

Update: I am OK, no further police activity. I have legal representation.

My sleeping quarters are sill uninhabitable, as I spent most of the day on the phone either finding or conferring with legal counsel.

How many times to these motherfuckers do this every fucking day? How many people's homes will be raided in the next 24 hours-in our neighborhoods, in Iraq, and everywhere this motherfucking empire holds sway.

What happened to my family home was an invasion, born in the minds of those who also invaded Iraq. Being 7/8ths white, though, at least my mother wasn't met at the door by multiple automatic weapons like in some other raids the DC police and their many friends have been responsible for. Had I been 7/8 Native American and 1/8 white, raised in say, Red lake(Anishabe Reservation with severe poverty), I suspect things would have gone far, far worse. The same if i were African-American, a panther activist, and living in Anacostia.

west coast solidarity! keep up the great work! we are watching and listening!

"to put up with a police search b/c of your activities"
"if I had caused a police search"

Way to place blame on the victim. What activities? Clearly the problem is the state, not Luke, The state caused the attack. The state is on attack. Luke is just a regular person. His home got raided. it sucks. Like he said, this happens everyday, everywhere.

The cause and problem is and always has been authority.

Let's work towards solving the problem!

File a police report!

Wow, what a good idea. Reporting police misconduct to the police who misconducted themselves? I'm sure that'll work. And beside, the state doesn't view it as misconduct anyway. Since the state's force is always legitimate how could it be?

Who ordered the raid? Seek an investigation! Follow the chain of command and expose them.

what was the basis for the warrant?

How do you define normalcy? If Luke is not normal than who is? Also if you understood a collective society you would know how a stateless system works. What you also fail to understand is that crime is a creation of capitalism before it people shared and lived off the land quite well together. When capitalism came around it created competition and lust and greed for bigger and more and when that happened they had to have people to keep people down and protect that state and that competition but make sure that few people could really compete.

As for someone stealing a bike and parking it in their garage well that is what happens under the rule of police and capitalism if we demolished that we wouldn't need to steal each others bikes we would share them and work as a collective society rather than being so damn individualist and anti social. Stealing comes from the capitalist ethos not from human nature or just nature in general. Though in this society if someone stole my bike I would simply go and get it back or just get a new one if I got police involved it would only seek to make matters worse or at the very least more complicated.

Greed and theft both occurred in pre-capitalist economic systems. Do you imagine that they only began in the 17th or 18th century? There were several hierarchical economic systems before capitalism; in the west, these included slavery and feudalism, which were also based on greed and theft; and these created the same problems as capitalism, to greater degrees.

Luke, might you have taken part in a (rather ridiculous) mall fur protest after a lockheed protest in DC? Just wondering, think I may know ya.

Of course ! I was think of slavery and feudalism but rather than mentioning them I just sort of lumped them in with capitalism!

correct about the history of humans on planet earth...

Which is completely irrelevant to the fact that the police had no right to search or take stuff from Luke with or without a warrant, as they appear to have focused on media files, reporter's notes, which is illegal under DC and Maryland laws.

did they shut down the wsqt transmitter?

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Luke mentions that there was a warrant.
That Luke sometimes--often even--contributes to 'open publishing' media outlets doesn't automatically designate him a reporter.
Even if you make the leap to classifying him as a reporter, and you assume that some of his files may have "reporter's notes," that still doesn't mean that the equipment is exempt from being seized. It's possible and likely that there are all sorts of entirely non-journalist related material there as well. If material that's clearly journalism-related notes start getting entered into evidence in a trial, then you can start screaming bloody murder.

I'm really struck by the irony and idiocy of someone labeling themselves a "fact checker" while being utterly ignorant of the law and without any direct facts or material on this case.

By Luke's account, there was a warrant. Go to the warrant, and you'll get (right or wrong) the police's justification for the raid. And if you want citizen journalists to be taken seriously, don't try to abuse the laws protecting journalists by describing and applying them in inaccurate ways.

Since some on this thread have no idea who/what/when/where Luke was reporting for, they don't get to make shit up.

Some individual writes:

"That Luke sometimes--often even--contributes to 'open publishing' media outlets doesn't automatically designate him a reporter."

That Luke publishes regularly to the DC Independent Media Center, an entity which has been officially recognized by the DC Metropolitan Police as media and whose contributors in the past have been granted media credentials by the MPD, makes a fairly strong case that video, audio or other media taken from him are actually covered under DC's shield law.

Of course, that hasn't stopped the DCMPD from illegally arresting accredited Indymedia reporters or carrying out other illegal and unconstitutional actions against them, which is one reason why the DC-IMC no longer requests media credentials from the MPD.

DCMPD's flagrant history of abusing the laws protecting journalists is recorded in numerous court-ordered monetary awards the city has had to pay to plaintiffs. It is a matter of record.

what was the basis for the warrant???????