On Sat, 21 Jul 2001, Morlock Elloi wrote:
>So Adobe thugs will pour out of the building sprayng crowd with machine-gun
>fire ? Corporate commandos will make arrests and cart them to software
>sweatshops ?
>
>What exactly peaceful banner-carrying demonstrators on the public grounds
>should be afraid of ?
The police, and possibly military presence, responding to Adobe
executives panicked calls that they are "under attack by an armed
mob of anarchists bent on the utter destruction of our building
and grounds and possibly the murder of our employees and executives..."
Adobe security guys behind a window on the third floor of the
building, scanning the crowd with a high-resolution camera, and
the $MILLIONS they are willing to spend to hire a private investigator
to find out who each and every one of the people in the picture is
so that police complaints can be filed against each and every one,
and charges brought for criminal trespass, even if it takes months....
And of course the money spent tracking them all down will be on the
bill of damages they try to recover....
Illegal "sweetheart deals" that have been worked out with police
officials and/or private security whereby they've pretty much agreed
in advance that if Adobe puts out the right codeword, a bunch of
muscular men in riot gear will show up to HURT the "attackers" -
this could involve the deployment of tear gas or pepper spray.
Miscellaneous water cannon, rubber bullets, and, worst of
all, thundering herds of lawyers both for attack and defense.
I'm pretty sure attack dogs are effectively banned in California
due to astronomical liability settlements, but otherwise you'd
have to worry about that.
Make no mistake, an american company with a really paranoid bent
can make life sheer hell for any who have the temerity to show
up protesting on its grounds.
It costs them a lot of goodwill though -- if they pull out all
the stops more than once every few years, it's going to seriously
hurt their reputation and their business.
I doubt that Adobe will go the whole route here: I bet they'll go
as far as meeting the protesters with a full cordon of armed law
officers, but if things stay peaceful, the two groups will probably
be able to just stand a respectful distance apart and wave at each
other politely. They'll probably scan the crowd with a high-res
camera, but probably won't bother to file charges unless someone
throws a rock or something. And we're not likely to see water cannon
or pepper spray used unless someone actually gets inside one of the
buildings.
Bear
