Netwar in the Emerald CityNETWAR IN THE EMERALD CITY
WTO protest strategy and tactics
 1999-2000 by Paul de Armond
http://nwcitizen.com/publicgood/reports/wto
The World Trade Organization protests in Seattle marked a turning point in 
national and international trade policy. The biggest outcome of the protests is 
the resurgence of the American Left's influence on the international trade 
issue. All in all, it was a stunning surprise to many of the parties involved: 
the Direct Action Network coordinating the protests, the AFL-CIO's new foray 
into grass-roots politics, the federal administration trying to steer a new 
course in national and multinational trade policies, the Seattle Police who 
found themselves leaderless when the dust settled, and most shocking of all, 
Seattle Mayor Paul Schell, who was left standing alone amidst the political 
wreckage in the aftermath.
The central fact of the protests is the utter surprise and confusion which 
occurred during the initial confrontation on Tuesday morning. "It was a classic 
example of two armies coming into contact and immediately experiencing the total 
collapse their battle plans," said Daniel Junas, a Seattle political researcher.
What exactly happened during the crucial hours of the Battle in Seattle is 
shrouded in confusion and controversy, but the broad outlines can be discerned. 
The street action falls into three distinct phases: first, the Direct Action 
Network (DAN) protesters seized and held a handful of strategic intersections, 
immobilizing the police. Second, the police strategy fragmented over two 
contradictory goals: suppressing the DAN protests and allowing the labor parade. 
Third, the labor parade failed in its goal of controlling and diverting the DAN 
protesters away from the Convention Center. The influx of reinforcements who 
abandoned the labor parade and joined the DAN protests left the streets more 
firmly in control of the protesters, despite the use of tear gas by police since 
around 10 a.m.. By approximately 3 p.m. Tuesday, the battle was decided and the 
Direct Action Network had prevailed in their goal of shutting down the 
conference.
After that time, the outcome was certain. The battle continued for several days, 
spreading into other areas of the city. By Thursday, the World Trade 
Organization had capitulated and the police ceased attacking civilians, thereby 
recognizing a conclusion reached before darkness fell on Tuesday.
Understanding what happened in Seattle requires identifying all of the factors 
which came into play. The following section will discuss the players, the 
terrain and the strategies which preceded the initial confrontations on Tuesday 
morning. The next section will cover the tactical situation in the streets as 
the protesters and police clashed throughout Tuesday. The third section will 
discuss the aftermath of Tuesday's battle and how the conflict continued without 
altering the fundamental decision reached on Tuesday morning. The final section 
will offer some analysis of the WTO protests and what they may mean for future 
protest networks.
The Players: WTO opponents
The Direct Action Network (DAN) represents an emerging species of political 
organization based on networks rather than institutions. The primary networked 
organizations in the Direct Action Network were a coalition of groups such as 
Rainforest Action Network, Art & Revolution and the Ruckus Society. Through the 
Direct Action Network, these groups coordinated non-violent protest training, 
communications and collective strategy and tactics through a decentralized 
process of consultation/consensus decision-making.
The strategy and tactics of these new -- and primarily information-based -- 
networks of non-governmental organizations evolved from trends represented by 
the ad hoc mobilization committees of the Viet Nam protest era, the "alternative 
summits" at recent world environmental and human rights conferences, and the 
loose coalitions which formed in opposition to U.S. policy during the Gulf War. 
Networks, as opposed to institutions, are shaped by decentralized command and 
control structures; are resistant to "decapitation" attacks targeting leaders, 
and are amorphous enough to weld together coalitions with significantly 
different agendas while concentrating forces on a single symbolic target.
Conflicts involving networks blur the distinction between offensive and 
defensive. The overall strategic goal of the Direct Action Network was to "shut 
down" the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle. The "shut down" was 
accomplished by a variety of independent but strategically congruent actions 
summing up to a street blockade in the immediate vicinity of the WTO conference. 
Once the blockade came into being, the emphasis would shift to defending the 
blockade for as long as possible in the streets. In the spotlight of media 
attention created by the blockade, DAN hoped to launch a variety of 
informational operations emphasizing the anti-democratic, neo-colonial and 
anti-environmental tendencies of trans-national trade agreements.
The Direct Action Network's goal was sufficiently broad to join together two 
major WTO opponents. The Direct Action Network protesters clustered around the 
international network of non-governmental organizations devoted to extending the 
principles of liberal democracy. The DAN factions can be distinguished by their 
varying focus on environmental or human rights issues. 
The second major WTO opponent was American organized labor, the AFL-CIO. The 
AFL-CIO represents a hierarchical institution which emphasizes unitary, top-down 
command. There is little participation by rank and file in union 
decision-making, though ceremonial elections are sometimes held to legitimize 
leadership decisions. Essentially nationalist in outlook, the AFL-CIO policy 
goals are directed more at American politics and less at international issues. 
Simply stated, the AFL-CIO's strategic target was supporting and legitimizing 
President Clinton's actions at the conference through purely symbolic displays 
by a loyal opposition.
As will be seen, Clinton indicated in an interview on Tuesday afternoon that 
there was strategic coordination between his administration and the AFL-CIO in 
regards to the parade and protests. In his remarks, President Clinton reinforced 
and repeated the false distinction between the AFL-CIO parade as "legitimate" 
and the DAN protests as "criminalized dissent." This false distinction 
underscores the very reason for the protests in the first place: the exclusion 
of dissenting opinion from trade policy decisions.
Overall, the advantage went to the Direct Action Network, since their 
informational strategy effectively enclosed the coordinated strategy of the 
AFL-CIO and the federal government. As will be seen, at the critical moment in 
the street actions, the balance shifted to the Direct Action Network as 
non-union protesters and a dissenting union members left the AFL-CIO parade and 
joined the street protests, effectively sealing the success of the Direct Action 
Network's day-long blockade.
The Players: World Trade Organization and Allies
On the other side of the conflict, the World Trade Organization and its allies 
composed a much more divided picture. The purpose of the WTO conference was to 
produce a new framework for the next round of negotiations on international 
trade. If successful, the "Seattle round" would try to resolve some of the 
disputes between industrialized nations. To a lesser extent, the WTO 
deliberations would broaden the scope of existing trade agreements to include 
developing countries. Prior to the Seattle conference, the WTO has been 
dominated by the three major trading blocs: the western hemisphere block 
organized around the NAFTA treaties, the European Economic Community (EEC) and 
the Asian industrialized nations. The Seattle talks were the first which 
included developing countries. The complex tensions inside the WTO was reflected 
in the structure of the "green room" discussions dominated by the more powerful 
WTO members and the general meeting where the entire body -- recently expanded 
by the addition of developing nations -- would attempt to ratify the "green 
room" decisions by consensus.
The tensions surrounding this meeting were considerably greater than previous. 
The trade disagreements between the NAFTA nations (led by the U.S.), the EEC 
(led by France) and the Asian nations (led by Japan) promised to be major 
stumbling blocks. At the same time, the failure of the WTO consensus process 
would maintain and extend the dominance of the industrialized nations over the 
newer members. Even in the absence of protests outside the meeting, the tensions 
inside made it very likely that the Seattle round of negotiations would be off 
to a very rocky start. All in all, the American posture consisted of blocking 
agreements while giving the appearance of support.
President Clinton's strategy was concentrated around his appearance at the 
conference, rather than the success of the conference itself. If the talks 
failed to produce a new framework, then the existing agreements (which heavily 
favored the shared interests of industrialized countries) would continue to 
provide the basis for international negotiations. In terms of the protests, the 
federal strategy and national prestige hinged simply on getting Clinton into the 
conference.
Next on the list of WTO allies is the City of Seattle and Mayor Paul Schell. The 
City of Seattle, as host of the conference and lead jurisdiction, was the center 
of responsibility for containing the demonstrations. Aside from this 
hospitality, Schell's political concerns were complex. First of all, the primary 
reason for Seattle hosting the WTO conference was to promote regional trade 
interests: principally timber and forest products, wheat and a variety of high 
tech industries, of which Microsoft and Boeing are the best known examples. 
Secondly, Schell is a liberal Democrat and has strong ties to the Democratic 
Party and its main source of financial support, the AFL-CIO. Third and last, 
Schell is deeply beholden to the progressive Democrats and environmentalists who 
are a key political constituency in Seattle, though mostly excluded from the 
Democratic Party by the labor interests. Schell's attempts to satisfy all of 
these interests were so riddled with contradictions that he became unable to 
control events and was ultimately left to twist slowly in the wind, abandoned by 
nearly everyone.
The direct point of contact between the Direct Action Network and the WTO was 
the Seattle Police Department (SPD). Under the leadership of Chief Norm Stamper, 
the SPD has become a national laboratory for a progressive philosophy of law 
enforcement known as "community policing." Recently, the relations between the 
police and Mayor Schell's administration have not been good. One of the outcomes 
of Chief Stamper's community policing initiative has been the formation of a 
police accountability organization which reports separately to the Chief and the 
City Council through two separate boards. The road to community policing has 
been rough and rocky, particularly in light of the resistance from rank and file 
cops. These frictions have heightened the tensions surrounding the contract 
negotiations between the City and the police union.
The total size of the Seattle Police Department is roughly 1,800 officers, of 
whom about 850 are available for street duty throughout the city. Of these, 400 
were assigned to the WTO demonstrations. Seattle has about the same ratio of 
police to population as Chicago, but Seattle's smaller size limited in the 
number of officers it could field against the protesters -- unless, of course, 
the SPD entered into some sort of joint WTO operation with other police agencies 
in the region. By Wednesday, the second day of the protests, more than 500 state 
and regional police, plus some 200 National Guard would be deployed.
The largest two outside police forces available to Seattle are the King County 
Sheriff's department and the Washington State Patrol. Sheriff Dave Reichert is a 
conservative Republican and political foe of Mayor Schell. This reflects the 
long-standing division between Seattle and the King County government. The 
suburban fringe surrounding Seattle is the traditional political battleground in 
which statewide elections are fought. The outlying areas go to the Republicans 
and the heavily urbanized areas go to the Democrats. The suburbs swing back and 
forth between the two. The State Patrol chief is responsible to Gov. Gary Locke, 
a nominal Democrat who rose to the governorship through the King County Council. 
The governor also controls the National Guard, although these forces can't be 
committed without the declaration of a state of emergency by the governor and 
the request of the mayor. Neither the King County police nor the State Patrol 
are supporters of community policing policies, which meant that outside 
assistance would entail Chief Stamper presiding over a joint command divided by 
fundamental policy differences.
Mayor Schell decided that he and Chief Stamper would deal with the 
demonstrations without the direct support of other law enforcement agencies. 
Most critics have claimed that this decision was the reason the protests 
succeeded. There are strong reasons to believe that this is not so. The Tuesday 
protests would have succeeded in attaining their goals (though in a less 
spectacular fashion) even if the police presence had included the outside 
agencies.
One of the considerations which weighed against the employment of outside police 
on Tuesday was the strong possibility that they would attack the union parade 
and city residents. The deployment of outside police reinforcements was delayed 
long enough to protect the union parade. But the police attacks on city 
residents occured on Capitol Hill, on Tuesday and Wednesday night. This is an 
area in which Schell's political support is strongest and also where many of the 
protesters were staying while in Seattle.
The Players: Wild Cards
There are two more players who deserve examination, especially since one ended 
up dominating the national media coverage. Neither of these two groups was 
numerous nor strategically significant in terms of the overall outcome of the 
WTO protests. However, both ended up in effective control of the informational 
conflict in which the media was both the battleground and the prize.
The first of these groups were the so-called "Anarchists from Eugene," more 
correctly known as the "Black Blocs." The total number of Black Bloc 
participants numbered between one and two hundred people. The appearance of 
Black Blocs at protests is a relatively recent phenomenon. The purpose of Black 
Blocs is to show a visible presence of the more radical anarchist factions. A 
Black Bloc consists of protesters who wear black, carry anarchist flags and 
banners, and take a more confrontational approach to protest.
In an interview in Active Transformation, an anarchist journal, one participant 
in the Seattle Black Blocs explained it this way: " ...Anarchists were not 
isolated in the black block. There were anarchists involved in every possible 
way. There were anarchist labor activists, puppeteers, non-violent lockdown 
blockaders, marching musicians, medics, communication people, media people, 
whatever - as well as a group of about two hundred in black masks who had 
prepared, also in affinity groups, to do as much symbolic physical damage to 
multi-national capitalism as possible. I have seen black blocks used in protests 
in the U.S. a lot but never so successfully. It is important to note that the 
black block was not the result of some conspiracy. It too happened quite 
spontaneously, with people who came from all over the country - with similar 
desires."
The media's tag-line of "Anarchists from Eugene" is one of those lazy 
half-truths which sums up to a conscious lie. The half-truth is that people from 
Eugene participated in the Black Blocs. The other unreported half of the truth 
is that people from Seattle and the surrounding region committed much of the 
vandalism and nearly all of the looting. These people were not part of the Black 
Blocs, nor were their actions politically inspired. The lie was that the Black 
Bloc faction engaged in property destruction -- which numbered perhaps 40 people 
at most -- caused the police violence in the streets. The violence began hours 
before the window-breaking spree.
When literature captures a concise image which accurately portrays a larger 
whole, it is known as an archetype. When that process fails and the dominant 
image obscures the truth, it is stereotyping. In the middle of December, the 
Seattle Weekly and KPLU Radio sponsored a panel on media coverage of the WTO. 
The consensus emerged that both local and national media had succumbed to "lazy 
media shorthand" and failed to report the overall story in either a balanced or 
accurate way. The message which still hasn't penetrated the media is that the 
Black Blocs accomplished an international coup of "culture jamming" by 
selectively targeting a handful of retailers and banks for broken windows. In 
committing this vandalism, they conformed to pre-established media stereotypes 
of "violent anarchists" and effectively hijacked several weeks of coverage into 
a fantasyland which served their propaganda goals admirably.
The primary target of the Black Blocs was neither the WTO no the businesses 
whose windows were broken. The Black Blocs were in Seattle to radicalize the WTO 
opponents. And that is precisely what they did -- with the significant 
assistance of the media and second wild card group.
The other wild card group is that segment of the Seattle Police Department which 
actively sought to disrupt the chain of command and force the initial 
confrontation with demonstrators into chaos. To put it bluntly, these officers 
comprise the faction within the police department which has been most threatened 
by Chief Stamper's reforms -- the criminal element. "Organized crime is the 
continuation of business by criminal means," says Dr. Phil Williams, 
international expert on organized crime. And criminal business, just like 
legitimate business, requires the active support and participation of law 
enforcement.
In the late 1960's and early 1970's, Seattle went through a series of scandals 
involving organized crime and police corruption. The popular view of organized 
crime as an "underworld" operation, totally divorced from everyday business and 
politics was seriously challenged by the work of William J. Chamblis, a 
sociologist at the University of Washington. Chamblis' study of organized crime 
in Seattle, On the Take: From Petty Crooks to Presidents, showed that "crime is 
not a by-product of an otherwise effectively working political economy, it a 
main product of that economy. Crime is in fact a cornerstone on which the 
political and economic relations of societies are constructed." Rather than a 
"few bad apples," corruption is the normal state of affairs. Chamblis' work and 
other research shows that "organized crime really consists of a coalition of 
politicians, law-enforcement people, businessmen, union leaders and (in some 
ways least important of all) racketeers."
Seattle's police history has been as colorfully sordid as any other American 
city's. The criminal economy of drugs, prostitution, gambling, and the financial 
apparatus which such large-scale businesses require is no different in Seattle 
than elsewhere. From Seattle's beginnings around the "Skid Road" at the Denny 
sawmill to the current flap over "police misconduct," police morale has been a 
reliable indicator of the level of corruption. Recently, morale has been low, 
which means that the crooked cops have been on the defensive. The focus of the 
criminal element's displeasure has been Chief Stamper and his Senior Leadership 
Team -- or as the department's rank and file pronounce it, the "sluts." The 
criminal element among the Seattle Police Department has only one goal, 
embarrass Mayor Schell and Chief Stamper. 
The initial approach by the opponents of police accountability was the 
circulation of mutinous talk regarding the "softness" of the official strategy 
for dealing with the demonstrators. During an October crowd control training 
session, Assistant Chief Ed Joiner answered questions about protester violence 
by saying that there was nothing to worry about and the protests would be 
non-violent. SPD Officer Brett Smith and others claim the FBI and Secret Service 
had briefed King County Sheriff's officers to "fully anticipate that five to six 
officers would be lost during the protests, either seriously injured or killed," 
as Smith told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter Dan Raley. When Officer 
Smith and others spoke with their commander about the stories coming from the 
King County police, they were told not to spread rumors. It appears likely that 
statements predicting violent attacks were part of the Sheriff's training and it 
is certain that the predictions were hysterical and provocative.
The success in undermining Chief Stamper's command depended on the breakdown of 
law and order in the streets. Whose law and what order was the question. If the 
mayor and police chief could be maneuvered into declaring a civil emergency, 
then the regional, state and federal agencies would be able to enter the 
conflict and the hard-liners strategy would prevail for a while.
Terrain of the battlefield
The geography of the WTO conference site played a central role in determining 
the success of the protests. The accompanying 1996 USGS satellite photos show 
the field of battle and the significant features. 
First and most importantly, the Washington Trade and Convention Center is 
located on the edge of downtown. It is built over the I-5 freeway and is 
accessible from only two sides. As a site for a blockade, it is perfect. The 
area is triangular, with the freeway side inaccessible. The Direct Action 
Network blockaded the area along the north and west streets. The blockade was 
several blocks deep and concentrated on a dozen intersections.
 
Secondly, the sites of two major skirmishes which dominated media attention, 
Capitol Hill and the Pike Place Market, had nothing to do with conducting the 
conference or moving delegates between the Convention Center, the Paramount 
Theatre or the downtown hotels. Likewise, the area in which the Black Bloc 
vandalism occurred is outside the blockade area and not part of the streets 
directly connecting the Convention Center with the Westin Hotel or the Paramount 
Theatre.
Capitol Hill and the Pike Place Market form two poles along the major axis of 
crowd mobility, the named streets which run northeast/southwest through the 
downtown. The Market is built on a steep bluff which formed Seattle's original 
shoreline. The bluff forms a geographic barrier which stops all movement towards 
the waterfront. Capitol Hill is a dense residential neighborhood -- the densest 
in the city. Broadway, the main street which forms the backbone of the Capitol 
Hill commercial district, runs north/south along the crest. There is a steep 
change in elevation along Seattle's east-west axis running from the crest of 
Capital hill to the waterfront.
The area immediately to the north of the convention center is predominantly open 
parking lots and small buildings, compared to the more densely built-up 
downtown. To the west, the long blocks of the downtown avenues (7th, 6th, 5th, 
ending in 1st Ave) form a barrier which channels movement into a few streets 
(Pike, Pine, Union and University). Blockades on these streets effectively shut 
off the area. The east and south sides of the Convention Center are cut off by 
the freeway.
To maintain effective control of the area, the police would have needed a 
perimeter roughly on the order of Thursday's "no protest zone." Given the 
decision to rely on the Seattle Police alone, this lengthy perimeter was 
impossible to control with 400 officers. The additional resources of county, 
state and federal forces would have been hard pressed to maintain such a 
perimeter in the face of the approximately 40,000 protesters, demonstrators and 
parade participants present on Tuesday. On Wednesday, these additional police 
forces were available and the number of protesters was approximately halved. 
Even with this sizable shift in the numbers on opposing sides, the police were 
unable to effectively control the downtown.
Amidst all the criticism -- mostly coming from law enforcement agencies which 
failed even more disastrously than the Seattle Police Department in maintaining 
order -- about the police's "lack of preparedness" for the demonstrations, the 
larger perimeter, increased security troops and suspension of civil liberties 
which accompanied the mayor's declaration of civil emergency failed miserably in 
the face of much smaller numbers of protesters on Wednesday.
The geography of Seattle's downtown favors protesters. In the last decade, two 
major civil disturbances -- accompanying first the Gulf War protests and the 
"Rodney King" riots -- have followed much the same path over the same streets, 
as did the numerous protests during the Viet Nam war. Given sufficient numbers 
and even the most hare-brained strategy, protesters have the ability to dominate 
the streets of Seattle.
Strategies
None of the strategies employed by the three major players in Tuesday's conflict 
was particularly hare-brained, but the most unrealistic belonged to the AFL-CIO, 
at least in the sense of the battle for control of the streets. The AFL-CIO 
strategy was to hold a rally at the Seattle Center and then march downtown (but 
not too far). Central to the AFL-CIO strategy was the notion that if they could 
contain the majority of the demonstrators and keep them out of the downtown 
area, when Clinton announced his pro-labor and protectionist policies, the 
AFL-CIO would be able to claim credit. All the AFL-CIO had to do was prevent any 
effective protests by groups not under their control and allow the media to spin 
the tale of how labor caused a "sudden change" in national policy. The AFL-CIO 
proved to be unequal to the task of rounding up all the protesters and keeping 
them muzzled.
The Direct Action Network planned more effectively, and in the end more 
realistically, with a "Peoples Convergence" consisting of three waves of 
blockaders enclosing the WTO conference site. The first wave consisted of 
"affinity groups" who had opted for non-violent civil disobedience and arrest. 
Their job was to penetrate the area close to the conference site, seize the 
dozen strategic intersections which controlled movement in the protest target 
and hang on until reinforcements arrived. The second wave comprised protesters 
who had opted for non-violent demonstration and not being arrested. Their task 
was to protect the first wave from police violence and plug up the streets by 
sheer numbers and passive resistance. The third wave was a march by the People's 
Assembly, composed mostly of environmental and human rights groups who elected 
to participated in the street protests instead of the labor parade. This group 
entered downtown from the south at about 1 p.m. and marched to the Paramount 
Theatre inside the protest zone. The first and second waves were loosely 
organized into a dozen simultaneously converging affinity groups, swarming the 
protest target from all directions. Each affinity group blockaded a specific 
intersection. The blockade would be maintained as long as possible until police 
had arrested sufficient demonstrators to regain control of the streets.
 
The Direct Action Network's strategy is a classic example of "netwar" conflict. 
Netwar is a concept introduced in the early 1990's by two researchers at the 
RAND corporation, a government-funded think tank which began under the auspices 
of the U.S. Air Force. In a now-seminal paper titled "Cyberwar is Coming!", RAND 
analysts David Ronfeldt and John Arquilla proposed a new framework for viewing 
conflict in the information age. The essence of netwar is the emerging forms of 
conflict in which one or more of the major participants consist of networks, 
rather than institutions. The central feature of informational conflicts is the 
struggle for understanding and knowledge, as opposed to more traditional 
conflicts which focus on controlling territories or resources.
Netwar is inherently less violent than other forms of conflict, particularly 
when it involves non-governmental organizations dedicated to human rights and 
peace causes. One of the first full-blown manifestations of netwar was the 
Zapatista conflict in Chiapas. The networked intervention of international 
groups placed very real limits on the use of violence by the Mexican government 
in supressing the insurrection.
In the case of the Direct Action Network, the central prize consisted of the 
understanding that the WTO multi-lateral trade agreements are intensely 
corrosive to democracy, at least that form of democracy which entails a 
knowledgeable public participating in policy formation in meaningful ways.
Netwars are fought by networks; collections of groups and organizations guided 
by non-hierarchical command structures which communicate through "all-points" 
communications channels of considerable bandwidth and complexity. The DAN 
communications channels blanketed the Seattle area and had global reach via the 
internet. Institutions, such as corporate media, police and the AFL-CIO, tend to 
depend on narrow communications channels which are highly centralized and 
hierarchical.
Networks operate by "swarming" their opponents like bees or white blood cells -- 
more like organisms than machines. They approach stealthily and from many 
directions in offense. In defense, they can react like anti-bodies moving 
towards points of attack. Netwar's line between offense and defense can be 
blurred, leaving opponents unclear about what is occurring and how to respond. 
Throughout the protests, the Direct Action Network were able to offensively 
swarm their opponents repeatedly, as shown by the seizure of key intersections 
on Tuesday and the easy penetration of the "no-protest" zone on Wednesday. The 
anti-body defense was shown when crowds moved towards police attacks or mass 
arrests. The swarming action was also apparent when numerous groups within the 
AFL-CIO rally and parade successfully resisted efforts by the union leadership 
to keep them from supporting the DAN blockade of the WTO convention site.
The network form of organization is particularly robust and resilient in the 
face of adversity. The decentralized command and control structure allows rapid 
shifts of strategic targeting. It is highly resistant to "decapitation" (attacks 
which target leadership), and the disruption of communication channels. All 
three of these feature were present during the WTO protests. The diffuse 
communications network allowed protesters to continuously adapt to changing 
conditions. The consultative form of decision-making enhanced the ability to 
coordinate large-scale actions. The police attempts to arrest "ringleaders" on 
Wednesday were fruitless, since leadership was widely shared throughout the 
network of protest groups. The communications network was continuously being 
expanded and modified. On Tuesday, police cut off many of the Direct Action 
Network communications channels, but in a few hours a new and larger network 
based on cell phones was functioning.
The competing strategies of the Direct Action Network and the AFL-CIO put the 
police in the classically disastrous position of dividing their forces and 
inviting defeat in detail. The AFL-CIO rally and parade was planned in 
conjunction with the police. Although it would not require much more in the way 
of security than any other parade, it still demanded adequate coverage at the 
the rally and along the parade route. The security requirements at the WTO 
conference site were subject to considerably more uncertainty. The DAN 
organizers had participated in lengthy negotiations with the police and had made 
their blockade strategy known, at least in general outline. DAN had repeatedly 
and publicly stated that their goal was to "shut down the WTO." Mayor Schell and 
Chief Stamper were faced with the difficult decision of allocating forces 
against two different opponents using markedly different strategies.
The ultimate police decision was to rely on a "tripwire" outer perimeter which 
would trigger the arrests at the Convention Center, backed up with an inner 
perimeter to prevent the Direct Action Network protesters from entering the WTO 
conference. Working with the labor leaders, the police would use the AFL-CIO 
rally as a means of containing the crowds and keeping the majority of them away 
from the Convention Center. Much has been made of the decision to rely on a 
close perimeter defense of the Convention Center, but a larger perimeter and 
more police would have simply moved the line of battle and dispersed the police, 
as occurred on Wednesday.
The real question facing the police was whether they would be confronting a 
protest or a parade. The police put their money on the parade and lost. The 
labor parade as the dominant factor of the protests was the least likely of all 
outcomes, but the only one which the police had a chance of controlling.
The current theory of controlling protests usually revolves around the 
willingness of protesters to be steered into some venue in which the protest can 
be neutralized, marginalized and trivialized. When this agreement doesn't exist, 
the older police strategy is to treat a protest as a riot -- gas, baton charges, 
assault and occasionally arrests. On Tuesday, the first strategy failed and on 
Wednesday the second strategy failed.
Intelligence Failure
Underlying the failure of the police strategy for controlling the demonstrations 
was the fundamental failure of intelligence. The picture which law enforcement 
built of the developing protests was a catastrophe of wishful thinking, 
breathing their own exhaust and the most classic of all blunders -- mistaking 
tactics for strategy. The Seattle police and all of the responsible federal law 
enforcement agencies had the information necessary to appraise the situation. 
What was lacking was a comprehensive understanding of the strategy of the 
protests. Without that, all of the pieces of the intelligence puzzle were not 
going to fit into an accurate assessment and strategic plan.
The wishful thinking centered on the alliance between the police and the 
AFL-CIO. The plan for the labor parade to engulf the protests and steer them 
into a marginal venue was never a real possibility. The Direct Action Network 
and their allies had no intention of turning the protest organizing over to the 
unions. On Sunday, November 28, Teamsters president Hoffa was trumpeting Pat 
Buchanan as "the only presidential candidate who understands the trade issue." 
This was hardly the sort of analysis which would convince progressive activists 
to submit to the unions' nationalist and protectionist agenda. The Left has had 
decades of experience being sold down the river by organized labor and has 
learned that lesson well. If there was going to be an alliance between 
protesters and paraders, it was going to be on the protesters terms or not at 
all. The city officials chose to believe the labor assurances of controlling the 
protesters. This led the police to drastically underestimate the number of 
protesters, who were at least as numerous as the paraders. Neither the police 
nor the unions forsaw the Direct Action Network being able to mount a successful 
protest. Once that assumption became the basis for planning, any evidence to the 
contrary was disregarded or misinterpreted.
The intelligence picture was further confused by the claims of federal law 
enforcement officials that the protests would be violent. The publicly released 
text of one FBI forecast was replete with hysterical predictions: "...elements 
within the protest community are planning to disrupt the conference... 
environmental or animal rights extremists or anarchist-induced violence ... 
computer-based attacks on WTO-related web sites, as well as key corporate and 
financial sites...Corporate sponsors ... may be subject to surveillance efforts 
from these groups.... to identify the residences of key employees of sponsoring 
corporations.... These employees should remain alert for individuals who may be 
targeting them in furtherance of anti-WTO activities.... Recipients should 
remain sensitive to threats made by anti-WTO groups."
Buried within this froth was "The FBI assesses the potential threat of violence, 
to include criminal acts of civil disturbance, as low to medium for the Seattle 
area during the time frame of the WTO Meeting." Asked by reporters what "low to 
medium" meant, FBI spokesman Ray Lauer refused to answer, citing the 
"law-enforcement sensitive" nature of the report and the "controversy concerning 
planning over WTO." An anonymous law enforcement source cited by the Seattle 
Times stated that "low to medium" covered anything from simple civil 
disobedience to and Oklahoma City-style terrorist bombing.
Nowhere in the FBI "Terrorist Threat Advisory" was the slightest inkling of what 
was going to be happening in the streets beyond the fact that the conference was 
going to be "disrupted." The Direct Action Network and AFL-CIO plans had been 
trumpeted loudly, widely and in considerable detail in the press by the 
organizers, summing up to non-violent civil disobedience shutting down the 
conference and an ineffectual parade designed to keep protesters away from the 
Convention Center. The city officials at the top elected to pick and choose 
among information to support their plans. The front-line officers did the same, 
if with opposite results. The rumors within the police department (fantasy or 
otherwise) about federal expectations of dead and wounded police added to the 
unreality.
Netwar conflicts are struggles for understanding and information. The FBI 
fantasies of violent terrorists directing the protests blinded and disabled the 
police. The more inaccurate the assessment of opposing forces, the greater the 
advantage to the side which possesses "topview" -- comprehensive and realistic 
understanding.
Correlation of Forces
By Monday evening, November 30, the forces had aligned themselves. The Direct 
Action Network planned to shut down the WTO conference by swarming the streets. 
The AFL-CIO planned to hold a rally and parade in an effort to influence 
national trade policy -- and the upcoming presidential elections. Police Chief 
Norm Stamper had decided the protests could be peacefully controlled by his own 
forces without outside assistance, knowing that the price of assistance could be 
the peace. The mayor had decided to let the AFL-CIO control his actions on 
Tuesday, hoping against all evidence that the unions would swallow and control 
the protesters. The Seattle Police Department was tasked with preventing the 
protests while allowing the labor parade. The outside law enforcement agencies 
were champing at the bit to enter into the fray, but as long as the SPD 
maintained order, they must sit on the sidelines. The FBI and Secret Service 
cried doom and gloom -- while signing off on Mayor Schell and Chief Stamper's 
plan. The Black Blocs were milling around the edges, fondling their crowbars and 
dreaming of chaos.
What would happen next was anybody's guess, but the best guessers would win and 
the others would lose.
It's a hackneyed truism that no plan of battle survives contact with the 
opposition. This is exactly what happened on the morning of November 30, 1999 in 
Seattle.
The Direct Action Network protesters expected to show up, cross the "tripwires" 
of the flimsy police barriers and be arrested, probably with a light seasoning 
of pepper spray. The police on the streets expected to disperse the protesters 
before noon and maybe have a little tussle doing it. In the meantime, they were 
going to maintain discipline, show restraint, and "not be the spark." The mayor 
and the chief of police expected a paltry handful of demonstrators to show up 
downtown and get arrested in a mutual display of civility. The AFL-CIO expected 
to dominate the media coverage with a colorful parade from the Seattle Center 
towards -- but not too close to -- downtown. The Black Bloc expected to do a 
little graffiti and smash some carefully selected windows just as soon as the 
police got too preoccupied with the demonstrators. The FBI, if their "Terrorist 
Threat Advisory" can be believed, were preparing to counter a terrorist 
onslaught in cyberspace while combating terrorist home invasions or kidnappings. 
Actually, some of the FBI were dressing up in black protester disguises, 
complete with masks, and getting ready to join in the street party with the 
Black Bloc as close observers.
Seizing the Emerald City
At 5 a.m. Tuesday morning, Washington State Patrol Chief Annette Sandberg had 
coffee at the Starbucks near the Convention Center. Nobody would be having 
coffee there that evening, as it would be smashed and looted. Sandberg saw 
demonstrators moving into strategic positions before any police had arrived. The 
converging columns of the Direct Action Network began to shut down Seattle.
The first Direct Action Network "arrest" affinity groups moved in on the 
strategic intersections in the vicinity of the Convention Center. Afterwards, 
these protesters said that they were surprised by the absence of any police 
presence on the streets. In many locations, the "arrest" groups arrived earlier 
than the "non-arrest" groups which were supposed to protect them from removal by 
the police. The news photographs of these initial "lock-down" groups have a 
surrealistic air to them. In the empty streets after dawn, groups of protesters 
lock themselves together with bicycle locks or tubes covering their linked arms 
to prevent police from removing them individually.
King County Sheriff Dave Reichert says he got a telephone call at 8 a.m. from a 
county detective. "He said, `Sheriff, we're trapped. . . . We have no backup,' " 
Reichert claimed. "I had officers barricaded in the hotel with a mob literally 
pounding on the glass, and there was nobody to help them. Nobody." Reichert 
wasn't on the scene, but already he was seeing "mobs." KIRO-7 television crews 
were at the same location and show lines of grinning demonstrators holding hands 
and blocking the street -- no "mob literally pounding on the glass."
By 8 a.m., most of the key intersections had been seized by the protesters, now 
reinforced by their second wave. Meanwhile, at the Memorial Stadium at the 
Seattle Center, the gates are opening for the AFL-CIO rally, which is scheduled 
to begin at 10 a.m.. Chartered busses from around the region have been on the 
road for some time, carrying a mixture of union members and protesters to 
Seattle. The AFL-CIO had done a mass mailing throughout Washington State, 
sending tasteful green postcards to non-union supporters of a variety of liberal 
and progressive organizations. "Join the March of the Century," the cards read. 
The AFL-CIO strategy of parading without protesting dovetailed neatly with the 
city plans for a minuscule protest and a mediagenic parade. 
As the number of protesters increased, the 400 police remained in their lines 
around the Convention Center or at their positions at the Memorial Stadium. The 
slow infiltration of demonstrators made it difficult for the police to gauge the 
intentions of the crowd. Though the police didn't realize it, the Direct Action 
Network had already swarmed them and now shifting to a defensive strategy of 
holding on to the streets that they now controlled. The flimsy rope and netting 
barriers, the "tripwire" at the Paramount Theatre, went down as protesters 
walked towards the line of city busses next to the theater. The busses were a 
second line of defense, separating the police from the crowd.
Protesters Own the Streets
By 9:10 a.m., "crowd-control efforts were encountering difficulty," according to 
Washington State Patrol Chief Sandberg. She placed troopers throughout Western 
Washington on alert. The day was barely started and the police plan was already 
beginning to break down. The Secret Service, responsible for the security of 
federal and visiting government officials, discovered that the streets between 
the Convention Center, the adjacent hotels and the Paramount Theater -- a 
distance of up to five blocks along some routes -- were closed by protesters. 
"It hadn't taken long for things not to be working very well." said Ronald 
Legan, the special agent in charge of the Seattle office of the Secret Service.
Though the police didn't realize it, the Direct Action Network plan had achieved 
its goal. They had blockaded the streets and shut down the WTO. According to the 
agreed-upon script, the police would now arrest the protesters. Unfortunately, 
the protesters had been so successful at blockading the area around the 
convention center that police couldn't move. It makes no sense to arrest someone 
if you can't remove them from the area. The next phase of the protest plan was 
to hang on to the streets as long as possible. Since the police remained 
stationary for the most part, other than slowly moving single vehicles through 
the crowds, there was little for the protesters to do but enjoy themselves with 
chants, singing and drumming. The overall mood was festive, rather than hostile. 
The protesters had won, though it was too early for anyone to know that for 
sure. Until several hours after dark, the Direct Action Network would control 
all movement in triangle of streets under blockade.
Strategic surprise doesn't occur in the field, so much as in the mind of the 
opponent. The longer it's delayed, the more complete its effects. In the case of 
Mayor Schell, the surprise and disbelief would dominate his actions until late 
afternoon. By 9:30 a.m., the police command post was being inundated by reports 
from the streets that control of the situation -- meaning the ability to move 
police and delegates through the streets -- had been lost.
The divisions between the rival commanders began to widen as the morning wore 
on. "This was not an integrated command structure," King County Sheriff Dave 
Reichert said. "While everybody was at the table, it was made clear that the 
rest of us were relegated to supporting roles. Seattle was running the show."
Police go on the offensive
Shortly after 10 a.m., the Seattle Police Department got their show on the road. 
The Seattle Police began using tear gas to clear the streets.
It's still not clear if the order was issued by Assistant Chief Ed Joiner -- 
Chief Stamper had delegated control of WTO to him and did not arrive at the 
commanders' meeting until late that afternoon -- or if was a spontaneous 
decision made by officers in the street. The use of gas may have been an effort 
to open a pathway into the protest area from outside, as the gas was fired at on 
Sixth Avenue, between University and Union Streets. This is the extreme southern 
end of the triangular area blockaded by the Direct Action Network. The Seattle 
Times said "police used gas to disperse demonstrators massing." Police officials 
later explained that the gas was an attempt to expand and re-connect their now 
isolated perimeters inside the crowds. None of these explanations makes much 
sense.
The events surrounding the decision to use gas continue to be cloaked in 
confusion and controversy. Later claims that the police resorted to gas in 
response to widespread violent attacks and vandalism are now known to be 
absolutely untrue. The counter-claims that police were unprovoked and that the 
crowds were non-confrontive are equally untrue. The more aggressive 
demonstrators had moved towards the police positions and videotapes clearly show 
that there was no buffer space between the opposing sides in many areas. One 
segment aired on KIRO TV shows members of the Black Bloc confronting police and 
being extremely provocative, but not attacking anyone or committing vandalism. 
The police view of the crowd was framed by these more aggressive demonstrators, 
while the vast majority of the crowd was unable to see the police and was in a 
giddy, triumphant mood.
It will require the investigations by the Seattle City Council, the ACLU, 
Amnesty International and other groups to determine if the use of gas was 
ordered by the police command or if it was a decision made in the streets. After 
the first canisters were fired, the use of tear gas and pepper spray spread 
rapidly throughout the protest area.
With the release of the gas, mood in the streets rapidly changed. The police 
were successful in advancing against the crowd. There were no instances where 
police charges were repulsed, or where the crowds counter-attacked and cut off 
police. One major effort to re-open the street connecting the Paramount Theatre 
to the hotels moved the crowds back until running out of steam. In short, the 
police tactics were of limited success and ineffective.
The net effect of the use of gas and the police charges was to cause the crowds 
to surge from one point to another without allowing police to gain control of 
the streets. In the midst of the melee, the "lock-down" affinity groups remained 
in place, blocking intersections and anchoring the protest to the area around 
the convention center. Police gassed and pepper-sprayed the immobile groups, but 
could not arrest them and remove them from the area due to the continued 
blockade. These tactics were both ineffective in getting the blockaders to move 
and successful in infuriating the crowds who saw their main mission as the 
protection of these groups. The crowds were now frightened and angry, but 
determined to maintain control of the streets.
The overall strategic situation remained unchanged, despite the tactical chaos. 
The protesters numbers were sufficient to keep the blockade intact, though it 
was now a blockade of continuous movement. The police remained isolated inside 
the protest area without an open avenue to the outside through which arrestees 
could be removed. Both sides remained under the overall command of their 
respective strategies, regardless of the excitement. The area involved in the 
disorder -- and that's what it clearly was after an hour of tear gas and chaos 
-- spread down Pike and Pine Streets. The protests remained centered on the 
Convention Center. Although the crowds expanded into the surrounding blocks 
under the police attacks, they kept surging back to protect the "lock-down" 
affinity groups holding the key intersections.
The cohesion of the Direct Action Network was partly due to their improvised 
communications network assembled out of cell phones, radios, police scanners and 
portable computers. Protesters in the street with wireless Palm Pilots were able 
to link into continuously updated web pages giving reports from the streets. 
Police scanners monitored transmissions and provided some warning of changing 
police tactics. Cell phones were widely used.
Kelly Quirke, Executive Director of the Rainforest Action Network, reports that 
early Tuesday, "the authorities had successfully squashed DAN's communications 
system." The solution to the infrastructure attack was quickly resolved by 
purchasing new Nextel cell phones. According to Han Shan, the Ruckus Society's 
WTO action coordinator, his organization and other protest groups that formed 
the Direct Action Network used the Nextel system to create a cellular grid over 
the city. They broke into talk groups of eight people each. One of the eight 
overlapped with another talk group, helping to quickly communicate through the 
ranks.
In addition to the organizers' all-points network, protest communications were 
leavened with individual protesters using cell phones, direct transmissions from 
roving independent media feeding directly onto the internet, personal computers 
with wireless modems broadcasting live video, and a variety of other networked 
communications. Floating above the tear gas was a pulsing infosphere of enormous 
bandwidth, reaching around the planet via the internet.
Labor's U-turn
By 11 a.m., the rally at Memorial stadium had been underway for an hour. Roughly 
20,000 people only half-filled the stadium. The union numbers were swelled by 
the anti-WTO organizations which had opted not to engage in the direct action to 
shut down the conference. Environmentalists received most of the media coverage 
for their participation in the labor parade. There have been complaints from the 
unions and their supporters that the rally and parade did not get the press 
coverage it deserved. Human-rights organizations, particularly those working 
through churches in a "faith-based" network, got even shorter shrift from the 
media than the unions. Human rights groups are the critical bond between labor 
and the left. If the labor-left alliance fractures, it will be over 
international human rights -- not environmental -- issues.
The rally at the Seattle Center represented a major turn to the left on the part 
of organized labor. There will be considerable attention to how this new 
alliance proceeds in the coming months. Fault lines run through it in every 
direction, but the fact remains that when the AFL-CIO brought their national 
agenda to Seattle, they looked to the right and saw Pat Buchanan standing alone 
and without meaningful popular support, while on the left was a broad array of 
grass-roots support reaching not only across America, but around the world. The 
labor-left alliance will hinge on the ability of labor leaders to shift their 
overtly nationalist agenda to a more international viewpoint.
The disorder spreading through the streets downtown was instantly communicated 
to the crowd through cell phones, radios and the rest of the infosphere. Behind 
the scenes, furious activity was taking place to prevent the parade from being 
canceled by city authorities.
Meanwhile, back at the police command center, Assistant Chief Ed Joiner was 
turning down demands from his field commanders to declare a state of civil 
emergency which would cancel the parade.
Joiner said he overruled a recommendation by Assistant Chief John Pirak to 
declare a state of emergency Tuesday about 11 a.m.. The veto, Joiner said, was 
made in consideration of plans for the AFL-CIO march towards downtown. "I felt 
declaring a state of emergency at that time, before the march ever got under 
way, was going to send a very strong public message that we already had major 
difficulties as a city," Joiner said.
Joiner's statement underscores the widespread fantasy on the part of city 
officials that the uproar which followed the 10 a.m. deployment of tear gas was 
somehow a secret which they could keep. This air of unreality was demonstrated 
by Seattle's KOMO TV, which tried to implement a censorship policy by not 
covering the news as it unfolded in the streets. KOMO has received richly 
deserved ridicule for their censorship of "illegal demonstrations", but the 
attitude was not theirs alone. Anyone with an internet connection could plug 
into live video and audio feeds from the street battles from the alternative 
media. The commercial media struggled to keep up, but was continuously hampered 
by their inability to understand what was going on. Editorial attempts to 
reframe the protests as illegitimate and marginal confused the issue further.
The whereabouts and activities of Mayor Schell and Chief Stamper continue to 
somewhat mysterious during this period. Given the intense concern centering on 
the AFL-CIO parade on the part of law enforcement officials, it is a reasonable 
guess that much of the mayor and chief's time between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. was 
devoted to negotiations with the labor leaders. The post-WTO investigations by 
the Seattle City Council and the ACLU lawsuit over the constitutionality of the 
city's civil emergency law may lift some of the veil which currently hides this 
period.
The final decision was to allow the AFL-CIO parade from the Seattle Center to 
downtown. This sealed the fate of the street actions as a victory for the Direct 
Action Network. If the march had been canceled and the additional protesters had 
been prevented from joining in the chaos downtown, the city stood a better 
chance of restoring order. Instead, the strategy of using the AFL-CIO to contain 
and neutralize the Direct Action Network protests was drastically modified. The 
city's capitulation to the protests was underscored at 1 p.m. by the 
announcement from the WTO that it was canceling the opening ceremonies.
The decision by Mayor Schell and Chief Stamper to allow the march was so bizarre 
that it is worth quoting the December 16 story by Seattle Times reporters Mike 
Carter and David Postman:
  About 11 a.m., SPD Assistant Chief Pirak - watching events unfold from the 
  city's emergency operation center - called Joiner at the MACC and "asked 
  whether we wanted to ask the mayor if we wanted to declare a state of 
  emergency," Joiner said. 
  Despite the fact "we were getting hit with much larger numbers of protesters 
  than we had anticipated," Joiner refused. 
  Instead, he opted to let the AFL-CIO march proceed, a move that aimed as many 
  as 20,000 more people toward downtown as skirmishes between police, 
  demonstrators and anarchist vandals were escalating. 
  Joiner believed the march would actually work in favor of his stretched police 
  lines. The strategy, he said, was for the peaceful march to sweep the other 
  demonstrators into its ranks and deposit them several blocks away. 
  The march was supposed to wheel away from the Washington State Convention and 
  Trade Center at Fourth Avenue and Pine Street [several blocks from the 
  Convention Center] and turn north and west toward a "dispersal point" near 
  Republican Avenue [back near the Memorial Stadium]. The police intended to 
  move in behind the demonstrators and expand the perimeter around the hotels 
  and convention center. 
  Instead, thousands of the demonstrators turned into town and chaos ensued. 
  "I still believe we could have controlled what we were dealing with at that 
  time had the march turned," Joiner said. "It was not going to be clean. It 
  would have been messy. But I think we would have been able to open a corridor 
  to get delegates in and out." 
In other words, the Direct Action Network protesters were expected to abandon 
the streets and leave downtown when they saw their reinforcements arrive. 
Assistant Chief Joiner's explanation is simply not credible, as the WTO 
ceremonies had been canceled before the parade began. Whatever the level of 
chaos and unreality at the command center, it is unlikely that anyone thought a 
column of twenty thousand people would march downtown and then "sweep the other 
demonstrators into its ranks."
Several factors affected the decision to allow the AFL-CIO parade to proceed. 
First of all, the police were running short of tear gas and needed time to 
obtain new supplies and deliver them downtown. Second, they were not prepared to 
arrest marchers at the Seattle Center -- due to both political and logistical 
reasons. If the police tried and failed to prevent the march, things would 
clearly take a turn for the worse. Third, if the parade was canceled, the 
AFL-CIO would be denied any credit for the outcome of the protests. Finally, 
whoever was going to be gassed or pepper-sprayed in Seattle, it wasn't going to 
be the labor leaders.
Greta Gaard had ridden to the rally on a labor bus from Bellingham, one hundred 
miles to the north of Seattle. She reports in Bellingham's Every Other Weekly 
that the "rainbow flag" (non-union) participants at the rally decided around 
noon that they were going to leave the stadium and march downtown. The word of 
the street battles had reached the stadium only minutes after the first gas was 
released at 10 a.m.. It took an hour before the crowd was lined up in the 
streets, chanting "We want to march!" The walk towards downtown was oddly quiet. 
"There were no police, media or crowd-watchers in sight," wrote Gaard. "Then the 
answer hit me: we weren't a threat."
A sheet-metal union member, Mike Ottoloino, got into a confrontation with the 
AFL-CIO marshals, saying, "This isn't a march, this is a parade!"
As the parade arrived at 5th Avenue and Pike Street, AFL-CIO marshals began 
blocking progress towards the convention center, saying "The route has been 
changed. Circle around here." Police were massing several blocks away, but were 
not visible to the people arriving from the Seattle Center. Gaard and several 
thousand others turned away from the march, just in time to run into the renewed 
police push to move people away from the convention center. The momentum of the 
thousands leaving the march and moving towards the Convention Center carried 
several blocks beyond the parade's pivot at 5th and Pike. Gaard and her friends 
found themselves at 6th and Pike, one of the most fiercely contested 
intersections of the battle, but temporarily an island of relative calm due to 
the absence of police. Behind them, the labor parade moved away from downtown 
and back towards the Seattle Center, unmolested by police.
Though Gaard didn't know it, the unsuccessful police push was timed to herd 
people into the parade. However, as had been the case all day, the size of the 
crowds blocked movement and the police ceased advancing when the now-expanded 
and enlarged crowd could not fall back any further. As shown by Gaard's 
relatively easy progress to within a block of the Convention Center, the 
reinforcements strengthened the moving blockade ringing the WTO conference.
The AFL-CIO parade delivered crucial reinforcements to the protesters, instead 
of sweeping them out of downtown. As marchers left the parade, this completely 
crushed any police fantasies that the demonstrators would abandon the downtown 
and return control of the streets to the police.
Pause to regroup
The police plan to reorganize for an attempt to force the Direct Action Network 
protesters out of the downtown area and into the AFL-CIO parade set in motion 
several different actions which had a dramatic effect on perceptions of the 
Battle in Seattle. In order to understand how these actions converged it is 
necessary to step back in time to around noon, when Assistant Chief Joiner was 
turning down requests to declare a civil emergency and cancel the AFL-CIO 
parade.
The repeated attempts by police to establish a perimeter connecting the hotels, 
the Convention Center and the Paramount Theatre were blocked all day by the size 
of the protest. The police command retained strategic cohesion, despite the 
discord at the top and the chaos in the streets. Tactical orders from the 
command continued to be executed by the officers in the front line -- they 
charged when ordered and reformed after each charge. Much attention has been 
given to excessive violence by officers, the repeated attacks on reporters and 
the assault by officers on Seattle City Councilman Richard McIver. These 
incidents were relatively commonplace, but did not involve loss of control by 
the upper command. Seattle political researcher Dan Junas cites the police 
ability to regulate the tempo of the street battles as strong evidence that the 
political leadership remained in control. "As the labor marchers approached, the 
police got off the gas," said Junas.
From about noon on, the Multi-Agency Command Center in the Public Safety 
Building began filling with top-ranking officials from government and law 
enforcement. Federal officials were speaking loudly about the consequences of 
not regaining control of the streets. State Patrol Chief Annette Sandberg 
described the federal officials as in a "kind of panicky mode."
The decision -- never seriously questioned by those in charge -- to guarantee 

the AFL-CIO parade took place had several requirements attached to it. First of 
all, the declaration of civil emergency was already in motion. There wasn't 
really a question of whether it was going to happen, but only if the crackdown 
would catch the AFL-CIO parade before it withdrew from downtown.
At 12:45 p.m., Governor Gary Locke authorized his chief of staff to begin 
preparing to call up the National Guard. An hour earlier, State Patrol Chief 
Annette Sandberg had ordered State Patrol troopers in Eastern Washington on 
higher alert and dispatched a 22-member Civil Disturbance Team from Spokane to 
drive the 400 miles to Seattle. Traveling at top speed, they would not arrive 
before dark.
Shortly after Locke set the National Guard in motion, his office in Olympia 
received a telephone call from a furious Secretary of State Madeline Albright. 
Albright demanded the Governor immediately take action to release her from her 
hotel where she was trapped by the demonstrators. The Governor would later get 
strong pressure from Attorney General Janet Reno to crack down on the protests.
Governor Locke was able to claim that he was taking action -- preparing to call 
up the National Guard, moving State Patrol troops over long distances and 
pressuring Mayor Schell to declare a civil emergency -- but all of these things 
would take time. What he did not do was accept full responsibility and declare a 
state of emergency. That was reserved for Mayor Schell. Locke's staff counsel, 
Everett Billingslea, began compiling a chronology of the Governor's actions for 
the now-inevitable inquest.
SPD Assistant Chief Joiner prepared more immediate action. The police attacks on 
the protesters reached a peak shortly before the parade departed from the 
Seattle Center. According to police sources, nearly all of the available tear 
gas was expended before the parade approached downtown. In the preparations for 
the protest, Mayor Schell and Chief Stamper had laid in stocks of about $20,000 
worth of gas. This was one-fifth the amount recommended by federal officials. 
According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, police officers "took matters into 
their own hands" to obtain new supplies of gas and pepper spray. More recent 
information suggests that the new supplies were part of Joiner's "messy" 
post-parade attack plans.
Things quieted down while the police organized new supplies of gas and pepper 
spray. Officers sped to Auburn, Renton and Tukwila police departments, as well 
as the King County Jail and Department of Corrections, emptying munitions stores 
and ferrying the supplies back to downtown. Other officers bought additional 
chemical agents from a local law enforcement supply business. Meanwhile, a 
police captain flew to Casper, Wyoming to pick up a large quantity of gas, 
"stinger shells" and other paraphernalia from Defense Technology Corp., a 
subsidiary of Armor Holdings. The locally-obtained gas and pepper spray were 
driven as close to the street action as possible. The munitions were transferred 
into gym bags and knapsacks which were then run through the streets by 
plainclothes detectives.
Other preparations did not go as well as the deliveries of tear gas and pepper 
spray. The declaration of civil emergency was delayed until 3:24 p.m., 
preventing police reinforcements from other law enforcement agencies and the 
National Guard from being legally deployed until long after the AFL-CIO march 
had withdrawn. Assistant Chief Ed Joiner's "messy" plan was also thwarted by the 
flat refusal of the Seattle Fire Department to turn fire hoses on demonstrators, 
a detail which was not reported in the press until long after the protests were 
over.
A Black Bloc runs amok
While the police were regrouping and preparing to force the Direct Action 
Network protesters to join the AFL-CIO parade, several groups took advantage of 
the lull in the battle. They've all been lumped together into a nameless 
anarchist horde, but the fact remains there were two distinct groups acting out 
different agendas, not one "organized" anarchist conspiracy as the myth would 
have it.
At approximately 1 p.m., the police temporarily stopped trying to push corridors 
through the protest area. The "Black Bloc" anarchists had entered into an 
understanding with the Direct Action Network that they would refrain from 
vandalism at least as long as the protests remained peaceful. This is another 
way of saying that they were loosely following the lead of the DAN organizers. 
How loosely is shown by the fact the Black Bloc arrived downtown armed with 
hammers, crowbars, spraypaint, M-80 firecrackers and paintbombs. Their goal was 
a "propaganda of the deed" centering around vandalizing chosen stores -- Nike, 
Starbucks, the Gap, Old Navy and others -- which they saw as fitting targets.
The Black Bloc was simply biding their time and waiting for an opportunity to 
vandalize these stores and then get away. They had been closely monitored by the 
police and FBI since the preceding day. Early Tuesday morning, the FBI had 
briefed Seattle Police on the Black Bloc's whereabouts and activities. The close 
observation of the Black Bloc included undercover FBI agents dressed to blend in 
with the anarchists, right down to wearing masks to hide their faces. Also 
present in the streets were members of the Army's Delta Force, a paramilitary 
counter-terrorist group, also dressed to blend in with the protesters.
 
According to KIRO TV, The Black Bloc rampage started on 6th Avenue between Pine 
Street and Olive Way. Vandals smashed the windows of a Starbucks coffee shop in 
the middle of the block, then moved north towards Olive Way. Turning west on 
Olive Way, they attacked the SeaFirst bank, then turned south on 5th Avenue. Two 
or three stores along this block were vandalized. Emerging onto Pine Street, the 
Black Bloc turned again, moving west and attacking three or four more stores in 
the next two blocks. Reaching Third Avenue, the Black Bloc turned south and 
dispersed.
The Seattle Times reported that the vandalism centered mainly along Pike Street, 
between Third and Sixth Avenue. A map showing the location of vandalized and 
looted stores published in the Times overlaps the route of the Black Bloc only 
at the beginning and end. The majority of the vandalism occurred around 4th and 
Pike, a corner that the Black Bloc avoided while being videotaped by KIRO TV. It 
is possible that the TV news crews missed the early stages of the vandalism and 
erroneously reported the vandalism as beginning later than was actually the 
case. The discrepancy between reports is partly due to the chaos which gripped 
the downtown, but is also due to the fact that large numbers of teenagers who 
were not part of the Black Bloc took advantage of the situation and likewise 
engaged in vandalism.
It was this second group, estimated to number at least one hundred or more, who 
engaged in looting some of the broken store windows, as well as occupying the 
awning over the Nike store. In addition to the damage to commercial property, 
police cars and limousines were vandalized with spraypaint and by having their 
tires slashed.
Jeff Boscole, an eyewitness who was on Sixth Avenue, described how the two 
groups could be distinguished by their dress and the different slogans which 
they spray-painted on buildings and windows. According to Boscole, the Black 
Bloc graffiti consisted of legible political slogans, while the "wilding 
teenagers" were "tagging" with illegible individualized symbols which were not 
slogans.
The three of the "wilding teenagers" are clearly shown in two photographs 
published in the December 1, Seattle Times. One picture shows a lone teenager, 
standing on a deserted sidewalk and reaching through a broken window. Under one 
arm, he is holding a skateboard. The windows and front of the store are defaced 
with graffiti, some of which are anarchist slogans and others, particularly the 
one center-left which dominates the picture, are "tagging" signatures, the 
incomprehensible glyphs common throughout urban areas. The other photo shows two 
teenagers and the right foot of a third, as one breaks off the "T" in the Nike 
Town sign. None of the teenagers are masked and all three wear light-colored 
clothing.
The Black Bloc engaged in property destruction numbered no more than thirty to 
forty people, all dressed similarly in black and hooded or masked to prevent 
their identification. They moved a brisk pace, occasionally stopping in small 
groups to break windows or spray-paint anarchist and anti-corporate slogans. 
Early in the raid, they twice attacked KIRO TV news crews, spraying the camera 
lenses with paint to stop the crews from taking pictures. After these attacks, 
news crews withdrew half a block to avoid further attacks. The Black Bloc 
maintained cohesion and moved along their route in a determined manner, several 
times scuffling with the non-violent protesters from the Direct Action Network. 
A handful of plainclothes police and FBI shadowed the group, reporting their 
movements. Police made no effort to halt the vandalism, but in several instances 
Direct Action Network protesters stopped or interfered with members of the Black 
Bloc, while others chanted "no violence" to little avail.
One anarchist described the action in the following terms: "When the large scale 
window breaking began it was quite awe-inspiring. All of a sudden people we were 
walking with pulled out all sorts of tools: nail pullers, hammers, crow bars. 
They then proceeded to very quickly knock windows out of every bank, upper class 
or multi-national clothing store. I even saw a woman smashing an ATM machine 
with a sledge hammer. I was afraid at any moment a police tactical team would 
break through the crowd and violently assault the Black Block."
This same source was very clear that the "Anarchists from Eugene" were only one 
faction among the Black Blocs: "While I know they were there, the black block 
had a few hundred people in it. I know there were people there from all over the 
country. The Eugene people have just been very open about violent demo tactics. 
The 60 Minutes episode really does disfavor to revolutionary anarchism, in that 
it portrays all anarchists through the eyes and mouths of the primitivists - who 
in my mind make up a small minority of anarchist activists. The primitivists put 
anti-technology and environmentalism at the forefront of their politics, and 
downplay, in my opinion, the real social and class struggle that has to take 
place."
Much has been made of the connection between the Black Bloc and Eugene, Oregon. 
Of the 11 people charged with felony crimes in connection with the protests, 
only one is from Eugene. Five are from Seattle, one from Olympia, Washington, 
one from Portland, Oregon, one from Maryland and two places of residence are not 
reported. All of the five people charged with looting are from Seattle.
The vandalism and looting occurred in the area evacuated by police to create a 
buffer zone between the Direct Action Network protesters and the AFL-CIO parade. 
The center of the vandalized area coincides with the turning point of the 
parade, the corner of 5th and Pike. As the parade entered downtown, the 
protesters who left the march for the street protest were immediately confronted 
by the results of anarchist property destruction. This led some of the 
participants in the parade who joined the protests downtown to assume that the 
entire area looked like the three blocks in which the vandalism occurred.
Later, news reports echoed police claims that the tear gas and subsequent 
disorder followed, rather than preceded, the Black Bloc attack. The "Anarchists 
from Eugene" became a convenient, if totally misleading, media hook on which to 
hang the distinction between the "peaceful parade" and the "violent protests." 
In fact, the media's distinction between the two hinged entirely on whom the 
police attacked, not who attacked the police. 
Declaration of Emergency
Before noon, security officials had been requesting the mayor issue a 
declaration of civil emergency. Seattle's civil emergency ordinance, officially 
titled Seattle Municipal Code 10.02, dates from 1973, when it was passed in 
response to Viet Nam war protests. After the Gulf War protests in 1992, some 
sections were revised. It is a sweepingly broad ordinance, which authorizes 
"extraordinary measures," including declaration of curfew, commandeering of 
property, closure of businesses, prohibition of alcoholic beverages, bans on the 
carrying or possession of firearms and "any other measures" the mayor deems 
necessary. Under the ordinance, the mayor may issue orders "requesting federal 
and/or state assistance in combating such civil emergency" and "closing to the 
public any or all public places including streets, alleys, public ways, schools, 
parks, beaches, amusement areas, and public buildings."
The power of declaring a civil emergency rests entirely with the mayor. The City 
Council is directed to meet at the "earliest practicable time" for "ratification 
and confirmation, modification, or rejection." The council avoided meeting until 
Thursday, by which time the street protests had ceased to disrupt the city and 
protest marches were being escorted by police instead of being attacked by them. 
Even so, the council meeting was canceled because of "security" concerns. The 
press reports are not clear, but suggest that the council never ratified the 
emergency ordinance before it was rescinded by the mayor. This is one of the 
details that will have to be explored in the upcoming investigations.
Mayor Schell spent most of the day at the WTO conference site, waiting for the 
opening ceremonies to begin. He did not arrive at the Multi-Agency Command 
Center in the Public Safety Building until about 3 p.m., two hours after the 
ceremonies had been canceled.
Beginning around 1 p.m., Governor Gary Locke had set in motion a series of 
unilateral actions including starting the call-up of the National Guard and 
authorizing the movement of Washington State Patrol units from around the state 
to Seattle. He arrived at the MACC at 2:50 p.m., about ten minutes ahead of the 
mayor. "Almost immediately upon arriving at the command center, there was no 
doubt in my mind that we needed to call up the National Guard," Locke said. 
Upon Schell's arrival, officials from the SPD, Secret Service, FBI, State 
Patrol, Department of Justice, State Department, King County, the governor's 
office and the White House moved into a back room and engaged in a heated 
discussion. While the argument continued, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno 
called the governor and insisted that the National Guard be called up.
After speaking with Reno, Locke met with the mayor. Schell then spoke with 
Assistant Police Chiefs Joiner and Pirak. "By that time, we had a chance to look 
at what was happening. The mayor immediately agreed and authorized (the 
emergency declaration)," said Joiner. "There was never any hesitation." The 
period between the mayor's arrival at the MACC and issuing the proclamation of 
civil emergency was less than half an hour. At 3:24 p.m., the mayor issued the 
emergency declaration.
What the declaration of civil emergency meant became a source of constant 
confusion during the period it was in effect. The mayor banned the possession of 
gas masks, but it continues to be unclear what law was violated by their 
possession. The "no protest" zone was open to some people and closed to others. 
Police took to enforcing an informal dress code, arresting people based on their 
appearance. In one case, an arrest was made for possession of an anti-WTO 
button. Conflicting statements were made by police officials about what was or 
was not allowed in the downtown area. Protesters had signs taken away from them 
in areas outside the "no protest" zone, but were not arrested. Others were 
arrested both inside and outside the zone. On Wednesday afternoon, the governor 
made a statement on television that order had been restored to downtown and 
invited people to come shopping, implying that the downtown was open and the 
curfew was lifted. Wednesday night, residents of Capitol Hill were arrested on 
their doorsteps when they asked police what was going on. The ACLU went to 
federal court and was turned down on the first of several legal challenges to 
the emergency ordinance.
Battle Resumes
By 3 p.m., the belated attempt by police to push the protesters away from the 
triangle of key intersections surrounding the Convention Center was in full 
motion. The Direct Action Network blockade was still intact, immobilizing the 
police and preventing movement through the strategic triangle northeast of the 
AFL-CIO parade route and the downtown shopping district. As a result, most of 
the police action took place south and west of the Convention Center. Starting 
from the south along Union and University Streets, the police moved north along 
Third to Seventh Avenue to sweep the demonstrators north into the route along 
which the parade had retreated. 
The police sweep northwards compressed the crowds into the east-west corridor 
running along Pike and Pine Streets. Here, the police again stalled against the 
large size of the crowds. The compression halted the police movement for several 
hours, as dumpsters which had been pushed into the streets to block the center 
of intersections began to burn. These bonfires slowly spread in an irregular way 
as the crowds withdrew west, not north as the police wished, and moved up into 
Capitol Hill in the early evening.
The Mayor's declaration of civil emergency at 3:25 p.m. set in motion the 
reinforcements from the King County Sheriff's Department, the Washington State 
Patrol, and local police departments from surrounding cities and towns. The 
arrival of the reinforcements in the streets occurred relatively slowly over the 
next three hours, impeded by the discord which dominated the relations between 
the Seattle Police and the King County Sheriff Dave Reichert.
By 5:30 p.m., the police lines -- now increased by the arrival of Sheriff's 
deputies -- had reached the corner of Fourth and Pike. The protesters began 
withdrawing west along Pike and Pine Streets, towards Capitol Hill, followed by 
police firing tear gas, rubber and wooden projectiles, and accompanied in some 
instances by vehicles. The police did not maintain close contact with the crowds 
and followed -- not drove -- them into Capitol Hill. The turning movement of the 
police -- from a northern push to an eastern one -- was not according to the 
plan outlined by Assistant Chief Ed Joiner. According to political researcher 
Daniel Junas, the Direct Action Network overheard police radio messages in which 
units in the East Precinct on Capitol Hill frantically demanded that the police 
downtown cease pushing demonstrators up the hill. The central command replied 
that they were pushing the crowds north (i.e. along the route of the AFL-CIO 
retreat from downtown) not east.
The loose contact between police and demonstrators permitted the last act of 
serious vandalism of the day. Police were not controlling the intersection at 
Sixth Avenue and Stewart Street, near the Westin Hotel. Protesters had built a 
bonfire in the center of the intersection. At approximately 7:15 p.m., a group 
of vandals smashed the window of the Starbucks coffee shop. This was the same 
coffee shop from which Washington State Patrol Chief Annette Sandberg saw the 
Direct Action Network affinity groups at 5:30 a.m., as they moved into position 
and seized the strategic intersections surrounding the WTO conference site. 
Events had come full circle.
As in the morning, the police presence was not visible to the protesters, 
although the evening response was quicker. Prosecutors allege that Danny Babcock 
and an unidentified accomplice took a USA Today vending machine and hurled it 
through a window of the Starbucks store "Defendant Babcock then kicked and 
pulled away the glass from the window, enabling others to enter and destroy the 
inside of the Starbucks," according to a police report. "Babcock entered the 
store and was arrested as he emerged from the crowd carrying several bags of 
coffee from the display inside of the store," the report said. The criminal 
complaint against Babcock states that he handed a 1-pound bag of coffee to a 
police detective outside the store. Of the four people arrested at the coffee 
shop and charged with felonies, none were "Anarchists from Eugene." One was from 
Seattle, two appear to be from Portland (although they gave the address of a 
Seattle homeless shelter) and Babcock's residence is not disclosed in news 
reports.
The process of the protesters' withdrawal from downtown coincided with the 
arrival of additional police reinforcements, the declaration of a 7 p.m. curfew 
and the fall of darkness. The WTO had announced the cancellation of activities 
around 1 p.m., although word of the cancellation did not become widespread until 
late afternoon. Based on the videos and photographs of the move up Pine Street, 
the protesters appear to have decided to leave downtown and were followed, not 
"swept", by police. The police decision to follow up the hill, firing tear gas 
and rubber bullets, is inexplicable in terms of clearing downtown. Of all the 
police actions during Tuesday, only the initial deployment of tear gas at 6th 
and University and the pursuit up Capitol Hill suggest a breakdown in command. 
The police decision not to disengage continued the disturbance late into the 
night. The clashes with police at the top of Capitol Hill were simply echoes of 
the earlier police defeat in the daylong "Battle in Seattle."
After
With the departure of the AFL-CIO parade participants, the Direct Action Network 
assumed total control of the protests in Seattle. With their one brief 
appearance, the Black Bloc presence in the streets subsided, effectively now 
under the control of the DAN non-violence strategy. The media, however, directed 
considerable attention to the Eugene contingent. The media coup for the Black 
Bloc created an unprecedented amount of attention for the philosophy of 
"autonomist" anarchism and John Zerzan, a Eugene anarchist philosopher who 
promotes "primitivism" and a withdrawal from technological society.
The Direct Action Network strategy of non-violent civil disobedience clearly had 
succeeded against the Black Bloc's efforts to escalate the police violence, the 
AFL-CIO's strategy of controlling and marginalizing protests in favor of a 
symbolic parade, the attempts of the Seattle police to clear the streets with 
tear gas and the media effort to frame the issue in terms of "violent 
protesters". The DAN plan remained one of direct action by civil disobedience, 
willing submission to the rule of law by voluntary arrest and deep, 
multi-layered support for autonomous affinity groups. The DAN strategy to 
emphasize the failure of the WTO to allow democratic participation in 
international trade discussions would now be tested against the hard-line 
strategies advocated by federal security officials.
Mayor Paul Schell's declaration of civil emergency dramatically altered the 
police strategy for suppressing the protests. As the hard-liners inside and 
outside the Seattle Police Department had wished, law enforcement was now 
prepared. For the entire month of December, the wail went up from law 
enforcement "we weren't prepared." On Wednesday, the police were prepared with 
more troops, more gas, more barricades, a declaration of civil emergency 
complete with a "no protest zone" enclosing downtown, a curfew and the 
suspension of civil liberties. The AFL-CIO parade was over and done with and the 
"day-trip" protesters who rode to town on union busses were gone. The conditions 
on Wednesday were far more favorable to the police than anything which could 
possibly have been arranged on Tuesday.
Assistant Chief Ed Joiner said Seattle police and their law enforcement partners 
initially looked hard at a plan based on preparations for the NATO conference in 
Washington, D.C. This plan was similar to the strategy which was put in place 
after the declaration of civil emergency: "We considered it and basically 
rejected it as something that, in a perfect world, we'd like to do, but in a 
real world is a less viable option. Can you imagine me going to the mayor, the 
governor, before the conference even happened, and saying 'I need to create this 
security perimeter from Seneca to Lenora Streets, from Fourth Avenue to the 
freeway, and I need to shut all the businesses down for five days the week after 
Thanksgiving?' Can you imagine the kind of response I'd get, besides asking me 
for my resignation then?"
"It was impossible," Joiner said. "Politically it was impossible. The damage to 
the downtown business core would have been substantial." 
Once again, the Direct Action Network prevailed. The victory on Tuesday was 
reaffirmed Wednesday. And the Chief Stamper's concerns about bringing outside 
law enforcement into the city were realized in full that night when police 
rioted on Capitol Hill.
Mass Arrests a Day Late
At 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning, the police began mass arrests. Direct Action 
Network protesters began assembling at a few locations and others made their way 
into the downtown core. Some of the arrests occurred at Denny Park, well to the 
north of the downtown. Police handcuffed some demonstrators and put them on city 
busses which moved the arrestees to the temporary jail at the former Sand Point 
Naval Air Station. Other demonstrators had their signs taken away from them, but 
were not arrested. These proceeded downtown.
According to Kelly Quirke, Executive Director of the Rainforest Action Network, 
the police mass arrest strategy included targeting protest leaders. "At the 
police chief and mayor's press conference we had watched on TV late the night 
before, they announced that they were going to go after the ringleaders," Quirke 
said. The counter-leadership targeting was as ineffective as other police 
tactics, due to the Direct Action Network's decentralized decision-making 
process, which operated by group consensus. In effect, a network has no 
"ringleaders." Networks are extremely resistant to "decapitation," since the 
command and control of a network exists at many places.
Protesters converged on the Westlake Center and arrests there began at 
approximately 8 a.m. As the morning wore on, it became apparent that Westlake 
Center, rather than the WTO conference location, was the focus of Wednesday's 
blockade. The Direct Action Network had correctly identified the shopping and 
business district as being the vulnerable point in the new police strategy. By 9 
a.m. Westlake Center was clogged by a peaceful sit-down protest as protesters 
patiently waited for police to arrest them. The crowds, consisting of 
demonstrators waiting to join the sit in and spectators from business district, 
continued to swell. As one protester was arrested more would leave the crowd and 
sit down. Once again, the netwar tactic of "swarming" the target by stealthy 
approach succeeded.
By 10 a.m. it was becoming evident that the police tactics were not going to 
halt the sit-in and that the police were creating a situation which they could 
not control. At 10:30 a.m., the police commander stepped between his men and the 
protesters. He walked to the seated protesters, leaned down and said, "We're 
outta here." He then motioned to his men to leave the area and the police 
withdrew in an orderly manner. The protesters, both seated and among the crowd, 
were jubilant. They had prevailed.
The disengagement of the police at Westlake Center marked the failure of mass 
arrests as a police tactic. On Tuesday, the total number of arrests was around 
sixty. On Wednesday morning, somewhere around three hundred arrests were made at 
two locations. Wednesday evening, two hundred more arrests were made at First 
Avenue and Clay Street, near the Seattle Center. Another dozen or fewer people, 
mostly residents of Capitol Hill, would be arrested during the night. 
Approximately five hundred and forty of the arrests were for misdemeanors and 
eleven were for felony charges such as vandalism or looting. One of the felony 
arrests occurred in the Greenwood district, miles from the downtown area.
The arrests ended for two reasons. First and most importantly, the police were 
running out of transportation to remove those arrested from downtown. As the 
city busses arrived at Sand Point, protesters refused to leave some of the 
busses. Others obstructed the booking procedures by refusing to identify 
themselves. Many of the "arrest" affinity groups carried no identification for 
this very purpose.
Kelly Quirke, executive director of the Rainforest Action Network, was arrested 
at Westlake center. "They drove us to a converted naval base, where we spent the 
next 15 hours on the bus, eating and drinking only the food and water we had on 
hand (they gave us none), doing interviews and organizing the next morning's 
press conference until our cell phones went dead (we were quite adept at getting 
out of the plastic cuffs), singing, meeting (of course) and demanding to see our 
lawyers," he said.
Police arrest procedures were so chaotic and slipshod that over 400 cases were 
dropped by City Attorney Mark Sidran due to the absence of arrest reports and 
the failure of arresting officers to identify themselves. The Direct Action 
Network strategy of blockade did not end with the arrest of protesters. The 
target simply shifted from the streets to the jails and then the courts. The 
second reason for the police withdrawal was the demand by the Secret Service 
that the presidential motorcade route and speaking locations be given top 
priority by police.
The preceding day, as police and federal security officials had milled around in 
an atmosphere of panic at the Multi-Agency Command Center in the Public Safety 
Building, Ronald Legan, the special agent in charge of the Seattle office of the 
Secret Service, laid down an ultimatum to Seattle officials about the 
presidential visit. "I remember saying that unless we get control of the 
streets, we would recommend that he not come," Legan said. "Now the problem 
there is that, with this president, he sets his own agenda and goes where he 
wants. And we did not want to have to battle a 30-car motorcade in and out of 
Seattle."
Seattle Assistant Chief Ed Joiner said he would not characterize the discussion 
as "threatening . . . but it was clear that if the situation was going to be the 
following day what it was then, there was no way you could bring the president 
of the United States into Seattle."
Presidential Appearance
President Clinton admitted the coordinated strategy between the AFL-CIO and the 
White House in an interview with Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter Michael 
Paulson. The interview occurred on Tuesday evening, as the President was between 
Washington D.C. and San Francisco. It is clear that Clinton was either not aware 
or chose to deny the Direct Action Network protests were nearly equal in size to 
the AFL-CIO parade. Clinton's chief of the Secret Service in Seattle, Special 
Agent Ronald Legan, estimated that the parade numbered 20,000 and the total 
number of demonstrators was 50,000. As the excerpts from Clinton's statements 
clearly show, some understanding that the AFL-CIO would control the protests 
existed between the President and the labor leaders.
  "I think certainly if we'd had it [the protests] any place in the continental 
  United States we would have had the same thing and even if we'd gone to 
  Honolulu there might have been thousands of people there. What I regret is not 
  that there are protesters there. . . What I regret is that a small number of 
  people have done non-peaceful things and have tried to block access and 
  prevent meetings. That's wrong. It's not only illegal, it's just wrong.
  "I regret very much that a few people have given the protesters a bad name, 
  because I think the fact that the protesters are there, were it not for those 
  stopping meetings, stopping movements and not being peaceful, would be a 
  positive.
  ". . . And then I think finally there are people who question whether these 
  trading rules are benefiting lower income countries, poor countries, and 
  question whether there is damage to the environment from certain trading 
  arrangements that wouldn't otherwise be there, and who question whether this 
  is a race to the bottom or the top. So that labor unions and wealthier 
  countries want to have certain basic core labor standards observed in poorer 
  countries because they think it will be better for average people so that the 
  trading system actually benefits. So I think that's what is bringing all those 
  people out.
  ". . . I think that what we ought to do first of all to adopt the United 
  States's position on having a working group on labor within the WTO, and then 
  that working group should develop these core labor standards, and then they 
  ought to be a part of every trade agreement, and ultimately I would favor a 
  system in which sanctions would come for violating any provision of a trade 
  agreement, but we've got to do this in steps. 
  "I do think it is worth noting that the strongest opposition to this position, 
  however, comes from the leaders of developing countries, including a lot of 
  developing countries who have left-wing governments, not right-wing 
  governments, who believe that this is a strategy by the American labor 
  movement to keep them down and keep them poor and keep them from selling 
  products that they'd otherwise be highly competitive in in the American 
  market. It certainly could be used that way.
  ". . . Again, if we can just get by the few people that aren't being peaceful 
  and the people that are trying to stop people from meeting, I think the 
  presence of others with legitimate questions about the WTO process, the 
  environment and labor and how poor countries are treated, I think this can be 
  a net positive, because we're going to have to build a much deeper consensus 
  for global trade to carry it forward." [Emphasis added.]
This interview had a very direct effect on the WTO negotiations. The 
Post-Intelligencer interview was read by many WTO delegates on Wednesday 
morning. Roger Downey captured the impact of Clinton's statements in a Seattle 
Weekly article titled "Clinton Throws Brick":
  "When Clinton got up in Seattle and told the ministers that WTO had to clean 
  up its act if it wanted American support, home folks may have nodded sagely in 
  agreement; the delegates could only goggle speechlessly at his hypocrisy. When 
  he dropped the sanctions brick in his P-I interview, they took it to mean that 
  the US proposal of a WTO body to consider worldwide core labor standards was 
  the first step toward establishing compulsory international sanctions against 
  'violators.'
  "Why was this so disturbing? Because under its charter the WTO is a 
  consultative body making decision by consensus, not a legislature passing 
  rules binding on all parties by majority vote, not a court handing down 
  rewards and punishments according to its opinion of its members' deserts. It 
  is not equipped to apply sanctions to its members."
Which is to say that the WTO operated under the same sort of decision-making 
process as the Direct Action Network protesters -- consultative and 
consensus-driven. Those who have claimed that the protesters didn't understand 
the WTO obviously know nothing about either the WTO or the protests.
On the streets, Wednesday afternoon was a repeat of Tuesday. The police pulled 
back for the four hours that President Clinton was in public view, just as they 
had pulled back as the AFL-CIO parade approached downtown. In the words of one 
TV reporter, "The streets were strangely quiet." At 1 p.m., Washington Governor 
Gary Locke gave a live interview on local television. Locke stated that order 
was restored to Seattle and told local shoppers to "come downtown" -- inside the 
perimeter of the "no protest" zone. Unfortunately, the governor hadn't heard 
about police plans for a 4 p.m. crackdown to drive protesters out of the 
downtown core, a time which coincides with the downtown rush hour.
Post-presidential Disorder
As Clinton's motorcade departed, the streets were once again blanketed in tear 
gas and police fired pepper-spray at anyone who got in their way. At the Pike 
Place Market tear gas was severe enough that produce merchants put out signs the 
next day announcing they were closed because their fruits and vegetables were 
contaminated by tear gas.
As on Tuesday, the police failed to move the crowds of protesters and the main 
axis of protest movement once again became Pike and Pine Streets. After two 
hours, police were only able to move two blocks, up to Second Avenue. A 
protester blockade at Third and Pine stayed in place until voluntarily dispersed 
at 6:45 p.m. It appears likely that the Direct Action Network had decided to 
hold the streets until the 7 p.m. curfew and then withdraw to Capitol Hill.
As the curfew went into effect at 7 p.m., the streets were mostly empty. As if 
to celebrate their "control" of the streets, a column of a dozen police cars 
raced through the empty downtown core with emergency lights flashing and sirens 
blaring. Police officials explained to reporters that this "wild weasel" 
operation was a "show of force to clear the streets." The news videos of the 
stream of cars are one of the more surreal images from the entire week. Things 
would get even stranger that night. 
At about the same time as the "wild weasels" were racing through the streets, 
police assaulted Seattle City Councilman Richard McIver. McIver said city police 
officers yanked him from his car, pulled his arms behind his back and started to 
cuff him as he drove to a World Trade Organization reception event at the nearby 
Westin Hotel. The council member had been stopped shortly before by police who 
let him continue after identifying himself. The second time he was stopped and 
identified himself, a policeman threw McIvor's city council business card on the 
ground and assaulted him.
The incident was witnessed by a U.S. Congressman, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, 
and Bill Lambrecht, Washington, D.C.-correspondent for the St. Louis 
Post-Dispatch.
"What he [McIver] describes is what I saw," Kucinich said. "Four to five 
policemen converged on him and kind of spun him around. I thought the people who 
handled it were overly aggressive. I'm sure given the tension that existed in 
the city, there might be many cases where in hindsight they might do things 
differently but that seemed excessive."
"It was clear that he was telling them who he was. They seemed unpersuadable," 
Lambrecht said. "One of the officers pulled him out of the car and not 
gingerly."
"I don't want to aid the hooligans who are raising hell and I don't want to take 
on specific officers. . . . But there are huge flaws with the officers when it 
comes to people of color. I'm 58 years old. I had on a $400 suit, but last 
night, I was just another nigger.," said Councilman McIver. A few days later, 
Councilman McIver stated that he was not pursuing the matter and wanted it 
dropped.
Street Battles for the Hell of It 
The final incident of Wednesday night demonstrated the police strategy for 
clearing the streets was not only ineffective, but that civilian control of law 
enforcement ceased to exist for a time. The "Battle of Capitol Hill" degenerated 
into a "police riot," perhaps the only time during the WTO protests that police 
temporarily lost control of their forces on the street.
As the demonstrators withdrew from downtown curfew area at around 7 p.m., a 
group of several hundred protesters moved north on Fourth Avenue, followed at a 
distance by police. The group withdrew in an orderly manner, stopping several 
times along the way to vote on where they were going. They moved east on Denny 
Way into Capitol Hill and reached Broadway and East Harrison Street at about 
7:45 p.m., where they joined another group which was already at the 
intersection. By now the group numbered approximately 500. As they passed 
through the neighborhood, they were greeted by cheering residents and honks of 
support from motorists. The crowd marched back and forth along Broadway for 
about an hour, carrying banners and accompanied by a band playing music. The 
atmosphere was one of celebration rather than protest. 
The crowd was predominantly residents of Capitol Hill, many of whom had been 
angered by police the previous night when bystanders and people on their way 
home from work had been indiscriminately attacked by the police who had pursued 
demonstrators up the hill. At about 9 p.m., police and National Guard forces 
began arriving in the area. By 9:30 p.m., police closed several blocks of 
Broadway between East Republican and East John. Tensions were high, due to the 
residents resentment of the police presence and police fears of violence. KIRO 
TV reported that the people opposing police that night consisted entirely of 
Capitol Hill residents. Afterwards, police claimed there were reports of 
agitators carrying gasoline bombs and throwing rocks and bottles. They said some 
protesters charged officers. No gasoline bombs were thrown that evening and news 
videos show only police charging, not civilians attacking police.
Police began using pepper spray, tear gas and concussion grenades shortly after 
9:30 p.m., first at John Street and Broadway to the south, moving north, and 
near Harrison, moving south. More police blocked side streets, preventing the 
crowds from dispersing.
"The protesters looked completely calm to me . . . They were not instigating 
this," said Erin Katz, a Capitol Hill resident who watched from behind police 
lines near Pine Street. "I heard absolutely no warning and they started to gas 
them."
For the next two and a half hours, police rampaged along Broadway. It was during 
this period that some of the week's worst instances of police misconduct 
occurred. National television repeatedly aired footage of a Tukwila officer 
kicking a young man in the groin and then immediately firing a shotgun within 
inches of the young man's torso. The officer has not been publicly identified, 
but has been placed on desk duty while an internal investigation is conducted. 
Police officials initially described the officer's conduct as "appropriate." At 
a parking lot near Broadway, two journalism students were videotaping the 
action. A King County deputy went up to their car and motioned for the young 
women to roll down a window. When they did, the deputy pepper-sprayed them both, 
shouting "Tape this, bitch!" This footage has also been repeatedly aired on 
national television. The deputy remains publicly unidentified and on duty while 
an internal investigation is conducted. These and other incidents have resulted 
in civil suits filed against the Seattle Police as the agency in charge, as well 
as the officers involved.
Around midnight, the disorder had drawn several local government officials, who 
tried to get the police and demonstrators to disengage. They included King 
County Councilman Brian Derdowski, City Councilmen Richard Conlin and Nick 
Licata and Councilwoman-elect Judy Nicastro. 
"Those council members tried to work through the chain of command of the Police 
Department and they were unable to get anybody," Derdowski said. For two hours, 
the civilian officials tried to get the police to cease attacking the crowd. 
Finally, around 2 a.m., the crowd began to leave. The police responded with 
volleys of gas and rubber projectiles.
"I asked the police to be professional and just take one step back. That would 
be the sign that these folks needed, and they would disperse," Derdowski said. 
"The police said they couldn't do that, so we went back and told the people that 
they needed to leave the area. And a lot of them did, but a few persisted. And 
they started singing Christmas carols. They sang 'Jingle Bells,' and when they 
started singing 'Silent Night,' the tear gas started. Something hit me in the 
back, and there was pandemonium there, and so we left the area," Derdowski said.
Jail Blockade and Release
By Thursday, the success of the Direct Action Network protests was undeniable. 
The WTO conference was prevented from holding its opening ceremonies on Tuesday. 
On Wednesday, the conference began to come unraveled when President Clinton made 
repeated statements supporting the demonstrators -- although it appears he was 
referring only to the AFL-CIO -- and announced a U.S. policy initiative which 
guaranteed that major consensus at the WTO conference would be impossible. On 
Wednesday night, police attacked local residents in the sort of breakdown of 
command and discipline shown by defeated troops. Graffiti began appearing around 
Seattle reading: "Remember, We Are Winning!" On Thursday afternoon, police 
finally came to an accommodation with Direct Action Network protesters and 
provided a police escort for a march.
The focus of the Direct Action Network strategy now shifted from the WTO to 
support for those still in jail as a result of the mass arrests. For two days, 
vigils were held at the Public Safety Building, at times completely surrounding 
the building.
On Friday evening, after meeting with city officials, Direct Action Network 
legal staff announced an agreement with the city. Jailed protesters would now 
begin cooperating with the courts and properly identify themselves. Many had 
refused to provide their names and addresses, giving their names only as "Jane 
WTO," "John WTO," or in one case "Emiliano Zapata." As they were processed for 
arraignment, they would be released on personal recognizance. Nearly all of 
those jailed were released by Sunday. After the jailed protesters were released 
Seattle City Attorney Mark Sidran issued a statement to the press denying that 
any agreement had been reached and promising to prosecute all cases.
In early January, Sidran moved to dismiss over ninety percent of the cases, 
disclosing that virtually none of them could be prosecuted because police had 
not bothered to file the necessary reports or identify the arresting officers 
during the mass arrests.
Police Officials resign
The final act of the WTO protests was the announced departures of Seattle Police 
Chief Norm Stamper, strategic commander Assistant Chief Ed Joiner, Nancy 
McPherson, civilian director of the Community and Information Services, and 
Assistant Chief of Investigations, Harve Fergusson. Those who made public 
statements regarding their resignations or retirements said that the decisions 
had been made before the WTO protests. Joiner plans to leave in March, the same 
month that Stamper will depart. Fergusson is scheduled to retire in February and 
McPherson in June. Chief Stamper stated that one purpose of announcing his 
resignation was to "de-politicize" the investigations into police actions during 
the protests and "in making this announcement, I've taken my tenure off the 
table." The departures of the other polices officials were virtually ignored in 
the media, though they represent the departure of three out of seven of the 
chief's highest-ranking assistants.
The Seattle police organizations launched a massive public-relations blitz. In 
one of the more bizarre actions, police officers began shaking down local 
merchants through the sales of T-shirts -- as if the police had won some sort of 
a major victory. Uniformed officers delivered boxes of the shirts to Dutch Ned's 
Bar in Pioneer Square. The shirts show the Space Needle engulfed in a tornado 
and say "Battle in Seattle WTO 99." Mike Edwards, president of the Seattle 
Police Officers Guild, said that money from the T-shirt sales will be used to 
buy merchandise from downtown merchants and the items purchased will be given to 
charities. The Guild also organized a rally to show support for the police. 
State Rep. Luke Esser, R-Bellevue, a conservative "law and order" advocate, 
issued a statement saying that he would be attending the police rally 
"commending those brave men and women for working around the clock in 
treacherous conditions to maintain law and order during the WTO riots." The 
Seattle Times ran a variety of pro-police articles, including one front-page 
headline announcing the retirement of a police dog.
And the police department began writing letters of commendation for actions 
during the protests. "We're hearing stories from throughout the department of 
heroism and courageousness," said Lisa Ross, a spokeswoman for Chief Stamper. 
Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter Kimberly Wilson described some of these 
stories as "surreal," citing the case of Sgt. Mike Coombs. Coombs saw a guard 
escorting a foreign dignitary draw a handgun when confronted by protesters, an 
act that would normally be considered assault with a deadly weapon. As the guard 
threatened the protesters, some tried to grab the guard's gun arm. Coombs 
sprayed the protesters with pepper-spray and hustled the delegation away from 
the protesters. His quick thinking probably saved lives, said Lt. Neil Low, who 
is writing the commendation letter. The actions by other officers deserving 
commendation have not been disclosed.
On a more realistic note, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National 
Lawyers Guild and Amnesty International announced that they were investigating 
the events in Seattle. The ACLU intends to file lawsuits challenging the 
constitutionality of the city's emergency ordinance and addressing police 
misconduct. The National Lawyers Guild is collecting statements about police 
brutality from people who were arrested. Amnesty International is looking into 
"widespread police abuses" against protesters; including "indiscriminant use" of 
chemical agents, rubber and wooden projectiles, "flashbang" grenades, beatings 
of prisoners in jail, threats of rape during strip searches, and the use of 
"four-point restraint chairs" in the jail. The mayor's office issued a statement 
saying, "At this time, we have no indication that any events such as those 
described by Amnesty International ever occurred." The Seattle Weekly has 
published stories substantiating reports of jail beatings and other charges by 
Amnesty International. The investigations are expected to continue for several 
months.
Aftermath
The WTO protests in Seattle were the largest scale left-wing demonstrations in 
America since the Gulf War. They were also the most successful American 
political demonstrations of the decade. Success for a demonstration is measured 
by the degree of congruence between the protesters goals and the effect on 
public policy issues.
Protest is a variety of policy conflict, more direct than dipolomacy or 
political negotiation and less extreme than insurrection or rebellion. 
Protesters may wish to view their actions as a form of negotiation and their 
opponents may wish to view the protests as a form of insurrection. It is neither 
one nor the other. Negotiation takes place between parties who mutally recognize 
each other's political power. Rebellion denies that opposing parties can 
co-exist and retain their respective power. On the continuum of conflict, 
protests occur when the political establishment excludes or surpresses a 
sizeable plurality of opinion and seeks to make that opinion illegitimate. 
Protest demonstrates the size of the dissenting plurality and forces the 
establishment to recognize that assent to a political policy is insufficient. In 
such a situation, consent is absent. Protest makes what Noam Choamsky calls the 
"manufacture of consent" impossible.
Victory in protest is obtained when the establishment concedes the protesters 
right to exist. In Seattle, that occured on Thursday when the protests were 
escorted by police and not attacked by them. On Friday, the protests began to 
evolve into negotiation over the terms of release for jailed protesters. The 
abrogation of those agreements by City Attorney Mark Sidran only delayed the 
negotiations, which concluded with the dismissal of criminal charges against 
almost all of those arrested. 
The WTO protests succeeded in the streets by a combination of strategic surprise 
and tactical openness. The three key phases of the street actions were: the 
Tuesday morning "swarm" which blockaded strategic intersections; the collapse of 
the police strategy to suppress the Direct Action Network protests while 
allowing the AFL-CIO parade; and the failure of the AFL-CIO parade to engulf the 
Direct Action Network protests into a form acceptable to the Clinton 
administration.
The failure of the police strategy was almost instantaneous with the success of 
the blockade. Non-violent civil disobedience usually succeeds when the numbers 
of protesters is sufficiently large. The use of force to disperse such 
demonstrations is a moral victory for the protesters if it succeeds and a double 
victory if it fails. In Seattle, the attempts to forcibly disperse the 
demonstrations not only failed, but also set into motion a chain of events which 
undermined the legitimacy of the police actions.
The critical instances in which the police lost control of their own strategy 
began with the initial use of tear gas. The circumstances surrounding the 
decision to use gas are still unknown, as is where the decision orginated. The 
pursuit of demonstrators up Capitol Hill on Tuesday and Wednesday nights 
accelerated the collapsing strategy of forcible dispersion. On Wednesday night, 
the failure of civilian officials to control the police dramatically underscored 
the breakdown of political control. On Thursday, the refusal of the City Council 
to ratify the mayor's emergency declarations began the process of regaining 
political control of the police. And the January dismissal of charges against 
demonstrators underscored the tenuous legality of the city's actions against the 
protesters.
The situation for the labor unions was equally unsuccessful. The voices among 
the labor alliance were divided as to whether Seattle was a victory or a defeat. 
The most immediate effect of the protests was the virtual disappearance of the 
Teamsters and right-wingers like Pat Buchanan from the alliance. In the sense 
that nationalist and protectionist forces seemed to prevail in the trade debate, 
the WTO protests represented a policy move to the right: a paradoxical success 
for right-wing policy.
However, one action coming out of the WTO itself was an agreement to examine 
trade barriers such as the "anti-dumping" laws which restrict steel imports into 
the United States, a defeat for labor. Clinton's initiative to establish "core 
labor and environmental standards" and sanctions were rejected by the WTO, 
another setback.
At least one "mainstream" environmental organization, the National Wildlife 
Federation, issued a statement calling the WTO protests a defeat for the labor 
alliance. Federation president Mark van Putten said violence by some 
demonstrators overshadowed the message of the mainstream environmental groups 
and labor unions that led the protests. This interpretation is the same as 
President Clinton's remarks about the protests -- framing the dissenting 
position as criminal and illegitimate. "When I turned on the TV at night, I 
didn't see tens of thousands of peaceful demonstrators calling for better 
environmental protections," van Putten said. "I saw people in masks breaking 
windows." At the same time, van Putten warned that more protests can be 
expected.
Implications for Future Protests
The most profound outcome of the WTO protests is the appearance of the netwar 
construct in American politics. The "Battle in Seattle" was fought not only in 
the streets, but also in the infosphere. The WTO protests were the first to take 
full advantage of the extremely dense and wide-reaching alternative media 
network which uses the internet. The use of "media special forces" is one of the 
hallmarks of netwar and informational conflicts. With the rise of the 
alternative media, the internet and other disintermediated mass communications, 
it is no longer possible for the establishment to control the information 
reaching the public. Attempts to distort the news for propaganda or public 
relations purposes will enhance movement recruiting and create a "credibility 
gap" for establishment policies.
The WTO protests were the Chiapas insurrection come to America. Like the 
Zapatista netwar, the conflict was one of civil society networks versus markets. 
The role of institutions, be they police or military forces, NAFTA, WTO, or 
political administrations, was secondary to the conflict. Institutions 
intermediate netwar conflicts involving markets, but they are not the primary 
actors. In Seattle, the police were not going to decide the issue; they were 
only going to determine the level of violence.
As it turned out, the introduction of new "non-lethal" armaments such as 
chemical irritant sprays and pellets, guns firing a variety of rubber, wooden or 
"bean-bag" projectiles, "robocop" armor, and all the rest, were not only 
ineffective but actually counter-productive in dealing with non-violent 
protesters. In most cases, protesters were only infuriated and stiffened in 
their resistance by the use of these weapons. The widespread use of "non-lethal" 
weapons increased the agressiveness of police and the increased combativeness 
eroded strategic control. This aspect of the street battles deserves serious 
consideration by law enforcement and protest planners alike.
The flexible and improvised communications infrastructure used by the Direct 
Action Network was a significant feature in the protests. One of the dictums of 
netwar is that netwar actors have a much greater interest in keeping 
communications working, rather than shutting them down. The dense and 
diversified communications used by the Direct Action Network could not have been 
significantly harmed by any action less than a total media and communications 
blackout in Seattle. Not only is such an action impossible for the economic and 
social costs which would result, but a blackout of the required magnitude would 
be the informational equivalent of unconditional surrender by the establishment. 
Future protests will be even more information intensive. Both protesters and 
their opponents will have to come to terms with the implications of netwar and 
the struggle for information, understanding and "topsight." Because the ultimate 
prize in a netwar conflict is understanding, not opinion, it is the quality of 
information, not the quantity, which determines the final outcome.
Netwar is nothing new as a form of conflict. It is a new concept, but the 
underlying reality of it has been around for a long time. What is new is the 
richer informational environment which makes the organization of civil (and 
uncivil) society into networks easier and more efficient
The essential conditions for victory in a netwar conflict are also the 
conditions which make waging netwar possible: the shared understanding of a 
situation which demands direct action. In many ways, the victory of the Direct 
Action Network was implicit in the fact that so many people understood the 
conflict and were willing to act on that understanding. The streets of Seattle 
showed what democracy looks like.
