Something So Small That Has Implications So Big

It's really interesting how technology has empowered people.  We've seen it in the Arab Spring uprisings, people using cell phones and the Internet to coordinate congregating together and to share common ideas.  Occupy Wall Street is no different.  It is amazing to me what little camera-equipped cell phones have done in the way of citizen reporting.  It is becoming increasingly difficult for police and authority figures to get away with much these days because of the diverse means of monitoring their activity.

Some have even gone as far as stitching these recordings together to give a more complete picture of what is occurring.  Here is such a one from the UC Davis protests:

It's quite amazing to see how many people are there, cameras at the ready to grab everything while it unravels.  And it's not likely that these videos will be forgotten.  They will be there in the ether for a very long time.  I really wish we could have heard more clearly what the police were saying, give them a voice outside their despicable actions, but it's very hard to see them in any other light than being the campus bullies.

Incidents like this show us that even though we are paranoid of Big Brother using technology against us, this shows that something as small as a cell phone can be wielded in the same way against the government in our defense.