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Secret Service: Vile Persecution of Ed Cummings
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Source material from http://www.2600.com, by someone calling themselves
"Emmanuel Goldstein", which in the book '1984' was known as the Hated Enemy
of the People.

2600, "The Hacker's Quarterly", is unhappy about what the Secret Service
did to one of its correspondents, Ed Cummings.
 
>   The Secret Service has locked Ed Cummings up with violent criminals for
>   nearly a year, solely because of his possession of written material,
>   software, and bits of hardware. In other words, not much at all.
 
First, some background:
 
Ed Cummings was on probation for removing batteries from a tone dialer.
 
>   All of this stems from an incident years ago when Cummings and two
>   friends were being questioned by a Northampton County police officer.
>   
>   He had asked them about a tone dialer they had and, while he went into
>   another room, somebody removed the batteries from the dialer. They were
>   not under arrest and had not been instructed not to do this. However,
>   based on this, Cummings was charged with "tampering with evidence" even
>   though there was no proof that he had been the one to do it. Cummings
>   refused to say who did and pleaded no contest. He was fined and that
>   should have been the end of it.
 
Then it happened, in March 1995:
 
A Haverford Township Police officer arrested Ed Cummings.
 
His crime?
 
Talking with African Americans in a parking lot. A heavily monitored group...
The *sole* reason Ed Cummings was targeted was because he was talking to
black people.
 
What was he arrested for?    Suspicion of drug dealing. (I'm guessing here.)
 
Did he have any drugs?       None.
 
How do you arrest someone for drugs when they don't have any?  I don't know.

What did he have?            Electronic components: crystals.

No, not Starship Dili