Michael Hampton’s brilliant Porcupine 411 service has gotten a big story in today’s Concord Monitor! If you don’t subscribe to Porc 411 and you consider yourself a liberty activist, you’re missing out. Don’t forget that if you can’t subscribe to porc 411’s regular emails or podcast, you can also get the latest messages in text form via Twitter!
Here’s the story (which mentions Keene activism!) from the Concord Monitor’s Annmarie Timmins:
When Michael Segal decided to trade Florida for New Hampshire and its “pro-liberty” opportunities in August, he dialed 413-0411 with the news. As he approached Concord, Segal dialed again with his ETA. And when Segal got to Concord, it was as he expected.
“There were a dozen people waiting at my place,” Segal said. “I’d never met them before, and they were there to help me move in.”
That’s one way Free Staters and other liberty rights activists are using their instant messaging network, Porcupine 411. But the phone number is as frequently used to report allegations of police harassment, document arrests at marijuana protests and promote Saturday night karaoke in Keene.
This weekend, one message asked for donations to make bail for a marijuana activist arrested at a rally in Manchester.
Seconds after someone leaves a voice mail at 413-0411, an audio clip of it is sent to the phones or e-mail addresses of the network’s 345 subscribers. The clip is also instantly posted on nh.porcupine411.com. More recently, volunteers have even started sending the gist of the messages out over Twitter.
“It’s really gone beyond my expectations,” said creator Michael Hampton of Manchester. “There are some who call in frequently and some who never call in. I know some (subscribers) who have the number on speed dial just in case.”
Hampton was lured to New Hampshire from Wisconsin a few years ago by the Free State Project, a recruitment effort to bring 20,000 liberty activists to New Hampshire. In 2006, he began Porcupine 411 as a way to connect like-minded souls from across the state.
The name, Porcupine 411, or Porc 411 for short, is a nod to the Free State Project, which uses the porcupine as its mascot.
It is free to subscribe. Hampton, who has experience with phone networks, created the platform and collects just $15 a month for the phone line service. (Two other Porcupine 411 subscribers pick up the tab.) Hampton said he makes enough off the network “to go out to eat once a month.”
Hampton said he makes his living off his blog, homelandstupidity.us.
Ian Freeman of Keene has been a subscriber since the beginning. He likes to know when the police “are going after some peaceful person,” he said. Callers often give hour-by-hour accounts of arrests and police interactions.
But Freeman, whose radio show Free Talk Lives airs on more than 60 radio stations, looks to Porcupine 411 for social opportunities, too. On Sunday nights, the Keene contingent gathers at a local Middle Eastern club to visit and play board games, he said.
Dave Ridley, a Free Stater who arrived in 2002, documents his interactions with the police, often while exercising his right to openly carry a firearm, through his site ridleyreport.com. He said he has about 4,000 subscribers, half of them in New Hampshire. Porcupine 411 is his major source of news, he said.
Callers update him on gun rights protests at the State House or police arrests at marijuana protests in Keene, Manchester and elsewhere. Ridley advocates documenting police enforcement of what he calls victimless crimes. He counts “harmless” drug use and motor vehicle offenses in that category.
Porcupine 411 is one way to document that interaction, he said, because anyone questioned by the police need only dial the phone number and let the voice mail record the conversation. The network has served Ridley well in other ways, too.
He called the number once looking for a jump start for his car. Fifteen minutes later, someone arrived to help.
“It saved me $50, and I didn’t have to use AAA,” he said. “And Porcupine 411 won’t lobby for seatbelt laws like AAA.”
