The San Francisco Chronicle reports that yesterday’s 5-years-in-Iraq protest was well-orchestrated, in part thanks to fre­quent updates deliv­ered to par­tic­i­pants via text mes­sages. C.W. Nevius reports:

I was told to sim­ply text mes­sage the “DASW [Direct Action to Stop the War] text mob” to get up-to-the-minute mes­sages describ­ing the lat­est action sent to my cell phone. At 3:08:29 p.m., for exam­ple, I received a mes­sage that said, “DASW cur­rent esti­mate - 150 arrests - thanks for tak­ing to the streets and join­ing in.”

This is the first time I’ve heard of a small, local activist group (Bay Area DASW) employ­ing SMS to help keep their par­tic­i­pants in the loop. It’s a great idea, and could shift the dynamic of other direct actions in the future. Protests can be intense and a lit­tle scary when you see hordes of activists run­ning up against walls of police -- “What’s going on down there?” “Is every­one okay?” Panic breaks out when indi­vid­u­als can’t see over the crowd to get the big­ger pic­ture. “Are we safe here?” “Should we keep march­ing, or turn back?” A cen­tral­ized orga­niz­ing com­mit­tee, armed with binoc­u­lars and mobiles, can now mon­i­tor the protest sta­tus among them­selves, send­ing only per­ti­nent infor­ma­tion about the big pic­ture to par­tic­i­pants, such as num­ber of arrests, or “look out, tear gas deployed, head SW on Market.”