A reliable American ally – Egypt continues to repress any kind of political activism – requires creative thinking by anybody caught up in its madness:
James Karl Buck helped free himself from an Egyptian jail with a one-word blog post from his cell phone.
Buck, a graduate student from the University of California-Berkeley, was in Mahalla, Egypt, covering an anti-government protest when he and his translator, Mohammed Maree, were arrested April 10.
On his way to the police station, Buck took out his cell phone and sent a message to his friends and contacts using the micro-blogging site Twitter.
The message only had one word. “Arrested.”
Within seconds, colleagues in the United States and his blogger-friends in Egypt — the same ones who had taught him the tool only a week earlier — were alerted that he was being held.