
Protesters charged with 'Terrorism Hoax' for too much glitter on their banner - rwissmann
http://www.vice.com/read/two-environmentalists-were-charged-with-terrorism-hoax-for-too-much-glitter-on-their-banner
======
SwellJoe
I never realized just how bad the situation was until I got involved more
seriously in activism. Two and a half years into being politically active
enough to never go more than a week or two without some form of protest (which
could take the form of a march or rally, or an Overpass Light Brigade, or
helping organize a cryptoparty, hosting documentary movie nights, helping with
direct action training, etc.), I now have literally dozens of friends who have
been charged with felonies.

These are among the sweetest, and gentlest, people I know. Some are barely
older than children (the youngest person I know charged with a felony was 19
when she was charged with "Use of a criminal instrument" for locking her arm
to a fellow protesters arm using a device suggested and made for them by a
team of undercover Austin Police Department officers).

It is completely transparent, to me, that these laws and these tactics, are
tools of oppression. They are not "to keep us safe", and never were. They are
designed to make dissent as dangerous as possible through every means they can
get away with. It includes violent, or at least threatening, police presence
at any protest of significance (which means many populations cannot safely
express dissent; anyone with warrants, regardless of what they are for, has no
free speech because they will be snatched from a protest, anyone who is an
undocumented immigrant has no free speech because they will be snatched,
etc.). It includes violent arrest tactics; police are trained in "pain
compliance" techniques, which include spraying pepper spray into protesters
eyes, and forcing their eyes open to do so. It includes widespread spying at
the local, state, and federal level, as well as spying by corporations like
Stratfor. It includes charging activists with laws intended for violent
terrorists, so that arrest is no longer a minor inconvenience, but a life-
altering event. When non-violent activists are facing years in prison, for
causing nothing more than minor temporary inconvenience, something is horribly
broken.

I suspect most Americans would be disgusted by all of this, if they were
really aware of it. But, it's not very frequently reported in mainstream
media. I only know about it because I know some of the people involved and
follow activist-oriented news sources.

~~~
enraged_camel
>>It is completely transparent, to me, that these laws and these tactics, are
tools of oppression. They are not "to keep us safe", and never were. They are
designed to make dissent as dangerous as possible through every means they can
get away with.

It is disheartening that you realized this only after getting involved in
activism. I think that in itself is a more significant indication of how
hopeless the situation in America is. It underlines the main reason why
serious social change is so difficult.

Put it simply: the government exists to protect the interests of corporations
and wealthy people. Dissent of any kind challenges the status quo and
therefore must be discouraged and quelled by any means necessary. The rights
of "The People" (i.e. the poor) mean jack shit, because The People only exist
to make the rich richer. This has been the case since the country's founding.

This is not to say that change is impossible. But, historically, the only time
meaningful change has happened is when there was overwhelming social pressure.
We aren't talking about petty (and for the most part meaningless) activism
here and there. We're talking about social dissent of such magnitude that it
threatens to become a revolution. Only in such times has the establishment
allowed any sort of concession.

~~~
itchitawa
It's easy to blame the government but the majority of Americans vote for the
government they have or none at all. That means they are either happy with it
or they're incompetent and should not be allowed to vote. It's easy to blame
politicians but really it's the short-sighted self-interested voters who are
at fault. If you vote for a party with a history of doing terrible things then
you are asking them to do more terrible things.

~~~
SwellJoe
_" If you vote for a party with a history of doing terrible things then you
are asking them to do more terrible things."_

Which of the two parties that can plausibly win elections do you believe does
not do terrible things?

~~~
EliRivers
Their plausibility is a gift from you and everyone like you. Thanks so much
for fucking the rest of us over.

~~~
SwellJoe
You blame _me_ for this fucked up system? Yeah, I'm not carrying that weight.

I worked for _years_ for third party politics. I was a card-carrying member of
the LP. Worked for ballot access for both LP and the Green Party. If that's
how you want to activate, go do it. I'm done with it. I see the system for
what it is: Corrupt.

As long as we have first-past-the-post voting, laws stacked against any third
party or independent candidates, and a complicit media, third parties are a
pit into which people throw their passions and their energy and their money,
with no resulting change.

You do what you gotta do, and I'm gonna do what I gotta do. What I gotta do is
help build communities of resistance, and make it as expensive and
inconvenient as possible for this shit to keep happening.

~~~
EliRivers
Well that's me told :) For what it's worth, I vote every time, never for one
of the big two, and I tell people why.

------
malandrew
It really ought to be an ethics violation investigateable by a state bar
association if a prosecutor pulls a stunt like using absurdly trumped up
charges. AFAICT, at the end of the day, state bar associations have the power
to reign in prosecutorial abuses like this one. Prosecutors like this are
actively harming the pursuit of justice, and I can't see how any group of
peers (i.e. lawyers who vary in area of specialization) would not look at this
behavior as a gross disservice to the profession, and that such gross
disservice warrants being disbarred.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong about state bar associations being able
to control this misconduct.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
The trouble with this is the state of the law and the power dynamics in play.
It's almost impossible to prove that charges were "absurdly trumped up"
because there are so many outrageously broad felonies on the books and
prosecutors are clever enough to choose ones that at least vaguely resemble
what the defendants were actually doing. Meanwhile you have to protect
prosecutors who attempt to prosecute politically powerful defendants from the
defendants using their political power to retaliate against the prosecutor.
Which means that prosecutors have a lot of discretion and bar associations,
while theoretically capable of taking action, generally won't.

At the end of the day it's the "who watches the watchers" problem. Prosecutors
are the ones supposed to be prosecuting misconduct. Who are we going to get to
prosecute them, and how is it we can trust them to do it when they ought to
and not when they ought not to, any more than we can trust the original
prosecutors?

The answer has to be in taking away the ability to abuse the law by taking
away the broad prohibitions with high penalties that prosecutors are so fond
of abusing. There is no call for a non-violent offender to be made a felon in
any but the most exceptional and rare of cases, which means that the law
should make it nearly impossible for a prosecutor to make that case. It is not
necessary to use the penal system to destroy the life of everyone who makes a
wrong decision; particularly when structuring things that way also allows it
to destroy the lives of everyone who makes a reasoned decision to resist the
status quo.

~~~
grey-area
Any sort of Terrorism charges for glitter or a banner protest are clearly
absurd.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
Is the absurdity the charge or the statute though? Why is there a law on the
books that allows them to be charged for glitter?

The answer is because an over-reactive police force encountering an "unknown
substance" may end up spending significant resources shutting down the area
and checking it for chemical and biological weapons, and nobody wants them to
do that but neither does anybody want to be seen blaming the police for being
overly cautious, so the blame is assigned to anyone giving them an excuse to
do it. And then the police and prosecutors are given another weapon to use
against harmless protestors that amounts yet again to felony causing trouble
for the establishment.

The problem is the system rather than the people. "Punish the prosecutors" is
trying to cure the disease with more of the disease.

------
migrantgeek
This is exactly what should happen. The success of any protest is based on
media coverage. If no one was arrested, this wouldn't have been a story.

If this coverage reaches a few who are willing to get arrested for the cause,
they'll launch additional protests hoping for more exposure.

If protesters manage to keep themselves in the news cycle, they may actually
make a difference.

~~~
grecy
Imagine what will happen if they are found guilty and actually get a 10 year
sentence.

Every single person will think twice about attending a protest next time,
which would be the end of democracy (if it isn't already gone in the USA)

~~~
memracom
You could always emigrate to a country that celebrates their constitution and
whose president publicly states that people have a right to speak out. In
Russia, to mark the 20th anniversary of the Consitution of the Russian
Federation, they are freeing many convicted prisoners including some of those
who were arrested at political protests during the last election. As one
politician said, those who were called to the protest and misguidedly agreed
but are now apologetic will be freed, but those who organized the violence and
incited others to join in will not. And the president of Russia, addressing a
meeting of leaders of the various regions and republics in the Federation as
well as church, mosque and synagogue leaders, made it a point to state that
Russian, unlike the EU and the IMF, will not demand Ukraine to take any
particular internal actions in return for financial help and is only offering
it to join in a customs union as a partner.

The above is all paraphrased from a couple of news reports in Russian that I
watched last week.

There is a well known phenomenon in politics and society of the pendulum
swing. Childhood friends who discovered politics in University and hated each
other because one was socialist and the other capitalist, find that after 40
years they have EACH reversed their positions and still can't reconcile. Or
the USA who used to hold up the Soviet Union as an example of the wrong way to
do things and consequently avoided doing things that might appear to be Soviet
style. But now that there is no Soviet Union to compare itself to, the USA has
copied the worst excesses of Stalin's KGB. Meanwhile, the Russian Federation
still holds out the Soviet Union as a standard of comparison -- it is their
history after all -- and actively moves away from Soviet style solutions
embracing capitalism and individual liberty to a far greater degree than
Western countries. While corruption in the USA grows unchallenged, the Russian
Federation is in the second decade of a campaign to root it out both high and
low.

~~~
chris_wot
It's rare that I've ever read such unadulterated bullshit on Hacker News.

~~~
memracom
I'll bet its even rarer that you have visited Putin's Russia or talked to any
of the citizens who live there, not emigrants who have left but the people who
still live there and who do not want to leave.

~~~
fractallyte
Conversely, there are many 'citizens' who would rather see Russians leave.

Chechnya (Ichkeria)... Sochi (Circassia)... Karelia (Finland)... and _so many
more_...

------
noonespecial
And so we've arrived. A terrorist is now anyone you happen to disagree with
(who also happens to be politically weaker than you). Now we find out how
monumentally bad all of those 'special' anti-terrorism laws we let slip into
being over the last decade truly are.

We're all terrorists now.

------
njharman
It's sadly ironic that the enforcement of and (I cynically believe) the
purpose behind most anti-terrorism laws is to terrorize protesters,
malcontents, and others the "established power structure" deems embarrassing.
Terrorize them with the threat of immense punishment, travel hassles, etc.
Keeping them quiet and complacent.

~~~
mcantelon
The War on Terror is, to a large extent, about creating a domestic counter-
insurgence apparatus in the US. Perhaps there are changes coming that
necessitate, from the perspective of those in power, this level of control
over the population.

~~~
LekkoscPiwa
like another orchestrated terrorist attack similar to 9/11 this time created
by left/right wing domestic "terrorists" ?

If they could pull off 9/11, I'm sure they can do that again with domestic
"enemy". But then what's the purpose? Why to do that? Usually, not to loose
power. But they are in the power all the time anyway (military/industrial
complex). So, what gives?

~~~
mcantelon
They are an established power, but they've still had to deal with societal
friction in response to their actions. This slows them down as they attempt to
compete with other global factions. Hence the need to lessen societal friction
by making things more "expensive" to those who gum up the works for them. And
yeah, more "strategy of tension" operations wouldn't be surprising.

------
swalkergibson
I hope that the judge hearing this case dismisses it in its entirety during
the preliminary hearing. How is this even possible?

~~~
sp332
I hope the judge rips the prosecutor a new one too.

Edit: if the prosecutor doesn't smack the cops upside the head first!

~~~
ericcumbee
I think your jumping the gun. From reading that article, it sounds like the
Police are holding them on those charges. It does not sound it's made it to
the prosecutor yet. The police can arrest you on charges, but it is up to the
prosecutor if they actually want to prosecute.

~~~
swalkergibson
It would appear that Stefan Warner has been formally charged, arraigned, and
bail set at $1,000 on one count of a terrorism hoax. I did not look up the
other woman, but I assume that she has also been charged formally.

[http://www.oscn.net/applications/oscn/GetCaseInformation.asp...](http://www.oscn.net/applications/oscn/GetCaseInformation.asp?submitted=true&viewtype=caseGeneral&casemasterID=3070317&db=Oklahoma)

~~~
sp332
That says a judge has been appointed to determine probable cause in the
arrest. According to [http://www.oklahomacounty.org/Judges/page/Judge-Russell-
Hall...](http://www.oklahomacounty.org/Judges/page/Judge-Russell-Hall.aspx)
that judge calls 45,000 cases per year - that's a case every 20 minutes 24x7.
One imagines he has a low tolerance for people wasting his time.

~~~
Crito
With that sort of throughput, I have to wonder if he even has the time to
determine if people are wasting his time.

------
rayiner
Obviously this is unbelievable and I hope it's quickly dismissed. But
unfortunately, environmental protestors have been putting up with this sort of
shit, often at the behest of energy and agricultural companies, for decades.

------
zobzu
yep, if you're not doing whatever some powerful man wants, you're a terrorist.
That's what you get for allowing anti terrorist laws.

They were never anti terrorist. They're anti american laws. Bad luck, other
countries quickly copied this fantastic idea.

------
bhewes
I know Devon Energy pretty well. I know they have a strong PR department and
their is no way they want this to be blown up. They need the Keystone XL
pipeline built. My guess is this is a case of overzealous security guards and
OKC police. Time will tell though.

~~~
SwellJoe
Obviously, they don't want media coverage. But, I think you're
misunderstanding how they'll go about it. The companies behind Keystone XL,
have exerted tremendous efforts to have protesters charged under terrorism
laws. There have been _training_ sessions for local police departments, put on
by TransCanada and energy companies that want to see fracking continue
unhindered. Those sessions teach small-town police departments about military
tactics for attacking protesters, causing them harm, and how to most
effectively charge them with huge laundry lists of offenses. Media rarely
covers this stuff no matter _what_ police and corporations do.

~~~
bhewes
As far as Keystone XL and other pipelines across the country the training
programs are for actual terrorist attacks. An attack on a pipeline is a mess
if local law enforcement does not know how to deal with it. I remember sitting
in my dad's office looking at a pipeline map and asking him who "protected"
all of it? At the time his response was no one. Anyway's the mess in Oklahoma
City had to deal with four people at the Devon Tower downtown. If protesters
get anywhere near pipelines or fracking zones, well there is pretty long
history of legal action against people trespassing on energy production sites.
It is whole new territory charging people for protesting at corporate office
building under a "terrorism hoax" law in the State of Oklahoma that has not
even been tested. And if this actual goes to trial there will be strong media
and legal coverage. Of that much I am certain.

<update> The state of Oklahoma has historically gone after activist groups.
The IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) & Green Corn Rebellion being the
extreme examples.

------
seanccox
As Jay Gould put it: "I can hire one-half of the working class to kill the
other half."

The police have been and will remain the hired half...

------
Fuxy
That's why when i see "terrorists were arrested" in the news i think yea
right... you mean people who don't share the powers views and may or may not
be violent.

The word "terrorist" has lost its meaning to me since just about everyone not
doing as they're told are classified as a terrorist now.

It's just another buzzword that has lost all its original meaning.

------
midas007
Three Felonies a Day seems to be par for the course.

[https://mailman.stanford.edu/pipermail/liberationtech/2013-J...](https://mailman.stanford.edu/pipermail/liberationtech/2013-June/008810.html)

------
steven2012
This police state we are living in currently will only end once we vote in
politicians that actually care about the politician. We can decide as a
society whether or not we want to get distracted by things like gay marriage,
abortion, swift boats, birth certificates, or if we care about things like
liberty and freedom.

But it's up to us. We voted in these monsters, and we need to vote them out.

------
rch
Are there any resources or groups dedicated to getting ahead of overzealous
prosecutions like this? I know there are options one somebody has fallen
victim to a misguided process, but it would be nice if there was a
constructive effort to make sure law enforcement maintains some perspective
from the onset.

~~~
adventured
The ACLU for one. It's a hugely challenging problem these days however, for a
group like the ACLU they're like a dinghy boat floating around in a hurricane.

------
vampirechicken
People with power will do everything they can to keep their power. That
includes pepper spraying peaceful protesters, forbidding them form using
public address systems, or yes, charging people with terrorism in order to
stifle descent. It is sad, but not surprising.

------
lafar6502
Well, you need to be prepared for such things when you want to play politics.
In some places you can be beaten by police, in 'more democratic' countries
you'll be thrown into legal repression machine.

