Comments on: This Is What Happens When You Use Terrorism Laws to Investigate Hippies

By: Mason

Mason — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 22:13:34 +0000

We are missing the Affidavit for Search Warrant, a sworn statement submitted to the judge in support of the application for the search warrants. She reviewed it to decide if the information set forth probable cause to believe that a crime or crimes were committed and the premises to be searched contained evidence of that crime. Most likely one affidavit was submitted in support of the search warrants and it likely was filed under seal (i.e., unavailable for review without a court order). The affidavit likely will be made public when the investigation is completed and someone is charged. We will want to review it when it’s published.
Probable cause is a legal term that in this context means reasonable grounds to believe that a crime was committed and certain premises contain evidence of that crime (i.e., the items listed to be seized). Whether probable cause exists depends on the totality of the circumstances (federal standard), which depends on the facts set forth in the affidavit and the reliability of the source or sources of information asserting those facts. Typically in cases like this the sources are paid informants or undercover cops who infiltrated the various targeted groups. Some or all of these sources may have worn wires or some type of recording equipment, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that some of the information in the affidavit came from wiretaps, which usually require a warrant based on probable cause (unless this is a terrorist case).
Based on the items seized at the locations of the various searches (i.e., innocuous rather than a proverbial “smoking gun”), the peaceful nature of the groups, and the few arrests for conspiracy to riot, which depends on how the legislature defined riot, I seriously question the accuracy of the information in the affidavit and the reliability of the sources of that information. Intent to engage in peaceful protests and participation in peaceful protests is protected by the freedom of speech and freedom of assembly clauses of the First Amendment. Journalists and videographers covering the protests are also protected by the First Amendment right to publish so that we the people know what’s going on.
I think we’re seeing preemptive Nazi-style police intimidation of innocent people who intend to participate in lawful and constitutionally protected dissenting behavior. This is exactly what so many of us have predicted would happen. It is intolerable and likely to provoke, rather than prevent riots. If a riot ensues, expect the police to start it by overreacting to someone who insults a cop. It won’t take much of an insult to provoke a massive overreaction.

By: JohnLopresti

JohnLopresti — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 21:21:35 +0000

In a recent project looking at the history of US political conventions, I located an article helpfully archived at The Atlantic Monthly site written a month before the subsequently much chronicled Chi68 ‘civil’ unrest. The perspective in the linked narrative seems to be that of television opsis, with a tinge of the technical detail regarding morphing equipment design as a key determinant of the respective political parties’ unison migration to staged rather than real bartering convention gatherings. The tale in the Atlantic seems less than prognosticatory, in retrospect, concerning the outdoor demonstrations, but it was known at the time that there was a convergence of many sorts of malcontents, some peaceable, others bearing various gradations of mens rea. Then well into a career in journalism, a reporter who experienced covering his first national political convention, GMiller’s outlook seems to have been shaped by that early spectacle in his career working in the media, the linked article is one he published a week ago reframing the import of what occurred that time forty years ago.

By: prostratedragon

prostratedragon — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 20:00:43 +0000

@53 and 54, there are some new reports coming in at FDL on some of the dismaying developments in MSP, too.

By: sailmaker

sailmaker — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 19:18:31 +0000

I don’t know if anyone will be looking down here, however, here is a link to a report of police seizing a bus/home that is used to house some people going around the country teaching survival skills at farmers markets and the like. Police impounded the bus at gunpoint, leaving the family/group homeless by the roadside with their dogs and chickens.

By: CTMET

CTMET — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 17:56:53 +0000

I’m not sure if anyone is still reading this thread, but I did see one thing on one of the videos that needs followup. There was a search warrant in one of the raids. It was signed off by a judge Joanne Smith.

All I can come up with on her is this (Below)
http://www.mncourts.gov/?page=.....8;ID=30297

Anybody know anything about her? Somebody needs to ask why she authorized the warrant. What was the probable cause?

Appointed/Elected:
Appointed by Governor Rudy Perpich on November 10, 1983. Elected in 1986, 1992, 1998, and 2004. Current term expires in January of 2011.
Education:
J.D., honors, Hamline University School of Law, 1977
M.A., highest honors, University of Minnesota-Duluth, 1972
B.A., cum laude, University of Minnesota-Duluth, 1968
Employment:
Assistant Public Defender- Ramsey County, 1979-1983
Law Clerk (Hon. Allen Oleisky)- Hennepin County Court, 1978-1979
Professional Memberships:
Minnesota Women Elected Officials
Minnesota District Judges Association
National Association of Women Judges
Minnesota State Bar Association
Ramsey County Bar Associations
Community Activities:
Board Member- St. Paul Domestic Abuse Project and Crime Victim-Witness Advisory Board
Volunteer Attorney Advisor- For domestic abuse cases
Former Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor
Assistant Director- Dayton Halfway House
Board Member- St. Paul Youth Service Bureau
Professional Activities:
Chief Judge- Second Judicial District Court, 1989-1992
Assistant Chief Judge- Second Judicial District Court, 1987-1988
Chair- Supreme Court Advisory Committee on Rules of Criminal Procedure, 1991-present
Lecturing and Teaching Experience:
From 1979-1981, Judge Smith was an adjunct professor at William Mitchell College of Law. Since then, she has lectured frequently at local high schools on topics such as, the judicial system, the legal process, and women in law.
Additional Information:
Judge Smith was the first woman ever to be elected Chief Judge of a judicial district in the state of Minnesota.

——————————————————————————–

By: prostratedragon

prostratedragon — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 16:58:33 +0000

More false flag cinema: Z (1969). A police state resembling the one that was then installed in Greece (”Any similarity to actual persons or events is deliberate,” it says at the beginning of the flim.) uses street thugs against the antifascists, finally murdering a leading RFK-like figure, who was also a government official. All this and yet the film manages to be screamingly funny at points, as it details how the coverup of these facts was blown open, one of the significant heroes of this effort being an almost suspiciously Fitz-like investigating magistrate. (Trintignant is much shorter.)

The film’s wrap-up starts

The Deputy [magistrate superior] was not at the trial. He died of a heart attack, according to the coroner. Several other witnesses died before the trial [following accompanied by evidence photos]: a car accident … a gas explosion … a suicide, a drowning … a work accident, a second car accident … and a heart attack while driving. “Foul play is doubted” says the new Chief of Police.

It ends with one of the great and substantially true Empire-strikes-back catalogs of idiotic futility:

Also, the military regime banned Iong hair, mini-skirts, Sophocles, Tolstoy, Euripides, Russian-style toasts, strikes, Aristophanes, Ionesco, Sartre, Albee, Pinter, freedom of the Press, sociology, Beckett, Dostoyevsky, modern music, popular music [including of M, Theodorakis, composer of the film score], new math and the letter “Z” which means “He is alive” in ancient Greek.

By: Kirk James Murphy, M.D.

Kirk James Murphy, M.D. — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 16:02:58 +0000

I wanted to instead offer the idea that this was being done explicitly at the direction of the usual Repug suspects residing in DC, Texas and the other Repug ratholes.

Totally agree, MadDog. At the nominating protests, the top of the “law” enforcement pyramid is Federal, and they are clearly taking orders from the sleeper “Bushie” cells in control at Dept of Treasury (Secret Service), DOJ (FBI), and ~~Fatherland~~ Homeland “Security” (ATF?). This Federalization of nominating convention “law” enforcement was present even before 9/11: I saw at work in LA in 2000, and my colleagues saw it in Philly that same year.

By: PJEvans

PJEvans — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 14:24:09 +0000

Oh, it would probably make it by, considering some of the names that I’ve seen attached to various politicians. (It’s kind of fun playing with the trolls who show up at ML: is it troll bingo or a pinata?)

By: 4jkb4ia

4jkb4ia — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 13:32:59 +0000

EW is so wonderful, the “Governor Argali” thing would dubiously make it past Teresa Nielsen Hayden.

By: 4jkb4ia

4jkb4ia — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 13:31:45 +0000

At least at the event yesterday in O’Fallon, the estimated crowd was 15,000 to 20,000 people. Governor Argali seemed to be a big hit. I don’t know if my husband has forgiven me, because I FORGOT that McCain was coming because as of last week I had no way to get out there.