Anti-Trump protesters risk 60 years in jail. Is dissent a crime?

[n2doc]

On the morning of President Trump’s Inauguration, police trapped and arrested over 230 people. Some were anti-Trump demonstrators; some were not. The next day, federal prosecutors charged them all with “felony rioting,” a nonexistent crime in Washington DC. The prosecution then launched a sweeping investigation into the defendants’ lives, demanding vast amounts of online information through secret warrants.

Prosecutors eventually dropped a few defendants, like journalists and legal observers, but simultaneously increased the charges against everyone else. The most recent indictment collectively charged over 200 people with felony rioting, felony incitement to riot, conspiracy to riot, and five property-damage crimes — all from broken windows.

Each defendant is facing over 60 years in prison.

The prosecution next obtained warrants focused on anti-Trump organizers. One sought a list of all visitors to a website that organizers used to promote Inauguration Day protests. A second sought information on all Facebook friends and related communications of two organizers, the host of a coalition Facebook page, and those who simply “liked” that page.

more
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/22/donald-trump-administration-punishing-dissent-protesters

[malaise]

1. THis is not going to happen

First amendment rights

[ancianita]

10. Rights don't exist by declaration. The legal war of attrition on the Constitution is beginning.

[ProfessorGAC]

11. Actually, Both The Constitution And The Declaration. . .

. . .make it explicit that government doesn't grant rights. They simply exist. That is why so much of the Bill of Rights is about what government can't do, not a list of what people get to do.

[ancianita]

12. Like women's 1st Amendment rights to privacy under Roe v. Wade simply exist. Now under

assault in this latest GOP tax bill. Prove that women's Roe v. Wade's rights simply exist. A number of court cases have already stripped women of access to those fought-for rights that SCOTUS claimed simply exist.

Like the people's Constitutional 1st and 4th Amendment rights are stripped under the Patriot Act:

Wiretapping authority (secs. 120, 121)
Civil asset forfeiture powers (sec. 427, 428)
New death penalties (sec. 411)
Unprecedented power of the government to revoke American citizenship even of native-born Americans and detain them indefinitely (sec. 501)
Due process of law to immigrants
Habeas corpus"national security letters"" to obtain confidential library, Internet and bookstore records - without going to court at all (secs. 128, 129).


https://www.aclu.org/other/aclu-fact-sheet-patriot-act-ii

By your logic, the above "rights" simply exist, and people never got to do any of those things, and if they did, they have been stripped by the government that "doesn't get to do."

By your logic the people still have these rights.

My point is: People now have to fight for them in the courts proves they do not exist.

Prove they simply exist outside fighting for them in the courts.

This country under the Patriot Act was officially labeled a "battleground" in the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act.

Under the ‘worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial’
provision of S.1867, the National Defense Authorization Act bill, which is
set to be up for a vote on the Senate floor this week, the legislation
will “basically say in law for the first time that the homeland is part
of the battlefield,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who supports the
bill.

Section 1031 essentially repeals the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 by
authorizing the U.S. military to perform law enforcement functions on
American soil...

Americans could be declared domestic terrorists and thrown in a
military brig with no recourse whatsoever. Given that the Department of
Homeland Security has characterized behavior such as buying gold, owning
guns, using a watch or binoculars, donating to charity, using the
telephone or email to find information, using cash, and all manner of
mundane behaviors as potential indicators of domestic terrorism...

https://www.snopes.com/politics/military/ndaa.asp

Including protestors.

These are facts about how our rights don't "simply exist." Therefore dissent is a crime. How it is enforced can be soft (Obama and Occupy) or hard (Trump and the 'feds' moving on Chicago).

That's why I said the state's war of attrition is on. That war's been on since our elected officials decided that stripping people of what they "get to do" is for Americans' own protection.

"Not gonna happen" depends on the random judgment of prosecutors and a court. Yet, by law

it's already happened. Not one of us is legally exempt, except to fight for these rights.

Test Sessions or any federal prosecutors and see what happens.

[ProfessorGAC]

13. Tedious Reading

And i don't disagree, but the government doesn't bestow rights. All the cites in the world won't change my belief that the government doesn't grant rights.

I never said they don't try to abridge those rights. So, you appear to be arguing something i never said. But the founding documents of this government clearly say that rights are not bestowed by the government.

This is how we go off the rails around here.

You basically read my the riot act, starting with the bit on women's rights. Find one post in my 30,000+ where i have not been a supporter of women and their rights. Attacking me when all i said was what i said.

With friends like this. . .

[ancianita]

16. You really don't want to understand what I said, either. At least I quoted you and linked supports.

Don't mistake examples or assertions of support for my ideas with "riot acts" or "attacking me."

Don't make this about me. I haven't made one thing I said about you.

This is about the idea I responded to from malaise ("This is not going to happen) which you presumed to enter and clarify or correct, or whatever ... not sure what your intent was.

However, I've said nothing untoward to you at all.

I've simply illustrated that previous rights you claim "simply exist" do not anymore, to bolster my point to malaise that Americans have no rights that they don't have to fight for.

Not anymore.

[ProfessorGAC]

17. Fighting The Battle With An Ally

Interesting strategy

[ancianita]

18. No. You. I don't fight. I defend my points, and you "correct," "clarify" without addressing

one of my ideas. Not one. At least I addressed one of yours. You only argue what you "didn't say." I'm arguing what I did say.

Don't interpret. Don't project.

Just try to understand the meaning and spirit of my ideas.

[ProfessorGAC]

19. Redux

Look it up!

[secondwind]

2. WTF??!!???!!!!!!

[raccoon]

3. Sounds like some banana republic country. Nt

[mountain grammy]

4. If they get away with this

Protesters will face mass arrests. Just the beginning.

[Achilleaze]

5. KGOP republicans* immediately wrapped their greazey hands around America's throat

at the INSTALLMENT OF THE ILLEGITIMATE republican twit with these bingo-bango arrests and outrageous charges. They mean to stomp out free-thinkers.


* "led" by their "republican family-values" five-time draft-dodging casino hustler with a massively putrid track record of lies, cheating, gluttony and sexual predation,
and his anti-American russian comrade-conies.

[Amimnoch]

6. Republican Wonderland, eliminate the 1st amendment and enshrine the 2nd.

[ancianita]

7. In dictatorships dissent is always a crime. Prosecutors become henchmen, not counsel.

[Lee-Lee]

8. I looked up the federal rioting law

riot
(a)As used in this chapter, the term “riot” means a public disturbance involving (1) an act or acts of violence by one or more persons part of an assemblage of three or more persons, which act or acts shall constitute a clear and present danger of, or shall result in, damage or injury to the property of any other person or to the person of any other individual or (2) a threat or threats of the commission of an act or acts of violence by one or more persons part of an assemblage of three or more persons having, individually or collectively, the ability of immediate execution of such threat or threats, where the performance of the threatened act or acts of violence would constitute a clear and present danger of, or would result in, damage or injury to the property of any other person or to the person of any other individual. (b)As used in this chapter, the term “to incite a riot”, or “to organize, promote, encourage, participate in, or carry on a riot”, includes, but is not limited to, urging or instigating other persons to riot, but shall not be deemed to mean the mere oral or written (1) advocacy of ideas or (2) expression of belief, not involving advocacy of any act or acts of violence or assertion of the rightness of, or the right to commit, any such act or acts.

18 U.S. Code § 2101 - Riots
US Code
Notes
prev | next
(a) Whoever travels in interstate or foreign commerce or uses any facility of interstate or foreign commerce, including, but not limited to, the mail, telegraph, telephone, radio, or television, with intent—
(1) to incite a riot; or
(2) to organize, promote, encourage, participate in, or carry on a riot; or
(3) to commit any act of violence in furtherance of a riot; or
(4) to aid or abet any person in inciting or participating in or carrying on a riot or committing any act of violence in furtherance of a riot;
and who either during the course of any such travel or use or thereafter performs or attempts to perform any other overt act for any purpose specified in subparagraph (A), (B), (C), or (D) of this paragraph— [1]
Shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
(b) In any prosecution under this section, proof that a defendant engaged or attempted to engage in one or more of the overt acts described in subparagraph (A), (B), (C), or (D) of paragraph (1) of subsection (a) [2] and (1) has traveled in interstate or foreign commerce, or (2) has use of or used any facility of interstate or foreign commerce, including but not limited to, mail, telegraph, telephone, radio, or television, to communicate with or broadcast to any person or group of persons prior to such overt acts, such travel or use shall be admissible proof to establish that such defendant traveled in or used such facility of interstate or foreign commerce.
(c) A judgment of conviction or acquittal on the merits under the laws of any State shall be a bar to any prosecution hereunder for the same act or acts.
(d) Whenever, in the opinion of the Attorney General or of the appropriate officer of the Department of Justice charged by law or under the instructions of the Attorney General with authority to act, any person shall have violated this chapter, the Department shall proceed as speedily as possible with a prosecution of such person hereunder and with any appeal which may lie from any decision adverse to the Government resulting from such prosecution.
(e) Nothing contained in this section shall be construed to make it unlawful for any person to travel in, or use any facility of, interstate or foreign commerce for the purpose of pursuing the legitimate objectives of organized labor, through orderly and lawful means.
(f) Nothing in this section shall be construed as indicating an intent on the part of Congress to prevent any State, any possession or Commonwealth of the United States, or the District of Columbia, from exercising jurisdiction over any offense over which it would have jurisdiction in the absence of this section; nor shall anything in this section be construed as depriving State and local law enforcement authorities of responsibility for prosecuting acts that may be violations of this section and that are violations of State and local law.

Yeah, I’m gonna say they are screwed because it looks like they can be prosecuted along those lines if people they organized with and/or collaborated with acted in a way that caused any violence or intentional property damage.

I see why you don’t usually see this prosecuted this way, any actions or prosecution for the same actions on a state or local level precludes federal authorities from charging under this statute. But in DC that’s a different ballgame than in any of the states.

I had no idea the federal riot laws were so strict.

[moriah]

14. Can those 200 people have all had *intent* to damage property?

Because they must prove the culpable mindset of "intentional" -- not negligently, where a reasonable person should have known windows would be broken because of their actions but they didn't, or recklessly (knowing it was a possible result but doing the actions anyway, for a different intent though).

Defendants will argue they only communicated and traveled to DC to organize and participate in a peaceful protest.

The Government has the burden of proof these 200 people all intentionally set out to cause property damage.

[spanone]

9. all hail to putin. we need to get this bastard out of our white house.

[spanone]

15. what has happened to our country? ....trump.