Breaking: Terrorism charges against RNC Eight will be dropped

statement from the rnc and friends:

http://rnc8.org/2009/04/terrorism-dropped-conspiracy-remains/

Outstanding! Now we just have to make it clear that lining up housing and food for protesters isn’t conspiracy. It’s noble, First Amendment-protected work that deserves applause, not prosecution.

[...] Full story here [...]

This is great news! Keep up the pressure on these fascist hacks – Drop all the charges!

Incredible ! Thanks to all those brave RNC 8 and their families for haning in there. We are truely grateful. What you do is standing up for future acts of dissent for us and future generations. And what amazing legal team you have. Thanks to all the organizers and their dedication.. Power to the People !
We know this is only one step, and we will keep supporting the cause.
“When we stand up, we must know that we are standing up for everyone.”
You all are the true heros and we applaud you !

This is a good first step. But keep in mind that the only thing that justified the pre-emptive “Bush Doctrine” inspired arrests in the first place was that original linking of the “RNC Welcoming Committee” organizers to “terrorism”. The criminal property damage that sometimes (actually often) occurs in the course of large numbers of people in protest situations could never be pre-emptively addressed in any accurate way without bringing an end to First Amendment rights. No one would ever risk trying to organize any such First Amendment expression if police authorities were allowed to apply the “Bush Doctrine” as it was, for instance, applied to conjectures about Iraq’s WMD.

If the Bush Doctrine of pre-emption is made applicable to stopping the organizing of marches, rallies, peace vigils and/or the producing of sarcastic You-Tube videos, than we ought to apply it to hockey tournaments and football games too so we can prevent the property damage that often results from those events.

I kept telling the two newspaper reporters who attended the Molotov cocktail possession trial that they ought to ask the FBI during that case whether the FBI would get to count any conviction as a “terrorism stat” because there had to be some reason why 5 to 8 FBI agents and supervisors–the hierarchy of the FBI office sat all week on their butts in that courtroom. The last time I saw so many non case agents taking time to attend a trial was during the Mafia prosecutions in New York City in the 1980′s. (Meanwhile only 1/5 of the number of the agents who investigated durng the S and L crisis are currently assigned to the financial frauds that are 100 to 1000 times greater in scope than the “S and L Crisis”–you know the financial frauds involving the toxic assets that have nearly caused our economy to collapse?! So anyone with a detective mind might wonder whether the (false) “terrorism” labels have been playing a role in the authorities’ messed up priorities.

From what I’ve been able to see and assess, and I’ve worked with a large range of prosecutors, Susan Gaertner does, in fact, have a laudable track record of prosecuting core criminal conduct in a variety of past matters. She’s totally right at this juncture to be concerned about the problematic aspects of proceeding with charges under Minnesota’s “Patriot Act” inasmuch as lawyer, civil libertarian and union groups are organizing an effort to repeal this overbroad “enhancement for terrorism” law that would equate “terrorism” with minor property damage of $1000.

What Attorney Gaertner apparently fails to see in the case of the “RNC 8″, however, is there really is no “core criminal conduct” because the eight young people in question were pre-emptively arrested before the RNC began. Although more and more news is leaking about the fact that video you-tubes, social networking sites like Facebook and numerous public websites are being monitored by the 58 FBI Fusion Centers and 100 Joint Terrorism Task Forces nationwide, these things are not yet a crime in this country.

I fully agree with Ann Galloway and Coleen Rowley. I would add that I would like to see us have a just and fair legal system including the executive at the top of our country not standing with the Bush legacy and claiming State Secrets to stop lawsuits against torture and electronic eavesdropping abuses. President Obama and Attorney General Holder have really disappointed me in this regard. I am very pleased that we who are against the RNC 8 prosecution have something to be happy about and be inspired by so that we can renew our efforts to make our government more responsive to the people’s real needs.

Paul, this was a fine article and I was very pleased when I read it. The RNC 8, the Milwaukee 3, the Wall Seven were not and are not “terrorists.” Instead of being charged with anything, they should be given Medals of Freedom. The true terrorists in Saint Paul in late August and early September of ’08 were seated in the Excel Center, conspiring to commit even more mischief.

[...] Tags: america, anarchism, anti-capitalism, law, politics, protest, repression, riot, terrorism | Breaking: Terrorism charges against RNC Eight will be dropped The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office is preparing to drop terrorism charges against the so-called [...]

Thank goodness. These are just young people who were going to protest at the RNC convention. What the heck is wrong with that? This prosecution is so bogus and trumped up. Hopefully they will realize they have no case and drop all charges.

Hey Vicki, what are your sources? You feel comfortable making a statement like that? Have you read the brief?