An appeal would mean another return trip to the city, an expensive proposition that already has cramped her campaigning style in the final weeks before the Nov. 3 election. Hill was set to fly in and out of Pittsburgh today so she could be back in Minneapolis for a Ward Three candidate debate Thursday at the University of Minnesota.

Pittsburgh was the site of a September meeting of leaders from the G-20 group of nations that drew sizable street protests — protests that Hill says she was only trying to cover as a journalist for Indymedia when police arrested her, damaged her camera and confiscated a video cassette.

Hill is on the Minneapolis ballot as a “Civil Disobedience” candidate. She was also arrested outside the Rage Against the Machine concert in downtown Minneapolis during the 2008 Republican National Convention (charges were dropped), and has coordinated several “End the Fed” demonstrations at the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank.

She was the star attraction at a press conference Monday morning in Pittsburgh with four other journalists who were arrested and say their equipment was intentionally damaged. According to a joint press release by Twin Cities and Pittsburgh Indymedia, the Glass Bead Collective and the Thomas Merton Center, at least six journalists were arrested, including one other Minneapolis-based Indymedia reporter.

Update: According to Twin Cities Indymedia reporter Nigel Parry, Nathan Monkelien is the other local arrested in Pittsburgh. He’s still in jail on $8,000 bail and faces two felony aggravated assault charges, a level-3 misdemeanor for disorderly conduct, and a level-2 misdemeanor for resisting arrest and failure to disperse. Monkelien was carrying a camera, he adds, and was swept up in the same arrests as Hill, who was released from jail.

Here’s an interview with Hill posted at YouTube. You can also follow her exploits with Keystone State cops (and other G20 law enforcement) at Twitter and Facebook.

Vain Mainstream (left) with attorney Robert Kolstad. Photo: Paul Demko, MnIndy

Vain Mainstream just wanted to go to work. The 23-year-old Minneapolis resident was employed by Avalon Security on the opening day of the Republican National Convention last September. His assignment: to keep watch over a parking lot in downtown St. Paul and make sure that the thousands of protesters coursing through the streets of the city didn’t do any damage.

“I was notorious for being late,” Mainstream recalls. “So I figured I better show up early and find the best way to get to work.”

But as Mainstream headed down Shepard Road along the Mississippi River on his way to work, he suddenly found himself surrounded by dozens of police officers. Some were clad head-to-toe in riot gear. Others were on bikes or horses. Next thing Mainstream knew the cops were announcing that everyone in the riverfront park was under arrest.

Mainstream was transported to the Ramsey County Jail, where he was held for almost three days. He was initially charged with unlawful assembly and felony conspiracy to riot, but the charges were eventually dropped.

“What baffles me about the whole thing is I was working for the man,” Mainstream says. “I was supposed to be keeping protesters off the street and I was arrested as one.”

Mainstream is one of 27 plaintiffs who filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court Tuesday charging that the St. Paul Police Department violated their constitutional rights on the opening day of the convention.  The lawsuit alleges that police officers illegally detained more than 200 people and suppressed their free speech rights. The case is intended to be a class action on behalf of everyone arrested along Shepard Road and was filed on the one-year anniversary of the opening of the convention.

“The city has admitted that people were arrested preemptively in this park,” said attorney Robert Kolstad at a press conference held on the site of the mass arrest today. “They arrested them because they were afraid of what they might do in the future, which is a dangerous path for our government to take. Taken to its logical conclusion, what it means is that the government now believes that they can come to our houses and arrest us because they think that we might do something wrong. Our constitution simply doesn’t permit that.”

Some of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit allege that they were subjected to tear gas and flash-bang grenades for no apparent reason. They also maintain that police officers never ordered people to disperse prior to making the mass arrests. According to Kolstad, none of the named plaintiffs in the case were convicted of any crimes stemming from activities on the opening day of the convention.

“We do not believe that any of the people who were herded into this park had done anything illegal,” he said. “If there was evidence that these people had actually done something wrong, some of those cases would have stuck.”

Kevin Hundt. Photo: Paul Demko, MnIndy

Kevin Hundt, another of the plaintiffs in the case, came to the RNC from Madison, Wisconsin in order to protest. The self-described anarchist arrived in town roughly a week prior to the gathering to help plan activities. He too got caught up in the mass arrest along Shepard Road. While they were being detained, Hundt said, a fellow protester wet her pants because she wasn’t permitted to use the bathroom.

“It was really depressing to see,” he says. “It just made us feel pathetic.”

But unlike Mainstream and dozens of others, he wasn’t taken to jail.  Neither was Hundt ticketed or charged with any crime.

“Here I am, actually an anarchist, and they didn’t arrest me,” he recalls. “But hundreds of people, not anarchists, got arrested. Where’s the rhyme or reason here?”

After Mainstream was finally released from jail after three days, he returned to work at Avalon Security. His assignment: help with security outside the Xcel Energy Center. Among the tasks that Mainstream says he performed was letting Newt Gingrich into the convention.

“It baffles me that they would try to say that we’re dangerous people,” he says. “If we were so dangerous why would they let us get back to our jobs protecting the convention that we were apparently protesting.”

Elsewhere in Minnesota headlines this morning …

ST. PAUL: McCollum’s health-care forum “civil.” Case in point: The guy in the photo holding a “Socialism” placard with President Obama’s face in scary Joker facepaint appears to be sitting quietly with his hand in his lap next to a woman with a “Standing Together for Health Insurance Reform” sign in hers. [St. Paul Pioneer Press]

STATEWIDE: My stronghold is stronger than your stronghold. Entrenched DFLers in the state House are more entrenched than their Republican counterparts. [Smart Politics]

FORT SNELLING: Franken joins Klobuchar, Pawlenty at sendoff for Afghanistan-bound reservists. The state’s new senator recited some rules for phoning home, including not asking about “your car, finances or boat” before asking how the family is. [Minnesota Public Radio]

MINNEAPOLIS: Protest shines light on “wage theft.” Working through breaks, losing tips, and doing unpaid overtime: It’s not just for immigrants anymore. [Workday Minnesota]

NORTH METRO: Northstar Commuter Rail rolls out Nov. 16. Perfect timing for commuters who dislike iffy November driving conditions, or for anyone with a grandmother in Big Lake to visit for Thanksgiving. [Finance and Commerce]

ST. CLOUD: Just build a pool. We don’t need no stinkin’ spendy aqauatics center, writes a St. Cloud grandmother (whose grandkids could visit via the new train if it didn’t terminate at Big Lake). [St. Cloud Times]

Police face off with an RNC demonstrator. Photo: Paul Demko, Minnesota Independent

The Republican National Convention opened in St. Paul at the Xcel Energy Center exactly a year ago. Repercussions from the gathering — and, more significantly, the corresponding protests in the streets — continue to be felt today.

The St. Paul Police Department initially vowed that the city would present a welcoming face to Republican delegates and protesters alike. But on the opening day of the convention the streets of downtown St. Paul were lined with hundreds of cops clad head to toe in riot gear. The first day witnessed the most violent clashes of the gathering — with protesters shattering downtown windows and slashing tires, and the cops responding with the liberal use of pepper spray and flash-bang grenades — but the confrontations and arrests would continue throughout the four-day gathering.

By the time John McCain accepted the Republican nomination for president more than 800 people had been arrested, the vast majority of them in mass sweeps. So how many of these people were actually engaged in prosecutable criminal activities? A year later the answer is clear: not many.

Ultimately 676 of these cases were referred to the St. Paul City Attorney’s office for possible misdemeanor charges. But almost immediately the cases began collapsing. It was initially announced that 39 journalists who had been detained would not face criminal charges. Then in February St. Paul City Attorney John Choi let it be known that more than 300 people swept up in a mass arrest on the final night of the RNC would not be prosecuted. Ultimately more than 80 percent of the cases handled by the St. Paul City Attorney’s office didn’t result in charges.

“The overwhelming majority of arrests clearly didn’t have any basis,” says Jordan Kushner, a defense attorney who is handling several RNC-related cases.

Chuck Samuelson, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, argues that the heavy-handed police tactics and large-scale arrests were simply designed to quell dissent. He notes that in 2004, when the RNC was held in New York, there were roughly 500,000 protesters and 1,600 arrests. By contrast, in St. Paul there were an estimated 10,000 protesters and nearly 800 arrests — a strikingly higher ratio.

“The First Amendment is messy, because it allows people to speak their mind,” Samuelson says. “You need to be prepared for messy.”

But Choi maintains that the low rate of successful prosecutions isn’t necessarily indicative of wrongful arrests. He notes that the standards for making arrests and prosecuting charges are very different.

“What we’re looking at is whether we could actually obtain a conviction at trial, prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt,” Choi says. “That’s a really high bar. When you have situations involving First Amendment issues, mass arrest situations and a confusing fact pattern, it’s really difficult to get to believing that we would have a likelihood of success at trial.”

While the misdemeanor charges handled by Choi’s office have largely evaporated, many of the more serious criminal cases continue to work their way through the courts. On Monday, for instance, the trial of two defendants — Christina Vana and Karen Meissner — began in Ramsey County District Court on charges of aiding and abetting second-degree assault. The pair are accused of throwing a metal sign off the Marion Street bridge onto Interstate 94.

Other high-profile felony cases have resulted in guilty pleas. Bradley Crowder and David McKay, activists from Austin, Texas, eventually pleaded guilty to federal charges related to manufacturing molotov cocktails. In May, Crowder was sentenced to 24 months in prison. That same month McKay, whose initial trial resulted in a hung jury, received a 48-month sentence.

But the most conspicuous criminal charges, those involving the so-called RNC Eight, look to still be a long ways from trial. The eight defendants are charged with an elaborate, nationwide criminal conspiracy to disrupt — and ultimately bring to a halt –  the convention. In a series of raids during the days leading up to the convention, Ramsey County Sheriff’s deputies seized seized smoke bombs, sling shots, bottles of vinegar, buckets of nails and other purported evidence of this conspiracy.

The eight activists alleged to be behind the criminal plot — Erik Oseland, Eryn Trimmer, Garrett Fitzgerald, Luce Guillen-Givens, Max Specktor, Monica Bicking, Rob Czernik and Nathanael Secor — were initially charged with felony counts of conspiracy to commit riot in the second degree in furtherance of terrorism. In March, however, the more incendiary terrorism aspect of the charges was dropped by the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office.

But attorney Larry Leventhal, who is representing Specktor, argues that the terrorism designation has already damaged the reputations of the defendants. “Everybody’s against terrorism,” he notes. “You use words like that for inflammatory purposes.”

The cases were slated for a hearing last month, but it got postponed owing to a scheduling conflict. Two thorny issues must be settled before they can proceed to trial: whether all the defendants will be tried together and exactly what evidence will be deemed admissable. No trial date has been set. The defendants have stated repeatedly that they intend to fight the charges.

“I am not going to take a plea bargain,” says Rob Czernik. “I want to fight this. I want to see it through to the end. If I get found guilty I get found gulty. I’m not going to go down without a fight.”

Czernik and others largely blame the prosecutions on the strong-arm tactics of the Ramsey County Sherrif’s Department, which conducted the undercover investigations that led to the RNC Eight arrests. In particular, they believe Sheriff Bob Fletcher was guilty of fear-mongering with regards to the aims of anti-RNC activists.

“I totally think this is a creation of Bob Fletcher’s mind,” Czernik says of the investgation.

But Fletcher says the strength of the evidence will ultimately be weighed by a jury. “That’s why we have a court system,” he says. “The facts will speak for themselves at trial.”

Even less settled than criminal matters is the civil litigation resulting from RNC activities. Many cases are just now entering the court system. In February, for example, seven cases were filed in U.S. District Court by plaintiffs charging that their civil rights were violated.

On Tuesday a class-action lawsuit is expected to be filed on behalf of individuals who were arrested during a mass sweep on the first day of the RNC. According to Robert Kolstad, one of three attorneys handling the  case, there will initially be two dozen plaintiffs attached to the case, but the list of litigants could grow to as many as 200 individuals.

The City of St. Paul (or any other government entity involved in RNC security) won’t likely be on the hook for a dime from such lawsuits. That’s in part because the city negotiated with the Minneapolis-St. Paul 1008 Host Committee — the nonprofit group charged with organizing the event — to purchase a $10 million insurance policy to cover any legal liabilities. Some have argued that this allowed officers to behave with impunity when facing off with protesters.

“It was carte blanche for the police to do whatever they wanted,” says defense attorney Kushner. “They didn’t have any financial liability to face so they had no disincentive for violating people’s rights.”

But Choi states that this theory is “fatally flawed.” He points out that the city is always covered by an insurance policy for police actions. The only difference in this instance was that the RNC host committee picked up the tab for the plan. “No matter what we would have had insurance,” he says.

How much will ultimately be paid out in lawsuits likely won’t be known for years. But the damage to the credibility of the cops is likely irreparable in the minds of many activists.

In part that’s because the expectation created by the St. Paul Police Department of a relatively benign security presence during the RNC hardly gelled with reality. This was among the criticisms voiced by former U.S. Attorney Tom Heffelfinger and former federal prosecutor Andy Luger in an 82-page report on RNC policing that was released in January. It’s a viewpoint that’s also shared by Fletcher.

“It was a flawed attempt to keep everyone happy,” he says. “What was needed was more honesty about the type of enforcement that was gong to occur.”

The Minnesota chapter of the ACLU is currently suing Fletcher’s office over the seizure of literature in the days leading up to the RNC. But Samuelson agrees that Minnesotans were misled about what to expect during the RNC and weren’t prepared for the heavy presence of law enforcement.

“The people of this state believed what they were told by law enforcement,” he says. “I think maybe a lot more skepticism might be in order the next time we entertain one of these events.”

Photo: Chris Steller

Gov. Pawlenty isn’t the only one feeling a chill at the one-year anniversary of events around the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul. The RNC cast a few odd shadows at a forum for candidates seeking to replace Pawlenty in Minneapolis this morning.

First there was the little clutch of protesters huddling in the rain under an awning outside Mercado Central, where Minneapolis City Council Member Gary Schiff (Ward 9) hosted seven DFL candidates or could-be candidates at his regular “Breakfast with Gary” meeting.

A big banner reading “Dissent is not a crime/RNC8″ was hoisted merely on word that Ramsey County Attorney (and DFL gubernatorial candidate) Susan Gaertner had been invited to the event. (Protesters angered by her prosecution of RNC protesters have dogged her at public appearances as far away as Chicago.)

She didn’t show, but they stayed anyway. Were they transferring their protest to St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman? Not really, said one, even though he’s not their “best bud.”

As the event wound down, Schiff read the last submitted question and called for final statements from Coleman and the other gubernatorial aspirants: Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, former U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton, state Sen. John Marty, state House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, state Sen. Tom Bakk, and former state Rep. Matt Entenza.

That brought howls of protest from Ward 12 Minneapolis City Council candidate Charley Underwood and Michelle Gross, a founder of Communities United Against Police Brutality, that no questions about law enforcement had been allowed. “Please respect the process,” Schiff repeated into the microphone.

Last, in his closing remarks, Coleman compared himself favorably with the previous administration in St. Paul with words that seemed to conjure up (unintentionally) images of the days during the RNC when much of Coleman’s city was fenced off to his own constituents:

My predecessor put tens of thousands of dollars of security equipment to lock the community out of his office.

Elsewhere in Minnesota news this morning …

MINNEAPOLIS: Ex-zombie vowed to kill RNC-protest snitch, say Texas officials. But it seems the woman — a former resident of Minneapolis, where in 2006 she was arrested along with six other Zombie Dance partiers — did not actually threaten to eat FBI informant Brandon Darby. [St. Paul Pioneer Press]

ST. PAUL: Inspection skipped on circus bleachers. It may seem like 2006 was a long time ago, even in zombie years, but that’s the last time city inspectors took a look at the Circus Juventus bleachers that collapsed Sunday. [St. Paul Pioneer Press]

FRIDLEY: Defense contractor BAE Systems delivers 314 pink slips. For people laid off from the Future Combat Systems project, that’s got to especially sting, coming on the same day President Obama told the VFW, “If a project doesn’t support our troops, we will not fund it. If a system doesn’t perform, we will terminate it.” [Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal; Stars and Stripes]

WORTHINGTON: “Don’t sleep in the subway, darling.” The subway Petula Clark was singing about in her 1967 hit was the kind of pedestrian tunnel that Worthington officials are proposing to go under Minnesota 60 — a state highway that is also getting a roundabout nearby. Very Euro. [Worthington Daily Globe]

DULUTH: Tribe calls casino contract bad, won’t pay city. The Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa will stop funding major street repairs from its take at downtown’s Fond-du-Luth Casino. (Insert your own broken-treaty gag here.) [Duluth News Tribune]

MINNEAPOLIS: Plank road to be history — again. The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board — which is now seeking its own taxing authority via a voter referendum — will pay more than $400,000 to repave in concrete a block-long, wood-plank road it built as an historic replica only six years ago. [Downtown Journal]

Minneapolis City Council candidates Allen Kathir and Melissa Hill. Photos courtesy of the candidates

New in Minneapolis: Every candidate in the running for a city office stays in the race through the general election on Nov. 3.

That’s no biggie for the kind of candidates who in past years could be confident of a first- or second-place primary-election finish. But for many lesser-known candidates, it may be the most significant element of the city’s new instant-runoff voting system (IRV).

With nearly 100 candidates having filed for city offices, IRV could theoretically trigger tallying of voters’ lower-ranked preferences in as many as 22 races. But most seats will probably still be won by a single candidate with a majority of votes. Those results won’t trigger IRV, meaning no second-round suspense for runners-up hoping to leapfrog into the lead past front-runners who hold mere plurality leads.

A typical race is in the city’s Ward 3, which drew five city council candidates this year — as it did last time, for an open seat in 2005. Then, only DFL endorsee Diane Hofstede and Green-backed Aaron Neumann survived the primary and campaigned into November.

This year, Hofstede (now the incumbent, again the DFL endorsee) must contend for three more months with all four of her challengers: Libertarian Raymond Wilson Rolfe, Republican Jeffrey Cobia, DFLer Allen Kathir, and Melissa Hill, who is running under the banner of “Civil Disobedience.”

Due to personal circumstances, Hill isn’t able to run the full-bore campaign she had planned on earlier in the year — when, she says, she was courted by several political parties, including the Greens.

But thanks to IRV and the lack of a primary election, Hill is guaranteed time to get out her message about the value of political protest and civil liberties.

Hill was among the 100 arrested in downtown Minneapolis after the Rage Against the Machine concert during the Republican National Convention (RNC) last year.

“They shouldn’t be mass-arresting people. It’s completely bogus,” Hill said. “People in power were complacent when that happened.”

Hill went on to volunteer with the Community RNC Arrestee Support Structure (CRASS) and organize protests against the Federal Reserve Bank.

Now she wants to “promote the idea of civil disobedience — and use electoral politics to do that.”

Running for election was already a cheap megaphone — “Filing for office only costs $20,” Hill notes — but under IRV it’s an even better value.

So far, Hill’s effort is focused on a few Facebook pages. Kathir, the DFL challenger, is on Facebook, too, but he also has a full-fledged campaign website up and running — on solar power, even. (He’s trying to run a carbon-neutral campaign.)

There he sports a broader platform than Hill’s: community and public safety, the environment, the economy, housing, and responsiveness to constituents. But like Hill, Kathir was motivated by a personal experience with city government — in his case, his service on the Minneapolis Commission on Civil Rights.

Cutting the commission off at the knees by eliminating its complaint investigations unit is a rare action that both Mayor R.T. Rybak and Gov. Tim Pawlenty approve. Kathir said he is disappointed in the mayor’s stance.

An engineer by trade, Kathir brings a scientist’s eye to the campaign, noting that IRV is “definitely the wild card in this election.” The challenge, he said, is educating voters that “it’s not just important who your first choice is.”

Still, the math of IRV — counting second-choice votes on a second round of counting if no one gets a majority of first-choice votes in the first time around — isn’t a ticket into office for a candidate without majority appeal.

“You’re not really going to be able to sneak by,” Kathir said.

Hofstede, who garnered majority votes in both the primary and general elections in 2005, sounded nonplussed about the prospect of facing multiple opponents for 12 more weeks. Her worry about IRV was a more commonly cited concern: voter education.

“There will be confusion with the election,” Hofstede said. “The information that’s coming out is not consistent.”

A group of activists and lawyers showed up to protest the Ramsey County Attorney’s handling of the so-called RNC Eight prosecutions. The protesters carried signs that read “Hands off the RNC8″ and “Justice Means Drop the Charges on the RNC8,” and handed out literature to passersby.

The eight activists were arrested for plotting to reap chaos during the Republican National Convention last September. They were initially charged with conspiracy to commit riot in the second degree in furtherance of terrorism and conspiracy to commit criminal damage to property in furtherance of terrorism. But the more incendiary terrorism charges were dropped in April. The eight defendants still face up to five years in prison if convicted.

Gaertner is seeking the DFL endorsement for the 2010 governor’s race. But her handling of the RNC Eight cases has raised the hackles of some party activists.

Chicago Indymedia was on hand at Friday’s protest and shot this video:

The murders have come on the heels of a widely criticized report by the Department of Homeland Security, which described potential violence from people with extreme anti-abortion, anti-immigrant and white supremacist ideologies. Was the report accurate? And is the labeling of entire political groups and ideologies — such as the DHS report and the profiling of RNC protesters — an effective counterterrorism activity?

“There have been a lot of mistakes and problems with the way the so-called war on terror has been run domestically since 911,” former FBI agent Coleen Rowley said in an interview with the Minnesota Independent.

Rowley said the DHS report on right-wing extremism was wrong, but not for the objections that Republicans have raised.

“The reports contain almost no specificity but instead, make generalizations and stereotyped comments about large political or interest groups,” she said. “It’s true that individual loners or duos may be inspired by the extremist ideology stemming from any group, to include the ‘pro-life’ groups, but you need specific facts identifying the individual instead of stereotyped characterizations about the group.”

In a press briefing Thursday, Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano said the recent murders didn’t vindicate the report and said it was problematic.

“I don’t look at those murders as anything other than terrible crimes and tragedies,” Napolitano said, according to Washington Independent’s Spencer Ackerman. “I do think, as I’ve said before, that the so-called right-wing extremist report was not a well-produced product,” she said. “It could and should have been done better. We’ve already taken steps within the department to improve that situation.”

Rowley said the overly broad efforts such as the extremist report exacerbate the difficulties in identifying those loners or small cells of extremists.

“When looking for a needle in the haystack, massive ‘intelligence’ collection about the members of the groups only adds hay to the haystack and also chills exercise of First Amendment rights,” she said. “Members of the larger, mainstream group, if not alienated by being smeared, will be in the best position to identify the ‘true terrorist.’”

Indeed that was the case with the recent shootings In Arizona committed by members of an off-shoot of the anti-illegal immigration movement, the Minutemen. Shawna Fordes has been arrested in the murders and anti-illegal immigration groups say that they had forwarded information about Fordes to law enforcement after kicking her out of the Minuteman organization.

Rowley said that alienating these groups could prevent them from going to law enforcement when a troublemaker is identified.

Minnesota saw its share of generalized profiling at the Republican National Convention in September 2008.

“The worst recent example of this overbroad targeting, as well as surveillance and infiltration, would be that directed against the RNC Welcoming Committee and other peace/social justice protesters,” she said.

Eight members of the Welcoming Committee were charged with “furtherance of terrorism” under the Minnesota Patriot Act because of damage to property of over $1,000. Rowley said that this new definition of terrorism is wrong.

“‘Acts dangerous to human life’ is supposed to be the definition of domestic terrorism not just ‘property damage,’” she said. “The use of the looser definition in the ‘Minnesota Patriot Act’ which includes mere ‘property damage’ of $1,000 or more contributed to the misdirection of resources by law enforcement and intelligence agencies in the lead-up to the RNC.”

Attorney Jordan Kushner, who represented members of the RNC8, said charges were politically motivated. The terrorism charges were dropped, but not before having a chilling effect at the RNC protests.

“The fact that they were filed in the first place and pursued for a period of about eight months does show how much ‘terrorism’ is a political label,” he said.