They approached the entrance to the Bernie Sanders speech, and the libertarians were waiting. On Saturday afternoon, before 750 or so liberal voters could hear the Vermont senator and Democratic presidential candidate at a Keene, New Hampshire, rec center, smiling members of“the Shire Society” handed them fliers.
“Something to read while you wait,” chirruped local libertarian activist Derrick J. Freeman, as he grabbed another flier from his stack. “I just think anyone could be interested in the ideas of liberty.”
He was not baiting liberals, or trolling them. He was being serious. Freeman wore a cat T-shirt and chatted about his documentary, Derrick J’s Victimless Crime Spree, with people who did not mind the conversation—and who often agreed. (more…)
The Robin Hood of Keene media coverage keeps rolling in. A major national TV news crew was in town today and last week I had the privilege of appearing as a guest on KGO-AM in San Francisco. KGO is what is called a “flamethrower” in the business. It’s the maximum legally allowed 50,000 watts on AM in one of the top markets in the country, San Francisco, with a monster signal that covers Sacramento, Santa Rosa, San Jose, and Salinas.
Kudos to Foley for citing my blog, where I point out that Monadnock school administrators lied to parents when claiming activists recording students who are outdoors somehow violated their privacy. Derrick is also interviewed in the piece:
They came, they handed out pamphlets about “The Philosophy of Liberty,” and they left.
Ten days later, they came again, handed out the same brochures, and this time were told to leave school grounds by Swanzey police officers on behalf of Monadnock Regional Middle/High School administrators.
They left, and haven’t returned since. But that doesn’t mean these individuals associated with the libertarian-leaning, anti-government Free Keene movement, and their friends, won’t return to spread their message.
Derrick J. Horton, who was the main organizer of the two visits last month, said Monday he plans to continue the outreach at Monadnock Regional Middle/High School. (more…)
“Today’s decision is a victory for First Amendment rights,” said Gilles Bissonnette, legal director for the New Hampshire chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a brief on the case. “The court recognized that government actors cannot sue citizens for alleged torts in an attempt to suppress legal, but unpopular, speech in public places. We must all remember that the First Amendment only means something if it protects popular and unpopular speech alike.”
In a nearly complete victory for Robin Hood of Keene, the NH supreme court has affirmed nearly all of the superior court’s decisions against the people calling themselves the “City of Keene” in the city’s libelous assault on the heroic activists who have rescued thousands of motorists from parking tickets in downtown Keene in the last couple of years.
The victory is nearly complete, with one exception. The supremes ruled that the lower court needed to consider the city’s request for injunction separately from the claims of “tortious interference” and “conspiracy”. Therefore, the supremes remanded only that detail back to the superior court to decide. If you’ve been reading Free Keene for a while, you may recall that the city’s original suit in 2013 asked for a in injunction of a 50ft radius “buffer zone” around each parking enforcer that would preclude the named Robin Hooders from being in that zone. Eventually, they reduced their request to 30ft, then 10-15ft. The buffer zone concept has previously been ruled unconstitutional in other courts and likely will be again when it goes back to Cheshire superior court.
The rest of the court’s twelve-page opinion backs up the lower court’s dismissal of the city’s outrageous case. The claims of “tortious interference” with the city’s “business” of screwing over people shopping downtown and the claim of “conspiracy” were shut down on a free-speech basis:
However, we need not decide whether a viable tortious interference claim can exist under the circumstances present in this case because we agree with the trial court that holding the respondents liable for tortious interference based upon their alleged activities would infringe upon the respondents’ right to free speech under the First Amendment…we also conclude that the First Amendment bars the City from pursuing its claim that the respondents are liable for conspiring to commit the very same tort.
The city’s lies about the behavior of Robin Hooders (they claimed, without evidence, we were “harassing, threatening, and intimidating” the parking enforcers) had no effect on the court’s decision to dismiss. The court’s judges know that telling government bureaucrats how you feel their job is wrong is fully within free speech protections, even if the bureaucrats don’t want to hear it. Further, the court opinion backed up the Robin Hooders’ non-verbal actions as protected free speech: (more…)
