This summer, Portsmouth, NH regulated UBER and other ride-sharing services out of the city. UBER’s regional spokesperson described the regulations as, “Draconian” including prohibiting anyone with a misdemeanor conviction within seven years from being able to drive, among other restrictions which have nothing to do with a person’s ability to drive safely. UBER refused to jump through the arbitrary hoops, and as a result is now prohibited from operating in Portsmouth, its drivers facing fines of $500 – $1,000 per day.
In a heroic act of ongoing civil disobedience, Free State Project early mover Christopher David decided to keep driving anyway. Free Keene broke the story when it happened, and he’s since gotten some mainstream media coverage and has launched FREEUBER.org, a site encouraging Portsmouth inhabitants to take action on the issue by contacting city councilors, riding UBER, and driving for UBER. He has even posted fliers promoting his site all over downtown Portsmouth.
Now, he’s coming to speak as our Saturday night Keynote at Keenevention 2015!
I got a sad letter from my attorney this week. He informed me that the Supreme Court of NH upheld the lower court’s decision to deny my application for a license to carry a handgun discreetly. You can read the decision here:
Free Keene broke the news last week about the UBER driver and Free State Project early mover in Portsmouth who has been flagrantly violating the city’s prohibition of the innovative ride-sharing service. Christopher David has courageously stepped out into the limelight and announced to the world, and more specifically the Portsmouth city council and police that he’s continuing to give people illegal rides around the Seacoast city.
Now, mainstream media has picked up the story of Christopher’s heroic civil disobedience in this Seacoast Online story by Elizabeth Dinan. Christopher reports on his facebook that he and another activist have posted 100 flyers around downtown Portsmouth promoting his new website, FREEUBER.org that is encouraging Portsmouth’s inhabitants to contact the city council (it provides their contact info), boycott the snitch cab companies, and sign up as an UBER driver to join the ranks of the civilly disobedient!
Stay tuned here to Free Keene as this saga develops!
Recorded September 9th, 2015
The Rebel Love Crew has returned from the NH Hempfest & Freedom Rally invigorated with good vibes, peace, freedom and love. Topics discussed include Hempfest’s mission, our experience at the festival, best moments, favorite drugs to use there, pro pot Porcupine speakers, experiencing Zach Deputy for the first time while rolling, the Rebel Love campsite, the silent disco, and what we took from the second annual festival. Other topics this week include the recent detention and threats of violence Rob and his Rebel Mistress faced by the hands of the Manchester police and a NH State trooper earlier this week. The Rebel Love Show broadcasts every Tuesday night at 10 pm EST on LRN.FM and Rebelloveshow.com
Recently, in the supposed live free or die state, Portsmouth basically outlawed ride-sharing service, UBER. Constantly embattled by city governments in nearly every city they expand to, UBER has heroically fought for its drivers, even to the point of covering legal costs for arrests, vehicle impounds, and other legal targeting of their contractors by the government gangs. See, the taxi companies, who are mostly obedient to their state masters, tend to go running to their regulators crying about UBER, whose business model is not the same as a cab company. UBER merely connects drivers to passengers and takes a small cut for making the connections. They aren’t a cab company as traditionally defined. Cab companies generally own and maintain a fleet – UBER has no cars. Its contractor-drivers provide their own vehicle and are responsible for maintaining them.
Despite having proved to the Porstmouth city gang that their cars are insured, UBER has objected to the “draconian” background check requirement and placard requirement in order to legally do business in Portsmouth.
Christopher David is an early mover for the Free State Project living in Dover. He’s been driving for UBER for a few months in Portsmouth and Boston. Today he publicly announced his intention to commit ongoing civil disobedience and continue illegally providing transportation to willing passengers in Portsmouth. He says UBER driving isn’t his primary occupation and until recently he hasn’t been doing it much at all, but that the, “ordinance crap has gotten me pissed off enough to do it anyway”.
Christopher David, Illegal UBER Driver
UBER’s app continues to work in Portsmouth and Christopher reports that his first illegal customer was an older gentleman who was elated to be participating in civil disobedience and had several not-so-nice things to say about Portsmouth city council. In an interview exclusive to Free Keene, Christopher said his user rating is 4.85, which puts him in the top 10% of drivers in the region. He says that because of his excellent rating, “the idea of Portsmouth police chasing me down because the city council thinks they need to protect residents from me is insane”.
Of course, the government does insane, stupid, counterproductive things all the time. This wouldn’t be the first. In fact, the city gang has its sycophants at the taxi companies assisting them as a snitch squad. The cabbies, in an act of slave-on-slave violence, will be monitoring the streets of Portsmouth and ratting out any of the fifty known UBER cars in town. In the Seacoast Online article announcing the snitch squad, Great Bay Taxi owner John Palreiro told the city gang, “All the taxi companies will be writing down license plates and we expect the Police Department to enforce”. Merle White, owner of Anchor Taxi, said in true criminal cartel fashion, “It’s time Uber does it our way, or they get out of the city.” Palreiro told Seacoast Online that all his drivers have the Uber app, so they can see where Uber drivers are located in real time. He said they’ll be taking pictures and calling the police. “We know who they are,” he said. “If the Police Department doesn’t enforce this, I’ll go ballistic.”
If targeted by police, Christopher says he won’t be pleaing out and will go to trial, “I’ll draw it out as long as I can…I don’t see myself admitting guilt to anything.”
It’s great to see civil disobedience spread to the Seacoast! Christopher is currently speaking this weekend at the 2nd annual Freecoast Festival.
Derrick’s courage has set the example for countless people and has inspired multiple people to move to New Hampshire as part of the Free State Project. Any FSP event we attend, it’s almost a guarantee Derrick and/or I will be approached and thanked for making the movie. Of course, it wouldn’t have been possible without the editing talents of Beau Davis, who has gone on to launch his own media management and production house, Vibrant.Works.