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.
A couple of days ago the Keene Sentinel published the following Letter to the Editor, and the letter has been submitted to the City Council as a formal communication to be heard at an upcoming Council meeting.
For the last couple of years the city council has been debating whether or not, and by how much to increase parking meter rates, and the Parking Czar recently announced his retirement. The City even sued 6 people who were feeding meters to make a political statement, in hopes of creating a debate on whether or not the City even needs parking meters. (more…)
Longtime readers of Free Keene remember the controversial and short-lived “Topless Tuesdays” events from 2010. Many critics in the area still cite it as something they didn’t like that liberty activists have done. It’s relevant to point out that none of the females who participated in that were Free State Project participants. They were all townies.
Now, five years later, the topless equality movement has come again to New Hampshire, this time with over 1,100 saying (on Facebook) they will be attending “Free the Nipple” at Hampton Beach. (Who knows what the actual turnout will be.) The event is slated for all-day on Sunday 8/23. There is no specific meeting time or location besides Hampton Beach. This is an interesting approach and one of the event organizers comments on why on their facebook page:
“Even though there is no meeting spot, I have a feeling we will notice each other and make some new friends. I plan on walking around and I’ll gladly introduce myself, but I want to enjoy the beach as much as all of you! We don’t need a giant gathering or “spectacle.” Our goal is to just be normal about it. We want to show everyone that the breast and nipple can be seen without all hell breaking loose, traumatizing kids, giving old men heart attacks, or causing the apocalypse.”
Things are definitely getting interesting. Stay tuned to Free Keene for the latest on this social change in New Hampshire. Though people are legally free to be topless, there’s a large social stigma that needs to be broken. Thanks to the courageous ladies who will be participating in Sunday’s event, and especially to those who will eventually risk arrest in Laconia at an unknown date in the future.
In a 42-page decision, the US District Court for New Hampshire has ruled in favor of protestors including Free State Project early mover and attorney Brandon Ross who violated the state’s “ballot selfie” prohibition and were investigated and threatened by the Attorney General’s office. In 2014, Ross had taken a picture of his ballot and posted it to his facebook accompanied by the words “come at me bro”. They did, and now Ross and his co-plaintiffs state representative Leon Rideout, and Andrew Langlois are victorious in their case thanks to the NH ACLU, as the law has been overturned as unconstitutional!
The defendant in the case, representing the state, was secretary of state Bill Gardener who argued that free speech (photos of ballots) should be curtailed because voters will be either induced to sell their votes or subjected to coercion if they are permitted to disclose images of their ballots to others. Judge Paul Barbadoro denied there was any evidence those speculative objections would be the case, and even if there were evidence, that’s not reason enough to restrict free speech.
State Rep Tim Horrigan, Snitch
The case reveals on page 18, that it was Timothy Horrigan, an anti-freedom state rep (rated as a “Constitutional Threat” in 2015 by the NH Liberty Alliance) that both introduced the bill banning ballot selfies AND snitched to the Attorney General’s office about Ross’ facebook post. Ross, in an exclusive interview for Free Keene said Horrigan’s behavior, “shows that lawmakers will absolutely use their laws they’ve just made to try to censor people”.
Ross also said he was surprised the state actually moved against him, saying, “I gave them too much credit, thinking they would never try to enforce that clearly unconstitutional law. Joke’s on me. But, a little healthy defiance can be a good thing now and again too.”
On June 9, the NH Supreme Court released the long awaited ruling in the case of City of Keene v. James Cleaveland, et al (aka Robin Hood of Keene). It looks like Robin Hood of Keene is heading back to court for the request for injunctive relief, the rest of the case was affirmed by the Supreme Court.
Here are three relevant portions of the decision:
Affirmed:
“[W]e conclude that the trial court correctly determined that enforcing the City’s tortious interference with contractual relations claim would violate the respondents’ First Amendment rights. Given this conclusion, we need not reach the respondents’ argument that the tortious interference claim is also barred by the State Constitution. (more…)
![uber-app[1]](https://i0.wp.com/freekeene.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/uber-app1-300x146.jpg?resize=300%2C146)
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. 
![DJVCS_Poster_Preview[1]](https://i0.wp.com/freekeene.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/DJVCS_Poster_Preview1-200x300.png?resize=200%2C300)
