Keenevention 2016 Canceled Due to Federal Threat

Ladies Panel @ Keenevention 2015

Sadly, Keenevention 2016 is not going to happen.

It’s with a heavy heart that I write this. As you may already be aware, Sunday morning the FBI, along with state police and Keene police raided my home, the LRN.FM studio here in downtown Keene. While I don’t believe that anyone in my home did what they are saying was done, I would not put it past the FBI to manufacture the evidence that they or I did. Look no further than the rampant corruption in the Ross Ulbricht Silk Road case or the FBI’s previous attack on Free Keene blogger Rich Paul for proof of their desperation to destroy peaceful activists.

Anyone who has ever been under active threat by the tyrannical system knows the burden it creates. Even though no charges have been leveled at anyone thus far, the FBI stole thousands of dollars in computers that were critical to the ongoing 24/7 radio network I program, LRN.FM. Now the waiting begins as they use forensic tools to comb through dozens of electronic devices including computers, SD cards, flash drives, and phones. Will they come back with false child porn charges or something else entirely? It took them most of a year to finally come back and arrest the owners of Phat Stuff head shop on Main Street after stealing their store’s inventory, their truck, and cleaning out their bank account.

All that time you wonder what is going to happen next? What else are these aggressive men and women calling themselves “the state” going to do to you and your family? Meanwhile, everything you might have wanted to do or create turns into a question mark. Why start a new project or business when the government gang might just swoop in after you’ve just gotten started and throw you into a cage?

That’s where I am with Keenevention 2016. I really have enjoyed creating these intimate conventions three years in a row, but they cost thousands to put on and that money could be used instead to rebuild my more important mission of broadcasting the ideas of liberty and peace seven-days-a-week.

In short, due to the hanging threat by the criminal gang known as “the state”, I feel it’s irresponsible to push forward with this year’s event. If you have purchased a ticket, I’ll be contacting you for a refund. Perhaps Keenevention will return in the future, but for now this website and its dozens of videos will stand as a living record of the amazing speakers and panel discussions we’ve had over the years.

If you were an attendee, I’m grateful. Thank you for being a part of the fun.

I’m no longer a Free Stater, but you should go to Porcfest and definitely move to NH, if you love liberty.

Porcfest Sunrise

The Sun Rises over Porcfest 2012

I tendered my resignation from the Free State Project today after being informed that they have decided to prohibit me from their events, the Porcupine Freedom Festival and Liberty Forum.  My name was still on the membership rolls after their announcement, so I removed it, wishing the FSP the best.

With the banning, I became the latest inducted in the elite club of people like Christopher Cantwell and Zack Bass who have been similarly politically excised from the FSP organization.

It was a good run, but all things come to an end.  I’m grateful for my more than a decade of helping to promote the Free State Project, and look forward to 20,000+ liberty-loving people coming here to New Hampshire and working toward freedom.

I know people have said they won’t be attending Porcfest this year due to the FSP’s decision, and I appreciate their sentiment, but to anyone who doesn’t feel as strongly, you should still attend the Porcupine Freedom Festival this June.   (more…)

Keene Man Wears “FUCK COPS” Shirt to Trial on Disorderly Conduct Charge

Brandon Pinney Fuck Cops

Brandon Pinney Awaits Trial in a “Fuck Cops” Handmade Shirt

Brandon Pinney is a NH native who is now facing a year in jail for telling state police to fuck off. His is a classic case of being oppressed for freedom of speech. Historically, people arrested for flipping off or telling off police have been vindicated on appeal. It may not be nice to say mean things to cops, but freedom of speech is meant to protect unpopular speech.

Brandon was arrested at Surry Dam when after doing five-miles over the speed limit he was confronted by a forest ranger. We don’t know exactly how their interaction went, because Brandon did not record video. According to Brandon, the ranger berated him about the speeding and Brandon blew him off in an unkind manner. The ranger then said he would be calling the police and Brandon followed him back to his office. The ranger claims Brandon was pounding on the office door yelling at him, while Brandon says he was not pounding on the door and was in no way threatening the man.

However, the ranger’s testimony was that he was frightened and when state police arrived, Brandon told them to fuck off, and when he repeated it at the request of one of the staties, Brandon was arrested.

Here’s full video of Brandon’s trial in Keene district court from January and the sentencing hearing from February. As judge Edward J Burke found Brandon guilty, Brandon and his attorney will be appealing to a jury trial. Stay tuned here to Free Keene for the latest.

One note – during trial, Burke said nothing about his shirt, but at sentencing, wearing the same shirt, Brandon was told if he did it again it would be contempt of court. Not only can you not express yourself to police, you can’t express yourself via your wardrobe. Whatever happened to freedom? You generally don’t find it at the district court level.

Facebook Silently Censors Good News About NH Topless Prohibition Bill?

Free the Nipple, Censored

The preview photo banned by facebook.

Did facebook silently delete the news about the topless ban proposal going down in flames? The evidence says yes. The original Free Keene post to facebook has mysteriously disappeared, which means that the nearly 1,000 people who liked and shared it prior to its deletion have all had their shares disappear from their pages.

Presuming the original post was reported by some prudes (despite having a “safe” preview pic), shame on facebook for not even letting us know of the removal.

I didn’t have to presume for long. As I submitted another post on the Free Keene page on facebook explaining what happened, an error popped up:

The content you’re trying to share includes a link that our security systems detected to be unsafe:

http://freekeene.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/free_the_nipple_hampton_censored.jpg

Please remove this link to continue.

So yeah, that confirms it. Facebook sent the censored preview photo to a blacklist of some sort, so one can still share the original article’s link on facebook, but no preview pic will come up.

Should you wish to share the story again on facebook, here’s what you have to do to make it a little tougher for the prudes to attack:

  1. Create a photo post on your facebook page.
  2. Upload the censored-for-facebook version of a pic of some ladies at the first Free the Nipple beach event from 2015. (Or, if you want to take a greater risk, you can upload the uncensored version.)
  3. Then, once the pic is uploaded – type in whatever you want for the post, and drop in the link to the article.

That’s it!

Facebook never should have blacklisted the already-censored preview pic – it’s been posted countless times before and does not show any areola. I specifically made that version with facebook in mind, which should be obvious given the graphic used to censor. The pic in question has been attached to other articles that have been shared a lot on facebook, so WTF? If you try to share the link to the pic via a facebook post, it does give you a link to report their decision as wrong, which I did, and you are welcome to do as well. I have no idea if it will make a difference.

Thanks for sharing the good news about the first step towards total defeat for the awful proposed prohibition on female toplessness. Special thanks if you share it again in the way I describe above!

Secret Service Destroys Freedom With Keene Police’s Help

Police State KeeneIn November of 2015 the Secret Service gang came to Concord and took over the state house property, stripping all entrants (except law enforcement) of their weapons. They even took Vermin Supreme’s pony.

It seems that wherever the Secret Service goes, the supposed rights guaranteed by the constitutions, both NH and US, disappear. In December they visited Keene State College where Keene police officers were used to supplement the Secret Service agents. Ben Carson, one of the Republican presidential candidates, was scheduled to speak.

After subjecting my camera bag to a dog sniff as well as a metal detector just to get in the building, I decided to go outside and see if I could ambush interview Carson as he arrived. However, multiple KPD officers and secret service had set up a “secure zone” behind the building. Here’s the video of what happened:

Just three days prior to the Carson event, James Cleaveland had won in court after being illegally arrested by state police at the scene of a suicide in 2014. This fact did not stop Keene police officer Jason Short from threatening me with arrest for not moving back fast enough from the alleged “secure zone” outside the college’s student center.

I mentioned the state police’s loss in James’ case and Short told me that he, “won’t lose this one” as he told me to move back to the dumpsters. I began moving back, but not fast enough for his liking. He then tells me I have three seconds or else I get kidnapped. (more…)

Unauthorized Video: Edward Snowden Speaks at NH Liberty Forum

The 2016 New Hampshire Liberty Forum, held this past weekend at the Radisson Hotel in snowdennhlf2016Manchester, was the usual gathering of hundreds of libertarians and anarchists for the annual conference. Different this year was the headlining event, drawing the largest crowd of the forum, and featuring a speaker who was occupying the opposite side of the globe. Broadcasting into the parlor via a live video feed was Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower famed for revealing the details of government surveillance operations targeting humans situated both within and without the borders of the United States.

In the approximately fifty minutes that Snowden was linked into the room, he was interviewed by Reason’s Nick Gillespie on a variety of topics from Snowden’s perspective on current events, the United States presidential race, ideological inspirations, and potential paths for the future.

Strangely, an announcement was made before the event requesting that all unofficial filming be suspended. In the interests of objective journalism, I ensured that an audio device was running for the duration of the event, which resulted in poor audio quality compared to what could have been captured without the restriction. Illustrated with images captured by multiple sources from the event, enjoy this presentation of Edward Snowden’s appearance before the audience of the 2016 NH Liberty Forum.