On January 27, 2022, the US Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit, Chief Judge Jeffrey Howard, ruled in “US Dep’t of Justice v. Jonas, No. 19-1243,” that the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) can “legally” access New Hampshire’s prescription drug database via an administrative subpoena, not a warrant. This is despite New Hampshire and United States laws to the contrary.
While 48 states have submitted to maintaining a networked prescription database (Prescription Drug Monitoring Program / PDMP), most people would argue that their personal medical and prescription records are protected by the 4th amendment (“no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause.”) Personal healthcare and medical information is generally protected under doctor-patient confidentiality laws and is regarded as almost sacrosanct in the healthcare world (think HIPAA.) In this case, confidentiality was further supported by the 4th amendment to the US Constitution.
Overwhelming Support From the Liberty Community
Michelle Ricco Jonas, manager of the New Hampshire PDMP in 2018, refused the DEA’s request to fork over 2.5 years’ worth of prescription data of a “person of interest.” After being subpoenaed she argued that the records belong to the state, not an individual person. Since March 12, 2019, when the notice of appeal was docketed, Michelle Jonas and New Hampshire state received an outpouring of support from the ACLU of California, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Puerto Rico, and Rhode Island – in other words, all the districts represented by the 1st Circuit Court.
Over the past two grueling years of appeal, the ACLU supported Jonas, and questioned whether issuing a subpoena to a state employee is within the bounds of the district court. They argued that medical records, for all intents and purposes, are considered private information. While the DEA has the ability to subpoena an individual, the ACLU asked if that gave them the right to subpoena a representative, or employee, of the state. They also argued that the 4th Amendment requires law enforcement “to obtain a warrant based on probable cause only to secure records over which there is a reasonable expectation of privacy.” The ACLU argued that medical records warrant an expectation of privacy.
The prescription records at issue in this case reveal intimate, private, and potentially stigmatizing details about patients’ health, including details of those patients’ underlying medical conditions. For that reason, as with other medical records, people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in them.” – Summary of Argument, US Dep’t of Justice v. Jonas, No. 19-1243
Brodie Deshaies at the hearing looking guilty while Carla Gericke calls him out for using scare tactics
Representative Brodie Deshaies from Wolfeboro, New Hampshire testified in front of the State-Federal Relations and Veteran Affairs Committee on January 20, 2022 concerning CACR 32. The legislation seeks to let the people of New Hampshire vote to amend the Constitution and become an independent nation, breaking ties with DC. He was the legislator asked by the committee chairman to do the bulk of the research before the hearing.
Looking closely at all the claims Deshaies made about the legality of this bill and the implications concerning lawmakers voting to recommend that the House pass it, it is hard to decide if he is ignorant and easily swayed by empire-loving “constitutional scholars” from DC or if he gave a speech full of lies to sway the vote. He used fear-mongering language directed at the committee, implying that they may be charged by Washington DC if they vote ‘Ought To Pass’ and supported the bill through the legal process. This article is a close-up look at his claims and will look at all the material he references to see if he is really making a constitutional argument against CACR 32.
Deshaies starts off with an acknowledgment of how the public perceives him. “There are some people who are pretty upset with me in the room,” he says. This is already very indicative of his character. He sent Elliot “Alu” Axelman (the editor-in-chief of LibertyBlock.com and the author of multiple books on secession) an email full of misinterpretations of the US and New Hampshire Constitutions a few weeks ago. When Alxelman politely asked if he wished to engage in a public debate on the topic, Deshaies cowered and declined. Without the opportunity to debate Deshaies, and with no legislator agreeing to debate him, Alu published his rebuttal to Deshaies’ anti-independence letter on his website. The article destroys the few arguments that the anti-freedom legislator sought to make in his letter. Instead, Deshaies went on to publish the exact same letter in an op-ed article on NHJournal.com. So, now we know he knows how people feel about his twisting of the facts, but he just goes on to ignore the people and doubles down on his way of thinking. We see from this very first sentence that he isn’t the sort of person who feels he should be in office doing what the people of New Hampshire want. He feels he’s in office to rule over the citizens of New Hampshire with an iron fist.
He goes on to say that after speaking to many “constitutional scholars” such as David Williams, author of “The Mythic Meanings of the Second Amendment”, that he believes this committee was engaged in a “constitutional process” by voting Ought to Pass or Inexpedient to Legislate. Which means every vote cast is “aiding in the constitutional process,” and “approving it at each time along the way”.
Deshaies claims, “Every vote cast has a constitutional ramification judging by amendment fourteen of the US Constitution, section three. Some scholars would argue that this is rebelling, even if it’s peaceful. This very well could be an argument where voting for this, aiding and abetting in that process could very well be unconstitutional.”
So, there it is, folks. Deshaies spoke to a man who wrote a book arguing that the second amendment doesn’t really give all Americans the right to bear arms for advice on what the Constitution says. Then, he came up with a clever way to subtly scare the other members of the committee out of voting Ought to Pass on this bill. He used a mildly veiled threat of ‘insurrection’ and ‘rebellion’ to convince everyone on the committee to vote 21-0 against recommending the bill to be passed. Even the two committee members who told Axelman that they would support the legislation ultimately caved to the fear and voted to kill it. (more…)
This bill would give police the right to tell any person they must stay back at least 30 feet.
A new bill was introduced to the NH House on January 5, 2022 that, if passed, could have serious, far-reaching consequences for 1st amendment auditors and anyone attempting to witness or film police interactions in New Hampshire.
NH HB 1025 was presented to the New Hampshire House Committee on January 19, 2022. Committee members voted unanimously to recommend ITL (inexpedient to legislate) status for this bill. Nineteen of the 21 members were present, with a final vote in favor of ITL: “Yea” – 19 votes; “Nay” – 0 votes; with 2 not voting. You can view the vote in the video below (48:35 – 52:10.)
In October of 2021, nine peaceful people were arrested at a well-attended executive council meeting. It started when armed state goons approached activists Frank “Footloose” Staples and Terese Grinnell and requested they to follow them to a partitioned area in the back of the room. Once out of sight of the packed audience, the thugs arrested Footloose and Terese, causing them to verbally announce what was happening. Prior to being asked to walk out, the two were sitting in the audience quietly, so they are still unsure regarding why they were arrested in the first place, as they didn’t make any noise prior to the arrest. So far, the court process has yet to clarify the situation.
Seven other people were also arrested for speaking out during the arrests of Footloose and Terese. The “New Hampshire Nine” had a court hearing on Friday to deal with some pending motions and unlike the rest of the Nine, Footloose is representing himself in the case. If you’ve seen his other videos, you know that means it won’t be dull. Here’s a video with highlights from his visit, including he and other activists bravely refusing to stop recording when threatened by a masked court goon. You can see the full uncut series of videos he recorded at Concord district court on his Odysee.
It’s also worth noting that there is an unconstitutional “Supreme Court” of NH order in place prohibiting recording in all parts of state courthouses except the courtrooms themselves. Those restrictions were put in place because of Keene activists recording over a decade ago and haven’t been meaningfully challenged ever since. Kudos to New Hampshire native Footloose for standing up for the right to record and the right to transparency. It was nice to see him back down the armed goon AND he did it while on bail conditions for his previous ridiculous victimless arrests.
Stay tuned here to Free Keene for the latest on his saga.
Activist Frank “Footloose” Staples, the founder of Absolute Defiance, has been persecuted by the state gang for his peaceful actions near NH “governor” Chris Sununu’s house at 71 Hemlock Ct in Newfields roughly a year ago. Footloose led a series of protests in the park across the street from the Sununu home over unconstitutional executive orders like the statewide mask mandate and other restrictions on business.
Whenever the state gang can identify the leader of a protest, they are inevitably targeted for attack and now Footloose has been arrested and ticketed multiple times. First, he was ticketed for attempting to hold a peaceful candlelight vigil near Sununu’s house, along with eight other people, aka “The Newfields Nine”. The police called this a violation of the town’s “picketing” ordinance, which was written specifically to protect Sununu from that dreaded free speech.
Just over a month later, he was arrested for “disorderly conduct” at a Shire Choir caroling event near Sununu’s house. All he was doing in the incident was speaking. According to police, he spoke too loudly.
In November, he was put on trial for the “picketing” and “disorderly” charges. I was there to record the full trials. The robed woman in Brentwood district court took the cases “under advisement” and ruled nearly two months later. She found Footloose not guilty of “picketing”, but conveniently didn’t rule on the constitutionality of the ordinance. She found him guilty of “disorderly conduct”, a Class B misdemeanor. He plans to appeal, but the next step is sentencing on April 7th at 9am. Stay tuned here to Free Keene for the latest.
Packed city committee meeting on mask mandate, supermajority unmasked.
Last Wednesday, dozens of people testified in front of the City of Keene gang’s “Planning License and Development Committee”, with the supermajority of people opposing the return of the city-wide indoor mask mandate. Of the handful of people who spoke in favor of the mandate, nearly all of them work for the medical-industrial complex. Ultimately, despite the large outpouring of opposition from the people of Keene, like with the BEARCAT vote, the PLD committee voted in favor of recommending the mandate be sent back to the full council 5-0.
Last night, the full council heard the proposal and made changes, ultimately passing the amended version 10-3 with councilors Michael Remy, Janice Manwaring, and former cop Thomas Powers voting against. In addition to ignoring the majority of the people of Keene who opposed this mandate, the ten councilors voting for the ordinance also ignored the 70% of Keene business owners who registered their opposition in a survey conducted by the Keene Downtown Group.
Prior to the final vote, councilor Michael Remy proposed making the mandate a recommendation, which the council shot down. Councilor Kate Bosely then proposed the ordinance target individuals for penalties instead of the businesses themselves, as the 2020 mandate did. Mayor George Hansel cautioned the council against Bosely’s proposal saying he thinks targeting the individual would make the ordinance unenforceable. Hansel said targeting of businesses is relatively easy and can be done by the goons in code enforcement, whereas to target individuals would mean that the police would be the ones enforcing the ordinance. Hansel may be aware the police are less than interested in enforcing it – at least according to two officers who told me that personally in the last year or so. City mob boss Elizabeth Dragon also recommended against Bosely’s proposal as it would require snitches to call the cops on a mask-free person and the city gang has no system to track the number of warnings given to people for violations, as Bosely requested the ordinance have a verbal and written warning be issued to the person prior to issuing a $100 ticket. However, councilors voted for Bosely’s amendment, 10-3, meaning individuals will be targets for enforcement instead of businesses.
70% of Keene Business Owners Against Mask Mandate
Before you get to thinking that the three people who opposed the ordinance in the final vote were somehow freedom fighters, please note the entire council voted for the following amendment from the cowardly councilor Robert Williams, who noted that the originally proposed ordinance wasn’t strict enough, in that it allowed people to take off masks when seated in any business. So he put forward an amendment to ensure no one can remove masks while seated anywhere except for restaurants and bars, though Williams is so fearful he actually critiqued the people of Keene for going out to eat at all.
The ridiculous Keene city gang even says the mask must be worn by people playing indoor sports.
The new mask mandate does not apply to gyms or other businesses with memberships that are technically not open to the public. It also has a carve-out for medical exemptions and people aren’t required to produce documentation to prove it. The 2021 mask mandate ordinance goes into effect on Monday, December 20th.
As I recommended at the committee hearing, people who don’t want to wear masks need to refuse to obey this ordinance. It’s likely not going to be enforced, and if it is, then people who are ticketed should demand their trial. If convicted, they should refuse to pay the fine. Make these tyrants work for their convictions and don’t ever reward their thuggery by paying them fines. The worst that they can do is jail you for a night, but the judge will nearly always let you do community service instead of go to jail – as long as you’re willing to go to jail. This isn’t legal advice, just my experience.
