This is pretty big news. Toby blogged about Sam’s situation over on his website, FreeMindsMedia.com, and it was added to the front page of the very popular FARK.com. Read and add your voice to the comments here.
I wonder how many people will be tuning into Free Minds Radio at 3pm ET this afternoon?
UPDATE: Sam will be calling into Free Minds Radio from jail TODAY at 3pm ET. Download the Archive.
BIG NEWS:
Mark your calendar. A trial has been scheduled for Sam on 6/15 at 1:30pm in Keene District Court. (2nd Floor, 3 Washington St., Keene, NH 03431)
Word is Ivy sent notice to the city manager and council as well as some other bureaucrats to let them know they will be held liable under some federal code about deprivation of rights (USC 1983) for every day they have been complicit in holding Sam. A couple of days later, a trial has been magically scheduled.
Sam is expected to call tonight’s Free Talk Live.
Also, if you were witness to Sam’s arrest and willing to testify at trial, please post to the trial discussion thread.
Click to Enlarge
Bureaucrash has been a bold voice for liberty for years, steadily growing in popularity, but it’s taken on a not-so-bold new direction toward partisan politics as usual. Lee Doren was chosen as the new Crasher in Chief by the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Many will nitpick things in here, like the headline calling us “antigovernment”, (I’d prefer pro-freedom) but you really can’t get better mainstream media coverage than this. The story lavishes attention on our movement and even links to FreeKeene.com. Thank you to the Boston Globe’s Sarah Schweitzer and photographer Cheryl Senter for this great article:
From a jail cell in this rural corner of New Hampshire, Sam A. Miller waged a philosophical battle, one milk carton at a time. The soft-spoken electrical engineer declined food for nearly a month, save for swigs of milk. To eat, he said, would be caving to the tyrannical government powers that placed him here for illegally filming in a courthouse and refusing to reveal his legal name to jail officials. (He says it’s private; jail officials obtained it from a fingerprint trace.)
His resistance has made him a folk hero among antigovernment types who have been making their way to New Hampshire from points across the country since their leaders put out a clarion call six years ago.
The Free Staters, as they are known, hope to lure thousands of like-minded souls to the state, with the goal of paring government to a bare minimum by eliminating things like taxes, speed limits, and zoning laws.
Thus far, just 427 Free Staters have relocated. Yet, here in Keene and in pockets across New Hampshire, Free Staters are making their case in increasingly provocative ways. (more…)
While today’s arraignment for one of the “Disorderly Six” went relatively uneventfully, there was an interesting first. At today’s 1:30pm arraignment about ten liberty activists were the only ones in the audience when judge Burke entered the courtroom. Bailiff Lance Walton issued the usual, “All rise”, and as usual, the activists did not rise. Burke, as usual, made no mention of this. At the end of the arraignment, Walton again uttered, “All rise”, and again no one did. What had changed, however was that a couple of other victims of government aggression had entered the court during the arraignment and though they were not part of our group, they also did not rise!
This is peer pressure in a most positive way! It’s proof that even people who do not consider themselves activists will find courage in themselves once they see others display it, especially a group of others. It’s very likely that had the courtroom been full of the state’s victims (as it usually is during morning arraignments), they’d have stood, but in a court filled with noncooperating liberty activists – they joined in the noncooperation!
This bodes well for the future of participation in the peaceful evolution. We are empowering our fellow slaves to throw of their chains – please come join us.
The Keene Sentinel, which was present on April 13th for the arrest of Sam, and 6 others, has finally published an article specifically about him and his in-jail protest.
Testing the system behind bars, Free Stater chides court, gains recruits
Sam Miller talks about his experience in the local court system during a visit at the Cheshire County jail in Westmoreland.
By PHILLIP BANTZ
Sentinel Staff
Published: Sunday, May 17, 2009 8:07 AM EDTWESTMORELAND — A battle of wills is playing out within the cinder block walls of the Cheshire County jail in Westmoreland, where an activist has spent more than a month protesting a judge’s order that he identify himself to police.
John Doe walks into the jail cafeteria, a faded orange jumpsuit draped over his lanky frame and a folder of legal documents tucked under his arm. He sits at a stainless steel picnic-style table and when he smiles the tendons in his long, thin neck bulge.
Doe says he hasn’t eaten solid food since he’s been behind bars because he’s on a hunger strike. When he came to jail he weighed 180 pounds, and now he weighs 116, he says.
Court and jail officials know Doe’s real name — Sam A. Miller, a 33-year-old former telecommunications specialist from Texas who moved to Keene earlier this year to join the Free State Project. They have Miller’s Texas driver’s license.
(more…)
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