Live Tweets from James Cleaveland’s Trial For Recording Police

by | Dec 15, 2015 | 7 comments

Darryl W Perry is tweeting live from the trial of Free Keene blogger James Cleaveland, happening today and possibly tomorrow (Wed) in Keene at Cheshire superior court:


NH Jury Activists Bring Message to Potential Jurors for James Cleaveland’s Recording Cops Trial

by | Dec 14, 2015 | 24 comments

NH Jury Activists Outside Cheshire Superior Court

NH Jury Activists Outside Cheshire Superior Court

NH Jury activists gathered this morning outside Cheshire superior court in Keene to perform jury outreach prior to jury selection for the trial of James Cleaveland which begins tomorrow morning (Tuesday 12/15) at 9am.

James is facing two “Class A” misdemeanor charges with a possibility of up to two years in prison for being arrested while recording video of police at the scene of a suicidal man in the summer of 2014. The charges are “disorderly conduct” (the state’s favorite catch-all charge) and “resisting arrest”.

James has already had a bench trial at Keene district court, the video of which can be seen here, and was found guilty. District court judge Edward J Burke sentenced him to 1.5 years in jail, suspended, plus a $625 fine. After sentencing, James opted for his right to a jury trial “de novo”, which means, “from the beginning”. So now, not quite a year later, he is being given that trial.

This morning was jury selection. Nearly all of the jury pool of about 58 people had received the NH Jury trifold last month. (In Cheshire county, petit juries are empaneled for two months.) Usually the jury outreach process involves handing out flyers and opening the door for folks, but in addition today it included activists holding signs featuring phrases like, “2 Years 4 Filming?”, and “Filming the police is not a crime!”

More activists are expected to be on-the-scene tomorrow morning at 8am for further sign-holding, with the trial starting at 9am and expected to last two days. If you can’t make it in person, live tweets will be available here at FreeKeene.com and later the full trial video will be posted.

New Hampshire Liberty News Roundup

by | Dec 10, 2015 | 1 comment

I’ve had loads of news from New Hampshire of interest to libertarians that have been stacking up over the last couple of months that I just haven’t been able to make the time to post individually here. So, this is my attempt to catch up on my backlog by putting them all in a news round-up post:

False Headlines Herald Bitcoin’s Death in New Hampshire

by | Dec 10, 2015 | 10 comments

Bitcoin NH License Plate

Bitcoin is big in NH

This week, social media was exploding with various posts of a breathless, alarmist piece on a bitcoin news website called DinBits: “Bitcoin Sales Now Prohibited In the State of New Hampshire“. Things looked quite dire from the headline and the article itself was also misleading. “How could you liberty activists let this happen?”, cried many on the facebooks.

“The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” – Bitcoin

There’s no doubt that HB 666 (yes, 666) is not a good bill. However, it did not prohibit the sales of bitcoin, as the headlines have claimed. What it actually does is adds a definition of “convertible virtual currency” to the “money transmitter” statutes. Money transmitters are companies doing business selling and sending “stored value”, which now includes virtual currency in New Hampshire.

Despite that broad definition, state banking department attorney Emilia Galdieri told the Union Leader (in a sane, excellent article on this) that the new statutory changes affect money transmitters, like Western Union, Coinbase, or MoneyGram, but is not aimed at person-to-person transactions, consumer-to-business, or bitcoin ATMs.

Keene's Bitcoin Vending Machine

Bitcoin Vending Machine at the All-New “Route 101 Local Goods” at 661 Marlboro Rd in Keene

Somehow, the changes did sneak under the libertarians’ radar, which is a hard thing to do in NH, where we have the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance that has a batch of volunteers reviewing as many bills as possible each year. However, they didn’t spot this one, which means they need more help! Even if you’re outside of NH, you can volunteer for the NH Liberty Alliance and review some bills.

NH’s liberty and bitcoin activists are not happy they were caught off-guard on this and are already working to repeal it and help protect bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies into the future. If you are one of the people who’s acting shocked that this could happen in the “Free state”, I’d like to remind you that despite the amazing groundwork the early movers for the Free State Project have laid here, the official move has yet to begin. This is not a free place yet – it’s just better off than others and a good starting point for a freedom movement. We need more people to join the FSP and move to New Hampshire. The FSP is nearing 90% of our goal of 20,000 liberty activists pledging to move to NH, so completion is right around the corner. If you’ve been on the fence about joining the most amazing and successful liberty migration, just DO IT.

UBER Grandma Gets Positive FOX Coverage + Full Interview

by | Dec 8, 2015 | 8 comments

UBER Grandma Stephanie Franz

UBER Grandma Stephanie Franz, courtesy CBS Boston

FOX 25 Boston’s Kathryn Burcham filed this excellent report on the continuing assault on peaceful Seacoast UBER driver Stephanie Franz, the 63-year-old grandmother who has now been ticketed several times for driving people places without a government permission slip.

She, despite facing $3,500 in fines from the city for her peaceful civil disobedience, is remaining steadfast, and is demanding her trial. Kudos to UBER for providing Stephanie with legal representation, gratis. Here’s the FOX report, which is very positive and fair towards her:

Here’s the full interview FOX 25 conducted with Stephanie, as recorded by Free Keene blogger Darryl W. Perry, who attended last night’s activities: (more…)

Uber Activists Attend Portsmouth City Council Meeting

by | Dec 7, 2015 | 8 comments

Tonight at 7:00pm EST, FreeUber.org activists will be attending Portsmouth’s city council meeting.  Some plan to testify against the anti-Uber transportation ordinance.  City council members have not yet agreed to call for a halt of the enforcement of said ordinance.  Tonight, we will see if the council upholds their taxi cartel protectionism.

As long as Uber drivers continue to be harassed, activists will continue to protest.  Shire Dude will be livestreaming this event.

This live event will feature multiple broadcast updates.  If the video below is not live, you can access archived footage on Shire Dude’s Bambuser account.

 

UPDATES:
Regarding the prohibitive transportation ordinance, the council voted (6 yes, 3 no) to move forward with the 3-part amendment that Uber requested.  The amendment was read by the City Attorney in this video.  During this council’s final session, on December 21st, each part of the amendment will be voted upon separately.

Councilor Lown spoke with both the police chief and with Uber’s attorney, but it was an activist’s testimony that sparked the councilor’s interest in the difference between background checks performed by Uber and by Portsmouth.  The town’s police department performs a vastly inferior check, but councilor Kennedy still argued that both checks were necessary.

Several activists spoke in favor of Uber (starting with Uber Grandma Stephanie Franz herself), including Free Uber founder Christopher David, who envisioned 10 Uber Grandmas taking the place of Franz.  “Walls may chase away law-abiding entrepreneurs, but they attract black market entrepreneurs,” said David, highlighting the market opportunity for a darkweb-style adaptation of ridesharing.

“You have to follow the rules!” said an exasperated Mayor Lister.  All three “no” votes (Lister, Morgan and Kennedy) will not be returning in 2016, which bodes well for the future of Portsmouth ridesharing.

If you believe that Portsmouth should follow the shining example set by Sarasota (which deregulated both Uber and taxis), I recommend contacting Eric Spear, Chris Dwyer, James Splaine and Bradley Lown.  They will be returning to city council in 2016.

MORE UPDATES:

There is now better video available of the Uber deliberations and the activists testimonies.