Though Edward Snowden dominated FSP-related headlines in the last week, there have been more news stories both inside and outside of NH about the FSP or FSP early movers than I can keep track of. Here’s a quick rundown:
FSP Founder Jason Sorens and his wife Mary appeared on FOX Business’ “Stossel”. Video of the episode is not yet available online publicly, that I can find.
Edward Snowden interviewed by Nick Gillespie of Reason.com. In beautiful HD with clear and consistent audio. No real blog post is needed, just watch the video.
Recorded February 20th, 2016
The Rebel Love Show broadcasted live from the Radisson Hotel in Manchester NH for the Free State Project’s annual Liberty Forum. This week we loaded up with guests including Renee Kate of Anarchy After Dark, Matthes Von Guttenberg, Virgil Vaduva of Cell 411, Christopher David of Arcade City, Ellen Ball, Tatiana Moroz plays a song dedicated to Ross Ulbricht, and Lyn Ulbricht comes on to talk about her son and how you can support him at FreeRoss.orgThe Rebel Love Show airs every Tuesday night 10pm-12am EST on LRN.FM and RebelLoveShow.com/live.
However, for reasons yet unknown, it’s being claimed by new FSP president Matt Philips that keynote speaker Edward Snowden requested there be no recording by audience members. Free Keene blogger and NH native Garret Ean recorded anyway and released it here yesterday.
Why would Snowden try to restrict recording when hundreds of people would be attending with recording devices, including, likely some undercover federal agents? I tweeted at Snowden today in an attempt to get a comment and received no reply thus far. According to the organizer of the Liberty Forum in an unofficial facebook post, there was some agreement to allow the FSP to record the event and have Reason.com (whose editor Nick Gillespie conducted the interview with Snowden) release it via their YouTube.
Many in the liberty community are on an all-out attack against Garret for making the recording, and me for refusing to pull it down. One even called for “Free Keene” to be banned from all FSP events. Hilariously, that ban would include FK blogger JJ Schlessinger, who is the video professional the FSP hired to record the event. He called Free Talk Live Tuesday night to inform our audience that he is currently editing a high-quality five-camera HD shoot of the Snowden talk.
NH mainstream newspapers are now picking up the story of this latest FSP schism. Here’s the first two headlines, posted online and appearing in print today:
The 2016 New Hampshire Liberty Forum, held this past weekend at the Radisson Hotel in Manchester, 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.
On February 19, the Libertarian Party New Hampshire filed this 58-page brief in the First Circuit in Libertarian Party of New Hampshire v Gardner, 15-2068. The issue is the 2014 law that made it illegal for a group to circulate a petition for recognition as a party in an odd year. The U.S. District Court had upheld the law.
Thanks to Ballot Access News for this report.
