Below is a playlist of raw videos from today’s Legal Land adventures:
Monday, June 16th 2014 – 10am – Today there was a trial in Keene at the new courthouse. “The State of New Hampshire” charged political activist Graham Colson with “Contempt of Court” for speaking to a Meter Maid while doing his activism.
The activism, called “Robin Hooding”, involves walking around feeding the expired parking meters. He says it saves people from tickets.
But Meter Maid Alan Givetz had a big problem with the Robin Hooders. So much of a problem that he quit over the situation. He called the police on Graham for speaking to him, and the court defended the unconstitutional ban on free speech.
Hero Rich Paul is behind bars again! He is currently wearing orange and being held in D-Block. (That’s where they keep prisoners who haven’t yet been sentenced.) He can accept visitors, but not phone calls. The best way to write to him is using a free service called http://MailtoJail.com. He might be in there for a while, so please write him often, as it is his only connection to the outside world.
Except one. The Jail Sign-Wave is an activism event where people bring banners, posters, and flags outside the jail, and they wave up at the prisoners caged inside. Word quickly spreads around the cell block, and soon everyone is at their windows waving back. Many of them will never have a single visitor for months or years. There’s a reason they come to the windows and wave every week. Humans need connection.
“fundamental to the continuing vitality of our democracy, for ‘time out of mind, [sidewalks] have been used for purposes of assembly, communicating thoughts between citizens, and discussing public questions.’”
“[a]s a general matter, we have indicated that in public debate our own citizens must tolerate insulting, and even outrageous, speech in order to provide adequate breathing space to the freedoms protected by the First Amendment.”
Bissonnette also encourages police to investigate and prosecute the perpetrators of violence and says that the city should be encouraging free expression rather than suppressing it. It’s an excellent legal opinion and the city council should read it carefully before they screw up and pass an unconstitutional suppression of free speech. Stay tuned to Free Keene for the latest on the ridiculous-to-the-max War on Chalk.
Every Saturday in Keene is Smiley Saturday! Activists armed with chalk drew pictures and wrote messages of peace to share with the passing public. Here is raw video from today’s event. Subscribe to see more raw video from Keene.
WMUR’s Kristin Carosa filed this report after Thursday night’s city committee meeting where they voted to investigate a possible ordinance for graffiti that may include all downtown chalking if one city councilor gets his way:
There’s a hate group in Keene trashing the FSP because they don’t like Free Keene (or Robin Hooding, or something like that).
My status update included more, but the part above about the group called Stop Free Keene (SFK) got considerable attention. Some SFK members were openly hateful towards Free State Project (FSP) participants on the basis of group affiliation. Some were even promoting violence. My message and some of the comment thread was copied into the Stop Free Keene group and generally met with negative responses from SFK members.
In the comment thread on my status message, I noted,
Of course, I’m concerned someone’s going to get hurt… (more…)
