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30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

theintercept.com

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Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#441

Post by MSFT_Edging »

cbarnes99 wrote: post #14
ndriscoll wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there's even a claim the speech is illegal. Rather, it's that "transporting zines" when your spouse gets arrested on suspicion of crimes related to a designated terrorist organization is about as legal as "arts and crafts" (i.e. shredding documents) when your spouse is arrested for fraud. It's the obstruction of justice part that's illegal, not the possession. As far as I know she could be fully acquitt…

It's worth noting that the average sentence for murder in the US is 15 years. And it is not actually a "designated terrorist organization". The government is claiming they are a "domestic terrorist organization" which isnt a thing under US law, additionally, there is no organization to speak of.

The important thing to note here, is because it's not a real organization, but treated like one, they can simply tie anyone against the admin to a "designated terrorist organization" and put them away for decades with little evidence. As they did here.

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#442

Post by Mickelby »

pcrh wrote: post #417
Mickelby wrote: post #333

[flagged]

First, there's no "terrorist organization". Antifa doesn't exist as an organization. Second, the zines cannot be evidence of the crimes committed, i.e. setting off fireworks, and injuring an officer.

These are your emotional-based feelings. The facts are that the DOJ has a different terrorist definition, and that the legal concept of "conspiracy" exists. On Reddit/4chan-type websites, emotional opinions get the most upvotes. On fact-based websites they don't.

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#443

Post by jmyeet »

birdsongs wrote: post #402
kubafu wrote: post #401

USA is such a weird place these days. Is there a way back to sanity once this administration ends?

IMO the DNC needs to grow a spine and perform hard correction and repair. Which is to say, I don't think that will happen, and some form of collapse is inevitable. But I'm far from a political scientist. Just an engineer with a history hobby, pattern matching.

There is a persistent narrative that the DNC is incompetent. That they're just trying to be nice and to compromise. And it's simply not true and needs to be disposed of.

The DNC have known what works in elections since 2008 when Obama swept and won states like Iowa. They might argue that Obama was generationally charismatic (which is true) but it was the message that won, a message of progressive populism. Here's a 2016 quote from Chuck Schumer [1]:

> For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia. And you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.

Here's another [2]:

> For as long as I live, for as long as I have the privilege of serving in the Senate from New York, I will unflinchingly, unstintingly, and with all my strength, be a Guardian of Israel

Substitute "Israel" for any other country and you'll be charged with something between treason and acting as an unregistered foreign agent (eg [3]).

Also remember that the contentious Epstein files, which implicate a bunch of powerful people including the current president and will likely all but prove that Jeffrey Epstein was an Israeli agent, sat in a dark room doing nothing for 4 years of Joe Biden and Merrick Garland. And no, "ongoing cases" isn't an excuse, particularly after Maxwell was convicted in 2022.

Look at the disastrous Iran war. What was the response from Democrats? How many, particularly in leadership positions, actually opposed the war? Not many. Most of the objections were process objections, namely that Congress wasn't consulted. That's not opposition to a war because most of them don't oppose the war.

I really hope people begin to understand that none of what the DNC and establishment Democrats is doing is incompetence. It isn't.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Schumer

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh8rpFTVBuM

[3]: https://www.bipc.com/arcadia-mayor-charged-by-doj-as-chinese...

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#445

Post by MSFT_Edging »

bandofthehawk wrote: post #234
stevenwoo wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless one is a right wing protestor like Kyle Rittenhouse.

[flagged]

He traveled across state lines to attend a protest with a gun he didn't personally own.

If that was self defense, so was this case.

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#447

Post by Mickelby »

TrackerFF wrote: post #432
Mickelby wrote: post #333

[flagged]

Question: Do you take everything Trump declares as the absolute truth? If Trump designates Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster to be a terrorist organization tomorrow, do you believe their church members to be terrorists? This is a fundamental question, because at the very core of the case, these protesters have been labeled terrorists belonging to a "Antifa cell", aka. terrorist cell. Do you believe that a anti-I…

Why would you think I was a Trumper just because I'm complaining about the clownish framing of the "jailed for moving zines" story? I'm European so you can guess my opinion of Trump. It's possible to be against both far-left (Reddit-brained) and far-right (MAGA) populism.

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#448

Post by jmyeet »

polski-g wrote: post #262
magenta4 wrote: post #65

Freedom of speech is absolute. It doesn't matter what the government thinks of the situation. It isn't a "crime" to move publications, even if the police think that. It's sickening how this could even possibly happen.

It is absolutely a crime to conceal evidence in an ongoing criminal trial. The contents of the publications is absolutely irrelevant: the individual was asked to conceal evidence and agreed to do it.

The leaders of January 6 got 22, 18 and 18 years for seditious conspiracy in an attempt to overthrow the government of the United States.

This guy got 30 years for not being at an event where an officer was shot (and it was unclear who shot first, according to the FBI) when one of the arrested asked him to move a box of zines.

Now if I murder someone then ask you to dispose of the murder weapon, I've only committed a crime if I am knowingly conceling or destroying evidence. Like, maybe I'm helping you hide possession of an illegal firearm. That may still be a felony but it's in no way as serious as if I knew you killed someone with it.

so, what did the zine mover know, exactly? Did they know there was going to be a protest? Graffitti at an ICE facility? It's unclear to me that there was any plan to shoot a police officer so it's hard to argue that they should've known that was the crime at hand. Were they moving the zines so they wouldn't get confiscated and they still wanted to distribute them?

Nothing about this amounts to "domestic terrorism" under the most generous interpretation of the prosecution's theory of the case. They invented a domestic terrorist organization out of whole cloth and then used it to justify conspiracy charges. There is no "Antifa" like there is/was al-Aqeda or the Proud Boys or the Oath Keepers. Who are the leaders? How do you identify members? What are there communications? It's all completely made up to justify excessive prosecution.

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#449

Post by the_real_cher »

Manuel_D wrote: post #192
shimman wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What hogwash. Resistance is as American as the founding of the country, acting like there is a "right way" to protest is deeply antihuman.

The "protestors" shot someone, if that's not the wrong way to protest then what is?

America shot a bunch of people in the 1700s protesting the King of England

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#450

Post by totetsu »

sourcecodeplz wrote: post #405
totetsu wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the best discussion of this is on sites that I wouldn’t want to link to on HN incase It puts me on a list in line for a 30 year prison sentence

prob zerohedge, i can say it. no need to link it.

No I wasn’t thinking far-right libertarian I was thinking far-left anarchistic, haha
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