by Deb Cupples | The photo (left) is of our Constitution's First Amendment, etched in stone on the outside wall of the Newseum in Washington, D.C. Among other things, the First Amendment grants us the right "peaceably to assemble."
That said, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports:
"Ramsey County authorities conducted raids across Minneapolis and St. Paul Friday and Saturday as a pre-emptive strike against disruptive protests of the Republican National Convention."
"Five people were arrested and more than 100 were handcuffed, questioned and released by scores of deputies and police officers, according to police and elected officials familiar with the raids."
Protester Steff Yorek of the Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War commented:
"'The actions by the St. Paul Police are an attempt to make people afraid to take a stand against the war and the Republican agenda.'" (The Hill)
Yes, that sounds about right. If that's the case, the authorities and political players involved should have their pants sued off.
In an unrelated incident, an ABC News producer was arrested last week while trying to video tape (reportedly from a public sidewalk) Democratic senators arriving at or leaving a secret meeting with big donors in Denver during the Democratic Convention.
Isn't this something. We've got the Republican Party pulling a page from President Bush's book and trying to prevent people from protesting during the convention. Last week, we had the Democratic party -- also pulling a page from Mr. Bush's book -- and creating "free speech zones": i.e., places for protesters to gather that weren't close to the convention hall and, thus, wouldn't be a regular focus of TV cameras.
It seems that something is going wrong in our nation.
Update: Salon's Glenn Greenwald has a detailed write up about one of the raids. He and Jane Hamsher (Firedoglake) went to one of the raided homes and interviewed the kids who lived there -- by kids, I mean college-aged people. Police officers reportedly tried to intimidate the kids, as they lay on the floor handcuffed for around 45 minutes.
One of the interviewees said that the police were looking for (among other things) boxes and bottles that could be used to make "incendiary devices." Another interviewee said that the police confiscated some of the kids' computers, personal journals -- and even political literature.
Glenn's YouTube video of the interview is below. Firedoglake has a video of Jane and Glenn interviewing people outside a different house, where a raid was in progress.
Memeorandum has commentary.
Other Buck Naked Politics Posts:
* FDIC Says More Bank Troubles Ahead
* Putin Thinks U.S. Orchestrated Georgia Conflict
* Chronicle of Hurricane Katrina's Tragic Aftermath
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This is scary: not merely what the cops did, but that they think that this sort of thing is normal and acceptable. *Even allowing* that we are only hearing one side of the story, there are better ways to deal with this sort of thing than mass raids to seize boxes and bottles.
Posted by: Charles | September 01, 2008 at 01:45 PM