Mommy, Why Was Grandma Jailed For Protesting Drones?

[kpete]

Well, dear, it seems drone masters don't appreciate hearing, seeing or allowing protests from citizens who foot the bill.

Evidently if you're protesting random drone killings of brown people you're a criminal. If, on the other hand, you're protesting brown people coming to seek refuge from crime and murder in their own country, you're a hero.

Today's story is about an ordinary citizen who objects to drones wiping out swaths of civilians on their way to deliver judgment on terrorists, whether right or wrong. Mary Anne Grady Flores has been protesting drones at the Hancock Field Air National Guard base in upstate New York for long enough to have been arrested, acquitted and then served with an order of protection to "stay away" from protests near the base.

So she decided to take photographs of other people protesting while standing on a street that she thought was off the base property itself. The folks she photographed were arrested and acquitted, but Mary Anne, grandmother and decent human being, was slapped with a one-year jail sentence and a $1,000 fine. What finer justice, eh?

Democracy Now:

Last year, Grady Flores says she attended another peace action, but did not participate, instead photographing it from the roadway, beyond what she believed was the base's boundary. She was later told the base's property extended into the road. On Thursday, Judge David Gideon of the DeWitt Town Court sentenced her to the maximum sentence of a year in prison for violating the protection order and fined her $1,000. In a courtroom packed with about 150 supporters, Grady Flores spoke about what she called the four perversions of justice in her case.

Mary Anne Grady Flores: "The fourth perversion is the reversal of who is the real victim here: the commander of a military base involved in killing innocent people halfway around the world or those innocent people themselves, who are the real ones in need of orders of protection? So I, as a nonviolent grandmother and a caregiver to my own mother, as I prepare for jail, itself a perversion, I stand before you remorseful. I'm remorseful about my own country and its continued perpetuating of violence and injustice."

Mary Anne Grady Flores was taken into custody following the sentencing. She is appealing the verdict. Earlier in the day, her supporters marched six miles from the drone base to the courtroom carrying a coffin bearing the words, "First Amendment."

http://crooksandliars.com/2014/07/mommy-why-was-grandma-jailed-protesting

The Four Perversions
Posted on July 14, 2014 by Upstate Drone Action
This is an excerpt from Mary Anne Grady Flores Sentencing Statement that was written with the assistance of Doug Noble:

“Your honor, a series of judicial perversions brings me here before you tonight.”

First, I was convicted of violating an order of protection that represents a perversion of its intended use to protect victims of domestic violence. This order allegedly protects the commander of a military base who said himself under oath that he neither knows me nor needs protection from me. The real purpose of this order is to stifle dissent at the base.

Second, as my 11-year old neighbor Lucien reminded me recently, this order “breaks the law” by perverting my Constitutional rights to freedom of speech and my right to protest injustice.

Third, my jury trial represented a perversion of justice because the jury was forbidden to hear three key facts: all the protesters I photographed that day as their press liaison were acquitted – I myself was previously acquitted for trespassing at the base because even the police could not specify the base boundaries. an acting Supreme Court judge ruled that the Order of Protection is invalid because its language is excessively vague and it shows no evidence of any threat

A fourth perversion is the reversal of who is the real victim here: the commander of a military base whose drones kill innocent people halfway around the world, or those innocent people themselves who are the real ones in need of protection from the terror of US drone attacks?

As I, a nonviolent grandmother of three and principal caregiver for my mother, prepare for jail – itself a perversion – I stand before you remorseful, less for what I have done than for what I have not yet done to keep my own country from perpetrating its ongoing acts of violence and injustice.
http://upstatedroneaction.org/wordpress/2014/07/14/the-four-perversions/#more-2659

[PowerToThePeople]

1. WTF?! First amendment?

She is part owner of that base, as she is a tax payer. It does not say she ever physically harmed anyone or anything. Why does she even have a protection order against her?

America, home of the free.

Fucking Bullshit.

[Rex]

2. Just like the NSA...drones are something you are supposed to automatically

snap off a salute for and stand at attention, until Big Brother says so.

Hoover made sure that the mindset of 'we the people' being the true enemies of the state, remained in the minds of Washington policy makers for decades to come...all of which never have to worry about a drone attack, retirement or health insurance.

[woo me with science]

3. OUTRAGEOUS. Abuse of orders of protection to punish dissent.

This country is not recognizable anymore.