Today we won a big victory in the RNC 8 case, but some major battles still lie ahead.

[Bjorn Against]

Last week a group of five peace activists which included myself had a meeting with Susan Gaertner in which we asked her to drop the charges against the RNC 8. After our meeting I wrote a blog which detailed our discussion, that blog ended up near the top of the recommended list at both the Daily Kos and Democratic Underground. My blog was read by who knows how many thousands of people across the nation including Susan Gaertner herself. Now one week after the meeting with Gaertner and the posting of my blog I have received word that the terrorism charges against the RNC 8 will be dropped.

While I have received a number of congratulations today I am not about to take credit for this turn of events, because the truth is that I am just one person among many who has stood up in defense of the RNC 8. There were thousands of people who spoke out, and many volunteers who donated hours of their time to work to get these charges dropped. Every single person who has helped out deserves credit for this victory, we were all part of a movement which worked together to see this happen. While I am very proud of my role in this victory, I think that it is very important to acknowledge the people who have done so much work to help the RNC 8 because my blog would have accomplished nothing had there not already been a great deal of pressure on Gaertner to drop the charges.

While we are celebrating this victory today however, the battle is far from being over. While the terrorism charges have been dropped the conspiracy charges are still being pursued by the prosecution, and we can not allow a group of people to be charged with criminal offenses simply for organizing protests against the Republican National Convention. Furthermore, while the terrorism charges against the RNC 8 may have been dropped the Minnesota Patriot Act is still on the books, and until that law is repealed it could potentially be used against other activists in the future. We need to celebrate our victory today, but while we celebrate we must also be aware of the enormous tasks that lie in front of us.

Our Constitution has been trampled on. The homes of political activists were raided by police wielding sub-machine guns, their political literature was illegally seized, and their rights as citizens were violated. You can not have a democracy without dissent, and whenever there is an attempt to silence dissent then it is our duty as citizens to let our government know that they can not silence us. If they try to intimidate us we will only speak out more loudly, and we will hold them accountable.

Today I had a conversation with Coleen Rowley, a woman who spent twenty-four years of her life working for the FBI and has since become a very committed activist who is working to protect the rights of people to speak dissent (in the interest of full disclosure I should also mention that she is a friend of mine). Coleen has investigated real terrorism cases, and she received national attention when she blew the whistle on the mishandling of the Zacarias Moussaui before 9/11. Coleen knows what a real criminal threat looks like, and she knows that the RNC 8 posed no threat to the public safety.

The RNC 8 never even attended the protests against the Republican National Convention, because they had been preemptively arrested before those protests even began. Coleen spoke to me today about preemptive arrests, and she noted that law enforcement only makes preemptive arrests in extremely rare circumstances. Even if they suspect someone of planning a violent crime they will only move in on them if they have evidence so strong that they know beyond any shadow of a doubt that they could get a conviction. It is extremely difficult to come up with this kind of solid evidence before a crime has even been committed, and for this reason law enforcement usually keeps an eye on the suspects until the moment the crime is about to be committed and then move in and catch them red handed rather than attempt a preemptive arrest.

This is not how the RNC 8 case was handled however, instead the Ramsey County Sheriff had his officers move in and preemptively arrest political activists based simply on the word of an informant. To make matters worse this informant of theirs has no credibility, and in fact was recently arrested and charged with burglary and assault.

It appears to me that law enforcement officers knew that they did not have solid evidence against the RNC 8, and they knew they were not going to find any evidence before the convention began but they needed some reason to justify the millions of dollars they were about to spend in turning St. Paul into a police state. They needed to arrest some “terrorists” in order to justify their intimidation tactics, and they knew that if they were to wait until these activists were actually in the streets that they would not commit any sort of crime that would be seen as anything more than possibly an act of civil disobedience. Saying you arrested someone for blocking traffic does not have the same impact on the public as saying that you arrested someone for terrorism, and so by preemptively arresting these political activists police were able to make up a false story that made it appear as if they were keeping the city safe when in reality these arrests did nothing to protect anyone.

This prosecution was based purely on politics from the start, and while the most egregious charges may have now been dropped the remaining charges are still unjust and they still need to be dropped. Many people have noted that Susan Gaertner is running for Governor, I have tried to limit my conversation on her run because I think it distracts from the much bigger issue of the Constitutional issues involved in this case. I never believed Gaertner prosecuted this case in order to help her become Governor, as I have always believed that this case would cost her far more votes than it would win her. I don't know how her run for Governor played into her decision to drop the charges today, but while I could see some potential political benefit for her in backing away I think it is important to look beyond the politics of her decision. The fact is that we would have been putting the same kind of pressure on her even had she not been running for Governor, and we need to recognize the role that citizens can have in exposing injustice. If no one had been talking about this case these charges would have never been dropped, and that is why we all need to speak out whether we are speaking out against what a candidate seeking higher office is doing or not.

While today's victory is enormous we have a long road ahead of us and we are going to need help. We need people to blog about this case, we need to get people to write letters to the editor, we need people to get out in the streets and stand up for the right to dissent, and we need to enlist some prominent Americans to lend their support. Please contact Susan Gaertner at [e-mail] and thank her for dropping the terrorism charges, but let her know that she needs to drop the remaining charges as well. If you would like to learn more about the case and find other ways to help out please visit http://rnc8.org/ and stand up for the right to speak dissent.

[Trocadero]

1. It's scary to think that our democracy sometimes hangs by the thread of a blog posting

[Bjorn Against]

2. Actually what democracy hangs on the thread of is not a blog posting, but a movement.

While I do think my blog did influence her, there were many others involved in this case as well and I can't take all the credit. There were a lot of people putting pressure on her, and if it had just been me speaking out nothing would have happened. It is important we all get involved and we all speak out for what is right.

[Bjorn Against]

3. I should also probably mention that Gaertner called me on Monday after reading my previous blog.

She did not tell me that she was planning on dropping these charges at that time, but she was very friendly with me on the phone and she said she would talk to me again at a later date. I expect to have more contact with her in the near future, and I will continue to pressure her to drop the charges.