Evidence if you needed it of how goverment will abuse power if given the chance. to the people in the gov/police thay are just doing there job ( abiding the paper work)

USA please please sort your stupid politics out blah , at least the people who do this news thing and presumably made this clip are on the ball.

im actualy intrestead to know what percentage of usa is fucked like how manny people are decent knowlageable non zelots if i was to guss i would say its probably

25-30% engaged nice people that know whats going on

20% stupid but not realy involved just people randomly living

and then 50% conservative religouse retards

And there it is, they finally pulled the terrorism card on it's own people to push forward the police state

Aren't you forgetting about the court system? For there to be a police state, the courts must fall in line and judges are not doing that. When they start throwing judges into jail, then we have a problem.

When one person in a conspiracy makes one overt act to further an unlawful act, then all members of that conspiracy may be arrested.

The police do not place anyone in prison...that is done by the courts.

If the first level of court fails to do the proper thing, there is the appeal process.

Again the libs are having hysteria over nothing.

Peaceful protests are not unlawful. Civil disobedience is a crime. The law protects first amendment rights but unlawful acts are prosecuted.

So when do we start building containment camps and burning books? I want to get my marshmallows ready.

Nice sensationalist title. Too bad it's completely wrong. The Patriot Act has not been invoked here. Minnesota passed a state law using many of the provisions of the Patriot Act as a basis. The protesters are being charged under state, not federal, law violations. See here: http://election411.org/article/id/3604210/election-unspun-nationalism-inside-terrorism-charges-protesters-outside

^Too bad it's completely true. State versions of the Patriot Act are still invocations of Federal precedent:

"“In what appears to be the first use of criminal charges under the 2002 Minnesota version of the Federal Patriot Act, Ramsey County Prosecutors have formally charged 8 alleged leaders of the RNC Welcoming Committee with Conspiracy to Riot in Furtherance of Terrorism."

>> ^Trancecoach:
^Too bad it's completely true. State versions of the Patriot Act are still invocations of Federal precedent:
"“In what appears to be the first use of criminal charges under the 2002 Minnesota version of the Federal Patriot Act, Ramsey County Prosecutors have formally charged 8 alleged leaders of the RNC Welcoming Committee with Conspiracy to Riot in Furtherance of Terrorism."


Your own quote states quite clearly that it is the Minnesota version. First off, the Minnesota version differs in many significant ways from the Federal version. Second, the FBI is not involved with this at all. These are state prosecutors, trying the case in a state court, not a federal one. The title to this vid is clearly misleading as it insinuates the Federal government is stepping in to suppress free speech. Nothing of the sort has happened.

Futhermore, you seem to be insinuating in your response to me that something similar could happen under the Federal Patriot Act, but I am unaware of a clause in the Patriot Act that would allow for this kind of arrest since the Patriot Act is concerned with international terrorism. It only briefly mentions domestic terrorism in Section 8, and then only to include in the definition of domestic terrorism such offenses as mass destruction, kidnapping, or assassination with the intent of carrying out such crimes to influence government policy.

Regardless, this cannot be a case of precedent because precedent refers to courts using previous cases with similar facts to determine the outcome of a current case. As this appears to be the first time a protester organizer has been charged as a terrorist (domestic or otherwise), there is no precedent. Precedent will in fact be established by this case. Personally, I think there's a good chance that during all this the Minnesota laws will wind up being struck down as unconstitutional for being too vague and applied too broadly, similar to how section 805 of the Federal Patriot Act was.

lantern the point is they were rounded up and held without having done anything illegal. You can close your eyes and say nothings wrong but it's perfectly clear what's going on here.

as to westys original question

i'd say it's 20% who know what's going on but are powerless to do anything -significant- about it. The time and money necessary to effect meaningful change simply isn't available to working and middle class people.

The hard core religious zealots represent only 10% imo, but they're vocal and connected, often wealthy, and get lots of media attention, thus their influence is WAY out of proportion to their numbers.

Sadly the remaining 70% of the population is either too stupid and/or too apathetic to know or care about anything beyond next weekends footbal game or 6-pack of beer. Also included in this group are middle aged and older people who've simply given up, defeated in spirit, having seen their efforts at political reform from decades past all turn to shit again anyway, fighting the same battles over and over again and losing to the rigged system of the wealthy elite, as in the bush/gore election.

>>Your own quote states quite clearly that it is the Minnesota version. First off, the Minnesota version differs in many significant ways from the Federal version.

The point is, there wouldn't be a Minnesota version if there wasn't a Federal version to begin with. In other words, a precedent was set by the Federal version.


>>Second, the FBI is not involved with this at all.

And apparently, the FBI need not be involved for the Patriot Act invocation.

>>These are state prosecutors, trying the case in a state court, not a federal one. The title to this vid is clearly misleading as it insinuates the Federal government is stepping in to suppress free speech.

Oh, waa waa. Do you snipe like this all the time? Look, the title of the video didn't start with me -- you can find the story here, here,here, and here, and elsewhere. So take go up ire with the LA times -- before you snipe at me on videosift!

<more bullshit snipped> Who's got the time for that?

Jesus doesn't like terrorists!

Welcome to the resurgence of McCarthyism. Welcome to the land of the paranoid and xenophobic.

5% is all you need for revolution.