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The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California filed a brief as amicus curiae, on May 3rd, in support of Bradley Stuart Allen and Alex Darocy’s motion to dismiss, pursuant to Penal Code section 995, pending before the Superior Court of California for the County of Santa Cruz. In the brief, ACLU of Northern California concludes, "The prosecution’s theories of liability for conspiracy to trespass and aiding and abetting trespass seek to punish Allen and Darocy for activity they engaged in that is protected by the First Amendment and the liberty of speech clause of the California Constitution."
On May 4th, community members gathered at the Santa Cruz Courthouse for a press conference and rally to demand District Attorney Bob Lee drop the charges against the Santa Cruz Eleven, who have all been charged with felonies arising from the occupation of a vacant bank building last fall. Organizers of the rally believe the DA should, "re-examine the basis for the charges, and the Court must ensure that these activists are not being selectively prosecuted." Approximately 100 people were in attendance at the courthouse rally, and after a brief press conference that had seven of the Santa Cruz Eleven introducing themselves, the group marched through downtown Santa Cruz.
WILPF–Santa Cruz Branch writes, The Santa Cruz Branch of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) condemns the action of local law enforcement in attempting to prosecute eleven local activists who are alleged to have occupied the long-deserted bank building at Water and River Streets last fall. Four of the defendants are journalists, who were present to report to the community on the protests. The First Amendment is clear on the rights of journalists to observe and print their findings; the charges against them should be dropped immediately.
On April 18th, U.S. Federal authorities removed a server from a colocation facility shared by Riseup Networks and May First/People Link in New York City. The seized server was operated by the European Counter Network (“ECN”), the oldest independent internet service provider in Europe, who, among many other things, provided an anonymous remailer service, Mixmaster, that was the target of an FBI investigation into a series of bomb threats against the University of Pittsburgh.
Congress is currently considering HR 3523, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, a bill that purports to protect the United States from “cyber threats”. This legislation would create a gaping loophole in all existing privacy laws. If CISPA, as the bill is called, passes, companies could vacuum up huge swaths of data on everyday internet users and share it with government agencies without a court order. Internet privacy groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Free Press say that CISPA uses dangerously vague language to define the breadth of data that can be shared with the government.
ACLU–Santa Cruz Chapter writes, "Eleven local activists have been charged with a variety of offenses arising from the occupation of a vacant bank building last fall. We have two primary concerns regarding this prosecution. First, at least some of the defendants are journalists who were present to report on the protest. We condemn any attempt to criminalize their exercise of the crucial First Amendment right to gather and disseminate information about this newsworthy event. All charges based on this constitutionally protected activity should be dropped immediately. Second, it appears that some of the defendants may have been charged due to their past adversarial relationship with law enforcement officials."
The Long Haul and East Bay Prisoner Support have settled their lawsuits over an armed, over-broad police raid after the law enforcement agencies agreed to delete improperly seized computer data and pay $100,000 in damages and attorney's fees. Moreover, the University of California-Berkeley Police Department (UCBPD) acknowledged that at the time of the raid one of the groups qualified for federal protections designed to protect journalists, publishers, and other distributors of information from police searches, despite the police's persistent denial of that status throughout the lawsuit.
On April 4th, a dozen people demonstrated on the sidewalk in front of the Wells Fargo Bank located at 74 River St. in downtown Santa Cruz, and across the street from the vacant bank building at 75 River St. The event was held to "encourage those victimized by the bank to learn they have allies" and "support the hundreds of people who visited or protested the vacant building at 75 River St. in late November and early December last year."
Santa Cruz County District Attorney Bob Lee has embarked on a full frontal assault against independent media in Santa Cruz by including four regular contributors to the independent news website Indybay.org amongst the eleven people charged with multiple felonies and misdemeanors after the occupation of a vacant bank building on November 30th, 2011. District Attorney Lee is attempting to dictate how events such as the occupation of the vacant bank at 75 River Street should be reported on by the media.
This is the twelfth and final chapter of the series “Hidden in Plain Sight: Media Workers for Social Change.” For the last two years Peter M published profiles and photos of people who have taken career paths outside of the media mainstream, at the service of the community around them.
This profile is of Jose Manuel Martinez, whose creative life has been story telling. As a recording artist he has worked in Rock, Latin Rock and Salsa. Now having just completed a Master’s degree in Education at Stanford University, he is an English teacher, relating to young people how stories can empower, and the ways they can bring people together.
Martinez said: “I started writing at a very, very young age. As a matter of fact, I was writing short stories for third and fourth graders when I was in the sixth grade. My principal at P.S. 115 in New York City had me on contract—my mom always brings this up—to produce a few stories a month, and he was really proud, you know. I’ve always had that type of imagination.”  Read Full Story and View Photo
See Blurbs for All 12 Stories in "Hidden in Plain Sight"
After an eviction from their previous transmitter site, Free Radio Santa Cruz has found a new site and resumed broadcasting. The collectively run, anti-corporate, community supported station has been providing Santa Cruz with alternative programming to counter mainstream corporate and NPR stations since 1995. Uncle Dennis, a broadcast engineer for Free Radio Santa Cruz, is offering a class in radio engineering during the winter quarter of Free Skool Santa Cruz.
Dear Directors:
The Northern California Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists Freedom of Information Committee condemns the wrongful treatment of journalists by BART police during the September 8, 2011 protest at Powell Station. The Committee requests acknowledgment of BART police’s error, assurances that such actions will never be taken again, and new training for officers to ensure that their interactions with the press remain appropriate and lawful.
The actions of BART police on September 8 are both serious and numerous and should be addressed by the Board.
Most disturbing are the allegations of David Morse, a veteran Indybay.org reporter who goes by the nom de plume “Dave Id.” Mr. Morse alleges that as he was newsgathering, BART Deputy Police Chief Dan Hartwig singled him out for immediate arrest by pointing in his direction and saying, “him.”
Mr. Morse was the first of several people to be arrested in such a manner that night. He believes that he was singled out because of numerous articles critical of BART police that he has published since the January 1, 2009 killing of Oscar Grant. Mr. Morse has reported that Deputy Chief Hartwig knows that he is a journalist, and he also notes that upon being isolated from the main group of detainees he was asked by another officer whether he was “Dave Id.” If Mr. Morse is correct that he was targeted for arrest based on articles critical of BART police, such action would constitute a grave violation of the First Amendment.
Additionally, BART police unnecessarily detained reporters regardless of whether they displayed police or non-police press credentials. In certain cases, BART police refused to release journalists even after being informed that they were present to document the protest on behalf of media outlets. For example, San Francisco Chronicle reporter Vivian Ho was placed in handcuffs after officers were made aware that she was present at the demonstration solely in her capacity as a journalist.
After roughly 30 minutes, BART police made the decision to release journalists who possessed San Francisco Police Department credentials. However, these journalists were not allowed to remain on the scene. And, in a highly unusual move, BART police directed SFPD officers to confiscate these journalists’ credentials, an unnecessary and seemingly punitive action that SFPD media relations director Troy Dangerfield later described as an error that violated SFPD protocol.
Read More |
Indybay Journalist Arrested at #NoFare BART Protest in Powell Street Station |
League of Pissed Off Voters with #NoFare Protest Arrestee Dave Id of Indybay & Rebecca Bowe of SFBG |
A Talk Show With Arrested Protesters From The NoFare Protest At Powell BART Station
See Also:
 BART Police Oversight Pushed Along in Assembly Committee on Public Safety Hearing, 9/27/11 |
BART Board Meeting Police-Related Matters - No Mobile Phone Policy, Indybay Arrest, 9/22/11
Previous Related Indybay Feature:
No Justice No BART and Allies Call for "Spare the Fare" Protest in Powell Street BART
In this eleventh installment in the series “Hidden in Plain Sight” Peter M writes about Maureen Gosling. Gosling is a documentary filmmaker who worked for many years with Les Blank of Flower Films. On her own she made the award-winning film Blossoms of Fire, which deals with a community in the Mexican Isthmus were women play a special role. She is currently working on a film about fabric hand-dyed by women in Mali that is becoming a cultural phenomenon.
"The media is very powerful," Gosling said in a TV interview, "and people are finding it easier to make their own stories now, which I think is great. Because a lot of times as a girl, as a young woman growing up, you wonder if your story is interesting or if you have anything to say. It’s really important to be able to see your own face on television. Because we are affected by what we see on television, it has a big impact. It can make you feel good about yourself, or it can make you feel really bad about yourself. We see the same stories over and over again on television, in the movies. And there’s room for your story. The world needs your story." Read Full Story and View Photo | Previous Chapters
On February 22nd, Indybay reporter Mark Burdett filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court in a federal civil rights lawsuit stemming from his 2004 arrest for "jaywalking" while covering an antiwar protest in San Francisco. The story was featured on the February 23rd episode of The Colbert Report.
In a series of recent civil rights cases, the U.S. Supreme Court has permitted the "custodial arrest" of people for petty offenses. In an October 2010 ruling on Burdett's appeal, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals carried this precedent to the extreme, finding that police have absolute probable cause to arrest a credentialed reporter for "jaywalking," while standing in a parking turnout, on a street blocked to traffic, during an antiwar march, filming the violent arrest of a protester.
 Read More |
 The Colbert Report Video
Previous Related Indybay Feature: Ninth Circuit Decision Limits Freedom of the Press
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