As the federal government continues its aggressive "green scare" by sweeping environmentalists into prison, constitutional rights come under fire. The February 22, 2006 arrest of Rod Coronado at his workplace in Tuscon, Arizona by the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (ATF) for a speech he gave in San Diego in 2003 will test a rarely-used law, as well as the government’s apparent desire to criminalize free speech.

San Francisco civil rights attorney Ben Rosenfeld said “the government has turned speech into violence.” A legal memo issued by Rosenfeld said “the federal government has been chomping at the bit to put Rod Coronado back in prison since the moment he got out, and his indictment in San Diego for an exercise of pure speech is a flimsy pretext to do just that. Make no mistake. This is a pure free speech case.”

Read more here, here and here. More info: Arizona Indymedia
Listen to an interview with attorney Ben Rosenfeld