Activists Arrested For Asking Bloomberg A Question Plan Countersuit

Released We Are Change members tell of “inhumane, insane surreal” experience

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, March 30, 2009

We Are Change New York members have described the “inhumane, insane and surreal” experience of being arrested by police for asking Mayor Bloomberg a question and promise that “the full story of this incident is yet to be heard.”

Luke Rudkowski, along with fellow We Are Change members Manny and Anthony, were all arrested on Saturday night for asking Bloomberg a question about 9/11 first responders outside the Hilton Hotel on Sixth Avenue.

They followed orders by police to stay in one designated area and yet were arrested for trespassing and were later hit with the charge of “impersonating a journalist,” despite having Infowars press credentials.

As The George Washington Blog points out today, “The media organization which sponsors Rudkowski is Infowars.com, a website which has many times the readership of small town “establishment” or “professional” newspapers. Indeed, given the popularity of Infowars and its sister sites, Prisonplanet.com and Jonesreport.com, the Infowars news network probably has more readers than all but the largest traditional newspapers. So the issue cannot be one of size or audience.”

Our recent exclusive report about the MIAC controversy became a national story, being covered by Fox News and the Associated Press, amongst hundreds of other mainstream news outlets. To claim that Infowars is not a genuine media outfit is manifestly absurd.

“Rudkowski’s arrest - like Amy Goodman’s arrest at the RNC convention for documenting violence against protestors - is an attempt to crack down on real attempts to question the powers-that-be and to document their actions,” concludes the George Washington Blog.

The We Are Change members have all now finally been released from Manhattan central bookings. They plan to air a live web broadcast at 10pm Eastern tonight to tell the full story and broadcast footage that led up to the incident. However, since the prosecution has seized all three of the group’s cameras and footage of the incident as criminal evidence, new cameras will have to be purchased.

We Are Change are asking all concerned activists to help them buy more cameras and create a legal defense fund by making a donation. They are also asking anyone who can offer legal services to contact bri.wearechange@gmail.com.

The court case will be in two months and the group is planning a countersuit on the basis of false arrest, official oppression and violation of the 1st amendment.

“You can try to stop me, but you cant stop the idea of CHANGE! This is not over by any means,” promises Luke Rudkowski.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/activists-arrested-for-asking-bloomberg-a-question-plan-countersuit.html

Research related articles:

1. Luke Rudkowski Arrested for Attempting to Question Mayor Bloomberg
2. We Are Change Members Arrested: Update
3. Why People Who Question the Anthrax Attacks Won’t Question 9/11
4. BART officer arrested on murder warrant in NY Day shooting
5. Bush Plan for North Korea Ignores Labor Camps, Activists Say
6. Investigative Reporter Wayne Madsen Arrested
7. 14-year-old Wisconsin student arrested for texting in class
8. Parents Consider Legal Action After Autistic Girl, 8, Arrested at School
9. ‘Arrest Bush 2009′ plans Inauguration Day protest
10. FLASHBACK: Shock as top Indian Army officer arrested over bomb attack
11. Woman Arrested For Failing To Return Library Books
12. Father arrested and locked in cell overnight after smacking his son’s leg

NYPD Arrest Luke Rudowski of We Are Change NY and 2 Others!!

Thanks to BOBBY ELECTRIC(ANTI-NWO-HIPHOP)

I JUST CALLED AND THE MAN ANSWERING SAID LUKE IS NO LONGER AT THE FACILITY?

orangeclad--click to add as a Myspace friend


NYPD Arrest Luke Rudkowski and 2 Others

Update as of Midnight EST:
Another number given by the 18th Precinct for information - (646) 610-6700. That number is in addition to (212) 760-8300, and the one listed below. Please do not stop calling until we find out what is happening to Luke, Manny, and Anthony.

And today at 9:00 a.m. EST, there will be a street action held at Manhattan Central Booking, Manhattan Civic Center, 100 Centre St., New York, NY 10007 (212) 374-3921 to show support, inform others, and press for the release of those illegally arrested.

Information is still coming in at this point.

Michael Bloomberg was set to appear at a $500 per ticket function put on by the Inner Circle. (http://innercircleshow.org/infotickets.html) Hilton New York 1335 Sixth Avenue between 53rd & 54th Streets New York NY 10003

Members of WeAreChangeNY News were assembled in the lobby area at the Hilton Hotel in order to ask Mayor Bloomberg some additional questions regarding the first responder issue which continues to be ignored. Requests to meet with our reporters have been repeatly denied by the Mayor's office.

Reporters were stationed at various locations around the lobby and according to witnesses on the scene hotel security and members or Mayor Bloomberg's security detail began tracking and hovering around Luke and others with cameras who were waiting patiently for the Mayor's arrival. Members of both security staffs began to ask questions about who were guests at the hotel and who was press. Orders to "detain" people soon began so that those individuals could be banned from the building. All of the members of WeAreChange immediately complied with all instructions given by the security detail so that they could exit the building but within seconds arrest orders were given. According to WeAreChange camera operators there is video of these unlawful arrests as it appears that in some cases there were no warnings given and some people were simply arrested just for being in the lobby of the hotel.

Luke and the others have been taken to the NYPD 306 W 54 Street 8 Ave / 9 Ave.

212-767-8300

9/11 Truth Rising (documentary featuring Luke)

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9153741586264750761

We Are All Extremists Now

The government is criminalising legitimate dissent under the guise of fighting 'extremism', a word for which it has no definition

By Seumas Milne

February 21, 2009 "The Guardian" -- For most of the past century, Britain's secret state bugged, blacklisted and spied on leftists, trade unionists and peace campaigners, as well as Irish republicans and anyone else regarded as a "subversive" threat to the established order.

That was all supposed to have been brought to a halt in the wake of the end of the cold war in the early 1990s. MI5 now boasts it has ended its counter-subversion work altogether, having other jihadist fish to fry (it will have soon doubled its staffing and budget on the back of the 9/11 backlash).

Whether those claims should be taken at face value must be open to question. But it now turns out that other arms of the secret state have in any case been stepping up to the plate to fill the gap in the market.

The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) insists that its confidential intelligence unit – reported last week to be now coordinating surveillance and infiltration of "domestic extremists", including anti-war protesters and strikers – is not in fact a new organisation, but has been part of its public order intelligence operations since 1999, liaising with MI5 and its 44 forces' special branch outfits across the country.

But yes, Acpo's spokesman tells me, it is in the business of targeting groups such as those involved in the recent Gaza war protests, trade unionists taking part in secondary industrial action and animal rights organisations – though only if they break the law or "seek to break the law".

Now, that qualification could be used to cover a very wide group of political and industrial activists indeed: including all those students who have been occupying university buildings since the new year in protest at Israel's carnage in the Palestinian territories; all those engineering construction workers who staged mass walkouts at refineries and power stations over the past couple of weeks; and all those who blocked streets – or threw their shoes at police – around the Israeli embassy in London at the height of the Gaza bombardment in January.

Add to that the fact that Acpo, and the government as a whole for that matter, bandies around the term "extremism" without being able to make even a face-saving stab at what it actually means – "there doesn't seem to be a single, commonly agreed definition", Acpo's spokesman concedes – and you have a recipe for a new lease of life for the harassment and criminalisation of legitimate dissent, protest and industrial action.

In case there were any doubt about the kind of thing this intelligence outfit is up to, a recent advertisement for its new boss specified that the unit would be specifically working with government departments, university authorities and private corporations to "remove the threat" of "public disorder that arises from domestic extremism" using "secret data" and "sensitive source material".

But since Acpo operates as a private company outside the Freedom of Information Act – and the budget and staffing of its confidential intelligence unit are, well, confidential – who's going to hold them to genuine account?

It is this kind of blurring of the distinction between political violence and non-violent protest that has seen catch-all anti-terrorist legislation routinely abused in recent years. That's exactly what seems to have happened over the weekend, when police arrested nine people on the M65 motorway near Preston allegedly on their way to join George Galloway's Viva Palestina aid convoy to Gaza.

Security sources said the arrests were in connection with a "potential threat of terrorism in the Middle East" — and it seems they didn't mean a renewed Israeli use of white phosphorus and heavy artillery shells against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza strip.

Six have already been released, but the operation instantly delivered a "Galloway aid convoy link to terror suspects" headline in yesterday's Mail on Sunday, casting a shadow over the 150-vehicle convoy, including 12 ambulances and a fire engine, which is intended to transport £1m worth of aid and highlight the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

The crudely politicised timing of these arrests — "security sources" have been quoted as saying the three still being held had been under surveillance for two months – underlines how easy it is to play anti-democratic political games once the mantras of terrorism and national security have been invoked. But the net can be thrown far wider under the even more meaningless badge of "extremism".

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22063.htm

Man Pulled Over By Cops, Visited By Secret Service Over Anti-Obama Sign

Exercising First Amendment could be "construed as a threat"

Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Thursday, Feb 19th, 2009

An Oklahoma City man was pulled over by police and later visited at home by the secret service for displaying an anti-Obama sign.

According to a report in The Oklahoman, the sign, which read "Abort Obama Not the Unborn," was seized from motorist Chip Harrison's car by police officers who cited it as a possible "threat against President Obama".

A lieutenant supervisor later called Mr Harrison to inform him that the Secret Service had been contacted on the matter.

When Mr Harrison returned home he found secret service agents waiting for him.

''When I was on my way there, the Secret Service called me and said they weren't going to ransack my house or anything ... they just wanted to (walk through the house) and make sure I wasn't a part of any hate groups." Harrison is quoted as saying.

The agents interviewed Mr Harrison for 30 minutes and then left, deeming him not to be a threat.

The police returned the sign to Mr Harrison and admitted that it was a violation of his constitutional rights to have taken it, as police spokesman Steve McCool explains in the following video:

Mr Harrison has said he feels his First Amendment rights were violated and is taking legal advice on the matter.

The incident is similar to a report we carried last year detailing how two friends from Las Vegas were pulled over, asked for identification and searched all due to the fact that they had Ron Paul and Infowars bumper stickers on the back of their car.

http://www.infowars.net/articles/february2009/190209Sign.htm

Government Wants School Children To "Think Like 7/7 Terrorists"

Crass indoctrination exercise criticized

A government teaching pack, provided to secondary schools throughout the UK, has been strongly criticized for asking children as young as ten years old to imagine themselves as suicide bombers.
http://www.infowars.net/articles/february2009/200209Children.htm

RNC Protesters Tried on Terrorism Charges Despite Acknowledgment They Didn’t Commit Alleged Acts

The First Amendment is gone in America! Dissent..the right to peaceably assemble in protest is now called DOMESTIC TERRORISM!

HEY AMERICA?!! STILL THINK YOU ARE FREE?!!

February 18, 2009

RNC Protesters Tried on Terrorism Charges Despite Acknowledgment They Didn’t Commit Alleged Acts

Last September in St. Paul, Ramsey County prosecutors formally charged eight members of the group RNC Welcoming Committee with conspiracy to riot in furtherance of terrorism. The criminal complaints reportedly do not allege that any of the defendants personally engaged in any act of violence or damage to property. Instead, authorities are seeking to hold them responsible for acts committed by other individuals during the RNC’s opening days. We speak to one of the defendants, Luce Guillen-Givins, and RNC 8 Attorney Jordan Kushner. [includes rush transcript]

LISTEN/WATCH

Guests:

Luce Guillen-Givins, one of the RNC 8.

Jordan Kushner, an attorney for the RNC 8.

AMY GOODMAN: We end today’s broadcast by looking at the latest developments in the case of the RNC 8. Last September in St. Paul, Ramsey County prosecutors formally charged eight members of the group RNC Welcoming Committee with conspiracy to riot in furtherance of terrorism.

The eight activists are believed to be the first people ever charged under the 2002 Minnesota version of the federal PATRIOT Act. The activists face up to seven-and-a-half years in prison. The criminal complaints filed by the Ramsey County attorney reportedly do not allege any of the defendants personally engaged in any act of violence or damage to property. Instead, authorities are seeking to hold the eight defendants responsible for acts committed by other individuals during the opening days of the Republican National Convention.

In December, Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner, who is also running for governor of Minnesota, added three more felony charges. Combined, the charges could carry a maximum of twelve-and-a-half years in prison.

Luce Guillen-Givins is one of the RNC 8—Luce. She’s also joined by Jordan Kushner, an attorney for the RNC 8. They both join us from Minneapolis.

Luce, when do you go to court?

LUCE GUILLEN-GIVINS: My next hearing is on February 27th in the morning, and it’s a motions hearing on discovery.

AMY GOODMAN: And what are you exactly charged with?

LUCE GUILLEN-GIVINS: I have four felony counts that I’m facing: conspiracy to commit a riot in furtherance of terrorism, conspiracy to commit riot, conspiracy to commit criminal damage to property in furtherance of terrorism, and conspiracy to commit criminal damage to property.

AMY GOODMAN: Luce, what were you doing at the Republican convention?

LUCE GUILLEN-GIVINS: Well, at the convention, I was in jail. I had been in jail since the Saturday before. But I did spend more than a year and a half beforehand organizing with a group called the RNC Welcoming Committee. And we were primarily an infrastructural logistical group bringing together a lot of different people for radical protests at the convention.

AMY GOODMAN: Jordan Kushner, there has already been a case that’s gone to trial that we covered, because it involved an FBI informant. That case went to mistral. What is the significance of the two men who were charged in that case? In that case, what was it? A hung jury? And what it means for the RNC 8?

JORDAN KUSHNER: That’s right. It was a hung jury, and technically it doesn’t mean anything for the RNC 8, because there’s no connection whatsoever between the RNC 8 and those people, even though the prosecutor in that case was trying to tie them to the Welcoming Committee.

But the fact that you had people who indisputably had Molotov cocktails and the jury couldn’t agree on convicting them, I don’t think that bodes well at all for the state in this case, where you have people who were locked up in jail while the convention protests were going on, aren’t accused of having or doing anything that could cause any harm to other people, and yet they’re being charged with felony terrorist charges.

AMY GOODMAN: And, Jordan Kushner, the latest information about an FBI informant within the RNC Welcoming Committee that has just come out?

JORDAN KUSHNER: That’s right. He was an FBI informant and actually was an FBI informant in that Molotov cocktail case, too, although he wasn’t called because of the criminal charges of his own that he’s facing. He was arrested for some violent burglary charges in January, where he broke into someone’s house, assaulted two people. And so, he’s facing felony charges right now in Hennepin County over that. He was the most—he’s the principal informant in the RNC 8 case, the main person they’re relying on to accuse them of planning the destruction of property.

AMY GOODMAN: What will it mean for your case, given that he was just charged in a criminal case? I mean, could charges against him be lessened depending on what he said in the RNC 8 case?

JORDAN KUSHNER: Well, we don’t know right now, because his prosecution is at the beginning stages. And, of course, it shouldn’t have any affect. This is something he did on his own, and it’s actually much more violent than anyone that’s involved in the protest is accused of doing. So I think it would be scandalous if they lessened his charges in that case and let him out of committing violent felonies because he’s cooperating against—in a political prosecution against political protesters. And so, we’ll have to see how this dynamic plays out.

AMY GOODMAN: Luce, did you know him? According to the paper this morning, Andrew Darst, thirty years old, spied on anarchists planning disruptions at the RNC, the paper said.

LUCE GUILLEN-GIVINS: I did know him. He was an active part of the Welcoming Committee for a number of months before the convention, and he was somebody that I saw and spoke to on a regular basis.

AMY GOODMAN: For those who are watching TV, we had just showed a picture of Brandon Darby. Now, Brandon was the self-confessed FBI informant when documents came out showing—was in the other case of the two young men who were charged whose case went to—ended up with a hung jury, so they face another case.

Luce, you’re the—your case, it’s believed that you’re the first people to be charged under the Minnesota version of the USA PATRIOT Act that was passed in 2002. The significance of this, as we wrap up?

LUCE GUILLEN-GIVINS: I think the significance is that this is one more step in the process of criminalizing dissent. Of course, people were outraged when the PATRIOT Act passed in the first place. And then state versions were passed across the country. And it’s significant anywhere that people would be prosecuted as terrorists for involving themselves in political dissent of any nature. And, of course, it’s not about necessarily agreeing with our politics or toeing any sort of party line. It’s the fact that we do have a right to protest. Any prosecution under a PATRIOT Act or any similar legislation infringes on those rights.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you both for being with us. Luce Guillen-Givins, one of the RNC 8. They face trial now. Jordan Kushner, attorney for the RNC 8.

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/2/18/rnc_8#