You'll have to pry this mailbox from our cold, dead hands. At a time when a disgruntled few are turning up at town hall meetings around the country with assault rifles to defend America from the potential threat of health care reform bringing "socialism" to our doorstep, at least one small town in Maine seems to be saying, "Free markets be damned! We want access to our favorite government service whether it makes economic sense or not."
posted by saulgoodman on Aug 19, 2009 - 48 comments

What is the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO)? It is a private company, financed by UK taxpayers, immune from freedom of information requests. It dictates police operations and sells police national computer data. It may also be engaged in covert domestic surveillance of what it deems as extremists: antiwar protesters, strikers, and others. According to an ACPO spokesperson ""there doesn't seem to be a single, commonly agreed definition."
posted by terranova on Feb 18, 2009 - 22 comments

Fear and Loathing in Denver, Colorado - August 24-28, 2008.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Aug 29, 2008 - 56 comments

An ingenious way to deal with protestors. Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania is taking pledges for donations based on the number of protestors outside their clinic in Philadelphia between October 1 and November 30. They're going to put up a sign explaining the deal to the protestors, too, so they know that more protestors = more money for Planned Parenthood. (via Boing Boing)
posted by cerebus19 on Sep 15, 2005 - 160 comments

And you reckon the USA PATRIOT Act is bad? An American peace activist, Scott Parkin (who I’ve never heard of before but wrote this article) has been arrested detained in Australia and will soon be repatriated to the USA, with little or no explanation. He's spent three months in Aus giving workshops and hugs and undertaking protest actions (with street theatre!) Apparently he may be a “security risk” or may be an embarrassment to the US government - and we couldn’t have that in a proud and independent country like Australia, could we? Of course, while in detention, he gets charged $130 a day. Still, I guess it's better than 'rendition'.
posted by wilful on Sep 11, 2005 - 15 comments

The St. Patrick's Four haven't received the media attention of Cindy Sheehan. Are small pockets of anti-war protests on the rise?
posted by bluesky43 on Aug 19, 2005 - 18 comments

Meet the new watchers California's National Guard has formed a new unit: Known as the Information Synchronization, Knowledge Management and Intelligence Fusion program, the project is part of an expanding nationwide effort to better integrate military intelligence into global anti-terrorism initiatives. Although Guard officials said the new unit would not collect information on American citizens, top National Guard officials have already been involved in tracking at least one recent Mother's Day anti-war rally organized by families of slain American soldiers, according to e-mails obtained by the Mercury News.
posted by amberglow on Jun 27, 2005 - 74 comments

"Stop Bitching, Start a Revolution!" • In the same comic deadpan spirit as his other video, Evan Maloney from Brain-Terminal.com consoles protesters on Inauguration Day with softball questions and Hero Builders toys.
posted by jenleigh on Jan 28, 2005 - 12 comments

Protest Warriors Clash • Gil Kobrin of the Protest Warriors went down "under a hail of black boots" belonging to anti-Bush peace activists. "It wasn't much of a contest. ProtestWarrior's contingent numbered 13, the other side in the hundreds. If they won any hearts and minds, no one said so." Meanwhile, DC activist group Anarchist Resistance issued their call to action: "There's nothing left to salvage in this empire that is the U.S. government. It's time to bring it down." AR is listed as a resouce by the Internet Liberation Front who Kos reported "hacked and defaced six Republican websites" yesterday. Some commentary on civil disobedience by Thoreau & ActUp.
posted by dhoyt on Jan 20, 2005 - 88 comments

Turning Pickets Into Pledges Planned Parenthood has launched a new program that "creates a no-win situation for anti-choice protesters — the more picketers who demonstrate outside a Planned Parenthood clinic, the more donations that clinic receives." This campaign allows supporters to pledge between 25 cents and one dollar per protester -- not a lot of money, but it adds up to thousands over time.
posted by zarq on Dec 23, 2004 - 29 comments

Protests at RNC test appropriate response
An eyewitness account by I Can't Believe Its A Democracy - "I just have to pause here for a moment to make an observation. How many times have I seen an interview with an arrested protester who claimed he or she had done nothing to provoke the police. Almost always my reaction has been, "Yeah, sure." Only now I was seeing this very situation unfold in front of my eyes. These protesters, while certainly noisy, had obeyed police instructions down the entire length of the street. Now they were being treated as if they had gotten wildly out of control, but they hadn't. I know, because I was there."

Another account from Captain Normal (also an eyewitness and even got arrested and held for 24 hours without being charged or being able to contact a lawyer) discusses a family of French tourists caught up in the sweep as well as some of the other residents of "Gitmo on the Hudson".
posted by fenriq on Sep 2, 2004 - 75 comments

Go ahead, just sign it. You can trust us. NY's Mayor Bloomberg offers hotel and museum discounts to protesters as long as they are peaceful. And all they have to do is sign up, add a few personal details and voila! voluntary cointelpro. And I'm sure we can trust Mike with that list. Oh well, at least there's other perks.
posted by lumpenprole on Aug 18, 2004 - 69 comments

Britain - Stamping Out Terrorism. One Peaceful Protestor At A Time. "The Home Office proposes "to make it an offence to protest outside homes in such a way that causes harassment, alarm or distress to residents" [PDF & HTML] This sounds reasonable enough, until you realise that the police can define "harassment, alarm or distress" however they wish. All protest in residential areas, in other words, could now be treated as a criminal offence. The government will also seek to "suggest remedies" for websites which "include material deemed to cause concern or needless anxiety to others"."
posted by Blue Stone on Aug 3, 2004 - 29 comments

Axis of Eve
posted by Silune on May 23, 2004 - 25 comments

If you've participated in an anti-war rally, or helped organize a demonstration, the FBI may have a file on you. The FBI claims that they are only weeding out anarchists and other "extremists." But the ACLU and some legal scholars are warning of a return of Hooverism. Attention pinkos: You can run, but you can't hide, because you're probably on the no-fly list.
posted by PrinceValium on Nov 23, 2003 - 39 comments

Protester dies senseless death. In a demonstration of the inefficacy of the recent protests, a protester falls to his death while apparently trying to hang an anti-war banner from the Golden Gate Bridge, barely a few hours before hostilities begin in Iraq.
posted by twsf on Mar 19, 2003 - 39 comments

Is it all about oil? Iraq war protesters insist a war wil be about oil. Others say no. Here the writer argues that it is both--it is not all about oil but we will control the oil should we take control.
posted by Postroad on Oct 16, 2002 - 51 comments

In a zone of their own. Despite restrictions and police enforcement, protesters tried to make their voices heard. When did these "Free Speech Zones" start. Maybe they have always been around but I don't recall hearing that you had to be cordoned off to express peaceful dissent.
posted by bas67 on Aug 24, 2002 - 18 comments

Eight peace activists were shot and wounded by Israeli soldiers. The soldiers apparently (and I could be wrong) fired without provocation -- the activists were unarmed, and were marching peacefully. Israel's Justice Minister was quoted in the Miami Herald today (no web link available, sorry) as saying, "A person playing with fire should not yell when he gets burned." Essentially, what is being said here is that being a protestor is sufficient reason to be shot. The Israeli army claims to be hunting down "terrorists", but if this is how they define the word I don't feel too inclined to trust them.
posted by tweebiscuit on Apr 2, 2002 - 48 comments

An interesting twist in the trial of a bunch of Greenpeace protestors. The government drops felony charges in return for a guilty plea to misdemeanors and a promise from Greenpeace USA not to conduct any illegal demonstrations in the US for the next five years. Any bets on whether or not the deal will hold, and if we'll see this tactic used in the anti-globalization arena?
posted by jaek on Jan 9, 2002 - 5 comments

Tiananmen Square and labor protestor gets 11 years. Gets out of jail, complains that prison ruined his health, and gets another 10 years.

"Hi this is America calling, are our flags in yet?"
posted by skallas on Sep 21, 2001 - 4 comments

Protester dies in G8 summit clash A demonstrator has been killed amid clashes in the Italian city of Genoa where the leaders of the world's major industrialised countries are meeting for an annual summit.
posted by jbelshaw on Jul 20, 2001 - 155 comments

Inaugural Protesters Abused "'Agents provocateurs' . . . allegedly punched a protester and more than one allegedly fired pepper spray at close range in the faces of peaceful demonstrators." Why do I get the feeling this is going to be a long and painful 4 years? The economy, bankruptcy laws, limits on abortion rights, failure to regulate carbon dioxide; we're only a few months into this administration and already things look bad. [and yes, I've included links to Salon stories; uh oh!]
posted by Outlawyr on Mar 16, 2001 - 17 comments

Anti-globalisation protesters "make me want to vomit" says Michael Moore, head of the World Trade Organisation. Which is funny, since *he* makes *me* want to vomit, too. "Because the poorest people on our planet, they are the ones that need us the most", says Mr. Moore. Oh, the sincerity in his words...
posted by tobyslater on Feb 6, 2001 - 42 comments

Just as everyone suspected, the police are up to their regular anti-protestor hijinxs. DC.imc has an ongoing list, and I just heard on Inauguration Radio tear gas has been used.
posted by capt.crackpipe on Jan 20, 2001 - 33 comments

Michael Lynch characterizes the D2KLA (or whatever they're calling it) protesters as idealistic and irrational. Also there's some interesting quotes and tactics discussion from the LAPD.
posted by dcehr on Aug 16, 2000 - 21 comments