{"id":7099,"date":"2012-09-05T23:10:51","date_gmt":"2012-09-06T06:10:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/?p=7099"},"modified":"2012-09-07T02:49:39","modified_gmt":"2012-09-07T09:49:39","slug":"why-grand-jury-subpoenas-are-issued","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/why-grand-jury-subpoenas-are-issued\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Grand Jury Subpoenas are issued:"},"content":{"rendered":"

Billed as GRAND JURY RESISTANCE & KNOW YOUR RIGHTS,<\/strong> the public has been invited to attend a panel discussion of recent events surrounding the Seattle May Day street violence and the justice system’s reaction to the same. Those targeted by the Grand Jury subpoenas protest their ‘rights’ are being violated (presumably their 1st Amendment rights) in what amounts to a political witch hunt for ‘anarchists’ and their associates. Yet the rhetoric exposed on Facebook pages belies this claim as activists openly threaten investigatory reporters & photojournalist seeking to cover this news as part of the public invited to attend.<\/p>\n

The following are pertinent excerpts from that exchange from Mike Coday’s Facebook page created for the purpose of organizing and promoting it. The content of much of that rhetoric serves to reinforce the antipathy much of the public holds for those being investigated.<\/p>\n

A panel discussion about the recent raids and subpoenas targeting activists in the Pacific NW<\/em><\/p>\n

Event is free, open to the public and disability affirmative!<\/em><\/p>\n

Join your community allies for a discussion about the federal grand jury process and how it is abused to repress political<\/em>
\n movements and activists. The past few years government witch hunts went after activists in Minneapolis, Chicago and Oakland. Now in the past month, NW activists have been targeted by the FBI;having their homes raided, computers seized, as well as being<\/em>
\n served grand jury subpoenas to testify against their fellow community members. Find out how you can resist political<\/em>
\n repression and support activists.<\/em><\/p>\n

Lauren Regan is the founder, executive director, and staff attorney of the Civil Liberties Defense Center (CLDC). She has worked with targeted communities and hundreds of activists confronted with federal grand jury threats over the last 15 years. The CLDC<\/em>
\n educates and defends activist engages in radical or progressive social change in order to empower effective activist and organizers working to confront the current repressive political climate. Knowledge is power, know your rights in order to powerfully advocate for the change you want to see in the world.<\/em><\/p>\n

Mike Coday<\/a><\/em><\/div>\n
We have camera gear reserved from TCTV through Media Island and plan to capture the event on video. It does seem like an important topic and I would like to commit that we will be able to produce an informative video (or series of short videos) on grand jury resistance, but we capture a lot of footage and are only occasionally able to release a finished product. Usually hours and hours of video-editing for a couple of minutes of video. It’s time-consuming work. MaybeMarylea Coday<\/a>\u00a0and I have some future video project saved to disk, a record of Oly political action, that will allow us to weave minutes from many events into a big project. May have time for that when I retire from work force. All that said, we would like to get out a rough cut of this event to get the word out. Also willing to share the footage if there are video editors out there with time on their hands.<\/em><\/h6>\n