America's Pussy Riot. Americans Go to Prison for remaining silent and doing nothing.

[i76 1]

And what do the private prison lobbyists lobby for?.... same as the private military contractors, what do you think they lobby for?

America is a the fast track to fascism, Namio Wolf's 'The End of America' should be watched by all.

Their is a powerful criminal element inside the American government... if you haven't being paying attention maybe you should read up on all the executive orders, the patriot act and the NDAA.... if you still think its all ok you are living in denial and fear.

[Mr. Charles 22]

The government (be it any of the several states or the federal government) outsources incarceration to private enterprises who provide the prison facilities, etc under a contract. They're completely overseen by the authorities. The morality/ethics of this are questionable but it's nowhere near the "OMG PRIVATE CORPORATE SLAVE PRISONS" paranoia that surrounds it.

No, there is no such thing as private law enforcement forces.

Read up on this about german prisons and here there are 1 or 2 prisons which employ private companies, but only for the recreational facilities and kitchen :O

[mrcash2009 0]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20178270

Ken Clarke has accused civil liberties campaigners of creating “fanciful conspiracy theories†over government plans for secret court hearings.

Oh no that phrase used again, dear me. One step to a base level, and then another step creeps on in. Not direct U.S but its not a isolated situation, global is the buzz word.

No, there is no such thing as private law enforcement forces.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jun/20/g4s-chief-mass-police-privatisation

G4S chief predicts mass police privatisation

Private companies will be running large parts of the police service within five years, according to security firm head

We follow the U.S in every way so I wouldn't stick to that assumption for the future.

[mrcash2009 0]

On topic in terms of secret courts theme:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20397867

Clarke defends secret court hearings as peers begin debating the plans

Remember the old chestnut "national security" badge. Its when this term has no real boundary based on legislation changes making what is and isnt more broad.

[THX-1338 10]

I do not have the right to judge this girl, because i'm not american and i dont know every facts and customs in their life. But IMHO, the compare with Pussy Riot is not accurately.

What i mean?First, in my opinion, the PR is not political prisoners. Their action was called like "pank-ortodox-faith-prey". How the "left" (communist, socialist, anarchist) political ideas can live with orthodox religion - it's like tolerate ideas in nazi country. Absurd.

Second. There are called somethelf panks. Don't laugh me - are we never saw the panks before it? Can wear pink paints and sing the song like Bieber and tell everyone, that i'm true black-metalhead, and i cooler, then Varg Vikirnes?Absurd again.

Third. If they called himsefl like "femenists" , why they come to ortodox christian prey, if the main ortodox manual for family life "Domostroy" teach to control wife everywhere in with everyone, not so hard, like in muslim countries, of course, but with "sacred" BDSM elements too (your wife want to change pose in sex? What? Give this bitch to face!But do not forget to prey after this). It's like in old russian joke "i'm hate the nazi...and black man too":j: Absurd again and again...

So , PR is not polytical fighters, it's common show-buisness freaks, like merlin menson ,which take their famous by scandals and do not have nothing common whith declareted polytical ideas, it's just show.

So, I'm with Putin? No, of course, his fault in his allow on this crazy house to Russian Ortodox Church (next i called it ROC). Now ROC - is just a company, which take the money from goverment budget on the "patriotic and morality programs" ( in real life it's usual capture the lands, attacks on evolutions theory in schools, religion propaganda and etc.) . The last ears in russia ROC priests take the reputation of pedophiles , thiefs, liers , and , worst at all, liers whith absolute insolence and government support on TV and other pro-gov resourses (because the "raw produce" role of russia and reforms fear do not require the educated people, their need stupid people, who cant to ask question to "sacred" boss). And on this enviroment ROC needs the distraction from their crimes.

The PR action - it's just common hooliganism, the most correct penalty for girls - pay a fine, some money, or in worst causes, just a jail on 15 days.

But ROC started the propaganda , that PR "is west daemons, frighted against morality, sacred russia, sacred ROC" and other religion-chauvinism cocktail of lie. And all forgot about ROC crimes, and started talking about PR, even ROC enemies. And ROC taked their aims.

It's not a "deamons", and it's not an "anti-Putin" democracy-fighters. It's just a hooligans, tranformed by propaganda into deamons and fighters. And nobody looking for a real problems.

So, sorry me for this long off-top, by , how i understood the information, this american girl taked some real actions. And this girl , IMHO, can't be compared with PR, (with my more respect to american girl)

[Amra 10]

Most people in Russia don't give a crap about Pussy Riot, Putin and church. All they care is their own business, wealth and power of their country. Putin, government and church try to meet the wishes more or less. Ephemeral problems are for minority from opposition and will never be supported by people. As all this "Pussy Riot case" convincingly demonstarted. And that is good. Only idiots would be proud to have "democracy" and "freedom" when they have nothing to eat and their children wear rags. And I'm not pointing my finger into some countries, lol.

[vilas 477]

@THX-1338 :

- absolutely right, on common huliganism many artists make PR and their CD sale rate is higher, it is like celebrites famouse because they are scandalists , when one make scandal , one is in TV, his music has better sales and publisher has more $, if they do something very showful, they become victim of "bad system" and selling even more,

one artist play good music, other must show tits, suck *** or tear bible apart if his last record is not selling like first or second disc,

- regarding raw produce - it is the same in many systems, they first try to fight with education, all systems need robots to work, not human to live, cause living human needs holdiays and some sleep and time for fun and hobby, robot is only working and consuming,

Edited November 27, 2012 by vilas

[rangerpl 13]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20178270http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jun/20/g4s-chief-mass-police-privatisation

Just because one guy predicts it, doesn't mean it's going to happen.

@THX-1338 :

- absolutely right, on common huliganism many artists make PR and their CD sale rate is higher, it is like celebrites famouse because they are scandalists , when one make scandal , one is in TV, his music has better sales and publisher has more $, if they do something very showful, they become victim of "bad system" and selling even more,

one artist play good music, other must show tits, suck *** or tear bible apart if his last record is not selling like first or second disc,

- regarding raw produce - it is the same in many systems, they first try to fight with education, all systems need robots to work, not human to live, cause living human needs holdiays and some sleep and time for fun and hobby, robot is only working and consuming,

There's a saying, vilas, "There is no such thing as bad PR"

[pd3 25]

What I don't trust is this link that says "oh she was arrested for not doing anything...the FBI gave her PTSD from cops searching her home"....PTS fucking D can cops coming into your home? Please...

Also Walker, If a journalist wants the news they are gonna get it from an insider, secret court or not. I just feel they don't want to cause the story is a load of bollocks. Buuut find something worth while, trust worthy and non biased like they should be and I'll listen.

Until then I think it's like reading the daily news from infowars.com (Dunno if there is daily news..just the site is a load of nonsense)

As far as I recall, when I had some interest in this story, is that there was some vandalism done during some protests which it was suspected the individuals detained were associated with, either directly or indirectly.

The government was cracking down on anarchists and saw that as a pretext (whether you believe it to be legitimate or not), to make an example of them following the vandalism associated with some may day protests.

The court pre-emptively granted her immunity as a strategic gambit to prevent her from invoking her fifth amendment rights, all she really needed to do to exonerate both herself and her associates is to provide the information requested by the grand jury.

She refused to do this, IMO for obvious reasons, she didn't want to incriminate her associates. She was already granted immunity, so it wasnt an issue of serving time herself for admitting anything, but she obviously knew something, and refused, otherwise she simply would have provided the information and proven how fruitless the endeavor was to begin with.

Normally I would find this sort of legal stratagem questionable, however I really have no sympathy for aggressively left wing activists. They're not rational, they're violent, and obviously willing to justify that violence to the point where they would rather serve time in prison than admit any wrongdoing on their collective behalf.

[walker 0]

Hi all

In Reply to Pd3's post:

All four people arrested by the Grand Jurry and imprisoned were not in Seatle at the May Day protests and so could not be witnesses and hense cannot answer any questions on the matter and none of them have commited or been accused of a crime.

http://www.vice.com/read/leah-lynn-plante-and-the-portland-anarchist-grand-jury-resistors

The most recent information

http://nopoliticalrepression.wordpress.com/2012/09/28/matt-duran-still-in-jail-update-from-yesterdays-hearing/

http://nopoliticalrepression.wordpress.com/2012/09/28/free-kteeo-olejnik-another-grand-jury-resister-jailed-today/

http://nopoliticalrepression.wordpress.com/2012/11/08/grand-jury-resister-maddy-pfeiffer-released-on-continuance-new-date-set-for-december-14/

Kind Regards walker

Edited November 30, 2012 by walker

[max power 21]

With regards to the topic title "for remaining silent and doing nothing..." Do you really think someone who calls herself 'Pussy Riot' remains silent and does nothing?

Second of all, I find it extremely hard to have any sympathy for someone who is affiliated with the Black Bloc. Maybe random riots, property damage, theft, assaults on reporters, and mayhem are your thing. They are a huge problem in my country. Is she being imprisoned without cause? I don't know, but I doubt it. Is the establishment playing into the hands of the anarchists by becoming increasingly oppressive in this case? In my estimate, yes, but guess what? I am so outraged at the behaviour of the black bloc that I don't care.

[pd3 25]

Hi all

In Reply to Pd3's post:

All four people arrested by the Grand Jurry and imprisoned were not in Seatle at the May Day protests and so could not be witnesses and hense cannot answer any questions on the matter and none of them have commited or been accused of a crime.

Which in my opinion makes the whole matter rather curious as to why the feds have such a complete fixation on putting the squeeze on these people.

Even more baffling is the fact that they would give them immunity in exchange for testimony that may or may not be useful at all.

Even more still: Why are they simply not explaining their innocence to the grand jury, making them look foolish and walking out?

I suspect its not necessarily them, but people they're associated with, and this is why they're so hell bent on refusing to turn.

Either way, if I were completely innocent, even if the government had pegged me wrong, I'd not go about pissing them off, I'd give them my honest testimony and then allow the media to do the rest.

Something does not add up.

http://www.vice.com/read/leah-lynn-plante-and-the-portland-anarchist-grand-jury-resistors

In the wake of those sweeps, members of Portland’s anarchist community including Leah-Lynn Plante, Dennison Williams, Katherine “Kteeo†Olejnik, and Matt Duran were subpoenaed to testify in front of a federal grand jury about their knowledge of the May Day action.

And there we have it.

The anarchists overstepped their bounds and the feds are pissed and they're not playing nice.

I'm most certainly not an apologist for bad government behavior, but these kids are in over their heads.

But the Portland anarchists, being anarchists, chose not to cooperate and refused to answer questions about their friends, social activities, and political beliefs.

Clearly their concern is about not ratting out people who clearly may have engaged in some criminal activities, or may bring to light individuals whom the feds might want to "have a word with".

I don't know, if you run in those kinds of circles, you're going to have to accept the treatment that association comes with.

Like any other ideological community, anarchists are heterogeneous in their beliefs. Although some do advocate the violent overthrow of the government, legions of others are committed to bringing about change through peaceful means such as community organizing and resistance.

Irrelevant, once you have associated with a group that is in any way shape or form associated with random violence, property damage, and public threats, especially to the government, you're taking your own safety in your hands.

Sure, there may be "peaceful anarchists" (oxymoron?), however the violent ones are the proverbial turd in the punch bowl.

The big problem here is the fact that even though these kids may not have done anything, they're making it known that they wish to protect (and thereby implicitly support) those who perpetrated criminal acts.

[walker 0]

Hi all

To the best of my knowledge only Leah-Lynn Plante was offered immunity and even this appears to have been an attempt at giving her a rat jacket as a method of coersion, but all that is irrelevant since, none of the persons arressted and incarcerated by the grand Jury were in Seatle to participate in or witness the events, and so none of them can give evidense on the matter. The fact that FBI was spying on them the whole time and knows full well where they were at all times proves this.

Apparently the FBI and Prosecutors are pissed off, because the people they were spending millions on spying on, did not go out and commit a crime.

Kind Regards walker

[mrcash2009 0]

Just because one guy predicts it, doesn't mean it's going to happen.

G4S in UK is a private company that deals many contracts in all manner of security and prisons, so, me thinks that this isn't just a lone nutjob in a bedroom making predictions. Ken Clarke is also defending it not predicting it. Either way i will hold you to that statement.

Anyway just mirror of similarities to this and is a bit offtopic.

Edited December 3, 2012 by mrcash2009

[Dosenmais 10]

Portland’s anarchist

1. I bet every dollar that non of those kids even know what anarchism is or how freedom works and they still think "its some kind of leftwing" BS.

2. Do you guys know what "pussy riot" realy is? I can't like such pictures, but use google to search for their political protest by doing a Gangbang in the moskow museum of biology while one of them was pregnant.(I'am not joking)

3. But they are dead right on that point that "greenisthenewred". "that reveals a lot about the goals of the New McCarthyists in this Green Scare: "

"Stop shooting wolfes"... "sign a petition that someone forbiddes people to shoot them" Yeah great anarchists who wanna forbid and bann and hate capitalism which means the right to own and trade.

Oh come on...

Hey just a bunch of kids who wanna play politics and now felt on their nose for the first time. Read a book you little punks.

[ProfTournesol 956]

Read a book you little punks.

Trolling and flaming as usual.

[Dosenmais 10]

Trolling and flaming as usual.

What you kids don't get is that outside of your little box in whatever western country you live, there is a total different game. And every little touch with this reality you see as aggression against your little wishworld, because it is.

You wanna make confers to "pussy riot"? Better you look it up before. Was Leah Plante involved i a gangbang while pregnant, yeah?

They are not even anarchists, they are a bunch of kids who favor socialism in reality.

"Something Corrupt inhabits the American Justice System."

Yeah tell this all those illegal imprisoned people who refused to pay their illegal IRS income tax.

[maddogx 13]

Dosenmais, did you even read beyond the thread title before replying? You seem to be focussing exclusively on the equation of Leah Plante to "Pussy Riot" in the thread title, which has very little to do with the actual subject here. It's just walker's over the top sensationalism, nothing more.

[Dosenmais 10]

You seem to be focussing exclusively on the equation of Leah Plante to "Pussy Riot" in the thread title,

Did you read my two posts, because if you had you would see yeah i did.

And i "focussing" on that because it showes me again that people have no idea what they are talking about! That things who sound "over the top" sebsational are sometimes just total hogwash.

[dmarkwick 261]

Is there an argument going on because there are two things called Pussy Riot? Context is all, I'm sure people aren't mixing the two up.

[walker 0]

Hi all

Another American will go to prison for not being in a town to witness or take part in an alleged crime.

Olympia man refuses to testify about May Day protests

Posted on December 15, 2012 at 1:01 PM

SEATTLE - A fourth person has been found in contempt of court for refusing to discuss what he knows about those who participated in Seattle's May Day protests.

The Seattle Times reports that U.S. District Judge Richard Jones of Seattle allowed 23-year-old Matthew Pfeiffer of Olympia to remain free on Friday, but he must surrender to federal authorities on Dec. 26 unless he changes his mind about talking.

He'll be held until he agrees to testify or until a Seattle federal grand jury expires. That could take as long as 18 months...

http://www.king5.com/news/local/Olympia-man-refuses-to-testify-about-May-Day-protests-183647911.html

As always follow the link to read the original text in full

Kind Regards walker

[doveman 7]

It seems nuts that the right to remain silent has been removed in "the land of the free"! I know it's been weakened in the UK where on arrest you're now told "You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.".

The principle that it is for the authorities to prove someone's guilt, not for them to force a confession from the suspect (which throwing someone in prison is part of), is an important one IMO. If they have evidence to prove these people aided or assisted a crime, then prosecute them but to imprison them for refusing to tell the authorities something they want to know (and which these people may not even know) is repugnant to me.

[Mattar_Tharkari 10]

I have heard the term "Grand Jury" several times over the years and didn't really know what it was so I thought I would look it up. It's not a criminal process and there is no judge - there are Jury members (ordinary members of the public), a witness, a federal attourney and a court reporter. Someone who receives a subpoena from a grand jury has three choices:

1)comply with the subpoena;

2)convince a court that he or she does not have to comply with it;

3)refuse to comply and be held in civil contempt.

A witness may invoke the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination and refuse to answer a question during GJ proceedings, so the right to silence does still apply, if you think the answer may incriminate you.

However, refusing to testify at all or refusing to answer any questions at all may be seen as civil contempt. Remember a GJ does not determine guilt or innocence and it's not a criminal court. It's simply an investigation, by ordinary menbers of the public and the federal attourney to determine if anything criminal did actually occur.

What happened here was the witnesses simply didn't comply with the subpoena, they could have gone to a judge and asked for motion to quash the subpoena if they felt their constitutional rights were being violated - why didn't they?

I guess anything like this goes against the general Anarachist code so fun and games will result lol. Can't see what all the fuss is about myself......

[doveman 7]

That's just semantics as far as I'm concerned. Any process which can result in you being imprisoned (or fined) for refusing to answer questions is a criminal process as far as I'm concerned, unless we think it's OK that non-criminals (normally called innocent people) can be put in prison.

The right to silence should not just be against self-incrimination (although I recognise that is the purpose of the fifth amendment) and it seems absurd that an accused criminal has the right to remain silent during questioning and trial but that grand juries can imprison non-accused persons for not talking.

Whether in this case the persons concerned weren't advised that they could go to a judge to ask for the subpoena to be squashed or if they were advised this would be a waste of time we don't know. We certainly don't know that they chose not to because it went against their "code".

Perhaps when you're thrown in prison for not answering questions that you don't have the answers to you'll understand what all the fuss is about.

[Mattar_Tharkari 10]

They would have known very well what their legal choices were - civil contempt is not a criminal offence you can't be fined - you can leave jail as soon as you:

a) comply with the subpoena;

b) you have the terms of the subpoena quashed because they violate your constitutional rights;

Being in jail for civil contempt is unusual because you are seen to hold the keys to your own cell, you can leave as soon as you want to in theory by doing one of the above. They would have been informed of this as the length of sentence is as long as the person refuses to make a choice or until the period of the GJ expires.

I suspect some of these people chose to go to jail and stay there as it's long established practice in certain circles that this sort of thing makes you a hero to the activist mob. I would never end up in this situation because in similar circumstances I could say "I dunno, it wasn't me.", backed up with sincere confidence and rock solid evidence. Looks like playing to the audience to me.....