It doesn't seem like they have many donations yet maybe some can help

http://www.youcaring.com/other/please-help-to-raise-funds-to-protect-artists-free-speech-/266490

this case is ridiculous.

I hadn't seen this.

This is not the country I grew up in.

I know what you mean though, I often will think the teaparty racism is out of this world, but my Black friends will remind me it is nothing new, to them

Though I think that is just more people have no problem being overtly racist. I mean everything.

Though, you're right. We have just had periods of hope and we made it seem like reality. Clearly, we were wrong

How many laws bankers broke, how many people were hurt, and they get away with it? But that helped white people and white owned corporations. So let's jail an innocent black artist for life.

I'm glad the ACLU is getting involved.

Becoming involved. I will have to check out more on the ACLU sites tomorrow because I have now read both, that they already are and that they are considering it.

Which is, perhaps, for the best: If I remain silent, I can't be arrested.

CCA has to fill those quotas somehow, and corporations have to have access to that sweet, sweet cheap prison labor. Because profit.

States are signing contracts with private prisons guaranteeing that prisons are at 90-100% capacity...

A new report from In the Public Interest (ITPI) revealed last week that private prison companies are striking deals with states that contain clauses guaranteeing high prison occupancy rates. The report, “Criminal: How Lockup Quotas and ‘Low-Crime Taxes’ Guarantee Profits for Private Prison Corporations,” documents the contracts exchanged between private prison companies and state and local governments that either guarantee prison occupancy rates (essentially creating inmate lockup quotas) or force taxpayers to pay for empty beds if the prison population decreases due to lower crime rates or other factors (essentially creating low-crime taxes).

Some of these contracts require 90 to 100 percent prison occupancy.


http://www.salon.com/2013/09/23/6_shocking_revelations_about_how_private_prisons_make_money_partner/

Hope his lawyer is in contact with the ACLU. Bullshit on stilts and steroids this is, and unconstitutional as applied, to boot.

But with this SCOTUS, I wouldn't be shocked if they decided it was not against the Constitution

I'm not sure it won't go anywhere. Won't be surprised if he is convicted and has to appeal

In rap it's an old joke that these guys lie like crazy in their rap lyrics, trying to seem like gangsters when many of them weren't.

Blatant 1st Amendment violation.

The San Diego County district attorney’s office declined to comment on the case to the Guardian, instead pointing to comments by the gangs division chief prosecutor, Dana Greisen, asserting: “Rap music, it’s just another form of communication that gang members use” in furtherance of their crimes, I wondered what form of communication the Wall Street thieves use in the furtherance of their crimes.

This is unbelievable and unconstitutional. The prosecutor needs to find some real crimes to prosecute.

Don't know about the rest of you, but I find this case extremely scary and chilling.

It's very frightening

They have two goals; stay in office and get rid of MMJ.


Same set of fascists who tried to prosecute the guy for writing on the sidewalk with sidewalk chalk in front of BoA.

Something is WAY wrong in that shithole of a place. A couple of years ago a young woman was bound and hanged over a balcony and San Diego called it a suicide! It was so absurd that they cooked up some ridiculous demonstration of a police woman binding herself and then hooping toward an imaginary balcony. It was an horrific murder but any of the possible perps were filthy rich and untouchable. Now they go after this poor guy for fucking NOTHING, and he's sitting jail because they set the bail so that he can't get out - also unconstitutional.

God, this country is sooooooo fucked up. If I didn't have four dogs I would sell everything right now and move to India.

If we have too much free speech...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6005635

Are you arguing in favor of this?

Free speech should include everything it always has. The examples listed in the post you linked to either should be protected, or are not. Free speech does not include ruining someone's life. Their are laws against smearing someone with untruths and against smearing people not in the public.

When you start picking and choosing what is covered, you diminish the freedom.

Slander is one thing but to censor just because you dislike what the person us saying is wrong.

The picking and choosing gives situations like this where a person is sent to jail for a song...

I obviously, agree with that.

drug cartels -- gangs in street parlance -- be in jail for supporting gangs?

Are they?

Their Governor, whom I once admired, seems more and more to be just another idiot.

This ''judge'' is a clown.

And this ''law'' is SHIT -- Fascist Madness.

And I agree with you. Thanks for the Chomsky link!

eom

This is local BS. It won't go anywhere.

I assume gang members who shoot each other aren't using guns and bullets they made themselves. If they are paying money for guns and bullets than under California law the manufacturers are benefitting from gang violence. Right?

Slam the entire state over the actions of a few? I thought we didn't do the "regional bias" thing here. Or has that rule changed?

I agree the law is stupid and the dipshits who are trying to enforce it even more so; but to say "this is somehow completely California" is a bit over the top.

Ridiculous.

Has their "proof " He grew up in an area that had lots of gang activity. It's bullshit. There's no concrete proof and there is much to prove he never was.

I can't believe anyone that is charged with upholding the constitution actually applied this law like this.

I wonder why they'd push a losing case. Maybe they want to show how absurd the law is and get it declared unconstitutional.

Then there is the concept of proving anyone is a "gang member." That isn't going to be easy as gangs don't have membership cards. And who could testify would be a problem. Other gang members won't.

Sounds like another one of those dopey California propositions that passes - maybe there is something to be said for leaving it to a legislature.

Notwithstanding subdivisions (a) or (b) of Section 182, any person who actively participates in any criminal street gang, as defined in subdivision (f) of Section 186.22, with knowledge that its members engage in or have engaged in a pattern of criminal gang activity, as defined in subdivision (e) of Section 186.22, and who willfully promotes, furthers, assists, or benefits from any felonious criminal conduct by members of that gang is guilty of conspiracy to commit that felony and may be punished as specified in subdivision (a) of Section 182 - See more at: http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/cacode/PEN/3/1/7/8/s182.5#sthash.4XdbX2sT.dpuf

I actually meant to do that then just spaced. I appreciate it.

Guilt-by-association laws are getting too common in criminal codes. This is a horrific example. The structure of this law is this: If you belong to group A (a gang), and members of group A commit a crime, and you benefit in any way from that crime, then you commit a crime too. Obviously that is unjust. By that logic I should be punished because I am a citizen of the US, US citizens murdered countless Native Americans during the western expansion, and I benefitted from that expansion because I liked growing up in California.

I have a real problem with these laws. Especially when it comes to gangs. There are places where you either join or you die. Some have the strength and fortitude to fight it. But some that do, die.

One of my mother's favorite students fought joining a gang. Fought hard. Had a bright future ahead of him. He was gunned down in the street in his junior year of high school, with his sister by his side, because he refused to join the gang that killed him.

When you start convicting everyone for everything that is near them, you make everyone criminals.

Well-said. Another plague on our criminal justice system are presumption-of-guilt laws. The idea of these laws is that if you aren't getting enough convictions for some crime, you make the appearance of the crime itself criminal. So, for example, in Kansas having a gun close to your illegal drugs gets you many additional years in prison even if (as happened in one publicized case) the gun was clearly not being used for any criminal purpose.

We're already a police state. It's all about, and always about, the money.

That was another scary case, the one in Kansas.

Thank you.

Two of which are defined in other sections which could have other elements to prove.

Defense attorneys have a lot to work with here.

Their Citizens United legalization of buying elections are literally killing thousands of poor people every day.

I've heard some shit today, but this…

While I agree there's a lot like Citizens United to be pissed about, your comment leaves the impression that the guy has already been convicted, and that conviction upheld by the SCOTUS, when his first trial isn't even over yet.

The fact that so many civil liberties were affected by CU allows this law to be used against people like this rapper, who I have not judged.

Any superseding law that makes song lyrics or performance such as this rapper's able to be prosecuted comes as a DIRECT result of degrading our constitutional rights, which CU did in a HEART BEAT.

For that, you should be most concerned, unless protection of the People doesn't bother you, nor pissing all over the balance of government by killing off your civil rights, one by one.

It sure bothers me. It entirely goes against the balance of law when this country was forged with those rights.

amendment case for striking down the law that is being used to prosecute this rapper.

The whole interaction between saying that corporations are people and money is free speech is actually is the hallmark of coup d'é·tat for American representative government. It's actually an act of terrorism. Just who in the world do you think is the living entity here whose rights are being protected? The corporation?

"Hey, corporation… let's shoot some baskets… Let's go see a play!" Sorry, it just doesn't work that way... They don't have the equivalency! In fact, they have more rights than we do at this ruling. In fact WE pay more taxes than corporations do. I am totally not getting you on that point.

More people need to sign. This vague bs has no place in law.

is getting sicker and sicker. The plutocrats are getting more fearful of dissent against their robber baron/slave plantation system that is called democracy in amerikkka, small d intended.

A democracy for a very long time.

And all Native Councils.

We were modeled after Rome. If you want to see our future, it is written in the past.

I remember when we (my friends and I) started talking about the signs we were seeing and comparing them to the fall of the Roman Empire. I was in high school and Reagan was president.

I had a friend back then from Iran. He was already too Westernized. I lost him. I hope the government didn't send him into that hell. I mean; this guy and all his natural friends were all for revolution. I don't think any were prepared for how far, or what direction it went. They just wanted to be off from under the Shah.

That could happen here. There is so much anger and anxiety on both sides it is frightening at times.

The anger, the resentment. It's sometimes palpable

I had a friend from Iran as well. His parents were caught in Iran during a visit home. He and his brother lived alone in their house in the suburbs, doing all the things they were supposed to do, not knowing if they would ever see their parents again. I don't know what happened to him. Never heard anything after high school

It really is getting scary, and even if you want change there is so much pent up hostility that it is hard to call this place home short of admitting you have a dysfunctional family.

All change is an attempt at problem solving. With out the hate, the anger, the frustration and violence many people will say they have no problem and no need for change. We have to learn to talk about change to avoid violence and mindless revolution. We still need revolution, but the constitution was revolution too, and that was written under the protection of the failed government. We need that.

But in spite of. There are obviously things within the constitution that need to be changed, deleted but the biggest problem has been on the bad interpretation of and the neglect to change with the times.

I am afraid that violence will be the only way change happens. Not because most are not capable of talking and negotiating but those in power will not allow change
It will have to be taken.

Some of the rights it supports are true rights. We also had to fight a great Civil War to resolve only one contradiction of the constitution. The basic Property privilege issue remains unresolved, and was made worse and more pressing in the wake of war. Consider only that most people in prison are in prison for breaches of property law. We may be violent, but we are also dispossessed of our commonwealth, and yet those in possession deny the people the support of their own land. Entitlements are called entitlements because this people hold the title to this commonwealth, and if that wealth in private hands will not support the government and will not support the population then it must be taken back and re-distributed.

Violence is certainly a danger, and just because counter revolution, reaction actually precedes revolution. Without the South striking first there would never have been a war that was a revolutionary force for the north and a reaction from the South. Same with France, and the same with here.

This police violence is a reaction to a perceived threat that will only grow worse as summer comes.

To understand the process of revolution, it is only a changing of forms, of failed forms for new and working model of the same basic structures. This is not rocket science, but it does require some philosophy. Jefferson talked of forms in the Declaration. So we know those people were conscious of forms and consciously changing them. -And the story of changing forms is the whole story of humanity.

Yet these great changes we are called upon to make by necessity happen so seldom that people forget what they are up to. There is always a lot of anxiety involved. There is always a lot of divisive talk about moral forms such as found in our Preamble. That government as a social form- is created for good is an idea going back to Aristotle. How to re-form government without violence is always the question. We have to remember that in the end our enemies must be transformed into friends, and it is never too early for that process to begin.

We want to do good, and must make a government capable of achieving that end. How do we bring everyone along?. How do we not force people against their will? How do we resist the inevitable roll back of reaction that our Constitution represents? If we have the people for us rather than against we can accomplish anything. This is impossible where the right owns the language and most of the means of communicating -as well as the internet. We have to get a purpose right between us before they pull the plug, as I think they will.

I would like to try with the help of others to write a new constitution that forbids privilege and defends rights. I would appreciate your help. Start thinking about it, and begin thinking of these times as revolutionary since they are the most revolutionary I have ever seen.

Property has the right to free speech.

Isn't that so property?

And I read the post on police and steroids. I think they should be at a minimum given intelligence, and psychological exams in depth. What kind of person in their right mind straps on a gun every day and must consider the possibility of killing some one and usually for something that would rate little jail time?

For close to thirty years I put my feet on the floor and said to myself: Today you may die, and then I got up and went to work. At least I could die without doubt or guilt. I did not by my own behavior invite personal disaster. Nor did I risk the life of the innocent. I just did a job, and that is what the cops should do. Punch in, punch out and go home to the family. Round em up if you can catch 'em; and let them slip if you can't but never put the innocent in harms way to catch the guilty.

Very seriously and with respect.

I don't understand what has happened to change that attitude. But it surely has changed.

The truth is always free at my pop stand, but feel free to keep what you already own.

Go up to random people on the street. Read them two sets of lyrics. One from a gangsta rap group, the other from a hardcore Norwegian death metal band. I can guarantee that there's a lot, if not more violent imagery and racism in the latter than the former. It would be interesting to see if people could tell the difference.

There is nothing right about these charges. Nothing.

I would use my right not to recognize the authority of unjust laws and would vote for acquittal regardless of what evidence had been presented.

Too bad prosecutors don't do the right thing.

Only corporations and the rich that own them have any rights.

We are a failed democracy. We're a laughing stock to the world. And it is most likely too late to change any of that.

I guess not here in America. Guilt by supposed association, guilt while being black

DA's and legislators just seem to make it up as they go, constitutional or not.

God bless America, or not

I know we always talk about the laws, cops, prosecutors etc when we post these things. But I cannot fathom what this poor guy is going through. And how many others that don't get the publicity, the good attorneys, etc. Just heartbreaking. It's a god damned nightmare.

I feel for him. I feel for Jeremy Hammond. For all these people suffering needlessly at the hands of prosecutors, judges and law enforcement that don't give a shit about people or the law.

of a vague and ambiguous law to censor and violate the defendant's 1st Amendment rights.

This would seem to be a case the ACLU would find most interesting.

I've now read both, that they're taking it and that they're considering. If it's timing, the second article didn't know that they took it. It could be local v national. I'm looking into it.

But I completely agree with you.

and thanks for the additional.

the media concentrated on Brandon Duncan because it was an easy story to understand. A rapper, murder, life in prison? For what? An album he released over a year before the murders in question happened? Aaron Harvey got out on bond at the same time, and is a newly born activist. I am actually honored to know both of them.

But remember, there are scores of other men you have barely heard from... who are sitting in jail at the moment, some took plea deals. This is the way the DA would like to keep it, and if we can, at reporting san diego, we will not let that happen. I intend to give voice to as many of these stories as possible.

I posted one of them here, one of the hardest interviews I have ever done. Get your tissues, because it is that emotional.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026446148

I wish there was some kind of notification to everyone that rec'd a post.