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News & Blogs Young People Called to Private Grand Jury for Owning Certain Books

K

kokomojoe

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I found this worth posting.

http://thesoundandnoise.com/2012/09/14/young-persons-called-to-private-grand-jury-for-owning-books/

Just a few weeks ago, an FBI task force raided a home* in Portland, Oregon very early in the morning. They broke down the front door with a battering ram and threw in a stun grenade, which is non-lethal but produces a very loud and disorienting noise and a blinding bright light. The team locked down the building and secured the sleepy, compliant occupants. The operation was one of several which also occurred in Olympia, WA and Seattle, WA, involving some 60-80 officers.
Just who were these dangerous criminals, these domestic terrorists whose threat level is so high that an FBI team with stun grenades, battering rams, and assault rifles needed to burst into their homes in the wee hours of the morning?
Why, it’s these two young folks,
Leah-Lynn Plante:
leah-lynn-plante.jpg

and Matt Duran:
matts_press-photos.jpg

Reportedly, the FBI search warrant was for black clothing, paint, sticks, computers and cell phones, and ‘anarchist materials or literature.’ According to an FBI Domestic Terrorism guide published bygreenisthenewred.com, “anarchists are criminals seeking an ideology to justify their actions,” and are “not dedicated to a particular issue.” Common meeting places are “college campuses, underground clubs, coffee houses/ internet cafes.” The implication is that owning “anarchist” literature is enough to indicate to the FBI that one is a criminal – even if that person happens to be a student studying political thought. Or maybeparticularly if you are a student – the FBI document states that anarchists are “educated persons of various backgrounds, often students.”
What even counts as anarchist material? Given the vitriolic US political rhetoric of anti-socialism, you might think a book by Karl Marx or about Tommy Douglas would count. What about someone like Shulamith Firestone? Hell, what about Walt Whitman?
Leah-Lynn and Matt have since been subpoenaed and ordered before a Grand Jury hearing, which is a private hearing used to determine if there is sufficient evidence to indict someone with a federal crime. During the proceedings of a Grand Jury, the defendant is not allowed an attorney to represent her or him. This means that a Grand Jury is essentially a group of twenty-four jurors, a prosecutor looking to indict someone with a felony, and Leah-Lynn Plante, vegan. A Grand Jury is also secret, so we do not know and are not allowed to know what is going on in the courtroom.
Leah was first called before a Grand Jury back on August 2. She refused to co-operate with the jury proceedings, giving them only her name and date of birth. She refused to answer any other questions and explicitly stated she would not talk about any other people. Historically, the Grand Jury process was intended to protect citizens from slanderous or malicious prosecution. However, Grand Juries have been used toisolate members of political activist groups and use the fear of imprisonment to gain information about other groups and persons. Leah was re-subpoenaed, and returned to court yesterday, where she again refused to co-operate. She has been re-re-subpoenaed without yet receiving a date for her next hearing.
All this is because someone vandalized a Seattle courthouse on May Day. Leah has publicly stated that shedoes not endorse what happened on May Day, and that she was not in Seattle during that time. She has made it clear that her refusal to co-operate is not a strategy to protect criminals, but is rather a protest against a legal system which is unconcerned with the civil rights of citizens. Considering that she could be held in contempt of court and sentenced to jail time, we should take what she says seriously. Matt Duran, also subpoenaed and brought before a Grand Jury, has already been held in contempt of court and is currently in U.S. Federal custody. His contempt hearing was made private by the presiding Judge, a move unprecedented since the McCarthy era.
You know, they arrested Emma Goldman a couple times. I learned that from reading about her. In a book I own.
click here for an audio interview on the history of dissent, political repression, and punk in the Pacific Northwest!
You can read Leah-Lynn’s statement here,
and you can read Matt Duran’s statement here.
For ongoing information, check in with http://nopoliticalrepression.wordpress.com/
Updated: Write to Matt in Jail!
Writing to prisoners is an easy and important way to help ease the isolation of imprisonment. Please write letters to Matt!
* Editor’s note – for the past few days, this link was to an article about Leah-Lynn Plante and the Northwest Grand Jury on the National Lawyer’s Guild blog. The Lawyer’s Guild blog appears to no longer have any content posted on it.
 
K

kokomojoe

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My apologies for getting off topic, but how fucking dumb is this. I don't see why it was necessary for them to raid their house. The government can label just about anyone a terrorist and use it to rationalize the actions they carry out.
 

Gudj

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The target of the first raid seems to have been accused of every act of political vandalism that has happened in this town since like 5 years ago. He was charged originally with over 70 felonies, now looking at 10.
You can check that out at http://freepax.org (actually that website is not that informative, but you can donate there.)

The next set of raids is said to have something to do with vandalism that happened on mayday this year, but they won't say who the target(s) of the grand jury investigation actually are. The only thing we know is that Leah, Matt, and at least 3 others have been subpenad and will probably do a bunch of time just for not cooperating. The whole secretive and cowardly nature of the grand jury make it pretty hard to be able to tell exactly who is being fucked with and how, all we know for sure is that the pigs will do anything to destroy the lives and communities of anarchists and anti-authoritarians. More can be learned about that at http://nopoliticalrepression.wordpress.com/
 
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ped

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PORTLAND, Ore. – Two people from Portland say they're refusing to testify in front of a grand jury in connection with three Portland homes the FBI raided last week.

One of the homes that were raided is off Northeast 8th Avenue. Neighbors said they believe at least one of them was squatting at the house.

They say the home has been empty for years until some of them started seeing secret activity in the last month or two. And since the date of the FBI raid on July 25, a sign is now on the door of the house showing the house is owned by a bank.

Supporters of Dennison Williams and Leah-Lynn Plante say the two were subpoenaed to a federal grand jury in Seattle at the same time as the raid. They believe it's part of an investigation into anarchists and other political activism.

Williams and Plante released an online statement this week, saying they will not cooperate and will not say anything to the federal grand jury in Seattle but their names.

"The secret nature of grand jury proceedings creates mistrust and can undermine solidarity ... our passion for freedom is stronger than the state's prisons," they wrote.


http://www.katu.com/news/local/Two-...fore-grand-jury-after-FBI-raid-164832086.html
 
K

kokomojoe

Guest
In case anyone was wondering, Leah's been released.

http://freeleah.tumblr.com/post/33896448680/official-leah-has-been-released

OFFICIAL: LEAH HAS BEEN RELEASED

First and foremost, do not panic.
Leah wanted for us to express these points to you with this news:
  • She is extremely traumatized and experienced a lot of very, very bad things, but she is alive. The state of her mental health is also very bad.
  • She asks that people do not jump to wild conclusions about her release because they do not apply.
  • She spent her whole time in SHU / Administrative Detention (solitary confinement) and was told that that is where she would stay for the duration of her incarceration, up to 18 months. She was classified as “different” from Matt and Kteeo.
  • She received probably near 200 pieces of mail, books, postcards in 4 days (mail was not delivered to her every day) and was glad for it, and knows probably a similar amount is being returned to sender right now. She urges people to step up support for Matt and Kteeo on all fronts. Books that didn’t get to her probably go into the prison library, which is still a good thing because from what we heard their selection is limited to romance novels and religious literature.
  • More information is going to be released. At this time, Leah needs space from media. She is overwhelmed by all the publicity. Regardless of who you are, if you have her personal information, PLEASE do not call her, email her, or try to locate her in order to question her. Give her space until she asks otherwise.
  • She was released the night of 10/17. She did not make it public immediately because she did not want the “media shitstorm” to jump down her throat yet.
  • She is very moved by the amount of support and solidarity there has been for her, she expressed concern that Matt and Kteeo were not getting as much publicity. Please write them, support them, send them books.
Again, to reiterate, more information is going to be released in a few days.
Thank you all for keeping an ear to the ground and for supporting these people.
-mod
 

madcapcat

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It should also be mentioned that these raids have fucking nothing to do with May Day, as it's been confirmed the grand jury convened for the first time in March 2012...you know, two months before the "riot" in Seattle took place.

Matt, Kteeo, and Maddy have all been in solitary confinement since December. If you have a mailing address, please write to them. There's nothing like a letter when you're behind bars.

http://supportresist.net/letters.html
 
L

LeftCoast

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Are there any updates out about these raids?

What is going on in Portland?

I thought/heard that the FBI in portland didnt coem up with shit and it was just a buncha squatterpunks housed up in some abando somewhere near alberta.
 

madcapcat

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I'm actually in Eugene at the moment because shit keeps hitting the fan in PDX. I know Leah and Pax and this entire thing is a fucking shame, it hit our community pretty hard. My partner and I stayed at one of the squats that got raided but left 5 days before it happened, everyone knew it was under federal surveillance. The latest grand jury resister to be subpoenaed from Portland is named Kerry Cunneen, and they (gender neutral) refused to even enter the interrogation room. They haven't been incarcerated yet to my knowledge. You can read more updates here:

http://nopoliticalrepression.wordpress.com
http://saynothing.noblogs.org
http://supportresist.net
 
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Gudj

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Update, two of the peeps held for contempt are out, some people who were subpenad are gone, and the FBI recently came to someones work to ask more questions, like 2 or 3 weeks ago.
 

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