They Got Kat Too!

[Radical_Teen]

Kat is free!!!!! Party

[lastlady]

That is wonderful news! YEAH!!! 

[David]

Woo Hoo.   

[Friday]

Kat escaped, bruised but unbroken!!   

I wish someone had got it on video when Lauren came bounding down the grassy hill with her arms spread wide to hug Kat.  It was, like, the opening credits of Little House on the Prairie.   

[Kat Kanning]

Hi all,

It's good to be out   Thank you very much for the letters (Sam A Robrin, David, Ridley, Mike Barsky, Kelly McG.)  It make it much easier to bear being in there.  Thanks all for showing up and demonstrating at Lauren and I's court appearances, also.

I'm working on 2 or 3 stories for the newspaper that should explain all that happened.  Will post when I'm done.

The world is so beautiful!  Hugs to everyone.

Kat

"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose..."

[FTL_Ian]

Welcome back.  Looking forward to hearing about your experience.

[Dave Ridley]

I'll take all the pics and vid u guys can upload

welcome back kat!

[Raineyrocks]

Welcome back Kat! 

[Kat Kanning]

Here's what I have so far.  I wrote most of this while sitting in jail.  It needs more info about what happened at Lauren's trial and how she was treated in jail.  I'm also working on all my notes for an article about NH Prisons.  I interviewed guards and prisoners while I was in there (though maybe the guards didn't know they were being interviewed - when I asked for a formal interview, they said they couldn't talk to the press and said I'd have to put in a request for a formal interview with the supervisor.  That request was ignored.)  I'll also incorporate info from that Valley St. Jail website - the ladies in prison also had horror stories about that jail.

One of the guards was just back from Iraq and had interesting things to say, but I don't think it fits in with either of these articles, so maybe a small article about that forthcoming also.

Another guard mentioned that he thought the "economic collapse" was engineered for Bush to bring in marshal law.  I found it strange he didn't see his part in that police state.


Is it Right to Work for the Federal Government?
By Kat Kanning

The October edition of the New Hampshire Free Press is late, since the feds decided to jail me for 15 days.  September 19th, my friend and fellow activist Lauren Canario was told that she could return to the Federal Courthouse in Concord to finally retrieve the video camera the feds stole from her a year earlier.  Repeated attempts to retrieve her property had only resulted in repeated games of runaround.  For this trip, Lauren had assurances from Federal Marshal Gary DiMartino that she would indeed get her camera back this time.  

When Lauren arrived at the courthouse, no one was at the security gate, so she just walked in, setting off the metal detector.  For this, she was ticketed for disorderly conduct.  She was also arrested.  Back in April 2007, Lauren and I were arrested while demonstrating inside the Keene IRS office.  Freestater Dave Ridley was imprisoned by the feds at that time for handing out a leaflet in the Nashua IRS office.  To protest his imprisonment and the feds in general, we held a demonstration in the Keene IRS office.  I sat quietly holding a sign that said "Taxes pay for torture" and Lauren stood silently wearing a "V" mask (that's from the movie, "V for Vendetta" for clueless fed readers).  Lauren and I were arrested, ticketed for disorderly conduct and failure to obey, and released that same day.

A year and a half later, Lauren was arrested in the Federal Courthouse since she had not paid the $250 fines from the disorderly conduct and disobeying charges, nor had she shown up for court voluntarily.  She was arraigned that day and held for trial on September 24th.  Her husband was given her video camera, but he considered exchanging his wife for the camera to be a bad deal.

On the 24th, a crowd of 28 supporters protested Lauren's imprisonment outside the Federal Courthouse.  I attended the protest, but when I went inside for the trial, I was also arrested.  Federal Marshals bodily tore me away from my daughter and dragged me away.

At Lauren's trial, she questioned one of the ICE/Homeland Security officers who arrested her in 2007, asking him about the Constitution.  He seemed unfamiliar with it and mixed up the First and Second Amendments.  During the trial, Lauren put up a question for all to see, "Where is the victim?"  The prosecutor argued for the maximum sentence of 30 days, not for any actual harm that Lauren had done, but to deter the whole NH Underground which, he said, had been causing them "consternation".  She was sentenced to 15 days.

One supporter commented on Lauren's trial, "They did not allow Lauren to confer with anyone for advice.  She was without her glasses, making it difficult to see what was being displayed on the monitors.  They did not have even a pencil for her to write notes regarding her case, until I asked her if she had be given one.  She had her black gloved guard seated right beside her, an intimidating presence that would preclude her from any privacy in the writing of information regarding the trial.  The judge made no reference to any of her defense. It was clear that he was ready to find her guilty at her arraignment.  The judge, in his closing statement referred to matters not even connected with the case. He was clearly chastising her for her activism and beliefs."

I was arraigned after Lauren's trial.  When they asked for my plea, I told them:

I'm not guilty of working for an organization that tortures prisoners around the world.
I'm not guilty of working for an organization that bombs innocent people.
I'm not guilty of working for an organization that kicks down people's doors in the middle of the night, arresting or killing them over stupid things like drugs.
I'm not guilty of hurting anyone.
I'm not guilty, but a lot of people in this room are.

They set my trial for September 30th and ordered me held until trial.

On the way to the jail, the handcuffs slipped off me, but no one seemed to notice.  As soon as I arrived at Merrimack County Jail, a woman named Tucker started barking orders at me.  When I didn't comply, she called in Cpl. Saucier and they threw me down to the cement floor.  One of the federal marshals who transported me explained I was a nonviolent protester and they stopped beating up on me.  Later, Tucker went around chanting "I'm no man, but I've got big balls."  (You couldn't begin to make this stuff up.)

They held me in the booking area for about 35 hours when I refused to comply with their booking procedures. They refused to give me a bible in the booking area when I requested one.  The Corporal and Tucker waited until late in the evening when there were no witnesses in the booking area and came to me with about 5 officers in all and a video camera and basically said they were beat me if I didn't book in, so I did for the most part.  I refused to sign their paperwork and wouldn't give them much information, but otherwise did what they wanted.

I was surprised on the 29th to be called to trial - a day early.  My suspicion was the day was changed to avoid more protests.  ICE testified honestly about what happened, with the exception that Commander Therrien claimed there was a "customer" in the IRS office at the start of demonstration, and neither Lauren nor I remember one being there.  On cross examination, I asked Commander Therrien to think back 10, 20 years about countries we'd hear about where they tortured their prisoners.  He failed to see the similarity between those 3rd world dictatorships and the one we currently live under.  He said that he'd been in Special Forces in the military, trained to give and receive "harsh interrogation" and that he'd been waterboarded.  When asked if he considered waterboarding torture, he gave the evasive reply, "Well, I didn't exactly like it at the time."

I called Lauren to the witness stand, which caused the trial to be continued the next day while they brought Lauren in from the Strafford County Jail.  I was able to warn people about the new trial date/time, so 31 people showed up to protest our imprisonment and to attend the second half of the trial.  

I asked Lauren how long our protests outside the IRS office usually lasted, and she said that it was anywhere from 15 minutes to 1 hour.  When asked how long we would have likely stayed in the IRS office if we hadn't been arrested she thought it would have been about an hour.  (It was about 1 ¼ to 1 ½ hours into the demonstration when I was finally led out of the office.)  I then asked how many officers were involved in our arrest, and Lauren said there were 5.  She testified that they occupied the middle of the room, while Lauren and I were on the edges, out of the way.  When asked which caused the greater disturbance, 5 officers in the middle of the room, going in and out, making phone calls, or two women standing/sitting silently, she said the officers caused the greater disturbance.  I also asked her about her military experience and whether she was familiar with the Geneva Conventions.  She was only somewhat familiar with the Conventions but stated that she believed torturing prisoners violated those conventions.

Not long before Lauren's arrest on September 19th, Dave Ridley released a "ridleo", an internet news video on ridleyreport.com about the 2007 arrest of Lauren and I, saying that the federales had apparently been backed down by Lauren and I.  Dave worried the video would prompt an arrest, but we told him to go ahead with the report.  That, combined with the prosecutor in Lauren's trial stating that he wished to punish the whole NH Underground, made me think that the arrests at that time were more politically motivated than being based on any actual harm caused.  I asked to question Federal Marshal Gary DiMartino on the stand, but Judge Muirhead would not allow me to call him .

In closing I said that Lauren and I would have been out of that IRS office in less time and with far less disturbance if we'd been allowed to continue our demonstration.  I explained how the officers themselves caused the greatest disturbance.  I also said that any disturbance we might have caused was overshadowed by the need to resist the grave crimes the government has committed in places like Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  The judge sentenced me to 15 days also.

After the trial, I got to talk to Lauren for a while.  She had been held in isolation since the 19th.  This was for her refusal to cooperate in her own imprisonment.  They were refusing to give her any of the mail that had been sent to her.  She eventually was given one of her husband's letters.  The others were never given to her, even upon her release.  She was held an extra two days for her noncooperation, so wasn't released until October 6th.

As I was leaving the Federal Courthouse, I saw my friends protesting on the street corner.  Two of them with video cameras came up to the van I was in, which upset the County Sheriff greatly.  He jumped out of the van, which was stopped at a traffic light, and yelled at them to get away from the van.  Apparently he thought they were trying to release me with their cameras.

The issues this whole series of events brought up, from Dave Ridley's arrest to the imprisonment of Lauren and I, were numerous.  Do we have the right to peaceably seek redress of grievances, as it says in the Constitution?  Should you work for or support a government that tortures its prisoners?  Is it right for the government to steal people's money through taxation and use it for war and torture?  I say 'no' to these questions, and I'm glad that there are people like Lauren Canario and Dave Ridley who are willing to stand up to resist these abuses.

Lauren's husband, Jim Johnson asks, "One man drives the train... another man loads the car.
And another man unloads the train and another man locks a door.
Another man stands by a valve which leads to another man who fills a tank.
And another man is ordered by anther man to order the other man to open a valve.
And another man carries bodies to a grave that another man has dug and no man can be blamed.

So where is Mike Therrien?  He is the man who collects gypsies who ride the train.

But Mike is different from the other men.

Mike gets to choose who he collects... he has sworn an oath to a set of words that he does not understand... and depends on politicians to tell him what to do... he is obedient to the state.  

Mike could choose to not arrest gypsies.  But, he has no moral code of his own... he serves the state, leaving politicians to bear the burden of his morality... And in what place could morality be better lost?"

[dalebert]

Excellent article, Kat.

For clarity, the first officer Lauren asked about the first amendment (she recited some of it verbatim or darn close to it) and he claimed he couldn't recall. He sounded sincere from the confused look on his face.

The second officer, the woman, said she thought that might be the second amendment and also had a really confused/distressed look on her face.

[lastlady]

It's wonderfully written, I am glad you weren't beaten up too badly. Thank you for your courage. I'm going to print this out and send it to Reno.

[FTL_Ian]

Please post when the final article is complete, so I can read it on-air.   

[Caleb]

Welcome back to the non-caged world, Kat! 

[FTL_Ian]

Welcome back to the non-caged world, Kat! 

You mean the less-obviously-caged world.  Or, the more comfy prison.

[Caleb]

No, I meant the non-caged world.

Some people might be in a comfy prison out here. Kat is free.