Iron bar hotel, I like that.

I bet the ACLU would endorse torture and capital punishment for anyone who broke into their headquarters and painted crosses all over the walls.

I wonder if they'd defend someone who burgled THEIR offices - "in protest" of course.

In FL we shoot burglars whenever possible, so yea it can get pretty messy/violent at times.

So smearing fake blood on terrorist prisoners is outrageous and attacked by the ACLU, but smearing real blood on a military facility is a First Amendment right.

This is the most incoherent and poorly organized article - it's very difficult to divine what's really going on here. It seems that:

Two of the protestors were previously convicted for trespassing (Dec. 2002), and served a week in jail.

In March, they went right back with two more people and threw their own blood all over the military recruiting office.

They had a mistrial in April 2004, with 9 jurors voting to acquit.

The Feds are continuing the prosecution, but to avoid another mistrial, they're taking it to federal court and have added a conspiracy count, which ups the penalities significantly.

According to the protestors, this means that the gov't is suppressing their speech and the ACLU (who don't appear to be involved) says it seems like the gov't is being unusually, but not unprecedentedly persistent.

Really a non-story, overall, but they certainly were generous in allowing that wacko "independent documenary" film maker (who makes ends meet by painting houses and walking dogs) plenty of space to air his rabid views.

The ACLU isn't involved as of yet, however they just had to put their jabs in. That isn't all they said, they went on to say they think it is the government trying to make an example of them, and called them peaceful non-violent protesters. Don't be suprised if they don't get involved.

I thought the ACLU had more important issues to tackle like protecting our sacred liberties from the outrageous fascism of eleven-year-old Boy Scouts.

I suspect that the ACLU is going to argue that civil disobedience is "probected" free speech...

I think that even Thoreau had his mind right about that... If you are going to engage in civil disobedience, you da*ned well better be ready and willing to accept the consequences of your acts. If you aren't willing to accept those consequences, then it really isn't civil disobedience... it's only an empty act.

Just my $.02
DRK

civil disobedience is "probected" free speech...

Depends...

If these cockroaches did a B&E they just graduated to felony grade crime and need to go down HARD. Period.

If they're allowed to skate on this, every B&E in the future will include tossing a few propaganda pamphlets around prior to looting the goodies so you can claim it was a "protest".