Conspiracy to incite free assembly

Apologies for another rant, but the current rash of overzealous law enforcement is really getting my goat.

Apparently it is neither out of the ordinary nor newsworthy for a cocktail of Federal and local law enforcement agents to raid some innocuous little house of political/cultural dissidents without having any sort of legal justification.

Well, this month it's more of the same Fourth Amendment mockery in Minneapolis (Again, credit to Glen Greenwald for his ongoing, blow-by-blow analysis): Several houses in the region of the Minnesota Republican National Convention meeting were raided by police and FBI. Computers, planners, notebooks, propaganda, etc. were seized with, again, only building code violations produced and various tantalizing instruments of potential crime. But wait, there's a surprise plot twist in this case: Unlike in Philadelphia, the police and FBI had actually gone to the trouble of acquiring a warrant this time around. So while nothing illegal had taken place and no actual evidence of wrongdoing has yet come to light the police had invoked a previously unused Minnesota statute to search these houses and take stuff in order to pre-empt a "conspiracy to incite a riot."

So were these angry youngsters planning a state coup? A terrorist bombing of the convention center? A riot? Perhaps they were. After all, these days any group of people assembling in public without first acquiring the permission of the state authorities (or outside of the designated "free-speech zone") is technically "rioting".

But if past experiences are any indication, we can deduce the probable outcome of these groups' alleged conspiracies: A lot of people making their voice heard, a few of them willing to break the law. Over the passing of hours, a medium size march dwindling down to a minority of angry kids with bandanas on their faces, who decide not to disperse in the face of repeated threats of arrest for disturbing the evening commute (that most sacred of events) and perhaps even going so far as to break a window of a nearby department store. Eventually the kids are backed into a corner, surrounded by 5-10 times as many riot-gear-clad police armed with rubber bullets and tear gas and efficiently, anti-climatically loaded onto a series of paddy wagons.

The icing on the cake here is that no one really cares at all. Why? Because a certain pseudo-militant-cynical-smelly-activist-Debbie-Downer archetype called to mind by any act of public protest has long since been alienated from the empathy of "average Americans". Conservatives feel deeply resentful of this ungrateful prick (holding up a sign and shouting about politics being several notches above 'not wearing a flag pin' on the Anti-American-O-Meter) and registered Democrats keep an embarrassed distance.

However, while we're all free to pass judgment on the questionable tactics or dubious morals of certain protesters, it's crucially important to provide the opportunity to exercise free speech and free assembly to everyone and then only those who actually break the law should have to expect arrest. I guess I am in favor of that old, out-dated system where you couldn't get arrested until you actually did something wrong.