First Amendment Archives - Kit O'Connell: Approximately 8,000 Words

Who Would Jesus Arrest? Conservative Alabama Megachurch Could Get Its Own Police

Oakland Police on January 28. Photo by J. Paul Zoccali.

April 19, 2017

Who Would Jesus Arrest? Conservative Alabama Megachurch Could Get Its Own Police

A megachurch in Alabama could soon begin hiring its own cops.

Approved by the Alabama Senate on April 11, civil liberties experts are warning that the move will mark a major escalation in the growth of the American police state if, as expected, it’s also approved by the House and Governor Kay Ivey.

Briarwood Presbyterian Church, located near Birmingham, isn’t just one of those oversized churches with a bunch of giant flat screen TVs and its own coffee shop. With 4,100 members, and 2,000 students in its own K-12 school, church officials claim neither deputies from two nearby communities nor private security are enough to keep their religious community safe.

ACLU & Anti-Poverty Campaign Sue Philadelphia Over The Right To Protest At DNC

Protest signs hang on a fence blocking access to the site of the Democratic National Convention in Boston. July 28, 2004. (Flickr / Tom Marshall)

June 24, 2016

Kit

ACLU & Anti-Poverty Campaign Sue Philadelphia Over The Right To Protest At DNC

Posted in Archive, Journalism, and MintPress News

The ACLU of Pennsylvania is suing the City of Philadelphia after anti-poverty activists were denied the right to protest during next month’s Democratic National Convention.

The NGO is suing on behalf of the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign. The interracial, intergenerational movement to end poverty is led by activist Cheri Honkala, who served as Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s running mate in the 2012 presidential election.

“We are filing the lawsuit today because the last thing that poor people have is their voice, and we can’t allow our voice to be taken away,” Honkala said in a press release issued on Thursday.

Leak Reveals Denver Police Use Undercover ‘Shadow Teams’ To Target Protest Leaders

In this November 12, 2011 photograph, a row of riot police block a path in Denver's Lincoln Park during the eviction of Occupy Denver. (Flickr / Daniel Holton)

February 4, 2016

Kit

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Leak Reveals Denver Police Use Undercover ‘Shadow Teams’ To Target Protest Leaders

Posted in Journalism, MintPress News, and Occupy Wall Street

A leaked police manual reveals how Denver police respond to marches and other forms of protest, including their use of undercover “platoons” of officers to pick out leaders for later arrest.

On Jan. 19, Unicorn Riot, an independent media collective with several members in the state, published a heavily redacted version of the 2011 edition of the “Denver Police Department Crowd Management Manual” obtained through a Colorado Open Records Act request. Days later, an anonymous source sent them an unredacted copy of the 2008 edition of the manual. The two editions appear to have few differences and the policies described in both versions match the behavior of police toward protests, according to activists and journalists interviewed by MintPress News.

“This manual has been a tremendous help to our reporting in terms of understanding the police apparatus that is deployed at protests,” representatives of Unicorn Riot told MintPress by email.

US Still Bans, Suppresses Books Despite The First Amendment

File: A library in Malmö, Sweden. (Flickr / Susanne Nilsson)

June 29, 2015

Kit

US Still Bans, Suppresses Books Despite The First Amendment

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

Just how free is free speech in the United States? Even though the First Amendment protects freedom of speech and freedom of the press, government authorities and other powerful interests still find ways to suppress the truth.

“Open societies are also no stranger to the censorship of contentious novels and historical accounts of controversial events,” Abby Martin said last year on her show, “Breaking the Set.”

“Now, of course, the First Amendment prohibits the outright banning of books by the federal government, but there are many less insidious ways that ‘dangerous content’ is kept off American bookshelves.”