It Could Happen Here - Stop Cop City vs RICO ft Moira Meltzer-Cohen

Episode Date: October 6, 2023

Garrison talks with defense attorney Moira Meltzer-Cohen about how the State of Georgia is using RICO charges to repress activists.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You should probably keep your lights on for

Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of right. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get real and dive straight into todo lo actual y viral. We're talking music, los premios, el chisme, and all things trending in my cultura. I'm bringing you all the latest happening in our entertainment world and some fun and impactful interviews with your favorite Latin artists, comedians, actors, and influencers. Each week, we get deep and raw life stories,

combos on the issues that matter to us, and it's all packed with gems, fun, straight up comedia, and that's a song that only nuestra gente can sprinkle. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to It Could Happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. This is going to be another episode in which we're discussing the Defend the Forest and Stop Cop City movement in Atlanta, Georgia. This struggle has always tied together a lot of the aspects that we focus on on this show, between the collapsing climate, political escalation, and how everything just feels like it's kind of getting worse. But through that, there's people who respond to this, you know, crisis of neoliberalism and band together and figure out how to sort through all of this shit.

And all that is continuing as the city of Atlanta and state of Georgia unveiled new state repression tactics to chill any resistance to the construction of this $90 million police training facility that we have covered in depth in this show the past few years. A few months ago, there was another three-part series about the sixth week of action in June, but new things have happened since then. The referendum has been submitted, so that is all in process. But the same day the construction was scheduled to begin, the state of Georgia indicted 61 people on RICO charges. RICO is an acronym referring to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. This specific act is meant to legally target organizations. And organizations can relate to anything between, you know, traditional incorporated organizations or something as loose as a pickup basketball team,

which is how the state is able to paint whole communities of people who are just connected by similar values as being a quote-unquote organization. The RICO Act in practice is basically a way to criminalize a whole community. Now, I'm not a lawyer, but I do know lawyers. So for this episode, I brought on Mo Cohen, a lawyer specializing in state repression. So without further ado, here is my conversation with them. Mo, hello. Thank you for joining me today. No problem. It's my pleasure. So in late August, the Fulton County District Attorney and other kind of legal entities with the state of Georgia unveiled a whole bunch of RICO charges against, I believe, 61 people relating to the Stop Cop City, quote unquote, movement. It's a it's part of like, like I said, it's an ongoing kind of campaign of repression that we've talked about pretty in depth before.

said, it's an ongoing kind of campaign of repression that we've talked about pretty in depth before. And but before we get into the actual like RICO charges, I first want to kind of talk about the the raid that happened against the Atlanta Solidarity Fund earlier this year, and a whole bunch of like financial crime charges that they've been trying to use to suppress the bail fund organizing. I think we've talked about this kind of briefly on the show before, but we've never really gotten very much in depth about it. And I, from my perspective, a lot of these RICO charges are very much related to the repression of the

solidarity fund mode. I assume you're familiar with the solidarity fund raid and the charges against, against the, the network for strong communities. I am. Yeah. Do you want to talk a little charges against, uh, against the, uh, the, the network for strong communities. I am. Yeah. Um, do you want to talk a little bit about, about that, that, uh, event? I think that happened in like May of this year, I believe. So, um, it wasn't a huge surprise. It wasn't, I, in my opinion, a very well-grounded or legally warranted indictment

yeah and certainly the way that the the way that law enforcement went in to retrieve those three people who were indicted was a little extra particularly given the nature of the allegations I think people who are accused of financial crimes don't typically get taken out with a SWAT team, but I don't think it was a huge surprise that the district attorney brought those charges because this kind of RICO indictment was anticipated. And those kinds of financial charges or allegations of financial misconduct are sort of the predicate for bringing this kind of sweeping RICO indictment. Yeah. And I think in the weeks and months prior to the SWAT raid against the Solidarity Fund in May, people at the Solidarity Fund were basically warning that they were they were like suspecting that they would that there would be some form of RICO charges used against the movement. And everyone was kind of like preparing for that.

That was definitely talked about as like as a potential like tactic of of suppression. as a potential tactic of suppression. When you say that the types of financial crime, like fraud charges that were brought against the Soul Fund people, how they seem kind of unwarranted, that is something that the judge in the bond hearing kind of agreed with. The judge was unimpressed. Yes. I listened to the hearing

and um the judge was very skeptical of the prosecution's claims and uh basically told the prosecution like if you like actually want this to like succeed like in actual like court you know once once this progresses you're gonna have to have a much much stronger case because this all seems kind of like nonsense uh but you know, that didn't stop the prosecutors and the I believe it's the attorney general office as well of Georgia. That's right. Of using using kind of some stuff from this from this raid against the Solidarity Fund and trying to kind of tie together this grand conspiracy narrative that we now see in this uh in this rico indictment so let's i guess let's let's talk a little bit about the rico indictment at this at this point um so rico is a very like scary word right like this is like i feel like everyone kind of knows about

like rico like in like a pop culture like zeitgeist sense but do you want to actually like talk about like what these types of rico charges actually are because like you know most people even if they're charged with a crime right most people don't ever like have to deal with like rico as like a concept um yeah so do we don't you know if if you're like arrested at a protest you'll get like you know pedestrian in roadway there's like a litany of other kind of basic charges that cops will throw at you rico's a bit more serious like it's kind of it's kind of like a scary ordeal. Same thing with the domestic terrorism charges that have been used the past year.

Yes, RICO is a lot more serious. Yeah, so what exactly is RICO? RICO is, well, it was initially a federal law that was passed in an effort to target specifically organized crime because federal prosecutors were having a difficult time prosecuting these sort of individual offenses that were being committed by dispersed groups of individuals who are all acting, maybe not in concert, but in the service of a larger criminal enterprise. There's a couple of important things that I want to say just up front. Sure. The first thing is this is not the first time that RICO has been used against movement people. The second thing I want to say is that all prosecutions are political prosecutions and RICO is no different. Although federal RICO and ostensibly Georgia state RICO were developed and passed in an effort to target organized crime, that is not how they've been primarily used.

how they've been primarily used. And I think it is really significant to note that after a lot of the people of color solidarity movements, like the Black Panthers, the Black Liberation Army, AIM, the Brown Berets, the Young Lords, these groups were all really weakened by COINTELPRO. And the community groups that remained were then labeled as gangs and prosecuted under RICO. And so I just, you know, everything that happens in this conversation, we have to sort of hold in our minds that this particular movement is not the first movement and not the first community who has had

RICO leveled against it as a form of state repression. Yeah. And specifically Fulton County, it looks like the batch of indictments that were using these RICO charges, it looks like this was, at least according to the, to the Atlantic constitution journal people, this, this was the same grand jury that did the RICO indictments against former president Donald Trump as well. For, for this,

for this, for this batch of charges. And they've used, they've used RICO charges against like young black rappers in the past. This is like, this is a, a thing that the Fulton County office has,

has done before. Yes. And it's like, we have like RICO's, this is like a criminal racketeering thing against the Fulton County office has, has done before. Yes. And it's like, we have like Rico's, this is like a criminal racketeering thing against the mob in terms of like what Rico actually is, like, is, is, is it its own separate charge or is it like a, is it a way to like apply other felony charges? Like, you know, can, can you just be charged with Rico or is, is there have to be like other, other crimes that you're accused of for them to actually use this use this charge against these activists? RICO is its own criminal offense, but it relies upon there having been other criminal offenses committed in the service of a larger criminal enterprise,

or a conspiracy to try to do crimes in the service of a larger criminal enterprise. And one of the reasons that it is so broad in sweep, I mean, federal RICO is already very broad in sweep and Georgia RICO in particular is notorious for being even broader. One of the reasons it is so attractive to prosecutors is precisely because it can capture these large groups of people with very little actual criminal conduct. Okay, so that's kind of one of the things that we'll want to talk about is I read the indictment as soon as it came out, as soon as it was made public um it is it is a long document uh the yes the first batch of it is just like it's almost like a really bad like Wikipedia article on like on like what anarchism is is is how it's how the document starts um and then it gets into all these like alleged uh alleged like offenses that are not necessarily criminal nature but they're all in the service of pushing forward this conspiracy to stop the

construction of this police training facility so there's a lot of like kind of like uh like random almost asinine stuff in there that that they're that they're alluding is is a quote unquote an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy you know anything from like buying glue or buying like food supplies they're they're including or things like like um like writing your name as a cab they're including that as like as as an was an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy which is is is kind of silly it doesn't make very much sense but like these also these is this is like a very serious case as well, though, because this is like, you know, people facing 20 years in prison on top of like the domestic terrorism charges. Well, do you know what else is a overt act in furtherance of a conspiracy?

It is the advertising that allows us to continue this show. It's all part of the plan. So, yes, every single ad is a co-conspirator. So take that, uh, Ronald Reagan coin. Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout?

Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me as the fire and dare enter?

Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished

and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though.

I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough, so join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. Okay, we are back.

We could talk more about the actual indictment in a sec. I do kind of want to first talk about who are facing these charges, right? Because these are 61 people. And it looks like for when I was looking through, one of the first things that you notice is like, oh, they're mostly charging people who have already been charged before. There's not very many new people added to this case. It's mostly people who've already been arrested and charged. Can you kind of like talk about the scope of these 61 people who are included in this indictment? Yes. So as I was saying, the scope of Georgia RICO is extremely broad. And some of the criminal acts that can serve as a predicate for charging RICO are these extremely unremarkable acts that we would typically think of as being very normal protest-related behavior. And some of them are things like domestic terrorism. And so,

some of them are things like domestic terrorism. And so I don't think it is an accident that all of those people were charged with domestic terrorism in the beginning months of this, of this sort of push to overcharge the Stop Cop City activists. And in fact, I think one of the things that tipped us off at that point, that RICO was in the pipeline, was that people were being charged with domestic terrorism, which is one of the predicate offenses for RICO. And so many of the people who are on this indictment are the people who are already charged with domestic terrorism. They were overcharged with domestic terrorism. In my opinion, they were overcharged. I think in the opinion of most attorneys, they were overcharged. They were charged in that manner, not because the allegations against them are serious. In fact, if you look at the allegations in those domestic terrorism indictments, or they're not even indictments yet, most of them, in those domestic terrorism charges, in the documents that are associated with those arrests, the allegations are, you know, as I said, these absolutely unremarkable garden variety sort of criminal trespass allegations. absolutely unremarkable garden variety sort of criminal trespass allegations. By and large,

the allegations against people, they include things that are absolutely lawful, like having mud on your, like having mud on your knees. Yes. Yeah. So a lot of the allegations, one of the things that's remarkable about RICO and frankly about the domestic terrorism stuff is that both of those statutes allow for the sort of bootstrapping of one offense into a much more serious offense if certain conditions are met. With respect to the domestic terrorism statute, a very large number of garden variety offenses like criminal trespassing can be transformed into domestic terrorism if they are perceived to be essentially politically motivated. Yeah. In the case of, so what we have here is a situation where a bunch of people got charged with domestic terrorism, not because they were doing something really dramatic or violent, but because whatever it was they were doing was

perceived as being an effort to influence public policy. So we transformed a very minor offense into a very serious offense. That serious offense then became the predicate offense for RICO, which is an even more serious offense. Yeah. And from my understanding, at least in terms of a lot of the people in the 61 indictments, the 61 people in the indictment is from the arrests that happened at the music festival last March. a lot of us a lot of a lot of those people were only charged with domestic terrorism which is interesting because usually domestic terrorism in georgia is like an enhancement charge but lots of the people weren't actually charged with any of the other other charges yet the prosecutors just argued because we're charging

with domestic terrorism it's like inferred that they must have done some other crimes that we haven't yet specified but in the way that works for the for the rico uh indictments because i think you need to have already have like two like i think there's like a prerequisite of like two other like felonious charges um what they did in in the in these rico charges is go back to the music festival and break down every single thing that happened there that they're alleging these people did as separate instances like like planning to go to the place you know marching to the place being at

the place like they broke it down to have all these separate things so that they could like shoehorn it into this Rico indictment so there's a lot of like you know revisionist history going on here very kind of different arguments than what the actual like domestic terrorism bond hearings it had in like uh previous months um but yeah there is at least at least one person

in the indictments who is new i i think i i think possibly of a few others but i i haven't haven't quite checked there's at least one person which is in a very interesting case. It's this guy who worked at the Flock camera company. I saw that. Who they are alleging was passing off information about where cameras were located. And this is an extremely interesting case because he is not included in any other previous charges. But that is at least one of the people who who are kind of new additions to this indictment one thing i didn't want to mention because you've you've said you've you've kind of mentioned a few times that these are these

are state-level rico charges those are kind of different than federal rico charges um do you want to kind of get into like the difference between state and federal charges and specifically how kind of the ones in georgia at work, the, the federal RICO that, you know, kind of inspired different states to kind of add their own style of RICO. The big difference between the federal RICO statute, which is already extremely vague. I think Scalia said something like, Scalia, who is notoriously not a far left activist, right? Not a supporter of leftists in any meaningful way, I think described the federal RICO statute, I think, as intolerably vague. So the federal RICO statute is already very broad in its scope. It already does this thing that we were discussing of pulling in

many, many people by associating them with this criminal enterprise. The Georgia RICO statute is even more broad. The Georgia RICO statute uses a lot of the same terms, right? A pattern of racketeering activity, right? It uses a lot of the same concepts, but it defines those concepts in ways that are even broader, even easier to apply. So I think the thing that is significant about RICO is that similar to like what we would see with conspiracy, where, you know, not every person involved in a conspiracy needs to have been participating in every single criminal instance of criminal conduct in order to be implicated. They don't even need to know the other co-conspirators necessarily. So that's the case in this indictment. Yes, yes. And that is sometimes the case with maybe other RICO indictments. We certainly have seen some

stuff like gang prosecutions where the people involved don't know each other. Typically, I wouldn't actually expect to see something that broad. When a prosecutor wants to indict someone for engaging in criminal conduct, they need to have individualized probable cause that that individual did the crime. One of the things, and you can't attribute one person's behavior to another person. RICO offers a way around that. Yeah. To use RICO in the way that the prosecutors in Georgia are doing,

RICO in the way that the prosecutors in Georgia are doing, among other things, enables them to engage in a sort of collective punishment of people who they perceive as holding certain ideologies. And those people can be engaged in lawful behavior and even in constitutionally protected behavior but if they can characterize any of that behavior as having been an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy the fact that this person bought glue and was reimbursed for the glue yeah can function to allow the prosecutor to attribute all of this other criminal conduct to the person who bought glue. Basically, people can be hit with charges that are being alleged against actions of other people, but they're all getting like roped up together and they're all facing these charges together. That's right. So you can like the allegation that there is a criminal enterprise allows the prosecutors to associate various people andful acts, even constitutionally protected acts, with attempting to further that criminal

enterprise. And so the allegation that this criminal enterprise exists is the fundamental core of this indictment. Now, you read the indictment And it's, you know, it's laughable. They're making these claims that, you know, if it weren't so serious, if this weren't so serious, we'd all be rolling on the floor. The idea that mutual aid is sinister. Yeah, really, to me, when I read this indictment, I thought, wow, this is just fascinating because what's happening here is that Georgia is saying the quiet part out loud. We all know state repression is real. We all know that the American legal system functions to repress dissent, to impose prior restraints on First Amendment protected behavior, to chill speech, to frighten people into submission, right? We understand that it is

this coercive system, but there is at least a sort of set of rules that purport to prioritize fairness, that purport to value concepts of due process. And the RICO statute, and in particular, the RICO statute as it is being used here, really functions so explicitly to circumvent those rules that we can, that they're just, they're not even trying anymore. They're not even trying to pretend that they care about individual probable cause about the First Amendment. And I would say most frighteningly about the Sixth Amendment, which is the right to counsel, because they have gone way beyond the pale in alleging that things like accessing legal help or accessing bail or having legal observers or, you know, providing anti-repression trainings are in some manner sinister acts in furtherance of the conspiracy. And I am really, I don't know what

will happen here. I really can't begin to guess because I feel like it is no longer possible for me to be surprised by the nonsense that is coming out of this jurisdiction. I don't know what will happen, but I am very, very curious to see how the bench, how the judges in Georgia respond to these allegations that making it part of a criminal conspiracy to provide legal assistance. You know, this is to me like one of the most concerning aspects of this indictment, because as absurd as it is, this could have very serious consequences. Yeah, I mean, that's something people have been talking about with Atlanta for a while now is that because of how many, you know, criminal cases there is around this Top Cop City, uh, like movement, whatever kind of the result of those

cases is going to be, is going to set a very, uh, influential precedent for future, for future kind of eco-defense campaigns defense campaigns future like any anything relating to like like civil rights um you know uh police abolition or even even even things like benign it's like police reform um like any any kind of like any kind of like grassroots activist whatever kind of movement that's going to happen in the future is going to be affected by how these cases go because not only is you you know, as, as, as you mentioned, the, you know, access to bail fund being, being like access to, to, to lawyers and, and, and legal support is being used in these RICO charges. They were also alleging that by

having a, you know, a, a bail fund number on your arm, that was like, you know, that was evidence that, that this, that this person intended to do crimes. And then, you know, as evidence in support of these domestic terrorism know, doing something as simple as marching in the street and now have not only like terrorism charges, having RICO charges for stuff that is very clearly like first amendment activity. Yeah. Um, I think it, it is really fascinating to me, uh, that the law enforcement apparatus in Georgia is basically engaging in really concerted state repression against this movement, which is highly visible and highly be subject to state repression by writing the jail support number on their arm, not because they believe that they intend to go out and do crimes, but because they know that unremarkable acts of First Amendment protected conduct may result in intense state repression, the law enforcement apparatus then responds by rationalizing their repression further. I mean, it's just, we can see the sort of post hoc fallacy

at work in real time. It's not clear to, how much of the hypocrisy is self-aware. Sure. You know, who else doesn't talk to cops? Products and services. I cannot guarantee that. I'm not sure. I'm not sure if these companies have the same standards that you and I have. They don't have shared values.

In terms of our, uh, uh, willingness to In terms of our willingness to talk with the police. But they. You know who probably has good defense lawyers? Oh, yes. All of these products and services that support this podcast definitely do have good defense lawyers. That is true. So listen to their important messages. Hey, guys. Listen to their important messages. Hey guys, I'm Kate Max.

You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together.

You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real inspiring stories from the people you know follow and admire join me every week for post run high it's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all it's light-hearted pretty crazy and very fun listen to post run high on the i, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora, an anthology of modern day horror stories

inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America ¡Suscríbete al canal! network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hola mi gente, it's Honey German and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities,

artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators, sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

There is actually a part of this indictment that I think deserves some very serious attention. Yeah, absolutely. So typically, when we're thinking about RICO, we're thinking about like white collar crime. Yeah. And we're thinking about the use of RICO to target groups that are doing unlawful things in order to profit. This indictment seems to allege that stop cop city activists are raising money to do crime, which is sort of the opposite, right? And as we said, the crimes that they're alleging, by and large, is really petty. And there does seem to be one major act of violence that is alleged in this indictment. And I think we need to talk about it for a second, because that one alleged act of violence

involves the claim that Manuel Torteguita Teran, who was murdered by police, Tehran, who was murdered by police, was firing upon officers. And that is an incredibly central claim in this indictment that really is, I think, the hook on which they're hanging a lot of the seriousness of the allegations. And it is an incredibly disingenuous claim and it's an incredibly dangerous claim um the evidence that they're using to support that claim is the statement of a third party who was not present um it's a regrettable statement uh that they've dug up from some group out you know um you, thousands of miles away from the Atlanta Forest. And there's no reason to credit that statement, but they are using it to support this claim that is, as I said, it's critical to their argument, and it is extremely disingenuous, and it's extremely dangerous for the office of a prosecutor, which, you know, for what it's was an acceptable thing to put into a legal document.

And you were talking about how they're using statements from the scenes.noblogs website, which anyone can submit to. There's no barrier of evidence for submitting to and one interesting interesting aspect that i didn't want to mention is that for many of the kind of the the little like you know accounts that they that they have in their indictment it's it's just referencing people you know claiming that they did crimes on on on this website but they're they are attributing the the either like co-authorship of these claims to the people at the solidarity fund which they've laid out no evidence supporting that. It's one of the more bizarre aspects of this indictment because they claim that every single post on scenes is somehow the Solidarity Fund people are in part responsible for it, which is absolutely absurd. They they've produced nothing no piece of evidence in

support of this claim but that is one of the core parts of their indictment because much much of what they're filling this indictment with you know they're talking about how there's people do you know doing crimes in san francisco in in portland in like minneapolis like all across like new york all across the country right this is part of like the criminal conspiracy angle um which very clearly from my perspective this is you know people all across the country, right? This is part of the criminal conspiracy angle, which very clearly, from my perspective, this is people all across the country who care about a cause. And so they're doing something in their own city. There's no conspiracy to it. It's people taking their own individual action. But they're trying to tie this into the solidarity fund in a very bizarre way. I'll be curious to see if they ever try to produce evidence to support that claim in court. But it's so laughable on the face. You're like, how can

three people with a bail fund be connected to these direct actions happening all across the country? Well, that's not literally what they're claiming, though. Right. And i think this is this is where we see this difference of perspective mattering a lot the kind of distributed network of um autonomous solidarity that exists in this instance is something that is totally foreign to uh people who are very used to having hierarchy in their lives. And, you know, I think I've talked about this before, I think on this show, about the fact that when the far right organizes, they organize in ways that are familiar to police and prosecutors, right? They organize in these very martial hierarchical ways where there's a clear chain of command. Now, often their chain of command is very silly and involves people having titles like dragons and wizards, but it's

legible, right? It's legible to law enforcement. They understand there's someone in charge and there's someone who answers to the person in charge. Having a situation where we have a website that is unmoderated, hosted by or supported by some group and totally open is something that I think, you know, police and prosecutors might have a little bit of difficulty understanding, right? Because it's inconceivable to them that there is not a hierarchy, that there's not a chain of command. It's like, you know, I've actually had to drop footnotes in federal court filings to explain to judges and to explain to opposing counsel that Antifa is like a set of practices and not a membership organization. Yes.

And that trying to address Antifa as though it were an organization is similar to trying to address the world of batman fans right like these are all people who might self-identify in some way but you couldn't really identify them as a group and they don't know each other and they're not so identifying um in any way for each other yeah well, well, and as that relates to the NoBlogs website, they have not laid out any evidence of who is running this website, who's operating it, who's hosting the servers. None of that information is included in the indictment.

So the fact that they're trying to tie this to Solidarity Fund in some way is very bizarre just because there was a link on this website to donate to the solidarity fund but any anyone could put a link there like that's like i i i've put links to the to the solidarity fund in the show notes of this podcast right i'm i'm not i'm not connected to them in any in any other way um so just just have having that be this this kind of aspect and even even if somehow solidarity fund were running running this whole website which there's no evidence they are this feels like it would also relate to like a section 230 case where people who host content are not responsible for the actual like like they are they are not like the i'm not a super big law

person but this usually applies to like social media sites and other places that host user-generated content. The actual site itself is not responsible for the user-generated content that is on the site. There's a whole bunch of various aspects of this claim that don't make any sense to me, but it's very clear that they're trying to wrap all of these no- posts in because that's the most that's most of like the evidence they have which is extremely weak you know it's it's in some ways a good sign that all they have are these anonymous posts on this website with no actual you know um idea of of who made them or if they're true or not um but that's the kind of that's the that's a lot of a lot of what a lot of what they are going off are just these website posts which a lot of these things i don't even know if they could make them admissible um or under what theory because

you know we don't i don't know how they would attribute them. Right. I mean. Look, they're public statements, I suppose they can bring them in just as public statements that have been made. But the indictment is a mess and it is full of baffling claims and unsupported claims and claims that are demonstrably untrue. And nevertheless, I am concerned that they may get somewhere. I don't know. I don't practice in that jurisdiction. I'm not familiar. You know, I've never defended a RICO case, I'm not familiar. You know, I've never defended a RICO case. Just to be clear. You know, my, my wheelhouse is state repression. This is clearly that. But I'm, I'm not tremendously familiar know, I would like to have some faith in the legal system, but that faith has been worn rather thin. And it has particularly been worn thin after watching, you know, all of the abuses that have taken place in this particular case. So, you know, I am really concerned. I'm really concerned about the constitutionality of this statute and of the domestic terrorism statute. I am concerned about what will happen in the courts if this proceeds. That said, it is entirely possible that this is, like many, many criminal cases that are brought in the context of protest movements,

it is entirely possible that the primary thing motivating these cases is an effort to fractionate and drain and distract and criminalize in the popular imagination the movement to stop cop city they may be more interested in doing those things than they are in obtaining any convictions or proceeding to trial. And they may well succeed. You know, look, prosecution is a very, very effective way to undermine movement solidarity. And it's a very effective way to undermine popular support. And it's a very effective way to make it impossible for people to actually focus on their movement goals because they have to spend all of their time doing court support and hiring lawyers and talking to me. And when you're talking to me, you're probably not doing a lot of public education or signature gathering or forest defense, right? Yeah. So, you know, I guess what I would say is like this is a very clear example of state repression.

It is extremely disruptive. I'm sure that the people who are included on this indictment have good reason to be quite anxious. have good reason to be quite anxious. But that said, as I frequently remind people, state repression is not new. It exists all of the time, whether or not we can see it, right? Even if we didn't have this indictment, there would be other things happening. And the most powerful weapon that the state has to quell social movements is fear. And so the solution to state repression is not self-censorship. It is not staying home. It is courage. in Atlanta the past two years is that every time the state has kind of unveiled a new suppression tactic, right? It's whether it's like, you know, increased raids and domestic terrorism charges, you know, all of the Solidarity Fund raid, you know, trying to

compromise people's ability to access bail funds. Every time there's been this kind of new attempt, it has not caused people to back down. It's caused them to actually strengthen their solidarity with each other and keep on going. I think that's because all of these things have been seen from the start as very clear tactics of state repression. It is actually catalyzed people to actually care for each other more and recognize what is going on so they can respond appropriately and not let all of these, all of these very like chilling tactics, but consciously make sure that you recognize that so that you don't let it really like, you know, affect your ability to continue, continue doing the work that you feel is so

important. Um, and that's absolutely been one of the things that's been very unique to watch in Atlanta. Um, I, I think, uh, I think we've kind of covered lots of what I wanted to get into. In case you have any other kind of things of note or any like resources you want to point people towards, I think we'll be kind of close to wrapping up here. I do not do social media, so I have nothing to plug. I think the best resources that are out there are the Center for Constitutional Rights has a website called Surveillance Self-Defense. And I would recommend everyone familiarize themselves with both of those things. And for the love of God, encrypt your phone and use Signal. Yes, absolutely. One of the things about that indictment that was so, that just made me roll my eyes until they popped out the back of my head was this casting of the use of encrypted technology as being extremely sinister. And I thought, my God, you know, privacy is good,

actually. And it's literally in the Constitution. It is, in fact, the case that the government is not entitled to all information about us, which is why we have curtains and doors. Yes, no, there's certainly many, many funny aspects of the RICO case. Hopefully, you know, people, this will all, you know, turn out to be not very legally viable. And in 10 years, we can just laugh about it. But I mean, you know, it's people have been talking about, you know, the increased possibility for these types of grand juries. This was a grand jury in the case of these RICO indictments where they used Special Agent Ryan Long of the GBI as their only witness. I was noticing this. I thought, my God, you only had one witness for all of these allegations? Well, no wonder your indictment reads like it was. All right. Yes. these allegations well no wonder your indictment reads like it was all right yes i'm not i'm gonna stop talking shit about their indictment while recognizing this is state repression there is still like you know an ongoing fear of grand juries and like further indictments in atlanta

because you have to it's very like life and death, and this is a very life and death situation. So there's very clear practices like using Signal and shutting the fuck up, which are very important when you're doing this sort of thing. The one other thing is that for a while after the Solidarity Fund was raided, they were not taking in donations. They were outsourcing it to the National Bail Fund. I believe they are back. The Solidarity Fund website is now, once again, taking donations to help people who are facing this repression for legal support, for counsel, all of these sorts of things. And because this case just keeps on growing, they're always kind of needing more resources to get, lawyers, to get people out of jail, all of these sorts of things. So you can, you can once again, donate at the, uh, at the ATL

solidarity.org site. So that is, that is also kind of new news as of, as of the past few, uh, few weeks. Um, thank you Mo for, for talking about this. This has been very enlightening. It's my pleasure. And I guess the last thing I'll say is I do, as always, want to remind all of your listeners that there is never, ever a compelling reason to speak to police or answer their questions before you talk to a lawyer. And so if they start asking you questions, the one and only thing you need to say is, I am going to remain silent and I want to speak with my attorney. And if they knock on your door or call you on the phone, you can say, I am represented by counsel. Please leave your name and number, and my

lawyer will call you. Yep. You can print off the little sheet that tells you what to say, put it next to your door, join the number of punk houses that have the sheet next to their front door. The Fourth Amendment cheat sheet.

Yep, absolutely. Well, again, thank you, Moira Amendment cheat sheet. Yeah, absolutely. Well, again, thank you, Moira. Thank you for listening, everybody. Yeah, do not talk to cops. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast Post Run High is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. and step into the flames of right. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturno on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get real and dive straight into todo lo actual y viral. We're talking music, los premios, el chisme, and all things trending in my culture. I'm bringing you all the latest happening in our entertainment world

and some fun and impactful interviews with your favorite Latin artists, comedians, actors, and influencers. Each week, we get deep and raw life stories, combos on the issues that matter to us, and it's all packed with gems, fun, straight up comedia, and that's a song

that only nuestra gente can sprinkle. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.