October 6, 2023 • 48 mins
Garrison talks with defense attorney Moira Meltzer-Cohen about how the State of Georgia is using RICO charges to repress activists.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Als media, 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 Copcity movement in Atlanta, Georgia.
This struggle has always tied together a lot of the
(00:23):
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 crisis of neoliberalism and band together
and figure out how to sort through all of this
(00:45):
shit and all that is continuing as the City of
Atlanta and State of Georgia unveil new state repression tactics
to chill any resistance to the construction of this ninety
million dollar 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
(01:06):
sixth Week of Action in June, but new things have
happened since then. The referendum has been submitted to that
is all in process, but the same day construction was
scheduled to begin, the State of Georgia indicted sixty one
people on rico charges, RICO is an acronym referring to
the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. This specific act
(01:29):
is meant to legally target organizations, and organizations can relate
to anything between you know, traditional incorporated organizations or something
as loose as like 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
(01:54):
basically a way to criminalize a whole community. Now I'm
not a lawyer, but I do know lawyer. 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.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
No grab them, It's my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
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
sixty one people relating to the Stop Coop City quote
unquote movement. It's part of like like I said, it's
(02:35):
an ongoing kind of campaign of repression that we've talked
about pretty in depth before. But before we get into
the actual like rico charges, I first want to kind
of talk about 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
(02:58):
about this kind of briefly on the show before, but
we've never really gotten very much in depth about it,
and from my perspective, a lot of these reco charges
are very much related to the depression of the Solidarity
Fund mode. I assume you're familiar with the Solidarity Fund
raid and the charges against against the Network for Strong Communities.
(03:21):
I am, Yeah. Do I talk a little bit about
that event. I think that happened in May of this year,
I believe, so.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
It wasn't a huge surprise. It wasn't, in my opinion,
a very well grounded or legally warranted indictment. Yeah, and
certainly the way that 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.
(03:58):
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 reco indictment
was anticipated, and those kinds of financial charges or allegations
(04:24):
of financial misconduct are sort of the predicate for bringing
this kind of sweeping rego indictment.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yeah, And I think like in like 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 reco charges used
against the movement, and everyone was kind of like preparing
for that. That was definite. Was definitely talked about as like
(04:55):
as a potential like a tactic of of suppression. You
know when you say that the types of like financial
crime like fraud charges that that were brought against this
the Sole Fund people, how they seem kind of unwarranted.
That is something that the judge in the bond hearing
kind of agreed with.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
The judge was unimpressed.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Yes that I I I listened to the I listened
to the hearing, and the judge is very skeptical of
the prosecution's claims and 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
you're gonna have to have a much much stronger case
because this all seems kind of like nonsense. But you
(05:40):
know that that didn't stop the prosecutors and the I
believe it's the Attorney General Office as well of Georgia
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 in this reco indictment. So let's I
(06:02):
guess let's let's talk a little bit about the Rico
indictment at this At this point, so rico is a
very like scary word, right, Like this is like I
feel like everyone kind of knows about like rico like
like a pop culture like it's like geist sense. But
do I actually like talk about like what these types
of rico charges actually are because like you know, most people,
(06:22):
even if they're charged with the crime, right, most people
don't ever like have to deal with, Like RICO as
like a concept, So do it you know, if if
if you're like arrested at a protest to 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 is a bit more serious, Like it's kind of
it's kind of like a scary ordeal, you know, same
thing with like the domestic terrorism charges that that that
(06:43):
have been used the past year.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
So yes, what is a lot more serious. Yeah, So
what exactly is rico. RICO is, uh, while it was
initially a federal law that was passed in effort to
target specifically organized crime, because federal prosecutors were having a
difficult time prosecuting these sort of individual offenses that were
(07:10):
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 upfront. Sure, The first
thing is this is not the first time that RICO
(07:32):
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
(07:55):
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 of Black Liberation, Army Aim,
the Brown Berets, the Young Lords, these groups were all
really weakened by Cohen telpro and the community groups that
(08:19):
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
(08:39):
and not the first community who has had REGO leveled
against it as a form of state repression.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Yeah, and specifically Fultland County. It looks like the batch
of indictments that we're using these preco charges, it looks
like this was, at least according to the Atlantic Constitution Journal,
people this this was the same grand jury that did
the RICO dinitements against former President Donald Trump as well
for this, for this, for this batch of charges, and
(09:09):
they've used they've used RICO charges against like young black
wrappers in the past. This is this is a a
thing that the Fulton County Office has has done before. Yes,
and also 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 it its own
separate charge or is it like is it a way
(09:29):
to like apply other felony charges, like you know, can
can you just be charged with RICO or 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.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
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
(10:04):
in Sweep, I mean, federal RICO is already very broad
in Sweep and Georgia Rica 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.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Okay, So yeah, that's kind of one of the things
that we want to talk about is I read the
indictment as soon as it came out, as soon as
it was made public. It is it is a long document.
The first patch of it is just like it's almost
like a really bad like Wikipedia article on like like
what anarchism is is how is how the document starts.
(10:55):
And then it gets into all these like alleged alleged
like a thing 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 a like
random almost aseni and stuff in there that that they're
that they're eluding is is a quote unquote an overt
(11:18):
act in furtherance of the conspiracy. You know, anything from
like buying glue or buying like food supplies, and they're
they're including or or things like like like writing your
name as Aca B. They're they're they're including that as
as as as an as an overt act in furtherance
of the conspiracy, which is is kind of silly. It
doesn't make very much sense. But like these also these
(11:39):
is this is like a very serious case as well though,
because this is like you know, the people, people you know,
facing twenty years in prison on top of like the
domestic terrorism charges. Well, uh, do you know what else
is a overt act in furtherance of a conspiracy? It
is the the uh, the advertising that allows us to
continue this show. It's all, it's all, it's all all
part of the plan. So yes, every every single ad
(12:02):
is a co conspirator. So take that, Ronald reichen Coin. Okay,
we are back. We could talk about more about the
(12:22):
actual indictment in a sec I do kind of want
to first talk about who are facing these charges, right,
because these are these are sixty one people, and it
looks like for for when I was looking through, one
of the first things that you noticed is like, oh,
they're mostly charging people who have already been charged before.
There's not too many new people added.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
To this case.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
It's mostly people who've already been arrested and charged. Can
you can you kind of like talk about the scope
of these sixty one people who are included in this indictment.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
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
(13:16):
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 stock
Cup City activists. And in fact, I think one of
(13:39):
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 were already
charged with domestic terrorism. They were overcharged domestic terrorism. In
(14:01):
my opinion, they were overcharged. I think 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
(14:24):
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, by and large, the allegations against people, and
(14:44):
they include things that are absolutely lawful, like having mud
on your like having 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
(15:04):
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
(15:30):
if they are perceived to be essentially politically motivated. 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
(15:52):
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.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Yeah, And from my understanding at least in terms of
a lot of a lot of the people in the
sixty one indictments are are the sixty one people in
in the indictment is from the arrests that happened at
the music festival last Castruch, and a lot of a lot,
a lot of a lot of those people were only
charged with domestic terrorism, which is interesting because usually domestic
(16:26):
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 indictments, because I think you need to have already
had like like I think there's like a prerequisitive like
(16:48):
two other like felonious charges. What they did in the
in these reco charges is go back to the music
festival and break down every single thing that happened there
that they're alleged 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
(17:10):
they could like shoehorn it into this Rico indictment. So
there's a lot of like a you know, revisionist history
going on here, very kind of different arguments than what
the actual like domestic terrorism of bond hearings had in
like a previous months. But yeah, there is at least
at least one person in the indictments who is new
(17:32):
I think. I think possibly a few others, but I
haven't quite checked, but there at least one person which
is a very interesting case. It's this it's this guy
who worked at the uh the Flock camera company who
I saw that who they are alleging was was passing
off information about where cameras were were were located. And
(17:54):
this is an extremely interesting case because he is 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 reco charges. Do you want to kind of
(18:16):
get into like the difference between state and federal charges
and specifically how kind of the ones in Georgia at
work versus the the the federal rico that you know,
kind of inspired different states to kind of add their
own style of rico.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
The big difference between the federal Rico Statute, which is
already extremely vague. I think Scalia said something like Scalia,
who is notoriously not far left, yeah, activist right, I'm
not a supporter of leftists, uh in in any meaningful way.
(18:55):
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, you know, this criminal enterprise. The Georgia
(19:18):
Ricos statute is even more broad. The Georgia Ricos 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
(19:39):
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
(20:01):
in order to be implicated.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
They don't even need to know the other co conspirators necessarily.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
So that's the case in this indictment. Yes, yes, And
that is sometimes the case with maybe other reco 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
(20:31):
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
(20:53):
around that.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
To use 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
(21:17):
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
(21:37):
for the glue, yeah, can function to allow the prosecutor
to attribute all of this other criminal conduct to the
person who bought glue.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Basically, there people can you know, be hit with charges
that are being you know, 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.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
So you can, like, the allegation that there is a
criminal enterprise allows the prosecutors to associate various people and
various acts, even lawful acts, even constitutionally protected acts, with
(22:24):
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
(22:48):
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, it 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
(23:08):
quiet part out loud. We all know state repression is real.
We all know that the American legal system functions to
repressed assent, to impose prior restraints on First Amendment protected behavior,
to chill speech, to frighten people into submission. Right, we
(23:30):
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 Reco Statute
as it is being used here, really functions so explicitly
(23:57):
to circumvent those rules, and 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
(24:18):
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
(24:38):
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
(25:01):
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 involve making it part of
(25:21):
a criminal conspiracy to provide legal assistance. You know, this
is to me like one of the most concerning aspects
of this of this indictment, because as absurd as it is,
this could have very serious consequences.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
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 top city of like movement, whatever kind of the
result of those cases is going to be is going
to set a very influential precedent for future for future
kind of eco defense campaigns, future, like any anything relating
(26:02):
to like like civil rights, you know, uh, police abolition,
or even even even things it's like benign is like
police reform, 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 as you know,
as as as you mentioned the you know, access to
(26:24):
bail fund being being in like access to to to
lawyers and and so and legal support is being used
in these reco charges, they were also alleging that by
having a you know, a bail fund number on your arm,
that was like, you know, that was evidence that that's
that this person intended to do crimes. And then you know,
as as evident in support of these domestic terrorism charges,
(26:45):
which is you know, an extremely dangerously legal claim to
to to be to be talking about and we've been
dealing with that in Atlanta for months now, and it's
you know, it's created this really chilling effect on the
ground that you know, you can you can be you know,
doing something as simples marching in the street and now
have not only like terrorism charges, having reco charges for
(27:05):
stuff that is very clearly like First Amendment activity.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Yeah, I think it is really fascinating to me that
the law enforcement apparatus in Georgia is basically engaging in
really concerted state repression against this movement, which is highly
(27:30):
visible and highly legible as state repression. And then when
people respond appropriately by anticipating that they may 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
(27:53):
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 we
can see the sort of post hoc fallacy at work
(28:14):
in real time. It's not clear to me how how
much of the hypocrisy is self aware. Sure, you know
who else doesn't talk to cops? Products I cannot guarantee that.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
I'm not sure these companies have the same standards that you.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
And I have. They don't have shared values.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
In terms of our willingness to to to talk with
the police, but they probably has.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Good defense lawyers.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Oh yes, all of all of these products and services
that supp this podcast definitely do have good defense layers,
that is true, So listen, listen to their important messages.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
There is actually a part of this indictment that I
think deserves some very serious attention. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
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 RECO to target groups that are doing unlawful
things in order to profit. This indictment seems to allege
(29:41):
that stop Coop City activists are raising money to do crime,
which is sort of the opposite, right, And as as
we said, the crime that they're alleging, by and large
is really petty. There does seem to be one major
(30:04):
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 torte Ghita Tehran, who was murdered by police,
was firing upon officers, and that is an incredibly central
(30:29):
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. The evidence that they're
(30:51):
using to support that claim is the statement of a
third party who was not present. It's a regrettable statement
that they've dug up from some group balance you know,
you know, thousands of miles away from the Atlanta Forest. Yes,
and there's no reason to credit that statement, but they
(31:14):
are using it to support this claim. That is, as
I said, it's it's critical to their argument, and it
is extremely disingenuous and it's extremely dangerous for for the
office of a prosecutor, which you know, for what it's worth,
(31:37):
is supposed to pursue justice and not convictions. It is
just intolerable to me that that somebody thought this was
an acceptable thing to put into a legal document.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
And like you were talking about, how you know, they're
using statements from the scenes dot no Block subsite, which
anyone can submit to. There's no barrier of evidence for somebity.
And one interesting aspect that I didn't want to mention
is that for many of the kind of the little
like you know, accounts that they that they have in
their indictment, it's it's just referencing people you know, claiming
(32:12):
that they did crimes on on on this website. But
they're they're attributing the the either like co authorship of
these claims to the people at the Solidary Front, which
they've laid out no evidence in supporting that. That's it's
it's one of the more bizarre aspects of this indictment
because they make every they claim that every single post
(32:32):
on scenes is somehow the solidarity different people are in
part responsible for it, which is absolutely absurd that there's
there's They've 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, talking about how
there's people do you know, doing crimes in San Francisco,
(32:54):
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, which where very clearly
from my perspective, this is, you know, people all across
the country who care about a cause and so they're
doing something in their own city. It's there's there's no
there's no conspiracy to it. It's it's people taking their
own individual action, but they're they're trying, they're trying to
(33:17):
tie this into the solidarity fund in a very bizarre way.
You know, I'll be curious to see if they ever
try to prove evidence to support that claim in court.
But it's it's it's so laughable on the face. So
you're like, how can how can three people with with
a bail fund be be connected to these direct actions
happening all across the country.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
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 autonomous solidarity that exists in this in stance
(34:00):
is something that is totally foreign to people who are
very used to having hierarchy in their lives. And you know,
I think I've 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
(34:23):
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,
(34:45):
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
(35:07):
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
(35:27):
that Antifa is like a set of practices and not
a membership organization. Yes, right, And that trying to trying
to address Antifa as though it were an organization is
similar to trying to address the world of Batman fans, right, Like,
(35:50):
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 I
ifying in any way for each other.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Yeah, well, and and as that relates to the no
Blogs website, like it's they have they have not laid
out any evidence of who is running this website at
like who who is, who's operating it, who's hosting the servers, this,
none of that, None of that information is included in
the indictment. So the fact that they're trying to tie
this to Solidarity Fund in some ways is very is
very bizarre, just because there was like a link on
(36:26):
this website to donate to the Solidarity Fund, but any
anyone could put a link there like that's like, 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.
So just just having having that be this this kind
of aspect and even even if somehow Solidarity Fund were
(36:47):
run running running this whole website, which there's no evidence
they are, this feels like would also relate to like
a section two thirty case where people who host content
are not responsible for the actual like like they're they're
not like the a super big lot person. But this
usually applies to like social media sites and other places
that host user generated content that the actual site itself
(37:08):
is not responsible for the user generated content that is
that is that is on the site. So it's anyway,
there's a whole bunch of you know, various various aspects
of this claim that don't don't make any sense to me.
But it's verically that they're trying to wrap all of
these no blogs posts in because that's the most that's
most like the evidence they have, which is extremely weak,
you know, it's it's it's in some ways a good
(37:29):
sign that all they have are these anonymous posts on
this website with no actual you know, idea of of
who made them or if they're true or not. But
that's the kind of that's the that's a lot of
a lot of what we're a lot of what they
are going off or are just these website posts which.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
A lot of these things. I don't even know if
they could make them admissible or under what theory, because
you know, we don't I don't know how they would
attribute them, right, I mean, look their public statements. I
suppose they can bring them in just as public statements
(38:10):
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
(38:30):
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. Just to be clear,
you know, my wheelhouse is state repression. This is clearly that.
(38:51):
But I'm not tremendously familiar with litigating Rico and I'm
not you 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,
(39:19):
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,
(39:47):
it is entirely possible that this is like many many
criminal cases that are brought in the context of protest movements.
It is highly possible that the primary thing motivating these
cases is an effort to fractionate and drain and distract
(40:10):
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,
(40:39):
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. Right when
(41:00):
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.
(41:24):
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
(41:45):
quell social movements is fear. And so the solution to
state repression is not self censorship, It is not staying home.
It is courage.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
I think that's one of the more you know, interesting
things about what's been happening 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 this, the solidarity fund raid, you know, trying
to compromise people's ability to access bail funds. Every time
(42:18):
there's been this this kind of new attempt, it has
not caused people to back down. It's caused them to
actually like strengthen their solidarity with each other and and
and keep on 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 like catalyze people to actually like care for each
other more and and and and recognize what is going
(42:40):
on so they can respond appropriately and and 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. And that's absolutely been one of the
things that's been very unique to watch in atlant To.
(43:02):
I think, uh, I think we've kind of covered lots
of lots of what I wanted to get into. In
case you have any other kind of things of note
or any like, any like resources you want to you
want to point people towards. I think I think we'll
be kind of close to wrapping up here.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
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 zine
called if an Agent knox YEP and the Electronic Frontier
(43:44):
Foundation has a website called Surveillance Self Defense. And I
would recommend everyone familiarize themselves with both of those things. Uh.
And for the love of God, in crypt your phone
and use signal.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
Yes, absolutely, I love.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
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.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
Actually and it's literally in the Constitution, like 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.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
Yes, no, there's certainly many, many funny aspects of the
Reco case. Hopefully, you know, people, this will all, you know,
turn out to be not very legally viable and in
ten 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. You
(45:05):
know this this this was a grand jury in the
case of these Reco indictments where they used special Agent
Ryan Long of the GBI is their only witness.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
I was noticing this. I've 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,
I'm gonna stop talking shit about their indictment.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
While recognizing this is say repression, there is still, like
you know, an ongoing fear of grand juries and like
further indictess in Atlanta because you have to it's is
very like life and death work, and this is a
very life and death situation. So you know, very there's
very very clear uh practices like like using signal and
shutting the fuck up, which are very important when you
(45:54):
know when you're when you when you're doing this sort
of thing. One other thing is that, uh, for for
a while to the Solidarity Fund was rated. They were
not you know, taking in donations, they were outsourcing it
to the net to the National Bill Fund. I believe
they are they are back. The Solidarity Fund website is
now once again taking taking donations to help people who
(46:14):
are facing this repression, for legal support, for counsel, all
of all these sorts of things. And because this case
just keeps on growing, you know, they're they're always kind
of needing, needing, needing more resources to get people lawyers,
to get people out of jail, all of these sorts
of things. So you can you can once again donate
at the at the at L solidarity dot org site.
(46:36):
So that is that is also kind of new news
as of as of the past few, uh few weeks.
Thank you Moe for for talking about this. Uh, this
is very very enlightening.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
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 please start
(47:09):
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.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
You can print up the little sheet that tells you
what to say, put it, Put it next to your door,
Join the Join the number of punk houses that have
that have the sheet next to their next to their
front door, the amendment sheet.
Speaker 2 (47:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Absolutely, well again, thank you, Birah, thank you for listening.
For everybody. Uh yeah, do not do not talk to cops.
It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
(48:07):
find sources for It could Happen Here, updated monthly at
coolzonemedia dot com slash sources, thanks for listening.
Als media, 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 Copcity movement in Atlanta, Georgia.
This struggle has always tied together a lot of the
(00:23):
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 crisis of neoliberalism and band together
and figure out how to sort through all of this
(00:45):
shit and all that is continuing as the City of
Atlanta and State of Georgia unveil new state repression tactics
to chill any resistance to the construction of this ninety
million dollar 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
(01:06):
sixth Week of Action in June, but new things have
happened since then. The referendum has been submitted to that
is all in process, but the same day construction was
scheduled to begin, the State of Georgia indicted sixty one
people on rico charges, RICO is an acronym referring to
the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. This specific act
(01:29):
is meant to legally target organizations, and organizations can relate
to anything between you know, traditional incorporated organizations or something
as loose as like 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
(01:54):
basically a way to criminalize a whole community. Now I'm
not a lawyer, but I do know lawyer. 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.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
No grab them, It's my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
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
sixty one people relating to the Stop Coop City quote
unquote movement. It's part of like like I said, it's
(02:35):
an ongoing kind of campaign of repression that we've talked
about pretty in depth before. But before we get into
the actual like rico charges, I first want to kind
of talk about 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
(02:58):
about this kind of briefly on the show before, but
we've never really gotten very much in depth about it,
and from my perspective, a lot of these reco charges
are very much related to the depression of the Solidarity
Fund mode. I assume you're familiar with the Solidarity Fund
raid and the charges against against the Network for Strong Communities.
(03:21):
I am, Yeah. Do I talk a little bit about
that event. I think that happened in May of this year,
I believe, so.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
It wasn't a huge surprise. It wasn't, in my opinion,
a very well grounded or legally warranted indictment. Yeah, and
certainly the way that 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.
(03:58):
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 reco indictment
was anticipated, and those kinds of financial charges or allegations
(04:24):
of financial misconduct are sort of the predicate for bringing
this kind of sweeping rego indictment.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yeah, And I think like in like 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 reco charges used
against the movement, and everyone was kind of like preparing
for that. That was definite. Was definitely talked about as like
(04:55):
as a potential like a tactic of of suppression. You
know when you say that the types of like financial
crime like fraud charges that that were brought against this
the Sole Fund people, how they seem kind of unwarranted.
That is something that the judge in the bond hearing
kind of agreed with.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
The judge was unimpressed.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Yes that I I I listened to the I listened
to the hearing, and the judge is very skeptical of
the prosecution's claims and 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
you're gonna have to have a much much stronger case
because this all seems kind of like nonsense. But you
(05:40):
know that that didn't stop the prosecutors and the I
believe it's the Attorney General Office as well of Georgia
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 in this reco indictment. So let's I
(06:02):
guess let's let's talk a little bit about the Rico
indictment at this At this point, so rico is a
very like scary word, right, Like this is like I
feel like everyone kind of knows about like rico like
like a pop culture like it's like geist sense. But
do I actually like talk about like what these types
of rico charges actually are because like you know, most people,
(06:22):
even if they're charged with the crime, right, most people
don't ever like have to deal with, Like RICO as
like a concept, So do it you know, if if
if you're like arrested at a protest to 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 is a bit more serious, Like it's kind of
it's kind of like a scary ordeal, you know, same
thing with like the domestic terrorism charges that that that
(06:43):
have been used the past year.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
So yes, what is a lot more serious. Yeah, So
what exactly is rico. RICO is, uh, while it was
initially a federal law that was passed in effort to
target specifically organized crime, because federal prosecutors were having a
difficult time prosecuting these sort of individual offenses that were
(07:10):
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 upfront. Sure, The first
thing is this is not the first time that RICO
(07:32):
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
(07:55):
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 of Black Liberation, Army Aim,
the Brown Berets, the Young Lords, these groups were all
really weakened by Cohen telpro and the community groups that
(08:19):
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
(08:39):
and not the first community who has had REGO leveled
against it as a form of state repression.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Yeah, and specifically Fultland County. It looks like the batch
of indictments that we're using these preco charges, it looks
like this was, at least according to the Atlantic Constitution Journal,
people this this was the same grand jury that did
the RICO dinitements against former President Donald Trump as well
for this, for this, for this batch of charges, and
(09:09):
they've used they've used RICO charges against like young black
wrappers in the past. This is this is a a
thing that the Fulton County Office has has done before. Yes,
and also 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 it its own
separate charge or is it like is it a way
(09:29):
to like apply other felony charges, like you know, can
can you just be charged with RICO or 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.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
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
(10:04):
in Sweep, I mean, federal RICO is already very broad
in Sweep and Georgia Rica 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.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Okay, So yeah, that's kind of one of the things
that we want to talk about is I read the
indictment as soon as it came out, as soon as
it was made public. It is it is a long document.
The first patch of it is just like it's almost
like a really bad like Wikipedia article on like like
what anarchism is is how is how the document starts.
(10:55):
And then it gets into all these like alleged alleged
like a thing 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 a like
random almost aseni and stuff in there that that they're
that they're eluding is is a quote unquote an overt
(11:18):
act in furtherance of the conspiracy. You know, anything from
like buying glue or buying like food supplies, and they're
they're including or or things like like like writing your
name as Aca B. They're they're they're including that as
as as as an as an overt act in furtherance
of the conspiracy, which is is kind of silly. It
doesn't make very much sense. But like these also these
(11:39):
is this is like a very serious case as well though,
because this is like you know, the people, people you know,
facing twenty years in prison on top of like the
domestic terrorism charges. Well, uh, do you know what else
is a overt act in furtherance of a conspiracy? It
is the the uh, the advertising that allows us to
continue this show. It's all, it's all, it's all all
part of the plan. So yes, every every single ad
(12:02):
is a co conspirator. So take that, Ronald reichen Coin. Okay,
we are back. We could talk about more about the
(12:22):
actual indictment in a sec I do kind of want
to first talk about who are facing these charges, right,
because these are these are sixty one people, and it
looks like for for when I was looking through, one
of the first things that you noticed is like, oh,
they're mostly charging people who have already been charged before.
There's not too many new people added.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
To this case.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
It's mostly people who've already been arrested and charged. Can
you can you kind of like talk about the scope
of these sixty one people who are included in this indictment.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
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
(13:16):
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 stock
Cup City activists. And in fact, I think one of
(13:39):
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 were already
charged with domestic terrorism. They were overcharged domestic terrorism. In
(14:01):
my opinion, they were overcharged. I think 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
(14:24):
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, by and large, the allegations against people, and
(14:44):
they include things that are absolutely lawful, like having mud
on your like having 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
(15:04):
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
(15:30):
if they are perceived to be essentially politically motivated. 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
(15:52):
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.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Yeah, And from my understanding at least in terms of
a lot of a lot of the people in the
sixty one indictments are are the sixty one people in
in the indictment is from the arrests that happened at
the music festival last Castruch, and a lot of a lot,
a lot of a lot of those people were only
charged with domestic terrorism, which is interesting because usually domestic
(16:26):
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 indictments, because I think you need to have already
had like like I think there's like a prerequisitive like
(16:48):
two other like felonious charges. What they did in the
in these reco charges is go back to the music
festival and break down every single thing that happened there
that they're alleged 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
(17:10):
they could like shoehorn it into this Rico indictment. So
there's a lot of like a you know, revisionist history
going on here, very kind of different arguments than what
the actual like domestic terrorism of bond hearings had in
like a previous months. But yeah, there is at least
at least one person in the indictments who is new
(17:32):
I think. I think possibly a few others, but I
haven't quite checked, but there at least one person which
is a very interesting case. It's this it's this guy
who worked at the uh the Flock camera company who
I saw that who they are alleging was was passing
off information about where cameras were were were located. And
(17:54):
this is an extremely interesting case because he is 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 reco charges. Do you want to kind of
(18:16):
get into like the difference between state and federal charges
and specifically how kind of the ones in Georgia at
work versus the the the federal rico that you know,
kind of inspired different states to kind of add their
own style of rico.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
The big difference between the federal Rico Statute, which is
already extremely vague. I think Scalia said something like Scalia,
who is notoriously not far left, yeah, activist right, I'm
not a supporter of leftists, uh in in any meaningful way.
(18:55):
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, you know, this criminal enterprise. The Georgia
(19:18):
Ricos statute is even more broad. The Georgia Ricos 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
(19:39):
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
(20:01):
in order to be implicated.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
They don't even need to know the other co conspirators necessarily.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
So that's the case in this indictment. Yes, yes, And
that is sometimes the case with maybe other reco 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
(20:31):
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
(20:53):
around that.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
To use 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
(21:17):
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
(21:37):
for the glue, yeah, can function to allow the prosecutor
to attribute all of this other criminal conduct to the
person who bought glue.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Basically, there people can you know, be hit with charges
that are being you know, 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.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
So you can, like, the allegation that there is a
criminal enterprise allows the prosecutors to associate various people and
various acts, even lawful acts, even constitutionally protected acts, with
(22:24):
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
(22:48):
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, it 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
(23:08):
quiet part out loud. We all know state repression is real.
We all know that the American legal system functions to
repressed assent, to impose prior restraints on First Amendment protected behavior,
to chill speech, to frighten people into submission. Right, we
(23:30):
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 Reco Statute
as it is being used here, really functions so explicitly
(23:57):
to circumvent those rules, and 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
(24:18):
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
(24:38):
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
(25:01):
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 involve making it part of
(25:21):
a criminal conspiracy to provide legal assistance. You know, this
is to me like one of the most concerning aspects
of this of this indictment, because as absurd as it is,
this could have very serious consequences.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
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 top city of like movement, whatever kind of the
result of those cases is going to be is going
to set a very influential precedent for future for future
kind of eco defense campaigns, future, like any anything relating
(26:02):
to like like civil rights, you know, uh, police abolition,
or even even even things it's like benign is like
police reform, 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 as you know,
as as as you mentioned the you know, access to
(26:24):
bail fund being being in like access to to to
lawyers and and so and legal support is being used
in these reco charges, they were also alleging that by
having a you know, a bail fund number on your arm,
that was like, you know, that was evidence that that's
that this person intended to do crimes. And then you know,
as as evident in support of these domestic terrorism charges,
(26:45):
which is you know, an extremely dangerously legal claim to
to to be to be talking about and we've been
dealing with that in Atlanta for months now, and it's
you know, it's created this really chilling effect on the
ground that you know, you can you can be you know,
doing something as simples marching in the street and now
have not only like terrorism charges, having reco charges for
(27:05):
stuff that is very clearly like First Amendment activity.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Yeah, I think it is really fascinating to me that
the law enforcement apparatus in Georgia is basically engaging in
really concerted state repression against this movement, which is highly
(27:30):
visible and highly legible as state repression. And then when
people respond appropriately by anticipating that they may 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
(27:53):
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 we
can see the sort of post hoc fallacy at work
(28:14):
in real time. It's not clear to me how how
much of the hypocrisy is self aware. Sure, you know
who else doesn't talk to cops? Products I cannot guarantee that.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
I'm not sure these companies have the same standards that you.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
And I have. They don't have shared values.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
In terms of our willingness to to to talk with
the police, but they probably has.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Good defense lawyers.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Oh yes, all of all of these products and services
that supp this podcast definitely do have good defense layers,
that is true, So listen, listen to their important messages.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
There is actually a part of this indictment that I
think deserves some very serious attention. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
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 RECO to target groups that are doing unlawful
things in order to profit. This indictment seems to allege
(29:41):
that stop Coop City activists are raising money to do crime,
which is sort of the opposite, right, And as as
we said, the crime that they're alleging, by and large
is really petty. There does seem to be one major
(30:04):
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 torte Ghita Tehran, who was murdered by police,
was firing upon officers, and that is an incredibly central
(30:29):
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. The evidence that they're
(30:51):
using to support that claim is the statement of a
third party who was not present. It's a regrettable statement
that they've dug up from some group balance you know,
you know, thousands of miles away from the Atlanta Forest. Yes,
and there's no reason to credit that statement, but they
(31:14):
are using it to support this claim. That is, as
I said, it's it's critical to their argument, and it
is extremely disingenuous and it's extremely dangerous for for the
office of a prosecutor, which you know, for what it's worth,
(31:37):
is supposed to pursue justice and not convictions. It is
just intolerable to me that that somebody thought this was
an acceptable thing to put into a legal document.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
And like you were talking about, how you know, they're
using statements from the scenes dot no Block subsite, which
anyone can submit to. There's no barrier of evidence for somebity.
And one interesting aspect that I didn't want to mention
is that for many of the kind of the little
like you know, accounts that they that they have in
their indictment, it's it's just referencing people you know, claiming
(32:12):
that they did crimes on on on this website. But
they're they're attributing the the either like co authorship of
these claims to the people at the Solidary Front, which
they've laid out no evidence in supporting that. That's it's
it's one of the more bizarre aspects of this indictment
because they make every they claim that every single post
(32:32):
on scenes is somehow the solidarity different people are in
part responsible for it, which is absolutely absurd that there's
there's They've 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, talking about how
there's people do you know, doing crimes in San Francisco,
(32:54):
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, which where very clearly
from my perspective, this is, you know, people all across
the country who care about a cause and so they're
doing something in their own city. It's there's there's no
there's no conspiracy to it. It's it's people taking their
own individual action, but they're they're trying, they're trying to
(33:17):
tie this into the solidarity fund in a very bizarre way.
You know, I'll be curious to see if they ever
try to prove evidence to support that claim in court.
But it's it's it's so laughable on the face. So
you're like, how can how can three people with with
a bail fund be be connected to these direct actions
happening all across the country.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
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 autonomous solidarity that exists in this in stance
(34:00):
is something that is totally foreign to people who are
very used to having hierarchy in their lives. And you know,
I think I've 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
(34:23):
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,
(34:45):
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
(35:07):
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
(35:27):
that Antifa is like a set of practices and not
a membership organization. Yes, right, And that trying to trying
to address Antifa as though it were an organization is
similar to trying to address the world of Batman fans, right, Like,
(35:50):
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 I
ifying in any way for each other.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Yeah, well, and and as that relates to the no
Blogs website, like it's they have they have not laid
out any evidence of who is running this website at
like who who is, who's operating it, who's hosting the servers, this,
none of that, None of that information is included in
the indictment. So the fact that they're trying to tie
this to Solidarity Fund in some ways is very is
very bizarre, just because there was like a link on
(36:26):
this website to donate to the Solidarity Fund, but any
anyone could put a link there like that's like, 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.
So just just having having that be this this kind
of aspect and even even if somehow Solidarity Fund were
(36:47):
run running running this whole website, which there's no evidence
they are, this feels like would also relate to like
a section two thirty case where people who host content
are not responsible for the actual like like they're they're
not like the a super big lot person. But this
usually applies to like social media sites and other places
that host user generated content that the actual site itself
(37:08):
is not responsible for the user generated content that is
that is that is on the site. So it's anyway,
there's a whole bunch of you know, various various aspects
of this claim that don't don't make any sense to me.
But it's verically that they're trying to wrap all of
these no blogs posts in because that's the most that's
most like the evidence they have, which is extremely weak,
you know, it's it's it's in some ways a good
(37:29):
sign that all they have are these anonymous posts on
this website with no actual you know, idea of of
who made them or if they're true or not. But
that's the kind of that's the that's a lot of
a lot of what we're a lot of what they
are going off or are just these website posts which.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
A lot of these things. I don't even know if
they could make them admissible or under what theory, because
you know, we don't I don't know how they would
attribute them, right, I mean, look their public statements. I
suppose they can bring them in just as public statements
(38:10):
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
(38:30):
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. Just to be clear,
you know, my wheelhouse is state repression. This is clearly that.
(38:51):
But I'm not tremendously familiar with litigating Rico and I'm
not you 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,
(39:19):
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,
(39:47):
it is entirely possible that this is like many many
criminal cases that are brought in the context of protest movements.
It is highly possible that the primary thing motivating these
cases is an effort to fractionate and drain and distract
(40:10):
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,
(40:39):
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. Right when
(41:00):
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.
(41:24):
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
(41:45):
quell social movements is fear. And so the solution to
state repression is not self censorship, It is not staying home.
It is courage.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
I think that's one of the more you know, interesting
things about what's been happening 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 this, the solidarity fund raid, you know, trying
to compromise people's ability to access bail funds. Every time
(42:18):
there's been this this kind of new attempt, it has
not caused people to back down. It's caused them to
actually like strengthen their solidarity with each other and and
and keep on 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 like catalyze people to actually like care for each
other more and and and and recognize what is going
(42:40):
on so they can respond appropriately and and 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. And that's absolutely been one of the
things that's been very unique to watch in atlant To.
(43:02):
I think, uh, I think we've kind of covered lots
of lots of what I wanted to get into. In
case you have any other kind of things of note
or any like, any like resources you want to you
want to point people towards. I think I think we'll
be kind of close to wrapping up here.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
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 zine
called if an Agent knox YEP and the Electronic Frontier
(43:44):
Foundation has a website called Surveillance Self Defense. And I
would recommend everyone familiarize themselves with both of those things. Uh.
And for the love of God, in crypt your phone
and use signal.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
Yes, absolutely, I love.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
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.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
Actually and it's literally in the Constitution, like 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.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
Yes, no, there's certainly many, many funny aspects of the
Reco case. Hopefully, you know, people, this will all, you know,
turn out to be not very legally viable and in
ten 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. You
(45:05):
know this this this was a grand jury in the
case of these Reco indictments where they used special Agent
Ryan Long of the GBI is their only witness.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
I was noticing this. I've 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,
I'm gonna stop talking shit about their indictment.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
While recognizing this is say repression, there is still, like
you know, an ongoing fear of grand juries and like
further indictess in Atlanta because you have to it's is
very like life and death work, and this is a
very life and death situation. So you know, very there's
very very clear uh practices like like using signal and
shutting the fuck up, which are very important when you
(45:54):
know when you're when you when you're doing this sort
of thing. One other thing is that, uh, for for
a while to the Solidarity Fund was rated. They were
not you know, taking in donations, they were outsourcing it
to the net to the National Bill Fund. I believe
they are they are back. The Solidarity Fund website is
now once again taking taking donations to help people who
(46:14):
are facing this repression, for legal support, for counsel, all
of all these sorts of things. And because this case
just keeps on growing, you know, they're they're always kind
of needing, needing, needing more resources to get people lawyers,
to get people out of jail, all of these sorts
of things. So you can you can once again donate
at the at the at L solidarity dot org site.
(46:36):
So that is that is also kind of new news
as of as of the past few, uh few weeks.
Thank you Moe for for talking about this. Uh, this
is very very enlightening.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
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 please start
(47:09):
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.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
You can print up the little sheet that tells you
what to say, put it, Put it next to your door,
Join the Join the number of punk houses that have
that have the sheet next to their next to their
front door, the amendment sheet.
Speaker 2 (47:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Absolutely, well again, thank you, Birah, thank you for listening.
For everybody. Uh yeah, do not do not talk to cops.
It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
(48:07):
find sources for It could Happen Here, updated monthly at
coolzonemedia dot com slash sources, thanks for listening.
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