Shadowproof -In prosecutions against Inauguration Day protesters, the government contends some of the defendants’ union memberships qualify as evidence of a conspiracy to commit a crime.
Hundreds of thousands of protesters converged for the Inauguration Day protests in 2017.... Police, who monitored people involved in the protest for months before the demonstration, responded indiscriminately with stingball grenades and a deluge of pepper spray. Over 200 people were kettled, including protesters, journalists, legal observers, and street medics.
The first of nearly two-dozen trials over property allegedly damaged during the protests started in November last year, ending in sweeping acquittals for six defendants just before Christmas. After acquittals that month, the government dropped charges for all but 59 of the defendants.
.... “They’ve offered no real context or reasoning,” said one defendant in an interview for VICE. All of the arrestees have had their phones confiscated, and their messages and emails scrutinized by the prosecution. The only common element between some of them is their union membership with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), whose members are commonly called Wobblies.
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