From Washington To Wisconsin, States Are Punishing Dissent

From Washington To Wisconsin, States Are Punishing Dissent

- Alex Cordell

JUST OVER A year ago, after the Trump administration gave the green light to move forward with construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, an activist group called Red Line Salish Sea staged a peaceful protest in Bellingham, Washington. Demonstrators blocked traffic on a highway for nearly an hour before dispersing. One of the organizers told The Bellingham Herald that “I hope that people take away that it was just a temporary inconvenience, but [pipelines] are impacting people’s lives” in more substantial ways.

The county prosecutor’s office responded with a disorderly conduct and reckless endangerment investigation of the demonstrators. To uncover their identities, officials repeatedly attempted to obtain a warrant for private information from the group’s Facebook page. As the protesters’ attorney noted, “The warrant and the county’s pleadings do not so much as acknowledge the existence of the First Amendment, nor that this was a demonstration, but simply treat it as supposed criminal activity like a bar fight or drunk driving.”