I posted this to my Twitter feed, but this post from Boing Boing has more information about the arrest of Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! The video now makes a lot more sense after seeing this, and it’s pretty clear that the charges are going to end up getting tossed. The problem with policing in this sort of thing is “rights’ don’t really work all that much. The event lasts a few days and with clever stalling by the police, they don’t have to press charges long enough so that even innocent folks won’t get out until the last day of the convention.

Equipment and anything seized may take even longer. We decried this sort of behavior by the Chinese government but our media has remained silent about the same sorts of abuses here at home.