Grand Jury, good enough to go after religious pedophiles but for political activists who seek the overthrow of the federal government .. OMG POLICE STATE!

I hope they spend years behind bars, then decide to rat out their friends.

Thank you for continuing to follow up on this, I think it is very important to be aware of the lengths our government will go to in an attempt to get what they want.

Thanks, Brendan. Hopefully, the Judge/government is aware that many people are following this story.

1, I think most of the judiciary involved in this case are in alignment w/ your thoughts: they're not interested in justice, they simply want to gloat in sadistic pleasure.

Coercive? What is that but a polite way of saying torture.

The treatment of these prisoners is deplorable. Not only have they been in solitary confinement for months, but Maddie isn't even allowed to speak with an attorney. The hypocrisy and brutality of the prison system is just astounding, and makes any pretenses of "justice" or democratic procedure absolutely meaningless.

When they get out, do they have any protections against the loss of their homes and jobs? If not, it might be a nice idea to start a fund for them. If there already is one, can you post info?

The link to the letter from the Seattle Human Rights Commission is broken. It points to http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archive…, which returns a 404 Not Found page.

To contrast former Blackwater Executives were charged with an assortment of crimes:

"The charges were for illegally possessing machine guns; making false statements about weapons; knowingly receiving and possessing unregistered firearms; “corruptly” persuading another person and engaging in “misleading conduct toward another person with intent to alter and conceal an object with the intent to impair the object’s availability for use in an official proceeding”; knowingly falsifying and making “a false entry in a record, document and tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct and influence” an investigation. The conspiracy was furthered through the purchase of short barrel rifles, machine guns and shipping firearms to the King of Jordan or his entourage."

http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/02…

They received probation and 4 months house arrest.

And of course there's the recent case of HSBC Bank laundering money for drug lords and terrorists. They got fined.

I guess vandalism is a more serious crime in the eyes of the Feds.

I really don't understand your Grand Jury system. It seems to violate a number of basic human rights. Get rid of it.

Reading the search warrant affadavit, I'm struck by the frequent references to "recovered text messages." Investigators normally recover text messages when they have physical possession of a phone and a search warrant (or consent) allowing them to review its contents.

I don't think that's the case here. I suspect these text messages were recovered primarily through the use of administrative subpoenas, where an FBI agent only has to demonstrate "reasonable relevance" to force the carrier to turn messages over.

Taking my suspicion a step further, I speculate that the primary reason the FBI has been calling witnesses to appear before the grand jury is to force them to furnish evidence to be used in future administrative subpoenas. A witness testifies that a given individual considers themselves an anarchist and associates with known anarchists, and boom, the FBI has its "reasonably relevant" basis to fire off administrative subpoenas to get all their text messages from the phone carrier.

But no evidence, no subpoena, no recovered texts. No wonder the FBI is pissed off at these witnesses.

So if they ignore the contempt citation they get away with it? I say keep 'em locked up.

#11, it would appear that you are not an American. Go reform your own fucked up country, whatever that might be. Thank you.

@ 8. Sorry about that. Should be fixed now.