Jerry Koch’s Grand Jury Resistance Statement

Cross Posted from JerryResists.net

My name is Gerald Koch and I have been subpoenaed to a federal grand jury based in the Southern District of New York regarding the 2008 Times Square Military Recruitment Center bombing. This is my second subpoena concerning this matter; I was also subpoenaed in June of 2009. I refused to testify at that time based on the assertion of my First, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendment rights, as I will be doing again for the duration of this grand jury. During the first grand jury, the government informed my lawyers that it was believed that I was at a bar in 2008 or 2009 where a patron indicated knowledge of who had committed the bombing. When I was first subpoenaed to the grand jury in 2009 I had no recollection of any such incident— a fact that I expressed publically. Now, almost 4 years later, I still do not recall the alleged situation.

Given that I publically made clear that I had no knowledge of this alleged event in 2009, the fact that I am being subpoenaed once again suggests that the FBI does not actually believe that I possess any information about the 2008 bombing, but rather that they are engaged in a ‘fishing expedition’ to gain information concerning my personal beliefs and political associations.

Rebecca Rubin Has Been Moved

From Prison Books

Please send Rebecca Rubin a letter or note of encouragement, being transferred can be quite jarring. (Remember not to write to her about her case at all because she is pre-trial.)Rebecca is accused of being a member of the Earth Liberation Front. She is facing charges of arson and conspiracy for actions that occurred between 1996 and 2001.

Her new address is as follows:
Rebecca Rubin #2013001108
Columbia County Jail
901 Port Ave.
St. Helens, OR 97051

June 11th 2013 Call Out

The third anniversary of the international day of solidarity with Marie Mason, Eric McDavid, and other longterm anarchist prisoners is quickly approaching!

**June 11th 2013 Callout Statement **

June 11th is the international day of solidarity with Eric McDavid, Marie
Mason, and other longterm anarchist prisoners. If you are planning on
doing an event for the day, please email us at june11[at]riseup[dot]net. You can find
resources, information about events from previous years, and word on
upcoming events at june11.org. Read on to see our thoughts on what it
means to do longterm solidarity, on how Eric and
Marie inspire us, and to learn how June 11th began.

The state stole Eric McDavid and Marie Mason from us in 2006 and 2008 respectively. In the years since their arrests, repression has come to feel less like a specific event and more like an inescapable, ongoing nightmare. Sentenced to 22 years and 20 years, respectively, Marie and Eric remain in cages to this day, and know this nightmare more intimately than most.

Celebrate Keith McHenry’s Birthday by Supporting Resistance to Mining in Indonesia

Beltane Fire Festival, 2012, Edinburgh, Scotland

Earth First! Newswire

As all good eco-revolutionaries know, tomorrow is May Day, or Beltane for all you neo-pagan anarcho-hippy types like some of us at the EF! Newswire.

But that’s not all. It’s also the birthday of Keith McHenry, a co-founder of the international Food Not Bombs (FNB) movement, a revolutionary endeavor which he is practically synonymous with.

Keith McHenry at the Grand Canyon

The history of FNB has been intertwined with Earth First! practically since its inception, with a parallel 32 year history and an intermingling of activists which continues today. So it only seems fitting that we would honor Keith’s birthday by honoring the request he made for people to stand with Javanese residents (some who are now political prisoners) in resisting mining from destroying their communities and home ecosystems.

Snitch Alert: Co-operating witness in Green Scare cases released to Halfway House

Cross Posted from Puget Sound Anarchist

Chelsea Gerlach, one of the government’s star witnesses in the green scare cases, is currently listed by the Bureau of Prisons as being placed into the custody of “community corrections.” This typically means a residential re-entry program, more commonly known as a “halfway house.”

Gerlach not only provided information on long time friends, former partners, her then-current boyfriend, and comrades that she promised to never betray. She also assisted the FBI in creating psychological profiles, encouraged others who were arrested to co-operate with the state, and agreed to testify against non-cooperators.

TWAC Storms Prison Industry Giant GEO Group’s HQ in Boca Raton

[Update: As of 10:40 am, four TWAC folks who were occupying the GEO lobby have been arrested. The police removed the doors to the building to get them out. Sounds like that might be an inconvenience! We are told donations towards legal support can be made here. Check out a video from the corporate media here. For those who missed the story last week, TWAC organizers also confronted the history of colonization and genocide in St. Augustine by disrupting a re-enactment of Ponce de Leon “discovering” Florida. Bad-asses.]

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Hot New Video! 

TWAC storms the GEO Group HQ in Boca Raton

by EF! Newswire

The movement powerhouse which has come to be known across the country as TWAC, the Trans and Womyns’ Action Camp, has done it again!

This morning at 9am, following the first east coast TWAC camp, which took place in south Florida, activists stormed the lobby of GEO Group a prison-for-profit corporation located at 621 NW 53rd Street, Suite 700, Boca Raton, FL, 33487.

TWAC occupying GEO Group lobby

Two folks u-locked themselves to lobby doors, keeping them open long enough for a crowd to enter and disrupt business as usual for GEO Group (who is still reeling from an ass-whooping by FAU students which got their name kicked off the Boca campus’ new sports stadium.)

As of 10am, we’ve received updates that police have locked exterior doors to building with 5 activist remaining inside blocking office doors.  A crowd of 40 remains outside chanting and raising a ruckus. The entire road into the business complex of the GEO corporate office has been blocked by law enforcement!

TWAC, which was born out of the Earth First! movement in the Pacific Northwest, has become a leading example of linking struggles to grow a more effective solidarity-based grassroots direct action movement.

Women and trans folks out there feeling like you missed out? Don’t fret. TWAC Cascadia will be holding an ecodefense action camp this Summer in western Oregon, July 23-29, 2013: “a week of discussion, skillshares, networking, workshops, story telling, and action.”

The morning’s TWAC press release had this to say, in English and Spanish, about GEO Group:  

Daniel McGowan Sent Back to Prison

Less than a week after Daniel’s article regarding being held in a CMU for his political speech was published by the Huffington Post, he has been sent back into custody. The following message is from a support site for Daniel McGowan:

“Just when we thought it was over…. We have some bad news to report. This morning Daniel was taken into custody by federal marshals and is now at the federal detention center in Brooklyn getting processed.

We are still waiting to hear why this has occurred. Considering his exemplary behavior at the halfway house, approved weekend passes and the full-time job he started as soon as he was released back to the city this is all pretty insane. The Bureau of Prisons has proven to be cruel and vindictive time and time again.

Anyway, what YOU can do right now is write to Daniel and send your love! We don’t know how long he will be here, but there is a good chance it will be until his sentence officially ends on June 5.

Please write to:
DANIEL McGOWAN
#63794-053
MDC BROOKLYN
METROPOLITAN DETENTION CENTER
P.O. BOX 329002
BROOKLYN, NY 11232

Thanks for your continued support!”

There is also an article posted by NYC ABC, which you can read here.

Review: “The Evan Mecham Eco Terrorist International Conspiracy” by Leslie James Pickering

Cross Posted from the Vegan Police

We’ve followed, and been fans of Leslie’s writing on this site and I was excited recently to head over to Leslie’s radical book store – Burning Books – in Buffalo, NY to give a talk. The place is full of books I’d love to take home, but I made it a priority to pick up Leslie’s latest – a zine detailing the history of EMETIC or the Evan Mecham Eco Terrorist International Conspiracy.

“Court Documents Prove I was Sent to Communication Management Units for my Political Speech”

Daniel McGowan, 2013

by Daniel McGowan, Huffington Post

I currently reside at a halfway house in Brooklyn, serving out the last few months of a seven-year sentence for my role in arsons credited to the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) at two lumber companies in Oregon in 2001.  My case, and the federal government’s rush to prosecute environmental activism as a form of terrorism, were recently explored in the Oscar-nominated documentary, If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front. 

What has received less attention, though, is what happened to me while in federal prison.  I was a low security prisoner with a spotless disciplinary record, and my sentencing judge recommended that I be held at a prison close to home.  But one year into my sentence, I was abruptly transferred to an experimental segregation unit, opened under the Bush Administration, that is euphemistically called a “Communication Management Unit” (CMU).  Since August 2008, when I first arrived at the CMU, I have been trying to get answers

Eco-prisoners Continue Exposing BOP’s Shady “Communications Management”

Last weeks, the EF! Newswire reported on legal challenges filed by Susan Tipograph, an attorney representing imprisoned ELF activist Marie Mason, related to her placement in a “control-management”-type prison unit in Carswell, Texas, because of her status as a political prisoner.

       While the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has continued to maintain that Carswell is not an official Communications Management Unit (CMU), we have learned enough from the BOP to know that they cannot be trusted. And this less-than-sneaky suspicion has only been re-affirmed by the ongoing work of the Center for Constitutional Rights and their client, another well known ecoprisoner, Daniel McGowan, who is currently finishing his sentence at a halfway house in NYC.

       McGowan’s lawyers at Center for Constitutional Rights have released a new flyer about the CMUs that the Bureau of Prisons operates. These are the units Daniel was held in for most of his prison 5.5 year sentence and the subject of a lawsuit (Aref v Holder) brought by Daniel and other former/current CMU prisoners. You can read the text of the flyer here and you can download a PDF of the two page flyer here or by clicking on the image above.