Teacher Arrested for Clapping in Support of Anti-Data Center Activists
futurism.comWhatever your view on AI and data usage, this is not an acceptable reason to arrest someone. I do view that we are taking just brute force too far, we need to pause and reconsider energy usage and waste and refocus on the algorithms to be more efficient first. Our focus should not just be the Jeremy Clarkson method of more power.
From the perspective of the data centre guys, efficiency gains make (over)spend on data centres even more worthwhile. The more efficiency gains there are the more work the datacentres can do, and the more money they make.
The erosion of civil rights in the US right now is shocking. The notion that city councillors should be able to order the detention of a citizen is just bonkers. I hope every one of these councilors is voted out and police need serious personal financial consequences and sanctions.
Fundamentally the US has too many police forces, each of which is a law unto itself.
I think its ok to ask the disrupter to leave and if he refuses, just trespass him. I would hold this opinion independently of the contents of the meeting transcripts. From reading this page, the disrupter should probably be charged with trespassing as I didn't get a sense of his willingness to leave the meeting.
He wasn't being disruptive, and councillors can't redefine behaviour like mild clapping as disruptive.
Threatening with trespass shouldn't be an option against someone exercising their rights as a citizen and resident unless directed by a court order. It simply isn't open to the police to lay hands on a citizen for something that isn't an offence.
You should really watch the video.
Looks like this is basically what happened - the linked video footage https://x.com/JasonBassler1/status/2081182966030745720 shows the guy being asked to leave the meeting by the cops, he refuses to leave and tells them "drag me out", the cops proceed to drag him out.
The video footage doesn't show how disruptive he was being; but I find it reasonable that he was clapping in a way that the the person running the public comment meeting had specifically asked people not to do in the name of expediently getting to as many comments as possible.
This is the kind of situation that I think would come up in basically any human society, even some maximally-anarchist society without the institution of police. If you're having a public meeting to decide on some policy, you need someone to be in charge of the procedural rules of that meeting; if someone doesn't like something about the meeting and is doing something that arguably breaks the procedural rules, you need someone to adjudicate this and decide whether or not to compel them to leave. If someone is compelled to leave a meeting, and they resist, you need someone who will physically force them to.
Clapping 5 times after the first speaker has finished talking and the next speaker is yet to begin is not "disruptive".
Just about Anything can be considered "disruptive" by that definition. What is next ? Get someone arrested since they made a face or frowned at your speech ? Or sneezed or coughed ? Why even bother with an audience then ?
> The video footage doesn't show how disruptive he was being; but I find it reasonable that he was clapping in a way that the the person running the public comment meeting had specifically asked people not to do in the name of expediently getting to as many comments as possible.
You're suggesting that the bar arbitrarily set by a councilmember on what counts as sufficient disruption to hurt expediency* trumps what seems like just clapping and agreement -- one would argue is clearly protected speech per the 1st amendment and I'd argue squarely within the spirit of why we have public comments in the first place?
I think that's a pretty slippery slope and enables projecting power through process, not something we want from our elected officials.
*an aside - why is expediency the goal? if this is a contentious topic, schedule more time so the focus is on receiving public feedback!)
This is a bad video, it has been trimmed to just show the police confrontation, and not the alleged offence. Ironically I can't find a non-tiktok source for the longer video, this is from 404media TT but not their website.
Lux Claridge claps only 5 claps, and is ejected as his wife is at the podium to take her turn. The linkage makes this clear violation of 1A rights.
Open meeting laws say people are welcome to be there.
Constitution protects polite free speech, unambiguously.
Not talking specifically to this case, but if you're loud and disruptive, you can prevent others from exercising their free speech. The meetings do need some rules.
The erosion of civil rights in the US right now is shocking. The notion that any citizen should be able to disrupt and hinder business meetings of city councillors is just bonkers. I hope every one of these citizens is thrown in jail and activist citizens need serious personal financial consequences and sanctions.
Fundamentally the US has too many special interest groups, each of which is a law unto itself.
Is a public council meeting a private business meeting? Or in fact a forum for citizens to give input?
Is a lone individual, or even a whole room, clapping a speech, disrupting?
What law has the individual broken by clapping or speaking? Councillors do not make law by speaking. They should get a court order if someone is being persistently disruptive, not use bully boy police intimidation.
Special interest groups do indeed have private police forces in the US, that routinely misuse the wide powers available.
Really you need to mount a better argument.
> Is a lone individual, or even a whole room, clapping a speech, disrupting?
Yeah, if the presider of the meeting asks people not to do that in order to get through more comments.
> What law has the individual broken by clapping or speaking? Councillors do not make law by speaking. They should get a court order if someone is being persistently disruptive, not use bully boy police intimidation.
> Special interest groups do indeed have private police forces in the US, that routinely misuse the wide powers available.
The people who dragged him out looked like the normal town police enforcing order at a public meeting in a normal way. This is the most basic function of police - or equivalently, anyone who does this job is doing policing, regardless of whether they're a uniformed official or just the physically biggest three guys in town.
You are confusing 'enforcing order' with anti democratic supression of speech. A few claps is not disorderly behaviour. There is no conceivable way that the clapping delayed proceedings; in fact, the supression of speech activities took far more time.
> “Chief, will you take the next person out that claps or anything?” an unidentified commissioner, likely Duncan, then asked Emporia police chief Ed Owens.
Uh oh someone heard something they didn’t like and someone clapped…