On the weekend before the convention three homes were raided on the orders of Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher, activists were held at gun point while police ransacked their homes and illegally seized their political literature. Five members of the RNC 8 were arrested during those raids, and over the course of the next two days the remaining three were taken away by police before they even had a chance to protest the convention. The evidence against these activists was extremely slim and police were subject to much ridicule when they took common household items such as roofing nails, paint, and rope from the homes that were raided and tried to claim that those items were weapons that were going to be used against delegates at the convention.

Despite the lack of evidence against the RNC 8 however the Ramsey County District Attorney's Office decided that they would use this case to test out a law they had a passed after 9/11, this would be the case in which they would prosecute people under the Minnesota Patriot Act for the first time. The Minnesota Patriot Act went beyond the federal Patriot Act in that it allowed law enforcement to charge people with terrorism not just for planning acts of violence against people, but even allowed terrorism charges against people who planned property damage which totaled as little as $1,000. Under this law it would be possible to charge someone as a terrorist for even a relatively minor crime such as spray painting graffiti on walls if it cost them more than $1,000 to clean up. Even more disturbing however is that this law would allow police to preemptively arrest people who they claim might cause property damage, and that is exactly what they did with the RNC 8 who never actually damaged any property whatsoever and the evidence that they intended to damage anything is extremely slim.

Yet despite the lack of evidence against these eight young people Susan Gaertner is attempting to prosecute these eight individuals on trumped up charges. The charges against the RNC 8 are Conspiracy to Riot in Furtherance of Terrorism, and Conspiracy to Commit Criminal Damage to Property in Furtherance of Terrorism. In addition both charges were also introduced separately without the terrorism designation so that if the jury did not buy the argument that these activists were terrorists the prosecution would have additional charges to fall back on.

So now that you have some background on the case here are the details of how I ended up meeting with the prosecutor of the RNC 8 today. Every week I attend a little peace vigil/protest near the Lockheed Martin plant in Eagan and my friend Bob Palmer who also attends this weekly event had a run in with Susan Gaertner a few weeks back. He asked her why she was doing the Republicans dirty work in pursuing this case, and she said she would like to give him an opportunity to discuss the case with her. She gave him her business card and asked him to set up a meeting with her, before he set up that meeting he asked me and three other people if we wanted to attend as well and we all agreed.

We all met this morning at a coffee shop in St. Paul and when Susan Gaertner came in we allowed her a few minutes to explain her side. She told us pretty much exactly what I expected her to say, which was that it was her job to prosecute the law as it is written. One of the women who I was with politely jumped in to remind her that as a prosecutor she has discretion on which cases she pursues, and Gaertner acknowledged that this is indeed the case. If a prosecutor feels that the charges are unfair they have the discretion to drop those charges, but of course Gaertner was not about to tell us that she thought these charges were unjust. She did acknowledge one thing however, she did tell us that she believes that the Minnesota Patriot Act is a seriously flawed law and that she believes that certain parts of it should be repealed. Despite her problems with the law however she believes that it is her duty to enforce the law as it is written. My response to her was that the Constitution overrules the Minnesota Patriot Act, and that she should obey the law of the Constitution and refuse to enforce the laws which violate that Constitution. I told her that the Constitution gives us the right to peacefully assemble, and it is frightening that we are living in a society in which police can break down the doors of political activists, hold them at gunpoint and charge them with acts of terrorism merely for organizing a political protest. This is not what the founders of this nation had in mind when they wrote our Constitution, and these sorts of police actions set a climate of intimidation that discourages people to get involved in political activism.

We started to talk about the history of protests, and how the police have targeted protesters for generations but in the end the protesters were vindicated. Through the Civil Rights movement, the women's suffrage movement, and the Vietnam War protests it has been shown repeatedly throughout history that most of the time the protesters have ended up on the good side of history and the police on the wrong side of history. After a while just out of the blue Gaertner said "Hey if you are all going to compare me to Nazis we can't have a conversation." The strange thing was however that Nazis were never mentioned or even implied in any way, I think she was just so convinced we were going to say that she was a Nazi that she imagined we did. We really were trying to treat her respectfully though, we told her that and the conversation got back on track again.

Gaertner did tell us that she had a lot of respect for peaceful protesters, and that she even had respect for those who commit acts of civil disobedience if people accept the consequences of that civil disobedience. Of course she also told us that she did not believe that what she alleges that the RNC 8 to have been planning counts as civil disobedience but something much worse. She did not use the word in her sentence, but when you look at the charges that were filed that something is terrorism. I told her that calling someone a terrorist is the absolute worst label you that you can place on them after the climate we have spent the last several years living in, and to place that label on eight young activists who did not even commit a crime but were preemptively arrested sets an extremely dangerous precedent that would open the door to even more serious abuses of this law.

When Gaertner was asked how she could press charges that could send the RNC 8 off to prison for fifteen years she told us that they would not be getting that much time, and in fact she said it was likely that they would not serve any prison time at all (she did not say anything about jail however). I told her that was not good enough however, to threaten to make these young people spend the rest of their lives on this Earth as "convicted terrorists" will carry a stigma with them that will never go away. They won't be able to get on an airplane, they will have a much more difficult time finding a job or housing, being charged as a terrorist is not a small matter no matter how little time you serve. While of course she wouldn't say it straight out I think she did have some sympathy for this argument. She did not try to tell us terrorism was an appropriate charge for the RNC 8, she simply pointed to the law and said that she was simply following the law. It is exactly the response I expected but the tone of the meeting made me believe that she knows that the RNC 8 are not terrorists, and while I know she would never say it I honestly believed that she felt a bit ashamed to be defending her case.

One of the people I was with asked her why she was going after eight young people who did not even commit a crime when she could be going after real criminals who tortured, spied on our citizens, and brought us into an illegal war which killed hundreds of thousands. Gaertner told us that she does have the authority to file criminal charges against the Bush Administration, and every one of us around the table simutaneously jumped in at that moment to tell her how pleased we would be for her to take that course of action. She had a big smile her face and we had a bit a laugh, but at the same time we were serious and she knows very well that we were serious. It was clear that she was not about to take that course, but at the same time I kind of think she wanted to. She was pretty clear that she thought what the Bush Administration did was repulsive, that is what makes it so sad that she seems to be following their same path.

What I saw in Gaertner during the meeting was a human, I think she is a truly decent person who is caught up in some incredibly indecent things. I could tell that she was a genuine person with real feelings, and I think she has some very conflicted thoughts going through her head. When we brought up the Constitution it seemed to make her a bit uncomfortable, in fact I don't think she ever even mentioned the Constitution herself even though we kept bringing it up repeatedly. I think that she knows that she is prosecuting under an unconstitutional law, and I think it truly does bother her. She won't say that of course, but that is the impression I got because her facial expressions during our talks about the Constitution showed that she did know that we had some good points and she seemed truly affected by them. Is this going to make her drop the charges? No. Not this time, I do think we made an impression though and if enough other people send her the message then maybe, just maybe this is a person that we can win over. As long as she continues her prosecution of the RNC 8 she is on the wrong side and I will make sure that I continue to let her know that she is on the wrong side, I oppose what she is doing very strongly and I am not going to keep quiet about it. I want to make it clear though that I am not fighting against her as a person, I am fighting against the unconstitutional actions that she is taking on behalf of the powerful. Let me be clear, while she may be the primary person prosecuting the case she is no doubt under a lot of pressure from people who are very powerful. I think she is being used, and I think that deep down she knows she is being used and I think it bothers her. Now I am not trying to be a mind reader, and I acknowledge that I might be wrong about this but there were just so many moments that she seemed to show some very genuine feelings. We talked for almost an hour, and we were talking as real people. We weren't using legal language or debating the specifics of the law, we were talking about our basic freedoms to stand up for what we believe in. I think that she actually had some respect for us, and to be honest I would not be surprised if one day she decides to speak out and say what she really wants to say rather than what she has to say as a prosecutor. Two of the people I was with said after the meeting said that they thought she was going to drop the charges, who knows if they will be shown to be right in the end but we will need to keep putting the pressure on her until those charges are dropped.

You can learn more about the RNC 8 here: http://rnc8.org/

Update: Wow, thanks for the rec list everyone. Can I just say one thing though, a lot of people are getting hung up on my words about Gaertner being a kind person. When I speak of her personality I am not defending her actions, I am simply saying that she treated us well and listened to us. This is important because it shows that if we put pressure on her she just might listen to that pressure. I am going to keep fighting against the prosecutions of the RNC 8, and I am going to keep fighting hard until the charges are dropped and the Minnesota Patriot Act is overturned. It is going to be a tough fight, and we need lots of people to help us in this fight. I do not think however that simply demonizing Susan Gaertner is going to bring us victory, we need to resist what she is doing but recognize that she is a human being. I do not have any sympathy for what she is doing, but that does not mean that I am not going to acknowledge that she treated us well and didn't try to discourage us from keeping the pressure on her office.

Update 2: Thanks again for the comments everyone. I just want to emphasize once again that I want everyone to get out and protest against what Gaertner is doing. Many people seem upset at me that I noted that she treated us kindly and fairly and that I saw a human side to her. I can understand where these people are coming from because what Gaertner is doing is wrong, it is dead wrong and I am going to keep protesting against it. What I am not going to do however is pretend that she is someone she is not, she met with us for an hour and treated us well and I need to give her some recognition for that. Sometimes good people do really bad things especially when they are under a lot of pressure, but we should not be focusing on Gaertner's personality we should be focused on defending the Constitution and getting the charges against the RNC 8 dropped. This is not a fluff piece about Gaertner in the slightest, I believe she is violating the Constitution with her prosecution and I condemn what she is doing I just happen to believe that she may come around, and I am not going to give up on her.

One person also made a comment that I should not have shared the story of this "private meeting" online. To be clear I was never told that I could not discuss this, and if I would have been told such a thing I would never have participated in the meeting. The meeting was held in a public place, and there were never any restrictions placed on what we could talk about after the meeting. She is a public official and I believe that she needs to be held accountable for her actions in public office, I would never meet with her if she insisted that she could not be held accountable for what she said during the meeting.

Update #3: By request here is the e-mail address for Susan Gaertner's office: RCA@co.ramsey.mn.us Please write and tell her to drop the charges against the RNC 8. Please be polite however, I think we are making good progress with her and we don't want to turn that progress around. Be firm but don't be insulting, this is people's freedom we are fighting for and we want her to see the error of her ways so that she will drop the charges.

Update #4: Apparently while I was at work Susan Gaertner called my friend to ask for my phone number as she had read this diary and wanted to talk about it. I have not talked to her yet, but I do intend on doing so as soon as we can get in contact. What she told my friend however is the reason that she told us not to compare her to Nazis is that she saw one of the people I was with write the word "Nuremberg" on their notepad. It appears this is indeed the case, although the reason they wrote that word down was not to compare Gaertner to a Nazi but rather to speak of the legal precedent that was set by the Nuremberg trials. It appears to be a simple misunderstanding, but I do intend on talking to Susan Gaertner soon so I can hear her side and tell her my own.