ST. PAUL, Minn. – The city that became a bat­tle­field between police and pro­test­ers, who took to the streets dur­ing the Repub­li­can Nation­al Con­ven­tion (RNC) in ear­ly Sep­tem­ber, is now embroiled in a new fight – a legal bat­tle over free­dom of speech and assembly.

"If the police are able to preemptively shut down dissent, people will be afraid to have even simple political meetings," says Luce Guillen Givins, one of the accused.

In an unprece­dent­ed appli­ca­tion of Minnesota’s ver­sion of the fed­er­al Patri­ot Act, eight mem­bers of the RNC Wel­com­ing Com­mit­tee, an anar­chist orga­ni­za­tion, each face up to sev­en and a half years in prison for charges of ​“con­spir­a­cy to riot in fur­ther­ance of ter­ror­ism” for their alleged roles in RNC protest activities.

The charges against the eight indi­vid­u­als, now known as ​“The RNC 8,” fol­low a year­long inves­ti­ga­tion in which the Ram­sey Coun­ty Sheriff’s Depart­ment, with the help of state and fed­er­al agen­cies, used an under­cov­er agent and two paid infor­mants to infil­trate and col­lect infor­ma­tion on the organization.

On Aug. 30 and 31, the week­end pre­ced­ing the RNC, the inves­ti­ga­tion cul­mi­nat­ed in a series of pre­emp­tive raids on sev­er­al homes in the Twin Cities that the Amer­i­can Civ­il Lib­er­ties Union and the Nation­al Lawyer’s Guild (NLG) have condemned.

“The scari­est thing about this is that no one is accused of actu­al­ly doing any­thing, they have been charged with con­spir­ing,” says attor­ney Jor­don Kush­n­er, an NLG mem­ber who is rep­re­sent­ing defen­dant Luce Guillen Givins. ​“What is worse is they are label­ing peo­ple advo­cat­ing tra­di­tion­al civ­il dis­obe­di­ence as ter­ror­ists. In my opin­ion, the intent of this is to sti­fle people’s desires to exer­cise their First Amend­ment rights.”

Accord­ing to the sher­iff department’s appli­ca­tion for a search war­rant, author­i­ties ini­ti­at­ed an inves­ti­ga­tion on Aug. 29, 2007. Based on pub­licly avail­able infor­ma­tion on the orga­ni­za­tion, police deter­mined there was ​“rea­son­able sus­pi­cion” that the RNC Wel­com­ing Com­mit­tee was plan­ning to engage in ​“crim­i­nal activ­i­ty” in the days lead­ing up to, and dur­ing, the RNC.

Dur­ing the course of the inves­ti­ga­tion, agents placed the RNC Wel­com­ing Com­mit­tee under sur­veil­lance and infil­trat­ed the group. The pre­emp­tive raids were exe­cut­ed on ​“prob­a­ble cause” derived from infor­mants’ claims that the homes con­tained incen­di­ary and explo­sive devices, as well as alle­ga­tions that mem­bers had dis­cussed kid­nap­ping del­e­gates and sab­o­tag­ing airports.

Dur­ing the raids, police seized prop­er­ty and jailed eight alleged lead­ers of the RNC Wel­com­ing Com­mit­tee. They were not charged until Sept. 3, the day before the con­ven­tion end­ed. The sec­ond-degree con­spir­a­cy to riot charge car­ries a max­i­mum five-year penal­ty, how­ev­er, the addi­tion­al state Patri­ot Act charge of ​“fur­ther­ance of ter­ror­ism” allows for a 50 per­cent increase in the max­i­mum penalty.

In a Sept. 3 state­ment, pres­i­dent of the Min­neso­ta Chap­ter of the NLG, Bruce Nestor, who was at the scene of the raids, said police found no evi­dence of incen­di­ary or bomb-mak­ing mate­ri­als, and instead seized com­mon house­hold items such as com­put­ers, paint and hatch­ets for chop­ping wood, among oth­er things. Nestor also not­ed that alle­ga­tions that the anar­chists intend­ed to kid­nap or sab­o­tage air­ports came from paid informants.

“Based on past abus­es of such infor­mants by law enforce­ment, the Nation­al Lawyer’s Guild is con­cerned that such police infor­mants have incen­tives to lie and exag­ger­ate threats of vio­lence and to also act as provo­ca­teurs in rais­ing and urg­ing sup­port for acts of vio­lence,” the state­ment said.

Givins, one of the RNC 8, says she wasn’t sur­prised police cracked down on pro­test­ers, but believes the nature of the arrests has seri­ous implications.

“If the police are able to pre­emp­tive­ly shut down dis­sent, peo­ple will be afraid to have even sim­ple polit­i­cal meet­ings,” she says.

Kush­n­er says he fears a return to ​’60s-style police infil­tra­tion of rad­i­cal groups.

“We haven’t seen this kind of police activ­i­ty since the Chica­go 8,” he says, refer­ring to the arrest of eight orga­niz­ers dur­ing the 1968 Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion in Chica­go. ​“What has hap­pened with these crim­i­nal charges is very extreme and dan­ger­ous because peo­ple are being pros­e­cut­ed for polit­i­cal reasons.”