It's very simple to understand. The person charged is a human rights and justice blogger who runs a site called CopBlock where for years he has posted videos of

It's very simple to understand. The person charged is a human rights and justice blogger who runs a site called CopBlock where for years he has posted videos of police brutality, lawlessness and thuggery. He is a thorn in the side of the police and they are highly aware of him and watch him closely looking for slip-ups. In November 2011 he recorded a 24 second long call devoid of content where the person on the other end was a desk officer in a two-party consent state. This act of recording gave them probable cause for arrest, and he is in fact guilty of the "crime". This is a popular tactic for dealing with social justice advocates in authoritarian regimes: watch them closely and surely they will be guilty of something eventually. As Cardinal Richelieu said, "Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre." (If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged.) In the US there are so many laws on the books, that all of us are violating some of them almost daily. This is discussed in Harvey Silverglate's book "Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent", Gene Healy's "Go Directly to Jail: The Criminalization of Almost Everything", and Paul Rosenzweig's "One Nation Under Arrest: How Crazy Laws, Rogue Prosecutors, and Activist Judges Threaten Your Liberty". Much more shocking than this incident are the people who benefit from living in a free and just society, but who are supporting and defending the charges and proposed prison sentence in this travesty, this abomination, this violation of humanity and of human rights. 21 years in prison for a human rights activist, where he will be subjected to the endemic prison rape and violence that the inmates of the american justice system enjoy? All because of recording a 24 second call with police? To see members of the public supporting this in any way whatsoever is utterly nauseating and those people supporting even any sentence at all are vile monsters, devoid of any decency or reason.