Daily Archives: 7/10/2004

Eldred Threatened With Arrest for Distributing Thoreau

It’s no secret I’m a huge fan of the public domain: the bits of our culture that are actually free for individuals to use as they see fit. I’ve promoted a couple of interesting public domain resources here, mostly Project Gutenberg. I’ve also had the pleasure of meating Brewster Kahle when he brought the Internet BookMobile to Hackers a couple of years back. I still have the copy of Alice in Wonderland that we printed, bound and cut. Nifty stuff.

Eric Eldred relates an interesting story in the archive.org forums. He decided to take the Internet Bookmobile to Walden Pond in Concord, MA, the location immortalized in Thoreau’s classic Walden. For those of you who haven’t heard of the Internet Bookmobile, it’s a van equipped with satellite Internet, a high capacity color laser printer, and all the necessary equipment to print and bind books. They drive around and promote the use of the Internet and public domain resources to illustrate their value to the public.

Eldred intended to print and hand out copies of Walden for those who came to the park. A damn nice and altruistic gesture, and a good way to promote literacy, the Internet and a bit of our collective history and culture. Unfortunately, the park supervisor didn’t see it that way, since they are in the subsidized by a concession to the Thoreau Society which makes money by selling copies of Walden. Since Eldred was competing with them, they denied him a permit to hand out literature, and asked that he be removed from the park.

Given that Walden Pond is part of the Massachuesetts State Parks and Recreation district, does it seem right that a state agency is denying an individual the right distribute free, legally obtained information to promote literacy and understanding amidst the public at large?

You can, of course, get Walden via Project Gutenberg.

ThePhotographersRight.pdf

In the discussion on metafilter regarding the Brown Equals Terrorist, someone posted a nice link to a summary of the rights of photographers.

It’s not clear that this document is up to date with respect to the recent Supreme Court decision in Hiibel v. Nevada.

In trying to determine what the actual rule of law is here in California, I found this newspaper article, which definitely sends a mixed message. My reading of the Hiibel case is that police are not allowed to stop or detain you for purely arbitrary reasons, but Hiibel does grant them wide latitude in asking for identification if they suspect a crime has been committed.

It seems to me that given the findings in Hiibel v. Nevada, refusal to identify could be prosecuted under California Penal Code 148, the relevent section presented below.

148. (a) (1) Every person who willfully resists, delays, or obstructs any public officer, peace officer, or an emergency medical technician, as defined in Division 2.5 (commencing with Section 1797) of the Health and Safety Code, in the discharge or attempt to discharge any duty of his or her office or employment, when no other punishment is prescribed, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by imprisonment in a county jail not to exceed one year, or by both that fine and imprisonment.

Ironically, this section largely deals with penalties which seem arise from intentional jamming of police radio frequencies and offenses related to someone grabbing a firearm from a police officer. The penalties involved are up to $1000 in fines and a year in prison. It would seem to me that applying this law to simple refusals to identify is a broad expansion of its original intent. Indeed, the Herald article above seems to indicate that the district attorney refuses to prosecute such cases where the suspects are not held on other charges: a sane and sober interpretation that helps to protect the people against overly zealous police officers.