ALDSTADT VS JENSEN

When people think of Telephone harassment we usually think of telephone calls that go on for days weeks or months. Maybe just 'hang ups' or 'deep breathing' or 'threats' of one sort or another. I don't really know anybody that would classify two separate instances of multiple text messages separated by 5 months between them as harassment. Especially when the two messages were the following:

Except we are dealing with powerful and connected technocrats in a very tightly knitted closed network here in Portland. The Democratic 'lock' on government has bred its very own form of corruption and collusion with all the various bureaucrats having connections of some sort to each other. The powerful people will allow someone  like me to rant endlessly about them basically because I am not 'getting in their way'. I am not obstructing their business. When I started obstructing their business as an employee they started putting the screws to me hence I do not work there anymore. The short lived 'occupy movement' was actually obstructing the powerful interests, those people were pepper sprayed, arrested and now they are no more. Lane Jensen was obstructing the business of the powerful, at board meetings in their offices (texts) and even out on the transit. Everybody knew that  eventually the full force of Trimet money and power would come down on him. Personally I felt it would be in the form of a restraining order(s) or even civil suits. I never expected a criminal case since he wasn't doing anything criminal. But as we have found out, the Trimet legal department put their heads together and figured out some way to press criminal charges against him, hence here we are today. With this silly 'letter of the law' telephonic harassment case. The reality is best summed up below:

TelemachusSam

Sending FOUR police officers to arrest a nonviolent blogger accused of harassment at his place of employment is simply the long arm of the Police State showing its clumsy, puppet-stringed hand. Ask yourself, is this the response you’d get from the police if you told them someone was sending you too many texts asking you hard, unthreatening questions about your public conduct? You might be told to get a new phone number and that these cases seldom go anywhere – unless you’re connected to power. The real threat activists, like Lane, make is when they shine a light on unethical and corrupt relationships and practices that shovel taxpayer money into the pockets of developers (and back to politicians) while everyone else gets greased ($10M annually to local police forces). Transit riders get greased in this process too, but not to their benefit. Lane has been targeted by TriMet for reprisal. When Lane exposed himself to liability via texting, TriMet used its privileged connections to the prosecutor and police to bring the hammer down. The response to Lane was not designed to correct behavior but to punish, to limit Lane’s future opportunities in life, and send the usual message to activists: sit down and shut up, or else. That’s what happens in a Police State when you threaten the status quo as established by the elites, the powerful and the wealthy.