If software developer Phil Mocek is guilty of anything, it’s the conviction that he has a right to move about the country as if he were a free man. He’s guilty of defending his dignity. Guilty of believing he’s innocent.
That’s his crime, not “failing to obey an officer,” “concealing his identity,” “criminal trespass” or “disorderly conduct.” Fortunately, an Albuquerque jury has now found him innocent of these bogus charges.
During his trial, a TSA official and an Albuquerque police officer both testified, in Mocek’s words, that “you do not have to show ID in order to fly and that you can use cameras in public areas of the airport.” Yes, recording the unwarranted and outrageous harassment of him was proposed as proof of the man’s criminality.
The normals among us, on the other hand, can only applaud Mocek’s nerve and presence of mind in standing up for himself.
Defense co-counsel Molly Schmidt-Nowara observes that TSA officials and police at the airport “became annoyed because he was filming.” But annoying the police or TSA officers is not in itself a crime.
Mocek says: “I wasn’t testing the system. I went in with a boarding pass. I had what I’m required to have to fly and by way of being a human I observed what happened.”
Has the tide started to turn against the noxious surveillance state and in favor of everyday freedom for human beings?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
6 replies on “Not Guilty as Charged”
“Has the tide started to turn against the noxious surveillance state and in favor of everyday freedom for human beings?”
Not until a stake has been completely driven through the heart of “Obamacare”, Obama is an EX-president, the “food-safety” bill is repealed, the EPA and all the other unconstitutional alphabet soup agencies are all defunded and shuttered. Oh, and how about ending the Fed?
I can see the boarding areas jammed up now with people refusing to show ID cards to the TSA or police. Good, let it happen.
Dagneys comment is off the subject and shows that he’s an idiot.
Trial by jury is the 4th branch of government and the last bastion of safety against a government run amok and bent on tyrrany.
Here in Georgia, it is actually enshrined in the state constitution, that if a citizen finds that a law is unjust (or perhaps unconsitutional) that we have the right and duty to find a defendent innocent, no matter how overwhelming a case of evidence may be against them, lest a tyrranical government run roughshod over liberty and freedom.
Our founders well recognized the corrupting influence of unaccountable power and a laissez faire populace.
A jury did not find him “innocent;” they found him “not guilty.” Any attorney will tell you this is not a trivial distinction.
Okay, Mark. So what is that distinction? And when the attorney says that his client is “innocent until proven guilty,” is that a different sense of the word “innocent”? It’s true that membes of a jury may judge a defendant “not guilty” for lack of evidence even though they personally regard him as guilty of the charge.
Mocek is indeed guilty of having annoyed the airport goons. He’s certainly not guilty of having done anything wrong or of having committed any crime. Indeed, his not-guiltiness in these areas veers very close to utter innocence, and the jury seems to have recognized this.
That’s a sharp way of tihnknig about it.