$1K offered for info about "Right Wing Trespassing Thief"

[Rose Siding]

"$1,000 Reward," say the signs he will put up at the public marina this weekend, "for information leading to the positive identification of the Right Wing Trespassing Thief who climbed onto my boat, and stole my ... flag."

Pope, as you probably can tell, is irked. A man's boat -- a 36-foot sloop to be exact -- is more than his castle. "It's his country," Pope says. "You just don't board someone's boat without permission."

And there's the matter of the 2-foot-by-3-foot flag that Pope says someone cut down and stole from the vessel, moored at Shilshole, the week of Sept. 16.

It wasn't an American flag, though what the flag said represents the very free speech the Stars and Stripes symbolizes.

Pope's flag was white with a blue stripe. It had two words -- "Impeach Bush."

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/jamieson/287916_robert07.html

[Ian David]

1. Technically, the perpetrators committed very serious offenses

Ashcroft's War on Greenpeace: Sailor-Mongering Civil Disobedience

<snip>

In April, 2002, Greenpeace activists boarded a commercial ship off the coast of Florida. The ship was transporting mahogany illegally exported from Brazil's Amazon rainforest. The activists unfurled a banner stating: "President Bush, Stop Illegal Logging." The activists did not engage in violence or destroy property. Minor charges against individual activists were settled last year.

Enter Ashcroft and the Justice Department.

In July 2003, the Justice Department filed criminal charges in Miami federal court against the entire Greenpeace organization under an obscure 1872 law originally intended to end the practice of "sailor-mongering." In 1890, an Oregon court described the purpose of the sailor-mongering law as preventing "the evil" of "sailor-mongers get on board vessels and by the help of intoxicants, and the use of other means, often savoring of violence, get the crews ashore and leave the vessel without help to manage or care for her."

"This prosecution is unprecedented in American history," complained John Passacantando, executive director of Greenpeace in the United States. "Never before has our government criminally prosecuted an entire organization for the free speech activities of its supporters. If this prosecution succeeds, then peaceful protest -- an essential American tradition from the Boston Tea Party through the modern civil rights movement -- may become yet another casualty of Attorney General Ashcroft's attack on civil liberties."

More:
http://www.ccmep.org/2003_articles/Civil%20Liberties/102403_ashcrofts_war_on_greenpeace.htm

The only reason Greenpeace wasn't convicted, is because the incidents took place outside the 6-mile limit.

This man's ship was boarded while docked.

[liberal N proud]

2. Pirates!

The perpetrators were/are pirates