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The article keeps saying he was arrested for going a few seconds over, which is weird because it also contains this statement:<p>"Feary then notified police to have Blanchard removed. I informed Blanchard that he was asked to leave and needed to do so. Blanchard then continued to the front of the room where counselors sat behind a table and insisted on giving them paperwork,” according to the police report. “Sergeant Singer then directed me to place Blanchard under arrest for trespassing. Blanchard was placed in handcuffs, escorted from the property, and transported to Rogers County Jail."<p>The video seems to back up that account, showing him being told he needs to leave, and him instead walking to the front with paperwork, before finally being arrested.<p>To be clear I don't think this justifies the charges, but it's weird the article repeatedly frames it like he just went a couple second over and was immediately slapped in cuffs, marched out and charged.
Even so that's very strange way for a trespassing charge to be carried out if that's how it went down.<p>Typically when someone refuses to leave, police inform the person that they are being formally trespassed, at which point they have the option to leave voluntarily at which point they are only allowed back at the trespassee's discretion. Not sure how that would work for public places where people have to conduct municipal business.
That's pretty typical of 404 Media's reporting style.
> When he went a few seconds over his allotted 3 minute time limit, the city ordered Blanchard arrested and transported to the county jail. The city charged Blanchard with trespassing
Land of the Free, First Amendment, Right to Free Speech, Democracy, Community Involvement, etc. etc. etc.
Oklahoma, huh? Wish I could be surprised.<p>Even then, hard to tell if this will hold up in court. Town halls should be recorded ("should") and there's inevitable up and downtime for speakers. This is why police have a radar tolerance of 5 mph before trying to write a speeding ticket.
This is basically weak people in authority overreacting from fear and resentment. Same as when the principal expels a student for saying something rude at assembly, or when a bank sues someone for sending in a vulnerability report about their website.
Not quite the same. Here it wasn't just the overreaction from some weak authority figure. The arresting cop had to knowingly violate established laws. The officers who pursued the charge had to have done the same. That's systematic corruption and failure in the local law enforcement who imo all need to be investigated and fired asap. It's less some weak authority overreacting and more like a whole lot of incompetent people who are supposed to uphold the law actively violating it.
This is the normal script, though. Authority figure overreaches, violates law either knowingly or (more likely) without even thinking about it. A.F. is sued, judge laughs out loud in court, A.F.'s action is reversed, A.F. becomes even more resentful due to public reversal. This is pretty much what just happened to Anthropic, though we're only partway through the script.
No its someone highly influential with a low stake. Someone you basically hide the project from until its in the implementation stage because they will kill it without understanding it.
From the article, here is the recording of the meeting:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/xLPF3rTT0mY" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/live/xLPF3rTT0mY</a><p>The event in question can be seen around 1:56:00 through 2:00:00 (approx)
Is the datacenter going ahead? Who is building it and who is principally using it?<p>Has the state AG commented on this?
> Who is building it and who is principally using it?<p>I was actually just looking into that: Beale Infrastructure, owned by Blue Owl.<p><i>we saw a gap: some of the largest global hyperscalers—companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Google—needed partners who could move at their speed and scale to solve their growing data needs</i><p><a href="https://wealth.blueowl.com/learnengage/ra/capturing-growth-through-digital-infrastructure-investing" rel="nofollow">https://wealth.blueowl.com/learnengage/ra/capturing-growth-t...</a><p>The CEO is ex-Azure/Microsoft:<p><a href="https://bealeinfra.com/about/" rel="nofollow">https://bealeinfra.com/about/</a>
Beale Infrastructure exhibits mafia-like, possibly illegal behavior getting city officials to sign NDAs. I suspect kickback schemes and conflicts of interest to be behind this egregious use of lawfare.
I don't know what he was speaking on at the data center town hall but the followup was a "No Turbines Rally" showing people with "Stop Wind Now" signs. Let's maybe skip this round of 404media ragebait.
"Everyone complaining about things I like, but is located in their communities, is a crank, except when I'm complaining about stuff in my own community."
USA! USA!
how dare that commoner insult the Money
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This is how authoritarians speak. Rules only matter when they make sense. An authoritarian never cares about that, and insists on a strict interpretation of the rules, well beyond reason.<p>A 3-minute limit is sensible. Hauling someone off to jail because they spoke for a few seconds too long is tyrannical.<p>You should want better out of the society you live in. Even if you disagree with this farmer, ask yourself if he would have seen the same consequences if he went over the limit speaking in support of this Datacenter (spoiler: of course he wouldn't have).<p>Do you really want to live in a world where people are creatively charged with trespassing, not because of actual malicious action, but because they said something that the powers that be didn't like?
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He was not arrested for speaking too long. He was arrested for trespassing after being asked to leave. This occurred after speaking too long, but the speaking too long is not the reason for the arrest.
Sure man. Nothing says "hacker ethos" like arresting a citizen for going 3 seconds over their allotted free speech time.<p>There are so many bootlickers here on HN these days. A sign of the times, I suppose.<p>But of course, what else can we expect? This is the natural consequence of putting ethics and morality after money. Money always wins. And once you start seeing the world like that, through the lens of "success makes right", you have to bend your view of reality to make it square. And then you wind up here, defending actions like this.
Again, that is not what happened. He went over time. He left the podium. He stopped and talked to the council. He was asked to leave. He refused. The police asked him to leave. At that point he made the decision to leave in handcuffs rather than in the normal fashion.<p>Asking him to leave sounds likely to be an abuse, but it's a far cry from "arresting a citizen for going 3 seconds over their allotted free speech time."
Look, the article is right there, and what it says doesn't match what you're saying. Sure, they arrested him for "trespassing", but their definition of trespassing was going over his allotted time by a matter of seconds.<p>They did not ask him to leave, and he refused. They counted down the seconds he had the floor, and ordered his arrest the moment he went over the allotted time.<p>I don't know if you've ever been to a Town Hall before, but this is absolutely ridiculous. When you go over your time, you can either ask for more time or be told that you are done.<p>You shouldn't be arrested unless you intentionally refuse to conclude your time, or if you create a disruption. He did neither.<p>They arrested him because they didn't like what he had to say, and they want to send a harsh message to anyone else who dares speak out against Datacenters.<p>This is an egregious violation of First Amendment rights.
If you google "Darren Blanchard activist", the screen lights up, TV, newspapers, etc. So, not his first time on the dance floor.<p>I'm not going to address whether what happened was completely right, or the merits of the underlying discussion. But this is not a case of a poor dirt farmer shocked at being arrested. I'd be very surprised myself if he didn't at least think that was a possible outcome (and would not presume to suggest that it was intended in any way whatsoever, obviously being arrested would be detrimental to his cause!).
The article wants a login, so I found a different one: <a href="https://www.newson6.com/tulsa-oklahoma-news/arrest-made-during-heated-claremore-meeting-over-proposed-data-center" rel="nofollow">https://www.newson6.com/tulsa-oklahoma-news/arrest-made-duri...</a><p>According to that article, he went over time, left the podium, had some words with the council and police, then was handcuffed and escorted out.<p>The police say that he was asked to leave by the council and refused. Then he was asked to leave by the police and also refused. At that point he was arrested for trespassing. I see no reason to doubt this version of events.<p>Asking him to leave sounds like an overstep, depending on what he said to them. But if it happened as that article described, it's probably not a First Amendment issue, definitely not an egregious violation.<p>I apologize for doing independent research on the topic. In the future I'll be sure to stick to the bits of the linked article that I can see.
You're taking the article as gospel. Is there any video for the lead up to the arrest?<p>There was a reddit post with this video, and the poster claimed that he refused to leave the podium after his time was up. Not saying that is true, but it sounds different than "spoke a few seconds too long"<p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/ObscurePatentDangers/comments/1shsu8q/people_are_being_arrested_for_speaking_out/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/ObscurePatentDangers/comments/1shsu...</a>
Why "gospel"? Why not "at face value"? What is the purpose of portraying a perfectly normal interpretation as irrational? There's nothing wrong with assuming a writeup is factually true until proven otherwise. We couldn't even speak to each other if that weren't the case.
Even if that's the case, why not just cut the mic and have security escort him away? Why jump straight to sending the cops to arrest and jail him?<p>It's abundantly clear that these things happen not because people were so disruptive that it was necessary. It is that they are saying things the government doesn't like, so they use the only tool they have as strictly as they are allowed to in an attempt to discourage people from speaking out in the first place.<p>At least this is triggering the Streisand Effect, and now this farmer is getting interviews on the news, not only about the Datacenter, but how the local government treats those who speak out against it.
In the video - 1h58m mark roughly - <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xLPF3rTT0mY" rel="nofollow">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xLPF3rTT0mY</a><p>It shows the full context. Yes, he went over his time, he talked over requests to stop, and then approached the front area. He was asked to leave the area, did not, and so the behavior was halted in favor of pre-established rules.<p>Yes, I’m in favor of free speech, and think more time should be allotted, but does his direct use of extra time impact those who will then not get to speak?<p>It’s the lines in the sand that are the hardest to draw.
You're lying about what your own link says. The poster did not claim that Blanchard refused to leave the podium; the poster wrote "with *<i>officials*</i> claiming he refused to leave the podium after his three-minute speaking time ended". The poster is sympathetic to Blanchard, which no one would know just by reading your grossly dishonest comment.
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LOL. Did you write that with a straight face?
Christ, what does this comment mean? Should we examine the metallurgic constitution of his handcuffs, too?
It means that facts matter and the headline is a lie. He was not arrested for speaking too long. He was asked to leave, refused, asked again, refused, and was arrested. Asking him to leave may have been an abuse, but it's a pretty minor one compared to what the headline says.