Last time I printed in public at the Memorial for my great friend Lee Groban.

The Illinois legislature fell short of changing the twice declared unconstitutional eavesdropping law on Thursday, March 22, 2012.

As a person charged under this law and still facing up to 15 years in prison for audio recording my own public arrest for the misdemeanor of selling art for $1 on State Street, I have an opinion about this. This law is used to protect corruption in Illinois.

What I did on State Street in December, 2009, is totally legal in 47 other states in America! Why is it not legal in Illinois? From my research it appears that in 1994, in order to shield police and other public officials from being captured in public with their pants down, the Illinois legislature changed the eavesdropping law. They took the law that was meant to protect our private conversations, largely from government intrusion, and turned it upside down to protect public employees (government) from public embarrassment by its citizens. This turned the recording of public conversations of government into secrets illegal to be reported by solid evidence. They did this by changing the very definition of eavesdropping from the recording of a private conversation to being defined as the recording of a private or a public conversation. This defies logic!

This dramatic change does not seem to have been widely reported or enforced at the time by the framers of the law suggesting they knew how outrageous the idea was.

In 2004, ten years later, this law was applied to African American activists airing a documentary on police practices in Champaign, Illinois. The application of this law demonstrated publicly for the first time the law’s true anti-democratic nature as a tool to suppress dissenting opinions and to persecute whistleblowers. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a brief, the community organized to back the activists, the prosecuting States Attorney lost his election but the law went unchallenged, surviving the uproar. The activists were vindicated after great personal sacrifice and the community remains unprotected from a police force that can’t effectively be overseen while still shielded by this law. Corruption prevails.

The change in the eavesdropping law that the Illinois legislature failed to make did not go far enough. It only tried to make it legal to record police in public. It left the perverted definition of eavesdropping in place. I don’t want to write the new law. I want to raise awareness of the issues. Since the eavesdropping law is such a powerful tool to hide issues I want to raise up the hidden issues, issues prosecutors have refused to prosecute. Then, the issues that go to trial that never should have been prosecuted, like the Ms. Moore case, the Allison case and my own. Finally, the cases we don’t know about yet that are hidden from us in government files.

Cook County States Attorney, Anita Alvarez, who is running for that office unopposed, has decided her office will appeal the decision of Cook County Judge Stanley Sacks, that the eavesdropping law is unconstitutional. Her foot is planted firmly in the mud. She even applied the eavesdropping law to prosecute a woman who dared to report sexual abuse by an on-duty Chicago police officer. Why wouldn’t Alvarez defend this woman’s right to challenge a Chicago police officer who sexually abused her? In fact, it should be Anita Alvarez’s duty to challenge anyone who stood in the way of a legitimate charge of sexual abuse. The jury in the Tiawanda Moore eavesdropping case said so. It took only 45 minutes for 12 people to agree that it was a waste of time and money for Anita Alvarez to prosecute Ms. Moore for a class 1 felony eavesdropping charge. All she did was the simple act of recording police officers who were supposed to be helping her file a complaint. Instead, they charged Tiawanda Moore with a felony, jailed her for 3 weeks and were supported to the hilt by Ms. Alvarez. The police officers were never held accountable for their conduct. Is this really justice or corruption?

Now that Ms. Alvarez’s office has appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court, opposing the unconstitutionality ruling of Judge Sacks, one might think the law will finally get a thorough review. If history is a guide it won’t. It didn’t in 2004 when the charges were dropped against the African American activists. The States Attorney in Michael Allison’s eavesdropping case recently dropped all charges against him robbing him also of his challenge of the law before the Illinois Supreme Court. After tormenting him for several years they just dropped his charges and smiled. Until then, he was treated as if guilty.

The “People of Illinois “ did not drag Michael Allison and his aging mother through court for several years threatening him with up to 75 years of prison time. A ham handed State’s Attorney did this. The same “People of Illinois” did not put a 20 year old girl in jail for three weeks and prosecute her as guilty for two years. The Office of Cook County State’s Attorney did this. I know you – “The People of Illinois” – would never prosecute an artist selling art for $1 on State Street, for a crime seeking up to 15 years in state prison. The State’s Attorney did that - not you! This corruption is being made in your good name. Take your name back! Your voices are powerful.

Sincerely,

Christopher Drew

Artist

http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/changes-afoot-at-the-cultural-center/Content?oid=5718450

This very likely means that what we in the communities say has little value. It is a big indicator that this is a top down process. We would be wise to begin networking to comment on the plan once it is sprung on us and our grassroots suggestions are eliminated, downplayed and later unsupported while big ticket downtown interests rule again.

Photo by Nancy Bechtol - Chicago's attitude toward street art culture.

1. Create a section in the Cultural Plan called Street Art Culture devoted to encouraging artists to present their art in public for sale and show on a regular basis. To encourage artists to create art in public wherever possible without interrupting foot traffic.

2. Remove artists from the peddlers license requirement and establish narrowly tailored laws governing the sale of art on public sidewalks.

3. Remove the restrictions on selling art in public parks.

4. Establish art scenes along the lake front where artists are encouraged to set up to sell art on a first come basis. Include a stage and open mike for poets, bands and theater groups to perform. Promote these art scenes as part of Chicago’s character.

5. Honor the full First Amendment rights of all artists and musicians. Include the cultural arts/crafts of all indiginous Americans among the definition of artist. Allow the artists to define the definition of “artist”.

Photo by Nancy Bechtol of some of the supporters who came to hear the oral arguments. Thank you to all who came.

Feb 14th - Court

February 14 in court room 602 at 26^th and California in Chicago the oral argument between Josh Kutnick for the defense and Jeff Allen for the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office took place over the motion to dismiss my case for audio-recording my arrest for selling art for $1 in Chicago base on First Amendment and Fourth Amendment grounds. Nearly twenty supporters came to hear the arguments.

The arguments were short. Judge Sacks made it clear that he would not rule on the motion today. He said he had read all the cases mentioned in Mr. Kutnick motion and as the argument progressed he demonstrated a strong grasp of the legal arguments Mr. Kutnick presented. At the end he said he would present his written opinion in two weeks indicating that he took this case very seriously and intended to give it the attention it deserves.

The main points by Mr. Kutnick were two. First he argued that the law made innocent behavior illegal by its broad language in its attempt to protect the privacy of citizens. This makes the audio recording of police on duty in public illegal even though there are no real privacy concerns at stake in this instance. Second, pointed out that the officer had little expectation of privacy while performing his public duties in public and thus I was not violating the intent of the eavesdropping law that was to protect citizen’s privacy. He argued that all I was doing was making a record of what the officer said in public and that this was no affront to the officer’s privacy that should not be expected by him in the performance of his duties as long as it did not interfere with his duties.

Naturally, Jeff Allen attempted to rebut Mr. Kutnick’s argument. Several times the judge stopped Mr. Allen to point out that he was miss interpreting what Mr. Kutnick’s argument was about.

Mr. Kutnick felt Judge Sacks would approach this motion honestly and that we have a good chance of him deciding in our favor. If it is decided in our favor the case will likely join Michael Allison’s case before the Illinois Supreme Court and if it doesn’t we will be on a fast track to a trial before Judge Sacks in April or May.

Chicago Tribune Article from Court Feb 14th

Constitutionality of Illinois eavesdropping law challenged in court

Attorney argues statute ‘not designed to protect police conduct that is open and in public,’ should not prohibit audio recording

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-eavesdropping-law-0215-20120215,0,5424460.story

Art Chicago at the MART is canceled.

Our artist protest planned for around the Merchandise Mart needs redesigning due to the fact that Art Chicago at the Mart is canceled. Expect more on this in the next e-mail.

The Future Fight in Illinois after We Change the Law is Previewed in Baltimore

Baltimore defies law using loitering and Police State tactics supported by the police union

http://boingboing.net/2012/02/13/baltimore-police-cant-arrest.html

The Chicago Cultural Plan

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-il-chicago-culturalp,0,3556431.story

www.chicagoculturalplan2012.org

Town Hall meetings will be held in four locations beginning February 15 and continuing on February 16, 18, and 21. Artists should attend and make their interests known. Be sure to echo that we want our full First Amendment rights to sell art in public. If they want to know what that means refer them to art-teez.org/free-speech.htm The following dates include the location and time of each town hall:

Wednesday, February 15: Columbia College from 6–8 p.m.

600 South Michigan Chicago, IL 60605

Thursday, February 16: Nicholas Senn High School from 6–8 p.m.

5900 North Glenwood Avenue

Saturday, February 18: DuSable Museum from 10am–12 p.m.

Tuesday, February 21: National Museum of Mexican Art, 6–8 p.m.

Follow the Progress of Bill HR3944 (would let people record audio of cops )

Follow the progress of her bill (HB 3944) at this link:

http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/billstatus.asp?DocNum=3944&GAID=11&GA=97&DocTypeID=HB&LegID=62774&SessionID=84

Last week, a House committee approved legislation introduced by state Rep. Elaine Nekritz, D-Northbrook, that would give people permission to record police who are on duty and working in public. Nekritz said Tuesday that she doesn’t plan to call the bill before the full House for several weeks.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-il-chicago-culturalp,0,3556431.story

www.chicagoculturalplan2012.org

For Two decades the Uptown Multi-Cultural Art Center has been calling on Chicago to honor Mayor Harold Washington’s Chicago Cultural Plan by reviving its concept of cultural democracy. We are the only place to find the original Chicago Cultural Plan on-line. It has been published on our website since 1999 at http://www.art-teez.org/cul_plan.htm. Will the new plan live up to the legacy of the original. I tend to doubt it but remain hopeful. The original plan stressed the need to support community art activities and the Washington Administration followed through on that promise. Mayor Daley abandoned independent community based artists to stress downtown interests and centralization of support for the arts. For more on the history of the Chicago Cultural Plan and my suggestion for the new plan that will tell us all we need to know to evaluate whether this new Chicago Cultural Plan will follow the Daley or the Washington model visit my blog at http://www.c-drew.com/blog.

Art Patch by Marcellous Lovelace - No Sign - from the Art Patch Project

Artists Called to Display/Protest During Art Chicago

This is a call for all artists who want to Occupy Art Chicago and protest the lack of open-air opportunities to survive by our art in Chicago. Art Chicago is an annual event for artists to showcase their work at the Merchandise Mart. Booths start out at 3-5 thousand dollars for three days exposure. Most artists can’t afford to attend. At the same time the laws of Chicago prevent us from surviving by selling art on the street and creating art scenes where people are used to seeing us promote our art.

So we will ask artists to show their art outside the Merchandise Mart along Wells Street during Art Chicago. You may pass out your business cards and promote your websites to those attending Art Chicago without the expensive fees artists are paying inside. At the same time we will be promoting changes that lead to an artist friendlier City of Chicago where artists are encouraged to survive by creating open-air art scenes to sell their art to the public. Reply to this email if interested in joining us.

Valentines Day Protest at my Court Hearing.

My next court date is our opportunity to begin to organize to make my trial for audio-recording my arrest for selling art for $1 into a national/international event that properly embarrasses the City of Chicago for violating its citizen’s rights. On February 14^th we will have the oral arguments over our motion to dismiss my case based on First Amendment issues. This will be a very interesting discussion – well worth your attendance.

We need all supporters who want to help to meet us at 26^th and California on February 14^th at 10:30am in front of room 602. Those who will be there should reply to this e-mail so we can plan. This will be a very quiet show of force. We will save the theatrics for the trial.

AP Covers Eavesdropping Issue

Hi Chris,
Thank you for talking with me last week! Hopefully we'll see some changes in this law soon. This story will be all over the place, here's the San Francisco Chronicle:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/02/06/national/a124612S79.DTL

Shannon McFarland - Associated Press

Follow the Progress of Bill HR3944 (would let people record audio of cops )

Follow the progress of her bill (HB 3944) at this link:

http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/billstatus.asp?DocNum=3944&GAID=11&GA=97&DocTypeID=HB&LegID=62774&SessionID=84

Recent Developments on the Eavesdropping Law Issue

Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy says he supports the video and audio recording of police officers who are on the job.

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=8524797

Federal Jury Says Cops Can’t Arrest People for Recording Police Encounters

http://reason.com/blog/2012/01/30/federal-jury-says-cops-cant-arrest-peopl

Valentines Day Protest at my Court Hearing.

My next court date is our opportunity to begin to organize to make my trial for audio-recording my arrest for selling art for $1 into a national/international event that properly embarrasses the City of Chicago for violating its citizen’s rights. On February 14^th we will have the oral arguments over our motion to dismiss my case based on First Amendment issues. This will be a very interesting discussion – well worth your attendance.

We need all supporters who want to help to meet us at 26^th and California on February 14^th at 10:30am in front of room 602. Those who will be there should reply to this e-mail so we can plan. This will be a very quiet show of force. We will save the theatrics for the trial.

Archives and Link Lists

Archive of our Free Speech Artists’ Movement Newsletter

http://community.icontact.com/p/community1112

Press Releases from the Uptown Multi-Cultural Art Center

http://www.art-teez.org/pr.htm

Marcellous Lovelace - No Sign from the Art Patch Project

The original plan balanced support for major arts institutions with support for arts infrastructure in Chicago’s communities. The original plan presented 103 suggestions culled from thousands of comments by citizens. The intention of the plan was to assess the progress on achieving these suggestions and to invite new community input from time to time to generate new suggestions for a living Chicago Cultural Plan. I am excited to hear our lonely voice has been heard.

Mayor Daley had a different vision. He centralized support for community art activity through Gallery 37 and then After School Matters and stressed the major arts institutions to the exclusion of independent community arts agencies. He reduced support for independent community initiatives to less then little. It will be a long way back to rebuilding Chicago’s community art infrastructures.

Most likely pitfall of the new Chicago Cultural Plan is that it stresses the desires of the major downtown arts institutions and minimizes the needs of Chicago’s communities and artists. The original Plan organizers spent two years visiting every neighborhood in the City collecting input and summarizing their results. This new Plan will collect their suggestions in just one week in only four locations. Who will winnow the suggestions down and how will they be expressed are major questions. Also, how will the Administration go about implementing those suggestions. As stated above the Washington Administration not only gave voice to the aspirations of Chicago’s community artists but followed through with programs and policies that served their needs. It is a bad portent that the public relations of the Department of Cultural Affairs suggests only that the original plan gave us Navy Pier and the redevelopment of Chicago’s theater district. They neglect to mention the community arts and mention only the downtown interests. This clues us to their real agenda.

The first suggestion I have for the new plan is to review and revise the laws and policies that have prevented Chicago artists from exercising their full First Amendment right to survive by their art in public. Artists in Chicago have less opportunities to survive by selling their art in public than in Moscow Russia. We have zero open-air art scenes where an artist can sell their art in public.

This forces us into the fruitless cultural sharecropping of our art in art fairs and street festivals that rent our public sidewalks back to us at rates that take the profit off the top and leave us all the risk of bad weather. Few artists are able to survive by these outlets. Our organization will be suing the City of Chicago this year to begin to change the unconstitutional laws that prevent us from accessing our First Amendment rights but the Emanual Administration could avoid all this by listening to the artists and working to change the peddler license law and park policies that prevent artists from appearing in public to sell their art in Chicago. How this suggestion is treated by the new plan administrators will tell us if the plan serves the people or mainly major downtown players.

We believe our changes are needed to showcase Chicago’s cultural diversity in public, to make Chicago a cultural Mecca for the Midwest, and to realize its true potential as an international destination. In the future we want Chicago to bloom with creative artists in public every spring.

Thank you for talking with me last week! Hopefully we’ll see some
changes in this law soon. This story will be all over the place,
here’s the San Francisco Chronicle:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/02/06/national/a124612S79.DTL

Shannon McFarland - Associated Press

At long last we are moving rapidly toward a trial. It will still not come until late spring or early summer but it will be upon us swiftly. This next court date is our opportunity to begin to organize to make this trial for audio-recording my arrest for selling art for $1 into a national/international event that properly embarrasses the City of Chicago for violating its citizen’s rights. On February 14^th we will have the oral arguments over our motion to dismiss my case based on First Amendment issues. This will be a very interesting discussion – well worth your attendance.

Art Patch art by Jenny Rotten from the Art Patch Project - http://www.art-teez.org/free-speech-movement/fs-art-patch-project-instructions.htm

We need all supporters who want to help to meet us at 26^th and California on February 14^th at 10:30am in front of room 602. Those who will be there should reply to this e-mail so we can plan. This will be a very quiet show of force. We will save the theatrics for the trial.

A little perspective is valuable. The State’s Attorney’s Office would like to frame this as simply a trial of a long haired troublemaker charged with violating the rights of a hard working policeman. It is not. It is about silencing the voice of an activist in Chicago with a long prison sentence.

In reality it is a trial about the First Amendment. I was arrested violating the peddlers license to test its constitutionality and to demonstrate our First Amendment right to sell art in public. This is a misdemeanor. The police knew I and my team of artists were on a mission to do this because we told them so. My arresting officer was the head of the Homeland Security detail responsible for the entire area around Macys in the Loop on State Street. You can be sure he was hand picked to do the job.

Why? Because three weeks earlier we had tried have me arrested and the police balked. That previous time I was ticketed and told I would be arrested then if I continued. We continued. A patty wagon shadowed me for an hour and a half awaiting instructions that day. Police in plain clothes and in uniforms observed our actions while communicating with each other and headquarters by radio during that entire time but never acted. Finally, we headed off for a late lunch to talk about our next attempt. You can not tell me the police did not know who we were and what we were up to. The day I was arrested it took about an hour before the arresting officer showed up. That is just enough time for us to be observed and for the police to put their pre-made plan into operation sending their senior officer to arrest me to make sure everything went smoothly.

Once I was cuffed in the jail waiting room and they discovered I had audio-recorded my arrest a three hour gap appeared before they decided just how to handle me. I was arrested at 1:30. The arresting officer heard my tape about an hour later after he was informed I had taped my arrest. Hours later at 4:00 a detective told me they had not decided yet what to charge me with. “If you are charged with a felony you will go to Cook County Jail in the morning and if the charge is a misdemeanor you will be set free tonight,” he told me.

This decision came down from the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office not from the arresting officer. The decision was to use a portion of the eavesdropping law enacted by the State Legislature to punish gang members caught spying on the justice system at 26^th and California with modified cell phones and pagers recording the internal conversations of judges, assistant state’s attorneys and policemen. Normally, if a person records the conversation they are having in Illinois without informing the another person to the conversation the penalty would be a class 4 felony, if it ever reached the stage of contention. A class 4 felony was not enough punishment for those who would exercise their First Amendment rights to challenge the status-quot in Chicago.

Even applying the class 4 felony to the act of recording a policeman in public who is arresting or interrogating you a is highly suspect act by a State’s Attorney in America today any where but Illinois and two other states. Thus, applying the obviously inappropriate charge of class 1 felony is an outrageous act of malicious prosecution. This charge was aimed at taking my First Amendment right to be a social critic away by intimidating and threatening me with up to 15 years in a state prison. It had nothing to do with me violating the arresting officers rights and the arresting officer didn’t even make the decision to prosecute, the State’s Attorney’s Office did. The only proof I need to offer to verify this is the logic of the story I have just told. Tell me without grinning that it is not true.

Artropolis – artist protest.

This is a call for all artists who want to Occupy Artropolis and protest the lack of open-air opportunities to survive by our art in Chicago. Artropolis is an annual event for artists to showcase their work at the Merchandise Mart. Booths cost three thousand dollars and above for three days exposure. Most artists can’t afford to attend. At the same time the laws of Chicago prevent us from surviving by selling art on the street and creating art scenes where people are used to seeing us promote our art.

So we will ask artists to show their art outside the Merchandise Mart along Wells Street during Artropolis. You may pass out your business cards and promote your websites to those attending Artropolis without the expensive fees artists are paying inside. At the same time we will be promoting changes that lead to an artist friendlier City of Chicago where artists are encouraged to survive by creating open-air art scenes to sell their art to the public. Reply to this email if interested in joining us.

Growth of Bill HR 3944 (to make it legal to audio record police) in the State Legislature

Bill HR 3944 is assigned to Judiciary 1 – Civil Law Committee for a hearing on Tuesday. To see committee members to be contacted regarding your views visit

http://www.ilga.gov/house/committees/members.asp?committeeID=895

E-mail or call the legislators on the committee at the link above to express your views before Tuesday.

Hearing Jan 31 2012 3:30PM Stratton Building Room D-1 Springfield, IL

The ACLU has provided a contact your legislators link below to make your view easy to express to your own legislators.

https://secure.aclu.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=4001