UPDATE: OCT 7th 10:30AM – After Approximately 58 Hours in Jail Shannon Has Finally Been Released
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In response to the use of torture tactics used on our friends Benjamin and Shannon at the behest of TransCanada supervisors, there has been an outpouring of response from across the country. With the help of our national allies hundreds of people called TransCanada’s Headquarters, signed petitions to demand they denounce the unconscionable tactics. Over 20 national and grassroots organizations even signed onto a statement condemning the tactics. To this day TransCanada has yet to deny or condemn any of the allegations levied against its agents and their actions.
There is also a new and outrageous development in the story. Our brave friend Shannon Beebe is now being charged retro-actively with felonies for using a device to lock arms with Benjamin around a piece of Keystone XL construction machinery as part of a peaceful protest. This is an archaic charge (use of a ‘criminal instrument’) that has literally no case history in the last 30 years. This adds ”insult to injury” with slapping additional FELONY charges against our friend. Yesterday, Shannon was pulled over and arrested because of this new, outstanding warrant for a retro-active felony charge. She’s currently in jail on a $7,500 bail. Its clear that the industry is pursuing a strategy to utilize their deep pockets and corporate lawyers to drain the limited grassroots resources we’ve managed to raise.
Will you help us counter these outrageous legal fees by supporting Shannon and others with a generous donation to their legal fund?
Shannon isn’t the only one facing these trumped up charges and outrageous bail amounts. To date three blockaders have received this charge: Shannon Beebe, Alejandro de la Torre, and Maggie Gorry. Alejandro, arrested on Monday, was given a $10,000 bail for defending a family farm from Keystone XL’s destruction. Then Maggie was given an $11,000 bail on Wednesday for sitting atop a 40-foot high timber pole, a courageous action that forestalled Keystone XL clear-cutting operations around the epic tree blockade for two entire days. Since when did a tree become a “criminal instrument?”
They’ve been throwing everything they’ve got at us. Let’s be clear: these trumped up charges are merely intended to scare and punish those exercising their constitutional rights. We will not be intimidated by more of TransCanada’s bullying tactics. For years they’ve trampled on landowners rights and coerced their way into plowing this toxic pipeline through private property for their own profits. It ends here.
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william
October 5, 2012 at 11:45 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Lets start a fund payable once they serve the time to each one jailed. Otherwise they will gorge the corrupt court system and legal system with citizens money. TransCanada should be sued for violating their own ethics statement that says they will protect people in the communities they work in. I have called their ethics dept a few times only to leave msg.
jd
October 5, 2012 at 11:49 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Goes back to the old saying, when you play with fire you might get burned.
Crash
October 7, 2012 at 12:12 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
jd, get back under the bridge.
Hobbs
October 7, 2012 at 11:44 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
You are an acting non-citizen of humanity…move along little sheep/feedstock…
Kim Feil
October 6, 2012 at 12:15 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
jd, this is small potatoes cash compared to what Transcanada will have to pay to clean up, they should be tanking us for tyring to stop them. A person named “noJobsOnaDeadPlanet” tweeted….”According to the PHMSA, there were 603 reported pipeline incidents last year, resulting in 17 deaths, 70 injuries, and just shy of $326 million in property damage. Approximately 139,000 barrels of hazardous liquid spilled over the course of the year. This doesn’t even decribe the amount of damage and pollution to the land, water, aminals, plants and insects. But yes, I’m sure that won’t happen with this one, the other 603 “reported” leaks where just freak accidents.”
Ken
October 6, 2012 at 1:38 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Kim, The “tar sands oil” is going to be hard gravel like chips of asphalt that will be mixed with water and pumped through this pipeline. Americans remove and replace about eleven MILLION tons of Asphalt Roofing shingles a year. While MOST of the oils and asphalt in these used shingles has broken down and washed off of our roofs over the 20 years shingles last, they slowly are polluting the soil around the drip line of our homes with hydro carbons OR the oils is slowly vaporizing. There is still OVER two barrels or 84 gallons of oil in a ton of worn out shingles. That is a 22 Million BARRELS of oil/asphalt/tar sands that COULD be extracted from these “hazardous waste” roofing shingles. BUT instead we Americans find it is far CHEAPER to haul these to a landfill and dump them out or “spill them” and bury them for our grand children to clean up in the future. Just the amount of oil in used shingles DWARFS the amount of oil spills that happen from pipe lines annually. How many deaths and how much property damage is caused each year by trucks hauling materials on road ways? How many MILLIONS of tons of used oils and tars are used to make the “Asphalt/oil/tar” highways that we all drive on. These roads are nothing more than an “oil spill” mixed with sand and gravel and called a “highway”.
jd
October 6, 2012 at 1:23 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Kim, through out history there is one thing that has never changed, you can’t please everybody, you get one group satisfied then there is something another group doesn’t like about it.thats just the way it is. Until somebody comes up with a alternative this is what we have. I am not saying that i agree with everything that is going on but like everybody else on this pipeline i have to play the had I’m dealt. So until something else comes along this is what we do. So it can protested till the very end sure it will cause some delays but in the end it will be built, i just sincerely hope no one gets hurt.
anonymous
October 6, 2012 at 11:43 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
JD, I do understand that this is your job and I really do not judge you for it. I’m supporting a family myself and some of the protestors don’t look like they’re old enough to be out of high school. Having to support a family changes one’s priorities and in this economy, we do have to do what we have to do to put food on the table, try to send our kids to college, etc. But as a landowner in the path of the pipeline, it feels really really shitty to put all your money into a few acres of property — and pay taxes on it — which we will continue to do with the easement and pipeline on it (Trans Canada will not be paying any taxes on the easement — in fact, they will be making money on it and already have, way more money than they paid us for the right of way). And now our property is devalued, and its beauty and integrity are completely destroyed. Some people say “well, then move,” but they diddn’t purchase a property and build a house on it with their own hands (literally) and money as a place to rear a family for a lifetime.
So, I guess your bravado regarding “just deal with it,” (and I’m not a kid or a professional protestor or an overly idealistic person), really does add salt to the wound.
I do understand that you have to have a job and it takes money to live in the real world and raise a family.
kellye
October 7, 2012 at 3:46 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Wow Anonymous I must say in this awful Tar-Sands epic your post was the most heart felt post I have read. You and your family are deserving of having you property fixed back to a similar way of its previous beauty and of couse you should be paid well for being RUN over by Tar-Sands (a company employing people from Canada I am sure albeit a few Americans) unfortunately that has to be filed under “pipe dream” excuse the pun but we know they will never do right by all those being hurt. For you and all others being abused by this Corp. I am saddened and outraged but powerless, That SUCKS!!
Crash
October 7, 2012 at 12:15 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Nuremberg defense, jd.
Wease
October 7, 2012 at 2:41 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
JD:
The problem is, there will be no trying to come up with an alternative by our “leaders” or any formidable body of power. Dropping out of the Kyoto Protocol for example, is a complete step in the opposite direction of looking for a viable option to things like KXL. This is what makes money. End of story. The whole “come up with something better if you don’t like it” routine is for lack of a better term, bullshit. It’s used to defend complacency and the unconscionable acts that put money in the pockets of corporations and the governments that do their biddings. It isn’t about one group disagreeing with the actions of another. It’s about the unbearable disregard that the power elite and their cronies have for anything beyond profit. Human lives, health and environment don’t register in the minds of Neo-Liberal policies. We either stop them, or they destroy us. And make no qualms about it, they will sooner watch us all die and lead the earth into a future of little more than a smoking black hole before they give up the constant pursuit of profit. If someone has a better idea, then? Fine. I have a better idea than the Keystone XL: Cease its construction, cease drilling for and refining bitumen, have our elected “leaders” take on the best interests of the people who elected them and actually work to find a solution, rather than completely ignoring it and pretending that everything is just fine. But that will never happen. So people are forced to do the only thing they can to prevent this type of bullshit. And I support everyone and anyone who resists this tyrannical, suicidal approach to the energy question.
ALL POWER TO THE PEOPL!
TEAR THIS FUCKER DOWN!
Andy
October 6, 2012 at 2:43 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
so I guess you accept your role as an economic hostage of a system that has operated with full impunity since at least 1930? sounds like you are saying … it is what it is.?
No offense, but, to use your language, throughout history complacent economic hostages such as yourself told those protesting things such as leaded gasoline, DDT, Asbestos, High Sulfur diesel & coal, CFC’s (oh wait no one really had to protest that as governments just listened to their scientists and NOT the the industry who released the ozone depleting gasses), “that is just the way it is” claiming that there are no viable alternatives.
Thankfully, history is also full of those who were not comfortable with their role as economic, or cultural hostages… ie, the slaves are free, woman can vote, we have a clean air act, DDT / Asbestos / CFC’s / ….. are all banned! That is in no way thanks to those who accepted the way society was at those times. TarSandsBlockade is NO different. We understand that Tarsands, much like your complacency kills our clean energy future.
Rise up man, help us sever ties with an industry that is literally rewriting Earth’s geologic history and future. This pipeline is a slap in the face to humanity.
Theresa
October 6, 2012 at 3:15 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
How is Shannon? Is she OK? Please update us on her whereabouts. Thank you!
Princepts
October 6, 2012 at 10:07 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
§ 16.01. UNLAWFUL USE OF CRIMINAL INSTRUMENT. (a) A
person commits an offense if:
(1) he possesses a criminal instrument with intent to
use it in the commission of an offense; or
(2) with knowledge of its character and with intent to
use or aid or permit another to use in the commission of an offense,
he manufactures, adapts, sells, installs, or sets up a criminal
instrument.
(b) For the purpose of this section, “criminal instrument”
means anything, the possession, manufacture, or sale of which is
not otherwise an offense, that is specially designed, made, or
adapted for use in the commission of an offense.
(c) An offense under Subsection (a)(1) is one category lower
than the offense intended. An offense under Subsection (a)(2) is a
state jail felony.
Russell Henry
October 6, 2012 at 10:32 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Why aren’t you fighting “FIRE WITH FIRE”? It wasn’t me who made those words fit so easily together…
Ken
October 6, 2012 at 12:03 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
There are over 300,000 miles of the larger high pressure Natural Gas pipelines just in the USA. This is not counting smaller distribution lines to homes and businesses. This is NOT counting the hundreds of thousands of miles of pipelines that move oil and gasoline liquids. WITHOUT eminent domain laws NONE of these pipelines would have been built. Without these there would be NO manufacturing, no power plants and the USA would have cut down all of their forests for cooking fuel and the USA would look like Haitian cities and forests do today. Check out satellite views of Haiti and you can see what a country looks like that has no infrastructure and no fuel moving through pipelines. Think how much air pollution you would have from heating a 2,000 square foot home with wood and or charcoal!
Doug Grandt
October 6, 2012 at 4:15 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Princepts, thank you for posting: § 16.01. UNLAWFUL USE OF CRIMINAL INSTRUMENT.
TransCanada’s perverted use of Eminent Domain fulfills this definition of Criminal Instrument.
WHAT IS THE CORRECT AND MORAL DEFINITION OF EMINENT DOMAIN?
A) Eminent domain to keep refineries fed with tarsands feed stock … or
B) Eminent domain for the good of all humanity, promoting life, not destruction.
The former application A) can be solved by retiring and dismantling refineries.
The latter application B) can be solved by replacing refineries with carbon-free energy technology.
Let’s get started. Stop the extraction of tarsands … leave the tarsands in the ground.
THIS IS THE CORRECT AND MORAL DEFINITION OF EMINENT DOMAIN.
APPLY EMINENT DOMAIN TO CONFISCATE TARSANDS AND REFINERIES
Concomitantly, Compel Congress to Place a Steadily Increasing Fee on Carbon in order to Facilitate the Accelerated Implementation of Innovative Renewable Carbon-free Energy Technologies and Quickly Retire, Dismantle and Extinct Tyrannosaurus Rex-fineries, Tarsands Ex-cavations, Mountain Top Rex-moval.
jd
October 6, 2012 at 5:08 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Anonymous, wasn’t trying to add salt to the wound, it literally came thru my backyard also.
Kenneth Hargett
October 6, 2012 at 11:30 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
@Ken: This is not a normal oil pipeline. It is a tar sand pipeline, and thank god, there are not 300.000 miles of tar sands pipelines. They carrying thick, toxic diluted bitumen (DilBit), which will be forced through the pipeline at 1440 psi and 175 F, compared to maximum 600 psi and ambient temperatures for crude oil pipelines. Just for comparison, 1080 psi will sink an American Seawolf Class nuclear submarine. DilBit is much more corrosive than conventional crude oil. The exact content of DilBit varies, but studies have shown that DilBit contains 15 to 20 times higher acid concentrations than conventional crudes. DilBit also contains 5 to 10 times more sulfur as conventional crudes. This can lead to increased weakening and embrittlement of pipelines. Higher temperatures thin the DilBit and increase its speed through the pipeline, but they also increase the speed at which acids and other chemicals corrode the pipeline. Internal corrosion has caused more than sixteen times as many spills in the Alberta tar sands pipeline systems as for U.S. conventional pipeline systems.
Watch this video and then ask the people in Michigan about their opinion of these pipelines.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGmqtsbYJGc
There are tons more videos and information about the horrible tar sands development as well as the dangers of these specific types of pipelines. The only reason that this is being accepted is because the oil industry has very deep pockets and the general public is kept in the dark.
These courageous people are trying to lift awareness to the horrible truth about the tar sands. Here are a few more videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkwoRivP17A&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61X4IQqnmd0&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrFep4IJ6lY&feature=related
There are tons more.
Aztex2012
October 7, 2012 at 1:37 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
It will take trillions of gallons of water to process these TarSands and trillions of gallons of toxic waste to be disposed somewhere. The TarSands have to be mixed with a soup of toxic chemicals in order to get it to flow down the pipeline in the first place and those same chemicals will have to be removed at the end. In light of the serious drought going on all the way through the Nation’s bread basket it would seem we would best conserve our precious fresh water for human consumption. After all water is a necessity and it would be better used to cultivate food for everyone instead of profits for the oil tycoons. S
Kay Baily Hutchenson and Republican politicians are pushing this pipeline including Consaeco. I know these two are pushing it because I wrote them letters personally and received their lame replies which is their desire to put unemployed people to work. If putting people to work is the quest, I suggest we let this pipeline be constructed and bring FRESH WATER to the parched drought stricken earth. And how about all those truckers who will ultimately be put out of work? We need to be asking more pointed questions and expect more detailed answers. This does everything to do with the best interests of the people of the United States and I am not speaking about We the Corporations.
Seems like there should be some legal recourse to put a end to the attack byf this foreign corporation. Seems to me this should be considered an act or WAR. Our law enforcement officials and military are supposed to be there to protect We the People. Seems to me they are only interested in protecting these huge corporations. Damn, WACO, where are the Branch Dividians when you need them. Have these patriots filed for a temporary injunction in the federal court? If not why and if not DO IT NOW! It surely would give them a legal leg on which to stand. This Pipeline is a thorn in everyone’s side. It is time for We the people to Unite with these American Citizens and fight these on going infringements upon our Liberty and Freedom. It is time for the BRAVE to be counted. Are You ONE?
Cathy
October 7, 2012 at 11:05 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
I create a leave a response whenever I like a article on a website or if I have something to valuable to contribute to
the conversation. Usually it’s a result of the fire communicated in the article I read. And on this article Insult to Injury: Shannon Retroactively Arrested for a Felony
Hobbs
October 8, 2012 at 12:18 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
She is super cute…and brave…bravo sweet-face girl!!!
Gino
October 8, 2012 at 6:11 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
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jd
October 8, 2012 at 1:05 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Crash, i would be glad to get back under the bridge, but unfortunately it is overcrowded with dumb-asses like you.
jd
October 8, 2012 at 7:57 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Hobbs, kiss my ass. No never mind you might enjoy it too much.
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