Traffic Stop @ Georgia Rainbow Gathering 2018 (1/2)

I was stopped and searched on my way back into the Rainbow Gathering from a town run on June 17, 2018. This is what ensued. Please watch part 2 for the last 6 minutes, at    • Traffic Stop @ Georgia Rainbow Gathering 2...  

Here is the story:
Dear friends, family, allies, and community,

My name is Finch and I am an active participant at the rainbow gathering happening near the town of Dahlonega, in Lumpkin County, Georgia. Rainbow Gatherings are peaceful free speech and expression assemblies that occur annually in US National Forests on our public land, with a focus on practicing peace and building community. Since 1972, the United States Forest Service Law Enforcement branch has been attempting to quash and chill our constitutionally protected gatherings by engaging in tactics that can be described as bullying at best, unlawful at worst.

Each year the USFS LEO Branch spends around $500,000 taxpayer dollars to police the rainbow gathering by hiring an "Incident Command Team" to manage the assembly as if it were a natural disaster. This "ICT" patrols through the gathering on foot and also conducts traffic stops, searches, and arrests on the public roads leading into the gathering.

One tactic the ICT uses to keep their annual budget intact and to intimidate gathering participants is setting up roadblocks which they call "information checkpoints" or sometimes "compliance checks". They block the public forest service roads and pull over every car entering the gathering area. While the cars are pulled over the officers run k9 units around the cars to conduct a sniff of the air. If the dogs signal, the officers search the car, without bothering to ask for consent. If they find a pipe or small amount of cannabis, they arrest or ticket. If they find nothing, they meticulously hand out federal tickets for the tiniest traffic infractions, like dusty license plate or an air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror. Using these traps, they are able to report in the papers that "500 citations were given out to hippies breaking the law at the rainbow gathering".

Yesterday, June 17, I was the subject of such a stop. I was returning from a town run with two passengers and my car was stopped at a stop sign in the middle of the road and federal officers on either side and I was told I had to pull over and hand over my documents. Though I verbally questioned the stop I obeyed the orders, only to be told a dog had hit on my car. My passengers and I were made to sit on the side of the road while my fully packed van was unloaded onto the muddy ground for a half hour against my constant protests. When they found a lockbox owned by my passenger, who refused to give them the key, they broke it open, finding nothing. After a half hour of searching they satisfied themselves that I didn't have any narcotics, and gave me a ticket with a mandatory court appearance on June 25 for an expired registration sticker (the new one was in my glove box). Then they left me to pack my entire van back up myself.

I met some local community members who were visiting the gathering and also stopped at the checkpoint. When the officer saw their Georgia tags and that they were local, they waved them on without a fuss. These folks were shocked at the blatant profiling of out of towners the ICT was engaging in.

Blocking public roads for the purpose of conducting traffic stops without probable cause is unlawful in many cases, and many of us here at the rainbow gathering believe this is the case. These roadblocks are not content-neutral; they are frequently used wherever the rainbow gathering goes each summer. We do not enjoy the constant harassment and illegal searches, the "gauntlet" as we call it, impeding our ability as free citizens to go camping each year in our national forests.

UPDATE: on July 2nd myself and two others filed affidavits in Federal court. The next day the judge granted an injunction for a (weak) temporary restraining order against the forest Service, commanding them to dissolve unconstitutional roadblocks and halt unconstitutional searches and seizures for the remaining 4 days of the Rainbow Gathering.