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Carlos Miller's Photography Is Not A Crime.

Bits of this article read like passages from Solzhenitsyn's "First Cell, First Love" ("Gulag Archipelago", Vol. I, Part I, chapter 5) --

"Considering we were all being charged with misdemeanors, the only thing we wanted to do was just get through the night without any problems that would cause us to remain in jail. Unlike the felons in the next cage, we were all being released the following morning regardless if we posted bail or not.

In fact, only three out of more than 20 inmates posted bail that night. The rest of us toughed it out until the following morning.

After our release, we slapped each other on the back and told each other to stay out of trouble. We were brothers in arms, having endured an uncomfortable and restless night in one of worst jails in the United States of America."

In a glaring way, to compare this with anything out of "Gulag" is absurd because Soviet arrests so nearly completely excluded any prospect of release at all. What's remarkable about it is the kinship among people put down like this by the state. Law & Order types rarely take an effort to distinguish the ethics of any given law and despise doing so. Therefore, it is enough for them to hear that a given person is in-hand, and then Due Process will sort it out. The thinking here is, roughly, "If he was charged, then he must've been doing something wrong." Such a person rarely or never considers the open-ended implications: what if one of his values, the pursuit of which causes no one harm, becomes proscribed at law?

"Misdemeanors" --

"...criminals in the eyes of the law; men ranging from drug dealers to wife beaters to drunk drivers to probation violators to homeless drifters to men who just claimed they were standing in the wrong place at the wrong time..."

An astute observer of any large American city now could see through about half that number as innocent men, gauged against a politics of freedom. Nobody has to like those who don't conduct their lives as we would see fit: condemn their values all day long if you want to, but leave them alone to go to hell in their own ways. Here's the thing: a guy who's selling dope on the street knows that there is nothing "criminal" about him except what some people in the legislature say about him.

And that ladies and gentlemen, is only about one step removed from getting your ass tossed. You see, cops have their opinions, too.

And maybe "due process" will sort it out, after you've made new acquaintances. After all: it's easy to think jail-people are skeevy until suddenly you're one of them.

"And you'll find nothing better to respond with than a lamblike bleat: 'Me? What for?'"

("Gulag", Vol. I, Part I: "The Prison Industry", chapter 1: "Arrest", p. 4)