Greenpeace charged with "sailor mongering"

By Cory Doctorow at 12:13 am Friday, May 14

The Bush administration continues to cover itself with glory: it has charged some Greenpeace activists who hung a banner on a ship with an obscure crime called "Sailor mongering," and has launched the first nautical protest prosecution in the US since the Boston Tea Party.

Sailor mongering was rife in the 19th century when brothels sent prostitutes laden with booze onto ships as they made their way to harbor. The idea was to get the sailors so drunk they could be whisked to shore and held in bondage, and a law was passed against it in 1872. It has only been used in a court of law twice, the last time in 1890.

Greenpeace says the decision by the U.S. Attorney's Office to prosecute the organization rather than just the activists who boarded the APL Jade freighter is a sea change in policy, and a conviction would throttle free speech everywhere...

Not once since the Boston Tea Party have U.S. authorities criminally prosecuted a group for political expression.

Link (via JWZ)