"The police have power and authority that is unmatched in our society," said Ashlee Albies, president of the Portland chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. "A system of checks and balances is all that we ask."

"I hope challenges will continue to be made in the courtroom," said Heidi Boghosian, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild. "This may infringe on the right to association, in that it severely limits the kind of communication (inmates) can have."

The police response to protests at the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh will be remembered as especially brutal, given the debut of military sonic weapons against civilians. Technology used in Iraq, long range acoustic devices (LRADs), are more insidious than other so called less-lethal munitions because they leave no visible marks and can cause permanent hearing loss.

The Anti-Capitalist Brigade started gathering early on May Day at Oakland’s Snow Park. There was free coffee, oatmeal, doughnuts, fliers with the day’s agenda and plenty of pot. A “street medic” — “I just finished a wilderness first-aid course,” he told me when I asked about his training — tended to his first case of the day, a man in his 20s whose leg had been beaten to a purple hue with a metal rod in an overnight fight in the park. Nearby, an organizer reminded protesters to take down the toll-free number for the National Lawyers Guild: “This is important.