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Others arrested were also mistreated for engaging in lawful nonviolent activities, ones constitutionally protected. Yet, they've been charged with criminal acts for their legitimate activities and beliefs. AI stresses that "The right to peaceful expression, assembly and dissemination of information is recognized under the US Constitution. These are also fundamental freedoms enshrined in international human rights standards."
If lawless police actions are proved, "the City of San Francisco would be in breach of international law and Amnesty International would adopt those imprisoned as "Prisoners of Conscience" and would work for their unconditional release." McHenry and other FNB volunteers, in fact, hold that distinction, a significant honor reserved for the most worthy and unjustly oppressed.
Many AI chapters host FNB presentations at various schools. In addition, other organizations offer praise and support, including ACLU Legal Director Ann Beeson, saying:
"When the FBI and local law enforcement target groups like Food Not Bombs under the guise of fighting terrorism, many Americans who oppose government policies will be discouraged from speaking out and exercising their rights."
On June 4, 2010, New York Times writer Jake Halpern wrote a lengthy article titled, "The Freegan Establishment," saying:
On Buffalo's West Side, a young man named Kit says "our society wastes far too much." He's a "freegan," an ideology "drawing on elements of communism, radical environmentalism, a zealous do-it-yourself work ethic and an old-fashioned frugality of the sock-darning sort."
They're not revolutionaries. They instead challenge traditional lifestyles with their own, dedicated to "salvaging what others waste and - when possible - living without the use of currency." Even the house he moved into was abandoned, one of many in Buffalo, so with no "for sale" sign, he and others moved in as squatters.
McHenry is another freegan, a nonconformist descendant of one of the Constitution's signers and one of the Food for Bombs founders, the organization becoming "the most active force for spreading the ethos of freeganism" by distributing free food to the hungry and others needing it.
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