Originally Posted by Pioneer Press

"These charges are an effort to equate publicly stated plans to blockade traffic and disrupt the RNC as being the same as acts of terrorism," said Bruce Nestor, an attorney with the National Lawyers Guild who is representing Bicking, in a recent statement.

Originally Posted by Pioneer Press

The Ramsey County sheriff's office spent a year investigating an anarchist group called the RNC Welcoming Committee, which pledged on its Web site to "Crash the Convention" and encouraged activists to prevent delegates from getting to the Xcel Energy Center.

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When the sheriff's office, assisted by other local agencies and the FBI, searched the homes of Bicking, Specktor and others, they found what Fletcher described as buckets of urine to throw at officers, homemade devices to puncture bus tires and maps with routes designated for blocking.

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The idea of working with non-hierarchical groups run by consensus also appealed to [23-year-old Monica] Bicking. When she came upon the Welcoming Committee during an Internet search, she saw it as a "great fit."

But the part-time nanny didn't expect it to lead to a raid on her house.

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Though opposed to the war, [19-year-old Max] Specktor said that wasn't why he joined the Welcoming Committee: He liked the idea of organizing the community and believed the committee could support other activists.

"I wanted to facilitate protests so that people could protest whatever they wanted, protest the war, protest the environmental destruction — that's kind of how I saw my organizing role," he said.

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"There's a lot of reasons to be upset about the RNC coming to town," [25-year-old Garrett Fitzgerald] said of the Republicans. "So I sort of was hoping I could work to facilitate making space for other people to get their message out. That I was going to support community."