Earlier this month, Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen announced felony charges for the 12 Stanford affiliates who allegedly occupied Building 10 on campus nearly 10 months ago. In his presentation, DA Rosen exclaimed that his prosecution of the Stanford 12 was not a political act. In the midst of a yearlong attempt by the US government to crack down on dissent related to the US-funded and US-armed genocide against the Palestinian people, Rosen’s comment at the press conference that this prosecution is not political is not believable. The prosecution of the Stanford 12 is a poorly obscured political stand in favor of genocide pursued in the name of ‘law and order.’
From a 10,000 foot view, the occupation of the Stanford building was in direct reaction to the continual US policy of destruction in Gaza and made cognizable attempts to end Stanford’s role in the genocide. DA Rosen’s legal reaction, through the criminal charging process, is inherently political. History reflects badly on local politicians who, like Rosen, punish civil disobedience, while remaining mute on the moral issues plaguing our society: civil rights, the killing of Michael Brown, the Dakota Access Pipeline, the killing of George Floyd, or the occupation of Palestine and genocide of its people.
The year of resistance by college students nationwide has been dubbed the Student Intifada, named after past uprisings of Palestinians against the Israeli Occupation. Student occupation of university buildings is a tactic to compel individual universities to divest from Israel and Israeli companies. More broadly, students focused on capturing the attention of the US state to stop US airstrikes in the region and to cut the flow of American weapons, munitions, and cash to Israel that have sustained the 500 days of genocide. Since the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War, student protest activity has been one of the radical areas of anti-war sentiment in the US, often constituting one of the few moral bright spots in domestic politics where imperialism is a matter of bipartisan agreement.
Beginning last spring, Columbia University served as a flashpoint for anti-genocide protest activity, culminating in the occupation of Hamilton Hall, renamed Hind’s Hall in honor of Hind Rajab who was murdered by the Israeli Occupying Forces alongside her family. Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg filed charges against 46 individuals, most of which were later dismissed by a New York judge. The remaining individuals were offered a deal resulting in full dismissal upon the completion of six-month probationary period and a class on legal protesting.
DA Rosen is taking a more punitive approach than any local prosecuting agency in the entire nation. Though DA Rosen did remark that he doesn’t believe the case should result in incarceration, he suggested the Stanford 12 should serve on the Sheriff’s Work Program. One day of out-of-custody work clearing debris on freeways counts as one day of incarceration, allowing individuals to work without wages to avoid incarceration. How is this stance apolitical? Condemning individuals to labor as a criminal penalty for righteous protest is the height of political reaction.
DA Rosen removed all context from the Stanford 12’s aims, repeating the press release word-for-word to land his catchphrase that “Dissent is American. Vandalism is criminal.” But what, then, is genocide? At his presentation, DA Rosen made much of the fake blood left on university property, but said nothing of the real blood shed by collective punishment.
After 18 months of genocide, the US State would have us believe that genocide is American and dissent against genocide is criminal. Dozens of soldiers from the Israeli Occupying Forces who have participated in the criminal genocide reside in Silicon Valley. Has Rosen lifted a finger to punish their criminality? While DA Rosen assured the room of reporters that “what [the Stanford 12] chanted is legally irrelevant,” all evidence before us points to the contrary.
It appeared DA Rosen intentionally avoided using the word “Palestine” throughout the entire press conference. It wasn’t until Mercury News Reporter Robert Salonga asked about the ethnic makeup of the Stanford 12 that the word ‘Palestinian’ was ever said. DA Rosen claimed to not know the ethnic makeup of the individuals and refused to repeat the word ‘Palestinian’ in his response.
Rosen’s position is simply a microcosm of the State’s position. The past two administrations refused to satisfy their international obligations to arrest accused Israeli war criminals Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant on active warrants from the International Criminal Court. To this day, Netanyahu is allowed to slip in and out of Washington D.C. to beg for more weapons in violation of international law. If consistent material support for genocide isn’t criminal, how can vandalism be?
DA Rosen isn’t merely charging the alleged vandalism apolitically; DA Rosen is directly complicit in the national crackdown led by the Biden and Trump administrations to quash critique of the US-supported genocide of Palestinians. When asked whether these charges should be understood within the Trump administration’s plan to revoke the immigration statuses of foreign-born students, Rosen tried to distance himself from the unpopular policy. Rosen waffled, claiming that he’s “not saying we would have charged differently if they were foreign nationals” but that their immigration status would have been a factor. In light of the Laken Riley Act, no plea deal is guaranteed ‘immigration-safe’ and just an arrest very well could have resulted in immigration detention and deportation if any of the Stanford 12 did not have citizenship.
DA Rosen answered questions from the press after his brief remarks, but the two questions he refused to answer lead to a worrying thought: did the Santa Clara County DA’s Office receive assistance from the federal government in their investigation or is DA Rosen posturing to send a message that any future student protest activity will be suppressed immediately?
Many times, reporters asked DA Rosen if the charged individuals had any connection to other demonstrations, similar student efforts at other universities, or connections to national and international organizations. DA Rosen said he was “not going to answer” because the information was not public. Rosen’s refusal to answer suggests two plausible realities: Rosen is apprised of a statewide or national investigation into student protest activity, or Rosen is implying that there are outside ties to delegitimize the locally-occurring protest activity. Either reality implicates Rosen’s own political stance: cooperation with complicit federal authorities to punish protest or spreading lies about the protest activity of his constituents to manufacture consent for genocide.
The possibility of cooperation with the federal government renewed when Rosen alleged that the charged individuals used the encrypted messaging app Signal and document encryption software, but the DA’s investigator “found ways around it.” Rosen refused to explain if the messages were recovered via normal cell phone forensics, or if the DA’s Office truly unencrypted the Signal messages. His statement is truly troubling because it seeks to sow doubt in the reliability of encryption to, once again, paralyze protest activity. Truthful or not, DA Rosen’s political posturing seems to be intended to chill further First Amendment-protected political speech.
Signal is often touted as the only end-to-end encrypted messaging platform that is 100% secure from government surveillance. The only alleged breach of Signal’s encryption occurred in 2021 when Tucker Carlson claimed his messages were leaked to the New York Times before his visit to Moscow to interview Edward Snowden. At this point, there are no confirmed cases of Signal’s encryption being bypassed. If the Santa Clara County District Attorney was able to skirt Signal’s encryption, it would constitute a momentous blow to communication privacy, portending a new age in which local prosecuting agencies have the technological capacity for political surveillance that rivals the FBI.
More likely, the information was gathered through a range of investigatory tactics. Rosen’s press conference should not be forgotten, not for his complicity or threats, but for the profound, hideous self portrait he has painted. A glib, Big Brother District Attorney, complicit in the suppression of Black and Brown communities locally, who jumps at the chance to become an enthusiastic stooge for US imperialism and genocide. The wedge that Rosen seeks to drive between us and Palestine will only bring us closer to understanding our shared conditions. Israel and the US deploy the same US-made tear gas canisters and trade tips on how to suppress their local populations from San Jose to Jenin. Meanwhile, Palestinians offered advice to the 2014 Ferguson organizers on avoiding and treating tear gas exposure.
Our continued moral insistence and Palestine’s resistance may be the only thing in the way of the complete destruction of Palestine backed by the US and carried out by Israel. When this moment called for bravery, the Stanford 12 met it with bravery. When the moment called for a DA to understand that acts of civil disobedience, like sit-ins, dramatize suffering and drive necessary change in America, District Attorney Jeff Rosen, like Bull Connor, met the moment with cowardice and political grandstanding.
