For those of you who follow my miscellaneous national and topical interests like signature-gathering, and Ward Connerly's SuperTuesday, you'll also know that I follow First Amendment questions of whatever type. The Paul Jacob story hits all three. Connerly is helping a group in Oklahoma collect signatures as I write. Signature-gathering difficulties there are driven largely by politics - and although the people of Oklahoma are quite rational, their Attorney General and special interests seem to have figured out that out and realize they must hamstring the people.

Enter Paul Jacob. Like him or hate him and his efforts, he helped a group in 2005 in Oklahoma collect signatures for a version of TABOR (taxpayer rights initiative). Taxpayer initiatives are serious challenges to government and special interests because when taxpayers can say no and turn the spigot off - special interests and the "governmental class" (the army of people working for the government get to vote, and self-lobby, too) get mad. Mad enough to put people who threaten them in jail.

So, when Democrat Attorney General Drew Edmonson told a grand jury to indict Jacob earlier this year, they jumped. Grand juries would indict cinder block if told to, and even under the best circumstances, a grand jury indictment is under a standard of evidence that there is simply enough evidence to warrant a trial - not that anyone is guilty. Regardless, the indictment was for "conspiracy" to "defraud the state", a stretch of that charge based on the underlying crime of ... coordinating signature-gatherers who did not intend to live in Oklahoma forever. That is, using "out-of-state" signature gatherers invalidates a signature in Oklahoma (nowhere in the Oklahoma code however, could I find a law criminalizing out-of-state gathering, merely the AG interpretation that residency means someone must intend to live in Oklahoma forever). From the non-crime of not knowing exactly where one might live in a few years, and two years following the Oklahoma state court's "referee" refusal to place TABOR on the 2006 ballot, the AG indicted 3 petition drive leaders (with no indictments for any criminal circulator below them, another hard piece of logic to follow). Now clearly this all contrived to make all signature-gathering of any type more difficult, and to plant the fear of criminal prosecution in the hearts of petition-drive leaders.

But the AG made a technical mistake in his grand jury indictment, and misused the multi-county nature of that body, so he had to drop the charges. Yesterday, he reissued the charges under his own office's direct power of prosecution, and is going full-steam ahead.

Whether you are liberal or conservative, or libertarian (I guess if you're authoritarian, you should support the AG), you should take note of this case. It's about control and power. It's about suppressing speech and petitioning. Sure, reasonable rules can invalidate bad or petitions created in error - and although there is probably no compelling interest in state residency requirements even if there were, this case is one of ambiguity in law being used as a blunt hammer to quash dissidents. Even if you are an opponent of Jacob's views, to remain silent when his speech and petition rights are subverted is to invite the same to happen to you when you disagree with the establishment.

In all, this is probably the most important First Amendment case, and clearly the most important petitioning case to arise from the year 2007. Follow it closely. Prevent it from happening in your state. Blog it if you can. Write a letter to the editor if its relevant. And be careful when you travel through Oklahoma.