I think the lesson to take away from this is "Keep Your Head Down". I have some respect for a number of libertarian ideas and I would never defend the treatment of Sonne by the police and State. Nor would I agree with the authoritarian comments made on the article that he somehow deserves the treatment that he is getting. But if someone attacks a beehive and then is stung, it seems like they should have known what might happen.

Sonne's actions of filming the security measures and his belief that this was an effective method of action were very naive. There are a number of reasons why.

To begin with, the G8 (rebranded as the G20) has long been protested and the police response can be brutal. A protestor, Carlo Giuliani, was shot and killed by police at the 27th G8 summit (the police were surprisingly found not responsible). A bystander, Ian Tomlinson, was beaten to death by riot police at the meeting of the group in London. The Miami Model is being expanded and police are becoming militarised, with Long Range Acoustic Devices used on protesters in the United States http://youtu.be/QSMyY3_dmrM and similar pain rays http://youtu.be/dmuyLIrSjxI tested on protestors in Iraq -- when these devices and Miami Model tactics are the routine at summits and simple protests, it is foolish to talk about "civil liberties" and "civil rights" and "the Constitution".

Consider the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, occurring nine months before the Toronto summit where Sonne had trouble. At Pittsburgh, military police make snatch-and-grab arrests - http://youtu.be/G8CNa_viKg0 . Peaceful people are denied the right to assemble - http://youtu.be/etv8YEqaWgA and marches are deemed "unlawful" - http://youtu.be/5k0Y7_5a5d0

To see this atmosphere and then 9 months later to attempt to challenge these same authoritarians by filming them, purposely provoking them, and having them ruin your life and then being surprised by this is as naive as the college kids who chant "Let him go!" (in that last video above) as police drag away their fellow marcher. Police do as they please, and they are supported by their district attorneys and courts. Get in their way or challenge their authority in any way and enjoy the inevitable.

Filming a fence does nothing to the agenda of the G20 and even if you are only protesting the spending of the city of Toronto, it likewise does nothing. Peaceful assemblies are mocked, derided, and ignored by the politicians and bureaucrats who make up the Department of Homeland Security and the City of Toronto. And those protestors who employ property destruction? Breaking the window of a Starbucks does nothing to the G20 and it does nothing to Starbucks who makes up the cost of the window in less than one second of worldwide sales. Burning a Toronto police car? The city could care less as they will simply send the bill to the taxpayer (you and your neighbors).

Opposing these people and their secuirty apparatus -whether by peacefully chanting feel good slogans from the Sixties or by "exercising" and flexing your "civil liberties" and natural rights by filming a fence- is futile. Additionally, they will not hesitate to ruin your life, nor feel any remorse for someone who opposed them.

Do not get in their way.