States Have Put 54 New Restrictions On Peaceful Protests Since Ferguson

Of the 22 anti-protest laws passed over the last four years, 12 designated fossil fuel sites as “critical infrastructure” and ramped up penalties for trespassing or tampering with the equipment there. The statutes, promoted in state legislatures by the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council following the 2016 Dakota Access Pipeline protests, typically elevated low-level misdemeanor charges to felonies with thousands of dollars in fines and prison time.