The ACLU has confirmed i t will represent everyone arrested in the Racine, Wisconsin raid in which hundreds were issued 'disorderly' house citations at the November 2nd Uptown Theatre fundraising party which featured techno music. The ACLU today issued a press release urging the city of Racine to drop the charges.

"Electronic music concerts provide a critical arena for artistic expression for the hired performers and audience members. The First Amendment stands as a clear barrier to any governmental effort to silence musical artists and to prevent their audience from participating in expressive association with them", stated Attorney Micabil Diaz, Legal Director for the ACLU of Wisconsin."

"We urge that the Racine City Attorney, to save the city the time and expense in prosecuting tickets that serve no purpose in any legitimate effort to curb drug abuse - tickets that because they were issued unconstitutionally - may even be counter productive", added Chris Ahmuty, Executive Director of the ACLU of Wisconsin."

Also posted is the ACLU's letter to the City of Racine (scroll down).

Pete Karas' Progressive Racine blog is an excellent source of updates on the raid. Information is also available at The Haunted Theatre.

Some of our prior posts on the Racine Raids are here and here. Instapundit has been all over the story as well-- here is one of his more recent posts that contains links to his earlier ones.