Bucksport war protester prefers jail time, not fine

Karen Saum says she doesn’t want an easy penalty for protesting the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

So the Bucksport woman prefers jail time instead of a fine when she appears in court today to answer her arrest March 21 for refusing to leave Sen. Olympia Snowe’s Bangor offices the day the war began.

Saum, 68, was one of six people arrested that day.

She and the others were charged with criminal trespass. Saum is scheduled to appear in Penobscot County Superior Court in Bangor today.

She expects to plead no contest, she said in an interview Tuesday, and expects to be offered a choice between serving 48 hours in jail or paying a $200 fine.

If so, Saum will choose jail, she said. She also will donate $200 to the general welfare fund of the Veterans Affairs hospital at Togus.

She said the only other time she has been arrested was in a protest in the mid-1980s while opposing the U.S. government’s “illegal war” in Central America.

“We all paid the fine,” Saum said of that arrest. “I decided then I wouldn’t do that again” – because it seemed too easy to do, she said.

A former history professor at Brooklyn College in Brooklyn, N.Y., and novelist, Saum and her sons moved to Maine in 1969, she said. A longtime activist, she has worked with women inmates and has volunteered and worked at the H.O.M.E. cooperative in Orland.

One of Saum’s sons, visiting the East Coast from his home in California, will join her this morning at the court appearance, she said.

Saum and others occupied Snowe’s office from about noon until 5:30 p.m. March 21, refusing to budge until Snowe spoke with them about their concerns about the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

“My crime is criminal trespass,” Saum said in a statement. “I believe Senator Snowe’s crime is complicity in crimes against humanity.”

Saum and the others objected to Snowe’s endorsement of Secretary of State Colin Powell’s statements to the United Nations justifying the invasion. Saum and the others wanted to present Snowe with information that they claimed would show Powell’s statement was “mostly lies.”

“Rather than speak with us, Senator Snowe had us arrested,” Saum said in the statement.

Dave Lackey, Snowe’s spokesman, said Tuesday that the arrests came when the building manager declared the offices closed, and the protesters refused to leave.

Lackey also said that Snowe had conducted a telephone conference call that lasted nearly two hours with members of Peace Action Maine a week earlier. He said Snowe had offered to meet with the group in person, but that members were unable to join her when she was in Maine.

“It’s a role she takes very seriously,” Lackey said of Snowe’s constituent communication.

On the issue of Powell’s statement, Lackey said, “Senator Snowe has strong confidence in Secretary Powell,” and as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee was well-versed in the issues leading to the war.