Afroman Beat the Cops, the SEC Surrendered on Crypto, and People Are Building Their Own Internet
News roundup form March 16-23, 2026
For this week, I wanted to focus more on positive news than the never-ending stream of negativity coming out of the press. Admittedly, in some cases, like the Afroman story, it’s a mix of positive and negative. Yes, the cops had no right to raid his home, but at least he humiliated them and won in court.
Cops Raided His House. He Made a Hit Album About It. The Jury Loved It
In August 2022, half a dozen gun-wielding Adams County, Ohio sheriff’s deputies kicked down rapper Afroman’s door on suspicion of drug trafficking and kidnapping. His wife and kids (ages 10 and 12) were home. He wasn’t. The deputies rifled through his CD collection, flipped through his suit pockets, got distracted by a lemon pound cake on the kitchen counter, and confiscated a joint, a vape pen, and $5,031 in cash. They never filed charges. The raid “failed to turn up probative criminal evidence,” the prosecutor’s office later admitted.
Afroman’s home security cameras caught everything. Instead of suing, he did something better: he made an album. Lemon Pound Cake dropped in late 2022 with 14 tracks, including “Why You Disconnecting My Video Camera” and “Will You Help Me Repair My Door,” all featuring the security footage. He sold merchandise comparing the deputies to Peter Griffin and Quasimodo.
The deputies were not amused. Seven of them sued Afroman for $3.9 million, claiming defamation and invasion of privacy. The ACLU filed an amicus brief in his defense. Last Wednesday, after a three-day trial and less than a day of deliberations, an Ohio jury sided with the rapper on every count.
“I didn’t win, America won,” Afroman told reporters outside the courthouse, wearing an American flag suit, aviators, and a white fur coat. “America still has freedom of speech.”
What you can do: Know that mockery is protected speech. When power comes for you, document everything. Cameras, recordings, receipts. The best defense against abuse of authority isn’t a lawyer. It’s a record.
There’s a reason those ICE cops are all wearing masks, they fear people knowing who they are because they know what they’re doing is wrong.
Sources: GPB/NPR, Vanity Fair, CNN, Independent Institute
The SEC Finally Admitted Crypto Isn’t a Crime
After more than a decade of “regulation by enforcement,” the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission issued a joint 68-page interpretive release on March 17 that explicitly names 16 crypto assets as digital commodities, not securities. The list: Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, XRP, Dogecoin, Cardano, Avalanche, Chainlink, Polkadot, Hedera, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Shiba Inu, Stellar, Tezos, and Aptos.
Three activities that launched a thousand lawsuits are now settled: protocol mining, protocol staking, and airdrops of non-security tokens are all classified outside securities law. SEC Chair Paul Atkins described “decades of regulatory turf wars” that “stifled innovation and pushed market participants offshore.” Translation: they chased builders out of the country, realized the industry thrived anyway, and are now scrambling to bring it back.
The CLARITY Act, which would make these classifications permanent law, passed the House in July 2025 and cleared the Senate Agriculture Committee in January. Polymarket bettors are pricing it around 60-70% to be signed this year. But the real story isn’t what the regulators did. It’s that crypto builders spent a decade building without permission, and the regulators had to come to them.
What you can do: If you’ve been waiting for “regulatory clarity” to get into crypto, the excuse just evaporated. Start with Bitcoin, learn the basics, and never keep significant holdings on centralized exchanges. If it’s not your wallet, it’s not your crypto.
Sources: CoinDesk, FinTech Weekly, The Guardian
SCOTUS Goes 9-0: You Can Challenge Speech Restrictions
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously on March 20 that a Mississippi street preacher can move forward with his First Amendment lawsuit against the city of Brandon. The case, Olivier v. City of Brandon, involves Gabriel Olivier, a public evangelist who was arrested in 2021 for stepping outside a “designated protest area” to preach near a public amphitheater. The city told him he could exercise his First Amendment rights, but only in the pen they assigned him.
Justice Elena Kagan, writing for all nine justices, wasn’t having it. Kagan wrote that forcing Olivier to choose between “knowingly violating the ordinance and risking another prosecution” or “forgoing speech he believes is constitutionally protected” was unacceptable. “His suit to enjoin the ordinance, so he can return to the amphitheater, may proceed.”
Nine-zero. In a court that agrees on almost nothing, every single justice said: you can’t confine speech to a government-approved zone and then use a prior conviction to prevent anyone from challenging that zone. “Designated protest areas” are a favorite tool of local governments that want to technically allow free speech while making sure nobody has to hear it.
What you can do: Know your rights. The ACLU’s protest rights page is worth bookmarking. The Institute for Justice and First Liberty offer pro-bono legal defense for First Amendment cases.
Sources: SCOTUSblog, AP News, Washington Post
People Are Building Their Own Internet (and It Runs on $50 Radios)
While telecom giants argue over spectrum licenses and municipalities beg for broadband funding, thousands of people across the country just built their own communication network. No cell towers. No internet. No permission.
Meshtastic is an open-source protocol that turns cheap $50 LoRa radio devices into nodes in a decentralized mesh network. Buy a device the size of a credit card, turn it on, and you’re connected to every other node within range. Messages hop from node to node, extending the network’s reach without any central infrastructure. No subscription. No account. No company running it.
The project has been around since 2020, but it’s experiencing what Hackaday called “a bit of a renaissance.” Communities are deploying nodes on hilltops, rooftops, and mountaintops across the country. In Asheville, North Carolina, the MeshAVL community in Western North Carolina gained momentum after Hurricane Helene knocked out cell networks. About 120 radios were deployed to volunteers during the storm. Similar networks now span Florida, New Jersey, and dozens of other regions.
The use cases keep expanding: property alarms, neighborhood communication networks, off-grid coordination. The devices run on tiny batteries or solar panels, some lasting weeks on a single charge.
What you can do: Get a SenseCAP T1000-E (~$40) or a LilyGo T-Echo and join your local mesh. Check if your area has a community at meshtastic.org. No license required, no monthly fee, and nobody can shut it down.
Sources: Hackaday, MeshAVL, Meshtastic.org, Gulf Coast News Now
Bipartisan Food Freedom Bill Takes on the FDA
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME) introduced the Interstate Milk Freedom Act of 2026 (H.R. 7880), a bipartisan bill that would prohibit the federal government from interfering with the interstate traffic of unpasteurized milk and milk products packaged for direct human consumption. The bill currently has nine cosponsors.
Right now, the FDA bans the sale of raw milk across state lines. A farmer in Vermont can sell raw milk to a neighbor, but the moment that milk crosses into New Hampshire, it becomes a federal crime. The same government that can’t secure its own databases has decided it needs to police what you drink.
Massie is a libertarian-leaning Republican who raises cattle on his off-grid Kentucky farm. Pingree is a progressive Democrat from Maine who runs an organic farm. They agree on almost nothing politically, but they both think the government should stay out of your kitchen. That’s not “reaching across the aisle” in the usual DC theater sense. It’s two people who actually produce food and are sick of Federal overreach.
What you can do: Find your local raw milk source at getrawmilk.com. Join a local herdshare or co-op. Build relationships with farmers directly. The parallel food economy is already thriving, and it doesn’t need Congress to function.
Sources: Quiver Quantitative, Breitbart, Spencer Magnet