Courtroom sketch of Kai speaking before the Supreme Court. Image courtesy of 99Rise

On the 26th February, Kai Newkirk spoke before the US Supreme Court. The 33-year-old isn't a lawyer and he had not been called to testify. At the time, the court was running through oral arguments in a mundane patent case. Newkirk, a longtime labour and environmental activist who cut his teeth in the global justice movement, was just another gentleman in the crowd – until he stood up and gave the justices a piece of his mind.

This was the first disruption at the Supreme Court since 1983, when pornographer Larry Flint threw a fit. At the time, Newkirk's protest was pretty much ignored by the major media – even a New York Times article about the day's proceedings failed to mention it. Luckily, members of 99Rise, an activist group Newkirk helped established in 2012, were there. They secretly recorded video of his speech, mixed it with additional footage they had shot covertly of the court in October, and posted it to YouTube. Recording video is strictly forbidden in the Supreme Court, and this was the first time any footage at all of its proceedings had been made publicly available. Since it was posted, the video has been viewed more than 340,000 times.

In the video, before Newkirk is seized by security, he urges the justices to repeal their decision in Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission (FEC), more @ http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/kai-newkirk-is-raising-an-army-to-get-money-out-of-politics