Last Friday saw an important, if limited, victory against not just authoritarianism in the United States, but in favor of freedom of speech, when federal prosecutors dropped felony charges against the last thirty-eight J20 protesters arrested on the day of Trump’s inauguration.

The attempt to put 234 people in prison for the action — including legal observers, reporters, and people who were simply hanging around watching the protest — would have had chilling implications for free speech, making it legally acceptable to arrest and prosecute nonviolent protesters on the sole basis that someone near them had carried out property damage during a protest. Instead, federal prosecutors repeatedly failed to get convictions when trials went to a jury, leading them to simply drop the charges against those remaining.

It’s true that overzealous prosecutors didn’t end up empty-handed — they put the defendants through eighteen months of extreme stress, and slapped them with mountainous legal fees (you can donate here), thus sending a message to any future protesters. Still, by any measure, this was an important victory for anyone who cares about not just the right to dissent against those in power, but the right to political expression free of harassment and censorship, particularly from the government.