What are some of the most interesting things people have been willing to go to jail for?

I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby was willing to go to jail to protect the executive branch’s right to defame former CIA agents.

Greg Anderson spent quite a bit of time in Federal Prison for not testifying for a Grand Jury investigating Barry Bonds use of performance enhancing substances.

Journalists who have protected their sources have traditionally been willing to spend some time in jail.

I was just about to cite journalists. @gailcalled beat me to it.

Also, people like Nelson Mandela have been prepared to go to gaol rather than give up on their right to equality and civil rights. Many people, whether you agree with them or not, have been prepared to go to gaol to stand up for their ideological or political beliefs. Pussy Riot in Russia, Black Power supporters in the US, Aboriginal activists in Australia, anti-Apartheid activists, supporters of the IRA.

The naked rambler has spent time in jail for insisting on his right not to wear clothes.

The writer Henry David Thoreau went to jail for refusing to pay a poll tax as a protest against the Mexican War.

^^Thereby generating this famous mini dialog:

Emerson visited Thoreau in jail and asked, “Henry, what are you doing in there?” Thoreau replied, “Waldo, the question is what are you doing out there?”

HIs jail stay (in a nice little building in Concord, MA. was hardly onerous.

“Thoreau declined to pay the tax and so, in July 1846, he was arrested and jailed. He was supposed to remain in jail until a fine was paid which he also declined to pay. Without his knowledge or consent, however, relatives settled the “debt” and a disgruntled Thoreau was released after only one night.” Source

This did trigger “Civil Disobedience,” however…one of the great essays based on a paltry experience.

I believe also that Thoreau was in the habit, while at Walden, of bringing his laundry home to his mother.

Thanks all.

Amazing, some of the cases are. But I really didn’t mean the honorable causes, or the pragmatic causes as in journalists who need to do that to maintain trust by potential whistle blowers et al.

Just because protester/s are willing to go to jail does not make the cause automatically honorable, which I think we tend to subcsonciously believe.