More cops behaving badly

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Who is right?

... and who is wrong? You tell me.

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A little authority

The video below is unsettling, but apparently such actions by police are as common in Australia as they appear to be in the U.S. Without knowing and understanding the full context I shall reserve judgement, other than to say that the level of viscous behavior by the one cop, and the attempts of others to illegally prevent the filming of the incident appear to be abuse of authority.

Although I've not found the full story, it appears the Sydney police have issued some form of communication alleging that the man under arrest had earlier attacked someone. Even if true I still don't see the justification for such treatment of an already restrained individual, and when we consider an illegal attempt to prevent the video journalist from tapine the incident, this appears to be a rather clear case of abuse of authority.

What follows are the cameraman's words and the video shot.

"I was a press photographer for the parade, walking along the backstreets shortly after it had concluded between 11pm and 11:30pm, we heard a man screaming for repeatedly for help.

Walking over we saw him being restrained by two police officers with another 4 in close proximity, he was repeatedly asking them 'What have I done wrong?' which they would not respond, all they would say was 'you are under arrest'. 

He calling for people walking past to help him and with a large crowd of people began to surround the event. 

He was struggling and resisting but not aggressively. 

The officers told him to stop resisting to which he would reply 'why are you doing this I haven't done anything?.' 

The officer 'FAIRFIELD LAC 266' then grabbed him by the back of the neck and slammed his head into the stone pavement, as he tried to get up he was then punched multiple times in the head, leaving blood all over the pavement. The crowd of people overlooking screaming at the officer to stop. 

After seeing that I began filming."

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"What I found most shocking about this event is that the other officers seem to be aware that the amount of force they are using was completely unmerited and excessive.

So they hastily try to force me to stop filming. 

As a press photographer I knew I was completely within my rights to film police officers in a public space, doing nothing wrong and breaking no laws, so I refused. 

You will notice I ask multiple times why I am not allowed to film and what laws am I breaking and receive no response. 

There were at least 6 officers in the immediate vicinity, the victim was only small and could have easily been restrained by the officers without injury. 

Instead they choice to force him into submission by repeatedly punching him and throwing him into the pavement."

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More evidence...

...that cops are no more trustworthy with weapons than your average person, and far less so in many instances.

Students hospitalized after pepper spray incident at a Pine Bluff junior high school

The shame is that it's taking tasers, pepper spray and the Internet to finally demonstrate this.

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VIA

More abusive, authoritarian cop behavior

The cops have really been on a roll over the past few years. Wonder if it has anything to do the the Patriot Act...

"The audio recording (below) shows Fiorino, 25, being confronted by a Philadelphia police officer about carrying a gun in public. Fiorino is allowed to open carry in the city, but the officers appear completely ignorant of their own directives and became increasingly hostile to Fiorino’s effort to show them that he was lawfully carrying the weapon."

But thanks to that oft demonized American Civil Liberties Union, this one is going to court... and the City of Brotherly Love likely will feel the pain. Gun owners should take not too.

"For those on the right who criticize the ACLU, the case is also a reminder of the work that this organization does for all citizens regardless of their politics or views."

Exactly. For the ACLU the mission is about protecting individual rights. Consider this in the future, please, before excoriating the organization for standing up and defending folks you don't like for doing things you don't care for... even when it doesen't affect you.

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We trust them with guns

But the spooky part is that they don't want the public to be armed. With behavior like this, maybe I understand why.

H/T

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Eye opener

"...Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances..."

The United States is supposed to be a land of the free... the leader of the free world... O say does that star spangled banner yet wave...

... which makes it rather difficult to explain how America fell to 47th place in the Reporters Without Borders annual rankings of press freedom of countries around the world, a drop of 27 positions in just a single year. We're behind Estonia, Slovenia, Botswana and even El Salvador in our abuses of the free press. How do we explain such a precipitous drop? How could we justify even that 20th place showing of last year? With all our horn tooting you'd think we'd be in first place year after year. Instead that honor goes to Finland and Norway.

The free press is our firewall against the abuses of government. For many years that is exactly how it worked, but they aren't doing very much firewalling these days. I think the word for what we're seeing is Authoritarianism. What with the TSA, the very poorly named Patriot Act, constant efforts to disenfranchise legal voters (HERE, and HERE, and HERE), police abuses of the Occupy protesters (too many other links to list), invasive intrusions into a woman's womb (HERE, and HERE)...

The list goes on, but the press is notably absent. The once proud profession seems to be cowed. and perhaps for good reason. When a journalist actually finds the nerve to actually practice journalism, they often get shot down. 30 some-odd professional journalists suffered arrest in various location while  providing coverage of the Occupy movement.

Consider Noot's childish outburst at the South Carolina debate and how the right wing pundits not only defended, but applauded the behavior... so very different from that contentious Richard Nixon - Dan Rather confrontation in 1974 at the height of Watergate, and the more recent Rather - George H.W. Bush 1988 encounter. The wingnut sphere was all riled up then too, but not so much when the media started digging into Monkey Business or Cigargate.

Oh well. So much for all that old First Amendment clap trap. Who needed it anyway. Right?

Nixon is long dead, but that old nixonian stink is in the air now far worse than ever before. A familiar old 1960's feeling tells me... there's something happening here...

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H/T

Big Boys Playing with Big Toys

The Cop or Soldier quiz that is making the rounds of the Intertoob (see Monday's blog) has raised some interesting observations. To some small degree the militarization of law enforcement in this country is understandable. The bad guys, after all, were winning the arms race there for awhile.

Take for instance the May, 1982 shootout in South Miami, FL in which two FBI Special Agents lost their lives and five more were wounded in an attempt to take two suspects into custody. The bad guys were armed with shotguns and semi-auto rifles converted so as to fire automatic bursts. The FBI had 9MM semi-auto and 38 caliber service revolvers as well as 12GA shotguns. The automatic fire caused the first death and maimed several of the agents. Finally an agent with most of an arm blown off managed to get close enough to empty the last five rounds from his 38, killing both suspects.

It was that particular incident that led to the search for better weaponry for law enforcement. When taking such events into consideration it only makes sense for the cops to be at least as well armed as the bad guys, but unfortunately it has gotten far out of hand. Cops today are armed with everything from military style long guns to armored vehicles replete with belt-fed automatic weapons.

I guess they had to find something to do with all their new toys, and the “War on Drugs” seemed like an appropriate use. The effort has cost billions of dollars, imprisoned tens of thousands of young Americans (most for simple possession), killed or injured hundreds (including many innocents and at least several law enforcement officers), created violent international drug cartels (which have caused thousands more deaths, both in this country and abroad), and have slowed America’s use of illegal drugs not a single iota. The results are nothing short of disasterous.

A quick Google search produced this interactive map and several stories of cops crossing the line with their toys and their tactics. A few are listed below, but for more results use the map to do a state by state search.

In 2008, 23-year-old Rachel Hoffman was attempting to complete a drug and weapons transaction in a sting set up by the Tallahassee, FL police. Rachel had agreed to be an informant after being busted for a minor drug charge. The cops promised her a lighter sentence. It cost her life.

Also in 2008 a young mother was killed and her 14-month-old child shot when Lima, OH cops kicked in her door looking for her boyfriend. The cops were said to be shooting at dogs in another room. This tragic incident cost an innocent, young woman her life… and it cost the city of Lima a cool $2.5 million settlement.

A couple days later the cops found the boyfriend and took him out too. It is not at all surprising that the State Attorney’s office cleared the police of wrongdoing. The dead man is painted as a very bad guy, but even if true it should not have led to his death at the hands of the police. What the cops were looking for was a large cache of drugs and at least one pistol… what they found was paraphernalia and some crack residue. No gun.

In June of 2010 the Las Vegas, NV narcotics division misidentified a man as a major drug and weapons dealer. Even though the guy they were looking for was seven years older, four inches shorter, 100 pounds lighter, and lived in a city almost 1,000 miles away, they got a warrant, kicked in the door and shot the man to death as he was kneeling on the floor with his hands raised above his head. The cops found a small amount of pot, a spent 223 shell. and a pawn ticket for the jewelry the man had sold to get rent money.

A former Marine lost his life just because cops in Pima County, AZ had an idea someone in the area might have some drugs. SWAT teams from four agencies raided “at least” four homes in a broad brush effort to find drugs. They showed up in full battle gear with heavy weaponry and an armored vehicle. The former Marine who had survived two tours in Iraq heard his home being broken into, armed himself and stood at the end of the hallway with the safety on the gun still engaged. Cops unleashed over 70 rounds, 60 of which hit Guerena. Four days after the raid the Sheriff had the warrants sealed and has refused to release any information. No justification for the raids could be made.

In October of 2011, 19-year-old Shelley Hilliard got busted with a small amount of pot. Cops threatened her with long jail time (which was a lie. The amount of pot was too small), but allowed as how she could reduce that by serving as an informant. Three days after the sting went down the dealer Shelley had helped bust was released and promptly murdered her.

A couple years ago in this space I railed against the use or TASERS. My argument at the time was that the cops lack sufficient training, compassion and the good sense to use the tool properly. Every week it seems we see some new abuse of the things. The heavy armament now commonplace with most SWAT teams deserves the same scrutiny.

Until the cops outgrow the “big boys playing with big toys” mentality, America cannot afford this kind of law enforcement.

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Verbatim

Verbatim, from the Burnt Orange Report. More ambitious DA's behaving badly.

Hiding the Ball - The Morton case in Williamson County by: Edward Garris Mon Dec 05, 2011 at 10:10 AM CST

In recent years DNA evidence has made painfully clear the extent of wrongful convictions meted out by the criminal justice system with a corresponding number of innocent parties wrongfully imprisoned.  This disturbing trend hit close to home recently in the case of Michael Morton. On October 4, Morton was released from prison after serving 25 years for the 1986 murder of his wife; he was convicted in 1987 in Williamson County [Texas] and finally exonerated of the crime with DNA evidence this year.   The incarceration of an innocent man for a quarter of a century would be sufficiently troubling.  Even more disconcerting would be learning that the prosecution put that innocent man behind bars, knowing or likely knowing that he was innocent and hiding evidence that would clear his name simply to secure a conviction. The Texas Coalition on Lawyer Accountability (TCLA) has come forward and allegedly exactly that.

On November 28, the TCLA filed three grievances with the Office of the Chief Disciplinary Counsel of the State Bar of Texas, complaining of Ken Anderson, Mike Davis, and John Bradley.  Anderson was the District Attorney for Williamson County, Texas, in 1987, and prosecuted Morton for the murder of his wife.  In 1987, according to the grievance, Davis was the chief Williamson County Assistant District Attorney, and assisted Anderson in the prosecution of Morton.  Bradley is the current Williamson County District Attorney, and the grievance cited his "suppression of evidence and the cover up of illegal and unethical conduct by the prosecutors who tried the case."  In short, Bradley was joined as a respondent for attempting to block the DNA evidence that was brought forward and ultimately used to free Morton. The grievance cites four pieces of evidence which were recently found in files in Williamson County and which would have been critical to Morton's defense but which were withheld.  As set out in the grievances, they are: "A typewritten memo to the lead investigator of the murder disclosing a telephone tip that a $20 check that had been made out to the victim was cashed nine days after the murder; A handwritten telephone message to the lead investigator disclosing that the victim's Visa card had apparently been recovered at a San Antonio store after the murder; A sheriff's deputy report, written one day after the murder, stating that a neighbor described seeing a man park a green van on the street behind the house where the victim was murdered on several occasions; A transcribed tape recording in which the victim's mother tells the lead investigator that the victim's child (who was at the house when the murder occurred) stated that Mr. Morton was not at the murder scene when the murder occurred." The grievances also noted two other concerns: the discrepancy between the trial testimony of the medical examiner and Anderson's representation of that testimony during closing arguments; and the fact that Anderson was ordered to produce the entire four-inch thick lead investigator's report, but produced only a five page report. The grievances cite the violation of eleven rules of professional conduct by Anderson and Davis, and ten by Bradley. In all three instances, they seek disbarment of the three attorneys for undermining "the integrity and fairness of our state's criminal justice system" and destroying "the life, liberty, and happiness of an innocent man" and "to partially counterbalance the grievous wrongs they have inflicted, the unspeakable injustice and undeserved punishments they have imposed and maintained against Mr. Morton, and the severe damage they have caused to the criminal justice system in Texas." Anderson was deposed on October 31.  The transcript of his testimony can be seen here. Copies of the grievances can be viewed here.

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The Bible tells me so

Without comment...

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Back the blue? Back the red?

This is going to be an analogy stretch, but let me ask a strange question… What do America’s cops have in common with America’s Republicans?

Answer?

Both are noble institutions that have developed malignancies. The difference is that the cancer in the Republican Party is much more advanced and is threatening the life of the host. Democrats experienced similar phenomena in the 70’s, but managed to recognize the disease and worked to eliminate or marginalize the bad actors.

Cops, on the other hand, have a chance. If those guys will simply recognize that there are bad actors within the ranks and do something about it, they can possibly salvage the host. To some degree they do just that… but not in this case.

The following story from the Orange County Register tells a tale of cops gone wrong, and as a sidebar it also provides more evidence of why cops should not be allowed the use of Tasers. (Are you still reading, RM?)

The evil that was inflicted on Kelly Thomas by some of Orange County’s finest was not detected and corrected from within by fellow officer; it was determined to be a heinous violation of law and human rights by those on the outside looking in. The Blue closed ranks to defend one of their own from the indefensible …

Orange County prosecutors charged a Fullerton police officer with murder on Wednesday, saying he launched a lethal assault on a homeless man with the words: “My fists … are getting ready to F*** you up.”

There are lessons to be learned here.

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Highway robbery has a new definition

More evidence of the true reason for drug interdiction...



Please tell me how this kind of behavior by law enforcement can be justified.

Original story may be found HERE.
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More evidence that the Right is wrong

The previous couple of blogs were intended to illustrate that the Religious Right of this country are hypocrites. This article from the Wall of Separation blog is just another log on the fire. The Religious Right Christian conservatives of this country would more appropriately be named… the Christian Taliban.

Those consistently sticking with the Republicans are simply enabling the Dominionists. You want fiscal conservatism, I understand. Perhaps to a degree we have common ground, but there is no way I can condone this kind of authoritarianism.

If you stomach such... then "drinking the Kool-Aid" is a term that applies and I defy you to justify such blindness. You claim to love our Constitution, yet you continually partner with a bastard cult that has vowed to destroy it.

The Christ of the Bible would not recognize these so-called christians.

Yielding To Censorship: Mo. School Board Bans Books that are ‘Contrary to the Bible’

Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Slaughterhouse-Five is considered a modern classic. That doesn’t mean it’s a particularly easy read. Indeed, it deals with some fairly heady topics. When I first encountered it in high school, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. But it sure made me think, which, in my view, is what a good novel should do.

Funny thing about that thinking – some people see it as dangerous. And a few of those people sit on the school board in Republic, Mo.

The board voted 4-0 recently to ban Slaughterhouse-Five and another book, Sarah Ockler’s Twenty Boy Summer, after a local resident complained that the books teach ideas contrary to the Bible.

Wesley Scroggins had originally targeted three books, but the board voted to keep one, Laurie Halse Anderson’s award-winning Speak, on the shelves. According to the Springfield News-Leader, Scroggins “challenged the use of the books and lesson plans in Republic schools, arguing they teach principles contrary to the Bible.”

After the vote, which removes the books from the curriculum and the school library, Scroggins said, “I congratulate them for doing what’s right and removing the two books. It’s unfortunate they chose to keep the other book.”

Actually, what’s unfortunate it that the school board didn’t stand up for church-state separation and the freedom to learn. And it’s unfortunate that the education of students at Republic High School is being held hostage by such narrow-minded people.

It might also be unconstitutional. In 1982, the Supreme Court struck down a book censorship plan at a New York school district. Members of the school board in Island Trees had banned eight books, including Slaughterhouse-Five, after a statewide right-wing pressure group started a campaign against them. Board members agreed, calling the books “anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, and just plain filthy.

Justice William Brennan led a court plurality in striking down the censorship scheme.

Brennan wrote, “In brief, we hold that local school boards may not remove books from school library shelves simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books and seek by their removal to ‘prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion.’ Such purposes stand inescapably condemned by our precedents.”

In 1993, a school board in Olathe, Kan., ordered the removal of the book Annie on My Mind from a school library because it deals with homosexuality. Parents who supported the novel sued and won. A federal court ruled that public schools may not ban books “based on their personal social, political and moral views.”

It sounds like the school board in Republic did exactly that. One fundamentalist complained that the books offended his interpretation of the Bible – so out went the books.

If there’s any silver lining in this sorry incident, it’s this: Telling young people that they can’t or shouldn’t read a certain book or listen to a certain CD almost always causes a run on that book or CD. After all, it’s imperative to find out what it is that the adults don’t want you to see or hear.

So I say to the students of Republic High: Get your hands on a copy of Slaughterhouse-Five. It’s worth your time. And if you’re having trouble finding a copy around town, drop me a line. I know a source at a used-book store who can round up as many as you need.

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Ignorance makes the best mind control

The British computer news and tech site TechEye.net is reporting on a recent move by the Saudis to clamp down on publishers of Internet news sites, weblogs, forums, and even personal websites originating from within the country.  Site publishers are required, among other things, to be of good conduct and behavior and hold an appropriate license. The Saudi Ministry of Culture and Information, of course, would issue the license.

TechEye previously reported that China had banned VoIP providers not controlled by the Chinese government, including Skype; the largest and most popular of  the providers.

Keeping the flock in the dark has always been a popular authoritarian tool utilized to maintain order. Where once they burned books, censors around the world have now focused attention on the Internet. Free access to the truth tends to make controlling the flock sometimes very difficult .

Saudi Arabia and China are far from the first to employ censorship as a means of maintaining ignornace. Book burners in this country have been trying it for years, but a little thing called Freedom of Speech has sidetracked them.

Citizens of other countries are not always so fortunate.

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The Ivoirian solution

A few years ago I spent some time in Cote D’Ivoire, known in the States as The Ivory Coast. I’ve been remembering that time lately as I’ve followed the current situation in that country.

When I was there in 2003 and 2004 the country was far from peaceful. Immigrants in the north, mostly Muslims from neighboring countries of Burkina Faso, Mali, Guinea, Senegal, Niger, Mauritania and Nigeria were taking agriculture jobs from native Ivoirians, causing general unrest and placing the majority Christian government between a rock and a hard place.

Muslims generally do not respond well to being governed by non-Muslims and the situation in Cote D’Ivoire was no exception. President Bedie, a Christian and only the second President since independence from France, was hugely unpopular in the Muslim north. In 1999, to keep the Presidency in Christian hands, the General Assembly passed a resolution that effectively banned a popular Muslim Prime Minister from running against Bedie. Muslims in the Ivoirian Army promptly staged a coup and installed General Guei as President.

In the 2000 elections, Laurent Gbagbo, a Christian was installed as President in an unexpected popular uprising, which again stirred trouble in the north. Over time there was violence that spread into the south, even in the once pristine garden-like capitol city of Abidjan. In 2002 General Guei was killed on the eve of another attempted coup, and President Gbagbo retained his office. The violence, however, never ceased.

Now the tide has again turned and Gbagbo was on the losing end in the November 28 election. Challenger Alasanne Ouatarra won the popular vote by a narrow margin, but Gbagbo is refusing to step down and is using his control over Christian elements in the Ivoirian Army to foment violence, including direct assaults on the building in which Outarra has set up his government in waiting. Here we go again.

Until about 40 years ago there were few elections in Africa as most of the continent was still claimed as colonies by various European countries. As the colonial powers released their hold, elections became commonplace. As a general rule in African politics the incumbent party will win and nothing else happens, but when the incumbent loses violence regularly ensues. In fact, only once in all these years have we seen power peacefully transferred following an election loss.

Following the disputed 2007 Kenyan election, mobs took to the streets attacking each other. Violence raged for months until the African Union intervened. But the intervention was far from satisfactory. The AU engineered a power-sharing arrangement, effectively granting a share of the Presidency to the looser. Perhaps that was the expeditious thing to do at the time, but the arrangement is now on the brink of collapse. It also unfortunately reinforced a precedent; in Africa, if you lose an election, you start a war.

Which is why I find what is happening in Cote D’Ivoire only three years later to be somewhat remarkable. All of a sudden the people of that continent have become fed up with all the violence and are saying enough is enough. Several groups, including the AU, the 16-member Economic Community of Western African States (of which Cote D’Ivoire is a member), the United Nations, France and the United States are all calling on Gbagbo to peacefully step down. ECOWAS has gone so far as to issue an ultimatum to Gbagbo commanding him to relinquish power, or face military intervention.

All of this speaks well for the future of free, fair, democratic elections in Africa. It also speaks well of the African Union’s and ECOWAS desire to support democratic elections. Africans are accustomed to foreign interference. They have always resisted and they always will, but if African initiated diplomacy can convince Gbagbo to peacefully surrender power, or if Africans stand together to oust him, other tinpot despots might reconsider the thought of violence following an election loss.

But if they back down and attempt the Kenyan solution again, we may never see the end of bloodshed on the dark continent.

UPDATE: Too late. ECOWAS blinked.

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Submit to porn or be groped... your choice

The Fourth Amendment guarantees the people a right against unreasonable searches and seizures, but because of the special risks inherent to air travel, and because we have the option not to fly, U.S. courts have allowed a gradual relaxing of 4A protections at airports.

Lower courts have approved the use of metal detectors on individuals wishing to board an airplane, and the use of x-ray machines for carry-on luggage. These are ruled as being consistent with 4A, and SCOTUS has indirectly suggested agreement. The camel’s nose is Chandler v. Miller, in which the Court stated:

"where the risk to public safety is substantial and real, blanket suspicionless searches calibrated to the risk may rank as 'reasonable' - for example, searches now routine at airports and at entrances to courts and other official buildings."

Since I find myself on airplanes probably no more than three or four time a year anymore, these enhanced security procedures haven’t really bothered me all that much. Sure, I hate having to pull my shoes off, but it is something with which I could live.

The newest set of security procedures, I must admit, has me a bit piqued. The new requirement of either full-body screening (porno-scanning) or “enhanced” pat-down, is going too far.

Most of us will suffer from at least some mild discomfort knowing some random person is peeking at our naked body. It is an invasion of privacy that I don't appreciate.

When they first started showing up at the airports, and because they were being used randomly on an opt-out basis alongside the standard metal detectors, the backscatter scanners were not much concern. Now however, the choice is between being digitally stripped searched or being physically molested by a low-wage security guard employing the same sort of “frisking” once reserved for certified peace officers (with probable cause) searching a criminal suspect.

This pisses me off. I am not a criminal and they have no probable cause to search me. For over 4 more than decades I’ve flown at least a couple times a year. Over a 13-year period between 1992 and 2005 I averaged 100,000 air miles annually. Until 9/11 happened I carried tools in my carry-on, including a pocketknife. Seems to me that if I posed any threat they could have figured it out by now. 

The checks are part of an unsustainable strategy. How in the world do we think that inspecting everybody and all of their belongings for every possible kind of weapon, and treating ever passenger as a potential terrorist, including infant children, elderly females and uniformed crewmembers, is actually making us any safer?

It doesn’t... plain and simple, and given the lack of evidence to suggest that these searches will have any positive benefit at all it all seems "unreasonable" and therefore contrary to 4A to inflict them upon a generally innocent travelling public. TSA is successfully proving that it is quite possible to diminish privacy without enhancing safety.

The scanners raise health issues as well as constitutional privacy issues, and the pat-downs are simply invasive. Those however are the least of our problems. The false sense of security engendered by these checks may cause otherwise vigilant passengers to be lulled, removing the so far most effective security mechinism we have found. 

If there has ever been a terrorist discovered by any TSA security check it has never made the news. Since 9/11/2001, even including United flight 93 on that very day, every terrorist incident on board an aircraft has been discovered and terminated by the passengers.

The cost of these scanners and pat-downs is not worth the price we pay in dignity. There is not an iota of documentable evidence that the violations of our 4A rights serve any claimed purpose, yet the proponents of assert otherwise... and plan to subject people to something that in any other context would constitute sexual assault.

In England, where they also use the machines, there is broad concern that images produced by backscatter scanners may be in violation of that country’s pornography laws. Has TSA considered that the same might be true here? Would using them on children constitute a kiddie-porn violation? If we pat-down instead, what about the potential effect on child sexual abuse victims? Breast cancer survivors? Sufferers of PTSD?

The purpose of the terrorists on 09/11/2001 was to instill fear and to destabilize our economy. Homeland Security has played into their hands on both counts, and We The People have behaved as sheep. As a result, either we non-suspect citizens submit to porno-scanning, or to the nonconsensual touching of our breasts and/or groins, or we refuse both we will be terrorized by our own authorities, sued and fined (note that this link has over 5,000 comments)... all as a condition for simply being allowed to travel…

It seems to me that it is possible to enhance safety without diminishing privacy, but Homeland Security and TSA seem not to be interested in exploring that avenue. All either has accomplished is to cost us a hell of a lot of money, waste a hell of a lot of our time, and serve up a healthy load of fear and mistrust.

Osama must be chortling.

H/T EBM, Marco, TCP, and a host of others.

UPDATE, via Wing Nut Daily and courtesy of TUX.
Former TSA Asst. Administrator says that the scanners and pat-downs are a 4A violation.

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Light shining through the clouds

For those of us who love reason, truth, moderation and rationality… the first Tuesday in November produced much disappointment. There were precious few bright spots, but a few stars peaked through the gathering clouds and managed to survive the wrath of those pulling the straight Republican lever.

Republican losses in well-publicized races such as Angle/Reid and O’Donnell/ Coons took a bit of wind from Tea Party sails. Not that I really expect we’ve seen the last of the losers in those contests, and I’m certainly not saying Harry Reid was all that much better of a choice, but at least voters in Nevada and New Hampshire recognized insanity when they saw it and voted for the lesser of evils.

Down ballot races in my backyard produced degrees of sanity in the otherwise batshit crazy red flood that cost Chet Edwards a seat he held for 20 years. Edwards was a damn good Congressman, supported by reasonable Republican moderates, the NRA and several veteran’s groups, but none of that was enough to overcome the tide that has been sweeping Texas since the Shrub first popped his head out of that West Texas prairie dog hole.

Other than in heavily Latino regions, bright spots appeared only in the most populous counties of Dallas, Harris (Houston), Bexar (San Antonio), and Travis (Austin). Incumbent District Attorney Craig Watkins managed to hold on as Dallas County District Attorney by the skin of his teeth. Watkins is the former defense attorney who in 2006 took over the infamous office formerly held by Henry Wade; reputed to be one of the most ruthless in the country. Watkins is also the first African-American in Texas history to win election to the office of District Attorney.

What makes Watkins’ win worthwhile is the special Conviction Integrity Unit he created within the office with the charge to use DNA evidence to identify people who had been falsely convicted by his predecessors. The unit has reviewed 180 cases to date, and freed 19 wrongly convicted men. As a result, Dallas County now leads the country in exonerations.

In the beginning Watson actually had critics, including his Republican opponent, arguing that it wasn't a prosecutors job to free the wrongly convicted. Those negative voices pale in light of the justice that has been accomplished as a result of Watkins’ efforts. While the slim margin of Watkins' victory is concerning, at least there were enough reasonable people left in the county to recognize the good in the man, and to do the right thing.

Probably the most encouraging news of the Tuesday debacle is that voters in my adopted state of Colorado still have good sense. Not only did they soundly reject the so called “Fetal Personhood” measure by an almost 75% margin, they also turned out State District Court Judges Terence Gilmore and Jolene Blair. These are the two prosecutors reprimanded in 2008 by the Colorado Supreme Court for withholding exculpatory evidence in a 1987 murder case… evidence that could have prevented the conviction of an innocent man.

In 1999 a Larimer County jury convicted Timothy Masters of murdering Peggy Hettrick in Fort Collins. In 2008, when presented with the new evidence, a visiting judge overturned the conviction agreeing that DNA testing raised questions about the original case. While Masters was in prison Gilmore and Blair were promoted to judgeships. Masters lost ten years of his life for a crime he didn't commit, but when confronted with evidence of their malfeasance the former prosecutors only expressed “embarrassment.”

The reprimand and finding that they “directly impaired the proper operation of the criminal justice system” did not preclude them from sitting on the bench, but reasonable Colorado voters accomplished that which the legal system could not. Blair and Gilmore were rejected by almost two thirds of voters while six other judges also on the ballot were retained by an average 70 percent margin.

In a political environment where civility has been lost, and in an election cycle where sanity was almost nowhere to be found, a few stars still managed to shine through the clouds. Little bits of light like these give me some small hope for the future. This country will survive.

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Ashcroft liable for rights violation

The Courthouse New Network has an article on the most recent chapter in the trial of former Bush administration Attorney General, John Ashcroft, who was sued on 4A grounds by one of several individuals who were detained, without charge and without benefit of legal representation, under Ashcroft's extraordinary interpretations of the material witness statutes. The Ninth Circuit found the arguments of Ashcroft’s attorney unpersuasive and refused to rehear the case.

In the decision, Judge Milan A. Smith wrote, "The facts alleged in al-Kidd's complaint are chilling and serve as a cautionary tale to law-abiding citizens of the United States who fear the excesses of a powerful national government."

There was strong dissent by some other judges on the court, with Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain stating, "One shudders at the thought that this decision may deter the incumbent and future Attorney Generals from exercising the full range of their lawful authority to protect the security of the United States."

In response to O'scannlain's criticism, the majority offered the words of former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, in his famous dissent in Olmsted v. United States (1928):

"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding."

Read the whole article HERE.

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"A greedy government pig covered with some public safety lipstick"

The following was posted March 03, 2009, to the website of Dallas area attorney, Robert Guest.

Why We Don't Fight Red Light Camera Tickets

I hate red light cameras. These automated taxing agents are the wretched offspring of nanny state fascism and government greed. Google has placed my site near the top for red light camera searches. Many of you come here looking for help. I share your disgust for red lights cameras. However, I do not take red light tickets. I want to help, but the numbers don't make sense (for you or me).

This is not an accident. The government designed the system to induce massive give up among defendants. If the government was going to steal a million dollars from one person, you can bet that person would fight the case. It's much easier for the government to steal $1 from a million drivers.

Most red light ticket are between $50-$150. To fight a red light ticket case you have to waste at least one whole day at court in front of a unaccountable administrative judge whose primary duty is to raise money for the city. This judge is going to find you guilty even if you hire OJ's defense team. After your hearing (no jury trials allowed) you may have some limited right of appeal, but that takes more time and another court appearance. Can you afford to miss a day of work to save $100? How about two days?

I can't try a case for $100. I certainly can't appeal a case for that much. There are attorneys who offer discount ticket defense, but that requires a volume practice. I am allergic to massive amounts of cases.

The simple equation for most drivers is Cost of Paying Ticket < ticket=" Pay">

Throw in the fact that most red light tickets are not reported to DPS and do not result in any "points" or a DL suspension and you have a system designed for large scale petty theft. The penalties involved are not high enough for defendants to hire a lawyer or spend the time and energy required to assert their rights. Taking time away from work and obligations to fight the government in a ticket case is not an option.

If red light cameras are allowed to exist in Texas then defendants should have the protections afforded other defendants in ticket cases (jury trial etc). If this is really about "public safety" and not taxation, than a little due process won't hurt.

My advise to the public; find a traffic ticket lawyer to fight your case and vote against

the morons who allowed these cameras to invade our communities.

I couldn't agree more with Mr. Guest's description of the purpose of these bullshit cameras, but fighting them is nigh on to impossible even if you are part of City Hall.

The cities love the cameras because the $75 civil citations sent by mail to the registered owner of the car are virtually impossible to fight, as the burden has been shifted from the state to the citizen to prove he or she didn't run the light. At unmonitored intersections, running a traffic light is a Class C misdemeanor meaning the burden is on the prosecution to prove the citizen ran the light.

A City of Houston commissioned study intended to prove the cameras improved safety, did just the opposite. During the period studied, the number of rear-end collisions increased at camera-controlled intersections from 55 to 90, the number of side collisions increased from 220 to 427 and the number of sideswipe collisions increased from 72 to 167 (click graphic to gigantisize).

The Washington Post did a study that showed the number of accidents at monitored intersections in Washington, D.C., between 1999-2005, increased at a higher rate than at non-monitored intersections.

In spite of Police Department data proving that the number of accidents in the city has decreased every year since 2004, City of Houston camera apologists still claim that the cameras prevent accidents, and swear that the increased number of accidents at those intersections is not due to the cameras but, instead, to the increased number of accidents in the city.

The purpose of the cameras is increasing city revenues, not safety, and this latest data pretty much proves that. Between September 2006 and the end of 2008, more than 387,000 citations were issued and the city raked in over $20 million in fines.

Yet the accidents keep going up.

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Unconstitutional

Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) calls the recently passed healthcare reform bill “the most unconstitutional thing I have ever seen.”

Really? The most unconstitutional you have ever seen? Either you have a short memory or you are fond of rose colored shades, Mr. Boehner.

Congress has done far worse. For reference I would point to HR 3172, enacted by the 107th Congress on September 19, 2001, signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001. The Patriot Act was a true bipartisan effort, with the House voting 357-66 in favor of the measure, and 98-1 in the Senate.

The USA Patriot Act of 2001, a contrived acronym for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorists,” is the most blatantly unconstitutional legislation to stumble through Congress since the Alien and Sedition acts of 1789. Before recent revisions, the Patriot Act violated Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution by suspending the Habeas Corpus and Bill of Attainder provisions, and it all but vacated the protections of the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth, Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments.

Eight years have passed since Patriot became law. Stories of abuse still surface in tales of government lies and extravagances, with U.S. citizens delivered into a byzantine morass of legal entanglement on flimsy, sometimes contrived evidence. Reading the stories and listening to the court cases makes one think of the old Soviet Union.

As an example, take the sad case of Brandon Mayfield, an attorney and citizen of the U.S.A. Mayfield was jailed and held in federal lockup for 19 days… as a material witness against himself. His house was searched and bugged, computer files (even those pertaining to clients, which violated attorney client privilege) were downloaded and seized, and the children’s homework copied. It was Mayfield’s daughter’s Spanish homework, combined with a misidentified fingerprint, which convinced the FBI that Mayfield was involved in the March 2004 Madrid train bombings.

When the FBI’s “evidence” was finally presented to a judge, the case was tossed on its ear. The FBI had utilized the now infamous Section 215 to make unlawful entry into the Mayfield home, plant listening devices, download computer files, and seize evidence to support what turned out to be a bogus charge that even the Spanish authorities scoffed at.

Section 215 grants the FBI the power to seize a vast array of sensitive personal information and belongings, including medical, library and business records, using a secret intelligence court that does not require any suspicion of individual criminal activity. Although a court order is required to obtain these records, judges are compelled to issue them, making judicial review in this process nothing more than a rubber stamp.

Patriot amended 15 different federal laws, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978, the Electronic Communication Privacy Act (ECPA)of 1986, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act. The act authorized roving wiretaps and the so-called “sneak and peek” warrants, obliterated the wall between foreign and domestic intelligence, and amended the definition of domestic terrorism.

Robert Levy, senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute, has written that the Patriot Act represents "the looming sacrifice of civil liberties at the altar of national security." The Mayfield family learned the truth of this all too well, and their case is but one of hundreds.

You want unconstitutional? Look no further than the truly bipartisan Patriot Act. The healthcare boondoggle doesn’t hold a candle to that. Mr. Boehner’s pomposity is nothing more than clownish, but standard right wing fare. The Democrats have behaved similarly in the past, so I don’t pretend to give them a pass, but this crop of Republicans is definitely pushing the limits of the legitimate.

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, writing in his dissent in Olmstead v. United States (1928), said it best. “Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”

I’m old enough to remember a time when all of the Congress didn’t suck all of the time, and there were at least a few rational members on both sides of the aisle. Those days, it seems, are long gone.

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For further reading, try Section 505 and the National Security Letter and the related cases, Doe v. Ashcroft (2004) and Doe v. Gonzales (2005). Other Patriot related cases include Muslim Community Association of Ann Arbor v. Ashcroft (2006), Humanitarian Law Project v. Ashcroft and the associated Humanitarian Law Project v. Reno, which was an earlier challenge to Bill Clinton’s Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty (AEDPA) Act.
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