Recently in Police State Category

Straight out of Baghdad, the Washington D.C. police have set up checkpoints into a particular neighborhood saying the seven people murdered in one day there constitutes an emergancy. It's a tragedy, to be certain, but I find the argument specious, and I'm disgusted that the police are just setting up roadblocks to stop people from traveling though the area.

The police chief on CNN said that unless you live there, are visiting someone, or attending a community event you will not be allowed into the neighborhood. Because of those exemptions the police will argue that they're not blocking someone's right to assemble, but truly, if a thousand protesters from the NRA showed up there tomorrow, would they let them in and allow them to hold a rally on the corner? Probably not. Alright, I know that's not a great example. How about this instead? We all have a protection from unreasonable search and seizure. Doesn't this violate that? Driving through the neighborhood doesn't constitute just cause for stopping my vehicle, but now I'm required to stop and allow the police to at least look into the cabin without any protection. What if a petty thief is stopped and arrested because of something he's got in his backseat? Like the head of the statue at the Lincoln Memorial? Would that arrest be legal? Probably not, which wastes our time and money.

Also, let's consider that this does nothing but deflect the crime into other neighborhoods. Instead of the Trinidad neighborhood the crime will move elsewhere, and more people will get hurt, all the while police forces are diverted into useless and probably unconstitutional searches of mostly innocent people.

Perhaps the police should offer better incentive for people to cooperate with them. Perhaps we should stop locking up people for minor drug offenses, and stop prosecuting people for selling drugs, end the war on drugs altogether. Probably a good portion of these people were casualties in that war.

I don't like it when people die, especially under these circumstances. I hate even more when the police start stripping those left behind of their dignity and rights in the name of "Doing Something". "Doing Something" should mean being effectual, and honest, and actually making a positive change. Not this crap.

You can watch the CNN story here.

You may all rest easier now. In case you hadn't heard, in 2006, immigration officials detained and deported public enemy number one: Ms. Nalini Ghuman. Who's that? What? You mean you haven't heard of the menacing danger of this English-born musician and Edward Elgar scholar?

Well, I'd like to direct you to this NY Times article, which will make everything clear. Or will it?

See, unfortunately, we don't get any answers as to why the DHS and ICE yanked this woman off of a plane, threw her into a holding room, proceeded to mock her, threaten her with indefinite detention if she moved, groped her, and refused to let her speak with someone in her consulate. In fact, at one point she was told:

"They told me I was nobody, I was nowhere and I had no rights," she said. "For the first time, I understood what the deprivation of liberty means."

Funny how that works. People in this country continue to say that we've got nothing to fear from our government while it's so incompetent it can't even figure out that someone who's name is Nalini Ghuman is not "hispanic" as the officers from ICE put down, or that it's even possible she really does speak Welsh, even though that's where she lives. The news is filled with stories of government incompetence, legalized graft, and abuse of rights. Just about EVERYONE acknowledges that your average bureaucrat couldn't find his ass with both hands and a map. And still people believe we should trust them, as if some magical cure for this bumbling and contempt for decency will show up one day.

Can't they see, can't you see that Ms. Ghuman threatens no one, except those who don't like Edward Elgar, oh, and maybe the former leading scholar on Edward Elgar: Lord Rumpole Winnifred Hingebottom. And still, as a non-threat to almost the entire world, she was treated like she was the primary suspect of 9/11. Maybe you've forgotten, but we had the primary suspect for the 9/11 attacks cornered on the side of a mountain in Afghanistan but through incompetence we let him slip through our fingers. Instead we waste time and money on egregiously abusive snipe hunts like what happened to Ms. Ghuman.

Hey, perhaps it was Lord Hingebottom that arranged to have Ms. Ghuman detained. After all, ICE was kind enough to suggest that a jilted lover or rival had written a poison pen letter to the State Department which caused her visa to be revoked.

We have two new items in "This Week In The Police State":

1. This one, I'm sure you've heard of already. A student in Florida was tasered for trying to ask John Kerry a question. He was tased for being a "pest". Here's an article with a video from the Huffington Post, whom I don't normally read, but hey, it's got the video. See if yourself. And can I just say that I think John Kerry's a fucking coward? Any one with a half a sense of decency should have gotten off of that stage and intervened, not let a student get tasered in the back of the auditorium.
2. My favorite though, comes via CNN. A grandmother in Utah was at home when the local police stopped by. They wanted to cite her for her brown lawn, which I guess is against the law. When she refused to give her name to the officer she was knocked to the ground and cuffed. She was injured on her nose and had to spend time in jail. For NOT WATERING HER LAWN. Here's that story.

Again we see examples of the police believing that their primary job is beat up the people they're sworn to protect, the people who pay their salaries. They go out of their way to overpower and physically intimidate anyone, including grandmothers, who doesn't immediately snap to attention.

We've got some great entries in "This Week In The Police State":

1. This is from 2004, but it's still a good story: Sheriff Joe Arpaio sent his crack SWAT team to an upscale neighborhood in Phoenix to "seize illegal weapons". They instead burnt down the house they were attacking, killing the dog inside, and arresting one of the inhabitants for a traffic violation. After the raid, one of Sheriff Joe's men drove the tank they took with them over a neighbor's car. Full story here.
2. Police arrested a worker at McDonalds for serving an "oversalty burger". The burger's been turned over to the crime lab for investigation. Story here.
3. Police in Singapore arrived in four riot vehicles to put down a protest being staged by tiny plastic figurines. Story here.
4. A Police Office in Missouri became enraged when a motorist refused to explain why he parked in an empty parking lot at 2am. So the officer kindly offered to create bogus charges for an arrest. Read the transcript and watch the video: http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/19/1961.asp
5. Mounted police in Washington DC stormed into a press conference and protest against the war in Iraq arresting the organizers. Story here: http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Police_break_up_anti_war_meeting_in_09062007.html
6. And a few stories from Australia, which just had the APEC summit, which George Bush attended. Police were warned that they should expect "level of violence not previously experienced in Sydney", and that groups of protestors would unleash...well...hell on Earth. So they had snipers everywhere, they had police assaulting fathers in front of their children because they had the AUDACITY to walk across the street to go to lunch. They even had their officers remove their "required" identification badges moments before the police stormed protestors and beat them. Of course, all of this was worth it because, as we found out, the biggest security threat at APEC was the comedy troupe "The Chaser", who were able to infiltrate security posing as a group of Canadian delegates. I guess The Chaser folks didn't know that APEC is strictly a no-mirth zone.

Ah, such helpful tactics from the police you can almost smell the love on the tips of their batons.

I think it's simply stunning...in a one-two punch for faux morality, the Australian government, working with Christian groups is seeking to spend $189 million on efforts to block pornography, including filtering all traffic, and also to begin jailing people who possess more than five pornographic movies.

More details are here: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070814-australia-to-spend-189-million-on-anti-porn-initiative.html

The justification for all of this activity is that "Children Are Sacred", which is the same shitty excuse given here in the US when they want to start clamping down on free speech. "WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?????"

Yes, those of use who are rational have thought about the children, and we've realized that it's not our job to raise your kids, it's your job. Just like it's my job to raise my own children. We encourage you to stop protesting at abortion clinics and gay clubs, to stop trying to convert gay people to straight, to stop bombing people you don't agree with (or supporting the terrorists out there who bomb in your name), and go the hell home and leave us to our lives.

Also, we, the rational and informed, know that by now, filtering doesn't work. Even the DOJ has gotten around to unsticking its head from its ass and saying "FILTERING DOESN'T WORK". Hey look, here's an article from 10 years ago that talks about why filtering doesn't work.

In a world where there are real dangers, and real problems, that a government could spend money on, if it really wanted to, this expenditure of $189 million is wasteful folly writ large.

Even more troubling, it points to a continued encroachment of the government into its citizen's lives. It shows a deep willingness on the part of the Australian government to police the private lives of people who aren't hurting anyone (except maybe themselves - mind the chafing).

Yes yes, I hear your common refrain of "It can't happen here". Ah, but it is, slowly. The government is right now proclaiming under the banner of "Protecting Our Children" touts its increase in fighting obscenity.

The government is seeking to increase its fight on obscenity, whatever that might be. How long until the American Conservative Christian movement takes note of the efforts of their brethren in Australia and seek the same here?

Rudy Giuliani, expounding in 1994 on his vision of freedom and the role of government:

We look upon authority too often and focus over and over again, for 30 or 40 or 50 years, as if there is something wrong with authority. We see only the oppressive side of authority. Maybe it comes out of our history and our background. What we don't see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do. [emphasis mine]

(source: nytimes.com.

I'm sorry, how's that go again? Freedom is about authority and about the "willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do".

Am I the only one that heard both George Orwell AND Thomas Jefferson spin in their graves?

Since when is our only use of freedom, the only purpose of freedom, to be to hand it to the government to do what they want with our lives?

And this man wants to be president? This man wants to be the one who'll stand at the Capital Building and swear to uphold and protect the Constitution? This man who'd tell us we should hand over our liberties to the government so they can tell us what to do?

No way in hell...

[Update] - The Rocky Mountain Chronicle has a great breakdown on Rudy as mayor here. Reason Magazine's also been tracking Rudy and his fascist tendencies. Pick through a whole pile of highlights via Google here.

In today's episode, intrepid officers in Minneapolis spot a dangerous "bicycle terrorist" travelling on his bike. Our brave police forced him from his bike and threw the bike under a vehicle, smashed the man's glasses under boot, tasered him, maced him, and created a raft of charges to use to hold the man with, including taking a swing at the peace officers.

The whole story for your enjoyment can be read here: http://greencycles.blogspot.com/

I, for one, feel safer now that this man can no longer perpetrate his reign of velocipedal reign of horror.

I picked up a story at SALDEF via Sepia Mutiny about a brutal police assault in Joliet, Illinois.

A police officer noted a van with an expired tag sitting in someone's driveway, so went and knocked on the door to speak with the owner. When Kuldip Singh Nag, an American Sikh veteran, receiver of the bronze star in the first Gulf War, rebuffed the police officer's order that he park the vehicle in the garage because it was inoperable, and on his driveway, which is Mr. Nag's private property, the police pepper sprayed him and started assaulting him while shouting "YOU ******* ARAB! YOU ******* GO BACK TO YOUR ******* COUNTRY BEFORE I ******* KILL YOU!"

Did I mention that Mr. Nag was beaten and assaulted this way in front of his wife and 6-year-old daughter? That he had to spend 5 days in the hospital for injuries?

This man fought for our country. He's an American citizen, a decorated veteran, and did not deserve to be treated like this. NO ONE DESERVES TO BE TREATED LIKE THIS. I've spoken many times about the police and they're bullying attitude. Police believe that because they have the weapons and armor they are somehow better than the rest of us. I believe they view us as the serfs who live on their land, mere vassals who live only to obey their orders.

Worse, this officer let some prevailing notions of xenophobia, fed by shows like "24" that anyone in a turban, or anyone with a brown skin, must be an Arab, must be a terrorist, must be repressed, abused, and put down.

It angers me that actions like this continue, and that as of yet, the officer has not faced any disciplinary action. I'm asking my readers to join SALDEF in speaking out against this horrible act of brutality. Demand action. Demand justice. Mr. Nag deserves it, and if we let this kind of thing go unchecked, it won't just be Sikhs who are targeted. It could be us next.

Remember, the founding fathers didn't establish this nation on the basis of white rights, or American rights, but HUMAN RIGHTS. And these actions are violation of Mr. Nag's essential human rights.

In 2004, police and sheriff deputies in Georgia were called to Frederick Williams' house because he was having a seizure. The police arrived before the ambulance, and they arrested him. They proceed to taser him over and over again ordering him to stop resisting while he's being held down by many officers until he dies. There's a video of the incident where you can hear him pleading for his life while they kill him.

You can read the summary and see the video here. I watched the video, and one of the most disgusting things about the video is how all of the officers stand around and leer when he's first brought in being tasered. They're enjoying this man's torture.

Wizbang has more information about the incident as well as the fact that the DA chose not to charge any of the deputies in the case. Read that article here.

Better yet, read what police officers and their sadistic groupies have to say over at the forums on Officer.com:

Absolutely he deserved it. He struggled and he wouldn't comply. If you do that, there's a good chance you'll get tased.

Boohoo, he was black. He could have just as easily been white.

Or

You resist, you get tased, cuffed or not. What else should the officers have done? There were many officers present, and if that many officers could not get sufficient control of a combative suspect, there is a problem there that handcuffs will not solve. Step it up a level on the use on force continuum....presence didnt work, verbal didnt work, soft hands didnt work, whats next? Less lethal weapons. IMO, those officers were justified 100%....

Nothing did happen to the police officers involved, though one news story highlights that after the incident, the cop who administered the shocks was fired, but not for this. Instead he was fired for shooting the neighbor's dog.

Maybe it didn't listen well to commands either.

I can't say it much better than the Agitator did. Apparently they were worried that during the drug raid at his house he might flush the evidence.

Who knows, maybe they were administering a drug test...

The best part is the the quote from the article that states:

"Even if a raid doesn't turn up anything, presence and show of force sends a hard message to the neighborhood that gang and drug activity will not be tolerated."

GOOD! We don't want people thinking they have a right to privacy or freedom from unreasonable search. We want them fearing that the police could come in and beat them or make them piss themselves or otherwise humiliate and abuse them.

Seriously, it's despicable, disgusting, and horrible that in today's world we have people who are willing to accept the worst kinds of behavior from our police in the name of some "War on Drugs" or "War on Terror". Where are the conservatives calling out for a fundamental return to people's ability to be safe from this kind of abuse? Where are the conservatives who would have seen a photo like this from some place like East Germany or the Soviet Union and pointed and said "That's what's wrong with their thinking that the State is always right and the people have no liberties"? Where are the conservatives who really believed that to be conservative meant to be conservative on the role of government in people's lives not use the government to push their morally uptight socially repressive views on the rest of us.

How can it be wrong for a country like Belarus to throw its people in jail and abuse them while we let our cops run roughshod over the people in whole neighborhoods, locking up 1 in 6 Americans and subjecting them to all manner of abuse at the hands of the people that are ostensibly supposed to be protecting us?

-- UPDATE 1: Justin Cook, the photographer of the picture I had above contacted me and asked me to pull the picture. In part because he he said that my analysis of what was going on was underinformed (it was) and also because he didn't have written permission from the mother of the child in the picture to publish the photo. Based on those two facts and more out of how I know I would feel if a picture like that of one of my kids was being posted on the internet I took down the picture. I have more information about the raid that lead to the picture in the first place from Justin, and I'll post more about it in a bit.

Epileptics in the middle of seizures, students at UCLA, cops sure do love their tasers, because now in St. Louis they tasered a 5'7" 130 lb mental patient until he died. And not long ago, police in Saginaw, tasered a man in a town council meeting because he refused to remove his hat.

Maybe cops feel like since tasering is supposed to be non-lethal (see above however) that it's probably just okay to whip that thing out for whatever reason...

"This isn't diet soda. I clearly ordered diet!!!" ZAP!ZAP!ZAP!ZAP!ZAP!

"What do you mean all the tickets to the movie are sold out???? ZAP!ZAP!ZAP!ZAP!ZAP!

"Son, I'm sorry but I warned you what would happen if you got less than an A on your test." ZAP!ZAP!ZAP!ZAP!ZAP!

"Dammit dog, you go piss outside!" ZAP!ZAP!ZAP!ZAP!ZAP!

Why, I bet if they were writing Andy Griffith today, every time Otis stumbled down Main Street half-tipsy, Barney'd be out with the taser and baton giving him a few lessons about "soberin' up", if you know what I mean.

I guess it's not all bad though...Philadelphia Police shot a man in the back of the head and would have us believe that he was sitting in the back of the cruiser handcuffed after being patted down and was able to pull a gun and blow the back of his head off. That's some ingenuity.

I'm fairly certain you've heard about it by now, but in case you haven't, police at UCLA walked through the Powell library last week checking IDs and when one student in particular, Mostafa Tabatabainejad of Iranian descent (for all you folk who fear anyone from that region) but born in the US, refused to show his ID, the UCLA police tried to drag him out of the library and proceeded to taser him over and over and over again.

The interesting thing is that the police would taser him and then tell him to stand up, and when he wouldn't stand up, they would taser him again. I always thought that the point of using the taser was that it stunned the target and incapacitated them for a while. Say, making it impossible to get up and be a threat again?

If you'd like evidence, I suggest watching video from the incident shot on someone's cellphone. Here's the video itself if you prefer:

You can also read this article from the LA Times or this commentary or this commentary. The Sepia Mutiny article points to a press release from the UCLA police's statement indicating that they did everything correctly. The LA Times today provides us with an article that shows that at least one of the cops involved in this incident, Terrence Duren, has been cited before for using too much force, including choking a student outside a frat house with his baton, and shooting a mentally ill homeless person. Twice.

Again the incident at UCLA as well as the other actions of Officer Terrence Duren highlight a culture in which the police that work for us instead assume that they're the power in charge, and act as bullies with badges, batons, and other assorted weaponry. These bullies feel that any dissent must be crushed before it emboldens the other serfs they so nobly protect. If you watch the video from UCLA, at the end, one of the students demands the badge numbers from the cops tasering Tabatabainejad, at which point one of the cops threatens to taser him too.

Do we really need police tactics? I just can't think of a reason why we do. Why is it necessary for the police to immediately escalate their actions to tasering students in libraries, or epileptics in mid-seizure in public parks when their target doesn't immediately give in. It's no longer innocent until proven guilty. It's guilty as suspected and whipped in public into giving in so the cops can feel powerful.

It's disgusting. It's disturbing. It's something the people of this country should be concerned with.

I saw this story via Reddit (quickly becoming my favorite news site, by the way).

To quote from the article:

"...a Michigan man with epilepsy, who, when experiencing a seizure, apparently was unjustifiably tasered, clubbed, arrested, jailed and committed to a psychiatric facility for violent offenders -- all based on non-threatening behaviors caused by a seizure."

(source: http://www.epilepsyfoundation.org/epilepsyusa/beloungea.cfm)

Wow. It's apparent to me that in the particular case of Daniel Beloungea, the epileptic in question, because he was unable to comply with the orders of the police they viewed his non-compliance as an act of rebellion, and acted to stamp it out immediately.

The actions of the police officers in question are a perfect example of police abuse and further evidence of a nascent police state.

The police in question state that their actions were completely justified and that he was playing with himself in the park and lunged at the deputies with a weapon:

"He reportedly advanced on a deputy after being Tasered, ripping the barbed dart from his stomach and pointing it towards the deputy. He had to be dropped to the ground with a baton blow to the leg.

Beloungea was jailed and charged with disorderly conduct and resisting and obstructing an officer. On his lawyer's advice he pled not guilty by reason of insanity and spent 20 days under evaluation at a state forensic center.
...
Undersheriff Mike McCabe said deputies are trained for medical emergencies and stressed their actions were justifiable."

(source: http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061006/METRO02/610060319/1022)

Apparently his men need more training.

As an epileptic I can tell you that when I've had seizures I'm completely disoriented during and after and my wife reports that I thrash about violently during the seizure. I don't have the partial seizures that Mr. Beloungea has, but rather, full clonic-tonic (grand mal) seizures, so it's more clear what I'm undergoing. Every time I've had a seizure, the ambulance gets called and the police come along as well, more to help the EMTs if I'm completely uncontrollable.

I can't imagine the horror for my wife if in the middle of a seizure the cop bursts in and starts beating me with a baton. My heart goes out to Mr. Beloungea and his family, and I hope that the deputies in question are punished for their reckless endangerment of a man who was clearly not a threat to them, but in terrible need of medical help.

In the US, the Posse Comitatus Act prohibits the military from acting in a police fashion against U.S. Citizens, except in times of emergency, insurrection, and so on. It's considered one of the cornerstone laws that prevents the US from descending into a complete police state.

Well, the recent Military Authorization Act of 2007 has removed some of the restrictions on the president and made it more possible for him to use the military, even against the objections of the local power structure.

On October 17th, the President signed the so-called "Torture Bill", or more officially, the Military Commissions Act, he also signed the Military Authorization Act of 2007, which contained at Section 1076 a provision which would change the Insurrection Act to allow the President to deploy the military under the auspices of quelling insurrection, for just about any cause. Don't believe me?

Here are the words of the actual bill:

The President may employ the armed forces, including the
National Guard in Federal service, to--
``(A) restore public order and enforce the laws of the United
States when, as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or
other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or
incident, or other condition in any State or possession of the
United States, the President determines that--
``(i) domestic violence has occurred to such an extent
that the constituted authorities of the State or possession
are incapable of maintaining public order; and
``(ii) such violence results in a condition described in
paragraph (2); or
``(B) suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic
violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy if such insurrec-
tion, violation, combination, or conspiracy results in a condition
described in paragraph (2).
``(2) A condition described in this paragraph is a condition
that-- ``(A) so hinders the execution of the laws of a State or
possession, as applicable, and of the United States within that
State or possession, that any part or class of its people is
deprived of a right, privilege, immunity, or protection named
in the Constitution and secured by law, and the constituted
authorities of that State or possession are unable, fail, or refuse
to protect that right, privilege, or immunity, or to give that
protection; or
``(B) opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the
United States or impedes the course of justice under those
laws.
``(3) In any situation covered by paragraph (1)(B), the State
shall be considered to have denied the equal protection of the
laws secured by the Constitution

(Source: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h109-5122

It also adds "or those obstructing the enforcement of the laws" to the list of people who can be arrested by the military and detained. Interesting that the law that suspended habeas corpus and force people held by the military to have to go before military tribunals the same day that the bill that would expand the ability of said police to arrest people under the discretion of the President.

Let's extract a sentence out of the law above and write it out a little more clearly:
"The President may employ the armed forces, including the National Guard in Federal service, to restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of [an] other condition in any State or possession of the United States, the President determines that any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy if such insurrection, violation, combination, or conspiracy opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws"

Reading that, I see a condition where if people oppose the actions of the government, the President can seize upon that as an "insurrection" and order the military into an area and declare martial law. This could include arresting people for protesting the actions of the government. What determines a conspiracy? What determines "opposing the execution of the laws of the United States"? By writing this, am I committing an act by which I am exposed to arrest by military officers and being held in some brig for an indeterminate amount of of time?

I face a dilemma with this story. I don't want to sound like a raving lunatic, but I also don't want to ignore the consequences of what was passed. It seems clear to me that the president's been given the ability to declare martial law for just about nothing and lock up whomever. This is without considering the implications of the Military Commissions Act, which adds an entirely different aspect to the issue. Luckily for me, I'm not the only one who's reading this bill this way:
Toward Freedom
Media Monitors

Or, you can read the words of Senator Patrick Leahy, the only politician who has thus far spoken out against the bill:

...[the bill] adopts some incredible changes to the Insurrection Act, which would give the President more authority to declare martial law. Let me repeat: The National Guard Empowerment Act, which is designed to make it more likely for the National Guard to remain in State control, is dropped from this conference report in favor of provisions making it easier to usurp the Governors control and making it more likely that the President will take control of the Guard and the active military operating in the States.

The changes to the Insurrection Act will allow the President to use the military, including the National Guard, to carry out law enforcement activities without the consent of a governor. When the Insurrection Act is invoked posse comitatus does not apply. Using the military for law enforcement goes against one of the founding tenets of our democracy, and it is for that reason that the Insurrection Act has only been invoked on three — three — in recent history. The implications of changing the Act are enormous, but this change was just slipped in the defense bill as a rider with little study. Other congressional committees with jurisdiction over these matters had no chance to comment, let alone hold hearings on, these proposals.

(Source: http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200609/092906b.html)

To recap, we've got a president that, since 9/11, has illegally wiretapped many more Americans than necessary, has illegally detained American citizens without granting them access to lawyers or even charging them with a crime, involved us in a war in a country under false pretenses while ignoring the real and present dangers in the countries truly responsible for our bloody nose, tortured people or had them rendered illegally to countries that then tortured for us or for sport, tried to shroud his administration in secrecy, and attacked everyone who did not agree with him completely as enemies of the state. All the while, he let his political friends and allies get away with the most egregious of acts, like letting New Orleans sink into the sea, accepting bribes from Indian casinos, redrawing voting districts so that politicians were picking their voters rather than voters picking their politicians, earmarking billions of dollars for the most outrageously fatty pork projects, and try to seduce young men.

And now Congress, our elected representatives are content to give him the ability to declare martial law at will AND detain and torture detainees at will.

It's at this point that I'm left speechless and have nothing more to say, but perhaps, these two thoughts: In democracy, one should always imagine the very worst person ever that could hold office, and circumscribe the powers of that office such. As Thomas Jefferson said: "Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."

Clearly we have not.

I know I'm late to the party, but I figure it's important that I too link to the Keith Olbermann piece on "Habeas Corpus". As he highlights in his piece, without the ability of someone to show up in court and demand to know why they're being held, most other rights fly straight out the window.

Why is this important? Because the Military Commission Act of 2006 that was recently sent to the president removes the right of habeas corpus from detainees. So what does that mean for you? Well it grants the president uncheckable power to throw whomever in jail for whatever reasons he sees fit. All he has to do is declare someone an enemy combatant.

And what does Bush need to do to declare someone an enemy combatant? There is no legal standard for that declaration. It's entirely up to the president's will at this point.

For more in depth analysis of the Military Commission Act of 2006, read Amnesty International's brief here.

Two interesting stories via Sepia Mutiny that point to some disturbing trends:

A cable provider in New York was arrested for providing broadcasts of Al-Manr, the TV station of Hezbollah. The reasoning is that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization (which it is) and therefore showing the broadcast somehow provides material support. I don't follow the reasoning with that. Certainly the KKK has killed a lot of people and blown up buildings and the like, but they have the freedom of speech. Is this because it's a broadcast instead of a magazine or a public gathering? Either way, I don't see how he violated any laws by providing the rebroadcast, even as repugnant as I find Hezbollah. (Link)

Secondly, two men, a father and son, of Pakistani origin, but both Americans were detained at the Hong Kong Airport and told there was trouble with their passports. When they were apart from the crowds they were informed they'd have to fly back to Pakistan and submit to an interrogation by the FBI in Pakistan (a country known to torture during interrogations) before being allowed to continue to the US. They're crime? None. They're just related to a guy in California who is charged with providing material support to terrorists. The kicker, after finally agreeing to fly back to Pakistan, they were told the US wouldn't pay for them to fly back because they're already on the No-Fly List, so they had to foot the bill for their own flight back to their own interrogation in a country known to disregard human rights.

The big issue here is that they're american citizenz. They have rights that are guaranteed to them that they should be protected by, but the US government is basically asking them to waive their rights before they can re-enter the country. That's crazy. (Link)

Hat tip to Sepia Mutiny for highlighting the two stories.

I know I've been spending a lot of time talking about South Asians (hey guys, thanks for visiting!) and terrorists (I doubt they visit) and I wanted to take a moment to highlight some good old American police abuses:

Emiliano Gonzalez was pulled over in Nebraska while driving a rented car. He had a cooler in the backseat which contained $124,700 in cash, but nothing else. Suspecting drugs, the officers called in a drug-sniffing dog, which barked at the money, so the police took the money. They didn't charge Mr. Gonzalez, there was no proof that he'd been involved in a drug deal, but they got the keep the money. In this country, if the police so much as suspect that the property, including money, is somehow involved in a drug deal, they get to seize the property. Mr. Gonzalez went to court to get his money back and the Federal Court of Appeals decided against him. Link

But it's not just the money that police feel like they get to seize and use. Two Philadelphia police officers raped scores of women over the last few years because they were prostitutes and exotic dancers. The real kicker is that even though they've done this to many women who have testified against them and there's enough evidence to convict, these two shitheads aren't going to jail. In fact, they think they're the victims. Link

I wanted to take a moment to point to the Josh Wolf blog: http://www.joshwolf.net/blog/. Josh Wolf is a citizen journalist and blogger who was arrested recently for refusing to hand over some video from a G8 protest. He claims that he's a journalist and his materials, like video, are protected by the same laws newspapers and other such organizations use to protect their journalists.

The Federal government countered that because a police car was torched during the process, the DHS spent money on that police car, it constitutes destruction of Federal property and they've thrown him into jail for it. Very squirrely logic. Time Magazine has a much better right up about the whole affair here.

It's a bullshit detention and one that shouldn't be happening, and people (such as myself), are starting to speak out against the whole thing. BoingBoing has a breakdown of the whole thing here.

Read and be amazed about the government abuses.

I had written a day or two ago that I doubt the evidence collected on the Pakistani side because Pakistan has a history of torture. Now, Craig Murray, former British Ambassador, writer, broadcaster, and exposer of human rights abuses, has a brief article that fills in a lot of information about the plot that's been missing from the news, and raises some important questions. Read it here: http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/archives/2006/08/the_uk_terror_p.html)

I'm glad to know that others are holding the same amount of skepticism that I am about the whole affair. Andrew Sullivan's also picked up on the same Craig Murray article and is running with it: http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/08/the_uk_terror_p.html.

Imagine a law, originally crafted to fight global hacking and virus writing, but would also allow the Chinese or the North Koreans or the Iranians to employ the FBI to muzzle dissidents and dissenters who employ websites in the US anonymously to speak out. Imagine a law that would allow foreign countries to use American law enforcement to uncover the identities of citizens in the US who are critical of their policies. Pure hypothetical bullshit you say?

No, it's not: The Convention on Cybercrime is a treaty that would allow other countries, most of which have many more restrictions placed on freedom of speech, to force American law enforcement to act against people who violate another country's laws. Consider, for example, someone who's family still lives in Cuba, but they live in the US and are vocal online against Castro. This law would permit the Cubans to get the identity of the person speaking in the US and commit reprisals against the person's family. Consider people in China who use the internet to get unfiltered information and to spread unfiltered information to the rest of the world. The Chinese government could use this law to find those people and jail them.

And in both cases, the FBI would be helping.

I find this repugnant and terrible, and I'm abhorred that our president would be advocating this bill. There is a provision in the treaty that would allow countries to refuse to enforce a law unless it was a crime in both countries (called dual criminality), which is fine, because it would then only pertain to things like real crimes.

The text of the bill can be found here: http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Treaties/Html/185.htm

Apparently it's not only the US that overreacts to terrorism. This morning, the entire country of India starting blocking all Geocities, TypePad, and BlogSpot websites in entirety. The reasons being given is that terrorists communicate via blogs.

Wow. I don't think I should need to say that this is terribly stupid and overwrought. To say that blocking all traffic on this sites will make India safer from terrorism is just silly.

One, the methods used to disseminate information from blogs is too diverse. One can read blogs via Technorati, or Bloglines, and so on. Two, terrorists would still be able to communicate via emails, SMS, and the like. But third, and most importantly, consider how much good blogs too, especially for the people of India that are living overseas. Blogs are an important way for people working abroad to keep in touch with family and vice versa. Bloggers commented on the terrorist attack in Mumbai and continue to break news stories about it (including this overreaction). It's amazing to me that India (Bharat) would seek to join the most repressive nations on Earth, like the Muslim nations in the Gulf or North Korea and China and start filtering IP traffic in the country.

It's ridiculous. All the more so because part of India's economic rebirth has been because of the power of the web and it continues to operate as the "world's back office".

I'm just amazed. I never thought I'd see India do something like this, especially in the face of a bombing, which India has experienced before.

Other bloggers who have more to say on this issue, including ways to circumvent the filtering:

http://indiauncut.blogspot.com/

http://radio.weblogs.com/0121664/

http://www.ultrabrown.com/posts/india-censors-blogspot

http://www.shivamvij.com/2006/07/somebody-must-have-blocked-some-sites-what-is-your-problem.html

http://labnol.blogspot.com/2006/07/blogspot-blogs-banned-in-india-read.html

http://www.gonomad.com/traveltalesfromindia/2006/07/what-is-up-with-blogspot-blogger-sites.html

http://www.withinandwithout.com/?p=854

The best thing we can do in the US is to run TOR, a router that anonymizes internet traffic and makes it possible for clients to browse filtered websites. TOR is provided by the EFF and can be downloaded here.

On our home front, two of the big news stories that I should be blogging about are the Supreme Court's narrow rebuke of the President's detention of people in the name of this "war on terror" and the compromise that Arlen Specter forged with the administration that is supposed to bring judicial review to the domestic wiretapping.

I'd like to wipe my butt with both news stories. First of all, members of Congress on both sides of the building are already talking about finding a way to give Bush the authority to still strip prisoners of their rights, because, they say, the military tribunals built on the Uniform Code of Military Justice affords them "too many rights". Ah yes, that old chestnut. "Too many rights". Prisoners still have rights, whether those moonbats in Congress want to admit it or not. Of course, people's rights often get trampled under the foot of asserted government power...

Secondly, Specter's compromise is merely a mirage. His compromise, as so boldly spoken of gives Bush the choice to present his wiretapping activities to a secret court for them to judge on the entire program. But he doesn't have to submit it, and there's no penalties built in for not submitting the program to judicial review. It's a sham, and a shame for that matter, and I can't believe that anyone's thrilled by this.

The thing that keeps angering me about this whole thing is that the Administration keeps crying that the FISA courts process is "too cumbersome" to be workable, even though it gives them a lot of time and freedom to act first and go back later for the judicial review. I'm amazed that the administration would complain that they're unwilling to do the little bit of work required to preserve our rights while claiming to protect the American way. The irony is obviously lost on them.

For another point of view on the Supreme Court decision and what it means for the people in Gitmo, read this story by Richard Harlos.

On Fox News, Brian Kilmeade, one of the co-hosts of Fox & Friends, their lovely fascist morning show starting stumping for an Office of Censorship for the U.S.

KILMEADE: Not crushing -- preserving our freedom by preserving our secrets because war is not a free thing. Intelligence is not something to be shared: It's to be coveted and used to our advantage. Here's what Roosevelt did. He appointed Byron Price, a respected journalist, to run the office. Price accepts the post on the condition that the media can voluntarily agree on a self-censorship. The Office employs 14,000, and they are civilians, to monitor cable, mail, and radio communications between the United States and other nations. The Office closes in 1945. Our nation still flies. The flag still soars.

Source (http://mediamatters.org/items/200606290009)

Lovely. I am reminded of a quote from Eisenhower who had something to say about all of this:
"Un-American activity cannot be prevented or routed out by employing un-American methods; to preserve freedom we must use the tools that freedom provides."

I bet that if something like this Office got set up the censor's office wouldn't even swing by Fox News, but they'd try to shut down people like the Washington Times, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and so on. Luckily I don't think this would work. The difference between today and World War II is that the internet makes blogging and news sharing too quick and anonymous for the government to quash.

Salon.com is running an article on a supposed secret room the NSA has built into AT&T's major internet backbone offices in St. Louis. We all know it could be other things. I present to you:

The Top 10 List of Other Things That Could Be In That Room.

10. That's where bin Laden's hiding.

9. It's not actually the NSA, it's actually Google. They've gone from searching webpages to just drinking right off the hose. Results in real time!

8. That's where all the relief intended for Katrina victims got stuck. They just found it. Sorry guys!

7. They're going to keep all our rights safe in there until the war on terror is done.

6. That's where Karl Rove keeps his soul and conscience.

5. That's where Saddam hid his WMDs.

4. The MPAA and RIAA are building a checkpoint on the information superhighway. "Scuse me sir, have you be torrenting today?"

3. Bush can't get enough of those crazy animated gifs, so he's building an Animated GIFs Museum. Oooh, look, a dancing hampster!

2. Alberto Gonzalez needs to keep an eye out for more of those Abu Girab pictures so he can masturbate to them, I mean....prosecute those who released them.

1. It's Dick Cheney's super secret gaming room. The more bandwidth he can get, the quicker he can shoot people in the face.

I knew I should have been worried when the only thing remaining between tacit approval of illegal activity done by our president and some accountability was ole Single-Bullet Specter, but I thought that maybe, JUST MAYBE, he'd find the gumption to start calling people out for their wrong-doing. I was wrong. He's decided to just give the president amnesty PLUS he's going to give all future administrations to wiretap Americans without a warrant.

The Left Coaster has more details if you're interested...

Seriously, this makes me want to smack the man.

Charles Rangel, Democrat from New York, would like to reinstate the draft (PDF Link). He would like to make every person between the ages of 18 and 42 serve a two-year stint in the military, or some other form of civilian service.

Rangel's been on this kick for a while, trying to reinstate the draft, and I've never been sure why, as I've never heard him give a good answer when asked.

The Pentagon is rewriting its detainee policies to remove any and all mention of the Geneva Convention because it "would restrict the United States' ability to question detainees". It doesn't restrict the ability to question detainees, it protects them from getting electrodes strapped to their testicles or raped repeatedly or any manner of horrible actions in the process of getting questioned.

I feel like instituting another edition of my Now & Then. 30 years ago we decried the Vietnamese for their horrible horrible treatment of American POWs and the ways in which the Viet Cong ignored the Geneva Conventions. Now, we wish to emulate the very behavior we deplored and throw the conventions out the window. I'm beginning to wonder what country I'm living in.

(Link)

BusinessWeek is running a story about how the US Government is buying public databases that contain all manner of information about people, including their financial information and biographical information, all often tied to your phone number.

Having the ability to combine that information with the illegally obtained phone calling records and who knows what else being collected gives the government a lot of information that can be used to harass people, or worse yet tie them to crimes they didn't necessarily commit. I've stated it before, it only takes one call to someone who's doing something shady to have your name in a collection of "suspects".

Consider me, for example. I have worked in companies that include people from India. Now say one of those persons is a Kashmiri muslim ( I have twice worked with Muslims from Kashmir ) who through a friend is connected to a known terrorist in that area (that part is I hope made up).

His friend calls him from Kashmir to talk about his upcoming trip back home. He then calls me for a few minutes to talk about something relating to work or cricket, whatever. I'm only 4 steps removed from a terrorist. Doesn't mean I'm a terrorist, but I'm flagged. The FBI then does a search of my purchasing records and finds out that not only have I bought two books on Learning Hindi but I've also bought the Koran, and searched on Amazon for books about learning Pashto and Urdu (languages in Afghanistan and Pakistan). They have no way of knowing that I did so when I was entertaining the idea of working as an open-source translator for the CIA or NSA. I have now become a "person of interest". Suddenly my calls are being listened in on, my email is being filtered, my whole life, and the lives of the people around me are being analyzed. The fact that I have a PGP key and employ it is viewed as highly suspect. The nature of the writings I have posted on this blog and elsewhere are held up as evidence of some greater plot or sedition. My friend Jeff is flagged as being associated with a "person of interest" and comes under scrutiny by his military commanders. Both of my brother-in-law's jobs become jeopardized. My mom's private phone calls as a pastor are listened in on. The circle of inquiry widens further and further. And all because I could be four links away from a known terrorist.

Think that's crazy? Bush himself is one link away from Osama bin Laden himself. The Bush family knows the bin Laden family well. So consider for a second how you may be connected to a "person of interest" even if only tangentially. Do you want the government snooping through your life on such flimsy evidence?

Former NSA Head Bobby Ray Inman has spoken out against the NSA Domestic Spying Program:

"My own view, this activity was not authorized by a resolution to use whatever force you need to do. There clearly was a line in the FISA statutes, which says you couldn't do this."

The voters of Philadelphia voted by a 4-1 ratio in a non-binding resolution to approve the use of public surveillance cameras within city limits. I'm really dismayed. I haven't seen any scientific evidence that surveillance cameras work as promised. Studies in Britain have shown that putting more lights on the streets have a greater impact on crime, and Britain (and London especiall) is always pointed to as the model. And sure there are times when it has helped, but I do not know that the few times it helps justifies the further reduction in people's privacy. England's already allowing people in one neighborhood in London watch the police cameras in their own neighborhood. That means neighbor can spy on neighbor.

I'm just worried that we've reached the point where people would be willing to give up privacy in their homes in the hope that it would prevent crimes in their homes. More importantly I'm worried that it will evolve into some city or town mandating it.

A town in Missouri has stated that a couple with 3 children cannot live together because the mother and father are not married. The town requires a residency permit for homes with more than 3 people living in it. What the fuck? A residency permit? What the hell for? (Link)

I can just imagine it now:
"Hey Bob"
"Howdy Sherriff. What can I do for you?"
"I heard you had twins last week."
"That's correct. Twin boys. Named them Joseph and Jacob."
"Good Christian names. Listen...we have to talk."
"What's the matter?"
"Well seeing how it's you and Ellie and you've already got a little girl, the birth of those twins means you've got 5 people living in your house."
"Right."
"You haven't come by the courthouse to get your permit."
"What permit?"
"The one that lets you have more than 3 people living at your house."
"But three of those people are kids! What the hell?"
"Watch it. Now, I can only give you one week to get the permit before I have to come by and take your house."
"GET THE HELL OFF MY LAND!"
"Bob, don't screw with me. If you don't have that permit in 7 days I'll be back with the deputies and you'll be living in your car. Congratulations on the birth. Good day."

I bet the permit costs $30 or some such to get too.

Yup, thank God for Freedom and the American way.

ABC News keeps swinging with new allegations. Today the revealed that the FBI is using provisions of the PATRIOT Act (remember it was passed to fight terrorism) to use National Security Letters to get the phone records of journalists. In case you don't remember, a National Security Letter carries the same weight as a warrant except it must be kept secret and does not require judicial oversight to be executed, as a warrant would. This was done under the assertion that the government might need to act quickly and secretly to prevent a terrorist from acting out their plans.

Of course, the problem with an NSL is that it can be used to get information which a judge would not allow because it would violate the Fourth Amendment, giving law enforcement a way to get around the Constitution with no way for the judicial branch to perform the oversight it's supposed to perform. (Article here)

Add to that that the government issued 3501 NSLs for people within the US and I feel even more worried about this country and our freedoms. (Article here)

Worst of all, with NSLs and the NSA tracking of phone calls as a "classified yet legal program" it will happen in the future that people will be charged with crimes they did not commit by Federal Agencies on the basis of evidence that has been collected without oversight that they and the defense lawyers will not be able to see or refute because it is "classified". There are already cases of people being charged with "secret evidence" that courts are not allowing defense lawyers or juries to see.

Why all of this combined doesn't scare the pants off of most Americans baffles me.

ABC News was flatly told by a senior federal law enforcement official that the government is using the contents of the illegally obtained NSA calling-records database to determine what government officials have been leaking information to news sources. (Link)

This puts a huge chilling effect on people's abilities to speak to the press about things that are occurring within our government, especially when they are illegal, immoral, or both. It makes it so much harder for people to speak up, and THIS SHOULD outrage people. It just plain should shake people to think that the government has illegally collected everyone's calling records and is now using it to destroy the press' ability to perform public oversight of the government.

One of the exact reasons we have a free press is to prevent government abuses LIKE THESE from occurring by exposing them to the light of day.

The fact that most people roll over and scratch their butts when they hear this stuff scares me.

Word is that Michael Hayden has been a vociferous supporter of the president's wiretapping program and doesn't adequately understand the Fourth Amendment, which protects people from unreasonable search and seizure without probable cause.

Is there anyone but those with their heads completely up Grover Norquist's butt that don't see this guy is a stunningly bad choice for the man who's responsibilities would inlucde not only running the CIA but ensuring that the agency under his purview does not go too far?

Even as a libertarian I believe there is a need for an organization like the CIA, which would operate overseas to defend the country and our interests, and work to prevent us from coming under attack, but I do not, and cannot support the idea of putting a pro-police state Bush yes-man in office.

It's a terrible terrible idea and I hope the man is roasted alive in his confirmation hearings.

Under the guise of protecting the children (what us libertarians call the "WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF TEH CHILDREN" effect), Alberto Gonzalez is seeking to get a law passed which would require ISPs to record ever customer's internet history and hold the ISPs accountable if they don't take a harder stance against child pornography.

These laws are never ever ever about child pornography. Wrapped up in the flag of saving the innocents, law enforcement officials use the laws they pass in so many other ways, railroading suspects, mining for data on people to prosecute, etc. The thing is that they'd never get this type of law passed by claiming it's an anti-terror law because enough people would cry out, so they do it this way instead so if you're against this bill, you're in favor of letting child molestors go free. Which is a pile of horseshit, but that's what people will say.

More children are hurt and killed by aspirin every year than those that are approached or hurt by molestors. Where's the global campaign against aspirin? Furthermore, the statistic 1 in 5 children are solicited is an empty one. Every time I log in on Yahoo Messenger, I am "solicited" by an IM Bot. Same with AIM. That doesn't mean it's a paedophile. But they certainly count those. I'm sure there are other inflated numbers in there, such as when the Dept. of Justice claimed a wildly huge number of children killed by gunfire every year EVEN THOUGH they were counting 18 - 19 year olds, and children killed by police in the comission of a crime.

Oh well...welcome comrades to your new police state.

A student at University of Georgia was running across campus dressed as a ninja. Just college silliness? Not according to the ATF, who were on campus for "Project Safe Neighborhoods", whatever the hell that means. They drew guns on the guy and held him in "investigative detention" until they realized that he wasn't a threat to anyone. Hate to run across the ATF on Halloween. "THE ZOMBIES, NINJAS, AND PIRATES ARE EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" *blam* *blam* *blam* (Link)

Massachusetts lawmakers are applauding themselves for having taken huge steps to solve the health insurance problem by a new package of laws they've created. They tout the fact that there will be no new taxes to fund the program as it's greatest feature. They are keeping quieter on the part that states that all people above a certain level are required...yes required to buy their own health insurance if they don't already have it or pay the state in fines. That sounds like a tax to me. What if people don't want health insurance? (Link)

Reason has a great article on how dogs are often an unnecessary victim in the war on drugs. (Link)

A retired schoolteacher from Texas decided to do the right thing and pay down his J.C. Penny's Credit Card so as to not keep paying the interest. His check of $6,522 to the bank did not, however pay down the balance. It did get him noticed by the Department of Homeland Security, which apparently takes issue with people paying off their credit card balances. (Link)