America accepts police power abuse

By Frank Moraes

The video below is quite interesting and worth watching. But let me give you an overview. The police have a woman in handcuffs and are searching her and her car. A man who lives across the street yells at the cops that they are Nazis and similar taunts. The police are in the process of letting the woman go, so two of the cops go up to the guy and demand to see his identification. They eventually arrest him for disturbing the peace or some such. Toward the end of the video, you case see a lot of guy's wacky beliefs. But that doesn't matter as far as I'm concerned. People have a right not only to hold wacky opinions, they have a right to say them.


What's clear in the video is that this guy didn't disturb any peace and he didn't interfere with an investigation -- note that the police only approached the man after they were done with the woman. What the guy did do is annoy the cops. And the cops used their power to arrest someone for no other reason than that they did not like the guy. Anyone who has had any interactions with the police knows how this works. If they don't like you, they will arrest you. It doesn't matter what it is for and it certainly doesn't matter if the charges are later dropped. You will be out time and often money because, for example, your car got towed.

This situation is actually worse than a police state. It effectively means that the police are above the law.

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Do the math

By Mustang Bobby 

NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre said on Friday that there should be an armed police officer at every school in the country. Aside from the fact that there have been incidents where there were already people with guns protecting a facility and still a shooter got in and did his carnage — Fort Hood, for example — let's indulge Mr. LaPierre in his masturbatory Rambo fantasy and put one well-trained armed guard at every school in the country. How will he pay for it? The cost would be out of the reach of most school districts, and even if Congress decided to pay for every one of them via a federal grant, it would be a budget buster.

Let's just take a look at one school district. How about one I know pretty well, such as Miami-Dade County Public Schools? It is the fourth-largest district in the country, with over 347,000 students. It has 354 schools or facilities with students, so we'll need one guard per school. Let's say that the base average salary of a guard is $75,000. I know that seems a little high for a cop, but we're talking average salary, not starting.

But you just don't pay for the base salary and you're done. There are other costs, such as paying into their retirement account, Social Security and Medicare contributions which the district has to pick up a portion of, contribution to health insurance, and the required payment of workers compensation, liability, and unemployment insurance, all required under contract or state or federal law.


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Police use Predator drones for surveillance in North Dakota

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So you really don't think the U.S. is becoming more and more of a police state?

Armed with a search warrant, Nelson County Sheriff Kelly Janke went looking for six missing cows on the Brossart family farm in the early evening of June 23. Three men brandishing rifles chased him off, he said.

Janke knew the gunmen could be anywhere on the 3,000-acre spread in eastern North Dakota. Fearful of an armed standoff, he called in reinforcements from the state Highway Patrol, a regional SWAT team, a bomb squad, ambulances and deputy sheriffs from three other counties.

He also called in a Predator B drone.

As the unmanned aircraft circled 2 miles overhead the next morning, sophisticated sensors under the nose helped pinpoint the three suspects and showed they were unarmed. Police rushed in and made the first known arrests of U.S. citizens with help from a Predator, the spy drone that has helped revolutionize modern warfare.

But that was just the start. Local police say they have used two unarmed Predators based at Grand Forks Air Force Base to fly at least two dozen surveillance flights since June. The FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have used Predators for other domestic investigations, officials said.

No big deal, you say? Police should use whatever means necessary to apprehend criminals? Please. Are you not paying attention as your privacy -- and indeed your freedom -- is being taken away from you without you even knowing it?

As John Cole writes: "[T]o those of you poo-pooing this and saying "how is this any different than a helicopter," in five to ten years when unmanned drones are flying all over your neighborhood surveilling and storing info at random, you can think back to mocking us privacy hysterics. I'm sure very similar arguments were made in years past about police needing armored vehicles and .50 cals and every locale needing a SWAT team armed to the teeth."

It's one thing, and then another thing, and then another thing, and each time you say, "oh, so what?" Well, it all adds up to something, doesn't it? It's bad enough that your phone is allowing you to be tracked, that you can't make any sort of transaction without being identified on the grid. Do you really want to live with drones flying overhead?

As Libby Spencer writes: "A police state doesn't happen overnight. Big changes happen in just such tiny incremental infringements. If we wait to express our concern until, like the Geneva Conventions, Posse Comitatus is rendered quaint, it will be too late."

Actually, it's probably too late already. And not just in North Dakota.

(photo)

See Spot run ... See Spot eat a police car

By J. Thomas Duffy

This is truly bizzaro world material.

A dog in Chattanooga, Tennessee, literally chews the bumper off a police car!

Update: Cop Car Biting Dog Released to Owners

Winston ripped the front bumper of the vehicle loose and destroyed the tires. The officer said he was running radar on Workman Road on March 14th when the canine emerged from behind a chain-linked fence and "locked in" on the car.


[snip]


Thursday afternoon, Winston was released back to his owners in the lobby of the McKamey Animal Center. Hamilton County Judge Sherry Paty ordered Emerling take several steps to prevent a similar incident from happening again. Emerling must secure his fence and take Winston to obedience classes. The case will be passed for six months and if there are no other incidents, Winston's case will be dismissed. He must also wear a tag labeling him as a 'potentially dangerous dog.' The owners must also pay McKamey for the costs of his care.

(Here's a YouTube report on it.)

So much for "That Doggie In The Window," the one with the waggly tail.

We may have to correct ourselves.

Previously, we advocated that bears should be drafted and sent over to Iraq and Afghanistan.

We can throw that plan out.

Send this dog!

Bonus Bonus Riffs

Top Ten Cloves: Ways To Tell Your Next Door Neighbor May Be Conducting Illegal Dogfights

(Cross-posted at The Garlic.)

Dallas police wrongly ticketed non-English-speaking drivers

By Michael J.W. Stickings

This must surely warm up the cold, bitter hearts of Pat Buchanan, Lou Dobbs, and the rest of the English-only nativist movement in the U.S.:

Dallas police ticketed 39 drivers in 3 years for not speaking English.

They will not be happy to learn, however, that Police Chief David Kunkle is not amused and has promised "to investigate all officers involved in the cases for dereliction of duty."

I was surprised and stunned that that would happen, particularly in the city of Dallas. In my world, you would never tell someone not to speak Spanish,

Kunkle said. Pending cases are being dismissed and fines are being reimbursed to those who were ticketed and paid them.

It doesn't seem there there was a department-wide effort to target non-English speakers. "The citations were issued in several different patrol divisions by at least six different officers." In some cases at least, ignorance of the law may have played a role:

In [one] case and perhaps the others, officials said, the officer was confused by a pull-down menu on his in-car computer that listed the charge as an option. But the law the computer referred to is a federal statute regarding commercial drivers that Kunkle said his department does not enforce.

Still, Kunkle is right to investigate, and those ultimately responsible ought to be held accountable. Ignorance is no defence, after all, and along the way there were officials who should have known that what was being done was wrong.

How does it feel?

By Capt. Fogg

It's tempting to make all kinds of comparisons between the angry arrest of Professor Gates and the not-so-angry exchange with the scruffy looking 68-year old police found strolling through a minority neighborhood of Long Branch, New Jersey last month. They had received a call from a resident concerned that a suspicious looking white man was wandering around. The funny part though is that even after confronting him, the two officers in the New Jersey police squad car didn't seem to know who Bob Dylan was.

The experience of growing old sometimes only feels like everyone else is growing younger and you hear quips about knowing it's happening to you when the police, your doctor and all the other "authority" figures turn into children. I wouldn't necessarily expect a 24 year old to know all the much about the seminal figures of 20th century culture, but Bob Dylan? Who else looks or sounds like Bob Dylan?

The elderly gentleman accompanied the two officers whose combined age is less than three quarters of his own, back to the Ocean Place Resort and Spa where the tour was staying -- where he was identified by the no doubt amazed roadies.

There's no information about whether the police asked for an autograph, but I doubt it. They thanked him for his cooperation, but it's not like he was any kind of celebrity after all.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Librarians attack

By Capt. Fogg

It's understandable that John McCain wants to distance himself from George Bush. No one can blame him, even though he seems to be intent on carrying out Bush's agenda to a significant extent. Bush has the popularity of leprosy at the moment, and it's clear that party loyalty no longer extends to allowing comparison to the sitting president. I can, however, blame his campaign staff and the Denver, Colorado police for denying the right of a 61 year old librarian to be on public property for a public meeting, carrying a sign proclaiming McCain=Bush.

The banshees at Fox and the snickering snots who listen to them will never let you hear the end of the Obama campaign workers who asked two women wearing Muslim head scarves not to sit where the camera could see him, but they weren't escorted out to the street by the police, weren't issued a ticket for trespassing or told they would be arrested for constitutionally protected behavior.

Of course, the cable news opinion shouters who still support Bush have a chance to show that the McCain campaign has insulted them and the president and the party, but I'm willing to bet we won't hear anything but silence from them and from John McCain. Republican apologists have little to build a defense on other than the grave danger posed by nice old lady librarians with opinions, but they will probably try.

I hope I can be forgiven for suspecting that McCain will be another president who thinks the constitution is a stumbling block and try to scare us out of our desire for freedom.



(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

The United Police State of America

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Things are getting worse under our right-wing government here in Canada, to be sure, but what's going on south of the border, in "the land of free," the active rolling back of liberty, is truly appalling (and deeply worrying). And here's the latest, a SCOTUS-sanctioned expansion of police powers:

The Supreme Court offered unanimous support for police Wednesday by allowing drug evidence gathered after an arrest that violated state law to be used at trial, an important search-and-seizure case turning on the constitutional limits of "probable cause."

"When officers have probable cause to believe that a person has committed a crime in their presence, the Fourth Amendment permits them to make an arrest, and to search the suspect in order to safeguard evidence and ensure their own safety," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote.

David Lee Moore was stopped by Portsmouth, Virginia, officers five years ago for driving his vehicle on a suspended license. Under state law in such incidents, only a summons is to be issued and the motorist is to be allowed to go. Instead, detectives detained Moore for almost an hour, arrested him, then searched him and found cocaine.

At trial, Moore's lawyers tried to suppress the evidence, but the state judge allowed it, even though the court noted the arrest violated state law. A police detective, asked why the man was arrested, replied, "Just our prerogative."

While some of the justices expressed concern about that level of discretion at oral arguments in January, their 9-0 ruling raised few such doubts.

A unanimous ruling. Even the so-called liberals went along with this.

Now, the ruling was technical insofar as the case involved the relationship of state law to the Fourth Amendment, a relationship that is muddled. Still, what is clear is that the Supreme Court has pushed the United States ever closer to being an authoritarian state in which the police, and those who rule, have the "prerogative" to search and seize as they please.

(For more, see DWT.)

Rudy and the mistress 2

By Michael J.W. Stickings

In response to the recent revelation in that he billed various New York City municipal agencies for "security" expenses while engaging in an extramarital affair, Rudy Giuliani was quick to defend himself. The billing was "perfectly appropriate," he said, the story as reported by The Politico "totally false". His former chief of staff, now a campaign aide, called it "a bookkeeping exercise".

After the GOP debate Wednesday night, Giuliani called the story "a hit job," as if for some reason The Politico, hardly a left-wing publication, was out to get him. It could be paranoia on his part, but clearly the plan is to attack the messenger. He and his people are evidently hoping that they can get away with not addressing the merits of the story in any serious way, hence this, along with the various efforts at deflection.

Meanwhile, the city comptroller, William Thompson, said that his auditors "were getting stonewalled by City Hall and this is in the previous administration, under the Giuliani administration. They were not giving answers." Indeed, The Politico notes that "neither [Giuliani] nor his aides have questioned any of the facts reported" in the original piece.

They are still not giving answers, it seems, hoping the story goes away, along with all the media attention, if they spin it long enough.

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As Steve Benen has reminded us -- see here and here -- much of this isn't new. For example, it was "reported a few months ago that Giuliani kept his emergency command center in 7 World Trade Center, in part so he could maintain a convenient love nest for his extra-marital affairs". Indeed: "We knew about the trips to the Hamptons. We knew Giuliani ordered a security detail for both women. We knew that taxpayers ended up footing the bill. What we didn’t know was that steps may have been taken to cover up the true costs of Giuliani’s extra-curricular activities."

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And there's more:

Well before it was publicly known he was seeing her, then-married New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani provided a police driver and city car for his mistress Judith Nathan, former senior city officials tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

"She used the PD as her personal taxi service," said one former city official who worked for Giuliani.

Also a hit job, Rudy?

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In response, Andrew Sullivan asks the right question: "How does any sane person trust the power of the presidency with this money-raking friend of mobbed-up Kerik and accused child-molester Placa?"

Ah, yes, Bernie Kerik. Where exactly does he fit into this corruption scandal? You know he's there somewhere. (Yup, see Josh Marshall's take.)

As for Alan Placa, you can read about him here.

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And there's still more -- on Rudy, if not the mistress -- from Kevin Drum:

And, hell, as long as we're piling on Rudy, ABC also reported today that for the past two years Giuliani Security & Safety has been providing security consulting and advice to the Qatar Interior Ministry, "which is currently run by a member of the royal family who has long been accused of supporting al Qaeda, according to security consultants familiar with the area."

Fantastic.

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Yes, there's the Shag Fund story (Shagfundgate?), but the dirt on Giuliani just keeps piling up from many different sides. Ask yourselves Andrew's question again, but expand it to include everything else we know about this wretched man.

Simply put, he cannot be trusted. At his core, Rudy Giuliani is nothing but a corrupt thug.

From Florida to Burma -- a tasered heckler and tear-gassed monks

By Michael J.W. Stickings

There has been a good deal of attention, and rightly so, directed at the tasering of an obnoxious heckler, Andrew Meyer, at a John Kerry speech at the University of Florida on Monday. The right, notably Michelle Malkin and the obnoxious hecklers at The Weekly Standard, have been using it to attack Kerry, as if the whole incident was somehow his fault. (No, they would not be heckling so had the victim been a heckler at a Republican event, and, of course, the right remains enamored of fascist police tactics generally, as long as the victims are the right victims, such is the right's penchant for authoritarianism these days.) But two police officers have been suspended without pay, the president of the University of Florida, Bernie Machen, has called the incident "regretful" and called for a state investigation, and Kerry, who insists his exchange with Meyer was a "good healthy discussion," one that he "could have handled... without interruption," criticized both the tasering and the arrest. If anything -- and I do not mean to diminish the severity of the incident -- this was yet another brutal example of the use of excessive force by the police, an unfortunate and unnecessary use of excessive force that just happened to have involved, indirectly, John Kerry.

There needs to be an investigation, the use of excessive force by the police needs to be challenged, and, ultimately, the use of tasers needs to be addressed once and for all. There is no excuse for what happened here, as in countless other incidents that never make their way onto YouTube.

As always, you can find a lot of reaction at Memeorandum -- and I recommend in particular the thoughtful reactions of Melissa McEwan, Steve Benen, Pamela Leavey (a dedicated Kerry supporter), Libby Spencer, and the GTL (and, yes, I do agree that Kerry ought to have responded more quickly and more forcefully).

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While the tasering of a single heckler at the University of Florida has received coverage here, there, and everywhere, however, we would do well to remember that in some other parts of the world police and military brutality is a way of life (and death).

It is always reprehensible, but what is happening in the totalitarian state of Burma, what the totalitarians call Myanmar, is appalling. This is not to attempt to quantify such brutality but rather to remark on the totalitarian scope of brutality in some other parts of the world. There is brutality in the U.S., to be sure, as in other liberal democracies, but it cannot in general be described as totalitarian. It is, thankfully, the (admittedly all-too-common) exception -- and the aggressively indignant reaction from all across the spectrum, even from hypocritical right-wingers looking to score cheap political points, would seem to indicate that, as a rule, such brutality is not sanctioned.

(Or maybe not a rule: The widespread brutality at America's horrific correctional facilities goes largely ignored, and, of course, there is the widespread, and state-sanctioned, use of brutality under the guise of national security, much of it finding gleeful encouragement on the right.)

Regardless, to return to Burma, the brutality there resembles the brutality of some of the more noteworthy totalitarian regimes of the last century. Consider this latest example:

Military officials in Burma have used tear gas to disperse hundreds of monks holding a rally in the north-west city of Sittwe, reports from the area say.

Some of them were beaten and several were arrested, eyewitnesses say.

The tasering of a heckler at a John Kerry speech is hardly defensible, but nor is the tear-gassing of monks at a peaceful rally to oppose political oppression. But where the tasering triggered immediate and widespread opposition, a likely investigation, and possible reform, not to mention a popular YouTube clip, the tear-gassing and the beatings and the rest of the brutality in Burma will continue under a regime that is terrorizing the Burmese people.

Brutality everywhere, from Florida to Burma, must be resisted and opposed and brought to justice. But let us remember that it is happening everywhere.

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This is one of the "better" YouTube clips of the Meyer incident. It is clear that the police acted with excessive and completely unnecessary force: