The Jack-Booted Thug(s) of the Week...

... are the Long Beach, California police officers who not only smashed multiple surveillance cameras while serving a warrant on a local medical marijuana dispensary (for the last time, are these businesses legal or not?), one of the public "servants" present  at the raid apparently thought it would be a good idea to go ahead and walk on an unresisting and compliant suspect's neck and back with both of his jack-booted feet:



The main charge?  Operating without a city permit.  Well that certainly justifies the level of force seen here, doesn't it?

Unfortunately for the shock troops the footage was also being recorded offsite, which allows their antics to be viewed by everyone. 

The store owners must have had prior knowledge of these unlawful tactics, as that's a crystal clear case of destruction of evidence (not to mention trashing the private property of someone yet to even be charged with a crime), which violates all known precepts of good police work. 

Not that those guidelines apparently matter anymore, especially in California.

The Jack-Booted Thug of the Week...

... is U.S. Department of Justice attorney Rachel Hranitzky, who apparently showed up at an announced public hearing at the New Iberia, Louisiana City Hall yesterday and immediately proceeded to tell a local reporter there to cover the event that she couldn't be recorded or quoted because, you know, she's more special than the other officials scheduled to speak there:

"She said the Department of Justice has very special rules about how their attorneys can be quoted."

Umm, no they don't, Ms. Hranitzky.  You and your colleagues have to play by the same "rules" as any other person, an important lesson your boss is going to learn the hard way sometime tomorrow.

Things seemingly got worse when the reporter inquired as to exactly what exception to the Constitution allowed her to impose such conditions on a meeting that anyone could walk in and attend:

"Hranitzky grew belligerent and threatening and said if the reporter didn’t follow her directive he would be asked to leave.

'Then (the Department of Justice) can call your editors and publisher at the paper, and trust you don’t want to get on the Department of Justice’s bad side,' Hranitzky said."

Ooh, how scary.  "Play ball or I unleash the Eye of Sauron upon thee."

Take your impotent and empty threats and cram them, ma'am.

(via Jay G.)

Why I carry a handgun for protection, Vol. 55

Because there aren't nearly enough professional, service-oriented and informative police officers around who consider it their duty to sensibly notify the people they swore to serve and protect about the very real dangers lurking in their own communities, which would then allow those residents to make informed decisions about which areas are safe for them to visit.

Case in point - veteran St. Petersburg, Florida police officer Thad "Stu" Crisco is being investigated by his department and could be suspended for telling a local resident the truth about a local hangout "making disparaging comments against the city":

"[Crisco] allegedly warned St. Petersburg father Bob Esposito about letting his 16-year-old daughter hang around the Northshore Pool at night. Esposito's daughter was one of five teens robbed by a group of armed men there about 10:30 p.m. on a recent weeknight."

Gee whiz, a well-meaning officer warning a concerned father to not permit his daughter to loiter around somewhere very dangerous.  What's wrong with that?  Sounds like Crisco (who has a sparkling record, according to the story) was merely doing his job.  Mayor Bill "Nothing Wrong Here" Foster disagrees:

"'I always want to know my officers are representing this city in a very positive light,' Foster said."

Which apparently includes purposely allowing residents to remain blissfully clueless about which parts of their community are provably dangerous.  What an incredible disservice to your constituents, Mayor.

The Jack-Booted Thug of the Week...

... is Rochester, New York police officer Mario Masic, for arresting local resident Emily Good on May 12 for filming Masic with her cellphone from her own front lawn while he and other officers performed an allegedly questionable traffic stop on a young black male motorist on the street in front of her home:





Masic is seen on the tape unlawfully ordering Good to go into her home, telling her that "I don't feel safe with you standing behind me", even though she is clearly doing nothing but standing in her own yard holding a phone while not interfering with the officers in any way.  Masic then trespassed onto Good's property and placed her into custody on an obvious retaliatory charge of "obstructing governmental administration".

The motorist seen handcuffed in the traffic stop?  He was apparently released without charge after the officers' reported allegation that he possessed drugs wasn't borne out after a search of his car uncovered no illegal substances.  Go figure.

Here's a firsthand account from a friend of Good's who was an eyewitness to the incident.  We note with more than a little incredulity the following portion of that statement:

"According to the arrested woman, after the arrest the four police met in the parking lot of Wilson High School around the corner and had a conference for about an hour about how to deal with the case. A Sargent came over and gave them advice about how to write up the report that would minimize their wrong doing."

If you have to have a hour-long meeting to figure out how to respond to something you did, fellows, you most likely didn't do the correct thing.

Rochester Police Chief James Sheppard has reportedly opened an official investigation into this incident.  Time will tell if "Officer" Masic will be disciplined for this blatant and unlawful misuse of his authority.


(h/t to Carlos Miller)

Officially second-class journalists

The New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled that they do not consider bloggers to be "mainstream journalists", and because of that designation they don't meet the requirements for that state's shield law which protects the identities of confidential sources:

"New Jersey's highest court says online message boards are little more than forums for discussion and don't fit the definition of news media as described by the law."

We will merely point out to those justices that most of the major national stories of the past decade have been broken by bloggers, with the mainstream media either playing belated catch-up (the current "Project Gunwalker" scandal involving the ATF and the Justice Department) or even actively working to prevent the information from becoming public knowledge (Newsweek originally discovering and then spiking the Monica Lewinsky story).  We ourselves have broken important stories on many occasions which made use of confidential sources and will continue to do so despite this asinine decision, which only serves to unfairly benefit large media outlets.

Besides, we have never been informed as to the correct government office to supplicate ourselves in order to apply for our shiny "Authorized Journalist" badge so that we can be all official-like "news media" and get such privileges.  Whoever gave the government the power to decide who is or isn't a journalist, anyway?  Thomas Paine and Ben Franklin were one-man pamphleteers; under this arbitrary ruling they would no doubt be considered merely pests and ordered to immediately give up their anti-Crown sources on pain of imprisonment.

ALL sides want your civil liberties to disappear

Just some of the latest assaults on everyone's basic freedoms from the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government:


1.  Charles Kadlec of Forbes magazine reports that President Obama is apparently about to issue an executive order requiring any company (no matter what size) competing for a government contract, along with its senior officers (such as the owner if the firm is a sole proprietorship) and political action committee (if one exists), to generate a single report listing all contributions these parties may have made to political parties and candidates for the last two years.

"Similar disclosure requirements were in a bill that last year’s Democratic Senate was unwilling to pass. By signing the order, President Obama would override the democratic process and rule, instead, by decree."

Mr. Kadlec is quite correct when he opines that this kind of information in a single easily-accessible government database will almost certainly be misused by Dear Leader to arbitrarily deny contract awards to any firms who happened to contribute to his political opponents. 


2.  In other chilling Dear Leader news, his administration has filed a memo in a criminal case maintaining "the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) gives judges the right to censor and withhold material that is 'unclassified'.'" 

Sorry, White House sycophants who are nominally all for "transparency".  Either material is classified or it isn't.  If the latter, common peasants (and especially criminal defendants, as in the case in which the memo was submitted) have every right to request and look at it.  We paid for it, after all.  The defendant's attorneys certainly agree:

"CIPA authorizes substitutions only for 'classified information,' not unclassified information."

Indeed, the CIPA makes no mention of "unclassified" materials being protected, nor does the word "unclassified" even appear in its text." 

Having something be that legally crystal clear doesn't mean the judiciary will pay the slightest bit of attention, as the next story shows us.


3.  The Indiana Supreme Court has overturned a cornerstone of American and English common law that has been in place as far back as 1215 by ruling that residents of that state have no right to resist an unlawful police entry into their home:

"In a 3-2 decision, Justice Steven David writing for the court said if a police officer wants to enter a home for any reason or no reason at all, a homeowner cannot do anything to block the officer's entry.

'We believe ... a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence,' David said."

And hence the problem with viewing the Constitution as a "living, breathing document" that only means whatever those currently wearing the black robes thinks it means through their ideological prisms, rather than their strictly interpreting the plain text of the document.

We wonder what "modern" opinions Justice David holds on the other absolute liberties enshrined in the Bill of Rights such as freedom of speech and the right to a speedy trial, but fear those pronouncements would prove just as ludicrous. 


4.  We have just noticed that U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) last year introduced S. 3081, legislation that would permit the President to imprison anyone, even U.S. citizens, without charge or trial indefinitely merely by designating those people "enemy belligerents".

This proposed law almost certainly would not pass judicial review on Fifth Amendment grounds (except if Indiana Supreme Court Justice Steven David were to rule on the issue, no doubt), but the fact that someone who was held captive without trial for five and a half years in an undeclared war would think this legislation is a good idea simply boggles the mind.

The Jack-Booted Thug(s) of the Week...

... are unfortunately too numerous this time around to name just one winner.

1.  A person was arrested at Denver International Airport on Saturday morning after "authorities" noticed he was videotaping the security lines. He was taken into custody "on suspicion of interfering with a transportation facility" along with three people in the security line.

We're not sure how openly photographing a security checkpoint counts as "interfering", especially when the TSA itself admits that doing so is perfectly legal and acceptable behavior.  Those cops had better have another, much better reason for arresting this person or they could find themselves in serious legal trouble.

Apparently the folks in line the person was filming didn't possess IDs or boarding passes.  That's certainly anomalous (but also not illegal) behavior but again, the cops wouldn't have found this out unless they wrongly detained the photographer in the first place, which will probably result in the suppression of any evidence of wrongdoing gained from their arrest (of which there have been no reports to date).

We certainly don't wish to be the victims of terrorist acts, but government officials have to follow the rules they themselves put into place or else we're no better than any other tin-pot Third World dictatorship. 


2.  17-year-old high-school student and anti-police corruption activist Robert Wanek was unlawfully arrested last Friday by "Officer" Dustin Hill of the Wahpeton, North Dakota Police Department for daring to film the cop on a public street as part of Wanek's independent investigation into alleged unwarranted raids taking place in the town.  Hill is ironically one of the officers accused of abusing his police powers, and in this incident he pretty much proves Wanek's allegations for him:



According to Wanek he was held in handcuffs and questioned by another officer for approximately one hour without being read his rights or his parents being notified (he is a minor after all), and upon his release was informed that he had been unlawfully detained solely because he "had pissed Dustin Hill off".  Apparently that's some sort of crime in that podunk burg. 

Wanek is asking all concerned individuals to call the Wahpeton Police Chief at 701-642-7722 to politely inquire whether an investigation into "Officer" Hill's clearly unlawful and bullying behavior has been opened, and if not why not.

(via CopBlock)   


3.  Chattanooga (Tennessee) Times Free Press reporter Kate Harrison last Thursday was interviewing volunteers cleaning up the damage from massive flooding in the area while also taking pictures when she was ordered by Hamilton County Sheriff Jim Hammond, Chattanooga Police Chief Bobby Dodd and Hamilton County Director of Emergency Services Don Allen (way too many chiefs there, it seems) to stop taking photographs, a clear violation of her Constitutional rights as both a private citizen and a working journalist covering a legitimate news story in public.

"Harrison also was commanded by emergency services spokeswoman Amy Maxwell not to publish any of the photographs she had taken, and later was threatened with arrest. (We published one of Harrison’s photos.)"

This wasn't the only run-in the paper's reporters had with overreaching officials that day, by the way:

"In a similar incident on the same day, another member of our news staff — photographer Allison Carter — was threatened with arrest by a Catoosa County deputy sheriff if she did not cease photographing tornado damage at a Food Lion shopping center, and if she did not delete the pictures she had taken from her camera."

These incidents are completely unacceptable behavior on the part of those public "servants", and we hope the paper pursues all legal remedies available to it to have those bullies severely punished for their attempt at official intimidation.

(Jack Lail via Unc)

The lapdogs in the mainstream press reveal themselves

"At one point Wolf Blitzer and the gang admonished other news services for 'wildly speculating' about the nature of the announcement [Bin Laden's demise], saying that White House officials were pleased they had not said anything."

How nice of CNN to place keeping their masters in the White House happy far above aggressively investigating and reporting arguably the biggest legitimate news story of the decade.  We doubt they'd have been so compliant had a Republican administration made the same demand.

We haven't watched that amateurish channel in years and don't miss it one bit.

Pre-crime

Two of admittedly the politest and most deferential cops we've ever seen nonetheless show up at the London home of free-speech activist Charlie Veitch the day before last week's royal wedding and arrest him for allegations (not even formal charges) of "conspiracy to cause a public nuisance" and "suspicion of aggravated trespass", despite Veitch himself confirming the day before at Scotland Yard that he had no outstanding warrants.



Translation:  You rabble-rousers aren't going to put a damper on our worldwide PR event, and we're willing to violate your rights in order to ensure a trouble-free day for our inbred masters.

Great Britain - where you can be dragged downtown and locked up for something you might do.

Trapped in the closet

"Staffers with Vice President Joe Biden confined an Orlando Sentinel reporter in a closet this week to keep him from mingling with high-powered guests gathered for a Democratic fundraiser."

 The reporter's cushy digs.  (Pic via Drudge)

Scott Powers was supposed to be the media pool reporter for the event, but he apparently ended up being the "closet reporter" instead.

Why have the press there at all if that's how you're going to treat them?

"Transparency".  Don't listen to what the Obama administration says about promoting it, watch instead what they do to stifle it.

From the Department of Glaringly Obvious Headlines

"Promises, Promises: Little transparency progress"

Two years into Dear Leader's term of office and the Associated Press isn't particularly impressed with his administration's oft-stated vow of "transparency", particularly when it comes to Freedom of Information Act requests. 

Oddly enough, the AP reports that one of the hardest challenges is simply trying to take a gander at the very process of supposedly opening up the government to its own citizens:

"The Obama administration censored 194 pages of internal e-mails about its Open Government Directive that the AP requested more than one year ago. The December 2009 directive requires every agency to take immediate, specific steps to open their operations up to the public. But the White House Office of Management and Budget blacked-out entire pages of some e-mails between federal employees discussing how to apply the new openness rules, and it blacked-out one e-mail discussing how to respond to AP's request for information about the transparency directive."

The worst offender for invoking the "deliberative process" exemption was, naturally enough, the Homeland Security Department.  That office accounted for over 80% of such uses government-wide, despite Obama ordering agencies to only use that excuse when absolutely necessary.


Just imagine how maddening the process must be for the information they don't want getting out in circulation.

Mentioning other peoples' websites is now a federal offense...

...along with seemingly just about every other innocuous activity these days.

Website owner Brian McCarthy's site has been seized by the feds, and he now faces charges that could result in five years in prison.  The criminal mastermind's awful deed?  Allegedly placing links on his page which pointed to other web locations that stream copyright-infringing sports programming:

"In a case against a New York website owner, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is claiming that merely linking to copyrighted material is a crime."  (emphasis ours)

Why, then, isn't DHS shutting down Google or Bing, which of course have links to pretty much everything on the Internet?  And, more importantly, just why is our "homeland security" department now involved with enforcing corporate copyright law?  Is the world terrorist problem now solved and no one bothered to tell us?

It's important to note that McCarthy has never been accused of hosting copyrighted material on his own website.  Theoretically, this means that anyone can now be similarly busted by the Thought Police merely for placing a link to a funny YouTube video on their blog, or for innocently pointing out a content programming site to others via Facebook.

Think of DHS Special Agent Daniel Brazier's Big Brother-ish and free speech-killing criminal complaint against McCarthy while you're having fun web-surfing today.


(link via Jenn Chou at CopBlock.org)

From the Department of Glaringly Obvious Headlines

"White House meets lobbyists off campus"

Once again we find Dear Leader cynically ignoring even more of his many lofty campaign promises.

This time he's been caught simultaneously jettisoning both his solemn vow to not allow the foul stench of a common lobbyist to befoul his royal robes as well as his oft-stated commitment to "transparency" by freely releasing all of the names of any people who show up at the White House to plead for various indulgences:

"Caught between their boss’ anti-lobbyist rhetoric and the reality of governing, President Barack Obama's aides often steer meetings with lobbyists to a complex just off the White House grounds — and several of the lobbyists involved say they believe the choice of venue is no accident.

It allows the Obama administration to keep these lobbyist meetings shielded from public view — and out of Secret Service logs kept on visitors to the White House and later released to the public."

These lobbyists are like homely women who get callously used for sexual favors by the type of narcissistic men (ahem) who then refuse to be seen with them in public.  One sometimes wonders why both jilted groups keep going back for such cruel and cavalier treatment.

The article claims staffers also clandestinely meet with the lobbyists in such public places as a local Caribou Coffee outlet and the rest stop men's room at mile marker 72 on Route 66 in Virginia.

Okay, we made that last one up.  But we wouldn't be at all surprised if such secret meetings were indeed taking place in locations more often associated with prostitution, given the seamy nature of Obama's entire Mafia-like Presidency.

Petty payback seems to be an official policy over at the "Justice" Department

It sure looks like Eric Holder's Justice Department is blatantly harassing New York Times reporter James Risen by going all Big Brother on the journalist in retaliation for not revealing his sources for a legitimate news story:

"Federal investigators trying to find out who leaked information about a CIA attempt to disrupt Iran's nuclear program obtained a New York Times reporter’s three private credit reports, examined his personal bank records and obtained information about his phone calls and travel, according to a new court filing."

Risen is not suspected of any criminal wrongdoing, by the way.  So why all the apparently unlawful digging into his personal life?  Well, it appears the Feds are simply just mad at Risen for not telling them what they want to hear, which is that a former CIA worker named Jeffrey Sterling leaked to Risen the material in question.  Sterling has been indicted, but that didn't happen until Risen had successfully quashed several subpoenas seeking to compel him to reveal his sources, which sure makes the criminal charge against Sterling look suspiciously like just one more pressure tactic to convince Risen to give up the goods.

Under current Justice policy the Attorney General must personally approve all third-party subpoenas connected to journalists and their stories.  Risen and his lawyers have repeatedly asked if the rules were followed in his case but have not received an answer to date, according to the story.

Naturally.

We don't need no stinkin' laws

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, frustrated at their inability to execute wiretaps on communications not covered by current laws ("web-based e-mail, social-networking and peer-to-peer services"), is apparently going to "lean" on such online companies, Mob-like, to build in a few special little back doors for the Feds to use in whatever extra-legal fashion they wish:

"But [FBI General Counsel Valerie] Caproni told lawmakers she was not asking for expanded CALEA [Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act] powers. And she stopped short of calling for rules requiring Web-based communication providers to build in so-called back doors allowing law enforcement access to their software, although she said she's optimistic the US government can find incentives for companies to 'have intercept solutions engineered into their systems.'" (emphasis ours)

It will be interesting to learn what sort of "incentives" will be offered to companies who are asked to provide the type of access that Ms. Caproni doesn't want to bother codifying into law.  Maybe something along the lines of "Play ball with us and we won't unlawfully seize your Internet domain and then go on to defame your company by falsely accusing you of harboring child porn", perhaps?

The e-list member who turned us on to this article has a well-placed friend who summed up the situation quite nicely:

"Laws have boundaries and oversight. Incentives don't."

True, which is most likely why Ms. Caproni doesn't appear to be in a rush to request a legislative-based solution to the department's expressed dilemma.

This issue might be something to keep in mind when evaluating your future online software solutions.

Your convenient usefulness is at an end, media idiots

The White House Correspondents Association has lodged a formal protest about being shut out of the very events they're supposed to be covering for the public:

"In a letter to Press Sec. Robert Gibbs, the WHCA Board complained about their lack of access to the President throughout the crisis in Egypt and outlined their request to open today’s treaty signing to the White House pool."

The President has once again blatantly ignored his vow of "transparency", this time to the enablers who couldn't find a single thing about him to criticize him during his ascension to the Oval Office.  Oh, how the worm has turned.

Well, this is what naturally happens when the mainstream media finally finds their guts and quits being overt cheerleaders for such a narcissistic demagogue of a politician - the access and photo-ops dry up.  Did they really expect something different to happen? 

Strikingly similar styles

Egypt basically shut down all Internet access to and from that country last night in an apparent last-ditch attempt to save the regime of Hosni Mubarak from being brought to an abrupt end by his long-suffering peasants.

Just four days ago, we here in America were informed of Dear Leader's wish for a similar "Internet kill switch" to be put into place for this country, one which would naturally be unconstitutionally out of the reach of any judicial oversight:

"A controversial bill handing President Obama power over privately owned computer systems during a 'national cyberemergency,' and prohibiting any review by the court system, will return this year. (Emphasis ours)

Only despots (Mubarak) or wannabe-despots (Obama) express a desire to have absolute power with no governmental check against abuse at their disposal, all because they know what's best for the rest of us.

Reading the CBS story, we learn that if this legislation passes the president could pretty much call anything he wanted a "national cyberemergency", allowing him to flip that switch and take over privately-owned communications networks with impunity without fear of sanction or repudiation from a court of law, which is pretty much dictatorial-level power.  This would leave Americans with no other recourse than to regain their electronic liberties by force.

How similar this sounds to what's going on right now in the streets of Cairo.

No wonder Joe Biden refuses to label Mubarak a dictator.  His boss aspires to have the exact same level of complete control over our country's communications in a "crisis" to be determined solely by him, with no way for citizens to legally challenge that decision.  The Vice President understandably doesn't want any of us citizens to confuse the president's agenda with that of a tinpot Third-World strongman.

Oops, too late.

Free speech must be curbed to protect free speech

UK Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins, writing about Dear Leader's speech on the Tucson tragedy, deplores the fact that Americans have and regularly use their natural right of free speech mostly unconstrained by government regulation (what this has to do with a paranoid schizophrenic finally erupting at a perceived enemy we have no clue at all, since there's not an ounce of proof that Loughner was influenced even a little by political speech from either side) and begs "the handsome one" (oh, please) to do something about it.  He then hypocritically dives right ahead and gets in a little printed-word bashing of his own:


"Foreigners are always surprised by the US's capacity to speak right but somehow not do it"



Americans are always the clueless idiots of the world, aren't we, at least until the elite nations that are always putting us down once again need bailing out or rescuing.


"Washington must contain more wisdom and talent than anywhere on earth"


That statement right there proves without a doubt that Jenkins knows absolutely nothing about the United States.

Mr. Jenkins goes on to accomplish the impressive feat of  reversing the course of his argument in the middle of a column by complaining that Britain's 2003 Communications Act as well as the BBC code of practice on balance are too "authoritarian" for his sensibilities.  He then immediately doubles right back and somehow wants us to swallow such nonsensical bromides as "Freedom can only flourish in a climate of discipline" and "Free speech cannot exist without chains". 

Maybe for you, pal, but we'll take our natural rights such as free speech and self-defense unrestricted by meddling autocrats, thank you very much.  We've seen what happens all too often when those in charge decide that the peasants are grumbling just a little too loudly about the policies being put into place for their supposed "benefit".

We suppose we shouldn't be particularly surprised at Mr. Jenkins's position, though, since his ridiculous statements are coming from a subject, not a free citizen.  Judging from the many dissenting comments his piece has garnered from fellow Brits, though, we have hope that the common peasants there are finally starting to realize just how many of their rights and freedoms they have given up over the past five decades or so, and are beginning to want them restored.




UPDATE:  The winning comment on the Guardian's site comes from reader SpeaksForBoskone:

"One cannot shout fire in a crowded theatre"

You should, if there's a fire. And there is.

Amen.

Big Brother North decides (after 30 years) that a hit song is now unacceptable

The same sort of moral police who are currently rewriting Huckleberry Finn to avoid traumatizing any of America's precious little snowflakes have also been quite busy in the the junior Nanny state to our immediate north.

The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (based on the complaint of one listener) has declared "Money for Nothing", the hit song by the British band Dire Straits, to be offensive because of three uses of the word "faggot" (in a sarcastic and ironic manner, not a demeaning one) and the tune will henceforth be banned from radioplay in Canada.

(The song came out in 1985, by the way, and was a  #1 hit in Canada at the time.  Where was the CBSC then?)

To their credit, several radio stations there are planning to play the tune non-stop in protest.

Remember back in the mid-80's when this song came out?  Tipper Gore and her shameful gaggle of Washington wives who were bored of tennis and long lunches were at that time attempting to similarly censor music lyrics in this country.  Ah, good times, good times.