A Geek With Guns

The war on drugs should be renamed the sanction of police abuse. In their eternal search for drugs police officers have been sanction with a great number of easily abusable powers, such as destroying private property in an attempt to find drugs:

The instrument cluster and leather dashboard were gone. The caramel-colored seats were torn up. The gear shift was ripped out and stray wires hung limp everywhere. Geico, Richardson’s insurance company estimated the damage at $12,636.42 — more than he paid for the car — and declared the vehicle a “total loss.”

According to police reports, the damage to the black BMW 325i came in the aftermath of a traffic stop during which officers detected a “strong odor of raw marijuana” inside the vehicle. Searching for a cache of drugs, members of three different police agencies and a detective from a federal drug task force spent two days tearing the car apart, the reports said.

So what did police find after their $12,000 search?

Absolutely nothing.

The destruction of this car was made possible because an officer pulled the driver of the BMW over and claimed his spidy keep cop senses detected the smell of marijuana. An officer can only search your vehicle if they have a warrant or probable cause but the war on drugs has essentially made probable cause any cockamamy excuse a police officer can think up. All an officer must do is claim he could smell drugs and it’s an instant sanction to search the vehicle. While I lack a time machine to directly interview the authors of the Bill of Rights I’m pretty sure the destruction of this car would qualify as an unreasonable search and seizure.

Truth be told there is a chance that Geico may have a rare chance to bring a case against the police for their actions but it will only come at taxpayer expense. Even if you win a case against the police you still loose because you’re only getting your tax money back. The officers who destroyed the car are effectively immune from lawsuits and thus have no fear of being sued. What a brilliantly designed system, the state gets away with anything it wants and may return some of our money if they decide they went too far.

Something I’ve often recommended over the years has been initiating recalls on politicians who attempt to expand the powers of the state (be it an individual state or the federal state). People in Montana are attempting to recall their senators who voted in favor of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA):

(HELENA) – Moving quickly on Christmas Day after the US Senate voted 86 – 14 to pass the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011 (NDAA) which allows for the indefinite military detention of American citizens without charge or trial, Montanans have announced the launch of recall campaigns against Senators Max Baucus and Jonathan Tester, who voted for the bill.

It appears as though my recommendation has been for naught as recalling a federal “representative” isn’t a straight forward as I first believed. Each individual state is able to set internal policy including settings grounds for which “representatives” can be recalled or otherwise removed from office before their term is up. Unfortunately those working on the federal level believe themselves to be immune to any for of early removal not initiated by the House or Senate [PDF]:

The United States Constitution does not provide for nor authorize the recall of United States
officials such as United States Senators, Representatives to Congress, or the President or Vice
President of the United States, and thus no United States Senator or Member of the House of
Representatives has ever been recalled in the history of the United States

[...]

Although the Supreme Court has not needed to directly address the subject of recall of Members
of Congress, other judicial decisions indicate that the right to remove a Member of Congress
before the expiration of his or her constitutionally established term of office is one which resides
within each house of Congress as expressly delegated in the expulsion clause of the United States
Constitution, and not in the entire Congress as a whole (through the adoption of legislation), nor
in the state legislatures through the enactment of recall provisions

Not surprisingly this interpretation on individual state power was produced by the Senate. The bottom line is clear, according to the federal government a federal “representative” can only have his or her stay terminated early if a federal body initiates the expulsion. Some people are quick to bring up the Tenth Amendment as it reserves all powers not expressly mentioned in the Constitution for the individual states. Unfortunately the Constitution does describe how to send a “representative” home early in Article I, Section 5, Clause 2:

Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.

Nowhere in the clause does it state that expulsion of a member is solely reserved for the respective House but our federal “representatives” are interpreting it that way. Their justification is since removal of a federal “representative” is mentioned in the Constitution that power is exempt from the Tenth Amendment. I always find it funny how selectively the Constitution is interpreted. In the case of removing a federal “representative” the Constitution must be interpreted exactly at written, that is to say no unmentioned powers may be used. Meanwhile the Second Amendment clearly states, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” yet, according to our “representatives” and the Supreme Court it leaves room for some infringements.

Sadly the Constitution wasn’t a well written document and contains a lot of vague language that can be twisted to grant the federal government more power than was originally intended. The purpose of the Constitution was to restrict the powers of the federal government but that intention was entirely lost when the individual states allowed the federal government sole authority in interpreting the foundational document. Now that the federal government reserves sole power of constitutional interpretation they have effectively made themselves immune to constituent scrutiny.

Several times I’ve stated that the United States is no longer land of the free but a fascist state. When people read the term fascist state it instantly brings to mind cattle cars full of Jews being sent off to death camps. Those atrocities aren’t what defines a fascist state anymore than they define a communist state. Fascism is a fairly loose ideology that involves strong nationalism (America, fuck yeah) and a marriage of state and business. Our country meets both of these characteristics and the latter can be easily demonstrated by stories of government officials getting plush private sector jobs in exchange for government contracts:

Siemens AG, Europe’s largest engineering company, hired Stanley McChrystal, a former commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, for a new unit seeking U.S. government contracts.

McChrystal, 57, will serve as chairman of Siemens Government Technologies, which spans security systems to engineering software for defense equipment, the Munich-based company said in a statement today. Siemens appointed former U.S. Army Lieutenant General John Sylvester and Robert Coutts, a former Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT) executive, as board members.

If you’re a company that is looking for big money government contracts you need to play the game. The game isn’t played by offering the best product or best prices but by buying off political actors. By hiring McChrystal Siemens has sent a message to the United States military, “Buy our stuff because there is great high-paying sluff jobs waiting for you if you do.” When record companies want horrible legislation pushed through they send in their lobbyists, many of whom are former Washington politicians who were granted big money lobbyist positions in exchange for shoving through horrible legislation. Seeing their former comrades get such jobs encourages other politicians to follow suit in the hopes of receiving the same treatment.

Environments such as this breed conflict of interest. Instead of representing the wants of the people politicians are encouraged to represent the wants of large business who can afford to pay former politicians to be lobbyists. Nothing but corruption can spawn from this twisted marriage. Capitalism can’t work under fascist economic conditions as the profit motive is entirely eliminated, replaced by this gross beast known as the political means of acquisition.

There are times when I find myself absolutely disgusted with the capacity humans contain for inflicting pain and death upon their fellow homo sapiens. It seems people with incredibly high capacities for such behavior often find themselves in places of power tying others down and pepper spraying them to death:

No doubt you’ve heard the adage: a picture is worth a thousand words. A picture of 62-year-old Nick Christie could be worth thousands of dollars when a jury sees it.

The photo shows the Ohio man restrained inside the Lee County Jail with his body covered in pepper spray.

“This photo is a picture of a man who is strapped to a chair naked inside a jail for hours with a hood over his face. That evokes thoughts of being tortured,” says Cleveland-based lawyer Nick DiCello who represents the Christie family.

So who is the man pictured in this photograph? A poor son of a bitch whose wife called the police in order to take her depressed husband to the hospital and ensure he received his medication:

“I was shocked. This was something out of a horror movie,” says Joyce Christie. She said her husband was depressed and was showing signs of erratic behavior a few days before leaving for Florida.

She called authorities and pleaded with them to take her husband to a hospital and be given his medications. Instead, he was taken to jail for disorderly intoxication.

Instead he was taken, strapped to a chair, and pepper sprayed until he died. Obviously the officers who committed this heinous act are now in prison for murder… never mind that only happens to mere serfs like you and me:

The District 21 Medical Examiner ruled his death was a homicide because he had been restrained and sprayed with pepper sprayed by law enforcement officers. But to this day, nobody has ever been charged with a crime, and the Lee County State Attorney cleared the sheriff’s office of any wrong doing.

It’s been more than two and a half years and his wife still can’t accept what happened.

The motto found on my police cars throughout the country is, “To serve and protect.” This motto implies the police are supposed to serve and protect us but it seems from historical examples such as this one that they really exist to serve and protect each other. I’m curious if police brutality has been on the rise or has always been this prevalent that has only been brought to light with the invention of the information superhighway we known as the Internet.

Everybody repeat after me, “I will never, ever give a police officer permission to search my vehicle. If he wants to search it he can come back with a fucking warrant.” Even if you have nothing to hide the police will plant evidence in your vehicle if they want to nail you. Don’t believe me? Why don’t we ask Officer Bill Glass:

A former Haskell police officer was found guilty after pleading no contest to fabrication of physical evidence charges.

Bill Glass resigned from the Haskell Police Department in March of 2010, saying allegations he’d planted methamphetamine in a car during a traffic stop were “baseless.” When the drugs were sent off for testing, a chemist at the lab traced them back to the officer.

When you give an officer permission to search your vehicle your are giving them an ample opportunity to boost their arrest numbers by fabricating evidence. Unless the officer has a warrant or probably cause (which basically means any poor excuse an officer can fabricate, but at least it’s something) they can not search your property without express permission.

If you’re asked to step out of your vehicle during a traffic stop do so but make sure you lock your car doors and put your keys into your pocket before exiting the vehicle. At any point during the traffic stop if an officer asks, “May I have a look inside the vehicle?” you should only responsd by saying, “No.” Ignore anything they say after that because they’re going to try guilting or threatening you into giving them permission. Do not say anything further because the officer will try to hang you with it. In fact it would be a very good idea to get your lawyer on the horn at that point in time.

Remember when our “representatives” established the Transportation Sexual Assaulter Security Administration (TSA) and claimed they would only be used for airports? Remember when TSA agents were caught harassing Amtrak passengers and later truck drivers in Tennessee? That’s what we call mission creep and anytime the government establishes a new agency with limited powers you can guarantee mission creep will follow. In fact I would say this law of mission creep is more stable and provable than the law of gravity. Well fellows denizens of the United States, the TSA’s mission creep shows no signs of stopping:

Rick Vetter was rushing to board the Amtrak train in Charlotte, N.C., on a recent Sunday afternoon when a canine officer suddenly blocked the way.

Three federal air marshals in bulletproof vests and two officers trained to spot suspicious behavior watched closely as Seiko, a German shepherd, nosed Vetter’s trousers for chemical traces of a bomb. Radiation detectors carried by the marshals scanned the 57-year-old lawyer for concealed nuclear materials.

When Seiko indicated a scent, his handler, Julian Swaringen, asked Vetter whether he had pets at home in Garner, N.C. Two mutts, Vetter replied. “You can go ahead,” Swaringen said.

Let me just say I’m getting sick of state agents using dogs to do whatever the fuck they want. The only person who knows if a dog “alerts” or “indicates a scent” is the handler and they can claim any reaction made by the dog is an “alert” or “indicator.” Thus dogs are incredibly brought in to create phony probably cause as nobody can really argue against the handler’s word, especially since dogs can’t speak. I would bet money the case mentioned above was merely a case of profiling, put the target in a situation where he would feel nervous and watch for his physical reactions. If the target doesn’t break out into a sweat or studded his speech you let him go, otherwise you harass him without cause some more.

The Transportation Security Administration isn’t just in airports anymore. TSA teams are increasingly conducting searches and screenings at train stations, subways, ferry terminals and other mass transit locations around the country.

“We are not the Airport Security Administration,” said Ray Dineen, the air marshal in charge of the TSA office in Charlotte. “We take that transportation part seriously.”

The TSA’s 25 “viper” teams — for Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response — have run more than 9,300 unannounced checkpoints and other search operations in the last year. Department of Homeland Security officials have asked Congress for funding to add 12 more teams next year.

How much money to you think somebody got paid to come up with the tacticool acronym VIPR? Still this excuse by the TSA to expand its powers shows why you need to give agencies very narrow names. Instead of calling the agency the Transportation Security Administration they should have been given the name Airport Restricted Security Agency Guarding the Gateway Between the Secure Area of the Airport and the Insecure Area of the Airport using Metal Detectors (ARSAGGBSAAIAAMD). Sure it’s a mouthful but they at least have to perform an agency name change before expanding their powers a terrible amount.

Let the TSA be a lesson to you, if the government asks for powers in one market they will always use that new power to justify the expansion of their power. At the rate we’re going there will be TSA checkpoints on the border of individual states and we’ll be required to provide our papers in order to traverse from one state to another.

Obama has been threatening to veto the National Defense Authorization Act, which includes a section that will authorize indefinite detention of anybody accused of being linked to terrorism in any way. His supporters are pointing to this threat as proof of Obama’s willingness to defend the rights of American citizens. Unfortunately, for all of us, that’s not true. How can I make this claim? Easy, his administration were the ones that asked language in section 1031, the section authorizing indefinite detention, exempting American citizens be removed. Don’t take my word for it, let Senator Carl Levin explain [MP3].

If Obama gave a crap about civil rights he would have been demanding the language remain in the bill. Knowing he demanded the language be removed it’s obvious there is an ulterior motive for threatening a veto and it most likely isn’t benevolent.

Even though there were videos of this speech floating around they have apparently been removed from YouTube (I found four instances of the video, all were said to be removed by the user when I tried to view them). Thankfully I was able to find a copy of the speech on No Agenda Show Notes. The copy I linked to is from there but uploaded to my server so as not to waster their bandwidth unnecessarily.

One thing that never ceases to amaze me is the absolute lack of fiscal responsibility exercised by government agencies. What our tax money is spent on in the so-called war on terror boggles the mind. For instance I would really like to know how snow cone machines are used to thwart the plans of terrorists:

The West Michigan Shoreline Regional Development Commission (WMSRDC) is a federal- and state-designated agency responsible for managing and administrating the homeland security program in Montcalm County and 12 other counties.

The WMSRDC recently purchased and transferred homeland security equipment to these counties — including 13 snow cone machines at a total cost of $11,700.

The machines were funded by a grant from the Michigan Homeland Security Program. The request for a snow cone machine came from another county, but all 13 counties received them.

The purchase raised some questions at a recent Montcalm County Board of Commissioners meeting. Commissioners wondered about the machine and questioned its purpose.

The Michigan Homeland Security Grant Program’s Allowable Cost Justification document, dated May 9, 2011, says the snow cone machines can make ice to prevent heat-related illnesses during emergencies, treat injuries and provide snow cones as an outreach at promotional events.

Emphasis mine. You can justify anything so long as you’re willing to stretch definitions far enough. I’m curious what heat-related illnesses can be better avoided through the application of snow cones over regular crushed ice. While I’m not a biologist I believe human beings are capable of intaking ice whether it is flavored or not.

I’m also at a loss how consuming ice, flavored or not, will help with heat-related illness. The common complication related to heat is dehydration. Anybody who has studied winter survival techniques understand that the consumption of snow actually further dehydrates a person.

I wish government agencies would just be honest and say, “We want a snow cone machine because snow cones are fucking delicious.” If you’re going to piss away money on frivolous gear at least have the decency to be honest and not attempt to bullshit the public.

Anybody who understands the consequences of marrying government to business will not be surprised to learn this tidbit of information. Government General Motors is receiving some special treatment from the National Highway Safety Administration (NHTSA):

Yet, almost five months went by before either GM or the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) told dealers and customers about the potential risks and urged them to drain the battery pack as soon as possible after an accident.

Part of the reason for delaying the disclosure was the “fragility of Volt sales” up until that point, according to Joan Claybrook, a former administrator at NHTSA.

“NHTSA could have put out a consumer alert,” he said, according to industry website Autoguide.com.

They government withheld this warning to boost sales of the Volt. It wasn’t the “greedy capitalist corporation” that withheld this information, it was the government that people falsely believes represents the people. In other words your government withheld safety information to boost sales for a corporation under its care. I highly doubt NHTSA would do the same for Ford if it was discovered one of their new vehicles had a propensity of lighting ablaze after accidents.

With all the debate surrounding the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) mission creep we often forget that the federal government has been practicing censorship by hijacking domains of websites. We’re told that SOPA will be OK because the government will only target copyright offenders but the truth is they’ve already used their authority to censor non-infringing websites:

Imagine if the US government, with no notice or warning, raided a small but popular magazine’s offices over a Thanksgiving weekend, seized the company’s printing presses, and told the world that the magazine was a criminal enterprise with a giant banner on their building. Then imagine that it never arrested anyone, never let a trial happen, and filed everything about the case under seal, not even letting the magazine’s lawyers talk to the judge presiding over the case. And it continued to deny any due process at all for over a year, before finally just handing everything back to the magazine and pretending nothing happened. I expect most people would be outraged. I expect that nearly all of you would say that’s a classic case of prior restraint, a massive First Amendment violation, and exactly the kind of thing that does not, or should not, happen in the United States.

But, in a story that’s been in the making for over a year, and which we’re exposing to the public for the first time now, this is exactly the scenario that has played out over the past year — with the only difference being that, rather than “a printing press” and a “magazine,” the story involved “a domain” and a “blog.”

[...]

Okay, now some details. First, remember Dajaz1.com? It was one of the sites seized over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend back in 2010 — a little over a year ago. Those seizures struck us as particularly interesting, because among the sites seized were a bunch of hip hop blogs, including a few that were highly ranked on Vibe’s list of the top hip hop blogs.

[...]

In fact, as the details came out, it became clear that ICE and the Justice Department were in way over their heads. ICE’s “investigation” was done by a technically inept recent college grad, who didn’t even seem to understand the basics of the technology. But it didn’t stop him from going to a judge and asking for a site to be completely censored with no due process.

The story goes into more detail but I’m sure you get the point. ICE has been shutting down domains based on “evidence” collected by completely unqualified individuals. Instead of laughing and tossing out requests for domain seizures judges have simply been saying, “Well I’m an agent of the state and you’re an agent of the state so you must be right. Sieze the domain!” This kind of ineptitude isn’t an exception but is the rule when it comes to government enforcement of almost anything.

Knowing this people still want to grant the government more power. What SOPA will do is allow this kind of incompetence to spread even further. I also guarantee you that many websites that are critical of the federal government will find themselves on the list of copyright offenders, by accident of course.