Tag: United Police States of America

The United States is, Like, Totally Not a Police State

I’m constantly reminded by self-proclaimed patriots that the United States is the freest goddamn country on Earth. While they admit things have gone downhill since Ronald Reagan blessed this fine country with more freedom than 1776, they point out that we don’t have thuggish police killing people at random or secret facilities where citizens are held without charge or access to a lawyer. In other words they are totally divorced from reality (which should have been obvious when they started claiming Reagan was some kind of paragon of freedom). Police officers killing people at random is nothing new in this country but now we know that one department does run an actual black site:

The Chicago police department operates an off-the-books interrogation compound, rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers say is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site.

The facility, a nondescript warehouse on Chicago’s west side known as Homan Square, has long been the scene of secretive work by special police units. Interviews with local attorneys and one protester who spent the better part of a day shackled in Homan Square describe operations that deny access to basic constitutional rights.

This wonderful black site allows the Chicago Police Department (CPD) to keep detainees off of the books, beat detainees, and deny detainees their privilege to legal council. It also provides the CPD a place to cut off people from their friends and family members.

The article is lengthy and contains numerous accounts of abuse and even one death. But the more worrisome thing about this story is that if the CPD have one of these black sites you can be assured other domestic police departments are operating similar black sites.

Living in “a nation of law” is supposed to provide comfort to us. Unfortunately the laws on the books grant law enforcers a great deal of leeway in how they act and the system is designed to shield law enforcement officers form liability when they perform misdeeds. When the laws of a nation are stacked against the people the phrase “a nation of laws” is entirely meaningless. And since statism grants a monopoly on creating laws to a handful of individuals you can ensure that anywhere a state exists the legal system will be stacked against the people.

Minnesota Man Imprisoned for Months for Possession Vitamins

As the famous saying goes, you can beat the rap but you can’t beat the ride. The war on unpatentable drugs has given law enforcement almost completely unchecked powers when it comes to stealing your shit and holding you in a cage. Civil forfeiture laws, for example, grant law enforcement the power to literally take your stuff and they only have to return it if you can prove that it wasn’t tied to a drug crime in any way (and proving a negative is very difficult). Likewise law enforcement officers can put you in a cage if you are in possession of anything that looks like it could be a verboten drug. While you may eventually beat the charge after lab analysis has been performed on whatever you were carrying you will have still wasted months of your life in a cage:

MANKATO, Minn. — A Mankato man was jailed for months while he waited for the state crime lab to process suspected drugs that turned out to be vitamins.

Joseph Burrell was arrested in November and charged with two felony counts of drug possession. His bail was set at $250,000. The 31-year-old Burrell says he’s not happy it took so long for the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to process the evidence.

In all likelihood Mr. Burrell will receive no compensation for being unlawfully detained for months. This is because the state doesn’t have to compensate you when it makes a mistake, you only have to compensate it when you make a mistake.

The Terrorist Canard

With encrypted communications threatening to reduce the state’s revenue stream by letting us little serfs conceal our black market business dealings the political body is getting worried. Whenever the political body gets worried it begins efforts to propagandize the general populace. The propaganda always exploits fear. At one time the fear being exploited was drug usage then it became street crime and now it’s terrorism. Hoping the hamper the development of strong cryptographic tools the political body has been looking at introducing laws that would require software and hardware developers to introduce backdoors for state usage. Because it’s the fear of the day they’re selling these laws under the guise of fighting terrorism:

President Barack Obama is making his position on encryption known: he is a supporter and “believer in strong encryption” but also “sympathetic” to law enforcement’s needs to prevent terror attacks.

“I think the only concern is… our law enforcement is expected to stop every plot. Every attack. Any bomb on a plane. The first time that attack takes place, where it turns out we had a lead and couldn’t follow up on it, the public’s going to demand answers. This is a public conversation that we should be having,” Obama said in a Friday interview with Re/Code. “I lean probably further in the direction of strong encryption than some do inside law enforcement. But I am sympathetic to law enforcement, because I know the kind of pressure they’re under to keep us safe. And it’s not as black and white as it’s sometimes portrayed. Now, in fairness, I think those in favor of air tight encryption also want to be protected from terrorists.”

Can we stop with the terrorist canard? Nobody expects law enforcement to stop every terrorist plot. In fact nobody, at least nobody sensible, expects law enforcement to stop any terrorist plot. What people expect of law enforcement is to clean up after a terrorist attack. If people actually expected law enforcement would stop terrorist attacks they wouldn’t be afraid of terrorist attacks.

Furthermore the state’s widespread surveillance efforts haven’t stopped a single terrorist plot. Every claim made to the contrary has been thoroughly debunked. This isn’t surprising. Widespread surveillance creates a sea of data from which no single piece of useful data can be extracted. What makes widespread surveillance even more worthless is that no single piece of data can reveal a terrorist plot so you need to find multiple pieces of connected data to being revealing a plot. If finding a single piece of useful data in a sea of noise is difficult try finding many pieces of connected data that aren’t obviously connected.

The only way law enforcement can stop terrorist plots is to utilize old fashion investigative techniques. But these techniques are expensive in both money and time and don’t lead to revenue for departments. Why would a law enforcement agency put resources into uncovering a terrorist plot when it can rely on anonymous tips to kick down the doors of drug deals and legally confiscate all of their property to auction of later? To add insult to injury solving a terrorist plot is actually detrimental to a law enforcement agency since they rely on successful terrorist attacks to justify buying surplus military equipment.

It’s time to put the terrorist canard to bed. Only the completely gullible are being fooled and they’re not the ones that need to be convinced. In order to put backdoors into software and devices the developers and manufacturers have to be convinced and they won’t be convinced because their users will stop buying their products if they implement said backdoors. Since many of their users are gullible idiots the state’s terrorist propaganda won’t accomplish its goal and thus the exercise is a waste of everybody’s time.

Proving Once Again Police Are Better Than Us

Tony Cornish is a busy man. Last week he was helping introduce legislation that would classify any police body camera footage not being used to prosecute a prole, which would help ensure bad police officers continue to be shielded from the consequences of their misdeeds. This week he’s proposing a special emergency system just for the police officers:

ST. PAUL, Minn. (WCCO) — Minnesota lawmakers are debating a statewide alert system that would be used by law enforcement and broadcasters when a police officer is hurt.

The Blue Alert system would help get the word out quicker to the public to help identify and locate a suspect who seriously hurts or kills a law enforcement officer. This would apply to local, state and federal police in Minnesota.

Rep. Tony Cornish, who introduced the bill, says the system would use the same format already in place that issues Amber Alerts.

Police officers are like you and me only better! You have to love the fact that this would help get the word out to the public when a perpetrator has hurt a law enforcer but won’t do squat if a perpetrator rapes, murders, or assaults anybody else. I can’t wait to see Cornish’s next attempt to hoist the police further above the general public. Maybe his next bill can require all emergency services be diverted from whatever they are doing to respond to any incident where a cop is injured. That would forsake any lowly prole who is having a heart attack but sometimes we have to make sacrifices to ensure our oppressors are safe.

Court Rules FBI Can’t Cut Your Cable and Show Up Pretending to Be The Repair Crew

In October of last year the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) pulled off the mother of all warrantless searches. The agency cut the cable service for suspects they wanted to surveil, showed up pretended to be the repair crew, and collected evidence while pretending to fix the lost service in order to get a warrant to search the property. Well a federal magistrate decided that that little stunt crossed the line and tossed the search warrant:

A federal magistrate is tossing a Las Vegas search warrant that led to the arrest of as many as eight people accused of running an illegal, online bookmaking operation last year from posh villas at Caesar’s Palace. The court found that the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s warrant application was “fatally flawed” and was “supplemented with material omissions.”

To obtain a search warrant, the authorities cut DSL access and posed as the cable guy, gathering evidence along the way that made up the basis for the bulk of a search warrant that resulted in the arrest of high-stakes gambler Paul Phua, his son Darren, and others.

Magistrate Judge Peggy Leen ruled that the failure to mention that the original case was born from the “ruse” meant the judge who signed a search warrant this summer didn’t have all of the facts. Nowhere in the search warrant request, however, did the authorities mention that they allegedly saw illegal wagering on computers after posing as technicians who in reality briefly disconnected the DSL.

It seems like the magistrate was more unhappy about the FBI lying to the original judge than she was about the stunt being a complete violation of due process. Fortunately for the FBI they can appeal this up the chain. Eventually it should find a court more sympathetic to its needs and rule the warrant as good.

Make no mistake, the fact that the FBI agents involved in this stunt weren’t arrested themselves demonstrates just how much of a police state we live in. When law enforcement can do things like this without consequence then there is no hope of curtailing their abuses of power.

Fellow Minnesotans, Please Take a Moment to Thank Your Representatives for Protecting Bad Officers from Accountability

I have some glorious news comrades! As you know there has been a conspiracy by the proles to hold bad police officers accountable for their actions. Part of this conspiracy involves making officers wear body cameras. They want to use evidence recorded by these cameras to review the actions of our brave enforcers. Thankfully our enforcers have loyal allies willing to stand up against the proles. Tony Cornish, Brian Johnson, and Dan Schoen presented a bill yesterday that would classify and quickly destroy all evidence collected by body cameras that isn’t being used to prosecute a prole in court:

A proposal by a trio of cops-turned-legislators would shield almost all footage shot by police body cameras from public eyes, in what they say is an effort to protect citizens’ privacy.

But advocates of open government say keeping the footage under lock and key undermines attempts to keep police accountable.

The measure filed Thursday is the first legislative effort to regulate the use of the video recording devices worn by police. Footage shot by body cameras would not be available to the public, although individuals captured in the videos would be allowed access. Agencies would be required to keep meticulous records and to destroy any video that is not part of an investigation.

As loyal citizens of this great state of Minnesota we should thanks these three brave representatives. As former police officers themselves Tony Cornish and Brian Johnson have demonstrated that they are still loyal to their fellow enforcers. Dan Schoen is showing he has the right stuff to continue his career in law enforcement. If you would like to read their wonderful work it can be found here.

We can only hope that this bill passes because these traitorous attempts by the proles to hold enforcers accountable cannot be allowed to stand. Our society would collapse overnight if enforcers were no longer allowed to steal, assault, murder, and rape proles without consequence. Tony Cornish, Brian Johnson, and Dan Schoen know this and we can only pray that they are able to convince their fellows of this truth before the proles have a chance to organize a counteroffensive.

DEA Planned to Surveil Arizona Gun Show Attendees

The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) is building a system to track motorists throughout the country. Part of the system likely relies on license plate readers. But this isn’t the first incident where the DEA planned to use license plate readers to track Americans. In 2009 the DEA was planning to use them to track attendees of gun shows in Arizona:

The Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives collaborated on plans to monitor gun show attendees using automatic license plate readers, according to a newly disclosed DEA email obtained by the ACLU through the Freedom of Information Act.

The April 2009 email states that “DEA Phoenix Division Office is working closely with ATF on attacking the guns going to [redacted] and the gun shows, to include programs/operation with LPRs at the gun shows.” The government redacted the rest of the email, but when we received this document we concluded that these agencies used license plate readers to collect information about law-abiding citizens attending gun shows. An automatic license plate reader cannot distinguish between people transporting illegal guns and those transporting legal guns, or no guns at all; it only documents the presence of any car driving to the event. Mere attendance at a gun show, it appeared, would have been enough to have one’s presence noted in a DEA database.

Responding to inquiries about the document, the DEA said that the monitoring of gun shows was merely a proposal and was never implemented.

Call me skeptical but for some reason I don’t believe the DEA’s claim that it never implemented this strategy. But that is largely irrelevant now that it is implementing a nationwide system that will track motorists indiscriminately. What this proposal does show is that the technology, while indiscriminate in nature, can be used in a discriminatory manner.

Tracking attendees of gun shows is just one example of the type of discrimination widespread surveillance lends itself to. This technology could just as easily be used to identify attendees of a cannabis legalization or gay rights rally. Once you have that type of information in hand you can use it for either legal harassment or blackmail. Imagine the DEA using the fact that somebody attended a gun show and a cannabis legalization rally as probably cause to investigate somebody on the grounds that they may be a user of unlawful substances in possession of a firearm. Even if such evidence isn’t enough to bring charges it is enough to harass and badger the person.

This is the future George Orwell warned us about. I think we’ve reached the post of a boot stamping a human face — forever.

Police Love to Stalk But Hate Being Stalked

Police love stalking people. To this end most departments have invested a lot of money into acquiring technology that makes their creepy behavior easier. But what happens when the tables are turned at the people start keeping tabs on the police? The police cry foul, what else?

Sheriffs are campaigning to pressure Google Inc to turn off a feature on its Waze traffic software that warns drivers when police are nearby. They say one of the technology industry’s most popular mobile apps could put officers’ lives in danger from would-be police killers who can find where their targets are parked.

Talk about a bunch of hypocrites. They’re bitching about people being able to find and target them but the tracking technology they use is totally cool even though it’s used to find and target us. It’s not unheard of for police officers to use department resources to stalk an ex, a potential love interest, or just somebody they feel like harassing. Take this story for example:

Fort Collins police officer was fired following an investigation that determined he used agency resources to discover where a woman worked and lived.

So why aren’t these sheriffs volunteering to dispose of their departments’ license plates scanners, accounts will with cellular providers that allow them to request customer location information, cell phone trackers, and other technology that enables their officers to stalk us? It’s because they love doing to us what they fear us doing to them.

The Justice Department is Building National Database to Track Motorists Throughout the Country

Just when you think you’re paranoid enough the state goes and pulls a stunt like this:

(Reuters) – The Justice Department has been secretly gathering and storing hundreds of millions of records about motorists in an effort to build a national database that tracks the movement of vehicles across the country, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

Not surprisingly the national automobile tracking initiative is being operated by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). The DEA, thanks to civil forfeiture laws, enjoys the ability to raise a fuckton of money if it can makeup any evidence whatsoever of a possible drug crime. Somebody driving from Colorado to anywhere could very well be enough evidence to seize their property because buying cannabis there is legal but it’s illegal almost everywhere else.

One question that arises from this story is where the DEA is getting its data. Either local governments are either feeding their data to the federal government or the federal government has its own license plate scanners operating throughout the country. My money is on the latter.

Some states have started regulating how long their police departments can hold on to license plat data. Here in Minnesota there are no such laws so police departments pretty much makeup whatever policy that amuses them. The State Patrol only keeps their data 48 hours, St. Paul’s police department keeps their data for 14 days, but Minneapolis’ police department keeps it for a year. There’s talk about implementing state regulations here but that talk doesn’t include whether or not local law enforcement agencies can feed their data to the federal government. In fact, from what I can find, most state regulations don’t touch that subject. That being the case it would be fairly easy for the DEA to setup deals with local agencies to get the data it needs to populate its national database.

As Orwell said, “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.” So long as states exist our privacy will continue to be violated.

Breathe Easy

Eric Garner died when an officer put him in a choke hold. Even though choke holds are against New York Police Department (NYPD) policy the officer was not fired or even disciplined. To make matters worse NYPD officers are still using choke holds despite all of this:

Back in 1994, just over a year after the police commissioner at the time, Raymond W. Kelly, categorically banned officers from using the maneuver, a Bronx man named Anthony Baez Jr. died when an officer, enraged that a football had hit his patrol car, put Mr. Baez in a chokehold.

Two decades later, complaints about officers using chokeholds continue to flow into the independent city agency responsible for investigating police abuse. From 2009 to June 2014, the agency, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, found enough evidence to substantiate complaints against 10 officers accused of using the move on duty.

In July, the use of a chokehold emerged again, this time in the fatal encounter on Staten Island between Mr. Garner and Officer Daniel Pantaleo. The confrontation, much of it captured on video, provided a direct look at the potential effect of an officer’s arm being wrapped around a person’s neck.

The tough on crime crowd will tell you that you’re safe so long as you don’t break the law. What these authority apologists won’t tell you is that the average American unknowingly commits an average of three felonies a day. Good luck with that whole not breaking the law strategy.