Tag: United Police States of America

What Laws Actually Entail

I often wonder if people really know what they’re saying when they say “There ought to be a law.” In their heads I’m sure they believe that they’re saying that a specific type of behavior is wrong or dangerous and must be curtailed. What they’re actually saying is that they want costume-clad men with guns and liability shields to inflict violence against anybody who performs said behavior.

For example, when people said there ought to be law requiring cyclists to have lights when riding at night they probably though they were saying that riding a bike at night without a light is dangerous. What they actually said was that people riding a bike without a light should result in K9 units and police helicopters being deployed and dogs being shot:

Deputies tell us they attempted to stop a suspect on a bicycle outside of the Dollar General store on Gunnery Road for riding without a light. That’s when the suspect ran away from deputies.

A helicopter and K9 unit were called in to help search for the suspect. While tracking the suspect in a wooded area, a K9 unit was attacked by an unleashed Pit bull. That’s when a deputy in pursuit shot the Pit bull.

When laws are passed police are given orders to use whatever force is available to them to stop anybody who breaks said law. It doesn’t matter how minor the offense is. Something insignificant as selling an untaxed cigarettes can escalate to deadly force when the act is declared illegal.

Police Finally Told to Act as They Always Should Have Been

With the recent wave of opposition to the violent gangs commonly referred to as police many departments are finally telling their officers to act like they always should have been:

Police around the nation have gone on high alert, told by higher-ups and union representatives to wear bulletproof vests, keep off social media and make arrests only in cases most pressing and crucial to the safety of the public at large.

Emphasis mine. Assuming we’re happy living in a society where a handful of individuals hold power over everybody else, the handful of individuals tasked with oppressing everybody else should refrain from kidnapping unless it is absolutely necessary to protect people. If this recent surge of protests accomplishes nothing else, and assuming police officers actually begin heeding this advice (which they won’t), they will finally be doing what they should have been doing all along. I find it funny how this is considered a dire circumstance by so many officers. That really says everything there is to say.

The Dangers of Being a Cop

With all of the recent reports of police abuse there has been a notable amount of backlash against police officers. The tough on crime crowd has been pointing out that cops have a dangerous job and they’re right. At any point an officer could be required to put himself at risk of a heart attack by having to physically exert him or herself to chase down a perp:

Their job is to protect and serve – but it seems some police officers interpret this as an excuse to enjoy too many extra servings at the lunch table.

A study has revealed US cops have the highest rates of obesity among any profession in the country.

Along with firefighters and security guards, nearly 41 per cent of boys in blue are obese, according to a study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

This probably explains why cops are so quick to use deadly force. There’s no way many of them could possibly chase down a perp so they have to resort to the only tool that can, their sidearm.

And for those wondering the answer is yes. I’m more than willing to go for the easy fat joke when it’s against members of violent gangs.

The Privacy Dangers of Body Camera Equipped Police

I’ve been how ineffective body cameras on police will be but after seeing some of the things posted by my friend Kurtis Hannah I am now convinced that they will also bring a new wave of surveillance and privacy violations.

We already live in a world where much of our activity is recorded by cameras. Department stores, gas stations, hospitals, and pretty much everywhere else employ security cameras. While I don’t like all being recorded at these places I also acknowledge that they won’t send men with guns after me unless I’ve done something legitimately bad in most cases (because that’s usually the only time the footage is reviewed). Police footage, especially in this day and age where the National Security Agency (NSA) already has a massive surveillance apparatus, could be employed differently. It’s not unimaginable that police departments would employ people to review all footage from body cameras to find potential criminal offenses that the officer missed. Such a large amount of footage could also enable police to track individuals by using facial recognition software against body camera footage. That wouldn’t be unprecedented since many departments already do something similar with automatic license plate scanners.

This puts us in a really bad spot. On the one hand we cannot trust the police to go about their activities unsupervised. Having their actions recorded at all times while they’re on duty and streaming that footage live for anybody to access at any point is the only way any semblance of accountability can exist. But doing that will also violate the privacy of anybody within camera shot of an officer.

What’s the solution? In my opinion the only viable solution is to toss out the entire institution of modern policing and replace it with something better. That something better will have to be decentralized by nature and not in any way associated with the state, which seems impossible to implement today due to the controlling nature of today’s state. But until that happens there will be no accountability and the only “solutions” offered to us will be ones that better enable the police to keep us under their boots.

A Preview of How Useful Body Cameras on Cops Will Be

Body cameras are being touted as the saviors of modern policing. We told that police will behave themselves so long as they’re expected to wear body cameras. But body cameras have some major limitations. First of all they are facing away from the cop, not at him. The footage collected by the body cameras currently on the market remains in the control of the police department where it can be conveniently erased. There is also the issue that body cameras on cops are under the control of the cop, which means they can be readily disabled:

OAKLAND, Calif.—Over the last two years, the Oakland Police Department (OPD) has disciplined police officers on 24 occasions for disabling or failing to activate body-worn cameras, newly released public records show. The City of Oakland did not provide any records prior to 2013, and the OPD did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment.

The records show that on November 8, 2013 one officer was terminated after failing to activate his camera. Less than two weeks later, another resigned for improperly removing the camera from his or her uniform. However, most officers received minor discipline in comparison.

Not surprisingly accountability in Oakland is pretty damn low. Of the cops that did disable their body camera few suffered any meaningful consequences. It’s almost like they killed a family pet after kicking in the door of the wrong house during a drug raid!

The root of the problems facing modern policing is the lack of accountability. When cops are getting away with murdering people who sold some tax-free cigarettes then getting away with disabling body cameras or tampering with footage is a walk in the park. At this point the only solution is to tear down the entire institution and create a replacement based on the lessons we’ve learned.

Ignorance of the Law is Not an Excuse, Unless You’re a Cop

How many times have you heard petty authoritarians and cops (but I repeat myself) say “Ignorance of the law is not an excuse”? What they really mean is that ignorance of the law is not an excuse unless you’re a cop. Cops periodically enforce nonexistent laws. A popular phrase relating to this issue is that “You can be the rap but you can’t beat the ride.” Even if a cop is enforcing a fictitious law you as an individual have little recourse. But what happens when a cop enforcing a nonexistent law finds evidence that you’re breaking an existing law? According to the Nazgûl, err, the Supreme Court it means you’re going to be a UNICOR slave for a few years:

At issue in Heien v. North Carolina was a 2009 traffic stop for a single busted brake light that led to the discovery of illegal drugs inside the vehicle. According to state law at the time, however, motor vehicles were required only to have “a stop lamp,” meaning that the officer did not have a lawful reason for the initial traffic stop because it was not a crime to drive around with a single busted brake light. Did that stop therefore violate the 4th Amendment’s guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure? Writing today for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts held that it did not. “Because the officer’s mistake about the brake-light law was reasonable,” Roberts declared, “the stop in this case was lawful under the Fourth Amendment.”

Roberts’ opinion was joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito, and Elena Kagan. Writing alone in dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor criticized her colleagues for giving the police far too much leeway.

Since the Constitution gives the Supreme Court a monopoly on interpreting the Constitution this decision means that charges stemming from cops enforcing nonexistent laws is constitutional. The Fourth Amendment, once again, proves to be ineffective at protecting our supposed right to be secure from unreasonable search and seizure. But that’s just par for the statist course.

Nothing Says Secure Communications Like a Backdoor

Since Snowden released the National Security Agency’s (NSA) dirty laundry security conscious people have been scrambling to find more secure means of communication. Most of the companies called out in the leaked documents have been desperately trying to regain the confidence of their customers. Google and Apple have enabled full device encryption on their mobile operating systems by default, many websites have either added HTTPS communications or have gone to exclusive HTTPS communications, and many apps have been released claiming to enable communications free from the prying eyes of Big Brother. Verizon decided to jump on the bandwagon but failed miserably:

Verizon Voice Cypher, the product introduced on Thursday with the encryption company Cellcrypt, offers business and government customers end-to-end encryption for voice calls on iOS, Android, or BlackBerry devices equipped with a special app. The encryption software provides secure communications for people speaking on devices with the app, regardless of their wireless carrier, and it can also connect to an organization’s secure phone system.

Cellcrypt and Verizon both say that law enforcement agencies will be able to access communications that take place over Voice Cypher, so long as they’re able to prove that there’s a legitimate law enforcement reason for doing so.

Security is an all or nothing thing. If you implement a method for law enforcement to access communications you also allow everybody else to access communications. Backdoors are purposely built weaknesses in the security capabilities of a software package. While developers will often claim that only authorized entities can gain access using a backdoor in reality anybody with the knowledge of how the backdoor works can use it.

Matters are made worse by the fact that law enforcement access is the problem everybody is trying to fix. The NSA was surveilling the American people in secret. A lot of people have also been questioning the amount of surveillance being performed by local law enforcement agencies. Since there is a complete absence of oversight and transparency nobody knows how pervasive the problem is, which means we must assume the worst case and act as if local departments are spying on everything they can. Tools like the one just released by Verizon don’t improve the situation at all.

Another Grand Jury Continues the Trend of Not Indicting a Cop

What happens when a group of law enforcement officers murder a man with down syndrome? A grand jury decides against indicting them!

Less than five miles from the theater where a man with Down syndrome died at the hands of the law enforcement officials he idolized, a grand jury on Friday heard the details of the case and decided that no crime had been committed.

“They felt no further investigation was necessary,” Frederick County State’s Attorney J. Charles Smith said at a news conference outside the county’s courthouse.

Grand jury proceedings are secretive in Maryland, but Smith said that his office presented the jury with 17 witness statements and that three deputies involved in the death — Lt. Scott Jewell, Sgt. Rich Rochford and Deputy First Class James Harris — all testified.

[…]

In February, the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office in Baltimore ruled Saylor’s death a homicide as a result of asphyxia. On Friday, Smith said that the report indicated that Down syndrome and obesity made Saylor more susceptible to breathing problems.

And thus continues the trend of grand juries indicted almost everybody under the sun unless they have a magical liability shield.

Back in the day the state encouraged people to stay fit because they may some day be called to defend the country (which is a euphemism for being send to the Middle East on a holy crusade against Islam). Now the narrative is changing. We must all be in peak physical condition to better improve our chances of survival when interacting with police. If you fail to keep yourself in shape you may very well be more susceptible to asphyxiating when the cop throws your ass to the ground, money piles you, and wraps a few set of handcuffs around your neck.

But in all seriousness never call the police unless you want somebody murdered because that’s what will happen in all likelihood.

How Not to Get Killed By a Cop

So many people have been getting killed by police that I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to survive an encounter with one of those costume clad thugs with a shiny liability shield. I searched through several police department websites seeing if they had any tips or tricks but came up empty handed. It was then that I decided to consult with experts on modern policing, neocons and other petty authoritarians.

After some discussions I finally learned the trick to avoid getting killed by a cop and it’s really simple. If you encounter a cop you just need to be a good little slave, kowtow to the costume clad master, and beg the courts for freedom after you’ve had the shit kicked out of you because the cop didn’t want you to beat the ride even if you could beat the charge.

By simply allowing the petty man with a badge to scream at you, rough you up, and kill your family pets you can survive! At least some of the times. Really it’s up to the office and their decision will likely depend on whether or not they had the opportunity to beat somebody up recently or not.

California Desperately Needs Slave Laborers

The neoliberal paradise of California has a problem. That problem is a shipload of prisoners and only a small rowboat of prisons. This problem actually got so bad at the Nazgûl ruled that a population limit had to be set for the state’s prisons. Well the state’s prison system is not happy about being ordered to free a bunch of its prisoners. Can you guess what it isn’t happy? If you think it has anything to do with potentially dangerous individuals being released onto the street you would be incorrect (since the people being considered for release are nonviolent offenders). It’s because they desperately needs the prisoners for slave labor:

Out of California’s years-long litigation over reducing the population of prisons deemed unconstitutionally overcrowded by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2010, another obstacle to addressing the U.S. epidemic of mass incarceration has emerged: The utility of cheap prison labor.

In recent filings, lawyers for the state have resisted court orders that they expand parole programs, reasoning not that releasing inmates early is logistically impossible or would threaten public safety, but instead that prisons won’t have enough minimum security inmates left to perform inmate jobs.

[…]

The Department of Corrections didn’t like this idea, either. It argued that offering 2-for-1 credits to any inmates who perform other prison labor would mean more minimum security inmates would be released earlier, and they wouldn’t have as large of a labor pool. They would still need to fill those jobs by drawing candidates who could otherwise work fighting wildfires, and would be “forced to draw down its fire camp population to fill these vital MSF [Minimum Support Facility] positions.” In other words, they didn’t want to have to hire full-time employees to perform any of the work that inmates are now performing.”

I do appreciate it when the state is honest about its intentions. For far too long it has been claiming that prisons are about reforming criminals and segregating the violent people from the rest of society. In reality it’s about the massive prison-industrial complex that uses slave labor to cut the state’s expenses.