United Police States of America – Page 34

Be Careful in Constitution Free Zones

According to the United States government everything within 100 miles of this country’s imaginary lines (often mistakenly referred to as a border) is a “Constitution free zone”. What this means is that the government can’t even be bothered to pretend to abide by the very document it created when it gave itself absolute power. So anybody living within 100 miles of this country’s imaginary lines, which is approximately two thirds of the country’s population, has fewer privileges than normal. For example, photographing Border Patrol agents inside of the “Constitution free zone” will result in your staring at the business end of a gun held by a Border Patrol agent:

About 10 days into the trip, an innocent action by one of the nearly two dozen Scouts at the Canadian border into Alaska set off a chain of events that lead to a U.S. border official pointing a gun at a scout’s head.

[…]

Fox said one of the Scouts took a picture of a border official, which spurred agents to detain everyone in that van and search them and their belongings.

“The agent immediately confiscated his camera, informed him he would be arrested, fined possibly $10,000 and 10 years in prison,” Fox said.

Just another day living under the most transparent government in history! This story should be a lesson though. Being a good citizen means doing what you’re told and not questioning authority. Good citizens are rewarded by being allowed to live, bad citizens get put down. So be a good citizen. Don’t question police actions, do rat out any of your friends who are committing acts of wrongthink, and don’t photograph the police. Failure to abide by the rules of good citizenry may result in your immediate termination.

Federal Government Gave Local Gangs Military Equipment

Fellow denizens of Minnesota, and me neighbors in North Dakota, we are facing a major problem. The federal government has been caught providing military equipment to local gangs:

The department got the 3-ton Humvee about three years ago through a federal program that provides local police departments and state agencies with military weapons and equipment no longer needed or used in the global war on terror.

A total of 1,549 weapons or other equipment — with an estimated value of about $3 million — has been distributed in North Dakota over the past decade by the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Logistics Agency. More than 8,500 items have gone to law enforcement agencies in Minnesota.

The equipment ranges from night vision goggles and gun silencers to mine-resistant ambush-protected armored vehicles, better known as MRAPs.

I’m not sure what the federal government’s thinking here. Arming violent gangs who are eight times more likely to kill you than terrorists is not an effective method to fight terror. It is however a good way of perpetuating terror. Having a bunch of thugs roll up to your house in a Humvee at two in the morning, kick in your door, shoot your dog, and kidnap you is certainly a terrorizing situation and one that happens far more frequently than attacks by foreign terrorists.

Also, as a side note, when the fuck will I legally be allowed to buy a suppressor in this forsaken state? If people with a history of performing violent acts can have them then why can’t nonviolent people like me have them?

You’re a Terrorist and You’re a Terrorist and You’re a Terrorist; We’re All Terrorists

Since it’s existence was confirmed people have been wondering exactly a person had to meet to be added to one of the government’s terrorist watchlists. The most transparent government in history has remained tight lipped about the criteria claiming it would be a threat to national security. So we’ve been left to guess and ponder. That is until now:

The “March 2013 Watchlisting Guidance,” a 166-page document issued last year by the National Counterterrorism Center, spells out the government’s secret rules for putting individuals on its main terrorist database, as well as the no fly list and the selectee list, which triggers enhanced screening at airports and border crossings. The new guidelines allow individuals to be designated as representatives of terror organizations without any evidence they are actually connected to such organizations, and it gives a single White House official the unilateral authority to place “entire categories” of people the government is tracking onto the no fly and selectee lists. It broadens the authority of government officials to “nominate” people to the watchlists based on what is vaguely described as “fragmentary information.” It also allows for dead people to be watchlisted.

The Intercept managed to get a hold on a complete copy of the guidebook and release it in its entirety to the public [PDF]. It’s a sizable document and I haven’t read through the entire thing. What I have read indicates that it’s a legalese justification for basically putting anybody on the terrorist watchlist without worrying about pesky things like due process or evidence. In fact it’s an easy list to get onto but not an easy list to get off of:

The difficulty of getting off the list is highlighted by a passage in the guidelines stating that an individual can be kept on the watchlist, or even placed onto the watchlist, despite being acquitted of a terrorism-related crime. The rulebook justifies this by noting that conviction in U.S. courts requires evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, whereas watchlisting requires only a reasonable suspicion. Once suspicion is raised, even a jury’s verdict cannot erase it.

The only way you’re leaving this list is in a box. Just kidding, even being dead isn’t a good enough reason to be removed from the list:

Not even death provides a guarantee of getting off the list. The guidelines say the names of dead people will stay on the list if there is reason to believe the deceased’s identity may be used by a suspected terrorist–which the National Counterterrorism Center calls a “demonstrated terrorist tactic.” In fact, for the same reason, the rules permit the deceased spouses of suspected terrorists to be placed onto the list after they have died.

What this leak does is confirm most of the suspicions us crazy libertarians have had for a while now: the United States is without a shadow of a doubt a police state. Secret lists of people of interest that require no due process to get on and are practically impossible to get off of (after all, the government wouldn’t suspect you of wrongdoing if you weren’t doing something wrong) have been a favorite tool of especially tyrannical states since, most likely, the beginning of states.

Papers Please

One of my biggest gripes with the whole “illegal” immigrant issue is that those arguing for stronger enforcement against people born outside of this country are necessarily arguing for the establishment of a police state (which we already have so they’re really arguing for an even more tyrannical police state). In order to ensure only citizens and “legal” immigrants are in this country there needs to be a way to identify them and a way to verify their identities. That necessity leads to shit like police checkpoints where everybody has to present their papers for inspection:

The speed limit drops to 35 mph, the first warning of the upcoming checkpoint. All vehicles must stop. Drivers must use low beams. Wray pulls up along a string of neon-orange cones. “Slow down, slow down,” she says. “Hmm. I don’t see anybody. Today might be a lucky day. I don’t see anybody. Maybe they are in the car? Oh, there they are.”

A stocky uniformed man emerges from a shaded hut on the edge of the road and crosses to Wray’s window.

“How you doing?” he says, peering into the pickup.

“Doing good,” she says.

“U.S. citizens here?” the Border Patrol agent questions.

“U.S. citizens,” Wray says.

The agent nods, steps back and beckons us onward.

Wray exhales deeply, loosens her grip on the steering wheel, and presses on the gas.

A frontier war is being waged in southern Arizona, but it’s many miles north of the Mexico border. People are fed up with the immigration checkpoints. A round-the-clock U.S. Border Patrol presence at the checkpoints means that American citizens must endure inspection when they commute to work or run errands; every major road has one of these blockades.

I’m old enough to remember when people used the existence of checkpoints in the former Soviet Union as evidence that the nation was suffering under a tyrannical regime. Now we have the exact same shit here. Between citizenship checkpoints, sobriety checkpoints, and random police checkpoints setup when officers are looking for a suspect we have plenty of opportunity to emulate Soviet citizens by presenting our papers to thugs with badges. I guess checkpoints have gone from tyrannical to free now that we have them because I don’t hear as many people bringing them up as evidence of tyranny anymore.

Some people less apt to bow down to authority figures my contest the legality of these citizenship checkpoints. But Tuscon exists in the “Constitution free zone” where we have even fewer privileges than normal. In all probability these checkpoints are completely legal due to where they are because this is the land of the free.

Who Needs a Warrant When You Can Fabricate a 911 Call

Warrants are such a pesky formality for police officers. When they want to search a house and the owner isn’t stupid enough to just let them walk right in the police have to make a phone call to a judge, wait a few minutes for him to issue a warrant, and finally search the home. Some cunning officers in North Carolina have apparently come up with a way to bypass that inconvenient formality:

A North Carolina police chief has officially barred officers from making up phony 911 calls in order to gain access to private residences without a search warrant.

Several officers with the Durham Police Department lied about 911 hang-up calls to convince residents to consent to searches of their homes, an officer said under oath in late May, a local ABC affiliate reported.

The allegations prompted Police Chief Jose Lopez to send out an internal memo barring the practice.

“It has recently been brought to my attention that some officers have informed citizens that there has been a 911 hang-up call from their residence in order to obtain consent to enter for the actual purpose of looking for wanted persons on outstanding warrants,” he said in the memo, Raw Story reported. “Effective immediately no officer will inform a citizen that there has been any call to the emergency communications center, including a hang-up call, when there in fact has been no such call.”

Statists often tell me that my anarchist views are crazy because we need government to protect our rights. I find it peculiar to charge the biggest violator of rights with the task of protecting rights and this story demonstrates why. The state has written up its own set of rules, which it claims protects our rights, and then bypasses those same rules, meaning it must be violating our rights.

It was Bound to Happen

Remember that substandard police training I was talking about? It was finally combined with modern policing’s love of puppycide to its logical conclusion. Via Uncle I learned that Douglas, Georgia shot a 10 year-old kid while trying to gun down the family dog:

Sheriff Wooten said a deputy, who was not named, was on approaching the property when a dog ran up to him. The deputy fired one shot, missing the dog and hitting the child. It was not immediately clear if the gun was accidently fired by the deputy.

It was only a matter of time until this happened. When you combine inadequate weapons training, an almost complete absence of consequences for wrongdoing, and a standard operating procedure to shoot any dog on sight you have a recipe for an innocent bystander getting shot.

If history is any indicator the offending officer will receive a paid vacation while this story blows over. After the weekly news cycle has forgotten about the kid the officer will return to active duty so he can shoot another kid while attempting to gun down another family pet. Because this is America and taking responsibility for your actions is only for the people without badges.

Police Want to Create Child Pornography to Prove Minor’s Selfies were Child Pornography

I’m not entirely sure where to begin with this:

A Manassas City teenager accused of “sexting” a video to his girlfriend is now facing a search warrant in which Manassas City police and Prince William County prosecutors want to take a photo of his erect penis, possibly forcing the teen to become erect by taking him to a hospital and giving him an injection, the teen’s lawyers said. A Prince William County judge allowed the 17-year-old to leave the area without the warrant being served or the pictures being taken — yet.

If you read the story you will find that the 17 year-old is accused of sending a sexually explicit video of himself to a 15 year-old girl. Even though the video was of himself he is still accused of manufacturing and possessing child pornography because he is a minor. To prove their case the police now want to take the 17 year-old kid, inject him with viagra, and take a picture of his dick to compare to the dick in the video. Because when you have a badge drugging a kid and taking sexually explicit pictures of him isn’t possessing and manufacturing child pornography because of mother fucking reasons you stupid fucking slaves.

Fortunately the boy’s guardian gets it:

Carlos Flores Laboy, appointed the teen’s guardian ad litem in the case, said he thought it was just as illegal for the Manassas City police to create their own child pornography as to investigate the teen for it. “They’re using a statute that was designed to protect children from being exploited in a sexual manner,” Flores Laboy said, “to take a picture of this young man in a sexually explicit manner. The irony is incredible.” The guardian added, “As a parent myself, I was floored. It’s child abuse. We’re wasting thousands of dollars and resources and man hours on a sexting case. That’s what we’re doing.”

That is exactly what they’re doing. They’re taking a parental issue of two teenagers acting as expected at their age and using it as an excuse to create some child pornography by drugging a kid. How anybody thinks the police in this situation aren’t a bunch of sicko fucks is beyond me. If I were the prosecutor I’d be filing charges against the cops.

St. Paul’s Finest

Wednesday the heroes of the St. Paul Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team executed two dogs during a brave no-knock raid:

It was 7 a.m. when police executed what is known as a no-knock search warrant. Arman said he and his two children were sleeping on a mattress when armed members of the SWAT team barged through the front door. The next thing he remembers is seeing the family’s long-time dogs stagger and fall.

Of course the brave men and women of the St. Paul SWAT team claimed that the dogs were coming right for them and they had to gun the vicious beasts down for officer safety. Because knocking on the door and giving the owners a chance to secure their dogs was totally out of the question because, well, reasons. And pepper spray? Why the fuck would they use that? It doesn’t kill anything and being on the SWAT team isn’t fun unless you to get kill things!

This shit pisses me off because it’s entirely avoidable. All the officers have to do is knock on the fucking door and say “Police, we have a warrant to search the premises.” But they didn’t because of their exaggerated fear of people shooting through the door. Such an occurrence is exceedingly rare because most people are as violent as police officers, but logic doesn’t matter when the words “officer safety” are muttered. How about this, if you’re worried that somebody might react violently because you’re a police officer don’t because a fucking police officer. Enforcing the state’s decrees is dangerous work.

Or better yet how about we just end the war on unpatentable drugs and the police can simply leave people who are using drugs and harming nobody else alone.

People are Very Upset About Imaginary Lines

OK, I lied. Here’s some content for today. Never let it be said that I’m not benevolent. Following Hobby Lobby’s stranglehold on the news last week the topic of “illegal” immigration has been bombarding every fucking news source I have this week. I was just going to leave the topic alone. After all everybody who is bitching about it this week will cease caring next week since this is America and we have the attention span of goldfish. But all of the outrage has lead me to believe that talking about “illegal” immigration is good for page hits. Also people are making some very strange assumptions that I feel need to be addressed.

Let’s consider what “illegal” immigration is. There exists a bunch of imaginary lines. I know that these lines are imaginary because I can’t see them when I go to where the map supposedly says they exist. Supposedly when somebody crosses one of these nonexistent lines without first receiving permission from some petty bureaucrat in a far away marble building it’s an illegal act. That’s a very strange concept to me.

Now let’s consider the thing that has most peoples’ panties in a bunch: costs. The main criticism I hear about the state failing to enforce immigration laws is that us Americans have to pay to care for these “illegal” immigrants. Apparently the people making this criticism believe that they will be required to pay less taxes or that their tax dollars will be used for better purposes if the state does a better job of enforcing its immigration laws. Guess what, that’s now how things work here.

First we need to acknowledge that the state doesn’t use actual money it uses debt. None of the money Obama has requested to deal with this situation exists. Second if we want to be honest with ourselves we should accept that our taxes wouldn’t decrease if people entirely stopped crossing the imaginary lines without permission. The state is already taking less from us than it’s spending so it’s not going to suddenly take even less. And the amount of money being spent on immigration related issues is a microscopic drop in the bucket. Third, even if we assume the money being used to care for “illegal” immigrants is real, we need to understand that money won’t be redirected for anything helpful if “illegal” immigration suddenly went away. It would just be moved to fund other parts of the police state we live in. Cops would get more armored personnel carriers to use on no-knock raids, the military would get more bombs to drop on the Middle East, and the politicians’ cronies would get more money to build worthless shit that doesn’t work.

Basically what I’m trying to get at is that arguing about “illegal” immigration is pointless. It’s a non-issue. Nothing would change if “illegal” immigrants suddenly disappeared tomorrow. This is just another fairytale created up by the state and it’s corporate media partners in an attempt to split us into two warring camps and distract us from the actual problems we’re suffering from.

The only thing I take solace in is knowing that nobody will care next week when our media overlords issue us our next weekly crisis.

Apparently SWAT Teams are Private Entities

The different tricks and tactics used by law enforcement agencies to bypass data access laws are always amusing to read about. But the recent trick used by Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams in Massachusetts deserves special recognition:

As it turns out, a number of SWAT teams in the Bay State are operated by what are called law enforcement councils, or LECs. These LECs are funded by several police agencies in a given geographic area and overseen by an executive board, which is usually made up of police chiefs from member police departments.

[…]

Some of these LECs have also apparently incorporated as 501(c)(3) organizations. And it’s here that we run into problems. According to the ACLU, the LECs are claiming that the 501(c)(3) status means that they’re private corporations, not government agencies. And therefore, they say they’re immune from open records requests.

My favorite part about government transparency laws getting passed isn’t the laws got passed but the scams developed by the government to ignore them. This particular scam is especially clever. By being private organizations these SWAT teams are immune from any and all government transparency laws.

Fans of history will likely have a long list of scams developed by individuals, corporations, and non-governmental organized crime syndicates. But time and time again the state manages to outdo all of those other petty scam artists. I guess having a monopoly on both writing and enforcing laws helps.