The Conscience of Abe’s Turn libertarian civil rights in America

Under the heading of “Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?” is this funny video Radley Balko posted on his blog. Hey, at least the cop said he was sorry.

Always watching!
-TimK

Samuel Goldberg has a great trial story about two cops who perhaps should’ve taken their jobs a little more seriously.

Speaking of trials, I have also told you that, at times, police officers (like any witnesses) may not find it necessary to limit themselves to the truth.

How dare I?

Let me tell you a little “war story” from my 25 years of trial experience.

Ollie Under The Influence (no, not his real name), was on trial for his 4th drunk driving offense…

The two Commonwealth witnesses were two police officers, whom we will call “Sgt. Sarcasm” and “Police Officer Openminded.”

Sgt Sarcasm was the first witness to testify… He started to show his cockiness with answers like, “Yeah, you could say that.”, as he shrugged his shoulders.

Always watching!
-TimK

I don’t have time to go into the details right now of the case of Paul Jacob and the rest of the Oklahoma Three. Even so, I want to link to a recent Wall Street Journal editorial, which skewers Oklahoma A.G. Drew Edmonson, who is apparently up for re-election.

Mr. Edmondson, a Democrat, is angling for support from public employee unions and other special interest groups that oppose tax and spending constraints. But more generally, his continued prosecution of the Oklahoma Three [despite the court’s recent ruling against him] sends a chilling message to others who might consider exercising their right to petition government.

(Click here to read the rest of the editorial.)

Always Watching!
-TimK

A new year. A new U.S. president.

An editorial by Aziz Huq on The Nation website offers a prescription for “Dismantling the Imperial Presidency”, with a warning reminiscent of Lord Acton’s famous quote:

Radical change is needed to re-establish legitimate bounds to executive power. We must again place beyond the pale Nixon’s famous aphorism that “when the president does it, that means it’s not illegal.” But radical change—as early appointments and policy signals from the Obama transition team suggest—comes easier as campaign slogan than governing practice…

No matter how decent, any new president is tempted by the tools and trappings of executive authority. However tainted the Oval Office is now, Obama’s perspective will change dramatically on entering the White House…

(Click here to read the whole article.)

He goes on to offer measure Obama can take in three important areas: torture, the law that the executive follows, and accountability.

Always watching!
-TimK

Jim Bovard wrote earlier this month regarding the feds’ sting of Illinois governor Blagojevich, “If the state officials in Illinois could put wiretaps on the offices and homes of FBI agents, congressmen, and HUD and FEMA officials based in their territory - how many crimes would they uncover?”

What would happen if state officials could set up the type of entrapment operations targeting federal agents that the FBI routinely conducts on local and state officials?

If that were the case - I reckon the news would get even more entertaining.

Hmm…

Always watching!
-TimK

Reuters reports, in the Emergency Medicine Journal, in a study of 315 emergency-room doctors, 99.8% believed law enforcement officers use excessive force to arrest and detain suspects. 97.8% had managed cases involving excessive police force, and 65.3% estimated they had treated at least 2 such cases per year.

Also, 96.5% knew of no official policy or guidelines on reporting such incidents, but most felt they should be reporting them.

Click here to read the whole article, because it’s fascinating.

Always watching!
-TimK

Update: There are interesting discussion threads on this article over at RateMyCop.com and at CopTalk.com. There seems to be a difference of opinion between the cops and the doctors. That kind of makes sense, because a cop’s job is unfortunately to seek out trouble, and a doc’s job is to sew together the pieces.

It’s one of the ballsiest experiments of my lifetime, stemming from one of the saddest, most infuriating stories of the decade.

KopBusters has a new website up, with KopBusters episode #1 (the Odessa, TX episode) now available for pre-order. Here’s the story so far. (With mocking, rhetorical comments inserted by yours truly at convenient junctures.)

In response to allegations that the Odessa Police Department falsified evidence against Yolanda Madden, who is now spending years in prison as a result of her ordeal, KopBusters orchestrated a sting on the police of Odessa. The KopBusters crew secretly rented a house in Odessa, in which they set up a grow-lamp—similar to those used for growing marijuana—under which they placed two miniature evergreen trees. When the Odessa cops arrived at the site expecting to find drugs, instead they found they were part of an undercover video program, with a network of closed-circuit cameras streaming video over the Internet.

When the KopBusters then asked to see the search warrant affidavit, the police refused. But KopBusters and the Odessa American have now received copies of the affidavit, which says the raid was predicated upon an anonymous letter, allegedly left at the Odessa police department by Pastor Terry Pierce, who pastors a local church. According to the Odessa American, Pastor Pierce denies delivering any such letter and says he’s never heard of Yolanda Madden.

Meanwhile, the Odessa Police Department refuses to discuss the issue, because it’s part of an open investigation. (Or was that “national security”? Let me double-check… Uh, no. It was “open investigation.”)  read more »

Jacob Hornberger in a post on his blog examines the increased drug prohibition in Mexico.

Yet, what has been the result of Mexico’s attempt to ramp up its efforts to win the war on drugs?

Ever-increasing violence. Ever-increasing murders. Ever-increasing torture. Ever-increasing beheadings. Ever-increasing kidnappings. Ever-increasing military and police budgets. Ever-increasing governmental powers over the citizenry.

In other words, the more ferociously they have waged the war on drugs, the worse the situation has become.  read more »

Jacob Hornberger hit the nail on the head regarding the relationship between economic rights and civil rights, speaking about a talk James Bovard gave at the Future of Freedom Foundation’s Economic Liberty Lecture Series last month.

There is no question but that liberals have a blind spot when it comes to economic liberty. They honestly believe that socialistic and interventionist programs are necessary to help the poor and equalize wealth. They cannot see the fundamental immorality of using force to make people do the right thing. They cannot see that their methods actually end up harming the very people they purport to want to help [just like drug prohibition]…  read more »

As you may know, The Conscience of Abe’s Turn was inspired not by George W. Bush, but by civil-rights abuses during Bill Clinton’s administration, some as portrayed in James Bovard’s book Feeling Your Pain: The Explosion and Abuse of Government Power in the Clinton-Gore Years. In a thoughtful article at the Future of Freedom Foundation website, James Bovard looks back at the last Democratic president’s record on Fourth-Amendment civil rights.

The Clinton administration consistently championed the right of government employees to stick their noses almost anywhere — into people’s email, car, house, or personal effects. Clintonites set off one false alarm after another to justify extending government’s right to intrude. The administration consistently sought to exploit technological development in order to maximize government’s control over the citizenry…

The prohibition against unreasonable searches is the key to the Fourth Amendment.

As law professor Jeffrey Standen observed in an article he wrote for Legal Times, each extension of government power makes further extensions “reasonable” — since “reasonable” is defined on a sliding scale by however much intrusion people will tolerate from the government. The Clinton administration often sounded as if the only searches that were unreasonable were the ones that government officials did not care to do.

(Click here to read the whole article.)

The article gets specific on many of the ways the Clinton administration fomented fear and fought to redefine the Fourth Amendment to give government enforcers more power over citizens. True, George W. Bush presided over some of the worst civil-rights abuses today’s citizens have ever seen. But we shouldn’t just assume that Bush’s Democratic successor will be a civil-rights proponent, because Obama—as Clinton before him, as any president, being in charge of the enforcement branch of the federal government—has a vested interest in promoting government power over systematic protections of our civil rights. Be aware.

Always watching!
-TimK

P.S. Thanks to libertarian policy analyst Doug Bandow for the pointer.