The Conscience of Abe’s Turn - an online drama serial by J. Timothy King

The U.S. vs. John Lennon

TimK — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:16:20 -0700

I just got finished watching The U.S. vs. John Lennon, an inspiring and provocative film about John Lennon’s peace advocacy, and how the government attacked him for it. This documentary follows Lennon’s life after the Beatles, until his death in 1980, includes interviews with Yoko Ono and many others, and touches on freedom of speech, drug freedom, peace and military warfare, and the politics of power.

As I watched it, several themes impressed me. But nothing impressed me more than that so little has changed since then. In a very real sense, we are replaying, repeating, reliving history. This film makes real that the abuses and perversions of justice that we see today occurred decades ago, and in essentially the same form: public beatings of peaceful protesters, restriction of speech around high-profile political events, abuse of government power for personal and political gain, censorship, political appeals to “patriotism,” fear-mongering against immigrants and “aliens,” all in order to support direct government attacks on the First, Fourth, and Fifth amendments. Have we made that little progress?

Some quotes from the film:

“The FBI under J. Edgar Hoover… used the FBI as an in instrument, almost as a political police force.” (Geraldo Rivera)
“Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” (Gore Vidal, quoting Samuel Johnson. Ironically, Johnson probably would have disagreed with Vidal and me as to what is a “patriotic scoundrel.”)
“I don’t think he realized the strength of the American political establishment, and how much power it could exert onto him, with regard to silencing him. Or covert ways in which they might follow his activities.” (Chris Charlesworth, journalist)
“It became clear to me that he was a guy of major principle, and he understood that what was being done to him was wrong. It was an abuse of the law. And he was willing to stand up and to show it, to shine the big light on it.” (Leon Wildes, Lennon’s attorney)

People, even in the government, were just as ignorant back then as they are today, as to the pervasiveness of the abuse of power. They had government insiders—FBI agents and governmental aides—portraying shock and bewilderment on-camera, as they recounted the persecution of John Lennon and of the anti-war movement. They explain how a warmongering government hates and fears those who would proclaim peace. And the more powerful their proclamation, the more virulent its hate and the more insidious its fear.

All the while, as shown in TV clips from the time, government officials repeatedly claimed ownership of the high-ground, filling their speeches with sounds of honor and patriotism, in order to disguise and rationalize their reprobate conduct. See, politicians and government stooges were cheaters, liars, swindlers, and moral reprobates back then, just as much as they are today. Don’t ever believe them when they tell you, “This law will never be used against innocent people.” Because when you give the government power, someone is going to abuse it.

Always watching!
-TimK

Human Rights Watch Military Analyst, a Nazi?!

TimK — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 07:03:31 -0700

This is a great link with which to kick off new posts, after a long hiatus. Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst for Human Rights Watch, recently responded to smears— er, I mean, accusations that he fosters Nazi sympathies.

The basis of these smear— accusations? That he collects World War II memorabilia. Marc Garlasco explains:

I’ve achieved some blogosphere fame, not for the hours I’ve spent sifting through the detritus of war, visiting hospitals, interviewing victims and witnesses and soldiers, but for my hobby (unusual and disturbing to some, I realize) of collecting Second World War memorabilia associated with my German grandfather and my American great-uncle.

The Second World War turned my grandfather, who was conscripted and served on an anti-aircraft battery, into a staunch pacifist… It wasn’t until he died that I really took his lessons to heart…

Precisely because it’s so obvious that the Nazis were evil, I never realized that other people, including friends and colleagues, might wonder why I care about these things [that I collect]. Thousands of military history buffs collect war paraphernalia because we want to learn from the past.

(Click here to read Marc Garlasco’s entire post.)

This is a story repeated from ancient times. Rather than preserving the literature and artifacts of that which we hate, we wish to destroy them, because we wish to destroy that which we hate. But literature and artifacts are just words and things, not the past itself but painful reminders of the past. And those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it.

Richard Silverstein has been following the Marc-Garlasco–Nazi-Sympathizer (WTF?!) story on his blog תקון עולם (Tikun Olam, which he translates “Make the World a Better Place”; literally, “World Emendation”). According to Richard, the furor— er, that is, the hubbub started when Israeli Foreign-Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman brought up the subject, after Human Rights Watch “published a scathing report criticizing Israel’s attack on Gaza and its human rights record in general.” (Note, as Richard does, that HRW also criticized Palestinian attacks, in a separate report.)

He adroitly notes:

The Israeli-Palestinian issue can be a confusing mess. You can’t reduce it to a sound byte. Human rights work on this issue is also incredibly complex. Rather than addressing complicated issues or refuting claims which are rock-solid, Israel chooses to slime the messenger. Then it doesn’t have to do any heavy lifting in addressing the substance of HRW’s claims. This is a tried and true tactic of bigots and demagogues… [emphasis added]

(Click here to read Richard Silverstein’s entire post.)

This of course is a scenario with which we libertarians are well familiar. The politician loves to prick people’s hearts, sending them into an emotional frenzy, because that’s how you motivate people to action without letting them think too much about what they are doing. This emotional frenzy is a well-understood psychological phenomenon. If you are prone to angry rages, for example, then when you get angry, the first thing you need to do is to calm yourself, because then your anger will quell, and then you can think clearly to deal with the situation that made you angry.

But the politician doesn’t want people to calm down or to think, because then they’d see how counter-productive their rage is and how much they’re endangering their own lives and well-being through it. Instead, he wants them to become ever more hurt and angry and fearful, and then he can say, “Don’t worry. Just give the problem to me, and I’ll make it all better.” As though he were some sort of a god. No matter what the situation is. I could be talking about drug prohibition or pornography or taxes or the economy or prostitution or homosexuality or health care or war or crime or immigration or government schools. It’s always the same story. “Look at how terrible and dangerous is the world in which we live!” Even though, in reality, our world continues to grow more beautiful and safe.

But if we stopped worrying long enough, we might calm down, and then maybe we’d notice that:

Drug prohibition doesn’t stop people from selling or using drugs, nor does it help drug users, but it does increase violent crime.
The most vociferous objections against pornography come from those who don’t actually know anything about it. In fact, we fear porn on the Internet because we are uncomfortable talking with our kids about it, not because it would actually harm them.
High taxes are merely a symptom of out-of-control government spending. And if the government buys up everything we produce, it wouldn’t matter if you had zero taxes and millions of dollars in your pocket, because you still wouldn’t be able to buy anything.
Every economic crisis in American history has come on the heels of a government attempt to “fix” the economy.
Prostitution is commonplace even in countries that outlaw it under penalty of death, because both parties to the act have decided to go through with it.
In most European countries, government marriage is an administrative procedure and nothing more. That is, governments do not sanction marriages. And churches and other religious institutions there have more of a say in marriage than churches do here in the US, because rather than being forced into one religious view or another, people actually care about what their church thinks.
If you correct for non-healthcare factors, like homicides and accidents, life expectancy is better in the US than in any other country in the world; and if you’ve been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness (like cancer), your chances of surviving are better in the US than anywhere else in the world; and the WHO downgrades the US healthcare system for political reasons, not quality-of-health reasons. In fact, our troubles with health insurance first began when the federal government wrote employer-sponsored health insurance into the tax code during WWII, because this move removed some control over paying for health care from those who consume it.
We wage war because we’re scared, not because we’re powerful, because the truly powerful don’t need to wage war in order to prove themselves. There is no way we could possibly gain honor or respect (or peace) by behaving like the terrified little bully on the playground, beating up the geeky kid with glasses and stealing his lunch money.
Crime has been going down, and we are safer now than at any time since the war on drugs began. (Think of how low crime would be without the war on drugs!)
No government border-control program to date has been able to keep immigrants out, legal or otherwise, which is just fine, because we are a country of immigrants. (Just as the American native peoples.)
The biggest problem with government schools is that they spend more money than they need to, and in exchange they don’t even educate our kids. And no amount of creationism or prayer in the classroom is going to fix that.

The most fundamental civil right is the right for you to control your own life and to direct your own destiny, no matter what anyone else thinks of it, whether you’re speaking the unpopular, whether you’re having sex with the unloved, whether you’re making money hand over fist, or whether you’re sacrificing yourself for the greater good. You have defrauded no one and have dealt peaceably and consensually with others, and you have a right to the fruits and consequences of your own choices, no matter whether anyone else agrees or disagrees with those choices.

But this fundamental civil right, as it has always been throughout history, is under attack by fear, anxiety, and politicians with power.

Always Watching!
-TimK

Audio Proof that TSA Thinks They're Above the Fifth Amendment

TimK — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:23:37 -0700

Via Fox News, the TSA in Missouri detained, harassed, and almost arrested Steve Bierfeldt, because he was carrying some cash from merchandise sales for a political organization:

Even though I’m not a lawyer, here are a couple thoughts, off the top of my head, based on my research:

You are not required to answer any questions of the police, and that is well-established Fifth-Amendment law. (You may be legally required to identify yourself, in some jurisdictions, but you are not required to answer questions.)
Even if you answer some questions, you have a constitutional right to stop answering questions at any time, without any reason for doing so.
If you are being questioned by the cops, expect them to lie to you, because that’s not considered dirty, even by respectable cops. They may threaten to force you talk to the FBI and DEA, if it serves their purpose. They may lie and say they have you dead to rights, if they think they can get any information out of you. The advice I generally hear from criminal defense lawyers is: Don’t be afraid. Rather, keep your mouth shut, and at your first available opportunity, call a criminal defense lawyer and recount to him everything that happened.
Also expect them to be verbally combative, harassing, and downright offensive. (Like the comment from the audio above: “We’re gonna help you understand if you don’t!”) They may try to bait you into a physical confrontation. Again, the advice from criminal defense lawyers: Don’t fight with them. Don’t give them the satisfaction of charging you with resisting arrest, even if you’re innocent of any crime. Submit to them, and call a criminal defense lawyer as soon as you can.
If the TSA had transported him to the police station, that would have constituted an arrest, probably an illegal arrest. Questioning him at the airport constituted detaining him, which does not require probable cause, but transporting him to another facility is a horse of a different color.
Arousing the suspicion of a government agent does not establish probable cause, which is necessary for an arrest to be made.
Refusing to answer questions also does not establish probable cause. Answering questions, on the other hand, might establish probable cause, which is why cops ask questions! Answering questions may establish probable cause against you even if you are innocent of any crime.

In the interview above, Steve explains that he was afraid, because he was also carrying some bumper stickers and campaign literature that could unfairly peg him as a suspected “terrorist.” (Can you say, “McCarthyism”?) These treasonous materials supported the Campaign for Liberty (which I consider a reputable organization) and Congressman Ron Paul—one of the few congressmen who has consistently voted to uphold all our constitutional rights, across the board. He was afraid, because he was aware of an email that unfairly pegged supporters of these organizations as possible terrorists.

Steve explains: “So I was stuck in the one place in the country where I didn’t want to be, as a supporter of liberty and the Campaign for Liberty.”

Again, with stories like this, it’s hard for me to argue that we don’t live in a “police state”—or at least something akin to one—no matter how incredible that may sound at first blush.

Always Watching!
-TimK

Secret Government Torture Memos Show the Dangers of Power

TimK — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 12:16:41 -0800

Nine secret, Bush-era documents that the Obama administration released this week demonstrate the hubris of a powerful government and the danger posed by it.

Some of these documents are among the dozens of memos that the ACLU has been suing the Department of Justice to release. To echo Glenn Greenwald from last year: “Yet again, the ACLU has performed the function which Congress and the media are intended to perform but do not.”

One of the legal opinions, written in October 2001 by John Yoo, a lawyer with the Office of Legal Counsel, one who needs a Conscience, argued that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to military activities inside the United States. That is, the federal government thought it could get away with illegal searches and seizures and spying on innocent U.S. citizens, all without a warrant, as long as it could make it look like part of a military operation.

Yoo also advised that “First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war,” without saying specifically how that might play out, adding that the fight against “terrorism may require even broader exercises of federal power domestically.”

This opinion continued in force until just this past October, when the OLC finally issued a memo advising that “caution be exercised.” Not a resounding retraction, but at least it put the brakes on. So for 7 years, the federal government willfully discarded the Fourth Amendment rule of law, refusing to admit that it was doing so. This seemed to be part of a carefully laid plan, a legal evasion designed to help the government thwart the law.

Jennifer Daskal of Human Rights Watch called it “telling people how to get away with sending someone to a nation to be tortured,” and said, “The idea that the legal counsel’s office would be essentially telling the president how to violate the law is completely contrary to the purpose and the role of what a legal adviser is supposed to do.”

Said Jameel Jaffer of the ACLU on the day the documents were released, “These memos essentially argue that the president has a blank check to disregard the Constitution during wartime, not only on foreign battlefields, but also inside the United States. We hope today’s release is a first step, because dozens of other OLC memos, including memos that provided the basis for the Bush administration’s torture and warrantless wiretapping policies, are still being withheld.”

Fearing Fear Itself

As you may know, I’m no big fan of FDR. Not only were his economic policies marked by the worst depression in American history, his administration also allowed and perpetuated the 9/11-analogue of his day, Pearl Harbor.

But FDR was a grand politician, and you know the rule about politicians: listen to what they say, just never follow what they do. Such it was in FDR’s first inaugural address, in which he coined a now-famous quote, reflecting a principle which we ought to remember in the current day:

This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

This fear enabled the abuses and travesties of the past 8 years, and following FDR’s advice, none of it was actually necessary. Writes Tony Rhodin:

Our initial task in Afghanistan was clear. It didn’t require eliminating freedom of the press or require we illegally wiretap Americans. It required us to send enough troops, develop local intelligence and put to death a 6-foot-4 guy…

Instead we failed to get bin Laden, we failed to fully curtail the Taliban, we took in lots of prisoners — torturing some of them — and made ourselves a renewed target for whatever radicals seek to do us harm. That al-Qaeda showed up in Iraq after we, out of choice, attacked that sovereign country is clear evidence of that.

That the sun is finally shining on the remarkably unAmerican views of some in the previous administration I suppose should make us feel lucky that we survived until a new government could be elected.

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

I, however, am not ready to feel at ease, because I turn the page and read that a lawyer for the Obama administration will argue in the Supreme Court that a prisoner who claims he is innocent has no constitutional right to have DNA from the crime scene tested — even if he is willing to pay the costs himself.

Always watching!
-TimK

Why Bother Burning Books When You Can Just Throw Them Out?

TimK — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 07:00:00 -0800

Fortunately, this item is to be filed under the category of incompetence, and not under malice. Unfortunately, in the end, the result is the same either way. Under a new law, which just went into effect, boxes upon boxes full of classic children’s books have been and are being thrown in the dumpster, literally, because that’s now federal law. When you elect idiots to Congress— But I repeat myself.

Since 1985, it’s been illegal to manufacture children’s books using lead paint. Before then, it was common to use lead in some pigments used to color illustrations. But now, in Congress’s immutable wisdom, the new Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) makes it illegal to resell old children’s books from that time period.

Why is this stupid? Because even these old books pose no observable risk to children. Walter Olson explains on the City Journal website:

While lead poisoning from other sources, such as paint in old houses, remains a serious public health problem in some communities, no one seems to have been able to produce a single instance in which an American child has been made ill by the lead in old book illustrations—not surprisingly, since unlike poorly maintained wall paint, book pigments do not tend to flake off in large lead-laden chips for toddlers to put into their mouths.

(Click here to read the whole article.)

As a result of the new law, thrift stores are dumping—literally dumping—masses of classic children’s books, because they don’t want to get hit with the massive fines and even prison that the law prescribes, even if no child is ever harmed.

In an oft-quoted account, originally posted to Etsy, February 10 2009, 12:30 pm EST:

I just came back from my local thrift store with tears in my eyes! I watched as boxes and boxes of childrens books were thrown into the garbage! Today was the deadline and I just cant believe it! Every book they had on the shelves peior to 1985 was destroyed! I managed to grab a 1967 edition of “The Outsiders” from the top of the box, but so many! It makes me sad.

Gary North rails: “The bureaucrats are now enforcing the letter of the 2008 law. Congressmen will feign ignorance. ’Gee, how were we to know?’ Too late. The books are in landfill.”

Fortunately, this law is likely to work just as well as other prohibitionary laws on the books, that is to say, hardly at all.

People are a tenacious lot. They’ll do what they think is right, regardless of how harsh the penalties that may be heaped on their heads. There will always be a Guy Montag trying to preserve the culture, despite the terrorism of the warlords in Washington.

The comments on the CPSIA at Overlawyered.com are telling. Valerie Jacobsen writes:

As an ethical matter, I really can’t discard our cultural heritage just because the CPSC has decreed that books published through *1984* may or may not still form a legal part of the canon of children’s literature for our culture.

I was willing to resist the censorship of 1984 and the Fire Department of Fahrenheit 451 long before I became a bookseller, so I’d love to run a black market in quality children’s books–but at the same time it’s not like the CPSC has never destroyed a small, harmless company before. It’s a scary thing to know that what you are doing is a positive good for the community–and yet possibly, strangely illegal.

Carol Baicker-McKee agrees:

I kept thinking this law would go away, but now I’m worried that an important part of our heritage is genuinely threatened. Many, many children’s books printed before 1985 are now out of print and do not exist still in a form that would make them easy to republish…

If nothing happens to change this law soon, I promise I will spend whatever money and devote whatever space I can to buying up these older books. I’ll be happy to label myself a collector (and I’m subversive enough to leave the books lying around where kids might “accidentally” read them).

Always watching!
-TimK

P.S. Another interesting comment on the Overlawyered thread, by “Dave”:

I own a preschool… A few years ago, I hired a young college girl working on an early childhood degree as an assistant teacher. We caught her going through the shelves of books in our storage room, and throwing out all all the pre-’85 books, because her professor had taught them they must be discarded. NOT because of physical properties, but because they tend to have Politically Incorrect stories and pictures in them of mothers wearing aprons and fathers smoking pipes, etc.

Oy vey!

Guantánamo: Still Waiting to Hear That Things Have Actually Changed

TimK — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 07:00:00 -0800

While the Obama-administration DOJ’s right hand is investigating whether Bush torture-memo authors should be disciplined, its left hand is still upholding the very same torture policies.

The impression I get is what I expected to see: even though the administration has changed, the government is still being filled with the same paranoid babble that characterized the Bush administration, and the doofuses are afraid to dismiss it too quickly. Or rather, in a word: politics.

A federal appeals court ordered the continued imprisonment of 17 Chinese ethnic Uighurs, who have been detained without charge for over seven years at Guantánamo Bay, despite the fact that the U.S. government no longer considers them “enemy combatants” and even admitted that it does not have the authority to detain them.
The government is still wrestling with the case of Ali al-Marri, a U.S. citizen who has been detained indefinitely without trial.
The Pentagon concluded that “the Guantánamo Bay prison complies with the humanitarian requirements of the Geneva conventions.” (They must be looking at a different version than the one I’m familiar with, which specifically disallows “violence to life and person, in particular… cruel treatment and torture; … outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment; the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.”)
Obama’s new DOJ continue to regurgitate the Bush-era claims of “state secrets” in the Jeppesen case of 5 men who were kidnapped and tortured by the CIA.
And the DOJ is still trying to gum up the ACLU’s effort to help Mohammed Jawad, a Guantánamo prisoner who has been unlawfully held by U.S. government since he was a teenager. (See also this post on Mohammed Jawad’s case.)

Yes, President Obama ordered that military commission proceedings be stopped, but the government is still pursuing a last-minute effort by the Bush administration to deny Jawad his right to challenge his imprisonment in a court of law.

“Mr. Jawad’s case is the epitome of everything that’s wrong with the military commissions, because his detention and prosecution were based on a confession that was tortured out of him. For the government to try to use the unconstitutional commissions as an excuse for delaying federal court habeas review of Mr. Jawad’s case makes no sense,” said Hina Shamsi, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. “President Obama followed through on his campaign promise to halt the military commissions, and Attorney General Holder has said the commissions do not provide due process protections, but the Justice Department still seems to be playing catch-up. The new administration should do the right thing and reject Bush administration policies that sought to evade independent judicial oversight of Mr. Jawad’s unlawful detention.”

Jawad’s former military commission prosecutor, Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, submitted a 14-page statement in support of the ACLU’s challenge, stating that the flaws in the commission system make it impossible “to harbor the remotest hope that justice is an achievable goal.” Lt. Col. Vandeveld’s statement describes other torture Jawad suffered in U.S. custody. The Bush administration previously told the judge in Jawad’s military commission case that the centerpiece of its case against him was evidence the judge had suppressed because it was obtained through torture.

After President Obama assumed office, he instructed the Secretary of Defense to seek a halt to all commission proceedings, including Jawad’s. But the Court of Military Commission Review allowed the farce to continue, partially because Mr. Jawad’s habeas case could still proceed in federal court.

(Yes, that’s right. They’re fighting to deny him habeas corpus, and they also are continuing to persecute him, based on the supposition that he has a right to habeas corpus. I’m sure this makes sense at some level. But a word of advice: Don’t try to actually understand contorted government logic. Just accept that they’re brainfucked, and move on.)

“After unjustly detaining and abusing Mr. Jawad for over six years, the government’s effort to prosecute Mr. Jawad in the commissions has been an abject failure. All Mr. Jawad is asking is to have his day in court so he can prove his innocence,” said U.S. Air Force Major David J. R. Frakt, who represents Jawad in the military commissions case and is co-counsel in the habeas case. “The government’s continued stonewalling, particularly when both President Obama and the Chief Judge of the Military Commission Court of Review has recognized his right to habeas review, is inexcusable. A prompt habeas hearing is especially necessary because Mr. Jawad’s mental and physical well-being continue to be jeopardized by the harsh conditions in which he is being held at Guantánamo. The government seems to have lost sight of a fundamental truth – justice delayed is justice denied.”

Always watching!
-TimK

Anti-drug Propaganda Considered Harmful? No duh!

TimK — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 07:00:00 -0800

The Marijuana Policy Project reports on a study examining what happens when we over-inflate the risks of using drugs. The study, recently published in the journal Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, notes that when the kids finally learn the truth, “intentions to engage in threatened behavior may be amplified.”

Of course, this is old news, or at least it should be. Telling someone not to do something just makes them want to do it more, and then lying to them about the dangers just encourages them to ignore you. No kidding? Maybe next we can commission a study to prove that water is wet.

My criticism is particularly aimed at government propaganda, funded with our tax dollars, in part by the drug czar. Yes, we hope that Obama’s new drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske might soften government policy, but I’m not too confident that he’ll soften the propaganda, because if drugs really weren’t as dangerous as the drug czar’s office purports, then we wouldn’t even need “harm reduction,” and the drug czar would be out of a job. (See also yesterday’s post regarding Kerlikowske.)

My beef is with government propaganda, not what we parents tell our kids, because out here in the real world, American citizens are more and more realizing how baldly we have been duped. A recent Rasmussen poll even showed that more Americans support marijuana legalization than believe that the government “stimulus plan” will actually help the economy.

But what choice do we parents have? If we tell our kids the truth about drugs, we will be censured and contradicted by the state and by the government schools. We could even be charged with child abuse, if we live up to what we really believe.

And then there’s the true risk of using drugs, which could not continue without the propoganda, not the risk of the drugs themselves, but of the ass-fuckers who stand behind and enforce drug prohibition. Cops are still able to pad their budgets using asset forfeiture laws. They commonly terrorize innocent people who have nothing to do with drugs. And you as a parent are at risk for what your kids do, for example, if your kid tries a drug like marijuana. Writes one mother whose home was terrorized in a government paramilitary raid in Carrol County, Maryland, in which 16 SWAT-goon dickheads waved loaded M-16 assault rifles at her family, handcuffed, including her pre-teen son:

We have since learned that over 100 of these warrants have been issued by the judges here in Carroll County during the past year. Apparently if your son or daughter is arrested with even a trace of marijuana in Carroll County, they will follow up and issue a warrant based on one officer’s belief that the person will abuse the drug again. We have now heard horror stories of other families just like ours that have also been traumatized in much the same way.

(Click here to read the whole story.)

Now, I don’t know if there have really been over 100 similar warrants issued. Thanks as usual to Radley Balko for doing the legwork and confirming this woman’s story, at least the part about the raid on her home. And even though she might have a reason to exaggerate the extent of the tragedy, her story does sound reasonable to me, because governments frequently issue no-knock warrants en masse, to “clean up” the drug problem. (Funny that they never seem to succeed, huh?)

Radley Balko responds:

I cringe when I hear the phrase “police state,” because it’s so often overused. But to be honest, I’m not sure how I’d argue to this woman that she doesn’t live in one. Two misdemeanor pot charges against a kid who no longer lives at home, and they send the paramilitary squad barreling into his parents’ house in the middle of the night.

This is exactly the situation I find myself in. Yes, I know. It’s easy to overuse the term “police state,” because there is no precise definition of what makes a “police state.” Police-statism operates on a sliding scale between freedom and terror. But like Radley, I’ve also been bombarded with stories like this for too many years, and it breaks my heart and infuriates my sense of justice. I cannot help but believe that we do live—in some sense—in a police state, when government officials perform acts of violence, under the color of law, against innocents, with impunity, and are even sometimes rewarded for it, because they commit these acts in fulfillment of their duties of upholding the law.

Such is not the standard of justice that fosters a prosperous and peaceable society.

Always watching!
-TimK

America's Conscience, Lost and Found

TimK — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 13:33:15 -0800

A selection of news stories from the previous week. (Follow the links embedded in the following summaries to read more detailed news stories about each case.)

Lost: Thanks to Radley Balko’s dogged investigations, we now have the video evidence that shows Steven Hayne and Michael West falsifying evidence in Jimmie Duncan’s case, video that prosecutors originally refused to turn over to Duncan’s lawyers, video that the trial judge had inexplicably ruled contained “no exculpatory evidence favorable to the defendant.” There’s no telling how many innocent people have been harmed by Hayne and West, because even though the Missippi government has downgraded their trust in the alleged perjurers, officials still refuse to acknowledge there may have been a serious problem and refuse to review the many cases the duo worked on. Hayne in fact is still giving testimony in Missippi courts. (See also Rogier van Bakel’s post on the case and Radley Balko’s update.)

Found: The Dallas County, TX district attorney’s office is reviewing dozens of cases filed by a particular group of officers, after evidence suggests they may have lied in order to convict a man. None of the officers has been accused of any criminal misconduct, and they all remain on regular duty. However, still reeling from a scandal in 2001, in which fake drugs were planted on dozens of innocent people by police informants, the D.A. is clearly trying to make good on this case. (Or at least to look like he’s making good.)

Lost: Missouri Judge Richard Callahan chastised prosecutor Kenny Hulshof for withholding exculpatory evidence and presenting evidence that was clearly false in a case that sent Joshua Kezer to prison for 17 years. Judge Callahan ordered Kezer released, but Hulshof stated that he is still “confident in the jury’s verdict.” Radley Balko notes that Hulshof will likely suffer little from this incident, just “a few days of bad press. Kezer will certainly never see a dime from Hulshof, thanks to the absolute immunity afforded to prosecutors—even in cases where they knowingly withhold exculpatory evidence… As Hulshof’s own career trajectory shows, a string of high-profile convictions can launch a promising career in politics and, in Hulshof’s case, the lifetime lucre that comes with having once held federal office… Every incentive points to winning convictions at any cost, and there’s rarely any personal or professional sanction for cheating.”

Found: The police of Murfreesboro, TN decommissioned officer Finess Brown after his wife accused him of assaulting her. The incident is still under investigation. But kudos to the Murfreesboro police department for taking this charge seriously, because we don’t need potentially violent hotheads protecting our streets.

Lost: In Seattle, WA, Lt. Donnie Lowe was given a prestigious assignment, helping to guard President Obama, with Chief Gil Kerlikowske, after his drunk-driving arrest. Some officers believe that if Lowe had been a rank-and-file officer, he would have been reassigned or barred from such a prestigious mission. This after Lowe reportedly “has in recent years garnered internal disciplinary records for incidents that include a controversial arrest and striking his own son while the teenager was in a police holding cell. In the latter case, Lowe, who was off duty, was found to have used his authority to gain access to the cell, yet he did not receive harsh discipline.”

Found: In Cle Elum, WA, Officer Shayne Poole was arrested for drunk driving after he went off the road and into a ditch. Police Chief Scott Ferguson said that “Poole is no longer employed with CEPD.”

Always watching!
-TimK

Late-breaking Government Opinion on Polygraph Privacy

TimK — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 07:00:00 -0800

Via AntiPolygraph.org News: Just before the dawn of President-elect Obama’s reign, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Steven G. Bradbury has issued a late legal opinion contradicting an anti-polygraph memorandum from President Lyndon B. Johnson. Yes, you read that right: LBJ.

LBJ’s memo states, “I am convinced that action is necessary to prevent unwarranted intrusions into the privacy of individuals. Hereafter, use of the polygraph is prohibited with the following limited exceptions…” The memo then goes on to describe 3 classes of use and how the government must be restricted in using the polygraph in each.

Bradbury’s late-breaking opinion is now that LBJ’s memo “does not now bind the Department of Justice or other entities within the Executive Branch.”

LBJ assumed that polygraph results were valid. His concern was privacy. He didn’t want the government to be able to read peoples’ minds against their wills. But we now know that polygraphy and other forms of lie detection don’t actually work as their proponents claim. A 2002 study by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that the polygraph’s “accuracy in distinguishing actual or potential security violators from innocent test takers is insufficient to justify reliance on its use in employee security screening in federal agencies.”

This makes sense, because polygraphy bears more a resemblance to a mind-reading magic trick than to actual science. I recently mused that lie detection would make a great subject for an episode of Penn & Teller: Bullshit!.

AntiPolygraph.org News notes:

It is not clear why Bradbury, who last year testified before Congress against all evidence and reason that waterboarding is not torture, has issued such a legal opinion at this late stage. Nor is it clear what this opinion may portend for future polygraph policy.

Maybe Bradbury is just trying to make his mark, as a lame-duck Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General.

Or maybe he’s hoping to give the Obama administration an excuse to increase the power of the federal government over the people, and blame it on the Bush administration. After all, Eric Holder, Obama’s choice for Attorney General, when he was Deputy Attorney General under Clinton, reportedly “removed a US Attorney and his assistant US Attorney from any civil or criminal proceedings related to Waco because they dared to ask questions about the possibility of a cover-up, proposed more stringent penalties for terrorizing and jailing medical marijuana users, played a key role in the terror kidnapping of Elian Gonzalez, aspired to clamp down on the free Internet by imposing ’reasonable restrictions,’” and now he’s talking about prohibiting people from using a gun to defend themselves from criminals in their own homes. (In case you think I’m exaggerating, a quote from the article: “ban on the use of any firearm for self-defense in the home.”)

Always watching!
-TimK

The Power of the Child Warden to Destroy Families

TimK — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 07:00:00 -0800

The Orwellian term is “Child Protective Services,” or something similar. After all, who could possibly be against protecting children? Or “service”? But as it frequently is with government agencies, maybe a different term would be more accurate. Maybe: “Child Paternalism Services.”

Stephen. C. Smith describes what happens after the Maine DHHS serves you with a “substantiation” notice:

Prior to a few years ago… the Department would require the subject of the letter not to have contact with children—even their own natural children who were not subject to any allegations. (I.e. a man accused of sexual contact with a 15 year old unrelated girl might be prohibited from living with his 3 year old son or his natural teenage daughter.) There would not need to be a court order, because the prohibition would be phrased in such a way that if the “suggestion” were not followed, the Department would seek an ex parte court order snatching the children and placing them in a foster home…

[Today, however, the individual] can appeal to an internal DHHS hearing… Surprisingly, I have had some success at this level. A recent case consisted solely of the allegation that my client, a foster grandfather figure, had sexually molested his “grandaughter” based on the statement by the 4 year old that “pop-pop took a rat out of my butt with rat clippers.” Based on this nonsensical statement and absolutely no other evidence, my client was substantiated through the hearing officer level…

((Click here to read the whole post.))

He sums up: “Often the clients find themselves in some additional trouble, they give up or they run out of money.”

So… Partly an encouraging story, partly discouraging.

The lesson remains, however: Just because a government stooge tells you he’s “for the children,” don’t assume that he really is for the children. Government is not run by saints. It’s run by ordinary sinners, like you and me, except that they have also been saddled with power. It’s never really “for the children.” It’s for the people exercising the power, to make them feel like they’re doing something worthwhile, or at least something that satisfies them. Because of this immutable law of human nature, unchecked power to “protect” children will almost certainly harm children and rip apart their families.

Always watching!
-TimK

P.S. Here in Massachusetts, it’s called the Department of Social Services, or the “DSS.” It’s that SS on the end that makes me think this one might be aptly named.