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In MN, Massive Police Raids On Suspected Protestors
X0563511 alerts us to events in Minneapolis and St. Paul in advance of the Republican convention (which has been put on hold because of Hurricane Gustav). Local police backed by the FBI raided a number of homes and public buildings and confiscated computers and other material. From Salon.com: "Last night, members of the St. Paul police department and the Ramsey County sheriff's department handcuffed, photographed and detained dozens of people meeting at a public venue to plan a demonstration, charging them with no crime other than 'fire code violations,' and early this morning, the Sheriff's department sent teams of officers into at least four Minneapolis area homes where suspected protesters were staying. Jane Hamsher and I were at two of those homes this morning — one which had just been raided and one which was in the process of being raided." Here is local reporting from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune: "Aided by informants planted in protest groups, authorities raided at least six buildings across St. Paul and Minneapolis to stop an 'anarchist' plan to disrupt this week's Republican National Convention. From Friday night through Saturday afternoon, officers surrounded houses, broke down doors, handcuffed scores of people and confiscated suspected tools of civil disobedience ... A St. Paul City Council member described it as excessive, while activists, many of whom were detained and then released without charges, called it intimidation designed to quash free speech."
FUCK THE POLICE!
... this is how you START them. This coming from someone from Seattle who lived on Capitol Hill during the WTO riots and had police overreact and create a situation when none existed.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
In Soviet Russia, you didn't have the right to peaceful assembly or to travel without showing your papers.
I wish there was a joke I could make here.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Stuff like this really makes me sad. Just 20 or 30 years ago, demonstrations could get out of hand, but I think that is part of free speech. Now, any speech off script by either party is squashed as if it was soviet russia. Maybe mrs mccain should rethink the trip to georgia she just took. Maybe instead of taking democracy around the world, we could start by re-invigorating freedom here at home. I'm afraid to predict the next 20 or 30 years. I'm sure it will include many cameras, microphones, drone planes and fear.
And the sheriff's office, and the FBI, and DHS, and ICE, and the mainstream media, and us...
Yep, us too. Every US citizen bears some responsibility. We should demand media coverage of these obvious civil rights violations, these people aren't violent anarchists, they are citizens protesting the government. We should demand a police force that upholds the law instead of subverting it. We should elect the leaders who will do the most to protect our civil rights.
We've been tolerating this kind of behavior since 9/11 out of fear. It's time to admit to ourselves that we overreacted to the events of 9/11 and allowed our government to trash our civil rights in the name of protecting us.
We let fascists take our country from us in the name of making a 'war on terror.'
Vote. Email or write your local, state and federal representatives. Email local and national news. Protest.
Thank you Dave Raggett
The police have a higher standard to hold to because they're the professionals. If they can't follow the law then they have no business enforcing it.
I mean I don't want to barge ahead. We only read the accounts of one side, but if it is even remotly true the US of A is far from being a free country. Why would the police even want to intimidate people that way? Only if there was a political reason. Semi-random police brutality is one thing, but the report looks like those were fairly large scale orchestrated moves by the police to influence politics. When the police stops working as law enforcment and starts working for a political party how far is that from a banana republic?
And then the W guy comes up and talks about spreading democracy in the middle east? How about spreading it in Minneapolis?
Transportation Troubles - This includes blockades downtown (at key intersections), on bridges (10 bridges over the Mississippi River in the metro area), and other sporadic and strategic targets (busses, hotel and airport shuttles etc)."
Nothing like annoying thousands of people who are late getting to work to convince them that your cause is just.....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
In my experience, hearing just one side of a story almost always leaves out important facts.
Before we go apeshit, shouldn't we maybe get the government's / police's side of the story?
I'm not saying that nothing bad happened here, just that until we know (or at least give an opportunity to be voiced) both sides of the story, we're really flying blind.
There were protests at the convention. One involved a bunch of veterans pulling a publicity stunt by blocking access to the convention. One of the spokespeople said they were hoping they could incite a response and prove that democrats did not care about veterans. In the end, the ringleader was allowed in to talk to an Obama staff member. You see that is what civilized people do. Talk out their grievances. When you over react and begin to violate civil rights, you simply prove that the corruption and greed they are protesting against is real. This is why the KKK is allowed to wander around aimlessly and harmlessly on city streets. They just want to start something, and blame the other guy. The protestors, like the terrorist, have won. The republican party has proven itself a bunch of whiners, unable to cope with the real world.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
They might have refused because they didn't want the person on whom they were serving a warrant to call up their lawyer and have him hover over the officers' shoulder to make sure they didn't overstep the bounds of the warrant.
TOUGH SHIT.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Right, so what you're saying is that because it's not as bad as a century ago, it's OK? There was also a point where not actively following the state's religion would get you killed. That doesn't make today's religious hysteria acceptable, even if it's not as bad relatively speaking (though it seems we're headed back in that direction).
Please get out of the country now, for everyone's sake.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
If you have a house full of people waiting to protest and the toilet backs up, where else are you gonna go?
Also possessing buckets of urine, slingshots, bows 'n arrows, and guns is perfectly legal (or was the gun illegally registered, or otherwise illegal?) Certainly there are plenty of illegal things you can do with all of the above items, but unless there is actual evidence that crimes were to be committed with the items, simply having them isn't a crime.
So at this point it looks like we just have to wait and see what evidence comes to light, including a reasonable explanation of why there were informants in the groups to begin with.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Your comment made me laugh, it really did. Go look at the civil liberties raped over and over by both sides during the American Civil War or during the First World War in the US, then compare/contrast to the current "erosion" of civil liberties.
You're a tool in every sense of the word. It's 'enablers' like you that try to justify every wrongful action. Who cares if it was worse a century ago, who cares if Mexico is worse. The only reason we're better NOW is because we iterated towards a better society.
How exactly is defending this going to make the world a better place? Indifference is the enemy of progress and you're worse. You're a piece of garbage weighted around the ankle of positive change.
I'm talking about the political and legal history of the United States since 1860. Compared to the American Civil War, the First World War and the Second World War, the crackdown on civil rights has been tame, compared to the dangerous faced with new asymmetrical weapons and tactics.
Two wrongs don't make a right. Just because what happened before was worse doesn't make this ok.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Well, I dunno where you pee when your plumbing is shot, but my neighbor got really pissed last time I used his door, so please enlighten me what would be a more suitable receptacle for my waste than a bucket.
Aside of that, what are "these kind of rally groups"? What gives you the goddamn right to assume I'm going to be protesting violently just because someone else has in the past? If I did, ok. It is under some circumstances allright to assume that I may protest violently again if I did in the past. To issue the recommendation back at you, RTFM. Nobody ever had any problem with those college kids whose houses were raided. So what visionary powers give you the idea that they would be?
Oh. Right. "these kinds of rally groups" are always like that. Ain't stereotyping fun? It saves the thinking.
IF they get violent, arrest them. Until then, I cannot see any good reason to use the force that was used.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You'll find those and other items in many houses. A quick glance through my apartment revealed the following suspicious substances and items:
Very sharp knives longer than 5 inches (I cook)
Precursors for biological weapons (I cook with very hot spices, good enough for pepper spray)
Nerve toxins (I smoke and drink coffee)
Percursors for explosives (aspirin)
Precursors for drugs (acetone)
Information and tools to invade computer systems (I work in IT security)
Dispensers for aerosols (my deodorant bottle)
Highly aggressive chemicals (toilet cleaner)
Camoflage kit (shoe polish)
Rubber gloves (I hate to touch my toilet without, especially with the cleaner involved)
Equipment to create an electronic bomb timer (welding gun and a few ATMegas)
Hydrogen peroxide (I wear contact lenses)
Drug containers (plastic bags and tin foil)
Equipment to create pamphlets and other propaganda material (I have a printer for my computer)
Equipment to remotely detonate an exposive device (I fly RC planes)
Heavy metals (lead, to balance out the planes)
Need I go on?
You will find a similar collection of "highly suspicious and potentially dangerous" items and "equipment" in many homes. There mere existance doesn't prove anything.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
How in the hell can you say it's "Republican bashing"?? This is illegal activity by the authorities! No matter whose "side" it is on!
What the hell is wrong with you?
The problem comes in where protesters make a disruption at the event (usually during the middle of a speech). This seems to be an effort to stop that kind of activity.
Where is there any evidence anything illegal was planned? Or is this going to be an "oops, we made a mistake" after the convention is over?
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
And compared to Joe Stalin, Jeffrey Dahmer was a piker at murder. Your point?
I'll also note that WWI and WWII were actual declared wars. We are not in a state of war with any nation at the moment.
More people die from drowning every year than were killed on 9/11; to claim that we face a terrorist danger necessitating that we abandon our civil liberties is ridiculous.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
So aircraft flying into some of the tallest buildings on Earth, and one flying to the largest office building on Earth and leaving 3,000 dead is an "idea"?
No, that isn't a war. That's a CRIME. Like a bank robbery or somebody going off to kill everybody in the local school or church or post office. Like, for that matter, Timothy McVeigh and his buddies. Oh, make no mistake, it was a horrific crime. One even more effective that the Japanese subway gas attacks. I assure you that I take no pleasure in being in the World Trade Center Health Registry, like all the tens of thousands of us who still don't know how much damage those attacks did to us.
But it was not an act of war. Especially since even if we want to blame the Taliban, most of the world's governments, including our own, were loudly proclaiming that they weren't the legitimate government of Afghanistan even before 9/11.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
Women still don't get equal pay for equal work
and from the other side, men still pay 25% more on average for medical, life, and auto insurance, and are treated in the media like emotionless "things" to be leeched from and divested in divorces of half their assets as a business.
The sexism cuts both ways.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
(In reply to a low-scored comment many may not see:)
One more time: MOST of these last 8 years, the Republicans were in charge of both the White House and Congress. Trying to say that the Democrats are to blame "too" just doesn't hold water. THEY had the controls; it does not do any good to try to blame someone else.
And despite "rebate" checks, if you are an average American your taxes went UP during this Republican administration, not down.
"Pesonal citizen freedoms have not changed." ??? How do you try to justify this outrageous claim??? I am not the one smoking crack here, dude. It's easy enough to say (as you do more than once) that someone else does not have a clue, but you are supplying no clues of your own. In fact I really don't think it is me who is demonstrating lack of clues here. Please come back and chime in some day, AFTER you have done your research.
Gun - Legal (and quite normal) if you have the papers
Knife - Legal (in a private residence)
Bow and arrows - Legal
Flammable liquids - Legal
Paint - Legal
Slingshots - Legal
Rocks - legal
Buckets of Urine - Legal (odd, but Legal)
So they had this stuff in a private residence, all of it legal, and ....
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
Your making a mountain out of a mole hill just because coincidence supports your opposition.
I know it is easy and fun to do but your ignoring a lot of things like this isn't the first time something like this has happened. It has happened under Bush, Clinton, and the three presidents before him. It was increased after Reagan was shot and this type of activity was seen as a real threat. When a cop car was torched in California, they became a lot more proactive then reactive. Taking ancillary information and attempting to pursue a point of grand conspiracy is often what makes conspiracy nuts look like the NUT case that lends their name.
The bottom line is that cops-officials were able to infiltrate these groups and after learning of intended wrong doing, they waited until they started putting plans together and swooped in. It doesn't really matter who the part in power it or who the governor is at this point. Someone's right to protest does not include the ability to disrupt an event or cause physical damage to anyone or their property. "or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." does not infer damaging someone's property or attempting to take their free speech away. Something I have never understood is when people claim the speech is such a protected point that they have the right to stop others from using it. The constitution clearly says that no rights inferred or protected by the constitution shall be used to deny others of their rights of the same. But somehow, these groups manage to think their right to free speech means they have a right to stop someone else from their speech and when they are stopped in their tracks, they have people like you buffaloed into thinking some grievous infringement has occurred. It's simply amazing.