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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.
Were they planning on doing something illegal? I doubt it.
In the house that had just been raided, those inside described how a team of roughly 25 officers had barged into their homes with masks and black swat gear, holding large semi-automatic rifles, and ordered them to lie on the floor, where they were handcuffed and ordered not to move. The officers refused to state why they were there and, until the very end, refused to show whether they had a search warrant. They were forced to remain on the floor for 45 minutes while the officers took away the laptops, computers, individual journals, and political materials kept in the house. One of the individuals renting the house, an 18-year-old woman, was extremely shaken as she and others described how the officers were deliberately making intimidating statements such as "Do you have Terminator ready?" as they lay on the floor in handcuffs.
I don't call this freedom.
Isn't that what they blamed stuff on pre-WW I? What kill the kaiser think? God help us if Ferdinand is shot!
meh
seeing as all the same senior politicians in the WH today are the very same ones that where there in Nixons goverment, they just slinked into the background in the 60's hoping you would forget their names and misdeeds
and it worked ! except they are back with more vigor
torture, wiretaps, harrasing political groups, removing civil liberties, wiretapping
the list is endless and so it seems the Americans patience as they dont want to do a damm thing about it
a single clip could sort out a lot of troubles in this world
Personally I'm surprised that, upon finding "buckets of urine" that the police decided to take it with 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.
Could the fact that we didn't see such an article about last weeks DNC be because there wasn't anybody bothering to protest? HBO's Real Time had footage from the "Free Speech Zone" in Denver which had more kids on bikes than protesters.
The officers refused to state why they were there and, until the very end, refused to show whether they had a search warrant.
Now, I have only the same information you do, probably less. But the quote above seems to indicate that they actually did have a search warrant.
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
From: http://www.nornc.org/
This isn't a peaceful assembly if you ask me:
"How we get there (the strategy):
1. Start Strong - Throw all of our energy into the first day. We'll kick this off right and stretch the militarized police state out so far that it can no longer contain and suppress our voices and desires.
2. 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)."
This is the group that the Star article describes as having been arrested.
Unfortunately, it will not be a PC thing to do considering the most folks believe that if yo do nothing wrong then you have nothing to worry about and the police are always right and never lie. I once actually tried to convince someone of this (stupid me) but he insisted that the cops are always right and always have a justifialble reason. I guess he saw too many cop TV shows where the cops are saints and the "bad guys" are always guilty.
If the lawyers get those folks acquitted, I'm sure the consensus will be that the sneaky, snarky, lying, greedy, lawyers got those dirtbags off because of a "technicality" and the poor innocent police who didn't have warrants or just cause are the victims.
Bottles are broken every single day.
I see a different broken window at local businesses at least once a month.
Those events do not cause riots.
They are "minor". They are resolved by arresting / fining the idiot(s) who did it.
I am also in Seattle.
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.
This happened in NY City in 2004 during the Republican Convention although the police waited until the convention had started. My brother was one of the thousands swept up in the sweeps the police did to clear protesters from the street. His lawsuit is still pending, most likely he will wind up with a nice settlement, but the goal was to get these "troublemakers" off the street and that was accomplished. The same marching orders are likely in effect for the Republican Convention this year, and by the time the lawsuits are settled in four years the next election will be on the horizon. Kind of depressing that the police can get away with this bs.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
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?
At least this gives us a textbook example for the good old "nothing to hide" misconception.
You can bet that a lot of illegal wiretaping was involved here to find the ringleaders, exactly like during the anit-vietnam protests. Also, note how they went straight for the computers: welcome to the world of "little brother"!
"- I've got nothing to hide!"
"- Then you agree with everything the government thinks. Oh, and the Church of Scientology, too."
(alternate: "- Then you don't have a political life")
Don't take my posts literally; it's just code to control my botnet.
It obviously doesn't.
But consider this : in order for Those In Power to keep their power, they have to do a number of things;
1) Subvert the Constitution - because it gets in the way of their plans.
2) Create an atmosphere of Fear - this is accomplished in a number of ways;
a) Create more criminals - this is done by adding lots of laws.
b) Engineer situations where you can create enough world tension that eventually you can say you
are in a permanent state of "war".
3) Dumb the people down - again, this can be accomplished in a number of ways;
a) Culturally - dumb down the Press, TV
b) Educationally - dumb down the system.
What you have seen is the use of point 2)(a) in that basically They Can Get You For Anything if you do something
to disrupt their plans.
Welcome, America, to your Police State.
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.
Does anyone get the feeling this has all happened before, then laws were enacted to stop it, then Bush was elected and said laws were repealed?
According to KSTP: "The sheriff's office said it confiscated weapons on Saturday including a machete, hatchet and several throwing knives, empty glass bottles, rags and flammable liquids, homemade devices used to disable buses, metal pipes, axes, bolt cutters, sledge hammers, empty plastic buckets made into shields, an Army helmet, and large amounts of urine." http://kstp.com/article/stories/S561752.shtml?cat=1
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Transportation Troubles...
Sounds like a Critical Mass rally.
Government arrests people for planning to speak in public
Sounds like some other headlines I've seen recently:
Severe pollution in Minneapolis is expected to hamper the Convention
John McCain alleged to be 14 years old, not 72 as claimed
This is how we do it in a civilised country
Note the quote from the police - Police said despite the massive traffic disruption on the motorway, the man had the right to protest peacefully.
Bob
Listen to my latest album here
"Well a couple of brain dead anarchists breaking windows and throwing bottles does not create a riot."
Anyone that says the Seattle rioters (PRIOR TO the police response) were just "a few brain dead anarchists" are at best misinformed, or worse, utterly full of shit. Everyone from Greenpeace to Earth First planned "direct action" in Seattle, and lots of violence was on the menu for the Earth First types. The cops may have overreacted, but lets can this BS meme that the cops were overreacting to a handful of rowdy boys. There were people that had planned violent activities for weeks prior to those meetings, and they were certainly more than a handful. Furthermore, once they got started, the crowd seemed plenty eager to join in the festivities... including things like busting up every Starbucks and McDonalds they could find.
Don't pretend it was a bunch of naive innocents vs. the gestapo.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
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.
What has gone on for the last eight years is nothing compared to what happened in the past. How many languages have been outlawed in the last 8 years? None, go back to the teens, the government did the equivalent of making Spanish outlawed when the German language was all but criminalized.
In 1918, these 'anarchists' would be getting deportation hearings right now, even if US citizens or born here.
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.
Well they DID ban French fries for a while.
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?
Looks like someone forgot to read the first addition to The Constitution...
I very much hope to see someone very publicly hauled in front of a judge over this. Even if they were all let go, breaking up this assembly was itself a violation of the First Amendment.
Trampling on and interpreting laws nowadays isn't too hard to get away with, but direct violations of amendments are still a good deal more difficult to slither out of.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
The /. summary kind of cherry-picks the bits that it mentions. If you read the Star-Tribune article, you'll note that the protesters had buckets of urine at the ready, in addition to the slingshots, bow and arrows, and gun that police seized. It's pretty clear that whatever protest these people were planning was going to go beyond peaceful words, unless someone has a better (serious) explanation for the buckets of urine.
It also notes that these informants were working on the inside of the protest groups for quite some time, to minimize any doubt that these folks were up to no good. So, in other words, the cops were doing their job, and Slashdot has, in typical form, made it some sort of repression of the proletariat by the current administration.
You think your wish not to be disrupted should trump the right given by the constitution to peaceful assembly
Keyword: peaceful assembly. Blocking traffic is just about the textbook definition of disturbing the peace and/or disorderly conduct, i.e.: disturbing the rights of your neighbors to be left the hell alone. It's called the public order and it's generally one of the things that society demands from the Government.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
You, sir are full of shit.
No, but the police, FBI, sheriff, etc. ARE part of the government. I didn't mention the RNC once in my post.
So what? Being an anarchist is not a crime. If you read TFA, you'd note that no search warrants were given, and that they were charged with 'conspiracy to riot.' I said they were not violent anarchists, in the sense that they were NOT planning violence or rioting.
I know that's not in TFA. Please cite a source. If you do not, then, well...
Thank you Dave Raggett
And who's this mysterious "Gustav" character? An old-school anarchist's name if I ever heard one. Where're the feds when you need them for that kind of violent protest?
SO you are saying we should simply ignore a foundation of our government?
Good-bye
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?
Correction.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
First they came for the protestors. Then they came for the hackers. Then they came for the geeks. Then they came for the engineers.
Hic iacet Arthurus, rex quondam rexque futurus.
If, instead of a machete and some throwing knives, they police an automatic rifle and a NRA membership card, the protesters would be True American Patriots(tm), right?
And pretty please explain to me why it's illegal to have pvc pipes, chicken wire and duct tape.
Why do some people continue to believe every bit of crap (ha, a pun) that comes from the police or Prosecutors? I heard the 'buckets' were from a guy who had no plumbing. Oh - you know when they characterize someone as having porn? Often times it's that old Playboy Magazine collection. It's the job of Police and Prosecutors to CYA -Cover your a**. And they are good at it. Some of you folks who call religious people gullible will just sit there and peep like hungry chicks when some authority figure in a suit and tie tells you all manner of BS.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
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.
Everyone should read his blog. It's amazing... covers lots of civil-liberties-related stuff like this. http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
The right to assembly for redress of grievances is protected in the First Amendment. The right of protection from search and seizure without a warrant* is protected in the 4th. Are they so afraid of these protesters making them look bad to the GOP that they went and preemptively shut them down? Was this a botched strategy to make the Democratic convention look like the Los Angeles riots?
What are they thinking, that they can nab these people for some arbitrary thought-crime? The most severe crime they will be able to charge them with is conspiracy. Even with a boatload of evidence, I doubt the local or federal prosecutors will be willing to bring this to court now that it's out in the open.
* I realize they probably had warrants for search and arrest, but planting moles inside groups of your critics gives your critics hundreds of witnesses and evidence. They also are running the risk that some of their moles will become turncoats and whistle-blowers on them-- not likely, since cops look out for their own 99% of the time.
"We are Microsoft. You shall be assimilated. Competition is futile."
The "Free Speech Zone" has been moved to somewhere on the Michigan-Wisconsin border.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
In February 2002, the World Economic Forum was held in New York City, and I planned to (and did) protest it. The alter-globalization movement had been protesting these things for years. New York newspaper headlines screamed that "anarchists" had better not come to NYC and cause trouble with the WTC still smoking and all of the claptrap. What made it even more nonsensical is it hadn't been planned for an NYC meeting, Giuliani had convinced them to move the meeting to NYC after 9/11/01, despite knowing the WEF always brought out massive demonstrations since evil types like Bill Gates always hobnobbed at such events. So working to bring a demonstration magnet to NYC after 9/11, and then decrying that there demonstrators would bother New Yorkers still grieving from 9/11 sounded a little hollow.
Anyhow, a friend of mine suggested we go to a building in New York called ABC No Rio. They are a "progressive community space" type of place they have art shows there, live bands, a progressive/zine library, a feed the poor group Food Not Bombs and that type of thing. Anyhow we went in and they were organizing a demonstration. I should point out I had never been there and my friend had rarely been there, we were just nearby and at the spur of the moment he wanted to see if a friend of his was there.
I should also point out that of all the progressive demonstrations in the US in the past twenty years, I can't recall an instance of physical violence against someone. There may have been one or more cases, but I can't think of any. A handful of way-out folks smashed windows in Seattle, burned down some new unoccupied houses in a new housing development somewhere out west and the like, and in the case of the latter a massive federal investigation sent some of those people to jail. So one has to question the need for a massive federal "monitoring" of progressive groups is needed for. Especially considering the history of these things - Nixon had a bunch of burglars break into the Democratic Party election headquarters, the FBI used these extraordinary powers granted to it to interfere in the political sphere - stating as a goal the need to stop a "black messiah" from arising, which including bugging Martin Luther King Jr. and leaking tapes they made of him to the press, particularly extra-marital affairs. When Warsaw Pact secret police did such things in their countries, it was decried as tyranny here - when our secret police work to dismantle organization of African-American and progressive people (as the FBI did, Google COINTELPRO), it is soon forgotten and you hear the need for the PATRIOT Act and the like giving power to the same people who abused it for political purposes before.
Anyhow me and my friend leave ABC No Rio. We hail a taxi and go about half a mile to Greenwich Village. My friend wants to go to a bar he went to a few months before, but can't find it. Anyhow, he realizes we are headed in the exact opposite direction than we should be, so we both do a 180 degree turn and start walking the way we had been coming. A man in his late 40s who looks very out of place for Greenwich Village on a Friday night was about 10 meters behind us. He sees us loop around and then has a look in his eye for a second, and then he also spins around and walks the other way. All things considered, especially his facial reaction when we both did a sudden 180 and began walking towards him, I know as sure as the sky is blue that he was following us, and that he was following us because we had gone into ABC No Rio. ACLU lawsuits and that type of thing after the WEF protests, and after the Republican National Convention talked about the extent of the surveillance, and fortified in my mind what I already instinctively knew was true. What scared me was the extent of the surveillance. I would dislike, but would not be as alarmed by them monitoring who went in and out of that building (where nothing was even happening! Except for planning a legal political demonstration that even the AFL-CIO was protesting in). But to follow two guys across New York City, through cab rides, on foot, who had very little to do with even organizing the demonstration much less doing anything violent during it, spooked me.
But this isn't a war time, we're fighting an idea. You can't have a war against terrorism more than you can have a war against the dark. What do you fight?
You can't justify this as war time on the scale of the civil war or WWII
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
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 US civil war had concentration camps (both sides equally and wretchedly, little to no rations meaning starvation, no clothes or shelter winter or summer,just whatever uniforms they were caught in that soon turned to rags, and that's it, disease was rampant, etc) and a lot of generic genocide involved with it, especially the rape of the south, Sherman burned everything, farms, cities, he didn't care, total war as he went, he burned and hung. And both sides used what weapons they had extensively. The only reason they didn't use poison gas is it wasn't invented yet. The weaponry though was still horrific, and medical care started out with no pain killers and went downhill from there. Causalities, direct battle deaths or later on from injuries and disease, was around 600,000 for a combined around 4.5 million soldiers. For comparison, WW1 - 115,000 US deaths, WW2 400,000.
The US civil war was a *big deal* not to be discounted as some little popgun war.
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?
Although the police are required to _have_ a search warrant, they are not required to show it to you. See this article I agree this sucks, but such is the current state of US law.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
The Ba'athist parties are about all thats left of that classical Socialist-Fascism
And guess who supported Saddam and the Ba'athists in Iraq in the 1980s? Republican presidents Reason and Bush Sr. Guess who was on Bush's staff or is now on Jr's staff who helped Saddam? Here are some photos of Rumsfeld and Saddam together. They're shaking hand like old pals. At first Secretary of State Cheney also supported Saddam during Bush Sr's term in office. Support for Saddam only ended after he invaded Kuwait who, Saddam had accused of and was later verified, was slant drilling into Iraq to pump Iraqi oil as if it was Kuwaiti oil. Before his invasion of Kuwait Saddam could do no wrong no matter how many people he used chemical weapons against.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
First, the Democratic and Republican National Conventions this year are in VERY different places. Did you consider that perhaps the attitude of the police in Minneapolis might be just a LITTLE different than that of the police in Denver? In fact, I can just about guarantee that they are.
Not to mention the attitude of the FBI. The FBI, after all, has demonstrably adopted the attitude of the governing administration over the last 8 years. It is to be expected that if the FBI overreact, it will be in regard to the Republican convention, not the Democratic. Thus, bias is built into the system by the very people who complain about the "offenses".
Second, if you really, honestly, wonder why Republicans have been bashed so much lately, maybe you should consider the fact that a great many (a majority, in fact) of the American people are PISSED OFF at the Republican Party over the outrageous botch job they have made of our government over that same 8 years.
Do not misunderstand me! I am NOT a Democrat! But any person who pretends to possess some objectivity about the matter MUST admit that the Republicans have gone a very long way to make a hash out of what used to honestly be a perfectly decent democratic republic form of government. They have botched literally everything: foreign policy; domestic social policy; privacy; "the war on terrorism" (what a joke); "the war on drugs" -- an even bigger joke; fiscal policy; education; the economy; taxes; and the personal freedoms of the citizens of this country. Not ONE of those areas is better off today than it was when Bush took office. Not one. And during most of those 8 years they were IN CONTROL over not only the white house but Congress as well.
THERE IS NO EXCUSE. There is nobody to blame. The Republicans have f*cked things up so badly that I despair of things returning to normal within my lifetime.
Once again: I am not a Democrat, and I do NOT trust Democrats to fix everything. But that has NO bearing on whether the Republicans messed things up. They did. Badly, and big time.
The argument that things have been worse at other times in our history won't wash. All of those things were BETTER, 8 years ago. Period. And the Republicans literally have nobody to blame.
So before you go accusing people of discriminating or acting preferentially against Republicans, you should ask yourself: "Do they have legitimate REASONS for doing what they do?"
You might find, if you are honest with yourself, that the answer is "yes".
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
Your comment made me laugh ... [rambling nonsense omitted] ...
What makes me laugh is that America still calls itself the "Land of the Free" *snicker* and the "Home of the Brave" *guffaw*. You appear to be neither from over here. I'll probably be modded as flamebait or a troll for this, but really, after reading these types of articles again and again what else are we supposed to think?
I wouldn't care except that I am a citizen of the "Free World" and America styles itself as the "Leader of the Free World". What the fuck is up with that? Maybe we should vote on it; you Americans are okay with voting, right? Even if it means you might lose?
That's what I thought.
But, there's a very fine line between preempting a crime, and just shutting up people you don't agree with.
No there is not. The police do not exist to preempt crime; that is not their purpose in any free society. The police exist to enforce the law when and ONLY when it has already been violated.
Welcome to the United Oligarchy of America. You've been here for 8 years already.
Their job is to follow procedure and not overstep the bounds of their warrant.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
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.
Really? What country do you live in?
I live in one where the black prison population per capita is six times higher than for whites, and the poverty rate for black children is more than twice that for white children. Racial profiling ("driving while black") remains a pervasive problem. Women still don't get equal pay for equal work, and efforts to criminalize abortion - and even birth control - continue apace.
Are things better than they were in this regard 100 years ago? Sure. But that's damning with faint praise.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
The US is not fighting a war?
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 is a tacit act of war.
War is between nations, this was a majorly bad criminal act perpetuated by some people with an agenda.
Saying one can not fight "terrorism", in this case the fight is against Islamic-fascism, is like going back to 1942 and saying there can not be a war against fascism because that is like having a war against the dark.
The United Nations did have a war against an idea, from 1941-'45, and following that war, there wasn't much Imperial Fascism left in the world was there? National Socialism pretty much went away as did Japanese Imperialism. The Ba'athist parties are about all thats left of that classical Socialist-Fascism, and theres only one state left with that form of ruling government, Syria.
The United Nations didn't even exist until after the war. It was not a war against an idea. The war was started by Germany invading a sovereign country (Poland) and a good chunk of the world said no and declared war on Germany. Btw this was in 1939. The USA only declared war on Germany because Germany declared war on the USA. Read that again, America went to war because another country formally declared war on it. If the war was against an idea then Spain would of been invaded as they were also fascist yet Franco ruled till his death.
And the fascists were about as much about socialism as N. Korea is about democracy. Just because they have the word in their name means nothing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
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.
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There was an informant inside this organization that told authorities what was planned.
Here's a link about your informants: "Moles wanted". Informants only get paid if an arrest is made. Let's see, I'm a mole and I know if the info I give doesn't lead to an arrest do I tell the truth or do I lie?
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I worked with a group of kids when I was in my teens one Summer. --You know, games and sports and arts & crafts and such. This one day, we made tie-dyed shirts.
Well the shirt I made turned out pretty good and I wore it for the whole afternoon and kind of forgot it was on me. Then after the kids all went off back home, me and a few of the other 'leaders' decided to head out for a movie and burgers and stuff. At the end of the evening, we all split off and I was on my way back home alone.
My opinion of humanity then began to plummet.
Taking public transit, I was getting all these freaked out looks. Everybody was acting as though they were scared of me. --I was used to being totally ignored, but people were really, really nervous. It was baffling. It happened not just with the occupants of one bus, but on another and on a train as well. I didn't work out it was the tie-dye shirt they were all reacting to until this one Stephen Colbert clone actually measured me up and down with an expression of abject, "Small-guy-on-his-first-day-in-prison" and then made a comment about the Grateful Dead being really cool in some kind of weird effort to. . , not get hurt by me? It was utterly unreal. I couldn't believe just how limited a set of lives people must lead in order to react in such a manner. As just a teen-ager, (back when I wasn't aware of politics in the slightest,) even I had worked out that hippies were the last form of political life you needed to back slowly away from.
I filed the incident away under, "Fear and Ignorance" for later reference and have dusted it off for you today.
-FL
I was going to accuse you of inaccurate quoting, but now I find (while writing my comment) that there are TWO articles: the one you link to and the one the summary links to, which I checked first. In the article I read first I found this:
Quote
The alleged urine[...] was actually three buckets, two of which contained dirty water used to flush toilets while conserving water. The third was seized from an illegal apartment occupied by someone not connected to the RNC protests. There was no bathroom in the illegal apartment and urine was collected in a bucket.
End quote
I haven't seen anything about coltraps or equipment for disabling buses in that one either. All I found was that
Quote
[The sheriff] displayed a number of the confiscated items: a gun, throwing knives, a bow and arrows, flammable liquids, paint, slingshots, rocks and buckets of urine.
End Quote
I have not enough time to read all of the article you link to (gotta go to work :-( ), but I find this interesting...
To be clear: I quoted from the linked article.
The weird thing is that the article you link to is on first sight
What person will donate an airborne act of love?
uh flamebait? lol.. me? why? oh boy.. that's too funny :)
people have a right to protest other peoples' allegiances.
Since the 60's the republican party has been about protecting corporate america and intolerant nutbags from individualism in any way shape or form, including the suppression of those annoying minorities, those lazy poor, and of course uppity people trying to point out the pools of molten rock formed from the friction of our forefathers spinning in their graves.
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you're right, you can't have it both ways and call it fair. You can't grant the republican party the right to hold a convention there, and deny activists the right to stand in the streets and protest it.
whether it's juvenile or not has nothing to do with it.
They have every right to piss and moan about their convention in the streets outside.
whether it's good form or not (a subjective viewpoint) is not in question here.
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How far does something have to be to the right to count for you? Law enforcement is bought and paid for and working for the people in power.
The FBI says: this.
ABC says this.
Do the police there have a history of unjustified assaults into houses and then trying to pretend that it's okay? Yes, they do.
Are there more police assaults not being mentioned here? Yes, there are. They've been quite busy. Overwhelming force against people who haven't resisted seems to be a constant.
Now, like all of us, I would love to see a more detailed statement from the police. But I've just been looking and what I'm mostly finding is variations on: "Minneapolis/St. Paul police could not be reached for comment Saturday."
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
I find myself hoping there is something missing from the story...some detail that removes how horrible this seems on the surface. Ignoring "he said, she said" and "Republicans" or "Democrats" blah blah...
/maybe/ I can say "these people were about to do something they shouldn't"?
...
...is...at..the same price it was when fuel was 2.89 p/gal...*rolls eyes* ...ok...I give.
What in the holy hell happened to basic human rights? Was there a thing missing from the story that we don't see that shows these people were making bombs? Were the "insiders" witness to horrific hate crime behavior that
It's been said to death... "This sucks" "that sucks" and "geez, where'd our rights go".
What are we doing? We've let the country just creep into this hole where no one cares enough to vote, or write congressman...
And now, I am getting older, and caring more and more about how much I used to be able to do, and now, I fear everything, even our own police.
My then (3 years ago) 2 year old daughter was snagged out of my hands when visiting the liberty bell going through the guards gates. By a guard, btw. I hadn't made it through the check point, yet. Now, mind you, he's thinking "I'm the good guy, I'm the hero here, protecting these people from the bad guys." He snags her to bring her through the gate, forcing me to go through behind her before I have emptied my pockets. I am not letting my kid out of my hands so easily, Mr. Guard. Well, of course, they get riled, and start pushing me backwards through there. I went livid, and said "Give me my kid, or I call the police". They started getting on me like I was a terrorist all of a sudden. Oh, and when I finally got calmed, and through the gate, I told the officer to never do that again and his only reply was to say "We're here to protect the innocent, sir", and from there, they were walking behind us the rest of the tour.
Best part? When I get through the exit, they insist you go through this "line" to go back across the street. My kid steps off to the side, and so I follow, not realizing that it is apparently a federal offense now to be belligerent when an officer snags your kid away from you, and oh, when you walk over the little white line on the pavement. That's bad too. So, the officer accompanying me says "Sir, I need you to step back into the line". "Um, why? We're headed to the same place, and I don't think I can cause too much trouble being 5 feet outside, moving towards the same side there" Well, of course, they are already pissed at me for making a scene...Anyway, when I get to the other side of the street, he says "Sorry for being such a hard ass, sir, but things changed when 'they' attacked us on 9/11" "Oh really?" "And, I suppose walking outside of the lines somehow adds up to blowing up buildings?" Geez...those guys have no sense of what this country is about. Following orders, I guess...?
The Liberty bell. Definitely part of history, and nothing to do with modern US.
Where'd all this truly start? I've seen a couple of posts on "well, it started 8 years ago"
Stop and think about this. For the last 100 years, or more, the centralized federal government has been power grabbing, and short changing us on every turn, snagging little bits and pieces away.
They'll do something horrible, then take it back, and then do something less horrific so we can feel comfortable with being screwed...
I really hate to even fan this flame, but, gas is 3.40ish in NC. I hear people say "man, that's great!"...um...oil barrel
I have a home owners association that is a very tiny scale perfect model for the US on this; hear me out...
They sent out fliers saying they were going to assess each unit for $5,000 to repair a swimming pool for the community. Sounds like a great idea, save, they've already been getting money for 3 years in a column titled "repairs" that has a n
The /. summary kind of cherry-picks the bits that it mentions. If you read the Star-Tribune article, you'll note that the protesters had buckets of urine at the ready
Who's cherry picking now? If you read the Star-Tribune article you would have read how there was only one bucket of urine, and it was in an apartment without a toilet where a illegal occupant was. And you would have read who that person had nothing to do with the protesters.
in addition to the slingshots, bow and arrows, and gun that police seized
I used to own at least one of each of these as well as a rifle and a blow-gun. Does that mean I was planning something illegal? In that case my dad was a criminal because he gave me the rifle when I was young. And the person who sold me the gun was one too even though we were both in the US Army when he sold it to me.
It's pretty clear that whatever protest these people were planning was going to go beyond peaceful words, unless someone has a better (serious) explanation for the buckets of urine.
It's clear to whom? To you? Maybe you don't need much information as I need to decide guilt.
It also notes that these informants were working on the inside of the protest groups for quite some time, to minimize any doubt that these folks were up to no good.
And those informants were getting paid, but they only got paid if there was an arrest. Let's see, if I became an informant and I knew I would only get paid if the info I gave led to an arrest but there was nothing being planned that was illegal, would I tell the truth and not get paid or would I lie so I would be paid?
So, in other words, the cops were doing their job
No, so either you don't have enough info or you're trolling.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Yes, in exactly the same way that the DPRK is democratic.
The horrible number of casualties were the result of
A) First and foremost, failure to adapt fast enough to new weaponry and tactics. E.g., took an awfully long time to sink in that a rifled gun shoots accurately to IIRC 300m, while against muskets it was reasonably safe to march to 100m and stand tall. (Oh, you could get hit by musket fire too, but, as an officer in the age of muskets put it, only if it was aimed at someone else;) There were years of horrible massacres, where thousands of soldiers were marched in formation to 100m, and then they shot essentially point blank at each other, standing tall and taking the volley.
B) Incompetent charges that ignored the officers' advice and marched some soldiers to slaughter. E.g., Picket's Charge.
C) Essentially, the first attempt in history at having a broad front war. Previously war had been historically a set-piece affair, where two armies would meet, fight, and that was it. E.g., when the Gauls invaded Rome, or Rome smacked Carthage, or whatever other historical war, don't think that they had a front across Italy. It was basically the army of one side vs the army of the other in _one_ point, and that decided the fate of the war. They might leave a detachment behind to besiege some city or whatever, but there was no coordinated effort by multiple armies. The American Civil War was arguably the first where that was even attempted, and it resulted in hideous casualties as essentially there were more battles all over the place and more generals trying to win some glory by breaking the opposite line in some God-forsaken place.
D) Railroads. Unlike previous times in history, it was now trivial to keep reinforcing and resupplying a lot of army. Where previously you'd admit defeat or fortify and wait for reinforcements for a year (see Hannibal), here it became a case where it was possible to throw more soldiers at anything. And they did. With the logical results.
E) Lack of modern medical care. Wars had always been a crappy affair in that aspect. The Minnie ball caused horrible wounds, and there were no antibiotics or even anesthetics.
Additionally:
1. Focusing on _US_ casualties in WW1 and WW2 is rather misleading. The USA took only a minor part in the trench battles of WW1, for example. The finance and industry of the USA played a bigger role in both world wars, than the actual soldiers in the trenches.
For the countries which actually held the line in those wars, the casualties were a lot more horrible. The USSR in WW2, for example, lost ten _million_ soldier and some thirteen _million_ civillians in WW2. Let that sink in a bit, next time the "we won WW2" willy-waving contest comes by. China lost some 4 million soldiers and 16 million civillians, and their contribution to the attrition and over-extending lines of the Japanese should not be overlooked in the Pacific War. On the Axis side, Germany lost 5.5 million soldiers, and almost two million civilians. You don't think you were that good that you fought Germany single-handedly and caused 10 times more casualties than you took, do you? But at any rate, that's what WW2 was really like, for those in the middle of it. There's an estimated 72 million people who died in that war.
In WW1, the Brits took almost 60,000 casualites just in the first day of the Battle of Somme. Almost half of what you took in the whole war. And while I'm too lazy to look up numbers, France almost depleted their manpower to the point where they were out of conscripts for many years after the war. There's a reason for the pacifism and (in the USA isolationism) after the war. Humanity had never seen such carnage before, and was thoroughly shocked.
So writing only the USA casualties for both wars is IMHO highly misleading.
2. Again, the fact that something has happened before, doesn't excuse the present.
The general history of humanity started from ritualized mass-murder and slavery, and we had a long way to gradually become more... civilized. And I don't mean just having TV and Sla
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Aided by informants planted in protest groups
It shouldn't be terribly hard to find the folks who ratted on these people.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
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.
Really. Let's check the list.
Hobbling of the press. Check.
Illegal detainment of US citizens. Check.
Unconstitutional invasions of personal homes and effects. Check.
Unconstitutional use of federal agents and armed forces in civilian jurisdictions. Check.
Executive abuses of "war powers." Check, check, and check.
So how is this not exactly like the Civil War, or the First and Second World Wars? Well, there is one difference. We are not at war. Except with Eurasia. We've always been at war with Eurasia.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
Blocking traffic isn't disturbing the peace -- it is disturbing your morning commute, which isn't protected by the constitution.
Eh, in my state it would be disorderly conduct:
A person is guilty of disorderly conduct when, with intent to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creating a risk thereof:
5. He obstructs vehicular or pedestrian traffic; or
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
And, about the the fire violation arrest: if you don't want to get arrested for fire violations, don't violate the building codes. It's pretty easy.
Hey, moron. They didn't violate the building codes. They rented a building that the cops claim is in violation of the fire code, which mysteriously means they can arrest everyone in the building.
I can't even imagine how that works. Maybe I can see some misapplication of the law that lets them arrest the people who rented the building, but being physically located in it? How are you supposed to check for fire code violations without entering the building?
You've just argued that it's illegal to be in a specific place that it is impossible to know beforehand. That is, for example, illegal to shop in Walmart because Walmart has, in a back area that is offlimits to shoppers, paint stored next to gasoline.
You are truly an idiot.
Oh, and the cops also broke down the front door to a private residence, arrested everyone in it, and then attempted to have the building condemned that same day because it didn't have a front door. Probably because no one had repaired it because they were all in jail.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
You're missing the point, and focusing on some hypothetical intentions by the victims of these crimes, instead of the crimes themselves. First off, no evidence of relevant criminal wrongdoing has been supplied, thus a grievous infringement has occurred. Your own defense of the cops is self contradictory, since these groups obviously had their rights removed without just cause. No amount of prior or current criminal activity by citizens ever merits stripping the rights of other people based on similarity of the individuals alone. Do you believe that it should be fine to randomly invade the homes of certain racial minorities because they have a higher per capita crime rate? Generalizing people to a political creed, and supporting oppressive measures to restrict that creed, is bigotry. Furthermore, it is wrong to arrest people for crimes before they commit them, based purely on suspicion or hearsay. Again, point me to any hard evidence of criminal wrongdoing by the INDIVIDUALS arrested or otherwise detained, and you might have an argument; otherwise you're just practicing apologetics for fascist tactics.
By your explanation, we should be A OK with living in a totally preemptive police state, since political figures have been assassinated throughout our national history, and security should demand such precautions to prevent a relapse. Does the gestapo style assassination of Fred Hampton seem like a conspiracy NUT "mountain out of a molehill", because this is a fine, modern, example of what you get when you let legal authority operate unchecked to demolish dissent. People making a "big deal" out of this are doing so in the hopes that we don't become a country where totalitarian practices are tolerated, and you are a fine example of why we should be afraid.
It seems to me that in this day and age (instant messaging, SMS, cell phones, blogs, etc) that it's going to take a lot more than disorderly conduct laws to stop people from assembling for political speech.
As with most things a balance needs to be struck. Your right to freedom of expression shouldn't trump my right to be left the hell alone if that's what I desire. There are ways to protest without disrupting traffic and "blockading" (to use their word) airports.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I can tell you it engenders a strong desire to smash shit belonging to the gassers.
That didn't happen to me or others I knew. While in the US Army my unit would have drills where we'd go into this room gas would be released into. Some of us would try to beat each other in how long we could stay in the room before we had to leave.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
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.
Wow, another mind reader. What am I thinking now?
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.
Where's your proof anything illegal was being planned? Oh, that's right, you can read minds and don't need proof.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Democracy Now! reports that federal agencies were involved:
This should hardly be surprising as federal Senator McCain, President Bush, and Vice President Cheney were all planned to appear for the RNC. It would be unusual if county and citywide police were doing this on their own without any input from any federal agency. As time passes I'm sure we'll learn more about the specific people involved at all levels.
Also, Amy Goodman, host of DN!, and two DN! producers, Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar, were illegally arrested and detained. Goodman was arrested while trying to free Kouddous and Salazar. From the article:
Today's DN! (video, audio) has more on these preemptive arrests and detainments including footage of the police action in progress.
Digital Citizen
No.. Four of the people have been charged with conspiracy to commit crimes. Just because they didn't tell you their plans for fighting crime or doing anything else does not mean any infringements have occurred. Agents infiltrated the groups and had records of their plans. The MP3 players had recordings of how to disrupt the convention by causing flat tires on buses and limousines, blocking public streets and plastering delegates with feces, paint, and other things that would cause them to leave to get cleaned up. Now, just because that wasn't reported by the one article here or because it took three days to get out, doesn't mean there was no reason.
Your acting like these people were walking down the street minding their own business and all the sudden the cops picked them up and raided their homes for no other reason then to do it. This couldn't be further from the truth. Informants inside the make shift organizations ratted these people out and told of plans of illegal activities. They are not in any way some innocent person molested by the cops. Do you no understand the concept of informants told authorities? Or are you closing your eyes to everything that doesn't fit your world view?
Wow, you seem simply purposely clueless. Get your head out of the sand. These weren't randomly invaded homes, it wasn't singling people out for political creeds and conspiracy to commit a crime is a crime in and of itself. Otherwise they couldn't prosecute anyone until after the committed a crime regardless of how much the cops know. Imagine if the crime was your assassination, do you want the cops to ignore all reports of it until the time they actually try to kill you? Do you want the cops to ignore the person stalking your wife or daughter until the potential attacker tries to rape, kill, or otherwise harm either? Intent to commit a crime is a crime which is the only way laws like stalking and such can work. When you gather materials to commit the crime or actually stalk someone, you have shown intent.
No, by my explanation, you a moron who should be allowed to
Some turn violent in GOP convention protests
Antiwar protesters cross line and get arrested
The Constitution was put in place, first and foremost, to protect the people from a tyrannical government. And now that is what we have. I'm starting to feel that if we don't force a change in direction, then the US will be the next Nazi Germany. After WWII, we asked "how could we have let that happen?" Now we know... It's back again folks. It's time we stand up and make a change.