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Phoenix Police Seize PCs of a Blogger Critical of the Department
logicassasin sends in a story about a blogger in Phoenix, AZ, who runs a site that is critical of the local police department. The police recently raided his home and seized his computer hardware. "Jeff Pataky, who runs Bad Phoenix Cops, said the officers confiscated three computers, routers, modems, hard drives, memory cards and everything necessary to continue blogging. The 41-year-old software engineer said they also confiscated numerous personal files and documents relating to a pending lawsuit he has against the department alleging harassment — which he says makes it obvious the raid was an act of retaliation." A local publication quotes Pataky saying, "We have heard internally from our police sources that they purposefully did this to stop me... They took my cable modem and wireless router. Anyone worth their salt knows nothing is stored in the cable modem."
What do we do to protect the police from rantings of ignorant bloggers who are pissed off because they got caught breaking the law in the past and can't except the results?
It works both ways, this guy could have easily avoided whats happening to him, IF it IS a bullying session. But you don't even know why they are after him do you?
You just assume that he did nothing wrong, just blogged about corrupt cops.
Have you even read his blog?
Do you always jump head first in and assume that the sensationalists are telling you the actual story?
If we continue to allow people to get by with making up stories and presenting the story in such a one sided way that it might as well be an outright lye we'll be far worse off than what you're afraid of.
Every fucking criminal on the planet says 'I'm innocent and this is police harrasment!!'
And idiots like you believe it.
Before you start talking about how we should attack politicians and cops, lets find out if they actually did anything wrong first instead of jumping to knee jerk reactions based on some emotional connection to a technological fad.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
What you're saying is that, you can't step foot into that county due to restraining orders, violation of which would cost you in excess of 1000 bucks?
If you can read this, it means that I bothered to log in.
He is innocent until proven guilty, but the cops aren't? What kind of bullshit is that? If you read the article, written mostly as an advertisment FOR HIM BY HIM you'd have a really hard time NOT thinking he was guilty.
If you don't think the bear will wake up and eat you for irritating him, you don't deserve to live. You are an infection to our gene pool, please die so your stupidity doesn't get carried on. That is just about the dumbest statement I have ever heard and I'm amazed that your bloodline has continued this long considering your obvious complete lack of self preservation or ability to recognize danger.
Harassment is illegal, doesn't matter if you are targeting the police or his ex-wife. If harassment is not illegal, then there is no way the cops did anything wrong here since he thinks its all about harassment, so lets just drop that bullshit idea right off the start.
The bear is most certainly allowed to defend itself, it has no less rights than anyone else. We put very strict limitations on what they can do with their power, but we DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES take away their rights in favor of someone else, regardless of who the someone else is. Cops ARE PEOPLE, they get the EXACT SAME RIGHTS as he does, INCLUDING innocent until proven guilty.
The articles the confiscated don't point to shit. They took a bunch of things from his home, all you know of what they took is the 3 things HE told you about. Did at any point in your thought process did it occur to you that they probably took A LOT of other crap too? Why are you assuming they are completely guilty and in the wrong and that his story is 100% truthful and honest. If you RTFA you should have at least some sort of inclination that he's not being totally truthful just based on his actions. At best, he's mentally incompetent.
You are correct, freedom of speech is not a right to abuse speech, which is what this looks like to me. Its not a right to use speech to hurt others, which is what he was trying to do to the police. He has the right to free speech, but he can not use that speech to spread bullshit or hurt others regardless of who they are, cops or ex-wife or mayor or you or me. He just spreads unsubstantiated rumors from others who are pissed off at the cops for unknown reasons.
Theres a reason this isn't big news, and contrary to the popular belief on slashdot, its not because of some coverup, its that this isn't a story until someone is actually showing some sort of facts. Right now to me this is nothing more than some douchebag trying to get even with cops who are about to put him in jail for something he's guilty of. Why? because he's sure as hell acting guilty.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
If only I had mod points.
You, sir, are an artisan of trolling trolls. I tip my hat and bow before thee.
+1 Trollslam!