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Austin Police Want Identities of Online Critics
An anonymous reader writes "The police chief in Austin, TX is not happy that people are voicing their disapproval of him via anonymous blog posts and comments. He claims that 'such posts erode public trust in the department.' The chief wants to find out who these people are and investigate and prosecute such posters for statements he deems defamatory and libelous. Interestingly, the article notes, 'the Associated Press has reported that most of the cases fail because statements of opinion are protected under the First Amendment.' One wonders if this is a legitimate problem that warrants public money to investigate, or whether it's that the people who deserve the most public scrutiny don't like it when others take issue with their job performance."
From TFA:
The main issue here doesn't seem to be people posting "cops suck!", which is of course protected speech, but rather low-grade identity theft.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
He IS a jerk. His list of jerk-like actions include:
1) Authorizing police officers to draw blood on the spot, with or without your cooperation (using a contract phlebotomist of course) if you are pulled over under suspicion of DUI.
2) Constant and aggressive speed traps all over the city (I recently observed motorcycle police tailing people into a school zone and nabbing them if they didn't hit the brakes immediately).
3) Increased patrolling and harassing motorcycle riders for helmet law violations during the ROT Motorcycle Rally. It should be noted that these were primarily older white middle class people. However, when Highland Mall requested police security for the Texas Relays their request was denied by the chief. The Texas Relays attract mostly black youth, which in itself is not a problem. The problem is that the entourage they attract has in the past loitered in the mall, intimidated shoppers, and in fact resulted in fights breaking out inside the mall. The chief denied the mall owner's request because black community leaders would have crucified him had he not done so.
4) Hiring so many police officers that it becomes a strain on the city budget. This year's police academy class was almost suspended except that existing officers agreed to forego their raises. The chief is a big fan of "preventative patrolling" (but only in the form of speed traps, not in truly high-crime areas like Lamar & Rundberg). Methinks this must be tied to the budget strain. Plus, Mr. Acevedo wouldn't want to be accused of racial profiling in a primarily Mexican immigrant neighborhood.
The country should also know that an Austin police officer recently shot a young black man in the back of the head while he was fleeing. Gee, I can't imagine what the young man must've been afraid of! As you might expect, the police officer was essentially let off the hook.
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He claims that 'such posts erode public trust in the department.'
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Perhaps the variety of bullshit crap they pull has eroded the public trust in the department. Many of the police in the jurisdictions around Austin end up on the poop list of most of the civil rights organizations for a reason.
The most recent story I recall had one of the news stations showing a ton of cops rolling through red lights over a 24 hour period (think one light had 13-15 cops run the light). None were responding to a call and only a handful actually flashed their lights. In any event, when not responding to a call they are forbidden to do what they did. Acevedo basically said he wasn't going to discipline anyone over it and the public should not worry about it since cops have a rough job.
Crap like this is what leads to the comments he doesn't like and rightfully so. If he quits acting like a tool maybe some of this will decrease.
If you read the article, it says something about them thinking some of it is departmental employees. It sounds more like they are on a witch hunt than any real "eroding of public confidence" claim.
It got so bad that the state legislature passed a law saying that a given town could only make a certain percentage of its income by writing tickets!
Of course that law has holes in it big enough to drive a fleet of 18-wheelers through.
Only "ticket revenue" counts. "Court Fees" don't count. So what they do now, essentially, is that you get dragged in, you're not allowed to plead not-guilty without being there in person (not even sending a legal representative is allowed in most towns/counties, a deliberate method for fucking over out-of-towners).
But they offer you either to "take defensive driving and pay a court fee" or "take deferred adjudication and pay a court fee." Oddly enough, the court fees are actually slightly-more-expensive than the ticket would normally be, except that you don't get reported in to your insurance as being "guilty" of a traffic infraction if you go that route.
Oh, and Texas isn't the only state in the nation to do this. Cops everywhere (Arkansas is actually worse than Texas, as is Louisiana) target out-of-state plates.
Sigh. It's a very common misconception that the term "mother fucker" (two words, not one) denigrates a man who has sex with his own mother. Fuck Wikipedia, and fuck the ignorant idiots who spin whole fictions, and especially fuck the lazy dipshit readers who just assume that WP is correct, because it's easier than following up with their own research. Yeah, you heard me--Jimmy Wales can suck a fattie, while we're at it.
In reality, the term "mother fucker" refers to a man who has sex with SOMEONE ELSE'S MOTHER, specifically with a woman in some kind of tight spot (e.g., economically) who agrees to sex with that man only out of desperation. The woman doesn't really want to sleep with this man, and she isn't a prostitute in the professional sense, but this man presents an alternative to watching her children go hungry.
The term gained tremendous traction during WWII, originally amongst black American GIs, and was applied literally to American soldiers (black, white, or otherwise) in war-torn Europe who would trade food, money, or anything of value (cigarettes, chocolate, booze) for sex with desperately poor or starving French and German women. Many of these women were home-makers whose husbands had been conscripted away, killed, or imprisoned, leaving the women to support the couple's children alone. Many lacked trade skills, and the war damaged the local economies so badly that they had few, if any, alternatives.
So calling a man a "mother fucker" meant that he was A) taking advantage of poor and downtrodden people with no options, and B) incapable of seducing non-desperate women. Anyone with experience growing up in desperate poverty, or who saw his own parents humiliated by circumstances beyond his control, would probably consider that kind of behavior to be a pretty low thing.
In the last sixty or so years, the term has entered the popular slang as a term of derision ("That Richard Nixon is a real mother fucker, you know?"). More recently, it's been used as an indicator of extraordinary intensity, not necessarily in a derisive sense, but usually still carrying some implications of harshness ("I fell asleep out in my lawn chair, yesterday, and got a mother fucker of a sunburn.") or intimidating awesomeness ("That Shaft, he's one baaaad mother fucker.").
Do your part--fight the ignorance!