In MN, Massive Police Raids On Suspected Protestors 961
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."
Re:Disruption != peaceably assembling (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
No protesters at the DNC? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
textbook example (Score:4, Interesting)
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")
Re:Unconventional weaponry (Score:5, Interesting)
They took along *anything* and *everything* that might be related to possible riots. When they raided a home that wasn't actually the correct home, they still detained people for over and hour while they obtained the correct warrant. When I read that I posted that I was concerned that when I arrived at home that I too would find cops on my doorstep [twitter.com] because after all, that was the point of all of this horseshit.
When you finally hear from the other side you learn that the "buckets of urine" was actually gray water used to flush the toilet [blogspot.com] (my father developed a tank system in the 1980s that used shower/tub water to flush the toilet which saved us so much money that the water company came out 3 or 4 different times to replace the meter because they thought it was defective).
I have been ashamed to be an American for a long ass time but between the Ramsey County Sheriff's response to this event, the confiscation of camera equipment in the name of Homeland Security for the RNC [twincities.com], and using Blackwater mercenaries in New Orleans in preparation for Gustav [wired.com] I am not quite sure I am actually living in the United States of America anymore.
I am disgusted to be a Minnesota and United States resident. This is fucking shameful and horrifying. There is absolutely no excuse for this type of free speech violation. This is a stupid political rally, not a fucking war on our soil. Personally I'd love to join the protests but I seriously fear for my freedom and my life. I am not against the RNC but I am definitely against the manner in which protesting is being handled.
FUCK YOU AMERICA.
For live footage of raids and other First Amendment violations, check out The UpTake [qik.com] on Qik.com.
What does "no crime other than . . . " mean? (Score:1, Interesting)
Well, it could mean that it's a good, old-fashioned violation of civil rights. Peaceful protest is a right in America, and if these raids were designed only to violate that right, there will be successful lawsuits.
However, it's far more likely that although they have only (so far) been charged with "no crime other than 'fire code violations'", more charges are forthcoming. They don't take computers unless they intend to scrutinize them for evidence.
Plausible scenerio leading up to the raids: An idiot on a message board was going on and on about icing McCain and Bush II, and even bigger idiots were playing along.
PROTIP: The secret service takes all assassination threats seriously no matter how ridiculously they were hatched. See, e.g., the nazi meth-heads that the secret service caught en route to fail miserably at shooting Obama.
Re:Disruption != peaceably assembling (Score:3, Interesting)
Transportation Troubles...
Sounds like a Critical Mass rally.
Re:Rock bottom (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Well... (Score:1, Interesting)
I personally known and have spoken with individuals, who have made a "pilgrimage" of sorts to the RNC, with the express intention of causing as much chaos and disorder and disruption as they can possibly get away with -- even the illegal kind.
They're all members of the local campus chapter of SDS, Students for Democratic Society. That organization bears no affiliation with the similar group from the Vietnam era except that they stole the name and ideology -- violence and social upheaval are the appropriate tools to cause a change to a global communist utopia. Some of these people are my FRIENDS, and they make me (middle left politically) look like Rush Limbaugh.
I have no doubt whatsoever that some of the individuals raided were planning something felonious and potentially dangerous. But, there's a very fine line between preempting a crime, and just shutting up people you don't agree with.
Re:Oblig. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is the best part of the Greenwald story:
Once Gustav gets here, I'm sure all of this will blow over.
Re:also (Score:5, Interesting)
let me point out that "non violent" doesn't mean you do everything you're told, that's called "complicity" or at best "complacency". Having 50k people arrive at a location and sit down and refuse to leave may not be convenient, and might even put some people at risk (say, you were in the middle of hte crowd and had a heart attack), but that is not "violence".
"violence" involves destruction, pain, intimidation and real risk of bodily injury. *some* anarchists are into that sort of thing. But "Anarchist" covers a wide variety of people, just like "republican" does. Some "Republicans" don't think it's ok to kill anyone arab just because some arabs hate us. Some think we should "turn the middle east into a parking lot".
it's not fair to judge all republicans by the violent assholes within any more than it is to judge all anarchists by the same measure.
I also don't think that seizing property that is not being put to use when there are people who need shelter in the streets is so radical that "no civilized country" should get behind it.
further, I wouldn't demonize anyone who looks at the current state of our country and thinks that maybe we're getting close to the point where words alone is not sufficient response to the ongoing mismanagement, misinterpretation and appropriation of our government to anyone with suitable ambition and a large enough checkbook.
I'm not at that point myself, but I can't say that it would be impossible to get there in my lifetime and sometimes I do wonder if I'm just playing the game laid before me by "the house", and the house always wins.. witness RealID and the basic conception among most people that you "can't challenge the federal government", constitutional or not.
Re:This is not how you stop riots... (Score:5, Interesting)
... 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.
Exactly. You may have heard about similar unrest at the APEC summit in Vancouver in 1997, where I was living at the time. The overreaction to protests by police is a distraction tactic.
In Vancouver when Prime Minister Cretien first visited after APEC, again there were protests that turned violent. The police formed a "bike line" about 150' from the entrance to the hotel where Cretien was, meaning police with bicycles stood about 25' apart and ordered everyone not to pass them. Since it was not even remotely intimidating everyone marched right past them. But having done so, they can then be arrested and charged with disobeying a legal police order.
So they had uninhibited access to the hotel front doors, which were recessed from the sidewalk and therefore private property. Once they were on private property, asked to leave, and they did not, they were then trespassing as well. As luck would have it, there just happened to be a legion of police with full riot gear in the hotel lobby to engage the protesters with batons and pepper spray.
Either they were giving out gourmet donuts, or it was a deliberate tactic to entrap the protesters into committing crimes. They report to the press that the protesters had access to areas within vocal range of the Prime Minister, but forced their way through the "barricade" with the intent of engaging the Prime Minister violently, so reciprocal violence was justified.
In the end, the violence upstages the protest, and nothing gets done about the human rights violations they were trying to bring to the public's attention. It's been a popular tactic in North America since the 1960's. Now it appears they're taking preemptive actions to make sure the protesters are going to put on a good show. Makes sense, given the level of apathy these days.
I advise anyone involved in a protest to enlist the aid of people trained in conflict resolution (i.e. bar security staff) to quell any troublemakers among the protesters, and have a lawyer on site to act as a liaison with the police. You're probably going to need one eventually, and you know you'll have to deal with the police. Who deals with the police without a lawyer? Criminals, idiots, or both.
Re:Oblig. (Score:2, Interesting)
As a matter of fact, Obama staffers stopped an impending one between some vets and the police.
[Citation Needed]
Not saying it didn't happen, but I also don't like FUD when i see it.
Re:Buckets of urine (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder how many homes in the area are well stocked with guns and ammunition and yet the police aren't raiding those buildings. Oh right, the Constitution doesn't give people the right to possess urine.
I don't kid myself that these people were likely planning to disrupt the convention, but I think the laws banning "riot planning" tread dangerously close to violating the right to assemble and the right to speak freely. Democracy is challenging, fascism is easy (for the police).
Re:Oblig. (Score:1, Interesting)
This is not new. Its not even just post 9/11. This is identical to how they handled the ISAG protests in 2000, right down to the invasion of the homes of suspected protesters.
What the hell is wrong with these governments? (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
seriously, welcome to the US(a)SR (Score:1, Interesting)
W-T-F happened to freedom? How can one be arrested without charge? Detained without accusation or council?
Stalin did this kind of thing!
Pride in America and Patriotism are becoming things to be ashamed of.
The world hates the USA because we press our view of freedom and democracy all around the world and back it up with big guns but we can't even enforce those ideals within our borders.
Soon it will not be "dirty ragheads" hijacking planes and planing bombs, it will be white kids from Indiana and Iowa. Oppression requires revolution.
excuse the anonymous posting. id just rather post this from stolen wifi on TOR anonymously than get on the express bus to gitmo(which is also completely criminal and wrong!).
Great, I approve! (Score:1, Interesting)
I don't support anarchists in anyway shape or form. They by definition would never be pleased and only "protest" as an excuse to destroy property (public/private). After what they did in Seattle the City of Miami took steps to stop them at a latin American summit some years ago. The babies cried, but Miami was spared damage by these hooligans who aren't even from here. I support the Twin Cities and their efforts to shut down these groups. Peaceful protests is one thing, using any excuse to wreck havoc is another.
FUCK YOU anarchists, fuck your own home and not mine!
My weird similar experience in NYC in 2002 (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:In Soviet Russia. (Score:3, Interesting)
Cheap travel (trains and airplanes were state-subsidized), half-decent healthcare, low crime level.
Though I still prefer living in the capitalist Russia of today.
Re:Buckets of urine (Score:3, Interesting)
Since you have all this figured out from reading the mainstream media, I'm sure you know that these moles are volunteers and only get paid of there are arrests [citypages.com]. Plenty of incentive to provoke arrests one way or another.
civil war (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
I have some news for you. (Score:5, Interesting)
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".
Re:Oblig. (Score:3, Interesting)
I also belive that anyone willing to take away the rights of others, should be delt with harshly, whether they be the police or in this case protesters seeking to disrupt someone else's assembly.
I've asked before but I'll ask again, where's your proof the protesters threatened anyone?
Falcon
Re:No protesters at the DNC? (Score:3, Interesting)
And this is yet another reason I'm voting Obama. When people tried a deliberate troll-protest, the Obama campaign let them in to talk peacefully. That is HOW a fucking STATESMEN handles things.
Re:Oblig. (Score:5, Interesting)
Tonight, I was coming home from a sign painting party for the Campaign for Liberty, here in the Twin Cities. I stopped at Walgreens and saw a police car in the parking lot. It said, "Federal Protective Services" "POLICE" "Department of Homeland Security". I had never heard of this organization before now. There is an article on them here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Federal_Protective_Service [wikipedia.org]
What I find chilling is the words "Federal" and "POLICE" put together. And this was not any typical FBI-style black unmarked job. It was a police car in every way. Lights and all.
Yes. In eight short years, we have been transitioned into a police state. Mind you, there have been many attempts over the last several decades to in one way or another federalize the local police. These efforts have been resisted by grass roots organizations. Through the Patriot Act, this has now been accomplished. All local police are now arms of the Federal government. And we have bona-fide Federal Police running around.
It Will Only Get Worse. And it does not matter one whit who wins in November. Either candidate will work to extend and consolidate federal power, and further restrict liberty.
Re:I have some news for you. (Score:0, Interesting)
The Republicans have f*cked things up so badly that I despair of things returning to normal within my lifetime.
And yet ignorant people like you continue to drink your own coolaid. Republican's fucked thing up over the last 8 years? Least you forget, there where plenty of Democrats involved in and stopping and starting the exact same shit you're trying to pin on the Republicans.
Yeah, right. That's what I thought. Yet another stupid idiot who has no true f*cking clue what they're talking about. Sorry, but the "Republicans" couldn't have done it alone. In fact, if you had have a brain, you'd already know the reason civilians who call themselves "conservative" or "Republicans" are angry at the Republicans in office over the last 8 years isn't because of what they where doing, but the fact they didn't do jack shit despite control of the White House and Congress. Those who call themselves "Democrats" or "Liberals" simply hate Republicans because it's not "their team".
They have botched literally everything: foreign policy
*sigh* You're smoking crack. They got North Korea to stop nuclear weapons testing (though I guess they're going to start again). They condemned the mess in Darfur and have sent lots of aid to the region. They condemned Burma's military rules and tried hard to get aid to their suffering. The fucked a lot of stuff up in Iraq, but at the same time overthrew a regiem that thought raping and murdering it's people as "punishment" was a reasonable thing. They've taken hard lines against Russia and it's action in Georgia (like the rest of the EU). They worked unilaterally with the Japanese as they felt threatened from N.Korea. Of course, the list goes on. Yes, there have been some majorly bad policies, but as if they the American government somehow failed all foreign policy is just asinine and showing, again, you idiocy.
domestic social policy;
Er... Not sure what you're talking about. WTF changed about social policy? Society in general has done nothing but open up ever more. And lest you forget, there's a big difference between state and federal governments. Social policy is governed mostly by the state level. So, this whole statement is just bloviated bullshit.
privacy;
This is definitely true when looking at the books. But you can thank both sides of the isle whom created and signed into law such things after 9/11.
"the war on terrorism" (what a joke);
Joke? The only "joke" is you, who clearly doesn't have a fucking clue what those wars really mean. Sure, it's a stupid marketing phrase, but I assure you the treat is real. *sigh* But WTF? I you don't believe are are some terrorists out there that just want to blow up innocent American's in a goal to kill as many as possible, then there's just no hope for you.
"the war on drugs" -- an even bigger joke;
I can mostly agree to this.
fiscal policy;
Again, you think this is only Republicans? You know how congress works right? It requires Democrats to vote, and yes, they're responsible too. Hell, Democrats have been pushing throw just as many, if not more, ear marked money to their campaign contributors as the Republican's "bridge to no-where" have. WTF do you think that War spending is so fucking high? Because have the money is Democratic voter pay-offs to spinach farms and peanut growers, to name a few.
education;
Really? Because the current Republican administration created more funding for schools? Because they gave more loan and grant money to college students? Please enlighten me. Was "No Child Left Behind" a success? Not really, but it was an honest attempt to try to make a change. The schools certainly love it, considering how much they want to bitch about it, but when faced with it being pulled away (and
Re:My weird similar experience in NYC in 2002 (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Nothing is wrong with protesting an event. (Score:3, Interesting)
The StarTribune article said the warrant included seizing MP3 players. How can these be used to break the law? Okay, you can throw it at someone, but that covers plates as well. For that matter, is it illegal to own a gun in the twin cities? Article said someone was arrested for having a gun. And hey, what's wrong with having boltcutters?
I'll agree with you on the buckets of urine and caltrops. Then again, buckets of urine and feces sitting around is probably a health department issue, not an intent to commit crime issue.
Since when do people get arrested for fire-code violations? It's usually "disperse and leave the premises", isn't it?
Fear the Dye! (Score:4, Interesting)
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
And don't forget the FBI infiltrators (Score:1, Interesting)
The FBI almost openly plants people in areas where activists congregate, and keep tabs on where and when groups will be staging events. Ordinarily they don't use the information gathered to disrupt the groups - though disruption is still performed in various ways. Planted people may be encouraged to sow seeds of discontent and disinformation, but of those I have heard reported, it's usually pure information gathering - dates and times.
The disruption of activists implies to me that ahead of the RNC some fairly high-up people decided to make use of the information the FBI and/or local enforcement regularly gathers through covert means... though it seems really odd that they impulsively arrested all these people then couldn't figure out how to make them disappear.
So maybe it's all some kind of PR stunt to throw some red meat to the ravenous right wingers who'll have a laugh to see some anarchist hippies get kicked in the nuts. "Ha! Ha!"
The media-for-idiots (i.e., news networks, talk radio) will smear the airwaves with the usual shitty lowbrow opinion theater, confabulating activists with terrorists. Despite the transparency of their game, they find lots of hapless people who will play along, who automatically join the apparent throngs sympathetic to the powerful... the soldiers of God.
We witness this the way these appalling scoundrels - our political class - pretend-o-cratizes its way to the bank in the classic style of corrupt servants of power. They stir the rest of us up such that we sycophants slaver and bicker over the falling scraps of our so-called "leaders."
Certainly we all strongly sense the corruption and pettiness that exists across the board in the halls of our government, and how cavalier they are becoming. It seems as though the ordinary men and women who hold offices of government - these supposed servants of the people - are more likely than ever to succumb to the inducements offered by large-scale capitalists, war profiteers, and disaster recovery specialists.
The audacious series of acts we have seen from the right wing especially in the last 8 years, the absolute disregard for the founding spirit that is this country's beating heart, the way that our airwaves have become vile with propaganda breeding cruelty, jingoism, and cynicism - these are the fruits of unbridled capitalism. Another seems to be a policy of undermining public education, presumably to create a larger pool of angry discontented mentally handicapped people who will be more likely to buy into their idiot brand of propaganda.
But that is a subject for another day.
Meanwhile, hey, what's to stop these people in the in-group who currently have power from using the FBI and law enforcement any way they want? To me this seems no less a crime than Watergate, except in this case the public can be fooled into thinking the break-ins were necessary to protect lives and property from domestic terrorists... well, anarchists... uh, whatever, same thing! ...pass me another beer.
wow...just wow (Score:2, Interesting)
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
Re:Republican bashing??? It's ILLEGAL!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
In fact Salon was the same site that broke the story of the AT&T reward dinner for all the democrats that voted for telecomm immunity, and the story of how they were removed from the vicinity of the event by Denver police.
Second, since the president and vice-president were originally scheduled to appear at the convention, it's likely that the Secret Service was behind it all, with the FBI as middle-men. This wouldn't be a republican or democrat thing. The sweep and how it was done would have been dependent on the information provided by the "informants".
On the other hand, if there truly was a perceived danger to the president, it would've been the Feds doing the arrests, not the local police.
Re:My weird similar experience in NYC in 2002 (Score:5, Interesting)
I just have to sit there while people plot to destroy my city to make their political points and then once they have destroyed the city I can do what to them.
Conspiracy to commit a crime is in many cases a crime. When you have proof of that, you can arrest people. Until that point, they're just citizens.
It is the people like me, the ones you call enablers, who will have to pay the price for picking up all the garbage and repairing all the damages so the city can function again.
Your notion is that the financial costs of cleaning up after a protest are so high that it justifies preemptively arresting a wide variety of people who haven't committed crimes and most of whom won't?
By that logic, we should certainly arrest the VFW, as their memorial parade makes more of a mess than any three protests I've seen.
Any word on finding the snitches? (Score:2, Interesting)
Aided by informants planted in protest groups
It shouldn't be terribly hard to find the folks who ratted on these people.
Re:I have some news for you. (Score:1, Interesting)
They have botched literally everything: foreign policy
*sigh* You're smoking crack. They got North Korea to stop nuclear weapons testing (though I guess they're going to start again). They condemned the mess in Darfur and have sent lots of aid to the region.
The Chinese got North Korea to stop nuclear weapons testing, the US just paid the bill. The Bush administration has made clear that having a nuclear weapon will get you off of the Invadeable Countries list. They also made clear that genocidal maniacs are real poopyheads and best avoided.
"the war on terrorism" (what a joke);
Joke? The only "joke" is you, who clearly doesn't have a fucking clue what those wars really mean. Sure, it's a stupid marketing phrase, but I assure you the threat is real. *sigh* But WTF? If you don't believe are are some terrorists out there that just want to blow up innocent American's in a goal to kill as many as possible, then there's just no hope for you.
War is an armed conflict between nations. It may come as a surprise to you, but there have always been people, even thousands of people, who want nothing more than to see the US or [insert random country] devastated. They can't be ignored. There are billions of people who wish us either good or at least no harm. If you let your policies be driven by fear of the infinitesimal minority, then those policies are almost certain to offend the rest of the citizenry and world. No one likes to be considered first a potential terrorist and second a potential friend.
and the personal freedoms of the citizens of this country
*yawn* Personal citizen freedoms have not changed. Please take a number and move along.
If your personal freedoms haven't changed, then you must not frequent libraries, travel by common carriers, communicate by telephone or surf the internet. How exactly you come to be posting on /. without having that communication subject to warrantless search is a bit of a mystery to me, but maybe there's a special internet for creatures living under bridges.
Re:It's not that simple... (Score:2, Interesting)
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 you've never been tear gassed (Score:3, Interesting)
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
Re:MN governor (Score:3, Interesting)
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
Re:Nothing is wrong with protesting an event. (Score:4, Interesting)
Molotov cocktails are even more common than most of the other items on the list.
I have all the ingredients in the back seat of my car right now. A few empty glass bottles (used to contain iced coffee), two pints of motor oil (gee, why would anyone carry *that* in their car?), and a couple of old T-shirts that have been sitting in the back seat for a month or two because I never get around to bringing them back inside when I'm home.
According to the videos that have been posted, the search warrants included such things as "cloth, flammable liquids, glass bottles" and "metal, plastic, or cardboard boxes."
The hard part would be to find a house in America that doesn't have all of those in it.