So the new Nashville blog is up and running. Check it out here.

Thanks to Jay Rubin for helping me get it up and running. First real post will go up on Tuesday.

Last May, the crew of the Motorhome Diaries libertarian road tour were arrested in Jones County, Mississippi after a traffic stop. One of the crew, Adam Mueller, was charged with disorderly conduct, though Jones County officials then wavered about what exactly Mueller did wrong. They first said he was arrested for not putting down his video camera when ordered to do so. But it isn’t illegal to record police officers in Mississippi. They then said he was arrested for moving from the spot where police officers instructed him to stay.

Mueller recorded most of the encounter, but when his camera was returned to him after he was released from jail the video had been deleted. He has since been able to recover the video, which he walks you through in the video below. The video is choppy and fragmented, a result both of Mueller’s holding it during a traffic stop and the fact that it has since been deleted and recovered. Mueller says the recovered video shows the deputies lied about a number of aspects of the stop and subsequent arrests. You can watch and see whether or not you agree with him.

But here’s what now is indisputable: Mueller took video of the traffic stop, and that video—evidence in both the county’s case against Mueller and Pete Eyre and in their lawsuit against the county—was deleted while Mueller’s camera was in the possession of the Jones County Sheriff’s Department. I’m no lawyer, but I’m fairly sure that’s destruction of evidence. And I’m fairly sure it’s a crime. And it seems to me it’s a much more serious crime than anything Mueller or Eyre are alleged to have done.

The question is, will Jones County Sheriff Alex Hodge investigate, and will the person who deleted the video be charged?

• Fun with zoning laws: Dog store forced to cover up doggie mural on its building, or change it to promote the city instead of the store.
• More fun with zoning laws: County may evict an Indiana man from his own land because his trailer doesn’t have sewer or running water.
• More problems with accountability at the Columbia, Missouri Police Department.
• Via Reddit, the “Small Penis Rule”.
• Body found found in Nashville turns out to have been a giant beaver. In other news, Nashville is apparently being invaded by human-sized beavers.
• “People Hate Kim Kardashian’s Tweets More Than Aids”
• I think the lesson from this story is that if we can’t keep illicit drugs out of the prisons, how in the hell does anyone expect us to eradicate them from society at large?
• More from Northern Virginia: Among Gov. Bob McDonnel’s state agencies he’s targeting for elimination? The Freedom of Information Advisory Council. That would be the one state agency trying to keep the state’s police departments accountable.

The Mississippi Supreme Court granted Cory Maye a new trial today (PDF), though on different grounds than the Mississippi Court of Appeals, which granted the trial based on a change of venue issue. The state’s supreme court instead ruled that Maye’s trial judge should have let the jury consider a “defense of others” defense, and that the judge’s refusal to include that in the jury instructions amounted to reversible error. The court also said that Maye’s new trial can take place in Jefferson Davis County, which is what Maye wanted, and is where the incident took place.

As I understand it, this decision means Maye is virtually guaranteed a new trial next year unless there’s plea agreement between his attorneys and the state.

My 2006 Reason feature on Maye here. And here’s Reason.tv’s documentary about Maye’s case:

• Study: Legalizing possession of child porn linked to decrease in sex crimes against children. This similar to other “outlet” studies showing increased availability of regular porn leads to decreased incidence of rape. Obviously, no one would suggest we legalize child porn. But it does suggest laws against and a focus on possession, and particularly laws against virtual child porn, are misguided.
• Skip Oliva: Boycotting Amazon over the Wikileaks issue is silly. I think he’s right.
• Lawsuit alleges mass abuse at a private youth corrections facility in Mississippi.
• First, they came for the . . . oh, nevermind.
• Google/YouTube appear to be pulling the plug on Alex Jones. I think Jones is fairly nutty. And let’s remember, private companies taking away your platform isn’t “censorship.” Still, it is troubling behavior from Google.
• Fourth Amendment underwear for your next trip through a TSA checkpoint.
• Ads that wouldn’t make it today (some NSFW).

Great video from my colleague Michael Moynihan. There’s also a great documentary with similar themes playing in a few theaters right now called A Film Unfinished. I wrote a mini-review of the film in the December issue of Reason:

Until recently, one reel of Nazi-shot film has been the source of all available footage of the Warsaw ghetto. But in 1998, a British researcher found a second reel in a storage room at an American Air Force base. In A Film Unfinished, director Yael Hersonski publicly airs this new footage for the first time–and reveals that the images the world has for decades associated with the Warsaw ghetto were staged. In this reel of “outtakes,” Nazi propagandists recruit the few healthy, comparatively better off Jews for carefully crafted scenes aimed to demonstrate that Jews were living well in Warsaw and, to the extent that there was misery, that affluent Jews were to blame for causing it.

No one believed the original film was an accurate depiction of ghetto life. But here Hersonski movingly documents yet another dimension to Hitler’s cruelty: Warsaw’s Jews were conscripted to keep the world in the dark about their own impending demise.

It’s an amazing documentary. She also brings in survivors of the Warsaw ghetto, shows them the Nazi reel, and allows them to rebut the staged footage.

Over the last six months, I’ve written several articles about the extraordinary secrecy of Northern Virginia’s police agencies (see here, here, and here). A few updates on the story:

First, Michael Lee Pope, the reporter for the Connection Newspaper chain and the NPR affiliate WAMU who deserves all the credit for breaking and pushing this story, reports on yet another case in which police agencies aren’t cooperating with a citizen’s attempt at getting information. In this instance, it’s the family of a teenager murdered at an Alexandria bakery. Previously, Pope had reported on how police officials in Fairfax County were stonewalling the family of an unarmed man shot and killed by police during a traffic stop.

Pope’s most recent report then triggered another bizarre reaction from Scott McCaffrey, editor of the Sun Gazette newspaper, a Connections competitor that also serves several communities in the Northern Virginia area. You may remember that back in September, McCaffrey inexplicably dismissed Pope’s reporting on all of this police secrecy as “tilting at windmills.” This time, he’s even more critical. In a blog post titled “Where are the editors?”, McCaffrey scolds:

One would think there are more important campaign issues for the Arlington Connection to be reporting on than how candidates for County Board stand on providing more access to police records.

Yet reporter Michael Lee Pope is on a mission, and he apparently is unrestrained by editors either at the paper or on WAMU-FM, where some of his material is picked up.

Connectionerinos, how about some coverage of serious issues affecting the community? We know reporters are underpaid, overworked and underloved, but by golly, they shouldn’t get to go out on strange tangents like open-records laws while leaving major stories uncovered.

The region has the most secretive police agencies in the country, unwilling to release even the mere name of a police officer who shot and killed an unarmed man, or to give a murder victim’s family information about the investigation of their son’s killer, and a local newspaper editor thinks covering all of this is a “strange tangent”? Who taught Scott McCaffrey journalism?

Finally, I’ve spent the last few months trying to get information on a somewhat disturbing personal twist to all of this. I lived in Alexandria for about seven years, until May, when I moved to Nashville, Tennessee. In September, I received an email from one of my former neighbors. It seems that in late September the new tenant in my old house got a visit from an Alexandria Sheriff’s Department deputy. Apparently, the deputy stopped by my old home and inquired whether anyone from “the Reason Institute [sic]” lived at the residence.

I’ve since spoken with one of the new tenants about this (though she gave me permission to look into and write about this, I’m not going to publish her name, for obvious reasons). She confirmed to me that all of this happened. She also said the deputy was holding some papers that looked to have articles printed on them, but he shielded them in a way that prevented her from reading them. She said the officer didn’t mention me by name, only the name of my employer.

Now there are lots of reasons why an Alexandria deputy might have cause visit my home. Perhaps an unpaid parking or speeding ticket. Maybe there was a break-in in the area. Several months before I moved out, my roommate called the police after being assaulted by a neighbor, and I was one of the witnesses. I can also see someone from the department possibly disagreeing with an article I’d written about the area’s police agencies, in which case they could have called or e-mailed Reason, or written a letter to the editor.

But it’s hard come up with any justification as to why a uniformed deputy would visit a private residence asking whether anyone from Reason worked there, just after we’d published a series of articles critical of local police departments, other than a misguided attempt at intimidation. Maybe there is an innocuous explanation. But I haven’t been able to find one.

I spoke with the Alexandria Sheriff’s Department about this. The officer who patrols the area where I lived says it wasn’t him, and that he was unaware of anything I’d written. His supervisor said she’s never heard of me or of Reason, and has no knowledge of any officer visiting my former residence.

I should add here that I have never met the new tenants of my old home in person. They moved in well after I left, and before all of this had no idea who I am. The woman told me she was sufficiently rattled by her encounter with the deputy that she went inside immediately to look up Reason, at which point she eventually found my name and recognized it from some junk mail that had come to the house. That’s when she mentioned the incident to my former neighbors, who then contacted me. My point here is that it seems rather improbable that she would have made the story up.

In October I called the tenant back, asked her for a general physical description of the officer. I have since tried to call the department back to give them that description, but they haven’t returned my calls.

Someone named Becky Akers outs me as a TSA supporter. Her smoking gun: Reason didn’t publish her when she tried to pitch us an article about TSA. Or something.

I don’t personally recall seeing any of her pitches. But judging from this sample, if it’s true that we passed it likely had more to do with her writing and analytical ability than her politics. (Leaving the airlines to provide their own security is fascism?)

She also links to a Fox News column I wrote that allegedly proves I’m just a TSA-lovin’ hypocrite. It is true. In that column, I did suggest Obama pick Jim Harper, Jim Mueller, or Bruce Schneier to head up the agency. I suggested those three precisely because any one of them would at minimum have forced the agency to respect the Fourth Amendment, and would likely have scrapped the agency entirely—or rendered it impotent.  (It’s actually more likely that none of the three would have taken the job.) I’d prefer that Obama nominate someone sensible to head up every federal agency. At least as opposed to, you know, someone who isn’t sensible. My first preference would be that he eliminate most of those agencies. But if ideological purity demands that we never even consider the reality of second- and third-best world choices, then I guess I’ll have to live with never quite making the cut as a Becky Akers-approved libertarian. But I think I can live with that.

Akers next finds fault with my using the word revamp in the column, instead of her preferred abolish. She also doesn’t quote my next line:

And by “revamp,” I mean “start over.”

Kinda’ adds some context, no? And then there’s this:

Why balk-o at a little unconstitutionality and tyranny if it means the neocons at Fox News will publish your prattle?

You’re right, Becky Akers. It’s unprincipled for a libertarian to write for a publication owned by Rupert Murdoch. Better to write for an outlet owned by someone who gives a damn about civil liberties. You know, like . . . the New York Post. Oh, and a play on my name! How fun! And original! With that sort of wit, you’re making me regret more and more that we never published you, Becks.

Make use of a search engine, you twit, and you’ll find that appeasing my neocon paymasters was never my objective over there. About half the time I used the column as a vehicle to bait and challenge the Fox crowd on these very issues, as well as the Iraq war, the drug war, and a host of other civil liberties issues. (The hate mail alone was worth more than the small sum they paid me.) This is also why they discontinued it. (If memory serves, the line was,”we’re taking the Views section in a new direction.”)

Now if you don’t mind, I need to finish up a column about how Obama should pick Becky Akers to head up the DEA.

A Boing Boing commenter notes this story from September, which I’m surprised didn’t attract more attention:

Local law enforcement and federal agents conducted a checkpoint operation Tuesday afternoon in Douglas County, the Federal Air Marshal Service told the AJC.

“This is a live operation intent on deterring would-be terrorists or criminal activity,” Nelson Minerly, spokesman for the federal agency, told the AJC.

The operation created a big distraction to motorists heading eastbound on I-20 in rush hour, and many motorists let the AJC and the WSB traffic center hear about it.

But the operation, which also involves the Transportation Security Administration, is top-secret before it happens, Minerly said.

“We don’t advertise when they’re going to happen or when they’re going to be,” Minerly said.

Mostly trucks were being checked, Minerly said. Shortly before 6 p.m., nothing had been recovered in the operation, he said.

“There’s no specific threat,” Jon Allen, regional spokesman for the TSA, told the AJC.

Not sure exactly what went on here. Are these happening elsewhere? I’m fairly sure a generalized checkpoint not near the border would violate Indianapolis v. Edmond, along with a number of other Supreme Court decisions. But maybe there’s some exception if this was directed at commercial trucking. Of course, whether or not it was technically legal according to the Supreme Court is a different question than if it’s a massively intrusive policy, or even if it’s an effective security measure.

….item on Wikileaks, via my colleague Jesse Walker.

The recent Wikileaks diplomatic document dump contains a cable from shortly before Germany’s 2009 general election, articulating worries among US diplomats that the German Free Democratic Party’s strong support for individual data privacy and protections against unreasonable search and seizure might hinder the efforts of the American national security state….The cable frames the FDP’s support for citizens’ privacy rights and individual liberties as a hindrance to US security strategy, and states that, if it were to join a ruling coalition in Germany, the party would scrutinize any proposals that would require sharing or accessing of information concerning private individuals. The cable faults the party’s “limited government viewpoint” for its opposition to data-sharing measures that would infringe on the privacy rights of individuals.

In a most ironic turn, the leaked cable scoffs at FDP Parliamentarian Gisela Piltz, who cautioned against data-sharing operations with the US government on the grounds that the US government as a whole lacks effective data protection measures even as it accumulates massive amounts of data on innocent citizens.

Laugh. So you don’t cry.

Jack Shafer:

International scandals—such as the one precipitated by this week’s WikiLeaks cable dump—serve us by illustrating how our governments work. Better than any civics textbook, revisionist history, political speech, bumper sticker, or five-part investigative series, an international scandal unmasks presidents and kings, military commanders and buck privates, cabinet secretaries and diplomats, corporate leaders and bankers, and arms-makers and arms-merchants as the bunglers, liars, and double-dealers they are…

The recent WikiLeaks release, for example, shows the low regard U.S. secretaries of state hold for international treaties that bar spying at the United Nations. Both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, systematically and serially violated those treaties to gain an incremental upper hand. And they did it in writing! That Clinton now decries Julian Assange’s truth-telling an “attack” on America but excuses her cavalier approach to treaty violation tells you all you need to know about U.S. diplomacy…

The idea of WikiLeaks is scarier than anything the organization has leaked or anything Assange has done because it restores our distrust in the institutions that control our lives. It reminds people that at any given time, a criminal dossier worth exposing is squirreled away in a database someplace in the Pentagon or at Foggy Bottom.

Will Wilkinson:

If secrecy is necessary for national security and effective diplomacy, it is also inevitable that the prerogative of secrecy will be used to hide the misdeeds of the permanent state and its privileged agents. I suspect that there is no scheme of government oversight that will not eventually come under the indirect control of the generals, spies, and foreign-service officers it is meant to oversee. Organisations such as WikiLeaks, which are philosophically opposed to state secrecy and which operate as much as is possible outside the global nation-state system, may be the best we can hope for in the way of promoting the climate of transparency and accountability necessary for authentically liberal democracy. Some folks ask, “Who elected Julian Assange?” The answer is nobody did, which is, ironically, why WikiLeaks is able to improve the quality of our democracy.

Glenn Greenwald:

The WikiLeaks disclosure has revealed not only numerous government secrets, but also the driving mentality of major factions in our political and media class.  Simply put, there are few countries in the world with citizenries and especially media outlets more devoted to serving, protecting and venerating government authorities than the U.S.  Indeed, I don’t quite recall any entity producing as much bipartisan contempt across the American political spectrum as WikiLeaks has:  as usual, for authoritarian minds, those who expose secrets are far more hated than those in power who commit heinous acts using secrecy as their principal weapon…

It’s one thing for the Government to shield its conduct from public disclosure, but it’s another thing entirely for the U.S. media to be active participants in that concealment effort.  As The Guardian‘s Simon Jenkins put it in a superb column that I can’t recommend highly enough:  ”The job of the media is not to protect power from embarrassment. . . . Clearly, it is for governments, not journalists, to protect public secrets.”  But that’s just it:  the media does exactly what Jenkins says is not their job, which — along with envy over WikiLeaks’ superior access to confidential information — is what accounts for so much media hostility toward that group.  As the headline of John Kampfner’s column in The Independent put it:  ”Wikileaks shows up our media for their docility at the feet of authority.”

Most political journalists rely on their relationships with government officials and come to like them and both identify and empathize with them.  By contrast, WikiLeaks is truly adversarial to those powerful factions in exactly the way that these media figures are not:  hence, the widespread media hatred and contempt for what WikiLeaks does.

Rio’s drug war: Now with more war.

More here.

Janet Napolitano said last month that we could expect to soon see tighter restrictions at bus, train, and marine transportation centers, too. Here’s a report about TSA, Border Patrol, and local police setting up a checkpoint at a Greyhound station in Tampa. Note how quickly preventing a possible terrorist attack expands to include catching illegal immigrants, and preventing drug and what sounds like “cash smuggling.” (It’s hard to tell from the audio.) Note also the complete and utter reverence the local news report bestows on these government agencies, who after all are merely “teaming up to keep your family safe.”

A liberal blogger wrote to me in an email this week that libertarians who call the TSA pat-downs a violation of their civil liberties do a disservice to actual violations of civil liberties. It’s not difficult to envision the day where anyone wishing to take mass transportation in this country will have to first submit to a government checkpoint, show ID, and answer questions about any excess cash, prescription medication, or any other items in his possession the government deems suspicious. If and when that happens, freedom of movement will essentially be dead. But it won’t happen overnight. It’ll happen incrementally. And each increment will, when taken in isolation, appear to some to be perfectly reasonable.

• So if a predominantly Muslim country holds a rigged election, but it produces results the U.S. wants, is that a good or a bad thing? (Note: I think it’s a good thing, but it puts the lie to the BS that we’re fighting to bring democracy to the Middle East.)
• This should be on a t-shirt. This too.
• Libertarianism happens to people.
• Unmanned Wikileaks drone destroys Afghan village.
• Video shows guards at a private prison idly watching as coworker beats inmate into a coma. Company officials said they were “disappointed” . . . that the video was released to the public.
• I don’t know much about this case, but it would be nice if prominent Republicans were as concerned about the growing power of prosecutors, politically-motivated prosecutions, and the criminalization of damned-near everything when these trends victimize someone other than one of their own.