I’ve been meaning to take a real vacation for a couple years, and just haven’t gotten around to planning one. But I’m set now on taking one the first couple weeks in May. I’m also set on the general area — Central/Eastern Europe. I know I want to spend some time in Prague and Budapest, and then I’m thinking I may wind down the Dalmatian Coast, then possibly fly to Bucharest for a few days before flying back home.

Prague and Budapest are the only definite destinations in all of that. Not sure yet how doable the rest is. But if any Agitatortots familiar with that part of the world have advice, recommendations, ideas, suggestions, please feel free to send them my way. I don’t speak the language in any of those countries, so I can’t get too far off the beaten path. But in the past, many of your not-in-the-guidebooks reader suggestions have been pretty great.

Borrowing on the map of botched SWAT raids idea I put together when I was at the Cato Institute, “Dr. Q.” at the Cop Block website is working on a similar map plotting incidents in which police have arrested, threatened, or otherwise harassed someone who was trying to record them.

As Dr. Q points out, like the map I put together, he does not claim his map to be comprehensive. These maps are useful and effective at visually demonstrating how common (or rather, “unisolated) these incidents are. They’re also good resource for reporters or activists interested in finding incidents in a particular state or city. So it’s great to see someone expand the idea to another area of criminal justice.

But I always caution against drawing too many conclusions from the map I put together. For example, the maps are much less useful if you want to, say, compare the number of incidents in different areas of the country or different cities. For example, one city may have more incidents than another not necessarily because the police are more aggressive or less tolerant of being recorded, but simply because the media may more likely to report such incidents. Or perhaps the police department in the more active city has a better system in place for citizens to register complaints. On this issue in particular, more populated areas will also present more opportunities for citizens with cameras to interact with police.

My feature, “The War on Cameras” here.

For my crime column this week, I defend a former cop doing 15 years in federal prison for producing child pornography.

Cops launch drug raid based on anonymous tip and a single marijuana stem found in the trash. End up raiding a home recording studio. Begin deliberations on what cool stuff they’re now permitted to take.

Which former Supreme Court justice said this:

“If it’s a dope case, I won’t even read the petition. I ain’t giving no break to no dope dealer.”

The surprising answer here.

• This is either creepy or genius.
• Kid beats a speeding ticket with his smart phone.
• Former MADD chapter president arrested for DUI. Also, .239!
• Another illegal arrest for recording an on-duty police officer, this time in New Hampshire.
• An interview with Brian Aitken.
• Mitch Daniels’ disappearing felony.

Boldly going where no government has gone before:

In one of history’s more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is “an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation.”

Someone asked on my Facebook page if reincarnation would be covered by the modern, expansionist interpretation of the Commerce Clause. Possibly!

I have details over at Hit & Run.

I really like the new Amos Lee album. It has a free, ambient vibe. There are also two excellent duets, one with Willie Nelson, the other with Lucinda Williams. One of my favorite cuts below. Agitator readers might also want to check out this little libertarian anthem Lee wrote and recorded.

• It’s still legal, for now, to grow your own tobacco in Brooklyn. What’s sad is that New York has imposed the phalanx of restrictions that make an article like this contemplatable. (Yes, I’m pretty sure I just made that word up.)
• Jury nullification advocate is indicted in federal court for jury tampering. I have a feeling we’re going to be hearing much, much more about this case in the coming years.
• Huge wave of pain clinic raids in Florida. Note that the USA Today couldn’t find room in a very long article to quote even one critic of these crackdowns.
• In Esquire, a long profile of exoneree Ray Towler.
• Why liberals should support eminent domain reform. This is a pretty important credibility issue for the left. We aren’t talking about public use, here. If you can’t bring yourself to support laws barring the government from taking land from poor people to give it to rich developers, it’s pretty darned clear that your priority isn’t protecting or advocating for the poor, it’s preserving government power. Or just opposing property rights because you don’t like the people who support them.

Connecticut State Sen. Martin Looney (D-New Haven) has introduced a short bill (PDF) that not only acknowledges the right of citizens to record on-duty police officers, it also provides for a civil action against police officers who violate that right.

That second part is important. A right doesn’t mean much if there are no consequences for government officials who ignore it. Witness this case in Florida, where an officer erroneously tries to say federal law prohibits citizen recordings of cops. Even in states where courts have thrown out criminal charges, a cop who doesn’t want to be recorded can still harass, threaten, and even arrest you. You may not be charged. But he won’t be punished, either.

This is the first proposed state law I’ve seen on this issue that includes an appropriate enforcement mechanism. It would be great to see Congress take up a similar bill, under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

CORRECTION: This post originally stated that the linked case above was in Maryland.

From the Houston Chronicle:

Houston Police Chief Charles McClelland went on the defensive Thursday during a meeting with local journalists, saying officers have made recent traffic stops in which residents leave their vehicles to take pictures or shoot video — encounters he says could endanger officers and that have increased following the release of the Chad Holley beating footage.

“Officers are telling me that they’re being provoked,” the chief said. “Even when they try to write a simple traffic ticket, people are jumping out with cell phone cameras scanning their badge numbers and their nametags. And I’ve asked them to remain calm and treat people with respect and dignity.”

McClelland said he is concerned that an intensifying anti-police sentiment in the community could increase negative interactions between Houston Police Department officers and residents.

“This rhetoric can give someone a free pass to try to assault a police officer or kill a police officer, and I’m not going to allow that,” he said. “My officers should be able to go out here and work in the neighborhoods and keep this city safe without fear and without hesitation.”

It’s a bit rich for McClelland to blame citizens with cameras and critics of police, here. All of this “rhetoric” he’s worried about is reaction to two high-profile incidents in which McClelland’s officers were captured on video beating the living hell out of someone. Here’s the first video, in which seven officers beat 15-year-old burglary suspect Chad Holley. Seven officers were initially fired, but two are now back on the force. Four have been charged with a misdemeanor. Houston public officials actually went to federal court to prevent the video from being released to the public (and won). When a leaked copy of the video got out anyway, Houston Mayor Annise Parker called for the leaker to be arrested. Because that’s what she should be concerned about.

The second video shows a police officer take  27-year-old Henry Madge to the ground and strike him after Madge had been handcuffed in a hospital waiting room. Madge at the hospital for his son’s appendectomy, and apparently got into an altercation over the volume on waiting room television.

I’ve reported here on how rarely police officers face significant discipline from their own departments. But as a local news station reported in the wake of the Holley incident, even on the rare occasions that they do, they’re often overturned or the punishments are watered down by arbitration agreements negotiated by police unions.

From all of this, McClelland and Parker apparently believe that the thing we should be most concerned about is that citizens in Houston have the temerity to record on-duty cops. And to criticize them when those videos depict excessive force.

• Puppycide in Philadelphia.
• NYPD cops beat teen inside a convenience store for “talking back”, then cite him for riding his bicycle on the sidewalk. Internal investigation clears them of any wrongdoing.
• Pastor who ministers in urban communities says he gets harassed by police for being white in black neighborhoods.
• Arizona legislature takes up a new round of immigrant hating, including a law that would mandate special birth certificates to the children of illegals stating that Arizona doesn’t consider them U.S. citizens.
• Glossing over the ugly racial history of organized labor.

Indiana Deputy Attorney General Jeff Cox was canned today. Good riddance.

On Saturday night, when Mother Jones staffers tweeted a report that riot police might soon sweep demonstrators out of the Wisconsin capitol building—something that didn’t end up happening—one Twitter user sent out a chilling public response: “Use live ammunition.”

From my own Twitter account, I confronted the user, JCCentCom. He tweeted back that the demonstrators were “political enemies” and “thugs” who were “physically threatening legally elected officials.” In response to such behavior, he said, “You’re damned right I advocate deadly force.” He later called me a “typical leftist,” adding, “liberals hate police.”

Only later did we realize that JCCentCom was a deputy attorney general for the state of Indiana…

In his nonpolitical tweets and blog posts, Cox displays a keen litigator’s mind, writing sharply and often wittily on military history and professional basketball. But he evinces contempt for political opponents—from labeling President Obama an “incompetent and treasonous” enemy of the nation to comparing “enviro-Nazis” to Osama bin Laden, likening ex-Labor Secretary Robert Reich and Service Employees International Union members to Nazi “brownshirts” on multiple occasions, and referring to an Indianapolis teen as “a black teenage thug who was (deservedly) beaten up” by local police. A “sensible policy for handling Afghanistan,” he offered, could be summed up as: “KILL! KILL! ANNIHILATE!“

Does it count as violent right-wing anti-government rhetoric if the guy actually worked for the government?

And that’s really the scary part. For the last 10 years, this guy has had the power to put people in prison.

Here’s my segment on police dogs from FreedomWatch yesterday.

For some reason, they aren’t allowing the video to be embedded.

• This story warmed my heart.
• Good example of the absurdities of anti-discrimination laws.
• Do these swollen reproductive glands make my butt look big? Study suggests that monkeys have self doubt.
• Belgium’s government shuts down. Country does fine. But some Belgians get antsy without their minders. Reminds me of my favorite Voltaire quote.
• This is just horrible.
• Defend the Capitol from lobbyists!

I’ll be talking about my column on police dogs tonight on Freedom Watch. Tune in to Fox Business Channel at 8 pm ET.

Hey, maybe they’ll let me bring Daisy.

• Wisconsin Protests: Myths and Facts.
• Speaking of which, oldie but goodie: Vice magazine takes on the NEA.
• Churches criticized for opening doors to displaced Muslims.
• “Donald Rumsfeld Is Above the Law and Jose Padilla Is Beneath It”
• City will no longer pay cops’ legal bills.
• I think I’ve linked to this before, but someone just sent it again — great ad campaign for a job-finding site.
• Oklahoma woman gets 10 years for selling $31 worth of pot.

My crime column this week looks at why police dog have such high failure rates.

The reason has to do with the difference between what dogs have been bred to do, and what we think we’ve trained them to do.

Forgot to put one up last week, so here’s a Nashville special Sunday version. Last night, I went to Nashville Hootenanny, an informal lineup of up and coming artists run and streamed live on the web by music producer David Malloy. I’ll have a longer write-up on the Nashville blog next week, but this month’s show was all teenagers. And wow, these kids were good. Here’s one of the crowd favorites from last night, a throwback trio called The Least of Your Worries. The song below is an original recording from another Hootenanny event last fall. Also check out their killer cover of “Me and Mrs. Jones”.

• That story about ICE seizing 84,000 domains in a child porn investigation is starting to pick up some momentum.
• Fun book review about zombies and foreign policy from my colleague Katherine Mangu-Ward.
• A few of you have asked my opinion about what’s going on in Wisconsin. This pretty well sums it up. And in that it exempted police and firefighters, I don’t think the Wisconsin bill went far enough.
• Looking for a crib?
• Damn baby, Djibouti could start a revolution. (Sorry.)
• History’s lost black cities.
• Another awkward moment on Australian TV.
• Mississippi Innocence, the documentary on the Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks cases (and includes commentary from yours truly), won the overall audience favorite prize at the Oxford Film Festival.

Below, a list of the speeches I’ll be giving in the coming months. All are open to the public, but you’ll have to buy a ticket for the Tea Party speech. I’d wager that there aren’t many other people who in the same year will give speeches sponsored by chapters of the Tea Party, the Innocence Project, the Federalist Society, the ACLU, and Amnesty International. Might  be enough to make some heads a’splode.

March 16

Georgetown Law Center, Washington, D.C.

Topic: Forensics and the Criminal Justice System

Sponsor: Georgetown Law Innocence Project

March 30

Furman University, Greenville, South Carolina

Topic: Police Militarization

Sponsors: Amnesty International and Conservative Students for a Better Tomorrow

April 13

University of Michigan Law School, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Topic: Police Militarization

Sponsors: The Federalist Society and the American Civil Liberties Union

April 16

Tea Party Summit, Washington, D.C.

Topic: The Good News About Civil Liberties, Libertarianism, and Freedom

Sponsor: America527.org

Last weekend, visitors to some 84,000 websites, mostly personal and small business sites, saw this pop up on their screens:

The domain seizures were part of “Operation Save Our Children,” which according to a Department of Homeland Security press release, nabbed 10 websites that were distributing child pornography.

The problem for the other 83,990 domain owners is that for a couple days their sites were inaccessible to both owners and to readers/viewers/customers, and for up to six days the site owners were advertised to the world as suspected child pornographers. The DHS press release makes no mention of that.

From the file-sharing blog TorrentFreak:

As with previous seizures, ICE convinced a District Court judge to sign a seizure warrant, and then contacted the domain registries to point the domains in question to a server that hosts the warning message. However, somewhere in this process a mistake was made and as a result the domain of a large DNS service provider was seized.

The domain in question is mooo.com, which belongs to the DNS provider FreeDNS. It is the most popular shared domain at afraid.org and as a result of the authorities’ actions a massive 84,000 subdomains were wrongfully seized as well. All sites were redirected to the banner…

This seems to be part of a pattern in which DHS seizes and shuts down blocks of domains with little due process, though it’s more commonly done in copyright investigations.