TheAgitator.com
Friday Links
Friday, March 18th, 2011I’m flying back to D.C. this afternoon, so there will likely be no more blogging today. Please, do chat amongst yourselves.
- The Zoopreme Court.
- Medical marijuana shop inadvertently violates zoning ordinance. So naturally the city sent the SWAT team.
- More skepticism of Shaken Baby Syndrome convictions.
- Interesting post on a wrinkle and possible double standard with the onerous Illinois wiretapping law. I don’t have the law in front of me at the moment (I’m at the airport, WiFi is spotty), but I believe there’s an exception for people who reasonably believe they’re recording criminal activity. The problem of course is that if that you can’t use video to show you weren’t doing anything criminal. And if you record on-duty cops engaging in activity you think is criminal, you do so at risk of getting hit with a felony charge.
- Feds tell local school officials they should be monitoring their students on Facebook.
- DOJ investigation finds lots of problems with the New Orleans Police Department.
- Headline of the day.
- Nassau County, New York to pay for retesting in 3,000 drug cases possibly corrupted by faulty crime lab.
- Just a Friendly Reminder: Please Shut the Hell Up.
“Police on Thursday afternoon served a municipal search warrant on a medical marijuana dispensary…”
A what? Is a “municipal search warrant” a warrant that the city gives itself?
How can a person sane enough to get out of bed every day believe it’s the schools responsibility to monitor Facebook? Words just fail me.
The Longmont raid may not have been an actual SWAT raid. It was at the right address, no dogs or people were killed, the door is intact, and the personnel are not described as SWAT.
The funny thing is that in one fell swoop, Austrailian teenager Casey Heynes, last Monday, probably did more to curb bullying than Obama and the entire state/federal government school system ever could.
http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/18/youtube-hero-australian-boy-casey-heynes-body-slams-his-bully/
Anyone else reading up on this?
http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-national/a-journalist-s-guide-to-project-gunwalker
Dear God, we need Federal jury nullification. Maybe even more than we need state jury nullification.
I’m sure the New Orleans PD is just a bad apple…
‘The agency’s threats, which are delivered in a so-called “Dear Colleague” letter,” have the support of White House officials, including President Barack Obama, who held a Mar. 10 White House meeting to promote the initiative as a federal “anti-bullying” policy.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/03/16/fed-instructs-teachers-to-facebook-creep-students/#ixzz1GyhQaF3G‘
this is the danger of federal grants and funding… all these local agencies (schools, police departments, fire departments, street departments, etc) are clamoring for this federal money to pad their budgets- this federal money comes with strings attached (SURPRISE!). Cops do more drug raids and seat belt checks, schools do more ‘security’ measures, fire departments are at FEMAs beck and call, etc. This is an issue that local governments ignore, because they want the money.
Re: #4:
A college buddy of mine dealt with a laundry thief by punching him out. When the thief, widely described as a preppy douche, reported him to DPS, the theft victim/assailant told the officers something like, “I punched him because he stole my fucking clothes! He fucking stole my goddamn shit!”
The college took disciplinary action against the assailant (something like a censure, forced apology and anger management counseling) but I don’t believe they took disciplinary action against the thief. I’m not sure if it was another outbreak of police favoritism for the wealthy (something consistent with DPS’ corrupt behavior through the immediately preceding year, when the bad commanders were finally booted), a true lack of evidence, or legitimate discretion based on the victim having resorted to violence.
The laundry thief stole from his assailant’s friends, too. One friend said that he recognized his own Lacoste shirt in the thief’s official yearbook picture.
The thief now has a permanent position at the FDA. I’ll let doctrinaire libertarians make of that what they will. Personally, I don’t seriously read anything into his government career, but I find it entertaining that he so readily confirmed the libertarian meme of government as a den of thieves.
Re: Facebook monitoring:
Students who make their profiles private should have solid tort cases for invasion of privacy against anyone who hacks into their profiles or uses some other subterfuge to gain unauthorized access to their private information. And they should sue the hell out of their school districts if they don’t respect their privacy. Any district that does that should get publicly embarrassed at least as badly as Lower Merion did over the home computer spying scandal.
“Police will pay the bill using asset-forfeiture funds—money seized from criminals during investigations—instead of taxpayer money”
two points:
A)They seized that money from people, many of whom were never even charged with a crime much less convicted. I guess it makes it much more acceptable for the public if we can be deluded into thinking no innocent law abiding citizens had there money stolen in our name, with no due process, just “criminals”
B) “instead of taxpayer money” WTF? Who’s money is it if not the taxpayers? The police department’s?
This mentality demonstrates the danger of our asset forfeiture regime, where LE agents have the attitude that seized property, or property they intend to seize, is “theirs”.
Newsflash for the LEO’s -It’s not your money it’s the public’s money. Whether it came from tax revenues, fees, fines or forfeiture- it all belongs to the taxpaying public-NOT YOU!
NOPD has been a fucking disaster for decades, so I’d be surprised if it somehow cleaned up its act post Katrina, after Danziger Bridge and all that. The same thing that I argued about the NYPD yesterday applies to the NOPD: it badly needs an superintendent from outside. It needs a new slate of commanders beholden to no one on the force, who won’t hesitate to tell their officers, “No, that’s not Cajun pride, that’s felony violence. Clean out your locker.”
I like that guy’s attitude. If people who think the government is your friend are like grains of sand, he would be like an oasis in the Sahara.
#5 that’s some ugly stuff- and a lot of it… I’ll have to do some wading.
IANAL, but the IL wiretap exception seems paradoxical – if you are charged with a felony for recording your interaction with the police, then would that not trigger the criminal activity exception?
@2, it’s called conditioning. Condition the students to be aware that they may be monitored at all times by government. You have to start on some generation so that the next one is “used to it” and thinks “it should be this way” because their rulers said so.
Best part of the marijuana story:
“Mother Greens is located between the Boulder County Republicans and…”
So *that’s* why they moved. Getting closer to their customers!
Teh stupid is strong in New Jersey.
http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2011/03/nj_town_proposes_limiting_mati.html
@15
haha – great point
@2 @4 @8 I find it highly ironic that the biggest bully in the world has an anti-bullying policy.
So can I call in a S.W.A.T. team if my neighbor’s fence is encroaching my property?
Here’s an interesting story. Local kid arrested for third degree murder for supplying a legal designer drug that some poor kid overdosed on: http://www.startribune.com/local/north/118182584.html
For that Longmont dispensary raid, the story looks like its a legal business that moved and was just having some licensing issues for the past several MONTHS with the city. So of course, the city can’t send over an inspector to just speak with the owner. They send in armed and vested (and in the picture, masked) police to shut down the store. Really? So when Walmart has a minor licensing issue, the cops show up and lock it down for the day?
With so many rules and licenses required to run a business, I challenge anyone to find me any business that is 100% compliant. Absolutely cannot be done. This is just blatant harassment, plain and simple.
I’m not a user and have never been a user, but if God forbid I ever had a health issue that can be relieved by lighting up, I surely want the opportunity.
re :IL wiretap law: what happens if you tell the police you are recording them because you think they are about to commit a Federal civil rights violation?
[...] Link via The Agitator [...]
NOPD report:
The report also states that federal laws were broken. Did anyone else read the article and think “Oh, thank god, the Feds are involved! Heads will roll and NO will finally get an honest PD!”
Me neither.
pc:
The next several minutes prove you right, but the camera gets confiscated and the recording of you losing several teeth to a police baton is “accidentally” deleted.