On Aug 31, 2008, at 3:00 PM, John wrote:
> Nah, we really are. I lied. We have meetings and talk about new
> tactics we
> can use to deprive people of their rights. . . .
Yes, you do. These plans are coordinated by the FBI, and are the
result of the domestic spying program:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/31/raids/index.html
( -or- http://tinyurl.com/6rpt7x )
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So here we have a massive assault led by Federal Government law
enforcement agencies on left-wing dissidents and protesters who have
committed no acts of violence or illegality whatsoever, preceded by
months-long espionage efforts to track what they do. And as
extraordinary as that conduct is, more extraordinary is the fact that
they have received virtually no attention from the national media and
little outcry from anyone. And it's not difficult to see why. As the
recent "overhaul" of the 30-year-old FISA law illustrated -- preceded
by the endless expansion of surveillance state powers, justified first
by the War on Drugs and then the War on Terror -- we've essentially
decided that we want our Government to spy on us without limits. There
is literally no police power that the state can exercise that will
cause much protest from the political and media class and, therefore,
from the citizenry.
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They go on to compare these actions with those by the Chinese
government during the recent Olympics:
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On August 2, The Post gravely warned:Behind the gray walls and barbed
wire of the prison here, eight Chinese farmers with a grievance
against the government have been consigned to Olympic limbo.
Their indefinite detainment, relatives and neighbors said, is the
price they are paying for stirring up trouble as China prepares to
host the Beijing Games. Trouble, the Communist Party has made clear,
will not be permitted.
Would The Washington Post ever use such dark and accusatory tones to
describe what the U.S. Government does? Of course it wouldn't. Yet how
is our own Government's behavior in Minnesota any different than what
the Chinese did to its protesters during the Olympics (other than the
fact that we actually have a Constitution that prohibits such behavior)?
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- -
And we have this extraordinary item about a group being held captive
by police *before* they had a warrant:
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Heres is the extraordinary blog item I linked to yesterday from Eileen
Clancy, one of the founders of I-Witness Video -- a NYC-based video
collective which is in St. Paul to document the policing of the
protests around this week's Republican National Convention, just as
they did at the 2004 GOP Convention in New York. Clancy wrote this as
a plea for help, as the Police surrounded her house and (before they
had a search warrant) told everyone inside that they'd be arrested if
they exited the home:
This is Eileen Clancy . . . The house where I-Witness Video is staying
in St. Paul has been surrounded by police. We have locked all the
doors. We have been told that if we leave we will be detained. One of
our people who was caught outside is being detained in handcuffs in
front of the house. The police say that they are waiting to get a
search warrant. More than a dozen police are wielding firearms,
including one St. Paul officer with a long gun, which someone told me
is an M-16.
We are suffering a preemptive video arrest. For those that don't know,
I-Witness Video was remarkably successful in exposing police
misconduct and outright perjury by police during the 2004 RNC. Out of
1800 arrests, at least 400 were overturned based solely on video
evidence which contradicted sworn statements which were fabricated by
police officers. It seems that the house arrest we are now under and
the possible threat of the seizure of our computers and video cameras
is a result of the 2004 success.
[snip]
That sounds like what it was: a cry for help from a hostage. Hours
later, the Police finally obtained a search warrant -- for the wrong
house, one adjacent to the house where they were being detained -- and
nonetheless broke in, pointing guns, forced them to lay on the floor
and handcuffed everyone inside (and handcuffed a National Lawyers
Guild attorney outside). They searched the house, arrested nobody, and
then left.
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The Police State is here and is running unchecked. None of you "good
ol' boy" folksy "aw shucks" quips change that fact.
-- Ed Leafe
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