A bit back, we noted how a guy in NY had his guns taken because he dared petition his congressperson for a redress of grievances? Well, David has interviewed him:

On a subsequent trip to her office, Razzano was informed he was not one of McCarthy’s constituents due to redistricting, and his representative was Peter King. He then went to the Board of Elections and obtained a certified copy stating he was in her district.

When he went back to McCarthy’s office with his “proof of constituency,” a detective approached him, told him to leave and to stop “annoying” Rep. McCarthy because he was not a constituent. The detective escorted Razzano down the elevator—at the bottom, when the doors opened, Rep. McCarthy was there. She ignored Razanno when he tried to speak to her and the detective escorted him out the building.

The very next day, Razanno got a call from his mother who lives a few doors down—the police were at her house demanding his guns or they would arrest him. He was told there was a 911 call about him, and he needed to surrender his firearms for a 90-day “cooling off period.” In other words, they would take the guns or they would take him. It was portrayed to him by the confiscating officer as “not a big deal.”

The police took all of his legally registered guns—nine rifles and 15 handguns, and they also seized his fiancée’s handgun. This despite no statutory authority to do this– It’s important here to note that this was not a domestic or any other kind of violence incident. Razzano didn’t even get a receipt for the seized property until a week later—after he requested one.

And that’s to say nothing of the election fraud and lack of due process of law.

Back on Monday, we had a pretty good discussion going about hate crimes. Frequent Lean Left commenter LarryE expands on this theme:

The usual (flawed) understanding of “hate crimes” legislation is that it would make the hate itself, rather than any actions based on the hate, the crime. It’s that misunderstanding that leads people to fear that “hate crimes” will lead inexorably to “thought crimes,” to people being prosecuted strictly for their opinions.

The thing is, I don’t know of anyone who’s proposed anything approaching that, i.e., proposed a law to make hate itself illegal. “It’s now illegal to be a bigot.” Besides the Constitutional issues, it’s absurd on its face to seriously entertain the notion of being able to simply outlaw racism or ban sexist or homophobic remarks or whatever – or at least it’s absurd to think any such law would actually achieve any of those ends or even be enforceable. So let’s drop that particular misconception and focus on the real argument, one which, as is explicit in the very phrase “hate crimes,” refers to “crimes motivated by hate.”

The whole thing is worth a read.

Mayors dogs killed in drug raid. This one is a bit odd. Seems the mayor had 30 pounds of weed mailed to him:

“My government blew through my doors and killed my dogs,” Calvo said. “They thought we were drug dealers, and we were treated as such. I don’t think they really ever considered that we weren’t.”

And a bit of like you and me only better:

“You can’t tell me the chief of police of a municipality wouldn’t have been able to knock on the door of the mayor of that municipality, gain his confidence and enter the residence,” Murphy said. “It would not have been a necessity to shoot and kill this man’s dogs.”

Well, now that this has happened to somebody important, maybe something will be done about it.

In your face

So, a bunch of smug people decide every once in a while to clog streets and intersections in major metropolitan areas. The folks at Critical Mass want you to know how hip and green they are so much so that they’re willing to be total assholes about it. So, like a bunch of open carry activists, they decide to be a minor curiosity to your otherwise uneventful day. Now, I appreciate the plight of the Heck’s Angels but can you guys be, say, less douchebaggy about it?

In New York, such douchebaggery got one Heck’s Angel face-planted. Now, being a douchebag is typically not a face-plant worthy offense. Still, I can’t help holding back a minor giggle while wagging my shaming finger at the officer involved. Said officer who should be charged with assault.

So, in NH, it looks like there was a law passed and someone has been convicted of not threatening a public official. You see, threatening them was upgraded to a felony. And talking sternly to them is now a misdemeanor:

It was always illegal to threaten a public official, but what was in the past generally considered a misdemeanor in most cases was also upgraded under the new law to a Class B felony. The change makes jail time more likely for those convicted of threatening the current and former governors, legislators, judges and a variety of other public officials and their families — even if the public official has no reasonable fear for his or her safety.

That leaves open an awful lot of room for abuse.

If you have a physical disability, DC doesn’t want you armed.

Remember, politicians want to restrict your movement and ability to buy weapons if your name is on a terror watch list. But since we’ve had one senator and now one prosecutor on the list, I don’t think list has a lot of credibility.

Michael Silence rounds up other bloggers who are lamenting the death of the fourth amendment. Listen up guys, it’s been deader than Robert Matthew Van Winkle’s career for a while now. Once the courts ruled that 1) it’s OK to have roadblocks as long as you stop every body; and 2) because of the advent of indoor plumbing, it’s OK for police to knock your door down; it was over. Listening in on my phone conversations pales in comparison to that, I would think.

Details of another wrong house raid by police. Once again, police too willing to believe bad tips then not confirm them.

Are you kidding: Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who would like very much to reimpose the old, so-called, “Fairness Doctrine” that once censored conservative opinion on television and radio broadcasting, is scheming to impose rules barring any member of Congress from posting opinions on any internet site without first obtaining prior approval from the Democratic leadership of Congress. No blogs, twitter, online forums – nothing.

Because it’s fun to stir shit up and get under people’s skin, and because the blogging will be quiet for the holiday weekend, I just had to link this comment by Bruce Baugh at Obsidian Wings:

I’ve said this before and will again: the very heart of the “widespread gun ownership checks tyranny” argument has been tested and failed completely.

For twenty years or more, political discourse in a whole lot of online forums was swamped by people telling the rest of us how the US was getting ever more tyrannical, and that the day would come when on some flimsy pretext the government would abandon habeaus corpus, engage in unlimited surveillance of everyone it felt like spying on, arrest people on arbitrary grounds and then abuse them any way the captors felt like, and so on.

It turns out they were right about that part.

They also told the rest of us that when this happened, they would rise up en masse. They would free unjustly held prisoners, put terror into the hearts of agents of tyranny, maybe even overthrow the tyrant him/herself. (As the ’90s went on, the hypothetical tyrant was increasingly likely to be portrayed as a woman.) And did they? Did they hell.

There are no martyrs from the RKBA crowd. Their organizations sometimes join in efforts mostly initiated and staffed by others, but apart from objections to a handful of specific proposed restrictions on gun sales and such, one hears of no RKBA leadership on any of the rest. To the contrary, one hears a great deal of cheerleading for warmaking abroad and tyranny at home as long as all the right people get it, and one hears silence. Where are those freed prisoners? Nowhere. Where are those terrified agents? Nowhere. It was all the purest bloviation.

It’s really very rare for such ambitious claims about what one will do oneself and what one’s allies will do in a moment of profound crisis. But Bush/Cheney gave us all the chance. And all of you going on about how guns keep the republic safe and free are completely full of it. All the things you warned us about came to pass, and where are you? Right here with the bulk of us, and well behind some – there are individual posters here who as single people have done more actual good for American liberty than half the membership of the NRA and such groups.

It’s liberal lawyers, academics, journalists, and the like who are actually pressing the government, pretty much, and liberals at large funding them, while conservatives and libertarians (with way, way too few exceptions) either cheer and keep voting for the tyranny or sigh and shake a finger and then keep voting for it. The RKBA claims about guns’ role in society are demonstrably false for America at the beginning of the 21st century, and no amount of dithering over 18th century will change that. The Second Amendment as constituted is useless not because of then, but because of now, because of you its champions.

PS: It will of course be a glad thing if the bloviators ever do get serious about fighting tyranny, because tyranny is really bad and needs all the opposition it can get. But I’m not holding my breath waiting – it seems like we are instead well into the phase where all the loyal cheering section for the tyrant busily tries to pretend they didn’t say things. I fully expect lawsuits against Google, the Internet Way-Back Machine, and the like from right-wing legally minded folks who wish their embarrassing words better hidden.

But hey, always glad to see clues, if and when they break out.

The gun case in San Francisco is based on Title 42 U.S.C. Section 1983.

I haven’t really said too much on the Heller ruling to this point, in large part because gun rights and gun control aren’t the hot button issue for me that they are for most here (like Uncle). I will say that I think that the right decision was reached here, although I worry about the reasoning used to get there, and I worry even more about the growing tendency of Supreme Court justices — from both wings — to go on historical fishing expeditions to find legal justification for the outcomes they personally prefer. (Really, when was the last time you saw a SCOTUS justice — liberal, conservative, or otherwise — rule that “I hate this outcome, but this is what the law says,” or something along those lines?) On this note, I think Sandy Levinson hits it pretty squarely on the head:

Then there are the “internal” features of the opinions. I confess that I am equally dismayed by the Scalia and Stevens opinions (though, if absolutely forced to choose, I’d go with the Scalia opinion). One of the most remarkable features of Justice Scalia’s majority opinion (joined, of course, by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Kennedy, and Alito) and Justice Stevens’s dissent (joined by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Souter) is the view that the Second Amendment means only what it meant at the time of its proposal and ratification in 1789-91. Justice Scalia, of course, has long been identified with “originalism,” even though some of his critics, both liberal and conservative, note that he has been a most inconsistent one. But Justice Stevens has certainly not embraced originalism. Yet they spend a total of 110 pages debating arcane aspects of the purported original meaning of the Amendment.

If one had any reason to believe that either Scalia or Stevens was a competent historian, then perhaps it would be worth reading the pages they write. But they are not. Both opinions exhibit the worst kind of “law-office history,” in which each side engages in shamelessly (and shamefully) selective readings of the historical record in order to support what one strongly suspects are pre-determined positions. And both Scalia and Stevens treat each other—and, presumably, their colleagues who signed each of the opinions—with basic contempt, unable to accept the proposition, second nature to professional historians, that the historical record is complicated and, indeed, often contradictory. Justice Stevens, for example, writes that anyone who reads the text of the Second Amendment and its history, plus a murky 1939 decision of the Court, will find “a clear answer” to the question of whether the Second Amendment supports a “right to possess and use guns for nonmilitary purposes.” This is simply foolish. Justice Stevens pays no real attention to a plethora of first-rate historical work written over the past decade that challenges this kind of foolish self-confidence, as is true also of Justice Scalia. There is no serious discussion, for example, of Saul Cornell’s fine book A Well-Regulated Militia: The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control, but many other examples could be offered, from various sides of the ideological spectrum.

Both Scalia and Stevens manifest what is worst about Supreme Court rhetoric, which is precisely the tone of sublime confidence when addressing even the most complex of issues. The late Victoria Geng once wrote a marvelous parody of Supreme Court decisions in which, among other things, the Court announced that “nature is more important than nurture.” We wouldn’t take such a declaration seriously. It is not clear why we should take much more seriously the kinds of over-confident declarations as to historical meaning that both Scalia and Stevens indulge in.

What is especially ironic is that the strongest support for Scalia’s position comes from acknowledging that the Second Amendment, like the rest of the Bill of Rights, has been “dynamically” interpreted and has taken on some quite different meanings from those it originally had. Whatever might have been the case in 1787 with regard the linkage of guns to service in militias—and the historical record is far more mixed on this point than either Scalia or Stevens is willing to acknowledge—there can be almost no doubt that by the mid-19th century, an individual right to bear arms was widely accepted as a basic attribute of American citizenship. One of the reasons that the Court in Dred Scott denied that blacks could be citizens was precisely that Chief Justice Taney recognized that citizens could carry guns, and it was basically unthinkable that blacks could do so. Thus, in effect, they could not be citizens. Charles Sumner, who, unlike Taney is quoted by Scalia, strongly endorsed the rights of anti-slavery settlers in Kansas to have guns to protect themselves against their pro-slavery opponents. If one reads only Scalia and Stevens, one would believe that there is no dynamism to the Constitution, which is both stupid as a theory of interpretation and, more to the point, completely misleading as a way of understanding the American constitutional tradition.

It’s good that the abuse of asset forfeiture is starting to make the mainstream press. Drug War Rant notes a four part series on NPR that deals with the issue.

This is uncalled for.

Wow:

It’s about time we get real about gun control in our cities. If we can have sobriety checkpoints and now motorcycle checkpoints, why don’t we have cops creating gun checkpoints? Have them create checkpoints in the city where the gun violence is running rampant.

Give the cops metal detectors and make people stop and get checked for guns. They are illegal and they are a lot worse than drunken drivers, and motorcyclists without the correct credentials. Let’s get real here and start doing something about all these guns on our streets.

An old misattributed quote: They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Heh.

In DC, police plan on blocking off neighborhoods and making them Safety Zones:

Under an executive order expected to be announced today, police Chief Cathy L. Lanier will have the authority to designate “Neighborhood Safety Zones.” At least six officers will man cordons around those zones and demand identification from people coming in and out of them. Anyone who doesn’t live there, work there or have “legitimate reason” to be there will be sent away or face arrest, documents obtained by The Examiner show.

More from Ahab and Radley.

The Daily Times:

Beginning July 1, registered sex offenders in Tennessee must tell authorities of any e-mail, user name or instant messaging screen name they use.

Good:

A police officer does not have the authority to arrest someone for refusing to identify himself when he is not suspected of committing a crime, a federal appeals panel ruled Friday.

Someone tell Dudley Hiibel and the Supreme Court.

Jamie Satterfield notes that the state Supreme Court is looking into TN’s waiver of due process of law err illegal drug tax:

In a separate case, Brad Buchanan tried today on behalf of the state Department of Revenue to convince the state high court to overturn a lower appellate court ruling striking down as unconstitutional the state’s Unauthorized Substance Tax Act, more commonly known as the “crack tax.”

Under the law, the illegal wares of drug dealers were to be taxed. Dope peddlers could voluntarily pay the tax with the promise of anonymity but those who failed to do so but wound up busted by police were assessed the tax whether or not they were ultimately tried or convicted of criminal charges.

A Davidson County chancellor deemed the tax punitive in nature and, therefore, afoul of constitutional protections including the right to due process and the right against being punished twice for the same crime. The state Cout of Appeals also struck down the tax but for different reasons, arguing the state cannot tax an illegal activity or product.

Defense attorney Phil Lomonaco, on behalf of Lenoir City construction worker Steven Waters, asked the Supreme Court today to keep the crack tax out of Tennessee’s tax code.

“It is conditioned upon a crime,” Lomonaco said. “This is purely a tax on an illegal activity.”

Actually, it’s not a tax at all. It’s a scheme to take a person’s property without due process of law.

So, due to budget concerns, there will be due process of law. I would think that budget concerns would lead to a lack of due process of law. And to think, I’ve had it wrong all this time.

Bad racist jokes land you in jail.

Actually, I though the joke was kinda funny.

I found this little gem at KnoxViews. It seems so innocuous and reasonable. Yet if you take the time to read it, you will find an important message.

What is that message? And more importantly, why should you care?

Here’s a livejournal from a guy who everyone thought was the Virginia Tech shooter (I’ve linked him before). They thought it was him because he’s 1) Asian (they all look the same, you know) and 2) he was a gun owner (we’re all crazy and shoot things all the time, you know). Anyway, a year later, he goes back through some things from that time, including his place getting raided and various press interviews. Interesting stuff:

Interview

I often wonder how some people can look themselves in the mirror. One of those people is Janet Reno. In her case, it might be a bit harder since she always sees Ernest Borgnine looking back at her.

But, buck up little camper, at least you weren’t set on fire.

Look out, she may have a bomb on those nips:

A Texas woman who claims she was forced to remove a nipple ring with pliers in order to board an airplane called Thursday for an apology by federal security agents and a civil rights investigation.

Pliers? Ouch.

People don’t like to voluntarily consent to searches and seizures? Who knew?

He might like the idea:

New Zealand Bans Forms of Political Satire

Apparently, Kiwi politicians were upset at the media for broadcasting images of government ministers appearing to sleep at their desks or making rude gestures. But it wasn’t just members of the governing party who were saying “no humor allowed” — only six members of the 121-seat parliament voted against the measure.

This seems like one of those things that politicians do because they can but often come to regret mightily later.

Not only is the move unpopular with the people of New Zealand (in a recent poll, 71 percent said they opposed the ban), but it probably won’t help the country’s image in the larger world. I can just imagine what the Australians (who make fun of Kiwis endlessly anyway) will do with it — or someone like Jon Stewart or those great British comedy shows.

Nashville blogger has a run in with the police because he was taking a picture:

You wanna be charged with somethin’? I’ll charge you with disorderly conduct, if you wanna be charged with somethin’.

Via MCB.

In addition to threatening David Codrea under color of law, they’ve also threatened JPFO.

Michael Silence: Perhaps I’m too simply minded but it seems to me if you don’t have the First Amendment, you don’t have the Second Amendment. And if you don’t have the Second Amendment, you don’t have the First Amendment. Any assault on one is an assault on the other. Any assault on either is an assault on all the Amendments.

Ok, you’ve probably read the story about the chick whose ass was fused to the toilet for some period of time (one month to two years, depending on the source). Well, the local law is bringing charges against the boyfriend for, err, honestly I have no idea why. Apparently, if it’s unusual, it must also be illegal.

We can’t even get it right for planes much less civil rights.

This stupid bill has popped up again. It will never pass but we should reiterate the tactics of our opponents simply run counter to concepts like civil rights and due process of law. I would do that but everyone else did it yesterday:

Jay:

Remember the cries of outrage when people found their names on terrorist watch lists and weren’t allowed to board planes? The ACLU has a page here that discusses it and even filed suit in 2004 challenging the no fly list.

But what about when it comes to guns? Well, Senator Frank Lautenberg and Representative Peter King don’t give a rats ass about constitutional protections then. They’re sponsoring a bill that would prevent the people on terrorist watch lists from purchasing firearms even if they are legally allowed to do so.

Bitter:

Of course, not all people on there have funny names. (Is there something funny about Robert Johnson?) But, it’s one more reason why this list should never be used to deny people rights or presume they are guilty. I can assure you that if Congressman Don Young (who, according to the ACLU’s website, is on the list) gets his guns taken from him because they don’t know how to appropriately filter records at Homeland Security, he’s not going to be a very pleasant guy to be around.

Sebastian:

If Bush were doing this, and not doing it to gun owners, the left would be outraged.

Story here:

Marshals Say Teens Wait For A Name To Be Called At The D.M.V. If The Person Doesn’t Show Up, They Walk Up To The Desk, Pretend To Be The Person And Use The Real Information And Take The Picture.

Boy, do I feel safer.

No, I don’t know why every word in the article is capitalized.

MKS reports that: Now we have a judge, in an attempt to force testimony, saying a former reporter cannot get financial help to pay court fines.

David Codrea says US Marshal Judicial Security Inspector David A. Meyer threatened him with arrest for his blog. More specifically, he told Ryan from Red’s Trading Post to pass along a message. Essentially, the agent has asserted that if David threatens or incites, he’ll be arrested. Now, David and I don’t see eye to eye on the best way to further our cause but to state that he’s threatened anyone or that he’s inciting others is ridiculous. To threaten David’s right to speak freely under color of law is a crime. I expect better of government employees.

I guess they had words for Ryan too since he hasn’t updated his blog since the trial started.

In Kentucky:

A bill filed in the House would keep Kentuckians from posting anonymous comments to Web sites.

House Bill 775, filed Tuesday by Rep. Tim Couch, R-Hyden, would require anyone who contributes to a Web site to register a real name, address and e-mail address with that Web site. The person’s full name then would be used whenever he or she posted a comment.

Web site operators who violate the disclosure law would be fined $500 for a first offense and $1,000 for each subsequent offense.

Here’s the bill. I found this interesting:

Couch readily acknowledged on Wednesday that his bill violates his oath of office raises First Amendment issues regarding free speech, so he won’t be pushing it. But he wanted to call attention to the phenomenon of unkind and often untrue comments about people being posted online by Kentuckians hiding behind the cloak of anonymity.

Oh Nos! They’re saying bad things about me on the internet. This bill should make them stop.

Tim Couch is an asshat.

Hmm, seems drawing attention to it didn’t work since I just called him an asshat.

First, they came for the home-schoolers.

Update: Wow.

Uncle and I disagreed on a civil rights issue over in England. That is an oxymoron, are there civil rights in England?

So now that the “Mosquito” is being used in America, do you still think it is acceptable? Our civil rights are colliding with technology. This will be a slippery slope. The sound from this device doesn’t harm people, at least in the short term. So is it acceptable to harass people with technology? The case could be made that a stun gun doesn’t harm people. But if you stun someone who is not attacking you I would bet you would be charged with assault.

Where should the line be drawn?

QUEENS (CBS) Teenagers who hang out inside one apartment building in Jamaica, Queens are getting an earful these days.

A new security device called “The Mosquito” has been installed in the lobby of a building on 170th St. where there have been chronic problems with noisy teens.

The wall-mounted device emits a high-frequency screech that can only be heard by people aged 13 to 25. Most older people cannot hear it.

“It sounds like when you put a microphone close to the TV,” said Jerry Brown, one of the younger residents, who admits the noise bothers him “a little bit.”

The building superintendent said the mosquito has kept the lobby free of loitering teenagers, so far.

Remember the jailer who tossed the guy in the wheelchair in the floor? Well, allegations are it has happened before.

In England, they’re actually having a discussion about who can lawfully break into your house.

We knew McCain was having a bit of a time with his own incumbent protection act. Now, the DNC is alleging he’s breaking his own law. They’re even filing with the FEC.

And in other news, it seems the Hillary camp is pandering to racists. Well, that’s what they’d be screaming in the press if a Republican leaked the photo.

Irony can be a bitch

Seems McCain is having a bit of a time with the Campaign Finance Reform that is named after, uh, McCain:

The nation’s top federal election official told Sen. John McCain yesterday that he cannot immediately withdraw from the presidential public financing system as he had requested, a decision that threatens to dramatically restrict his spending until the general election campaign begins in the fall.

The prospect of being financially hamstrung by the very fundraising system he helped create is the latest in a series of bitter challenges for the presumed GOP nominee, who still faces a fractured conservative coalition as he assumes the mantle of party leadership.

Pardon me, while I laugh hysterically at you.

A would-be robber busts a car window and starts stabbing a shop owner. Shop-owner gets the robbers knife and kills the robber. So far, so good. Except this is England so the shop owner may be charged with murder.

Bloomberg’s latest:

In a new tactic against urban crime, the mayors of several East Coast cities, including New York, plan to launch a database that will allow them to share information on known gun offenders.

The database, expected to be operational later this year, will pool data from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives with information collected by local agencies, including ballistics information and intelligence gathered from debriefings of gun offenders.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon and other urban leaders said Wednesday that the first-of-its-kind database will make it more difficult for illegal gun dealers to do business throughout the Interstate 95 corridor.

And how exactly are they going to get BATF data? I seem to recall that’s not exactly legal.

First up, is the officer who decided that, while booking a quadriplegic, it’d be funny to ask him to stand from his wheelchair. And then dumps him to the floor for not complying.

The other would be an extremely large Baltimore cop, who no doubt has some issues with the fact he drives a girly vehicle, grabbing what I’m guessing is an eleven or so year-old boy by the throat and then taking him to the ground for the crime of skateboarding. I guess the good news is you just created a future libertarian.

Giving police a bad name. Stay classy.

England is fast becoming the Orwellian nightmare that George Orwell prayed would never happen. It has now passed France as the one of the worst places for free people to live. In fact France is quickly changing and stepping away from the social democracy of the French past.

In England there are cameras everywhere and never a cop in sight. Citizens cannot own a gun or a knife for personal protection but criminals can. The insanity of social democracy has created criminal zones where the law abiding don’t stand a chance.

Now shop keepers are using sonic devices to drive away teenagers they don’t want as patrons.

There are people in America that believe this is the model for our country. They must be fought each and every time they try to take our liberties from us.

Rich:

It’s more than 60 days out from the general election, so I guess I’m legally allowed to answer that question, according to McCain-Feingold.

. . . if you’re retarded.

Via bruce, comes this arfcom thread:

So, my phone rings Friday afternoon. It’s the vice principal from my son’s school saying that he needs to discuss a serious situation about my son. When I asked him what was going on, he tells me that a pen bearing a Glock logo is forbidden by school policy and that I need to come and pick up my son because there is a manditory 3 day suspension because of the violation. Apparently, one of my son’s teachers saw him writing with the pen during an assignment.

While I have the VP on the telephone, I retrieve my son’s student handbook. Flipping though it, I see that weapons, replica weapons, pictures of weapons, and weapon images on keychains or other items are forbidden. The pen I had given him was one I picked up at a law enforcement firearms competition last year – which bore only the Glock logo, but not an image or rendition of a firearm. Nowhere does it say that a firearm company logo is restricted by school policy. I explain this to the VP.

Can’t make it up. A kid was arrested for sniffing his teacher’s hand sanitizer:

Mr. Ortiz said the family’s ordeal began Oct. 19, when his son picked up a bottle of hand sanitizer from the desk of his fifth-period reading teacher at Killian Middle School in Lewisville. He rubbed the gel on his hands and smelled it.

According to some security guard with a master’s degree, it’s illegal to take pictures of public buildings you pay for:

When I got to to the building, I stood across the street with my wide angle (to fit the huge structure in the frame) and put the camera to my face. And after a few clicks of the shutter, I hear this man yelling at me, “Ma’am! Ma’am! You can’t photos here!!!” It was the security guard, and he was running down the stairs towards me. I immediately put my camera down by my side and ran across the street to the guard. I asked him what the problem was, and he suddenly went into a tirade about post 9/11 laws prohibiting the photography and videography of any federal properties. He went off about terrorism and national security and then threatened me with two years in the penitentiary for possessing images of federal property. I had to delete my photographs or else I would get two years in jail.

Via Silence.

Tom was just kidding.

Lyle in comments:

You smash in my door, announce that you’re a cop. And I’m supposed to believe you?

Michael Silence and Adam Kleinheider both have posts on a subject that is critically important. It is about our freedom.

Tennessee State Sen. Jamie Woodson’s office has introduced legislation to the Tennessee General Assembly that would require convicted sex offenders in Tennessee to provide all electronic communications information to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI).

On its face it doesn’t sound so bad does it?

Michael Silence writes, “Wow, am I conflicted on this one. On the one hand I’m a father of a princess who will be four in March. On the other hand, I have consistently decried the loss of civil liberties, privacy and individual freedoms.

Adam Kleinheider writes, “First They Came For The Deviants…”, alluding to the fact that is doesn’t take long to lose freedom.

Any of you every wonder if we allow the Constitution to be discarded for child molesters or sex offenders that someday soon it might be discarded for us?

If this is a condition of probation then fine. That is a legal contract. People can surrender their rights with a legal contract. That is a completely different issue.

But if a person has served their full sentence this should be unconstitutional.

“Governor Woodson”, I don’t think so. Ms. Woodson, your homework assignment is to study the United States Constitution. You should be ashamed. How misinformed can you be?

I hate to go all ACLU on this but defending the Constitution is one of the most important things any America can do. And it means making some unpleasant positions. The Constitution must apply to ALL citizens. The moment we allow it to be vacated for certain groups of people is the day we allow the Constitution to be destroyed.

I find this to be repugnant. This is how you lose your freedom. It starts with a law to control the worst of the worst. In the end, there is no personal freedom or rights.

Kevin’s on a TSA list. Ya know, after the federales paid me a visit, I thought for sure I’d be on the list. But I’m not.

Sadcox:

It’s funny. They keep calling it a “driver’s license,” but they never mention anything about driving.

Also, if you’re over 50, it doesn’t apply to you.

Via MCB.

Kevin notes that the Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act passed the house. And no one wants to talk about it. The bill:

Directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to: (1) establish a grant program to prevent radicalization (use of an extremist belief system for facilitating ideologically-based violence) and homegrown terrorism in the United States; (2) establish or designate a university-based Center of Excellence for the Study of Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism in the United States; and (3) conduct a survey of methodologies implemented by foreign nations to prevent radicalization and homegrown terrorism.

So, how long before someone like me, who is known for perpetuating his radical views, shows up on a list? But I have nothing to worry about:

Prohibits the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to prevent ideologically-based violence and homegrown terrorism from violating the constitutional and civil rights, and civil liberties, of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents.

Well, that’s a relief.

I’ve mentioned this act before. Past coverage of potential terrorists here, here, here, here, here and here.

I’m no longer speechless. Seems the police force that engaged in this:

Get down on the floor! Get down on the floor or I will shoot you! Now take two aspirin and call me in the morning!

had a good reason:

The sheriff said the decision to use SWAT team force was justified because the father was a “self-proclaimed constitutionalist” and had made threats and “comments” over the years.

And then there’s this:

However, the sheriff declined to provide a single instance of the father’s illegal behavior. “I can’t tell you specifically,” he said.

Yeah. Radley nails it: By the sheriff’s own admission, then, the show of force was more about Shiflet’s political beliefs and desire to be left alone than any real child neglect.

Update: people are asking for a non-WND source (what bias?), here’s a news account.

I have no words.

R. Neal:

There are people over at Music City Bloggers seriously arguing in comments that the Constitution does not guarantee anyone the right to vote. OK, then.

Then, err, find it in the constitution for me. I’m sure it’s right there beside the right to privacy, near the section that guarantees the right of the state to bear arms, just above the right to free health care for everybody. I’ll spare you the search, the right to vote is not enumerated in the constitution. That is, however, not to say there is no right to vote. Rather, it’s just not an enumerated right:

The Constitution contains many phrases, clauses, and amendments detailing ways people cannot be denied the right to vote. You cannot deny the right to vote because of race or gender. Citizens of Washington DC can vote for President; 18-year-olds can vote; you can vote even if you fail to pay a poll tax. The Constitution also requires that anyone who can vote for the “most numerous branch” of their state legislature can vote for House members and Senate members.

Note that in all of this, though, the Constitution never explicitly ensures the right to vote, as it does the right to speech, for example.

Like privacy, voting is one of those unenumerated rights.

Update: BTW, we require ID for all sorts of things (including civil rights). Why is voting different?

Another update: BTW, here’s an interesting list of things not in the constitution.

Bill lets judges carry weapons in gun-free zones.

The police state that, in NO, they took only guns that had been stolen or found in abandoned homes. Really? Patricia Konie disagrees.

No, not that crappy TeeVee show. That’s how many rounds were fired by the SWAT team that raided the wrong house. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful that no one got hurt. But, in terms of training, doesn’t that indicate the SWAT guys need to spend more time at the range and less time raiding the wrong house?

And this:

when the MPD SWAT cops kicked in the door of the house, owned by Vang Khang, lived in by Vang Khang, his equally Hmong wife, and their six little kids, they thought that they were raiding a black street gang.

Which means that a quick property records search combined with, say, three minutes of observation and a few not terribly difficult questions

(”Say, Jesse, in your keen professional law enforcement opinion, don’t those little Hmong kids in the house look rather unlike black gangbangers? And ditto for that Hmong guy and Hmong woman?”)

Joel Rosenberg has a lot more. Via Insty.

This time, the homeowner was not killed but a police officer was shot.

A Minneapolis police SWAT team kicked in the wrong door yesterday during an early morning raid, prompting the man of the house to grab his gun and open fire on the officers who entered the house.

“He took out his shotgun and he said if they are bad guys I’ll shoot, I’ll scare them away,” Dao Khang, the brother of the homeowner, Vang Khang, tells the Star Tribune. “He fired first, he told me it was two shots.”

Dao Khang says his brother was trying to protect his wife and six children. No one from the family was hit during the exchange of gunfire. Vang hit two officers, but the Pioneer Press says they were protected by ballistic vests and helmets.

“I must’ve heard over 20 or 30 shots, I swear, it was scary,” Ruth Hayes, the family’s next-door neighbor, tells WCCO-TV. “It was like 30 SWAT guys out here … it was crazy it was just like havoc.”

Well, police are not known to be the best of shots. I’m glad that no one in the family was killed. The police are, of course, covering their butts:

Minneapolis police say they are not to blame for a mistake that sent a SWAT team into the wrong house over the weekend.

And this: Police haven’t decided whether they’ll try to charge Khang with a crime. KMSP-TV says the Khang family is consulting with a civil attorney.

Try him for what? Defending himself against invaders who failed to identify themselves? And I hope the Khang family sues the crap out of them.

Really? I guess it must have been someone else who got the wrong address, kicked in the door, and got all Ninja on an innocent family!

“It was bad information that came on the informants end, not on the police end,” said Jesse Garcia, a Minneapolis Police spokesman.

Garcia said after the informant gave police three addresses they did their homework.

Well, I guess they had a one in three shot of not being wrong. Any way, the informant works for you. You guys failed to adequately investigate and you terrorized an innocent family.

Shame on you all.

Update: Radley has more.

We must keep people from diddling themselves! For the children.

I think it’s a back door gun control scheme! After all, three-dimensional devices designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs are useful for cleaning sound suppressors.

So, some guy said something really stupid on a blog comment section. He gets arrested for it. Ya know, free speech includes the right to say stupid things.

Update: what he said.

Since warrants are just so darn inconvenient to obtain, despite the rubber stamp most judges have for them, the powers that be have to come up with alternative ways of snooping. One way of doing that is to have you submit to a warrantless search when you apply for government assistance. If you refuse to comply, no government cheese for you:

The San Diego district attorney adopted a policy in 1997 under which applicants for welfare benefits must agree to a “walk through” of their residence while they are present. The inspectors check on whether the applicant has an eligible dependent child and has the amount of assets claimed. They also check on whether a supposedly “absent” parent lives at the residence. If residents refuse to permit a home visit, they can lose their benefits.

When that fails, have the local firefighters and emergency personnel search houses since, you know, they’re already there:

Firefighters in major cities are being trained to take on a new role as lookouts for terrorism, raising concerns of eroding their standing as American icons and infringing on people’s privacy.

Unlike police, firefighters and emergency medical personnel don’t need warrants to access hundreds of thousands of homes and buildings each year, putting them in a position to spot behavior that could indicate terrorist activity or planning.

[...]

When going to private residences, for example, they are told to be alert for a person who is hostile, uncooperative or expressing hate or discontent with the United States; unusual chemicals or other materials that seem out of place; ammunition, firearms or weapons boxes; surveillance equipment; still and video cameras; night-vision goggles; maps, photos, blueprints; police manuals, training manuals, flight manuals; and little or no furniture other than a bed or mattress.

It’s getting harder and harder to trust the good guys.

In Boston:

Boston police are launching a program that will call upon parents in high-crime neighborhoods to allow detectives into their homes, without a warrant, to search for guns in their children’s bedrooms.

The program, which is already raising questions about civil liberties, is based on the premise that parents are so fearful of gun violence and the possibility that their own teenagers will be caught up in it that they will turn to police for help, even in their own households.

In the next two weeks, Boston police officers who are assigned to schools will begin going to homes where they believe teenagers might have guns. The officers will travel in groups of three, dress in plainclothes to avoid attracting negative attention, and ask the teenager’s parent or legal guardian for permission to search. If the parents say no, police said, the officers will leave.

If officers find a gun, police said, they will not charge the teenager with unlawful gun possession, unless the firearm is linked to a shooting or homicide.

Discretion would be used if they found other items or illegal activity.

Send a dildo to a dildo.

Remember the reporter arrested for carrying a gun on school property and the video of the whole thing? Turns out, he wasn’t on school property. Charges have been dropped.

Can’t contest traffic tickets in DC. Of course, contesting them has been cost prohibitive for years in most places. Ya know, they could just put some credit card readers in the police cars. Sure, it’s still conviction without due process but it’s much less of a pain in the ass.

All those safeguards for the new definition of privacy aren’t for shit if the people in charge have a history of violating them.

It doesn’t mean what you think it means:

As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States changed their definition of privacy.

Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people’s private communications and financial information.

In other news, as is the trend, there is consideration for giving telecom companies immunity:

The most contentious issue in the new legislation is whether to shield telecommunications companies from civil lawsuits for allegedly giving the government access to people’s private e-mails and phone calls without a FISA court order between 2001 and 2007.

Seems that 44 people on the suspected terrorist watchlist were permitted to buy guns despite a NICS check. Of course, NICS doesn’t check the terror watch list so who cares? Anyway, even if you’re on a watchlist, you’re not convicted of a crime so due process and all that.

Well, after the first couple of times, you get used to the label.

Update: Oh dear:

“H.R.1955, ‘Sec. 899B. Findings.

The Congress finds the following:

`(3) The Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens.”

So, if I understand this correctly, here’s the reasoning: Police want to raid alleged drug dealer. Police get no knock warrant. Police conduct raid late at night so that they can catch them off guard. The plan worked and they were off guard. So, being off guard, person at the house opens fire. Now, the police say that she should have known they were police.

It makes no sense to me.

So, that’s how many people are on the terrorist watchlist. I think it indicates an issue with the .gov’s tracking. Because if there really are 755,000 terrorists here, we’re in trouble.

And, don’t forget, that’d be 755,000 prohibited from buying guns without due process of law if the anti-gunners had their way.

Need proof that incumbency protection err campaign finance reform is a joke:

If his campaign plays out the way he’s indicated that it will, Comedy Central and Colbert’s sponsor, Doritos, could be violating federal laws that bar corporations from backing political campaigns, election law experts say.

So, a man walks by a police car. A K9 barks at him and startles him. He hurls expletives. The man is arrested and on $100,000 straight bond:

But at King’s arraignment, District Justice Gene Ricciardi put him in jail and set the bond.

“A police dog is a police officer. There is no difference under the law,” Ricciardi tells KDKA.

Well, the law probably wasn’t written with the fact that you’re a fucking retard in mind.

So, let’s suspend him:

Hamline University has suspended a student after he sent an e-mail suggesting that the Virginia Tech massacre might have been stopped if students had been allowed to carry concealed weapons on campus. Student Troy Scheffler is now required to undergo a mandatory “mental health evaluation” before being allowed to return to school.

Nice.

It’s time to have a discussion about law enforcement. What is law enforcement exactly? It used to be “feet on the street”. Today it is all about cameras from above and Mayors Against Guns.

The pinnacle of the new form of law enforcement is London, England. No guns, no knives, no cops. A shinning Utopia for the whole World to model itself after.

Of course what London has become is a Shangri-La for criminals, who have guns, knives, and sadly no cops. And they are not camera shy.

Of course there is no way that could happen in America, right? Wrong. In fact in Aberdeen, Maryland, 30 miles northeast of Baltimore, the City Council adds insult to injury by forcing the building owners to buy the cameras that allow the police to stay away. The cameras are connected to the police station where they are monitored, by you guessed it, cops.

But, on the flip side of the coin, Mayor S. Fred Simmons is an advocate for the right of private citizens to carry defensive sidearms. He should be. If you are going the camera route instead of “feet on the street” the people should have the right to carry a weapon. Bullets travel faster than police cars. Time will tell if the people receive from their government the right to protect themselves.

Orwell never foresaw this type of Big Brother.

Read the rest of this entry »

and sad:

The National Anti- Quartering Association, America’s foremost Third Amendment rights group, held its annual gala in Washington Monday to honor 191 consecutive years of advocating the protection of private homes and property against the unlawful boarding of military personnel.

It’s not just you.

Told you this would happen. Only in Crazy Cali.

Lawmakers in two California cities are casting votes this month on unprecedented legislation that would widen a growing voluntary movement by landlords and resident associations to ban smoking inside apartments and condos.

Today in Calabasas, the City Council plans to vote on expanding its anti-smoking law to bar renters from lighting up inside existing apartments. It would exempt current resident smokers until they moved but would require all new buildings with at least 15 units, including condos, to be smoke-free.

I thought you owned a condo? Guess not.

In an update to The War on three-dimensional devices designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs, seems Alabama won’t allow the sale of dildos and the supreme court did not take the case. Proof that politicians really have nothing better to do.

Meanwhile, Aunt B. has said she’ll start an underground dildo railroad.

Adam Kleinheider of Volunteer Voters gave a little link love on an idea I first presented on KnoxViews.

Maybe this can help some gunnys in protecting 2nd Amendment Rights?

From today’s NiT post that Adam linked on VV.:

Read the rest of this entry »

So, the kid who is kind of a douchebag and goaded the cop into being a bigger douchebag has been treated to having his place staked out by other cops who are now even bigger douchebags than the two aforementioned douchebags.

Update: Clarification in comments:

Some clarifications are in order:
1. the cop that the guy video taped worked for a completely different department than the st. louis city PD
2. apparently, the officers stalking the video taper are part of the st. louis city PD
3. the st. louis county PD (again, completely different agency) is doing the investigation of the original video taped cop

Unreal:

Starting today, state Department of Revenue agents will begin stopping Tennessee motorists spotted buying large quantities of cigarettes in border states, then charging them with a crime and, in some cases, seizing their cars.

Critics say the new “cigarette surveillance program” amounts to the use of “police state” tactics and wrongfully interferes with interstate commerce. But state Revenue Commissioner Reagan Farr says his department is simply doing its job, enforcing a valid state law while protecting Tennessee retailers who properly pay state taxes.

Yes, for denying the state a few dollars, you’ll be a felon.

Again:

Two provisions of the USA Patriot Act are unconstitutional because they allow search warrants to be issued without a showing of probable cause, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

Via JB.

As I wrote in a comment in this post the Knoxville Police Department needs more and better training for its police officers. We expect them to not only enforce the law but to understand the law.

Does this seem like KPD understands the law?

Gun owner receives apology from police chief

Chief’s letter, more training follow officer’s confusion, threat of arrest

Trevor Putnam knew the gun laws. The officer who stopped him didn’t.

“When I told him that I hadn’t done anything, he said he’d find a reason to put me in jail,” said Putnam, 24, who works with guns every day as vice president of Coal Creek Armory in West Knoxville.

“It’s not that I have a problem with police officers. I deal with police officers nationwide from Arizona to Maine every day. But I lost my confidence in a legal right that I knew I had.”

Knoxville police officers will get a refresher course on the state’s gun permit laws after an officer who didn’t know the law stopped, frisked and threatened to arrest Putnam for legally carrying a gun inside a Wal-Mart this summer.

This keeps happening. The question is why?

I’m with Phelps, except the cop hating part – a few bad apples and all that. It was ludicrous. And John Kerry will unjustifiably take some heat over this.

If that were the case here, I’d be in prison.

So, who’s in charge of hiring these guys:

… the local police chief denies charges that he sexually harassed a teen-aged driver on the job as a patrol cop seven years ago.

And it turns out that the cop in the video is himself a great story of American redemption: he was able to convince a judge to expunge his criminal record of theft and assault convictions. You know; so he could “protect and serve”.

Wow.

Magus in comments alerts us to this:

Young man taunted by policeman wants officer fired

Well, I want him in jail. Continuing:

A young St. Louis man who videotaped a police officer’s angry taunts during a traffic stop, and later posting the footage on the Internet where thousands of viewers have watched it, said Tuesday he wants the officer fired.

Brett Darrow, 20, met with St. George Police Chief Scott Uhrig for more than an hour Tuesday afternoon and also filed a formal complaint against the officer, Sgt. James Kuehnlein.

During the meeting Darrow asked to see the videotape from Kuehnlein’s police car. But according to Uhrig, that footage, inexplicably, is nowhere to be found.

Imagine that.

Update: D’oh. Greg alerted me yesterday and I somehow missed it.

A video to piss you off this morning.

Good: A federal judge struck down parts of the revised USA Patriot Act on Thursday, saying investigators must have a court’s approval before they can order Internet providers to turn over records without telling customers.

More security theater.

In other news, Uncle rhymes?

Eavesdropping and warrantless wiretapping made easy:

The FBI has quietly built a sophisticated, point-and-click surveillance system that performs instant wiretaps on almost any communications device, according to nearly a thousand pages of restricted documents newly released under the Freedom of Information Act.

Via email from Jon.

Ya know, a felony conviction can end your right to vote or buy guns. But, you know, given that owning a three-dimensional device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs in Texas and carrying a slingshot in New Jersey are both felonies, I’m not so much a fan of the idea. Perhaps it should include only violent felonies.