Excusing Rogue Cops

Here is a nice post on The Agitator blog citing a new low in police "professionalism" in the US:

Maybe there’s a legitimate law enforcement reason to strip a man naked, strap him to a chair, tie a “spit hood” around his mouth, put a hood over his head (see video at the link), and douse him with pepper spray until he dies. That’s what sheriff’s deputies in Lee County, Florida did to 62-year-old Nick Christie two-and-a-half years ago.


I certainly can’t think of any such legitimate reason. But Lee County State’s Attorney Stephen Russell apparently can. Because he cleared the deputies involved of any wrongdoing.

Christie’s family just filed a lawsuit.

The cop's crime is obvious. But the more insidious crime is the State Attorney who looked but could find no "crime" in this brutal case.

New and Improved "Enhanced Policing" Techniques

Here is yet another Occupy demonstration where the police get aggressive...



The good news is that the police busy themselves ripping and shredding paper hearts instead of clubbing heads and pepper spraying demonstrators. I guess this is the new and improved "enhanced policing" to deal with outbreaks of democratic protests.

At least these isn't the Bush/Cheney "enhanced" interrogation techniques. There is some hope for the future.

Americans Love Their "Freedom"

Here's what happens in America is you try to promote democracy by registering voters in "Freedom" Plaza...



There is something deeply wrong about a people that label everything "freedom" and "liberty" and then go about arresting people for seemingly innocuous acts. If anything, trying to enfranchise the populace should be a "protected" activity, not something subject to arrest and imprisonment. This is especially disturbing because the fellow arrested was Ray Lutz, a 2010 Congressional candidate for the Democratic Party.

More details here...

Free Speech

Here is a passionate plea by Robert Reich for more free speech and less bought-and-sold politics:



As a bonus... Here's Robert Reich on the "super-committee" and 4 steps to economic recovery:

If You have a Rocketry Hobby, You are a "Terrorist"

Here is an article in The Toronto Star along with an hour long interview with the police of Byron Sonne, a person arrested in 2010 for "plotting" against the G20 meeting in Toronto. He has been held in jail for 329 days because (a) he had been spotted taking a picture of the fence constructed around the G20 site from which they got a warrant and raided his house and (b) found "explosives" which are in fact propellant for the rockets.

He belongs to the Canadian Association of Rocketry. Having a hobby of shooting rockets has become the "foundation" of the case for arresting him as a "terrorist".

If you watch the video, you should find it absolutely incredible that the cops have held this guy in jail. He is obviously innocent:



I find it really sleazy how this cop pretends to be empathic with Byron. It is pretty clear to me that this guy is manipulating Byron.

To give you an idea of the "quality" of the police work going behind holding this guy for over a year in jail is shown by this bit in the article:

Giggles arose from the body of the court when Bui asked Sonne about a mysterious powder.

“And this white substance in the fridge?”

“That is almond flour,” Sonne replies.

Sonne’s judge-alone trial is expected to begin in earnest sometime next week.

It is incredible that the legal system in Canada lets the police hold people when the policing is obviously that incompetent!

Here is a bit from Maclean's magazine, one of the premier news magazines in Canada:

Byron Sonne is a shlemiel and a shlemazl. He is clumsy and unlucky. But he is not a terrorist.

Driven by curiosity, hubris, and a genuine desire for social justice, Sonne poked and prodded the $1.2 billion “security apparatus” of the 2010 G20 summit in Toronto. He wanted to know if it was in fact just “security theater”–an expensive display of pomp and barbed wire that would never thwart an actual terrorist. Simultaneously, he wanted to know if it was too effective, if the heightened atmosphere around the summit meant that police were forgetting people’s rights. And he wanted us to know too, so he documented everything he did.

Sonne, who goes by TorontoGoat on Twitter, offered himself as a sacrificial lamb–a hapless animal who pooped on the cops via the Internet. His experiment was scattershot–he uploaded incendiary political texts of every nature to test if he was being surveilled. He flexed his freedom of speech by calling police “bacon” on Twitter. He tweeted about how the $9.4 million security fence could easily be climbed, but did not exactly say that it should be. All of this would likely have gone unnoticed if @torontogoat hadn’t clomped around the fence perimeter, shooting video. Taking pictures is not a crime, so the cops, unable to charge him with anything, threatened to take him in for jaywalking as an excuse to see his I.D. He complied with this “ruse,” as the authorities themselves have since described it, and that’s what brought the full force of law enforcement down on his head. When the cops finally googled Sonne, they went to town on him. He was surveilled, searched, arrested, questioned for 12 hours without a lawyer, and thrown in jail. Sonne spent 11 months locked up, awaiting bail. During that time his wife (also arrested, charges since dropped) left him.

So there’s your shlemiel–Byron the clumsy. As for the unlucky shlemazl, let’s consider the most serious charges Sonne faces during his trial, which continues today: four counts of “possessing explosive materials.” During their search of his Forest Hill home, police found chemicals that can be used to make explosives. That’s not so unusual–most of us have chemicals in our homes that can be used to make explosives. But actually whipping them up into something volatile may get you into serious trouble. It’s hard to imagine a good reason to do so, unless you’re trying to make some homebrew rocket fuel.

Sonne’s hobby? Model rocketry.

And from Maclean's, some questions about the police "case" against Byron Sonne:

Details of the courtroom proceedings in Sonne’s case are subject to a publication ban. As such, coverage of his case has been limited. Toronto Life published a cover story giving many details of Sonne’s life and activities leading up to his arrest. But once the ban is lifted, the real questions won’t be about what Sonne did—they’ll be about how the police and the Crown have behaved in this extraordinary case.

Here are some I’ll be asking:

-Why was Sonne, who has no prior criminal record, twice denied bail and held for over 10 months?

-Was he considered a flight risk or a danger to anyone?

-If so, what’s different now?

-Before his arrest, did the police trick Sonne into handing over his I.D. by threatening him with a jaywalking charge?

-Why was Sonne’s (now-estranged) wife also arrested and charged?

-Did the weapons charges (since dropped) refer solely to Sonne’s homemade potato gun?

-If so—really?

-Do the explosives charges refer solely to legal substances Sonne bought for gardening and toy rockets?

-If so—really?

-Why was Sonne hit with the obscure charge (since dropped) of ”intimidating justice system officials,” which is meant to prevent accused criminals from stalking or threatening judges, lawyers and jurors?

-Did it refer to Sonne’s online description of police on bicycles as “bacon on wheels”?

-If so—really?

-If it turns out that Sonne was simply a provocateur and geek who never posed a threat to anyone, at what point did the police and Crown learn this?

-If they knew this all along, why did they continue to imprison and prosecute him?

-And if so, who will answer for the loss of his freedom, the destruction of his career, and the dissolution of his marriage?

Byron Sonne may well turn out to be a guy who taunted and teased a starving, unchained guard dog to see how it would react. Maybe a guy like that is a fool, maybe he is brave—maybe he’s both. Maybe it’s not important.

The real questions are about the dog: why was it starving for meat? Why was it unchained? Thanks to Sonne, we may soon find out.

If you want a sense of how "guilty" Byron was of being a "mad bomber", consider this pointed comment in an article by Denise Balkissoon in OpenFile:

We're happy to tell you that this week, when speaking about the search-and-seizure in Sonne's home, Byrne referenced the computer security consultant's interest in science. One of the police officers on the stand, Alvin Maniquis, spoke about authorizing his team to take books on physics and chemistry.

"Essentially," said Byrne,"[Sonne]'s got a home lab, related books and documentation. He's got chemistry equipment....admittedly, they had not been put together."

So, now you know: three days before the start of the G20 summit, when arrested for possessing explosives meant to disrupt that summit, Sonne hadn't set up his beakers and bunsen burners.

That's all for now.

Yep... the police have "caught" a mad bomber with intent to blow up half of Toronto, but 3 days before the event, this "bomber" hasn't yet put any chemicals together. Funny. It would require an almost industrial scale operation to generate the hundreds (if not thousands!) of pounds of high explosives needed to seriously disrupt a G20 conference. But here is a "bomber" who hasn't mixed any chemicals and has nothing stockpiled. There is no proof that he ever tried to mix up an explosive batch. So the government's case is that he "had the books and come equipment and some chemicals". Well... under those stringent requirements the RCMP should have arrested every professor in all the universities and colleges in Canada in early 2010. They certainly had books, and equipment, and materials.

This is a completely daft case where the police have a vendetta against a guy who decided to beard the police by showing up the billion dollars of Canadian citizens money had not bought any real security but instead funded a lot of "security theatre" and a lot of booty for politicians to build stuff in this constituencies during this time period and stamp it as "security". From Wikipedia:

Members of Parliament Olivia Chow and Mark Holland labelled the initially claimed budget of $1.1-billion for hosting the summits as "obscene" and "insane" while others argued that the money could have been used for long-pending municipal projects in Canada, such as Toronto's Transit City. The security cost for the two summits was believed to be more expensive than the combined security costs of the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics in Vancouver and Whistler, British Columbia, which were $878 million. However, according to final calculations from the House of Commons of Canada as of October 2010, the exact cost for holding both summits was $857,901,850.31, making it less expensive than the security costs for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

If the RCMP wanted to go after some criminals, they should have arrested Prime Minister Harper, his cabinet, and most of his caucus. They have robbed Canadians of nearly $1 billion in order to put on a big wing-ding party for big-wigs. Meanwhile, there is unemployment, poverty, and underdevelopment in Canada. That money would have been better spent feeding the hungry, providing free education for pre-schooler and college kids, and day care for working parents. Instead, it was criminally wasted. And a pook patsy like Byron Sonne has been absolutely crucified as a "criminal". His only "crime" was his ignorance about the depth of corruption and mean-heartedness in the politicians and the police, and the cold-heartedness and suspicious minds of old farts sitting as judges and acting a Crown prosecutors.

Picture of the Day

Why is democracy messy? Why does it take such a large amount of insult and injury to arouse the populace? Just look at what this woman will soon discover as she attempts to voice her viewpoint.

The state loves to tell you about your "rights" but don't you dare try to exercise them. People are smart enough to know that, so it takes a hell of a lot to arouse the populace. But when it gets outraged, it tends to take down not just the worst of the worst, but most of the worst and even a fair amount of the innocent. A social change is a messy affair. It is so much nicer to use the instruments of democracy to effect change, but when the elites refuse to listen, then you get blood in the streets.

The Police are Hard of Hearing

Either they are hiring deaf cops in NY City or the Constitutional protection of the "free press" isn't worth the paper it is written on...



I would say it is pretty obvious that option #2 is in effect in America. The press is "free" to report glowing stories about "job creators" and the heroic efforts of Republicans to control deficits. But when it comes to civil society and basic rights, the Constitution is a some relic from the past that nobody is interested in despite all the claims by the political right that they are "guided" by the Constitution.

If you are curious about just how "easy" it is to get a press pass so that you can try to exercise your so-called "rights" in America, here is an article in the New York Observer that lays out some of the details and frustrations of the "process". As she points out, the law "requires":

Applicants also must submit one or more articles, commentaries, books, photographs, videos, films or audios published or broadcast within the twenty–four (24) months immediately preceding the Press Card application, sufficient to show that the applicant covered in person six (6) or more events occurring on separate days.

But to meet that requirement:

According to the last paragraph, you have to demonstrate coverage as an uncredentialed reporter in order to get credentialed. So the only way to comply with the law is to have previously broken the law repeatedly.

Ah... the joys of a bureaucratic mind. You can get a job if you can prove that you are presently employed. Meanwhile, we'll beat you about the ears for being lazy and unwilling to work because you are unemployed. That's the reality for 25 million unemployed in the US. Obviously the same screwy "bureaucratic rules" apply to getting "press credentials". First you need to be credentialed and previously covered 6 news events. This makes the insiders safe, but it create a Kafkaesque nightmare for anybody outside the system.

Peddling Lies

Here is a Goldman Sachs partner taking on an activist/reporter in a debate on UK TV. It is interesting to watch this snake in a suit suavely manipulate the "discussion" to deliver all the same right wing talking points of the last 30 years and pretend that he has a revelation about wasteful "socialism". It was capitalism that crashed the system in 2008. And in Europe today, it is private banks who lent the trillions to governments that has created the latest global crisis. It wasn't people receiving pennies to feed themselves of the dollars to get medical care, the bits of money to find housing. It is the greed of bankers and the ultra-rich that has shut down the engine of growth and wants to impose even more "austerity" as they extract more and more from the bottom 99%.



I love the fact that this slimy Goldman Sachs suit claims that the protesters don't have "a clear agenda" and fail to have "spokesmen" to present a clearly laid out agenda. He pulls the big lie technique by claiming that the protests were "flaccid" and that their protests were over "trivial points". He obviously has never been hit by a truncheon or been gassed by police in riot suits. It takes somebody who hold more than "trivial concerns" and a "flaccid stance" to put up with police brutality and arrest. But this is the spin that the big bankers and ultra-rich want to put on it.

What this exposes is the great divide. These snakes in suits are used to quiet deals with money crossing hands to buy politicians and to buy "justice". The people in the street are used to working long hours, they are used to being lied to by politicians, and they have no clear method to get "heard" by the elites. So they go into the streets. This is messy. This is ugly. But if you can't buy the government, buy the police, buy the politicians, you are left with going into the street and getting your head cracked by a police baton. The bankers just can't understand this.

The "Bug Spray" Approach to Policing

When protesters peacefully attempt to make a point, the police at UC Davis bring out the pepper spray and douse them like you would use bug spray to kill noxious insects. Then they knee them on the ground and cuff them. Yep... that's how you handle "violent" student protest...



It is pretty obvious that these goons would happily shake the canister of Zyklon-B onto the "subhuman rats" in the Nazi extermination camps. This is the same kind of mindless robotic "policing" that allowed the police in the the US in 1942 to brutally round up Japanese Americans, forcing them to abandon their property, and put them onto "reservations" in badlands in remote America. This was a blatant disregard for Constitutional rights. It is the same "policing" that turned dogs loose on young black demonstrators in the deep South in the early 1960s Civil Rights Movement, the use of high pressure fire hoses that peeled the skin right off kids, the use of trunchions to "crack skulls" to ensure that blacks in the Deep South would give up their fight for a right to vote, a right to share public facilities in Jim Crow racist America.

Obviously none of the lessons of the past have been learned. The police in America today carry out the same bullying and beatings and pepper-spraying. We are lucky that they haven't yet pulled a Ludlow Massacre where they set up the machine guns and then deliberately fire machine gun belt of bullets after machine gun belt. This is "justice" in America. This is the America where you have a "right" to free speech except when it is done in public or on the street or at an inconvenient time or in a manner that is considered "unsanitary" or "unsightly" by the powers that be.

And here's a bit from the UK... This is what you get when you protest there. This is a young girl's face after a "rubber bullet" has left its mark...


Get more details here.

Update 2011nov20: Here is a video of students at UC Davis shaming the chancellor of the university for the vicious "bug spraying" incident:



Here is a link to an outraged assistant professor of English, Nathan Brown, of the UC Davis faculty demanding the resignation of Katehi. It outlines the case against her for brutalizing the peaceful and legitimate protestors.

My personal view is that "ethical demonstrating" only works when those who have harmed you have a conscience and are moved by ethics. I'm not convinced that many of the elites have much of a conscience. I would like to think that they do, but I find precious little evidence of it. I find it profoundly sad that the bottom 99% have to take police abuse, beatings, and killings while those on top are only asked to "show regret" for their actions. Regret doesn't cut it for me. If Chancellor Katehi had any moral integrity, she would resign immediately and go about personally apologizing to the students of the university. Instead, the above video shows her walking past the powerless and not acknowledging them. Why should she? She is powerful. She is paid big bucks. She had a golden parachute. They are simply students who will suffer 10% unemployment when the graduate. They will be forced to "conform" to the dictates of an elitist society that believes that 0.1% should get 20% of the income and wealth of the society.

Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. led non-violent protests. They make great video and wonderful stories, but I remember the frustration of the youth of the 1960s in the pitiful "fruits" of a massive effort at attempting to change the powers that be. The Jim Crow laws disappeared slowly, but there were literally hundreds of deaths by truly wonderful and noble people. A sacrifice that wasn't shared by the vicious thugs who beat protesters or the brutal cops who turn dogs loose on them.

The only effective tool for change is democracy. The use of a ballot instead of a bullet. But sitting peacefully as a powerful person walks by doesn't strike me as an effective technique. I would have much preferred the crowd repeating "shame, shame, shame" or something more harsh that simply sitting and letting the symbol of power walk unmolested to her car. I suspect she laughed herself silly on the drive home in that car. She had just experiences the sharp end of Obama-style "change you can believe in". In short, a worthless, useless "peaceful" demonstration. That effort would be better spent organizing ordinary people to vote their interests in elections at all levels in society.

Update 2011nov22: Here is a bit from a post by Matt Taibbi on his Rolling Stone blog:

Glenn Greenwald’s post at Salon says this far better than I can, but I think there are undeniable conclusions one can draw from this incident. The main thing is that the frenzied dissolution of due process and individual rights that took place under George Bush’s watch, and continued uncorrected even when supposed liberal constitutional lawyer Barack Obama took office, has now come full circle and become an important element to the newer political controversy involving domestic corruption and economic injustice.

As Glenn points out, when we militarized our society in response to the global terrorist threat, we created a new psychological atmosphere in which the use of force and military technology became a favored method for dealing with dissent of any kind. As Glenn writes:

The U.S. Government — in the name of Terrorism — has aggressively para-militarized the nation’s domestic police forces by lavishing them with countless military-style weapons and other war-like technologies, training them in war-zone military tactics, and generally imposing a war mentality on them. Arming domestic police forces with para-military weaponry will ensure their systematic use even in the absence of a Terrorist attack on U.S. soil… It’s a very small step to go from supporting the abuse of defenseless detainees (including one’s fellow citizens) to supporting the pepper-spraying and tasering of non-violent political protesters.

Why is that such a small step? Because of the countless decisions we made in years past to undermine our own attitudes toward the rule of law and individual rights.

...

The UC Davis instant crystallized all of this in one horrifying image. Anyone who commits violence against a defenseless person is lost. And the powers that be in this country are lost. They’ve been going down this road for years now, and they no longer stand for anything.

All that tricked-up military gear, with that corny, faux-menacing, over-the-top Spaceballs stormtrooper look that police everywhere seem to favor more and more, it’s a symbol of the increasingly total lack of ideas behind all that force.

It was bad enough when we made police defend the use of torture and extrajudicial detention; now they’re being asked to defend mass theft, Lloyd Blankfein’s bailout-paid bonus, the principle of Angelo Mozilo not doing jail time.

How strong can anyone defending those causes be? These people are weak and pathetic, and they’re getting weaker. And boy, are they showing it. Way to gear up with combat helmets and the submachine guns, fellas, to take on a bunch of co-eds sitting Indian-style. Maybe after work you can go break up a game of Duck-Duck-Goose at the local Chuck E Cheese. I’d bring the APC for that one.

Bravo to those kids who hung in there and took it. And bravo for standing up and showing everyone what real strength is. There is no strength without principle. You have it. They lost it. It’s as simple as that.

Go read the whole post by Matt Taibbi.

And make sure you go read the Glenn Greenwald article at Salon that Matt Taibbi points at:

Despite all the rights of free speech and assembly flamboyantly guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, the reality is that punishing the exercise of those rights with police force and state violence has been the reflexive response in America for quite some time. As Franke-Ruta put it, “America has a very long history of protests that meet with excessive or violent response, most vividly recorded in the second half of the 20th century.” Digby yesterday recounted a similar though even worse incident aimed at environmental protesters.

The intent and effect of such abuse is that it renders those guaranteed freedoms meaningless. If a population becomes bullied or intimidated out of exercising rights offered on paper, those rights effectively cease to exist. Every time the citizenry watches peaceful protesters getting pepper-sprayed — or hears that an Occupy protester suffered brain damage and almost died after being shot in the skull with a rubber bullet — many become increasingly fearful of participating in this citizen movement, and also become fearful in general of exercising their rights in a way that is bothersome or threatening to those in power. That’s a natural response, and it’s exactly what the climate of fear imposed by all abusive police state actions is intended to achieve: to coerce citizens to “decide” on their own to be passive and compliant — to refrain from exercising their rights — out of fear of what will happen if they don’t.

The genius of this approach is how insidious its effects are: because the rights continue to be offered on paper, the citizenry continues to believe it is free. They believe that they are free to do everything they choose to do, because they have been “persuaded” — through fear and intimidation — to passively accept the status quo. As Rosa Luxemburg so perfectly put it: “Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.” Someone who sits at home and never protests or effectively challenges power factions will not realize that their rights of speech and assembly have been effectively eroded because they never seek to exercise those rights; it’s only when we see steadfast, courageous resistance from the likes of these UC-Davis students is this erosion of rights manifest.

...

Pervasive police abuses and intimidation tactics applied to peaceful protesters — pepper-spray, assault rifles, tasers, tear gas and the rest — not only harm their victims but also the relationship of the citizenry to the government and the set of core political rights. Implanting fear of authorities in the heart of the citizenry is a far more effective means of tyranny than overtly denying rights.

Here is a bit from a talk entitled "With Liberty and Justice for Some" given by Glenn Greenwald that focuses on the abuse of Bradley Manning:



Update 2011nov23: Here is a bit from an article by Philip Kennicott in The Washington Post:

Pepper spray, which in many countries is defined as a weapon and is often illegal for civilians to possess, can cause tissue damage, respiratory attacks and, in rare cases, death. It is considered far superior during crowd control to more violent forms of self-defense. But, like Tasers, which can also cause severe injury and death, there is increasing concern than it is being used by law enforcement without discretion or proper understanding of its dangers. The UC-Davis video will only amplify those concerns.

The police officer emerges from the margins of the scene, walks in front of a line of students on the ground with arms interlaced, and brandishes the can briefly in a gesture that feels both bored and theatrical, like someone on a low-budget television commercial displaying a miracle product or a magician holding the flowers he is about make disappear. He then proceeds to spray a thick stream of orange liquid into their faces. The crowd surrounding the students erupts in cries of “shame, shame,” questioning the police about whom they are protecting.

The spraying is slow and deliberate, one face after another, down the line. It is the multiple victims that makes it so chilling, recalling the mechanization of violence during the 20th century. Pepper spray, of course, isn’t meant to be lethal, and it was deployed during an effort to enforce university policy rather than a state-sanctioned campaign of violence. But the apparent absence of empathy from the police officer, applying a toxic chemical to humans as if they were garden pests, is shocking. Even more so because it is a university police officer.

University police generally operate under a more benignly paternalistic understanding of the law than other police. They are there to ensure the safety of the students, to help with the messier details of the in loco parentis function of the university.

A half-century ago, many parents told their children to ask a cop for help in case of trouble. With police forces now defining their role as more military than civilian, viewing citizens with suspicion and often treating them with hostility, that has changed. Saying the wrong thing to a cop, asking for a warrant before a search, throwing a snowball at an unmarked cop car, legally taking a picture of an official building, questioning a Capitol police officer about why a public area has been closed can lead to threats of arrest, or worse. But on university campuses, the police are often seen as they generally once were: your friend.

The UC-Davis police force has defended the use of pepper spray. An independent police expert quoted by the Associated Press calls pepper spray a “compliance technique,” in language eerily reminiscent of the George W. Bush administration’s euphemisms for torture.

Even if it is determined that the police followed proper procedures, the video might have lasting power for outrage, tapping into growing concerns not that police are abusing standard policies, but that our policies might need to be revised. Indeed, the disjunction between how the UC-Davis police read this video (they see an officer doing his job) and how many others read this video (they see a man in a uniform causing great and unnecessary pain to unresisting students) indicates that we have reached a kind of intellectual impasse about what kind of police we want and what limits should be placed on their power.

...

UC-Davis has announced an investigation into the officer’s action and whether it was merited and legal. It is a familiar pattern — the video is uploaded, it spreads, outrage develops and then the institution issues a seemingly reluctant and reactive plea for caution. We don’t know the context. We don’t know what really happened.

That kind of caution grew out of an age of skepticism in response to the manipulation of photographs by unscrupulous agents, including totalitarian governments. It was an appropriate skepticism, engendering a valuable resistance to the extraordinary power of images to seem transparently truthful.

The times may be changing. Video can be as easily manipulated as photography, but multiple videos from multiple perspectives, arriving within hours or minutes after an event, require a different kind of skepticism. The repeated claims by officials that our eyes are lying begin to seem more and more incredible.

Update 2011nov24: Here is a bit from a post by Judy Stone on the Scientific American blog:

There are reports of the efficacy of capsaicin in crowd control, but little regarding trials of exposures. Perhaps this is because pepper spray is regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency, as a pesticide and not by the FDA.

The concentration of capsaicin in bear spray is 1-2%; it is 10-30% in “personal defense sprays.”

While the police might feel reassured by the study, “The effect of oleoresin capsicum “pepper” spray inhalation on respiratory function,” I was not. This study met the “gold standard” of clinical trials, in that it was a “randomized, cross-over controlled trial to assess the effect of Oleoresin capsicum (OC) spray inhalation on respiratory function by itself and combined with restraint.” However, while the OC exposure showed no ill effect, only 34 volunteers were exposed to only 1 sec of Cap-Stun 5.5% OC spray by inhalation “from 5 ft away as they might in the field setting (as recommended by both manufacturer and local police policies).”

By contrast, an ACLU report, “Pepper Spray Update: More Fatalities, More Questions” found, in just two years, 26 deaths after OC spraying, noting that death was more likely if the victim was also restrained. This translated to 1 death per 600 times police used spray. (The cause of death was not firmly linked to the OC). According to the ACLU, “an internal memorandum produced by the largest supplier of pepper spray to the California police and civilian markets” concludes that there may be serious risks with more than a 1 sec spray. A subsequent Department of Justice study examined another 63 deaths after pepper spray during arrests; the spray was felt to be a “contributing factor” in several.

A review in 1996 by the Division of Epidemiology of the NC DHHS and OSHA concluded that exposure to OC spray during police training constituted an unacceptable health risk.

Update 2011nov25: Here is an interview with Nathan Brown, professor of English at UC Davis, who has written a letter calling for chancellor Katehi to resign. He appears at 2:45 into the video:

Use of "Appropriate Force"

The police in the US are a power unto themselves and have gone beyond reasonable. They are brutes and bullies working to keep the billionaries safely ensconced in their ultra-rich homes looking down on the impoverished and starving. The police work to make blood flow to keep the ultra-rich happy.

From the UK's Guardian newspaper, protester and three-tour American veteran Kayvan Sabehgi was beaten by Oakland police during the Occupy protest's general strike on 2 November. Sabehgi, who was 'completely peaceful', according to witnesses, was left with a lacerated spleen...



And here is just one of many videos of US veterans being arrested for attempting to exercise their 1st Amendment Rights. So much for all the lip service about "honouring their service". When it comes to money, these poor suckers were cannon fodder to win the wars that the rich wanted, not the wars of the people, by the people, and for the people...

Public Enemy #1

US police have gone after an 84 year-old-woman, arresting her, pepper spraying her, at an Occupy Seattle demonstration. This is "justice" in America...



It is incredible that the police would become violent just when the group was very publicly deciding to go home. It shows that the police are not "forced" into brutal behaviour. This is gratuitous brutality just to "prove" that the cops are "in control". This is what the top 1% want. They want to keep the bottom 99% scared and disorganized. So they intimidate and brutalize.

As everybody knows... it is the 84 year old grannies who are the real threat to America. Not the trillion dollar crimes of Wall Street that have created 25 million unemployed and 10 million families losing their homes.

It is interesting that she ties the violence and repression from on top with the kind of violent repression used by Nazi Germany. She's lived the politics and she can testify to reality on the ground. And as she points out, the media don't carry any stories about real popular protest. Big corporations can "buy" the news coverage they want. The poor and middle class have to fight via protests in the street to get any coverage.

I don't buy all the "issues" of the left and political activists, but most of the time they are speaking the truth. They need to be heard. Democracy is the only tool to achieve a true civil society in which all interests get represented fairly. A real civil society needs an uncorrupted politics and a free media and a citizenry who pay attention and get out to vote. This combination is hard to achieve. That is why democracy so often is dysfunctional. But ultimately democracy is the only political system that can assure a fair society. Anything else leads, in the long run, to repression and collapse.

Update 2011nov18: Here's a photo of the woman being helped after being pepper-sprayed:

Click to Enlarge

Occupy Protesters FIght to Help the Police

Here is a new initiative by the Occupy movement that is a positive change. It is a fight to help those losing their houses and in this case they are out to help a police man hang on to his house...



More details here.

This reminds me of the people during the Great Depression who came to auctions to stop the government from selling off a person's house or farm when the creditors foreclosed.

Higher Education in America

The government has decided that classroom professors are not getting "the message" across to students and have unleashed the police with batons to club and spear peacefully protesting students. This is a very important lesson about "power" in America:



More details from Berkleyside.

The top 0.01% control the politicians, the courts, and the police. So when students don't respect the right of the rich to plunder the middle class and impoverish the poor, then a little "school lesson" is needed with billy clubs to "beat some sense" into students.

Sadly, that is America. Land of the "free to be beaten up". Gone are the days of free speech and the right to assemble. These are they days when you need to buy your political rights just like the billionaires have so successfully done.

Update 2011nov13: Here is a bit from the student newspaper The Daily Californian:

For UC Berkeley graduate student Alex Barnard, the most disempowering moment of Wednesday night was not when he was repeatedly hit with a police baton, cracking one of his ribs. Instead, the most disturbing moment of his experience came afterward, when he says an officer told him he had “no rights.”

According to Barnard, who was arrested along 31 others as part of Wednesday night’s Occupy Cal demonstration, after he was handcuffed with a zip tie and taken into Sproul Hall, a police officer asked him for identifying information. Rather than immediately answering, Barnard said he asked the officer about his rights and when he would be allowed to speak to a lawyer. It was then that the officer told him he had no rights and, after Barnard disputed the statement, said he would be recorded as “uncooperative” on his police forms, according to Barnard.

“You didn’t have a voice,” Barnard said.

The experience described by Barnard and his fellow protesters’ violent treatment at the hands of the police — supported by video footage taken at the demonstration — has led to wide-spread condemnation of the police response. Critics ranging from campus student groups to members of the UC Berkeley faculty and even the national media have spoken out against the police officers’ use of force.

According to a campus-wide email sent by Chancellor Robert Birgeneau and other top campus administrators, the campus Police Review Board will investigate whether police used excessive force given the circumstances.

Go read the original news story to get all the details and the embedded links.

I love it when the official have "an official investigation". It is just a way to bury the item. These students were assaulted by the police. No policeman was arrested for assault. The "investigation" will find "extenuating circumstances" and the whole thing will be buried. That is how the elites make sure that nobody rocks the boat. You have no rights. Sure you have lots of "paper" rights, but money in America owns all the "rights". Until the people change that, the standard of living in the US will continue to decline and the government will continue on its path to banana republic.

Update2011nov14: Here is a bit from a well thought out analysis of the hypocrisy of the UC Berkeley authorities by Aaron Bady on his blog zunguzungu. It also has more video and some detailed comments and specifics. But the key point is this:

I feel a lot of déjà vu in reading about these events. According to the UC administration, who have offered a lot of empty words in support of Occupy Wall Street in past emails, it wasn’t the aims of the protesters they opposed but their tactics. As they go on to elaborate:

This decision is largely governed by practical, not philosophical, considerations. We are not equipped to manage the hygiene, safety, space, and conflict issues that emerge when an encampment takes hold and the more intransigent individuals gain control. Our intention in sending out our message early was to alert everyone that these activities would not be permitted. We regret that, in spite of forewarnings, we encountered a situation where, to uphold our policy, we were required to forcibly remove tents and arrest people.

Allow me to retort: what they really mean is that the University of California is not, in fact, governed by “a philosophy,” but by the reverse: an active refusal to require a philosophy in justifying its choices. That way he can write that “UC Berkeley as an institution shares many of the highest principles associated with the OWS movement,” but also actively work in opposition to people’s attempts to put those principles into practice. This is an arbitrary line in the sand, drawn by an administration that is unflinchingly willing to use whatever means necessary to maintain their ability to draw arbitrary lines. Your philosophy is not wanted here, they are saying; in the name of practical considerations — which they define — you will be governed by government. And so the fact that students are trying to “democratize the regents,” as a popular chant puts it, is exactly the threat. A sentence like this one:

We are not equipped to manage the hygiene, safety, space, and conflict issues that emerge when an encampment takes hold and the more intransigent individuals gain control.

is just another way of saying that when “intransigent” individuals refuse to acknowledge the university’s authority, the administration won’t be able to exercise its authority, so it will therefore need to exercise its authority. This is exactly as tautological and contradictory a line of “reasoning” as it sounds, a rhetorical snake eating its own tail. To maintain hygiene, the students cannot use tents to keep themselves warm; to manage the space, students must be kept out; to address “conflict issues,” students had to be attacked; and to keep the students safe, they will be beaten.

The language falls apart at this point, because it’s not “philosophy” that’s driving any of this, but the question of who has the right to speak and be heard about what the university is for. Which is why the next paragraph truly descends into absurdity, the one where you realize you are not dealing with an educator, but with a university Ministry of Truth:

It is unfortunate that some protesters chose to obstruct the police by linking arms and forming a human chain to prevent the police from gaining access to the tents. This is not non-violent civil disobedience. By contrast, some of the protesters chose to be arrested peacefully; they were told to leave their tents, informed that they would be arrested if they did not, and indicated their intention to be arrested. They did not resist arrest or try physically to obstruct the police officers’ efforts to remove the tent. These protesters were acting in the tradition of peaceful civil disobedience, and we honor them.

What he describes — occupying space in a way that nonviolently prevents the police from doing what they want — is actually the very definition of “non-violent civil disobedience.” On the one hand, it is utterly non-violent: linking arms and holding on to each other as the police try to knock you apart is not “violent” but is precisely the opposite. It is the endurance of violence. And second, it is civil disobedience, again, precisely by definition. They were disobeying civil authorities, obeying the authority of their own consciences and solidarity instead

I want to skim past this sentence on to the next part, however which is in some ways the most remarkable part: he argues that the “tradition of peaceful civil disobedience,” which deserves honor, is a tradition of obedience to civil authorities. He says that “we honor” those who do not obstruct the administration’s decisions, and that those who are “acting in the tradition of peaceful civil disobedience” are, it turns out, those who obey authority.

This is not even ideology. This is simply nonsense. UCI professor Rei Terada has a great piece on what the administrator’s language might mean, but for me the important point to make is a much simpler one: they aren’t defending what they did — which would require admitting what they did — but only obfuscating it in language so bad that I can’t decide whether to call it vapid or actively dishonest. “Civil Disobedience” has always been, manifestly and unmistakably, a tradition of disobeying the civil authorities. I feel silly even needing to spell that out. And I feel embarrassed to work as an educator in the employ of anyone who would stand behind such specious stupidity. Linking arms and occupying the space between the police and their objective is a tactic used by just about every example of civil disobedience I can think of. It is, quite frankly the single best and most iconic example of the thing he says it is not. He is chewing up these words until they have become meaningless. Calling this language “Orwellian” is not hyperbole or exaggeration.

If he wants, Chancellor Birgeneau can approve of what the police did on Wednesday. If he wants to believe and argue that it is justifiable to try to break the bodies of students in hope of breaking their spirits, then let him believe it and argue it and then try to justify it. Let him tell us that when students put up tents on Sproul Plaza, the police will beat them until they take those tents down. Let him declare forthrightly that when students stand on grass at the wrong time and place — a time that is subject to the capricious and arbitrary decrees of the police and those who call them in — the administration believes its authority and responsibility is to beat them until they comply.

They have not said this. Birgeneau and his executive administrators are hiding behind meaningless language rather than talk openly and honestly about what everyone who was there or has seen those videos knows to be true: the UC will hurt you if you obstruct them or challenge their authority, even nonviolently. Free speech is a function of free thinking, and on the campus of free speech, Birgeneau should be free to say and think what he pleases, even if what he says is that those who do not obey will be beaten into submission. But let us hear him say that, if that’s what he believes. Let him admit and stand behind the decision he has made.

Freedom to Peacefully Assemble and Petition the Government

Freedom in action:



The above video is a little hard to square with this very clear statement of citizen's rights in the United States Constitution, specifically the 1st Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

I guess the Constitution really means that you have a "right" to peacefully assemble unless the police get annoyed and decide to take pot shots at you and harass you because they find your video camera "annoying".

If you ever read the USSR's Constitution or Communist China's Constitution, they are full of "rights". Wonderful documents. But only a fool would take the chance to act on any of those "rights" because those documents were purely window dressing to wave at the world and declare that those countries were "great democracies" with all the latest and best "rights" for their citizens. Banana Republic USA has joined their ranks. Lots of wonderful "rights" but don't you dare take them seriously.

Update 2011nov10: Here is an article in the San Jose Mercury News about the above incident:

Alpert, a University of South Carolina criminal justice professor who's an expert in police decision-making and use of force, said the video left him "astonished, amazed and embarrassed."

"Unless there's something we don't know, that's one of the most outrageous uses of a firearm that I've ever seen," he said. "Unless there's a threat that you can't see in the video, that just looks like absolute punishment, which is the worst type of excessive force."

Campbell said his friends saw him get hit and rushed him away to the shelter of a doorway. Someone brought an ice pack while a legal observer took down information, and then his friends helped him get to a taxi. He saw a doctor later Thursday, who told him to keep the wound bandaged and iced. He said Monday he has a 1½ -inch wound with swelling and bruising around it.

Campbell said he does social and digital media work for a local nonprofit and supports Occupy Oakland. "I don't camp out there, I've been a participant but not an active organizer," he said. "I've come out for general assemblies and marches, and I came out that day for the general strike to show my support."

He said he brought his camera that night to document any excessive force used by police, never imagining that might make him a target. "I don't know if I was in the right place at the wrong time or the wrong place at the right time."

He said he wants an independent, not internal, investigation of this and other reports of excessive force, and is considering whether to take legal action.

...

"It looks terrible," agreed Sam Walker, a professor emeritus of criminal justice at the University of Nebraska, Omaha, who consulted with Oakland police on the federal consent decree emerging from the Riders scandal. "It certainly looks like they singled him out to be shot ... and there does not appear to have been any sort of attack by the protester. Clearly, the camera is not approaching the officers, so they couldn't claim that he posed a threat."

Paul Chevigny, professor emeritus at the New York University School of Law, said it looks like "a violation of his First Amendment rights apart from being a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. He has a right to take a film of what the police do -- we've been over this thousands of times -- unless he's interfering in some way.

"The basic problem of police retaliating against people who are trying to record what's going on is perennial," said Chevigny, adding this occurs all over the nation. "They (officers) consider it a kind of 'contempt of cop.' It's an expression of the fact that people do not trust the police. The police read it as a criticism of them. It's not even necessarily that they're trying to prevent people from seeing what they're doing.

"But this extreme version (of retaliation) is very unfamiliar to me," he added. "I can't imagine what they're going to say about shooting this guy. Sounds like the Oakland police need a little brush-up on their training."

Oakland Police at Beating Up People... Again

I'm pissed at the small group of idiots who broke off from the Occupy Oakland demonstration and trashed an area of downtown Oakland, but that doesn't justify the police going beserk, yet again, and severely injuring another military vet.

From Reuters:

A former U.S. Army Ranger and Occupy Oakland protester was in intensive care on Friday after a veterans group said he was beaten by police during clashes with demonstrators this week.

The veteran, identified as Kayvan Sabeghi, was the second former American serviceman during the past two weeks to be badly hurt in confrontations between anti-Wall Street protesters and police in Oakland.

The group Iraq Veterans Against the War said Sabeghi was detained during disturbances that erupted late on Wednesday in downtown Oakland and was charged with resisting arrest and remaining present at the place of a riot.

Highland General Hospital confirmed that Sabeghi was a patient in the intensive care unit there.

Brian Kelly, who co-owns a brew pub with Sabeghi, said his business partner served as an Army Ranger in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said Sabeghi told him he was arrested and beaten by a group of policemen as he was leaving the protest to go home.

"He told me he was in the hospital with a lacerated spleen and that the cops had jumped him," Kelly said. "They put him in jail, and he told them he was injured, and they denied him medical treatment for about 18 hours."

The Oakland Police Department did not immediately return calls seeking comment. Sabeghi's name was listed by the Alameda County Sheriff's Office as one of more than 100 people arrested that night.

The veterans group said in a statement that police struck Sabeghi with nightsticks on his hands, shoulders, ribs and back, and that in addition to a lacerated spleen he suffered from internal bleeding.

Clashes between police and demonstrators broke out in the early morning hours of Thursday in downtown Oakland following a day of mostly peaceful rallies and marches citywide against economic inequality and police brutality.

The Port of Oakland was forced to shut down during those demonstrations, sparked in part by the severe injury of another former serviceman, ex-Marine Scott Olsen, during a confrontation with police last week.

Olsen's injury became a rallying cry for the anti-Wall Street protest movement nationwide.

When crazies start to trash things, all honest protesters should immediately leave the scene and desist from protesting to give police free rein to go after the violent idiots who are intent on trashing things and not on legitimate protest. But police have got to stop illegally attacking honest protesters and beating them to within an inch of death. Those police officers need to be identified and charged with attempted murder.

Social change is ugly. The only truly successful technique requires determination and patience. You have to push for change and not be tempted by violence of idiotic "press coverage". The media will distort the message and tempt you into short-cutting the process of education and legitimate social change. The media wants to see the "protest" as a product. They have no interest in real change. So honest and dedicated demonstrators have to ignore the lure of the press and "instant fame". Real change is anonymous and done one-by-one. The glory hounds and the self-appointed "leaders" are mostly sociopaths interested in manipulating things for their benefit. You have to avoid them. You have to find like-minded friends who will join in for the long haul.

Rogue Police

In theory the police are agents of the people, their job is to "serve and protect" their community. But for some, the rogue elements among the police, those with a pathological thuggish personality, this becomes a "license to kill". Here is an example:



And this:



Sadly, the police argue that this was "justified force" and the responsible thugs were given only the lightest of wrist slaps. Why?

The violence of white collar crime, the Wall Street banks have thrown 25 million people out of work and foreclosed on 10 million home owners as part of a fraudulent crime spree. The violence of these perpetrators has not resulted in a single arrest or the thuggish police assaulting any of the "suits" of Wall Street. But if you stand in the streets to protest that your country has gone off the rails and that authorities are not doing their sworn duty to uphold the law, you are pepper sprayed and targeted by canisters of exploding tear gas. Go figure.

Keith Olbermann Takes Oakland's Mayor to Task

Olbermann starts out by praising Mayor Jean Quan's previous service to Oakland. It is an impressive list. But then he gets down to the horror that she unleashed by turning her police loose on peaceful protesters and makes it utterly, utterly clear the crime she has perpetrated by her actions. You must watch this video:



For a first person narrative by somebody on the ground in Oakland, read this article by Mike Godwin in reason.com:

If you've been following the mainstream media coverage of the Occupy Wall Street protests, odds are that you've heard about events at Occupy Oakland. What you can't tell from the news clips is how the situation has played out for those of us who live here. I can't speak for everyone, but I do know that my reaction, both to the protestors and to the violent police interventions against them, is hardly an uncommon one.

...

The vibe where I was standing was tense. Occasionally an individual shouted at the arrayed police, “This is America! What are you doing here?” Or, “I can't believe you're doing this! We love you guys but what you're doing is wrong!” I didn't think it was a great idea to shout at the (silent but intent) array of police—it wasn't likely they were going to suddenly relent, and I knew they had been wearing heavy riot gear and carrying weapons (including astonishingly large batons) for six or more hours. My instinct was that it was not particularly safe to shout at tired men and women with weapons, no matter how righteous one's outrage is.

...

One guy passing me on the way downtown warned about tear gas. I spotted New York Times reporter Malia Wollan talking into her mobile—as she walked past I heard her describing the apparent effects of the gas on individuals exposed to it. Her account is available here.

Of the people headed toward me, I first thought a disproportionate number were bicyclists—only a few minutes later did I realize, embarrassingly, that there were other reasons for wearing a bicycle helmet that night. The tension in the crowd was palpably building so I decided it was time to head home. Keeping my distance turned out to have been wise, because this is what I missed getting caught up in:



I was also standing 50-100 feet south from where a police officer appears to have thrown a flash grenade into a crowd of people gathered to help 24-year-old Scott Olsen, who suffered massive head injuries after allegedly being struck by a tear gas canister.



I confess that it breaks my heart to watch this clip. If I had seen someone collapsed in the street, I'd have tried to help that person too. These people were apparently punished for their impulse to help.

...

I don’t know how to interpret everything I saw, and I can’t state with any authority what Occupy Oakland or any of the other protests ultimately mean. But I do know this: The millions of dollars California just spent on this crackdown did nothing to dispel or discourage the protestors. In fact, the police intervention has echoed around the world. Occupy Wall Street committed to sending $20,000 to Occupy Oakland and protestors as far away as Tahrir Square in Egypt have expressed their solidarity with the Oakland protestors.

History tends to happen when you least expect it, and my new neighbors have taken their first steps into its pages.

Go read the full article.

If you want to see the sympathy protest in Tahrir Square Egypt for the Occupy Oakland violence, here is a post on BoingBoing with pictures.

Here is political commentary in Wired magazine on the fallout from the police violence at Occupy Oakland:

But the police forces’ violent tactics worked only temporarily, and have, for the moment at least, handed the Occupy movement a moral and political victory so big that not even Occupy protestors seem to recognize it.

The nation, and even much of the world, seemed to recoil in shock from the images coming out of Oakland Tuesday night, where police used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse unarmed protestors, who built a camp in the city as part of the nationwide protest against an unfair political and economic system.

Critically wounded Marine veteran Scott Olsen became a rallying point for Occupy, following widely seen footage of protestors trying to carry him to safety in the midst of a tear gas assault. There were other pictures and videos: streets littered with rubber bullets, people in wheelchairs trapped in the tear gas, and bloodied faces and bruised bodies of unarmed protestors.

On Wednesday, OccupyOakland’s fortunes reversed.

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan announced that people could reoccupy Frank Ogawa plaza, renamed Oscar Grant plaza by the occupiers in honor of a black Oakland man shot to death by transit police in 2009. When people arrived for the General Assembly, the occupation’s standard open meeting, the grassy area of the plaza was fenced off. But through the course of the evening, and not without violent conflict among the occupiers, the fences came down.

People fought each other over the fences, pulling at each other, some linking arms to protect the fence, and screaming, all while the GA went on in the distance. Despite the fears of those attempting to protect the fence, no police moved in after it went down. The GA proceeded through the evening undisturbed by anything but news choppers overhead and a turn-out too big for the sound system to cover.

But word came in that an attack was imminent on OccupySF across the bay, and a large contingent moved to get on the BART transit to join San Francisco’s Occupiers in Justin Herman Plaza. But when they arrived at the station they found it closed; BART wasn’t letting the occupation on in Oakland, or letting people off at Embarcadero, the station closest to OccupySF.

The roused crowd took to the streets, marching down Broadway towards the police station. They met no resistance. The police stayed a block away on all sides, and melted back in front of the path of the crowd, directing traffic away from the protestor-filled streets of Downtown Oakland. Many protestors were looking for a confrontation with police, but found none — staying peaceful and well behaved, if boisterous and peripatetic. The only property damage I observed were a couple incidents of graffiti-tagging, of which only one was definitely attributable to the OccupyOakland march. There were no broken windows or even overturned trash bins, and police stayed largely out of sight for the evening.

...

During the slow, tweeted protestor pursuit of police, OccupySF drilled for a police raid, practicing locking arms around their camp and removing vital gear from the site. As the hours wore on, many tired occupiers became paranoid, and every bus or van that went by startled people and sent them into conspiratorial speculations. Some occupiers went around writing the National Lawyer’s guild phone number on the arms of occupiers who didn’t already have a lawyer.

Five members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, several running for mayor, arrived and used the people’s mic to address the occupiers. They stayed put for hours, and many occupiers credited them for preventing the police raid.

On Thursday, the SFPD stretched credulity by telling ABC Channel 7 that the whole thing was a training exercise, resulting in a sarcastic local news report regarding the whole event. At the same time, OccupySF posted a picture of a notice given to businesses around the occupation warning of “…increased activity by the SFPD in the immediate vicinity of One Market Plaza starting around this evening’s commute.”

In Oakland the occupation was returning Thursday, growing from one tent in the reclaimed area Wednesday night to eight tents. OccupyOakland is rebuilding against the background of a campaign to recall Mayor Quan, calls for OPD to be disciplined, solidarity marches around the country and the world, and the New York City GA’s consensus to devote 100 sleeping bags and $20,000 for legal and medical expenses to OccupyOakland.

...

Sheamus Collins, a bartender from Dublin, showed off his rubber bullet wound.

Click to Enlarge
...

No one seemed aware of how crushing their political victory in the last 24 hours had really been.

The Right to Peacefully Assemble for the Redress of Grievances

Here is a video that gives more "context" to the Occupy Oakland incident. It is fairly clear that the police were not threatened. Instead, you hear them reading the riot act to citizens peacefully assembled seeking a redress of grievances. Then all hell breaks loose...



Here is the specific event:



It is obvious that a government has the right to control crowds, but the legal and police authorities have to be lenient with crowds with a political grievance. Otherwise you turn a democracy into a police state where the only "right" you have is to ask "how high?" when the state tells you to "jump". That isn't freedom. That is tyranny.

The police have no right to use force in a situation where the crowd is peaceful. Even suiting up in full riot gear is provocative. It shouldn't be done. And you certainly shouldn't be carrying out "street clearing" actions under the cover of dark and a fusilade of grenades and tear gas. That is war, not policing.

Update 2011nov12: Here is an update from Veterans for Peace on the condition of Scott Olsen, the injured ex-Marine who served in Iraq and was shot by trigger-happy cops at the Occupy Oakland protests:

Adele Carpenter Updates VFP on Scott Olsen

Hi, all.

I had a chance to visit Scott this evening. He is very present, alert, and has a lot of energy. He is still struggling with speech, but is attempting conversations without having the writing instrument out. He also is doing an amazing job of staying patient with himself and didn't seem to get frustrated with himself or need to rush when trying to work out thoughts in speech. Personally, it was a huge relief to see him after last having seen him while he was sedated and in critical condition.

We did talk some business and I wanted to give an update on that.

Housing: His parents are coming tomorrow and they will be looking for a place in the South Bay near where he will be accessing outpatient treatment. He said he doesn't know if they need help looking and I agreed to call his mom tomorrow to check about how their settling here might go. He said that he and Keith will look for a place in Berkeley after his parents leave in November.

Visiting and Support: He said he doesn't want or need any formal plans for visitation, like making a schedule of folks to keep him company when he is out, and that informally scheduling visits has been fine and he will let people know if he needs something else. He doesn't have any big wishes or desires for when he gets out of the hospital. He already got to go out for Thai food, but other than that, he is just focused on getting better.

Legal: Scott is aware that allies have offered legal contacts trained in police accountability and veteran issues. I also told him that several lawyers have expressed urgency around his case and investigation being taken up. He said he is already taking care of this and that if he wants bios or contacts for those lawyers, he will let me know.

Media: Scott would like to shoot to put out a statement for Vet's day, but doesn't want to rush himself because he doesn't know how much energy its going to take when his parents arrive and also with transitioning out of inpatient over this week. If he does write something, he would like someone to look it over. I also assume he'd rely on us to disseminate any statement to press contacts. I really wanted to respect that he not push himself since there will be a lot going on the next few days. If he does write something or want help composing something, he knows that we are more than willing to line up support.

Hope that covers the business end. My overall impression was that he is both trying to take it easy, but is also able to start taking care of his affairs and knows that he can ask for support if he needs it. I'm really happy he's doing so well and seems both accepting and determined. All good news for today.

Thanks,
Adele.
Civilian-Soldier Alliance

The Right to Petition the Government, the Oakland "Occupy Wall Street" Version

Lots of countries have high-sounding "Constitutions" with lots of "rights" and "liberties". The real test is when the citizenry attempt to exercise their rights.

The US has its First Amendment as part of its "Bill of Rights" to its Constitution:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Sadly, the authorities interpret that as the right to assemble and petition in some far away scruffy corner where nobody will see you or hear you. If you decide to assemble in an urban area, the authorities will soon decide that you are an "eyesore" that there are "health concerns" and that you have "overstayed your welcome". In short, protest, but not too loudly, not to visibly, and not too long.

You can tell when your rights are "fishy"... they send in the cops in riot gear in the middle of the night and unleash the hounds of hell to drive you away...









News coverage:

• Here is the story of the Iraqi war vet injured by police in Oakland from the UK's Guardian newspaper.


• And here is a timeline account from the UK's Guardian newspaper.


• And here is
  local coverage from the Oakland Tribune.

A legitimate government would assemble the police without riot gear, invite in the press, bring in cameras, send in high profile officials to explain why they want to move and/or suppress the demonstration, and rely on public consensus to get the protesters to leave.

I have no problem with cops in riot gear going in full force on the crazy nihilists who use "protests" as a cover for trashing the city. But if the government is legitimate, they should be able to get all but a handful to leave peacefully if the government truly has the consent of the governed behind them. That they are doing this in the middle of the night with such violence says to me that the government is bought-and-sold by big corporate money and the billionaires behind the scenes. There is nothing "legitimate" in handling peaceful protest in this manner.

An honest government wouldn't be using violation of "camping laws" or the so-called worries over "sanitation" to send in riot cops to beat people with billy clubs and tear gas them. That isn't how you deal with campers and trash. That is how a police state deals with political dissent. So much for the "rights" of Americans under their constitution. US citizens have a Constitutionally "guaranteed right to protest" so long as they do it at home, in a closet, in a whisper, in the dark, and don't let anybody know about their "protest".

You have "Rights" but not the Right to Exercise Your "Rights"

Here is a bit from a post by a legal site that claims to be helping the public. Here they try to explain your "rights" and just how much limitations can be put on them:

As protests supporting Occupy Wall Street have swelled in recent weeks, hundreds of demonstrators have been arrested across the U.S. This weekend, nearly 100 people were arrested in New York and 175 in Chicago. More than 100 protesters were arrested in Boston last week; a few weeks ago, 700 were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge.

So, if the First Amendment guarantees the right to peaceable assembly, why do peaceful protestors keep getting arrested — and sometimes pepper-sprayed and beaten up?

We take a closer look at the laws governing protests and how the government can limit them.

Time, place and manner restrictions

The First Amendment is not absolute. Government can make reasonable stipulations about the time, place and manner a peaceable protest can take place, as long as those restrictions are applied in a content-neutral way.

But what constitutes a reasonable time, place and manner restriction? "It depends on the context and circumstances," said Geoffrey Stone, a professor specializing in constitutional law at the University of Chicago. "Things like noise, blockage of ordinary uses of the place, blockage of traffic and destruction of property allow the government to regulate speakers."

Stone gave a few examples of impeding ordinary usage: disturbing patients at a hospital, preventing students from going to school, or, more relevant for the Occupy movement, disrupting the flow of traffic for a long period of time.

The majority of Occupy Wall Street-related arrests have been on charges of disorderly conduct. Under the New York Penal Code, that includes making "unreasonable noise," obstructing "vehicular or pedestrian traffic," or congregating "with other persons in a public place and refus[ing] to comply with a lawful order of the police to disperse." Basically, the central question is the standard of reasonableness. "You have to tolerate a certain amount of inconvenience in order to make room for First Amendment activity, but not so much that it disrupts things," Stone said. Individual states' unlawful assembly and disorderly conduct statutes have to fall in line with this standard. "They can regulate it less if they want to," Stone added, "but not more."

I remember as a kid watching the blacks in the Deep South trying to exercise their "right" to vote. They would be made to wait in the hot sun all day. They would be told to come back umpteen times. They would be given "tests" that mysteriously only blacks failed, not whites. Etc., etc. They had "rights" just no right to exercise their rights.

Native Indians in the US signed umpteen "perpetual treaties" only to watch them be torn up a few years later. Many Indian bands have horror stories to tell. The "trail of tears" for the civilized tribes of the US Deep South that freed up land for the big slave plantations is especially egregious. These are tribes that had signed many treaties, even fought on the side of the US revolutionaries and the side of the new United States in the Battle of 1912. All these "rights" and "promises" were ignored to feed the land fever of white slave owners.

This "expert" for propublica goes through the motions as if rights were real and the state is truly interested in your rights and it is just a question of balancing rights with responsibilies. What a load of crap. If they could get away with it, governments would have a rule that you can only demonstrate between 3:00 AM and 4:00 AM on one side of town, and by the way, you must have a permit that can only be picked up on the other side of town between 2:59 AM and 3:00 AM and only those with a valid permit at 3:00 AM at the demonstration site will be allowed to demonstrate. (A version of this is the recent rules where you have have "public" demonstrations during high profile international gatherings but only at a "designated" demonstration site that is miles from where the dignataries gather and is carefully fenced in with riot cops all around to ensure that in this "proper" demonstration area you won't be seen or heard by anybody.)

I'm pretty positive that Syria has a wonderful Constitution which lays out all kinds of "rights" for its citizens. But right now the only "right" that citizens seem to be enjoying is a bullet through the brain or torture in some dungeon run by Bashar al-Assad's thugs. Under the USSR's Constitution people had wondeful, extensive, very progressive "rights". But in reality if you thought you could exercise your rights you would be sent off to a slave labour camp in Siberia or shelved in a 24x7 drugged state in an insane asylum. That's how you got to "exercise" your rights in the USSR.

The thuggery by the US and its police is just one in a long line of countries with wonderful "rights". Sure the top 1% get to exercise those rights. But the 99% better not cross the line. Their "rights" have a way of mysteriously becoming re-interpreted as disorderly conduct, assaulting a police officer, or some other drummed up charge. If you read the labour history of the US (late 19th century early 20th century) it is filled with workers exercising their "rights" only to be mowed by by police or private gangs: the (Homestead Strike, the Lattimer Massacre, the Ludlow Massacre, the Columbine Mine Massacre, the Chicago Memorial Day Massacre, etc.)

Oh... and I just noticed this. A French court has ordered ISPs to block any site that allows people to post videos of police misconduct. I guess the theory is "out of sight, out of mind". Or, if nobody sees it, then it isn't a crime.

The Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris [official website, in French] on Friday ordered [judgment in PDF, in French] French Internet service providers to block access to Copwatch Nord Paris I-D-F, a website designed to allow civilians to post videos of alleged police misconduct. The decision was applauded by the police union, Alliance Police Nationale (APN) [union website, in French], which argued that the website incited violence against police. Jean-Claude Delage, secretary general of the APN, said that "[t]he judges have analyzed the situation perfectly—this site being a threat to the integrity of the police — and made the right decision." Opponents of Internet censorship were also quick to comment on the judgment. Jeremie Zimmermann, spokesman for La Quadrature du Net [advocacy website], a Paris-based net neutrality organization, called the order "an obvious will by the French government to control and censor citizens' new online public sphere." The site was ordered to be blocked immediately.

In France you have the right to think that police might violate the rights of citizens, but you have no right to communicate that belief because that is "an insult to the majesty of the Law". I guess the reasoning is that if you let people question the honesty and integrity of the government then you are on the slippery slope to anarchy. So everybody will be liable by law to only say good things about their laws, their politicians, the rich, and the police. You can insult your neighbor, the poor, immigrants, and dogs in the street. But not the noble "leaders" of society and their enforcers, the police.