Shutting down websites, tasering nonviolent people to death, stealing your cellphone (and its data), arresting nonviolent activists, it's getting pretty crazy out there.
Environmental activist Tim DeChristopher faces 10 years in federal prison for auction abuse. (photo: Courtney Sargent/Deseret News/Rapport)
The American Police State Is the 'New Normal'
26 June 11
ccording to The New York Times, the FBI just raided a data center in Virginia and seized many of its servers, causing websites owned by "tens of clients" to go offline - including those belonging to people who hadn't broken a law, and were not suspected of any crime.
It may seem silly to get upset about the police taking down websites you don't use. A certain quote may come to mind, though, as we look at other ways that the police in America abuse their power.
Tasering nonviolent people to death
A 72-year-old woman named Kathryn Winkfein got tasered not too long ago after she lost her temper at the cop who pulled her over. Her offense? Shouting at him.
Luckily, she "learned her lesson" about talking back to America's authority figures. She was also awarded $40,000 in damages, which her County Constable, Richard McCain, complained was a reward for "bad behavior." Apparently putting 50,000 volts through the heart of someone's great-grandma is not bad behavior, as long as you wear a police uniform.
Winkfein was lucky. In what Digby calls the "Taser Atrocity Of The Day," a man who took groceries without having paid for them was tasered continuously for 37 seconds, after he became "aggressive and was communicating loudly." He died in the hospital.
The police officer who killed him was suspended for five days.
Stealing your cellphone (and its data)
Recordings of government workers performing their duty are, by law, in the public domain. So if you think a police officer is going to do something untoward, try filming him so you have evidence. Right?
Not so fast. Prepare to have your cellphone taken from you and stomped on. The Miami Beach, Fla., police in particular have a history of doing this, and they aren't alone. But the people who have their phones stolen and vandalized by the police are lucky; a man named Michael Allison faces up to 75 years in prison for trying to record a judge, and was arrested without any warning.
Meanwhile, the Michigan State Police are taking people's cellphones when they pull them over for traffic violations, and using "extraction" devices on the phones. The ACLU is trying to find out why they're doing that, but the police department placed a price tag of over $500,000 on their Freedom of Information request. How much justice can you afford?
Arresting nonviolent activists
Want to feed homeless people free meals in the park? Prepare to be arrested. Or how about dancing in front of the Jefferson Memorial? Prepare to get tied up and beat up.
Our country's police has a long history of suppressing nonviolent activists, and it hasn't stopped with the Civil Rights Era. Environmental activists like Tim DeChristopher are served 10-year prison sentences for civil disobedience, that harms no one but impedes oil companies' profits. Meanwhile, the FBI labels nonviolent activists as "domestic terrorists."
They were recently granted more power to go through your trash and your data, so expect things to only get worse. Actually, expect things to get worse in general. The police state is the new normal.
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Comments
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'I believe America may totally succumb to the fearful militarization which engulfed Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. There is real danger that political power and the power to influence the minds of people will pass increasingly into the hands of the military, which is used to approaching all political problems from the point of view of military expediency. Because of America's supremacy, the military point of view is forced upon the world.'
What to do? We have corporate power in addition to government controls to contend with. Where do we begin? And don't think democrats are not complicit in all this, either.
(Continued below.)
...We haven't learned from history, and that it repeats itself; and most "Amerikans" believe the lie that what happened in Chili supposedly can't happen here (even though it is, RIGHT NOW, and right in front of their noses)! Do you see how apparently screwed we are because of all this?! Seriously, God help us all! And GO Naomi Klein (and Naomi Wolf, etc.---we better all completely face what these people are all warning us about, and are so right-on about, or we're doomed as a country and world)! Once more, God, PLEASE, help us all; by, primarily, waking us all up, blessing us with a backbone, and gracing us with the Power to save this country and world from global repression and enslavement!
It's very much like Spain in Franco's time, Indonesia under Suharto and Paraguay under Stroessner (from personal experience).
I for one will never return to the country of my birth, nor do I use the word american to describe me.. I trust my "adopted" country a thousand times more than I trust anyone in the US Government..
Maybe Americans have to look at new ways to be heard.
"Wake up and smell the fascism" t-shirts anyone?
If you don't mind would you identify your new country?
http://www.readersupportednews.org/off-site-news-section/194-194/6384-congressman-calls-for-investigation-of-clarence-thomas
Thomas MUST be impeached.
Vote 2012
We have bestowed special allowances to our law enforcers (and politicians) by saying they have a responsibility to meet a higher standard than the rest of the population. What we miss when we do that, is that they also need special exermptions to balance that off.
Those very exemptions allow them to illegally confiscate your property, and place the methods of their exercise of duty out of the view of the public.
The cleansing light of day will bring back our freedom. Especially the freedom to commit acts of spontaneous public dancing.
Try It.
All of the police brutality works as a teaching moment for americans -- everyone knows that next time it may be me who is tasered, shot, beaten, or arrested and convicted of some idiotic crime-sounding charge.
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