Police State?

[Richard]

The local Sikh community has an athletic field behind my property and twice a year hold a regional weekend athletic event which brings teams in from SoCal to Oregon.

I was here remodeling the ranch house last fall in preparation for our move from Texas when their festival was taking place. The entrance to their temple/athletic fields is from another road and was blocked because of all the cars parked there. The Sheriff's Dept was talking of shutting the festival down because their access route was blocked for any emergency vehicles.

They came and asked if I would allow them to use my road (1/4 mile gravel with single-lane wooden bridge crossing a large creek) for access for their deputies and emergency vehicles only. I told them OK and left the gate closed but unlocked for them.

They were very respectful of my wishes to keep the gate closed - which meant they had to stop, open it, drive through, and stop and close it before continuing - and to drive slowly to keep the dust down.

A couple of them had known I had been renting the property and had been involved in the eviction process of my renters, and I showed them around to let them see the damages done to the property and what I was doing in order to move home.

I still see one of them every now and then when I go have breakfast at Mel Dog's (local cafe owned by twin daughters in their early 30's of an old family friend), and we always chat about how things are going in the neighborhood and whether the Sikh's are being "good neighbors" or not. When the next fest comes around and if he's on duty, I'll show him what I've done to the place over the last six months.

IMO, developing such local relationships - personal and professional - are important in developing and maintaining a community, and maintaining an 'acceptable' state of police balance.

Richard

[Dusty]

Originally Posted by Richard

Sikh post.

I wholeheartedly agree with you, there.

[Old Dog New Trick]

Originally Posted by miclo18d

"stop-and-frisk laws" = Terry Stops* (, and I for one DON'T agree with them. They are an affront to the Constitution under the guise of officer safety. If the officer doesn't feel safe when he makes the stop or questions an individual he can call for back up or not conduct the interview. And just because I may be armed doesn't make me dangerous.

"not reading the Miranda Warning to the Boston terror suspect initially" -- There is an exception to the Miranda Warning dealing with domestic or foreign terrorist. The exception to the Miranda Rule is, The Patriot Act. Under the Patriot Act if a person is taken into custody as a terrorist, either domestic or foreign, they do not have the same rights as a state or federal criminal. Meaning if you are detained or arrested under this act you have no legal right to Miranda, legal counsel, and habeas corpus. The easy explanation for this is: you have no legal constitutional rights granted via “The United States Constitution” and “The Bill of Rights”. -- on that I don't agree with TPA either and think its usefulness has ended.

"trying terrorists in military tribunals" -- if they are caught on a foreign battlefield, they are POWs/EPWs/Detained by military powers and therefor if they committed a crime in combat zones, they they can and SHOULD be tried by military tribunals.

I would be what you could call a "righty" and I don't like militarized police or video cameras all over the place either. I don't know what you meant by this paragraph but these are not right/left issues, these are Constitutional issues, these are issues about our freedoms.


* Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court which held that the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures is not violated when a police officer stops a suspect on the street and frisks him or her without probable cause to arrest, if the police officer has a reasonable suspicion that the person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime and has a reasonable belief that the person "may be armed and presently dangerous."

You should look up Illinois vs Lidster. SCOTUS ruled in favor or the state under the "Reasonableness Standard" that in certain grave cercumstances the police can conduct searches for public safety.

And Fourth Amendment reasonableness is that point at which the government’s interest advanced by a particular search or seizure outweighs the loss of individual privacy or freedom of movement that attends the government’s action, Illinois v. Lidster, 540 U.S. 419, 427 (2004)(“in judging reasonableness, we look to the gravity of the public concerns served by the seizure, the degree to which the seizure advances the public interest, and the severity of the interference with individual liberty”).

This is probably where the police justified the Watertown lockdown and house to house. But there are probably other case laws that would have allowed them to supersede the 4A during the search.

[miclo18d]

Originally Posted by Broadsword2004

Yes, but certain Constitutional issues are embraced more by each side it seems (gun rights for example, which the Left see as an abomination that are okay to ignore, even though gun rights at core are a populist issue and neither really left nor right). I should have been more clear about "the Right," as there are the righties who are okay with giving the police more powers and letting the government be tougher with terrorists and then there are the libertarian right who can be much different on such issues.

I am no libertarian, I'm not a republican't either. I'm a run of the mill conservative. I don't like the government in my business any more than a hippy does, but I DO believe in killing terrorists, I'm part of that club already. If the government wants to put up a camera, they better have damn good reason to put it up other than public safety.

What is going on right now is a power grab under the guise of keeping us safe from terror. As I saw mentioned somewhere, most people fear big government more than they fear terrorism. Terrorism is bad and should be eradicated ala Jefferson and the Barbary Pirates, ala Gen Sherman and Georgia, ala Patton and Nazis, what we are doing in Afghanistan is a reflection of our pussy whipped society, if we were serious we would have gone in there kicked the crap out of them and left.

Now we are under some BS called the "Powell Doctrine", that is basically, you break it, you buy it. I say you break it and then break it some more to make sure they don't want anymore and then you break it just a little more.

[miclo18d]

Originally Posted by sinjefe

Just because the supreme court said so doesn't mean they are right. They are humans also. Think Dred Scott decision.

All,

My post was in response to Broadsword saying that republicans agree with these things. I was pointing out what he said was a "stop and frisk" is called a Terry Stop. I pointed out it fell under Terry v. Ohio AND that I didn't agree with it.

Sorry if my post was slightly jumbled. I'm still working on getting it clearly from my head to the screen, through my **** beaters.

[Dusty]

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner...aul-warns-1984

[Geenie]

Unrelated to Watertown, but pertinent to the topic.


http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f48_1367872895

Some of you may have already seen this video of a recent incident in Omaha.

I suppose you have your 10% everywhere...

Question to the LEOs on the board: Were the officers within their rights to chase the onlooker into his house simply for filming the incident and asking questions?

[mark46th]

The original reason Law Enforcement agencies wanted the cameras everywhere was for CYA. Everything they should have done to prevent a criminal act becomes evidence against them in a civil suit. One of a city's biggest fears is a multi-million dollar law suit so, they spend the money on cameras and other ELINT to keep an eye on things. After they start to get this info, they realize how much power it has given them and how easy it is to abuse that power...

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers..." Henry VI, Part 2.

[ddoering]

A pattern is developing here. Government wants item (in this case cameras) to protect themselves yet don't want citizens to have them......

[pcfixer]

Originally Posted by Old Dog New Trick

You should look up Illinois vs Lidster. SCOTUS ruled in favor or the state under the "Reasonableness Standard" that in certain grave cercumstances the police can conduct searches for public safety.


This is probably where the police justified the Watertown lockdown and house to house. But there are probably other case laws that would have allowed them to supersede the 4A during the search.

We are seeing this in Maryland too. Public safety and public interest according to state attorney general has precedence over BOR and constitution.

I personally don't agree. Like being searched by TSA at airports, lockdown or search from house to house. Government needs a 'search warrant'.

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

-- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.

[Paslode]

"We're training for an incident that could happen anywhere,"

An upset father arrives in the office of the Western Washington Fairgrounds Academy, demanding to speak with the Dean of Students about the suspension of his son from the football team, which is currently ranked in the national polls. The father is irate and extremely agitated that his son's future is being affected by the Academy's Board of Standards to suspend his son from the team. The board chair is the Dean of Students. The Dean is called into the office, but the secretary also calls the local police department out of concern for the father's behavior.

http://puyallup.patch.com/articles/p...photo-14305927

https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...sPaFjslZM#t=6s


Maybe it is different in Washington State, but this scenario would not be in the Top100 list of potential threats to me and my family living in Kansas. Around here hostilities related to youth sports occur at the events themselves. These altercations have been in most instances been limited to screaming and yelling. In very rare instances there has been physical contact.

But never guns, knives or any other dangerous device that would require deadly force from the LEO's.

[Richard]

Say, "Cheese!"

DARPA's ARGUS - 1.8 billion pixel resolution camera for UAVs capable of storing 1 million terabytes of imagery per day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHrZgS-Gvi4

And so it goes...

Richard