Continued losses of freedoms and civil liverties.

Reason Magazine - Hit & Run > New Adventures in Asset Forfeiture

Santa Fe police will soon be able to seize the cars of motorists merely accused of drunken driving. No trial or actual conviction necessary.

Meanwhile, police in Florida are confiscating the motorcycles of operators accused of outrunning police cruisers based only on an officers memory of the bike's license plate. Again, no trial required.

You follow that, right? No due process required. You don't have to ever be found guilty of anything. Simply charged. And you lose all your stuff. God bless America. Cocksuckers, I swear to god.

Felipe Fernández-Armesto - Wikipedia

Fernández-Armesto gained media attention in 2007 for an incident on January 4th in which he was allegedly brutalized by 5 policemen led by Kevin Leonpacher in Atlanta, Georgia as a result of jaywalking (which does not exist as a legal and therefore criminal concept in his home country of the UK) while in town for a conference of the American Historical Association.



When told by 28-year-old officer Leonpacher that he was not supposed to cross where he had, he said he simply thanked him and continued on, claiming not to have known that Leonpacher was an officer because he was wearing a "bomber jacket" which covered his badge and obscured the uniform that Leonpacher claimed to have been visibly wearing. When Leonpacher ordered him to procure identification, the 56-year-old responded by questioning his authority to make such a demand and in turn, requesting to see the officer's ID.

Upon asking that Leonpacher show him his credentials, he was subsequently "knocked", "thrown" and/or "wrestled" to the ground after having his legs kicked from under him, and pinned there by the officers. Professor Lisa Kazmier, who witnessed the incident, was quoted as saying "It was like he was Osama Bin Laden or something." Leonpacher and the Atlanta Police Department deny that unnecessary or inappropriate measures were taken. After having been arrested and jailed for eight hours, Fernández-Armesto was released and charges of "disorderly conduct" against him were unofficially dropped following an appearance in traffic court the next day. Despite having once been mugged, he stated that "It was the most violence I've ever experienced in my life".

Boing Boing: London metro police poster

"This is an actual British Government poster outside a London Metro. Looks like they ripped it straight from the set of 'Brazil.'"

How very "Big Brother is Watching" of them.




Guantanamo detainee's lawyers post video to YouTube

David sez, "Now that habeas corpus has been eliminated there are no traditional means to advocate for the rights of detainees and Guantanamo. Here is a video put together by the public defenders office in Oregon, released on youtube, about their client Adel Hamad, a hospital charity worker and ping pong player who sits in Guantanamo since 2002. The lawyers traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan to tape video testimony of people who knew and worked with Mr. Hamad. But the U.S. government does not seem interested in this added material. Thus, the website for Project Hamad that has this video was put together by citizens concerned both about the disappearance of habeas corpus (and the lack of media attention this has received) and who are looking for a way on the internet and in the neighborhoods to spread the word, getting people to put Adel Hamad's face in the window of their houses, cars, local businesses, blogs, websites etc."

Adel Hamad was a teacher of elementary school orphans, a hospital worker, and someone who coordinated the delivery of food, medicine and blankets to refugees. He has been imprisoned for 5 years and classified as an enemy combatant, despite the lack of any allegations or evidence that he ever acted against the U.S. or its allies, or even had political sympathies for those who did.

'Sometimes, we just didn't get the right folks' - Brigadier General Jay Hood