Muriel Kane : Austin Police Infiltrated Occupy Austin

Front page of Austin American-Statesman, Saturday, September 1, 2012. Image from Occupy Austin / Facebook.

UPDATE: The Houston Chronicle reported on Sept. 5 that, according to Austin Assistant Police Chief David Carter, "High-ranking officials in the Austin Police Department had no knowledge that undercover Austin officers provided protesters with devices before an Occupy Houston event that led to seven demonstrators being charged with felonies," and that he and Police Chief Art Acevedo "first learned of the lockbox accusations when the case went to trial."

The Chronicle reported that District Judge Joan Campbell criticized Harris County prosecutors for not disclosing that the lockboxes were made by undercover Austin police, and also reported that defendant Ronnie Garza, who is seeking to have the charges dropped, "stood with about a dozen other protesters outside Austin police headquarters Wednesday to denounce the undercover officers' actions."

May have acted as provocateurs:
Police admit to infiltrating Occupy Austin

Attorney Greg Gladden of the National Lawyers Guild has accused the police of entrapment and possible misconduct.

By Muriel Kane / The Raw Story / September 3, 2012

When the local offshoot of Occupy Wall Street began a five-month encampment in Austin, Texas, last fall, the Austin police assigned at least three undercover officers to infiltrate the group and gather information on potentially illegal actions.

According to the Austin American-Statesman, court documents and interviews show that the infiltrators “camped with other participants in the movement, marched in rallies and attended strategy meetings.”

They may also have gone further, acting as provocateurs to encourage the use of lockboxes or “sleeping dragons” -- lengths of PVC pipe into which protestors insert their arms to make it harder for police to remove them during a demonstration.

Seven protestors who used the devices while blocking a port entrance in Houston last December 12, have been charged with a felony and face jail terms of from two to 10 years under what the Statesman calls “an obscure statute that prohibits using a device that is manufactured or adapted for the purpose of participating in a crime.”

That's "Butch" in the beard. Image from Occupy Austin / Facebook.
The question of the lockboxes came up during a district court hearing in Harris County last week at which one of those seven, Ronnie Garza, sought to have the charge against him dropped. It was disclosed at the hearing that Austin Police Detective Shannon Dowell -- known to Occupiers as “Butch” -- had purchased the necessary pipe and other materials using funds supplied by Occupy Austin, constructed the devices himself, and provided them to demonstrators.

According to Occupy Austin supporter Kit OConnell, the occupiers figured out “Butch’s” true identity after their encampment was evicted last winter. Affidavits from Occupy Austin members have pointed to Dowell as the person who pushed for the use of the lockboxes and allege that he would regularly pull participants aside “in order to express his frustration with debate and eagerness for more aggressive and provocative actions.”

Garza’s attorney, Greg Gladden of the National Lawyers Guild, has accused the police of entrapment and possible misconduct. Judge Joan Campbell, who had initially dismissed the case until prosecutors obtained indictments from a grand jury, says she will decide this week whether to allow the proceeding to go forward.

At the hearing, Dowell told the judge that he could not produce subpoenaed documents because emails he had sent about the operation from his work computer had been deleted and he had lost a thumb drive containing photos when it dropped out of his pocket and fell in the gutter.

Arrest during Oct. 29-30, 2011, raid on Occupy Austin by Austin police. Photo by Ann Harkness / Flickr .
The Statesman reports that Judge Campbell expressed frustration with Dowell, while Garza’s attorney remarked, “I think he decided it was time the dog ate his homework.”

Judge Campbell has threatened to dismiss the case unless the required documents and the real names of the two other undercover officers, “Dirk” and “Rick,” are presented at the next hearing on September 5.

Police officials declined to comment on the question of if it was Dowell who first proposed using the lockboxes, but they did confirm that their department had ordered the infiltration.

Austin Assistant Police Chief Sean Mannix said that his department had begun receiving reports from confidential informants that the occupiers might be planning illegal protests. “We obviously had an interest in ensuring people didn’t step it up to criminal activity,” he said. “There is obviously a vested public interest to make sure that we didn’t allow civil unrest, violent actions to occur.”

Mannix does not believe any laws or departmental policies were violated, but he confirmed that the infiltration effort is the subject of a high-level internal review which is “absolutely looking into all aspects of what their undercover work was.”

[Muriel Kane is an editor at The Raw Story, where this article was originally published.]

Read the full transcript of the August 27, 2012, pretrial hearing in the 248th Harris County Judicial Court.

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Houston Pride : 2010 Parade is Horse of Different Color

Houston gay and lesbian community -- and friends -- stage a massive and joyous Pride Parade in the Montrose neighborhood, for the 31st straight year. Photos by Bill Maxey / The Rag Blog.
(And the cops manage to hold their horses)
Massive pride parade in the Montrose

By Bill Maxey / The Rag Blog / June 30, 2010

HOUSTON -- Every June for the past three decades Houston has put on a boisterous street party that starts with a daytime festival of performers and artists and ends in a nighttime parade of floats and marchers, celebrities and politicians.

The all-day event sponsored by the city’s well organized gay and lesbian community draws tens of thousands of Houstonians to the historic Montrose district, where my wife Kirste and I live, and testifies to the city’s reputation as a cosmopolitan oasis in a state better known for its red-necked cowboys, Lone Star beer, and Saturday-night lounge shootings.

Last weekend’s Pride Parade, like the 30 before it, was a noisy, high-spirited but peaceful procession that wound its way past the Mexican restaurants, small antique shops, and neon tattoo parlors on Westheimer, the major east-west artery that slices through Montrose. Some crowd estimates were well over 150,000. But unlike last year’s parade, clumps of two, four, five police officers stood watch on the crowd at nearly every intersection, the red lights atop their squad cars pulsating.

More barricades than last year’s number were set up by the city, the better to gently control the crowd of onlookers. And members of the Houston Police Department’s Mounted Patrol -- whose 1,200-pound gelding Kato trampled Kirste at last year’s parade, were barely seen this year.

Kirste and I own a 1920s bungalow in Montrose, recently honored as one of the country's 10 great neighborhoods. We count Annise Parker, Houston’s mayor, as a neighbor, and in previous times the late Walter Cronkite and Howard Hughes lived nearby.

So last year, we hopped on our bikes and pedaled over to Stanford street where we met our neighbors, a group of single and married couples, some with children and others without. It was to be a night of fun.

The 2009 parade began, heading east on Westheimer, and we cheered as it passed us, the crowd numbering an estimated 80,000 people. Few officers on foot were present. There were no barricades on that section of Westheimer. Kirste was busy snapping photos with her iPhone, but she soon discovered that headlights on the floats caused glare and her pictures looked better if she faced towards the east, away from the marchers. And then it happened.

A trio of Houston police officers on horseback approached from the west. Led by Officer P. Hernandez riding his mount Kato, they turned into the onlookers assembled along Westheimer and used their animals to force back the surprised spectators, many of whom were cheering as loud music blared from the floats. The police officers did not use any whistles or other sound-making devices for crowd control. So, the people were immediately confronted with two choices: either step back or be trampled. And my dear wife, facing the opposite direction, never saw what hit her.

The next day, June 28, 2009, a Houston Chronicle article reported: "Police say the officers, and the horses, were just doing their jobs. ‘The woman wasn’t kicked, stepped on or trampled,’ HPD spokeswoman Jodi Silva said.” Despite what Silva told the reporter, however, several dozen witnesses watched in horror as Kirste was repeatedly kicked and stomped by the skittish, out-of-control Kato. During the subsequent police internal affairs probe, an investigator told me that an officer on foot said she saw the horse strike Kirste in the back of her head and knock her to the ground.

An ambulance took Kirste to the emergency room that night. She suffered deep bruising on her arms, legs, and torso. Her forehead was swollen with knots the size of tennis balls as was the back of her head. And she had a hole from a deep cut to her chin that went through into her mouth.

But she survived the assault -- and for that I am thankful. And so here we are, nearly a year later, her bruises have healed and dozens of dentist visits are behind her. She still has temporary teeth, and faces multiple years of orthodontic work ahead of her, as well as reconstructive surgery to her chin.

Bill Maxey (in blue shirt) comforts wife Kirste (in purple) after she was trampled by Kato -- the brown and white paint in foreground -- ridden by officer P. Hernandez, during the 2009 Houston Pride Parade. Photo by Tony Morris.

See more pictures of the incident, Below.

It’s odd sometimes that a person in shock will focus on issues that seem inconsequential. Kirste recalls asking herself in the ambulance, “Where are my shoes? I’m supposed to usher tomorrow at Trinity Episcopal, I have to be there. I want to tell the police officer that I forgive him. I can’t leave without telling him.”

After the shock wore off, important questions remained unanswered. HPD has never explained, for instance, why the Mounted Patrol decided it was necessary to turn their horses into the peaceful crowd. Or why at first, until multiple witnesses came forward, did the police department’s public affairs office release statements to the media that the trampling never even occurred. Other questions remain unanswered by Houston officials, among them:

• Why did no police officer offer to render first-aid to my wife, despite the fact that all HPD officers are given first-aid training? A Good Samaritan helped me pick Kirste up and carry her safely away from the agitated Mounted Patrol’s horses. Eventually the ranking officer on the scene, Lt. Randall Wallace, dismounted and watched as civilians attempted to stop the bleeding.
• Did HPD last year use different procedures for the Pride parade than it used for other parades?
• Why has the HPD refused to inform Kirste and me of the results of its internal affairs investigation?

Houston surely is no stranger to parades, but perhaps our city could look to the manner in which nighttime parades are managed in New Orleans, where they have been a way of life since the 1830s. Crowd control there is managed by a large police presence, primarily on foot. Yet Lt. Wallace was quoted in the Chronicle as saying that about 20 officers were scheduled to patrol last year’s Pride Parade on foot that night but they “didn’t make it.” Why not? Did the shortage of officers cause the mounted patrol to become overly aggressive?

So, in the aftermath of this year’s Pride Parade, another question arises: Did the HPD and Houston city government make any changes in parade planning or security procedures?

A couple days before the parade, Mayor Parker, who rode in the city’s first Pride Parade in 1979, made it clear to me that she had turned down my request to replace the Mounted Patrol with the department’s Bicycle Patrol at the parade. Then she said:

Mr. Maxey, I personally observed the actions of the Mounted Patrol at last year’s Pride parade, (and) don't think they were in the best interests of public safety and crowd control purposes at all times. They will be at this parade, but I hope that they will return to the professional behavior that has made them a benefit to the parade in previous years.

I must ask, would this behavior be acceptable if a small child had been trampled by a police mount at the annual Thanksgiving Day Parade?

My wife and I are both native Houstonians, and we love our city. We are fortunate to have health insurance which paid for the initial emergency room charges, and the means to pay out of pocket for the dental work. The financial costs have been considerable, and the bills will continue to amass in the months ahead. But it’s not always about the money; sometimes it’s about making sure that our public servants are doing the right thing.

Kirste feels strongly that she needs to speak out and that the HPD still needs to implement better parade policies and procedures. I agree. She and I have appeared before the Houston City Council to tell her story and ask for changes in police procedure.

As the recently concluded Pride Parade rolled past me last Saturday night, I recalled her request that the City of Houston erect more crowd barricades. It did add another block of barricades. But the line of barriers stopped 10 feet from where Kirste was attacked by Kato last year.

And the horses of the Mounted Patrol were quartered on the side street behind me; their role this year reduced to that of spectators.

[Bill Maxey and his wife, Kirste Reimers, are native Houstonians who own a 1920-era bungalow in the near-downtown Montrose district, where the annual Pride Parade takes place. Maxey owns an electronic systems integration firm, and can be reached at bmaxey2005@yahoo.com.]

Cop horses trampled Kirste Maxey, sending her to the emergency room, during 2009 Pride Parade. Photos by Tony Morris.
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FILM / 'Harry Brown' : Shallow Pastiche Mirrors the News

Michael Caine in Harry Brown.
What is Harry Brown trying to tell us?

It thrills and titillates without any socially redeeming value. It blames the kids on the streets for the drug war and ignores the manufacturing of violence happening in the suites.

By Ed Felien / The Rag Blog / May 30, 2010

It was 95 degrees and I thought I'd take the afternoon off and slip into an air-conditioned theater and watch Michael Caine romp through Harry Brown. It was a ghastly mistake.

It's a horror, a pastiche. It has all the sophistication of Reefer Madness in its treatment of drugs. The heroes and villains have the character depth of Batman and Robin. And the "Death Wish" plot is a recycled revenge tragedy that went out of date with the death of Queen Elizabeth I.

That's not to say the movie isn't scary. It is. There's painful tension as we witness scene after scene of escalating violence. There's horror as we watch gruesome murders and beatings. By the time Harry Brown starts to take on the evildoers you feel you have enough adrenalin pumped to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

But the story is based on an incredible distortion of reality.

The trailer that begins the movie is a grainy black and white phone film of a young man being forced to smoke something (probably crack). In the next scene the young man is on the back of a motor scooter shooting a pistol. A woman pushing a baby carriage sees him and is horrified. She gets out her cell phone and, presumably, starts to call the police. The motor scooter circles her, fires at her. She is shot and drops dead.

What is the film trying to say? That if you smoke one hit of crack you're going to go out and shoot a mother pushing a baby carriage?

That's insane. There's no scientific evidence for that.

But that's the set-up for the film. That's the moral lens through which all the action that follows has to be viewed.

Toward the end of the film a gung-ho police chief decides he's going to make a name for himself by bringing a massive show of force to the projects where the drug dealing and violence is taking place and arrest some of the bad kids.

There is no basis for a warrant. There are no grounds for a massive arrest. There is no probable cause of anything. And, yet, we're supposed to believe the police action is justified. We're supposed to cheer for them. And, then, when the young people in the projects resist the violence of the police, start to fight back and actually push the police out of their neighborhood, we're supposed to believe that society has gotten out of control.

This final lesson of the film seems to say that it's impossible to deal with young people and drugs. They're out of control and there's nothing we can do about it. It's a hopeless and depressing ending, and by the time it winds down the film has justified violence, torture, and murder as legitimate ways of getting even.

Is that really the way it is?

Recent events in the Tivoli Gardens section of Kingston, Jamaica, seem to echo the ending of Harry Brown. The Kingston police are trying to arrest and extradite Christopher "Dudus" Coke to the U.S. to face drugs and weapons charges. The people of Tivoli have set up barricades blocking access to their community. Some have run through the community firing weapons killing several officers. Eighteen police stations were under attack and one was set on fire. At least 70 people have died.

Is this just young people on a rampage, like college students in spring? Or is it more serious than that?

It is probably true that Coke heads up the largest criminal enterprise in Jamaica. He is probably guilty of drug dealing and murder in Jamaica and in the U.S. But it is also true that he has given large amounts of money to his community for food, children's schools, school uniforms, and community centers.

It may be true that much of the armed defense of Coke is probably from his gang, and it may also be true that many in Tivoli might be terrorized by him, but there is also no question that he enjoys wide popular support. For poor people, people without jobs, people without hope, Coke represents their only lifeline of support. That's why many call him "President," and some say they'd die for him.

The Prime Minister represents Tivoli in the Jamaican Parliament. He depends on Coke to turn out the vote for him and his Labour Party. He didn't want to go after him, but he was pressured by the U.S.

The solution to the problem in Tivoli is simple and obvious and almost impossible to bring about. As long as there is poverty and illegal drugs, poor people are going to sell those drugs. The most ruthless and vicious of these poor will quickly organize a syndicate that they will control.

The obvious solution is end poverty (or at least provide an adequate social welfare system) and legalize drugs. By legalizing drugs society would take the profit out of the transaction. It would no longer be profitable to stand on a street corner and sell marijuana when anyone could grow it in their backyard and share it with their neighbors. Heroin and cocaine could be available with a doctor's prescription in safe and measured doses.

Perhaps the best analysis of the situation in Jamaica is by Betty Ann Blaine in her column "Heart to Heart" in the Jamaican Observer on May 25. It is titled "Corruption, criminality, chaos."

The end of Michael Manley's experiment with democratic socialism in the '70s simultaneously signaled the end of the chapter of national sacrifice and the closure of the book on collective responsibility. The period of the '80s ushered in a new era of individual aggrandizement and vulgar self-interest that was distinctly different from what existed before. It became common talk that the days of politicians being poor under the Michael Manley regime were over and that it was "black man time to make money."

What transpired from that time until now has been a story of unfettered greed with the attendant characteristics of political corruption and widespread complicity throughout all sectors and branches of the society. As the tentacles of corruption spread, they formed natural attachments to public officials, the police and private citizens, and a governmental and institutional structure already porous and fraught with weaknesses and loopholes fell victim to deep and widespread skullduggery.

It could be easily argued that Dudus Coke himself is a victim of a vicious political system. When the legitimate government divested itself of its role and responsibilities to the citizens of the country, it opened the door for illegitimate rule, and area leaders and dons walked in. The country could not have had a Dudus Coke without a corrupt political system, and while Coke must take personal responsibility, the truth is that the system encouraged and facilitated his ascendancy to power.

At one point in the movie, Harry Brown assassinates a drug lord, and the police response is, "He's doing us a favor." That seems to be the primary mission of Harry Brown. It's also the mission of Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding, after prodding by the Obama Administration (and in spite of the evidence of extended telephone conversations between Coke and the Golding Administration).

But who are the drug lords here? The wholesaler in Harry Brown who is delivering product for street gangs to retail and Dudus Coke are small fry compared to the international cartels that make it all happen.

And who's the biggest drug dealer in the world? Why, we are! The United States by sending troops to Afghanistan to protect the poppy crop is responsible for the distribution of 90% of the world's heroin. By supporting the narco-state of Albania we're making sure the heroin gets safe passage into Europe.

On his way out of office, George W. Bush pinned a medal on Alvaro Uribe Vélez to recognize his outstanding work as head of the government of Colombia. This is the same Uribe whose campaign manager (while Uribe was Mayor of Medellin and friends with Pablo Escobar) was caught smuggling more than 100,000 pounds of a chemical agent used to make cocaine out of cocoa leaves. It is accepted by most observers that Uribe is the principal force behind the export of cocaine into this country and the world.

What is the connection of the CIA and the Bush family to the international drug trade? Before it was the CIA, the OSS made a deal with Lucky Luciano during World War II. They agreed to get him out of federal prison and help him with the distribution of heroin in the U.S. if he would get the Mafia to assist U. S. troops in the invasion of Sicily. The Allies successfully invaded Sicily and got a toehold on Europe, and the Mafia has been a partner with the government in international relations ever since.

George H. W. Bush was appointed head of the CIA in 1976. With the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, the role of the CIA in arranging for transport of heroin from Southeast Asia had been severely impaired. During the Vietnam War, Colonel Ollie North was the principal contact with the Meo or Hmong Tribesmen who supplied opium from the Golden Triangle of Burma, Laos and Thailand. He took over the distribution system developed by the French and continued the shipments of opium to Marseilles for chemical conversion into heroin.

Bush had earlier probably played an important role in the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. The invasion left from an island he had rented on two boats named Houston and Barbara. So Bush was probably a longtime CIA operative.

Bush and Ollie North got together again in the basement of the White House when Bush was Vice President under Reagan, and Bush was Director of Special Operations with North as his Chief of Staff. That's when Ollie cooked up the cocaine for cash for guns trade that supplied arms to the Contras trying to overthrow the government of Nicaragua.

They smuggled cocaine into the U.S. on CIA planes to a secret air base in Florida, sold the drugs (probably to a Mafia contact), used the cash to buy Russian made guns in Iran, brought the guns to an air base in Honduras and traded the guns for cocaine with the Contras.

When he was asked about his role in this operation, Bush said, "I was out of the loop." That's crazy. He was holding the loop, like Will Rogers holding a lariat and jumping in and out of it while telling jokes.

But the son outdid the father. Just like with the Mafia in Sicily, Bush Junior got the CIA to line up support from the opium warlords who had been put out of business by the Taliban. The opium warlords and Karzai from Unocal (Karzai's brother is allegedly the head of opium production and distribution in Afghanistan) now run Afghanistan as a narco-terrorist state. Along with Albania and Colombia, they represent Bush's actual axis of evil.

Harry Brown is pornography. It thrills and titillates without any socially redeeming value. It blames the kids on the streets for the drug war and ignores the manufacturing of violence happening in the suites. It'll be nice when the movies grow up and get real.

[Ed Felien is publisher and editor of Southside Pride, a South Minneapolis monthly.]

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Greg Moses : The Cash Cops of Tenaha, Texas

Welcome to Tenaha! Photo by Exquisitely Bored in Nacogdoches / Flickr.
Bizarre License on Highway 59:
The Cash Cops of Tenaha

By Greg Moses / The Rag Blog / August 20, 2009

It was Friday of the last day of August, 2007 when Arkansas resident James Morrow attempted to mind his own business while driving peaceably through Tenaha, a small East Texas town in Shelby County south of Shreveport and Longview.

According to a federal lawsuit (Morrow v Tenaha) filed by attorneys Tim Garrigan and David Guillory, there was “no legal justification” for what happened next. Morrow was stopped by Tenaha Deputy Marshall Barry Washington and asked to step out of his car. Deputy Washington then searched Morrow's car.

Then Deputy Washington was joined at the scene by Shelby County Precinct Four Constable Randy Whatley who searched the car with a dog.

Following two searches of his car, Morrow was asked by Deputy Washington if he had any money, and he said yes, he was carrying about $3,900 in his wallet. Deputy Washington promptly seized $3,969 from Morrow, confiscated his two cell phones, and arrested him for “money laundering.”

“Washington had no reason to believe Plaintiff Morrow was guilty of money laundering,” says the federal lawsuit. “Defendants Washington and Russell told Plaintiff Morrow they would hold him prisoner and prosecute him for money laundering unless he would agree to forfeit the $3969. Under this duress and these threats, Defendants Washington and Russell coerced Plaintiff Morrow to execute documents memorializing the forfeiture, and released him, and warned him to not hire a lawyer or try to get his money back.” The “money laundering” charges were subsequently dismissed.

Morrow is a black African American and the lead plaintiff in a case involving eight motorists who claim they were stopped and stripped of their cash for no other provocation than driving or riding through Tenaha while black. The cars they all drove were either rented or displayed out-of-state license plates.

On August 13, 2007, Deputy Washington lifted $50,291.00 from two black African Americans from Washington D.C. and Maryland who were traveling through Texas together.

“Washington threatened Plaintiffs with charges of money laundering and lengthy sentences if they would not execute documents allowing the seizure or if they otherwise contested the seizure,” says the lawsuit. “Washington did not charge Plaintiffs with any criminal offense, nor did he have legal justification to do so.”

On June 11, 2008, Deputy Washington confiscated $13,000 from a black African American from Wisconsin.

“Washington threatened to bring money laundering charges against Plaintiff, and to prosecute him on those charges, if he did not execute documents permitting Defendant Washington’s seizure and forfeiture of the money,” says the lawsuit. “Under this coercion, Plaintiff signed the documents.”

On April 18, 2007, Deputy Washington stopped and detained another pair of black African American motorists, Linda Dorman and Marvin Pearson, both from Ohio. While under detention they were questioned by Shelby County District Attorney Investigator Danny Green. He asked them if they had any money. According to court documents Dorman and Pearson admitted to having $4,500, but after Green confiscated the cash under the usual coercive threats, he handed them a receipt for only $4,000. No charges against Dorman or Pearson were ever filed.

Jennifer Boatwright is a white woman from Texas, but on April 26, 2007 she was driving down Highway 59 near Tenaha with Ronald Henderson, a black African American. They were stopped and detained by Deputy Washington, then questioned by Washington and D.A. Investigator Green.

“Green threatened to bring money laundering charges against Plaintiffs Boatwright and Henderson, and to take their children and put them in foster care if Plaintiffs would not sign papers prepared by Defendant Green to authorize the seizure,” says the lawsuit. “Under coercion, Plaintiffs Boatwright and Henderson complied.” They handed over $6,000 in cash. No charges were ever filed against them.

“Now, under Texas law, if you are pulled over and accused of a real crime, police are permitted to take money and other valuables that you might have used in your crime, or received from your crime,” explains CNN correspondent Gary Tuchman in a May, 2009 blog post at AC360.

As Tuchman explains, the forfeiture law is intended to take bad money and put it to good use, but after an extensive public information request, the CNN team discovered that District Attorney Lynda K. Russell has collected an estimated $3 million in forfeiture funds to purchase such things as $195 for Tootsie Pops, Dum Dums, and Dubble Bubble that she contributed to a poultry festival, $524 for a popcorn machine and popcorn, $400 for barbecue catering, and at least two checks totaling $6,000 to a local Baptist church.

“But this one, this check, really stands out,” reports Tuchman in an archived transcript of the story. “This is the check the DA wrote for $10,000 and paid directly to police officer Barry Washington for what are described as investigative costs.”

With camera rolling, Tuchman asks Russell and Washington for comments, but they both refuse on account of pending litigation. In federal court documents the defendants deny the charges, claim to have no knowledge of alleged facts, claim immunity as officials, and ask that the case be dismissed.

Republican D.A. Russell was elected by 53 percent of the vote against a Democrat opponent in 2000, according to official numbers posted by the Texas Secretary of State. In 2004 she increased her general election share to 59 percent against her predecessor, Democrat Karen S. Price, who tried to stage a comeback after a failed effort to get elected in 2000 as a Republican District Judge. In 2008, D.A. Russell ran unopposed. No one that year could have made a campaign issue of the federal suit that was filed after the spring primary but before the fall general election.

During the summer of 2009, lawyers battled over discovery motions. Plaintiffs are trying to certify a class action lawsuit and therefore want volumes of video and documentation well beyond the eight named cases. On August 20, Federal District Judge T. John Ward largely granted ACLU requests for more materials and clarified the legal path to possible class action certification.

On the defense side, attorneys argued that they should be allowed to discover “travel itineraries, calendars, journals, or other documents reflecting schedule and/or any travel; all credit card bills/receipts; all receipts for hotel, gas, meals, rental cars; and photographs from any trips and of any items seized.” Judge Ward agreed, but only if the records were “readily available.”

Lawyers for the police and D.A.'s office also wanted plaintiffs to turn over bank records, income tax returns, and employment records; in an apparent attempt to revisit the “money laundering” charges that were never filed in the first place. It was a scary request supported by scary argumentation:

“In other words,” argued lawyers for the Shelby County law enforcement establishment in their federal filings, “even if the initial traffic stop lacked probable cause, the forfeiture action could proceed and the State could still meet its civil case burden of proof by a preponderance of the evidence and the property could still be forfeited.”

The authority the cops were seeking was chilling. They could stop people for no reason, take their cash, spend it, meanwhile filing no charges of wrongdoing. All the while, the authorities of East Texas or wherever could count on a federal court order that would allow them to go after the banking, tax, and employment records of their innocent victims if they tried to get their money back. Judge Ward denied those parts of discovery.

The discovery motions also revealed that collection accounts were not always well kept. One front-line collector argued that he kept bulk numbers only and could not provide evidence of how much money was taken on any single occasion. To get your money back from these actors, they may demand that you prove it's not contraband and then prove how much they took.

But these East Texas law enforcers are not finished grasping at bizarre license to ply their trade as the cash cops of Highway 59. D.A. Russell now seeks to use the forfeiture funds to pay for her defense. In early October the ACLU filed a brief with the Texas Attorney General's Office to prevent the forfeiture funds from being spent to defend alleged abuse of forfeiture powers.

“Even if it were determined that, under other circumstances, the District Attorney should be permitted to use forfeited assets to pay for legal representation, such an action in this case should be prohibited because it would give the appearance of impropriety,” argues the ACLU brief.

“The Plaintiffs claim the funds were taken illegally. To permit the District Attorney to use them would suggest that law-breakers may profit from ill-gotten gains, the very problem that the asset forfeiture law was created to prevent.”

Cash is a lucrative temptation. Empowering officials to take cash money from passing motorists and give it to attorneys who can help them keep it is a plain recipe for placing law enforcement powers in the hands of highway forfeiture gangs.

[Greg Moses is editor of the Texas Civil Rights Review, author of Revolution of Conscience: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Philosophy of Nonviolence, and a card carrying member of the ACLU. He can be reached at gmosesx@gmail.com.]

Also see Police in Texas : Property Seizure called 'Highway Piracy' by Thorne Dreyer / February 11, 2009

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The War on Drugs: Framing Suspects They're Convinced Are Guilty Anyway

I have to ask, "How many times a week does this happen?" We watched a parade of trumped up terrorism charges fail in court in the years of hysteria following 9/11. Is there also a racist foundation to the hysteria of the war on drugs? It wouldn't surprise me one bit. Being a proponent of calling a permanent peace treaty to the war on drugs, it is high time we paid closer attention to these stories of false arrest and held police maniacs and zealots accountable across the nation.

Richard Jehn / The Rag Blog

The Story: Undercover police arrested two brothers for dealing cocaine at a New York night club. The officers claimed Maximo Colon, left, and his brother Jose sold two bags of cocaine to them. - The Truth: The brothers proved their innocence -- and laid the groundwork for a multimillion dollar lawsuit -- with a video from the club's security cameras. Photo: Henny Ray Abrams/AP.
Brothers Prove Cops Wrong With Video
By Tom Hays and Colleen Long / June 13, 2009

NEW YORK -- When undercover detectives busted Jose and Maximo Colon last year for selling cocaine at a seedy club in Queens, there was a glaring problem: The brothers hadn't done anything wrong.

But proclaiming innocence wasn't going to be good enough. The Dominican immigrants needed proof.

"I sat in the jail and thought. . . how could I prove this? What could I do?" Jose, 24, recalled in Spanish during a recent interview.

As he glanced around a holding cell, the answer came to him: Security cameras. Since then, a vindicating video from the club's cameras has spared the brothers a possible prison term, resulted in two officers' arrest and become the basis for a multimillion-dollar lawsuit.

The officers, who are due back in court June 26, have pleaded not guilty, and New York Police Department officials have downplayed their case.

But the drug corruption case isn't alone.

On May 13, another NYPD officer was arrested for plotting to invade a Manhattan apartment where he hoped to steal $900,000 in drug money. In another pending case, prosecutors in Brooklyn say officers were caught in a 2007 sting using seized drugs to reward a snitch for information. And in the Bronx, prosecutors have charged a detective with lying about a drug bust captured on a surveillance tape that contradicts her story.

Elsewhere, Philadelphia prosecutors dismissed more than a dozen drug and gun charges against a man last month when a narcotics officer was accused of making up information on search warrants.

The revelations in New York have triggered internal affairs inquiries, transfers of commanders and reviews of dozens of other arrests involving the accused officers.
Many drug defendants' cases have been tossed out. Others have won favorable plea deals.

The misconduct "strikes at the very heart of our system of justice and erodes public confidence in our courts," said Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson.

Despite the fallout, authorities describe the corruption allegations as aberrations in a city where officers daily make hundreds of drugs arrests that routinely hold up in court. They also note none of the cases involved accusations of organized crews of officers using their badges to steal or extort drugs or money for personal gain -- the story line of full-blown corruption scandals from bygone eras.

Peter Moskos, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, agrees the majority of narcotics officers probably are clean. But he also believes the city's unending war on drugs will always invite corruption by some who don't think twice about framing suspects they're convinced are guilty anyway.

"Drugs are a dirty game," Moskos said. "Once you realize it's a game, then you start playing with the rules to win the game."

Just ask the Colon brothers.
* * * * *

The brothers' evening started much like any other.

Max's friend worked at a bodega down the street from Delicias de Mi Tierra, where they'd sometimes drink and play pool in the evenings. This night, the pool table was closed. They instead sat at the bar. Security cameras ended up filming their every move.

The brothers barely moved from the same spot for about 90 minutes as the undercovers entered the bar and mixed with the crowd. Moments after the officers left, a backup team barged in and grabbed six men, including the brothers.

Paperwork signed by "UC 13200" -- Officer Henry Tavarez -- claimed that he told a patron he wanted to buy cocaine. By his account, that man responded by approaching the 28-year-old Max, who then went over to the undercover and demanded to pat him down to make sure he wasn't wearing a wire.

Max collected $100 from Tavarez, the report said. The officer claimed to see two bags of cocaine pass through the hands of three men, including Jose, before they were given to him.

Jose was released after a court appearance. His brother was shipped off to Riker's Island until he could make bail.

"I was scared," Max said of his time at Rikers. "I don't get into trouble, and here I am with real criminals."
* * * * *

The moment Jose walked out of the holding cell, he made a beeline for Delicias and asked for a copy of the security tapes from the night they were arrested, Jan. 4, 2008.

"I knew it would be the only way to defend myself, because I knew the police would not believe me," he said.

The owner of Delicias queued up the tapes and the two waded through an entire day's worth of surveillance -- until they found the two hours the men spent in the club that night -- supposedly selling drugs.

Jose quickly got the tape to defense attorney Rochelle Berliner, a former narcotics prosecutor. She couldn't believe what she was seeing.

"I almost threw up," she said. "Because I must've prosecuted 1,500, 2,000 drug cases. . . and all felonies. And I think back, Oh my God, I believed everything everyone told me. Maybe a handful of times did something not sound right to me. I don't mean to sound overly dramatic but I was like, sick."

What the tape doesn't show is striking: At no point did the brothers interact with the undercovers, nor did the brothers appear to be involved in a drug deal with anyone else. Adding insult to injury, an outside camera taped the undercovers literally dancing down the street.

Berliner handed the tape over to the District Attorney's integrity unit. It reviewed the images more than 100 times to make sure it wasn't doctored by the defense before deciding to drop all charges against the brothers in June.

Six months later, Officer Tavarez and Detective Stephen Anderson pleaded not guilty to drug dealing and multiple other charges that their lawyers say were overblown.

Anderson's attorney has described him as a seasoned investigator who had no reason to make a false arrest. Tavarez, his attorney said, was a novice undercover merely along for the ride.
* * * * *

Life quickly deteriorated for Max and Jose after their arrest.

They owned a successful convenience store in Jackson Heights, but lost their license to sell tobacco, alcohol and lottery tickets. The store closed a week before their case was dismissed.

"My life changed completely," Jose said. "I had a life before, and I have a different existence now. . . Now, I'm not able to afford to live in my own house or care for my children."

Jose has found construction work, while Max commutes two hours to Philadelphia to work at a relative's bodega. They stay away from the old neighborhood, where they say ugly rumors about them persist.

The brothers have filed a $10 million false arrest lawsuit against the police department, the officers involved and the city.

"I'm angry because, why'd it happen to me? I know a lot of people ... they don't go the right way and they can get away with it," Max said. "I'm young and I try to go the right way and boom, this happened to me. So I'm angry with life, too."

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

Source / America On Line

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Police in Texas : Property Seizure called 'Highway Piracy'

Beware all who enter here. Photo by MJW.
Highway robbery on the open roads of Texas

By Thorne Dreyer / The Rag Blog / February 11, 2009

See 'Property seizure by police called "highway piracy,"' by Lisa Sandberg, Below.

According to the Mayor of Tenaha, Texas, population 1,000, “It’s always helpful to have any kind of income to expand your police force.” Even, apparently, when it's literally highway robbery. Police are enriching local coffers by abusing an overly vague law permitting the taking of property by those accused of committing a crime. In many instances people are pressured to sign a waiver giving up their property in exchange for not being charged.

Most of those caught in this kind of trap are black and from out of state. And, according to the Houston Chronicle, "some affidavits filed by officers relied on the presence of seemingly innocuous property as the only evidence that a crime had occurred."

Laws permitting the seizure by police of property from drivers suspected of committing a crime, including their car and anything in it, have been abused for years.

The Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-Times have published an expose about this form of criminal misuse of power, Attorney David Guillory is suing officials in Tenaha and Shelby County on behalf of a client, and Texas state Sen. John Whitmire, who has pressed a number of admirable causes over the years, is pushing for action against this highly questionable practice that is frequently based on racial profiling and designed to enrich the coffers of municipal pirates like the police force of Tenaha, Texas.

Property seizure by police called 'highway piracy'

Attorney David Guillory calls the roadside stops and seizures in Tenaha 'highway piracy,' undertaken by a couple of law enforcement officers whose agencies get to keep most of what is seized.

By Lisa Sandberg / February 7, 2009

TENAHA — A two-decade-old state law that grants authorities the power to seize property used in a crime is wielded by some agencies against people who are never charged with, much less convicted, of a crime.

Law enforcement authorities in this East Texas town of 1,000 people seized property from at least 140 motorists between 2006 and 2008, and, to date, filed criminal charges against fewer than half, according to a San Antonio Express-News review of court documents.

Virtually anything of value was up for grabs: cash, cell phones, personal jewelry, a pair of sneakers, and often, the very car that was being driven through town. Some affidavits filed by officers relied on the presence of seemingly innocuous property as the only evidence that a crime had occurred.

Linda Dorman, a great-grandmother from Akron, Ohio, had $4,000 in cash taken from her by local authorities when she was stopped while driving through town after visiting Houston in April 2007. Court records make no mention that anything illegal was found in her van and show no criminal charges filed in the case. She is still waiting for the return of what she calls “her life savings.”

Dorman’s attorney, David Guillory, calls the roadside stops and seizures in Tenaha “highway piracy,” undertaken by a couple of law enforcement officers whose agencies get to keep most of what is seized.

Guillory is suing officials in Tenaha and Shelby County on behalf of Dorman and nine other clients who were stripped of their property. All were African-Americans driving either rentals or vehicles with out-of-state plates.

Lawsuit filed

Guillory alleges in the lawsuit that while his clients were detained, they were presented with an ultimatum: waive your rights to your property in exchange for a promise to be released and not be criminally charged. Guillory said most did as Dorman did, signing the waiver to avoid jail.

The state’s asset seizure law doesn’t require that law enforcement agencies file criminal charges in civil forfeiture cases.

It requires only a preponderance of evidence that the property was used in the commission of certain crimes, such as drug crimes, or bought with proceeds of those crimes. That’s a lesser burden than that required in a criminal case.

But Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, chair of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, said the state’s asset forfeiture law is being abused by enough jurisdictions across the state that he wants to rewrite major sections of it this year.

“The idea that people lose their property but are never charged and never get it back, that’s theft as far as I’m concerned,” he said.

Supporters tout the state’s forfeiture law, when used right, as an essential law enforcement tool, allowing state and local departments the ability to go after criminals using the criminals’ money. Law enforcement agencies last year captured tens of millions of dollars from such seizures statewide, according to records from Whitmire’s office.

But in Tenaha, a town of chicken farms that hugs the Louisiana border, critics say being a black out-of-towner passing through with anything of value is almost evidence of a crime.

Town needs revenue

Tenaha Mayor George Bowers, 80, defended the seizures, saying they allowed a cash-poor city the means to add a second police car in a two-policeman town and help pay for a new police station. “It’s always helpful to have any kind of income to expand your police force,” Bowers said.

Local police, he said, must take aggressive action to stem the drug trade that flows through town via U.S. 59. “No doubt about it. (Highway 59) is a thoroughfare that a lot of no-good people travel on. They take the drugs and sell it and take the money and go right back into Mexico,” said Bowers, who has been Tenaha’s mayor for 54 years.

Bowers said he would defer questions about whether innocent people were being stripped of their property to Shelby County District Attorney Lynda Russell.

Russell could not be reached for comment, and her attorney declined comment. Randy Whatley, a local constable who himself deposited $115,000 into the county’s seizure account for fiscal year 2007 — state records show $45,000 was eventually returned to their owners — also could not be reached for comment. Russell, Whatley and Bowers are named in Guillory’s lawsuit.

Harris County District Attorney Patricia Lykos said the state’s forfeiture law, which last year put millions in the coffers of local law enforcement agencies, including hers, takes some of the profit out of crime. “These ill-gotten gains are used to further the aims of law enforcement and public safety,” she said. “It’s kind of poetic justice, isn’t it?”

Lykos praises law

Lykos believes the law, if followed, provides citizens with adequate safeguards. Local police and attorneys in her office, she said, are well-versed in what constitutes adequate evidence for seizures. Rarely, she said, do seizures take place locally without the filing of criminal charges.

In Shelby County, the district attorney made legal agreements with some individuals that her office would not file criminal charges so long as the property owner waived all rights to the valuables.

“In exchange for (respondent) signing the agreed order of forfeiture, the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office agrees to reject charges of money laundering pending at this time,” read one waiver, dated April 10, 2007.

The property owners named in the waiver had just signed over $7,342 in cash, their 1994 Chevrolet Suburban, a cell phone, a BlackBerry and a stone necklace.

The law, forbids a peace officer at the time of seizure to “request, require or in any manner induce any person . . . to execute a document purporting to waive the person’s interest in or rights to the property.”

Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau

Source / Houston Chronicle

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Another Story of Police State Amerikkka: Plans for Economic Unrest

For cryin' out loud, read what these clowns are planning. They are scared to death of their constituencies. And THAT scares me to death. First they trash the system, then they effectively scapegoat us for it having happened. What a deal !!

Richard Jehn / The Rag Blog

Dec. 1, 1999. Seattle, Washington, environs of the WTO meeting: officer fires plastic bullets at peaceful protesters at close range. Photo source.
Ariz. police say they are prepared as War College warns military must prep for unrest; IMF warns of economic riots
By Mike Sunnucks / December 17, 2008

A new report by the U.S. Army War College talks about the possibility of Pentagon resources and troops being used should the economic crisis lead to civil unrest, such as protests against businesses and government or runs on beleaguered banks.

“Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security,” said the War College report.

The study says economic collapse, terrorism and loss of legal order are among possible domestic shocks that might require military action within the U.S.

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn warned Wednesday of economy-related riots and unrest in various global markets if the financial crisis is not addressed and lower-income households are hurt by credit constraints and rising unemployment.

U.S. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., and U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., both said U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson brought up a worst-case scenario as he pushed for the Wall Street bailout in September. Paulson, former Goldman Sachs CEO, said that might even require a declaration of martial law, the two noted.

State and local police in Arizona say they have broad plans to deal with social unrest, including trouble resulting from economic distress. The security and police agencies declined to give specifics, but said they would employ existing and generalized emergency responses to civil unrest that arises for any reason.

“The Phoenix Police Department is not expecting any civil unrest at this time, but we always train to prepare for any civil unrest issue. We have a Tactical Response Unit that trains continually and has deployed on many occasions for any potential civil unrest issue,” said Phoenix Police spokesman Andy Hill.

“We have well established plans in place for such civil unrest,” said Scottsdale Police spokesman Mark Clark.

Clark, Hill and other local police officials said the region did plenty of planning and emergency management training for the Super Bowl in February in Glendale.

“We’re prepared,” said Maricopa County Sheriff Deputy Chief Dave Trombi citing his office’s past dealings with immigration marches and major events.

Super Bowl security efforts included personnel and resources from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. military’s Northern Command, which coordinated with Arizona officials. The Northern Command was created after 9/11 to have troops and Defense Department resources ready to respond to security problems, terrorism and natural disasters.

Northern Command spokesman Michael Kucharek and Arizona Army National Guard Major. Paul Aguirre said they are not aware of any new planning for domestic situations related to the economy.

Nick Dranias, director of constitutional government at the libertarian Goldwater Institute, said a declaration of marital law would be an extraordinary event and give military control over civilian authorities and institutions. Dranias said the Posse Comitatus Act restricts the U.S. military’s role in domestic law enforcement. But he points to a 1994 U.S. Defense Department Directive (DODD 3025) he says allows military commanders to take emergency actions in domestic situations to save lives, prevent suffering or mitigate great property damage.

Dranias said such an emergency declaration could worsen the economic situation and doubts extreme measures will been taken. “I don’t think it’s likely. But it’s not impossible,” he said.

The economy is in recession. Consumer spending is down, foreclosures are up and a host of businesses are laying off workers and struggling with tight credit and the troubled housing and financial markets. The U.S. Federal Reserve Bank and U.S. Treasury Department have pumped more than $8.5 trillion into the economy via equity purchases of bank stocks, liquidity infusions, Wall Street and bank bailouts and taxpayer rebates. U.S. automakers are seeking more than $14 billion in federal loans with fears they could fall into bankruptcy without a bailout. The U.S. housing and subprime lending-induced recession also has hit economies in Europe, Japan and China.

Gov. Janet Napolitano’s office declined comment on emergency planning and possible civil unrest. Napolitano is president-elect Barack Obama’s pick for secretary of Homeland Security, an agency that oversees airport security, disaster response, border security, customs and anti-terrorism efforts.

As governor, Napolitano sent National Guard troops to Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in 2003 in response to terrorism threats.

Glendale Police spokesman Jim Toomey said the West Valley suburb developed new emergency plans with the approach of Y2K computer changeovers leading up to the year 2000 and police have updated those plans several times including after 9/11. Toomey said strategies to deal with public unrest usually involve deploying personnel and equipment to deal with specific incidents while still providing usual services.

Source / Phoenix Business Journal

Thanks to Richard Myers, MDS / The Rag Blog

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Maryland State Police Spying: One Victim's Story

The most telling fact concerning this story is that it appeared in the UK Guardian and on a quiet Web site for an environmental group in Seattle, Grist.org. This entire matter of the Maryland State Police spying has been routinely suppressed by the mainstream press, not terribly surprising given the ownership of more than 80% of the MSM. Ahhhhh, life in America, land of the free ...

Richard Jehn / The Rag Blog

Terrorist Activist Mike Tidwell (at podium) exhibiting clearly threatening behavior. Photo: chesapeakeclimate
Police spy on climate activist while global warming goes unarrested
By Mike Tidwell / November 21, 2008

Police spied on activist Mike Tidwell for months as a 'suspected terrorist'.

I'm not sure what's more shocking: the news that the Maryland State Police wrongfully spied on me for months as a "suspected terrorist," or that, despite surveillance of me, officers apparently wouldn't recognize me if I walked into their police headquarters tomorrow.

I'm a former Peace Corps volunteer, an Eagle Scout, church member, youth baseball coach, and dedicated father. I also happen to be director of one of the largest environmental groups in Maryland, a nonprofit that promotes windmills and solar panels in the fight against global warming. So imagine my shock to get a police letter last month saying I was one of 53 Maryland activists on a terrorist watch list that has been discontinued because — can you believe it? — there's "no evidence whatsoever of any involvement in violent crime."

Matters turned especially Soviet-esque on October 14 when I called the police requesting a full copy of my surveillance file. A spokeswoman told me I could visually inspect the file, but I couldn't make photocopies, I couldn't bring an attorney, and the police would be destroying the entire file after I read it.

And bring a valid photo ID, she said, to make sure you're who you say you are.

A what? Really? You spied on me, for God's sake.

The mess all began last summer when astonishing evidence surfaced revealing that the Maryland State Police — under former Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich — posed as activists and infiltrated an anti-death-penalty group, attending the organization's meetings and taking secret notes to send back to HQ. But what were they doing to me and my organization — the Chesapeake Climate Action Network — during this surveillance program in 2005 and 2006? Bugging our phones? Reading our emails? Monitoring me as I walked my kid to the bus stop?

I still don't know for sure. Yielding to public pressure, the police finally gave me a printed copy of my "file" on October 29. It raised more questions than it answered. Seven of the 12 pages were withheld without full explanation. And of the pages I did receive, at least half the words were redacted — blacked out with a marker.

There was a photo of me on the last page, lifted from my website. And on the first page, there were these words: "Crime: Terrorism, environmental extremists."

What terrorism would that be? My file — what little of it I have — makes reference to a morning speech given in Bethesda, Md., by then-governor Robert Ehrlich on November 17, 2005. A small audience of invited guests and journalists attended inside a classroom at Walt Whitman High School. Ehrlich wasn't doing enough to fight global warming, the Chesapeake Climate Action Network believed, and several of my staff arrived to peacefully demonstrate and hold up signs that said things like, "It's Getting Hot in Here, Gov!" But troopers with the governor's "Executive Protection Division" believed this was extreme, according to my file. For example, CCAN staffers invited high school students to hold up protest signs during the governor's speech. Pretty extreme, huh?

There was no civil disobedience at this event. No one was arrested. No county, state, or federal laws were breached. The entire affair was utterly peaceful, above board, and appropriate. Political demonstrations exactly like this happen a thousand times a day in America. There were no media reports of anything unusual.

Yet Ehrlich's security team considered this "aggressive protesting." Afterward, the troopers contacted the Maryland State Police's Homeland Security and Investigation Bureau. The result was creation of intelligence files on me and three of my staff under the crime category of "terrorism, environmental extremists." The real motivation, however, appears to be political spying. We were opponents of the governor's policies. We were organized and vocal about it. We wound up on an intelligence list along with dozens of other innocent, nonviolent opponents of the governor's policies.

Ironically, I wasn't even present at the protest in question. I've never been to Walt Whitman High School. But a case file was launched on me nonetheless, on November 28, 2005, with my name, photo, job title, "no SMTs" (scars, marks, or tattoos), and the declaration that no charges had been brought against me. Strangely, according to the police papers, there's no record of any intelligence-gathering related to me after the file was created, just a narrative describing my staff's protest at the Ehrlich speech.

Meanwhile, the state police say they've released everything to me that's relevant to me, but I don't believe them. Since July, the state police have made numerous public statements related to this spying controversy that have proved to be factually untrue. They initially said, for example, that the entire surveillance program was limited to anti-death-penalty activists. But we now know activists for peace, immigration, and the environment were spied on too. I believe more of the spying story is yet to come out, however. With the help of a heroic Maryland attorney, David Rocah of the American Civil Liberties Union, and an equally heroic Maryland state senator, Jamie Raskin of Takoma Park, I believe all the facts will soon surface and we'll see legislation in the state General Assembly in 2009 specifically banning police abuses like this.

The final tragedy here, of course, is how much this whole episode has been a distraction to the public. The real threat of terror to Maryland and the nation is the prospect of up to 23 feet of sea-level rise as the Greenland ice sheet continues to implode from rapid global warming. The violent activity behind this threat is our astonishing over-reliance on fossil fuels, especially coal, to power our economy while suicidally saturating the atmosphere with greenhouse gases. For all our declarations of "never again," the ground-zero site of the World Trade Center will itself be literally under water from sea-level rise if we don't switch quickly to 100-mile-per-gallon cars and clean electricity from wind power.

But you can't have strong and lasting environmental protections without a strong democracy. Most of the transformative, positive change experienced in American history has happened only after significant citizen engagement at a noisy grassroots level. That's why, ultimately, the objective of almost all environmental groups — from the more liberal Greenpeace to the more conservative Nature Conservancy — is inspiring average citizens to care enough to take action, to make their desires known, to get involved in the system.

But who's going to get involved and get noisy — in Maryland or elsewhere — if citizens fear that the police are secretly attending the same rallies and meetings, secretly watching and taking notes and keeping lists? Thank God that outraged Marylanders from Ocean City to Cumberland continue to demand full disclosure and reform in the face of this tawdry police spying affair.

The national economy is tanking, we're bogged down in two wars, and the accelerating impacts of global warming could soon get so severe that Pentagon planners already anticipate security challenges worldwide from the inevitable social unrest spawned by biblical droughts, floods, wildfires, and the rest. History shows that it is precisely during times of war and want that governments tend to overreach and trample liberties. And it's only in resisting these temptations that certain kinds of governments — democracies — grow stronger.

With a climate disaster looming, I've worked very hard for many years to promote clean, renewable energy. But perhaps the greatest contribution I'll ever make to this cause is the action I'm taking right now: standing up and working hard to keep government itself clean.

[Mike Tidwell is director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network and author of Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana's Cajun Coast.]

Source / The Guardian

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Mounted Cops Attack Protesters Led by Iraq Vets

Protesters at Hofstra University, site of the presidential debate, on Oct. 15. Photo by The West / College OTR.

Around the time that Barack Obama and John McCain bent over backwards to show that they commiserated with the “hurtin’” middle class, two anti-war activists were physically hurt protesting outside of the debate held at Hofstra University. One, Nicholas Morgan, fractured a cheekbone when trampled by a Mounted Unit horse. In the end, fifteen protestors who identified themselves as Iraq War veterans were arrested.

The West / College on the Record

Fifteen arrested, two hurt at demonstrations before presidential debate.
By David Mathison / October 15, 2008

See video of protest, Below.

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. -- Pandemonium erupted outside Hofstra University tonight at around 8pm, an hour before the final presidential debate of the 2008 campaign was scheduled to begin there, when mounted police charged protesters and spectators.

Fifteen people were reportedly arrested and three injured. Protesters included a contingent of the group Iraq Veterans Against the War. Members of the group intended to submit questions to the the candidates but never had the chance. Local police on horseback drove the protesters away from the university's David S Mack Sports and Exhibition Complex, where the debate was held, knocking some to the ground and in at least one case trampling them.

Source / Off the Bus / The Huffington Post

Earlier in the day, Jean Stevens of Manhattan, a spokeswoman for peace group Code Pink, said the anti-war protesters were "here to bring our message to both candidates and both parties to stop the war." -- Newsday.

Video of protest by David Mathison



Also see 15 protesters arrested at presidential debate by Patrick Whittle / Newsday / Oct. 16, 2008

Thanks to Jesse James Retherford / The Rag Blog

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Sarahcuda : Full Frontal Attack

'For me, the heels are on, the gloves are off.'
By Dana Milbank / October 7, 2008

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- John McCain is collapsing in the polls in Florida and other swing states, but Sarah Palin, God bless her, has a solution.

"For me, the heels are on, the gloves are off," she announced at high noon Monday to a group of Republican donors at the Naples Beach Club.

You betcha.

As the donors sipped their bloody marys and mimosas, she added, in a conspiratorial stage whisper, "I'm sending the message back to John McCain also: Tomorrow night in his debate, might as well take the gloves off."

Darn right.

Of course, it's not only gloves and heels; headgear has a role, too. "Okay, so, Florida, you know that you're going to have to hang on to your hats," she said at a morning rally in Clearwater, "because from now until Election Day, it may get kind of rough."

Say it ain't so, Sarah!

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a McCain confidant, told The Post's David Broder that the campaign would "go down in history as stupid if they don't unleash" Palin. Well, the self-identified pit bull has been unleashed -- if not unhinged.

Barack Obama, she told 8,000 fans at a rally here Monday afternoon, "launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist!" This followed her earlier accusation that the Democrat pals around with terrorists. "This is not a man who sees America the way you and I see America," she told the Clearwater crowd. "I'm afraid this is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to work with a former domestic terrorist who had targeted his own country." The crowd replied with boos.

McCain had said that racially explosive attacks related to Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, are off limits. But Palin told New York Times columnist Bill Kristol in an interview published Monday: "I don't know why that association isn't discussed more."

Worse, Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."

McCain's swoon is largely out of his control, the result of an economic collapse that ignited new fears Monday when the Dow Jones industrial average closed below 10,000 for the first time in four years. That's why his lead in Florida polls, which once reached as high as 15 points, has turned into a three-point deficit.

But the campaign has reacted with recriminations (the St. Petersburg Times reported that the Florida Republican Party chairman, after questioning Palin's aptitude, was told that he couldn't fly on her plane) and now Palin's rage.

The angry GOP vice presidential nominee even found a way to blame the market decline on the yet-to-be-enacted tax policies of the yet-to-be-elected Obama.

"If you turn on the news tonight when you get home, you're gonna see that, yah, this is another woeful day in the market, and the other side just doesn't understand -- no!" she said at an afternoon fundraiser at the home of mutual fund giant Jack Donahue. "Especially in a time like this, you don't propose to increase taxes. The phoniest claim in a campaign that's full of them is that Barack Obama is going to cut your taxes."

Of course, Obama never promised to cut taxes for people at $10,000-a-plate lunches in air-conditioned tents on waterfront compounds. And the crowd -- among them New York Jets owner Woody Johnson -- reacted without applause to Palin's Joe Six-Pack lines. After they didn't strike up the usual "Drill, baby, drill" or "USA" chants, Palin, rattled, read hurriedly through the rest of her speech.

The reception had been better in Clearwater, where Palin, speaking to a sea of "Palin Power" and "Sarahcuda" T-shirts, tried to link Obama to the 1960s Weather Underground. "One of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," she said. ("Boooo!" said the crowd.) "And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,' " she continued. ("Boooo!" the crowd repeated.)

"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience.

Palin also told those gathered that Obama doesn't like American soldiers. "He said that our troops in Afghanistan are just, quote, 'air-raiding villages and killing civilians,' " she said, drawing boos from a crowd that had not been told Obama was actually appealing for more troops in Afghanistan.

"See, John McCain is a different kind of man: He believes in our troops," she said.

At times, Palin hinted at the GOP campaign's troubles. "It's going to be a hard-fought contest, especially in these swing states, some maybe we would not have expected," she admitted to donors. She allowed that "John McCain and I need to do a better job" of talking about the economy.

At other times, she had troubles of her own, as when she spoke over the weekend of "our neighboring country of Afghanistan" or when she got choked up at the Clearwater rally, saying, "Some of your signs just make me wanna cry," without explaining which ones or why.

But then the gloves came off, the heels came out, and Palin was once again talking about her opponent hanging out in a terrorist's living room.

Source / Washington Post

Thanks to CommonDreams / The Rag Blog

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New Media Targeted With Harassment, Arrests at RNC

Using horseback officers, police moved to cut off demonstrators during GOP convention in St. Paul. Photo by Nick Vlcek / City Pages.
'Dozens of journalists, photographers, bloggers and videomakers arrested in an orchestrated round up of independents covering the Republican National Convention'
By Timothy Karr / September 3, 2008

In St. Paul this week, a new generation of media makers is under assault by the city's mayor and law enforcement officers.

These local officials think freedom of the press extends only to their allies in mainstream media.

For the rest of us, practicing journalism is a crime.

While reports of brutal police arrests and home invasions are still coming in, by Tuesday night the picture became clear.

Targeting the New Press

The list of those detained ranges from the well-known (Democracy Now's Amy Goodman) and well-established (Associated Press photographer Matt Rourke) -- to the bootstrapping bloggers and video makers who are covering local protests for TheUptake.org, Twin Cities Indymedia, I-Witness and other outlets.

Police -- with firearms drawn -- raided a meeting of the video journalists and arrested independent media, bloggers and videomakers. Journalists covering protests have been pointed out by authorities, blasted with tear gas and pepper spray, and brutalized while in custody.

Democracy Now's Goodman reports that a U.S. Secret Service agent ripped her press credentials from her neck the moment she identified herself to him as a member of the media. Her producers emerged yesterday from their jail cells bloodied and scarred, reporting unusually harsh treatment at the hands of local and federal authorities.

Mayor Coleman's Silence

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman hasn't responded to repeated phone and e-mail requests for comments on the targeting of journalists. Instead he praised the work of Police Chief John Harrington and painted those arrested as a small band of outsiders and vandals intent upon committing felonies against the good people of his city.

In less than a day, more than 35,000 people have signed a letter from Free Press (my employer) to Mayor Coleman condemning the arrests and demanding that he and local prosecutors immediately "free all detained journalists and drop all charges against them."

But when Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald pressed Harrington and Coleman to respond to widespread reports of journalist arrests, Harrington claimed ignorance while Coleman stood silent at his side.

Police spokesman Don Walsh intervened only to say that "arrest have been made" and that all those arrested were involved in criminal activities and not "simply non-participants."

Strib Forgets About Free Speech

In a bizarre editorial on Tuesday, the Minneapolis St. Paul Star Tribune hailed the police crackdown as "appropriate," blaming unrest on outsiders from beyond the Twin Cities.

"Many of those arrested in St. Paul weren't carrying IDs or wouldn't give their names. Those who were identified came from Lexington, Ky.; Brooklyn, N.Y.; Portland, Ore., and dozens of other U.S. cities," they wrote. "These weren't the sons and daughters of Highland Park and south Minneapolis."

The Star Tribune itself is owned by out-of-towners from Avista Capital Partners, a New York City private equity firm specializing in energy, healthcare and media investments.

Other than a brief story about Goodman's arrest, the paper has failed to report on the apparent targeting of independent reporters, even though groups like the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists have sounded the alarm.

Sweeping Real Journalism Under the Carpet

Here we have every indication of an orchestrated assault by federal and local law enforcement agencies to stifle independent sources of information. As shocking as this conduct is, more disturbing is the fact that the mayor's office and the local daily seem so unconcerned.

It's not difficult to understand why. With local leaders making every effort to roll out the welcome mat for mainstream media and the GOP, they'd rather sweep beneath the carpet those pesky independents who are showing us a side of the spectacle that is less scripted for prime time.

As an elected representative, Mayor Coleman should take a stand on behalf of a free press, rein in aggressive and violent tactics by local law enforcement, stop the targeting of journalists and immediately drop all charges against them.

As a powerful news organization, the Star Tribune should know better, and should be sticking up for a free press, regardless of the form it takes.

For now, the democratic spirit of journalism is alive not in the Star Tribune newsroom, but among the video-blogs and cellphone reports that are bubbling up from outside the convention.

Timothy Karr is Campaign Director for Free Press and SavetheInternet.com. Tim served as executive director of MediaChannel.org and vice president of Globalvision New Media and the Globalvision News Network. He has also worked extensively as an editor, reporter and photojournalist for the Associated Press, Time Inc., New York Times and Australia Consolidated Press. Karr critiques, analyzes and reports on media and media policy in his popular blog, MediaCitizen.

Source / The Huffington Post

Thanks to Mercedes Lynn de Uriarte / The Rag Blog

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