Photography is Not a Crime

34 responses so far ↓

• 1 Andrew DeFilippis // May 1, 2009 at 12:06 AM

  Everyone knew that Dino won that race… It was THE worst election year for us that I have seen!

• 2 Carlos Miller // May 1, 2009 at 12:11 AM

  It was THE worst election year that I have seen!

  Clearly you don’t remember the 2000 Florida Fiasco during the presidential election.

• 3 Voice of Reason // May 1, 2009 at 3:05 AM

  Note to Carlos Miller: You said, “Clearly you don’t remember the 2000 Florida Fiasco during the presidential election.”

  I consider 2000 to be important, but less significant than 2004. In 2000, most of it was out there in the open — the Republican mob attack in Miami-Dade, removing black voters en masse from registration lists, the butterfly ballots, the SCOTUS farce, etc. It’s not as though they made much of an effort to hide it. 2000 could happen again, but I suspect that they might find it more difficult next time.

  2004, on the other hand, has genuine and serious implications for the future, because things were handled with more subtlety. I don’t wish to start all of that up again, but if you’re going to allude to the subject, I’m going to link to my post on said subject. The link is here.

  I’ll add that the post in question doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the subject. Interested parties should do their own research on Karl Rove’s plans for a “Permanent Republican Majority” and the U.S. Attorney firings that were an integral part of said plans.

  Anybody who wishes to state that the 2000 and 2004 elections were conducted fairly and impartially, that the 2004 election, in particular, wasn’t stolen, that detailed plans for a “Permanent Republican Majority” never existed, and that the U.S. Attorney firings weren’t carried out specifically to initiate the implementation of the plans, is perfectly free to do so. You needn’t be concerned that another brawl is likely to erupt. As I’ve explained previously, I’m using a content filter that’ll reduce the chances of this. I’m only interested in engaging people who’d like to debate specifics as opposed to generalities.

• 4 Voice of Reason // May 1, 2009 at 3:21 AM

  Note to Carlos Miller:

  I’ve just double-checked the numbers involved in the Florida black-person purge that occurred in 2000, and they’re unbelievable. Katherine Harris purged 90,000 people selected primarily because she believed that they might be black or poor. Ninety thousand people. In the vast majority of the cases involved, she had absolutely no right to do this.

  Mr. Miller, I read the news stories at the time, but there was something that I didn’t understand then, and that I don’t understand now. I haven’t been to Florida since the 1970s, so I’m not familiar with the region or the culture. However, you’re familiar with Florida.

  Ms. Harris’s actions alone seem to be have been more than enough to change the outcome of the election. More than enough by a factor of many to one. Why did people stand for this? Why did they allow it to happen? There was at least one fake riot on the Republican side; i.e., the Miami-Dade nonsense which consisted largely of hired “rioters” that GOP staffers have acknowledged flying in from other states. Why weren’t there genuine riots on the Democrat side? Why didn’t the people who actually lived in Florida do something about this?

  Surely those who simply shrugged and let it happen bear some responsibility for the things that happened afterwards, the most destructive eight years in this nation’s history since the Civil War if the context is morality, human decency, the Constitution of the United States, and the American Flag and the things that it used to symbolize.

  Incidentally, the fact that I’m revolted by the things that were done in 2000 and 2004, done on a cold and calculating basis, doesn’t make me an “anarchist” or a “Communist”, though I was certainly told to “go back to Russia” in my day. If it matters, I was taught to respect the Flag before some of the people reading this post were born. It’s my personal feeling that the Flag was used as packing material in 2000, and as something of less permanent and lasting significance than toilet paper in 2004.

• 5 Voice of Reason // May 1, 2009 at 4:47 AM

  Note to Carlos Miller: I’ll add one correction, if I may. I prefer to be both accurate and thorough, when possible. For the most part, the procedures used in 2004 were more subtle than the procedures used in 2000. However, I’m certainly not claiming that everything that was done in 2004 was subtle. For example, the fake “terror alert” that Warren County used in 2004 was the antithesis of subtle. That was more of a 2000-style “we’re doing it right here in the open, try and stop us” kind of thing.

• 6 genewitch // May 1, 2009 at 4:53 AM

  Carlos: you want to know what’s funny? This is an excuse to do away with FOIA/ public records requests, rather than the opimistic point of view “it will make entities think twice before withholding”

• 7 Voice of Reason // May 1, 2009 at 5:08 AM

  Note to “genewitch”: You said to Mr. Miller, “This is an excuse to do away with FOIA/ public records requests, rather than the optimistic point of view.”

  I don’t quite understand either point of view. If the government decides to make an explicit attempt to “do away with” FOIA requests, they’ll use the following argument: 9/11 TERROR 9/11 TERROR. This case appears to involve nothing more or less than standard operating procedures. I don’t see how the amount of money involved would be enough to trigger fundamental changes in either direction.

• 8 genewitch // May 1, 2009 at 5:58 AM

  it’s more of a “well, it costs us money to comply, whereas if we didn’t HAVE to comply, it wouldn’t cost us anything”

  I am sure they weighed the cost of a lawsuit to the cost of releasing the information in a timely fashion, and the lawsuit was cheaper.

  that’s how capitalism works. Don’t expect FOIA to work for you all the time!

• 9 Michaelk42 // May 1, 2009 at 8:44 AM

  Huh. And I have to file a FOIA request just to get a *police report* here. Because blogs are outside of the “registered media.” Still seeing how that one will go.

• 10 Karl Mansoor // May 1, 2009 at 10:13 AM

  Carlos,
  Unfortunately, such judgments don’t come directly out of the pockets of those most responsible for the transgression. Many government officials seem to weather whatever mild public embarrassment follows exposure.

  Penalties for government abuses need to be more hard hitting directly on those responsible instead of what ultimately amounts to public funding for judgments – at least that’s how I see it.

• 11 NYCPhotorights // May 1, 2009 at 10:34 AM

  VofR:

  Agencies already use the 9/11 excuse when they don’t want to be bothered with an information request. Someone I know requested information on an elevated subway line in New York and was told that it could not be released due to 9/11…

  If anyone at the agency had actually bothered to check they would have discovered that the information he requested was about a line that was demolished in 1942.

  It is easier to issue the form letter than do the work!

• 12 B // May 1, 2009 at 11:16 AM

  An important step in a long journey that still needs to be taken.

  Bravo!

• 13 xdamousex // May 1, 2009 at 1:39 PM

  FOIA, while well-meaning, is often useless for daily newspapers. I remember working as a police reporter at a daily newspaper and although some reports weren’t time sensitive and could be FOIA’d, I found that in a number of instances agencies were telling me to submit a FOIA request to get information for a story I was writing for the next day. The government doesn’t understand, or doesn’t care, about the concept of delivering information in a timely manner.

  In short, I bleeping hate our Kafka-esque system.

• 14 Ariel // May 1, 2009 at 3:07 PM

  A system manipulated quite well by both parties. The tu quoque argument simply diverts the attention from what Injustice in Seattle has noted quite well, King County is corrupt as hell and in this case that corruption got a Democratic governor elected.

• 15 Voice of Reason // May 2, 2009 at 3:59 AM

  Note to NYCPhotorights: You said, “Agencies already use the 9/11 excuse when they don’t want to be bothered with an information request”.

  Yes. However, 9/11 hasn’t been used to overturn FOIA per se as of yet. I thought that “genewitch” might be speculating about this possibility. For the time being, people can sue for information that’s been withheld. It’s not easy to sue and prevail, though, so I’d like to see much higher damages. As Mr. Mansoor pointed out, “such judgments don’t come directly out of the pockets of those most responsible”. But you’ve got to work with the options that you have.

• 16 genewitch // May 2, 2009 at 4:14 AM

  as it turns out, i have 2 lawyers on retainer at the end of this year.

  It will be interesting to point them at cases like this and say “GET ‘EM!”

  the next ten years could be interesting

• 17 Voice of Reason // May 2, 2009 at 4:22 AM

  Note to Ariel: You said, “A system manipulated quite well by both parties”.

  This is obviously a point that everybody should be concerned about. I’ve made this clear before. Please read the two questions at the end of the post that I’ve linked to previously. Therefore, if the “Tu quoque” analysis elsewhere in your post was directed at something that I’ve said, it’s my feeling that the analysis is incorrect. If “Tu quoque” was directed at Mr. Miller’s post #2 on this thread, this strikes me as a stretch as well.

  I believe that the situation was so unusual in 2000 and 2004 that the imbalance during those periods can only be described as off the scale. That’s a personal opinion. Whether or not people are willing to talk about the things that happened, there’s a related question that everybody should be comfortable with: What should we do to make it difficult or impossible for anybody to treat voting as something that’s irrelevant to the outcome of an election?

  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: “Whether or not you believe that your guy would ever do such a thing, do you trust the other guy?”

• 18 Voice of Reason // May 2, 2009 at 4:50 AM

  Note to “genewitch”: You said, As it turns out, i have 2 lawyers on retainer at the end of this year. It will be interesting to point them at cases like this and say “GET ‘EM!”

  I noticed that you said “it will be interesting”, as opposed to “it might be interesting”. Are you actually planning to do this?

• 19 Duane Kerzic // May 2, 2009 at 11:23 AM

  There will be voting fraud as long as there is voting. It’s got nothing to do with the methods used to collect votes, electronic or paper. It’s got nothing to do with chads or butterfly ballots. It’s got to do with human nature and that isn’t going to change, at least any time soon.

  It starts with the fact there there is no unique ID for each person in the country. Heck even if we had an ID for each person there would be fraud with that.

  It’s no secret that voting rolls have a large number of people on them that aren’t eligible to vote in those districts. Most people move at least every 10 years. That means that in the county every 10 years about 200,000,000 people have to be purged from the voting roles. This comes to 20,000,000 people a year. In Florida with a population of 17,000,000, there are 1,000,000 people a year have to be purged. I enjoy how people want to say that a particular party removed people from the rolls. Political parties don’t have the power to do that, they only have the ability to REQUEST that people they believe are on the rolls in error be purged. Those requests don’t have to be honored by the election board unless they are shown and found to have merit.

  Florida is also subject to fraud because it allows those that are not permanent residents to register to vote. This is so that families that own vacation properties can participate in local elections. While it’s fraud to vote in the presidential election in 2 states it’s done all the time.

  Also when ever you try to measure something there is a probability of error. All measurement systems have error and all measurements are random approximations of the true value.

  When the difference between outcomes is being measured by differences as small as they are today there is no certainty of who the actual winner is. The fact that recounts are always different isn’t fraud, it is a measure of randomness of the errors in the measurement of the vote.

• 20 Kol.Klink // May 2, 2009 at 11:58 AM

  Carlos, do you want more videos like this, when I find them?

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyLmvrTwZ34

  Cheers!

• 21 Kol.Klink // May 2, 2009 at 12:02 PM

  Man arrested after taking photo of police van

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrmP4MwHTKw

• 22 Kol.Klink // May 2, 2009 at 12:05 PM

  “I am the LAW!” to photographer

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8py1-EW94Hc

• 23 Kol.Klink // May 2, 2009 at 12:06 PM

  Police Ask for Film License

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDpUJ8QU0-0

• 24 Kol.Klink // May 2, 2009 at 12:09 PM

  Photographers Rights And The Law In The UK – A brief guide for street photographers

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXk4nLIv5jo

• 25 Kol.Klink // May 2, 2009 at 1:35 PM

  Canadians filming the police, quaffing a beer, tell cops to go to hell

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-ojRQjcHzo

• 26 Kol.Klink // May 2, 2009 at 1:57 PM

  Arlington Cop accosts videographer
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XabrKftEiLs

  2 comments:

  Why do people give cops their ID? That driver’s license is a license to drive. That’s it. No ID is required for a public sidewalk, so don’t give it. Some states, you must identify yourself if they have RAS of a crime, so verbally state your name, DOB, address at the most.

  Why do people keep talking? Shut up. Stay shut up. Keep it zipped. Never, ever talk to the police.

• 27 Ariel // May 3, 2009 at 10:54 PM

  Voice of Reason,

  Sorry it took so long to get back on this. DeFilippis’s comment on election year was specific to Washington State, but Mr. Miller used it immediately to divert to 2000. That was quintessentially tu quoque. People use many things to build personal identity, including party affiliation, and tu quoque is used as a method of denial. I think Mr. Miller fell into the temptation, as I find this one of the most even-handed blogs on the Net.
  I could have just as easily thrown in the election irregularities of 1960 or the 2000 Florida Supreme Court making up the rules as they went along ignoring the election laws of Florida, or Daley’s Chicago, or the Radical Republicans of Reconstruction (just to throw a bone), or the Indiana Republican Klan voter fraud (two bones, but then I would have to bring up the 1924 DNC Klanbake), but not one of those are germane to what King County obviously did.
  Generally, it is the party in power that stoops to election fraud, always locally but national in the aggregate.
  You simply fell into it too, this from rereading your comments. As soon as you write “but look at what you (your group) did” you’ve gone tu quoque. Whether done subtly or blatantly.

  Kol. Klink,
  Never, ever talk to the police? I know there has to be an argument against what you wrote, but I’ll be damned if I can come up with one.

• 28 Voice of Reason // May 4, 2009 at 7:14 AM

  Note to Ariel: You appear to be a sensible person. I’m referring to your ability to focus. And no, I’m not claiming that I’m always able to focus myself. In this very post, it’s unlikely that I’ll be able to do so. My blood alcohol level is unusually high at the moment. I’m good at calculations, and my calculations suggest that I shouldn’t be conscious right now. However, I’ve read this post through several times, and I believe that it more or less makes sense.

  If I don’t move on from the current site shortly, as I’d originally planned to do and as I might still do, I believe that I’ll enjoy discussing issues of this general nature with you in the future.

  You’re under no obligation to “get back” to me on anything. You may respond to this post, or not, as you please. If you don’t respond, it doesn’t necessarily mean that I’ve scored a point.

  I’m impressed by your reference to the “personal identity” issue, though you should go one step further and acknowledge that personal identity, in this context, is essentially the same thing as group identity. I’m specifically contesting the “many things” assertion. It’s not necessarily the case that group identity is simply a component of personal identity. Under some conditions, group identity is the deciding factor. Party affiliation is usually more significant than a preference for golf versus football. It’s certainly more important than somebody’s feelings about abstract and therefore flexible issues such as “freedom” or “truth”. Issues that might affect the standing of a party, or the standing of a current or past party leader, are likely to trigger reflexes that override rational thought and the ability to perceive simple physical facts.

  You obviously meant to be fair or even-handed yourself when you referred to Mr. Miller’s site as “even-handed”. In my opinion, the point is irrelevant. I no longer believe in fanciful philosophies or approaches such as fair, balanced, even-handed, and so on. There are binary alternatives such as black and white, true and false, right and wrong, or interesting and tedious. Shades of grey do exist, most importantly WRT right and wrong, but I haven’t personally encountered situations where people actually care about shades of grey for many years.

  Moving forward, I don’t acknowledge that I “simply fell into it too”. My argument there continues to be that the two questions at the end of a post I’ve linked to previously seem objective and not entirely irrelevant to the subject at hand. You’re free to review the two questions and to rebut this assertion.

  Whether or not you agree that the two questions are “germane” to the original issue, it appears that you might be willing, in some cases, to discuss or even to debate specifics. When people aren’t able to do this, I feel that my time is being wasted. My time is running out, and I don’t enjoy wasting it as much as I did when I was younger.

  WRT the current subject, I’m not entirely convinced that Mr. Miller’s points, or mine, were “quintessentially tu quoque”, because it appears at first glance that a key element of “tu quoque” might be missing. Specifically, the assertion that the original point is invalid, or that it should be dismissed because of the “you too” issue. The immediate shout “2000! 2000!”, which I myself am pleased to have contributed to, doesn’t necessarily contradict the points that everybody is, or should be, in agreement on. Where’s the “denial” that you’ve referred to? Maybe it’s there, but I don’t see much more than attempts to discuss more than one issue at a time, which is always likely to produce confusion.

  Mr. Miller’s remark, and my remarks plural, may or may not have been “germane” in one context. However, they were probably “germane” in another context. Was it fair to throw these remarks onto the pile? I’m not sure. Was it “tu quoque” ? Maybe not.

  It’s entirely possible that I’ve overlooked something, but the part that matters to me is that you don’t seem to be focused on irrelevant points. You’re free to explain the undoubtedly numerous errors in anything that I’ve said, either presently or previously. It’s unlikely that I’ll be offended, though I’m human at least part of the time and therefore, it’s possible.

  I’m not requesting that you engage me further on the “tu quoque” issue. If you do so, I’ll attempt to show you as much respect as you’ve shown me, and you have shown me respect by not wasting my time. I’ll add that I’ll read future posts by you on these issues with interest.

  On a separate note, you said to Kol. Klink, “Never, ever talk to the police? I know there has to be an argument against what you wrote, but I’ll be damned if I can come up with one.”

  As a side note, I enjoy analyzing handles. I liked the ambiguity presented by ALLBEDAMNED a lot. You’ve just reminded me of that. I’ve wanted to ask Pinandpuller if his handle is related to grenades. I’m not sure what the handle Kol. Klink is supposed to convey, other than the fact that the poster is old enough to remember a very odd TV show. I’ve never understood how a slapstick comedy about the Nazis made it onto the air scarcely 20 years after WWII ended. Ariel presumably refers to the angel or possibly the Shakespeare character, and not to a font with a slightly different spelling.

  There’s a good argument related to the “talk to the police” issue. Over the past decade, I’ve been stopped and questioned by the police more than once, even though I’ve been on foot, and I’ve provided the police with my driver’s license number even though I haven’t been driving or even carrying a driver’s license. I’ve been cooperative for the simple reason that I’d prefer not to be beaten up, hurt, arrested, or stomped to death.

  I am an aging white man with a conservative haircut who has undoubtedly reminded white police officers who’ve stopped me of their fathers. This has purchased me a slim though measurable safety margin. If I was younger and my skin was black, I’d be dead by now. The bottom line is that I’ve been stopped and questioned on foot for remarkably silly reasons, and the silliness of the reasons doesn’t matter.

  If I told you why I was stopped and questioned for 45 minutes on one occasion, you wouldn’t believe me. You would laugh. However, the insanity of this kind of thing doesn’t matter, because in the absence of photographers or consequences of any kind, the police are allowed to do whatever they choose to do. There’s nothing to stop them.

  I am a law-abiding citizen. I pay my taxes. I have never killed or even robbed anybody. I shouldn’t need to worry about being hurt or killed by the police. However, if I demonstrate something that Mr. Miller has referred to as “contempt of cop”, my age and my white skin, and the fact that I come across strongly as a conservative to fools who rely on visual cues such as haircuts, won’t save me. The police will hurt me or kill me. They will knock me to the ground. They will grind my face into the dirt. They will stomp on me and break my bones. It’s a simple fact.

  I live in a middle-class area. There’s no reason for the police to behave as they do here. However, it’s not unheard of in my area for the police to take a perfectly innocent man who’s done nothing at all wrong, to knock him to the ground, to kneel on him and to grind his face intentionally against broken glass, and to lie about what they did. I’d prefer not to end up with my face rubbed against broken glass.

  Refusing to speak to the police is “contempt of cop”. If I knew for certain that Mr. Miller and other photographers were there to photograph what was going to happen to me, I’d be braver about this kind of thing. If it was going to make a difference, I might be willing to sacrifice my life for the greater good. However, they might not be there, so sacrifices on my part might be pointless. I don’t want to die for nothing at all.

  Ariel, it’s my personal feeling that the whole thing goes beyond “tu quoque”. There’s something fundamentally wrong that isn’t exactly a sickness, because it’s normal and it’s alway been normal. The only thing that’s changed is that the stakes are higher now. Due to RFID and bills designed to control the Internet, Orwell’s boot in the face forever is coming, and it’s coming rapidly. This business of openness, of photographing everything that happens, and I do mean things like fake “terror alerts” in 2004 Warren County as well as police brutality, it’s the only hope that I see for the future.

  Addressing everybody: I’d ask all of you to fight for the right to photograph all of it, the voting issues, the police brutality, anything to do with the powers that be, even if it means that some of you are likely to suffer for your efforts.

  Put aside the biological dedication to your tribes, the animal-level programmed reflex that tells most people to defend their political parties at all costs for genetic reasons. Grow up. Try to understand that the camera is the only thing that doesn’t lie. Photograph all of it. Fight for the Internet, for Net Neutrality, and for the right to display those photographs. If you screw this up, there’s nothing left.

• 29 Ariel // May 4, 2009 at 9:36 AM

  Prelude: I suffer insomnia and may be a little disjointed in my writing so bear with me.

  Voice of Reason:
  At this juncture I think both of us would beat the tu quoque argument to death, so I would beg to agree to disagree.

  The moniker “Ariel” is from a long defunct British motorcycle marque. It is also the name of my youngest and dearest daughter, and yes she was given the name because of the marque. She has original Ariel adverts from 1940s and 1950s magazines on her walls. Still looking for some acceptable ones from the 30s.

  As for me, I wear the look of a skinhead in black and western boots, and ride, though too seldom, an old Italian police bike. I have been stopped by police just to look over my bike, but they have always been nothing but respectful and friendly.

  However, I saw my first act of police brutality, neglecting the police riot in Daley’s 1968 Chicago, when I was 18. To make a long story short, a friend and I were in a car with a maniac driver who just had to show us that his car could do 150 mph. We were stopped by five cop cars, four CHP and one local, ringed by them, with pistols and shotguns, and threats to kill us if we didn’t get out. My friend and I complied in every way, uttering nothing but “yes officer”, offered no resistance to cuffing, and still one officer had to drive my friend’s forehead into the road’s hard shoulder enough to make him moan in pain. No reason other than to show my friend, 6’3” and 230, who was in charge. Mild brutality but still brutality. The local cop had to loudly and forcefully argue with the CHP to retain custody of us, and told us that we likely would have had a bad night before we ever made it to jail if the CHP had their way. Only the driver went to jail, thanks to the local cop.

  And, yes, “contempt of cop” is a good reason to talk to a LEO, but I would still keep it to a minimum. I have argued with a CHP over my first and only ticket in 32 years of driving, but politely. He acted professionally, perhaps because of my 9 and 7 year old children in the back seat or because I was polite, either would make him a good cop still. I have also chided a cop who made fun of a phrase I used that perhaps he should read more. The cop with him moved between his fellow and me, so I was probably lucky. The crowd of neighbors helped no doubt. I was young, on my mother’s property, and had called the police because of the car parked half way through my mother’s block fence. It was late at night and I didn’t feel like suffering the ridicule of a moron. These days I would be much more careful, much more.

  I have family that are LEOs: one now retired; and the other an assistant police chief. I have seen both go in and out of the LEO tribal mentality. The APC kept her grounding best.

  There have always been good and bad cops. I blame less of this current problem on 9/11 and the Patriot Act, and much more on the Drug War. The “no knock”, the corruption, and the rise of the paramilitary dress and attitude started long before 9/11. Photographers and videographers are just as often brutalized over snapping/filming cops doing their everyday job. Yes, they and the Internet are a threat to LEO’s that want to do as they please. And, yes, legislators will try to shut it down. I hope the First Amendment is strong enough to hold.

  Personally, I think every interaction between LEO and citizen should be videotaped with audio. It is, after all, in the best interest of both the good cop and the good citizen.

• 30 Voice of Reason // May 4, 2009 at 3:47 PM

  Note to Ariel: There’s more than one type of argument. Internet-style arguments are irritating. I’m referring to discussions where people wave their hands vaguely, look out the window, refuse to discuss specifics, shout at you, or better yet, shout at somebody who isn’t even in the room. I didn’t consider the “tu quoque” issue an argument in the Internet sense. I appreciated your thoughts on the matter. There’s no need to discuss the issue further, but I won’t “agree to disagree” because I don’t know whether or not I disagree.

  If you review recent threads on this site, you’ll see Internet-style arguments. In the most amusing case, there’s a situation where Mr. Miller wields a point that he’s confident will resolve things, but Michael Moore runs into the room, steals Mr. Miller’s point, tucks it under his arm, and runs away with it.

  The anecdotes that you posted are interesting. I wouldn’t have guessed the origin of the handle. And you were lucky that things worked out as well as they did during your interactions with LEOs.

  WRT the “good and bad cops” issue, the crucial point isn’t that there are “good and bad cops”. It’s that there’s a Code of Silence. Mr. Mansoor discusses the Code of Silence at this link. The most relevant text is located towards the end of the post. I’ve posted my own thoughts on the issue at this link.

  You advised people to “keep it to a minimum” when they’re required to speak with LEOs. There’s a problem with this advice. How, exactly, do you “keep it to a minimum” when a LEO starts asking you random questions, interrogating you on the street for 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or longer, hoping to find some reason to arrest you, any reason at all, simply to boost his standing?

  As I understand it, if a police officer does this, you’re supposed to say “Am I being detained, officer?” However, it seems to me that somebody who says this is likely to find themselves in a “contempt of cop” situation. For example, they may find themselves lying on the ground with their face being rubbed in broken glass.

  WRT insomnia, you probably don’t need to be advised that extended use of sleeping pills may produce unpleasant side effects. I learned this myself the hard way.

  Regarding Internet sites that might be embarrassing to the government, you said, “And, yes, legislators will try to shut it down. I hope the First Amendment is strong enough to hold.” This is already happening. Interested readers may wish to review the Cybersecurity Act of 2009. If you do so, remember that the words 9/11! TERROR! 9/11! TERROR! are magic. If you’re a President or a lawmaker, say the magic words and proceed a little bit at a time, and you can do anything that you want to.

• 31 Ariel // May 6, 2009 at 3:24 AM

  VOR,

  Oh, I definitely agree on the “Code of Silence”, but I also understand that a lot of good cops just want to do their job, help people where they can, and go home to their families, not unlike most of us. Break the “Code” and life becomes hard, their job is in jeopardy, promotions don’t happen, etc., so they look the other way. There are “codes of silence” in a lot of industries too. Chemical for one.

  As for dealing with officers that won’t stop asking questions, you really have to feel your way and say things that politely say nothing. You do have a responsibility to identify yourself, including address IIRC, but orally not by ID, unless you’re driving. After that, you do your best, and remain guarded but truthful, and don’t elaborate.

  There is a video on the Web, sorry I don’t remember the title and I haven’t the URL, but both a Law Professor and a LEO said don’t talk to the cops anymore than you have to, offer nothing, and yes or no are good answers, even if the question is open-ended. LEOs look for contradiction.

  I don’t use sleeping pills, they make me physically sick. I avoid pain pills also. I did so with a broken leg (split tibia head with only 1/4 inch of bone holding it together) only because it wasn’t painful enough. However, I am susceptible to psychosis, a rare side-effect of the commonly prescribed strong pain-killers, especially combined with Valium. After shoulder surgery, I went through the pain with a line into my heart feeding an antibiotic that was killing me only more slowly than the staph infection destroying my shoulder because I had my first psychotic reaction to prescription drugs. I was lucky that it only took me two months of pain and PT to get my arm back to normal range.

  Any of you making judgments about how it can’t happen to you because you are so strong, especially you LEOs out there, guess again because it’s strictly chemical interaction. It hits you fast and if you don’t recognize it, the voice is oh so very seductive and often very malevolent. The strength is in recognizing what is happening and dealing with it by eschewing the drugs and suffering the pain.

  Carlos, I’m sorry that I took this so far from the subject of your blog, but this is one area where I feel compelled to warn. Psychotic reactions to pain-killers, especially combined with Valium, are rare (well less than 1% IIRC) but still common enough that Surgeons, Infectious Disease Specialists, and even Family Physicians should warn and require daily up-dates. Arguing with the Voice about why no one should die today is not pleasant conversation. On the other hand, hey, it was nice to have a companion while confined to bed, especially one good at debate.

• 32 Voice of Reason // May 8, 2009 at 10:13 AM

  Note to Ariel: You addressed me on May 6. I apologize for not responding until May 8. However, based on something that you said, both of us either are, or have been, “confined to bed”.

  I’m experiencing some minor pain and mobility issues, but I expect to resume a daily review of posts shortly, and that should continue until I leave the site, which will probably be in the early summer.

  The post that I’m responding to is interesting, because it contains some points that I find personally relevant.

  Regarding “I don’t use sleeping pills, they make me physically sick”, it’s gone a bit beyond that for me. It’s no longer unusual for me to go 48 hours without sleep. That’s where the time for a few of the longer posts came from if you go back a few weeks. This has proved to be a bad thing as opposed to a good thing.

  The sleep issue might be related to overuse of over-the-counter sleep aids. Whether or not that’s the case, discontinuing the sleep aids hasn’t helped much. I’d advise people to pay attention to the warnings that are printed on the boxes.

  I must be fuzzy right now, because I don’t understand the remark, “Arguing with the Voice about why no one should die today is not pleasant conversation”. The context is probably obvious, but I’m not able to see it. Did I say that somebody should “die today” ? I don’t recall saying that. Perhaps it’ll come to me.

  Ariel, I’d certainly like to aim for “pleasant conversation”. I wish I knew what this point refers to. I don’t care if somebody like “kneejerk” doesn’t enjoy the things that I have to say. It’s not about his positions. It’s about the fact that I grew up with people like him. I didn’t like it. However, it’s not my intention to offend intelligent people. Please continue to point out gaps in my reasoning whenever time permits you to do so.

  You said, There are “codes of silence” in a lot of industries too. Yes, that’s true, and quite a few people may have died because of it. However, there’s no industry which has a Code of Silence that’s as pervasive or as monstrous as the LEO Code of Silence. If anybody believes that my assertion needs to be defended, I’ll make an attempt to defend it.

  You said, Break the “Code” and life becomes hard, their job is in jeopardy, promotions don’t happen, etc., so they look the other way.

  Those consequences are part of the Code of Silence itself. At least, the Code of Silence that I’ve spoken about for the past month. I’ve always considered specific rules about looking the other way, etc., and the culture that doesn’t tolerate violations of the rules to be part of a single overall problem. I’ve referred to the overall problem as the “code” or the Code of Silence.

  I consider your point to be weak. You’re not actually defending the Code of Silence. However, at first glance, you appear to be doing little more than acknowledging that the Code of Silence is self-perpetuating. I understand your intent, but would the point that you’ve made here have stood up at the Nuremberg Trials?

  The Code of Silence needs to be dismantled. LEOs who support it need to lose their jobs, even if they were “only following orders”, as the Germans were. LEOs who supply “throwdowns” (planted weapons that are an integral part of the Code of Silence) need to be tried as accessories to murder. LEOs who use “throwdowns” should be tried for murder and imprisoned or possibly executed.

  You said, “LEOs look for contradiction”. Yes! They’ll take innocent people, badger them until they make the slightest misstep, and lock them up for weeks or months. If conclusive proof of innocence such as DNA evidence doesn’t come to light, the innocent people may be tried for crimes that they had nothing to do with and imprisoned or possibly executed.

  I’ll never forget reading about cases of this type that were especially appalling. Yet, when I’ve been confronted by LEOs, I’ve usually tried to answer all of their questions because I don’t want to be knocked to the ground, stomped on, and hurt or killed.

  Fortunately, though I’m rather poor at verbal interaction for reasons that I’ve attempted to explain elsewhere, I’m rather good at noticing inconsistencies both in my own statements and in the statements of others. Provided that I stop to think about what I’m saying or writing, of course. It’s possible that LEOs have occasionally been frustrated by the fact that they can make me talk, but they can’t catch me in significant contradictions no matter how much I say.

  The questions they’ll ask you are absurd. They’ll try to trip you up on the exact spellings of street names when the streets are located miles away. They’ll make you explain what you’re doing out at midnight, and if you say that you’re headed to a 24-hour store, they’ll try to trip you up on the exact date that the store switched from normal hours to 24-hour operation. They’ll ask you why you’re on foot, then they’ll try to trip you up on the exact foot routes that you take to get from one part of a city to another part.

  I’ve never said F*** the Police on this site before. Thinking about those questions, the whole thing makes it personal for me. Those bastards were trying to trip me up on inconsequentials so that they could arrest me, hurt me, or kill me. In this context, right now, I’ll say it. F*** the Police. I’ve said it, and I’ll stand by it. Taking the context into account, is my statement unreasonable?

  Ariel, I’m sorry to hear about the injuries that you’ve referred to. You “avoid pain pills”. That’s good, but I need some myself right now. I wouldn’t mind taking my chances WRT “psychosis”. That said, at first glance, everything that you said on the issue seems to be correct. You are good at this. Why haven’t you started a site of your own?

  In closing, you said that I’m “good at debate”. Nice of you to say this, but it isn’t true. I can detect situations where other parties aren’t good at debate. I’m quite good with inconsistencies. Sometimes I can shred them into confetti from 50 yards away with one arm tied behind my back. Regrettably, this doesn’t mean that I’m always good at constructing arguments. However, with a bit of guidance from sensible critics, I can usually see the problems with my own reasoning.

• 33 Ariel // May 8, 2009 at 1:04 PM

  VOR,
  This is what happens when fatigue sets in. Both “pleasant conversation” and “good at debate” were sardonic comments regarding my episode of prescription induced psychosis. I was writing about the voice in my head, one which took on a separate life of its own, from the psychosis. It was very independent of me and kept trying to convince me that I needed to do some very bad things. When I finally realized I was dealing with psychosis, I dumped all pills down the toilet and lived with the pain.

  As for the “Code of Silence”, I wanted to make the point that it isn’t exclusive to Police. People forget that. The issue with it existing in Police departments, is that yes they have the power of the State, the gun, and when crimes are committed by Police which are covered up it hurts individuals and society. And people have little or no recourse for redress.

  And yes I find many of your arguments sound.

• 34 Voice of Reason // May 14, 2009 at 11:49 AM

  Note to Ariel: You said, “When I finally realized I was dealing with psychosis, I dumped all pills down the toilet and lived with the pain.”

  It’s the being objective part that’s difficult. Sometimes it takes a while before you’re able to see changes taking place in yourself.

  You also said, “And people have little or no recourse for redress.”

  Sometimes you’ll read articles about people who win lawsuits after years of difficulties and distress. As people at this site have pointed out, the damages aren’t paid by the offenders. Recourse does exist, but it’s not through lawsuits. It’s through sites such as this site and Mr. Pataky’s site.

  The “thin blue line” isn’t thin at all. It’s a streamroller that crushes the Constitution, human rights, and everything that goes with the associated principles.

  I see nothing in the future of society that has a decent chance of standing up to Orwell’s “boot in the face forever” except for sites of this type. It’s why I’ve become rather irritated in the past when I’ve seen that people aren’t able to control their sub-Bonobo side so that they can focus on reality and the things that are genuinely important.

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