David C. Gorczynski, of Pennsylvania’s Occupy movements, was arrested and charged with two felonies for holding two signs: one saying “You’re being robbed” and another that said “Give a man a gun, he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank, and he can rob a country.” Gorczunski is being charged with bank robbery and “terroristic threatening”. He was released on $10,000 bail. Felonies for Free Speech.
What Bill of Rights?
(Source: , via the-flame-imperishable)
"[W]hat’s not up for debate in this election is the continuation of the post-911 security state Bush instituted and Obama expanded. No matter who wins tomorrow, that state aparatus will continue to roll right along, because no-one in the corriders of power – industrialists, mainstream media or politicians – has any good short-term reason to do otherwise. The only losers are we the mooks, at home and abroad, who lose lives and liberty."
Steve Hynd, Remember, remember…the bipartisan security state (via theamericanbear)
(via thefreelioness)
New Poster From The Department of Homeland Security
Question Nothing.
Otherwise you’re a threat to the nation and you will arrested and detained without charge. You might also get your weapon license revoked because we determine you to be of unsound mind.
(Source: your-maj3sty, via thefreelioness)
Photographers labeled potential terrorists by LAPD
Be careful next time you are out taking photos in public. It turns out that photographers can be detained as potential terrorists for just doing their job.
The Los Angeles Police Department’s counter terror guidelines are coming under new scrutiny as they attack a lot of activities supposed to be protected by the First Amendment, including photography.
Photographer Carlos Miller was reporting on Occupy Miami when he was arrested by half a dozen police officers dressed in riot gear. Miller was on a public street and believes he was targeted for videotaping police officers.
“They’re recording us, they don’t want us recording them,” said Miller. “They really want to put a scare factor into us,” he added.
Miller has been arrested three times for exercising his First Amendment right of freedom of speech and expression.
According to many police departments across the country, including the LAPD, Miller’s actions fall into the realm of potential terrorism.
“This is the police state that people have been talking about or have talked about in years past. This is no longer conspiracy or paranoia. This is where we’re headed,” said Jason Leopold, an investigative reporter at Truthout.org
Leopold compares Los Angeles’ anti-terror campaign to New York’s controversial spying program. Los Angeles police officers have the green light to report photography and other legal activities to their counterterrorism division.
Several journalists claim they have been detained for taking photographs in public places. A Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy detained photographer Shawn Nee, while he took photos at a subway station. Video of the incident shows the deputy tried to connect Nee to al-Qaeda.
“I want to know if you’re in cahoots with al-Qaeda to sell these pictures for terrorists purposes,” the deputy told Nee.
Nee is now suing the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, but even lawsuits like Nee’s are not deterring police from toughening their anti-terror crackdowns in the U.S.
“Our democracy is on thin ice,” said Jim Lafferty, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild, L.A. Chapter.
Lafferty and other civil libertarians are especially concerned about the LAPD’s counterterrorism policies, especially because of the department’s history of violating public privacy over the decades.
“As long as we don’t give into the fear we can prevent that kind of return to a full-fledged McCarthyism or some of those sad stages in history when fear won the day,” said Lafferty.
Lafferty believes the fear mongering in the media is partly to blame. Leopold agrees, also pointing a finger at our nation’s leaders, for using the September 11 terror attacks, as an excuse to create laws which repress dissent and violate the Constitution.
“Democrats and Republican went along with it and the public fell into lockstep with it,” said Leopold. “The public is quickly being desensitized and they also feel like they’re powerless. What can they possibly do about it,” he added.
As Miller fights his latest legal battle, he’s convinced police tactics in fighting terror will ultimately backfire.
“It gets to the point when we have an issue and need a police officer, why call a police officer,” said Miller. “They’ve lost credibility and when police lose credibility, then they’ve lost everything,” he added.
What started as a simple way to express and proclaim his innocence, Miller now uses his blog to tell similar stories and continue his crusade of “Freedom of Photography.”
(Source: thefreelioness)
"This country was built on gangs. This country is still running on gangs. Republicans, democrats, the police department, the FBI, the CIA. Those are gangs."
Tupac Shakur (via haereticum)
Outside Anaheim Police Department today. You might remember these officers from earlier in the week when they fired rubber bullets and released an attack dog on a protesting crowd (and then tried to buy evidence off the victims).
“Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a “war,” and the consequences are predictable.” — Radley Balko
(Source: policygal)
(Source: thinksquad)
(Source: astarrynightandopenroadishope, via 32830)
10 Facts That Prove America Is A Police State:
- With only 5% of the world’s population, US has 25% of world’s prison population.
- China, which has a population 4 times larger than that of the United States, comes in second with 14% of the world’s incarcerated population.
- More than 1 in every 100 American adults are incarcerated, the highest incarceration rate in the world.
- When divided by race, 1 in 106 white men are incarcerated while 1 in 36 Hispanic men, 1 in 15 black men and 1 in 9 for black men ages 20-34 are behind bars.
- It costs an average of $23,876 per year to incarcerate one inmate. That is more than twice the combined amount it costs to provide healthcare and education to one American.
- The United States spent $44 billion in tax dollars in 2007 on corrections.
- U.S. incarceration rates are significantly larger than those in any other liberal democracy.
- While violent crime decreased, incarceration rates sharply increased.
- Half of all inmates in state prisons are behind bars for non-violent offenses.
- If you include jails, 60 percent of inmates are nonviolent offenders.
(via disobey)
"Think about that: if you expose to the world previously unknown evidence of widespread wanton killing of civilians (as Manning allegedly did), then you will end up in the same place as someone who actually engages in the mass wanton killing of civilians (as Bales allegedly did), except that the one who committed atrocities will receive better treatment than the one who exposed them. That’s a nice reflection of our government’s value system (similar to the way that high government officials who commit egregious crimes are immunized, while those who expose them are aggressively prosecuted). If the chat logs are to be believed, Manning decided to leak those documents because they revealed heinous war crimes that he could no longer in good conscience allow to be concealed, and he will now find himself next to a soldier who is accused of committing heinous war crimes."
Glenn Greenwald (via azspot)
(via thecheekylibertarian)
"For a great many poor people in America, particularly poor black men, prison is a destination that braids through an ordinary life, much as high school and college do for rich white ones. More than half of all black men without a high-school diploma go to prison at some time in their lives. Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today—perhaps the fundamental fact, as slavery was the fundamental fact of 1850. In truth, there are more black men in the grip of the criminal-justice system—in prison, on probation, or on parole—than were in slavery then. Over all, there are now more people under “correctional supervision” in America—more than six million—than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height."
Adam Gopnik writes about the modern-day shame of the American Prison State. (via aheram)
(Source: againstpower, via 21st-century-classical-liberal)
Law enforcement officials can now secretly install GPS tracking on your vehicle and spy on you without a warrant, says judge
(Source: hemprevolution, via aghoulistmike)
"OMG FUCK NO WAKE UP AMERICA SOPA, PIPA, NDAA WE’RE LIVING IN A POLICE STATE MAN…Obama’s still cool though so don’t pick on him :("
Tumblr (via notsofluent)
(Source: basugasu-bakuhatsu, via rigatonideology)
