It's About Liberty: A Conservative Forum
Topics => Judiciary, Crime, & Courts => Topic started by: LadyVirginia on August 11, 2013, 05:41:16 PM
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The New Yorker has a lengthy new article on civil forfeiture abuse by state and local authorities. It's filled with horror stories of corruption and violations of civil liberties.
Yeah, I know the New Yorker. But Pan reminded us don't miss the message because of the messenger!
Some cities, like Detroit, try to justify the seizures as "quality of life" preservation under ancient vice statutes. This one is a doozy:
Another case involves a monthly social event that had been hosted by the Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit. In the midst of festivities one evening in late May, 2008, forty-odd officers in black commando gear stormed the gallery and its rear patio, ordering the guests to the ground. Some in attendance thought that they were the victims of an armed robbery. One young woman who had fallen only to her knees told me that a masked figure screamed at her, “Bitch, you think you’re too pretty to get in the mud?” A boot from behind kicked her to the ground.
The officers, including members of the Detroit Police Department’s vice squad and mobile tactical unit, placed the guests under arrest. According to police records, the gallery lacked proper city permits for after-hours dancing and drinking, and an old ordinance aimed at “blind pigs” (speakeasies) and other places of “illegal occupation” made it a crime to patronize such a place, knowingly or not.
After lining the guests on their knees before a “prisoner processing table” and searching them, the officers asked for everyone’s car keys. Then the raid team seized every vehicle it could find, even venturing to the driveway of a young man’s friend nearly a mile away to retrieve his car. Forty-four cars were taken to government-contracted lots.
Most of those detained had to pay more than a thousand dollars for the return of their cars; if payment wasn’t made promptly, the car would become city property. The proceeds were divided among the offices of the prosecutors, police, and towing companies.
The ACLU sued and won. The court, in its ruling, said these types of police actions are widespread.
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The court, in its ruling, said these types of police actions are widespread.
THAT'S the part that scares me the most.
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Picking on the low hanging fruit...wait till they pick on the wrong citizens.
Could be the kick off to a real shootin' civil war.
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http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/08/12/130812fa_fact_stillman?currentPage=all (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/08/12/130812fa_fact_stillman?currentPage=all)
Just in case y'all want to read it all. It's long, but it goes fast -- case after case and how a couple of legal beagles filed suit: "The suit accused the mayor of Tenaha and other town and Shelby County officials of operating “an illegal practice of stopping, detaining, searching, and often seizing property from citizens,” and doing so “not for any legitimate law enforcement purpose but to enrich their offices and perhaps themselves.” The practice was discriminatory, the suit alleged, and in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution, “at least.”"
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Yeah, OK, now how many fricken times do we have to say it?
DON'T TALK TO THE POLICE, DO NOT GIVE THEM PERMISSION TO SEARCH JACK sh*t, DON'T DO JACK sh*t BUT CALL YOUR ATTORNEY, PERIOD!
Sorry for sceaming but Good God people have to be a lot smarter!
And cops getting forfeiture bonuses? WTF?! Talk about the WRONG INCENTIVE!
Well, heck, in a growing police state this looks like one of the few growth industries not destroyed by Obama & Co.
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Thanks, Pan. I forgot to link to the whole thing.
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This sort of thing enrages me to such an extent that I consciously avoid posting comments on the subject. You know how all these crazy car crash videos you see online seem to come from Russia and Eastern Europe most of the time? And watching them I always wondered in the back of my head why everybody and their brother has a dash cam over there. Well I was watching TV the other day and they played some of these videos and explained "lots of people in Russia have cameras mounted in their car in case they get pulled over by the police, because the police are so corrupt". Yeah, we're becoming one of those places. So congratulations America.
WTF is next for these pigs? Are they going to assert the ancient right of primae noctis now? And none of this is merely unintended consequences of the expanded powers they received from the WoD and WoT. This is all by design. The police are trained to behave in an imperious manner, it's to condition the public.
I will say only that whenever the big SHTF avalanche is finally unleashed, dealing with barricaded citizens is going to be the least of their concerns. I suspect there are many who will be actively seeking out "authorities" as targets of opportunity. If anything the police are going to be the ones doing the barricading.
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Aye. Sewing the seeds of their own destruction. We will make the former Yugoslavia look like a Boy Scout Jamboree when the scat hits the fan.
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Aye. Sewing the seeds of their own destruction. We will make the former Yugoslavia look like a Boy Scout Jamboree when the scat hits the fan.
Nope.....SOWING is the right word. Otherwise, dead nails on.
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Aye. Sewing the seeds of their own destruction. We will make the former Yugoslavia look like a Boy Scout Jamboree when the scat hits the fan.
Nope.....SOWING is the right word. Otherwise, dead nails on.
::hat-tip::
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Does anyone feel like the US is the Twilight Zone today?
The USA is a bankrupt warmongering police state, but no one wants to talk about the collapse.
Americans would rather cover their ears and put their heads in the sand.
Now you know how the Germans must have felt in 1939.
Scary.
http://www.desototimes.com/opinion/columns_editorials/could-the-fourth-reich-happen-here/article_cb7cb93c-efbc-11e6-8a1f-5b019805ede4.html (http://www.desototimes.com/opinion/columns_editorials/could-the-fourth-reich-happen-here/article_cb7cb93c-efbc-11e6-8a1f-5b019805ede4.html)
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Does anyone feel like the US is the Twilight Zone today?
The USA is a bankrupt warmongering police state, but no one wants to talk about the collapse.
Americans would rather cover their ears and put their heads in the sand.
Now you know how the Germans must have felt in 1939.
Scary.
http://www.desototimes.com/opinion/columns_editorials/could-the-fourth-reich-happen-here/article_cb7cb93c-efbc-11e6-8a1f-5b019805ede4.html (http://www.desototimes.com/opinion/columns_editorials/could-the-fourth-reich-happen-here/article_cb7cb93c-efbc-11e6-8a1f-5b019805ede4.html)
OK...I think we have a legitimate PaulBot alert in progress Pan...
Whitehead...OK...
Much like the German people, “we the people” have become passive, polarized, gullible, easily manipulated, and lacking in critical thinking skills. Distracted by entertainment spectacles, politics and screen devices, we too are complicit, silent partners in creating a police state similar to the terror practiced by former regimes.
Pretty blank statement...but that line applies most aptly to Progressives, Anarchists, whatever flavor of radical socialist you can point to...gullible could also apply to those who think E-GOP pubbies are worth supporting any longer...and he missed "cult of personality" which fits a lot of moonbats, including PaulBots who are in lockstep with pussyhat-sporting Code Pink isiots and OWS anarchists without a clue.
And, it would appear Whitehead's blank statement is making the leftist argument that Trump is Hitler, like Bush was Hitler, like Reagan was Hitler...but Obama, Clinton, Carter...LBJ...in no way were they ever Hitler, just misguided...their greatest sin? Not giving socialism a 'real' chance.
Please. Spare me this drivel! All may be guilty, some more grievously guilty than others, jackass!
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Anarchists should not be Socialists.
Reagan and Carter were not Hitler, but Obama and Bush Jr. set the stage for Trump.
Anyone who comes after Obama is dangerous
because there is no Bill of Rights anymore.
http://nevadanewsandviews.com/welcome-to-post-constitutional-america/ (http://nevadanewsandviews.com/welcome-to-post-constitutional-america/)
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When have Anarchists not been socialists?