Police in the U.S. now rival criminals, and exceed terrorists, as the greatest threat to the American public. Rogelio Serrato is the latest case to be in the news of an innocent person murdered by the police. Serrato was the wrong man, but the Monterey County, California, SWAT team killed the 31-year old father of four and left the family home a charred ruin.
Kirksville, Mo. —A report of an armed man acting erratically in the Wal-Mart parking lot Wednesday led to the store being temporarily locked down before Kirksville Police responded to and defused the situation with no injuries.
Apparently no longer content to simply shill for a growing police state, Fox News decided to take what passes for the law these days into its own hands today, turning in a 46 year-old grandmother from Indianapolis, Indiana for having a “possible terrorist link.”
I lived in Chile during the Pinochet dictatorship—I can spot a fascist police-state when I see one.
The United States is a fascist police-state.
Harsh words—incendiary, even. And none too clever of me, to use such language: Time was, the crazies and reactionaries wearing tin-foil hats who flung around such a characterization of the United States were disqualified by sensible people as being hysterical nutters—rightfully so.
Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
James Madison
The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.
These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.
The investigation’s other findings include:
* Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.
* An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.
* In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings – about 17 million square feet of space.
* Many security and intelligence agencies do the same work, creating redundancy and waste. For example, 51 federal organizations and military commands, operating in 15 U.S. cities, track the flow of money to and from terrorist networks.
* Analysts who make sense of documents and conversations obtained by foreign and domestic spying share their judgment by publishing 50,000 intelligence reports each year – a volume so large that many are routinely ignored.
In clear violation of the Posse Comitatus the National Guard of New York state is now being used in a domestic law enforcement capacity.
The NY National Guard’s Counterdrug task force, providing not only the people, but the equipment law enforcement may need to make drug arrests, seizures.
SSG. Brian Gillis says, “we can go on the scene and sniff or take a swab with this and it can tell you what it is.”
Using ionization, counterdrug’s machines can detect chemicals, explosives, narcotics on money, weapons, even fabric. A simple swab can tell you if that surface had contact with those substances.
The recent tasing of an 86 year old bedridden grandmother is another in a long line of questionable usage of a weapon that has proven to be anything but non-lethal. In fact, less than 10% of the people who die from taser related deaths have any form of weapon on them. Missing from the account below is the allegation that the grandmother had a knife in her hand and was threatening the police if they did not leave her apartment. Regardless, police are now equipped with a weapon that they are trained to use in situations that otherwise may not call for force. It is hard to imagine a situation where 20 years ago, before the widespread usage of tasers in law enforcement, that 10 police officers could find any rationale to beat or shoot a grandmother in her bed. However, now the taser makes police brutality clean.
A situation that once called for an officer to actually asses the threat or attempt to resolve a problem without brutality can now be handled with a touch of a button. The police work has been taken out of the equation. Police these days are trained less like the constables from whom they originated and more like jackbooted paramilitary units. Every day we see more armored vehicles in metropolitan P.D.s, more “special weapons and tactics” and more “turtle men” in full black battle regalia rejecting their roles as public servants and acting more like slave masters. The only thing that may be missing is the whip, but in its place they have the high tech version called a taser.
A Texas man has sued his local police department, saying he was arrested for taking a picture of a police officer when the officer entered his home without permission.
According to the lawsuit (PDF), Sgt. Justin Alderete of the Sealy, Texas, police department arrived at the home of Francisco Olvera in October, 2009, apparently responding to a noise complaint. Olvera had been playing music on his computer speakers while working outside on his patio.
The sergeant asked Olvera for identification. When Olvera went inside his home to grab his ID, Sgt. Alderete followed him inside. Believing the officer didn’t have a right to enter his home without permission, Olvera picked up his cellphone and took a photo of the officer. At that point, the lawsuit states, Alderete accused Olvera of “illegal photography” and arrested him.
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