The Conscience of Abe’s Turn - an online drama serial by J. Timothy King

That's My Penis, Not a Gun

TimK — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 07:00:00 -0800

Under the heading of “Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?” is this funny video Radley Balko posted on his blog. Hey, at least the cop said he was sorry.

Always watching!
-TimK

Great War Story from a Criminal Defense Lawyer

TimK — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 07:00:00 -0800

Samuel Goldberg has a great trial story about two cops who perhaps should’ve taken their jobs a little more seriously.

Speaking of trials, I have also told you that, at times, police officers (like any witnesses) may not find it necessary to limit themselves to the truth.

How dare I?

Let me tell you a little “war story” from my 25 years of trial experience.

Ollie Under The Influence (no, not his real name), was on trial for his 4th drunk driving offense…

The two Commonwealth witnesses were two police officers, whom we will call “Sgt. Sarcasm” and “Police Officer Openminded.”

Sgt Sarcasm was the first witness to testify… He started to show his cockiness with answers like, “Yeah, you could say that.”, as he shrugged his shoulders.

Always watching!
-TimK

Exercise Your First Amendment Rights; Go to Jail

TimK — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 07:00:00 -0800

I don’t have time to go into the details right now of the case of Paul Jacob and the rest of the Oklahoma Three. Even so, I want to link to a recent Wall Street Journal editorial, which skewers Oklahoma A.G. Drew Edmonson, who is apparently up for re-election.

Mr. Edmondson, a Democrat, is angling for support from public employee unions and other special interest groups that oppose tax and spending constraints. But more generally, his continued prosecution of the Oklahoma Three [despite the court’s recent ruling against him] sends a chilling message to others who might consider exercising their right to petition government.

(Click here to read the rest of the editorial.)

Always Watching!
-TimK

Our Civil-Rights New Year's Resolution

TimK — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 07:00:00 -0800

A new year. A new U.S. president.

An editorial by Aziz Huq on The Nation website offers a prescription for “Dismantling the Imperial Presidency”, with a warning reminiscent of Lord Acton’s famous quote:

Radical change is needed to re-establish legitimate bounds to executive power. We must again place beyond the pale Nixon’s famous aphorism that “when the president does it, that means it’s not illegal.” But radical change—as early appointments and policy signals from the Obama transition team suggest—comes easier as campaign slogan than governing practice…

No matter how decent, any new president is tempted by the tools and trappings of executive authority. However tainted the Oval Office is now, Obama’s perspective will change dramatically on entering the White House…

(Click here to read the whole article.)

He goes on to offer measure Obama can take in three important areas: torture, the law that the executive follows, and accountability.

Always watching!
-TimK

What If States Could Investigate the FBI?

TimK — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 07:00:00 -0800

Jim Bovard wrote earlier this month regarding the feds’ sting of Illinois governor Blagojevich, “If the state officials in Illinois could put wiretaps on the offices and homes of FBI agents, congressmen, and HUD and FEMA officials based in their territory - how many crimes would they uncover?”

What would happen if state officials could set up the type of entrapment operations targeting federal agents that the FBI routinely conducts on local and state officials?

If that were the case - I reckon the news would get even more entertaining.

Hmm…

Always watching!
-TimK

Police use excessive force, ER docs say

TimK — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 07:00:00 -0800

Reuters reports, in the Emergency Medicine Journal, in a study of 315 emergency-room doctors, 99.8% believed law enforcement officers use excessive force to arrest and detain suspects. 97.8% had managed cases involving excessive police force, and 65.3% estimated they had treated at least 2 such cases per year.

Also, 96.5% knew of no official policy or guidelines on reporting such incidents, but most felt they should be reporting them.

Click here to read the whole article, because it’s fascinating.

Always watching!
-TimK

Update: There are interesting discussion threads on this article over at RateMyCop.com and at CopTalk.com. There seems to be a difference of opinion between the cops and the doctors. That kind of makes sense, because a cop’s job is unfortunately to seek out trouble, and a doc’s job is to sew together the pieces.

New "KopBusters" Website Exposes Rubber-stamp Search Warrant

MichaelKelly — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 07:00:00 -0800

It’s one of the ballsiest experiments of my lifetime, stemming from one of the saddest, most infuriating stories of the decade.

KopBusters has a new website up, with KopBusters episode #1 (the Odessa, TX episode) now available for pre-order. Here’s the story so far. (With mocking, rhetorical comments inserted by yours truly at convenient junctures.)

In response to allegations that the Odessa Police Department falsified evidence against Yolanda Madden, who is now spending years in prison as a result of her ordeal, KopBusters orchestrated a sting on the police of Odessa. The KopBusters crew secretly rented a house in Odessa, in which they set up a grow-lamp—similar to those used for growing marijuana—under which they placed two miniature evergreen trees. When the Odessa cops arrived at the site expecting to find drugs, instead they found they were part of an undercover video program, with a network of closed-circuit cameras streaming video over the Internet.

When the KopBusters then asked to see the search warrant affidavit, the police refused. But KopBusters and the Odessa American have now received copies of the affidavit, which says the raid was predicated upon an anonymous letter, allegedly left at the Odessa police department by Pastor Terry Pierce, who pastors a local church. According to the Odessa American, Pastor Pierce denies delivering any such letter and says he’s never heard of Yolanda Madden.

Meanwhile, the Odessa Police Department refuses to discuss the issue, because it’s part of an open investigation. (Or was that “national security”? Let me double-check… Uh, no. It was “open investigation.”)

According to the Odessa American, the letter claims to have been written by the ex-girlfriend of an Ohio man allegedly connected with a marijuana-growing operation. It describes the house and its surroundings, which it claims contained a marijuana-growing facility as well as $19,000 in cash in the fireplace. The letter apparently said that one could smell marijuana near the air-conditioner, because the plants were allegedly growing near there. Police verified that the house existed and appeared as described, and that it was rented by someone named Jennifer Moore, who was from Ohio. (The part about the marijuana smell, maybe that just slipped their minds, because otherwise, they presumably would have discovered that there was no marijuana odor, because there was no marijuana.)

Courts have generally maintained that an anonymous letter by itself is insufficient to establish probable cause, because probable cause demands that the information first be verified as reliable. (But I’m sure to some asswipe anti-drug warriors, reciting easily obtainable observations about someone’s house is good enough to verify reliability.) This would suggest that the Odessa police and Judge Bill McCoy, who signed the warrant, may have acted improperly and may have violated the Fourth Amendment guarantee against unreasonable search.

“They have to detect with one of their senses or a reliable confidential informant,” says KopBusters mastermind Barry Cooper, who has himself worked as a police officer on an anti-drug task force. When asked whether he knew who wrote the letter, or whether he wrote it himself, he replied, “Anybody could have written that letter. The police could have written it… If it were legal to conduct a raid based on an anonymous letter alone, then citizens could send anonymous letters to trigger raids on their enemies.”

According to the Odessa American, Rex Leach, a former D.A. who now works with a legal firm in McAllen, Texas, said the affidavit is “probably enough to get across the line but not a particularly strong affidavit… but knowing Texas judges, the likelihood is they would still let the prosecution use it and let the defendant use it as a point of appeal.” He noted, “if you just wanted to harass somebody… you go in, turn in an anonymous letter, make sure some of the items in the letter are accurate. You can set people up, and that’s why the magistrate’s supposed to be some sort of gatekeeper.”

And to borrow a phrase from Penn & Teller: Bullshit!… “And then there’s this asshole”:

Odessa Police Chief Tim Burton blames the unreliable, anonymous informant (whom the government relied upon) for the foul-up. (Oops.) He said the letter “was purposely designed to lead the police officers astray, and that’s a disservice not only to the men and women here but to the citizens of Odessa.” (How patriotic! I think I’m gonna cry, just a little bit.) His department is also still looking into whether they can press charges against KopBusters for the reverse-sting. (Apparently, dickwads with guns don’t like being made to look like jerk-offs on national Internet video. Let’s keep this straight, okay? Dickwad… Jerk-off… Not the same thing.)

Seriously, though, I wonder whether they might have a case, if they can establish who wrote the anonymous letter. Because it could be said that the letter is fraudulent, and it must be against some law to give the police false, misleading evidence that causes them to go after someone who hasn’t done anything wrong. (Although, if Yolanda Madden’s case means anything, this rule may only apply unless some dickwad cop actually wants you to give false evidence.)

Meanwhile, Barry Cooper says he’s gearing up to sue Judge McCoy and the Odessa Police Department over the raid, and he’s also planning more reverse-stings, in Odessa and elsewhere, although for obvious reasons he won’t discuss the details.

Indeed, this is not an isolated case. Some infamous drug-raids-gone-bad have been predicated on anonymous tips. And overly broad laws—whether drug laws or other laws—are used by some people to strike out against their personal enemies. All lends support to the axiom: It’s not the abuse of power that’s the problem, it’s the power to abuse.

Always watching!
- Michael Kelly (a.k.a. TimK)

P.S. The KopBusters site also has links to some of the evidence in the Yolanda Madden case, which I continue to follow with interest, as well as a “Kop Brutality” page full of disturbing video clips of police behavior.

Drug Prohibition Lessons from Our Neighbor

TimK — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 07:00:00 -0800

Jacob Hornberger in a post on his blog examines the increased drug prohibition in Mexico.

Yet, what has been the result of Mexico’s attempt to ramp up its efforts to win the war on drugs?

Ever-increasing violence. Ever-increasing murders. Ever-increasing torture. Ever-increasing beheadings. Ever-increasing kidnappings. Ever-increasing military and police budgets. Ever-increasing governmental powers over the citizenry.

In other words, the more ferociously they have waged the war on drugs, the worse the situation has become.

Has there ever been any better example than the War on Drugs of how futile government action is?

In Penn & Teller: Bullshit, season 2, episode 5 (get it at Amazon or from Netflix)—right after the “War on Drugs” episode—Penn and Teller take aim at government recycling. In this episode, they take a hard look at the arguments for recycling and deconstruct them, one by one. They also have another of their hilariously funny Bullshit! experiments, this time to see if ordinary people would be willing to recycle things like banana peels and lightly-soiled toilet paper. (Uh… How do you recycle that? What do you make out of it?)

After showing how most government recycling actually harms the environment and wastes resources, near the end of the episode, a recycling advocate comes on-screen: “Mandatory recycling is very helpful, making it the law that you have to recycle. 99.9% of the people stop at red lights, and when they know it’s the law, most people recycle.” To this, Penn retorts, “Yeah! When you have cops with guns, people do what you say.”

To borrow a line from the show: Bullshit!

99.9% of the people stop at red lights because they don’t want to get in an accident, not because they’re afraid of getting caught. Want proof? Just think back to the last time some idiot ran a red light and cut you off. Did you feel sorry for him that he might get a ticket? Of did you get mad at him for being a road hazard?

Last week, an 18-wheeler cut me off. Actually, it cut off the car in front of me. We had a clear green light—it had been green for some time. The truck clearly had had a red light. It pulled out across our path and made a left turn. The car in front of me slammed on its brakes. I slammed on my brakes. And the first thing I thought was, What the hell is he trying to do, kill someone? I was royally pissed, and with good reason.

At first, I didn’t think so much whether he wanted to get a ticket, because I knew that chances were, he wouldn’t get caught. That’s why many drivers also don’t stop at stop signs, because they don’t see it as a danger. From a young age, we teach our kids to take turns, and that’s all a 4-way stop is. Still, the 4-way stop continues to mystify many drivers. They don’t stop; they cut off other drivers; they don’t wait their turn. Why? Don’t they know it’s against the law? They probably do, but they also know they’re not likely to get caught, and they don’t think it’s dangerous to take the initiative and go, even if they haven’t stopped or waited their turn. People who do stop at 4-way stops probably do so primarily because they want to be polite to other drivers.

And that’s the point: We do what we do for personal reasons, not because some law tells us to. That’s why:

People stop at stop signs (or run them).
People stop at red lights, because “red means stop” is a social convention, and a driver knows that if he has red then someone else probably has green, and most drivers want to drive safely.
People still use illegal drugs, no matter how harsh the criminal penalties are.
Laws requiring people to recycle are unlikely to make anyone recycle who wasn’t already recycling before.

Even non-consensual crime laws—laws against assault, for example—can be explained in this way. Anti-assault laws only work when the victim chooses to report the assault, because the victim is one of the people in the play. The law can’t give her anything she didn’t have before or isn’t willing to pursue on her own. All the law can do is to give her a tool that she can use to get what she wants. No law can stop assault. Only victims (and would-be victims defending themselves) can stop assault. This is also why consensual crime laws—which have no specific victim—are bound to fail, and fail horribly.

I’m a big fan of Penn & Teller, and as a fellow libertarian, I love their political stuff. But they here have unwittingly bought into the myth. The truth is that no new law can bring you anything that you didn’t have to start with. It’s true of the War on Drugs, the War on Poverty, and the War on Terror. And it’s true of recycling, too. All these laws can possibly do is to slow progress and to increase government power at the expense of our liberties—civil liberties included.

And now you know why I distrust government power.

-TimK

Civil Rights and Economic Rights

TimK — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 10:00:00 -0800

Jacob Hornberger hit the nail on the head regarding the relationship between economic rights and civil rights, speaking about a talk James Bovard gave at the Future of Freedom Foundation’s Economic Liberty Lecture Series last month.

There is no question but that liberals have a blind spot when it comes to economic liberty. They honestly believe that socialistic and interventionist programs are necessary to help the poor and equalize wealth. They cannot see the fundamental immorality of using force to make people do the right thing. They cannot see that their methods actually end up harming the very people they purport to want to help [just like drug prohibition]…

When it comes to civil liberty, however, the situation is reversed. Conservatives have a blind spot when it comes to civil liberties. Either they don’t care about civil liberties or they think that civil liberties are silly devices that simply let guilty people go free. Conservative denigration of the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eight Amendments stretches back much further than 9/11…

The important thing to keep in mind is that people cannot be free without both economic liberty and civil liberty…

If people are prohibited from spending their own money they way they want, they cannot be considered free.

By the same token, if the government has the power to arrest anyone and keep him in jail for as long as it wants, simply by accusing of terrorism and denying him a trial, then people in that society cannot be considered free…

(Click here to read the whole article.)

Or as I put it during the recent election, the choice between Obama and McCain was whether you would rather be poor but free, or rich but in prison.

(But that was unfortunately just a rhetorical choice, as I expect Obama to be only marginally better than McCain would have been on civil-rights issues.)

This dichotomy becomes painfully obvious when civil-rights advocates start railing against the “military-industrial complex,” as though there were some grand conspiracy afoot to rule America from the corporate boardroom. This unfortunately makes the “Who shot JFK?” nuts seem like responsible investigators by comparison. The only thing corporate American stockholders and executives can be accused of is doing what any of us would do in their position: they saw government power being used to tell them how to live their lives, and they figured they’d better make their voices heard, and so they did. Ironically, civil-rights advocates helped bring this on, by de-prioritizing economic rights and by looking the other way when U.S. businessmen had their livelihoods invaded by government power. As usual, the problem is not abuse of power, but the power to abuse. The fact is that a truly free economic system helps everyone, especially those who cannot afford to hire lobbyists in Washington, D.C.

Always watching!
-TimK

P.S. Jacob Hornberger also has another recent post that explores the issue of economic rights, in the context of the recent bailouts: “I decide to take matters into my own hands. I hire some goons who proceed to go out in the street and begin accosting people. Holding a gun to their heads, they hold them up and extract $25 from each of them… It’s wrong for me to take someone else’s money by force. The fact that I’m saving my company and keeping thousands of people from being unemployed is irrelevant. That is not a legitimate defense to stealing and robbing… Even though the recipients of the bailout money are using government goons, rather than private goons, to do the dirty work, the moral principle is no different.”

Always Watching! Keep an Eye on Obama

TimK — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 07:00:00 -0800

As you may know, The Conscience of Abe’s Turn was inspired not by George W. Bush, but by civil-rights abuses during Bill Clinton’s administration, some as portrayed in James Bovard’s book Feeling Your Pain: The Explosion and Abuse of Government Power in the Clinton-Gore Years. In a thoughtful article at the Future of Freedom Foundation website, James Bovard looks back at the last Democratic president’s record on Fourth-Amendment civil rights.

The Clinton administration consistently championed the right of government employees to stick their noses almost anywhere — into people’s email, car, house, or personal effects. Clintonites set off one false alarm after another to justify extending government’s right to intrude. The administration consistently sought to exploit technological development in order to maximize government’s control over the citizenry…

The prohibition against unreasonable searches is the key to the Fourth Amendment.

As law professor Jeffrey Standen observed in an article he wrote for Legal Times, each extension of government power makes further extensions “reasonable” — since “reasonable” is defined on a sliding scale by however much intrusion people will tolerate from the government. The Clinton administration often sounded as if the only searches that were unreasonable were the ones that government officials did not care to do.

(Click here to read the whole article.)

The article gets specific on many of the ways the Clinton administration fomented fear and fought to redefine the Fourth Amendment to give government enforcers more power over citizens. True, George W. Bush presided over some of the worst civil-rights abuses today’s citizens have ever seen. But we shouldn’t just assume that Bush’s Democratic successor will be a civil-rights proponent, because Obama—as Clinton before him, as any president, being in charge of the enforcement branch of the federal government—has a vested interest in promoting government power over systematic protections of our civil rights. Be aware.

Always watching!
-TimK

P.S. Thanks to libertarian policy analyst Doug Bandow for the pointer.