Phoenix New Times editor and CEO arrested

The arrests appear related to retaliation by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The Phoenix New Times reported that Grand Jury subpoenas were used by Maricopa county to track readers of the Times' stories related to Arpaio, and to scoop up reporter's notes, tapes and publications. The New Times also has had a series of reports on Arpaio's doings in the Phoenix area. Hm.

Apparently the paper is involved in a criminal case for publishing personal contact information about the Sheriff a few years ago. The grand jury subpoenas reek of spying, intimidation, and trampling of the 1st Amendment, so the paper felt obligated to disregard secrecy laws and let the public know about this little facet of life in Phoenix. What is the Press for, right?

Quoting the editor & CEO via a local paper:

“the authorities” probably believe revealing the subpoenas is against the law, “but there are moments when civil disobedience is merely the last option.”

"We're not harboring state secrets, we’re not harboring terrorists, we’re just straight up reporting on issues they don’t want us to report on.”

Read the article here in the East Valley Tribune. I've linked to the Phoenix New Times and recommend reading their articles about the Sheriff and the current tactics Maricopa County is using against the Press.

Welcome to Arizona, everybody!

-->UPDATE 10/19/07 P.M. John Peter Zenger would approve. The Maricopa County Attorney has dropped charges against the Phoenix pressmen and stated publicly that the prosecutors involved in the spurious and insane charges had overstepped their bounds in a major fashion. Quoting from the (Phoenix-area) East Vally Tribune: "Citing “serious missteps” by Dennis Wilenchik that led to the arrests of the paper’s top two executives, Thomas also dumped legal efforts to force New Times editors and reporters to turn over notes, emails and other research related to stories involving county Sheriff Joe Arpaio, as well as information about the alternative newsweekly’s Internet readers. To reiterate, John Peter Zenger would be proud, and is mostly likely SITTING UP in his grave, with his fist raised.

Respect : Activism is not a dirty word

More on the use of cameras by ordinary citizens to document the abuse of of police power:

My main points:

Police work is tough, it is necessary, and police deserve our respect. They are public servants. According to an 84 year old civil rights lawyer whose lecture I attended a couple years ago, police start out idealistic, with the goal of service in mind. It is common for what can be described as psychological problems to occur after a few years on the job. Police become jaded and burned out dealing with the worst, most troublesome and dangerous element of the human species. After a while they may begin to identify anyone they come in contact with on the job with that element. Rights can be violated, power mis-handled, etcetera.

Us civilians do not have to put up with that, even in the paranoid social climate the Bush administration has helped create. It is our duty to not put up with abuse of police power.

That is why we are seeing more news stories about people whipping out the ubiquitous cell phone camera and filming police when police start making mincemeat of people. You have to be brave to do so, but humans are a brave species and we have instincts to take care of each other, keep each other in line, help each other out. Everyone benefits: "Hey! You're losin' it! Back down, you're losing sight of your humanity."

Here is another news story about this topic which describes the phenomena of police overreaction, citizen documentation and organization. The story quotes activists, police leaders, and ACLU folk.

"This police department was a cowboy department, a department that was very quick on the trigger and it is hard to root out those practices from the past. That's why the cameras are important," Ripston said.

"If the police were not overreacting there would be no photographs to take."

UCLA: Police power gone wild

In this story in the UCLA Daily Bruin you can read the sad tale of a student library user grabbed and tasered by police officers for the amazing crime of not identifying himself. Wow. Judge, jury and executioner in the library! Quoting from the article,

"At around 11:30 p.m., CSOs asked a male student using a computer in the back of the room to leave when he was unable to produce a BruinCard during a random check. The student did not exit the building immediately.

The CSOs left, returning minutes later, and police officers arrived to escort the student out. By this time the student had begun to walk toward the door with his backpack when an officer approached him and grabbed his arm, at which point the student told the officer to let him go. A second officer then approached the student as well.

The student began to yell "get off me," repeating himself several times.

It was at this point that the officers shot the student with a Taser for the first time, causing him to fall to the floor and cry out in pain. The student also told the officers he had a medical condition.

UCPD officers confirmed that the man involved in the incident was a student, but did not give a name or any additional information about his identity.

Video shot from a student's camera phone captured the student yelling, "Here's your Patriot Act, here's your fucking abuse of power," while he struggled with the officers.

As the student was screaming, UCPD officers repeatedly told him to stand up and said "stop fighting us." The student did not stand up as the officers requested and they shot him with the Taser at least once more.

"It was the most disgusting and vile act I had ever seen in my life," said David Remesnitsky, a 2006 UCLA alumnus who witnessed the incident.

As the student and the officers were struggling, bystanders repeatedly asked the police officers to stop, and at one point officers told the gathered crowd to stand back and threatened to use a Taser on anyone who got too close.
"

So, not only did the police zap the hell out of the poor student library user, they threatened onlookers who complained about the obvious abuse of police power, the trampling of civil rights- last time I looked, the Constitution is pretty strong on the issue of not being subjected to military force for not having an ID in a fucking library, for yelling "get off me," for not standing up again after they zap you with how-many-fucking-thousand volts of electricity.

But there are a lot more citizens than police. The fact that everybody is carrying a movie camera these days- the cell phone- makes it easy, if you're brave enough to withstand police threats, to document such abuses. Here is the link to the Youtube posting. As I've said before, true police will be shocked at this behavior. True police work to help us, protect us, not kick us around.

This is the second recent incident where people started crying stormtrooper, or gestapo, at military-style police tactics used in civilian settings, and got hauled off, humiliated, terrified, and not charged with a crime. Here in Tucson, an artfest hosted by a lovely Tucson sculptor at a guest ranch in the desert was raided by insane-acting sheriffs deputies. The incident was covered by the local Weekly, treated with kid-gloves in the major daily. Last I heard the deputy who was frothing at the mouth at the gathering of artists, families, senior citizens and aging blues-rock musicians was in deep trouble over his actions and demeanor.

The point is police are supposed to serve us, not define us as instant threats whenever we don't show ID, question them, or gather at a peaceful arts-fest. It's up to us to remind the government that police serve us, not the government.

Tucson police accidentally leave explosives under elementary school desk

Here's another post about the t*rr*rism mentality gone wild, and local law enforcement getting emboldened & overstepping its bounds.

According to this article in the Arizona Daily Star, Tucson police were conducting bomb-search training at an elementary school. Not only is this stupid and insane, but they left explosives under a student's desk! Now that's crazy and whoever even had the idea about exposing an elementary school to bomb-search training, bringing in live explosives, euphamistically referred to as a "training aid" in the article, should not be in that line of work.

It just reeks of paranoia, and police overrunning the state, gone mad trying to root out imaginary terrorists hiding behind every tree.

OK, this is insane

This story demonstrates not only the traditional disregard for the rights of schoolchildren, but also the popular current psychopathic alarmist pseudo threat-related behavior on the part of vague authoritarian military/police well-armed behind the scenes troops. Whoever was responsible for this should lose their jobs but will most likely be promoted instead.

Who is dispensing terror here? Our own government, home-grown crazies, or foreign crazies?

Egyptian blogger gets out of jail / "Believe it or Else"

Yes I read about on Boing Boing.

His name is Alaa. What, Ah-LAA? Yes, A-LAA.

"Al-AH." I've posted his picture here, I do not happen to have the link to his blog, I don't know what his blog was about.

Read about it here in the wondeful permalink from our wonderful friends at Boing Boing, who I love.

My point here is a dream I had where I met a man named Al-AH, in my kitchen sitting in the dark, with another gnarly looking biker dude. The guy was full of fresh energy and not at all mean or wierd.

I am not saying anything about religion here, your religion, my religion, or your or my lack thereof, or anyone else's, etc. I am saying, What If, all the fundamentalism and rules and repression, and sexism, and controlling, and guilt, ON BOTH SIDES of fundamentalism, both Christian and Muslim, what if all that is just a bunch of bullshit with a built in guilty verdict? For both sides. Invented. Bullshit. With a built in verbal argument to the effect of "you believe this or else."

What if.

My own dream, or my own website post to this effect, is here, on my site, posted about 2 years ago, not long after I had the dream where I met the character called "Al-LA" and shortly after coming across a group of skinny Tibetan monks blowing horns and burning tons of incense on the Univerity of Arizona mall, one sunny February day.

What is my point here?

And what if you live in a country where they get the cops, or private security companies, after you if you don't say what they want you to say? Old news in most parts of the world, a new thing here in the U.S.A. Here in the U.S.A, any constitutional rights we once had are certainly being trampled on by the Bush Administration. Take your pick.