An Albuquerque jury handed down a not guilty verdict for my friend Phil Mocek of Seattle, who refused to show his ID to TSA officers at the Albuquerque Sunport.
Phil was arrested in late 2009 after he wouldn't show his ID, and then used a camera to videotape an altercation with TSA officers, reports Charlie Pabst at KOB.com.
He was facing several charges, including failure to obey an officer and concealing his identity, but the jury found him not guilty on all four counts.
American society is at one of those defining moments, one of those once-in-a-generation turning points which will help to show who we are as a people and as a nation.
Are we going to be a total surveillance society? Do we let ourselves be taken into an age of fear, mistrust, and paranoia, forever feeling that we are being watched and that everyone is a spy?
Or do we hold our heads up, unafraid, and as Americans declare that enough is enough?
Jon Pincus' idea, "Get FISA Right, repeal the PATRIOT Act, and restore our civil liberties" is currently at number 8 in Change.org's Ideas for Change competition with more than 7100 votes. The Top 10 ideas will be presented to the Obama Administration on Inauguration Day and will be supported by a national lobbying campaign run by Change.org, MySpace, and some non-profit partners as well — clearly, it could be a big deal.
"FISA and the PATRIOT Act strike at the core of our Fourth and First Amendment Rights and institutionalize a surveillance society -- and FISA's telecom immunity clause mocks the rule of law by not holding telecom companies accountable for any illegal actions," says strategist/activist/writer Jon Pincus. "Beginning the new Administration and Congress by focusing on these issues sends one of the clearest signals possible that that the new government is committed to ending the abuses of the last eight years and restoring our civil liberties."
Pincus and his group, Get FISA Right, are asking that President Obama, In the first 100 days of his Administration:
Many of Obama's supporters, myself included, were quite disappointed when he failed to uphold his promise to filibuster any bill that contained telecom immunity, and instead reversed course and ultimately voted for passage of the FISA Amendments Act (FAA). But, as Obama himself said when defending his support for the FAA:
"This was not an easy call for me. I know that the FISA bill that passed the House is far from perfect. I wouldn't have drafted the legislation like this, and it does not resolve all of the concerns that we have about President Bush's abuse of executive power. It grants retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that may have violated the law by cooperating with the Bush Administration's program of warrantless wiretapping. This potentially weakens the deterrent effect of the law and removes an important tool for the American people to demand accountability for past abuses. That's why I support striking Title II from the bill, and will work with Chris Dodd, Jeff Bingaman and others in an effort to remove this provision in the Senate."
Unfortunately, those efforts to amend the FAA by stripping immunity out of the bill or delaying its implementation failed, despite Obama's support. But now, as President, Obama will have the power to make things right. Now he can prove that he meant what he said when he opposed telecom immunity, that he stands behind the votes he made against immunity, and that his claims of a "change" when it comes to reversing the Bush Administration's authoritarian excesses are more than empty rhetoric.
"That means no more illegal wire-tapping of American citizens... That is not who we are. And it is not what is necessary to defeat the terrorists. The FISA court works. The separation of powers works. Our Constitution works. We will again set an example for the world that the law is not subject to the whims of stubborn rulers, and that justice is not arbitrary. This Administration acts like violating civil liberties is the way to enhance our security. It is not. There are no short-cuts to protecting America..."
Imagine you just got home from work. You see a package addressed to your wife on the front porch, and bring it inside, putting it on a table.
Suddenly, police with guns drawn kick you door down and storm in, shooting to death your two dogs and seizing the unopened package.
In the package the cops find 32 pounds of marijuana. But you have no idea why the package was delivered to you.
Mayor Cheye Calvo, the mayor of Berwyn Heights, Maryland, doesn't have to imagine how that feels. Now he knows.
And after a lot of initial belligerence and bullshit, befuddled cops now say the couple appear to be innocent victims of a scheme by two men to smuggle millions of dollars worth of marijuana by having it delivered to about a half-dozen unsuspecting recipients.
Local police have actually known of the scheme for some time. Just why they went ahead with the ill-advised, militaristic raid anyway is currently under investigation.
The two men under arrest include a FedEx deliveryman; investigators said the deliveryman would drop off a package outside a home, and the other man would come by a short time later and pick it up.
The outrageous conduct and painfully obvious ineptitude of the county police force has now attracted the attention of federal authorities. The FBI is looking into how local law enforcement handled the July 29 raid. Agent Rich Wolf on Thursday said the bureau had opened a civil rights investigation into the case.
A furious Calvo said earlier Thursday that he and his wife, Trinity Tomsic, had asked the government to investigate.
"Trinity was an innocent victim and random victim," Calvo told reporters outside his two-story, red-brick house in this middle-class Washington suburb of about 3,000 people. "We were harmed by the very people who took an oath to protect us."
"It was a horrible, horrible incident," Calvo told Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith Friday, "but I think it's also the kind of thing that happens, and I don't think we would have realized that until it happened to us."
"What's really troubling," Calvo continued, "is they didn't have a proper warrant to do what they did. They actually didn't give us a warrant at all until 71 hours after it happened. And that's really what's disturbing -- despite all the mistakes that were made, they're holding to their guns, saying they did nothing wrong.
"This happened to us. We can't get our dogs back, and we know that. But the reason we asked for federal authorities to investigate this is because this is a systemic problem, and we want to make sure that, while it happened to us and that's a tragedy, we don't want it to happen to anyone else."
Calvo insisted the couple's two black Labradors were gentle creatures and said police apparently killed the pets "for sport," actually gunning down one of them as it was running away.
"Our dogs were our children," said the 37-year-old Calvo. "They were the reason we bought this house because it had a big yard for them to run in."
The mayor, who was changing his clothes when police burst in, also complained that he was handcuffed in his boxer shorts for about two hours along with his mother-in-law, and said the officers didn't believe him when he told them he was the mayor. No charges were brought against Calvo or his wife, who came home in the middle of the raid.
Prince George's County Police Chief Melvin High said Wednesday that Calvo and his family were "most likely ... innocent victims," but he's still not ruling out their involvement, and he actually defended the way the raid was conducted. He and other officials did not apologize for killing the dogs, saying the officers felt threatened. We all know how scary dogs can be while they're running away from you.
The FBI will monitor how "effective, fair and professional" the law enforcement agency's conduct was during the incident, Wolf said. A police spokesman declined comment Thursday on the FBI investigation.
Police announced Wednesday they had arrested two men suspected in a plot to smuggle 417 pounds of marijuana, and seized a total of $3.6 million in pot. Investigators said the package that arrived on Calvo's porch had been sent from Los Angeles via FedEx, and they had been tracking it ever since it drew the attention of a drug-sniffing dog in Arizona.
Police intercepted it in Maryland, and an undercover detective posing as a deliveryman took it to the Calvo home.
Calvo's defenders - including the Berwyn Heights police chief, who said his department should have been alerted ahead of time - said police had no right to enter the home without knocking.
But officials insisted they acted within the law, saying the operation was compromised when Calvo's mother-in-law saw officers approaching the house and screamed. That could have given someone time to grab a gun or destroy evidence, authorities said.
Neighbors in Berwyn Heights, which Calvo described as "Mayberry inside the Capital Beltway," have rallied around the couple. On Sunday night, supporters gathered on a ballfield to pay tribute to the family and the dogs. A banner on the wooden fence around Calvo's yard read, "Cheye and Trinity, We support you, Friends and Citizens of Berwyn Heights." Around it were dozens of handwritten messages from supporters.
In addition to being the part-time mayor, Calvo works at a nonprofit foundation that runs boarding schools. His wife is a state finance officer.
"When all of this happened I was flabbergasted," said next-door neighbor Edward Alexander. "I was completely stunned because those dogs didn't hurt anybody. They barely bark."
The case is just the latest in a scandalous series of embarrassments for Prince George's County officials. A former police officer was sentenced in May to 45 years in prison for shooting two furniture deliverymen at his home last year, one of them fatally. He claimed that they attacked him. In June, a suspect jailed in the death of a police officer was found strangled in his cell.
Calvo said he was astonished that police have not only failed to apologize, but declined to clear the couple's names.
His wife spoke through tears as she described an encounter with a girl who used to see the couple walking their dogs.
"She gave me a big hug and she said, `If the police shot your dogs dead and did this to you, how can I trust them?'" Tomsic said. "I don't want people to feel like that. I just want them to be proud of our police and proud to live in Prince George's County."
You'd have to be really, really determined to stay proud of the police if you can still convince yourself to feel proud of these homicidal clowns.
Four middle school students in Vancouver, Washington, were arrested for leading protests against a new school dress code.
Doesn't calling the cops seem a little extreme for a peaceful sit-in?
Hey, Principal Mike Stromme: Shouldn't your name be Mike Stormtrooper? Sieg heil, motherfucker!
So much for the freedom to speak out! So much for the freedom to be different.
Apparently, if you're a Goth or an Emo student at this school, you aren't as equal as everyone else.
Guess they're trying to teach 'em early these days what happens when you question authority. Be a mindless conformist or be arrested! Just training them for the future of Bush/McCain America, where protesters will be declared enemy combatants and locked in cages.
My wife, a former middle-school teacher, can't believe the school administration is so clueless as to throw away this opportunity for a valuable, real-life civics lesson -- to let these kids learn about the value of nonviolent civil protest, mutual respect, and earnest negotiation to come to a compromise. Spontaneous teaching moments such as these are what GOOD teachers hope and live for. Instead, Principal Stormtrooper apparently prefers to impart the lesson "Might is right" to these malleable young minds.
The crucial question is, are we trying to teach these kids how to be compliant, submissive drones? Or are we trying to truly educate them by teaching them to think for themselves?
Principal Mike Stormtrooper, I have an assignment for you. You, sir, really need to read Thoreau's Civil Disobedience...
Class dismissed!
.......
Clark County, Washington newspaper The Columbian (love that name!) filed this report:
School fashion protest leads to arrests
Tuesday, May 27, 2008 By ISOLDE RAFTERY, Columbian staff writer
Students at McLoughlin Middle School are learning that civil disobedience comes at a cost.
In the past two weeks, four eighth-grade boys have been arrested and charged with misdemeanors for leading protests against the school’s dress code. About 20 more students have been suspended.
Parents of those students are wondering whether this tough-love approach has gone too far — the dress code, after all, was implemented to curb bad behavior.
Amy Proffer, whose son, Joey, was among those arrested, said she was upset that the principal allowed police to question her 14-year-old son without calling her.
“I was concerned that the officer was taking a statement from my child,” Proffer said. “They told me that they have a right to question him without a parent because he’s over the age of 12.”
The dress code, dubbed “Mac attire,” was implemented at the start of the school year after a parent vote of approval. Proffer voted against it.
Principal Rich Reeves referred reporter calls to Vancouver Public Schools spokeswoman Kris Sork, who said the district stands by Reeves’ decision to call the police.
“I don’t dare talk about the specific case,” Sork said, citing educational privacy laws. “It was investigated by Mike Stromme (director of secondary education), who found that it was all absolutely appropriate.”
Events Unfold
The frustration over Mac attire took root the afternoon before the lunch protest, at a Fort Vancouver High School track meet.
According to student and police accounts, several eighth-graders were playing in the grass, turning somersaults and using crass language when an assistant principal from their school approached. She told them to knock it off.
The next morning, one of the boys received a letter saying he wouldn’t be allowed to partake in any more after-school functions through the end of the school year.
That boy, Sam Ruble, said he nearly started crying. He’s a wiry boy with long side bangs and a flair for the dramatic. Sam, 14, said that he was upset because his alternative rock band had been planning to perform after school next month.
The next day at lunch, the boys fumed. They were angry at administrators about their punishment, and that gave way to conversations about the dress code, which they said crimps their style.
By the end of the lunch period, a decision had been made: They would protest the dress code.
“What made us angry at first was barely a protestable issue,” Sam said. “But we realized that many people understand the dress code cause, and we decided that we were long overdue for a dress code protest.”
They wanted to show off their “randomness,” student Desirea Allen said later. They wanted to draw on their jeans and wear the colors of their choice. They acknowledge that they’ve been able to show off their personalities in spite of the dress code, which allows them to dye their hair any color and write on their shoes.
They believed they would be allowed to protest: Desirea, 13, had checked her student handbook, which states students may express themselves so long as it’s “not disruptive to other individuals or to the educational process.”
Their ranks grew to about 20 students.
Most involved call their style “emo” or “goth,” a look that tends toward black jeans and thick eyeliner.
According to students, Principal Reeves and the assistant principals asked the students to go to their fourth-period classes. They refused.
The conversation between adults and students was light-hearted, the students said, with adults making jokes about the situation.
Sam and Joey said they were surprised when 20 minutes into their impromptu sit-in, Reeves called police.
Vancouver police Officer Julie Carpenter, who is stationed at Fort Vancouver High School, arrived with backup.
Four officers escorted the students into the library and arrested the four boys, who were later released to their parents. They were suspended for the week; 13 other students were suspended for shorter periods, according to the district.
The four boys were referred to the juvenile prosecutor’s office on two potential charges:noncompliance with a school official and disruption of school activity. There was no report of violence, perceived or threatened.
“They were protesting the dress code, but the charges don’t have to do with the dress code,” Vancouver police spokeswoman Kim Kapp said. “It was the disruption of school activities.”
So what did the students wish had happened?
“They should have just listened to us,” Sam said.
Dress Code Praised
Days before the protests started, Principal Reeves told school board members that students and teachers are pleased with the results of the dress code.
Kapp said her officers, too, say students are causing fewer problems.
“(Officer Carpenter) did share with me that the number of requests has declined dramatically in her opinion since they instituted the dress code,” Kapp said. “She said she has felt that she’s responded less to that particular middle school since the dress code went into affect.”
The students said discipline issues have decreased because the students who caused problems have moved on to Fort Vancouver, McLoughlin’s feeder high school.
They said that the 50-student fight that broke out at Fort Vancouver High School last fall was caused by those same students. That fight led the district to pay $100,000 this year to station Carpenter at the high school full time.
But ultimately, for the students, the issue is more about feeling disrespected than about Mac attire. After all, the students have only one more month to go before summer, when they can wear whatever they want.
Sam said: “Teachers have been calling us the troublemakers. Mac attire was supposed to create unity, but all we’ve gotten is more trouble because we choose gray and black.”
“Yeah,” Desirea said. “Just because we’re strange doesn’t mean we’re addicted to drugs.”
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