More people than normal are reading my blog the last few days.

Given that a few weeks ago, after I was confronted by members of the Fresno County Sheriff’s Department — more on this later — and wrote about it, I received 5,000 visitors in one day, and though it has dropped off quite a bit since then, even without writing much more my traffic stats are still quite high, that’s saying something.

And why are they coming?

According to the admin page of my blog, they’re searching for things like “what happened to constitutional rights boston” and “boston suspended constitution,” etc. Most of those people are apparently finding last Saturday’s post, “Life in a Post-Constitutional World”; that post alone is still getting well over a hundred reads per day.

All of this occurs against the backdrop of something I didn’t see, and I’m glad for that, because I almost certainly would have vomited: crowds allegedly lining the streets and cheering the police. 

WTF? Did you really just say that, Rick? You would have vomited to see the crowds lining the streets and cheering the police?

Yes. I would.

Maybe it’s because I’m descended from Jews. Maybe it’s because I’m a fan of George Takei, part of whose American childhood was spent in an American concentration Japanese internment camp.

Maybe it was because I saw this video.

So cheering crowds…it’s a bit of a change from how Boston used to react to the police acting as an occupying force.

There are some who say that the “Incident on King Street” (as the British called it) was the spark that led to the Revolutionary War. And, of course, it was the Revolutionary War that led to the creation of “a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

Now Boston is beginning to look like both bookends for an historical tome about what was once — as Alexis de Tocqueville called it — “The Great American Experiment.” If it’s true that the “Boston Massacre” helped to start the Revolution which birthed our nation, it is equally true that the Boston Marathon Bombing seems to have brought that nation to its death.

There is nothing really new in the Boston Bombing. It’s not even the first time some idiot allegedly motivated by politics set off bombs at a public event.

Nor is it new that people are decrying the potential provision of — note that I did not say “recognition of” — constitutional rights privileges to the now-captive alleged criminal. As George Carlin famously said,

Image with quote from George Carlin regarding rights versus privileges
The List of our “Rights of Temporary Privileges” is getting shorter and shorter

These rights privileges, which our forebears stupidly believed were “unalienable,” have been consistently eroded by the steady drips of those who would have us believe the Constitution only enables criminals. And those who would do things the majority of us don’t like, living according to principles with which we disagree.

The drumbeat of Democracy demands that “majority rule.” This is a concept inimical to the United States Constitution. Our founders despised and feared Democracy because they knew the vagaries of mob rule were destructive of freedom. The Constitution of the United States was expressly written to protect minorities — even a minority of one, such as a criminal defendant — against a government acting at the behest of, or on behalf of, the mob, or “majority rule.”

And so it appears — though I so very much hope that I am wrong — that we are reaching the culmination of The Great American Experiment. For all practical intents and purposes, it has looked to me for a long time as though it ended some time ago. But I fear we’re about the business of making it official.

As the pseudonymous writer “Gideon,” a.k.a., “apublicdefender,” points out in a terrifying report, the charge to castrate the Constitution is not limited to the uneducated. It includes law professors. (Wait. Did I just say “not limited to the uneducated,” and then mention that it included the uneducated?)

What they’re proposing, when it comes down to it, is to grant the entire law enforcement community and the military industrial complex in America the authority to detain any person in the United States, regardless of their citizenship, for a period of time up to a week or longer, for whom there is a hunch – a suspicion? it’s not really clear – that there is involvement in “terrorist” activity. During that detention, that person can be interrogated – civilly, of course – without lawyers, forced to answer and then have those answers used against them in court.

Why? Because our Constitution has too long followed the rule of law coddled criminals. Democracy Mobs demand blood. And they demand it now. And — goddamit! — trials take time, especially if the criminals are allowed to clam up and refuse to incriminate themselves.

These aren’t ordinary criminals, you say. They’re terrorists!

But as Mark Bennett notes,

when the gov­ern­ment talks about “ter­ror­ists,” they’re talk­ing about the peo­ple who they can claim are ter­ror­ists. And when they are talk­ing about the peo­ple who they can claim are ter­ror­ists, they are talk­ing about you and me.

It is worth noting that here in California, where I practice criminal defense, our primary anti-gang statutes come from the STEP Act — the Street Terrorism Enforcement and Prevention Act. Especially after 9/11, the people the Act targets were often referred to as “street terrorists.” In reality, they’re usually just non-white, poor people trying to eke out an existence in certain disfavored areas of the city.

We also have a code section that can even apply to white people, which used to appear on criminal complaints as “terrorist threats.” Of late this is typically called “criminal threats,” or “threats to commit crime resulting in death or great bodily injury,” which is what it really always was. But calling it “terrorist threats” made it so much easier to get convictions, being as how everyone hates “terrorists.”

Ironically, the dysfunction that afflicts us is the same one that leads terrorists criminals to do what they do. The problem is a lack of empathy. We can’t imagine being “a criminal.” And because of that, we can’t imagine that anyone might mistakenly think we are “a criminal.” When it comes to imagining we might actually need constitutional protections in such a situation, we just can’t. “It can’t happen to me,” we think, “because I would never be a criminal.”

But it can. Innocent people are mistakenly thought to be criminals far more frequently than most imagine. Those incidents usually don’t make it into the news, and thus don’t usually make it into public awareness. But it happens. It even happened in the Boston Marathon Bombing. It happened to Sunil Tripathi (who, sadly, is apparently a missing person as I write this). It happened to Salah Barhoun, and another individual. The New York Post repeatedly misidentified the bombing suspects.

And the identification of innocent people as public threats, dangers, or outright criminals, isn’t limited to situations like this. It is a frequent occurrence in the ordinary lives of ordinary people, especially for people accused of heinous crimes, but also for those who do things government officials don’t like, as I recently did.

I opened this post by mentioning my own run-in with the Fresno County Sheriff’s Department. For details, see my earlier post, “Overlords.” For purposes of today’s post, I just want to point out that I continue to be the only attorney who, upon entering any courthouse in Fresno County, is thoroughly searched. Sometimes I am “only” required to empty all my pockets. Sometimes I am “just” examined with a “wand” after going through the regular metal detector everyone passes through, the beeping of which is ignored for every other attorney except me. Just as often, I am given a thorough frisky patdown, and asked to lift my trouser legs to show off my classy socks. I stopped taking my briefcase — although I’m thinking of starting to use it again and just endure the search because I’m tired of not having everything I need when I need it in court — because after it goes through the x-ray machine, the deputies then open it, remove everything inside it, and then open everything that was inside, including pencil cases.

Because everyone hides guns, bombs, and other weapons of mass destruction inside pencil cases.

These days, I usually go to court “armed” only with a single fountain pen, reading glasses, cell phone, wallet with useless identification, and the file needed for that appearance. I don’t even carry the keys to my office, or any pocket change. It saves time getting through the search.

And why am I searched? Because I wrote something they didn’t like. The searches are my punishment.

And what did I write? I wrote that if our government was not going to obey its own laws, then we need to revolt.

I have written about revolution in America for years. Even before I was a lawyer, I was disturbed by a trend that seemed — and seems — to me to be accelerating. I firmly believe — and I know from talking to others that I am not alone in this — that there will be someday be a fantastic upheaval in America that would justifiably be called a “Revolution.” I don’t know what form it will take, but I suspect there’s a good chance it will involve violence, if for no other reason than the fact that the government will try to suppress those who revolt. I don’t know if it will be State versus Federal (for example, if a state really does try to secede, as some have suggested). I don’t know if it will be the poor finally rising up against the rich, in which case the government will (of course) fight for the rich. I don’t know if it will just be that so many of us will have been declared “criminals” that we will no longer respect the law enough to keep following it while our government does not.

My beliefs about the creeping fascism of American government are a big part of what caused me to become a lawyer. (I didn’t know that at first. When I went to law school, I thought I was going to practice technology law. I realize now that I was doomed to be a criminal defense lawyer from the start.)

Yet despite these beliefs — and all the years I’ve felt this way — I have never once bombed, shot, killed, maimed, or even punched a government employee.

Nor would I.

Instead, I went to law school. And I write. My goal, sadly unrealized for the most part, is to work within the system to change things, and to educate people with the hope that a real revolution of the bloody sort might never be thought necessary. Yes, I admit that I think it’s probably inevitable that there will be a violent revolution in my lifetime, but I’m doing my part to see if we can’t turn things around so that it isn’t. (And if a real revolution ever does start in my lifetime, nobody — including me — knows what side of it I will be fighting on, because we don’t know why it’s going to start, who’s going to start it, or what the “sides” will be advocating.)

Theoretically, the rights privileges still recognized begrudgingly granted by the Constitution government protect kinda-sorta tolerate people like me.

At least I haven’t (yet) been arrested. Although there was some reason to believe that when they first found my writing, and were in the heat of anger, this was being considered. Apparently someone convinced them the “terrorist threats,” er…excuse me, the “criminal threats” charges I heard were being considered would not stick.

I wonder what will happen when — because none of you can imagine being me, or a criminal, and especially not a “terrorist” — all of our rights privileges are gone.

Because I guarantee you, take one look at the ordinary people being yelled at, pulled at, and extracted from their houses, arms up in the air and multipled high-powered (semi?) automatic weapons pointed at them by what are essentially locally-housed soldiers — some carrying scared-shitless children — and unless you’re really, really stupid, or completely lacking in empathy, you’ll realize that it can happen to you.

Because to paraphrase Mark Bennett,

when the gov­ern­ment talks about “people who shouldn’t have constitutionally-protected rights,” they’re talk­ing about the peo­ple who they can claim shouldn’t have constitutionally-protected rights. And when they are talk­ing about the peo­ple who they can claim don’t deserve constitutionally-protected rights, they are talk­ing about you and me.

 

"image of shredded constitution"
What We Really Do With This

28 comments

  1. Rene, I believe you misunderstood the point of my comment. However, that’s probably partly because the way I worded it, the universal “you” I intended can be read as a personal “you,” because it followed a clause that contained “your.”

    Two and Three on the list are self-contradictory. “Being careful” does not seem possible if you are going to refuse to remain silent.

    Our police forces are out of control. Our leadership, and our courts, no longer honor the Constitution of the United States.

    If you’ve read much of my blog — see, in particular, the Overlords post — then you know that I’m well aware of what the police can do.

    Obviously, any time one fights the government, it can have consequences. I still remember when I defended a gang murder case in another city, where my father lives. My father was such a good friend to the Sheriff that he had his cell phone number. The case resulted in a very hearty fight between myself and the Sheriff’s Department there. Once, when I was leaving town, my father said that I should take care driving home, with an eye on my rearview mirror.

    If you speak up, you will piss some people off. It is unavoidable. (I am using the universal “you” here.) But you cannot cower. You cannot turn into the same kind of fearful scared little rabbits who are epitomized by a Sheriff’s Department and other governmental officials who are so frightened that they cannot allow the constitutional system of government our Founders set up to control how our nation works; instead, they have to continually subvert the Constitution and our laws.

    I’m not as afraid of the Constitution as they are. I embrace it.

  2. Rene, I believe you misunderstood the point of my comment. However, that’s probably partly because the way I worded it, the universal “you” I intended can be read as a personal “you,” because it followed a clause that contained “your.”

    Two and Three on the list are self-contradictory. “Being careful” does not seem possible if you are going to refuse to remain silent.

    Our police forces are out of control. Our leadership, and our courts, no longer honor the Constitution of the United States.

    If you’ve read much of my blog — see, in particular, the Overlords post — then you know that I’m well aware of what the police can do.

    Obviously, any time one fights the government, it can have consequences. I still remember when I defended a gang murder case in another city, where my father lives. My father was such a good friend to the Sheriff that he had his cell phone number. The case resulted in a very hearty fight between myself and the Sheriff’s Department there. Once, when I was leaving town, my father said that I should take care driving home, with an eye on my rearview mirror.

    If you speak up, you will piss some people off. It is unavoidable. (I am using the universal “you” here.) But you cannot cower. You cannot turn into the same kind of fearful scared little rabbits who are epitomized by a Sheriff’s Department and other governmental officials who are so frightened that they cannot allow the constitutional system of government our Founders set up to control how our nation works; instead, they have to continually subvert the Constitution and our laws.

    I’m not as afraid of the Constitution as they are. I embrace it.

  3. Rick, I don’t think you should insult me after misunderstanding my comment. The police use every tool they have to shut people up and control them, and one of them is certification. Raub was certified for writing things on Facebook that some people didn’t like. He is now being defended by the Rutherford Institute. What I meant was to warn you that you could be accused of being insane, that’s all. I don’t think you’re insane, and my point 3 was to say that all of us should speak up before things get worse. I hope you continue to speak up, but you can’t pretend it can’t have consequences for you or anyone, because it can.

  4. Rick, I don’t think you should insult me after misunderstanding my comment. The police use every tool they have to shut people up and control them, and one of them is certification. Raub was certified for writing things on Facebook that some people didn’t like. He is now being defended by the Rutherford Institute. What I meant was to warn you that you could be accused of being insane, that’s all. I don’t think you’re insane, and my point 3 was to say that all of us should speak up before things get worse. I hope you continue to speak up, but you can’t pretend it can’t have consequences for you or anyone, because it can.

  5. 1. Hunter Thompson wrote about this starting in the 90s and it probably was a big reason for his rational self-deliverance after it became clear America LIKED being a police state under Bush.
    2. Brandon Raub was put in the looney bin for blogging about revolution, so be careful.
    3. No one with intelligence and conscience can be silent any more.

  6. 1. Hunter Thompson wrote about this starting in the 90s and it probably was a big reason for his rational self-deliverance after it became clear America LIKED being a police state under Bush.
    2. Brandon Raub was put in the looney bin for blogging about revolution, so be careful.
    3. No one with intelligence and conscience can be silent any more.

  7. When I was a former pigg, er cop, my eyes were opened when I arrested a kid for throwing rocks through schoolhouse windows at night. I took him to the police station. I knew this kid (by sight) like I knew the back of my hand. The trouble is that he was the “evil” twin of the kid I knew and not the good kid I knew. If for some reason I hadn’t determine who the evil kid actually was (e.g., if he had escaped just after I caught him), I would have testified in court that this kid was the good kid. I actually thought the evil kid was the good kid, face to face, in a lighted police station. The evil and good kid weren’t related to each other, yet the resemblance, down to the hair style and voice was uncanny.

  8. When I was a former pigg, er cop, my eyes were opened when I arrested a kid for throwing rocks through schoolhouse windows at night. I took him to the police station. I knew this kid (by sight) like I knew the back of my hand. The trouble is that he was the “evil” twin of the kid I knew and not the good kid I knew. If for some reason I hadn’t determine who the evil kid actually was (e.g., if he had escaped just after I caught him), I would have testified in court that this kid was the good kid. I actually thought the evil kid was the good kid, face to face, in a lighted police station. The evil and good kid weren’t related to each other, yet the resemblance, down to the hair style and voice was uncanny.

  9. I just want to correct myself — my comments belonged under your blog post called “Overlords” which you linked to in this post. My apologies

  10. I just want to correct myself — my comments belonged under your blog post called “Overlords” which you linked to in this post. My apologies

  11. I think it is the collective peoples failings that have allowed our rights to erode. I also think they will continue to erode unless a large segment of the populous wakes up from its media induced stupor. Sadly, I find that many are more concerned with the latest celebrity or sports news then what is going on in the country, let alone their own back yard. If by some chance they are concerned about something going on, it is because a tradegy occured, and their fears inspire them to demand further erosions of our freedoms so that they can be “safe”.

  12. I think it is the collective peoples failings that have allowed our rights to erode. I also think they will continue to erode unless a large segment of the populous wakes up from its media induced stupor. Sadly, I find that many are more concerned with the latest celebrity or sports news then what is going on in the country, let alone their own back yard. If by some chance they are concerned about something going on, it is because a tradegy occured, and their fears inspire them to demand further erosions of our freedoms so that they can be “safe”.

  13. Ok, if Horowitz will allow, I will keep going, because CPJ’s failure to make my comment stick on their site is really bugging me. but before I do, I want to make sure I didn’t leave the wrong impression. I do think what is being done to that journalist in Fresno is terrible and no picnic.

    I just want to ad one thing — the Reporters without Borders Press Freedom Index:

    OK, this organization sends out a questionnaire every year to try to gauge press freedom. They don’t say how many they send out and they don’t say how many are returned.

    I have been a journalist forever and have never received one of these questionnaires and don’t know of many, if any colleague who has.

    The questionnaire delves into many good areas — intimidation, self censorship etc — and asks respondents to rate each. So, it is a questionnaire that should give an idea of the level of anxiety present in the profession in each country.

    But in the 2012 rankings the US free fell to #47 due to arrests at Occupy events alone and bounced far up into the 30s this year based solely on the lack of more Occupy arrests.

    So what about all that anxiety? The incidents of intimidation of reporters that doesn’t vary that much year to year in this country, and seems really over the past 20 years to be gradually and steadily increasing?

    I don’t get their methods and their report about their methods is not that informative.

    And my criticism of both organizations – RWB and CPJ is not meant to take away from their excellent work focusing the international spotlight on reporters overseas in jails or in extreme physical danger. In fact, if they would just stop advertising their coverage of the US and stop misrepresenting it to us and the UN, I would have no complaint at all. Also, it would be a public service because it would make the case that the US needs an organization that monitors the US.

    So that is it and I hope CPJ an RWB reads this. And I hope that reporter in Fresno in your “Overlord” post gets through his struggles successfully. And I hope the sheriff backs off and gets some self-respect

  14. Ok, if Horowitz will allow, I will keep going, because CPJ’s failure to make my comment stick on their site is really bugging me. but before I do, I want to make sure I didn’t leave the wrong impression. I do think what is being done to that journalist in Fresno is terrible and no picnic.

    I just want to ad one thing — the Reporters without Borders Press Freedom Index:

    OK, this organization sends out a questionnaire every year to try to gauge press freedom. They don’t say how many they send out and they don’t say how many are returned.

    I have been a journalist forever and have never received one of these questionnaires and don’t know of many, if any colleague who has.

    The questionnaire delves into many good areas — intimidation, self censorship etc — and asks respondents to rate each. So, it is a questionnaire that should give an idea of the level of anxiety present in the profession in each country.

    But in the 2012 rankings the US free fell to #47 due to arrests at Occupy events alone and bounced far up into the 30s this year based solely on the lack of more Occupy arrests.

    So what about all that anxiety? The incidents of intimidation of reporters that doesn’t vary that much year to year in this country, and seems really over the past 20 years to be gradually and steadily increasing?

    I don’t get their methods and their report about their methods is not that informative.

    And my criticism of both organizations – RWB and CPJ is not meant to take away from their excellent work focusing the international spotlight on reporters overseas in jails or in extreme physical danger. In fact, if they would just stop advertising their coverage of the US and stop misrepresenting it to us and the UN, I would have no complaint at all. Also, it would be a public service because it would make the case that the US needs an organization that monitors the US.

    So that is it and I hope CPJ an RWB reads this. And I hope that reporter in Fresno in your “Overlord” post gets through his struggles successfully. And I hope the sheriff backs off and gets some self-respect

  15. This is nothing compared to some cases. I could provide current more severe cases of journalists being targeted than the one you mention and explain why you haven’t heard about them. The Why is horrible. Firstt the journalism watch dog groups are focused on other countries where abuses are worse.

    2. The horrible part: Many of those engaged in this watch-dog work are unable to understand the mechanisms of power well enough to know that the same mechanisms that severely oppress journalists in other countries are ones that those advocates actually participate in here in the oppression of and marginalization of their own colleagues.

    As a result, just about every organization that would document abuses that happen here, doesn’t and these are organizations that have official status at the United Nations, and claim to include the U.S. so that the U.N depends on them to report abuses here as well. There is no real argument that they are simply not covering the U.S.

    So, they would cause the UN to believe that freedoms are greater here than they are. The truth is different. As a journalist I follow this closely and I know for a fact that there are some heinous cases that get no report from anyone anywhere

    I include among the watchdog groups: the Reporters Committee; Reporters without Borders; The Committee to Protect Journalists.

    The first, Reporters Committee, is almost a total sell out.

    The second two – RWB and CPJ, cover the US in name only. They throw a couple cases up on their website that are gimme’s that fall in their laps (eg. police arrest reporters at Occupy) The coverage of the U.S. is nominal at best. And they are sometimes not at all nice about it.

    I would put my name on this post and details about particular cases, but I am one of the victims and am only now, after going through a ringer, getting ready and able to write about it myself in the first person. That is not easy when you are under attack.

    I met other journalists after it happened to me and discovered a disturbing trend. Advocates documenting abuse of reporters in Cuba or Mexico, arguably very bad places to be a journalist, denigrate and ridicule any reporter who alleges anything here that requires the least bit of research. Unless it is an arrest at Occupy in front of 10,000 people and on camera, whatever it is, you deserved it.

    There are overseas activists who try to point this out to American activists but Americans are not all that interested in hearing it – how they are conniving in the oppression of their brothers and sisters here. or how our freedoms here aren’t as good as we think they are.

    One notable example of this is the Egyptian feminist, Dr. Nawal el Saadawi. This formerly imprisoned activist has taught here in the states and has observed it first hand. In every interview during which she has raised this issue I have never seen her interviewer ask her to expound further on it. Here is someone who used to live in an Egyptian prison trying to share with us examples of oppression here in the states and our absolute army of rights advocates, flush with George Soros’s money, never bother to probe her further on this. (a clue here — it ain’t Soros’s fault)

    There are activists who know how power oppresses and can identify its elements in areas great or small, here or overseas, in their own societies as well as other’s –people like playwright Arthur Miller being one famous example — but so many many activists watch-dogging overseas, from America, have no understanding of the elements of oppression and unwittingly even participate in it at home, to the point where occasionally they will publicize an overseas case that is a very minor violation compared to one here they refuse to report or look into. Indeed,the routine response is summary dismissal — journalist in the states who is being arrested over and over or permanently gagged must have done something wrong. The problem is the journalist is American.

    You can go to reporter’s committee website and read some cases. You rarely read about what they turned away and why.

    At CJR and RWB, it is even more obvious – the US pages there are a joke. Even an outsider knows it is worse in the US than what their pages would suggest.

  16. This is nothing compared to some cases. I could provide current more severe cases of journalists being targeted than the one you mention and explain why you haven’t heard about them. The Why is horrible. Firstt the journalism watch dog groups are focused on other countries where abuses are worse.

    2. The horrible part: Many of those engaged in this watch-dog work are unable to understand the mechanisms of power well enough to know that the same mechanisms that severely oppress journalists in other countries are ones that those advocates actually participate in here in the oppression of and marginalization of their own colleagues.

    As a result, just about every organization that would document abuses that happen here, doesn’t and these are organizations that have official status at the United Nations, and claim to include the U.S. so that the U.N depends on them to report abuses here as well. There is no real argument that they are simply not covering the U.S.

    So, they would cause the UN to believe that freedoms are greater here than they are. The truth is different. As a journalist I follow this closely and I know for a fact that there are some heinous cases that get no report from anyone anywhere

    I include among the watchdog groups: the Reporters Committee; Reporters without Borders; The Committee to Protect Journalists.

    The first, Reporters Committee, is almost a total sell out.

    The second two – RWB and CPJ, cover the US in name only. They throw a couple cases up on their website that are gimme’s that fall in their laps (eg. police arrest reporters at Occupy) The coverage of the U.S. is nominal at best. And they are sometimes not at all nice about it.

    I would put my name on this post and details about particular cases, but I am one of the victims and am only now, after going through a ringer, getting ready and able to write about it myself in the first person. That is not easy when you are under attack.

    I met other journalists after it happened to me and discovered a disturbing trend. Advocates documenting abuse of reporters in Cuba or Mexico, arguably very bad places to be a journalist, denigrate and ridicule any reporter who alleges anything here that requires the least bit of research. Unless it is an arrest at Occupy in front of 10,000 people and on camera, whatever it is, you deserved it.

    There are overseas activists who try to point this out to American activists but Americans are not all that interested in hearing it – how they are conniving in the oppression of their brothers and sisters here. or how our freedoms here aren’t as good as we think they are.

    One notable example of this is the Egyptian feminist, Dr. Nawal el Saadawi. This formerly imprisoned activist has taught here in the states and has observed it first hand. In every interview during which she has raised this issue I have never seen her interviewer ask her to expound further on it. Here is someone who used to live in an Egyptian prison trying to share with us examples of oppression here in the states and our absolute army of rights advocates, flush with George Soros’s money, never bother to probe her further on this. (a clue here — it ain’t Soros’s fault)

    There are activists who know how power oppresses and can identify its elements in areas great or small, here or overseas, in their own societies as well as other’s –people like playwright Arthur Miller being one famous example — but so many many activists watch-dogging overseas, from America, have no understanding of the elements of oppression and unwittingly even participate in it at home, to the point where occasionally they will publicize an overseas case that is a very minor violation compared to one here they refuse to report or look into. Indeed,the routine response is summary dismissal — journalist in the states who is being arrested over and over or permanently gagged must have done something wrong. The problem is the journalist is American.

    You can go to reporter’s committee website and read some cases. You rarely read about what they turned away and why.

    At CJR and RWB, it is even more obvious – the US pages there are a joke. Even an outsider knows it is worse in the US than what their pages would suggest.

  17. I have long believed there would be a revolution in my lifetime. And I, like you, have no idea what side I would be on. I just feel, and have felt it is inevitable. Especially with the direction our government and police are taking. A small side note; the police cannot police themselves. That is part of the problem. The LEOs that shot at the paper delivery ladies are still on the force, and will be. The ‘investigation’ into their actions should be very straightforward. So much so, that the city is already settling with them (with no ‘admission of guilt’). Don’t even get me started on the police being militarized.

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