Anthony Graber, a Maryland Air National Guard staff sergeant, faces up to 16 years in prison. His crime? He videotaped his March encounter with a state trooper who pulled him over for speeding on a motorcycle. Then Graber put the video — which could put the officer in a bad light — up on YouTube.
It doesn't sound like much. But Graber is not the only person being slapped down by the long arm of the law for the simple act of videotaping the police in a public place. Prosecutors across the U.S. claim the videotaping violates wiretap laws — a stretch, to put it mildly.
Really, this is the hallmark of the fascist state -- not only are they attempting to extract murder-level penalties for non-crimes, but they deliberately invoke the most absurd conceivable interpretation of existing law to do so. It would almost be more respectable to just be honest and say, "We can't let you film us, because we might be held accountable for our actions." Even though they very rarely are.
It cannot be put any simpler, really -- no decent cop should care for even a second if someone's filming or not. But it says a lot that they and their courtroom minions are in the hunt, seeking ricockulous penalties while not even being able to find an actual law that's being violated. Citizens have to deal with cameras in all sorts of public places, sidewalks, sports stadiums, freeways, intersections. Your front door can be kicked down on a PC drug warrant, shoot first, ask questions later, ain't shit you can do about it.
But the average Joe or Jane taking modest steps just to protect themselves from asshole cops face serious time. Ask Oscar Grant's family just how important this is, keeping in mind that BART actually confiscated the two videos they knew about, that it was the one that made it to the media that stopped them from covering it up. Ask Rodney King, ask any number of people who've managed to catch cops harassing and abusing people.
So here's the deal, law enforcement folks -- if you get to film us, we get to film you. Or all the cameras come down. One or the other, and only a punk-ass bitch would try to have it both ways.
BTW, here is the Graber video. Graber is riding like an asshole, to be sure, but to be cutoff on the off-ramp by an unmarked car, and have a gun pulled on him by someone who doesn't even identify himself as a cop initially, for a fucking speeding ticket, is insane. Even more insane is that after Graber posted the video, the jackbooted thugs "upheld the law" by presenting an unsigned warrant, with which they confiscated all the computer equipment in Graber's house, and illegally detained Graber's mother and sister.
For a speeding ticket, once again. Someone needs to lose their fucking job for this shit.
3 comments:
Radley Balko is really good on this topic.
I was floored just the other week by the story about cops bursting into an organic grocery with guns drawn because some raw foodie-types were selling unpasteurized milk, for Christ's sake.
You were mentioning the seemingly odd correlation between anti-abortion/pro-capital punishment sentiments. Another one is the anti-federal government/pro-police state crowd.
Another [seemingly odd correlation] is the anti-federal government/pro-police state crowd.
True, and I imagine it's a direct result of their abject military worship. That's the one part of their feverish hatred of gubmint that is always kept to the side.
And more than ever, partly due to technology, partly due to the War on Some Drugs eroding many basic civil rights, police forces -- most obviously urban police forces but even rural ones to some extent -- are essentially paramilitary in operational structure and tactical deployment.
So raw milk is now justification for this all-guns-blazing horseshit. Awesome. I knew the LAPD were a bunch of cock-crazed roid freaks, but Jesus H. Christ.
Speaking of roid freaks...
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