You say Police State, I say potato. Either way let's discuss surveillance and government overreach.

Baltimore tops out surveys on various measures of racism in the last few decades...

farley3k wrote:

I guess this goes here. Although it is kind of sad that it could apply to several threads we have here.

Baltimore police have racial bias, Justice Department reports

Most telling to me personally -

BPD officers found contraband twice as often when searching white individuals compared to African-Americans during vehicle stops and 50% more often during pedestrian stops

So it isn't even that stopping more Blacks found more crime. In fact stopping more whites seemed to find more crime. So if they are so concerned with protecting the public/stopping crime then why don't they stop more whites?

I'd say this was the most telling part:

In some cases, unconstitutional stops result from supervisory officers’ explicit instructions. During a ride-along with Justice Department officials, a BPD sergeant instructed a patrol officer to stop a group of young African-American males on a street corner, question them, and order them to disperse. When the patrol officer protested that he had no valid reason to stop the group, the sergeant replied “Then make something up.” This incident is far from anomalous. A different BPD sergeant posted on Facebook that when he supervises officers in the Northeast District, he encourages them to “clear corners,” a term many officers understand to mean stopping pedestrians who are standing on city sidewalks to question and then disperse them by threatening arrest for minor offenses like loitering and trespassing. The sergeant wrote, “I used to say at roll call in NE when I ran the shift: Do not treat criminals like citizens. Citizens want that corner cleared.” Indeed, countless interviews with community members and officers describe “corner clearing” scenarios, in which BPD officers stop, question, disperse, or arrest individuals in public areas based on minimal or no suspicion of highly discretionary offenses

ETA: This is what they felt comfortable doing when they had a Justice Department official with them. I can only imagine how far they'd feel comfortable going while unsupervised.

Stop and frisk’s end didn’t cause a crime wave in New York City — a big win for reform

A major newspaper’s editorial board did something truly rare: It admitted it was totally wrong.

On Monday, the New York Daily News editorial board acknowledged that the end of “stop and frisk” — the aggressive, controversial policing practice that New York City police previously used to stop, question, and frisk mostly innocent people on the street — did not lead to an increase in crime.

DEA still stealing money from people after profiling them via their travel records.

http://www.9news.com/mb/news/dea-reg...

Good God -

Tillerson told the agents that her boyfriend had withdrawn the money from his U.S. Postal Service retirement account so that she could buy a truck, according to court records. Agents were suspicious; Tillerson was an ex-convict, who had spent time in prison for driving a load of marijuana into the United States from Mexico. She seemed to have little money of her own. And a police dog smelled drugs on the cash.

Agents seized the money, and let Tillerson go. Her lawyer, Cyril Hall, said she was never arrested, or even questioned about whether she could give agents information about traffickers.

A year and a half later — after she produced paperwork showing that much of the money had indeed come from her boyfriend’s retirement fund — the Justice Department agreed to return the money, minus $4,000. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Detroit, Gina Balaya, said prosecutors concluded that “a small percentage of the funds should be forfeited.”

So they just got to keep almost a fifth of it because... they just figured they should get to?

Wtaf.

I'd like to think that Hillary Clinton would nominate a SC justice(s) that would recognize Asset Forfeiture violates the 4th and 5th amendments... but I'm not holding my breath.

I certainly wouldn't expect Trump's picks to do that either.

Well, you can't expect them to keep all the money around for a whole year and a half. I mean, let's be reasonable here.

farley3k wrote:

It is the Chicago Police giving this alert...right after some very bad press about them killing an unarmed man. I don't believe it. Not just because of the source but because the article says

The Four Corner Hustlers also are supplying the other two gangs with automatic weapons, which all three factions also have agreed to use against police, the alert states.

I think it would be pretty stupid of a gang to supply automatic weapons to their rivals. It would be far more likely for such weapons to be used against them than police.

The only really weird part of the story is the Disciples. The other two gangs (Hustlers and Lords) are allied under the People Nation.

bnpederson wrote:

DEA still stealing money from people after profiling them via their travel records.

http://www.9news.com/mb/news/dea-reg...

Remember, folks! Extortion's only illegal when private entities do it!

Minarchist wrote:
bnpederson wrote:

DEA still stealing money from people after profiling them via their travel records.

http://www.9news.com/mb/news/dea-reg...

Remember, folks! Extortion's only illegal when private entities do it!

How else are they gonna fund the $51,000,000,000 usd a year 'war on drugs'? :E

My wife is writing a book on the history of the use of Tear Gas and "non-lethal" riot control methods. Currently we have a copy of this book: "The Truth Behind the Black Lives Matter Movement and the War on Police" floating around the office. It is literally a playbook of "facts" and arguments police can use to justify their use of force and can also use to justify the notion that the police are under ever increase risk (war). It's pretty amazing/terrifying.

I wasn't sure if I shouldn't put it in the passive racism thread but it's much more like actual active racism.

https://www.amazon.com/Truth-Behind-...

Bloo Driver wrote:

Good God -

Tillerson told the agents that her boyfriend had withdrawn the money from his U.S. Postal Service retirement account so that she could buy a truck, according to court records. Agents were suspicious; Tillerson was an ex-convict, who had spent time in prison for driving a load of marijuana into the United States from Mexico. She seemed to have little money of her own. And a police dog smelled drugs on the cash.

Agents seized the money, and let Tillerson go. Her lawyer, Cyril Hall, said she was never arrested, or even questioned about whether she could give agents information about traffickers.

A year and a half later — after she produced paperwork showing that much of the money had indeed come from her boyfriend’s retirement fund — the Justice Department agreed to return the money, minus $4,000. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Detroit, Gina Balaya, said prosecutors concluded that “a small percentage of the funds should be forfeited.”

So they just got to keep almost a fifth of it because... they just figured they should get to?

Wtaf.

How convenient.

This is an interesting article on how the state's omnipresent surveillance has affected black artists, from the early 20th century to the present day.

It probably also fits in the "passive" racism thread but I feel the use of government power over the individual drops it here more firmly.

http://www.thefader.com/2016/08/12/s...

Do we talk about Daniel Harris here?

garion333 wrote:

Do we talk about Daniel Harris here?

NC State Highway Patrol wrote:

While on Seven Oaks Drive, the driver exited his vehicle and an encounter took place between the driver and the trooper causing a shot to be fired

The encounter caused the shot to be fired? Based on the statement from police I can't tell who fired the gun, or even if it was fired by a person. The way they write these things up is a gross misuse of language.

BushPilot wrote:
garion333 wrote:

Do we talk about Daniel Harris here?

NC State Highway Patrol wrote:

While on Seven Oaks Drive, the driver exited his vehicle and an encounter took place between the driver and the trooper causing a shot to be fired

The encounter caused the shot to be fired? Based on the statement from police I can't tell who fired the gun, or even if it was fired by a person. The way they write these things up is a gross misuse of language.

That's how you know someone was shot by police.

There's a reason English teachers discourage the use of passive voice.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

There's a reason why the passive voice is discouraged by English teachers.

FTFY

Quintin_Stone wrote:

English teachers entered the classroom and education occurred between students and teachers causing the use of passive voice to be discouraged.

FTF NC State Highway Patrol

Now here's a police state in its infancy... President Duterte is openly defying the other branches of government and sponsoring the extra-judicial killing of over a thousand people so far in "vigilante" and police operations.

As The Two-Way has reported, Duterte is nicknamed "The Punisher" and has spoken bluntly — even shockingly — about his determination to crack down on crime. It was his central campaign promise.

He pledged to kill 100,000 criminals during his first six months as president, and drop their bodies in Manila Bay until "the fish will grow fat," The New York Times has reported.

He told corrupt cops he would kill them. "Don't take this as a joke. I'm not making you laugh," Duterte said, as translated by CNN Philippines. "Son of a Female Doggo, I will kill you."

He has called on everyday citizens to shoot drug dealers. "Please feel free to call us, the police, or do it yourself if you have the gun, you have my support," he said, according to Newsweek. "Shoot him and I'll give you a medal."

He emphasized his message in his final campaign speech.

"Forget the laws on human rights. If I make it to the presidential palace, I will do just what I did as mayor. You drug pushers, hold-up men and do-nothings ... I'll kill you," he said, as The Guardian reported.

Yep. Pretty much. And too many of my countrymen are too ignorant to know what a police state is and why that might be kind of bad. The Senate isn't doing a good job of uncovering much of anything. There's a lot more bootlicking and asskissing involved.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

There's a reason English teachers discourage the use of passive voice.

Not so much English teachers as elementary teachers and non-English humanities teachers—where it's important to know that the student knows who performed an act (important, for example, in history papers). Once a student shows a reasonable handle on writing, passive voice becomes a tool to intentionally not state the subject of a sentence.

wordsmythe wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:

There's a reason English teachers discourage the use of passive voice.

Not so much English teachers as elementary teachers and non-English humanities teachers—where it's important to know that the student knows who performed an act (important, for example, in history papers). Once a student shows a reasonable handle on writing, passive voice becomes a tool to intentionally not state the subject of a sentence.

In this case a tool to avoid identifying the police officer as the actor in the shooting, and thus suggest that the cause might be something different. Not cool, but public agencies gonna PR.

It's useful in any situation where one wishes to intentionally put the object of the sentence first to draw attention to them (sometimes called 'victim first' language), but in such a case the actor is usually identified afterwards: the grammarian was mercilessly beaten by members of an online gaming forum. Passive voice is also used very commonly (probably to a fault) in the sciences to intentionally leave the actor vague. This has obvious merits when writing up methods or when the agent causing an action isn't absolutely clear or important.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archiv...

Great analysis on the recent NSA news. Some light really needs to be shined on the process, so that we don't get screwed by their hubris.