http://www.freep.com/…

The DJ was spinning old records by James Brown, Aretha Franklin and the Meters during Funk Night last weekend, when the heavily armed cops dressed in commando-style uniforms burst into the west-side Detroit art gallery.The cops yelled at the patrons to hit the floor. Witnesses said some officers used their feet to force down a couple of people who failed to move fast enough or asked too many questions.

Detroit police conduct raids frequently for all sorts of illegal activity, and the public never hears a thing. But cops almost never raid art galleries filled with young hipsters, students and at least one lawyer. So this May 30 raid, not unexpectedly, is turning out to have an afterlife: The gallery and patrons have decided to fight back, and the American Civil Liberties Union has become involved.

To the police, CAID was a blind pig, where people were buying beer after hours. They handed out 130 tickets for loitering in a place where alcohol was being sold illegally and impounded 44 cars, which cost $900 to get back.

Cops found no drugs, no weapons, no people with outstanding warrants.

Police spokesman James Tate said officers warned Timlin about violations during a visit several weeks ago. “We don’t often do that,” Tate said. “He was advised of the issues he needed to clarify.”

Timlin confirmed the visit, but said he believed he had made the necessary changes. He said the police told club officials May 30 that they also need a permit to allow dancing.

As a response to the raid, Timlin has launched a week-long arts festival that started at midnight Friday and will end with a concert Saturday.

Timlin is lining up bands, artists, lecturers, filmmakers and others to keep the CAID going 24 hours a day for 8 days.

Timlin said the 192-hour art festival this week will be alcohol-free, but in featuring dancing, he seems to be asking for more trouble.

“We’re standing up for what we believe in,” Timlin said. “We’d prefer that the police come and dance with us.”

But if they are found guilty by the courts will they refuse to pay the fines? Are they willing to go to jail for what they believe in? Will they fight to get their $900 back?

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/

The businessman was meeting with clients for lunch at Mimi’s Café when he noticed the woman. Sitting a few tables over with her 4-year-old boy, she seemed groggy - yet she was drinking a mimosa.

It got worse. The woman ordered a glass of white wine, then another. She was so out of it, the businessman would later write in a statement to police, that she looked ready to fall asleep at the table.

When the woman paid her bill and left the restaurant, the businessman was right behind her, cell phone in hand. When she ran a stop sign in the parking lot, he called the police.

By the time the cops showed up a few minutes later, the woman already had parked at the Chandler Mall, less than a mile from Mimi’s. She was buying bath salts when the businessman pointed her out to the cops.

Thanks to the businessman’s intervention, Shannon Wilcutt was eventually charged with three felony counts: a DUI above 0.08, a DUI with a child under 15 in the car, and drug possession.

Justice served, right?

Hardly.

This article showed up on my Fark RSS feed. It’s dated March 2008.

Not sure how I missed it, but apparently I wasn’t the only one either.

This is a very long (5 day) weekend for me. So I’m trying to get a lot of work done. One job I’m working on involves straightening out a side wall on a garage a few blocks from my house. In return for working on the place, I get to rent it. Last summer I put a roof on it, this spring I’m replacing the damaged sill plate and straightening the wall.

Anyway I’m at the most critical point of the operation. I’ve got the entire corner of the garage supported by an eight foot 4×4 resting on the 2 inch square top of a bottle jack. Precarious is an understatement for this situation. Just as I go to slide the wall into place on the new sill plate two polish guys come down the road. The one, lets call him Drunk, asks me in broken english if his friend can sit in the garage and drink his beer. He says they are afraid of cops. “Sure”, I respond, “But it’s dangerous”. The one very drunk guy, lets call him Drunker, goes into the deathtrap garage and starts drinking his beer. The other guy looks at me uncomfortably and decides to start talking about… wait for it…. POLITICS! Of all the subjects. Anyway here is a breif idea of what went on:

Civil Liberties

Drunk: A friend of mine get $800 ticket for drinking beer on street. Stupid.

Drunker: mother <expletive> cops

Me: That is pretty stupid. Can you drink beer on the street in Poland.

Drunk: Yes, if you speak polish.

Drunk: My friend also get ticket for make pee on street.

Me: Bummer

Drunk: It stupid. You not have to go in an hour, you have to go now.

Me: I don’t think it’s a big issue if you do it behind a garage or something. Dogs do it all the time.

Drunker: <expletive> <expletive>

The upcoming election

Drunk: Who will be president of US?

Me: I think Obama. I certainly don’t think it will be McCain.

Drunk: But Obama is a… <n-word>

Me: People like him.

Drunk: But he’ll make us pay for other <n-word>s.

Me: I think either democrat will make us pay for other people.

Drunker: <expletive> democrats, crazy.

Drunk: Hillary would be good because of experience. Also economy good during Bill. All I care about is economy. You go to store and you see economy not good, even though CNN say different.

Me. I don’t think the economy is so hot.

Drunk: McCain no good, he from war. Crazy.

War

Drunk: I work for a guy from vietnam war. He say you have to do drugs to go in bush. He crazy

Drunker: <expletive> crazy

Me: War sucks.

Drunk: You need cocaine to fight war. It make you crazy

So there you have it. Two random polish guys talking about politics. Drunk launched into a diatribe about collectivism, basically him repeating that he only wants to pay for his cigarettes and his beer, but it was hard to make out a lot of what he said. It should be noted that when these guys dropped the n-bomb, they did so as if it was any other word. I think it’s the only way they know of for referring to black people.

http://arstechnica.com/…

The US last week released its 2007 wiretapping stats, and they show that such surveillance is up a full 20 percent over the year before. The number of non-secret wiretaps is higher than it has ever been in the last decade, and not a single application was denied in all of 2007. If you’re concerned about privacy, though, the report makes clear that you’re statistically unlikely to be targeted unless you use a cell phone to run drugs. Murder might also earn you a wiretap, but apart from that, the authorities don’t seem to use wiretaps in all but unusual cases.

2,208 wiretaps were requested last year, up from 1,839 the year before, and the vast majority of them were run by state authorities; only 457 wiretaps were executed by the feds. No applications for wiretap were denied, but this is hardly uncommon. Since 1997, some 15,000 wiretaps have been made, but only four applications were rejected in that entire time.

When we look at the prevalence of wiretaps, two trends stand out. One is that taps are almost exclusively used on “portable devices,” including digital pagers and portable phones. In fact, 94 percent of all taps authorized last year were for such devices. The second trend is that most wiretaps are used in narcotics cases. 81 percent of all taps were for drug-related crime, with murder and assault coming in a distant second (6 percent).

Wiretaps apparently have something in common with shopping at bulk retailers; when you buy more items at once, the price goes down. The cost per intercept has been dropping since 2003, when it peaked at $62,164. In 2007, that number had fallen to $48,477 per investigation. While that still sounds pricey, the report notes that drug intercepts have often been used to make big busts. One set of 2007 wiretaps in Morris County, New Jersey led to the arrest of 105 people; another, in New York, scooped up 51 people, 48 of whom were later convicted. Another 57-day wiretap in California led to the seizure of 40 pounds of methamphetamine, four kilograms of cocaine, and $700,000 in cash.Of course, those are just regular warrants. The Justice Department also released information this week on secret warrants issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. These numbers are also rising, and have been going up since 2001; the increase is a dramatic one. In 2001, the Court approved only 1,012 applications, but approved 2,370 last year.

I’m glad the government is getting a better rate at which to waste our money on rights infringement. Is it likely that these larger drug busts got guys who were actually harming people? Yes, but those people should be arrested for that harm and not providing a drug to another individual in a completely consensual act. This war on drugs is a war on the public. It’s a negative sum game. A drug addiction is a personal problem, a family problem, a community problem. It’s a medical problem. It should be treated as such. In the least I’d like to see some consistency. Alcohol and tobacco are the precursor to far more harm then marijuana or LSD.

And as for the privacy invasion. Wasn’t all this FISA enhancement requested for terrorism? Why are we catching NY governors paying for sex and people selling goods?

http://www.thisisthesentinel.co.uk/…

City councillor Gavin Webb could be thrown off a school’s board of governors after making controversial calls to legalise heroin and prostitution.Liberal Democrat (Libertarian) councillor Gavin Webb’s position is being reviewed after publicly expressing controversial views.Thistley Hough High School, in Penkhull, could now decide to sack him from its board of governors.

The chair of governors, Gill Miller, said she is seeking advice on Mr Webb’s position in light of complaints about comments he hasmade.

She said: “I have alerted the governing support unit at the city council and the governing body is currently considering Mr Webb’s position.”

Talking about drugs, Mr Webb said: “I believe we should legalise the lot, including the most harmful substance heroin.”

He has also described the police’s drug-busting Operation Nemesis as a “waste of money”.

He has also said: “The only person one can trust in protecting one’s own life, is oneself. That is why I also advocate that individuals should have the right to carry a handgun.”

Other controversial views expressed by Mr Webb include that drink-driving is not a crime, that brothels should be legal and that Britain’s borders should be opened up to anyone who wants to enter the country.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council’s Liberal Democrat group leader, Councillor Jean Bowers, said she was concerned about some of the comments Mr Webb has made in recent weeks. She said a member of the public had contacted her to complain about some of his views.

Mr Webb, pictured, said he is aware that some of his views were unpopular, and could even jeopardise his position as a governor.

He said: “I am getting flak from various people, but part of the role of politicians is to tell people to take responsibility for their own lives, instead of blaming other people.”

“At the end of the day, it’s up the board of school governors whether they support me or sack me.”

Many of Mr Webb’s controversial statements were made on The Sentinel’s website.

Mr Webb is also being investigated by the Standards Board of England after an alleged four-letter outburst at a fellow councillor.

You can find his positions here. It’s nice to see that there are a few libertarians in the UK… too bad they have such a Puritanical nanny state that he will be silenced for stating his opinions. I love how Europe often bitches about how Puritanical the USA is yet in the UK if you say “fuck” they freak, call it anti-social and call for you to be kicked out of your party? Well likely it’s the drunk driving comment or maybe the legalizing self defense. Isn’t the Liberal Democrats supposed to be the classical liberal party? What do you expect from the people who can’t even handle a few Xbox commercials. He was talking heresy so now he’s to be punished. Well he’s always welcome to come over to the USA, if they’d let him in, and join the FSP.