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What First Amendment?
Posted by Prof | Filed under Overstepping
Last January, in our old Casa De Ligne, Robb Allen wrote a great post called Tyranny In Red Tights. Go read that first then come back.
All done? OK, then.
That post pretty much just boils down to one thing: civil authorities all over our country have chosen to take an adversarial position against us, the citizens they are purportedly sworn to serve and protect. Again, I have to stress that this creeping reach is not bounded by party, class, or political bent. It is however an outgrowth of our naturally lackadaisical feeling that our government wouldn’t do anything deliberately to hurt us, the citizenry.
But then I read about this. Go ahead. I’ll wait. (Yes, that is five different links.)
So it seems that this guy, Jeff Pataky, who runs this blog is the unfortunate recipient of an attempt to ‘unperson’ him. At least his ability to be a presence on the WWW. Is this simply a local PD trying to get a jump on the proposed Cyber Security Act? Nope. What it seems to be instead is a vindicitive local PD tired of getting its dirty laundry aired out in public taking steps to stop it from happening. Again. A quote from Mr. Pataky that may shed some light on the purpose of the raid on his home…
We have heard internally from our police sources that they purposefully did this to stop me,” Pataky said. “They took my cable modem and wireless router. Anyone worth their salt knows nothing is stored in the cable modem.”
Yes, the police dept not only took his computer, his backups, opened a wall safe and took backups of his backups, and handcuffed his girlfriend for three hours, they also took his modem. A blatent slap in the face with only one possible message “Stop blogging about us!” And yes, Pataky has sources both inside the active duty rolls and who are retired from the Phoenix PD who give him tips about all manner of crap that the department is perpetrating. One of his sources was also raided. And plans are apparently in the works to raid the homes of other cops who have provided tips for his blog.
The 41-year-old software engineer said they also confiscated numerous personal files and documents relating to a pending lawsuit he has against the department alleging harassment – which he says makes it obvious the raid was an act of retaliation.”
The site claims that most of their material comes from good cops, active and retired, who are blowing the whistle on the department. Apparently the police agree.
“Police apparently believe one of the tipsters is an officer named David Barnes, who fell out of favor with the department in 2007 when he was a detective and went public with claims of mismanaged evidence at the city crime lab.
Police also raided Barnes’ home and according to Pataky’s inside sources, plan to raid the homes of more cops.”
Now, if the cops are alleging petty theft as the reason for raiding Pataky’s home, what do these other cops have to do with that?
I understand that there are always at least two sides to every story, and I have yet to hear the side of the PD, but the information already out there in the aether doesn’t look very good for the Phoenix PD. I can hardly wait to see how this one falls out.
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April 7th, 2009
[...] I am Simon Jester » Blog Archive » What First Amendment? I am Simon Jester » Blog Archive » What First Amendment?. [...]
April 7th, 2009
Yep,
Fascism will not come to you in the form of a brown-shirted jack booted superman. Rather, it will show a smiling face and is already invading our lives little by little.
I know the Prof ( the one in the book) is correct when he states “What I fear most are affirmative actions of sober and well-intentioned men, granting to government powers to do something that appears to need doing.”
RAH certainly got that one right!!
April 8th, 2009
Snatched all the backups, did they? AND a modem. Strange.
Two words: OFFSITE storage.
There are two ways to deal with official harassment: either get very quiet and hope they forget about you, or become very loud and noticeable so that they have to do things very publicly.
The former may work, but it’s the coward’s option in my opinion. The latter is a rough ride at best, but probably safer in the long run.