Woman With Police-Monitoring Blog Arrested 847
Kris Thalamus writes "The Washington Post reports that a Virginia woman is being held in custody by police who allege that information she posted on her blog puts members of the Jefferson area drug enforcement task force at risk. 'In a nearly year-long barrage of blog posts, she published snapshots she took in public of many or most of the task force's officers; detailed their comings and goings by following them in her car; mused about their habits and looks; hinted that she may have had a personal relationship with one of them; and, in one instance, reported that she had tipped off a local newspaper about their movements. Predictably, this annoyed law enforcement officials, who, it's fair to guess, comprised much of her readership before her arrest. But what seems to have sent them over the edge — and skewed their judgment — is Ms. Strom's decision to post the name and address of one of the officers with a street-view photo of his house. All this information was publicly available, including the photograph, which Ms. Strom gleaned from municipal records.'"
What was her point? (Score:1, Interesting)
Did she do it to annoy them or was there a point to her outing these people as members of the task force? What good does it do to single out a police officer by posting his private address with pictures of his home? I could understand publishing pictures or other records of actual transgressions, but just stalking the police doesn't seem right.
Re:Age old debate (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot (Score:2, Interesting)
It should be okay for any citizen to stalk another, on or off the job, given that it is seems to be okay for the government to stalk any citizen.
Re:Sorry, lady. Incitement to violence is a crime (Score:5, Interesting)
This is pure manure. It is in the public interest to know what the police are doing.
Despite what I'd characterise as the reasonableness of the OP's position, I'm afraid I agree with your first statement.
As for the public interest argument, there's no doubt merit in it, but that's not to say that there shouldn't be limitations to what the public needs to know. I've had look at the woman's blog. Amusing to the casual reader, but it does appear to come close to the line of what should be considered acceptable, or legal. If it isn't, then I'd expect some justification for why it isn't, rather than a simple assertion by police sargeant.
My own opinion is that laws concerning police officers are over-broad, and are easily abused. I'd also wager that they're regularly abused. The indicident that led to the recent Obama Beer Summit is a good example where we can see how being disrespectful to a cop gets elevated to the crime of interfering with the duties of a police officer. Physical training, automatic weapons and kevlar vests protects against sticks and stones, but the officer is unable to deal with being called a bad name?
Re:Oi... 'free speech, free speech' isn't reality. (Score:3, Interesting)
In the USA it's not just an "idea" - it's the absolute black letter law of the land.
If you want to make changes then modify the constitution via the legally established method.
WRONG. "Every man for himself" is preferable to a group of armed thugs that can make up whatever rules they feel like to enforce upon the populace while at the same time ignoring any rules that apply to themselves.
Re:Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot (Score:3, Interesting)
"Why is it OK when its a police officer?"
Because our money pays for their work - we are their employer and as their employer we should have every right to monitor them to ensure they do the job we pay them to do, and to ensure they perform that job PROPERLY. Police are PUBLIC SERVANTS - they are not entitled to the level of privacy a normal citizen would expect, BECAUSE THEY ARE NOW A PUBLIC FIGURE. This means they are absolutely fair game for newspapers and independent published papers.
And when it's a matter of public record which is in the public domain - they have no reasonable expectation of privacy of that information, which includes court records available through a simple FOIA request.
Re:Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot (Score:3, Interesting)
The law enforcement officers KNEW they had a family when they signed up for this job.
This is why most civilian and military police action that involves heavy risk, is often done by people with no family, or SUFFICIENT barriers are put into place to conceal their identity. The poor decisions by the officers, as well as the department as a whole as it relates to assessment of risk, is the only thing that can put these officers, or their families at risk.
Re:What was her point? (Score:4, Interesting)
This is THE reason for FREE SPEECH (Score:1, Interesting)
Law enforcement personnel always have to hide behind a mask in a nanny-state. When free citizens elect their protectors, who are part of their community, the protectors are valued neighbors who in turn expect and generally receive the support of the other members of the community (Posse in the old sense).
When the law enforcement are hired guns (Her blog at http://iheartejade.blogspot.com, expresses the view that the task force is "nothing more than a group of arrogant thugs.") who have to wear masks and hide themselves for fear of retribution, you need laws like anti-harassment one.
It should not be a crime to annoy the cops, and while her posting of the home address of the officer was absolutely inappropriate, it certainly doesn't justify a "raid". They could have sent 2 officers to calmly go inform her that she was under arrest, and they didn't need to go with a felony charge.
This free citizen of the US and mother has been in jail a month and likely to remain much longer. If convicted, she'll likely serve prison time. If the ACLU gets invovled they'll probably get the whole mess overturned as unconstitutional, but at tremendous cost to the TAXPAYERS and with much jail-time for the citizen. This situation was allowed to get out of hand by incompetent management who do indeed have at least some "arrogant thugs" overstepping their authority.
Note: How exactly is an individual free citizen supposed to bring to light the abuses of the police if free speech rights are denied? Her actions are PRECISELY the reason that the free speech right was identfied. To allow citizens to SPEAK OUT about the percieved abuses of power by government entities.
Re:Harassment is Harassment (Score:2, Interesting)
"It's usually just called "stalking""
Are you nuts? There are strict requirements for "stalker" to apply. The ones you mention don't meet the criteria. At least not in New Jersey, where I live.
When people, such as yourself, are allowed to label people as a stalker simply because YOU think they are our society is falling apart.
I was recently charged with 'criminal harassment' by a women who gave me permission FIVE times to take pictures of her 'public spectacle" which she created for the world to see. Now, I have to spend money to defend my right to photographer her signs.
Take a look here: http://BernieSayers.com Look at the videos I took. See what you think.
Maybe I submit my story to SlashDot....Anyone want to do that??
Re:Sorry, lady. Incitement to violence is a crime (Score:3, Interesting)
By the same token, not all speech is protected, the courts (up to an including the supreme court) have ruled several times that for any society to function there must be rules governing what speech is protected. This is why slander and libel are illegal, it is also why you can prosecute people for hate crimes, or for plotting to kill people.
What the courts will decide in this particular case has yet to be seen, however it's not quite as simple as yelling "free speech!" because we all know that there are limits to that (and by necessity).
Having been the victim of a similar website 5 years ago, I can certainly imagine how the police must feel in this particular case.
Re:Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot (Score:0, Interesting)
This post isn't trolling. Obama admitted in his book "Dreams From My Father" that he had used both cocaine and pot. That would disqualify him from any security clearance.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/02/AR2007010201359_pf.html [washingtonpost.com]
Re:They wouldn't have arrested her (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry, no. If the police think that they have the right to track us 24/7 whenever we are in a public place with cameras up on every corner, we also have the right to follow them around 24/7 and record everything they do. They don't get to have it both ways.
Re:They wouldn't have arrested her (Score:3, Interesting)
Kind of like Richard Armitage exposing an undercover agent? I believe her identity was classified information. Revealing classified information is against the law.
Oh wait, nothing happened to him for revealing classified information...
I guess it depends on who you are when you reveal the identity of an undercover agent.
Some times it needs to be done (Score:3, Interesting)
It's necessary. Cops, especially undercover cops, are some of the most criminally bent people out there. They protect certain drug gangs and act as enforcers against their opposition. They engage in burglaries and assassinations. They run shakedown scams against petty dealers. They infiltrate legitimate non violent political organizations and try to foment violence at demonstrations (that's about as mean and rotten and crooked as it gets IMO). And EVERY cop out there knows that the drug business wouldn't even be possible without corrupt cops, judges and high level bureaucrats, and it goes right to the top of the federal government in certain agencies.
And whenever they get caught, they are always so quick to say "oh, just a few bad apples", etc. Bullshit. Google has thousands of hits on police corruption. Today..a few good apples in whole barrels of rotten ones. The US is this freeking close to second and third world status when it comes to this, complete with death squads and "disappearing" squads. When they start covering their faces and making it illegal to get pictures and they cover their badges and just mumble "security" for everything they do..you are that close.
I've known and interacted with a *lot* of cops because of a previous job which I won't ge into. After awhile they sort of forget you aren't a cop and let their guard down and speak to you just like they speak to their fellow cops, or they aren't as careful and you can overhear their conversations with each other. Damn SCARIEST crap you will ever hear, unless you have lived someplace with an active war going on and the local warlord turns his cops loose on the people. We are *that* close to that now.
They are not your friend, they have no interest in following any laws themselves, they really are out to get all they can and to hell with any constitution or "laws", and will use every tactic they can come up with to protect their criminal guild, their gang, because it is them versus everyone else and you are just a target and a resource to exploit. You are the enemy, it is that simple. If you aren't a cop, you are the enemy.
There's a few that are honest and so on, I've met them too, but they are an extreme minority. Most who start honest and want to stay honest quit and get out of that work as soon as they find out how bad it really is, and how it really is has nothing to do with this public picture they try to project. It is way closer to paramilitary robbery and death squads now than it is to the "officer friendly" crap they claim in public all the time.
Want to make the drug scene less violent? That's so easy it's ridiculous. Get rid of the stupid anti drug laws and admit reality. You wouldn't even need "undercover drug warriors" then. Once the huge illegal cash profits are removed, the crime and violence drops way down. This was proven back during Prohibition, completely 100% proven, and we had the same rise of corrupt violent cops back then, protecting the big bootleggers. Exactly the same.
But you won't see the cop gangs wanting that, because they profit from it in huge sums of cash (look at what they drive and where they live, then look up local pay scales..see anything screwy there? Completely blatant that most are on the take) plus they get to be violence addicts legally (most have a natural bully instinct, you'd have to be blind to not see this) and get away with it.
Now I am the first one to say that theoretically we need cops, but I also will say we do not need the way that system is now.
Right now, to help reform all of this we need two things badly: the federal government needs to really enforce the illegal immigration laws on the books, including the provisions of fining the employers. And we need to decriminalize drugs, at least have them be legal and under some similar regulations as alcohol. That would do more to help to bring policing back to community policing than anything else. Well, three things, we need to abandon the concept of police as military, starting with their military styled ranking system and conduct. Cops are NOT the military and even letting them get close to being the military is a terrible and harmful idea.
Re:Some times it needs to be done (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:publicly available, but... (Score:0, Interesting)
Re:Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Some times it needs to be done (Score:3, Interesting)
They are not your friend, they have no interest in following any laws themselves, they really are out to get all they can and to hell with any constitution or "laws", and will use every tactic they can come up with to protect their criminal guild, their gang,
In New England they routinely display gang colors [wikipedia.org] on their official and unofficial cars. They will often replace their front license plate with one of those.
Right now, to help reform all of this we need two things badly: the federal government needs to really enforce the illegal immigration laws on the books, including the provisions of fining the employers.
Well, that sure was a random unsupported claim in the midst of an otherwise fairly consistent diatribe.
Re:They wouldn't have arrested her (Score:2, Interesting)
You must be confused. Celebs are "stalked" all the time. That's legal. It's a huge industry. If only we were so lucky to have police, politians and other "authorities" treated the same way. If only we saw their faces EVERY DAY in the pages of tabloid newspapers!
She's a reporter, not a stalker. And these officers are armed anyway. They have nothing to fear. Except for some of them being exposed as the corrupt, evil men that they are.
Doesn't it make you even a little uneasy that the police, who are supposed to be model citizens who we can trust to protect us, cannot stand the light?
Re:Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot (Score:3, Interesting)
No. Worse. The cops, corporations, the municipality and the State share my information with people who might one day bust down my front door and gun me down as a terrorist. And if they turn out to be wrong (almost 100% sure, because I am not a terrorist), they have the full protection of the State and get off scott-free.
Far fetched? It almost happened to four Moroccan families in Amsterdam, because a disgruntled family member fingered them as potential terrorists.
So please fuck off with your authoritarian bullshit. My uncle was decorated for helping shoot people like you, and I am damn proud of him.
Mart
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
A cop introduced me to drugs, and forced a promise (Score:2, Interesting)
a promise nearly impossible to keep, that haunts me to this day. Back when I was young we had D.A.R.E. day and these new COPS came to school with their equipment. They had their weapons and said how they would use them against us. It realy freaked out half the class anyone can be that cruel to anyone outside another's phylosophy. They showed us their cars and they all looked like a tank with a kennel to restrain the passenger. Then there was the Drug Kit. He opened that thing up and said perhaps 30 seconds worth of information for every one of the 50 different drugs in there, and how some of them he bought from the street just 100 yards up the road. It turns out he bought most of all the drugs in that glass box, but for some strange reason the State forgives him from buying a drug so long as he arrests and steals all the property that came in contact with whomever sold him that drug.
That's the same day a friend of mine introduced me to a real police officer called Jack McLamb. Now this guy is a barrel of good apples in a sea of hell. Some of his horror stories were just unbearable, like how for 3 years he was sent to shootouts and denied back-up because he thought he fellow cops wanted the drug dealers and robbers to kill him. He finally left, and went in on a quiet community at the top of a mountain in his same Idaho. Has a radio show I think on World Wide First Amendment Radio (WWFAR.COM), but can't be sure because I haven't heard it for a while.
Re:They wouldn't have arrested her (Score:3, Interesting)
The Plame affair would be akin to somebody serving on the municipal council or in the mayor's office that revealed information about the undercover police officer. That would indeed be a security violation, and subject to applicable laws. In this case it was a private citizen using open sources.
Spot on here, on noting the differences.
The whole point of the blog was to put the media spotlight on the actions and affairs of this particular task forces, on the assumption that they were corrupt and needing to be monitored. It is precisely for this purpose that the 1st amendment of the U.S. Constitution was written, to give those who might be reporting this sort of information some sort of legal protection. This is clearly political speech, and the arrest was made explicitly to squelch this kind of speech.
If I were an officer, would I want my life put under this sort of detailed scrutiny? Having had police officers examine my own life in this sort of detail, I guess I don't mind having the tables turned a bit. I am certain that this task force has at least examined some of their potential suspects on more than one occasion with at least this much detail, and perhaps more using tools available only to law enforcement personnel.
Still, I can understand why these officers are pissed, and getting somebody who routinely carries a gun to be pissed at you is never a good thing to do under any circumstances. That they choose to invoke the law instead of doing something more drastic is mainly a matter of training and temperament in this case.
Re:Some times it needs to be done (Score:1, Interesting)
One of my friends' dads when I was growing up was a cop. That guy was dirty as hell. His son (my friend, although I use that term to mean "guy who beat me up if I wasn't nice to him") started gravitating that way in high school. And as he did, he'd brag about all the stuff he was getting involved in in our little town. I believed him, because in all the years I knew him, I knew he was a bully, but I can't remember a single time he ever lied to me or anyone.
The sheriff was the biggest drug dealer in the area and the drug arrests that happened every once in awhile were about taking down the competition.
So was the murder in one of the city parks, which went unsolved, and which shook this tiny rural town of 15,000.
A few years later, when my brother became a small-time weed dealer, his experiences confirmed this.
Finally, however, the state was able to prosecute and convict the sheriff, several members of his family, and a few of his deputies. But it took a long time.
Then there was the city police, which was under investigation for playing cops and robbers and killing unarmed people. The worst of these was a situation where a distraught dad whose wife had just told him she wanted a divorce tried to kill himself by taking all his kid's Ritalin (hey, I didn't say he was a smart dad), got all hopped up, and drove his truck around the neighborhood crying and running into stuff. The cops came, and he crashed into someone's garage. They blocked him in with a cruiser and approached the car with guns drawn (all fine up to here). He put the truck in reverse, backed out of the garage, and hit the cruiser, breaking a headlight and mangling the fender.
The 3 cops responded by unloading their sidearms into him. I mean unloading. Three guys, all the rounds in their guns.
Realizing they fucked up, they cordoned off the area and confined the poor woman who lived in the house indoors while they tried to get their stories straight. This took 24 hours, while the guy's body sat in the closed truck in August heat. Next door to his house, where his kids lived.
The official story was that he was armed. With a knife. Which they found in the glovebox.
There was an investigation and charges, of course, and, also of course, they were all acquitted.
The cops are evil. They are bad people. It's a job that attracts the worst of the worst. Even if someone goes in wanting to do the right thing, they give up or they change. I have a solution, however:
A chipper/shredder at the bottom of the stairs off the stage at the police academy graduation ceremony.
Re:Some times it needs to be done (Score:3, Interesting)
I regret that I have to agree with the assessment that it's not just a few bad apples and a lot of good cops. What convinced me of this was the foreclosure crisis. We had the occasional isolated sheriff's dept. that tried to insist the banks follow the law just like everybody they were foreclosing on, and refused to evict people until the banks would at least show somewhat where they'd made the calls, sent the letters or filed the proper paperwork, but those people were literally one in a thousand, as in, out of every thousand counties in the US, one person in the department at least raised some objections. If most cops were really honest, we'd see one hell of a lot better average than that.* If most DAs were really trying to follow the law, again, we'd see an incredibly better average than that.
* To be fair, in most places eviction warrants are served by the county sheriff's personnel, and issued only by one select set of judges. In theory that proves there is an overwhelming lot of 'just following orders' syndrome there, but it's still theoretically possible that city or state or federal police agencies could be incredibly honest on the average, and it's somehow just sheriff's depts. or related court's Judges and DA's that are so overwhelmingly screwed up. Does anyone really buy that?
The thing is, this test does reveal a few honest sheriffs, DAs who try to actually follow the law, and such. If you really want good police in this country, lets start getting up petitions for these people to run for higher office, like Governor! They're that exceptionally ethical - why don't we try to fast track them to positions where they can really accomplish something?
Re:Demographics (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course people are going to go that way (and the myriad of other ways, hoping/waiting for an amnesty, whatever), when it's far easier to do that than do it properly (multiple hour flights to US consulates in home countries for interviews, medicals, financial backgrounds... note that I am not disputing the need for these, but they're often not required if you 'beg forgiveness', rather than 'asking permission' - the US has really shot itself in the foot with some of its immigration policies).
Re:Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot (Score:3, Interesting)
"They work for us" is never an excuse to jeopardize the safety of anybody.
Tell that to Purina; my grandfather went down a four story elevator shaft in 1959 because they were too cheap to put doors on the elevator. Dozens were burned to death in a chicken plant fire in the '80s because management chained the fire doors shut to keep employees from stealing chicken. At least on that occasion, someone went to prison -- for two years. I'd call it mass murder, apparently killinig your employees IS ok.
Things like that is why OSHA came about.