First, read this post from brownfemipower on why police brutality matters. (Lisa at Questioning Transphobia has also linked to this)
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Reposted from a friend:
Dear ___________,
We are sending you this message because the situation in St. Paul is very grave and we're concerned that the real story is not being told by the mainstream media.
Over the past few days, the heavily armed and extremely large police presence in St. Paul has intimidated, harrassed and provoked people; and, in a number of instances, the police have escalated situations when they used excessive force. They have used pepper spray, including spraying at least one person just inches from her face as she was held down on the ground by several police officers. They have freely swung their extra long night sticks, pushed people around, rode horses and bicycles up against peacefully gathered groups, and surrounded people simply walking down the streets. On Tuesday evening, they used tear gas on a small group of protesters in downtown St. Paul.
The massive police presence and the uncalled-for actions by the police on the streets has not been the only problem. The police raided a convergence center and several locations where people are staying over the weekend and they have stopped and searched vehicles for no clear reason. For background on the activities of the police in St. Paul, check out Marjorie Cohn's article here.
On Tuesday afternoon, they literally pulled the plug and turned off the electricity at a permitted outdoor concert. The timing of this led to a situation where hundreds of understandably angry people ended up joining a march being led by the Poor Peoples Campaign for Economic Human Rights, a march that organizers were insisting be nonviolent. In other words, the police set up a dynamic that could have turned ugly, but the skill of the organizers kept things calm and focused.
All of this - and much more - needs to be understood in the context of the overwhelming presence of police. Police from all around the Twin Cities have been put to work, and they have also brought in police units from around Minnesota and from as far away as Philadelphia, PA. The National Guard and state troopers are in the mix, to say nothing of the Secret Service, Homeland Security and who knows who else from the federal government!
We are very concerned about what this all means about the right to protest, the right to assemble, and the right to have one's dissenting voice heard. We are worried about what it means about the growing militarization of our nation and the ongoing assault on the Constitution. We shudder to think about how the influx of new weapons and armed vehicles and everything else will be used in the neighborhoods of St. Paul and Denver: both communities each received $50 million from Homeland Security to purchase the equipment and pay for the policing during the conventions.
There are still two more days of the Republican Convention in St. Paul -- two more days of protest and possibilities of police mis-conduct, over-reaction, and excessive use of force.
We urge you to call the Mayor of St. Paul right now! Let him know that people around the country know what's happening! Urge him to stand up for the Constitution and to take action to end the militarization of the downtown areas of his city! Urge him to reign in the police and help bring civility to the streets of St. Paul!
Mayor Chris Coleman: 651-266-8510
And call your local media outlets to demand that they tell the real story of what's happening in St. Paul this week.
Peace,
Leslie Cagan, UFPJ National Coordinator
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FBI Wanted Obama Plotters Charged, But A Rove Appointee Said No
So, we have the massive trampling of the Constitution and police abuse of power in Minnesota, but white supremacists conspiring to assassinate Senator Obama get their charges dismissed by the US Attorney for Colorado, Troy Eid. Does anyone else sense some sort of bias here in the judicial system, at all?
Note: Again, Lisa has commentary on it, as well
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Breaking: RNC 8 Charged with "Conspiracy to Riot in Furtherance of Terrorism"
Some choice bits: Minnesota has a terrorism enhancement law modeled on the federal patriot act. This adds 50% to the maximum sentence, giving a maximum sentence of 7 1/2 years. The terrorism charges are based on charges made by paid informants that infiltrated the RNC Welcoming Committee, who alleged that "members of the group sought to kidnap delegates to the RNC, assault police officers with firebombs and explosives, and sabotage airports in St. Paul". However, "[e]vidence released to date does not corroborate these allegations with physical evidence or provide any other evidence for these allegations than the claims of the informants. Based on past abuses of such informants by law enforcement, the National Lawyers Guild is concerned that such police informants have incentives to lie and exaggerate threats of violence and to also act as provacateurs in raising and urging support for acts of violence."
More over:
"These charges are an effort to equate publicly stated plans to blockade traffic and disrupt the RNC as being the same as acts of terrorism. This both trivializes real violence and attempts to place the stated political views of the Defendants on trial," said Bruce Nestor, President of the Minnesota Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. "The charges represent an abuse of the criminal justice system and seek to intimidate any person organizing large scale public demonstrations potentially involving civil disobedience, he said."
The criminal complaints filed by the Ramsey County Attorney do not allege that any of the defendants personally have engaged in any act of violence or damage to property. The complaints list all of alleged violations of law during the last few days of the RNC -- other than violations of human rights carried out by law enforcement -- and seeks to hold the 8 defendants responsible for acts committed by other individuals. None of the defendants have any prior criminal history involving acts of violence. Searches conducted in connection with the raids failed to turn up any physical evidence to support the allegations of organized attacks on law enforcement. Although claiming probable cause to believe that gunpowder, acids, and assembled incendiary devices would be found, no such items were seized by police. As a result, police sought to claim that the seizure of common household items such as glass bottles, charcoal lighter, nails, a rusty machete, and two hatchets, supported the allegations of the confidential informants.
1918 was the last time charges of this sort were brought up, "when Matt Moilen and others organizing labor unions for the International Workers of the World on the Iron Range were charged with "criminal syndicalism." The convictions, based on allegations that workers had advocated or taught acts of violence, including acts only damaging to property, were upheld by the Minnesota Supreme Court. In the light of history, these convictions are widely seen as unjust and a product of political trials. The National Lawyers Guild condemns the charges filed in this case against the above 8 defendants and urges the Ramsey County Attorney to drop all charges of conspiracy in this matter."
Hopefully, the National Lawyers Guild will be able to get all these bullshit, illegal, unconstitutional charges dropped...but still, there is going to be a horrific chilling effect. The police state has ramped it up another notch, and neither party will have any desire to turn it down. If everyone remembers back to last weekend, the police were stating to NLG Legal Observers that they didn't have warrants...so who knows if the claimed warrants are legit and just not presented (which is busted) or they've illegally gotten retroactively.
So, at this point, it's Rule of Law and the Constitution 0, Police State way too much.
Savor what little freedom you think you have left, US citizens.
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Even Pam's House Blend is giving a source that confirms that Blackwater is working security in St. Paul. They were used as police first in New Orleans; now as police/security for the RNC. And let's be honest, they're brutal mercernaries hired to do what even the US government doesn't want to take direct responsibility for doing. Needless to say, using mercenaries for police is in direct contradiction to not only tradition, but the law.
Here's an article by Marjorie Cohn on police misconduct and brutality in St. Paul. Notable unconstitutional activity is preemptive arrest (violates the 4th Amendment, which requires a warrant obtained from a judge based on probable cause); arresting of journalists and ceasing their equipment (violation of the 1st Amendment); and the charge of "conspiracy to riot", which the article notes is "so vague that it is probably unconstitutional". The video in the article is of the arrest of Amy Goodman, who was trying to question the police, as a journalist. And was arrested for that.
Also, the NLG has noted the massive levels of brutality of police forces, and how heavily militarized they are; they and Communities United Against Police Brutality have attempted to get an injunction prohibiting the police from seizing equipment recording their misconduct (an injunction, that if it goes through, I doubt the police will even pretend to pay attention to).
This all just shows that the local, state, and federal law enforcement have gotten even more blatant in their use of coercive force to silence any dissent. This has been going on for a long time - but this just shows that the state no longer cares about even attempting to pretend that there is a rule of law with constitutionally protected rights (that since they are inherent, are neither given nor taken away by the state - they are just something you have).
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Indymedia has brief blurbs on what's going on at the RNC protests and even though that post has a link through to this, it's important enough to note separately that they're targeting some of the street medics for special procedures; we've long known that the state uses the police to disrupt any dissent using brutality, illegal tactics, and trumped up charges (many of which shouldn't exist to be used in a free society, to begin with), but they've had a consistent pattern this time of getting really good at targeting the infrastructure of protesters and also the media. We've all heard about the arrests of many journalists, and seizure of equipment used for journalistic purposes (the most widely known journalists arrested so far would be Amy Goodman and two producers from Democracy Now!), and the raids on convergence houses; the way this is written, it makes it look like they're now trying to specifically remove medics from the protests.
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That's just some of the outrageous brutality and trampling of the rule of law that is going on under the police state. What is scariest to me is the fact that they're using Blackwater; using an unaccountable paramilitary force to terrorize citizenry is the last step when a nation goes fascist.
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