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Police officers overwhelmingly think I’m right. Or not.

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Government officials are fond of deferring to the opinion of police officers when defending restrictive laws and intrusive procedures. Time and again, we’re told that “rank-and-file police officers overwhelmingly support this law banning the sale of X” or “police officers overwhelmingly favor the extension of this law requiring Y.” That’s supposed to be the conversation-killer. Cops want this or oppose that, and so the debate is finished!

The presumption, of course, is that it not only matters what police officers think, but that the preferences of the folks in blue (and plainclothes) should carry overwhelming weight. That’s a dubious premise, but one that goes, all too frequently, unchallenged in debates over public policy in the United States. To hear politicians talk, you might as well replace legislatures with random delegations from local police departments and scrap public-opinion polling in favor of whatever you can overhear at a neighborhood cop-bar.

But even for people who accept the unassailable value of the political and legal preferences harbored by the gendarmerie, the assumption is that we actually hear and know what police officers think — that we have been presented an accurate representation of their beliefs.

But what if what we’re hearing is bowdlerized to the point of being unrepresentative? What if many cops are afraid to speak their minds, so instead hold their tongues or feed us bullshit?

That’s the question raised by a New York Times article that tells the whole tale in a headline: “Police officers find that dissent on drug laws may come with a price.” The article features stories such as that of a Border Patrol officer who found his pro-legalization musings had pretty stiff consequences:

Stationed in Deming, N.M., Mr. Gonzalez was in his green-and-white Border Patrol vehicle just a few feet from the international boundary when he pulled up next to a fellow agent to chat about the frustrations of the job. If marijuana were legalized, Mr. Gonzalez acknowledges saying, the drug-related violence across the border in Mexico would cease. He then brought up an organization called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition that favors ending the war on drugs.

Those remarks, along with others expressing sympathy for illegal immigrants from Mexico, were passed along to the Border Patrol headquarters in Washington. After an investigation, a termination letter arrived that said Mr. Gonzalez held “personal views that were contrary to core characteristics of Border Patrol Agents, which are patriotism, dedication and esprit de corps.”

After citing similar cases, the Times quotes an anonymous police officer who sees such penalties for ideological non-conformity breeding a culture of closed-mouths among law-enforcers.

Among those not yet ready to publicly urge the legalization of drugs is a veteran Texas police officer who quietly supports LEAP and spoke on the condition that he not be identified. “We all know the drug war is a bad joke,” he said in a telephone interview. “But we also know that you’ll never get promoted if you’re seen as soft on drugs.”

It’s not only drugs, either. In 1994, the Free Lance Star of Virginia reported that the police officers who had publicly appeared in support of the just-passed federal “assault weapons” ban hadn’t been informed of the nature of the photo-op until they arrived. And they weren’t all on board with the gun ban to which they were supposed to provide a supportive backdrop.

Not all of the officers supported the ban, however, and one of them, John Donaggio, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Alexandria that claims [Chief] Stover violated his rights.

Donaggio, 29, said he was ordered to go to the Capitol, stand on the steps, pose for photographs, and keep his objections private. His lawsuit says that the chief and the county illegally forced him into political activity and violated his right to free speech.

It’s not hard to extrapolate from cases like this to others involving high political stakes. If police officers can be disciplined for opposing the received wisdom on drug prohibition and gun control, why wouldn’t they also face consequences for dissenting on search and seizure, SWAT tactics, immigration …

Police officers work under tight discipline in government agencies under leaders who are political appointees, or politicians themselves. That’s not a good recipe for the fair airing of unvarnished opinions that oppose those of people further up the hierarchical food chain.

So, police officers overwhelmingly support Policy X when they’re ordered to? Or, at least, when they fear for their job security if they don’t?

That’s a somewhat less compelling argument, don’t you think?

No free speech, for the children

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You know the most annoying thing in poorly executed pro-freedom novels? It’s how the villains often overtly state their hostility to freedom and their intention to strip rights away from the populace in favor of government control. Real villains are more subtle than that. They couch their incursions into liberty in soft language, justifying it as– What’s that? You say …

Oh. Never mind. The bar has apparently been moved. Carry on.

This, from a New York State Senate Independent Democratic Conference report on “cyberbullying” (crazy person caps in the original), Cyberbullying: A Report on Bullying in a Digital Age (PDF):

THE CHALLENGE LIES IN PROTECTING TEENAGERS FROM CYBERBULLYING WITHOUT TRAMPLING ON THE FREE SPEECH PROTECTIONS AFFORDED BY THE FIRST AMENDMENT. THIS PROPOSED LEGISLATION ACCOMPLISHES THAT IN THE FOLLOWING WAY:

PROPONENTS OF FREE SPEECH HAVE LONG ARGUED THAT A SOCIETY THAT PUTS PEOPLE ON TRIAL FOR THINGS THEY HAVE WRITTEN OR SAID IS NO LONGER A TRULY DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY. THE POWER OF THE WORD HAS BEEN UNDISPUTABLE; IT HAS BEEN ESSENTIAL TO PRESERVING DEMOCRACY AND, IN FACT, ITS FOUNDING PREMISE WAS TO PRESERVE THE EXCHANGE OF IDEAS: A “MARKET PLACE” WHERE CITIZENS COULD SORT THROUGH BELIEFS AND IDEAS WHICH BEST RESONATED WITH THEM AND DISCARD THOSE THAT DID NOT,74 THEREBY ALLOWING FOR THE CREATION OF AN EVER-EVOLVING, OPEN SOCIETY. MOREOVER, THEY CONTEND THAT FREEDOM OF SPEECH IS RECOGNIZED AS A HUMAN RIGHT UNDER ARTICLE 19 OF THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS,75 SO IT CANNOT AND MUST NOT BE LIMITED.

AND YET, PROPONENTS OF A MORE REFINED FIRST AMENDMENT ARGUE THAT THIS FREEDOM SHOULD BE TREATED NOT AS A RIGHT BUT AS A PRIVILEGE – A SPECIAL ENTITLEMENT GRANTED BY THE STATE ON A CONDITIONAL BASIS THAT CAN BE REVOKED IF IT IS EVER ABUSED OR MALTREATED. BRITISH PHILOSOPHER JOHN STUART MILL LONG ARGUED THAT “THE ONLY PURPOSE FOR WHICH POWER CAN BE RIGHTFULLY EXERCISED OVER ANY MEMBER OF A CIVILIZED COMMUNITY, AGAINST HIS WILL, IS TO PREVENT HARM FROM OTHERS.”76 HIS “HARM PRINCIPLE” WAS ARTICULATED IN AN ANALOGY BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. (1841-1935), AND STILL HOLDS TRUE TODAY: “THE RIGHT TO SWING MY FIST ENDS WHERE THE OTHER MAN’S NOSE BEGINS,” OR, A PERSON’S RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH ENDS WHEN IT SEVERELY INFRINGES UPON THE SAFETY AND WELL-BEING OF ANOTHER.

IN THE CASE OF CYBERBULLYING, THE PERCEIVED PROTECTIONS OF FREE SPEECH ARE EXACTLY WHAT ENABLE HARMFUL SPEECH AND CRUEL BEHAVIOR ON THE INTERNET. IT IS THE NOTION THAT PEOPLE CAN POST ANYTHING THEY WANT, REGARDLESS OF THE HARM IT MIGHT CAUSE ANOTHER PERSON THAT HAS PERPETUATED, IF NOT CREATED, THIS CYBERBULLYING CULTURE. BUT “HATE SPEECH” THAT CAUSES MATERIAL HARM TO CHILDREN SHOULD HAVE CONSEQUENCES.

IN SUMMARY, ALTHOUGH SPEECH IS GENERALLY PROTECTED UNDER THE FIRST AMENDMENT, THERE ARE INSTANCES IN WHICH RESTRICTIONS ARE WARRANTED. …

Add ten more “bad novel” points for couching the proposal to redefine rights as privileges in “for the children” language.

Truly, the novel can not keep up with reality.

Great Shafer column on the idiotic calls for post-shooting speech controls

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Slate‘s Jack Shafer says it so that I don’t have to:

For as long as I’ve been alive, crosshairs and bull’s-eyes have been an accepted part of the graphical lexicon when it comes to political debates. Such “inflammatory” words as targeting, attacking, destroying, blasting, crushing, burying, knee-capping, and others have similarly guided political thought and action. Not once have the use of these images or words tempted me or anybody else I know to kill. I’ve listened to, read—and even written!—vicious attacks on government without reaching for my gun. I’ve even gotten angry, for goodness’ sake, without coming close to assassinating a politician or a judge.

The only thing I’ll add is that government officials command such vast power — power to bankrupt, imprison, maim and, yes, kill — that refraining from using “vitriol” (as Pima County’s Sheriff Clarence Dupnik puts it) in criticizing people who seek to wield that power borders on the irresponsible.

Update: Liberranter correctly points out that this is an appropriate place for John Green’s (the father of slain Christina Green) moving call to refrain from using this incident as an excuse for more restrictions on our freedom.

Politicians miss no opportunity to exploit Tucson shooting

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Let me express, for the record, my contempt for the predictable creatures who see in the Tucson shooting spree and assassination attempt on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords an opportunity to smear people who speak unkindly about the government. It would be bad enough to extrapolate from one actor some sort of false collective guilt for anybody who shares a few political or social views, but that’s an extra stretch in this case, given that the only consistent strain in Jared Lee Loughner’s ravings about mathematics and mind control was whatever was provided by the random misfirings of his neurons. His YouTube page listed favorite books including both Mein Kampf and Communist Manifesto — potentially indicating a catholic interest in totalitarianism, though I doubt that well-connected a thread runs through his thoughts.

Basically, Loughner’s crime can’t be blamed on anybody but himself, and his writings and actions lay quite a solid groundwork for a criminal insanity defense.

But never doubt the readiness of the usual suspects to piggyback favorite pre-packaged authoritarian bills on the emotional reaction to the shooting.

Rep. Robert Brady, (jackass, Pennsylvania), is pushing a pet law “making it a federal crime for a person to use language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening or inciting violence against a Member of Congress or federal official.”

“Perceived as threatening”? That’s great. I have yet to meet a government official who doesn’t “perceive” the slightest criticism as the equivalent of a thrown glove.

Says CNN:

Brady said it is now time to put an end to the hyper-charged language.

“The rhetoric is just ramped up so negatively, so high, that we have got to shut this down,” Brady said, noting that “I’ve had my share of death threats” over his many years in politics.

Well, why not take advantage of a brutal crime to clamp down on antigovernment language and harsh words directed at agents of the state who command police forces and armies that rack up a body count the nation’s nuts will never equal? Yes, it’s an excellent moment to crack down on free speech that makes wildly powerful officials uncomfortable.

Hey, Brady, how’s this for rhetoric?: You’re an un-American thug.

And Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (one-trick pony, New York) is at it again with … oh guess, would you? Yes, it’s an anti-firearms measure. She, again, wants to ban high-capacity magazines and clips.

Hey, McCarthy, how many innocent civilians killed by police would be saved by such a ban? Oh, that’s right, the ban would apply only to civilians.

This is from a quick scan of news headlines, by the way. I’m sure that more fun laws are coming.

On a milder, but sadder note: Special condolences to the family of Christina-Taylor Green. Nobody should have died on that Tucson street, but the death of a child is always especially horrible.

Update: Christina-Taylor Green’s father says her murder shouldn’t be used as a justification for more restrictions on liberty.

Bravo, WikiLeaks

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I was traveling and unavailable to comment on the latest WikiLeaks story when it broke. Suffice it to say that the publication of classified U.S. government documents about the floundering imperial effort in Afghanistan illustrates the value of the Website/organization and its editor-in-chief, Julian Assange. Private watchdog efforts like WikiLeaks are absolutely vital, and you better believe I support them in any conflict they may ever have with a government, including the nasty behemoth that presides over the country in which I currently live.

Oh yeah. And Marc Thiessen, the chest-pounding thug who wants the government to use “not only law enforcement but also intelligence and military assets to bring Assange to justice and put [WikiLeaks] out of business” can kiss my ass.

Charges dismissed in Stagliano case

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John Stagliano, a libertarian-oriented producer of adult entertainment who sometimes goes by the monicker “Buttman,” has finally won vindication in his long legal ordeal at the hands of federal bluenoses. The Washington Post has the story:

A federal judge dismissed the first obscenity prosecution brought in the nation’s capital in a quarter-century on technical grounds Friday, tossing out charges against John A. Stagliano and two companies associated with the adult video producer based in Van Nuys, Calif.

Acquitting Stagliano, John Stagliano Inc. and Evil Angel Productions Inc. before they began their defense, U.S. District Court Judge Richard J. Leon said evidence presented by the Justice Department’s Obscenity Prosecution Task Force in the four-day trial was “woefully insufficient” to link defendants to the production and distribution of two DVD videos at the heart of the case.

Go out and rent a few videos to celebrate this free speech victory!

U.S. officials spy on activists across the political spectrum

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If you’re in a mood to feel like a targeted victim of government, you don’t need to be a libertarian, or a lefty, or a righty or a tea-partier, or even a Muslim. Nope, it turns out  that the simple act of speaking out in a way that’s critical of the government, or even just a bit outside the mainstream, is enough to get you monitored, referenced in a file and tagged as an enemy of the state. That’s right — there’s room for everybody to play!

A new report (PDF) from the American Civil Liberties Union details surveillance by local, state and federal officials — separately and jointly — of peaceful political activists, protesters and organizations over the past decade. A random sampling of surveillance activities, sometimes including interference with lawful protest, includes these examples:

Military Intelligence Spied on Alaskans for Peace. According to an Electronic Frontier Foundation FOIA, military intelligence spied on the anti-war group Alaskans for Peace and Justice in 2005.

FBI Infiltration of Islamic Center. An FBI agent testified in court in 2009 that an informant had been planted at an Islamic Center in Irvine, California. Surveillance has prompted some Muslims to avoid mosques and cut charitable contributions out of fear of being questioned or branded as ‘extremists.’

Costa County Sheriff’s Homeland Security Unit Officers Infiltrate Union Demonstration. When Southern California Safeway store workers went on strike in 2003–2004, a delegation of religious leaders planned a pilgrimage to the Safeway CEO’s home to deliver postcards supporting the striking workers. Sheriff’s deputies from Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Homeland Security Unit went to the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), and staff directed them to a contact number on a flyer. Despite the fact that the sheriff’s department had been in contact with the pilgrimage organizers—union leaders saw the same sheriff’s deputies in plainclothes attending a demonstration at a Safeway store in San Francisco.

FBI JTTF Monitors American Indian Movement, Peace Groups, and Environmental Groups. In August 2005, the ACLU obtained the documents in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request containing information on the Colorado American Indian Movement and the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center. The files show that JTTF agents opened “domestic terrorism” investigations after they read notices on web sites announcing an antiwar protest in Colorado Springs in 2003 and a protest against Columbus Day in Denver in 2002.

Fusion Center Profiles Modern Militia Movement. The February 2009 Missouri Fusion Center report on “the modern militia movement” claimed militia members are “usually supporters” of presidential candidates Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin and Bob Barr.

The majority of the groups and individuals targeted would likely be considered of the political left — particularly if you categorize anti-war activists in those terms. But that seems to be largely a function of the dominance of the federal government by the Republican Bush administration over most of those years. Surveillance continues under the Democratic Obama administration, with the political right targeted by Fusion Center documents like the one above, and in DHS reports on “right-wing extremism.” Muslims are still a popular target, and environmentalists remain on the government’s radar. (Anti-war activists would probably continue to draw attention if the peace movement hadn’t faded with the change of presidents.)

Vegans have been scrutinized by the fuzz, too, for reasons I can’t begin to fathom.

Basically, this emphasizes the point made time and again that police-state activities aren’t a wholly owned subsidiary of either Democrats or Republicans, and salvation isn’t found in an election that just swaps the politicians of one major party for another. Obama didn’t end Bush’s civil liberties incursions, and returning to office the GOP clowns who authored the PATRIOT Act (largely by rewarming Clinton-era proposals) won’t reverse the current administration’s violations.

The ACLU will monitor illegal domestic spying through its new Spy Files site.

Pass DISCLOSE so Republicans don’t get elected

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Admittedly, Rep. Hank Johnson is … ummm … a moron. But it’s not often that you see a politician openly advocating restrictions on political speech as a means of choking off the opposition’s electoral prospects.

My apologies for posting anything from Eric Cantor’s YouTube channel (among other failings, the Republican Whip supports the PATRIOT Act and voted for TARP — twice), but this is priceless.