Friday, August 22, 2008
The future holds more mass illegal detentions
by Larry Geller
Caging demonstrators, clearing streets with preventitive detention sweeps, and indiscriminate arrests violate the spirit and the letter of the Constitution of the United States. [publiceye.org]
Of course. But New York City police, experts at unconstitutional mass arrests and street sweeping, have been advising the Denver police. So I guess we can expect more illegal police activities next week.
In NYC, police did not hesitate to arrest anyone and everyone in their path. Lawsuits were dragged on for years, and ultimately they settled ($2 million to be paid to 2004 protestors, NYC cops won’t have to admit fault). What a bargain.
If we see a repeat in Denver, they’ll do their thing, Constitution be damned, get sued by the ACLU and others, and pay up later. The payment will be considered to be a cost of doing business.
Let’s see if this is what business as usual in a police state looks like. Denver police could do the right thing, or they could emulate their NYC cousins. Which do you think will happen?
There are resources for activists on the Public Eye website, including this page, Security for Activists: Overcoming Repression.
Post a Comment
Requiring those Captcha codes at least temporarily, in the hopes that it quells the flood of comment spam I've been receiving.