These days, anything the police wish to do is not only justified, but considered a-ok, no problemo, what-the-hell-are-you-complaining-for?-we’re-just-trying-to-keep-everyone-safe. Anderson Cooper goes so far as to complain about stupid people (kids, in this case) who “waste time” by protesting the abuse of their civil rights.

In my job as a defense attorney, I’m having to file motions to obtain the most basic of my clients’ rights. People who have been arrested, apparently, no longer have them. Just because they were arrested. Forget preliminary examinations; forget trials; forget due process of law. Our nation no longer follows the rule of law. Instead, we have the rule of law enforcement. And anything goes.

Sheriff wants to put intercom systems into all interview rooms where attorneys meet with clients, so they can listen in at the flip of a switch? So what. It’s for “safety” purposes. Police want to invade parties because they see kids drinking from red cups? So what. “Safety” is the issue. Our President wants to invade countries that have not attacked the United States? So? Again, it’s safety.

Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad if safety actually mattered. But it doesn’t. “Safety” is the pretense that allows the State to do whatever it wants. The State may violate any law — it matters not that the laws may have been enacted hundreds of years ago to constrain the State.

No one, no law, no Constitution must stand in the way of “safety.”

Recently, it was decided that the city would fund video surveillance activities of the Fresno Police Department. A related proposal to give the FPD the shorter, catchier, and more accurate moniker “Gestapo” failed by a vote of 147 to 151. (Okay, I made that last part up. The vote was actually quite a bit lower. We don’t really have that many city councilmen yet.)

Funding for the project was contingent upon acceptance of a policy manual which was to be written with community input. Apparently, though, the FPD did not like the recommendations of the community — recommendations aimed at protecting civil rights by refusing to allow the FPD to film peaceful rallies, or to follow people around and film them without warrants. So the FPD changed the wording of the policy manual. They not only excluded the sections that placed limitations upon the police, but wrote new sections that explicitly said the police were allowed to follow people around and film them wtihout first obtaining warrants (as they are currently required to do) and also said they could film demonstrations or rallies of any kind.

In other words, there doesn’t need to be any ordinary police issue involved. No criminality or threat of criminality is required. If the police want to film you, they film you. Period. No court order, warrant or probable cause required.

Thinks that’s not a problem? Apparently, you’ve never had the pleasure of accidentally “disrespecting” a police officer by taking a parking space he wanted when he was off-duty and you didn’t even know he was a police officer.

Remember what I’ve written before about America being a police state? You thought that was hyperbole.

Well, how do you define “police state”?

For more information, see the following pages:

• Fresno’s New Video Policing Policy
• Fresno Police Department Budget Hearings – Day 2
• Video Surveillance in Fresno
• This Area is Under Surveillance

Simply put, “We own you.”

And nobody thought it was a problem when the hard work of the 1960s and 1970s was undone by the re-institution of monopolies in the communication industry.

Well, at least it’s official now.

Sadly, most of us won’t care, until the day the government actually starts using the information in more overtly repressive ways. By then, it will be too late.

He mentioned that he had a “contact” at the hospital who had seen some lab reports on the little girl, and was concerned that “proper precautions were not being taken.” Being infinitely smarter than the doctors and nurses who were treating the girl, the two of them apparently (so my acquaintance says) reported it to the Fresno Bee.

According to the Bee, the child does not have SARS. Based on what the story says, it would appear that the doctor didn’t really think SARS was the likely diagnosis anyway. (Chest x-rays—part of the diagnostic procedures that a HIPPA violator, even with access to lab results, may not see—were done and apparently this and other information lead the physician to believe it was not SARS.)

Personally, I feel much safer these days—well, except as to my privacy—knowing that I live in a country filled with people who not only support government deprecation of civil rights, but won’t let even the few remaining privacy-oriented laws stop them from reporting my personal health to the newspaper if they don’t like the way my doctor is handling things and it gives them a chance to feel important.