Are They Cops or Military?

This was a timely article to me: Open thread for night owls: America's police are looking more and more like the military

I'm reading Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces by Radley Balko and this is definitely something that worries me. Even as a UMC White woman, I'm aware of just how wrong a police encounter can go and it's worse for minorities, especially African-American men and boys. So why are we OK with giving police even more power and arming them like soldiers? Are we really so afraid of terrorists and other boogeymen that we'll allow the police to arm themselves to the teeth? Balko makes a good point when he says allowing the police to arm themselves like soldiers just increased their "us versus them" mentality. As the saying goes, if all you have is a hammer then everything starts to look like a nail. I think there are good cops out there but they're immersed in a culture that expects, and finds, violence.

Anyone who's watched prime time  TV has seen countless arrests. Complete fiction! If arrested or even questioned, get a lawyer and don't say a thing until you have counsel.

From the Department of For Pete's Sake, Really?

FBI Director defends NSA surveillance on phone records, saying it could have helped derail 9/11 plotters
— Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) June 13, 2013

Uh huh. Too bad there wasn't anything else available to warn the U.S. against the terrorist attack on 9/11. Something like a security briefing entitled Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the US.

David Brooks and the Destruction of Society, One Individual At A Time

While reading David Brook's column The Solitary Leaker, I had a terrifying experience. All of a sudden the room went dark, I was struck with sudden blindness! I was terrified and then I realized I hadn't been struck blind, I had merely rolled my eyes so hard, they got stuck in the back of my head.

I'm still following the NSA leaks issue and I haven't made up my mind yet what I think about Edward Snowden but I think Brooks is trying too hard to make him the cause of the downfall of society.

If you live a life unshaped by the mediating institutions of civil society, perhaps it makes sense to see the world a certain way: Life is not embedded in a series of gently gradated authoritative structures: family, neighborhood, religious group, state, nation and world. Instead, it’s just the solitary naked individual and the gigantic and menacing state.

Ummm... no. Snowden was acting because of his belief in society and the need for the American people to be aware of what the government is doing. I'm sure the British could have used that argument against the Founding Fathers, as well.

This lens makes you more likely to share the distinct strands of libertarianism that are blossoming in this fragmenting age: the deep suspicion of authority, the strong belief that hierarchies and organizations are suspect, the fervent devotion to transparency, the assumption that individual preference should be supreme. You’re more likely to donate to the Ron Paul for president campaign, as Snowden did.

Again, no. I wouldn't say any of that is distinct only to modern day libertarians. I'd say our founding fathers had a pretty deep suspicion of authority, deep enough to defy the rather large British Empire.

I'm not saying that Snowden's bust should be on display at the capitol next to Washington, Adams or Lincoln but his belief that a free society needs information, needs limits on power is built into the history of our country.

Reading List June 6, 2013

Don’t Treat Consumers Like Criminals

Saxby Chambliss Did Not Blame Sexual Assault on Hormones
OK, now that Erick Erickson explains how it's all a horrible misunderstanding, that Senator Saxby Chambliss didn't imply hormones cause sexual assault, I feel a lot better. Erickson is obviously an expert on women stuff as shown by his nuanced response to women as head of household. I feel much better now.

NSA, Line 1

U.S. Is Secretly Collecting Records of Verizon Calls
One Nation, Under Surveillance

For sev­eral years, two De­moc­rats on the Sen­ate In­tel­li­gence Com­mit­tee, Sen­a­tor Ron Wyden of Or­e­gon and Sen­a­tor Mark Udall of Col­o­rado, have been cryp­ti­cal­ly warn­ing that the gov­ern­ment was in­ter­pret­ing its sur­veil­lance pow­ers un­der that sec­tion of the Pa­tri­ot Act in a way that would be alarm­ing to the pub­lic if it knew about it.
“We be­lieve most Amer­i­cans would be stunned to learn the de­tails of how these se­cret court opin­ions have in­ter­pret­ed Sec­tion 215 of the Pa­tri­ot Act,” they wrote last year in a let­ter to At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Er­ic H. Holder Jr.

I hate to say it but this doesn't surprise me at all. The Patriot Act was nothing more than a power grab and ripe for abuse of the American people. Alarmed? Yes. Surprised? Not in the least bit.