From the CNN article “Washington police use force to control World Bank, IMF protests”:
Sleeping dragons (used to hold hands) and gas masks are “instruments of crime”? Would a bullet-proof vest be an instrument of crime? Seems to me that these kinds of things practically define civilized passive resistance, whereas authorities would rather see (and crush) a riot.
I see your point.
The entire way the Washington police have dealt with the ‘potential rioters’ is crazy. These protestors have genuine issues with the IMF and World Bank and it seems the police are willing to do whatever it takes to stop their message under the guise of safety.
I see an ever-increasing lack of first amendment rights in this country. I’m not talking about banning swear words in rap music; I’m talking about free speech like, “Hey the gov’t is doing things that are wrong.” Any type of speech like this is deemed ‘dangerous’ and un-American.
So yes, I’d say that a bullet-proof vest or sleeping dragons are dangerous: to the government’s policy toward free speech which happens to be critical.
Reminds me of the 60’s. A “rioter” is in the mind of the beholder. The logic was then and is now, “Well maybe the ones you saw on TV were just protesting. But you can bet the real terrorists were using that “peaceful” riot as a cover to ‘get’ the IMF” (or whoever).
I’ve heard that type of comment for 30 years. And, of course, by breaking up the peaceful demonstrators the Police have prevented the terrorists from acting. Therefore their actions were justified. That the terrorists probably never existed is a given. But to the poweres that be, the experts (police) have validated their actions. Self Validating and non-falsafiable. It just doesn’t get any better than that.
And bringing up isssues like the Constitution is met with honest incredulity “But we stopped the evil terrorists. How can you critisize that?”
Yeah, its a rant. But I had a couple of friends up there. True criminal types. My dentist and a bus driver.
The question is why aren’t more people concerned? Wish I had an answer.
Against stupidity, the very Gods themselves contend in vain - F. Schiller
Good one.
These protestors have no genuine issue, they have no fucking clue what the IMF or the World Bank does, their invented monsters to fight.
They “rights” are not being infringed on in anyway, they are being stopped because they are trying to infringe upon the rights of the IMF/World Bank employees and the people of Washington D.C.
They’re just aging hippies and wannabe hippies who have no jobs and nothing real to protest against. Lets send them to work in Alaska.
“I shot the sherrif, I shot the deputy too. No, it wasn’t in self defense. They both looked at me cockeyed so I capped 'em. Then I shot the mayor, then the firechief, decapitated the librarian, impaled the dog catcher, used a spoon to remove the groundskeepers eyes and sent the leader of the local KKK in full KKK uniform to downtown Manhattan. Then I made sweet love to the sexy 18 yr old intern, and it was all good.”
Sip 'n Fly, I disagree. I think most of the protestors do in fact know what the IMF and World bank are doing. And this is a real cause, even if it doesn’t directly impact the rights of the protestors.
Undoubtedly, some of the protestors are looking for a fight, but bringing debt relief and anti-poverty issues in Africa to the front of the American public’s consciousness is noble.
What I can’t understand is why the American public is so apathetically supportive toward the decisions of our gov’t.
Many people think this is the beginning of the one-world gov’t…it IS worth thinking about.
http://www.newsweek.com/nw-srv/printed/us/na/a18632-2000apr15.htm
no, they have absolutely no idea what their doing.
<i>Undoubtedly, some of the protestors are looking for a fight, but bringing debt relief and anti-poverty issues in Africa to the front of the American public’s consciousness is noble.</i>
errrm you do realise that the IMF is fighting to bring debt relief and against poverty.
The IMF are the good guys, there is nothing wrong with 1 world government. YOu just think there is.
“I shot the sherrif, I shot the deputy too. No, it wasn’t in self defense. They both looked at me cockeyed so I capped 'em. Then I shot the mayor, then the firechief, decapitated the librarian, impaled the dog catcher, used a spoon to remove the groundskeepers eyes and sent the leader of the local KKK in full KKK uniform to downtown Manhattan. Then I made sweet love to the sexy 18 yr old intern, and it was all good.”
Well, just to play devil’s advocate here for a moment, “sleeping dragons” are indeed tools of crime, the crime being trespassing.
Isn’t the wole idea of sleeping dragons to go somewhere you are not welcome (i.e. to trespass) and then to use the sleeping dragons to keep the police from removing you?
Gas masks are a different matter.
The real question is whether the police had probable cause for the raids.
I didn’t see anything that was a violation of first amendment rights. The Constitution does protect peaceful assembledge, but that doesn’t mean you can go anywhere you want. If you’re cited for jaywalking, the excuse “I was just peacefully assembling in the middle of the street” isn’t goinng to fly. And if you break into someone’s property, the excuse “I was just peacefully assembling here” isn’t going to fly either. “Civilized passive resistence” is still a crime, and the items confiscated were instruments in that crime.
I do think that there is a possible violation of the Fourth Amendment:
Anyway you look at it, fire inspection, or police raid. The protestors had gear that was going to be used to make the police job harder to do. To the guy who thinks that the rights of protestors are being suppressed and the government is getting away with more and more, I must disagree. The police in DC are worried about a fiasco like Seattle with the WTO, and with the protestors, mostly college kids with little to lose, it’s not an entirely unjustified worry.
I’m sure these people have passion and the debate about the pros and cons of the IMF/World Bank I’m not qualified enough to go into. I do know that the D.C. police are spending lots of money and manpower for these protestors. Everyone has a video camera. The old days of beating protesters is no more. Police are under increasing civil rights scrutiny, and I assure that the protestors are being allowed more access legally than previous years.
I’m a cop in NYC, and trust me it’s not an easy time to be a cop. You have professional agitators who come up to you and say horrible things about your wife/mother/girlfriend, and when you pass you breaking point, they film you. It’s wild to watch and incredible to think about how much they get away with. So please don’t feel sorry for them, because they’re sleeping dragons got confiscated. I really won’t lose much sleep over it.
Confiscation of property before it’s used for violent crime is already dubious. Confiscation of property before it’s used for non-violent crime is going too far.
Even if those items only exist to protect protestors from law enforcement, their owners still have the right to them. At times in history, there have been causes so great that civil disobedience has been required to spread the word. The public must maintain its ability to act against an encroaching government (usually in cases more dire than this) and I would much rather see protestors stock-piling sleeping dragons and gas masks than pipe bombs or malatov cocktails.
Truth be told, I don’t have any great sympathy for this particular cause, nor do I believe the police should stand by and allow complete disruption. However, I admire the protestors for remaining peaceable in the face of aggression and using non-violent means to make their message clear. Trespassers should be arrested, violent riots should be controlled, yet no threat of peaceful protest should warrant search and seizure of rightfully-owned property.
Look at this from the perspective of the DC police. There are frequently demonstrations and marches in DC and the DC government has to pay for a lot of extra police time to make sure that no one is harmed in them. (Incidentally, doesn’t it ever occur to those people who complain about how the DC government isn’t run well that part of the problem is that they are constantly coming to the city and using its streets for their purposes?) The police have to enforce the following rules: Never allow a person with diplomatic status to come to harm. It would be a international public relations disaster if they failed to take proper precautions and a diplomat was harmed. Once that rule is followed, never allow a protester to come to harm. Block their path, take their weapons, arrest them if necessary, and use whatever it takes to turn them from their path. Unnecessary harm is again a public relations disaster. Once those two rules are followed, allow the protesters to make their protest.
I despise the sort of people who, instead of bringing their complaints to the white-collar decision-makers, end up treating like dirt the blue-collar workers who have to protect those white-collar people if they don’t want to lose their jobs.
Note, that the situation was seen as being volatile, and that the police action did in fact calm everything down.
This is against the law. They cannot simply block off streets wherever they please.
Amazing. Even the demonstrators have praised the police efforts.
Peaceful protestors? Gee, there is no chance at all that the police were breaking up this element of the protest and not the rest who were conducting themselves peacefully, right? [sarcasm galore] Of course not, those evil facist police bastards.[/sarcasm galore] sigh
Hmmm… in order to “reestablish” a security fence it must have been knocked down. Again, no chance that the police were arresting those few that were responsible for this non-peaceful act, right?
Ahhh, yes, the wonderful peaceful protestors. You just have to love them. Again, no chance that the police were doing their duty and defending the delegates against the peaceful protestors, right?
To sum up. The police are not attacking or arresting the actual peaceful protestors. They are arresting those who are being non-peaceful protestors.
I’m not sure you read the article I was quoting. The preceding paragraph stated:
I have no beef with police efforts against people actively protesting, just with illegal raids of houses to confiscate possible “implements of crime” like gas masks. Whoever made that call went over the line.
Perhaps I should have been clearer.
My post was more in reply to things like the following:
The police are not trying to stop their message they are stopping those who are conducting a non-peaceful protest.
See above.
Now, as to this…
First, assuming the police had a search warrant for the house, then the raid was not illegal. There is nothing to suggest that they didn’t have a warrant.
Second, the article doesn’t state what information the police had concerning the group’s intentions. If the police knew that they were planning on commiting a crime with said material then they are justified in making a preemptive (sp) raid. For example, if the police know that somebody was planning to bust into a bank vault (non-violently at night let’s say) and gathering equipment to do so then they can raid his house to stop him from doing so (on the charges of conspiracy to commit robbery would be my guess, I am not lawyer). Granted they usually don’t do this because they would rather get him in commission of the robbery.
So, assuming that the police knew that these people were planning on blocking a road illegally (and they probably did or they would have had a hard time getting the warrant in the first place) they decided that it was better to stop them before the commission of the crime for safety’s sake. Seems pretty reasonable to me rather than apply tear gas, forcefully removing them, etc later when they have actually blocked the road.
Couple of comments:
First, from the article:
Second, I have a little trouble relating bank robbery to peaceful protest. I understand that this is a personal opinion, not one based in law, but I don’t approve of silencing protestors before they’ve even begun to protest.
It’s one thing to arrest people if they are actively disruptive, but raiding the houses of dissidents ahead of time has an unpleasantly fascist air. In other words, let’s leave the mind control to despots and avoid chasing people down for “conspiracy to trespass” and the like.
Finally, you said:
So why exactly do we have a second amendment, since its entire purpose is to allow the people to thwart the government?
The American system is based on freedom. In general, we’ve decided to trust people to abide by laws whenever possible and to use their best judgment otherwise (murder in self-defense, speeding to a hospital, protesting a terrible injustice, etc.). Of course, when a law is broken, the transgressor must either make a convincing case or suffer the consequences.
I can understand a bit more intrusion in cases of violent crime (e.g. preemptively disarming psychotics, etc.), but IMO, trampling the rights of peaceful people before any crime has been committed is not worth the cost, no matter how much civil disobedience is prevented.
[Incidentally, after a lot of in-depth reading, I have absolutely no sympathy for this cause (quite the contrary, in fact), but I still support the activists’ freedom to organize protest, and the police’s duty to arrest them once they’ve broken laws]
Sip n’ Fly,
OK. First of all, the IMF and World Bank do not help countries in debt. If you have any free time, look at their track record thus far…it is not impressive. I don’t have the exact numbers but everything they touch goes to hell.
Secondly, I don’t understand what you meant by one world gov’t being good.
Not every country in the world has it as good as the U.S., and any ‘world gov’t’ arrangement would SERIOUSLY compromise our standard of living.
My understanding is that this was in relation to the “inspection” on the warehouse not the house.
Two different incidents.
Fair enough. I support your right to your opinion, and I think you have hit the key issue. I.e. what was the intent of the people who were gathering that equipment and did the police have reliable (I for one disapprove of using anonymous tips as reliable info) information as to their intent. The article doesn’t say so, so I tend to give the benefit of the doubt to the police and magistrate who signed the warrant.
In general, I would agree that hunting people down for “thought crimes” is shaky ground. But there is a certain amount of logic in maintaining public order and safety. Assuming, that these people were planning on non-peaceful protest with this equipment they are potentially putting people in harm’s way not least of which themselves. And yes, the police do have some measure of obligation to prevent people from purposefully putting themselves in harm’s way (for example, that police officer who prevented a man from running into his burning home). Ultimately, the police have some measure of duty in keeping public order, which I think they fairly executed in this case. It is not impossible to imagine these protestors blocking a street and causing a traffic accident which cause injury (finacial and/or physical) or death to somebody. This is why we don’t allow people to do this.
I don’t think the police would have raided the house if all they had were placards for their cause. In fact, the police haven’t done so. The police are not trying to silence the message, the police are trying to maintain public order and prevent any senseless injuries.
In general, I tend to agree with you. I don’t know what the specific plans were of these people. I know that the police are trying to prevent another Seattle. They want to bust the troublemakers before it becomes a riot where extensive property damage and personal injury is done. It sounds to me like these people were planning on stirring up trouble and stir it up illegally.
If the police really wanted to silence the message then they would be commiting much greater acts of violence against all the protestors. Like the protests in Quebec, Canada last year (or was in late 1998?) … you want to see police thought control take a look at the Surete de Quebec (Quebec Provincial Police). They beat and arrested pro-Federal gov’t protestors and supported or simply stood by while Seperatists violently attacked the pro-Federal gov’t protestors. It was a pure disgrace. That is police trying to silence the message, this, in my opinion, is maintaining public order and safety from troublemakers (again, more specifics would help … maybe these folks had been stirring up trouble the day before and the police wanted to stop them before they did so again … there is a lack of information from the article to truly say).
Ummm … near the end there. That should be “This isn’t police trying to silence the message…” instead if “This is police…”.
Citizens do not exist to make the job of the police easier. It is not the job of the police to make their own jobs easier by bullying citizens.
Actually it’s very firm ground - it shouldn’t be done.
It is not impossible to imagine them finding the cure for cancer, either. What’s your point? Are you suggesting that we prevent any activity which much cause injury (finacial? and/or physical) to somebody?
If I am not mistaken, the “house” that the protesters occupied was a vacant house which did not belong to them.They were trespassing. In Seattle they pulled the same thing by squatting in a wartehouse. The owner wanted to get them out but they resisted. What kind of people take over the property of another and then refuse to leave when the cops come?
Their free speech is not being compromised. They can print newspapers, pay for TV and radio commercials expressing their views, hang up posters, etc. They have many options on how they wish to speak. The government is not locking them up for distributing anti government fliers. They are simply restricting where / they can protest.
Free speech does not mean that you can block traffic or conduct a parade without a permit. The law has clearly supported that while governemnt can’t infringe on content, it can control the manner of the speech.
Were it otherwise, I could spraypaint an anti IMF diatribe on the side of the washington monument with impunity. I could place a 100 ft banner across the highway…or engage numerous other preposterous and destructive ways fo getting my message across.
The police have a right to block off a street and the IMF has a right to private property. The protestors do not have a right to break the law.