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Worth Reading: Trevor Pott's editorial on NSA PRISM and its real ramifications

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wraith808:
How Cops Became Soldiers: An Interview with Police Militarization Expert Radley Balko

7 Ways The Obama Administration Has Accelerated Police Militarization

Tinman57:

Exactly 40hz.  We need to change the name from USA to UPSA, United Police States of America....

40hz:
In the story Alongside Night which paints a picture of a future United States in the throes of total economic collapse, there is a huge increase in covert police actions with dissident disappearances taking place. None of which is being reported by a now thoroughly intimidated and co-opted "free press." This book reads like todays news. There are cryptocurrencies, gray market agoras, an out of control Executive Branch...all the usual dystopian fixin's.

One of the most telling lines in the story is one character's observation of how "fewer than 1 in 20 Americans realizes he or she is now living in a police state."



Which gently reminds us we should never underestimate the power of inertia and denial in the human psyche.

When Alongside Night first came out, the scenario it portrayed was considered a really far fetched libertarian influenced wet dream.

Today a few of us might not be quite so sure about that. :(

IainB:
@40hz: Wow. Those are pretty telling pictures. And that Tactical Operations group photo - how blatant/brazen to pose like that! It must be such super fun having your own private army to control potentially wayward citizens - and all paid for by those selfsame grateful and generous citizens too! "Happy as a pig in shit" as the old agricultural saying goes.
   Those photos could probably be sufficient to send shivers up the spine of most concerned citizens though. Pretty much exactly the sort of thing that sent shivers up my spine when I saw the news footage of the NZ police/SS raid on Dotcom's home in Auckland. That whole sorry affair seemed to have been a deliberate (?) demonstration to NZ citizens that NZ had become corrupted by, and as corrupted as, the US police state.
   Some people (not me, you understand), might say that the Stasi would seem to be alive and well in both countries, and that, evidently, you can't keep a "good idea" down for long. They might point out that several Stasi officials were prosecuted for their crimes, after 1990, and that maybe it was time to redress those injustices by rescinding those prosecutions and instead formally award the officials for their having lead the way into the brave new age that our governments and the police/SS have now taken us into - but I couldn't possibly comment.

40hz:
Some people (not me, you understand), might say that the Stasi would seem to be alive and well in both countries, and that, evidently, you can't keep a "good idea" down for long.
-IainB (July 10, 2013, 05:57 PM)
--- End quote ---

Ah! IainB old friend...you're much more polite than me. I might have said Stasi, but all I could think of at the time was Schutzstaffel, Sturmabteilung, Sicherheitsdienst, and a few other choice names I learned back in 4th year German class. So I thought I'd best tone it down a bit out of deference to the other DoCo members.

Two of the most utterly despicable people I ever had the misfortune of getting to know are carrying badges as we speak. And truth be told, there are also many noble people serving in various police agencies who are wholly motivated by the finest intentions and levels of personal integrity. I know several of those too.

But you really can't be a good person when you're working for a bad organization. As the treatment of whistle blowers, and the "blue line" mindset reinforces over and over the importance of "maintaining solidarity no matter what" with police who might attempt to do their part to curb incompetence, irresponsibility, dereliction of duty, abuses of power, and criminal activity on the part of their fellow officers.


          Seriously? I mean really...seriously guys?

Like the police captain Harry Bryant tells Rick Deckard in the film Blade Runner: You know the score,pal. If you're not a cop, you're little people!


"Hiya Deckard!"

Too bad so many in our government and on our police forces are coming around to think the same way.

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