MotherJones: At #OccupySF RT @garonsen:... Political Repression 2.0. 15 Years in Prison For Taping the Cops? How Eavesdropping Laws Are Taking Away Our Best Defense Against Police Brutality. July 27, 2011 | Like this article?
Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. This article has been updated. Over Memorial Day weekend this past May, residents of Miami Beach witnessed a horrific display of police brutality as 12 cops sprayed Raymond Herisse's car with 100 bullets, killing him. Officers on the scene confiscated and smashed witnesses' cell phones; later, when they were confronted by the media, the police denied trying to destroy videos of the incident.
But 35-year-old Narces Benoit removed his HTC EVO’s memory card and hid it in his mouth. Police brutality takes many forms around the country on a regular basis, particularly in poor and minority neighborhoods. Due to advancements in technology, the average citizen carries a digital camera in his or her pocket or purse, creating a potential army of amateur videographers on every street corner.
Cases Keep Piling Up. The War on Cameras. Michael Allison, a 41-year-old backyard mechanic from southeastern Illinois, faces up to 75 years in prison for an act most people don’t realize is a crime: recording public officials.
Allison lives in Bridgeport, Illinois, and often spends time at his mother’s house in Robinson, one county to the north. Both towns have abandoned property (or “eyesore”) ordinances prohibiting the parking of inoperable or unregistered vehicles on private property except in enclosed garages. These rules place a substantial burden on hobbyists like Allison; to obey the law he must either build a garage—which he says isn’t an option, given his property and his income—or register, plate, and pay insurance on every car he fixes up, even though he never drives them on public roads. So Allison kept working on his cars, and the city of Bridgeport kept impounding them: in 2001, 2003, and 2005. The day before the trial, Allison went to the Crawford County Courthouse to request a court reporter for the proceedings.
The transformation of Anwar al-Awlaki - Glenn Greenwald. Norwegian v American justice: Plush and unusual punishment. COMMENTING on a shared link to a Time slideshow offering a tour of Norway's Halden prison, the "world's most human prison", one of my Facebook friends says, "If you prefer comfort to liberty, go to Norway and commit murder.
You could get 21 years in what looks like a nice dorm. " A good number of Americans, it seems, are agitated by the possibility that Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian mass-murderer who gunned down scores of kids at an isolated summer camp, might end up at such a luxe detention facility. In this segment on Norway's "heavenly prison", the folks at Fox News seem sort of boggled by the idea that prisons might be anything other than the squalid overcrowded rape pens where human offal in America is sent to fester out of sight.
It certainly does look nice! After her review of Alden's amenities, Alana Goodman of Commentary comments: [T]his isn't a white-collar, minimum-security facility. It does raise ethical questions. I say, yes, it does offend our sense of justice.