Arrested for Criticizing the Police 7/17/2016 0 Comments   by E.L. Christianson Jr. Well, nobody could say that this is a surprise.  Free speech has been dead in this country for some time except for corporate money where free speech has been completely unleashed upon the political system.   Certainly there will be different opinions regarding the police and how they conduct themselves.  Some people will see the police as heroes and some people will see those who oppose the police as heroes.  Some people will be voicing their opinions and their views.  To be arresting people because they shared their views on a social media outlet cannot be good policy for a so-called democracy. And, our law-makers at virtually every level of government are prone to adopt all kinds of silly laws that will sound good but will be intended to thwart the common person at every juncture in their quest for democracy or justice or some reasonable share of the 'pie'. Now, with the police shooting people with impunity, especially black people, we will witness a rash of passing laws to 'protect the police' as if it is the police who are in danger.  And our whole system will move forward with a scheme of propaganda to convince us all that protecting the police is the major concern of the day.  Lamar Advertising donated 300 bill boards to make certain that we all know that 'Blue Lives Matter', but 'Black Lives Matter' don't matter to Lamar Advertising. Now, after the fiasco of millions of years worth of penalties for drug possession is finally slowing down, we will replace that with draconian penalties for saying something negative about that 'killer cop' who mercilessly mowed down your neighbor for no apparent reason. Now, hating the police involves breaking the law... the hate crimes laws being hastily enacted across the country.  It is a bad idea.   Hate crimes are crimes committed against the most personal parts of people's identity and the things they can't change about themselves: their race, their gender, their ethnicity, their sexual orientation, their disability, their gender identity. The things they have to use to confront the world on a day-to-day basis all the time, and that they don't take off at night when they go to sleep. These are things that are a core part of every individual. Adding professional categories to a hate crimes bill is a bad idea After Dallas Shootings, Police Arrest People for Criticizing Cops on Facebook and Twitter from the 4th Media by Naomi LaChance Beijing Four men in Detroit were arrested over the past week for posts on social media that the police chief called threatening. One tweet that led to an arrest said that Micah Johnson, the man who shot police officers in Dallas last week, was a hero. None of the men have been named, nor have they been charged. “I know this is a new issue, but I want these people charged with crimes,” said Detroit Police Chief James Craig. “I’ve directed my officers to prepare warrants for these four individuals, and we’ll see which venue is the best to pursue charges,” he added. Five police officers were killed in the Dallas shootings, constituting the highest number of police casualties in an attack since September 11. And as a result, law enforcement officials everywhere are suddenly much more sensitive to threats against their lives. But one result has been that several police departments across the country have arrested individuals for posts on social media accounts, often from citizen tips — raising concerns among free speech advocates. “Arresting people for speech is something we should be very careful about,” Bruce Schneier, security technologist at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, told The Intercept. ​ Last weekend in Connecticut, police arrested Kurt Vanzuuk after a tip for posts on Facebook that identified Johnson as a hero and called for police to be killed. He was charged with inciting injury to persons or property. An Illinois woman, Jenesis Reynolds, was arrested for writing in a Facebook post that she would shoot an officer who would pull her over. “I have no problem shooting a cop for simple traffic stop cuz they’d have no problem doing it to me,” she wrote, according to the police investigation. She was charged with disorderly conduct. In New Jersey, Rolando Medina was arrested and charged with cyber harassment. He allegedly posted on an unidentified social media platform that he would destroy local police headquarters. In Louisiana, Kemonte Gilmore was arrested for an online video in which he allegedly threatened a police officer. He was charged with public intimidation. “Certainly, posting that kind of thing on social media is a bad thought,” professor Larry Dubin of the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law told the Detroit News. “But having a bad thought isn’t necessarily a crime.” The policing of online threats is hardly a new issue. The Supreme Court set a precedent last year when it ruled that prosecutors pursuing a charge of communicating threats need to prove both that reasonable people would view the statement as a threat and that the intent was to threaten. Elonis v. United States dealt with a man who had posted violent rap lyrics about his estranged wife; the court reversed his conviction. “After Dallas, threats may seem more threatening to police officers around the country,” said Daniel Medwed, professor of law at Northeastern University. “We might be seeing more arrests right now because the police will interpret that they have probable cause to make the arrest,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean in the end that this will result in convictions,” he added. Schneier urged that law enforcement use caution. “This is complicated,” he said. “We don’t know how to do this — we’re doing it pretty badly, and we should do it better.” ​ But he said it was a sign of the times. These days, almost all communications are recorded in some capacity. “This new world where things aren’t forgotten is going to be different,” Schneier said. “And you’re seeing one manifestation of it in casual comments that are resulting in arrest.” In Alton Sterling’s Baton Rouge, “Blue Lives Matter” from the Intercept by Naomi LaChance LOUISIANA GOV. JOHN BEL EDWARDS called for a federal civil rights investigation on Tuesday into what was, at that point, the latest fatal police shooting of a black man in the United States. But in May, Edwards signed a bill into law that makes targeting a police officer a hate crime. Passage of such bills at the state level is a top priority for a national organization called Blue Lives Matter, which was formed in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. Alton Sterling, 37, was shot in the chest at point-blank range by Baton Rouge police early Tuesday morning; witnesses captured the event on video. Philando Castile, 32, was shot after police stopped his car outside St. Paul, Minnesota; his girlfriend livestreamed his death on Facebook. But it was the civil rights of police officers that Edwards was concerned about in May, as if theirs were being routinely violated. “I’m not aware of any evidence that police officers have been victimized that would justify giving them special protection,” Marjorie R. Esman, executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana, told The Intercept. Under the law, a defendant convicted of a misdemeanor could face an extra six months in prison and a $500 fine. A defendant convicted of a felony could get an extra five years in prison with hard labor and a $5,000 fine. The new law places police officers, firefighters, and EMTs under protection from hate crimes — an umbrella term that goes beyond direct assault. Aviva Shen writes at ThinkProgress: Now that police are a protected class, this language [meant to enhance penalties for attacks against houses of worship] could be used to target any damage done to squad cars or protests on police property, like the sit-in at the Minneapolis Police Department over the death of Jamar Clark, or the Black Lives Matter blockade of the Oakland Police headquarters in California. Lamar Advertising, based in Baton Rouge, donated more than 300 billboards that appeared across the country bearing the slogans #BlueLivesMatter and #thankublu. “We wanted to recognize the local police departments and men and women that put their lives on the line every day,” Stephen Hebert of Lamar Advertising told WVIT-TV. Laws similar to the one in Louisiana have been proposed in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Chicago. Last year in Coon Rapids, Minnesota — just north of Minneapolis, where Castile was killed Wednesday — hundreds of supporters held a Police Lives Matter rally. In Washington, lawmakers in the House and Senate have both introduced a “Thin Blue Line Act,” which would strengthen penalties for attacks on law enforcement. ​ The ACLU’s Esman said police are not the group of people who need attention: “Right now, here in Louisiana, we are dealing with the fact that the police have killed a black man who was minding his own business.” "We Won't Take It Anymore" sounds like a threat... this woman could be jailed for the rest of her life... We have a long way to go before anything is resolved in this country... News Just In: According to USA Today, Three officers are dead and three others wounded after a shooting in Baton Rouge, according to the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Department. Police-community relations in Baton Rouge have been tense since the killing earlier this month of 37-year-old Alton Sterling, a black man shot by white officers after a scuffle at a convenience store. The killing was captured on cellphone video.  Police officers killed in Baton Rouge ---- Police stop a car and direct the driver to show his hands after coming from the direction of a police shooting on Airline Highway. The driver's car was searched, his identification checked, then he was allowed to continue.