Welcome to the police state

Several recent reports point to an accelerating trend toward turning the US of A into a police state, just like the big bad dictators used to have.

The most egregious is the treatment of Ron Paul delegates at the Republican National Convention, as reported by Daily Newscenter and confirmed by the Ron Paul organization. (The night I wrote this, I attempted to use the Daily Newscenter link, and got a 403 Forbidden error; but this apparently has been corrected).

Following is the Ron Paul campaign's summary of the story:

"Ron Paul delegates report that they have been shadowed by [what they assumed to be] Secret Service since the beginning of the Republican National Convention at the Xcel Center, following the confiscation of their political materials they are now being surveilled openly with an agent assigned to each delegate. When one of the delegates asked if they could retrieve their property after the convention they were told, “No.” not satisfied with that answer the delegate tried to follow the agent to make additional inquiries, he was told this action was causing a disturbance and a security agent was told to stay with him for the rest of the evening. For their safety the Ron Paul delegation have decided to stick together as a group while approaching the media with their story."

I'm not a Ron Paul follower myself, but this kind of thuggery is not only an egregious violation of the Fourth Amendment (guess it wasn't convenient to obey it just then); but a gross abuse of the rights of lawfully elected delegates to the Republican National Convention.

In addition, the Washington Post reported Aug. 15 that the Justice Department is proposing new rules to simplify domestic snoopervision intelligence-gathering activities by the FBI and state and local police agencies. Supporters say that "the measures preserve civil liberties and are subject to internal oversight," backed by Bush Administration spokesman Tony Fratto's statement that "the administration agrees that it needs to do everything possible to prevent unwarranted encroachments on civil liberties, adding that it succeeds the overwhelming majority of the time."

Uh huh.

Maybe this is what the President had in mind when he looked ex-KGB chief Vladimir Putin in the eye and got a sense of his soul.

Another virtual buckeye to Rebellion.