Now the military is infiltrating the police

This story is nothing new -- we reported on an armored vehicle being used by the Fairfield County Sheriff in July 2009. A commenter on that post called it "the optics of clampdown."

However, it is getting worse. As reported by Benjamin Carlson in The Daily, the Pentagon has a surplus of military equipment which has given to law enforcement agencies nationwide since 1997 under the "1033" program. Through this program the military gave away nearly $500 million in surplus equipment in federal fiscal year 2011, ending Sept. 30. This is more than double what they gave out under the program the previous year. Equipment being provided includes grenade launchers, helicopters, military robots, M-16 assault rifles, and armored vehicles. Data provided to The Daily by the Defense Logistics Agency indicates that requests this fiscal year have increased 400% over last year.

While local law enforcement agencies like the program for its free goodies, it dangerously changes the mentality of police officers. The article tells of a story in which a grandfather in Framingham, Massachusetts not suspected of any wrongdoing was accidentally killed by a SWAT team earlier this year. The mayor of a small Maryland town had his door broken down, his two Labrador retrievers killed, and was interrogated for hours about a drug ring with which he had no connection.

Joseph McNamara, former chief of police in Kansas City and San Jose, California, puts it this way:

“It’s totally contrary to what we think is good policing, which is community policing,” he said. The profile of these military police units invading a neighborhood like the occupation army is contrary to what you want to do as a police department. You want the public to feel comfortable calling you to report crime and supporting you in working against crime and coming forward as witnesses.

“The idea that some police have that by being really super tough and military and carrying military weapons is a way to prevent crime — this is false,” he continued. “We have a lot of evidence on how to prevent crime and the major component is to win support for police, that we’re not this aloof occupation army.

Exactly. Never mind posse comitatus or amendments to the National Defense Appropriations Act for 2012 -- the ruling elite can accomplish the same purpose by militarizing our local police and sheriffs. This should become a political issue in every county sheriff campaign in Ohio next year. The purpose of law enforcement is to protect and to serve, not to dominate and kill. We need to make sure our local police and county sheriffs know that we want law enforcement to be community-friendly, and that acquiring 1033 hardware is not the way to achieve that objective.

Update Dec. 6: Five minutes after posting this, I get a Facebook comment about how Brimfield Township in Portage County got an M113 armored personnel vehicle. Send me news stories of 1033 donations in your area, and I will post them in this space. Another friend had already shared the article.

Virtual buckeyes to Mike Tuggle and Gabe McGranahan

Next steps

In yesterday's post, I wrote that enactment of the defense appropriations act (S.1867) without the Udall (or Paul) Amendment would be, in my opinion, grounds for pressing for independence. I am not being rash. I have been thinking about this for several years.

However, that time is not quite yet. To become law, S.1867 has to go through one or two more steps. The first is, to be signed or vetoed by the President. The President has stated that he would veto the bill if the offending sections were not removed. To sign the bill after that statement would be an act of perfidy unrivaled in the history of the Republic, which only eleven years ago would have provided sufficient grounds for impeachment. However, with this President, we cannot rule out that possibility.

The second possibility, which offers a slender thread of hope, is that the President will veto it. To overturn the veto requires a two-thirds vote of both Houses of Congress. The House of Representatives would easily pass the bill again; but to override the veto, the Senate is six votes short.

Judge Andrew Napolitano asks today, "What if the Constitution no longer applied?" What is to be done?

The prudent course of action would appear to be, continue unless and until the bill is enacted; and if it is, to determine the most effective course of action moving forward. It may be necessary to stop this blog for a time, to ensure that my actions do not defeat my purpose; which is, and always has been, to restore the liberties of our Founding Fathers to the people of Ohio.

In these times, you cannot be a patriot and a coward at the same time.So choose wisely, dear reader. Remember from history the Nazi concentration camps, which housed not only Jews, but many others, including "Aryan" dissidents. Remember the Soviet gulags. Remember the "tiger cages" of Vietnam. Remember how men disappeared and died in Argentina in the days of Juan Perón. We have heard rumors of Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) concentration camps* being erected for those who commit so-called "domestic terrorism." Sen. Rand Paul yesterday noted that people who could be suspected for "domestic terrorism" under existing law include those with missing fingers, those who store guns and ammunition, and those with more than a seven-day food supply in their homes. If the FBI and the military are given free rein to pick up American citizens on the slightest suspicion, those concentration camps (some built by Halliburton, Dick Cheney's company, by the way) will become reality.

Without liberty, there is no true prosperity and no purpose in life. However, as we have often quoted Thomas Jefferson in this space, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Are you prepared to give yours, to ensure the freedom of your children and grandchildren?

* I have no way of knowing whether everything in this link is factual; however, the San Francisco Chronicle editorial in the middle of the link is convincing.

Federal judge rules Patriot Act unconstitutional

MS-NBC, not usually noted for being a "wingnut right-wing" news source, reports that a provision of the USA PATRIOT Act has been ruled unconstitutional by District Court Judge Ann Aiken. The Foreign Surveillance Act allowed searches without warrant in cases where the FBI was gathering intelligence on foreign citizens. The USA PATRIOT Act extended the FBI's ability to conduct secret searches in terrorism investigations on U.S. citizens.

In this case, Portland, Oregon, attorney Brandon Mayfield's fingerprints were found on an object in a blown up subway car in the 2004 Madrid bombing. The evidence was insufficient to establish probable cause, but prosecution was permitted under the provisions of the act.

  

It goes without saying that the federal government will appeal, but this, at least is another small victory for the Constitution at a time when it appears to be under siege.

Virtual buckeye to Bill Yarbrough.

Update on the IHOP raids

I posted a report from the Toledo Blade Sept. 20 of a raid by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security on several International House of Pancakes restaurants in northwestern Ohio and Indiana, in which many boxes of records were seized.

The franchisees owning the restaurants are Jordanian-Americans. While the FBI has refused to provide any information, there appears to be some suspicion of terrorist activity within subsequent stories published by the Blade. Here is the latest, from Sept. 22.

Smoke pot. Carry a firearm. Take your pick.

That is an inelegant way of stating a decision by the Ohio Second District Court of Appeals in Dayton in the case of State v. Stone (2011 Ohio 3617). As reported in The Blaze, it seems that Paul Stone legally purchased a firearm and has violated no laws governing its use. However, in 2007, he smoked a marijuana cigarette.

In Ohio, possession of less than 100 grams of marijuana is a minor misdemeanor, punishable by a $150 fine and/or community service.  However, because of the way Ohio Revised Code section 2923.13 is written, he was arrested for committing a felony. The section is quoted in pertinent part:

(A) Unless relieved from disability as provided in section 2923.14 of the Revised Code, no person shall knowingly acquire, have, carry, or use any firearm or dangerous ordnance, if any of the following apply: ...


(3) The person is under indictment for or has been convicted of any offense involving the illegal possession, use, sale, administration, distribution, or trafficking in any drug of abuse or has been adjudicated a delinquent child for the commission of an offense that, if committed by an adult, would have been an offense involving the illegal possession, use, sale, administration, distribution, or trafficking in any drug of abuse...

(B) Whoever violates this section is guilty of having weapons while under disability, a felony of the third degree.

I understand and sympathize with the intent of the law -- it was intended to keep dangerous weapons out of dangerous hands. However, this case should make clear that this law was badly written. How can it be considered just for a person to be locked up for a felony based on a disability caused by a misdemeanor?  I note from the law that an individual can apply to the common pleas court for removal of the disability (sec. 2923.14), but that begs the question. What does this say about our Constitutional rights, both U.S. (Second Amendment) and Ohio (Article I, Section 4)? I wrote last week that I am not passionate about gun rights. More of this kind of thing just might stir up passion I didn't know I had...

Mr. Schulman, you're not getting it

Update Aug. 2: Unfortunately, the Repository reversed itself in an editorial July 29, in which it attacked the "outsiders" and backed Council President Alan Schulman. In this outsider's opinion, this second editorial did Canton more harm than good (and this only a week before the weekend Canton supposedly welcomes the world for the Hall of Fame Festival!). It also inadvertently explains why attempts to use reason in Canton city politics can be such a maddening experience.



I am not a great enthusiast for concealed carry, or gun rights of any kind. Speaking strictly for myself, I think my life with a gun would be far more dangerous than my life without one. But I do understand why the Second Amendment was written the way it was, and I do agree with the right of individuals to own weapons. In the right hands (and part of the reason for concealed-carry laws is to ensure that the guns are in the right hands), they provide an extra layer of protection for honest citizens who have to travel in dangerous places.

So I just want to cover my face and shake my head when I read articles like this from the Buckeye Firearms Association:

Perhaps now we know why police officer Daniel Harless thought it was acceptable behavior to unleash his violent, profanity-laced tirade on a concealed handgun license-holder in Canton, Ohio, saying "People like you don't deserve to @#$%#$ move throughout public. Period!" before threatening to murder the CHL-holder.


Canton City Council President Allen Schulman has unleashed his own version of that same tirade against law-abiding concealed handgun license-holders. After explaining that he would not be making any comments about the deplorable behavior of Harless, which were exposed on the dash cam video that has been seen across the country, Schulman said this:

"I did want to make a comment, uh, reflecting the out of town emails that we have all received from people who do not live in this community, do not know out police, do not know the firefighters, do not know our public servants, our employees, know nothing about the City of Canton. But because a video went viral on the Internet they're excu - excoriating the City of Canton out of this particular incident. And they're excoriating our police force, its conduct, and our city. I take very strong exception to what I've read, uh, what I've heard, from out-of-towners, uh, making comments abour our city.

"This is, in my judgement, a symptom of this arming, literally the arming of our population, with handguns, and the flooding of handguns into our communities."

Got that? Alan Schulman believes the violence and profanity-laced tirade from one of his city's police officers, who told a CHL-holder he "shoulda taken two steps back, pulled my Glock 40, and just put ten bullets in your ass and let you drop" is the fault of the Second Amendment, and not the angry cop.

I am embarrassed for another reason. I spent much of my adult life as a resident of Canton. In fact, in 1983, I ran for the office Mr. Schulman currently holds. (I lost heavily, but I was then a Republican running in a heavily Democratic city against the legendary Ray Denczak.  Mr. Denczak was Council President for around thirty years, until he died in office a few years ago.)

Rather than to defend the outburst of Officer Harless in the heat of passion, Mr. Schulman should have been quietly urging the Canton Police to deal with the officer's anger issues. This is not professional conduct by a police officer, and the Canton Police deserve better than to have this incident represented as such.* Just as importantly, the citizens of Canton deserve better from their Council President.

Of course, Mr. Schulman and the Canton Police have the perfect right to ignore the out-of-town e-mails and this post, for that matter; but they also need to think about just what kind of a city they want to live in, and whether their behavior in this incident is consistent with the vision they want to follow.

* In fairness to the Canton Police, The (Canton) Repository reported on Tuesday that "Police Chief Dean McKimm has described Harless’ behavior as 'wholly unacceptable' and in violation of many department rules." Officer Harless has been on paid administrative leave since June 20. The Repository issued an editorial July 23 in support of the police internal investigation and showing concern for the damage the video has done to the city's reputation.

How the feds claim authority for indefinite detention

A commenter sent me a personal e-mail asking a question about "If this isn't unconstitutional, nothing is" from yesterday. He asked, 

I'm assuming this is referring to Executive Order 13567. I didn't read it thoroughly, but I wasn't able to find the section that claims this right on first scan.

Can you comment on which section of Executive Order 13567 claims this right?

I studied the Executive Order, and was stumped too. I consider Andrew Napolitano to be a highly trustworthy source, and was surprised that he came up with this without further backup. I did some further research. The fact is, this assertion is not new to this Executive Order. Here is how I answered the commenter:

The answer in Executive Order 13567 isn't obvious. Section 2 holds that continued detention is warranted if it is necessary "to protect against a significant threat to the security of the United States." There is no independent assessment as to what a "significant threat" is. Practically anything the President has wanted to do in this area since 1945 can be, and has been, justified on the basis of "national security."

The second warning comes from section 1(b), which that this is a "discretionary process of review" that "does not affect the scope of detention authority under present law."  The periodic review process strikes me as being the reverse of a show trial. It pretends to offer a way for the detainee to be released, but a careful reading of section 3 in light of the other two sections suggests to me that it does no such thing. It's a completely non-binding review.

The "scope of detention under present law" where it applies to foreign nationals, is vast. The issue of detention after acquittal arose in an article by Joan McCarter for The Daily Kos (not exactly a right-wing publication), entitled "Presidential Post-Acquittal Detention Power." Quoting testimony from the Senate Armed Services Committee July 7, 2009, Defense Department General Counsel Jeh Johnson gave this reply to a question by Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Florida):

Martinez looked surprised. "So the prosecution is moot?" he asked.

"No, no, not in my judgment," Johnson said. But the scenario he outlined strongly suggested it is. If an administration review panel "determines this person is a security threat" and "for some reason is not convicted of a lengthy prison sentence, I think we have the authority to continue to detain someone" under "law of war authority" as granted by the September 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force, Johnson said. And beyond that source of authority "we have the authority in the first place."

Continued detention without trial, or after acquittal, is an egregious violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.

Questions: If we do not uphold our own Constitution, how can we say that we stand for freedom under the rule of law? And if we cannot say that we stand for freedom under the rule of law, by what moral authority are we conducting this so-called "War on Terror"?

Montana legislator wants to add teeth to state's firearms nullification bill

In April 2009, the Montana legislature passed a bill that exempted from federal law all firearms both manufactured and sold within the state, which is not interstate commerce within the meaning of the U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8.

Now, Bob Unruh at WorldNet Daily reports that State Sen. Greg W. Hinkle (R-Thompson Falls) has introduced SB 114, which would require federal employees to obtain the county sheriff's permission to  make arrests, searches, and seizures. With some exceptions, federal officials violating this act would be subject to prosecution. The act specifically states that federal employees do not have the authority of a county sheriff within Montana. The act applies to all federal law enforcement activities within the State of Montana, except on federal lands. It is not limited to firearms enforcement. If a county sheriff is under investigation, the federal official must obtain permission from the state attorney general.

Mr. Unruh notes that this is an example of a "sheriffs first" bill, which is being talked about in several states.

This bill is downright gutsy. It will be interesting to see how the legislative process plays out on this bill. Stay tuned.

(Because of the time required to maintain a status report of legislation in other states, I will not be keeping a spreadsheet of state sovereignty and nullification resolutions this year. Readers desiring this information should check the Tenth Amendment Center site).

Paradise Lost

What the United Nations should have, but did not, become -- and a warning against "world government":

We shall not rebuild civilization on the large scale. It is no accident that on the whole, there was more beauty and decency to be found in the life of the small peoples, and that among the large ones there was more happiness and content in proportion as they had avoided the deadly blight of centralization. Least of all shall we preserve democracy or foster its growth if all the power and most of the important decisions rest with an organization far too big for the common man to survey and comprehend.

Nowhere has democracy ever worked well without a great measure of local self-government, providing a school of political training for the people at least as much as for their future leaders. It is only where responsibility can be learned and practiced in affairs with which most people are familiar, where it is the awareness of one’s neighbor rather than some theoretical knowledge of the needs of other people which guides action, that the ordinary man can take a real part in public affairs because they concern the world he knows. Where the scope of the political measures becomes so large that the necessary knowledge is almost exclusively possessed by the bureaucracy, the creative impulses of the private person must flag. I believe that here the experience of the small countries like Holland and Switzerland contains much from which even the most fortunate larger countries like Great Britain can learn. We shall all be the gainers if we can create a world fit for small states to live in.

But the small can preserve their independence in the international as in the national sphere only within a true system of law which guarantees both that certain rules are invariably enforced an that the authority which has the power to enforce these cannot use it for any other purpose. While for its task of enforcing the common law the supernational authority must be very powerful, its constitution must at the same time be so designed that it prevents the international as well as the national authorities form becoming tyrannical. We shall never prevent the abuse of power if we are not prepared to limit power in a way which occasionally may also prevent its use for desirable purposes,. The great opportunity we shall have at the end of this war is that the great victorious powers, by themselves first submitting to a system of rules which they have the power to enforce, may at the same time acquire the moral right to impose the same rules upon others.

An international authority which effectively limits the powers of the state over the individual will be one of the best safeguards of peace. The international Rule of Law must become a safeguard as much against the tyranny of the state over the individual as against the tyranny of the new superstate over the national communities. Neither an omnipotent superstate nor a loose association of “free nations” but a community of nations over free men must be our goal.

-- Friedrich A. von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, (1944; Definitive edition, Bruce Caldwell, ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 234-235.

Reminder to President Obama and other liberals

"[F]ormal equality before the law is in conflict, and in fact, incompatible, with any activity of the government deliberately aiming at material or substantive equality of different people, and that any policy aiming directly at a substantive ideal of distributive justice must lead to the destruction of the Rule of Law. To produce the same result for different people, it is necessary to treat them differently...

"[F]or the Rule of Law to be effective it is more important that there should be a rule applied always without exceptions than what this rule is."

-- Friedrich A. von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, Bruce Caldwell, ed. (1944; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 117.

Does the United States still have a Constitution, or not?

That is the question the Supreme Court will answer, one way or another, in the case of William M. Windsor v. Maid of the Mist Corporation, et al. (Case No. 10-411, docketed Sept. 24).

Facts of the case, as reported by PRWire via breitbart.com:

Windsor was named a defendant in a lawsuit (1:06-CV-0714-ODE) in which Christopher Glynn of Maid of the Mist in Niagara Falls, swore under oath that Windsor did a variety of things including the crimes of theft and bribery. Windsor stated under oath that Christopher Glynn made it all up and lied about absolutely everything that he swore. Windsor then obtained deposition testimony from Glynn and the other managers of the Maid of the Mist boat ride in Niagara Falls, and they admitted, under oath, that charges against Windsor were not true.

Despite this undeniable proof, federal Judge Orinda D. Evans declared that the grandfather of three should not have fought the lawsuit, and she forced him to pay over $400,000 in legal fees. Windsor appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, but federal judges Dubina, Hull, and Fay rubber-stamped Judge Evans' ruling. Windsor then took his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court where the justices said the appeal was not worthy of their consideration (writ of certoriari denied).

Windsor believes that the federal courts and nine federal judges violated the Constitution, the Due Process Clause, and the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.

The breitbart.com link includes links to additional sites for those who are interested in the details. The case has been dragged through the courts for the last four years; but in essence, Mr. Windsor appears to have been stonewalled throughout the process.

The bottom line is, if the Supreme Court rules in Mr. Windsor's favor, it will open up charges of judicial corruption throughout the U.S. court system down to the district court in Atlanta. If the Supreme Court fails to rule at all, the above-named Constitutional provisions are effectively repealed.

There are no action items at this time -- the case will have to run its course -- but if the Supreme Court in essence rules against the Constitution, we will need to consider whether the Constitution can even work, since it anticipated three co-equal branches of government, all observing it as the supreme law of the land.

Virtual buckeye to Andrew Scott McCleese in Facebook.

Unraveling the social contract

Two very different articles -- same message:

Allen Sloane in Fortune in "Want to get away with murder? Become a bank" writes of the two-faced system of justice that lets the banks get away with robbery, while individuals get taken to the cleaners:

It's utterly shocking, even to a congenital skeptic like me, to see that giant institutions such as Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), GMAC, and J.P. Morgan (JPM, Fortune 500) were allegedly using misleading affidavits to oust people from their homes. Employees of these institutions -- the "robo-signers" -- repeatedly misled courts by saying they had examined documents they hadn't examined and had reviewed documents they hadn't reviewed.

If you or I as individuals did that, we'd be kicked to the curb by the legal system in about two seconds. If we said that we hadn't wanted to spend the money to do things right -- the real reason that robo-signers exist -- it would take only one second for the system to whack us.

Follow this with a post that quotes Mr. Sloane's, but puts it on a more personal level -- Karl Denninger in The Market Ticker, explaining why "The banks must not get away with this."

There's a limit to the screwing of this sort that the people will take. I have no idea where it is. Neither does anyone else. The Politicians definitely don't; they're tone deaf to this sort of abuse, because most of them haven't bought their own groceries or pumped their own gas in 20 years. We have reported every time there's an election how "Politician X" didn't pay his 24 speeding tickets and as a result his license was suspended - but now he paid them and it's all ok.

These people live in a different world. If you or I don't pay one speeding ticket the next time we're tooling down the road the cop's "robocamera" will pick up our license plate and we'll get treated to the felony stop - that's where four cop cars pull you over and the cop steps out with his gun out, behind his door, and tells you to get .. out of the car and lie on the ground. Then, since you've got a suspended license, you get to spend the night in jail before you see The Judge.

This isn't hyperbole - it happens all the time. Sometimes it's legitimately you trying to be an ass - you tossed the ticket and the warning from the state that your license and plates were suspended.

But sometimes it's not - you didn't get the notice yet, or you send in a check but for the wrong amount. No matter, you get the felony stop treatment.

Here's the problem: If the people get into their head that not only politicians can do this sort of thing and get away with it when it comes to things like traffic tickets, but banks can literally rob the people with predatory lending and then enlist the courts to screw them a second time in unjustly evicting them from their house, there is a point where they will snap.

Many of us sense that we are very close to that point. If the line gets crossed, the banks will discover just what it means to hurt, because we'll go through a time when it will be impossible for banks to do business. And it won't be pretty.