Loss of Privacy

The Phoenix police department raided the home of Jeff Pataky, a blogger who writes about, and criticizes the Phoenix police department.  The reason behind the raid, Pataky believes, is that sources inside the police department confirmed that the police don’t like him questioning the behavior of the department.

Pataky, a former software sales and marketing executive who now focuses his energy shoveling content on www.badphoenixcops.com, said he believes his online criticism of the department – along with past criticisms of police investigations – led officers to serve a search warrant at his home last week.

“We have heard internally from our police sources that they purposefully did this to stop me,” Pataky said. “They took my cable modem and wireless router. Anyone worth their salt knows nothing is stored in the cable modem.”

As it appears from the current news reports, the police are violating Pataky’s 1st, 4th, and 5th amendment rights as well as Title 18, U.S.C. Section 241 and Title 18, U.S.C., Section 242.

While Pataky’s case is complex and disturbing, they aren’t just targeting him.  Former homicide detective David Barnes was demoted for questioning the handling of evidence in the crime lab.  It appears that anyone who questions the police is a target for harassment.

The entire county has been accused of being corrupt and incompetent [pdf].

Unfortunately, today’s law enforcement is seen as a place filled with tyrannical individuals only interested in themselves and what they can take for themselves.  Instead of being a help to the citizens of the United States, they are a hindrance, becoming the very threat to our security and liberty that they are supposed to protect.

I believe more people would fight back against this sort of behavior if only normal citizens would not be seen as dissenters, “terrorists,” protesters, and a threat to society.  It also doesn’t help that the police are the ones armed to the teeth and can ruin your life with a swift arrest and a blurb on the news.

A corrupt cop used a police database of sex offenders and drug dealers to make money, but instead was caught and sentenced to six years in prison.

PC Amerdeep Singh Johal, 29, was arrested by anti-corruption cops from Scotland Yard in July 2007. Johal was employed in checking names and address on the police database, called Crimint, on behalf of beat cops.

He abused the role to contact 11 convicted offenders and threaten to spill the beans on their crimes unless he was given “hush money”. Johal requested between £29,000 and £31,000 for his silence, threatening to tell work colleagues or neighbours of convicted sex offenders about their crimes. In one instance Johal demanded £89,000 as a “goodwill gesture”.

The extortion racket unravelled after one of Johal’s victims reported him to the police. Scotland Yard used an undercover officer to pose as a blackmail victim and offer to pay him £5,000.

While the metropolitan police have tried to downplay the issue, privacy advocates worry that such databases are ripe for further abuse.  The Met is trying to claim that only trustworthy people have access to these databases, yet, clearly, that’s not true.  A better systems of checks should be in place to prevent this from happening.  If the checkers had to answer to someone as to why they were searching the database, things like this might lessen the chances of abuse.

Intelligence officers for the Maryland State Police labeled numerous activists as terrorists.  Some of these activists were involved in such causes as promoting human rights and establishing bike lanes.

Intelligence officers created a voluminous file on Norfolk-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, calling the group a “security threat” because of concerns that members would disrupt the circus. Angry consumers fighting a 72 percent electricity rate increase in 2006 were targeted. The DC Anti-War Network, which opposes the Iraq war, was designated a white supremacist group, without explanation.

One of the possible “crimes” in the file police opened on Amnesty International: “civil rights.”

Fusion Centers around the US probably also have the information that the Maryland State Police have collected, so it’s unclear whether these people will continue to be monitored after the state police discontinue their surveillance.

Numerous people predicted that this was inevitable as soon as the PATRIOT Act was signed, but they were labeled extremists and conspiracy nuts.  Now that they have come to fruition, it’s frightening to see how many Americans were duped into believing all the security theater measures that have been put into place.