Tag Archives: Police state

The privacy snatchers

privacyImageYou may not have known that you had a Big Brother in Virginia watching you but Virginia State Police have had automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) that not only take pictures of license plates at the rate of 900 hundred a minute, no matter if it’s day or night, rainy or not, with devices that operate just fine when the police vehicle is traveling at 140 miles an hour while passing or closing.

These devices identify your vehicle, where it is, and when it’s there.  You may think that’s terrific.  But not when you consider that these devices are surveilling citizens suspected of nothing, when there’s no active criminal case, no suspect, no hint of a stolen car, no drug buy in progress.

Still, the police hoover up megabytes of data, and store it until they feel compelled to scrutinize what we may have done, with whom and when.

The First Amendment guarantees the right to associate with whomever you wish without any interference from the state that might “chill” this association.

Based on earlier FOIA requests, we know the State Police has employed these automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) to know who attended political rallies for President Obama and for Vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.  That’s no proper police function.  Rather, it’s a “police state” function. Continue reading

A Teacher in Every Gun Store

Teacher, Victoria Soto, 27, misled the gunman in Newtown, Connecticut, told him her children were in the gym, when she had hidden them elsewhere; she died to save her students.

This simple phrase, “A Teacher in every gun store,” was posted on Facebook by a friend.

It was in counterpoint to the crazy idea that we should arm every teacher in every class room, with a PPK or assault rifle, and have a cop in every school – but not every classroom.

Nor should we overlook the “other” substitute initiative for gun reform, that this nation should take a closer look at those who are mentally ill. Unfortunately, we’re talking detection and discrimination, scapegoating really, not about acceptance or treatment.

Consider the fact that Asperger’s Syndrome, a developmental disorder, suffered by our latest horrific shooter, Adam Lanza, is not a disorder associated with violence.

The NRA’s Wayne LaPierre, undeterred by Lanza’s mental state, railed against the nation’s mental health: “The truth is, that our society is populated by an unknown number of genuine monsters. People that are so deranged, so evil, so possessed by voices and driven by demons, that no sane person can ever possibly comprehend them.”

Is LaPierre suggesting a policy that every gun owner must undergo a mental examination at the time of a weapon’s purchase or transfer? Hardly!

LaPierre calculated he had to divert the nation from any discussion of true gun reform, with forehead slapping distractions. He also sought to instruct the Republican T-party members in Congress that this stratagem was how to defend gun reforms against those who rebel against the notion that the gunfight at the OK Corral should be the law enforcement model we emulate.

LaPierre railed at the media for its coverage (even as he manipulated the media to cover him), refusing to answer any questions.

Continue reading