I just watched armed police officers remove a visitor from the train for taking pictures.
Episcopal Café – The train is a half hour west of New Haven when the conductor, having finished her original rounds, reappears. She moves down the aisle, looks, stops between our seats, faces the person taking pictures. ”œSir, in the interest of national security, we do not allow pictures to be taken of or from this train.” He starts, ”œI…….” but, without English, his response trails off into silence. The conductor, speaking louder, forcefully: ”œSir, I will confiscate that camera if you don’t put it away.” Again, little response. ”œSir, this is a security matter! We cannot allow pictures.” She turns away abruptly and, as she moves down the aisle, calls over her shoulder, in a very loud voice, ”œPut. It. Away!” He packs his camera.
Within a minute after our arrival in New Haven, two armed police officers entered the car, approached my neighbor’s seat. ”œSir, we’re removing you from this train.” ”œI….;” ”œI……” ”œSir, you have breached security regulations. We must remove you from this train.” ”œI…,” ”œI…..” ”œSir, we are not going to delay this train because of you. You will get off, or we will remove you physically.” ”œI…..” …..
why tourism to America is way down in spite of it being cheaper because of the collapsed dollar?
Hmmmmmmm
I think this is one of the most pernicious aspects of the growing police state in America. There was the call years ago to spy on your neighbors. Delivery people were asked to provide information on you. It was straight from an Orwellian totalitarian state. I was expecting to see youth groups formed in schools to report suspicious activity anywhere, including the home. Children reporting their parents.
Laws criminalize what had been common, innocuous, even friendly behavior. Ask yourself why someone takes a picture. To capture the memory to show friends. The beauty, unique or even common quality of a scene. That’s the case for the vast majority. Vast. On the order of powers of ten magnitude, the purpose was and is benign. Yet using the Cheney theory of treating actions and people as criminal on the basis that some small microscopic portion make actually have criminal intent becomes the rule in America. It’s for “protection.” But whose protection? The state’s or the state’s people?
It encourages intimidating qualities in police and pseudo-police. Flight attendants now are acting on behalf of “homeland security” so you better not complain about how they treat you. You can be arrested as a suspected terror threat and put on the many watch lists.
I think it was Xeni Jardin at Boingboing that described walking through an airport with a dozen or so other people when a security guard shouted to “Freeze!” to everyone. Everyone stopped. They were told not to move a step. After ten minutes of motionless standing someone complained and was told to shut up and not move. After 30 or so minutes the group was allowed to move on. You get the sense that this was done almost for the fun of abusing the power. People weren’t asked for identification or given any reason for their temporary kidnapping. That’s because there was no need to give a reason. Pressing for one would likely get you on a list.
If you criminalize common behavior you enable abusive police filtering of the enforcing of that common, newly criminal, behavior. Some can be given warnings while others can be detained and arrested, .. deported or renditioned.
It’s the proud and utterly patriotic “Brown Shirting” of America.
“It encourages intimidating qualities in police and pseudo-police.”
‘Twas ever thus. When will we collectively realize that these people–police and pseudo-police– always have and always will abuse their power? It never was and never will be about the old boy-scout notion of protecting and serving one’s fellow man. Becoming a cop is merely obtaining a license to vent one’s proclivity to be a bully.
… with very friendly traffic police in Toronto? One gave me a speeding ticket and actually managed to be quite nice about it. In my experience there is a world of difference in how Canadian officers treat you and their American counterparts.
Will show you the train tracks just fine, thanks.
And pretty much anything else you need to know.
Security theatre is really getting very stupid in this country.
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.â€
Charles Darwin
You can go to jail for not watering your lawn in Orin Hatch’s Utah
In spite of all of the noise they make about liberals, I really do think that many conservatives are pathological control freaks.
…they interact with are potentially armed with concealed lethal weaponry. When one doesn’t have to continually go to condition orange, one can be a bit more relaxed in one’s policing.
“A survey data set containing imputed values should not be analyzed uncritically as if all the data were real values.” ~ Graham Kalton
they shouldn’t even *have* lawns, much less laws about watering.
Have you visited Arizona and drven by its gated, golf-centric retirement communities?
More and more thirsty states eye Great Lakes water as a national resource. Want some? MOVE HERE.
Turn back to the Constitution – and READ it.
I’m trying to find the link to it, but I read somewhere that golf courses down here average between 3,000 to 5,000 gallons of water per golfer per day. Sickening.
that the officer in question didn’t tase her for resisting arrest. Perhaps Orem doesn’t use Tasers–yet.
“I just watched armed police officers remove a visitor from the train for taking pictures.” Episcopal Cafe Editor’s note: Amtrak #2290, September 15, 2007, Acela express, the quiet car.
An unfortunate occurrence, perhaps not official policy but not an isolated incident either.
“I know it’s too late now, but I wonder what would have happened if all of the passengers had refused to let the police take the man off the train.”
It will happen again, and next time, provided you are the sort who can keep your temper, you can do more than watch: speak up, write down names, involve the other passengers, interrupt your own trip to accompany the confused old guy, and otherwise, nonviolently, bear witness.
print it out and carry it with you from here