Twitter Lands G20 Protestor in Jail, Earns Him a Raid on His Home

One of the topics de jour is a raid that occurred in Queens over the weekend involving the home of a G20 protester. The NYT reports the Elliot and Elena Madison's home was raided following his arrest Sept 24th in Pittsburgh. He and an associate were discovered to be monitoring police and EMS communications and disseminating the information on their movements to protesters. They were arrested (on what sound like shaky grounds), posted bail, and were released. Then last Saturday, the FBI descended on the Madisons' home and spent 16 hours tossing it.

What did they discover? Some goggles and gas masks, dark clothing (ooh, sinister!), leftist literature and posters, and a picture of Vladamir Lenin.

According to the New York Post, they found the following:

Assistant US Attorney Andrew Goldsmith argued that some of the items raised alarm, including a pound of liquid mercury in the house, alongside "books about poisons" and a microscope.

The feds also found metal triangles that are used to puncture tires and two boxes of ammunition.

All of this information is presented in such a way as to make Madison appear menacing. Liquid mercury! Poison! Lenin! Bulletts! OMFG a terrorist!!!!one11!

But take a moment to think about the contents of your house, and how someone might portray them in order to cast you in a negative light. In mine, they might find the following "damning" evidence:

• -4 firearms
• -ammunition
• 2 hunting knives that they could probably get away with calling "daggers" before the press.
• various chemicals, in the form of cleaning supplies, that they could contend could be used to make home-made explosives or chemical weapons. And books on chemistry
• winter hats that could be described as "masks"
• flasks and test tubes (from an old chemistry set, used for various craftsy-type stuff)
• small, sharp metal tools for everything from cleaning guns to tying trout flies to fixing watches, which could probably be spun as tire-puncturing tools or even bomb-making tools.
• a copy of The Communist Manifesto (also Mein Kampf, the Qu'ran, several Bibles, the Necronomicon, the Book of Mormon, and whatever the Hari Krishnas hand out at the airport: I forget the title)
• a book on farming techniques that could be spun as a "survivalist guide"
• a small amount of liquid mercury, gleaned from a couple of broken thermometers when I was in high school and kept as a toy.

And this is just off of the top of my head (I shudder to think what they could do with an examination of my computers: I think I had a soft copy of The Anarchist's Cookbook at one time. I'll bet forensic examiners could restore it).

Looking at what they found at Madison's home, it all looks pretty tame. Gas masks and goggles? Considering the glee with which police toss tear gas around when they encounter left-wing protesters, that doesn't surprise me at all. "Metal triangles"? They're obviously implying that these are caltrops, but who knows: they could be bits of sheet metal from a construction project (edit: they apparently were, indeed, caltrops. But those still aren't illegal to posess). A microscope? Puhleeze. The mercury could just be for amusement, as is my own; "books on poisons" is so vague as to be meaningless (they could say that of my Audubon Field Guide to Wild Mushrooms), and I think you'd find ammunition in a great many homes across this country.

Finally, a bit of a disclosure: I know Elliot Madison. He was my room-mate years ago, and he's about as menacing as Elmo from Sesame Street. At worst, he's guilty of having really dorky stuff in his house (lord knows he did back then). But the authorities and the sensationalist media want a scary story, so they present the data in such a way as to villianize an essentially harmless man.

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Edit: Madison and his lawyer were interviewed for Democracy Now.

Maddow and Isikoff on Obama Recalcitrance on Prosecutions of Bush Officials

I think I'll let this stand on its own: very informative. One comment I'd like to make, however: when have Beck, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, or any of that crowd been so honestly, frankly critical of anyone on the right?

Gee, Why Doesn't This Surprise Me: or I FVCKING WARNED YOU IDIOTS!!!

Speaking for all of us who railed against the institution of the ridiculous executive power expansion under the Bush Circus, Glenn Greenwald points out the, erm, slight inconsistency of the right's objections to the DHS comments on growing right-wing fanaticism. Money quote:

Indeed, thanks to the very people who are today petulantly complaining about politically-motivated federal police actions (now that they imagine it's directed at them rather than at people they dislike), the Federal Government today has the power to eavesdrop on telephone calls and read the emails of American citizens without warrants; monitor bank records without court approval; obtain all sorts of invasive personal records, medical and financial, without Subpoenas; and obtain and store a whole host of other personal information about American citizens who have not been accused, let alone convicted, of having done anything wrong. Also thanks to them (and things like the War on Terror, the War on Drugs, the Patriot Act, the FISA Amendments Act, etc. etc), most of this is carried out without any real oversight or safeguards, left entirely to the judgment and good faith of federal officials to wield these powers carefully and for proper ends. And, better still, federal officials can hide behind sweeping claims of secrecy and National Security to prevent courts from scrutinizing what they did and determine if it was illegal (we call that "the state secrets privilege").

So what's the problem? As the National Review/Bush-following-Right has been telling us for years now, there's nothing to worry about if you've done nothing wrong and have nothing to hide. The first duty of the Government is to protect us all -- keep us safe and warm from all the scary things out there, like a Good Daddy does -- and if they need to trample on some lofty privacy ideals and so-called civil liberties concerns and supposed Constitutional safeguards, well: that's just how it is. It takes a real paranoid hysteric to think that federal government officials have nothing better to do than target domestic political opponents. And besides, what good is the Constitution if we're all dead at the hands of domestic McVeigh-like Terrorists? After all, the Constitution isn't a suicide pact. Remember all of that? I certainly do.

A. Fucking. Men.

Seven years of warning against this. And the stupid, drooling GOP automatons ignored us, or said we were 'supporting terrorism'. Goddamn idiots!

Now the fruit is ripe. But it is ever so bitter.

Corruption in the Phoenix Police Dept: "Dis us, and we'll take all that you own"

This is unbelievable. A guy starts a blog critica (apparently with ample reason) of the Phoenix Police Department. With the help of numerous inside sources, he uncovers misconduct ranging from sexual harassment to evidence mishandling to racism to concealing borderline criminal activity. The department's reaction? Not an investigation.

They raid his home, handcuff his girlfriend for 3 hours and basically take everything he owns.

But we don't live in a police state: no way!

Spread this story around: don't give the Phoenix cops any slack.

Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars.

Michael Newdow is a Gigantic Asshat

Would someone please duct-tape this idiot's face shut? Literally?

It's no great secret that the US is an overly evangelical country. We require all of our congressional representatives to indulge in empty, fawning religious obeisance before we will elect them to office. We structure much of our lives around religious practices. We invoke God or credit him for helping us achieve the most trivial and asinine goals, like scoring a touchdown. And it can get damned frustrating for a person who does not indulge in Armband Religion (thank you for that phrase, Kathleen Parker).

But come on. It's a stupid little ritual that occupies a few minutes of time and will not be remembered a year from now. At least, it wouldn't have been, if this self-important jackass and his capering sycophants hadn't decided to pop up from under their collective rock and make fools of themselves. Now, Bill "War on Christmas" O'Reily and Sean "Brain? What brain?" Hannity will be regaling the nation with tales of how evil secularists are persecuting poor, helpless Christians. And for what? NOTHING.

There are real, tangible separation issues occurring in our society. People lose custody of their children because judges apply religious dogma in their decisions. Prisoners are differentially sentenced, or granted or denied parole on the basis of whether they are "saved". Military personnel are targeted for proselytization and abuse, and denied promotion on religious grounds. And the inauguration invocation is the best gripe this band of morons can come up with?

Mr. Newdow, please go back to playing in your sandbox and let the grown-ups do the heavy lifting. We don't need your interference.

StrangeBedfellows, or: a Bit of Sanity Returns to American Politics?

I'm admittedly a bit behind the curve on this one: I've spent most of my summer at a lake home I've rented outside of town, and haven't had Interweb access (or even much in the way of TV).

There's a new Left/Right political coalition forming in the US, based on citizens' exasperation with the repeated attacks by government on our civil liberties. BreakTheMatrix, an organization started by some of the folks involved in creating the Ron Paul "Money Bombs" of last fall, is raising money for the Accountability Now PAC. This PAC, which grew out of left-wing activism but now incorporates a lot of centrist and conservative elements, is dedicated to supporting candidates, regardless of party, who advocate the repeal of the measures the last few Congresses have passed that gut our freedoms and empower the imperial presidency.

The Art of the Possible has a couple of posts covering the effort, and I have to admit I'm both intrigued and heartened. I'm a big fan of the American Freedom Agenda (surprise) and the associated American Freedom Agenda Act, and the idea that people out there on both sides of the aisle are interested in actively and seriously pursuing a civil-liberties political agenda after years of partisan nonsense is refreshing, to say the least. I'll be watching these folks closely: should be interesting.

Via Unqualified Offerings, belatedly.