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.

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.

Sarah Palin: No Elaboration Needed

via HERB

Gillman Vs Holmes County School Board

Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars, a decision has been handed down ( read it here) in the Florida case of a school principal who went on a one-man witch hunt against student political expression at his school. David Davis, in responding to a complaint by a 12th grade student that others at the school had harassed her for being a lesbian, ridiculed and condemned her rather than taking action against her aggressors. He then called her parents and outed her to them (which nearly resulted in her being kicked out of her home), and drove her out of his office in tears. Real nice guy.

But that was only the start. Other students got wind of what happened and tried to simply show their support for her by wearing messages on their t-shirts and indulging in other mild forms of self expression (there was talk of walking out of an emergency "Morality Assembly" that Davis called, but nothing ever came of it). Davis called this activity membership in an "illegal/secret organization", and suspended several students for a week. A student named Heather Gillman, a friend of the original victim and cousin of another of Davis's targets, complained to the School Board, which basically told her to take a hike. So she sued, and won. Handily. The decision went entirely against the school board.

But all this has been covered elsewhere. The little tidbit that made me go "WTF?" can be found on page 4 of the complaint:

Following the assembly, Davis began investigating what had come to be known as the “Gay Pride” movement at the school. He interviewed approximately thirty students, interrogated them about their sexual orientations, and questioned them about their involvement in the planned walk-out of the assembly and their activities in relation to the movement. During those meetings, Davis instructed students who were homosexual not to discuss their sexual orientations. He also prohibited students from wearing rainbow belts or writing “Gay Pride” or “GP” on their arms and notebooks. He required students to wash “GP” or “Gay Pride” from their arms and hands and lifted the shirts of female students to verify that no such writings were present on their bodies.

So we have an adult male in an authority position, during a disciplinary process, singling out female students and partially disrobing them. And the Board didn't feel that this warranted any attention: not even a phone call to Davis to clarify what happened. I don't think either the investigation or the law suit went far enough here: this guy is not someone I would want around my daughter.

Update: Oh the irony. I never saw this part (HT: Pam's House Blend). According to Davis, it's OK to wear a Confederate flag. A symbol of a group of people who tried to destroy this nation isn't divisive or offensive. Supporting a friend, however, is.

I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again in the future: if homosexuals spent one tenth as much time thinking about gay sex as evangelical Christians do, homosexuals would never get anything done.

More Catholic Whining About PZ's Crackers

The Rev. Fr. John Trigilio of the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy (membership: a whopping 600) has taking deep and furious umbrage with PZ over crackergate. He is calling for prayer and fasting:

We ask all Catholics of Minnesota and of the entire nation to join in a day of prayer and fasting that such offenses never happen again.

Or you could just burn everyone to death.

We find the actions of University of Minnesota (Morris) Professor Paul Myers reprehensible, inexcusable, and unconstitutional. His flagrant display of irreverence by profaning a consecrated Host from a Catholic church goes beyond the limit of academic freedom and free speech.

Umm, no. It is most certainly not unconstitutional. The CCC needs to brush up a bit on what the Bill of rights is for.

The same Bill of Rights which protect freedom of speech also protect freedom of religion.

And PZ's actions in no way, shape or form infringed upon any Catholic priest's right to free exercise. You can still pray, go to Mass, run Catholic schools, get shit-faced at parish festivals, molest altar boys... oh, wait: not that last one.

Attacking the most sacred elements of a religion is not free speech anymore than would be perjury in a court or libel in a newspaper.

Perjury and libel are based on the fact that the statements made/printed are false. Nothing PZ accused wing-nut Catholics of was false. They did fly completely off the handle when a student tried to show a host to a non-Catholic friend. They did then proceed to harass and threaten both the student and his friend. They did harass and threaten (quite graphically) PZ when PZ called them idiots. And he is quite within his first amendment rights in opining that "It's Just a Frackin' Cracker".

Individual freedoms are limited by the boundaries created by the inalienable rights of others. The freedom of religion means that no one has the right to attack, malign or grossly offend a faith tradition they personally do not have membership or ascribe allegiance.

Absolute, utter, mind-boggling, no-holds-barred bullshit. You have no right not to be offended. The Catholic Church, like all mystical organizations, subscribes to a lot of crazy-assed ideas. Calling a dumb idea a dumb idea is protected speech, regardless of who or what is promoting that dumb idea.

The Chancellor of the University refused to reprimand or censure the teacher, who ironically is a Biology Professor. One fails to see the relevance of the desecration of a Catholic sacrament to the science of Biology. Were Myers a Professor of Theology, there would have been at least a presumption of competency to express religious opinions in a classroom.

-As to the Chancellor: bully for him. Good job.
-As to the "irony" of PZ being a Biology professor: ...?
-As the the relevance of desecration to the science of biology: So What? Have you ever discussed that weather with other clergy? You have?! How dare you transgress upon the holy territory of meteorologists!
-As to PZ's competency: Pharyngula isn't a classroom, you stupid git. It's a blog.

Yet, for a scientist to ridicule and show utter contempt for the most sacred and precious article of a major world religion, is inappropriate, unprofessional, unconstitutional and disingenuous.

While his comments and actions were not exactly diplomatic, they were appropriate, given the subject matter: the irrational importance Catholics place on a piece of bread. That they value it more than a human life is breathtaking in its inanity. Unprofessional? He wasn't acting within his profession. Doesn't apply. Unconstitutional? Well, we've covered that. Disingenuous? How? At what point was Myers not frank or sincere about his opinions?

A biologist has no business 'dissing' any religion, rather, they should be busy teaching the scientific discipline they were hired to teach.

And you, father, are hereby prohibited from discussing anything other than Catholic theology, in any setting, ever again, since you seem to be of the opinion that one can only talk on subjects involving one's vocation.

We also pray that Professor Myers contritely repent and apologize.

Yeah, good luck on that one.