PD program in Minnesota that gave drugs to people & dropped them at Occupy is in 48 states.

[EFerrari]

That is, the legit DRE program (drug recognition evaluators): "The national DEC program is managed and coordinated by the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) with support from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) of the U.S. Department of Transportation."
https://dps.mn.gov/divisions/ooc/news-releases/Pages/Drug-Recognition-Training-Program-Suspended.aspx


In case you missed it, here is a version of the original reporting:

Minnesota police giving Peavey Plaza Occupy-ers drugs as part of impairment study, report says [VIDEO]
http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2012/05/minnesota_police_giving_peavy_plaza_occupy-ers_drugs_as_part_of_impairment_study_report_says_video.php

This is disturbing, especially if you remember that some months ago, Occupiers in New York were reporting that the police were encouraging impaired people to go to Zuccotti Park.

NYPD To Drunks, Criminals: Why Not Occupy Wall Street?
http://gothamist.com/2011/10/31/drunks_criminals_told_by_nypd_to_oc.php

At the time, there were reports that the NYPD went so far as to drive them to the park. I remember thinking that the claim was a little over the top but, it looks like I was wrong. The infrastructure for police abuse of this program is all over the country.

And now we know that the crackdown on Occupy was being co-ordinated or at least supported at the Federal level (another suspicion that some greeted with skepticism):

New Occupy Crackdown Documents Show Federal Involvement
http://www.readersupportednews.org/news-section2/440-occupy/11061-new-occupy-crackdown-documents-show-federal-involvement

I don't think we've fully absorbed how much local law enforcement has been tapped and organized by the Feds since 9/11 or, what this new relationship means for our civil liberties and to our communities. The fusion of Feds and local PD is justified on national security grounds, of course, but that networking was used from 9/12 for political purposes (in NYC by Giuliani and his thug Police Commissioner Kerik) and 12 years later, we see it being used to deprive Americans of their civil rights in all kinds of situations, Occupy protests only being one of them.

[Scuba]

1. I wonder how many they dropped off at Mall of America?

My guess: zero.

[EFerrari]

2. Might depend on the demographics.

Mapping the FBI: Documents Show Widespread Racial and Religious Profiling by Government
10/21/2011

Yesterday, the ACLU unveiled a new initiative — Mapping the FBI — that exposes the ways in which vastly expanded FBI investigative authority has resulted in the unconstitutional investigation of American communities and individuals based on who they are and what they believe.

Through Freedom of Information Act requests in 31 states and Washington, D.C. (enforced by lawsuits in Michigan, New Jersey and California), ACLU and its affiliates uncovered and analyzed thousands of FBI documents. These documents reveal that the FBI is gathering intelligence on and mapping communities based on the association of a certain race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion with the propensity to commit various crimes.

In response, the FBI issued a statement claiming that its activities are "intended to address specific threats, not particular communities" and to "better understand the communities that are potential victims of the threats." But, the FBI's own documents show that this simply isn't true.

http://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/mapping-fbi-documents-show-widespread-racial-and-religious-profiling

One of the dangers with this new "fusion" is that extraordinary measures taken in one locale are being applied nationally and indiscriminately -- as we read this morning in the story about the toddler put on the No Fly List. The "fusion" makes it possible to implement bad policy very quickly and since the lead authority is Federal and not local, there is very little oversight and less accountability, imo.

[SOS]

3. Responses to exercising your first amendment rights -

Teabaggers can show up with a .45 strapped to their waist and
call for the "tree of liberty to be refreshed with blood".
No problem! Have a nice day.

OWS draws attention to the excesses of Wall Street and it's pepper spray, infiltration,
midnight raids and mass arrests.

It's pretty clear who's running this country (and it's not anyone we voted for).

[EFerrari]

4. Yes and they are making use of the whole circulatory system of our federal government

which we pay for, of course.

[Mnemosyne]

5. K&R bastards. nt

[EFerrari]

6. There's unlimited potential for abuse here and that is mostly what concerns me.

The groups that try to monitor our civil rights, like ACLU and National Lawyers Guild and Center for Constitutional Rights, are no match for local PDs whose local community-oriented policy is now usurped by injudicious Federal funding, support or encouragement.


Fwiw.

[HiPointDem]

7. +1.

[countryjake]

8. K&R!

Why am I not surprised? This makes it all the more important to get to know and recognize fellow Occupiers at the GAs. Now I'm wondering how many were "dumped" down at the May Day Seattle march?

[EFerrari]

9. We may be playing "shoots and ladders"

on a different game board.