The Slippery Slope Continues

What do you call it when law enforcement agents invade your home, terrorize your family and hold you captive for hours, for what turns out to be no cause? When you find that their actions were pre-approved by a judge? When they refuse to show you any evidence to justify this needless assault on your privacy, your property and your liberty?

http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article318665/Evidence-for-search-of-Leawood-home-called-flimsy.html

This is the world we live in. The Harte's, a quiet upper-middle-class family from Leawood Kansas, buy hydroponic equipment so they can start growing organic vegetables indoors. But in this insane post-911 paradigm, law enforcement is given carte blanche to respond to minor offenses and even completely innocent behavior as if they were dealing with dangerous terrorists. Local police take notice of the family's activity. Buying hydroponic growing supplies is apparently enough cause to suspect them of growing marijuana. Their home is put under surveillance, their trash sifted. The police extract loose tea leaves from the garbage and wrongly identify them as marijuana. The police conclude that the Harte's are indeed growing the horrible weed. And so, as a result of a police investigation that can only be described as either inept or corrupt, a SWAT team is dispatched, the family's home is raided. The children are forced to watch as their house is torn apart for two hours as their father is forced to lie face down on the floor while an officer of the law stands over him with an AR-15 pointed at his head. The police find nothing illegal growing: only tomatoes and squash. It was just one of a series of raids on that day across two states that was declared a success at the time after police reported confiscating a total of 43 plants and one pound of pot.

http://gardnernews.com/joco-sheriff-participates-in-marijuana-raid-during-440/

The problems here are painfully obvious: they indicate a new paradigm of ever expanding secret surveillance, and militarization of law enforcement, that should make us all re-think what's going on in this country, how we got here and where we are headed. I wrote about this in an earlier blog post, "The Slippery Slope: Surveillance:"

The slippery slope has already become an avalanche. The issue of encroachment on the civil liberties of ordinary citizens is further compounded by the increasingly overt militarization of many police forces, again encouraged and supported by Dept. of Homeland Security, leading directly an increasing frequency of highly aggressive actions by police in response to non-terrorist, even non-criminal situations. Add to that the NSA's vast expansion of its domestic surveillance capacity and the government's insistence that it has the right to operate such programs in secret. This has led to a situation right out of Kafka, in which the Justice Department denies any challenge to the legality of being subjected to surveillance unless the subject can prove the government was spying on him, but that can't be proven because the government classifies that information as secret. 

If an ordinary family could have their life turned upside down by local police over something as trivial as marijuana, what do you think the CIA, FBI, NSA and the rest of the Dept. Homeland Security are capable of? Is there any reason to trust that any of us couldn't be put under surveillance, attacked or imprisoned, based on bogus evidence that more than likely will be politically motivated?

Of course, we live in a fair society. The victims have filed lawsuit against the police, and perhaps they will have their day in court. Justice is wonderful if you can afford it. But what of the many others who have been or will be victimized in similar fashion, but don't have the energy, resources or courage to go up against their own government?

UPDATES:

November 2013: Leawood couple files lawsuit filed over mistaken marijuana raid

December 2014: Leawood couple helps change search warrant law



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The Slippery Slope - Surveillance

The subject matter of this post is intensely provocative, so I have packed it with as many links as possible from recent mainstream sources to help illustrate that the statements made are based on fact, and are happening now. Click on the orange highlighted parts to learn more.

Ever since 9/11/2001, we have been sliding down the slippery slope on the issue of domestic surveillance, towards an ever more pervasive, and invasive, surveillance state. The current scandal over the General Petraeus affair would never have gained the attention it has if the FBI hadn't made use of the vastly expanded powers it has been quietly acquiring over the last eleven years. Before 9-11, we would not have seen a complaint from a well-connected socialite about supposedly harassing e-mails trigger a full-scale cyber-investigation allowing the FBI to hack into private e-mail accounts, read thousands of e-mails and expose personal activity that was neither criminal nor a security risk. But now in today's post-9/11 total surveillance environment, it is problematic to even suggest that the FBI (or the NSA, or the CIA, or your local police department for that matter) ought not to be exercising such power over American citizens.

Under the all-purpose justification of "fighting terrorism," surveillance technologies have been developed and rolled out, like a steamroller, at a rapid pace. Typically, the technology is first introduced for military applications on the battlefield, i.e. not anywhere around here. For example, drones. First, we are shown how successful they are in a war zone at giving the good guys greater ability to detect the bad guys. In the case of drones, they can not only detect but also kill the bad guys, efficiently and safely (for the good guys). The mainstream news media helpfully airs lots of programming/promotion to help us get used to the new technology.



Then, with little fanfare, drones are introduced domestically, for use by government agencies. Of course the purpose of the new technology is at first entirely anti-terrorism, but soon that is expanded to drug dealers, illegal immigrants, search and rescue, and of course, catching cattle rustlers.

From there it trickles down to local law enforcement, and next thing you know, big cities are getting a supply of drones, developed and marketed by military contractors, and often acquired with financial aid from the Department of Homeland Security. Everyone can appreciate how great the drones are at enhancing surveillance of criminals while allowing the officers to remain safe. We are assured that the drones used by local police will not be weaponized, except that it quickly becomes obvious that they will be. They won't be used for spying on citizens, except that they will be.

Again, mainstream news is there, basically passing along press releases from the companies that make the drones, reassuring us that this is all cool stuff that we will love, and don't worry, your privacy concerns are being addressed.



The slippery slope has already become an avalanche. The issue of encroachment on the civil liberties of ordinary citizens is further compounded by the increasingly overt militarization of many police forces, again encouraged and supported by Dept. of Homeland Security, leading directly an increasing frequency of highly aggressive actions by police in response to non-terrorist, even non-criminal situations. Add to that the NSA's vast expansion of its domestic surveillance capacity and the government's insistence that it has the right to operate such programs in secret. This has led to a situation right out of Kafka, in which the Justice Department denies any challenge to the legality of being subjected to surveillance unless the subject can prove the government was spying on him, but that can't be proven because the government classifies that information as secret.

And we haven't even gotten into RFID tracking and fingerprinting of children, cell phone tracking, vehicle tracking, the amassing of biometric databases, and of course the security cameras which seem to be in use everywhere in spite of their dubious value; and the list goes on.

Where are we going with all this? We are now seeing official, taxpayer-funded surveillance and data mining of ordinary citizens expanding to stunning, unprecedented levels. There is not even a pretense anymore of using the terrorism threat to justify such radical departures from what our society used to be.

Who benefits? Who decides? We can only say for certain it is not you or me.

Here comes the typical comment: Why should I care? It doesn't affect me. I have nothing to hide anyway.

Answer: #1: Ask General Petraeus.

Answer #2: Think about someone besides yourself, who feels their privacy is important, and with good reason, say a victim of domestic violence, or a political activist.

Answer #3: Information is power, and power corrupts. We're only part way down this slippery slope. The U.S. is descending into a vast surveillance state in which privacy and civil liberties are disappearing. Do you really want to see us go all the way?

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Further reading:
Bob Koehler "The Buzzing Wasps"

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