Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/12/15
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]on 15/12/00 1:04 am, S Dimitrov at sld@earthlink.net wrote: > The cost is much worst than just hurt pride and inconvenience. All arrestees > have now an inexpugnable record that can and will be used at the discretion of > any law enforcement agency and/or judicial entity whenever that individual > comes > into contact with them. It may even affect the ability to acquire or renew > press > credentials. The records may even be passed over to foreign nationals as a > courtesy without breaking any US laws. Real fun stuff here. Absolutely. The question 'have you ever been arrested' is a key one for many agencies because if you say YES a whole set of procedures start rolling, even if you were arrested entirely illegally, never charged with anything, and sued the cops for millions. This is a threat rather like negative feedback on eBay. If you have a criminal record, and even a $50 fine will count for many authorities (eg immigration), the situation is even worse. Unfortunately, a scorched earth policy like the one described here BENEFITS the police because it discredits any credible witnesses against them. The same procedures have been used by the police in London (eg at the recent Mayday protests). They say: everyone please leave, and by elimination whoever remains is fair game because they have failed to observe a police instruction - which totally ignores the *necessity* for the media to remain. Watch this space, because believe me we are only at the very, very beginning of the london/prague/dc/seattle story... and already the people who manned the barricades thirty years ago are finding themselves (reluctantly I expect) on the other side now, sanctioning the very behavior they deplored previously *because they do not have another way to deal with it yet*. We'll be there with our leicas (OT). - -- Johnny Deadman http://www.pinkheadedbug.com