18 months ago, prompted in part by a couple of incidents in my neck of the woods, I wrote the following:
The police use of Tasers is just simply out of control in this country. Seriously. My dad was a cop, and a lot of my family’s friends growing up were cops. They’ve got a tough job. I know that the use of Tasers have protected the lives of officers. But this is insane. It is no longer just the odd asshole who happens to make the Greatest Hits of Police Abuse on YouTube. It has now become commonplace for the police to grab their Taser anytime someone doesn’t immediately do what they’re told. Time to get rid of the things, nationwide.
Well, one of the incidents has now been settled:
City pays off man injured in Taser use
The man injured after falling 15 feet from a highway overpass when police shocked him with two Tasers has reached a cash settlement with the city of Columbia.The city Finance Department agreed last month to pay $300,000 to 46-year-old Phillip McDuffy to settle a claim he made out of court. About $66,450 of that settlement will go to the Family Support Payment Center to cover back child support that McDuffy owes.
***
City Finance Director Lori Fleming said that avoiding a potentially lengthy and expensive jury trial merited the outlay of taxpayer dollars.
“We obviously believe it is in the best interest of the city in the long run,” Fleming said.
Another incident, which happened in a nearby town and resulted in the death of a young man who was tased multiple times in front of his home (and family) after being pulled over for speeding, was settled earlier this year for $2.4 million.
Pain, suffering, loss of a family member – none of these can really be compensated with a cash settlement. Let alone the damage done to our civil liberties. But beyond that, in simple terms of whether Tasers are cost effective additions to police work: do you have any idea how many cops $2.7 million would fund for a year here in rural Missouri? That’s a lot more manpower on the street, now lost.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to my blog.)
Filed under: ACLU, Civil Rights, Government, NPR, Politics, Predictions, Privacy, Science, Society, tech
And the march of progress continues:
‘Insecurity Cameras’ To Track All Of Town’s Traffic
A little town in California has a big and controversial idea: It wants to install security cameras on roads leading into town so that it can screen and record every license plate that comes inside city limits. The plan could effectively turn Tiburon into perhaps the nation’s first public gated community.
* * *
“Tiburon is unusual because there are only two roads going in and out of the town,” says Mayor Alice Fredericks.
It’s quite easy, she says, to keep track of every car along those two roads. Last week, the Town Council decided to spend $200,000 to place six security cameras at strategic points along the road. For now, the plan is to make sure none of the cars coming into town are stolen. Crime statistics are low in Tiburon, but in a small town, Fredericks says, even a few crimes make an impact.
* * *
Police run license-plate checks all the time, says Jennifer King, an expert in technology and public policy at the University of California, Berkeley. Tiburon’s plan is to just run many plate checks. The problem, she says, is that once the equipment is installed, safeguards to protect privacy can change. For instance, the license plate information is supposed to be purged after eight hours, but what if a crime occurs and suddenly that information becomes more important?
“They may start today by keeping it eight hours, but I’ll almost bet you that what they’ll find is that somebody will come back and go, ‘If only we had the data from those cameras,'” she says. “We call it ‘scope creep’ in the technology world. That scope can really crawl, really grow very quickly.”
Nah, that’d never happen, would it? I mean, the police would never seek to use the collected data in an inappropriate or unethical fashion, would they?
Police routinely arresting people to get DNA, inquiry claims
Police officers are now routinely arresting people in order to add their DNA sample to the national police database, an inquiry will allege tomorrow.
The review of the national DNA database by the government’s human genetics commission also raises the possibility that the DNA profiles of three-quarters of young black males, aged 18 to 35, are now on the database.
* * *
The crime and security bill published last week by the home secretary, Alan Johnson, proposes to keep DNA profiles of people arrested but not convicted of any offence on the database for six years. This follows a landmark European court judgment last December, ruling illegal the current blanket policy of indefinite retention of DNA profiles whether or not the person has been convicted of an offence.
It adds that parliament never formally debated the establishment of the DNA database. Its evolution involved a “function creep” from being used to confirm police suspicions to identifying suspects. This resulted in the addition of more and more profiles without being clearly matched by an improvement in convictions.
Gods, what are people thinking? In my own hometown there is once again an effort to put “security cameras” in place in our downtown area, a subject I have written about previously. Last spring our City Council decided to put a stop to it, but proponents have gathered enough signatures to now have the matter put on the ballot for a special election next year. It’s like the damned “red light cameras” which cost more than they’re worth, do not lead to improved safety at intersections, and just decrease everyone’s privacy.
But hey, they make people feel good, right? And all that matters is good security theatre, not actual security. Don’t scare the sheep, or they’ll panic and run.
Jim Downey
PS: since I’ve been told that sometimes I need to be less subtle, let me be bloody obvious – I chose the title intentionally. Yes, I think that religion and the perceived need for security theatre come from the same source: that reassurance that someone else is watching over you to make sure you are safe. What else is the Abrahamic God but a paranormal surveillance system?
(Cross posted to UTI.)
I heard the news when the radio went on this morning at 6:00, and just started laughing:
OSLO – President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in a stunning decision designed to encourage his initiatives to reduce nuclear arms, ease tensions with the Muslim world and stress diplomacy and cooperation rather than unilateralism.
* * *
The award appeared to be a slap at Bush from a committee that harshly criticized Obama’s predecessor for his largely unilateral military action in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The Nobel committee praised Obama’s creation of “a new climate in international politics” and said he had returned multilateral diplomacy and institutions like the U.N. to the center of the world stage.
“The award appeared to be a slap at Bush . . . “ No shit, Sherlock. I can just imagine heads exploding all across the Right today.
Heh. Hehehehehe . . .
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
RKBA? Commonly used, the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.*
This is a personal story of my journey from being raised with guns, experiencing the personal effects of gun violence, and coming around to the belief that a ‘personal right’ interpretation of the 2nd Amendment is a good liberal/progressive value.
I offer it to my fellow progressives for perspective, and apologize for the length.
OK, first thing. I was born and raised in the Midwest. My dad was a cop, and a hunter, so I grew up with guns. I knew how to safely handle and shoot guns before I could ride a bicycle, and I owned my own guns by the time I was 8. So part of my familiarity with guns is just cultural – everyone I knew had guns in their homes, and it was just no big deal.
But I’ll be honest here: I don’t much remember my childhood. Because when I was 11, my dad was killed. And the shock of that (and my mother’s accidental death 18 months later) just sorta wiped away my memories of childhood.
My adolescence was predictably rocky, but thanks to the love of family and good friends, I got through it. My younger sister and I went to live with relatives, who did what they could to give us stability. But when you have lost one parent to violence, and another to accident, before your teen years, it leaves a hole in your life. And to this day, middle-aged man that I am, I am sickened at the thought of violence as it is so casually represented in popular culture, and as it exists in reality far too often.
Still, I went away to college at the usual time, reasonably well adjusted. While at college – Grinnell College, a proud bastion of liberalism – I continued my intellectual and political growth. I learned to let go of the last vestiges of homophobia and racism I had grown up with. I came to better understand the roots of crime, and of violence, and see that many of the policies of the Reagan era were at best counter-productive. My inclinations towards progressivism solidified, bolstered not just by education but also by life experience. I came to loathe the rhetoric coming from the Right, and to look upon all they said and did with deep suspicion.
This included the rhetoric coming from the NRA, which had turned strongly into being allies with the GOP. Through graduate school and work in the 1980s I didn’t have much time for hunting, though I still did do so occasionally, out of the belief that if I was going to be a carnivore I should confront the reality that another living being had died so that I could eat meat. But I just couldn’t understand why the NRA, which was just a safety organization while I was growing up, had gone so far off the deep end politically. Then – insanity of insanities – the push to legalize concealed-carry laws at the state level started.
I thought it was nuts. Particularly with my personal experience of losing my father to gun violence, I did not see why these people wanted to push more guns into more hands as a matter of public policy. Who on earth wanted that? Why, the streets would run with blood. Sure, I owned firearms, and knew how to use them safely, and so did most everyone else I knew – but this was just asking for trouble.
A year or so after Florida had implemented concealed-carry I had to attend a meeting in Fort Myers. I had been in close contact with a number of the attendees, all people I respected for their intelligence and thoughtfulness. After the meeting was over, we were sitting around talking, and the discussion somehow turned to guns and Florida’s experience with adopting “shall issue” concealed carry.
To my surprise, a number of the locals said that they thought the law was great. Several had obtained their permits. Further, since we were in a private residence, they were comfortable in showing how they carried their firearms. I, and a couple of the other people from out of state who were there, were rather stunned by the whole thing. I mean, it was just weird that I had been in meetings all day with people who were carrying guns.
This made a huge impression on me. And I started thinking through the matter, discussing it over time with others. And I watched to see how things played out over time in Florida, waiting for an upsurge in violence because of these people carrying weapons. But that didn’t happen. And I slowly came to the conclusion that I had made a classic mistake of considering myself to be “unusual” in my respect for safely handling firearms – when I knew to the contrary that most everyone I knew who owned firearms treated them with the same consideration that I did.
And I continued to think this matter through, to the point where I wrote an essay on the matter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1993, a companion piece to another essay of mine they had published. Here’s the beginning:
Recently, I had a column here concerning the radical NRA leadership, and the danger that their attitude of ‘anything goes’ with weapons and ammunition poses to police, federal agents, and the average American. So it may come as a bit of a surprise that I favor legislative efforts to allow most people to carry a concealed firearm.
I do not see a contradiction here. What the NRA leadership is doing to demonize and discredit law enforcement makes us all less safe. Having more law-abiding citizens trained in the safe handling of firearms, and duly licensed to carry those firearm for self defense, would make us more safe. Sure, the ideal solution would be to rid society of all firearms, or at least all handguns. But that isn’t likely to happen anytime soon, with a huge number of firearms already in private hands. Certainly, the criminals aren’t going to give up their weapons. And a crime-fearing public doesn’t want to relinquish their guns, though they rarely carry them in violation of current law.
A concealed-carry law would change the calculus of crime in a very fundamental way.
You can see the whole thing here.
OK, so that was 16 years ago. Since then, Missouri (where I live) and another 36 states have implemented “shall issue” concealed-carry legislation, meaning that if someone meets the criteria set out in law (some mixture of training and background-investigation), then the state has a duty to grant them a license to carry a concealed weapon. Another ten states have some form of “may issue” legislation. Millions of Americans have gotten these permits, and the wave of shootings I initially expected still hasn’t happened.
So what? Why does a lack of violence support the RKBA? There also isn’t solid data to support that it has stopped crime – just anecdotal stories. Why should a self-proclaimed “progressive” support people carrying guns?
Well, I take a pragmatic approach, combined with a philosophical one. On the one hand, concealed-carry does not seem to have caused any problems, so there is no major reason to impinge on the Constitutional Right to Keep and Bear Arms. And, in keeping with how I see the other rights outlined in the Bill of Rights, I see the 2nd Amendment to be a personal right, not a “state’s right”. It has always struck me as odd that the conservatives see all the Rights to be “state’s rights” except the 2nd, and liberals have approached this the other way around.
Good, pragmatic progressive that I am, I want to see government serve the needs of people, while not limiting our freedoms unless there is a clear case to be made that it can do so in a productive fashion which outweighs the loss. My dad was a cop, and I have known cops all my life. And almost every cop I have ever known will tell you that their job is to protect *society*, and the unfortunate truth is that all too often that means catching a crook after they have done something – not before. Meaning after someone has been robbed, or assaulted, or killed.
The RKBA – or a gun – will not protect you from being a victim of crime. At best it may give you a chance to defend yourself or a loved one. Anyone who thinks otherwise needs more education and training on the matter. But I would rather have some chance – and the choice to take it – than no chance at all.
Jim Downey
(Written for and posted to Daily Kos, where I’m sure there will be an interesting discussion.)
Filed under: Bruce Schneier, Civil Rights, Emergency, Failure, Government, Humor, Predictions, Privacy, Terrorism
Good lord. I’d heard about this, as an “attempted assassination”, but I hadn’t heard the details:
On the evening of Aug. 28, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the Saudi Deputy Interior Minister — and the man in charge of the kingdom’s counterterrorism efforts — was receiving members of the public in connection with the celebration of Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting. As part of the Ramadan celebration, it is customary for members of the Saudi royal family to hold public gatherings where citizens can seek to settle disputes or offer Ramadan greetings.
One of the highlights of the Friday gathering was supposed to be the prince’s meeting with Abdullah Hassan Taleh al-Asiri, a Saudi man who was a wanted militant from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Al-Asiri had allegedly renounced terrorism and had requested to meet the prince in order to repent and then be accepted into the kingdom’s amnesty program.
* * *
But the al-Asiri case ended very differently from the al-Awfi case. Unlike al-Awfi, al-Asiri was not a genuine repentant — he was a human Trojan horse. After al-Asiri entered a small room to speak with Prince Mohammed, he activated a small improvised explosive device (IED) he had been carrying inside his anal cavity. The resulting explosion ripped al-Asiri to shreds but only lightly injured the shocked prince — the target of al-Asiri’s unsuccessful assassination attempt.
Nobody tell the TSA, but last month someone tried to assassinate a Saudi prince by exploding a bomb stuffed in his rectum.
* * *
For years, I have made the joke about Richard Reid: “Just be glad that he wasn’t the underwear bomber.” Now, sadly, we have an example of one.
Richard Reid was the “shoe bomber”, and the reason why we all have to remove our shoes when you go through security at an airport.
Consider the possible reactions from the TSA. I suppose we all should limber up, and get used to literally bending over from now on.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
Heard about this on “Wait Wait… “ this morning:
KALONA, Iowa (AP) — A tourism gimmick in the southeast Iowa town of Kalona is giving new meaning to the phrase three hots and a cot.
Last week the town’s Chamber of Commerce and Washington County sheriff pulled over people with out-of-state license plates and offered them an all-expense paid visit — including free meals and a night’s lodging just as if they were really being arrested — to the town of 2,300, about 20 miles southwest of Iowa City.
* * *
Then, along came Ron and Cheri Cunningham of Sedalia, Mo.
“I was behind a truck that I’d followed for about 15 miles. I wasn’t speeding. I didn’t know what I could’ve possibly done,” Ron Cunningham said.
Mr. Cunningham and his wife enjoyed their visit, however. But then, they’re from Sedalia. Almost anything would be an improvement.
Anyway, I’ve been to Kalona, back when I lived in Iowa. Used to drive through it pretty regularly, in fact, when the highway ran through it. They have a nice cheese shop there. But when the DOT relocated and modernized the highway, it was an improvement. And if I was driving by now I would really resent being pulled over for such a promotional stunt – it is nothing more than an abuse of police powers, and undermines the respect for those powers.
Yeah, at this point, they’d have to arrest me to get me to go back to visit Kalona.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
In spite of how it might seem sometimes, I’m politically independent – I tend to support specific policies (and to a very limited degree individuals), not this or that party.
And one thing I have long objected to has been the existence of an ‘American Royalty’ within our political system. Here in Missouri we just got rid of one Republican governor who is the son of a long-term US Congresscritter. On the Democratic side, the Carnahan family has held or currently holds several important political offices.
Nationally, it’s even worse. Look at the Bush family, and the debacle of having W rise to power almost solely on the power of his father & family. Al Gore is the son of a Senator. The Clintons have long operated as a family unit, sharing power and position.
And then there are the Kennedys.
Now, Ted Kennedy was loved on the left. All last week we got to hear and read (and see, for those who watch television) plenty of discussion about his place in American history, how he matured into a true leader of the Democratic party, how he managed to rise above the scandals and substance abuse of his youth, how he came to represent much of what was good about American politics, with his ability to work with members of the other side of the political divide, et fucking cetera.
Yeah, he was an accomplished pol. But I have a really hard time coming to the conclusion that we as a nation are better off for his having been in office for 40 years, gaining office purely because of the power of his family and his relationship to his two sainted brothers. Furthermore, I’ll say that his affirmation of the Kennedy name as a political power unto itself was inherently bad for our nation, along with all the other political royalty we have now and have had to suffer with in our history.
There, a bit of political sacrilege. But I had to say this, in reaction to something which made a minor flap this weekend: the horror of Jenna Hager (nee Bush, one of W’s twin daughters) being hired by NBC as a reporter for their Today show.
NEW YORK — NBC’s “Today” show has hired someone with White House experience as a new correspondent – former first daughter Jenna Hager.
The daughter of former President George W. Bush will contribute stories about once a month on issues like education to television’s top-rated morning news show, said Jim Bell, its executive producer.
Hager, a 27-year-old teacher in Baltimore, said she has always wanted to be a teacher and a writer, and has already authored two books. But she was intrigued by the idea of getting into television when Bell contacted her.
“It wasn’t something I’d always dreamed to do,” she said. “But I think one of the most important things in life is to be open-minded and to be open-minded for change.”
And from Glenn Greenwald:
It’s time to embrace American royalty
We’re obviously hungry to live with royal and aristocratic families so we should really just go ahead and formally declare it:
Bush daughter Jenna Hager becomes ‘Today’ reporter
NBC’s “Today” show has hired someone with White House experience as a new correspondent — former first daughter Jenna Hager, the daughter of former President George W. Bush. . . . She “just sort of popped to us as a natural presence, comfortable” on the air, [Executive Producer Jim] Bell said. Hager will work out of NBC’s Washington bureau.
They should convene a panel for the next Meet the Press with Jenna Bush Hager, Luke Russert, Liz Cheney, Megan McCain and Jonah Goldberg, and they should have Chris Wallace moderate it. They can all bash affirmative action and talk about how vitally important it is that the U.S. remain a Great Meritocracy because it’s really unfair for anything other than merit to determine position and employment. They can interview Lisa Murkowski, Evan Bayh, Jeb Bush, Bob Casey, Mark Pryor, Jay Rockefeller, Dan Lipinksi, and Harold Ford, Jr. about personal responsibility and the virtues of self-sufficiency. Bill Kristol, Tucker Carlson and John Podhoretz can provide moving commentary on how America is so special because all that matters is merit, not who you know or where you come from. There’s a virtually endless list of politically well-placed guests equally qualified to talk on such matters.
It’s a fair point, but Greenwald doesn’t then make the connection to the Kennedys. Gee, I wonder why that is?
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI. Oh, a personal note: I’ll be on vacation for the next week, so don’t expect to hear much from me after Tuesday.)
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Art, Book Conservation, Failure, General Musings, Government, Guns, Humor, Predictions, Press, Publishing, RKBA, Science Fiction, Society
I’d mentioned previously that I had been up for consideration for appointment to the local Planning & Zoning Commission, but had been mercifully spared selection. Well, when it was my turn to interview for the position with the City Council, it wasn’t just before the Council and city staff – the local press was there. No surprise.
Anyway, earlier this week I got a phone call from a pleasant young man who writes for the MU student newspaper. He had been at the interview, and thought that I might be an interesting subject for an profile piece for a series they’re doing about local weirdos. No, strike that, let’s say “personalities”. Anyway, he asked if I would be willing to chat with him about myself.
“Sure,” I told him. “Let me send you some links for background information. Then you can decide whether you still want to do the piece, and how to approach it.”
This is what I sent him:
Righto. First, here are my own websites/blogs:
My professional site: Legacy Bookbindery
My novel: Communion of Dreams
My personal blog: CommunionBlog
A big ballistics-research project: Ballistics By The Inch
And the related blog: BBTI Blog
My ‘archive’ site: A Fine LineThat last one also contains all the columns I wrote for the Columbia Trib when I was doing that, under the “Art & Culture” heading.
A few years ago someone actually created a Wikipedia page on me (which I need to update): James Downey
Then there’s this forum I created for the Neighborhood Alliance effort in June.
And I’m one of the primary writers at this blog: Unscrewing The Inscrutable
Beyond that, you can search the archives at the Missourian, and the Tribune for stories which have been done about me/my businesses over the years. You might also look under “Legacy Art” or “Legacy Art & BookWorks”, which was the gallery I had downtown (where Slackers is now) for 8 years.
That should get you started. 😉
Thinking about it later, I came to the conclusion that perhaps my life hasn’t been a total waste to date. More than a bit . . . eclectic . . . perhaps, but not a total waste. That’s a good feeling.
Oh, I may have some news this weekend concerning getting Communion published.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 