Dagmar wrote:
As if you didn't already have the looming vision of the KGB relocating to the US in your mind, here's a great example of why if McCain is elected, America will likely cease to be.

Apparently, as a means to prevent any dissenting opinions from being expressed anywhere near the Republican National Convention, St. Paul and Minneapolis police have engaged in a number of raids upon private homes and public meeting spaces, confiscating computers, putting hippies on the floor and in handcuffs, refusing to show warrants, pointing machine guns at people and just generally acting like Nazi stormtroopers from some old movie gone wrong.

Just click on the link.

Fuck McCain.

I don't know...

I saw that story and they do have free speech zones and areas for the protesters to set up so it doesn't sound like they are trying to stop them. Some of the people they raided had a bunch of weird things like large stockpiles of human fecal matter and some weapons(don't know what kind specifically). It was my understanding that there were tips for the past few weeks indicating an attack from protesters which is somewhat correlated with the findings of the raids.

Not sure the whole deal but this sounds like a case of bad PR more than it does a real attack on civil liberties. Its just really easy to confuse the two especially when the republicans are being talked about as they are a really easy target.

lonew0lf wrote:

I don't know...

I saw that story and they do have free speech zones and areas for the protesters to set up so it doesn't sound like they are trying to stop them. Some of the people they raided had a bunch of weird things like large stockpiles of human fecal matter and some weapons(don't know what kind specifically). It was my understanding that there were tips for the past few weeks indicating an attack from protesters which is somewhat correlated with the findings of the raids.

I've seen nothing about anyone in the Twin Cities having anything like that and I think you're getting confused by spin. Would you care to cite some URLs substantiating these claims?

By the way, "Free Speech Zones" are and always have been, complete bullshit. Sometimes they're even surrounded by barbed wire fences and guys with machine guns.

Not sure the whole deal but this sounds like a case of bad PR more than it does a real attack on civil liberties. Its just really easy to confuse the two especially when the republicans are being talked about as they are a really easy target.

Considering this is the city that got into a big mess in 2004 when their police officers tried to arrest a bunch of people and then make up charges against them which were rather immediately proven to be crap by lots and lots of video cameras guess what it looks like when the search warrants specifically mention digital cameras, cellphones, and laptops as items to be confiscated.

Dagmar wrote:
...guess what it looks like when the search warrants specifically mention digital cameras, cellphones, and laptops as items to be confiscated.

My gut reaction?
The cops are snagging (and rifling through) every data storage device that they can get their hands on.
What do you think that it looks like?

Simon C. Ion wrote:

Dagmar wrote:
...guess what it looks like when the search warrants specifically mention digital cameras, cellphones, and laptops as items to be confiscated.

My gut reaction?
The cops are snagging (and rifling through) every data storage device that they can get their hands on.
What do you think that it looks like?

That, too, especially considering while two organizers were at the police station being interrogated last night, their cars and so forth were broken into and papers/files rifled through. (Gee, the police would leave a note, and theives would have taken something)

Looks to me like they thought they could get the cameras away from the people most likely to be stubborn and record and protect evidence of police misbehaviour so that there won't be a repeat of 2004's mass acquittals. Note that the warrant seems to be implying that cameras are a crime.

Dagmar wrote:

lonew0lf wrote:
Some of the people they raided had a bunch of weird things like large stockpiles of human fecal matter and some weapons(don't know what kind specifically). It was my understanding that there were tips for the past few weeks indicating an attack from protesters which is somewhat correlated with the findings of the raids.

I've seen nothing about anyone in the Twin Cities having anything like that and I think you're getting confused by spin. Would you care to cite some URLs substantiating these claims?

News reports talk of black bloc style anarchist groups. These are not legitimate protestors. They are violent groups who are there to fuck shit up and start conflicts with the police. Of course, it is not always clear whether or not the violence is being instigated by the police. These things become extremely chatoic - lies on all sides - crimes on all sides.

However, the bottom line is that smashing a window at the RNC isn't protected speech and its not going to make a difference in the political process except to convince some Republicans that "liberals are crazy." I don't have a lot of sympathy. You and I have been involved in peaceful protests before. If you work with the police they work with you. This sort of conflict happens because protesters come looking for trouble. The police do not give a fuck about your politics and they are not on a side.

Wearing black clothes, bandanas and gas masks, some individuals smashed windows of cars and stores. They tipped over newspaper boxes, pulled a big trash bin into the street, bent the rearview mirrors on a bus and flipped heavy stone garbage bins on the sidewalks.

The group chanted: "Whose streets? Our streets!"

At one point, people pushed a trash bin filled with trash and threw garbage in the streets and at cars. They also took down orange detour road signs. One of them used a screwdriver to puncture the back tire of a limousine waiting at an intersection and threw a wooden board at the vehicle, denting its side. Another hurled a glass bottle at a charter bus that had stopped at an intersection. The bottle smashed into pieces but didn't appear to damage the bus.

Terry Butts, a former Alabama Supreme Court justice who is a convention delegate, was on a bus taking delegates to the arena when a brick through the window sprayed glass on him and two others. Butts said he wasn't hurt.

"It just left us a little shaken," he said. "It was sort of a frightening moment because it could have been a bomb or a Molotov cocktail."

It doesn't even make sense to me.

Agent provocateurs.