An interactive map of botched SWAT and paramilitary police raids, released in conjunction with the Cato policy paper "Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids," by Radley Balko.

And I was concerned about tasers.

Botched Paramilitary Police Raids

The case of 20-year-old Dontae Marks, a bystander who protested when police tried to arrest a friend for being drunk outside a night-club. Police reportedly pointed a taser at Marks’ chest when he refused an order to leave, then tasered him in the back as he walked away shouting an obscenity. Six officers then reportedly grappled with him in a struggle in which Marks was pepper-sprayed and touch-stunned at least ten times while lying face-down on the ground. He was reported to have sustained 13 taser burn marks across his back, neck, buttocks and the rear of his legs. He was later acquitted on charges of affray and has filed a lawsuit. According to the WW report, an internal police review found the taser use to be justified.

The taser is now being used by American police forces where no violence would have used in the past. For many police departments, it has become the defacto way of dealing with people who don't do exactly what they are told. This is far from the most disturbing case cited in the report.

USA: Excessive and lethal force? Amnesty International's concerns about deaths and ill-treatment involving police use of tasers - Amnesty International

"Its definition of freedom -- one utterly divorced from civic responsibility -- is superficial and is itself a grave threat to the liberty and security of the American people."

Apparently asking the executive to comply with acts of Congress is "utterly divorced from civic responsibility."

Gonzales attacks ruling against domestic spying - CNN.com

According to a study published in the Lancet Medical Journal in 2001, a charge of three to five seconds can result in immobilization for five to 15 minutes, which would mean that Tabatabainejad could have been physically unable to stand when the officers demanded that he do so.

"It is a real mistake to treat a Taser as some benign thing that painlessly brings people under control," said Peter Eliasberg, managing attorney at the ACLU of Southern California.

"The Taser can be incredibly violent and result in death," Eliasberg said.

According to an ACLU report, 148 people in the United States and Canada have died as a result of the use of Tasers since 1999.

During the altercation between Tabatabainejad and the officers, bystanders can be heard in the video repeatedly asking the officers to stop and requesting their names and identification numbers. The video showed one officer responding to a student by threatening that the student would "get Tased too." At this point, the officer was still holding a Taser.

Such a threat of the use of force by a law enforcement officer in response to a request for a badge number is an "illegal assault," Eliasberg said.

"It is absolutely illegal to threaten anyone who asks for a badge - that's assault," he said.

Until tonight I hadn't watched the video of the taser incident. Its linked here. Its hard to watch. In fact, I didn't make it through and I was very angry for a while after seeing it. I actually don't recommend watching it.

These cops are tasering this kid and then demanding that he stand. They are demanding over and over again that he stand up and then tasering him when he refuses to stand. Its fucked up. Would you want to stand after getting electrocuted? Worse, they threaten to taser the other students that are watching the incident because they express concern with the situation. I do not understand how people can watch this video and not get that this is a bunch of guys who enjoy hurting people and have found a victim. How warped can you possibly be? What sort of authoritarian brain washing leads you to look at this and wonder whether or not it was justified?

Community responds to Taser use in Powell

Citing improvements to the law, the American Civil Liberties Union
today withdrew a three-year-old lawsuit over Section 215 of the Patriot Act, but
said it is prepared to defend individuals who receive demands for information
under the provision.

Some good patriot act news.

American Civil Liberties Union : Citing Improvements to Law, ACLU Withdraws Section 215 Case But Vows to Fight Individual Orders

Until recently, their biggest concern was that someone might steal the laptop. But now there's a new worry: the laptop will be seized or its contents scrutinized at customs and immigration checkpoints upon entering the United States.

Laptops at U.S. border: No privacy rights - Technology - International Herald Tribune

If the Ninth Circuit does agree with Judge Pregerson that computer searches are "non routine," there's a decent chance that this case would be the first computer search and seizure case to get to the Supreme Court.

Sweet! I find the prospect of random laptop searches at borders to be offensive to the idea of a free society on many levels. Finally, someone has argued, and a court has accepted the arguement, that this isn't Constitutional. Now, we'll get to find out if the higher courts agree. Its on!

The Volokh Conspiracy - District Court Holds That Border Searches of Computers Require Reasonable Suspicion:

There is a rather stark warning about the danger of "leftist" groups using the Internet to engage in terrorist attacks against the United States. Is there any basis at all for that warning?

We got to get it got to get it together man, like the mother fucking weatherman!

RE: War Room - Salon.com - The intelligence report cites 'leftist' groups as a terror threat

Yesterday I explained that the definition of "unlawful enemy combatant" (UEC) in the latest draft of the detainee bill was so ridiculously broad and open-ended that it could not possibly be intended to establish the authority of the Executive to militarily detain all persons so defined. But it appears I underestimated the gall and recklessness of the Administration and Congress, because there seems to be a fairly widespread understanding that the definition would do just that.

There is a healthy debate in the thread here about just exactly what these words mean, and lots of good links to more information.

Balkinization: Imagine Giving Donald Rumsfeld Unbounded Discretion to Detain You Indefinitely

BURIED IN THE complex Senate compromise on detainee treatment is a real shocker, reaching far beyond the legal struggles about foreign terrorist suspects in the Guantanamo Bay fortress. The compromise legislation, which is racing toward the White House, authorizes the president to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have never left the United States. And once thrown into military prison, they cannot expect a trial by their peers or any other of the normal protections of the Bill of Rights.

Oh Fuck...

Hard To Do Any Worse