A couple of my favorite blogs have been posting about this, and I thought I’d get in on the action and rant about it a bit.
Federal, State, and local authorities conducted a sweeping mass raid in TN, MS, and AR over the weekend. They were supposedly looking for terrorists and terrorism related activities. They arrested 332 people, issued 1,300 citations, and seized ‘hundreds’ of dollars. They called it ‘Operation Sudden Impact’. They used 50 agencies to conduct road blocks, raids of homes, businesses, and boats, and many personal searches. Surprisingly, they did not find any terrorists.
From the news accounts:
…law-enforcement officers said they are just trying to track down possible terrorists before something big happens.
Bullshit. That is not what this was about but it does help illustrate how easy it is to use the supposed threat of terrorism to justify any and every intrusion into your lives.
The Sheriff’s Department says 332 people were arrested, 142 of whom are were fugitives.
I would bet money that those 142 ‘fugitives’ were people with bench warrants for unpaid tickets. Arresting and actually booking people for unpaid tickets is, IMO, complete insanity to begin with (just turns cops into bill collectors) but that’s a post for another day.
Out of all the news stories I’ve read about this so far, none have questioned whether authorities obtained search warrants prior to conducting the raids and searches. They certainly couldn’t have had warrants for the automobile searches performed during the traffic road blocks, which is entirely illegal in most cases.
I find myself wondering, where is the outrage at this? Why do media accounts not include serious questions for the agencies involved?
The FBI along with hundreds of officers said they are looking for anything out of the ordinary. Agents take computers and paperwork from businesses.
That is so creepy. Sounds Orwellian, or maybe Soviet Russian?
This thing involved several federal agencies, including the FBI. That tells me these 3 states are just the beginning. Must be some kind of genius that came up with this idea. Can’t find any terrorists after all the illegal surveillance? Let’s just systematically pull over every single person in America as well as search every home and every business; that should turn up a few terrorists and we can even bust some drug users in the process.
Ironically, those who support this sort of authoritarian police behavior and erosion of your freedoms in the name of fighting terrorists like to point out that ‘islamofascists’ would make you submit to sharia law, and that they ‘hate you for your freedom’.
I can’t believe it has come to this. It is like a parody in itself. The threat of terrorism can be used to support anything from war and torture to the writing of more seatbelt tickets.
So, did anybody hear about the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2008? Didn’t think so. It was approved by some useless congressional committee last week and it has all but complete support in congress. It will pass with no trouble and the American people will never hear about it. I predict there will be ZERO discussion in the houses about whether further regulation of tobacco products by another administration (FDA) is really an appropriate use of government.
Essentially, this bill hands regulatory control of tobacco products over to the FDA. Problem is, the FDA’s purpose is to regulate medicines so that they are guaranteed to be safe. Cigarettes and tobacco products are inherently unsafe., which means this bill directly compromises the sincerity all FDA regulations.
Don’t ya love how it’s called the FAMILY smoking prevention and tobacco control act? That way, it cannot be opposed because no congresscritter wants to be against the family. Assholes. There are plenty of private organizations working to educate the public about the dangers of smoking cigarettes. We do not need more government bureaucracy to prevent people from smoking.
But wait, nobody listens to standard libertarian common sense arguments about the pointlessness of government; especially when it’s for the children. So why am I even bothering? Because there is something else going on here. Guess who lobbied members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee to get them to approve the legislation. PHILLIP MORRIS. What? Why would the largest cigarette company put their money and support behind legislation that further regulates THEIR industry? Competition, that’s why. Follow my first link and read a little more into the bill. It’s not just a vague call for the FDA to regulate tobacco. It carries specific new burdens and advertising restriction for tobacco companies; regulations that can be easily met by Phillip Morris, but greatly restrict any smaller cigarette manufacturers. It’s the most disgusting type of protectionism. The act would be more appropriately titled: ‘The Protect Phillip Morris’s’ Market Share act’
This Pretty much the same reasoning behind congressional hearings being held lately about internet gambling. They are trying to expand their power to go after ISP providers to help prosecute evil online poker players. You see, Vegas et all doesn’t like online gambling, for obvious reasons.
Same shit, different day.
So Chrys Tagged me, and while I appreciate being included in the fun, I’m not going to do it. The assignment was to pick up a book near you and open to a certain page and post certain sentences. It’s an interesting experiment in randomness and I suppose the goal is to create a serendipitous insight into my reading habits. Here’s the problem: I’m sort of a dishonest person who is inclined to manipulate the results. I picked up the nearest book and turned to the page and read the sentences and decided It wasn’t interesting enough. (Or, to be fair, I probably felt that it didn’t make me look interesting enough.) So I went to my bookshelf and picked a more interesting book that reflected the way I wanted the readers of my blog to see me. When I turned to page 123 and looked at sentences 5,6 and 7, I still wasn’t satisfied. Sometime in the middle trying the fourth non-randomly selected book I realized how ridiculous I was being. I was attempting to completely ignore the original intent of the blog tag Chrys invited me to.
I suppose I could have returned to the original book and done it right, but it was too late. I ruined it in my head. So instead you get this rant.
thanks again for tagging me, though.