Well, since the fastest growing black household in America is the cellblock; since here in Philadelphia I still can hear cops step from their cars asking, "Where'd the nigger go?" in front of black onlookers; since Independence Hall now has a clearly visible surveillance camera in its tower and visitors to the Liberty Bell are searched and wanded multiple times; since the fastest growing group of armed police in the US are private security and prison guard, since without trying very hard, I can read more and more about police getting no-knock powers, about prisoners held incommunicado, etc. -- I think we shouldn't wait until we are all getting routinely Taser'd for getting smart at the latest "preventive" roadblock. It's enough like a police state--or a hall monitor's wet dream -- to get me nervous. --Michael McGettigan One recent example -- a friend of mine who worked transmitters for Motorola was sent to a crime-ridden North Philly high-rise project. His mission -- inspect a repeater transmitter that was inside a steel-doored room atop the building -- the transmitter's function was to boost the signals of the various law enforcement/drug authorities that raided it on a regular basis. They'd found that their hand radios often didn't work well enough. The idea that this high-rise should maybe be razed rather than rigged for a permanent state of drug busts didn't seem to occur to anyone. ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as eugen@leitl.org To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]