This last Memorial Day weekend, I was heading off to work at my fun historical reinactor job at a state historic site (I get to run a 150 year old sawmill) and dressed appropriately. My wife's car was parked behind mine in the driveway, so I pulled hers out and into the neigbor's, pulled mine out onto the street, where there is no parking -- but hey, FedEx and UPS stop there all the time, so do contractors who are working on homes in the area and can't get their vehicles in the driveways, this is a historic district afterall and driveways are pretty damn small -- so just as I was about to get into my pickup and drive away, an Oshkosh pig pulls up behind me, lights on. He says, "Is that your truck?" and I say yes, I was just switching cars in the driveway. He says, as he gets out of his car, "Step over here, please." Asks for my license, "You can't park there." And I answer, "I'm not, I'm just switching cars." Then things get more serious -- "I smell marijuana, do you know marijuana is illegal?", which is total BS since it's been far too long. Then he says, "Do you mind if I search you?", to which of course, I replied, "Yes I do, you have no right to search me." I started to say, "Yeah, and I smell pigshit." but then realized that if I did, I wouldn't probably wouldn't make it to my job. Normally I would have escalated the scene as much as possible by bad mouthing him and his mother as much as possible, but I really do enjoy playing at the historic site and getting hauled to the jail for a few hours, even as much fun as that would have been being as obnoxious as possible and giving them continual lectures about how evil they are, how evil dubbya and asskruft are, how much I think that people like them need to be rounded up and put into re-education centers and given lobotomys so they can never bother decent people again -- still, I really wanted to make it to the job. So we were standing there at a bit of an impass, me saying "no, you cannot search me." Then he says, "Well, for my own safety, I have a right to search you for a weapon." I really, really, wish it had been some other time, so I could have forced the issue and made him call for reinforcements, because it would have been obvious to all and sundry that what this was really all about was the big 3 foot tall lighted 24/7 peace sign on the roof of my house and the bumper stickers on my truck and perhaps my hair, but -- ah well, maybe I'm getting old -- so I let him do it. And, of course, instead of just patting me down, he went thru all my pockets. Then he went over to the truck with my keys, and I thought he was going to search that too, but then he must have realized he was stepping into some real shit, with and stopped, put my keys on top of the truck, and got back into his car and told me I could go. So what am I ranting about? I'm not sure -- mostly, I guess, about how far things have gone. That some young skinhead pig thinks he can do something like this and get away with it. And it pisses me off more that it was such an in-opportune time, because I really do love so much going off on them and watching their stupid little faces get so flustered, watch their hands twitch nervously toward their guns. I really envy all those Iragis with their easy access to RPGs -- that's probably the only real answer. You know, there really are a lot of useless eaters, far too many oxygen thieves, in this country. But it's not the welfare mothers and poor that Tim always ranted about -- it's the pigs and those morons with the flags on their cars and imprinted on their brains. On the good side, I went to the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair this weekend, and sat just a few feet away from the stage where John Stauber and then Amy Goodman spoke, primarily about the media sellout in this country. On Mon, Jun 21, 2004 at 01:45:19PM -0400, Tyler Durden wrote:

OK...so say an officer is at the beach and spots some hot chick in a bathing suit, with obviously no ID on her person. And let's say this officer "believes" that this chick has a bag of pot at home. Can he just go and arrest her? -TD

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From: Eric Cordian To: cypherpunks@minder.net Subject: Citizen Units Must Give Names Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 09:52:44 -0700 (PDT)

One used to have the right to be known by any name one wished, as long as one did not do so for the purpose of committing fraud, or impersonating someone else.

One certainly has an absolute right to refuse to speak to a government employee when accosted.

So it is difficult to understand the Court's "reasoning" in this case.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=5473543

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday that people are required to identify themselves when asked to do so by police, and rejected arguments that it violates their constitutional rights to privacy and to remain silent.

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-- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"

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