There is a systemic problem with today’s law enforcement.

Not surprisingly, big government has been at the heart of the problem. Washington has incentivized the militarization of local police precincts by using federal dollars to help municipal governments build what are essentially small armies—where police departments compete to acquire military gear that goes far beyond what most of Americans think of as law enforcement.

This is usually done in the name of fighting the war on drugs or terrorism. The Heritage Foundation’s Evan Bernick wrote in 2013 that, “the Department of Homeland Security has handed out anti-terrorism grants to cities and towns across the country, enabling them to buy armored vehicles, guns, armor, aircraft, and other equipment.”

Bernick continued, “federal agencies of all stripes, as well as local police departments in towns with populations less than 14,000, come equipped with SWAT teams and heavy artillery.”

Bernick noted the cartoonish imbalance between the equipment some police departments possess and the constituents they serve, “today, Bossier Parish, Louisiana, has a .50 caliber gun mounted on an armored vehicle. The Pentagon gives away millions of pieces of military equipment to police departments across the country—tanks included.”

When you couple this militarization of law enforcement with an erosion of civil liberties and due process that allows the police to become judge and jury—national security letters, no-knock searches, broad general warrants, pre-conviction forfeiture—we begin to have a very serious problem on our hands.

Given these developments, it is almost impossible for many Americans not to feel like their government is targeting them. Given the racial disparities in our criminal justice system, it is impossible for African-Americans not to feel like their government is particularly targeting them.

This is part of the anguish we are seeing in the tragic events outside of St. Louis, Missouri. It is what the citizens of Ferguson feel when there is an unfortunate and heartbreaking shooting like the incident with Michael Brown.

Anyone who thinks that race does not still, even if inadvertently, skew the application of criminal justice in this country is just not paying close enough attention. Our prisons are full of black and brown men and women who are serving inappropriately long and harsh sentences for non-violent mistakes in their youth.

The militarization of our law enforcement is due to an unprecedented expansion of government power in this realm. It is one thing for federal officials to work in conjunction with local authorities to reduce or solve crime. It is quite another for them to subsidize it.

Americans must never sacrifice their liberty for an illusive and dangerous, or false, security.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) writing in We Must Demilitarize the Police for Time Magazine.

In Ferguson, Missouri this week, the public has turned the notion of “see something, say something” back on the state, via a digital tool of enormous power: online pictures and video. Their efforts – which began days before reporters descended when Twitter user @TheePharaoh posted pictures immediately after a police officer killed an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown – have helped bring international attention to both Brown’s death and law enforcement’s disproportionate response to the ensuing protests.

Antonio French, an alderman in nearby St Louis, spent days posting to Twitter pictures and a series of videos of the demonstrations and police actions that he captured on his mobile phone – and was reportedly arrested and then released on Wednesday evening. He is a citizen journalist of the best kind: a credible witness who has helped inform the wider public about a critical matter. Can anyone plausibly doubt that he and the two professional journalists who were briefly taken into custody after police demanded they stop recording were targeted because they were documenting law enforcement actions?

Ferguson isn’t the first example of this kind of citizen journalism, which has been going on for years in any number of other places including Iran, Egypt, Occupy Wall Street and Syria. But the videos, blog posts, tweets, and photos from French and others on the ground have complemented the work of the traditional journalists on the scene – and have reminded us of what is becoming a civic duty in today’s America.

Dan Gillmor writing in Ferguson’s citizen journalists revealed the value of an undeniable video for The Guardian.

I turn 59 next month. My dad emailed me a series of photos and captions purported to be from 1955. I haven’t verified any of the quotes, but they’re fun nonetheless.

Many otherwise well-informed people think they have to do something wrong, or stupid, or insecure to get hacked—like clicking on the wrong attachments, or browsing malicious websites. People also think that the NSA and its international partners are the only ones who have turned the internet into a militarized zone. But according to research I am releasing today at the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs, many of these commonly held beliefs are not necessarily true. The only thing you need to do to render your computer’s secrets—your private conversations, banking information, photographs—transparent to prying eyes is watch a cute cat video on YouTube, and catch the interest of a nation-state or law enforcement agency that has $1 million or so to spare.

To understand why, you have to realize that even in today’s increasingly security-conscious internet, much of the traffic is still unencrypted. You might be surprised to learn that even popular sites that advertise their use of encryption frequently still serve some unencrypted content or advertisements. While people now recognize that unencrypted traffic can be monitored, they may not recognize that it also serves as a direct path into compromising their computers.

Morgan Marquis-Boire writing in You Can Get Hacked Just By Watching This Cat Video on YouTube for The//Intercept.

Four years ago, Konstantin Yablotskiy was not looking to change his life. He had travelled to Cologne to attend the Gay Games, an LGBT-friendly athletics festival. He was a figure skater, not an activist. Most of his friends or family did not even know he was gay. But then he took to the ice in front of a fully accepting audience, receiving whistles and applause on as he spun to a mid-tempo jazz number, later earning gold and silver medals for his performances.

He watched athletes from around the world competing openly, unafraid of expressing their orientation. Before Yablotskiy left, he decided that he would would organize an LGBT athletics organization in his home country, Russia.

When he returned to the Gay Games this year, Yablotskiy was leading a team of 33 athletes representing the 1,000-plus membership of the Russian LGBT Sports Federation.

The Gay Games are a week-long athletics and cultural festival held every four years. This year’s games, held jointly in Cleveland, Ohio, and nearby Akron, and which culminate on Saturday, have drawn nearly 8,000 participants from more than 50 countries, competing in sports from football to bowling to synchronized swimming.

Since they began in 1982, the Gay Games stated goal has been to display the athletic ability of the LGBT community, promoting equality by showing that gay and lesbian athletes are just the same as their heterosexual peers. Organizers promote full inclusion at the events, allowing participation regardless of sexual orientation, gender, race, ideology or physical ability. The long tail of the games, however, has been in empowering participants to create change in their own communities, especially in places where LGBT rights remain elusive.

Skyler Reid writing in ‘It’s a huge human rights event. The Gay Games are changing the world’ for The Guardian.

A bit of good news in Cleveland is much appreciated.

Protesters and riot police have clashed again in Ferguson, Missouri amid renewed tension over the shooting of an unarmed teenage boy by a police officer.

Police fired a teargas canister at a crowd of around 200 people last night who gathered near a shop that Michael Brown, 18, was suspected of robbing.

Some protesters threw bottles at officers in riot gear and chanted “hands up, don’t shoot”.

A 24-hour period of relative calm came to an end after local police released a video that appeared to show Brown stealing cigars and intimidating the owner of the convenience store minutes before his death.

Jon Swaine writing in Ferguson police clash with Michael Brown protesters again overnight

Huh? I thought that Missouri Governor Jay Nixon had inserted state police, under the command of Ferguson native, Captain Ronald S Johnson of the Missouri Highway Patrol. How did this happen?

I’m sitting here in my office with five tails of joy (four canine and one feline) peacefully quiet and napping.

A grand jury indicted Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Friday for allegedly abusing the powers of his office by carrying out a threat to veto funding for state prosecutors investigating public corruption — making the possible 2016 presidential hopeful his state’s first indicted governor in nearly a century.

A special prosecutor spent months calling witnesses and presenting evidence that Perry broke the law when he promised publicly to nix $7.5 million over two years for the public integrity unit run by the office of Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg. Lehmberg, a Democrat, was convicted of drunken driving, but refused Perry’s calls to resign.

Though the Republican governor now faces two felony indictments, politics dominates the case. Lehmberg is based in Austin, which is heavily Democratic, in contrast to most of the rest of fiercely conservative Texas. The grand jury was comprised of Austin-area residents.

Associated press staff writing in Gov. Rick Perry of Texas indicted on abuse of power charges for New Orleans’ The Times-Picayune.

This is my exercise in shoveling out the blogpile…

Rule No. 45 – Eat All The Junk Food You Want as Long as You Cook It Yourself.

From Food Rules, an eater’s manual by Michael Pollan

Previously…

Found in my electronic chapbook. See also Eating Mindfully by Jan Chozen Bey.

Today’s headlines include:

Local News

State of recreation
Kasich’s visit touts vocational education
10 years for Nov. burglaries
Waterford community turns out for parade, fair
Oh, a rowing we will go

Top Headlines Poll: How often to you make use of the city’s recreation facilities?

Great pictures of Marietta…

What’s going on here…

Previously…

I turn 59 next month. My dad emailed me a series of photos and captions purported to be from 1955. I haven’t verified any of the quotes, but they’re fun nonetheless.

From my dad, of course…

Relying in part on recent Intercept reporting on the vast breadth of the government’s watchlisting system, several Muslim Americans filed a complaint in a Michigan federal court today, arguing that they have been wrongly ensnared in an unaccountable system without any opportunity to defend themselves.

Citing “recent media accounts,” including secret government documents published exclusively by The//Intercept, the complaint claims that the plaintiffs—five men on the terror watchlist—have been falsely stigmatized and punished without trial by a system motivated by “bigotry and misguided, counterproductive zeal.”

“This lawsuit is an expression of anger grounded in law,” the 28-page complaint begins. “Our federal government is imposing an injustice of historic proportions upon the Americans who have filed this action, as well as thousands of others.”

Ryan Devereaux writing in Five Muslim-Americans Sue Feds Over Watchlisting for The//Intercept.

So where are all the patriot gun-toters? How come they’re not flocking to Fergusen like they did to Bundy’s Ranch or when they paraded around sleepy Medina, Ohio, on a Saturday morning, with ARs slung over their shoulders, terrifying shoppers and soccer moms? This is the REAL deal here, government thugs bringing the jackboot down on citizens asserting their rights! It’s not some wealthy old racist trying to wheedle out of grazing fees. Here’s your big chance, boys, to face down the guv’mint and cast off tyranny, just like them Founding Fathers planned!

But no. Instead, the gun toters are making a panic run on St. Looie gun shops and stocking up on ammo, and joking on local news sites about what THEY’D use to gun down the protestors.

Gosh. What’s the difference between Bundy’s Ranch and Fergusen? What could it be? Don’t tell me, I’ll figure it out in a minute….

Derf Backderf writing in Here’s your chance, patriots! at Derfblog.

This is my exercise in shoveling out the blogpile…

Rule No. 44 – Favor the Kinds of Oils and Grains That Have Traditionally Been Stone Ground.

From Food Rules, an eater’s manual by Michael Pollan

Previously…

Found in my electronic chapbook. See also Eating Mindfully by Jan Chozen Bey.

What is happening in Ferguson, Missouri will not stay in Ferguson, Missouri

Previously…