Whiffs of US civil war on the horizon Part 2

By the time 2005 rolled around there was already a sense of ‘us them’. The police had changed their roll from officers of the piece to officers of law enforcement. Their tactics and approach to the general public was rubbing people the wrong way with probing questions looking for any reason to arrest people without any hint of a crime.

Huge buildings started appearing in remote locations around the country with no real announcement what they were. It was later disclosed they contained petabytes if not more of data on every person in the USA and beyond. This was all fed by the Patriot Act looking for terrorists. People were still not aware of the extent of surveillance by the government into their personal lives with things not related to terrorist like how much you paid for lunch or where you shop or what type of underwear you like.

The Third Dot Obvious Racial Profiling.

Targeting minorities and ignoring the principles of the Constitution and legislation to make people equal. Those minorities were already angry at the police for regular use of lethal force when it was not called for. The topper for that it seemed the court would always side with the police thus demonstrating there indeed was not just a perception of ‘us them’, it actually existed and was on display during the evening news.

The Fourth Dot Lack of Accountability.

According to the Constitution, the Government employees or elected officials are servants of the people doing the work of the people. People can go in and request copies of documents and so on under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). When those publicly accessible documents are denied the Government is ignoring its obligation to the people and is a sign of corruption. The United States has slipped to 23 on the corruption scale. For many years it has been mid-teens with New Zealand at 1 topping the list as the least corrupt country. When requesting police camera footage of an incident police often withhold it when it shows them being in the wrong while still trying to push for a conviction.

Police that have been removed from their job are often just recycled and placed someplace else with the help of a police union. There is no real punishment for bad cops, and that makes them feel above the law with no incentive to correct their undesirable behavior. Without doubt this adds to the increasingly obvious us them.

The Fifth Dot Chronic Rights Violations.

Police will count on people not knowing their rights tricking people into giving them up. The police will even lie and make threats to people to intimidate them under threat of arrest if they don’t forfeit their rights. There really no additional explanations needed to understand that dot. The most chronic violation involves unlawful searches. It is fair to say most Americans have had or know someone who was violated by the police.

 

Next Part 3 of 3


Comments are closed.