The guys have published the full account of their detainment and it reflects some pretty appalling treatment from the Jones County police, including being pepper sprayed, having their vehicle searched without consent, and being locked up without being read their rights, being informed of the charges against them, or allowed to contact help. Read it all here.
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civil liberties
One of the surprise treats from my weekend family trip to Austin was crossing paths with my friends Jason and Pete from Motorhome Diaries, along with their new companion Adam. Together we had a great time crashing a Southwestern University frat party on Friday. (Personal discovery: I have a lot more fun at frat parties now than I did when I was actually in college.)
But it was only a matter of time before the RV of freedom hit a speed bump. All three have been arrested following a traffic stop that they documented with cameras and video cameras. The reasons for arrest in Jones County, Mississippi:
Adam Mueller - Disorderly Conduct and Disobeying an Officer
Pete Eyre - Possession of a Beer in a Dry County
Jason Talley - Disorderly Conduct, Disobeying, and Resisting Arrest
Obviously we don’t have the full story yet, but knowing these guys I’m going to guess that “disorderly conduct” is code for asserting their constitutional rights and not duly respecting the officers’ authoriteh. Pete was probably the calmest of them all, making possession of beer the only thing police could think to charge him with. (And speaking of which, it’s 2009! WTF is wrong with a county in which adults can get arrested for possession of beer?)
The guys are expected to be arraigned tomorrow. Hopefully they’ll get out soon and be able to report all the details. In the meantime, you might want to give them a little support at their PayPal link.
Previously: Pete videotaped an Arlington, VA officer illegally parking and was then trailed by that officer as he attempted to walk home.
Update: More details in the morning once the guys have their computers back. In the meantime, from @jdtalley’s Twitter feed: “The #MHD crew has been released from Jones County jail. I was pepper sprayed and choked for refusing to give ID.”
Permalink - Share/Save - Comments (5)Selected tweets from my friends in the last 24 hours:
Discussions of Obama being “Good for a beer” and regular White house cocktail parties makes me happy on many, many levels.
ZOMG. Obama says he’d “go for a beer with Hannity”. Obama’s like 500000% better a person than I could ever be.
Has a man crush on Obama
These soon after the administration cited state secrets to block the Binyam Mohamed case. Obama’s a swell guy and all, but he’s not a better person than you. He wouldn’t go for a beer with Hannity because he’s so wonderful. He’d do it because that kind of glad-handing chumminess is what makes a person appeal to more than 50% of American voters. You, my friends, couldn’t put up with two years of that campaign bullshit. You wouldn’t try to cover up the previous administration’s complicity in rendition cases either. That’s why I like you. Snap out of it.
Permalink - Share/Save - Comments (2)I have nothing to add to what Greenwald, Sullivan, and Thoreau have written, but I think the Obama Administration’s invocation of state secrets to cover up torture cases deserves the widest possible coverage. It’s unfortunate that the stimulus debate will likely overshadow it. To those of you who enthusiastically supported Obama for his promise of change: Are you going to accept this?
Permalink - Share/Save - Comments (7)In its last months in office the Bush Administration is pushing for renewal of the Authorization for Use of Military Force. Neal Katyal and Justin Florence note in Slate that the new AUMF grants the president power to detain people captured within the United States for essentially unlimited duration:
The AUMF broadly states that the president may use “all necessary and appropriate force” to prevent future terrorist attacks. That breadth of language led the administration to claim the AUMF authorized a vast range of practices, such as warrantless wiretapping, that Congress never had any inkling of when it passed the law. Only some of those programs have come to light; we know little about what else lurks under the auspices of the AUMF.
The AUMF also has no time limit. The consequences are revealed in the administration’s claims that it can detain an individual indefinitely in the war on terror, even after he has completely served the sentence imposed on him by a jury in a military tribunal. A law giving the president perpetual war powers is an anomaly in our constitutional system. Moreover, the AUMF gives Congress no ongoing oversight role in the war on terror. It does not mandate that the administration report to Congress on what it has done.
This is exactly the sort of abuse of executive power that Obama’s supporters are hoping he will end. Yet when Slate reporter Emily Bazelon contacted the Obama campaign for comment on the AUMF, the response was less than reassuring:
Opposing this should be a no-brainer for Obama, but when I called his advisers, I got only a hands-off, “we don’t want to get into it” response. The campaign said it was trying to stay on message. For sure there is better political hay for a Democrat to make this week. And the McCain campaign didn’t call me back at all. But it’s a reminder that candidates don’t win by talking boldly about the presidency as a self-effacing institution. Presidential modesty can be a hard virtue to sell.
Contrast this with Obama’s remarks earlier this month in defense of habeas corpus:
Obama, who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago for more than a decade, said captured suspects deserve to file writs of habeus corpus.
Calling it “the foundation of Anglo-American law,” he said the principle “says very simply: If the government grabs you, then you have the right to at least ask, ‘Why was I grabbed?’ And say, ‘Maybe you’ve got the wrong person.’”
The safeguard is essential, Obama continued, “because we don’t always have the right person.”
Obama talks a good game when it comes to fighting civil liberties abuses. But when it comes to taking concrete steps to rein in the executive power he may soon wield, he’s worryingly unwilling to take a stand.
[Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan.]
Previously:
Don’t forget about FISA
Despite everything I objected to in Obama’s speech, it’s this line from Richard Durbin’s introduction that grated on me most:
Barack Obama has the wisdom to know that we should never risk our freedoms and privacy to the overreaching hand of government.
A lovely thought, and one that I know resonates with many of the civil libertarians who read this blog. But civil liberties didn’t come up in Obama’s speech tonight. They get hardly any play on his website. And he failed spectacularly on his one major test on the issue during the campaign.
That test was the Bush-backed amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to expand the government’s warrantless wiretapping powers and grant immunity to the telecommunications companies that were complicit in previous spying. Obama had promised, in no uncertain terms, to support a filibuster of the bill when it came up for a vote in the Senate. But when it came time to stand up for civil liberties, he caved. First he voted for cloture on the bill, removing the possibility of filibuster. Then he voted for the bill itself.
I linked to this once before, but it’s worth quoting. Here’s Thoreau from Unqualified Offerings:
The issue on the table was whether or not companies should face legal liability for helping a President do illegal deeds. The person who is campaigning for that office broke a promise to fight the good fight, and voted in favor of a bill that would provide protection for people who help Presidents break the law. This is no small matter. This is an issue that goes to the very core of executive power and how Obama approaches governing. Greenwald has been blogging quite a bit lately about how there’s little popularity advantage to be gained from aiding abuses of power. This isn’t 2001–people aren’t nearly as scared as they were. Obama would not have paid any significant political price for opposing immunity. Yet he supported immunity, in the end, by voting for cloture and voting for a bill that included immunity. How can we read this as anything other than an endorsement of “The Decider Decides”?
Obama may not wear the same iron glove, he might turn out to be a softer Decider. But he has nonetheless endorsed the basic concept of The Decider. Screw him. No fucking way am I voting for him.
It’s tempting to support Obama after two terms of Bush, but this is the kind of thing he’s going to get away with if civil libertarians let him take their votes for granted. Don’t let him off the hook so easily.
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Jacob Grier is a freelance writer, barista, mixologist, and magician in Portland, OR. He writes, eats, and drinks a lot. His articles have appeared in The Washington Post, Reason Online, The Oregonian, and other publications.
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