Tag: police

Libertarian Wisdom

By
David Boaz

From Will Saletan at Slate:

the tricky thing about official intervention is that once the state gets its foot in the door, you don’t necessarily get to dictate what it can and can’t do.

He’s talking about how “For the usual incoherent combination of lefty reasons—not enough private discrimination in working conditions, too much private discrimination in family values–” he ”felt the urge to support regulation of the [surrogate motherhood] industry,” but then he read about Chinese police kicking in doors and forcing surrogate mothers to abort their babies, and realized that wasn’t “the kind of policing liberals have in mind when they call for tighter regulation of the fertility industry.”

But the lesson is broader, of course. It applies to health care, education, energy, faith-based organizations, and just about any enterprise you let the state take a role in.

Topics: 
Political Philosophy

What Is a “Fifth Column” Anyway?

By
Jim Harper

@RadleyBalko points to a Washington Examiner column in which Jim Kouri, Vice President and Public Information Officer of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, says that Obama administration policy changes with regard to the “global war on terrorism” allow “suspected Fifth Column-type groups … to make symbolic demands on agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency.” He says the Council on American-Islamic Relations has called on the FBI to confirm or deny that a number of Long Island mosques are under law enforcement surveillance.

It’s hard to find the answer to the first question this raises: “So what?” Kouri does not make the case he implies: that something sinister lurks because this group, having a suspicion of something they see as wrongdoing, asks the agency in question whether it’s happening or not.

But the piece raised another question for me: “What’s a ‘Fifth Column,’ anyway?” The expression has been around forever, but what does it really mean?

Ahead of the Siege of Madrid in the Spanish Civil War, a general under Francisco Franco claimed that he would take the city with the four columns of troops under his command and a “fifth column” of nationalist sympathizers inside the city.

The city never fell to the nationalists, but fear of this “fifth column” caused the Republican government under Francisco Caballero to abandon Madrid for Valencia and it led to a massacre of nationalist prisoners in Madrid during the ensuing battle.

So a “fifth column” is not so much an insidious group of spies or traitors as it is the threat of such a group which causes the incumbent power to miscalculate and overreact. That doesn’t clear up what Kouri is trying to get across, but it does have the air of unintended confession.

Topics: 
Law and Civil Liberties

Put Surveillance Cameras on Police Guns, Not Street Corners

By
David Rittgers

Mayor Daley of Chicago is planning to put a surveillance camera on every corner to aid first responders and deter terrorism.  As I’ve said before, cameras don’t deter terrorism, but they do satisfy the need to “do something” without really improving security.  Police officers prevent attacks with traditional investigation and intelligence gathering; cameras are only useful in picking up the pieces after the attack is done.  My colleague Jim Harper is cited in this piece that addresses their utility in more detail.  Cameras didn’t stop the 7/7 bombings in London, but they took lots of pictures of the attack (creepy Big Brother shots here).  The London police doubled down on mass surveillance, but reported that the cameras have not reduced crime.  Worse yet, the British have effectively outlawed taking photos of police officers, prompting photo protests.

Chicago isn’t the first major American city to take this route.  New York did so, as did the District of Columbia.  The cameras in D.C. have not prevented crime, and this piece makes the case that they are a waste of resources - no one can point to a prosecution that used the camera footage to obtain a conviction, and several murders have been committed within a block of a surveillance camera.

Surveillance cameras can and should play a prominent role in law enforcement - mounted on officers’ firearms.  A company is now producing a camera that attaches to the tactical rail found on modern pistols and rifles.  A New York county has invested in the technology for its officers, and their experience looks promising.  Putting a camera on the guns of SWAT officers will keep them honest and prevent falsification of evidence after the fact to cover up a mistaken address or unlawful use of lethal force.

Mayor Cheye Calvo can attest to these horrors, as detailed in a recent Washington Post Sunday Magazine cover story, this Cato Policy Report, and this Cato Policy Forum, “Should No-Knock Police Raids be Rare-or Routine?”  Click here for video - Mayor Calvo calmly captures the raw shock of having your life turn into a tactical problem for a SWAT team to solve, and he is now advocating for a Maryland state statute to mandate tracking the deployment of tactical law enforcement teams.  As Radley Balko would tell you, this is long overdue.

Topics: 
Law and Civil Liberties

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