more on a police state

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Mcget () aol com
Date: August 5, 2004 10:32:22 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: a police state

Well, since the fastest growing black household in America is the 
cellblock; since here in Philadelphia I still can hear cops step from 
their cars asking, "Where'd the nigger go?" in front of black 
onlookers; since Independence Hall now has a clearly visible 
surveillance camera in its tower and visitors to the Liberty Bell are 
searched and wanded multiple times; since the fastest growing group of 
armed police in the US are private security and prison guard, since 
without trying very hard, I can read more and more about police getting 
no-knock powers, about prisoners held incommunicado, etc. -- I think we 
shouldn't wait until we are all getting routinely Taser'd  for getting 
smart at the latest "preventive" roadblock.

 It's enough like a police state--or a hall monitor's wet dream -- to 
get me nervous.

 --Michael McGettigan

 One recent example -- a friend of mine who worked transmitters for 
Motorola was sent to a crime-ridden North Philly high-rise project. His 
mission -- inspect a repeater transmitter that was inside a 
steel-doored room atop the building -- the transmitter's function was 
to boost the signals of the various law enforcement/drug authorities 
that raided it on a regular basis. They'd found that their hand radios 
often didn't work well enough.  The idea that this high-rise should 
maybe be razed rather than rigged for a permanent state of drug busts 
didn't seem to occur to anyone.

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