More Tales from Floriduh

Now that Der Gropenfuhrer, has taken over in California, people in Floriduh are feeling pretty smug. They shouldn't be. Floriduh, where the Bushling is governor, is the official stupid voter state, the place that gave birth to expressions like "hanging chads" and "dimpled chads" , and was responsible for the dodgy election of our current Commander-in- Chimp, and no, I won't get over it! I see, personal freedoms eroded daily under this administration and here in the Kingdom of Jeb, things are not alright.

A local journalist and parent Dan DeWitt, recently dropped off some innocent film to be developed local drug store chain, what follows is an amazing tale stupidity and loss of civil rights. From the St. Pete Times 11/30


"I walked into the Brooksville Eckerd one day in August prepared for mild disappointment.

Most of the pictures I was there to pick up had been taken by our young sons and were likely to be a mess.

After quickly returning two sets of prints, the clerk spent several minutes looking for the third. She talked to her manager, who asked me my name, had a look for herself and disappeared into her office.

She seemed surprisingly grave when she emerged, but I still thought she would tell me what I already suspected, that none of the pictures on the last roll could be salvaged.

No, the news was quite a bit worse.

The photographs, she said, had been turned over to the Brooksville Police Department.

I asked her why. She wouldn't say. I asked her what right Eckerd had to seize innocent pictures of my family. She arched her eyebrows to suggest they weren't so innocent.

I asked more questions, most of which she answered the same way: "By law, we have to call the police whenever we come across suspicious material."

I drove away angry but also disoriented - a feeling of beginning to fall without knowing how soon I would land.

One part of me was ready to thunder about my civil rights. Another, quieter voice, wondered what those rights were and whether, maybe, something on that roll of film was truly shocking.

Absolutely not, my wife, Laura, said when I called her.

She had given our sons, then 5 and 7, disposable cameras to record their last day at a county-sponsored bike camp. When they returned, she had used one of the cameras to take a picture of them covered with sweat and grime.

A few minutes later she took another - of freshly washed boys and the filthy bathwater they were lying in.

"Do they know I took those pictures? Their mother?" she asked. If I was stunned, she was unhinged.

I tried to reassure her with what I thought was the truth, that the police would quickly return our photographs."

more here

Another from the St Pete Times' Robyn Blummer:
Miami crowd control would do tyrant proud, During the FTAA meeting on Nov. 20, Timoney dispatched 2,500 police officers in full riot gear against a crowd estimated at 8,000 people, mostly union members and retirees.


'Ever since the melee at the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle, where demonstrators blocked streets and vandalized stores, conference planners and public officials have adopted a no- holds-barred approach to potential large-scale protests. And Timoney is their man. Militant protesters, "punks" as he calls them, are anathema to Timoney. Shutting them down with Pinkerton prowess is his specialty. Rights, schmights.

When men like Timoney and [John Ashcroft] are on the A-list of the nation's law enforcers, free speech doesn't stand a chance. It is open season on dissent. A vignette reported by the Miami Herald says it all: During the FTAA action, Timoney came upon a protester who was pinned against a car being arrested; without knowing anything about the circumstances, he pointed a finger at the demonstrator's face and said, "You're bad. F-- you!" People exercising their First Amendment rights are now considered the enemy.

The scene was a "massive police state," according to the president of the United Steelworkers of America, who has demanded a congressional investigation. Congress gave Miami $8.5-million for security during the FTAA meetings - funds slipped inside the $87-billion measure for Iraq. The steelworkers called it money for "homeland repression."

The National Lawyers Guild, a liberal legal organization, said the day was punctuated by "indiscriminate, excessive force against hundreds of nonviolent protesters with weapons including pepper spray, tear gas, and concussion grenades and rubber bullets."

Observers said the provocation for officers to shoot rubber bullets and paint balls filled with pepper spray at the predominantly peaceable crowd was often one person lobbing an orange in the direction of police or lighting a trash can on fire.

Nikki Hartman, a 28-year-old Pinellas County resident, was shot three times with rubber bullets - once, she said, when a police officer fired point-blank at her behind after she stooped to pick up a bandanna she'd dropped. The officer had kicked it her way before shooting her. She was later shot in the back while retreating from police lines. Her friend Robert Davis was shot seven times while trying to help Hartman to her feet.

In addition to such shootings, police abandoned any legitimate basis for searching and arresting people. Miles Swanson, 25, a legal observer for the lawyers guild, was punched numerous times while being taken in by officers for pointing out undercover police dressed up as protesters. Eight of 60 guild observers were arrested that day; they wore distinctive green hats and were apparently targeted. When Swanson was grabbed off the street by three Broward County sheriff's deputies - two of whom were in ski masks - he said they told him "this is what you get when you f-- with us." Then, Swanson said, the deputies drove him around while looking for another legal observer to arrest. He ultimately pleaded no contest to one charge of obstructing justice so he could return to law school in Washington, D.C."
more

and finally some good news

The Department of Homeland Security has decided to discontinue a controversial program that required thousands of Arab and Muslim men to register with immigration authorities in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, officials said on Friday.

Hoping to hunt down terrorists, immigration officials fingerprinted, photographed and interviewed about 85,000 Muslim and Arab noncitizens between November 2002 and May 2003 under the program. The effort - the largest to register immigrants in decades - required annual registration. Men from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Sudan have already begun reporting to immigration offices for a second round of registrations this month.

Officials have acknowledged that most of the Arab and Muslim immigrants who have complied with the registration requirements had no ties to terrorist groups. Of the 85,000 men who showed up at immigration offices earlier this year, and the tens of thousands more screened at airports and border crossings during that time period, 11 had links to terrorism, officials said.

The program was sharply criticized by civil liberties groups and advocates for immigrants who said it did little to uncover terrorists and alienated the very communities that could help uncover terrorists. Advocates for immigrants have also complained that officials have done little to publicize the second round of registrations, touching off waves of confusion and anxiety.