Man Tasered and Shot with "beanbags" for Taping Illegal Search

From The Oregonian (as posted on OregonLive.com).....
Frank Waterhouse is suing for unlawful seizure with excessive force, alleging that police fired a Taser and bean bag rounds at him on May 27, 2006 because he was videotaping their search of a friend's property in the 5800 block of Northeast Portland Highway.

Police officers followed a police dog onto the property during a search for a fleeing suspect. After the dog keyed on a car, officers broke out a window. Upset residents, insisting no one had run onto their property, started to videotape the police search.

When one woman was told to stop recording, she gave the videocamera to Waterhouse. He walked to the edge of the property, climbed up a dirt embankment and continued to record. At one point, he yelled to his friend, "Yes, I got it all on film. They had no right to come on this property."

He says in the suit that police immediately came after him, and yelled at him "put it down." Officers moved towards him, and he said, "Don't come after me." Waterhouse said seconds later he was shot with a bean bag gun and a Taser and fell to the ground.

Officers wrote in their reports that Waterhouse ran off, they chased and then bean-bagged and Tasered him. One officer wrote, "He had refused to drop the camera which could be used as a weapon."

Are you fucking kidding me? I want to know when it became a crime to videotape the police under any circumstances, much less when they are in the process of violating someones civil rights. If we as citizens cannot hold the police and their behavior to scrutiny then we have lost EVERY SINGLE SHRED of freedom that the founder intended to leave to posterity. It means millions died in defense of a dead dream and that many more are dying to defend a way of life that no longer exists. It's a good thing I don't live in Oregon cause there'd be one seriously pissed off citizen tailing the Portland police with my video camera to EVERY bust...Stand up for your rights, for your neighbors rights and NEVER EVER GIVE UP YOUR FREEDOMS

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It's Official Today the FBI can spy on your internet usage

The gang over at Gizmodo have hipped us to the fact that starting today if "the man" can convince a judge that you're some sort of threat or deviant (the FBI investigates child porn, domestic sex biz, etc) they can force your ISP to turn over every bit of data they have on your surfing habits, ALL OF YOUR EMAIL, basically anything that went in or came out of your internet connection. This is fucking, crazy scary. From Gizmodo....

"Tomorrow is the deadline for ISPs to have their networks wired up with G-Man-mandated surveillance equipment which will make it easier for the FBI to snoop, spy and wiretap the intertubes, per the FCC's expanded 2002 interpretation of the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act. (Clearly an older law, since it does not make for a catchy acronym.)

The CALEA was originally written to make digital phone lines easier to wiretap. In the case of cell phones, where the tech has "100% penetration, it's credited with boosting the number of court-approved wiretaps a carrier can handle simultaneously, and greatly shortening the time it takes to get a wiretap going, " according to Threat Level."

Think it doesn't matter who's in power? What if tomorrow it was decided that anyone who dissented with the government was seditious? That little crime right there carries the Death Penalty! Fuck Me!

What do we do? Damned if I know. I do know that I will not change what I am doing on the net, not even if they decide I am a "threat."

I fell in love with a dream, called America
I felt warm in the security of her freedoms
but she was only a dream
and now I have awoke to the realization that
there is no freedom in the land of the free.
Forgive us, for failing the grand experiment.
Forgive us for letting the dream die.
It was our sacred trust, you stood and proclaimed....
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
I guess we all fell asleep.
My God I am so sorry!