Posted on 09/04/2007 7:48:46 PM PDT by RightOnTheLeftCoast
Ben Stein: Gestapo Tactics Got Larry Craig
Tuesday, September 4, 2007 7:39 PM
Former Sen. Larry Craig didn't do anything illegal and was railroaded with "Gestapo tactics," says actor and commentator Ben Stein.
Appearing recently on Your World With Neil Cavuto program, Stein remarked: "I don't like the idea that people are sitting in the next stall from you at a public bathroom listening to whether or not you tap your foot. This is, as I said, Gestapo tactics. Gestapo, Gestapo, Gestapo. It's not America."
Stein says Craig, who was arrested June 11 by Minneapolis police and pled guilty to a charge of disorderly conduct, is a victim of "pure police entrapment and thuggery."
"The police have real work to do at the airport," Stein says. "It's an airport, hello. There are security problems at airports. Al-qaida: Are you listening? Our security people are entrapping perfectly honest U.S. senators in lavatory stalls instead of looking for you terrorists."
Stein charges that police intimidated Craig into pleading guilty to disorderly conduct after he was arrested for tapping his foot in a bathroom stall at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport.
Police say foot tapping is a common overture used to signal interest in a sexual encounter. Minneapolis police had reportedly made several arrests in recent months for lewd conduct in restrooms at the airport.
"A policeman drags him off, or verbally drags him off, starts browbeating him, essentially threatens he's going to ruin his career if the guy doesn't plead guilty right away," Stein tells Cavuto. "This is Gestapo tactics in Minneapolis-St. Paul. It's not nice."
Stein adds that it was wrong for GOP stalwarts to join the drumbeat for Craig's resignation: "This is some way to treat the people who have been loyal members of your party for many years. What did he do wrong? Suppose he was soliciting for gay sex. Gay sex is not illegal in the United States, the Supreme Court has said that. If it were illegal, it would be a different story. It's not illegal. He didn't do anything illegal, they're just bludgeoning him into a confession."
The Craig scandal points out a fundamental question about the balance of political power, according to Stein.
"On trumped up charges, they bring down the legislator and change the balance of power within the United States generally," he says. "This is a really serious case of police overreaching and the victim here is Larry Craig and the Constitution of the United States."
Craig has represented Idaho in Congress for over a quarter of a century and was up for re-election next year.
Exactly right. It's as if police in an attempt to stop prostitution were to go into bars and arrest men who hitting on women for dates with no actual money changing hands for sex.
To what tactics are you referring in the Craig case? Sgt. Karsnia appears to have simply been sitting in a stall and observing Craig’s attempts to solicit him. I don’t see anything wrong with observing such misbehavior and then arresting the person misbehaving. Frankly, if a guy ever shoved his foot under the wall of my stall and bumped my foot, I’d stomp on his foot since there wouldn’t be much doubt about why he did it.
You know, that’s the best comparison I’ve seen. Thank you.
susie
Anyone can do that to you now. None of what you described is against the law. No one can be arrested for asking you that.
True, but I find it hard to say it is public! Say if I had some lady in the stall, would I be doing it in public. What are we to do about the mile high club?
something offends you. deeply. to your core. it's not illegal, but it's a private matter that you wholeheartedly disagree with. now, you are in a public place and you see people performing acts. not the actual act that offends you, but these acts lead directly to the offending act.
again and again you see the pre-act, if you will, and each time you are offended because you know it leads to the offending act. and sometimes you even see the offending act that follows the pre-act! would you be ok seeing this pre-act every time you went to this PUBLIC place? what if your kids asked you about these acts because they also noticed them?
and in this particular case, it was well documented that foot-tapping is a pre-curser to gay sex. just as much as if someone had said, "do you want to go have gay sex?"
would that statement in a public restroom have offended you?
What did Craig do that was illegal?
susie
Good point on the minors, Snark. In all the discussions as to the tactics that were used by the cop, that point was not made.
I attempted to do just that last week when I compared out-of-control, witch hunt prosecutors making a name (career move) for themselves by bringing trumped up charges against visable people, with very flimsy evidence, hiding the exculpatory evidence that should have exhonerated those accused before any trial, then giving leaks to media whores whom they know would run with stories that have people guilty as charged before the trials ...... but was insulted over the so-called “guilty” plea by Craig, to a lessor charge just to get the incident out of the way.
There was no minor involved.
That's not the point. The point is that the ordinances must allow the sort of bust that Sgt. Krasnia made since it's not always the case that money will be offered for sex in a public restroom and yet there may well be vulnerable individuals there who need protection from predators.
if you are not a lawyer, you’re doing an excellent job of impersonating one.
/shakes head and thinks of all the silkwood showers
I can’t believe anyone is defending this guy! It isn’t that he’s gay, it is that he attempted to solicit sex in a publi restroom. If the cops don’t police these places and attempt to keep this activity in check, it won’t be safe for any young boy to go into a public restroom anywhere in the country! I don’t give a rat’s behind what they do in private, but they do not have a right to practice their perversion in public places.
I do not see how Craig was set up. Nobody acts this way in a public restroom. He was obviously signaling that he wanted some action. Yuck.
I heard it on FOX btw. This would essentially cause the Dems to
ask him to quit for being Gay.
If one came up to me and asked that, I’d tell him I’m not into that kind of thing and leave. If it were 3,4 or 5, then that would be harrassment and THAT would be illegal.
However, that was not the case in this instance.
And if someone in the stall next to me were to give off signs, I probably would have no clue as to what they were doing, and would have gone my way afterward.
Charging a person with a crime they have yet to commit.
Sgt. Karsnia appears to have simply been sitting in a stall and observing Craig’s attempts to solicit him. I don’t see anything wrong with observing such misbehavior and then arresting the person misbehaving.
Such behavior is not illegal that I know of. Now, actual sex in the stalls would be illegal and he could have been arrested for that.
Frankly, if a guy ever shoved his foot under the wall of my stall and bumped my foot, I’d stomp on his foot since there wouldn’t be much doubt about why he did it.
As would I. But you couldn't call the cops and have him arrested could you?
Lots of things offend me. But I don’t have a Constitutional right not to be offended. And I REALLY don’t have a Constitutional right not to see things that might lead UP to something that will offend me. Is that really the case you were trying to make?
And...I know it is all for the children (where have I heard THAT before??) but really, there were no kids involved in this. If he was propositioning a minor, that would be a different kettle of fish.
susie
If he is gay and won't just say so he's gutless. If he's not gay and plead guilty to something he did not do he's even more gutless. So, I suppose he's very qualified to be a US Senator. Because as far as I'm concerned there is not much difference between Craig and anyone else in Congress. They are all in it for self-gratification and long ago forgot about "us".
He wasn't arrested for conversing. That is the the misunderstanding some have, the misrepresentation some are trying to perpetuate. We are not talking about two people discussing a hotel room over the wash basins. These are degenerates being aggressively physical in trolling the stalls.
He was charged, plead to and convicted of a particular behavior which would have been disturbing or alarming to anyone sitting in the stall next to him. It was not just toe tapping as some who try to misdirect would claim. He continually peeped into the stall and invaded it and the person in the stall with his feet and hands. It was behavior that a reasonable person would have been alarmed by.
Larry Craig agreed in his plea:
3. I am pleading guilty to the charge of Disorderly Conduct as alleged because June 11, 2007, ... I did the following: Engaged in conduct which I knew or should have known tended to arouse alarm or resentment of others which was physical (versus verbal) in nature.
Here are the exact statutes he was charged with:
Count 1 PEEP: Interference with Privacy: Minn. Stat. Sec 609.746 subc. 1(c), by surreptitiously gazing, staring, or peeping in the window or other aperture of a sleeping room as in a hotel, as defined in section 327 70, subd 3 a tanning booth, or other place where a reasonable person would have an expectation of privacy and has exposed or is likely to expose their intimate parts, as defined in section 609.341. subd. 5 or the clothing covering the immediate area of the intimate parts and doing so with the intent to intrude upon or interfere with the privacy of the occupant; a Gross Misdemeanor.
Count 2 DISOR: Disorderly Conduct Minn. Stat. Sec. 609.72 subd. 1(3), by engaging in offensive obscene abusive boisterous, or noisy conduct or in offensive, obscene or abusive language tending reasonable to arouse alarm anger or resentment in others, in a public or private place, knowing or having reasonable grounds to know that it will, or will tend to, alarm, anger or disturb others or provoke an assault or breach of the peace, a Misdemeanor.
He plead guilty to this second charge.
-—I have seen no one suggest here that we should tolerate actual sex in public places. -—
These people aren’t cruizin’ for a date and a few drinks up in the sky lounge! If we follow the line of “thinking” on this thread, these bathroom perverts will be a protected class just like illegal aliens have become. I just can’t believe what’s happening to this country. We had it all and we’re just pissing our heritage away over some half-baked notions of civil liberty. Just pitiful.
“Frankly, if a guy ever shoved his foot under the wall of my stall and bumped my foot, I’d stomp on his foot since there wouldn’t be much doubt about why he did it.”
Exactly. And it is likely that the cop could well have initiated the events for reasons we’ll never know. And what kind of sick twisted cop would volunteer for this detail? I’d like the cop and his superiors investigated to determine what if anything they knew of Craig prior to their operation. Afterall, we’re talking about a sitting US senator.
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