Free Republic

Missouri: Police Roadblock Harassment Caught on TapeSt. Louis County, Missouri threaten to arrest a teenager for refusing to discuss his personal travel plans. A teenager harassed by police in St. Louis, Missouri caught the incident on tape. Brett Darrow, 19, had his video camera rolling last month as he drove his 1997 Maxima, minding his own business. He approached a drunk driving roadblock where he was stopped, detained and threatened with arrest when he declined to enter a conversation with a police officer about his personal travel habits. Now Darrow is considering filing suit against St. Louis County Police. "I'm...

LOS ANGELES A camera phone captured a UCLA student being shot with a stun gun by a police officer after he allegedly refused repeated requests to show his student identification and would not leave a campus library, university police said Wednesday. The incident occurred about 11 p.m. Tuesday after police did a routine check of student ID at the Powell Library computer lab. "This is a long-standing library policy to ensure the safety of students during the late-night hours," said UCLA Police Department spokeswoman Nancy Greenstein. She said police tried to escort Mostafa Tabatabainejad, 23, out of the library after...

TAMPA, Fla. -- Security "pat-downs" of fans at Tampa Bay Buccaneers games are unconstitutional and unreasonable, a federal judge ruled Friday, throwing into question the practice at NFL games nationwide. U.S. District Judge James D. Whittemore issued an order siding with a Bucs season-ticket holder who had sued to stop the fan searches that began last season after the NFL implemented enhanced security measures. High school civics teacher Gordon Johnson sued the Tampa Sports Authority, which operates the stadium, to stop officials from conducting the "suspicionless" searches. A state judge agreed with Johnston that the searches are likely unconstitutional and...

The war over immigration reform among conservatives continues, and, as in most wars, truth has been one of the first casualties. Those who disagree with the hardening positions of people who would adopt more restrictive policies or with people who favor less restrictive measures are attacked as know-nothings, traitors or handmaidens of evil forces out to destroy the America we live in. Many conservatives reacted angrily to the way the Bush administration tried to demonize opposition to the president’s quasi-amnesty and guest-worker proposals when they were first introduced. Critics at the time were characterized as racists or “nativists” more interested...

Human Events Online has been leading the coverage of the so-called “Security and Prosperity Partnership,” a unilateral program implemented by the Bush Administration designed to set the course for a North American Union that would subsume our national sovereignty. A de facto treaty signed by the leaders of Canada, Mexico, and the U.S., the agreement was never submitted to the Senate for ratification. Now it can be revealed that plans for the North American Union include a tri-national “North American Union” ID card. Recent testimony to Congress by a Homeland Security official reinforces the point. At a June 8 hearing...

A deeply divided Houston City Council today voted to approve a five year contract for the city's proposed red light camera program. American Traffic Solutions Inc. will now begin setting up cameras at ten intersections around town judged to be the most accident-prone. The cameras are set up to take pictures of red light runner's license plates. Violators caught by the cameras will be mailed a $75 ticket. Those who have three violations within one year would have to pay $150 for each ticket after the first two. Debate over the use of the cameras has raged ever since Mayor...

In 1775, New Hampshire was the first colony to declare its independence from oppressive laws and taxes levied by the British crown. Now it may become the first state to declare its independence from an oppressive digital ID law concocted in Washington, D.C. New Hampshire's House of Representatives has overwhelmingly approved a remarkable bill, HB 1582, that would prohibit the state from participating in the national ID card system that will be created in 2008. A state Senate vote is expected as early as next week. The federal law in question is the Real ID Act (here's our FAQ on...

From Anchorage it takes 90 minutes on a propeller plane to reach this fishing village on the state's southwestern edge, a place where some people still make raincoats out of walrus intestine. This is the Alaskan bush at its most remote. Here, tundra meets sea, and sea turns to ice for half the year. Scattered, almost hidden, in the terrain are some of the most isolated communities on American soil. People choose to live in outposts like Dillingham (pop. 2,400) for that reason: to be left alone. So eyebrows were raised in January when the first surveillance cameras went up...

If you are stopped by police in Kansas, don’t be surprised if the officer pulls out a little black box and takes your fingerprints. The gadget allows officers to identify people by fingerprints without hauling them to the police station. Over the next year the Kansas Bureau of Investigation will test 60 of the devices with law enforcement agencies around the state. State officials said similar tests are being planned for New York, Milwaukee and Hawaii. “This is definitely new,” said Gary Page, Overland Park Police Department crime lab. “It’s been talked about, but as far as I know they...

New Yorkers, get ready for your closeup. The NYPD is installing 505 surveillance cameras around the city - and pushing to safeguard lower Manhattan with a "ring of steel" that could track hundreds of thousands of people and cars a day, authorities revealed yesterday. .. The NYPD also has applied for $81.5 million in federal aid to install surveillance cameras, computerized license plate readers and vehicle barriers around lower Manhattan, Kelly said. .. But don't expect the NYPD to install its cameras without battling the New York Civil Liberties Union. The watchdog group's associate legal director, Chris Dunn, questioned the...

Chemical plant technician Steven Lozano really got nailed: speeding, an expired inspection sticker, an expired driver's license and dubious proof of insurance. The cost of his traffic infractions: $675 and a wait in line recently at Houston Municipal Court. What Lozano didn't know — few people do — is that only about half of the hefty fines had anything to do with his traffic conduct. The rest were "surcharges." They included money for a prison-guard training institute at Sam Houston State University and money for a juvenile-crime program at Prairie View A&M, among other things. "A lot of this has...

Carol Johns of Pascagoula says she doesn't need a state law to make her wear a seat belt. But, she acknowledges a law might have helped persuade her to buckle up years ago when she was a teenager learning to drive. "Whether we realize it or not, young people have a lot of respect for what the law says,'' said Johns, who's 55 and says she has only been wearing a seat belt regularly for three years. Mississippi could be on the verge of strengthening its seat belt law from a secondary offense to a primary one, meaning a law...

Bill Would Allow Arrests For No Reason In Public Place Citizens Would Also Have To Show ID UPDATED: 7:22 pm EST December 19, 2005 CLEVELAND -- A bill on Gov. Bob Taft's desk right now is drawing a lot of criticism, NewsChannel5 reported. One state representative said it resembles Gestapo-style tactics of government, and there could be changes coming on the streets of Ohio's small towns and big cities. The Ohio Patriot Act has made it to the Taft's desk, and with the stroke of a pen, it would most likely become the toughest terrorism bill in the country. The...

Police Hit Grandmother With Taser Gun Five Times Officer Said Woman Resisted Arrest POSTED: 4:47 pm EST December 7, 2005 UPDATED: 9:52 pm EST December 7, 2005 FRANKLIN, Ohio -- A 68-year-old woman was hit with a Taser gun by police in an Ohio city five times. The police officer in the case, a lieutenant with the Franklin Police Department, claims he is the victim in the case, NBC 4's Mike Bowersock reported. Beverly Kidwell, 68, was in the waiting room of the police department in suburban Dayton when the incident occurred. According to police, she came into the station...

NOBLESVILLE, Ind. (AP) - A Hamilton County sheriff's deputy faces a lawsuit for using a Taser on a woman who refused to put down her cell phone after she was stopped on suspicion of drunken driving. Jennifer Marshall says she was trying to phone her lawyer when Deputy Greg Lockhart pressed the stun gun to her arm as another deputy held her. Police contend Marshall refused to drop the cell phone after Lockhart warned her she would have to go to jail if she did not submit to a blood test. Hamilton County Sheriff Doug Carter says Lockhart followed department...

MIAMI - Miami police announced Monday they will stage random shows of force at hotels, banks and other public places to keep terrorists guessing and remind people to be vigilant. Deputy Police Chief Frank Fernandez said officers might, for example, surround a bank building, check the IDs of everyone going in and out and hand out leaflets about terror threats. "This is an in-your-face type of strategy. It's letting the terrorists know we are out there," Fernandez said.The operations will keep terrorists off guard, Fernandez said. He said al-Qaida and other terrorist groups plot attacks by putting places under surveillance...

AP) POMONA, Calif. Pomona police arrested 20 people, impounded 171 vehicles and issued 194 citations during a sobriety and license check operation that wrapped up early this morning.

Judge rips Kmart raid's mass arrests Calling actions unconstitutional, she rules 10 suits can now proceedBy HARVEY RICECopyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Calling the operation "almost totalitarian," a federal judge says a Houston police plan that led to 278 arrests in a Kmart parking lot almost three years ago was unconstitutional. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Nancy Atlas allows all 10 lawsuits filed in the wake of the Aug. 18, 2002, mass arrest, and a smaller operation the previous night, to proceed.The "plan to detain all persons ... with no regard for the existence of open businesses and their customers,...

The era of easy travel for U.S. citizens returning from Latin America and the Caribbean is over. Within months they will have to present passports -- instead of driver's licenses or birth certificates -- if they want to clear passport control. By year's end, the U.S. government will require Americans returning by air or sea from the Caribbean and Central and South America to carry U.S. passports -- a major change in travel procedures for citizens who for decades have been readmitted by merely flashing a driver's license or a birth certificate. It's the first in a series of phased-in...

<p>In the last three months the obsessed minority of freepers but very vocal who hate President Bush have been bombarding us with every illegal immigration thread under the sun so they have their "BASH BUSH ORGY".</p> <p>Pick up your phone and report to the INS about an illegal immigrant and his employer. I am sure you know at least one illegal immigrant who works in a convenient store, on a gas station, clean the garbage in your office, clean the bathroom at your work place... And I am sure you know one of these employers who hire illegal immigrants. Go ahead Mucho Guys, do your duty and report them to the INS. Let us see how courageous you are and let us see your action following your rhetoric.</p>