Tennessee’s highway robbery force

Watch out for highway robbers in Tennessee. Not surprisingly, these robbers pack guns — and badges.

A recent video featured on ebaumsworld.com exposes law enforcement officers in the greater Nashville, TN, area. (NewsChannel 5 is the on-air and online branding for WTVF-TV in Nashville, so I’m assuming it’s local to that area.) These officers make several traffic stops and in some cases, either falsifying or not even giving a reason why the vehicle was stopped. They are searching vehicles and looking for one thing: cash. If they find enough of it, they are assuming it’s used in drug trafficking and keeping it.

Of course, regular readers already know my thoughts on drug prohibition (in a nutshell, it’s a failed policy). The only reason I even mention it here is that drug prohibition is being used as a flimsy excuse to commit robbery under the auspicies of law enforcement. I normally don’t deal in large amounts of cash when I can avoid it; I don’t think I’ve ever maxed out my ATM card’s daily cash withdrawal limit in my life. However, it’s something I would like to retain the right to do and I resent that someone carrying large amounts of money is being used to imply that same someone has to be a drug dealer. (For example, I know many sex toys cost in the $500 and up range and it is perfectly understandable to want to buy these with cash to preserve privacy.)

For those that are not aware of this, obviously, do not consent to a search of your vehicle without a search warrant; lock the doors behind you if asked to exit and do not surrender your keys, no matter what the officer says. This is the United States of America and we still have the Fourth Amendment in the Constitution prohibiting unreasonable search and seizure. Yes, declining a search may result in a traffic ticket once in a while, though from what I saw in the video, one can get stopped even if one has done nothing wrong (an injustice upon itself).

For more detailed info, I recommend checking out flexyourrights.org. This organization also sells two DVDs I recommend: “10 Rules For Dealing With Police” and “Busted: The Citizen’s Guide to Surviving Police Encounters”.

A victim of his own honesty

What could our justice system possibly be thinking when they prosecute cases like this?

A recent Mashable post chronicles the tale of Matthew White of Sacramento, California. Matthew is 22 years old and about a year ago downloaded what was represented as a copy of College Girls Gone Wild. Let's just say it was mislabeled and I don't doubt for a moment Matthew would have not bothered downloading the file were it truthfully labelled; it contained child pornography.

So Matthew deleted it, and thought that was the end of that. About a year later the FBI shows up at his family's house, and his family lets the agents inside and allows them to examine the computer, presumably without a search warrant.

The investigators recover the "deleted" copy of the mislabeled child pornography and now Matthew faces 20 years in prison. The truly sad part of this is that according to the story, Matthew plans to plead guilty and accept a 3.5 year sentence.

Hopefully someone out there knows Matthew and can relay a copy of this post to him. The last thing you want to do is plead guilty (I've already left a comment to this effect on the original Mashable post). Were I in Matthew's situation I like my chances in front of a jury.

Of course, the best way out of this situation is simply to deny the agents entry to the premises or access to the computer without a warrant. At that point their options are either to come back with a warrant or cease pursuing the case.

I don't know what crime Matthew committed that is worth sending him to prison for 3.5 years and branding him a sex offender for life. If the FBI is looking for people to make an example out of, surely they could pick someone who actually intentionally downloaded child pornography and kept the files instead of deleting them? At the least, Matthew should get a pardon. There is no sense in ruining the life of someone that young who acted in good faith and in all likelihood, was ignorant of whatever law he may have technically violated.

Shame on you, FBI agents that worked this case. Here's hoping your time holding the badge is short-lived.

HPD officer harasses photographer

I just happened to see this photo and its horrifying narrative in the description when browsing my Flickr feed. Three additional photos follow this one, but all have the same description.

Of particular note are these two quotes from the photographer’s narrative:

…if I was in any way impeding his work, I would be glad to comply with his orders, but otherwise I would continue about my business. He insisted that I was disrupting his work by taking photos as he “doesn’t want his picture taken.”

Upon noting my refusal, Officer Hudson reached for my camera, as if to take it out of my hands. I pulled back and again reiterated my point that I was in my rights to take the photos. He stated that I could either delete my photos or he would arrest me for obstruction of justice.

One of the pictures shows an HPD cruiser with unit number 37622 and Texas exempt plates 104-0046. Unfortunately this is the only identifiable vehicle from the pictures. This along with the date and approximate time (March 3 at around 6pm), and location (Hidalgo near Post Oak Boulevard) should be enough to identify exactly who Officer Hudson is, including badge number.

This is a clear-cut case of abuse of police power, as well as a violation of the standards by which decent people live.