All Posts Tagged With: "police"

Whither Glik . . . and Why?

The Glik case is important for advancing police transparency and accountability, without which it is not safe for anyone to walk down a street in America.

13Sep2011 | Wendy McElroy | 15 comments | Continued

Watch the Watchmen

I  believe in the right to privacy. Yet I can think of someone who deserves very little privacy—a policeman making an arrest. Unfortunately it’s a crime in some states to make a video of a policeman doing just that. People recording police have been threatened, detained, or arrested. Some were jailed overnight. That’s wrong. Police [...]

22Jun2011 | John Stossel | 5 comments | Continued

When Police Interrogate Children

The Supreme Court will now consider what it means both to be a “reasonable person” and to be “in custody.” Whatever the ruling, it will almost certainly impact the authority police exert over public-school students, perhaps dramatically so.

29Mar2011 | Wendy McElroy | 20 comments | Continued

When the Police Question Your Child

Do not expect authorities to respect your parental rights or to inform you of your child’s rights.

1Mar2011 | Wendy McElroy | 21 comments | Continued

Police Have More, Better Rights than You

Justice itself depends on people being able to document their encounters with government agents, especially the police. If people are prevented from establishing the truth through evidence, then they have no defense against a corrupt, incompetent, or vengeful police officer.

15Feb2011 | Wendy McElroy | 27 comments | Continued

Police Misconduct and Public Accountability

Why is it difficult to prosecute police officers for criminal misconduct even when the abuse is severe and unequivocal? A February news item from WSVN-TV in Miami/Ft. Lauderdale points to one reason: A homeless man’s attorney said surveillance video shows deputies used excessive force in his arrest. Gerald McGovern, 58 [said he] did not attack [...]

22Sep2010 | Wendy McElroy | 16 comments | Continued

The Fourth Amendment and Faulty Originalism

“All arrests are at the peril of the party making them.” —Alexander H. Stephens, August 27, 1863 These days the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution means next to nothing. Consider, for example, the choice offered a few years ago: surveillance under routine, easy “warrants” from the drive-through FISA Court or warrantless surveillance at the whim [...]

25Aug2010 | Joseph R. Stromberg | 3 comments | Continued

Confiscating Your Property

In America, we’re supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. Life, liberty, and property can’t be taken from you unless you’re convicted of a crime. Your life and liberty may still be safe, but have you ever gone to a government surplus auction? Consumer reporters like me tell people, correctly, that they are great places [...]

25Aug2010 | John Stossel | 6 comments | Continued

Will America’s Police Become Federales?

If the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act passes in Congress, police unions across America will move closer to being federalized.

22Jul2010 | Wendy McElroy | 15 comments | Continued

Are Cameras the New Guns?

In response to a flood of Facebook and YouTube videos that depict police abuse, a new trend in law enforcement is gaining popularity. In at least three states, it is now illegal to record an on-duty police officer even if the encounter involves you and may be necessary to your defense.

31May2010 | Wendy McElroy | 305 comments | Continued

The Gates Incident

Harvey Silverglate, a founder of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), has an excellent article in Forbes on the arrest of Harvard Prof. Henry Louis Gates. For Silverglate — and I agree with him — this is entirely a free-speech matter. Gates was arrested exclusively for what he said to a policeman and [...]

29Jul2009 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | Continued

Leviathan’s Legionnaires

Boston lies under a foot of snow this Monday March evening in 1770, so icy and cold that anyone who can huddle at home on the hearth should. Instead, much of the town is abroad and abuzz like an angry hive. Bostonians are infuriated at something their descendants will take for granted, indeed, will prize [...]

1Jun2006 | Becky Akers | 3 comments | Continued

Blurring the Civilian-Military Line

Gene Healy is senior editor at the Cato Institute. The soldier’s mission, as soldiers often phrase it, is “killing people and breaking things,” and they’re trained accordingly. In contrast, police officers, ideally, are trained to operate in an environment where constitutional rights apply and to use force only as a last resort. Accordingly, Americans going [...]

1Feb2003 | Gene Healy | 3 comments | Continued

Property and Liberty

Property is “the guardian of all other rights,” as Arthur Lee of Virginia wrote in 1775.[1] The Supreme Court declared in 1897: “In a free government almost all other rights would become worthless if the government possessed power over the private fortune of every citizen.”[2] Unfortunately, legislators, judges, and political philosophers in the twentieth century [...]

1Sep2000 | James Bovard | 5 comments | Continued

Do We Really Want More Policemen?

Curt Oldfield of Bonner County, Idaho, has perhaps the most unusually decorated car in the nation. It’s a 1986 Oldsmobile covered with 200 license plates carefully shaped and riveted to the hood, fenders, and doors. It’s driven mostly in parades and auto shows, but one day his daughter, lacking transportation, took it downtown. And a [...]

1Jul2000 | James L. Payne | 3 comments | Continued

Asset Forfeiture Run Amok

Based on the word of an “informant,” who was a self-confessed addict with two prior felony convictions, the Oakland County, Michigan, police searched all the buildings for evidence of drug dealing. They found no drugs, no drug paraphernalia, no records of drug transactions, and no other evidence of drug dealing. They did find one small plastic bag of powder, which on examination, turned out to be Slim Fast.

1Nov1998 | Lawrence W. Reed | 0 comments | Continued

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