A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State (23 page)

NYPD Disorder Control Unit (CS Muncy)

We're the Enemy

In such an environment, free speech is little more than a nuisance to be stamped out. Nowhere is this more evident than in the way police deal with those who dare to exercise their First Amendment right to "peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." For example, Chicago police in riot gear and gas masks, as well as SWAT teams,
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clashed with thousands of antiwar protesters who gathered to air their discontent during the NATO summit that took place inMay2012.
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Anticipating a fracas, police during the weeks leading up to the NATO summit had equipped themselves with $1 million worth of militarized riot gear.
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Then, a few days before the summit commenced, fighter jets–including Air Force KC-135 tankers, Air Force F-16s, and Coast Guard HH-65 Dolphin helicopters–took to the skies over Chicago as part of a "security" drill. Surveillance drones were also sighted.
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Police also arrested six activists and held them in solitary confinement for 18 hours, then released them without charge. News reports indicated that some of those "arrested" may have been undercover officers.
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All of these tactics of intimidation–the show of force by heavily armed police, the security drills by fighter planes and surveillance drones, even the arrests of protesters–were done with one goal in mind: to deter and subdue any would-be protesters. Yet what many Americans fail to realize, caught up as they are in the partisan-charged rhetoric being pumped out by politicians and the media, is that the government does not discriminate when it comes to clamping down on dissent. We are all the enemy. Thus it doesn't matter what the content of the speech might be, whether it's coming from protesters speaking out against corrupt government practices or peace activists attempting to advance an antiwar message. In the face of the government's growing power, we are all lumped into the same category: potential nuisances and rabble-rousers who must be surveilled, silenced, and, if necessary, shut down.

Case in point: in anticipation of the 2012 Democratic and Republican National Conventions that took place in Charlotte and Tampa, government agencies in conjunction with the militarized police prepared to head off any protests by refusing to issue permits, cordoning off city blocks, creating "free speech" zones and passing a litany of laws banning everything from protesters wearing masks to carrying string. The few protesters who managed to take to the streets were faced with an array of non-lethal weapons meant to incapacitate them.

"Subduing" Protesters in Seattle (Steve Kaiser)

"Non-Lethal" Weapons

Americans would do well to remember that modern police weaponry was introduced with a government guarantee of safety for the public. "Non-lethal" weapons such as tasers, stun guns, rubber pellets, and the like, were adopted by police departments across the country purportedly because they would help restrain
violent
individuals. Unfortunately, the "non-lethal" label has resulted in police using these dangerous weapons more often and with less restraint–even against women and children– and in some instances, even causing death. For instance, a 9-year-old Arizona runaway was tasered as she sat in the back seat of a police car with her hands cuffed behind her back.
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In Texas, a 72-year-old great-grandmother was tasered after refusing to sign a speeding ticket.
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Equally troubling is law enforcement's use of these weapons to intimidate and silence protesters.

Unfortunately, advances in crowd control technology are providing police with ever-greater weapons of compliance. For example, Intelligent Optics Systems, Inc. has developed a handheld, flashlight-like device that uses light emitting diodes "to emit super-bright pulses of light at rapidly changing wavelengths, causing disorientation, nausea and even vomiting in whomever it's pointed at."
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Raytheon has developed a "pain ray"
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which shoots an electromagnetic beam composed of high frequency radio waves, causing a burning sensation on the target's skin. In December 2011, the
Telegraph
reported that police in the UK were equipped with a shoulder-mounted laser that temporarily blinds protesters and rioters.
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Sound cannons are used by both military and police to emit high-pitched tones of 153 decibels,
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well beyond the threshold for causing hearing damage and auditory pain,
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with the potential to damage eardrums and cause fatal aneurysms.
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The Pittsburgh police used a sound cannon to subdue protesters during the G20 Summit in 2009, their first use on American citizens.
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Drones, outfitted with the latest in high-definition cameras
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and crowd control technology such as impact rounds, chemical munitions rounds, and tasers
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will eventually be star players in the government's efforts to clamp down on protest activities and keep track of protesters. The Shadowhawk drone, which is already being sold to law enforcement agencies throughout the country, is outfitted with lethal weapons, including a grenade launcher or a shotgun, and weapons of compliance, such as tear gas
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and rubber buckshot.
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Languishing

Does the way protesters are treated in major cities across America really have any bearing on how law-abiding citizens are treated in small-town America? Of course it does. The militarization of the police, the use of sophisticated weaponry against Americans, and the government's increasing tendency to clamp down on dissent have colored our very understanding of freedom, justice, and democracy. The end result is a people cowed into submission by an atmosphere of intimidation. And as this militarization spreads to small-town America, just the whispered threat of police action can be a powerfully intimidating force.

This may explain why some people who are tyrannized by violent regimes languish under oppression with little resistance. As early as 1776, Thomas Jefferson noted in the Declaration of Independence that "all experience has shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." Proving Jefferson's point, the Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn noted how the Russian people would kneel inside the door of their apartments, pressing their ears to listen when the KGB (the secret police) came at midnight to arrest a neighbor. He commented that if
all
the people had come out and driven off the officers, sheer public opinion would have demoralized the effort to subdue what should have been a free people. But the people hid and trembled.

CHAPTER 19

Tasering Us into Compliance

'When the government ... begins to stamp out the freedom of dissent that is the hallmark of a democratic society, can there be any turning back?"
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–DANIEL KURTZMAN

Dorli Rainey (Hearst Newspapers, LLC/Seattle P-I/Joshua Trujillo)

A
s we have seen, in appearance, weapons, and attitude, local police agencies are increasingly being transformed into civilian branches of the military. However, one clear distinction between local police and military forces used to be the kinds of weapons at their disposal. With the advent of modern police weaponry, such as tasers, that is no longer the case.

Indeed, compliance weapons such as tasers, pepper spray, and sound cannons have become increasingly popular with police agencies around the world. On paper, these weapons seem like a welcome alternative to bloodshed, especially if it means protecting law enforcement officials from dangerous criminals and minimizing civilian casualties. Yet the dangers posed by these so-called "non-lethal" weapons, especially to defenseless non-criminals, cannot be lightly dismissed. And as technology makes possible the widespread availability and acceptance of these weapons, their impact on police tactics and the exercise of civil liberties is far-reaching.

"Chilling" Free Speech

Examples abound. For instance, in a September 2011 incident, the New York police responded to Occupy Wall Street protesters by throwing people to the ground and using pepper spray on nonviolent protesters trapped behind a barricade.
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Then the police became savvier. Rather than using brute force to discourage the protests, they resorted to freezing out the protesters by confiscating their electric generators and the fuel that runs them.
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Police in Oakland used tear gas canisters, rubber bullets, sound cannons, and flashbang grenades to disperse the Occupy Oakland protest. An Iraq War veteran, 24-year-old Scott Olsen, who was taking part in the protest, was struck in the head with a police projectile. His skull was fractured and he was listed in critical condition due to his brain swelling. When protesters came to his aid, they were driven back by a flashbang grenade.
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Police in Atlanta rounded up more than fifty protesters who had been camped out in a city park as part of Occupy Atlanta, while police in Philadelphia arrested fifteen individuals engaged in a sit-in in protest of police brutality as part of Occupy Philadelphia. San Diego Police arrested forty-four protesters at Occupy San Diego, confiscating all personal belongings and all supplies and food that had been donated.
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Mind you, the compliance weapons described above and their use was aimed at nonviolent protesters such as 84-year-old Dorli Rainey. Rainey was pepper sprayed in the face and forced into compliance by the Seattle police.
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Of course, the great concern with compliance weapons is their chilling effect on free speech. Do they discourage citizens from peaceably assembling and petitioning their government for a redress of grievances–a right guaranteed by the First Amendment? Indeed, if one is liable to be pepper sprayed, tasered, tear gassed, or stunned with rubber bullets, why bother showing up at all? In such instances, the right to free speech–which is the core of our democracy–is rendered null and void.

Tasers

Tasers are now used by nearly all of the law enforcement agencies in the United States. Electroshock weapons designed to cause instant incapacitation by delivering a 50,000-volt shock, "tasers" are handheld electronic stun guns that fire barbed darts. The darts, which usually remain attached to the gun by wires, deliver the high voltage shock and can penetrate up to two inches of clothing or skin. The darts can strike the subject from a distance, or the taser can be applied directly to the skin. Although a taser shot is capable of jamming the central nervous system for up to 30 seconds, it can disable its victim for even longer. And because tasers can be aimed anywhere on the body, they can immobilize someone more easily than pepper spray, which must be sprayed in the face.