Blog: Civil Liberties

The NYPD has turned into just the sort of police force any dictator would love. Last year they gained the ability to arrest people for walking or biking in a group; now, they want to stop people from checking their own air quality. Dancing is already illegal. Meanwhile, many officers don't believe they should be forced to obey the law at all.

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Could America become a police state? The current unpopularity of the administration gives hope that democracy is quite resilient. Nonetheless, two chilling articles give reasons to continue to be vigilant.

First, Ian Welsh writes a stirring condemnation of the recent legalization of torture by Congress, a few weeks ago. And just yesterday, it was revealed that in in June, Vice President Dick Cheney (allegedly) ordered a man arrested for doing no more than politely criticizing his policies to his face.

A democratic election is the only thing, the very single thing, standing between this bunch and a police state. It's clear they want to operate that way, and the Congress will let them. Hopefully the American people won't.

The NYPD has a very tough job. Its officers protect a big city against some really bad people and often put themselves in dangerous situations. But having the job of constantly taking out perpetrators breeds the sentiment, at least in some officers, where any who oppose them must be crushed.

One officer proudly boasted on an NYPD officer's forum about making up a "totally fake excuse" to turn down a request from Transportation Alternatives:

Doing my part to get back at transportation alternatives

well at the facility I work they recently asked for free parking and free use of our bathrooms during a big event of theres, it was my decision to make... and I took great pleasure in coming up with a totally fake excuse as to why we would not be able to help them out all (no free parking) but I have them a phone number for a rent-a-john company lol. I can't give exact details, but PM for better info. Happy to get back at them some what.

According to onNYTurf, the request may not even have come from Transportation Alternatives at all. Capriciously punishing an organization, maybe even the wrong organization - just the kind of protection we need

The New York Times reports on the same reckless police (mis)conduct around Critical Mass I witnessed last summer.

Apparently the NYPD has switched from "parading without a permit" summonses to citations for running red lights. A poster on Gothamist suggests that if they are really serious about stopping red light running, they could enforce it against cars, such as at the entrance to the Holland Tunnel. I couldn't have said it better myself.

Improv Everywhere creates funny experiences around NYC, like giving "boat tours" in the Union Square fountain and a fake impromptu U2 roof concert. For the past few years, they have run a prank where volunteers take off their pants and ride the subway as if nothing is wrong; a "cast" member then walks through the subway offering to sell pants for $1 just like the batter vendors do, and the pantsless commuters purchase pants to fill the understandable gap in their wardrobes.

The NYPD somehow decided this was a threat to law and order breaking up the event, and taking 8 riders to the station where they received summonses. Justin takes the NYPD to task for having no sense of humor nor perspective. Besides, look at that picture on the Gothamist story - I don't see any more leg than millions of men and women show off in summer.

So sayeth an officer of the NYPD when arresting two musicians for putting up posters.

This is taking the "broken windows" theory to a crazy extreme. Just keep your head down, go to work, go out to eat, go home - the nail that sticks out gets hammered down. Don't protest, or try to ride your bike (only crazy anarchists ride bikes), or display art, or poster for an art show.

To a police officer, chaos - protests, marches, posters where they shouldn't be, etc. - means crime, and cover for subversives or anarchists, and all things that need to be controlled. Even if that means putting some people in jail for postering.

The NYPD continued its ignoble tradition of stifling freedom of speech and of assembly. Cindy Sheehan, tolerated by the police even in Crawford, Texas, was kicked out of Union Square Park on Monday. The Village Voice's Ward Harkavy writes, "It should be front-page news in this country that a prominent, peaceful protester, speaking to a crowd of 150 people, was silenced not far from a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, but it won't be. And that's frightening, because the bulwark of our security as a country is our cherished freedom to speak out."

For those not outraged by an administration that believes citizens' only right is to go about their orderly corporate lives, never to stand out, speak out, or assert any perogative to publicly participate in national or local civic discourse, the Prospect's Greg Sargent outlines the many reasons why a Bloomberg mayoralty is bad for New York and bad for America:

Bloomberg, for all his leftward feints, has at times been quite the loyal GOP partisan. He has defended the Iraq War, a hugely symbolic gesture coming from the mayor of the city attacked on September 11. He's raised millions of dollars for the national GOP. During last year's GOP convention in New York he presided over the highly questionable arrests of more than 1,500 protesters, in effect placing the GOP's desire for a peaceful convention above his own constituents' right to peaceful protest. . . .

Bloomberg has foresaken the New York Mayor's traditional role as someone who raises his voice to communicate the wants, needs and aspirations of his constituents to the national audience and the ruling party in D.C. It's a void that New Yorkers need filled more than ever, given the enormous ideological gap between this city's residents and the national GOP, as well as the Republicans' ongoing exploitation of Sept. 11.

There's another reason Dems should care if Bloomberg wins re-election: The success of Republicans like Bloomberg in Democratic strongholds is extraordinarily helpful to Karl Rove's strategy for building an enduring Republican majority. That strategy rests on offsetting the party leadership's endless pampering of the right wing base with hollow gestures designed to keep moderates from getting scared away by the party's hardcore conservatism. Hence Rove's much-ballyhooed outreach to blacks, which isn't really about winning over African Americans but is actually about signaling to white moderates that the party is tolerant and inclusive. To the extent that mild-mannered liberal Republicans like Bloomberg put a gentle face on today's GOP -- particularly in New York, the supposed capitol of liberalism -- they're helping Rove achieve his objectives.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for redress of grievances."

I just wrote that down by heart, and the only thing I got wrong were the conjunctions (I used "nor" instead of "or" in a few places, and didn't know that the last one is an "and").

This stuff is really important. I'm reading Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. A very weighty tome (especially since it only covers history up to Unification in 1898!), I'm only up to the period of British rule, but one thing that's very clear is how absent these freedoms, in particular, were during that time. Governors periodically tried to promote the Anglican church at the expense of other Protestant denominations, and even Catholics were never permitted to vote. Dissident pamphlets opposing corrupt land grants from Governors had to be printed in Boston.

The Establishment Clause ("no law respecting an establishment of religion") and freedom of speech have long been assailed, especially by the right. Lately, Republicans - espcially New York's Mayor Bloomberg - seem bent on curbing a less commonly discussed part of the First Amendment, freedom of assembly.

From denying a permit to peaceful protestors who wanted to gather in Central Park during the 2004 Republican National Convention, to harassing the Critical Mass bike ride, the Mayor seems to believe that if a group of people opposed to his policies wish to congregate peacefully, they must be led by "anarchists" and shut down to prevent "terrorism".

In Utah, police used military tactics and what many witnesses reported as excessive violence in breaking up a large outdoor rave concert last weekend. Crooks and Liars claims that "A source inside the Utah government reports that this action was undertaken out of fear that the Rave would be used to rally support for the protest against Bush's Utah visit."

Back in New York, Mayor Bloomberg tried to suppress yet another public gathering last week, this one a street fair whose organizer, Marc Ecko, received a legal permit. But when the Mayor heard that Ecko planned to spray-paint mock subway cars with graffiti-like art, he tried to shut it down. Judge Jed Rakoff stood up for the First Amendment, writing, "The City... claims the right to censor this exercise of free speech expression because, in the words of the Mayor on his radio program last Friday, the exhibition is tantamount to 'encouraging vandalism.' By the same token, presumably, a street performance of Hamlet would be tantamount to encouraging revenge murder. Or, in a different vein, a street performance of 'rap' music might well include the singing of lyrics that could be viewed as encouraging sexual assault. As for a street performance of Oedipus Rex - don't even think about it."

On Friday, I was walking along Sixth Avenue with a friend looking for a restaurant, when a crowd of cheering bicyclists rode by. My friend, who knew nothing about this ride, commented, "how wonderful!"

A minute later, I heard loud and insistent honking; a single sedan sped up and squealed to a halt, nearly hitting several people. A man threw open the car door and stomped out, face purple with anger.

"That guy must be really angry because he had to wait behind some bikes," I thought. "How sad that he is overreacting so badly - and how dangerous that he almost hit those people. I hope the police saw that and stop him for reckless driving."

But no. That man was the police. Because a second later, a couple of marked police squad cars also drove up, and the officers inside, at the command of the angry, dangerous man, started arresting bicyclists. The angry man quickly stomped back into his car and, with a screech of tires, sped off. It happened too quickly for me to get a picture. Could the angry man have been Bruce Smolka, NYPD Assistant Chief and ardent opponent of civil liberties? It's definitely possible, but there are a lot of burly bald men in the force.

"Why are they being arrested?" my friend asked. That's a very good question, and one the NYPD won't answer satisfactorily. Unlawful assembly? Parading without a permit? Mike Bloomberg and NYPD top brass have been on a senseless crusade to stomp out freedom of assembly ever since last year's Republican Convention.

I was on 40th Street earlier in the day and the street was completely packed with vehicles going much slower than the bikers, and making a lot more noise. Why didn't The Angry Man screech up and tear those drivers out of their cars? And last weekend, as I was biking (all by myself, apparently the only legal way to do it) down Seventh Avenue after a nice refreshing ride through the Hudson River Greenway and Central Park, at least five drivers (mostly yellow cabs) honked at me, because I was in "their" lane. Mr. Angry NYPD Man, why isn't your police force protecting me, a law-abiding citizen, and my right to use the streets?

I'm fairly deep in Democratic politics now, but yet I wasn't sure I really opposed Mayor Bloomberg. He used to be a Democrat, after all, and he got the NYC smoking ban passed as well as some other policy measures I liked. I'd often defend him, at least to the point of saying "well, he's not really a Republican" when someone would say that having Republicans like Bloomberg and Pataki in New York is problematic.

Well, there's no way I'd ever vote for him now that he's decided the Constitutional right to a speedy trial is just a suggestion, throwing thousands of innocent people into oppressive pens for 36-48 hours in direct violation of arraignment laws during August's Critical Mass bike march and then the RNC protests (here's one person's experience and another). Mike Bloomberg, go to hell.