Hacklab nerd caught in G20 security sweep

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Thomas Milne <tbrucemilne-TcoXwbchSccMMYnvST3LeUB+6BGkLq7r at public.gmane.org>

| I don't think I'm 'enraged' that he is being prosecuted, nor am I
| surprised. I can't speak for anyone else, but the point is that the
| police are not supposed to act like pit bulls.
| 
| To me it's pretty clear that the police, as they usually do, are
| taking this personally. They're made the choice to arrest Byron's
| wife, which is common in cases where the police wish to intimidate
| their target, in this case Byron, into pleading guilty and not making
| an issue out of the ridiculous charges, as I hope he does.
| 
| For some reason, a lot of people seem to have accepted the canard that
| we are under constant threat of terrorist violence, and that this
| should allow the police to have absolute and unfettered power. It's
| almost become 'uncool' to even speak out against the police, as you're
| immediately branded as some kind of nutjob to even think ill of them.
| 
| That's what is surprising to me, and yes a bit alarming.
| 
| I'm thankful there are people like Byron who know they're going to
| take a hit and forge ahead anyway.

I mostly agree with what you and most others in this list have said.

We don't know enough to be sure of what is going on.  Maybe we are
jumping to conclusions.

The sad thing is that most of what I know about police is from US TV
dramas.  That is quite polarizing and makes me distrust the police
(and all sorts of bad guys too).  But drama and reality are
dramatically different.

I do sort-of know some "factual" things about police from news
stories.  In general, they put the police in a bad light (otherwise
they wouldn't be news).

Systemically, there is at least one problem.  Police are taught that
they must dominate any situation to keep it under control.  The tools
they have to dominate make me quite uncomfortable and are not really
consistent with a democratic society.

Siting this conference in downtown Toronto sure looks like a big
mistake.  Rough guess: a half-billion dollar mistake.

But I have to admit a bias: I don't give the Harper government too
much benefit of the doubt.
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists