I Was Arrested for Learning a Foreign Language. Today, I Have Some Closure.

[friendly_iconoclast]

https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech-national-security-technology-and-liberty/i-was-arrested-learning-foreign-language-t

I Was Arrested for Learning a Foreign Language. Today, I Have Some Closure.
January 23, 2015
By Nick George at 11:14am

Five years ago, the Philadelphia police thought that carrying Arabic-language flashcards was enough to warrant the arrest of an innocent traveler. A settlement reached today in a lawsuit I brought against the police department makes it clear that it is not...

...It's that attitude that is so problematic. Even after searching my luggage without probable cause of a crime and finding nothing out of the ordinary, TSA agents and the police felt they had the authority to detain and then arrest me, purely on ignorant assumptions about a language spoken by 295 million people worldwide.

That's why this lawsuit is important: to make it clear that arbitrary arrests are illegal, even at the airport. In addition to some modest damages, the settlement we signed requires the Philadelphia Police Department to amend its policies to make this clear. As law enforcement officers, they will be periodically instructed that they have an independent duty to establish probable cause before arrest, and cannot simply clap in cuffs anyone the TSA calls suspicious.

[daleanime]

1. Kick....

[Ford_Prefect]

2. Too Bloody Right!

Glad you got this sorted.

Terrifying when they get that look in their eyes that something they don't understand is enough to be probable cause.

[leveymg]

3. "This radio appears capable of receiving the BBC. You are under arrest." (in German)

Last edited Mon Jan 26, 2015, 04:41 PM - Edit history (1)

[xocet]

11. >>Dieses Rundfunkgerät scheint fähig, die BBC zu empfangen. Sie sind festgenommen.<< (auf Englisch)

...as you wrote.

[leveymg]

16. Unless you trade in your Entartete Internet receiver, you could be in serious trouble. Get this one>

instead. As approved by the Director, Homeland Security.

[xocet]

17. Unless that receiver is taken out to the highways, it does not receive signals well.

Otherwise, all that receiver gets is a signal that repeats something like "boing..boom..tchak..." with an occasional pinging sound.

[leveymg]

18. We found the source of that interference: Wir fahren fahren fahren

Millions of cars tracked across US in 'massive' real-time spying program
Source: The Guardian

The United States government is tracking the movement of vehicles around the country in a clandestine intelligence-gathering programme that has been condemned as a further official exercise to build a database on people’s lives.

The Drug Enforcement Administration was monitoring license plates on a “massive” scale, giving rise to “major civil liberties concerns”, the American Civil Liberties Union said on Monday night, citing DEA documents obtained under freedom of information.

... The Wall Street Journal, citing official documents and anonymous officials, reported that the programme built a national database to track vehicles in real time and stored hundreds of millions of records about motorists.

The primary goal was to seize cars, cash and other assets to combat drug trafficking but the database expanded to monitor vehicles associated with other potential crimes, it said.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/27/millions-of-cars-tracked-across-us-in-massive-real-time-spying-program

[petronius]

5. Welcome to DU! As it turns out, we're big fans of deportation around here--at least,

the virtual kind of deportation. Just go along quietly with the nice polite people, and know that we'll always have fond memories of you...

[Raine1967]

6. you meant to add a sarcasm, smilie, right?

Welcome to DU!

[irisblue]

7. really?

what do you like on pizza?

[arcane1]

8. I served; still awaiting the results.

I voted that I normally don't hide posts just for ignorance alone, but I'll make an exception

[irisblue]

9. what do they get out of trolling?

never understood that. thanks for the vote.

[arcane1]

10. Probably the only way to feel good about themselves. Who knows? Results:

ALERTER'S COMMENTS

Maybe this new poster omitted the sarcasm smilie, but I looked at one other post of his/hers, and I suspect s/he is a RWer.

JURY RESULTS

You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Sun Jan 25, 2015, 05:25 PM, and the Jury voted 6-1 to HIDE IT.

Juror #1 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: Ridiculous and ignorant comment.
Juror #2 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: I normally don't hide a post simply for being brain-dead idiotic, but I've been watching this loser from the get-go and they are not here for discussion.
Juror #3 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #4 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: I suspect sarcasm.
Juror #5 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #6 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: Troll. Calling MIRT
Juror #7 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given



It appears MIRT took care of this one. They said the site sucks anyway, so surely they won't come back. Right?

[mountain grammy]

12. Police state thanks to GW Bush and company..

still going on. I hope the justice department under Obama will continue and increase their investigations into out of control police departments.

[calimary]

13. I would hope that the damages the police department was forced to pay - were NOT modest.

The only way to make any impression on some of these people is to hit them HARD in the wallet. If it costs them new police cars and the new facilities they were planning to build, and the expensive new equipment they needed, well, maybe it might be a motivating force for good.

[xocet]

14. They are not as much as one would hope - see page 6 of the settlement...$25,000.00....

https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/george_settlement_order.pdf

[calimary]

15. Piddly. It has to hurt pretty bad to get them to change - or even merely think twice.

I knew one attorney who went after police settlements because "if it costs them a police car, it might make 'em think."