Read this, then tell me that the Federal LE and other Justice Dept Members arent Jack-Booted Thugs

There seems to have been an ongoing debate on whether Law Enforcement are actually getting more corrupt, violent and Fascist or if its something thats been going on for years and just getting more exposure because of the Internet, cell phones cameras etc..
Just for the record, it has been my opinion for some time now that the system IS getting more corrupt, starting all the way at the top, with law makers and "slithering" its way all the way down to the jack-booted foot soldiers. (yes, i borrowed that term from the 90s) but it fits the description of the DEA, ATF and FBI to a T.
My brother and I were talking about the fact that are prisons are bursting at the seams and I mentioned to him that people are going to jail for things today that would have literally gotten them a warning 10+ years ago.

A study released this week by the Pew Center on the States delivers a staggering statistic: 7.3 million Americans-or 1 in every 31 adults-are in the nation's prison system. This figure includes those in US jails and prisons, on parole, on probation, or under other forms of correctional supervision. No other country comes close to matching this number. If these individuals were grouped together, they would number more than the entire populations of Israel or Honduras, or all of the residents of Washington state.

Source

Take a look at this article that I just read, which is the article that I originally created the thread for anyway.

You're (Probably) a Federal Criminal
Federal law now criminalizes activities that the average person would never dream would land him in prison. Consequently, every year, thousands of upstanding, responsible Americans run afoul of some incomprehensible federal law and end up serving time in federal prison.

With all the attention that's been paid lately to long federal sentences for drug offenders, it's surprising that a far more troubling phenomenon has barely hit the media's radar screen. Every year, thousands of upstanding, responsible Americans run afoul of some incomprehensible federal law or regulation and end up serving time in federal prison.
What is especially disturbing is that it could happen to anyone at all -- and it has.

As it points out further on in this article, there was once a time when the arresting officer, the prosecutor and the judge would add "intent" to the equation when determining whether charges would be filed or during the trial the judge would consider "intent" when either determining guilt or innocence or determining the sentence.
What I mean by "intent" is if the person knew whether he was breaking a law or not when the offense was committed.

Remember, sometimes people can and do commit an offense without realizing it, it could be due to lack of knowledge on some of the more obscure laws or they could break a law by omission or because they DIDN'T do something, as opposed to performing an act that breaks the law.

We should applaud Reps. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) and Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), then, for holding a bipartisan hearing today to examine how federal law can make a criminal out of anyone, for even the most mundane conduct. Federal law in particular now criminalizes entire categories of activities that the average person would never dream would land him in prison. This is an inevitable result of the fact that the criminal law is no longer restricted to punishing inherently wrongful conduct -- such as murder, rape, robbery, and the like. Moreover, under these new laws, the government can often secure a conviction without having to prove that the person accused even intended to commit a bad act, historically a protection against wrongful conviction. Laws like this are dangerous in the hands of social engineers and ambitious lawmakers -- not to mention overzealous prosecutors -- bent on using government's greatest civilian power to punish any activity they dislike. So many thousands of criminal offenses are now in federal law that a prominent federal appeals court judge titled his recent essay on this overcriminalization problem, "You're (Probably) a Federal Criminal."

Consider small-time inventor and entrepreneur Krister Evertson, who will testify at today's hearing. Krister never had so much as a traffic ticket before he was run off the road near his mother's home in Wasilla, Alaska, by SWAT-armored federal agents in large black SUVs training automatic weapons on him.

Now youre probably thinking that this guy was a teorrorist and was making a mini-nuke or some kind of dirty bomb... right?
Wrong

Evertson, who had been working on clean-energy fuel cells since he was in high school, had no idea what he'd done wrong. It turned out that when he legally sold some sodium (part of his fuel-cell materials) to raise cash, he forgot to put a federally mandated safety sticker on the UPS package he sent to the lawful purchaser. Krister's lack of a criminal record did nothing to prevent federal agents from ransacking his mother's home in their search for evidence on this oh-so-dangerous criminal. The good news is that a federal jury in Alaska acquitted Krister of all charges. The jurors saw through the charges and realized that Krister had done nothing wrong. The bad news, however, is that the feds apparently had it in for Krister.

Well, at least the first jury realized what a farce the trial was and found him innocent.
However, and this seems to be a typical MO for DA's/Prosecutors when they dont get their satisfaction/conviction, they find new charges to trump you up on.
Federal criminal law is so broad that it gave prosecutors a convenient vehicle to use to get their man. Two years after arresting him, the feds brought an entirely new criminal prosecution against Krister on entirely new grounds. They used the fact that before Krister moved back to Wasilla to care for his 80-year-old mother, he had safely and securely stored all of his fuel-cell materials in Salmon, Idaho.

According to the government, when Krister was in jail in Alaska due to the first unjust charges, he had "abandoned" his fuel-cell materials in Idaho. Unfortunately for Krister, federal lawmakers had included in the Resource Recovery and Conservation Act a provision making it a crime to abandon "hazardous waste." According to the trial judge, the law didn't require prosecutors to prove that Krister had intended to abandon the materials (he hadn't) or that they were waste at all -- in reality, they were quite valuable and properly stored away for future use.
With such a broad law, the second jury didn't have much of a choice, and it convicted him. He spent almost two years locked up with real criminals in a federal prison. After he testifies today, he will have to return to his halfway house in Idaho and serve another week before he is released.

Source

I got the same reaction after posting all of this that I got the first time that I read it and that reaction is...
Just shaking my head in dis-belief because I cannot even imagine why these officials had such an over-whelming desire to ruin this mans life, over something so trivial.
Seriously, there is a HUGE difference between robbing a bank and forgetting to put a label on a package.
Because of their feelings of superiority over anyone thats not in their business and their hatred and bitterness towards the same, they have given this man a label that will stick with him for the rest of his life, he will forever be known as a felon.

The impact that this label will have on his life will be felt every time he tries to rent an apartment and apply for a job.

This is just a minor example of their corruption and fascism that exist at the Alphabet Agencies. How could we, as citizens, have allowed this to happen?
How can we just stand by while they kick in our grandmothers door with guns blazing in a so called botched drug raid, kill your grandma and then say "oops wrong address?" Then they wont even have the decency to pay for the G**D*mn door lock, much less pay for your innocent grandmothers life that they took because of a "mistake" and when I say "pay" I mean in terms of justice, not monetary.
I could give EXAMPLE after EXAMPLE after EXAMPLE but this is already the single longest post that I've ever typed and I'm sure most of you people here are already aware of what I'm talking about.
Plus I have only had about 2 hours sleep tonight, (last night) so.. excuse the rambling and any grammatical errors that i may have made

Elemental sodium does not occur naturally on Earth, but quickly oxidizes in air and is violently reactive with water, so it must be stored in an inert medium, such as a liquid hydrocarbon

en.wikipedia.org...

I agree with the sentiment of your post, however, sodium is not just table salt. Sending some through the mail seems foolhardy to me.

reply to post by wayno

I agree with the sentiment of your post, however, sodium is not just table salt. Sending some through the mail seems foolhardy to me.

Yes, I'm sure its not a very smart thing to do and if he does this kind of thing regularly, shipping things, then I'm sure he knew better.
That wasn't really one of the points i was making though.
On that portion of the post I was pretty much criticizing the way the Gestapo handled the situation, practically running him off the highway with most likely armored SUV's and apprehending him with Automatic Weapons.
Whats even scarier about that article is that they point out the fact that a lot of these laws are so obscure that you may not even realize that youre breaking the law, until its too late.
The next thing you know, you're setting in an interrogation room with plasti-cuffs on wondering WTF you did to be in this position
Believe or not, there was a time when cops wouldn't stick his weapon in your face, when he pulled you over for a headlight being out.
Im sure it varied city by city and or State by State but as far as I can recall, cops were able to use their own judgment in deciding whether or not to draw his weapon during a stop or an arrest.
The exception to that was if a guy was a known felon or was suspected in a felony or an otherwise dangerous crime, then they were required to draw their weapons.
Some people will try and justify the excessive use of force by saying that they have to do it for their own safety because "you never know what the suspect will pull out" even if they're being detained for a minor offense.
However, to counter that there are several incidents that you can read about and pull up on google video or you tube that show some of these cases.

The young black man being shot in the back as a cop sits on him while another starts to cuff him.
The several police brutality videos that were shot using cell phones.
The cop that shoots the family dog because he will not stop barking but poses no danger.
The people between the ages of 9 and 80 that are tazed because the cops of today lack the necessary social skills that are needed to do their job properly.
And as I mentioned earlier, the family whose homes are raided by semi plain-clothed DEA Agents.
As the homeowner tries to protect his family from this home invasion, a gun fight ensues, one DEA agent is shot and your 80 year old grandmother is shot and killed.
Not only do they barely apologize for mixing up the addresses, the add insult to injury when they arrest your grandfather for attempted capital murder for shooting the Agent while trying to protect his family.
Ok, that last one had a few extras added to it as an example.
I'm pretty sure there was a case similar to this one but I cant remember names.

Anyway, the main reason that I posted this is because it is just another example of cops using excessive power
Cops seem to be in "overkill" mode in everything they do as do the judges and prosecuting attorneys.
Did you read the other, short, part of the post? 1 in 30 Americans are institutionalized ( in prisons) for one reason or another.

Susan Urahn, a senior Pew researcher, said the US now held one in four of the world’s prisoners. China was second, with 1.5m people behind bars. There are 82,000 people in jail in England and Wales, or roughly one in 500 adults. The proportion is similar in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

America holds the greatest amount of prisoners, even behind China and they have a population of over ONE Billion and they are supposed to be the ones that terrible human rights abuse cases.

I'll say it again, the system here in the US seems to be putting a disproportionate amount of people in jail, for whatever reason.
Its possible that the REX 84 conspiracies that are floating around at ATS.
I realize thats exactly what REX 84 is, putting people in prison camps, concentration camps and FEMA work camps but if you think about it a bit, it makes sense.
The more people that you have put away prior to something like REX 84 then the less people you have to control, the fewer people the easier they are to control.

sorry - didn't mean to sidetrack your post. You are absolutely right, the US has for years been ramping up its police state tactics and status.

I don't see any end in sight; even though its not working to improve things for the whites in charge. (Most of those incarcerated are black).

While we don't have nearly so many people in prisons here in Canada, our police are following in the US footsteps in terms of becoming ever more aggressive and over-bearing. Its seems to be a world wide phenomenon with the US at the lead.

I wonder though if it isn't the guns manufacturers that are stirring up the pot through their advertising and training videos and whatnot making police all over believe they have to become paramilitary commandos in even the smallest communities.

Its hard to really know who is behind this dangerous trend.

reply to post by Kr0n0s


I KNEW IT! You are quoting from "The Worlds Socialist" Website.

Let's do a quick review of current "world socialists..."

Chavez, Ortega, Castro...et al.

All upstanding examples of truth in advertising.

Yes there are a load of prisoners in America, but the idea that people can wind up in federal custody for little to no reason is farsical.

The quoted example of federal tyranny is a person who sent EXPLOSIVE material UPS in an UNMARKED package.

You have an agenda...that is fine. DEMOCRATIC societies don't mind "out of the box" thinking suc as yours but you must realize that such one-sided, partisan, agenda driven material will and MUST BE challenged.

Current governmental officials are taking thinkgs to far but please...take a breath.

Originally posted by crmanager

I KNEW IT! You are quoting from "The Worlds Socialist" Website.
....

Yes there are a load of prisoners in America, but the idea that people can wind up in federal custody for little to no reason is farsical.

The quoted example of federal tyranny is a person who sent EXPLOSIVE material UPS in an UNMARKED package.
...

Current governmental officials are taking thinkgs to far but please...take a breath.

Wow. I'm not going to respond to this post, other than to say how amusing (and saddening) it is to have someone dismiss the OPs point so casually. Just read this line to yourself a few times:

7.3 million Americans-or 1 in every 31 adults-are in the nation's prison system. This figure includes those in US jails and prisons, on parole, on probation, or under other forms of correctional supervision. No other country comes close to matching this number. If these individuals were grouped together, they would number more than the entire populations of Israel or Honduras, or all of the residents of Washington state.

And OP (and others) - what do you think about this fact mentioned in the article:

Evertson, who had been working on clean-energy fuel cells since he was in high school, had no idea what he'd done wrong.

I think that says it all. How many other free-energy inventors and investigators have mysteriously disappeared, died or otherwise been jailed?

The point of your article (and your post) though, are scary indeed. This build-up of prisons, obscure laws, and beast-like LEA behavior will reach a point soon and culminate with the police state. it is coming folks!

I dont mean to sound like a fear-monger, but think about it, why else would all these little obscure laws be passed, along with broad-stroke laws like criminilazing x, y or z substance, or policing the internet "to protect children" (think of how many will go to jail for random things in that situation ) if it wasn't to cause the population to:

1. live in fear of their own behavior
2. show the proper submission to LEA
3. watch on their neighbors and friends for suspicious behavior

what took less than a decade in germany, during the 30s, has taken a few decades in the USA. Why? because what germany did was too much too soon, and shocked the world, and was a very obvious sore thumb that the human population noticed.

You all remember the story of the frog in boiling water, right? Welcome to the boiling pot, my friends!

reply to post by simpleharmonics


Your paranoia is STAGGERING!

You did not comment on ANYTHING but 'The number of prisoners proves my point."

"Free Energy" is a fantasy. And so is your desire to show conspiracy.