Category: Uncategorized

Winston-Salem, NC — In a video uploaded to YouTube last week, we see an infuriating and absolutely Orwellian reaction by the Winston-Salem Police Department.
Mr. Rick Goins was simply conducting a test of his First Amendment rights. He was standing on a public sidewalk and recording public officials. This is completely legal in the state of North Carolina.
However, the constitutionality and legality of Goins’ actions were of no concern to Lt. R.B. Rose of the Winston-Salem Police Department. Rose was determined to assert his authority and intimidate a completely innocent man, all because Goins was exercising his first amendment rights.
The unprofessional …read more

On March 20, the Pennsylvania Constitution, Green and Libertarian Parties filed this brief in Constitution Party v Aichele, e.d., 5:12cv-2726. This is the lawsuit that challenges the system under which petitioning groups are at risk of at much as $110,000 in court costs and attorney fees if they file a petition that doesn’t have enough valid signatures. Originally in this case the U.S. District Court had said the plaintiffs don’t have standing, but last year the Third Circuit said they do have standing and sent the case back to the U.S. District Court. …read more

The Arkansas Libertarian Party has just begun its 2016 petition for party status. The requirement is 10,000 valid signatures, which must be gathered in a 3-month window that the party chooses.
The Arkansas Green Party has not yet decided whether to attempt that petition, or just do the presidential petition, which only needs 1,000 valid signatures. …read more

California held a special election to fill the vacant State Senate seat, 7th district, on March 17. Steve Glazer, a Democrat who has fought certain unions for the last several years, easily placed first, and a Democratic Assemblymember placed second. Since no one got as much as 50%, there will be a runoff in May between the two Democrats.
Eric McGhee has this analysis of the race. He points out that under the old system, in which California used a blanket primary for special elections between 1967 and 2010, Glazer would be in a runoff with the lone …read more

North Dakota is one of 36 states in which, when there is a U.S. Senate vacancy, the governor appoints someone who serves until the next regularly-scheduled congressional election. Last month the North Dakota House passed a bill requiring a special election for U.S. Senate when the seat becomes vacant, unless a regular election is quite close in time.
On March 20, the North Dakota Senate Government & Veterans Affairs Committee heard the bill. The committee hasn’t acted yet. Here is a story about the hearing. …read more

It’s been almost a week since New York Police Department deployed a new ShotSpotter gunshot detection system. However, the innovation has raised privacy concerns among New Yorkers while tracking loud bangs, the system records private conversations.
RT.com
Questions arose after New York Police Department deployed 300 hidden microphone sensors around the city. They are aimed at identifying the sound of gunshots, and then activate nearby cameras and immediately alert law enforcement officials.

The two-year pilot program will cost New York a total of $1.5million annually.
Both the mayor Bill de Blasio and police commissioner William Bratton say that ShotSpotter should help officers to respond …read more

“I was arrogant, judgmental, narcissistic and very full of myself. I was not as interested in justice as I was in winning.”

Caddo Parish, Louisiana – After decades of working to fill up prisons, a lead prosecutor is coming forward to apologize for his participation in the growing police state.
This week, prosecutor Marty Stroud wrote an open letter to a man who he helped put in prison, apologizing for his part in the man’s incarceration. The open letter was addressed to Glenn Ford, a man who spent 30 years on death row for a murder that he did not commit.
Ford was …read more

On Friday, May 9, 2014, just after 5:30am in Killeen, Texas, Marvin Louis Guy was the target of a no-knock raid.
The officers were looking for drugs, yet no drugs were found in the home.
Detective Dinwiddie was one of the SWAT officers who broke into Guy’s house on May 9th, based on a seemingly bogus informant tip off about drugs being dealt from the home.
Likely alarmed by the men climbing through his windows at 5:30 in the morning, unannounced, Guy and his wife sought to protect themselves and their property and fired on the intruders- in self-defense.
Dinwiddie, along with three other …read more

RT.com
The American Civil Liberties Union filed an amicus brief arguing that hundreds of disabled Americans are killed in police encounters every year. It was filed in support of a mentally ill woman suing police for shooting her five times.
In the case of San Francisco v. Sheehan, Teresa Sheehan argued that police shot her five times even though she was experiencing a “psychiatric emergency.” The US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case on Monday.
Sheehan argued that when police came to her room in a group home in 2008 to take her to a hospital, they violated her Fourth …read more