The Jackboot State

During the protests at the Republican National Convention in early August, Philadelphia police commissioner John F. Timoney repeatedly denied to the press that his cops had engaged in any covert surveillance of demonstrators. His denials led one gullible reporter to proclaim, "It took the RNC protests to redeem the reputation of the Philly police."

But Timoney was lying. His department, working in concert with the state police and the feds, had indeed spied on protesters, intercepted electronic communications, infiltrated their meetings and affinity groups, and manufactured search warrants. Even city building inspectors were called upon to use phony charges to shut down buildings where activists were staying or working, all in an effort to disrupt political protests that had been permitted by the City. Of course, Timoney needed to twist the truth to the press, because a 1987 Philadelphia mayoral order prohibits his department--shamed by so many unconscionable acts against Philly citizens in the past--from engaging in precisely those kinds of activities.

But finally part of the truth came out. Pennsylvania state police affidavits released nearly two months after the convention revealed that infiltration of the Philly protest groups was based on ludicrous suspicions that ... they might be under the control of the former Soviet Union!

"Funds allegedly originate with Communist and leftist parties and from sympathetic trade unions," the state police affidavit declared. "Other funds reportedly come from the former Soviet-allied World Federation of Trade Unions." The state police later claimed that the allegations in the affidavit had been fed to them "at no cost, via email" by the Maldon Institute, which police spokesman, Jack Lewis, described as a "private organization that provides intelligence to police departments." Lewis said the Maldon Institute was located "in the United Kingdom."

In fact, the puny Maldon Institute makes its home in Baltimore, Maryland, where it is largely underwritten by that tireless promoter of the wacko right, Richard Mellon Scaife.

The scurrilous affidavit based on the Maldon Institute's paranoid fantasies was also used by the cops to justify a search warrant and raid on a building at 4100 Haverford Avenue, in West Philadelphia. The building, an artist's studio, was being used as a puppet-making warehouse for the street protests. The search warrant falsely claimed that the puppet factory was an arsenal containing "weapons and elements of destruction."

These charges were made by four men who had shown up at the puppet warehouse to offer their aid. They told the puppet makers that they were members of the Carpenter's Union, recently laid off as stage hands in Wilkes Barre, PA. The men were welcomed and put to work. "They were burly, but they didn't seem much like union people or very political," said Adam Eidinger, a publicist who was working at the warehouse. They weren't. The men were, in fact, members of the Pennsylvania state police. They helped orchestrate the police raid on the warehouse that resulted in 75 arrests of puppet makers and activists, the destruction of the puppets and seizure of thousands of dollars worth of personal property. No weapons were found.

Over that week in Philly more than 480 demonstrators were arrested. Conditions for those arrested in Philly amounted to torture. "The nightshift guards tended to be the most sadistic," said a jailed protester named Mali. "Women from the cell block later recalled guessing what time it was according to how many people were hog-tied or hobbled.

Since you can't be arraigned if you're naked, many prisoners resisted the system by stripping and going limp when guards came to take them somewhere.

"The holding cell had windows onto the area where people were fingerprinted and photographed, and we saw our brothers and sisters dragged around naked.

"The guards didn't like non-compliance too much ... We had up to nine women in my [5'x7' cell]. We'd be defecating with someone literally at our knee.

"We curled up together beside the toilet on the hard floor with rank shoes as pillows."

Tales of police jail guard torture abounded: verbal abuse, sexual assaults, beatings, shockings with stun guns, withholding of water and bathroom privileges. According to Mali: "People were held up against the wall by their neck until they turned blue, fingers were bent back, nipples twisted. One man had his penis twisted by a female guard. Someone heard an officer who was crying say, 'I'm about to throw down my badge and walk out of here.'"

Across the past 30 years, both Democrats and Republicans have eagerly colluded in militarizing the police, extending police powers and carving away basic rights. Very often the Democrats have been worse. Here are some milemarkers in the march of the Jackboot State. (An excellent series in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in November of 1998 called "Win At All Costs" offers one of the best surveys of government prosecutorial misconduct.) In 1974 Congress okayed sting operations in which federal agents could create criminal enterprises to trap their targets. These rapidly became forays in entrapment of innocent people fingered by prison snitches trying to get their sentences reduced. In 1989 U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh issued a memo decreeing that federal prosecutors are not bound by ethics rules in the geographic areas where they work. Attorney General Reno confirmed the rule in 1994. In 1998 a bill pushed through by Reps John Murtha and Joseph McDade repealed it. The federal forfeiture statues in 1990 led to widespread abuses which Congress recently tried to curb. In 1984 Congress undercut the exclusionary rule which barred evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Such evidence is tried to curb. In 1984 Congress undercut the exclusionary rule which barred evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Such evidence is now allowed if officers believed in good faith they acted properly. Ha ha.

People rot in jail awaiting trial, making the constitutional guarantee of a speedy trial a macabre joke. Since 1987 police can get a search warrant on the word of an informant who does not even have to be named. Three years earlier, the Supreme Court said evidence obtained through a search warrant not supported by probable cause is admissible, so long as it was issued by a "detached and neutral magistrate." Justice John Paul Stevens, in a dissent, said this spelled the destruction of the Fourth Amendment's guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures.

One of the worst assaults on freedom was the Counter-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 curtailing the rights of defendants to appeal, allowing the government to decree what is a terrorist organization and making it a felony to support legal activities of any group linked to any such-designated terrorist organization. The same act permitted the use of undisclosed and illegally obtained evidence against aliens in the U.S., and allowed them to be deported on such a basis. This act also greatly expanded wiretaps, including those established without a court order.

In 1987 Congress switched the authority for sentencing a criminal defendant from the judge to the prosecutor, by establishing mandatory sentencing guidelines based on the nature of the offense (which of course is chosen by the prosecutor). In 1987 the U.S. Sentencing Commission cut the time to be deducted from a prisoner's sentence for good behavior to a maximum of 54 days a year. This rapidly led to an explosion of lying in court by prisoners desperately looking for reduction in sentences from prosecutors.

Former Attorney General and Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson said, "The [federal] prosecutor has more control over life, liberty and reputation than any other person in America." That was in 1940. With RICO conspiracy laws, money laundering edicts and the like, the situation is far worse today.

On discovery: every day across America prosecutors illegally deny defense lawyers evidence that might help establish innocence.

On perjury: prosecutors routinely connive at it, as their witnesses get leniency in return for testimony.

The 12-person jury, cornerstone of our liberties, is routinely undercut and abused by arrogant judges. The misuse of the grand jury by prosecutors is among the most egregious abuses of all.

The insane drug war has been a bipartisan affair. Its consequences are etched into the fabric of our lives. Just think of drug testing, now a virtually mandatory condition of employment, even though it's an outrageous violation of personal sovereignty, as well as being thoroughly unreliable.

Of America's two million prisoners, around a third are non-violent drug offenders, with two-thirds of that number being in for marijuana-related Of America's two million prisoners, around a third are non-violent drug offenders, with two-thirds of that number being in for marijuana-related offenses. In the era when America was led by two self-confessed pot smokers--Clinton and Gore--the number of cons held on drug crimes in federal prisons has increased by 64%.