On January 9, the public hearing on Manchester police department’s CALEA accreditation was held. CALEA is the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies. Agencies seeking certification must pay CALEA for the process, which is administered by current and former law enforcement officers. CALEA certification is primarily intended for larger departments, and aids the department in insuring itself against liability. The biannual hearing is open to anyone with input, positive or negative, on whether a police department should be given passing certification. A quick Google search does not reveal evidence of a department ever having failed the CALEA certification process.
In the past, such hearings have been better attended by critics of departments. With this year’s hearing falling the night before the New Hampshire presidential primary, I was not surprised that I was the only voice critical of MPD at the event. I spoke about the Chalking 8 incident, which I had been swept up in and later found not guilty of two bogus criminal charges.
Recently I was found guilty in my Chalking 8 trial, while highlighting those bogus charges we (Pete and I) met Frank and Mike, who took this video of Manchester Police Officer Murphy. The video went viral and received attention from several news outlets. Instead of taking a serious look at the actions caught on tape the city went into defense mode.
The Police, school and local government officials sought to criminalize Frank, Mike and myself. They expelled Frank from school, charged Mike as an adult (over a teenage fight) and charged me with three counts of wiretapping. Crimes the state says justifies caging me, at your expense, for 21 years.
I’ve been through this before in Greenfield, MA and am confident I can present my case, logically. The problem I face in Manchester that I didn’t have in Greenfield is the personal vendetta those in Manchester seem to have for me. After all, I was given the max sentence (with 10 months of it stayed for 2 years good behavior) for ‘resisting’ my arrest.
Gene Chandler of Bartlett, a state rep, has advocated for the elimination of county government, and that sounds like a fine idea. If it actually happens, it will be a huge sign that things are changing for the better in NH. The Conway Daily Sun reports:
“Couldn’t we just eliminate a layer of government?” asked Epstein.
Rep. Gene Chandler (R-Bartlett) replied, “The simple answer to that is yes.”
Laura Knoy, host of NHPR’s The Exchange, interviewed EconTalk host and “Keynes vs. Hayek” co-creator Russ Roberts, along with former Obama adviser and economics blogger Jared Bernstein yesterday morning.
You can hear the show, titled Raising Keynes, at NHPR.org.
For fun, the Keynes vs. Hayek videos are posted below the fold. (more…)
Much abuzz online yesterday had to deal with the congressional threat to the internet known as SOPA. The Stop Online Piracy Act is a federal bill which would create a blacklist of websites which internet service providers would be required to maintain and enforce. The blacklist would allegedly include websites which either host or link to data which, per its existence, is violating copyright laws. The very concept of ‘piracy’ is on its face hyperbolic. It is laughable Newspeak to equate data sharing with the practice of pillaging vessels at sea. PIPA, the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act, is the senate version of the dinosaur recording industry’s legislative attempt to thwart the free exchange of information. Also lobbying very strongly with the MPAA is the pharmaceutical industry, which profits heavily from onerous intellectual property regulation.
Reddit was the first eminent domain of the internet to announce January 18 as its blackout date to protest SOPA. Wikipedia announced its participation with similar measures. Google demonstrated its solidarity by featuring a black stripped homepage with a subheader requesting that people contact their so-called representatives and ask for a rejection of state control over the internet.
Heavy traffic to government servers hosting contact information for congress and the senate caused many pages to be inaccessible for the day.
On January 9, the public hearing on Manchester police department’s CALEA accreditation was held. CALEA is the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies. Agencies seeking certification must pay CALEA for the process, which is administered by current and former law enforcement officers. CALEA certification is primarily intended for larger departments, and aids the department in insuring itself against liability. The biannual hearing is open to anyone with input, positive or negative, on whether a police department should be given passing certification. A quick Google search does not reveal evidence of a department ever having failed the CALEA certification process.
