In the wake of 9/11 the United States Congress passed the Federal Flight Deck Officer program. It was a great idea: allow professional pilots already entrusted with enormous responsibility to carry firearms while at work so that in the event of absolute catastrophe they can be the last line of defense.
The brave volunteer pilots who participate in the program are trained and managed by the TSA. Even though the program has been intentionally stalled by both the Bush and Obama Administrations, and burdened with ridiculous regulations (such as not allowing pilots to carry holstered firearms on their person), the program remains an excellent and free deterrent to air piracy/hijacking.
Ignoring for a minute the fact that municipal school boards in New Hampshire are political subdivisions that cannot tell their licensed employees that they cannot carry firearms, why not establish a voluntary FFDO-similar program available to all publicly employed teachers in our state?
The New Hampshire Police Standards and Training Council would be an ideal government agency for the General Court to task with assisting municipal school boards oversee training, compliance, and standards for public school teachers that wanted to participate. This isn’t a suggestion to make teachers police officers. This is a suggestion to make teachers able to protect themselves and others in the event of absolute catastrophe, just like in the air with the FFDO program.
If you have been trying to access the Keene Police Scanner stream over the past few days, it has sounded very distorted. That problem has been solved and the audio is again clear and understandable.
As always, you can tune in via your favorite media player via your computer or smartphone to KPD.FreeKeene.com (just use “open URL” in your favorite media player and put that in). If that link doesn’t work, you can enter: http://98.143.36.105:6060/live
The easiest way to listen on your smartphone is probably the Tunein app. It’s available for all phone operating systems. Just install the app and search for “Keene police”.
Published today is a half hour of discussion from Tuesday night’s episode of Free Talk Live covering the happenings around the recent bicycle headlamp/audio recording trial. Included are video from incidents cited during the radio show, featuring the coerced removal of a videographer from the lobby of the Concord District Court. See the full trial video at the FreeConcordTV youtube channel.
Media from the December 11 bicycle headlamp/audio recording trial continues to be created. Here’s an audio summary that was produced for Derrick J’s Peace News Now. Videos in raw format are available as arranged on a playlist here. Stay tuned for more.
On December 13, 2012 I had a trial in Newport District Court for expired vehicle registration. Specifically, I was charged with violating RSA 261:40. For those who aren’t familiar, Newport is a much smaller town than Keene. Normally in Keene, as well as Manchester, Concord and I would guess most other District Courts throughout New Hampshire, there are many people scheduled for trial at the same date and time. This was not the case in Newport. Aside from myself and seven others from Keene, the only people in the court were Trooper Hickox (who was prosecuting his own case), one bailiff, a court clerk and the judge.
Before the trial began, the judge issued an edict that only one camera would be allowed to operate during the trial, despite the fact that three individuals filed notices to record. He immediately took a brief recess so that the camera situation could be straightened out and stated that if a decision wasn’t reached on which camera was to be the camera to record the trial, that NO cameras would be allowed. (more…)
