posted February 18, 2006 11:07 AM              

Houston eyes cameras at apartment complexes

By PAM EASTON
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

HOUSTON -- Houston's police chief on Wednesday proposed placing surveillance cameras in apartment complexes, downtown streets, shopping malls and even private homes to fight crime during a shortage of police officers.

"I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?" Chief Harold Hurtt told reporters Wednesday at a regular briefing.

Houston is facing a severe police shortage because of too many retirements and too few recruits, and the city has absorbed 150,000 hurricane evacuees who are filling apartment complexes in crime-ridden neighborhoods. The City Council is considering a public safety tax to pay for more officers.

Building permits should require malls and large apartment complexes to install surveillance cameras, Hurtt said. And if a homeowner requires repeated police response, it is reasonable to require camera surveillance of the property, he said.

Scott Henson, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Police Accountability Project in Texas, called Hurtt's building-permit proposal "radical and extreme" and said it may violate the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable searches.

Andy Teas with the Houston Apartment Association said that although some would consider cameras an invasion of privacy, "I think a lot of people would appreciate the thought of extra eyes looking out for them."

Such cameras are costly, Houston Mayor Bill White said, "but on the other hand we spend an awful lot for patrol presence." He called the chief's proposal a "brainstorm" rather than a decision.

The program would require City Council approval.

posted February 18, 2006 11:21 AM              

This is the tip of the iceberg....

posted February 18, 2006 11:43 AM              

Those bagpipes you hear playing in the background provide a much-needed funeral dirge for freedom, which died this week at the hands of the United States Congress.

Freedom has been on its deathbed for about five years now, mortally-wounded in the post-9/11 frenzy that put political expediency above the Constitution and gave paranoia supremacy over what used to be guarantees of individual rights for all Americans.

Freedom went on the endangered-species list in the hours following the 9/11 attacks when President George W. Bush turned to attorney general John Ashcroft and said "John, take whatever steps you feel are necessary to make sure something like this never, ever, happens again."

Turning a zealot like Ashcroft loose on the Constitution is like giving Bill Clinton the keys to a sorority house. Someone is going to get screwed big-time and in this case it was, collectively, the whole concept of freedom and individual rights in this country.

Ashcroft crafted his personal vision of a new America, one ruled by a police state reporting to a totalitarian government, and called it the USA Patriot Act.

It sailed through a shell-shocked Congress like a fraternity on a panty raid and gave Bush and his gang of thugs all they needed to create a new American Gestapo, detaining this nation's citizens without due course, spying on Americans without warrants and setting the country on a headlong rush to ruin.

The abuses of the Patriot Act proved so onerous that even firebrand conservatives like Bob Barr joined forces with uber-liberals like the American Civil Liberties Union to fight it.

Late last year, spurred by anger over Bush's admission that he authorized the warrantless spying on Americans by the National Security Act, the Patriot Act appeared to face serious opposition when it came up for renewal. Congress twice granted temporary extensions and promised to add new language to protect the civil liberties of Americans.

But, as happens all too often in Washington, those promises vanished into thin air as the Patriot Act this week cleared hurdle after hurdle and heads for permanent renewal when the goons who call themselves our elected representatives return from the President's Day recess.

In the end, the White House "negotiated" a set of meaningless changes with a handful of Republicans and the so-called compromise sailed through the Senate Thursday on a 96-3 vote. Even worse, the Republican-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee successfully blocked attempts to open an inquiry in Bush's use of the National Security Agency to spy on Americans.

Not that the Democrats did that much to stop it. Even those who spoke out about Bush's spying on Americans said they supported the concept but only opposed how the President went about it. As long as he got warrants, they said, they didn't really care who the NSA snooped on. And a bunch of Democrats joined with Republicans Thursday to keep the rights-robbing USA Patriot Act the law of the land.

Which means virtually no one - Democratic or Republican, conservative or liberal, left or right - can claim the high road when it comes to destroying freedom in the United States. Only Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., seems to realize the dangers of the act, continuing to fight it and saying the law, even as amended, allows "government fishing expeditions" and an outright assault on the Constitution.

For the most part, the rest of Congress sold out the people who elected them to office, all Americans who depend on Congress to serve as a check and balance on the excesses of the White House and the Constitution of the United States.

Yes, freedom died this week and just about every one of the bitches and ******** who "serve" in Congress should take a long, hard look at the blood on their hands. They stand guilty of high crimes and treason against the United States of America. They are traitors and should be treated as such.

by Doug Thompson
2/18/06

**************************************

posted February 18, 2006 05:13 PM              

quote:

---

HOUSTON -- Houston's police chief on Wednesday proposed placing surveillance cameras in apartment complexes, downtown streets, shopping malls and even private homes to fight crime during a shortage of police officers.

---

posted February 20, 2006 01:54 PM              

I don't like where our government is going with it's snooping....

The following is an article about what else they're trying to do...*sigh*

posted February 20, 2006 01:56 PM              

By Greg Szymanski

2/18/06

The wicked, oppressive and sinister eyes of Homeland Security are everywhere, as average Americans from east coast to west are quickly learning what it means to "to be shut up" by fascist rules and regulations designed to "to toe the party line" or else!

In Seattle, 9/11 truth seeker Susan Elmes knows what it's like to have her apartment raided and her cat poisoned for putting anti-Bush bumper stickers on her car.

In the small town of Livingston, Montana, Dan Nelson knows what it's like to be run-off the road by Homeland Security vehicles and zapped by electronic weaponry for researching 9/11 and going pubic with his anti-government findings.

And now from Boise comes another horror story about how one more average American has been contacted by Homeland Security agents and told "point blank" to remove several bumper stickers from his Ford Ranger parked in a federal employee parking lot where he works.

"We are living under fascism and this is one of the most repressive government's I have seen in my 51 years," said federal employee and former Navy veteran, Dwight Scarbrough, in an extended Friday phone conversation from his Boise home. "What happened to me was a typical example of fascist behavior. They are destroying the fabric of our communities in so many ways, including killing off our children in Iraq and ruining the financial base of our cities."

Scarbrough, who served in the Navy on a submarine from 1975-80 at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, said "it was ironic" that during his military stint he supposedly protected his country from the "Red Scare" while now he lived under it right here in America.

As a perfect example of the "New American Fascist State," he said on February 7 two officers from Homeland Security approached him at his office at the Natural Resource Center, saying he had to immediately remove the bumper stickers from his vehicle for being in violation of federal law in displaying "placards on public property."

The bumper stickers in question were "Death in Iraq is not a career opportunity for young Americans, Freedom is the distance between church and state and God blesses all nations, not just the U.S.A." Besides the stickers, on the tail gate of his Ranger, Scarbrough lists the updated Iraqi War death count and injured weekly, saying this week the totals are 2,271 dead and more than 16,500 injured.

"I told the agents I wasn't taking off the bumper stickers and that the law in question does not cover signs or placards on my vehicle which is personal property," said Scrabrough who told agents he was taping the conversation that took place by his Ranger.

Since the incident, Homeland Security has not contacted Scarbrough and he has filed a First Amendment lawsuit to protect his speech rights with a notable Boise civil rights attorney, Michael Bartlett of Nevin, Benjamin and McKay.

"Since have spent much time overseas, I see my country through the eyes of my foreign friends," said Scarbrough, adding he thinks it's of utmost importance to fight back against fascism before it's too late. "My friends overseas like the American people, realize 9/11 was caused by the U.S. government and hate the American imperialistic policies, killing people throughout the world."