Protesters here in Minneapolis have been targeted by a series of highly intimidating, sweeping police raids across the city, involving teams of 25-30 officers in riot gear, with sub-machine guns drawn, entering homes of those suspected of planning protests, handcuffing and forcing them to lay on the floor, while law enforcement officers searched the homes, seizing computers, journals, and political pamphlets. Last night, members of the St. Paul police department and the Ramsey County sheriff's department handcuffed and detained dozens of people meeting at a public venue to plan a demonstration, and early this morning, the Sheriff's department sent teams of officers into at least four Minneapolis area homes where suspected protesters were staying.
Welcome to AmeriKA; Your Papers, Please.
Read the rest of Greenwald's post. This is scary shit. Anticipatory raids, based on the possibility of a protest! And this is DEMOCRACY in action? Forget actually assembling somewhere to protest, now the police will just come and raid your house, take your computers and things, before you even actually, you know, PROTEST SOMETHING? What fucking country is this? I hardly recognize this America, and I know it's not the America I was born in. Maybe this is all just a dream, and I'm really not from America, I'm an illegal alien ... from another planet.
UPDATE 9/1/08:
As the police attacks on protesters in Minnesota continue -- see this video of the police swarming a bus transporting members of Earth Justice, seizing the bus and leaving the group members stranded on the side of the highway -- it appears increasingly clear that it is the Federal Government that is directing this intimidation campaign. Minnesota Public Radio reported yesterday that "the searches were led by the Ramsey County Sheriff's office. Deputies coordinated searches with the Minneapolis and St. Paul police departments and the Federal Bureau of Investigation."
Why is it I am reminded of the Nixon administration, and its fear of the "radical hippies" at this point in time in history? Forty years later, and the Republicans in charge are still afraid of protesters? Loved the outcry and the obvious disconect of our "media" with respect to the Bejing Olympics and the crackdown on civil rights ... nothing but cricket sounds coming out of the same "media" with respect to the crackdown on American citizens and their civil rights.
Chirp, chirp, chirp. ZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
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