The demonstrators arrived angry, departed furious. The police had herded them into pens. Stopped them from handing out fliers. Threatened them with arrest for standing on public sidewalks. Made notes on which politicians they cheered and which ones they razzed.
Meanwhile, officers from a special unit videotaped their faces, evoking for one demonstrator the unblinking eye of George Orwell’s “1984.”
“That’s Big Brother watching you,” the demonstrator, Walter Liddy, said in a deposition.
Mr. Liddy’s complaint about police tactics, while hardly novel from a big-city protester, stands out because of his job: He is a New York City police officer. The rallies he attended were organized in the summer of 2004 by his union, the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, to protest the pace of contract talks with the city.
Now the officers, through their union, are suing the city, charging that the police procedures at their demonstrations — many of them routinely used at war protests, antipoverty marches and mass bike rides — were so heavy-handed and intimidating that their First Amendment rights were violated.
February 3rd, 2006
Layers upon layers of irony
posted by Tom Tomorrow at 10:00 AM | link
February 3rd, 2006 at 10:05 am
“That’s Big Brother watching you,” the demonstrator, Walter Liddy, said in a deposition.
I guess he’d know. Who writes up the procedures for police tactics regarding a rally? I’d think/hope that frontline officers had a fair bit of say about what tactics worked best. I think an interesting side angle to this story is that the officers have to bring legal action to revise their own tactics.
February 3rd, 2006 at 10:24 am
“And then they came for me”
February 3rd, 2006 at 10:24 am
I’m not sure what it’s like in the rest of the country, but when the Chimperor comes to Oregon “free speech zones” are set up by the police. They seem to always be at least a mile away from the route taken by the motorcade, and like the example above, the areas are fenced off by the police. The final insult is that the tax-payers are picking up the tab to help insulate Bush from reality.
February 3rd, 2006 at 10:28 am
I guess that’s the answer to “Who watches the Watchmen?”
February 3rd, 2006 at 10:43 am
What have we come to in this country?
I always find it amusing when Police unions seek labor solidarity. This is indeed a new level of irony
February 3rd, 2006 at 11:01 am
I gave you a link from SpeakSpeak News:
http://www.speakspeak.org/speak-blog/2006/02/03/protests-the-view-from-the-other-side-3/
I also urge people to watch this video (
February 3rd, 2006 at 11:03 am
The rest of my post should have said that I urge people to watch this video at the “Current TV” website about NYPD tactics againt protesters:
http://www.current.tv/studio/media/1051113