EVERYONE MUST BRING ID & submit to full body patdowns if they wanted to attend the New Year's Eve celebration
Cleveland, OH — City officials invited residents to bring in the new year in a hyper-controlled gathering in Cleveland’s Public Square. People were told that for visiting the square they would be subjected to a “full inspection of your person” and “a complete pat down.” Checkpoints were conducted to detect a list of prohibited items so long that would make a prison guard blush.
During the pat downs, party-goers would be searched for things like tampons, eye drops, food, candy, beverages, flashlights, and pacifiers. Purses and diaper bags were prohibited, as were chairs and blankets.
The list of prohibitions went on: no stuffed animals, no cameras, no coolers, no balls, no frisbees, no dolls, no stickers, no fliers, and of course, no legal means of self-defense.
“It’s going to be a safe event,” said Harold Pretel, Commander of Homeland Services.
Despite the 20-degree chill, the attendance was expected to be the biggest in 15 years. All 4 ‘squares’ of Public Square were filled with people.
The checkpoints may have been a somewhat fitting start 2014, which is sure to bring all sorts of new invasions of privacy and advancements of the police state.
Cleveland prohibited items list: CANDY, UNSEALED TAMPONS, EYE DROPS & MORE!
Click here to read City Hall's list of prohibited items.
Below is City Halls instructions to all residents, bring your ID's!
To ensure all guests have a safe time patrons are ONLY allowed to bring in the following items...
* License/ State ID
* Cell telephones
* Credit cards & currency
http://clecityhall.com/2013/12/30/celebrate-nye-safely-tips-and-reminders-from-the-city-of-cleveland/
http://www.policestateusa.com/2014/cleveland-new-years-eve-checkpoints/#!
Court ruled an innocent, noncriminal act of driving is deemed suspicious and allows police to stop & search you:
California - A combination of non-suspicious driving characteristics can give rise to the suspicion of criminal activity in the opinion of the full Ninth Circuit US Court of Appeals. In a Christmas Eve ruling, the judges weighed whether Border Patrol agents were right to conduct a "border stop" of a red Ford F-150 pickup truck on Interstate 15 while 70 miles north of the border with Mexico.
Border Patrol Agent Luis Lopez spotted the Ford weaving through traffic without signaling, driving about 10 MPH faster than other traffic that day. Agent Jeffery Hays, in a marked Border Patrol vehicle, pulled next to the red truck, but its driver, Rufino Ignacio Valdes-Vega, kept his eyes watching the road ahead. Hays deemed that suspicious. In addition, Hays noted there were no other people in the Ford, which was clean and had Baja California license plates. Agent Hays pulled Valdes-Vega over, but not for traffic violations. He wanted to perform a search of the truck. When he did, he found drugs.
The court was asked to review whether the initial traffic stop was legitimate. Border Patrol agents are allowed to conduct brief investigatory stops if they have a particularized, objective reason to suspect an individual of criminal activity.
"The fact that Valdes-Vega's truck had Mexican license plates made the possibility that it had recently crossed the border significantly more likely," Judge Ronald M. Gould wrote for the court majority. "And the border patrol agents noted that the type of vehicle was significant because trucks are suitable for carrying large amounts of contraband and make it difficult for agents to see into the vehicle."
The court majority concluded that these factors taken together with the slightly fast driving created suspicion that the man behind the wheel was likely to be a smuggler.
"Even innocent, noncriminal acts can foster reasonable suspicion in the total context," Judge Gould wrote. "There is no need for an officer to rule out an innocent explanation. This holds true even if it is far from certain that the suspect is actually engaged in illegal activity."
Three judges disagreed with their colleagues and found it preposterous to find that any combination of factors observed in this particular case would suggest the driver was a criminal.
"Let's cut to the chase," Judge Harry Pregerson wrote in his dissent. "Border patrol agents stopped Valdes-Vega because of his Hispanic appearance... Driving without signaling lane changes and faster than the flow of traffic on a major, busy California interstate highway -- not uncommon in California -- is referred to by the majority as 'perhaps one of the most important factors in the total circumstances here.' Such driving, plus defendant's Hispanic appearance, plus his eyes on the road, plus his driving a clean Ford F-150, plus the Baja plates, did not create a reasonable suspicion that criminal activity was afoot."
http://thenewspaper.com/rlc/docs/2014/us-rovingstop.pdf
Life in the emerging American police state: What’s in store for our freedoms in 2014?
In the emerging American police state find ourselves reliving the same set of circumstances over and over again—egregious surveillance, strip searches, police shootings of unarmed citizens, government spying, the criminalization of lawful activities, warmongering, etc.—although with far fewer moments of comic hilarity.
Government spying. It’s hard to understand how anyone could be surprised by the news that the National Security Agency has been systematically collecting information on all telephone calls placed in the United States, and yet the news media have treated it as a complete revelation. Nevertheless, such outlandish government spying been going on domestically since the 1970s. Recent reports indicate that the NSA, in conjunction with the CIA and FBI, has actually gone so far as to intercept laptop computers ordered online in order to install spyware on them. Militarized police. With almost 13,000 agencies in all 50 states and four U.S. territories participating in a military “recycling” program, community police forces across the country continue to be transformed into outposts of the military, with police agencies acquiring military-grade hardware—tanks, weaponry, and other equipment designed for the battlefield—in droves. Keep in mind that once acquired, this military equipment finds itself put to all manner of uses by local law enforcement agencies under the rationale that “if we have it, we might as well use it.” Police shootings of unarmed citizens. Owing in large part to the militarization of local law enforcement agencies, not a week goes by without more reports of hair-raising incidents by police imbued with a take-no-prisoners attitude and a battlefield approach to the communities in which they serve. Sadly, it is no longer unusual to hear about incidents in which police shoot unarmed individuals first and ask questions later, such as the 16-year-old teenager who skipped school only to be shot by police after they mistook him for a fleeing burglar. The erosion of private property. If the government can tell you what you can and cannot do within the privacy of your home, whether it relates to what you eat or what you smoke, you no longer have any rights whatsoever within your home. If government officials can fine and arrest you for growing vegetables in your front yard, praying with friends in your living room, installing solar panels on your roof, and raising chickens in your backyard, you’re no longer the owner of your property. If government agents can invade your home, break down your doors, kill your dog, damage your furnishings and terrorize your family, your property is no longer private and secure—it belongs to the government. This is what a world without the Fourth Amendment looks like. Strip searches and the loss of bodily integrity. The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was intended to protect the citizenry from being subjected to “unreasonable searches and seizures” by government agents. While the literal purpose of the amendment is to protect our property and our bodies from unwarranted government intrusion, the moral intention behind it is to protect our human dignity. Unfortunately, court rulings undermining the Fourth Amendment and justifying invasive strip searches have left us powerless against police empowered to forcefully draw our blood, strip search us, and probe us intimately. Invasion of the drones. As corporations and government agencies alike prepare for their part in the coming drone invasion—it is expected that at least 30,000 drones will occupy U.S. airspace by 2020, ushering in a $30 billion per year industry—it won’t be long before Americans discover first-hand that drones—unmanned aerial vehicles—come in all shapes and sizes, from nano-sized drones as small as a grain of sand that can do everything from conducting surveillance to detonating explosive charges, to middle-sized copter drones that can deliver pizzas to massive “hunter/killer” Predator warships that unleash firepower from on high. Criminalizing childish behavior. It wouldn’t be a week in America without another slew of children being punished for childish behavior under the regime of zero tolerance which plagues our nation’s schools. Some of the most egregious: the 9-year-old boy suspended for allegedly pointing a toy at a classmate and saying “bang, bang”; two 6-year-old students in Maryland suspended for using their fingers as imaginary guns in a schoolyard game of cops and robbers; the ten-year-old Pennsylvania boy suspended for shooting an imaginary “arrow” at a fellow classmate, using nothing more than his hands and his imagination. Common Core. When viewed in light of the government’s ongoing attempts to amass power at great cost to Americans—in terms of free speech rights, privacy, due process, etc.—the debate over Common Core State Standards, which would transform and nationalize school curriculum from kindergarten through 12th grade, becomes that much more critical. These standards, which were developed through a partnership between big government and corporations and are being rolled out in 45 states and the District of Columbia, will create a generation of test-takers capable of little else, molded and shaped by the federal government and its corporate allies into what it considers to be ideal citizens.http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/01/john-w-whitehead/life-in-the-american-police-state/