Although, police are civilians and have privacy rights. Only should be used when dealing offical business with the public

Quote from: IcyWind on November 24, 2014, 08:28:54 PM

Quote from: Kinder on November 24, 2014, 08:28:28 PM

Quote from: IcyWind on November 24, 2014, 08:25:46 PM

The officer has not been indicted.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

All you want to say?

JUSTICE HAS BEEN SERVED

ST. LOUIS — Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon issued an urgent plea for calm Monday as prosecutors prepared to announce whether a grand jury has indicted Darren Wilson, the white Ferguson, Mo., police officer whose fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager sparked days of turbulent protests.

While Nixon (D) said he didn’t know what the grand jury has decided, he expressed the fervent hope that “regardless of the decision, people on all sides will show tolerance and mutual respect.’’ Saying he had visited on Monday with Ferguson residents, Nixon said “It’s understandable that they, like the rest of us, are on edge waiting for the decision.’’

But the governor made clear that acts of violence will not be tolerated. “We are making sure that the necessary resources are on hand to protect lives, to protect property and to protect free speech, he said at a news conference, adding that he has deployed the Missouri National Guard to provide security at police stations, fire houses and utility substations.

St. Louis County executive Charlie Dooley issued a similar plea for protesters to remain peaceful. “I want people to think with their heads and not their emotions,’’ he said. “I do not want people in this community to think they have to barricade their doors or take up arms. We are not that kind of community.’’

The strongly worded statements spoke to the growing concern in a community that has been bracing for protests if Wilson does not face charges in the August shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, which triggered a frank conversation about race and police interaction with African Americans.

The decision will be announced Monday night, the county prosecutor’s office said. The office gave no details about what the grand jury has decided. Brown’s family has been notified of the announcement but has not been told about the grand jury’s decision, family attorney Benjamin Crump said.

The grand jury’s decision is the latest turn in a case marked in the national consciousness by the stunning images of clashes between protesters and police wearing riot gear and deploying tear gas in the days after Brown’s death. Details of the grand jury’s deliberations have leaked out in recent weeks, angering the Brown family and protesters who saw it as a signal that no charges would be filed.

Although a parallel federal civil rights investigation of the shooting is continuing, federal investigators have all but concluded that they do not have a case against Wilson, law enforcement officials have said. Federal investigators are also conducting a broader probe of the Ferguson Police Department.

If Wilson is not charged, government officials have discussed emergency plans in the event of a violent reaction, while protest and community leaders have mapped out their response in hopes of avoiding the unrest that exploded after Brown was killed.

In an interview with ABC News that aired Sunday, President Obama called for calm.

“Well, I think, first and foremost, keep protests peaceful,” he said. “You know, this is a country that allows everybody to express their views, allows them to peacefully assemble to protest actions that they think are unjust. But using any event as an excuse for violence is contrary to rule of law and contrary to who we are.”

Quote from: IcyWind on November 24, 2014, 05:26:34 PM

Quote from: Mr Psychologist on November 24, 2014, 05:03:51 PM

Quote from: Kinder on November 24, 2014, 04:50:10 PM

Quote from: Mr Psychologist on November 24, 2014, 03:40:36 PM

Quote from: Kinder on November 24, 2014, 03:09:00 PM

-Celebrities don’t deserve the right to complain about the paparazzi
-We need to stop giving a fuck about feelings. If a person gets offended then oh fucking well, get the fuck over it
-Affirmative action should be illegal
-Al Sharpton should be arrested for inciting riots and destruction of property
-Militias have the right to patrol the border and shoot on sight
-Bring back corporal punishment in schools
-Some kids are just plain stupid and will have to be left behind
-Repeal ObamaCare and make it illegal for the government to pass similar taxes
-Legalize prostitution
-Self-defense and gun ownership is a natural right
-Politicians don't deserve to be paid or have a salary
-People should not be expected to pay taxes if the government can't balance the budget
-Life begins at conception
-Religion is a basis for morals
-Gold standard is the only hope for the world economy
-Free trade agreements purposely exploit 3rd world countries
-Stop foreign aid and prioritize the nation before others
-Build a fucking wall and deport people who are here illegally
-Being able to comprehensible read and speak English should be a citizenship requirement
-Endorse a Prostate Cancer Awareness month/Male History Month
-Label groups like the KKK and New Black Panther Party as hate and terrorist organizations
-Ban socialist and communist parties
-Division of California into separate states
-GMOs can't be trusted
-Monsanto should be broken up for being a monopoly
-Suicide is evidence of natural selection
-People on government assistance should not be able to give birth
-Not all cultures are equal
-Prisoners should not be charged for murder if they kill somebody behind bars
-A wife's first priority is to be in charge of the household and children
-Diseases like cancer, diabetes, heart disease, etc is natures way of population control
-We've gone overboard on vaccination
-Men have equal say in abortion and raising children
-Father should not be forced to pay child support if he wants an abortion
-Women studies is one of the most retarded degrees a person can get
-A person must pass a simple government test before getting a voter ID


I can think of more later.

*grabs popcorn*

Kinder, before I waste any time on this I just want to check one thing.

You identify as a libertarian right?

This is an opinion thread, not a political platform thread

Deflecting, Okay cool.

You expected otherwise?

Somebody needs to rewatch some VHS tapes of Reading Rainbow again

Quote from: Priscilla on November 24, 2014, 03:18:31 PM

Quote from: Kinder on November 24, 2014, 03:14:36 PM

Fucking hope it's a no indictment verdict

Forensics show that the wounds the punk suffered indicate his arms had been down, as that's where the entry points are located. The exit holes show when his hands are raised up, like the punk's friends is trying to lie about

I believe he was into rap, not punk.

No, he was a punk; as in a piece of shit. He robbed a store and assaulted the owner, it's more than certain his juvenile record is pilled high

-Celebrities don’t deserve the right to complain about the paparazzi
-We need to stop giving a fuck about feelings. If a person gets offended then oh fucking well, get the fuck over it
-Al Sharpton should be arrested for inciting riots and destruction of property
-Militias have the right to patrol the border and shoot on sight
-Bring back corporal punishment in schools
-Some kids are just plain stupid and will have to be left behind
-Repeal ObamaCare and make it illegal for the government to pass similar taxes
-Politicians don't deserve to be paid or have a salary
-People should not be expected to pay taxes if the government can't balance the budget
-Life begins at conception
-Religion is a basis for morals
-Stop foreign aid and prioritize the nation before others
-Build a fucking wall and deport people who are here illegally
-Being able to comprehensible read and speak English should be a citizenship requirement
-Ban socialist and communist parties
-Division of California into separate states
-GMOs can't be trusted
-Suicide is evidence of natural selection
-People on government assistance should not be able to give birth
-Not all cultures are equal
-Prisoners should not be charged for murder if they kill somebody behind bars
-A wife's first priority is to be in charge of the household and children
-We've gone overboard on vaccination
-A person must pass a simple government test before getting a voter ID

-Al Sharpton should be arrested for inciting riots and destruction of property
-Militias have the right to patrol the border and shoot on sight
-Build a fucking wall and deport people who are here illegally
-Being able to comprehensible read and speak English should be a citizenship requirement
-Ban socialist and communist parties
-A wife's first priority is to be in charge of the household and children

So everyone but Icy is a journalist? Seems fishy.

Monitor =/= staff

Quote from: IcyWind on November 24, 2014, 11:34:00 AM

Quote from: Kinder on November 24, 2014, 11:32:05 AM

Guess I was wrong about Obama wanting to work with Republicans, seeing as he's firing the only one in his cabinet

That is totally logical thinking.

It actually is. Obama talks all big about gridlock and wanting to work with others but this proves he can't tolerate the ideas of others that are not his. Instead of working on a plan with Hagel, he just fires him

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel handed in his resignation on Monday, the first cabinet-level casualty of the collapse of President Obama’s Democratic majority in the Senate and the struggles of his national security team to respond to an onslaught of global crises.

The president is to announce the resignation from the State Dining Room of the White House at around 11:15 a.m. Eastern time.

Administration officials said that Mr. Obama made the decision to remove Mr. Hagel, the sole Republican on his national security team, last Friday after a series of meetings between the two men over the past two weeks.

The officials characterized the decision as a recognition that the threat from the militant group Islamic State will require different skills from those that Mr. Hagel, who often struggled to articulate a clear viewpoint and was widely viewed as a passive defense secretary, was brought in to employ.

Mr. Hagel, a combat veteran who was skeptical about the Iraq war, came in to manage the Afghanistan combat withdrawal and the shrinking Pentagon budget in the era of budget sequestrations.

Now, however, the American military is back on a war footing, although it is a modified one. Some 3,000 American troops are being deployed in Iraq to help the Iraqi military fight the Sunni militants of the Islamic State, even as the administration struggles to come up with, and articulate, a coherent strategy to defeat the group in both Iraq and Syria.

“The next couple of years will demand a different kind of focus,” one administration official said, speaking on grounds of anonymity. He insisted that Mr. Hagel was not fired, saying that he initiated discussions about his future two weeks ago with the president, and that the two men mutually agreed that it was time for him to leave.

But Mr. Hagel’s aides had maintained in recent weeks that he expected to serve the full four years as defense secretary. His removal appears to be an effort by the White House to show that it is sensitive to critics who have pointed to stumbles in the government’s early response to several national security issues, including the Ebola crisis and the threat posed by the Islamic State.

Even before the announcement of Mr. Hagel’s removal, Obama officials were speculating on his possible replacement. At the top of the list are Michèle A. Flournoy, a former under secretary of defense; Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island and a former officer with the Army’s 82nd Airborne; and Ashton B. Carter, a former deputy secretary of defense.

A respected former senator who struck a friendship with Mr. Obama when they were both critics of the Iraq war from positions on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Mr. Hagel has nonetheless had trouble penetrating the tight team of former campaign aides and advisers who form Mr. Obama’s closely knit set of loyalists. Senior administration officials have characterized him as quiet during cabinet meetings; Mr. Hagel’s defenders said that he waited until he was alone with the president before sharing his views, the better to avoid leaks.

Whatever the case, Mr. Hagel struggled to fit in with Mr. Obama’s close circle and was viewed as never gaining traction in the administration after a bruising confirmation fight among his old Senate colleagues, during which he was criticized for seeming tentative in his responses to sharp questions.

He never really shed that pall after arriving at the Pentagon, and in the past few months he has largely ceded the stage to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, who officials said initially won the confidence of Mr. Obama with his recommendation of military action against the Islamic State.

In Mr. Hagel’s less than two years on the job, his detractors said he struggled to inspire confidence at the Pentagon in the manner of his predecessors, especially Robert M. Gates. But several of Mr. Obama’s top advisers over the past few months have also acknowledged privately that the president did not want another high-profile defense secretary in the mold of Mr. Gates, who went on to write a memoir of his years with Mr. Obama in which he sharply criticized the president. Mr. Hagel, they said, in many ways was exactly the kind of defense secretary whom the president, after battling the military during his first term, wanted.

Mr. Hagel, for his part, spent his time on the job largely carrying out Mr. Obama’s stated wishes on matters like bringing back American troops from Afghanistan and trimming the Pentagon budget, with little pushback. He did manage to inspire loyalty among enlisted soldiers and often seemed at his most confident when talking to troops or sharing wartime experiences as a Vietnam veteran.

But Mr. Hagel has often had problems articulating his thoughts — or administration policy — in an effective manner, and has sometimes left reporters struggling to describe what he has said in news conferences. In his side-by-side appearances with both General Dempsey and Secretary of State John Kerry, Mr. Hagel, a decorated Vietnam veteran and the first former enlisted combat soldier to be defense secretary, has often been upstaged.

He raised the ire of the White House in August as the administration was ramping up its strategy to fight the Islamic State, directly contradicting the president, who months before had likened the Sunni militant group to a junior varsity basketball squad. Mr. Hagel, facing reporters in his now-familiar role next to General Dempsey, called the Islamic State an “imminent threat to every interest we have,” adding, “This is beyond anything that we’ve seen.” White House officials later said they viewed those comments as unhelpful, although the administration still appears to be struggling to define just how large is the threat posed by the Islamic State.

My unflinching, unchanging stance is that all speech deserves protection. If all ideas are not protected, freedom of speech does not exist. This does apply to the nations that outlaw Nazism and "hate speech". These restrictions are indicative of a society that does not value free thinking, they are indicative of a society that will only accept one morality and one worldview.

About a week after Tara Elonis persuaded a judge to issue a protective order against her estranged husband, Anthony, her soon-to-be ex had this to say:

“Fold up your PFA [protection-from-abuse order] and put it in your pocket

Is it thick enough to stop a bullet?”

Anthony Elonis didn’t deliver the message in person, by phone or in a note. Instead, he posted it on his Facebook page, for all to see, in a prose style reminiscent of the violent, misogynistic lyrics of rap artists he admired.

In its first examination of the limits of free speech on social media, the Supreme Court will consider next week whether, as a jury concluded, Elonis’s postings constituted a “true threat” to his wife and others.

The issue is whether Elonis should be prosecuted for what he says was simply blowing off steam — “therapeutic efforts to address traumatic events,” as his brief to the court says — because what matters is not his intent but whether any reasonable person targeted in the rants would regard them as menacing warnings.

Parties on both sides of the groundbreaking case are asking the court to consider the unique qualities of social media. In this rapidly evolving realm of communication, only the occasional emoticon may signal whether a writer is engaging in satire or black humor, exercising poetic license, or delivering the kind of grim warnings that have presaged school shootings and other acts of mass violence.

Elonis, who has served prison time for his Facebook posts, and some of his supporters say the court must look beyond incendiary content to discern the writer’s intent.

“Internet users may give vent to emotions on which they have no intention of acting, memorializing expressions of momentary anger or exasperation that once were communicated face-to-face among friends and dissipated harmlessly,” said a brief filed on Elonis’s behalf by the Student Press Law Center, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the writers organization PEN.

Domestic violence experts, on the other hand, say social media has become a powerful tool for dispensing threats.

Victims of domestic abuse, according to a brief filed by the National Network to End Domestic Violence, “have experienced real-life terror caused by increasingly graphic and public posts to Facebook and other social media sites — terror that is exacerbated precisely because abusers now harness the power of technology, ‘enabling them to reach their victims’ everyday lives at the click of a mouse or the touch of a screen.’”

The case carries wide First Amendment implications for free-speech rights and artistic expression. Briefs laden with the f-word and vulgar references to the female anatomy attempt to provide a crash course on Eminem and Wu-Tang Clan for the justices, whose tastes lean more toward Wagner and Puccini, and illuminate what some scholars say are the misunderstood storytelling attributes of rap.

It is a thoroughly modern case for justices who even eschew e-mail communications with one another but are increasingly called upon to decide issues centered on evolving technology. Last term alone, they decided cases involving cellphone privacy, software patents and cloud-based Internet streaming video.

Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr., representing the government, offered a basic primer on social media in his brief to the court. “Facebook ‘friends,’ ” he explained, “generally will have access to each other’s posts and will also see each other’s new content as part of a live newsfeed.”

A number of people watched Elonis’s news feed with growing alarm during a two-month period in 2010. His wife had left with their two children, and Elonis, then 27 and working at Dorney Park and Wildwater Kingdom amusement park in Allentown, Pa., grew increasingly despondent and angry.

He was fired after co-workers interpreted one of his Facebook postings as a threat to them. He responded: “Someone once told me that I was a firecracker. Nah, I’m a nuclear bomb and Dorney Park just f—-- with the timer.”

Elonis’s lawyer in the Supreme Court case, Washington attorney John P. Elwood, noted for the court that the posting was “followed by an emoticon of a face with its tongue sticking out to indicate ‘jest.’ ”

In other postings, Elonis suggested that his son dress as “Matricide” for Halloween, with his wife’s “head on a stick” as a prop. He pondered making a name for himself by shooting up an elementary school and noted that there were so many nearby to choose from — “hell hath no fury like a crazy man in a kindergarten class.”

That brought a visit from an FBI agent, and the prolific Elonis later recalled that with this posting:

“Little Agent Lady stood so close

Took all the strength I had not to turn the b—-

ghost

Pull my knife, flick my wrist, and slit her throat”

There was much more. But Elwood’s brief noted that Elonis created a rapper-sounding pseudonym — “Tone Dougie,” a combination of his first and middle names — for his screeds and sprinkled the postings with references to his “art” and First Amendment speech rights.

True, the language of the posts was violent, the brief notes, but the same is true of his hero Eminem, who frequently rapped about violent fantasies involving his ex-wife.

Tone Dougie posted explicit disclaimers about his “fictitious lyrics” and, according to his brief, made clear that they did “not reflect the views, values, or beliefs of Anthony Elonis the person.”

Some courts require prosecutors to show that a defendant intends to make good on warnings in order to obtain a conviction for communicating “any threat to injure the person of another.”

But most do not, and the judge in Elonis’s case instructed jurors that the government had to prove only that a reasonable person would view the postings as “a serious expression of an intention to inflict bodily injury or take the life of an individual.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit in Philadelphia upheld Elonis’s conviction, and he served more than three years of a 44-month sentence before his release from prison.

The Supreme Court has never given a clear answer as to whether intent must be proved. In a 1969 case, the court ruled in favor of a war protester charged with threatening President Lyndon B. Johnson: “If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is L.B.J.”

The court in a brief order said it was clear from laughter both from the speaker and his audience at the antiwar rally that the words were not a true threat.

Elwood said in an interview that one of the things that makes this case important is that there is no way in social media to pick up the “cues and signals” that would indicate whether a speaker is serious or joking, threatening or hyperbolic.

He pointed to the Supreme Court’s language in a 2002 decision about Virginia’s law against cross-burning. The court said constitutionally unprotected “true threats” encompass “those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit . . . unlawful violence.”

Verrilli argued in his brief that this language means only that such statements are a “type” of true threat, not the only type.

“A bomb threat that appears to be serious is equally harmful regardless of the speaker’s private state of mind,” Verrilli wrote, adding: “Juries are fully capable of distinguishing between metaphorical expression of strong emotions and statements that have the clear sinister meaning of a threat.”

In Elonis’s case, Verrilli pointed out, the jury acquitted him of threatening his amusement park co-workers while finding that the threats against his wife, schoolchildren and the FBI agent were serious.

A brief filed by the Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project at the University of Florida and two rap-music scholars, Erik Nielson at the University of Richmond and Charis E. Kubrin of the University of California at Irvine, advises the court that intent is especially important when considering rap.

Some of the images for which Elonis was prosecuted, Nielson said in an interview, are no different from the ones that have won Eminem 13 Grammys.

But the government says the very popularity of rap music shows there is no reason to think that using the reasonable-listener standard would inhibit speech or artistic expression.

“If rap music has thrived . . . a true-threats standard that does not require proof of subjective intent can hardly be thought to chill the speech that petitioner highlights,” Verrilli wrote.

“Eminem’s lyrics, Bob Dylan’s music and other examples cited by petitioner do not involve factual backdrops even remotely analogous” to Elonis’s, he said.

Elonis v. U.S. is scheduled for oral arguments Dec. 1.