Dwindling Civil Libierties

Salon is starting a series “exploring the erosion of civil rights and personal freedom in the United States since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.” They kick it off re-covering the Miami FTAA protests (that we discussed awhile back) that seem to indicate an increased violent reaction by local police against protestors.

They were bolstered by an $8.5 million appropriation that President Bush tacked onto the $87 billion Iraq reconstruction bill to pay for FTAA security.
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Miami Mayor Manny Diaz called the cops’ performance “a model for homeland security.”

I guess I was mistaken when I thought “Homeland Security” was about protecting the citizens of this country from foreign attacks.

The slides also identified the lime-green baseball caps donned by the legal observers who accompany most major protests. According to Rodriguez-Taseff, when the slide appeared, Fernandez said, “These are their lawyers. They’re there to antagonize police.”

A lot of this article focuses on the politicization of the police. From quotes like this it seems clear that they were certainly biased against the protestors. Pre-emptive strikes seemed to be the police’s m.o. in Miami. It’s not surprising to know this state is run by a Bush.

At that point, the police finally issued an order to disperse, but at the same time, they started closing in. Video from the scene shows people chanting, “We are dispersing. We are dispersing.” But the police wouldn’t let them.
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Still, it could have been worse: “I talked to a couple of women who were strip-searched by male officers,” she says.

Posted by etrigan at December 17, 2003 1:49 PM