Proposed Texas Law to Limit Photographing of Police

[Ranchu]

Police Departments Retaliate Against Organized "Cop Watch" Groups Across the US

Police Departments Retaliate Against Organized "Cop Watch" Groups Across the US

"Another internal email from APD senior officer Justin Berry identifies PSP as a "domestic extremist" organization. Berry writes that he believes police accountability groups including PSP, CopWatch and Cop Block are part of a "national domestic extremism trend." He believes he found "mirror warning signs" in "FBI intel." Berry makes a strange attempt to lump police accountability activists and the hacker-collective Anonymous in with sovereign citizens groups as a collective revolutionary movement.

"Sovereign citizens" groups generally believe federal, state and local governments are illegitimate and operate illegally. Some self-described sovereign citizens create fake license plates, identification and forms of currency to circumvent official government institutions. The FBI classifies the activities of sovereign citizens groups as domestic terrorism, considering the groups a growing "domestic threat" to law enforcement.

Buehler told Truthout the APD is working with a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) fusion center to attempt to identify PSP as a sovereign citizens group to associate its members with domestic terrorism with state and federal authorities. DHS fusion centers are designed to gather, analyze and promote the sharing of intelligence information between federal and state agencies.

"They have spent a fair amount of resources tracking us, spying on us and infiltrating our group, and we are just peaceful activists who are demanding accountability for the police," Buehler told Truthout. "They have absolutely no evidence that we've engaged in any criminal activity or that we've tried to engage in criminal activity.""


http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/...inst-organized-cop-watch-groups-across-the-us

 

[TXForester]

It has less to do with passing legislation than it does with pandering to their base constituents....:bang:

and some of those constituents are pretty base. I know. I live in Texas. 🙂

And the pandering thing is a waste of time and that is not why we send them to the legislature. It takes time away form work that benefits the citizens.

 

[Ranchu]

It takes time away from work that benefits the citizens.

Lmao!
:dance:

 

[TXForester]

Lmao!
:dance:

I was talking about what they were sent there to do, not reality. 🙄

 

[colyn]

One of the things you have to take into consideration as many of us here in Texas already knows, Representative Jason Villalba is an idiot.. He has introduced many lame bills that have never made it to the floor for a vote.. This bill most likely will never see the light of day.

 

[Solinar]

One of the things you have to take into consideration as many of us here in Texas already knows, Representative Jason Villalba is an idiot.. He has introduced many lame bills that have never made it to the floor for a vote.. This bill most likely will never see the light of day.

Well, we can only hope that the bill doesn't make it to the floor. I live in Austin and get to see this circus on local TV. Get ready for open carry hand gun permits.

 

[MrFujicaman]

Can we get a law to neuter idiots ?

 

[tunalegs]

Texas is a great state - love it.

I've lived here for years - and I don't. 😉 Not to get off topic but of all the states I've lived in Texas takes the cake for pointless bureaucratic nonsense. The image they present outwardly and the reality of living here are disappointingly different. I'm pretty happy to be moving away this year.

As for people tolerating these kind of laws, they don't. The average citizen just can't line a politician's pockets as thoroughly as business lobbies, churches, and corporations can. As long as greed comes before duty to the people, it's not going to change. People are shouting 'till they're blue in the face against these kind of laws, but reason and logic don't mean anything to somebody who's only in it for the money.

 

[wpm]

I think a couple of things are obvious. There are good cops whose job I wouldn't want. There are abusive cops, we all know that. We also know that there are those, a lot with cell phones, who get confrontational trying to catch cops in the act. There is a fine line between freedom to photograph anywhere and interfering with the police. Common sense should come into play, albeit, there's am abundance of the lack of said sense. As usual, it takes a fool in elected office to come up with something like this. I, too, have lived in Texas for far too long, and am no longer surprised by the lunacy of those in elected office.