Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2014/06/04/us-marshals-raid-florida-cops.html
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Cops that look like combat troops have no place in a free society…but then I forgot. We aren’t really a free society anymore are we. This all just sucks.
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I don’t have the right swear words for this
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Cory, how do you justify prominently using “raid” in your headline?
A few definitions:
“a sudden attack on an enemy by troops, aircraft, or other armed forces in warfare.”
“a sudden assault or attack, as upon something to be seized or suppressed”
From the ACLU’s own report: “Instead of complying with that clear legal obligation, the local police allowed the records to disappear by letting the U.S. Marshals drive down from their office in Tampa, seize the physical files, and move them to an unknown location.”
Do you see the difference between “drove down from their office” and “suddenly attacked”, and why it might be significant?
This is what people imagine when they read “raid”:
https://www.google.com/search?safe=off&site=&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1600&bih=740&q=raid&oq=raid&gs_l=img.3..0l10.945.1766.0.2564.6.6.0.0.0.0.303.682.0j2j0j1.3.0…0…1ac.1.45.img…3.3.677.-xE5mTBaSPs&gws_rd=ssl#q=police+raid&safe=off&tbm=isch
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California is the testing grounds for novel social innovations; Florida, for legal ones.
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I know right? Its a fantastically important distinction and definitely what we should all be focusing on here. Anyway I’m starving, I’m gonna go raid the pantry. Oh no! I just accidentally used that word in a way where its meaning is commonly understood and yet completely inconsistent with the short list of definitions you showed!!! Damn its hard to discuss anything meaningfully!!!
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I agree that raid may not be the right term here. Doesn’t it usually mean “without the consent of the raided”? Maybe it works if you say the ACLU is the one getting raided.
let’s all talk about the word “raid”. not. gendum or whatever sock puppet name you are using this particular minute, why do you think an author has to justify anything to your trolish self?
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When the Federal authorities intervene, we might reasonably expect it to be a case where the local authorities are trampling on civil rights.
Sadly, we can now expect that federal authorities will intervene to protect the local authorities from… the citizens?
You nailed it!
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I’m just livid about the inconsistent font choices on those vests.
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I think you missed his point, and I think it’s valid. The local police were not “raided,” they were totally complicit in the suppression (or destruction) of evidence. To say they were raided makes them poor innocent victims of Big Government.
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Yeah, not trolling.
Using “raid” to describe “driving down to the office and picking up papers” is not only inflammatory, it’s dishonest. If federal agencies were actually “raiding” local law enforcement offices to prevent the legal dissemination of information, that would be a shocking and unprecedented escalation in the general crackdown on public access to information of this kind. That’s what I gathered happened from this post, because, well, Cory said that’s what happened, and it’s only when I read the ACLU’s own account of the incident I realized that apparently came straight out of his hat.
What happened here meets no reasonable definition of “raid,” and this suggests Cory’s inclined to use extremely misleading language to characterize actions he disagrees with. I actually have a moral problem with that, and I certainly am not impressed by the thoughtless and knee jerk defense I’m seeing by his fans. As far as I can see, what you take issue with is me strenuously disagreeing.
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Hey Gendun, from the article (my emphasis):
“We’ve seen our fair share of federal government attempts to keep records about stingrays secret, but we’ve never seen an actual physical raid on state records in order to conceal them from public view,” the ACLU wrote in a blog post today.
ACLU’s words.
Looking forward to your considered and thoughtful response. Also Yay Cory, you are so awesome.
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Those guys don’t look anywhere near as cool as Raylan Givens. You’d never catch him in those dopey helmets, or vests apparently designed by Rob Liefeld.
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If only there was some way for two men to produce offspring, I’d have Cory’s babies in a heartbeat!
Also maybe it’s just me but this is what I think of when someone says raid:
1:
2 (edited to be more helpful):
3:
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I understand his point, but my fridge is fairly complicit when I raid it… I mean, it was there!
Its not just you. Google ‘raid’ and thats what comes up, overwhelmingly. Gendun had to modify the search to ‘police raid’ to get it to work the way he wanted.
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It’s no accident that those are the things I chose 
When in trollville, troll as the trolls do.
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You do realize that the word “raid” is used by other media outlets when describing raids that aren’t with guns drawn right? ie: http://news.sky.com/story/967142/italian-police-raid-barclays-over-rate-fixing At any rate, if the police have masks on, its generally understood to be a raid, at least that’s what I assume.
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