What is it about states with panhandles?
ROFL
So, I’ve been thinking; an unusual pursuit, I’ll grant you.
Could it be possible to subvert the surveillance of the pigs and force them to stop people who are, instead of reams of cash, instead transporting suitcases full of bacon?
Well, Officer, I mightily love me some pork.
Baitin’ Bacon etc.
Yes, what could go wrong with mocking police departments that are already flagrantly corrupt?
These guys suck, no doubt about it. But individuals making a point are just going to be steamrolled. The police departments need to be brought to heel.
OK, how about not transporting anything at all and just using their expensive Orwellian surveillance systems against them?
(Sufficiently drained of enough snark to reveal the concept for you?)
From the headline I thought this would be much more delightful than it turned out to be…
Yeah, that was probably the cutest possible way to describe a pretty disturbing set of actions by the sheriff’s department (done for the shittiest of reasons, no less).
Never mind the database – what’s this about impersonating police officers …?!
" The ACLU in Oklahoma sued Logan County Sheriff Jim Bauman in Logan County Court on Sept. 11, seeking records from the “Black Asphalt” database. Logan County is just north of Oklahoma City. Its seat is Guthrie.
"The system was created by Joe David, the founder of Guthrie-based Desert Snow LLC, the ACLU says.
“In a statement announcing the lawsuit, the ACLU claims it discovered Black Asphalt during an investigation of Desert Snow employees impersonating police officers in Caddo County in 2013, “as part of a scheme with the local district attorney to make traffic stops, seize cash and property from citizens, and funnel it into local coffers in exchange for a percentage of the profits.””
If the FBI weren’t so damned corrupt itself, this would be the kind of thing they’re supposed to investigate and prosecute.
Thank you, I had been meaning to donate to ACLU since Ferguson, and that was timely!
My experience with Oklahoma law enforcement leads me to believe they aren’t the best and brightest around. With that in mind, how likely is it that this police chief is the only one collecting information on people in order to commit highway robbery? I suspect he was trained how to do all of this by the companies who profit from training and maintaining databases for civil forfeiture.
This is exactly the moral hazard presented by civil forfeiture laws.
When money and property can be confiscated without charges being filed, and then kept by the confiscating law enforcement agent, it is logically equivalent to a shakedown.
The notion that the people from whom the property is confiscated are lawbreakers, and thus not worthy of any sort of protection by law from this form of robbery is the finishing piece of the perfect storm of corruption.
Why should the cops file charges? If they can stop a courier once a month who has $10K and “confiscate” it before sending him on his way, it becomes nothing more than thinly disguised bribery.
If they actually had to follow up and shut down the illegal operation that are supposedly generating the money, that would shut down a source of income for the cops. In a horrific freakonomics sense, it’s far more profitable for the cops to just skim some off the top of the criminal enterprises; but not so much as to put them out of business.
If this were going on in any other country, it would be named exactly what it is: corruption. It’s the worst of bribery and shakedown in one toxic mixture, perfectly legalized and enabled by the horrible civil forfeiture laws.
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