WATCH: Cop Speaks Out Against Tyrannical Window Tint Laws—So He Was FIRED

A Tennessee cop was fired—not for beating or killing someone—but for speaking out against the tyrannical nature of window tint laws.

Four Cops Pull Man Over, Issue Him $149 Ticket—For Singing ‘Everybody Dance Now’

Illustrating the lengths to which police will go to extract revenue from citizens, an innocent man was pulled over and ticketed for singing in his car.

Newly Passed Law Will Jail Parents if Their Kids are Caught Bullying

North Tonawanda, NY — As Americans continue to become more and more dependent upon the state to manage their daily lives, a new law that was just approved in New York epitomizes this irresponsible and outright complacent practice.

On Oct 1., a new law went into effect that will jail parents if their child is found bullying other minors. 

According to WBNG:

Members of the North Tonawanda Common Council hope the new law will put a stop to bullying by holding parents accountable for their children’s actions. Parents could be fined $250 and sentenced to 15 days in jail if twice in a 90-day period their child under 18 violates the city’s curfew or any other city law, including bullying.

North Tonawanda officials say the law is geared toward minors who repeatedly bully other children in public places.

This law comes after four teens were reportedly kicked out of North Tonawanda Middle School for alleged bullying.

On the surface, the idea of fining and jailing parents for their bully kids may seem like an effective strategy to curtail bullying. However, all it does is open Pandora’s box into horrid nature of the police state and it provides no real solution.

We’ve already seen what happens when police get involved in matters that should not involve them, like childhood quarrels on playgrounds.

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Just last week, TFTP reported on a horrifying video that showed a police officer pick up a tiny black child and slam him down face-first onto the concrete for being involved in a scuffle with another student. The presence of police in that situation only made it more dangerous.

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Now, with the enactment of this new law, the parents of both of those students in the video mentioned above could also face potentially brutal police action.

Yes, parents are ultimately responsible for the behavior of their younger children. However, politicizing and criminalizing normal, yet often cruel, childhood behavior is not the answer. Also, there is simply no data to support its effectiveness.

We can have all the laws we want holding parents responsible for their children’s actions, writes Anita Kulick from ecparenting.org, but do they really make a difference?

“Very little research has been done to determine the effectiveness of laws that hold parents criminally liable”, says Eve Brank, an associate professor of law and psychology at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.  “It’s often just a way for politicians to look hard on juvenile delinquency,” she says.

Often times, fining the parents of a bully could make the situation worse. Bullies, as multiple studies have shown, often have abusive parents who would probably not be too happy if their child happened to get them fined or thrown in prison.

Also, this law assumes that the bully will be correctly identified in the situation. Studies on the subject tell us that the opposite will often happen. School staff often have no idea that a child is being bullied. The same goes for the parents.

It is also important to note that many times, what parents and officials refer to as bullying is not at all seen as bullying by the child.

The real issue, Danah Boyd, who actually studies social interactions online among young people, suggests, is not that “bullying,” is a problem. It’s a lack of empathy. And, of course, that goes way beyond kids. As she notes, “just ask any marital therapist who’s trying to help a couple work through their relationship.” From there, as Tech Dirt notes, she points out that these interactions really aren’t all that different from adult interactions:

When I look at how teens hurt each other, I can’t help but also see how they’re developing training wheels for future relationships and reflecting normative behaviors that they see around them. I hear teens’ dramas reflected in their stories about how their parents fight — with each other, with their friends and family and colleagues, and with them. What teens are doing is more coarse, more direct, and more explicit. But they’re witnessing adult dramas all around them and what they tend to see isn’t pretty. Parents talking smack about work colleagues or bosses. Parents fighting with each other or ostracizing their family members over disagreements.

While Boyd admits that she doesn’t have the perfect solution to preventing future bullying, looking at the situation through a different lens that isn’t so black and white is a much better start.

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All this law does is use the state’s only tools to attempt to solve a problem — revenue collection backed with the threat of violence — ironically, they’re employing one of the tools of bullies.

Instead of simply making something illegal and claiming that it fixes the problem, perhaps it’s time we apply common sense to these scenarios and make it part of everyday life. Instead of teaching children how to be victims and call the police if they think they are being bullied, perhaps — with the right training wheels — we can teach them how to avoid being bullied altogether. Or, we can focus on teaching children empathy, so a bully thinks how they may feel before resorting to their abusive tactics.

As Mike Masnick writes:

There’s a great quote, apparently by Ian Percy that “we judge others by their behavior, while we judge ourselves by our intentions.” It’s really accurate, and highlights the difficulty of having empathy in such situations. People never think that they are in the wrong — and since they can’t readily understand or know the thought process and intentions of others, it often leads to them thinking the worst. If there were better ways to get people to at least recognize that others might also have good intentions, it could at least limit the negative impact of some interactions. Such fights and misunderstandings will never go away. It’s probably wishful thinking to even imagine they can be decreased even slightly. But calling them “cyberbullying” and outlawing jerky behavior or doing silly costumed song-and-dances isn’t going to help matters at all.

Police Devise New Revenue Scam by Citing People Who Forget to Press Crosswalk Button

Boulder, CO — Police in Boulder, CO are planning a crosswalk blitz next week. Pedestrians should prepare to be cited if they forget to press the crosswalk button. We wish we were kidding.

According to KDVR’s Fox31, Boulder police will be stationed at the following intersections;

Broadway and Spruce
Arapahoe and Folsom
Broadway and Canyon
30th and Arapahoe
Mohawk and Baseline

We at TFTP have noticed an uptick in stories of police brutality, harassment, and civil rights violations at crosswalks, but we are learning from Boulder’s Transportation Planner Matthew Jones the push is occurring on the national level.

However, Jones said the primary purpose for crosswalk law enforcement initiatives is educational.

We want to educate people on the safety of traveling through crosswalks as well as the intersections

Jones said such initiatives are taking place all across the nation.

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It’s something that we’re tackling here in Boulder, statewide and nationally and these crosswalk crashes and collisions are something that we deal with.

But as TFTP has recently and consistently reported, police often use a simple jaywalking violation as an excuse to conduct a stop and frisk in an attempt to find drugs, weapons, or cash (which they can legally confiscate through civil asset forfeiture laws).

As we’ve shown time and again, cops will harass, detain, even brutalize people for walking across a neighborhood road the wrong way — even if there is no traffic at all.

And while Jones and others contend that keeping the public safe while crossing the road is their primary motivation, a quick overview of the fees for violations would lead anyone with any common sense to likely conclude the effort is just the latest iteration in policing for profit.

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Here’s a breakdown of Boulder’s fees;

1. Pedestrians and cyclists must press the “walk” button before entering the crosswalk, or be fined $50.


2. Cyclists must not exceed 8mph while crossing the road or be levied a $50 fine.


3. Drivers must stop at crosswalks where pedestrians are present, and give them enough time to cross, or face a $125 fine.

One would think the Boulder police have bigger fish to fry than going after crosswalk violators. After all, vehicle thefts are the highest they’ve been since 2012 and rapes, although rare, have doubled.

There are some significant declines in Boulder’s crime statistics since 2012, but police cannot take the credit for the positive numbers. Since marijuana was legalized across the state, driving under the influence charges have declined significantly.

Voters legalized marijuana in 2012 for recreational purposes. In that year there were 708 DUI arrests made. In 2016, that number had dropped to an astounding 481. And while there were 7 fatalities reportedly attributed to accidents in 2016, there were 0 fatalities resulting from alcohol consumption.

In all fairness, bike and pedestrian accidents have risen slightly, but not enough it seems to roll out a planned sting operation involving such police department resources.

Since Boulder residents have now been given fair warning, wouldn’t it be comical if absolutely no person went to those targeted intersections?

Sadly, it seems, police are more concerned with generating revenue than solving actual crimes. As the Free Thought Project reported in 2014, cops will go to ridiculous means to extract wealth from the citizens.

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In 2014, an undercover officer in New Jersey was dressed in a giant Donald Duck costume and paced back and forth on the sidewalk and street on a busy road.

Officers would then pull over drivers who failed to yield for the duck, and hit them with $230 traffic tickets. Police issued a whopping 130 tickets that day for a total take of $29,900.00.

However, some people were intentionally not stopping because the giant duck was scary. Despite the 130 tickets issues, not a single driver came close to hitting the duck.

WATCH: Cop Fines Woman $250 for “Not Communicating in the English Language”

Miami, FL — In the Land of the Free, failure to speak English will result in a citation. Uber driver, Carmen Echevarria found out the hard way that not speaking English in today’s America — is a punishable offense.

Echevarria’s fine was the result of a discriminatory Miami-Dade County memorandum that demands any driver of a transportation vehicle be able to communicate in English. Up until this week, Echevarria, who doesn’t speak the best English, has not had any problems.

However, all that changed when a see-something-say-something citizen got into Echevarria’s Uber car and demanded she speak English. Instead of simply getting in the car and letting her drive her to the destination, the Uber customer became enraged that Echevarria would ask a passenger in her vehicle to translate. So, the customer called the police.

“I felt discriminated against,” Echevarria told the station in Spanish. “I asked the (passenger sitting in her car) ‘Can you please help translate what she is saying?’ Then she asked why, if I was an Uber driver, I didn’t speak English.”

As Telemundo reports, in May 2016, Miami-Dade County issued a memorandum with rules for drivers of the transportation network, and one of the prerequisites is “the ability to communicate in English.”

“I told her ‘so sorry, a little English’ then she called the inspector who also confronted me and told me in order to be an Uber driver I need it to speak English,” Echevarria explained.

In a sad attempt at justifying the ridiculous code, Miami-Dade Department of Transportation Public Relations Officer Karla Damian issued a statement attempting to clarify the rule.

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“The Code doesn’t require the driver to be ‘proficient’ in the English language, but the driver should have some knowledge of the English language in order to communicate with a passenger in case of an emergency or to receive and understand basic directions from the passenger(s),” Damian wrote.

As mentioned above, Echevarria has never had a problem with getting her passengers where they needed to go. And, had the passenger this week, who turned her in for lack of English skills, simply got in the car and let Echevarria do her job, there would still not be an issue.

As anyone who’s ever taken an Uber knows, the route, destination, and payment are already entered into the driver’s system before they even show up to drive you. There is absolutely no need whatsoever to engage in conversation with the driver.

In another sad attempt at justifying the citation, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez said usually warnings are given instead of citations, according to NBC. And, in their statement, the mayor’s office even noted that the woman could speak some English.

“It does seem like she could communicate in the English language and take directions so it’s unfortunate that a fine was issued,” said Mike Hernandez, the mayor’s communications director. “The county can work with this driver and with Uber to address this situation.”

As NBC Miami reports, Uber spokesman Javi Correoso sent a statement to NBC 6 saying the company is “proud of the diversity of driver partners in the South Florida market.” Correoso went on to say that until statewide regulations go into effect on July 1, Uber asks all driver partners in the state to follow all applicable local laws and regulations.

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The statewide regulation to which Correoso is referring is CS/HB 221. This bill was signed into law in May and overrides these ridiculous requirements for speaking English.

The good news is Uber stated that in the case of a driver receiving a ticket for not speaking English, they would cover their expenses. Also, since this story began gaining traction and resulted in subsequent backlash for the county, there are reports that the ticket may be excused.

However, until that time, officials would do well to realize the grave nature of such a law. For being different, in the Land of the Free, you can and will face steep consequences through police enforced extortion — or worse. Make no mistake, if you refuse to pay this extortion fee, you will be kidnapped and thrown in a cage.

Cops Now ‘Protecting’ You by Hiding in Buses and Robbing You for Not Wearing a Seat Belt

Austin, TX — Instead of going out and solving robberies, rapes, murders, domestic disputes, or thefts, the Austin police department is doing something that doesn’t benefit society in any manner whatsoever. They are going undercover in city buses to catch people who don’t have their seat belt on.

This week, Austin cops took to city buses to peer through the windows at unsuspecting criminals — who’d dare drive their own vehicle without their own seat belt on.

When the cop on the bus spots the dangerous criminal driver who may have simply forgotten to buckle up, he signals the hero officer out on the road to pull them over and extort money from them. Why is the Austin police department doing this, you ask?

“To try and make people aware of the dangers of driving without a seat belt,” APD Officer Mike Barger said.

However, the dangers of driving without a seat belt are well known. Cops do not have to rob people of their hard earned money to hammer that point home. The real reason the APD is conducting this program is the reason police departments exist in the first place — revenue collection.

Nothing exposes the revenue collecting nature of the state quite like police officers pulling over citizens and issuing them fines for not wearing their seat belts.

Seat belt ‘laws’ exhibit the tyrannical nature of government and illustrate the lengths to which the state will go to separate the citizen from their wealth.

It takes a person incapable of questioning morality versus legality to approach otherwise entirely innocent individuals and target them for extortion via fines issued for failure to comply with arbitrary decrees for victimless ‘crimes.’

To think that society needs to be extorted by armed agents of the state to protect them from themselves is as asinine as it is tyrannical. If you personally feel that you need a police officer to steal your money and threaten you with jail because you aren’t wearing your seat belt — you are part of the problem.

Sadly, municipalities across the country are so addicted to the extortion of citizens for victimless crimes that they are unable to see the immoral nature of robbing people for not wearing their seat belts.

The Texas Department of Transportation even gave Austin police $79,000 in taxpayer money to fund the start-up of this tyrannical operation — “Click it or Ticket.”

“The dangers of being injured in a crash at low speeds are significantly increased by not wearing a seat belt,” Barger said, again attempting to justify robbery to ‘keep people safe.’

CBS Austin interviewed Sgt. David McDonald, who was also riding on buses extorting people for seat belts. McDonald attempted to justify the robbery of citizens for not wearing seat belts by using his wife as an example — who he says took off her seat belt briefly and then got into an accident.

“Someone ran a red light and she got ejected out of our vehicle because she wasn’t wearing a seat belt,” McDonald said. “Finding my own wife in the street bleeding profusely, I can’t get those images out of my head.”

No one is going to deny that finding your wife bleeding in the road is a horrifying experience that no one should go through. That being said, the analogy is little more than a straw man. Short of placing a cop inside every vehicle, the state will never be able to guarantee that every citizen wears their seat belt.

If seat belt fines couldn’t stop a cop’s wife from buckling up, how on earth can this officer justify robbing people to make them buckle up? The bottom line is that people don’t refuse to buckle up because they are intent on breaking the law. They don’t need to be treated as criminals and, they most assuredly do not need to be robbed.

People wear their seat belts because it is safe. Those who deliberately refuse to wear their seat belts — knowing the potential repercussions — deserve the right to make that foolish choice as this decision has NO VICTIM and harms no one but the person making it.

On the law enforcement side, however, stealing money from innocent people for accidentally forgetting to buckle up, absolutely creates a victim. And, being that victims can’t exist without someone making them so, it also creates a criminal.

Ironically enough, the Austin cop in the image at the top of this page, not only doesn’t have his seat belt on — as he robs people for not wearing their seat belts — but he’s standing up. Hypocrisy at its finest.

The good news is that the public is no longer buying it. When CBS posted this article on their Facebook page, the comments said it all.

Cop Investigated for Forcing Teen Girl to Send Him Nude Photos to Erase a Traffic Ticket

Baytown, TX — A Baytown cop is under a criminal investigation as well as an internal investigation, after being accused of extorting nude photos from a teen girl after a traffic stop.

According to affidavits filed in the case, Officer Michael Coppock told an 18-year-old driver that he would change two traffic tickets to warnings if the teen would send him naked pictures of herself.

According to the investigation, Coppock ticketed the girl for speeding and an expired registration and offered to dismiss them for the nudes.

After ticketing her, this sicko cop tracked down his victim on social media and communicated with her via text message. The text messages were confirmed on Coppock’s phone after the department acquired a search warrant to view them.

As KHOU reports, in laying out their case for a search warrant for Coppock’s cell phone, police say they viewed screenshots of the conversations and characterized the messages as “clearly coercive in nature,” and “putting pressure” on the teen.

So far, the department has refused to comment on the case, only noting that there is an active investigation and that Coppock is still on the force.

KHOU spoke with Larry Karson, an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of Houston-Downtown, who brings out some serious questions.

“Has more than one woman been extorted in this manner?” wondered Karson. “With a story such as you’re doing on KHOU, this is offering the opportunity for other victims to come forth and give their own story of victimization. It also allows the chief to find out if it’s any deeper in his department. If it’s more than one rotten apple. If it’s actually some hidden subculture within the department if he gets more people coming forth.”

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In spite of the screen shots and the confirmed ‘coercive’ text messages, Coppock has yet to be charged in this case.

According to court records, investigators have also obtained search warrants for the cop’s Snapchat as well as his alleged victim. If Karson’s theory holds water, which it most likely will, investigators could likely uncover a history of abuses just like this one.

Sadly, Coppock’s actions are far from isolated. Police officers — as well as those in any position of ‘authority’ — will often use those positions to prey on the vulnerable. As the Free Thought Project has pointed out numerous times, all too often, society’s worst are attracted to these positions because of that power.

 “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men,…” —John Dalberg-Acton

The quote above sums this scenario up perfectly and explains why there is rampant abuse of police database searches, sexual misconduct, and a near-epidemic of child pornography within police departments from coast to coast.

When Coppock decided to extort nude photos from a teen he was extorting through traffic tickets, perhaps he was fantasizing about being like Trooper James Randy Moss. Moss served 4 years of probation for his idiotic and power-abusing actions, after stopping Justis Ellen Richert, who’s known in the porn industry as Barbie Cummings.

Cummings said she told the trooper about her job and sat beside him in the front seat of his cruiser as he checked her Web site from his state-issued laptop, then said yes when she offered him oral sex.

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Cummings said the trooper shot photos and video of the act with his cell phone and sent her copies. Then the world’s dumbest cop asked her to put them on her blog so he could brag about it to his buddies on the force.

Naturally, the officer was caught after bragging to his entire department that he’d extorted fellatio while collecting revenue for the state.

Perhaps the most telling aspect of this story is that even after this abusive cop received the sexual favor, he still wrote her a ticket.

WATCH: Cop Bullies Woman To Tears Over a Her Window Tint — This is Public ‘Service’

Los Angeles, CA —  In the land of the free, if police see you without your seatbelt on, they will claim the right to extort money from you. In the land of the free, if police feel that your window tint is too dark, they will claim the right to extort money from you. If you resist this extortion, police will claim the right to kidnap or kill you. Unfortunately, in the land of the free, these instances happen so frequently that they are often caught on video, such as the case below.

In a video posted to Youtube this week, one of Los Angeles County’s finest is seen issuing a notice of extortion, also known as a ticket, to a woman for her window tint. When the deputy asks her to sign the ticket, the woman, who says she just got off the phone with her attorney, asks if the deputy used a meter.

“He wanted me to ask if there’s a meter you used for the tint,” says the woman.

“Nope. Nope,” says the cop who is going to issue a notice of extortion based solely on his vision.

“Well, I am not going to sign the ticket,” the woman tells him.

At this point, when the officer has his authority put in check, he clearly becomes agitated and tells the woman that he will kidnap her if she refuses to sign his piece of paper.

“If you do not sign it, I will have to take you to jail, physically. It is state law.” says the deputy.

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Unfortunately, for the woman, California law indeed states that ” If you refuse to sign the ticket the officer is required by law to take you into custody and present you before a judge for arraignment on the charges.”

Because it is law, however, does not mean it is moral. This woman had harmed no one. She put no lives at risk. She was not trespassing, stealing, raping, murdering, or in violation of anyone’s property rights, nor did she have a complaint filed against her by a citizen. By any standard — other than that of the state — this woman was entirely innocent.

This deputy, however, was claiming to be legally justified in kidnapping her, and using deadly force if necessary because her windows appear to let less than 70% of sunlight through.

Naturally, the woman breaks down and begins crying as she feels threatened by this armed man threatening her.

Does this seem just?

It is laws like this window tint racket that need to be resisted and brought into question. No one is protected by cops stealing money from you based on how dark your windows are. This law is designed to generate revenue and allow cops to fish for other victimless crimes like possessing drugs — nothing else.

Laws like this one are what give cops a bad name. It doesn’t take a hero to pull someone over and demand money for the color of their window tint — it takes a villain. If police would stop enforcing laws for victimless crimes, like window tint, seatbelts, and the drug war, this divide among the police and the policed would be repaired.

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Until then, however, innocent young women, who want to protect themselves from the sun’s rays, have to worry about being extorted and kidnapped by public servants.

Below are the videos exposing the ridiculous nature of revenue collection for victimless crimes. They were posted with the following descriptions:

This is a video of my friend who got pulled over for her tint. The officer being older and seeing that there is only her in the car tries to take advantage of her by trying to scare her into getting out of the car and threatening her that she is going to be arrested for not signing tint ticket which according to him is against the law.

As you can see here the pressure he is giving her is completely uncalled for, especially for a tint ticket. Not to mention she is married to a Navy man with a navy licence plate and an american flag on the back window saying “I support our troops” It is cops like these that need to get their badge revoked for trying to do this to innocent people because they think they are above the law. And people wonder why we fear cops and do not trust them because they give us no respect, so why give them respect in return. Our Public Servants are out of control!

Luckily, according to Ryan Halstrum, who uploaded the video, once the supervisor showed up, he apologized to the woman and let her go.

Also, in case you forgot, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s department is the outfit the Free Thought Project made famous last year over a window tint violation.

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Video of renowned private investigator Ken Sheppard went viral last year after Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Plunkett walked up to his window with his weapon drawn, apparently ready to kill a man — all over Sheppard’s window tint.

WATCH: Speeding Stop Gets Mom Assaulted & Arrested in Front of Her Kids

Winston-Salem, NC — A video uploaded to Facebook has gone viral as it shows a dramatic confrontation between a young woman and a Winston-Salem police officer during a traffic stop. The woman, 24-year-old Takara Williams was pulled over for speeding and ended up in handcuffs with officer J.C. Carter on top of her. All the while, her kids watched in horror from the backseat of the car.

As the video begins, we see a struggle ensue between officer Carter and Ms. Williams. When the woman filming asks what is going on Williams explains she is being assaulted by Carter for not handing over her keys.

Officer Carter noted that Williams had more violations he found after targeting her for speeding and he needed the keys to her vehicle. Williams tried to explain to the officer that she wanted to wait for her grandfather to get there before giving him the keys, as it was apparently his vehicle.

As the video progresses, so does the altercation as Williams becomes increasingly more distressed. Williams appeared to panic as the officer brought her to the ground.

“I am trying to go to work!” Williams screams as the officer climbs on top of her back. “I am trying to bring my kids to daycare.”

However, Williams would never make it to work that day.

The woman filming attempts to calm her down, but Williams could not. She was obviously shaken thinking about the massive burden this stop was going to have on her life. As the officer handcuffs her, Williams’ chest becomes exposed and the woman filming helped her to have a less humiliating experience. Carter, a male officer, did not wait for a female officer and proceeded to conduct a full body patdown.

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According to a news release from the Winston-Salem Police Department (WSPD), Williams is facing numerous traffic violation charges and one for resisting an officer.

The woman who filmed the incident posted it to Facebook asking if anyone knew who the woman was. Shortly after, the video was posted on Wednesday, the local news picked it up and the police responded with a press release.

Below is a portion of the statement:

“Although the social media video only shows a portion of the encounter midway through the incident, upon his initial approach Officer Carter introduces himself to Ms. Williams by name and told her why she was being stopped.  As Officer Carter told Ms. Williams of the license plate “pick up order” and attempted to have her turn off the vehicle and hand him her keys, Ms. Williams became confrontational.  Officer Carter gave Ms. Williams numerous opportunities to comply with his directives, which she refused.  As Officer Carter was attempting to place Ms. Williams under custodial arrest he was met with physical resistance from her.”  

The comments on the Facebook video are a mixed bag, with some people in support of Williams and some people claiming she should’ve just obeyed his orders and nothing would have happened.

If officer Carter was protecting society, where is the victim?

Regardless of your position on the outcome of this situation, the fact of the matter is that it happened as a result of police collecting revenue. This revenue collection hits the poor community twice as hard as the fines stack up and become too much of a burden to ever escape.

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Police, we are told, are here to keep us safe and protect us from the bad guys. However, public safety, all too often, takes a back seat to revenue collection. Time and time again, the Free Thought Project has exposed quota schemes in which officers were punished for not writing enough tickets.

All too often we hear the ridiculous statement from the apologist crowd saying, “If you don’t break the law, you have nothing to worry about.”

However, that statement couldn’t be further from the truth.

Former NSA official William Binney sums this myth up quite accurately, “The problem is, if they think they’re not doing anything that’s wrong, they don’t get to define that. The central government does.”

Attorney Harvey Silverglate argues that the average American commits three felonies a day without even knowing it.

While most everyone in America commits the same infractions designed for revenue collection, most of the people targeted by police for these crimes are the poor, minorities, and the mentally ill.

As the death of Mike Brown in Ferguson exposed, African-Americans accounted for 86 percent of traffic stops while making up only 63 percent of Ferguson’s population.

For those too poor to pay their tickets, routine traffic stops end up in repeated imprisonment due to mounting fines. Williams is now in the system and unless she can come up with the thousands of dollars to get out from under these fines, she will likely end up back in that system — over and over again.

It’s a debtor’s prison and it’s horrendous.

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Revenue collection, persecution of the poor, and these debtor’s prisons take place in every county, in every city, across every state. This institutionalized cruelty is little more than a day’s work for the millions of bureaucrats involved in the racket.

The video below provides another example of the harsh reality that is government-sponsored extortion. Robin Clearey, the woman standing before Magistrate Joe Licata was in that spot because she got ticketed for taillight malfunction, expired registration, and driving without a license. Unable to pay the mounting fees from previous traffic stops, Clearey had been stopped once again. This time, the officer charged her with a Class-B misdemeanor, a level above her previous charge for driving with a suspended license.

All these fees add up and lead to people like Clearey being thrown in jail for being unable to pay them — a de facto debtor’s prison — which, according to Licata, is ‘job security.’

As the Houston Press reports, Licata warned her that, if she didn’t pay the fines for these tickets and renew her license after paying surcharges to the Department of Public Safety, “then you’re gonna get arrested every time you get pulled over.”

That was nothing to her, Clearey responded — because she had already become trapped in a cycle of arrests.

“It’s nothing to me either,” Licata told her. “It’s job security.”

Gang of Thieves: DEA Stole $3.2 Billion in Cash From Innocent People in Only a Decade

A bombshell report from the Inspector General (IG) at the Department of Justice has exposed the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for the colossal thieves they are. According to the report, DEA seized more than $4 billion in cash from people since 2007, but $3.2 billion of the seizures were never connected to any criminal charges. That figure does not even include the seizure of cars and electronics.

This thievery is possible through the insidious practice of civil asset forfeiture (CAF), where law enforcement can seize cash and property on the mere suspicion of being involved in criminal activity. Originally developed in the 1980s to go after organized crime, CAF has mushroomed into a source of revenue for cops across the country – from local to state to federal – in what’s become known as Policing for Profit.

When an innocent person’s cash is stolen by DEA, that person must petition to get it back, meaning the burden of proof (and the burden of time and expense) is on the unlucky victim who never did anything wrong in the first place. In fact, “forfeiture proceedings start from the presumption of guilt.”

It’s a clever scheme, and DEA knows it. The IG found that petitions were filed in only 20 percent of DEA cash seizures. As Reason Magazine points out, the IG report highlights just how arbitrary these seizures can be.

“We found that different task force officers made different decisions in similar situations when deciding whether to seize all of the cash discovered,” the Inspector General wrote. “These differences demonstrate how seizure decisions can appear arbitrary, which should be a concern for the Department, both because of potentially improper conduct and because even the appearance of arbitrary decision-making in asset seizure can fuel public perception that law enforcement is not using this authority legitimately, thereby undermining public confidence in law enforcement.”

The case of a man traveling at an airport with $27,000 is a prime example of how DEA can just take the cash on a whim, without even bothering to pretend it has to do with criminal activity.

“When a task force officer explained that the U.S. currency in the bag was going to be seized pending further investigation, the passenger asked whether he could keep some of the currency to travel home. The passenger asserted that all of the currency in the bag was his, and the task force officers allowed him to retain $1,000. This seizure resulted in an administrative forfeiture of $27,000 to the U.S. government, and the DEA explained to the OIG that, other than the events surrounding the seizure, there was no subsequent investigative activity or additional law enforcement benefit.”

Reason Magainze sums it up perfectly.

“If the DEA task force agents thought that man’s cash was connected to drug activity, why allow him to keep some of it? If they weren’t sure, why take it in the first place? The answer, of course, is there is no logical or legal rationale for this sequence of events.”

Indeed, most of the DEA’s cash seizures don’t relate to any criminal investigation, and 82 percent of the cases reviewed by the IG were settled without any judicial review. The DEA focuses on airports, train stations and bus terminals, relying on travel records and a host of confidential informants to target people they believe will have lots of cash.

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DEA gives itself wide latitude to pin you as a suspect for detainment and search. Woe to those “traveling to or from a known source city for drug trafficking, purchasing a ticket within 24 hours of travel, purchasing a ticket for a long flight with an immediate return, purchasing a one-way ticket, and traveling without checked luggage.”

The IG concludes that DEA is posing great risks to civil liberties by continuing the practices highlighted in its report.

‘‘When seizure and administrative forfeitures do not ultimately advance an investigation or prosecution, law enforcement creates the appearance, and risks the reality, that it is more interested in seizing and forfeiting cash than advancing an investigation or prosecution.’’

The IG states that “risks to civil liberties are particularly significant when seizures that do not advance or relate to an investigation are conducted without a court-issued seizure warrant, the presence of illicit narcotics, or subsequent judicial involvement prior to administrative forfeiture.”

The threat to civil liberties posed by CAF is being recognized more and more, as states continue to abolish the practice by requiring a criminal conviction before cash and assets can be seized. But the federal government is a primary reason why CAF still runs rampant, through the euphemistically named Equitable Sharing Fund where the stolen loot (amounting to $28 billion over the last decade) is shared by federal and state drug task forces.

“These findings fundamentally undercut law enforcement’s claim that civil forfeiture is a vital crime-fighting tool. Americans are already outraged at the Justice Department’s aggressive use of civil forfeiture, which has mushroomed into a multibillion dollar program in the last decade. This report only further confirms what we have been saying all along: Forfeiture laws create perverse financial incentives to seize property without judicial oversight and violate due process.

This report is one more illustration that the only solution to resolving these issues is to end the use of civil forfeiture once and for all. – The Institute for Justice“

Trump Threatens to ‘Destroy’ Senator for Bill Making it Harder for Cops to Steal From You

Over the past couple of years, great progress has been made in reforming the insidious practice of civil asset forfeiture (CAF), better known as policing for profit. CAF is one of the biggest threats to property rights employed by government — and Trump apparently wants to keep it.

Using CAF, local police departments and federal government seize cash and assets from innocent people who are never charged with a crime, on the mere suspicion (often fabricated) that the cash or assets were involved in criminal activity.

Even when a person is cleared of wrongdoing, in most states that person must incur legal fees and court costs to get their property back – creating a severe disincentive to even try. Originally set up in the 1980s to drain resources from criminal organization, CAF is now used by police to rake in millions from innocent people – mostly under the guise of war on drugs – so they can buy militarized police gear and further train themselves in the art of oppression.

As the Institute for Justice points out, several states have made significant improvements, effectively abolishing CAF by requiring a criminal conviction for government to keep cash and assets. These laudable reforms have, of course, been heavily criticized by law enforcement, who only sees a threat to their profits.

But now, it appears that civil asset forfeiture reform has encountered a major obstacle in the form of President Trump.

On Tuesday, Trump met with sheriffs from around the country to hear their concerns, as the president has vowed to pursue a “law and order” agenda. There, Texas Sheriff Harold Eavenson complained about efforts in his state to end policing for profit.

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“There’s a state senator in Texas that was talking about legislation to require conviction before we could receive that forfeiture money,” said Eavenson.

“Can you believe that?” Trump said in response. “Who is the state senator? Do you want to give his name? We’ll destroy his career.“

This shocking statement was met with laughter from the crowd of cops, but Trump’s face remained dead serious. Eavenson even seemed taken aback, and did not offer the name of the state senator who dares to suggest requiring a criminal conviction before seizing someone’s property.

The apparent willingness of Trump to destroy the career of lawmakers who believe private property and civil liberties should be protected is just one more indication of Trump’s rather frightening authoritarian tendencies. When it means seizing cash and property and perpetuating the war on drugs, the Republican mantra of less government appears to be history.

Eavenson defended the president, suggesting that he didn’t really mean what he said.

“He was just being emphatic that he did not agree with that senator’s position,” Eavenson said, adding of the senator in question, “I’m not into assassinating his character.”

But if there’s anything we have learned about Trump, it’s that he is unpredictable and not afraid to stoop to shocking levels of deception and aggression.

According to Dallas News:

“Two Texas senators have offered legislation this year to require conviction before someone’s assets could be seized. Sen. Konni Burton, a Republican who often pushes civil-liberties legislation to protect personal information and property, was a fierce critic of Trump during the campaign.

She and Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, a McAllen Democrat, have formed an unlikely team pushing this asset forfeiture legislation.”

Other Republicans have supported the measure, as their constituents have become aware of the threat to property rights and civil liberties CAF poses.

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The target of the sheriff’s and Trump’s ire is still unknown, but Sen. Burton is not being intimidated and has penned a response, which she posted on Twitter.

Yday, Trump joked he"d help a Tx sheriff "destroy" a senator who wants to overhaul asset seizure laws. Just in from @KonniBurton: #txlege pic.twitter.com/DfxHrVfqOq

— Lauren McGaughy (@lmcgaughy) February 8, 2017

“I have never met with Sheriff Eavenson, nor even heard of him before yesterday. However I take exception to his comments on asset forfeiture reform.

While I certainly want law enforcement to have the tools necessary to combat large criminal enterprises, we must be vigilant to safeguard the rights of everyday citizens from potential abuse. Do not be mistaken or misled: this is not strictly a law enforcement issue; this is a property rights issue.

Property rights are one of the foundational rights in any free society and the taking of property by government is no small matter. Requiring the government to secure a criminal conviction before permanently taking property from citizens is simply commonsense. We would not stand for anything less when it comes to our personal liberty or freedom; why should we allow our property to be taken so easily? We should not diminish the constitutional protections guaranteed for all in the 4^th and 5^th Amendments to more easily punish criminals. On the contrary, we should defend these protection more fiercely than ever so they are strong for future generations.

I will not be discouraged nor deterred. The moment for reform of our system of asset forfeiture has arrived. Please join me in this effort.”

Mom Forced to Give Birth to Baby On Jail Cell Floor Over an Unpaid Traffic Ticket

Macomb County, MI — In Police State USA, a minor traffic violation can land you in a dangerous and, as in the case of Sandra Bland, deadly position. A Detroit mother just learned the hard way how far the police state will go to punish and extract revenue from its citizens — as she was forced to give birth to her baby on the disgusting floor of a Macomb County Jail cell.

Jessica Preston was not wanted for murder, or for human trafficking, or for any act in which there was an actual victim, when she was kidnapped by police while 8-months pregnant and thrown in a cage.

What did Preston do to be kidnapped by armed agents of the state and be locked away, you ask? She was unable to afford the fines levied against her by the state for driving infractions, so her license was suspended. When she was ‘caught’ driving with a suspended license — her first offense — Preston was locked in a cage.

Unable to pay her ridiculously high bail of $10,000, Preston, who was beginning to go into labor, was forced to rot in a cage for 5 days before she’d get a court date. However, she wouldn’t make it to day five.

While in a cell for being financially unable to pay the state for her privilege to drive, Preston went into labor — a month early.

Once Preston realized she was going into labor, she begged officers for help. Every time she cried for help, however, those calls would fall on deaf ears.

“They didn’t believe her,” Linda Preston, Jessica’s mother said. “They just left her (to) lay there. They didn’t care. They just kept saying she wasn’t having the baby, and I don’t know how anybody could say when she was bleeding, ‘You’re not having a baby,’ and that they didn’t send her to the hospital. Who makes that call?

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“Everybody just looked at her like she was a piece of dirt.”

Eventually, Preston could no longer prevent her labor and began birthing her baby boy, Elijha, on a mat that laid on the floor of the dirty cell. This disgusting mistreatment of Jessica Preston was captured on the jail’s surveillance video.

Elijha’s father, Thomas Chastain, says he is upset that he missed the birth of his son.

“I didn’t get to cut the cord,” Chastain said. “(I) didn’t get to hold him.”

Not only did Chastain not get to see the birth of his son, but officers and jail staff put both Preston and Elijha’s lives at risk by failing to take any medical precautions — even after the baby was born. Preston’s first baby was born via an emergency cesarean section. For Preston’s safety, her son Elijha was going to be born via a cesarean section, too. But since the birth happened behind bars, that didn’t happen, and he was born prematurely.

“You can’t do that to a human being,” Tina Chastain, Thomas’ mother said. “You can’t. It’s not right. It’s inhumane. How’s it going to affect them to grow up to be an adult, knowing that (he) was born on the floor of a jail cell and wrapped up in a dirty sheet?”

Well, the answer to that question is easy — especially when we consider the history of this jail.

As the Free Thought Project reported last November, this jail has an ominous track record. When she was thrown in jail, just like Preston, 37-year-old Jennifer Meyers hadn’t physically hurt anyone. Meyers had fallen behind on her child support payments and instead of allowing this mother to keep working to actually help her children, a judge threw her in a cage for 30 days. She would only last 12 of those days.

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The investigation into the death of Meyers has uncovered disturbing details and exposes, at best, criminal negligence, and, at worst, deliberate torture.

But Meyers and Preston aren’t the only recent victims of officers in the Macomb County Jail. When David Stojcevski, 32, was given a ticket for careless driving in 2014, he never expected it to be a death sentence. However, thanks to modern-day debtor’s prisons in police state USA, a traffic ticket did, in fact, lead to the death of this man.

After the state disapproved of Stojcevski’s driving, they subsequently levied a $772.00 fine against him. Unable to meet the extortion demands of the Macomb County Police, Stojcevski was kidnapped and locked in a cage for failure to pay his debt to the state.

He was sentenced to 30 days. He would only last 17.

During those 17 days, Stojcevski would dwindle away. Under the grim neon lights of a prison cell, Stojcevski would lose a quarter of his body weight as he broke down due to unchecked benzodiazepine withdrawal. Guards watched on surveillance video as Stojcevski died a slow and agonizing death — offering him no help at all.

When asked about the two recent deaths and a mother forced to give birth to her son on the floor of a jail cell, Sheriff Tony Wickersham, who is in charge of the Macomb County Jail, had these encouraging words.

“We have not identified any prosecutable violations of federal criminal law, therefore our investigation is closed,” Wickersham said.

Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world. Follow @MattAgorist on Twitter and now on Steemit

Man Furious After Cops Issue Him Ticket for Warming Up His Car in His Own Driveway

Roseville, MI — In Police State USA, warming up your car in your own driveway can land you in jail, or worse. Residents across the land of the free are quickly learning how unfree they actually are as they are issued citations for everyday activities such as allowing your engine to warm up on a cold morning.

Nick Taylor, of Roseville, Michigan, has taken to social media to express his anger over police issuing him a notice of extortion (citation) for doing what millions of people every morning do across the country.

“Every person warms up their car,” Taylor said. “We live in Michigan!”

If you don’t think a citation for warming up your car will land you in jail — try not paying it. If you don’t think a citation for warming up your car can lead to your death — try resisting your captors when they come after you for nonpayment.

All tickets are enforced with the threat of violence. To deny it is to deny reality. So, when government officials begin issuing threats of violence for everyday activities such as warming up your car, it’s time to start paying attention.

“Vehicle parked in drive with keys in ignition, motor running — no one around,” the Roseville officer wrote on the ticket in a sorry attempt to justify the extortion.

The officer never attempted to knock on Taylor’s door to inform him of the asinine law, and instead issued a demand for money.

“That would have been respectful,” Taylor said. “I had no clue that this was a law, an ordinance.”

When asked by WDIV 4 why cops were stealing money from people for warming up their cars, police said the key component of the case is whether the key is in the car. Using a remote starter is OK because the key isn’t in the car. If the key is in the car, it’s a state and local violation, because somebody could take off in the car.

“You’re putting the public at risk,” Roseville police Chief James Berlin said. “This is purely a public safety issue.”

However, if the public were truly at risk by a car running in a driveway, this cop should have notified Taylor of it — in the interest of public safety. But that did not happen.

Instead, this officer showed that revenue collection and revenue collection alone was his mission by doing nothing to stop the supposed risk.

Taylor quickly went to Facebook after receiving the citation and let his feelings be known. The idea of being extorted for warming up one’s car apparently resonated with people as it has shared more than 13,500 times as of Monday.

After seeing the post on Facebook, Chief Berlin had no problem publicly noting that he wished ill-will on Taylor.

“You see the disparaging comments he made about my officer?” Berlin said. “Drop dead.”

Taylor said he didn’t mean to call the officer a name, but noted how ridiculous the ticket was.

“Unattended car?” Taylor said. “I’ve done this every day for seven years. Every person warms up their car. We live in Michigan.”

Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world. Follow @MattAgorist on Twitter and now on Steemit

Community in Uproar After Police Cite Man for Helping the Elderly by Plowing Snow for FREE

Pocatello, ID — There is a saying among law enforcement when they are questioned for writing asinine tickets for non-crimes and arresting well-meaning people who may be in possession of a plant to treat their child — ‘Just doing my job.’ This phrase is uttered countless times a day as police officers write tickets for everything from window tint to license plate lights — as they somehow think it justifies this level of extortion.

The most recent case of extortion for non-crimes is getting a lot of attention in Idaho because police extorted a man who was actually providing a community service.

When it snows in his community, Mitch Fisher is ready to help.

“I take care of the neighbors. They’re all elderly and I like to help them out,” Fisher said.

Fisher’s community service of plowing streets and sidewalks — for free — is so highly regarded that he was featured in a segment on a local news station in December.

“I try to clean my spot and all the neighbors around me so we have a nice area to park and pull in,” Fisher said las month. “Also, hopefully, so no one gets stuck in front of my house.”

But his good deed did not go unnoticed by the revenue collectors. On Wednesday, a Pocatello police officer came prowling and issued Fisher a citation for ‘depositing material on a public right of way.’ Fisher will now be extorted for over $200 for helping the city clean the roadways.

Naturally, according to Local 8 News, Fisher was baffled.

“I tried to talk (the officer) out of it and tell him what I was doing, that I was trying to get it out of the street because (the street) hasn’t been plowed since the beginning of snow season,” he said. “Of course, he was doing his job, wrote the citation and went on his way.”

The law used to extort Fisher was Chapter 9 of Pocatello’s city code which states, “It is unlawful for any person to deposit, place or allow to remain in or upon any public right of way any material or substance injurious to persons or property.”

Obviously depositing trash, debris, or anything else that would obstruct the street is a dangerous practice. However, Fisher was doing the opposite of this as he moved the snow into a pile right next to his curb.

“I didn’t want it in front of (my neighbors’) houses because they can’t park. I don’t care if it’s in front of mine,” Fisher explained of his community service.

Fisher’s ticket received heavy backlash after he posted it on Facebook in the group “You know you grew up in Pocatello when…” However, the administrator took it down after the conversation apparently got too heated.

To highlight how caring of a man he is, Fisher posted to the group yesterday — apologizing for sharing his ticket in it and didn’t mean for it to start any controversy. Within that post, Fisher was praised by his neighbors and community for providing the service and the overwhelming majority of people are on his side.

Also, there is good news to this story as Fisher says he will not back down. “I’ll keep doing what I’m doing. I don’t care about the city,” he said.

According to Local 8, Fisher plans on fighting the ticket. However, even if he loses — he will continue to help.

“If it cost me 206 dollars a year so be it, I’ll have peace of mind knowing it helps them out,” Fisher said in the Facebook group.

It is quite heartening to hear of such resistance to petty tyranny. Unjust laws will remain unjust until they are disobeyed by good people like Fisher. Had brave individuals throughout history not risked imprisonment or worse to challenge tyrannical, racist, and immoral laws, society today, would be much less free.

Thank you, Mitch Fisher, for standing up for what is right.

Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world. Follow @MattAgorist on Twitter and now on Steemit

VICTORY! State Disbands Cops Who Robbed Innocent People’s Life Savings, Victims Reimbursed

One of the worst states engaging in civil asset forfeiture, better known as “policing for profit,” suffered a blow in its campaign to rob innocent people of their cash and assets. After withering criticism and a lawsuit it couldn’t win, Iowa’s “Drug Interdiction Team” was disbanded on December 6.

“The so-called “interdiction” unit’s key focus was to stop vehicles traveling along Interstate Highway 80 suspected of being involved in drugs or other crimes. It was a part of the Iowa Department of Public Safety and had become a target in recent years from critics who alleged the team used unconstitutional practices to seize private property for law enforcement profits.”

This special group of State Troopers used every trick in the book to engage in warrantless searches of people’s vehicles, after pulling them over for minor “offenses” like failure to use a turn signal. Using flimsy excuses such as a dirty car, the odor of air freshener, or fidgeting, the cops would ransack vehicles in hopes of finding any amount of suspected drugs or paraphernalia.

The cops would then make up suspicions about “criminal activity” and use Iowa’s broad civil asset forfeiture laws to seize cash, assets and vehicles of the occupants – with no charge or proof of a crime. Even if no charges are filed or the person is found innocent, he or she must prove to a court they obtained their cash or property legally, incurring attorney and court fees.

Using these devious methods, Iowa law enforcement has raked in more than $55 million in cash since 1985 and 4,200 vehicles since 1991. It’s entirely unknown how much the cops took in other valuables such as guns, jewelry, furniture and artwork, as no records are kept for those items.

The Des Moines Register began exposing Iowa’s egregious use of civil asset forfeiture after a 2013 incident. Two California gamblers were traveling through Iowa with $100,000 in cash, and were pulled over for allegedly not using a turn signal. Having a California license plate, this was a golden opportunity for the “interdiction” team.

The cops used alleged “fidgeting and nervousness” to justify their search, which found a small bit of cannabis. It didn’t matter than both the men had California medical cannabis cards. After arguing the search was illegal, $90,000 was returned to the men, who filed a federal civil lawsuit in 2014 for damages, stating “the troopers had no probable cause to detain the men for a search of their vehicle and that officers had been taught improper techniques for justifying the search.”

Iowa settled the case by awarding the men an additional $60,000, on the same day it disbanded the Drug Interdiction Team.

“The true importance of this lawsuit was that it forced the state of Iowa to re-examine its decades-long practice of pushing the constitutional boundaries of the state’s civil asset forfeiture law and to disband the Iowa Drug Interdiction Team,” said Glen Downey, attorney for the gamblers.

Four days after the announcement that the “interdiction” team was disbanded, Iowa’s policing for profit was struck another blow. The state’s Supreme Court ruled that cops wrongly detained a driver in a case that “will restrict the ability of state patrol troopers and deputies to do the type of warrantless vehicle searches…using controversial civil forfeiture laws.”

“Friday’s ruling came in the case of Robert Pardee, who’s fighting to get back $33,100 that a trooper seized after stopping a vehicle he was riding in and finding a small amount of marijuana during a search. The trooper called for a drug dog and searched the vehicle, partly because he believed the car had a “lived-in” look that could indicate cross-country drug trafficking.

But Justice Edward Mansfield in his opinion for the majority dismissed that evidence as “unremarkable” and clearly not evidence of criminal activity.

“There were water bottles, an energy drink, a metal coffee cup, chips and dip, apples and bananas, a trash bag with some trash, a sleeping bag draped on the rear seat and a guitar case,” Mansfield wrote. “Many vehicles are more lived-in than that.”

Pardee, a California resident, was acquitted of the drug charge, but even after the court ruling in his favor, he still has to convince the Poweshiek County District Court to give him his money back.

The insidious nature of civil asset forfeiture is being exposed across the country. In the last two years, 18 states have reformed their forfeiture laws, in some cases requiring a criminal conviction to seize assets. With these two cases being highlighted and the disbanding of Iowa’s “interdiction” unit, that state may be joining the list soon.