Sunday, March 25, 2007
NYPD Has Come Totally Unhinged
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/25/nyregion/25infiltrate.html?pagewanted=1&hp
It's not the least bit surprising that they were spying on activists, but the sheer breadth of the program is pretty astounding. Where does the NYPD get the resources to encamp detectives in Europe and the Middle East, or send them around the country? (Charmingly, the list of places where anti-Republican groups probably congregated and where those detectives went to infiltrate their meetings probably mirrors an indie rock national tour).
We are seeing the expansion of a new category of non-crime crime, wherein the State diverts resources to creating dossiers on an ever-wider spectrum of groups or individuals deemed inimical to a very broad conception of "government." I guess, in a sense, that's just not news. Isn't it funny, though, the way some of the activists are quoted as saying they knew they were being infiltrated: "Young men aged 25-32 asking 'first name, last name.'" While the article ends with hearty self-congratulations by the cops, you have to wonder if the program was worth it at all, or if, as I suspect, the cops basically blew their own cover everywhere. Imagine a few college-age artists being dogged by an earnest, clean-cut guy with shiny shoes and a real entitlement problem who has no idea about any of the music they listen to, let alone, um, art. Cops are so lame! And they don't even know it.
At a Critical Mass ride, I once heard an officer yelling down at a girl, "Who is the leader of this organization?!" It's all-too-common to roll your eyes at some stoner who gets excited at the thought that the government has a file on him, but the NYPD has also gone way overboard in the jouissance they get out of their own paranoia. They really want there to be some kind of pyramidal organization to any and all kinds of public, demonstrative speech. They want all behaviors they deem anti-social to emanate from a hive mind. It almost seems like they develop an instinct, that the very form of protest--irrespective of content or political valence--triggers a certain reaction.
What would happen if Critical Mass occurred at the same time as a rowdy anti-abortion protest? Would the NYPD regard it as some kind of two-pronged strategy? Would they make sure to separate the "criminals" from each event and interrogate them against one another's statements, trying to "fool" them into a Prisoner's Dilemma situation? I always wonder if the cops have a tough time keeping an eye on what's going on in Chinatown, because of a dearth of Chinese officers. I honestly can't believe they sent people to the Middle East. Who in the Academy is qualified to train people in the arts of international espionage? It's ridiculous enough that they're so clueless as to waste all that time looking for assassins at Parsons and then pat themselves on the back for having thwarted any would-be Lee Harvey Oswalds.
I think September 11 inculcated in the NYPD a perverse identity crisis where they now view themselves as the single greatest power keeping civilization safe from terrorists, terrorists who have already struck at New York twice. A report chronicling their adventures in the fabulous Orient--there are some serious delusions of grandeur going on there.
But that's what happens when you give assholes unlimited power.
It's not the least bit surprising that they were spying on activists, but the sheer breadth of the program is pretty astounding. Where does the NYPD get the resources to encamp detectives in Europe and the Middle East, or send them around the country? (Charmingly, the list of places where anti-Republican groups probably congregated and where those detectives went to infiltrate their meetings probably mirrors an indie rock national tour).
We are seeing the expansion of a new category of non-crime crime, wherein the State diverts resources to creating dossiers on an ever-wider spectrum of groups or individuals deemed inimical to a very broad conception of "government." I guess, in a sense, that's just not news. Isn't it funny, though, the way some of the activists are quoted as saying they knew they were being infiltrated: "Young men aged 25-32 asking 'first name, last name.'" While the article ends with hearty self-congratulations by the cops, you have to wonder if the program was worth it at all, or if, as I suspect, the cops basically blew their own cover everywhere. Imagine a few college-age artists being dogged by an earnest, clean-cut guy with shiny shoes and a real entitlement problem who has no idea about any of the music they listen to, let alone, um, art. Cops are so lame! And they don't even know it.
At a Critical Mass ride, I once heard an officer yelling down at a girl, "Who is the leader of this organization?!" It's all-too-common to roll your eyes at some stoner who gets excited at the thought that the government has a file on him, but the NYPD has also gone way overboard in the jouissance they get out of their own paranoia. They really want there to be some kind of pyramidal organization to any and all kinds of public, demonstrative speech. They want all behaviors they deem anti-social to emanate from a hive mind. It almost seems like they develop an instinct, that the very form of protest--irrespective of content or political valence--triggers a certain reaction.
What would happen if Critical Mass occurred at the same time as a rowdy anti-abortion protest? Would the NYPD regard it as some kind of two-pronged strategy? Would they make sure to separate the "criminals" from each event and interrogate them against one another's statements, trying to "fool" them into a Prisoner's Dilemma situation? I always wonder if the cops have a tough time keeping an eye on what's going on in Chinatown, because of a dearth of Chinese officers. I honestly can't believe they sent people to the Middle East. Who in the Academy is qualified to train people in the arts of international espionage? It's ridiculous enough that they're so clueless as to waste all that time looking for assassins at Parsons and then pat themselves on the back for having thwarted any would-be Lee Harvey Oswalds.
I think September 11 inculcated in the NYPD a perverse identity crisis where they now view themselves as the single greatest power keeping civilization safe from terrorists, terrorists who have already struck at New York twice. A report chronicling their adventures in the fabulous Orient--there are some serious delusions of grandeur going on there.
But that's what happens when you give assholes unlimited power.
