Cops raid blogger for criticizing them

This story has bipped through the blogosphere the past few days, but it's not unprecendented in modern America.

In Phoenix, a blogger who runs a blog criticizing misconduct by city police found his home raided solely because of what he wrote. Cops promptly seized computers, assorted computer equipment, and personal files regarding a police harassment lawsuit.

The fact that the files were confiscated is proof the raid is an act of retaliation.

During the raid, the blogger's roommate was cuffed for 3 hours as cops ransacked the residence. The blogger was out of town during the episode.

The blog consisted of information provided by good cops about the bad cops on the force. This included information about an officer whose son was a child molester and was trying to get on the force himself.

As an example of the ridiculousness of the charges against the blogger, authorities accused of him of petty theft for posting photos of police name plates that looked like they were taken from the department. But in fact, the blogger made the name plates himself.

This isn't the first case like this in the United States in recent memory. I remember a case in the mid-'90s in northern Kentucky in which a man's home was raided because he kept files on local police. He was promptly taken to a psychiatric ward, with no court hearing. (This is Kentucky, after all, where involuntary commitment is like a state religion.)

Keeping files on police is not a crime. In fact, it isn't even anti-police. You might think of it as a form of countersurveillance. If you photograph a surveillance camera, does that mean you hate the camera? No. But photographing it helps keep the system honest.

Obviously, the system isn't honest if a blogger can be raided just because of his views. Much like how the harassing "reviews" of 'The Fight That Never Ends' proved the book's point that the serial bullies never got over things, this raid proves the blog's point about misconduct in the Phoenix police department.

(Source: http://carlosmiller.com/2009/04/02/phoenix-police-raid-home-of-blogger-whose-writing-is-highly-critical-of-them)