California has no AG Gag laws or regulations, but it has a lot of AG, a lot of which is big and locally powerful. So some people just documented an example of CHP and Fresno Sheriffs trying to enforce one anyway, by harassment and attempted intimidation, on ehalf of an enormous cattle feeding operation.
The following BoingBoing article has a hilariously narrated, but quite disturbing video of police misbehavior: boingboing.net/.... The video itself is on you tube and is embedded below. It starts slow but gets better and better, or worse and worse, as they case may be.
An animal welfare group decided to get some photos of an enormous feedlot run by Harris Ranch along I-5 in CA. They carefully parked on public property, in the form of a public easement, and set up to use a drone to get some pics. Soon tsome ranch employees show up and shortly after, the CHP. The CHP officer goes over and cordially greets and shakes the hands of the feedlot employees and then goes over to the guys with the drone to start giving them a ration of shit. Soon yet another cop, then another and yet more. The cops demand ID, and just happen to carry it with them during one of their trips over to chat with the todies representing their owners, the local oligarchs. One kind or assumes that the purpose was to make an unlawful disclosure, since there was no legitimate purpose to ask for ID, let along take it over to the private (as opposed to public) servants of thelocal oligarchy. Another cop takes pictures of all of them, no doubt for some nefarious purpose, since no legitimate one exists for such scurvy behavior. Sheriffs get involved too, and at long last, an independent one who is also in a supervisory position and the cops stop harassing the citizens who then go about their business.
But, the filmers return the next day and the same scenario plays out, with all of the harassers claiming that since they ween't there yesterday, it is a whole new world and set of rules. They're either too sleazy or too stupid to call up the office and ask about the report from the prior day, to talk to the officer from the prior day, etc. At the end, one pretty much openly states that no matter how many times they come back, they will be harassed and intimidated (except that their attempts at intimidatin failed) again and again and again.
Nobody was shot, maced, beaten, framed, or subjected to malicious false arrest, as is so often the case. Nobody even had their money or property stolen or got groped or solicited. Nonetheless we have malfeasance, cops trying to assist a huge CAFO in attempting to illegally suppress the gathering of information about its operations. Though CA has no Ag Gag laws, this company clearly tries to create one, ad hoc, and gets the cops to assist it because it is huge, wealthy, connected and powerful. Even on the smallest humdrum level, tgreat numbers of cops cops do not "serve and protect" the people, but are instead waging war against the citizenry on behalf of the oligarchs, acting as enforcers, lackeys, toadies and gofers for the latter.
This isn't a problem with one cop, one force, one county, or one state. This is a national problem that permeates the entire country, and it will take concerted national action to try to re-establish some semblance the rule of law. Currently, we have the rule of the cops, who far too often make and enforce their own laws and rules and follow no others, and the rule of the oligarchs the whims and desires of which are enforced by the very same cops. We have no rights except in the sense that long after they've been violated some court might so rule, which does us no good whatsoever. The cops and oligarchs certainly won't help change things, and, if history is any guide, nor will lesser corporations, governments and government subdivisions, politicians and political parties unless they are driven to by manifestations of massive unrest such as strikes, boycotts, demonstrations and the like. Since this is a national problem, the solution needs to take place on a national scale, much like the civil rights, union and anti-war struggles of distant memory did.
crossposted from caucus99percent.com