Race to the Wire

Via Cosmic Iguana comes news from Nashua, NH, that police are charging a local man with violations of wiretap laws because his home security camera videotaped a police detective who came to the door.

A city man is charged with violating state wiretap laws by recording a detective on his home security camera, while the detective was investigating the man’s sons.

Michael Gannon ... was arrested Tuesday night, after he brought a video to the police station to try to file a complaint against Detective Andrew Karlis....

Police instead arrested Gannon, charging him with two felony counts of violating state eavesdropping and wiretap law by using an electronic device to record Karlis without the detective’s consent.

The detective arrived at the home of the Gannon's without a warrant, and when asked to leave, jammed his foot in the door. Gannon's security cameras recorded the incident, he brought the tape to the police station as evidence for a complaint against the detective and the local constabulary arrested him for surveilling them. Because in a police state, surveillance is a one way street.

The Bush and Blair governments seem to be engaged in a headlong race toward police state. Frankly, I think Blair has a bit of lead. While both countries have shot innocent people, the UK is one up on the US by first shooting an innocent man in the tube and invading the home and shooting innocent inhabitants therein, claiming the victims were "terrorists." In the US, federal agents have shot an innocent man, claiming he was threatening an airliner with a bomb, though witnesses on the plane said that no such threats actually had been uttered by the victim. The official story made no sense, but that was of no concern to US media dullards. Though the official US tale was as much of a lie as the Metro Police's claims about Menezes, the British press exposed the Met charade for what it was. None of this mattered to Blair's government, though, scarely a repercussion came of the sordid Menezes affair. Nonetheless and despite Blair's terrorism laws, the US maintains a certain lead in the realm of less violent but more intrusive measures.

The difference really is that the US media are far more invested in maintaining the police state narrative, as has the US Supreme Court, which exhibiting this bias in a recent ruling that stripped whistleblowers of legal protection. The UK press, on the other hand, have not yet been entirely co-opted, indeed, have been rather uncooperative by openly exposing the excesses of British police. But between the Blair state and the Bush state, the race to the police state is looking like a race to the wire.