{"id":186484,"date":"2014-01-09T20:21:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-10T01:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/01\/09\/fing-civil-liberties-how-do-they-work\/"},"modified":"2014-01-09T20:21:00","modified_gmt":"2014-01-10T01:21:00","slug":"fing-civil-liberties-how-do-they-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/01\/09\/fing-civil-liberties-how-do-they-work\/","title":{"rendered":"F%$#ing Civil Liberties, How Do They Work?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"border: 1px solid black; float: right; margin: 0px 10px; padding: 5px; text-align: center; width: 370px;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"203\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_-agl0pOQfs?start=111\" width=\"360\"><\/iframe><br \/><i>Insane Clown Posse &#8211; Miracles, (<b><span style=\"font-size: 100%; font-variant: small-caps;\">Completely NSFW<\/span><\/b>) it explains the reference in the post title<\/i><\/div>\n<p>It&#8217;s not odd that a group would object to being characterized as a criminal gang by the FBI.<\/p>\n<p>What is odd when a the group in question are fans of music group.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a hint to the FBI, if you are being accused of being over the top by a a group called <b><span style=\"font-size: 100%; font-variant: small-caps;\">Insane Clown Posse<\/span><\/b>, and they are making cogent arguments that the response is excessive and an unconstitutional violation of the constitutional right to free assembly, perhaps it is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/01\/09\/arts\/music\/insane-clown-posse-defends-fans-with-f-bi-lawsuit.html?gwh=626DC4C3664F955E34BBB73B0534AD3F\">time for some self examination<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">The Michigan rap group Insane Clown Posse filed suit on Wednesday against the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, saying that the United States government had made the \u201cunwarranted and unlawful decision\u201d to classify fans of the band as criminal gang members, leading to their harassment by law enforcement and causing them \u201csignificant harm.\u201d<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">The lawsuit was filed in Federal District Court in Detroit by lawyers for the band and for the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan. Plaintiffs include the Insane Clown Posse founders Joseph Bruce and Joseph Utsler, who perform as Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, and whose fans call themselves Juggalos.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">Also listed as plaintiffs are four Juggalos from Nevada, California, North Carolina and Iowa, who offered details of incidents in which they said they had been subjected to police harassment or other punishments for identifying with Insane Clown Posse.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">The seeds of this lawsuit were sown in 2011, when the F.B.I.\u2019s National Gang Intelligence Center published a report that described Juggalos as \u201ca loosely organized hybrid gang\u201d whose members were \u201cexpanding into many U.S. communities.\u201d<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">The report, titled \u201cNational Gang Threat Assessment: Emerging Trends,\u201d cited a 2011 incident in which \u201ctwo suspected Juggalo associates were charged with beating and robbing an elderly homeless man,\u201d and another in 2010 in which \u201ca suspected Juggalo member\u201d shot and wounded two other people.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">The report also included a photograph of a woman described as a \u201cJuggalo member,\u201d wearing face paint similar to the kind used by Insane Clown Posse and pointing a gun at the camera. <\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">The lawsuit asks the court to set aside the findings of the 2011 F.B.I. gang assessment, order the elimination of \u201ccriminal intelligence information\u201d on Juggalos from government and law-enforcement databases and prohibit the gathering of further information without \u201csufficient facts\u201d of a \u201cdefinable criminal activity or enterprise.\u201d<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">Mark Parsons, a Juggalo from Las Vegas and one of the plaintiffs listed in the suit, said in the complaint that he had been detained in July by state troopers outside Knoxville, Tenn., for displaying Insane Clown Posse\u2019s insignia, known as \u201cthe hatchet man,\u201d on his semi truck. <\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">Jeff Engstrom, a lawyer and blogger who writes at Abovethelaw.com under the pseudonym Juggalo Law, said in an email that the government\u2019s actions were \u201claughably off base\u201d and \u201cthe equivalent of placing Phish fans on a terrorist watch list.\u201d He added, \u201cIt elevates an Internet punch line into something even more absurd.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>You&#8217;ve seen this FBI report used to cancel concerts, refuse enlistments in the military, and deny custody in divorces.<\/p>\n<p>This is not just a bit of silliness.  This is a McCarthyesque abuse of power, and I hope that ICP, and the ACLU get their case to court, get the full story, and discover which nut job did this.<\/p>\n<p>Whoever did this should not be in law enforcement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Insane Clown Posse &#8211; Miracles, (Completely NSFW) it explains the reference in the post title It&#8217;s not odd that a group would object to being characterized as a criminal gang by the FBI. What is odd when a the group in question are fans of music group. Here&#8217;s a hint to the FBI, if you &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[962,971,1041,1137,1015],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-186484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-40yrs","category-civil-rights","category-law-enforcement-misconduct","category-music","category-weird"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186484"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186484\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}