Gangsters in Blue

• Iran is planning to execute a Canadian-born software developer because his product was used by a pornographic website. (NOTE: Per the comments, the Guardian article linked in the Reason post actually say the Iranian high court quashed the death sentence. But it has since been reinstated.)
• More on how Stephen Colbert’s Super PAC isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. 
• Judge allows Houston residents to become party to lawsuit between the city and a red light camera contractor.
• Feds end criminal investigation of Lance Armstrong, but “sources close to the investigation” continue to smear him in the press, anyway. Don’t hold your breath waiting for a criminal investigation into who is leaking grand jury testimony.
• Houston TV station bites on the vodka-soaked tampon story. Favorite quote from alleged expert on teen drinking habits: “More often than not, it’s happening in a lot of the Houston area.” More often than not? What could that possibly mean?
• Attempted puppycide.
• French court fines Google for providing a free map service, which is apparently an anti-competitive act of aggression against French companies that charge money to use their maps.

• Maiz Szalavitz takes questions from Reddit about “tough love” anti-drug boot camps for teens.
• Seems like this would be the ideal situation for the Taser. Instead, the dog-walking guy gets the Taser, and this kid gets a bullet.
• San Francisco man who was wrongly convicted and spent 18 years in prison sues over the use of perjured testimony in his case.
• Another TSA agent arrested for stealing from passengers.
• Facebook is the new heroin.
• The fruit fly chuckles at your inadequacy.
• Surveillance drone industry wants to “paint a more positive picture” of government spying on its citizens.
• Guy loses a bunch of weight, no longer diabetic. Starts a website to help others do the same. He’s now under criminal investigation for providing nutritional advice without a license. This is in North Carolina, the same state that went after a guy last year for practicing engineering without a license when he did some math for a citizens’ reports requesting a couple traffic lights.

• Your latest Hollywood-colluding-with-government copyright outrage.
• Amazing photos from an abandoned New York leper colony.
• British court rules that composing a photo the way someone else has could be a violation of copyright.
• Here is a dog jumping on a trampoline.
• Red State founder and CNN commenter tells radio audience that watching someone he disagrees with politically writhe in pain until the guy requires hospitalization is “made of awesome.”
• Despite promises from politicians, NYC continues with its ridiculous pot arrests.
• “Why more than a dozen teenage girls are exhibiting Tourette’s-like symptoms.”
• Headline of the day.
• Dahlia Lithwich on how Illinois awful recording cops law might affect this year’s G8 summit in Chicago.
• Good post on leash law Tasering: “‘Protect and Serve’ does not mean “you have to win every argument ever.’”

You may remember Gwinnett County, Georgia from such hits as “Where Did the Coke Go?,”  “Smothered, Covered, and Tasered,”   “The I Accidentally Entered the Wrong House and Killed a Dalmatian Blues”  “Disabled Guy and a SWAT Team,”  “No-Knock, Wrong Wouse,”  and the follow-up just a few months later, “Sorry We Pointed Our Guns at Your Baby (We Got the Wrong House Again.)”

Now, Sheriff Butch Conway has entered the world of web video, teaming up with a Bail Bonds outfit to bring you a video roundup of Northeast Metro Atlanta’s biggest dirtbags*, complete with a bitchin’ guitar soundtrack and bad-ass crime reenactments. Enjoy!

(*Note: All suspects are presumed innocent until proven guilty. You pussy.)

• Sniffing oxytocin could turn you into an extrovert. (That’s tocin, not contin.)
• Judge seals all the search warrants in that fatal Ogden drug raid.
• It’s astounding that after all the DNA exonerations we’ve seen in recent years, politicians will still grandstand about limiting death penalty appeals.
• The latest example of how preventing the “abuse” of controlled drugs often comes at the expense of people who need them.
•  Moronic libertarian-bashing of the day.
• Skip Oliva tells me that a former architect of Plan Columbia now owns the company that runs this creepy service. Seems appropriate.
• Police officer who admitted to snorting hydrocodone on the job, including in his cruiser, won’t face criminal charges.

I linked to a story about this case last summer. It’s another “but for video” case in which a citizen-shot video (shot by a priest, no less) pretty clearly show that the cops lied in their police report. Bonus points, they actually lied about the citizen-shot video.

The police report, David Cari, one of two arresting officers, states that he didn’t know what the New Haven priest was holding. He wrote that he saw an “unknown shiny silver object” that Manship had “cupped” in his hands, and was afraid for his safety. Read the police report here. . .

The police report alleges that Father Manship concealed the fact that he was videotaping the officers, by cupping his hands over “a silver object.”

“Not knowing if Manship was holding a camera or a possible weapon this officer asked Manship to show me what was in his hands,” Cari’s report reads.

In direct contradiction of Cari’s claim, the video from Manship’s camera shows Officer Cari twice verbally identifying the “silver object” as a camera.

“Sir what are you doing? Is there a reason that you have a camera on me?” says Officer Cari, in the video.

“I’m taking a video of what’s going on here,” Manship replies.

“Well, I’ll tell you what, what I’m going to do with that camera,” Officer Cari says, as he walks around a shelving unit to approach the priest.

Here’s the news:

The FBI has arrested four East Haven police officers on conspiracy and obstruction of justice charges following an investigation into alleged civil rights violations . . .

Federal law enforcement officials said in indictment papers that Officer Dennis Spaulding, Officer David Cari Officer Jason Zullo and Sgt. John Miller executed unreasonable searches and seizures and used unreasonable force and concealed their actions.

“At its core, this is an abuse of power case,” said Assistant US Attorney General Thomas Perez.

Mayor Maturo said the four men were arrested at about 6 a.m. Tuesday.

The officers are linked to the 2009 arrest of Father James Manship, who videotaped officers inside a store owned by Hispanics. Father Manship was arrested, but the charged were later dropped.

In a statement, Janice Fedarcyk, the Assistant Director of the FBI in New York, said “These officers have damaged the reputation of their department.”

“They behaved like bullies with badges,” she said.

Once again, all due credit to the Obama administration on this. The DOJ is not only backing citizens in lawsuits against police who violate the right to record, in the more egregious cases it looks like the agency will also hold police officers criminally accountable for—well—breaking the law.

• Florida Governor Rick Scott has ordered a new investigation into the jailhouse death of Nick Christie.
• Christie’s story was also featured on the Today show last week.
• Mike Riggs finds other police brutality cases in which the prosecutor (now deceased) who looked into Christie’s case cleared other cops of wrongdoing.
• Less important, but somewhat amusing: The many similarities between my article on Christie and this article that appeared two days later in the Daily Mail. Christie’s attorney apparently gave both of us the same quotes, word-for-word.

• Here’s a good SOPA/PIPA protest roundup from Reason.
• Also, the fact that Chris Dodd was recently a powerful politician is a pretty damned good argument against giving politicians more power.
• Maryland photojournalist harassed, arrested for recording police.
• U.S. government is abandoning the Iraqis who helped troops during the war, and who now face threats to their lives.
• The story is light on details, but a Connecticut assistant medical examiner has been charged with perjury.
• Dan Auerbach and Bon Appetit eat Nashville.
• Puppycide.
• Headline of the day.

• New Miss America will take up the cause of children of the incarcerated.
• TSA agents who stole $40,000 from passengers get 5 months in jail.
• Bambi-cide.
• Marine biologist charged with a federal felony for watching whales feed. Sounds like they tacked on a bogus charge of lying to investigators, too.
• Brad DeLong remembers Milton Friedman.
• Dash cam video shows cop lied about his attack on 66-year-old man.

• “Anything dealing with that kind of work, anything dealing with guns and taking down bad guys, I’m there. I love it.”
• Bakery creates TSA-compliant cupcake.
• The second-to-last paragraph of this piece is horrendous. There’s an ethos
• A pretty stunning series of portraits.
• Coddling Joe Arpaio.