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.’”

Man gets the stun gun treatment for walking his dogs off-leash.

A Montara man walking two lapdogs off leash was hit with an electric-shock gun by a National Park Service ranger after allegedly giving a false name and trying to walk away, authorities said Monday.

The park ranger encountered Gary Hesterberg with his two small dogs Sunday afternoon at Rancho Corral de Tierra, which was recently incorporated into the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, said Howard Levitt, a spokesman for the park service.

Hesterberg, who said he didn’t have identification with him, allegedly gave the ranger a false name, Levitt said.

The ranger, who wasn’t identified, asked Hesterberg to remain at the scene, Levitt said. He tried several times to leave, and finally the ranger “pursued him a little bit and she did deploy her” electric-shock weapon, Levitt said. “That did stop him.” . . .

Witnesses said the use of a stun gun and the arrest seemed excessive for someone walking two small dogs off leash.

“It was really scary,” said Michelle Babcock, who said she had seen the incident as she and her husband were walking their two border collies. “I just felt so bad for him.”

Babcock said Hesterberg had repeatedly asked the ranger why he was being detained. She didn’t answer him, Babcock said.

After shocking him, the ranger did at least call paramedics. Then she arrested him. The park only recently started requiring dogs to be on a leash. Apparently, the ranger was merely trying to provide the man a service.

The ranger was trying to educate residents of the rule, Levitt said.

Lesson learned, I guess. Note too that the ranger is the only person in the story not mentioned by name.

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.)

• Stephen Colbert is making an important point with his Super PAC, but not the point he thinks he’s making.
• Cops on the Internet.
• Man gets Tasered, beaten despite having committed no crime. Federal judge finds that the force was excessive, and orders damages for pain and suffering in the amount of . . . one dollar.
• Guy Fieri, eating things in reverse.
• Permanent moon bases, bringing dinosaurs back to life, and pondering the possibilities of space sex: Just another glimpse into the ideas-cluttered mind of Newt Gingrich.
• Thanks to collective bargaining, public school teachers in Buffalo get free plastic surgery.
• Nickelback has had enough.

You’re the mayor of a small city in Connecticut. Four of your police officers have just been arrested by the FBI on federal civil rights charges. They’re accused of harassing and abusing the Latino residents of your city. There’s video showing that they’ve lied in police reports about said harassment. You’re asked what you plan to do to clean up the department. If you’re East Haven Mayor Joseph Maturo, you say this:

“I might have tacos when I go home. I’m not quite sure yet.”

He has since apologized.

• 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.

• Puppycide.
• Why GOP senators were more willing to jump ship on PIPA than Democrats.
• Loma Linda, California: Where there’s no alcohol, no tobacco, and the citizens are made of cardboard.
• Illinois ups the ante in the war on cold medicine: Any pseudoephedrine purchase will now put your name and address in a state police database.
• Like most everything else about the guy, Newt Gingrich’s war on the “media elite” is phony. See also here.
• A petition to investigate Chris Dodd for bribery.
• Police shoot a man dead after a bicycle violation.
• Asset forfeiture creep: How the DOJ is able to seize websites without a conviction.
• Here is a video of some guys rolling a giant tire into a lake.