In article .com, jl
wrote:

This one just
happened to be acting like a thug.

No offense, and with all due respect, I'd like to hear the cop's side
of the incident.

I signed up for the "citizen's ride" with a cop one night and saw him
stop several people. I told him I thought they were doing nothing
wrong, to which he replied that he knows everyone in the neighborhood
and he stops anyone after dark who looks like they don't belong. He's
paid to be curious and suspicious. If he asks someone to leave and he
doesn't, then he has more options.

Other notable laws -- it's illegal to come within 3 feet of an officer
without his permission. Um, not in a crowd, of course, but when he
stops you, if you step within his legally defined "space," then you've
broken a law and he has options. In this state, you can't refuse to
allow a cop to search your car, including the trunk. It's a similar
offense to refuse to open the trunk as it is to refuse to take a breath
test for DWI. Additionally, if there are two lanes in your direction,
then you must change lanes (if it's safe to do so) to put an empty lane
between the two of you as you pass a patrol car.

On the overall security situation our lawmakers have created for us, it
seems to me that any "temporary" rights-diluting measure intended to
deal with an immediate need (a) will become institutionalized and
permanent as well as extended to meet other needs in the way of
precedence (search and seizure comes to mind), and (b) makes it
difficult if not impossible for we who are supposed to be the guardians
of the Constitution to pass it along intact to future generations, and
likewise harder for future generations to do the same, because it was
so easily corrupted as it's become.

I'm sure that all of you are appalled at the very idea of having to be
positively tracked and checked and subject to search in your boats and
cars. But, what did you expect? We are being threatened by increments
of necessity, necessity being defined by extreme law-enforcement and
security types who would ID all of us, collect every piece of data
about us, put chips in us, and add us all to lists according to the
specifics of that data. Will you be surprised when just being on too
many lists will put you on another list that makes you a person of
interest?

Where were y'all when this process bean? We said "great going" at
every security measure that's come down on us since none of them really
affected us very much personally. Now that their attention has turned
to boats and airplanes, there's nobody left to speak out for us.
Remember this... (?)

First they came for the communists,
and I did not speak out--
because I was not a communist;

Then they came for the socialists,
and I did not speak out--
because I was not a socialist;

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I did not speak out--
because I was not a trade unionist;

Then they came for the Jews,
and I did not speak out--
because I was not a Jew;

Then they came for me--
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Think about it! Now they're coming for us. Why are we surprised or
shocked? You are now a "person of interest" if you own an aircraft or
boat. Heck, you're a "person of interest" if you visit an FAA office.
Have you done it lately? Nothing should shock you after that
experience. Geeze.

Scud

"General aviation -- going, going..."