It’s hard to believe that it’s been 18 years since the Tiananmen Square Massacre and the legendary “tank man”. But this month marks the anniversary, and given that enough time as passed that a new generation has been born and without hearing about it I thought I’d give a little reminder surrounding events of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.

Although it is believed that Chinese troops under orders from the communist leadership massacred thousands of people, the event was immortalized in Western media by the famous video footage and photographs of a lone man in a white shirt standing in front of a column of tanks. This man has come to be known as “Tank Man” around the world.

He reportedly said, “Why are you here? You have caused nothing but misery.” As the tank driver attempted to go around him, the “tank man” moved into the tank’s path. He continued to stand defiantly in front of the tanks for some time, then climbed up onto the turret of the lead tank to speak to the soldiers inside. After returning to his position blocking the tanks, the man was pulled aside by onlookers who perhaps feared he would be shot or run over.
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I’ve seen a ton of videos out there that show officers giving someone the beat down during the commission of a crime, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. The following compilation of videos are, in my opinion examples of police going way beyond the limitations imposed by the laws of the United States.

Some people have argued that videos such as these may be terrible, but they are only an extremely small and not representative sample of police conduct in general. Well, forgive me for being skeptical, but I believe that for every one of these that actually gets caught on video there are probably hundreds that do not. In fact it has been my experience with police officers that they tend to selectively enforce laws as they deem suitable to their individual benefit at the time - even when they are inappropriate or flat our incorrect.
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Freedom. It’s nice, right? It ought to be… the freedom we enjoy was paid for with the blood of our forefathers, and is maintained by the blood of our siblings. And no freedom is more precious than that of speech. From it all other freedom flows.

Unfortunately there are still many oppressive regimes that do not offer the luxury of free speech, and people are being tortured and killed for speaking out against injustice. (As I’ve often noted.) This is why I have decided to put my money where my mouth is and provide financial support for the Freenet Project.
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From the Florida Times-Union

Last Saturday Police in Jacksonville, Florida were working under cover, selling drugs and busting users. When they went over to 81 year old Issac Singletary’s front yard and started up he tried to run them off his property, apparantly threatening them with his .38 revolver.

Problem is, rather than the police getting the hell off his property, they pulled their weapons and killed him.
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A new site dreamt up by the rock star Peter Gabriel called Witness.org focuses on the noble, yet disturbing, concept of documenting human rights violations.

The site currently catalogs one of the largest collections of human rights violations in the world, and has gathered the data by training hundreds of people in over 80 countries to use video recording technology.
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