Save "Injustice Everywhere"

[Anti Federalist]

The second of two blog entries from Balko over at The Agitator.

Packman's efforts would be sorely missed.

ETA - FWIW, I'm going to put my name in the hat as well.

I think between Mrs. AF and myself, we might be able to make it go.

We'll see what happens.



Save Injustice Everywhere

Saturday, April 7th, 2012

http://www.theagitator.com/2012/04/07/save-injustice-everywhere/

David Packman, who has been tirelessly documenting police misconduct for three years at his Injustice Everywhere blog, writes that he may soon need to quit the project.

I’m not sure what can be done to save the site. It seems that more than just a round of donations (though I’m sure he’d appreciate if you donated), it looks as if he can really only continue the project if it can become a full time job for him.

I’m posting here because I think the site is valuable and the project should continue on. Maybe someone who reads this has some ideas on how to make sure that happens.

Whatever happens, he deserves a ton of praise for what he’s already done. Packman mostly just documents, but when he does editorialize, he usually does so with restraint, drawing on the incidents he has documented. On too many occasions to count, his site has helped me find and research stories.

If there’s some think tank or civil liberties group out there that might consider hosting and sponsoring what Packman does, it would do us all an important service.



Proposal for handing over the NPMSRP

April 8th, 2012

http://www.injusticeeverywhere.com/

As I mentioned in Friday’s daily report, my employment situation is now such that I can no longer reliably track reports and do all the tasks necessary for properly running this project. Generally, when done right, this project takes up approximately 60+ hours a week and the kind of work I do now just doesn’t afford me the time to do this.

Since there isn’t a way that this project would make enough income to replace my regular job and since my regular job isn’t compatible with this project, I have little choice but to either hand it over to someone else, or end it. Accordingly, I’ve asked for those interested in taking it over to step forward with their plans and, with the intention of letting the project’s supporters have a say, I want to make their intentions for the site public and let the readers voice their opinions on who should take it over.

So, I want to give the people or organizations until Tuesday night to submit their intentions to me via email at davidp@npmsrp.org. I will help each interested party understand just what they are taking on, explain the processes involved in running the project, and answer any questions they might have.

The interested parties, in turn, will write a single paragraph pitch for their intentions that includes why they should be chosen as the party to take over the project and give that to me by midnight, Tuesday.

On Wednesday I will name each interested party (in alias if so requested) and put up a poll so that everyone can vote on their choice. Readers can also debate the merits/detractors for each choice in the comment section of that post as well.

By Friday, 5:00 Pacific, the poll will close and the final choice will be made. Barring any attempts at rigging the vote, the winner of the poll will be given administrative rights to the site, email system, and Twitter account that same day, and the handover will be completed and official after I post one final time that evening.

Currently there appears to be three potentially interested parties, though that may change. If anyone wishes to suggest any alterations to this plan, feel free to do so in the comment section below.

Good luck to the potential new owners of the project, and good luck to everyone else as well… and thank you all for your support.

[phill4paul]

I really couldn't think of better candidates for the position AF. Let me know if you decide to go forward and I will lend my vote.

[Anti Federalist]

I really couldn't think of better candidates for the position AF. Let me know if you decide to go forward and I will lend my vote.

Seriously considering it and thanks.

I've got to see what Mrs. AF thinks of the idea, since she'd have to manage it while I'm away, hopefully she'll log in and check it out.

[Danke]

I would totally give if you and donnay ran it. Totally.

[Anti Federalist]

bump

[Travlyr]

I would totally give if you and donnay ran it. Totally.
Me too!

[phill4paul]

Me too!

Depending on my circumstance I could probably give $ down the road. I would however lend 5 hrs. worth of research a week to help.

[John F Kennedy III]

bump

[heavenlyboy34]

I would totally give if you and donnay ran it. Totally. +1 :cool:

[donnay]

We'll I am game. You all are too kind. But if AF wants to do this, I am always up for the challenge. :)

[phill4paul]

We'll I am game. You all are too kind. But if AF wants to do this, I am always up for the challenge. :)

Huzzah! Once you've submitted your bid there let us know so I can post my support. As I said I'll help out as best I can. It looks like they have a mechanism in place for getting the stories. IT IS A VERY IMPORTANT SITE to keep functioning.

[Anti Federalist]

We'll I am game. You all are too kind. But if AF wants to do this, I am always up for the challenge. :)

Write him tonight and put our name in the hat.

[kcchiefs6465]

Much luck.

[Anti Federalist]

Well, too many things came together too quickly for me to properly frame a case for taking over the site.

But I think this latest post from Balko at The Agitator makes a good case for Cato taking over and even though I have my issues with them, I tend to agree.

If you do as well, go to the site and up vote Cato.



You Know What’s Worse Than Bad Cops Who Beat, Shoot, and Kill Innocent People? Libertarians.

Friday, April 13th, 2012

http://www.theagitator.com/2012/04/13/you-know-whats-worse-than-bad-cops-who-beat-shoot-and-kill-innocent-people-libertarians/

I gave up on having any sort of meaningful discourse with the Balloon Juice blog a good year ago or so. The noise over there is just too damned loud. But a post last night by front-page blogger Ann Laurie deserves some attention. It really goes above an beyond the usual ignorant Balloon Juice blathering.

Here’s what happened:

Earlier this week, I pointed you to the National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project, a one-man project run by David Packman that, as the name indicates, catalogs police misconduct around the country. Packman understandably is having problems keeping the project going while also working a full-time job, and indicated he may have to shut the site down unless he can make other arrangements.

I was delighted to learn yesterday afternoon, then, that my old supervisor Tim Lynch is interested in bringing the project to the Cato Institute. Cato would provide a great platform for the project, bringing Packman’s work and the issue of police misconduct the sort of national exposure and broad institutional support both deserve.

As it turns out, Packman also received other offers to take over the project—a good indication that others have recognized the value of his work. So Packman decided to put the offers to a vote, and allow his readers to have a say in what happens next.

So yesterday afternoon I received an email from my friend Johnathan Blanks, who is Lynch’s research assistant, someone I happen to know is pretty passionate about these issues, and the guy who would likely be overseeing the project if it were to come to Cato. Blanks’ email, sent to a small circle of people he knew used Packman’s site regularly, explained what was going on, pointed us to the poll, and urged us to vote. Blanks also explicitly urged us not to post the poll on our blogs, Twirter accounts, or Facebook accounts. His thinking, which I think was appropriate, was that the fate of Packman’s site should be determined by the people who read it regularly. He didn’t want it to look like Cato was using its institutional might to overwhelm the poll with people who aren’t already familiar with what Packman has been doing.

Enter the idiots at Balloon Juice. A trolling twit from that site who goes by the name “Joey Maloney,” and whom I’ve banned from this site after repeated warnings, emailed Balloon Juice blogger Anne Laurie about Packman’s poll, asking her to direct the site’s hivemind to go skew the poll against Cato. And she complied, telling Balloon Juicers to go vote for “anyone but CATO [sic].” To top it off, Ann Laurie admits in the post that she has never read Packman’s site. Which means she really has no idea what the hell she’s writing about. But no matter. On any issue. No matter what. Anyone but Cato. And of course the Balloon Juicers then mindlessly carried out her command.

Here’s the thing. Cato published and promoted my paper on police militarization. In fact, Cato had already published another paper on the issue in 1999, one that noted how the trend was affecting poor and minority communities. This was a good 12 years before mainstream liberals really started giving a damn about this issue, which was once heavily militarized cops started beating middle class white kids at Occupy protests. Cato has also been maintaining an online map of botched SWAT raids since my paper came out in 2006. But you know, anyone but Cato.

Also, Anne, Cato has been filing amicus Supreme Court briefs on police and prosecutorial misconduct cases for years, now. They often team up with organizations like the ACLU and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. In recent years, Cato has hosted forums on asset forfeiture abuse, ending the drug war, and hosted a screening of a film directed at minority communities about how to protect their civil rights when dealing with cops. Cato scholars have recently written about police GPS tracking, the inequities of juvenile justice, the overuse and unfairness of plea bargaining, police militarization, New York City’s stop-and-frisk happy police commissioner Ray Kelly, the importance of preserving Miranda rights, the First Amendment right to record the police, and debunking the notion that immigrants are disproportionately prone to criminal behavior.

But sure, Anne. Anyone but Cato.

The thing is, Cato won’t be hurt in the least should Balloon Juice’s poll jacking send Packman’s project elsewhere. But you know what will happen? Packman’s great, systematic work exposing and documenting police misconduct will get less national attention than it otherwise would. Which means the issue of police misconduct itself will get less attention than it otherwise would. And Packman’s project will go to someone who lacks the budget and institutional support of a place like Cato. But hey. If the issue of police misconduct must get less attention so a petty Balloon Juicer blogger can casually register her loathing of libertarians by sending the blog’s sneering idiots to swarm a small poll put up by guy who’s just trying to preserve a worthy thing he started, well, I suppose that’s the price we all must pay. Good job, Anne!

Of course, in the end this is Packman’s project, and it’s his to do with as he pleases. My scorn here is for Laurie. Her casual, knee-jerk contempt for Cato is a tidy example of the depths to which the discourse at that site has sunk. Because she’s ignorant of Cato’s work on police abuse and criminal justice, she readily buys into Joey Maloney’s nefarious characterization of Cato. Because Cato supports lower taxes and less regulation, everything they do must be opposed, even if it’s stuff that a good liberal like Laurie ought to otherwise support. That principle extends out even to actively undermining causes liberals ought to support, if doing so in a particular instance might bring some small benefit or credit to a nasty bunch of Rand worshippers like Cato. I can only guess that in all her cunning, Laurie somehow sleuthed out Cato’s covert plan to contract the entire police misconduct project out to Haliburton. Also, something about Nick Gillespie’s leather jacket. And a bunch of Internet cliches. Butt-hurt. Derp!

Watch. I give it a month before a Balloon Juice blogger puts up yet another post about how libertarian organizations like Cato are just fronts for the Republican Party—because they never devote any real time or resources toward civil liberties issues.

(Side note: I know I’ve promised a post on the Koch vs. Cato controversy. That’s still coming.)

[Danke]

http://www.injusticeeverywhere.com/

Suspended until further notice
April 13th, 2012
Due to the voting fiasco I am suspending the project until further notice while I take some time to figure out what to do.

[Anti Federalist]

http://www.injusticeeverywhere.com/

God damn it.

[phill4paul]

God damn it.

Seconded.