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Highway to the Neighborhood Zones
This is a great idea!
The Examiner has the scoop on a controversial new program announced today that would create so-called "Neighborhood Safety Zones" which would serve to partially seal off certain parts of the city. D.C. Police would set-up checkpoints in targeted areas, demand to see ID and refuse admittance to people who don't live there, work there or have a “legitimate reason” to be there.
From the story:
Peter Nickles, the city’s interim attorney general, said the quarantine would have “a narrow focus.”
“This is a very targeted program that has been used in other cities,” Nickles told The Examiner. “I’m not worried about the constitutionality of it.”
Others are. Kristopher Baumann, chairman of the D.C. police union and a former lawyer, called the checkpoint proposal “breathtaking.”
Shelley Broderick, president of the D.C.-area American Civil Liberties Union and the dean of the University of the District of Columbia’s law school, said the plan was “cockamamie.”“I think they tried this in Russia and it failed,” she said.
Or maybe the Russians didn't do it right!
|6.4.08 @ 2:32PM|#
"This is a very targeted program that has been used in other
cities," Nickles told The Examiner. "I'm not worried about the
constitutionality of it."
Other cities, yes. Not other cities in the United States
though...
|6.4.08 @ 2:36PM|#
"I'm not worried about the constitutionality of
it."
No shit.
"Ihre Papieren, bitte."
|6.4.08 @ 2:36PM|#
Internal Passports (ITVs) are also popular in "Southland
Tales".
But really. You scoff at the measure and then some ScaryHomeless
shows up and threatens your way of life. I say no to that! Think of
the children.
|6.4.08 @ 2:36PM|#
Let me guess where these "safe zones" would be. How about west of Rock Creek Park? All those rich white liberals living in NW Washington don't want any of those dangerous black people coming over to their side of the city, unless of course they have a good reason to be there, like you know mowing lawns or cleaning the house.
|6.4.08 @ 2:41PM|#
I've long said that you had 2 choices when it came to dealing
with urban pharmacuticals: legalize it and be done with the charade
or go all police state. Anything else is just jerking off.
Not too surprised to see Chief Kathy Lanier has decided to go with
the bukkake party option.
x,y|6.4.08 @ 2:41PM|#
This should not be surprising. If you do not believe in private property rights (real private property right, not the quasi-private system we have now where you pay property taxes to the state, where what you do in the privacy of your home is the state's business, and where your property can be seized for dubious reasons), then the state basically owns the territory. Once you've granted the state that power, this is a natural and predictable result.
ed|6.4.08 @ 2:45PM|#
"This is a very targeted program that has been used in other
cities"
Warsaw, circa 1943, comes to mind.
|6.4.08 @ 2:47PM|#
How else are we going to protect the Jefferson Memorial from midnight dance parties?
|6.4.08 @ 2:47PM|#
It's "a" logical next step now that Americans have been conditioned to DUI checkpoints.
|6.4.08 @ 2:51PM|#
In some ways they already do this kind of thing in a lot of cities. I know several people who have accidently gotten lost in places like Camden or Newark only to be pulled over by cops and escorted out of the neighborhood. They were glad to have the help and were really lost. The cops in those neighborhood basically profile white people on the theory that any white person there is either lost and needs help or there to buy drugs.
Fluffy|6.4.08 @ 2:52PM|#
Actually, Daniel's reference to Fallujah is very apt.
As I have said before, Fallujah represents not a temporary security
solution for the duration of a civil conflict, but a template for
the way our politicians think society should work.
Fallujah was an opportunity to test biometrics and to experiment
with restructuring society around the perpetual surveillance state,
and not really a "crisis" or "emergency" at all.
thoreau|6.4.08 @ 2:53PM|#
Great, now every day in DC can be like Halloween weekend in Isla Vista (student neighborhood adjacent to UC Santa Barbara).
|6.4.08 @ 2:56PM|#
Let me guess where these "safe zones" would be. How about
west of Rock Creek Park? All those rich white liberals living in NW
Washington don't want any of those dangerous black people coming
over to their side of the city
Actually, my take from that "narrow focus" and "very targeted" bit
was the opposite of that. I don't think you'll see any harassing of
people in Georgetown for their papers or intentions.
|6.4.08 @ 2:56PM|#
This is a very targeted program that has been used in other
cities,
Would it really have been so hard for the reporter to ask "Such
as?". Isn't this a blindingly obvious question to ask?
Oh, I forgot. Reporters don't think, they just report.
oso|6.4.08 @ 2:56PM|#
Daniel,
Fallujah was my thought as well.
I saw a photo of marines using laser scanners to check IDs for
Fallujah residents and the first thought that popped into my head
was, "Testing the system for use in the next US disaster." Then I
dismissed that thought as too cynical.
wrong again.
|6.4.08 @ 2:58PM|#
It was actually quite effective in Soviet times, street crime was very rare in the old regime as it usually is with totalitarian governments. Even tyranny has at least something on the plus side of the cost benefit analysis...
|6.4.08 @ 3:00PM|#
Just another gated community.
No...someone else's gated community...with security paid for by my
tax dollars.
Because the police don't already have enough to do.
Fluffy|6.4.08 @ 3:02PM|#
Mick,
Are you sure about that?
I have always read that street crime was effectively as common as
under the Soviets as it is now, but that the Soviets simply
published statistics claiming there was little or no street
crime.
Wasn't the worst serial killer in world history that Ukrainian guy,
whose victims had no warning of his existence because the Soviets
concealed information about murders or missing persons?
|6.4.08 @ 3:08PM|#
If the chairman of the police union says it crosses the line, you know it is some seriously fucked up shit. Usually those guys are chomping at the bit for more authority.
|6.4.08 @ 3:09PM|#
"""Other cities, yes. Not other cities in the United States
though...""""
Try NYC under the Guiliani administration, but on a smaller
scale.
|6.4.08 @ 3:09PM|#
It also likely violates City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32 (2000) (holding that the difficulty in examining each passing car did not justify suspicionless searches or seizures
|6.4.08 @ 3:10PM|#
Actually, my take from that "narrow focus" and "very
targeted" bit was the opposite of that. I don't think you'll see
any harassing of people in Georgetown for their papers or
intentions.
Yeah, that's my take as well. Most of this will be east of the
Anacostia or in neighborhoods like Trinidad that are known as
open-air drug markets where the customers drive in from
outside.
None of which makes it right, of course.
|6.4.08 @ 3:12PM|#
Fluffy,
Yup. Andrei
Chikatilo.
Had the policeman checked Chikatilo's bag, he would have found
the amputated breasts of Sveta Korostik.
|6.4.08 @ 3:21PM|#
If the chairman of the police union says it crosses the
line, you know it is some seriously fucked up shit. Usually those
guys are chomping at the bit for more authority.
To be fair, this isn't always true. Remember that it was the NYC
police union that quashed Giuliani's plan to start strictly
enforcing jaywalking laws. The police union felt (correctly) that
handing out tickets to thousands of NY'ers for crossing the street
would make them unpopular enough that it would be impossible for
them to do their jobs.
|6.4.08 @ 3:22PM|#
Try NYC under the Guiliani administration, but on a smaller
scale.
Really? I remember a candidate for Rochester mayor being on the
local NPR station a couple of years ago talking about doing this
type of thing in Rochester, and the host asked him how he could do
it when it violated the state constitution's guarantees of free
passage on all public roads (unless the road was entirely closed,
as in the case of construction or weather emergency).
|6.4.08 @ 3:31PM|#
In some ways they already do this kind of thing in a lot of
cities. I know several people who have accidently gotten lost in
places like Camden or Newark only to be pulled over by cops and
escorted out of the neighborhood. They were glad to have the help
and were really lost. The cops in those neighborhood basically
profile white people on the theory that any white person there is
either lost and needs help or there to buy drugs.
Yep. I've been racially profiled in Detroit for being white in a
poor black neighborhood.
May I see some identification sir?
Where are you headed?
Are you aware that this is an unsafe neighborhood?
They do the warrant check and I'm on my way. It is difficult to
describe how hard it is to not scream anfd holler at these LEOs
over the whole thing. I haven't been frisked yet. When and if that
happens I'm certain I'll get arrested and possibly beaten.
I see the thread was almost immediately Godwined. Hard not to,
isn't it?
Not a Cuscatleco|6.4.08 @ 3:41PM|#
John: I think it's Bolivians and Salvadorans who clean houses in
Georgetown now.
As for the article, *yawn*.
Any drug dealer or criminal with a mediocre level of ambition will
be able to steal, forge or buy adequare identification or bribe the
cops who are checking ID's.
|6.4.08 @ 3:49PM|#
I see the thread was almost immediately Godwined. Hard not
to, isn't it?
Impossible.
Sorry.
|6.4.08 @ 3:49PM|#
Mayor's Office says Trinidad is first trial of the
program.
It's not hard to believe. I read an article in the Post a
couple of years ago that described Trinidad as having night-time
traffic jams from customers circling the block to buy drugs.
Obviously, the Post is all in favor of the war on drugs,
but they did paint a believably grim picture of life in Trinidad
for the folks who have to cope with their neighborhood being used
that way.
I'll bet the majority of residents in Trinidad are all in favor of
this. Problem is, once the program moves to a different
neighborhood, the market and attendant violence will come right
back. And in the meantime, the stops will add just another little
hassle for people who live in that neighborhood.
|6.4.08 @ 3:52PM|#
"Actually, my take from that "narrow focus" and "very targeted"
bit was the opposite of that. I don't think you'll see any
harassing of people in Georgetown for their papers or
intentions."
Now that I look at it you are probably right. My initial read was
they would set up around the good neighborhoods and make sure no
unsavory people get into them.
|6.4.08 @ 3:53PM|#
Episiarch,
Oh, man, I see our movie tastes are pretty similar. It's been a
while since I saw Sleep With Me but I used to love that one back in
the day.
"Honey, I'm about to cloud up and rain all over you."
Naga Sadow|6.4.08 @ 4:04PM|#
I see an unintended consequence here. Some rich white kids will become drug dealers. Thats what I call market mechanisms!
Guy Montag|6.4.08 @ 4:06PM|#
Yes, another feature added to the Leftist Utopia that is DC. Of course, the grand experiment will not be complete until the walls are erected to prevent escape from Utopia.
Naga Sadow|6.4.08 @ 4:10PM|#
Guy,
Look at the bright side. I could mean another starring role for
Kurt Russel as "Snake Plissken"!
|6.4.08 @ 5:11PM|#
Chris, Rudy blockaded "problem" blocks in Washington Heights
(upper manhattan). The NYPD required you to show ID that you lived
on the block before you were allowed to enter a public road.
The first week or two after 9-11 you had to show ID that you lived
below 14th street before they would let you below 14th street. I
live below 14 and had to show ID.
It doesn't have to be constitutional for them to do it. It has to
be unconstitutional to make them stop. Currently the NYPD has a
stop and frisk policy. They stop you on the street and frisk you.
Sounds unconstitutional to me but they've been doing it for over 10
years.
|6.4.08 @ 6:05PM|#
Yikes!! Government officials in Texas unleashing hundreds of officers to take away children after a hoax call, now checkpoint charlies in our nation's capital! It's really happening, right?? These aren't exerpts from a script for a movie call "Amerika" are they?
|6.4.08 @ 7:06PM|#
This is why we "need" that Real ID, folks, to make Safe
Neighborhoods easier to implement.
Geez.
I'll never understand why, when people see the sections of the
Death Star assembling themselves, they just don't shoot the damned
thing down. They wait until it's done and raining doom from the
skies, and then bitch that the thing is just too big to fight.
Ben Kalafut|6.4.08 @ 7:20PM|#
Is there a South African neighborhood in DC? We can just call it "local color"!
Red-Headed-Step-Child|6.4.08 @ 7:53PM|#
I have the feeling I will be illegally immigrating to Mexico soon.
Ben Kalafut|6.4.08 @ 8:15PM|#
I think Mr. Merritt has confused the Death Star and Sinistar.
Perhaps they don't shoot the whole thing down because
slippery-slope arguments are inherently flimsy?
|6.4.08 @ 10:11PM|#
This was done in Lawrence, MA several years ago.
Of course, Lawrence is now a crime and drug free paradise.
Well, not really.
|6.4.08 @ 11:06PM|#
Perhaps they don't shoot the whole thing down because
slippery-slope arguments are inherently flimsy?
Except when they aren't, of course. We're almost at the bottom of
this slippery slope, folks, and people are sitting around saying
"what slope?".
Guy Montag|6.5.08 @ 8:55AM|#
I get the feeling some of you hate rich white
liberals.
Um, hate is not quite the word for this. Needs something stronger.
Something with more cowbell.
J|6.5.08 @ 10:34AM|#
I know plenty of rich white liberals that would be outraged by this, personally.
|6.6.08 @ 2:23PM|#
"""I have the feeling I will be illegally immigrating to Mexico
soon.""
That's the other purpose for the fence. To prevent your escape.
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