Witnesses taking audio of officers arrested, charged with illegal surveillance

by Daniel Rowinski

Simon Glik, a lawyer, was walking down Tremont Street in Boston when he saw three police officers struggling to extract a plastic bag from a teenager's mouth. Thinking their force seemed excessive for a drug arrest, Glik pulled out his cellphone and began recording.

Within minutes, Glik said, he was in handcuffs.

"One of the officers asked me whether my phone had audio recording capabilities,'' Glik, 33, said recently of the incident, which took place in October 2007. Glik acknowledged that it did, and then, he said, "my phone was seized, and I was arrested.''

The charge? Illegal electronic surveillance.

Jon Surmacz, 34, experienced a similar situation. Thinking that Boston police officers were unnecessarily rough while breaking up a holiday party in Brighton he was attending in December 2008, he took out his cellphone and began recording.

Police confronted Surmacz, a webmaster at Boston University. He was arrested and, like Glik, charged with illegal surveillance.

by Glenn Greenwald

by David Swanson

Whenever I write about U.S. politics, people ask me "Don't you have any good news?" (Unless the Republicans are in power, in which case people ask me "Who are you going to vote for?")  But I do have good news, boatloads of good news, if Americans want to hear it.

If a city or state next to yours were to achieve a dramatic breakthrough for democratic representation, environmental sustainability, healthcare, education, peace, or justice, wouldn't that be good news?  Wouldn't you trumpet that news where you live and demand the same of your elected officials?

When the United States gets something right nationally, and even when we don't, we're happy to assume that others around the world would like to imitate it.  Some of us think bombs are the best way to help them do so.  Others prefer diplomacy.  But we all pretty much believe in sharing our wisdom. 

by David Michael Green

If you're looking for a decent indicator of the political health of the nation, consider the following excerpt from a Christian Science Monitor article this week: "The decision by the White House Friday to not preempt the season premiere of the psychedelic crash-drama "Lost" for the State of the Union address reveals the surprising power of that much ridiculed stereotype: the American couch potato."

Well, at least no one can accuse us of not having our national priorities in order, eh?

Actually, that's only part of the story - and frankly the more benign part, to boot.

Presidents like to say, in their annual messages to Congress and the country, that "The state of the union is strong". Maybe Obama is bold enough to tell a whopper that big even in 2010. I guess when you've taken an entire country over the cliff lying about "hope" and "change", even a stinker that rude wouldn't be so egregious, relatively speaking.

by Jason Rosenbaum

It talks about California, but it generalizes very plainly to the broken-down jalopy that Illinois government is barely chugging down the road in currently.

Common Sense on Prison, Education Funds

by Derrick Z. Jackson

Calling state prison and education funding priorities "out of whack,'' Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California proposed a constitutional amendment this week barring the state from spending a higher percentage on prisons than higher education. He said that in the last 30 years, prison spending increased from 3 percent of the state general fund to 11 percent while higher education spending declined from 10 percent to 7.5 percent.

"Spending 45 percent more on prisons than universities is no way to proceed into the future,'' he said.

by Arun Gupta