Re: Duhfish So when the police break the law, it's called 'being reckless'.
And when those specifically-written laws are broken, who investigates and assigns punishment?
Oh... Right... The same group that was breaking the laws in the first place...
And if you dig through the records of such incidents, you can find a lot of public outrage, usually coupled with, at best, a slap-on-the-wrist type punishment for the perpetrators, and the law goes right on being abused as soon as the incident has faded from the public eye. The bureaucratic entity in charge maybe has some of its pieces swapped out for other pieces with different names, but that perform exactly the same functions (if public outrage is high enough), and business continues as usual. Wash, rinse, repeat, until everyone knows that the law does not apply to the enforcers of it.
You need look no further than the fact that this particular incident appears to have been part of attempted reprisal against a whistle-blower. The message is clear, "Tell anyone about illegal or immoral actions taken by the police, and there will be retribution, even if we have to do morally and/or legally questionable things to get it." It would not surprise me at all to find that this story was leaked on purpose so that anyone thinking of talking to a journalist would know that the authorities would do everything in their power to identify them. And the probable, forthcoming lack of punishment for those involved will reinforce that.
No, my friend, the only way to prevent laws granting this kind of power from being abused is to not write them in the first place, because the population is too gutless and has too short a memory to actually do anything about it if the abuse clauses in the law are ignored.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
