racial profiling at Brave New Films

Sheriff Joe's Easter weekend of racial profiling in Phoenix

2008-04-07T17:15:47Z

It's a little after four in the afternoon, and I’m standing in the blazing heat, in a parking lot at the Northwest corner of 32nd Street and Thomas in Phoenix. Most of the parking lot is roped off with yellow police tape, a dramatic move by perhaps the most dramatic sheriff in American history. Inside the taped area are deputies. Lots of deputies. Lots of sunglasses. And big, big trucks housing mobile jail cells. Lots of TV news crews. Lots of hatred. Ah, Arizona, how do I love thee? Let me count the deputays.

I am here as an editor, as a reporter, and as a citizen observer. But I don’t go inside the roped off area with most of the other reporters. They’re here from all the TV stations, from the newspapers. Sheriff Joe Arpaio farts in Phoenix, and many in the corporate media here come running to celebrate it against a backdrop of American flags and tough-guy scowling. There has never been a more lauded scoundrel than this, I think. Question is: Will they celebrate this day as well? After all, Arpaio is here today, on Good Friday, to tell the people of Maricopa County that he has begun another weekend of “patrols” in predominantly Latino neighborhoods. For Easter Weekend. The last time he did this, it was Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Nice timing, from a man who bragged on CNN that he found being compared to the KKK to be a compliment. Ah, Arizona.

In Arpaio-speak, this "patrol" thing means claiming that crime is up in the neighborhood, when, in fact, it is down. It means claiming that people in the neighborhood have called his offices to ask for more patrols, when in fact no one I talked to in the neighborhood has anything but fear and loathing for the sheriff. It means arresting people for minor offenses, such as a cracked windshield or mild speeding, offenses that in Scottsdale or Cave Creek would get the offender a ticket at the most.

It is Good Friday, and Sheriff Joe has decided this is the perfect time to terrorize Latinos for a weekend. Easter weekend. He has hundreds of deputies all over the neighborhood, along with armed members of a volunteer “posse”. I see one such volunteer stride past, in a shirt that reads “GOD’S ARMY,” his pistol in full view. He is tall and stiff as an SS soldier, a stick lodged somewhere quiet high up his rectum. He sneers at me and all the people who stand with me, most of us brown, almost all of us Latino. Because I am a wiseass, I cannot resist.

Sen. Edwards answers questions from community leaders pt. 3

2008-09-05T22:44:14Z

Senator John Edwards answers questions from grassroots community leaders at the Iowa Heartland Presidential Forum on December 1st, 2007. (part 3)

Do you think he answered the questions well? What did you like or dislike about his responses?

For more coverage of the Forum including articles, video highlights, discussion, and more, visit the Movement Vision Lab Blog at www.movementvisionlab.org/blog.

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Riz Khan- Street Talk- 29 Nov 07

2008-06-14T09:30:29Z

On Riz Khan Street Talk we look at some of the feedback from Wednesday's show on mapping Muslims in the US, the Annapolis Summit, and a new designer kitten worth over $22,000.

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John Edwards-No Torture will be tolerated when I'm President

2008-06-14T15:31:25Z

John Edwards at the CNN debate says, that when he's president of the United States, no torture will be tolerated, we will end racial profiling, illegal spying on Americans and close guatanamo

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Jeffrey Rosen - Is Privacy Dead?

2008-06-10T09:33:20Z

Complete video at: fora.tv

George Washington University law professor Jeffrey Rosen discusses the challenges technology presents to conventional notions of privacy and civil liberties.

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"Privacy is Dead. Long Live Privacy?" at the 2007 Battle of Ideas conference hosted by the Institute of Ideas.

New technology seems to have changed the meaning of privacy, affording individuals the possibility of sharing details of their hitherto private lives in unprecedented ways, from personal blogs to picture sharing and even 'social bookmarking'. For many of us, divulging intimate details of our private lives via social networking websites like MySpace and Facebook has become the norm. But information and communication technologies have also facilitated surveillance and data gathering by government and big businesses. While in some contexts we seem so ready to give up our privacy, in others we seem increasingly anxious to protect it.

To what extent are new technologies responsible for the death of privacy? Are privacy concerns simply technophobic, or are we right to worry about a loss of control over personal information? Have new technologies and our enthusiastic adoption of them actually transformed our notions of public and private, and blown apart the wall dividing the two? Why do we worry about Tesco monitoring what we buy, when, according to Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy: 'You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it'? - Institute of Ideas

Jeffrey Rosen is a professor of law at George Washington University and the legal affairs editor of The New Republic. A widely read legal commentator, his most recent book is "The Supreme Court: The Personalities and Rivalries that Defined America," a companion book to the PBS series on the Supreme Court. He is also the author of "The Most Democratic Branch," "The Naked Crowd," and "The Unwanted Gaze."

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