Over the last couple of days, I have been passively paying attention to some of the civil rights issues surrounding the Democratic Convention. While there seemed to be a number of troubling situations, none rose to the level of setting me off.

A Few Examples:
* Many police officers not wearing any type of identification
* Many protesters being detained and even arrested having committed no crime
* Reports of police using violent and aggressive tactics to detain peaceful protesters
* Limiting permitted protests to areas far away from the convention

Each of these ‘offenses’ drew a frown, a few seconds of disappointed thought and quite a bit of curiosity. I thought, “why can’t there be a way for protests [which have such a historical place in our society] to happen in a way that allows for both security and adherence to the fundamental right to assemble.

This morning I came across a blog post that greatly disturbed me and, in my opinion, illustrates behavior that is completely unjustifiable. The author is Glenn Greenwald and I have mentioned before how much I like his work. His writing and experiences highlight what I think are substantive and very real consequences to not caring about more “abstract issues” like warrant less spying.

Reports of -what I would consider to be widespread governmental awareness - people’s identities, whereabouts, and routes of travel in the twin cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis are not getting the attention of the Main Stream Media. These are normal people who plan peaceful protests about the subjects that move them. The idea that governmental agencies know enough about these individuals to track them down riding their bikes at night, force entry into their homes and actually get warrants to do these things… show either how out of whack our system has gotten or how far out of whack my view of this country’s ideals is.

If you missed the hyperlinks above, his story is here