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The War Over CopBlock
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of Daily Beast
Posted: July 20th, 2015
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/13/the-war-ove...
With nearly 1.5 million Facebook fans, CopBlock is relentless and gleeful in its posts of alleged cases of police misconduct and abuse of power. Made up of a loosely affiliated network of grassroots activists, CopBlock members also patrol their local law enforcement, monitoring traffic stops and other interactions, often shouting advice to those they perceive as victims. Its a method that was initiated by the Black Panthers and, unsurprisingly, police have not always taken kindly to this sort of citizen oversight. Some even want to see CopBlock members listed as domestic terrorists. One of the emerging voices seeking to counter CopBlock is called, succinctly, Civilians Against CopBlock. Many of their posts attack those who would question police powers or officers accused of crimes. Its worth noting here that the Department of Justice did find racial bias in Fergusons police department, and you cant discuss race and police without mentioning New Yorks infamous stop-and-frisk law, which an independent review from Columbia University found to be strongly biased. And a paper from the University of Pennsylvania found clear, strong tendencies for African Americans to be profiled and stopped. But does this mean most cops are racist or prone to violent abuse of power? No, of course not. There are nearly a million law enforcement officers in the United States, men and women who put their lives on the line every day to keep the rest of us safe so we can fight on the Internet.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about the erosion of civil liberties.
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