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Convention security: necessary precaution or police state?

Perhaps most troubling has been the involvement of government security agencies in trying to repress those protesting and reporting on the corruption. During a walk through downtown at lunch today, the police were (as they have been all week) patrolling the street in full riot gear. While I understand the need for security at events like this, the visual expression of force – the billy clubs, armor, helmets, and military-style patrols – are clearly designed to intimidate anyone from raising any kind of uncomfortable questions in any kind of public way. And that intimidation includes jailing reporters. ABC News reports that just yesterday, “Police in Denver arrested an ABC News producer today as he and a camera crew were attempting to take pictures on a public sidewalk of Democratic senators and VIP donors leaving a private meeting at the Brown Palace Hotel.” ABC caught the whole thing on tape – and it perfectly captures the obscene use of Denver’s municipal government to trample the First Amendment and cover-up brazen corruption. Denver’s municipal government has, in effect, used the need for enhanced security as a rationalization to declare a kind of martial law over the whole city – a martial law enforced by taxpayer-funded security forces whose mission is to serve the public, yet which has too often been deployed this week to crush the public and serve the private Big Money interests that still run the Democratic Party. As a Denver taxpayer and voter, I am frankly …

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