Iowa State Patrol On Fishing Exhibition.

[polymath22]

UPDATE: The Iowa State Patrol Has been spending a lot of time here.

Photo by Polymath22. Rate or Comment on Photo

A "DRUG DOG IN USE" sign is posted along the highway. An airplane flies above and watches for erratic or unusual behavior from drivers. This check point is set up in before an exit ramp, and they watch for vehicles exiting the freeway in a hurry or throwing things out the window.

Photo by Polymath22. Rate or Comment on Photo

Another sign in a series of signs meant to make people paranoid and make mistakes. There is no roadblock ahead, just a cop in an airplane watching traffic and working with cops hidden on the ground who pull over individuals.

The police set up a series of signs along the freeway, and put bright flags on them to make sure they get your attention. Notice how one set of signs is located near an exit. Motorists don't see any obvious checkpoint ahead, but there is that exit there that you could take if you wanted to get off the freeway in a hurry.

Of course if you did that, you would be detained. Leaving the freeway in a hurry would be considered "suspicious", and cause for detainment. The police are fishing, and you took the bait.

The best way to avoid these situations is to keep calm, concentrate on good driving, and drive on as though nothing had happened. The drug runners slip right through when they are tied up with photographers like me.

Photo by Polymath22. Rate or Comment on Photo

You know that sinking feeling you get when you get pulled over? Papers please! It's Patrolman Kyle Haack, Badge Number 384, DOB 1976.04.26 and he wants to know why I pulled off the side of the road, and I tell him to take photos. He asks why. I tell him I think the subject is interesting. He asked to see my camera, and I show it to him.

I hope he likes my bumper sticker. Bumper Sticker by sensiblepriorities.org

I hand over my license and proof of insurance, but I can't seem to find my registration. When i finally find it, I walk back to his cruiser and hand it to him, and take his picture. He tells me to return to my vehicle, which I do.

Photo by Polymath22. Rate or Comment on Photo. or Grab the Photo

Later, when he approached my car, he told me I had to delete the photo I had taken of him, because it was against the law to take a picture of him in his patrol car. We argued briefly and he told me that if I didn't delete the photo, he would need to confiscate my blackberry as "evidence".

I agreed to delete the photo, because I had already accidentally the photo to the internets.

I guess he liked my bumper sticker, because he let me off with a warning ticket for violation 321.366 of 2007 Iowa code, "improper use of median, curb, or acc facility"

That calculator in the ticket picture was later made famous in this Visualizing Moores Law photo

If I had this to do over, I would have turned on the camera and had it uploading to the internets, perhaps justin.tv or something similar.

The next day they had taken down their operation, but I was buzzed by a patrolman around the same spot around the same time.

Video By Polymath22

For More Information, Search for Opertion Pipeline

Here is a story about Edward Lawson, a man who fought police harassment and intimidation all the way to the US Supreme Court

Videos by EdLawsonTV

[ninja]

The state patrol has turned up the heat, I have seen their faces smeared up against the windows of their cars just begging for some minor infraction. They have lost their interest in helping people, and have become a group of road leaches begging for money, by using seat belts and other things as a excuse. Everyone follow the the law just to keep them from up dating their cruisers. and paying any more for their gas.

[polymath22]

This is the page load counter. It is set to count only unique visitors. Less that 24 hours after the blog was first posted, it had already had almost 4,000 unique visitors. Those numbers are "today", "yesterday" and "this month"

The counter will only track the last 500 visitors. Earlier today, there was more traffic from Australia and Europe.

[Albionshores]

I don't know which is more disturbing. The shift towards suspicion of guilt being the accepted norm or that law enforcers seem willing to accept this shift; to not only conform but to accept and fulfill the new expectations placed on them by an increasingly detached state.

The question I ask myself is to what extent did people in authoritarian regimes past willingly go along with everything asked of them without questioning their own actions.

It's the Milgram experiment all over again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment