I've noticed that no matter their personal political affiliations, they're generally extremely against any sort of censorship at all.

Most I've talked to believe that there are no bad ideas, and that if you ban ideas or books, more people will tend to want to read them.

Studies and real life incidents prove this to be true.

;-)

He was hired and acting under the orders of the Library's staff.

Though the Library is 'owned by the government' - it is not 'public property' - for example, you can't do or say anything you want, as you could on the sidewalk.

Though it seems one of the Library's staff was interceding on behalf of the accused - the cop (effectively acting as a cop - and he's hired to do security, so let's not refer to this as some 'random cop who was off duty and saw something) was acting in the interest of the Library - it's up to them who to eject and who not to.

I think the real question here is was the cop acting on his own initiative or at the best of the people that hired him.

If the Library's staff wanted the man out, then it's likely their issue.

If the cop was kicking some guy out wherein his employers wanted the person to stay - well then that's just weird.

But if a authorized security person for a private engagement asks you to leave - you definitely have to leave, and any kerfluffle you start is your escalation.

It seems that the library is intent on pressing charges? Did I read that correctly? In which case the cop was obviously acting on their regard, and perfectly within his right to eject someone.

I think that this guy's beef should be with the Library, not the cop, if that is indeed the case.

See, that's precisely the problem. Cops don't act in anyone's interest, they act to enforce the law. Because they are bound by the law, they have a monopoly on the use of force. At least that's the theory. If you're the mafia and want someone to do the bone breaking for you, you can't hire a cop, you hire a thug. Such as this man.

Moreover, he was hired by the speaker, not by the library. He also didn't eject anyone, he choose to first intimidate, then injure someone. And he appeared thoroughly confused about what he was doing and on whose behalf. The library clearly isn't pressing charges for "resisting arrest", firstly because there was no attempted arrest that could have been resisted, and second because only the police state can press this particular kind of charge.

Repugnant.

The police don't have a monopoly on anything and are not a 'mafia' any more than Barack Obama is the head of a giant 'mafia'.

" And he appeared thoroughly confused about what he was doing and on whose behalf. " - this is the fault of the Library and the Speaker - not the cop.

"The library clearly isn't pressing charges for "resisting arrest"" - the Library can't 'press or not' for this kind of charge. It's not an offence against them, i.e. robbery.

"and second because only the police state can press this particular kind of charge." - no - every civilized nation in the world can 'press charges' for 'resisting arrest'.

There is a lot of ambiguity in this article, it's not clear what happened, and it only serves as fodder for cop-haters and anti-government lunatics to troll.

That one of the people with criminal charges is an employee of the library who tried to get the guard to stop assaulting a member of the public:

> Both the librarian and the patron face criminal charges.

That the guard had ignored their instructions about not interfering with people who pose no risk of harm to the other guests:

> According to the library, as part of the agreement nobody was to be prevented from asking a controversial question and the security team would consult with library officials before ejecting any nonviolent patrons.

That the question asker had offered to leave if asked?

> Rothe-Kushel can be heard saying, “Ask me to leave [and] I will leave.”

and so on.

I mean, this ...

> When he bounced out of the chair onto the floor, the guards forced him back into the chair, and handcuffed him.

... is a criminal offence in England.

No, it's not, it's not a criminal offence anywhere in the Western world for security guards to do such a thing.

I read the article - I didn't miss those quotes.

I think you are missing something important:

* charges laid *

Meaning that there are legal charges against those two - indicating they had possibly done something illegal.

While I agree it's 'confusing' that one of the library staff, for whom the security guard may have ostensibly been working - implored the guard to 'not kick the man out' - I don't this resolves the question.

"as part of the agreement nobody was to be prevented from asking a controversial question and the security team would consult with library officials before ejecting any nonviolent patrons"

I get that - but was the guard acting on his own here?

It remains unclear to me - which is my point.

If this security guard was acting entirely on his own initiative, and just kicking a guy out for asking 'controversial' (and let's be fair: insulting and stupid) questions, then yes - there's obviously something crazy going on. Why were they ejected?

But I'm not sure it's clear from the article, which is my point.

"Ask me to leave [and] I will leave.” - obviously someone was asking him to leave.

I think the writer did a poor job of articulating the situation.

Very American approach. Visit Europe sometimes and watch how police operates there.

Or compare how long it takes to train police officer in EU countries and US.

Unless you immediately comply they will physically harm you. Until a few high-profile examples are made where this kind of behavior is harshly punished (dismissal, imprisonment, etc) they will not change.

The first amendment is meaningless if you get shot/beaten/jailed every time you speak aggressively in front of the Government.

The librarian while a Hero is largely collateral damage - this is story about Police brutality pure and simple.

Though I generally agree cops are not always the most normal citizens, the idea that you'll get beat up for taking assertively to a cop is false. If you did this while pulled over, 99% chance they ask you to 'get out of the car'. And that would be the end of the escalation.

"The first amendment is meaningless if you get shot every time you speak aggressively in front of the Government." - take this to TheBlaze or whatever.

I just don't hate cops.

But I do know that 99.999% of being a cop is boring, difficult and they put up with idiots and crazy people - and often 'actual mentally ill people' all day, every day, in often complex situations, and they almost overwhelmingly do a good job.

If you 'have a concern about free speech' - you should be far more concerned about the vast number of people who are 'banned form campus' for having relatively normal views, but which are inconsistent with those of the 'safe zone' generation of totalitarians.

The 'totalitarianism' is not in some random guy getting ejected - maybe on wrongful terms - out of a discussion for making frankly offensive statements - but the limits on who can speak and why, largely driven by zealot students and faculty on campus, who usually represent a tiny minority of students and yet get their way anyhow.

When there is agitation and confrontation - a cops natural response is to 'can it' - and I don't mind this at all - though I would hope that if there is no crime committed that no charges are validated. A judge will eventually look at this, and if there's no validity to the charges, then they will likely be tossed.

I agree cops can be corrupt, but they are just people.

There are a lot of police officers in America, I suggest they are a lot less corrupt than almost any other institution. The problem I guess is oversight, and trying to really assess the degree of the problem.

For example, when we see headlines of cops abusing Black potential criminals, we get upset, but the study by African America prof at Harvard revealed that cops were less likely to use weapons when dealing with Black people, though more likely to physically touch.

It's hard to take the headlines and put them into context.

Though they have a 'special place' in the sense that they are the front-line of the law and obviously a much higher standard of comportment that others ... I still believe that abuse is pretty rare.

Even if this cop was 'out of hand' ... I still don't see it as hugely problematic: a guy got kicked out of a session for doing some fairly controversial things - he was not asking a question so much as making a directly challenging political statement ... and it was likely his confrontation with the cop that got him the boot. It seems like he should not have gotten the boot. Fine. But it can be a confusing situation for security involved as well - and when it's like that, they're going to remove people from the situation. I seriously doubt the guy will be charged with anything. In the end - you have an individual antagonist / rabble-rouser who got kicked out of a lecture - when probably he shouldn't have. Big ff-ing deal. This is not high on the spectrum of 'problems'.

Cops rough-handling otherwise peaceful assailants etc., possibly being racist - this is possibly a very serious problem. But again, hard to put into context.

In terms of demonstrating 'police abuse' - this case simply doesn't register.

I think issues like police departments that get paid through their issuance of traffic tickets and seizures is probably a bigger problem than most other things.

I've never in my life witness a cop do anything that he really shouldn't and as far as I'm aware - nobody I know really has either, at least to the point wherein they feel it's important enough to share with me.

Anyhow - when it comes to this kind of stuff we need studies that can put things into context - not confusing anecdotal examples.

The Community Foundation says otherwise:

"May 9 Event

"The Jewish Community Foundation and the Truman Library Institute co-sponsored a program featuring Ambassador Dennis Ross on May 9, 2016 for which the Kansas City Public Library served as the venue. In the spirit of encouraging dialogue, the event included a live question-and-answer opportunity. During this period, a series of actions by a questioner and a library employee began that resulted in their arrests by local law enforcement. We take this situation very seriously.

"Although we were not consulted on the charges and are not a party to the court proceedings, for many weeks The Jewish Community Foundation has been engaged in the matter to encourage a resolution that would be acceptable to all parties. We continue to cooperate in this matter.

"Know that we respect and will always support First Amendment rights. While it is inappropriate for the Jewish Community Foundation to comment further because of pending legal proceedings, we will share additional information as opportunities arise."

https://www.jcfkc.org/content/statement

The Truman Library Institute doesn't seem to have anything, although their photos of the event do not show any of the events.

http://trumanlibraryinstitute.org/interview-dennis-ross/

I don't care: I know where I stand. Free speech is a good thing, even with sites like 4chan, and if you don't wish people to speak freely within a website or location, make the rules for what they can say known ahead of time, and enforce them fairly.

PC culture is a problem, and it's awful, but it's not the problem in this case.

As for the police being allowed to protest, I agree that I can't think of anything especially wrong with that.

"...after the library agreed to adjust the exhibit sign’s language to read “Books about Black Lives—The African American Experience”".

What more do they want?

For example, they could have put up a book "Book about White Lives - The European Experience".

This wouldn't go over well in the current political climate, I assume.

So since the police officers are on the other side of this issue, it makes sense that they wouldn't want to be implicitly defending the opposite side.

If during the course of a conversation someone says something you find racist, sexist, Islamophobic or otherwise bigoted, it's open and honest to point out that you think it is so. Of course this is subtly different than calling the speaker names.

Or, perhaps, is the Spanish inquisition comparison a bit hyperbolic?

http://gawker.com/report-hillary-clinton-used-static-noise-m...

She's definitely not getting an brownie points for what amounts to an open-air "closed-door" speech, though.

The clip that circulated was [1] from around 1:09:00, widely quoted:

    And not only that, she bleached, which somebody said they never even heard of, in a very 
    expensive fashion, used chemical, so that nobody will ever be able to see 'em. 

    But the only way to learn the full depth of her public corruption is to read the 33,000 emails
    that she deleted. They're gone. (Pause for the audience to chant "Lock Her Up.") It's very sad.
    And not only deleted, folks. This was after, this was after she was subpoena'ed by Congress to 
    produce. And not only that, she bleached, which somebody said they never even heard of, in a 
    very expensive fashion, used chemical, so that nobody will ever be able to see 'em. Who does 
    this? Who does this? Hillary Clinton said under oath that she turned over all of her 
    work-related emails. But we now know that is just one more Clinton lie. The FBI found thousands
    of work-related emails she never turned over, and then another 15,000 emails were just 
    discovered a few weeks ago. Now today another 30 emails were discovered by the State Department
    that Hillary Clinton failed to turn over. These were emails about Benghazi.

In further interviews he has repeated the phrase "acid washing" for this downloading-a-free-space-cleaner-upper-act, and repeated that it was expensive. [2] The same source apparently followed-up with the campaign:

    His campaign told us Trump didn’t literally mean that Clinton “acid washed” her emails. It 
    said that he was using a play on words, referring to Clinton’s joke a year ago about “wiping”
    her server with a cloth. 

    Sorry, we don’t get the play on words, which was not clear in any of Trump’s remarks. Let’s 
    look at the facts.

> The media is clearly biased and working with the DNC to destroy all of their political enemies. This is corruption at the national-level needs to be stopped.

I mean, no. It's not "clearly" biased. If it's biased it's much more subtle. Like, Trump's video where he brags that he sexually assaults women and gets away with it because he's famous, came concurrently with the Podesta hack. CNN actually discussed a suicidal episode that a major Clinton Foundation employee had, simply because it was in the Podesta hack, even though it has nothing to do with Hillary's present campaign and happened 5 years ago. The media's bias seems to be whatever's salacious, not to whatever's liberal.

> The problem is that if you accuse any Mulim of anything in this country (when you have evidence or a good reason), you are called an 'Islamaphobe'..mostly because of PC culture.

Has this happened to you personally, or are you guessing? I was at a friend's apartment and he complained publicly -- with several witnesses -- about how the Muslims at the apartment across the way seemed to often be staring into his house and it made him pretty scared and he would usually get so creeped out that he would go into another room. Nobody accused him at the time of being Islamophobic, even though this is a literal fear-of-the-Muslims moment, we were all like "ooh, that's weird, I wonder what they're creeping around for." It was only after looking up what direction Mecca is in the US Midwest that we found out that this was part of their normal prayer, and now he's not scared anymore. (We actually had prematurely rejected this explanation; we were confused because his apartment is NE of their apartment, but Mecca is SE of Kansas City on a map. The issue is that they have to pray along the Great Circle route to Mecca and we're so far away from it that this actually points NE.)

> They are allowed to protest...and resign. just like BLM. Why is this wrong?

Nobody said they weren't entitled to; but why this is wrong is answered in the following sentence, "Part of what’s disturbing about both Kansas City incidents is the extent to which they illustrate the gap that has opened between police and the communities in which they work—a divide that, with horrifying regularity, produces far more disastrous and violent results in our inner cities."

Like, it makes sense for "Black Lives Matter" to trigger a resignation of some off-duty cops; you can make a tenuous case that the phrase "Black Lives Matter", even if the library wasn't intending to support it, supports a specific anti-police movement in the US. Like, I don't think that's correct but I think a police officer might reasonably believe it. But a display encouraging the reading of "books about black lives" should not be so offensive to an officer of a multiracial community that it nevertheless causes them to resign a job in a huff. If it does then it points to a serious discrepancy between the officer and the community they're policing, and if it's a systematic discrepancy then that's scary for the library itself, which presumably doesn't want to be targeted merely because they encourage people to read books about people of minority races.

> There are many Americans that choose not to go to the library. How is this the fault of the system?

I don't think the quote you quoted means whatever you think it means. o_O.

> You can't welcome an 'open and honest' discussion and then when someone discusses something that offends you, call them out as a 'racist', 'sexist', or 'islamaphobe'.

I mean, you can. You probably shouldn't, but you can; that can certainly be an open and honest reaction to various things that deserve it.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWRrmAmi5AM [2] http://www.factcheck.org/2016/09/trump-pence-acid-wash-facts...

This is literally what she did though! Why else would you not just erase but rewrite with random data? In fact, why were they deleted at all?

Sure, he paraphrased it for the layman. They don't understand what rewriting with random data means. A good analogy is "bleach" which is also the name of the program.

Yes, he dropped in "chemical" in there unnecessarily, but this doesn't make the overall point invalid.

I do essentially this on a regular basis. It's SOP when I'm done with a piece of electronics. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the FBI -- it's because I don't want anyone who finds (or buys post-consumer) the device to find my data on it.

I'm currently procrastinating on recycling a couple of old busted Android devices specifically because it's a real PITA to scrub them with any degree of confidence when they're busted.

So yeah, if you look up how to clean a disk, you'll probably find an answer like this. An analogue is even baked into the ATA spec: "security erase enhanced". But actually doing a "security erase enhanced" is bizarrely tedious, especially on Windows, so overwriting it is.

Our cultures values life, so some behaviors have to be banned or regulated. PC is the embodiment of those values.

Racist: because there are over a billion of non-whites. Islamophobe: because there are over a billion of Muslims. Sexist: because there are over a billion of the other gender.

I'm not talking about sjw extremists, those are in every group. But generalizing has never brought anything but misery.

Aren't you side-stepping the issue that Trump has responded to any sort of publicity that isn't positive with threats of lawsuits for years? Especially publicity that calls into question how successful he really is, mostly because he derives a great deal of value from having the "Trump" name/branding associated with wealth and success.

I think that the idea that he may try to silence media critics as President to not be that far-fetched, and something we should be more concerned about then a bunch of hand-waving about specific things that were taken out of context. (I mean Trump's own supporters will take things he says out of context so long as it looks positive for him, so it's not like there is one "right, true and just" side here)

You're also talking about the DNC as if the GOP doesn't also have similar issues.

> The problem is that if you accuse any Mulim of anything in this country (when you have evidence or a good reason), you are called an 'Islamaphobe'..mostly because of PC culture.

On the flip side, you have a lot of people in "this country" (the US) that Islam/Muslims as the "enemy." I'd say that this is a reaction to that, and even then I'm not convinced that this isn't an issue of people talking past each other. People that might have similar views but can't get past seeing the other as an extremist in the "wrong" direction.

> This goes both ways. There is fault on both sides and until there is personal responsibility, things will only get worse.

I'd say that a greater fault lies with law enforcement in general. There is an extreme resistance to the idea of punishing one of their own. Until there is a "you will be punished" feedback loop they will continue to push boundaries because they know that they will get away with it, and "good cops" will turn a blind eye to it because they don't want to loose there job (or worse depending on the specific police dept.).

Put it this way. If the community transgresses against the police, there are guaranteed to be consequences (rightly or wrongly). If the police transgress against the community, consequences are few and far between. To me, this power imbalance suggests that the police should carry a greater responsibility.

> Things like social media has only made it worse, because mobs can now create public policy based on rumors and hearsay and destroy their enemies with lies.

I would say that this is an extension of people creating their own echo-chambers, and issues like Twitter lending itself more to soundbites (only 140 characters) than anything more substantial.

> Our current society is actually starting to look more like China or the Soviet Union every day.

This I will not disagree with, but I will suggest that witch hunts social media is just the tip of the iceberg (and less concerning than consequences being codified into law).

Trump is not the best candidate ever and he has at least as many flaws. We don't have to dispute that.

What we are talking about is that authoritarian PC culture is one way to stifle discussion. It shouldn't be that way. Trump is not the only way forward in preserving freedom of speech.

One thing you can't bring up without some kind of backlash to most republicans and some democrats is the second amendment.

I am very thankful that we can have a discussion on this topic at all on HN, however - even if under anonymous accounts.