Atlanta, GA couple uses radar gun in order to raise awareness of the danger of speeding through their residential neighborhood. Local cop is clocked exceeding the speed limit (substantially) on several occasions and asked to comply with posted speed limits.

Legal inequality ensues:

“Perrone [the officer] is seeking a warrant in Bartow County Court to have Lee and Teresa [Sipple] locked up for stalking. … According to the warrant affidavit filed by Officer Perrone, he says the Sipples did harass him by sending his employer multiple e-mails in an effort to get him in trouble.”

We need to consider a few things first, here. The street is entirely public, and therefore there should be no expectation of privacy. The speed limit, like all proper laws, correctly applies to everyone, with few exceptions for emergency vehicles attending to emergencies. As public servants, police officers are to an extent, public figures. Everyone knows the cop who lives down the street; if not because they might be able to get you out of your parking ticket, because they’re generally seen as guardians of public safety and model citizens – good people to be friendly with.

Do the Sipples send e-mails to the employers of everyone who violates the speed limit? The article doesn’t say, but I would presume not. For starters, most people aren’t nearly as public as the local cop and furthermore, as trusted public servants, officers are rightly held to a higher standard. You wouldn’t want to see your kids’ kindergarten teacher at the local watering hole, falling-down-drunk. And understandably you don’t want your cops – protectors of society and enforcers of the law – treating the law as their own personal Gimp.

There is nothing harrassing about the Georgia couple’s actions, insofar as they are making objectively true statements about certain actions over which the harrassee has complete and total control. They are not pursuing him or by any appearances focusing their efforts only on him. On the contrary, Mr Perrone, and only Mr Perrone controls whether he drives past the couple’s “speed trap,” and at which speed he does so! The verity of the couple’s statements may be contestable, but there is nothing about this case that approaches any reasonable definition of harrassment. This begins, and ends with the actions of Officer Perrone.

h/t: The Agitator, “The New Professionalism.”

Will the news media please stop calling this a “bomb scare” or a “bomb threat”? Because it was nothing of the sort. From what I understand, there was an unrelated 911 call, which was the catalyst for the ensuing panic. The ATHF LEDs had nothing to do with the emergency phone call, and given that similar devices, in similar cities, had for months gone largely unnoticed, there was no conceivable way for the “perpetrators” to know or even consider the eventuality that unfortunately “caused a major disruption in the greater Boston area.”

Perhaps a more rational review is necessary. There is no reason to penalize Turner broadcasting for what amounts to being in the wrong place, at the wrong time. The light-devices were not placed with malicious intent, nor were they even the proximate cause of the ensuing clusterfuck. Given a string of unconnected ocurrences, sometimes shit happens – shit that is ultimately unforeseeable and entirely beyond the control of any individual. This is one of those times.

Unfortunately, Turner bows down bends over for Boston: “…[I]t was reasonable and appropriate for citizens and law enforcement officials to take any perceived threat posed by our light boards very seriously and to respond as they did…” Christ almighty. It’s now reasonable and appropriate to respond to any perceived threat, posed by any “device,” anywhere, anytime, in any manner; the sole arbiter of appropriateness, being the subjective discretion of the respondent? It is an absolute miracle that we haven’t had a full-scale, Romanesque collapse back into the freaking dark ages.

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That’s enough of a recap. What I really want to get at is the absolutely gaping hole that Ignignoct-gate has revealed. This of course is a serious matter of national security, and one which has been entirely neglected by the MSM news outlets.

I know it may smack of “hindsight is 20/20”, but this was not an appropriate response. This was an overreaction of absolutely epic proportions. Because – and bear with me here: If this was an “appropriate” response – the real concern is why Seattle, Atlanta, et al completely failed to respond at all? How can their citizens possibly consider themselves safe from potential real threats, if their government didn’t react appropriately to the LEDs? This is the logical conclusion, if we deem Boson’s response “appropriate,” then the failure to respond, in other cities, must be deemed inadequate. Clearly, the rest of the cities where ATHF LEDs were placed are utterly unprepared to prevent legitimate threats to their citizens, and to protect them from real dangers.