"In being submitted to the humiliating tortures, the Iraqi prisoners were effectively initiated into American culture..."

The LAPD, Obama, and the National Defense Authorization Act: WTF?

By Mud Baron on Dec 14, 2011

http://mobile.laist.com/2011/12/14/obama_the_lapd_and_the_national_def.php

"Shut your fucking mouth! We can lose you in here."

That's what "Officer K" of the Los Angeles Police Department's Metro Detention facility said to me as I was lining up to be bailed out with 8 other arrestees forty hours after my own arrest at the raid of the Occupy LA encampment. It seems "Officer K" wanted me not to discuss legal instructions from the glass of the neighboring pod, D block, from a few of the occupiers who had not been able to contact their lawyers two days into their arrest.

Not having planned to be arrested nor memorized my attorney's landline phone number (have you?) I'd asked Family Guy writer Patrick Meighan, my bunkmate who got out four hours earlier, to get in touch with my lawyer on my behalf. Though it was someone else who bonded me out, I was surprised but glad that I had been sprung and could say goodbye to the prison catering done by the same company used by the Los Angeles Unified School District. "Officer K" may been merely trying to provoke a response out of me, but the behavior was unacceptable of someone sworn to "Serve and Protect."

So how does a tale of civilian police and how they handle arrested protesters connect to national politics and policy?

"Shut your fucking mouth! We can lose you in here" becomes even more poignant as the constitutionally challenged National Defense Authorization Act for 2012 sits on President Obama's desk. As it currently stands, spokespeople for Obama have stated he would not veto it.

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