The police and the Taser ‘win.’ A report has been released:

Two University of Florida police officers who Tasered a student at a recent political forum were justified in their actions, according to a report released Wednesday by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Andrew Meyer, a 21-year-old UF student, was pinned to the ground by six UF Police officers and Tasered when he refused to be physically removed from a Sept. 17 town hall forum with U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. The officers tried to remove him after he used vulgar language while questioning Kerry.

According to the report, the officers had not intended to arrest Meyer initially, but did so when he resisted and subsequently Tasered him when he refused to be handcuffed.

The report says the officers acted “well within” state guidelines that allow for Tasering when a person is resisting.

Sgt. Eddie King, who ordered the Tasering, and Officer Nicole Mallo, who Tasered Meyer, have been on paid administrative leave since shortly after the incident. The two have now been reinstated, according to a statement released Wednesday by UPD Chief Linda Stump.

“As more information has come to be known as to the circumstances surrounding the event, we continue to support our officers who made difficult decisions during the quickly evolving disruption of the event,” Stump said in a news release.

Photos and a complete video of the incident.

The Gainesville Sun article goes on to discuss background information suggesting that Andrew Meyer was intentional in his actions to draw attention to himself.

Apart from detailing the events that led to Meyer’s Tasering, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement suggests Meyer had planned to act out during the campus political event. Meyer told a friend a week before the event that he would put on a show when Kerry came to UF, according to a witness who says he overheard the conversation.

The conversation took place on Sept. 11, according to the report, on a day when Meyer approached a student group on campus that was supporting former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign.

“Giuliani supporters had an interaction with (Meyer) in the Plaza of the Americas which resulted in (Meyer) allegedly kicking their candidate’s signs. (Meyer’s) behavior was characterized by witnesses as boisterous and provocative,” the report says.

Meyer then proceeded to have a “heated exchange” with a female student who disagreed with Meyer’s actions or views, the report says.

According to the report, Meyer then told an unnamed friend that, “If he liked what he had seen, referencing the verbal exchange/confrontation he had with the female student, that he should go to the Kerry speech and he would really see a show.”

As Privacy Maven has noted earlier, Andrew Meyer’s alleged pranksterism and publicity seeking inclinations have been widely discussed and debated and Privacy Maven continues to assert that pranksters also have the right to free speech since the U.S. Constitution does not exempt them from such rights.

As the three deaths by Taser in the past month in Canada demonstrate, the Taser can be a lethal weapon. Thankfully Andrew Meyer survived the 50,000 volts of electricity; otherwise, the world indeed would “really see a show.” Tragically, it is a show that has been seen repeatedly. Privacy Maven again makes note of John Pozadzides’ excellent analysis of the excessive use of Tasers by law enforcement officials worldwide.

If we cannot muster any empathy for a “prankster” being Tasered, how do we feel about William Lamb, the 78 year old unarmed man being Tasered at L.A. Airport in 2004? Does it take an expert to determine that maybe this was excessive force and that the 78 year old man, no matter how irate or profane he may have become, did not pose a physical threat or danger to the police?

If the liberal use of Tasers continues in the U.S., Canada and worldwide, it is inevitable that the death toll will rise.

The New York Times reports today that several major libraries are saying no to Google:

Several major research libraries have rebuffed offers from Google and Microsoft to scan their books into computer databases, saying they are put off by restrictions these companies want to place on the new digital collections.

The research libraries, including a large consortium in the Boston area, are instead signing on with the Open Content Alliance, a nonprofit effort aimed at making their materials broadly available.

Libraries that agree to work with Google must agree to a set of terms, which include making the material unavailable to other commercial search services. Microsoft places a similar restriction on the books it converts to electronic form. The Open Content Alliance, by contrast, is making the material available to any search service.

Google pays to scan the books and does not directly profit from the resulting Web pages, although the books make its search engine more useful and more valuable. The libraries can have their books scanned again by another company or organization for dissemination more broadly.

It costs the Open Content Alliance as much as $30 to scan each book, a cost shared by the group’s members and benefactors, so there are obvious financial benefits to libraries of Google’s wide-ranging offer, started in 2004.

Many prominent libraries have accepted Google’s offer — including the New York Public Library and libraries at the University of Michigan, Harvard, Stanford and Oxford. Google expects to scan 15 million books from those collections over the next decade.

But the resistance from some libraries, like the Boston Public Library and the Smithsonian Institution, suggests that many in the academic and nonprofit world are intent on pursuing a vision of the Web as a global repository of knowledge that is free of business interests or restrictions.

The article continues the analysis.

The Open Content Alliance has just released a video which documents their intents and efforts.

The tasering of Andrew Meyer at the University of Florida continues to generate commentary and reactions worldwide. On YouTube we can watch countless videos, including this protest rally at the University of Florida.

Through it all, Privacy Maven finds it remarkable that discussion of the deeper issues is somewhat eclipsed by caustic banter about Andrew Meyer’s alleged quest for instant fame and the derision that affords him.

Perhaps it is indicative of our culture to interpret an event such as this as a quest for fame and attention and to judge it accordingly. A whole genre of television programming, “Reality TV” is based on such a concept. A decade or so ago, who would have believed that large audiences would watch people endure grueling and humiliating experiences on camera, such as they do on programs like Survivor, America’s Biggest Loser, The Apprentice or American Idol, to name just a few such programs.

We often speak of a lack of civility in our society, the lack of politeness, and the commonness of coarser language. How easy it is to vilify Andrew Meyer as a publicity seeker or a conspiracy nut or a prankster. How easy, apparently also, to witness someone, unarmed and already under police control, tasered unnecessarily, and say he got what he deserved.

The U.S. Constitution asserts otherwise, not willing to make exceptions for alleged publicity seekers or pranksters.

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

John Pozadzides, points out the deeper issues here. He presents a detailed analysis of the phenomena of tasering, of the history of use and misuse of this police tactic:

Now, police are being given the green light all over the world to completely disable people whenever they feel like it, and I’m certain we are going to see a whole lot more abuse as a result.

• People will be tasered long before it’s a necessity. Think about it, if you were a cop why even bother to break a sweat when you know you could probably control a situation physically? All you have to do is taser the hell out of someone and they’ll do anything you say.
• People will be intimidated and threatened by the use of tasers. Most people are not that scared of police officers because they feel reasonably sure they won’t be shot (like with a gun). But now you can’t be sure that even arguing with a cop won’t result in a tasering.
• Women will be tasered and raped while they are conscious but unable to react. If you were a rapist you could use one of these to rape anyone you wanted. This guy did, and it happened to this homeless woman and two women in D.C.
• Men will be tasered and then beaten without being able to defend themselves. Want proof? Here is a group of “private security guards” hired by the Israeli government using stun guns against unarmed Rabbis.
• More people will die as a direct result of taser use. In the US nearly 200 people have already died after being shot by a taser gun, including a mentally ill homeless woman who was stunned with a Taser while on the ground in handcuffs.

Privacy Maven has to wonder, how would the significant, history making protests of years gone by unfolding in this atmosphere? Have we become so jaded that we do not recognize violations of civil rights, trampling of First Amendment freedom of speech? Are we too quick to accept the encroaching power of the state to intrude upon our rights and our lives as Paul Craig Roberts of LewRockwell.com asserts:

The question we should all ask is why did a United States Senator just stand there while Gestapo goons violated the constitutional rights of a student participating in a public event, brutalized him in full view of everyone, and then took him off to jail on phony charges?

Kerry’s meekness not only in the face of electoral fraud, not only in the face of Bush’s wars that are crimes under the Nuremberg standard, but also in the face of police goons trampling the constitutional rights of American citizens makes it completely clear that he was not fit to be president, and he is not fit to be a US senator.

Usually when police violate constitutional rights and commit acts of police brutality they do it when they believe no one is watching, not in front of a large audience. Clearly, the police have become more audacious in their abuse of rights and citizens. What explains the new fearlessness of police to violate rights and brutalize citizens without cause?

The answer is that police, most of whom have authoritarian personalities, have seen that constitutional rights are no longer protected. President Bush does not protect our constitutional rights. Neither does Vice President Cheney, nor the Attorney General, nor the US Congress. Just as Kerry allowed Meyer’s rights to be tasered out of him, Congress has enabled Bush to strip people, including American citizens, of constitutional protection and incarcerate them without presenting evidence.

How long before Kerry himself or some other senator will be dragged from his podium and tasered?

Absolutely. When do citizens react? Or will they react at all? Have we reached the stage in which images from the 1960s, of civil rights protesters are hosed down and attacked by dogs no longer trouble us?

At the time, such images were shocking and outraged the world.

Are we too jaded now to feel moral outrage over these unfolding events, frozen in black and white images?

What would happen today? Today are we so eager to continue in name calling — publicity seeker, conspiracy nut — to forget the importance of freedom, indeed that we even have the freedom to express opinions and label Andrew Meyer as we choose.

By now there are countless opinions of the Andrew Meyer taser incident which took place a few days ago at the University of Florida, and which has been documented via numerous YouTube videos.

This video documents Andrew Meyer’s entire question and the police action which ensued.

Another video of the incident:

This video documents what occurred after the taser incident and has been edited:

Regardless of any observer’s opinion or perspective, and regardless of whether or not Andrew Meyer was a prankster or an aspiring media star, he had every right to ask a question in a public place during a public debate. A person who is long-winded or who dares to make mention of The Skull and Bones Society does not deserve to be brutalized by police officers. This dramatic and unfortunate curtailment of one individual’s freedom of speech is appalling. It brings to mind history, of not so long ago, of student protest and activism from the 1960s and 1970s, numerous clashes and confrontations with police which culminated in the tragic slaying of four Kent State students on May 4, 1970.

Let us hope that discussion of instant celebrity-making and media spectacle and pranksterism does not cloud the essential issue of freedom of speech.