Land of the Free

The United States of America was established in in the year 1776, exactly 250 years ago. The USA was created because the British took away their freedom by attempting to disarm them. The colonists fought for their rights to become independent from the growing British power. Today, we're seeing significant problems here in the Land of the Free. Our right to privacy is constantly being challenged by those who are engulfed in the idea of power.

"On what grounds?"

404 Media posted an article about the recent bodycam footage from the Claremore, Oklahoma Police Department. In this bodycam video, we can see a man talking during a community meeting about problems he sees with a datacenter being built in their area. The crowd seems to be very much on his side during the speech, but the police seem to not be. His speech goes over by a few seconds so, of course, the Claremore Police Department rush in to stop the violent man immediately. They can't have a tyrant speaking out about illegal and shameful practices being brought out by the council, so they arrest Darren Blanchard. The entire crowd begins shouting at them, but he is still escorted out of the room in handcuffs after handing papers over to one of the council members. It can be heard that he asks "on what grounds?" to the police officers, but he is ignored and arrested anyway. As the bodycam footage shows, there are multiple people shaming the officer such as one man yelling "so you can break the law but we can't?"

Our rights.

This was an example of a man speaking his opinion on a datacenter being built in his city. The ending? He was arrested. What does this mean for everyone else that has opinions they want to share? Blanchard wasn't combative to anyone. He wasn't inflicting pain on people. He spoke his opinion. He used his first amendment right and was jailed because of it. If authorities continue having this level of power, no person will be able to deviate from the norm. With problems such as Flock and facial recognition, there won't be anything we can do if this doesn't change.