By FITSNews || In the latest example of sensitive information being carelessly handled by the authorities, hundreds of police images and video clips chronicling South Carolina’s “War on Gangs” have been obtained by FITS – apparently after a Midlands, S.C. law enforcement agency misplaced one of its cameras.
The pictures include photographs of suspected gang members and their guns, drugs and graffiti. There are also hundreds of pictures of different tattoos used by gang members to identify their affiliation or denote their status within their respective gangs.
Among the more frightening aspects of this rare inside glimpse into South Carolina’s criminal underworld? An apparent uptick in the exposure of these gang members to fundamentalist Islamic influences.
We had originally planned on publishing all of the pictures on Monday (in keeping with our First Amendment rights), but we are in the process of conferring with our attorneys after being advised that some of the pictures may contain images of police informants. Obviously, we intend on publishing all of the images in our possession eventually, but we certainly don’t want to put anyone’s life in danger in the meantime.
As much as we disagree with government’s “War on Guns” and its “War on Drugs,” believe it or not we happen to be very close to a number of law enforcement agencies here in South Carolina and we respect the job that they do enforcing the law.
(Click to enlarge)
These – and hundreds of other images and videos – came into our possession last week after we received a tip from an anonymous source. One of the videos contains footage of a multiple-car police pursuit on a South Carolina interstate highway.
Obviously, it’s been a bad month for governments in the state of South Carolina when it comes to protecting sensitive information.
Earlier this month, an employee with the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) was fired for throwing documents containing confidential personal information into a recycling bin. Also this month the S.C. Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) faced scrutiny when a truck containing bags of confidential documents dropped part of its load in the middle of Lexington County road.
A DJJ investigation found that the agency’s policies for handling sensitive information were found to be “inadequate and outdated.”
Sort of like the rest of state government, if you ask us …
Anyway, stay tuned to FITS for more on this story …
By Liberty For Me March 29, 2010 at 2:42 pm
I agree…being against victimless crime is not being against police.
But it is somewhat in their power to how much they persue and which laws they focus on.
Here is a great speach by a candidate you might have missed in 2008 on liberty and laws. Most I think would enjoy this.its pretty funny
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTOQhPd2Xh4&feature=player_embedded#
By malcolm kyle March 29, 2010 at 4:27 pm
Prohibition is a sickening horror and the ocean of incompetence, corruption and human wreckage it has left in its wake is almost endless.
Prohibition has decimated generations and criminalized millions for a behavior which is entwined in human existence, and for what other purpose than to uphold the defunct and corrupt thinking of a minority of misguided, self-righteous Neo-Puritans and degenerate demagogues who wish nothing but unadulterated destruction on the rest of us.
Based on the unalterable proviso that drug use is essentially an unstoppable and ongoing human behavior which has been with us since the dawn of time, any serious reading on the subject of past attempts at any form of drug prohibition would point most normal thinking people in the direction of sensible regulation.
By its very nature prohibition cannot fail but create a vast increase in criminal activity, and rather than preventing society from descending into anarchy, it actually fosters an anarchic business model – the international Drug Trade. Any decisions concerning quality, quantity, distribution and availability are then left in the hands of unregulated, anonymous, ruthless drug dealers, who are interested only in the huge profits involved.
Many of us have now finally wised up to the fact that the best avenue towards realistically dealing with drug use and addiction is through proper regulation, which is what we already do with alcohol & tobacco –two of our most dangerous mood altering substances. But for those of you whose ignorant and irrational minds traverse a fantasy plane of existence, you will no doubt remain sorely upset with any type of solution that does not seem to lead to the absurd and unattainable utopia of a drug free society.
There is an irrefutable connection between drug prohibition and the crime, corruption, disease and death it causes. If you are not capable of understanding this connection, then maybe you’re using something far stronger than the rest of us. Anybody ‘halfway bright’ and who’s not psychologically challenged, should be capable of understanding, that it is not simply the demand for drugs that creates the mayhem; it is our refusal to allow legal businesses to meet that demand.
No amount of money, police powers, weaponry, diminution of rights and liberties, wishful thinking or pseudo-science will make our streets safer; only an end to prohibition can do that. How much longer are you willing to foolishly risk your own survival by continuing to ignore the obvious, historically confirmed solution?
If you still support the kool aid mass suicide cult of prohibition, and erroneously believe that you can win a war without logic and practical solutions, then prepare yourself for even more death, corruption, terrorism, sickness, imprisonment, unemployment, foreclosed homes, and the complete loss of the rule of law and the Bill of Rights.
“A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.”
Abraham Lincoln
The only thing prohibition successfully does is prohibit regulation & taxation while ceding control to the cartels and terrorists, regulation would mean the opposite!
By Libb March 30, 2010 at 7:58 am
Well said, Malcom Kyle!!!