by Rory Curtiss, KNDO/KNDU-TV &nbnsp; April 6, 2007
Our comment: In America, your home can be raided by police, solely because it's alleged that you possess a heat lamp for growing plants -- an item so common it's sold in virtually all hardware stores, garden shops, at Target stores, etc.
If America is not yet a police state, then Police Commander Chris Tennant, who thinks possession of a heat lamp is "credible" evidence of a crime, will be reprimanded or fired.
If America is not yet a police state, then the judge who issued a search warrant on the basis of a heat lamp allegation will be removed from the bench.
Or, if America is a police state, then this raid was nothing much newsworthy, and this will probably be the last you'll hear of it.
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As an addendum, please note, we've reprinted the entire news item, as it originally appeared on the website of KNDO/KNDU, twin TV stations in the Tri-Cities and Yakima, Washington.
The public doesn't get to know the names of the people whose apartment was raided.
We don't get to know the name of the judge who OK'd a search warrant based solely, according to the article, on a landlord's claim that he'd seen "a specialized plant growing lamp inside a closet."
PULLMAN, Wash. -- Guns drawn, police serving a marijuana search warrant at a Pullman apartment found green leafy plant material. It just wasn't the kind they normally find in residences in the college town.
It was tomato plants.
Eight officers entered the apartment where a landlord reported seeing possible drug growing paraphernalia, including a specialized plant growing lamp inside a closet. That gave police probable cause to get a search warrant last weekend.
Pullman Police Commander Chris Tennant says he empathizes with the three startled roommates. However, he says it's the department's duty to investigate all credible complaints of marijuana growing operations.
We believe in liberty and justice for all, so of course, we oppose many US government policies. This doesn't mean we're anti-American, redneck scum, pinko commies, militia members, or terrorist-sympathizers. It means we believe in freedom, as more than merely a cliché.
We believe you have the right to live your own life as you choose, and others have the equal right to live their lives as they choose. It's not complicated.
We believe freedom leads to peace, progress, and prosperity, while its opposite -- oppression -- leads to war, terrorism, poverty, and misery.
We believe it's preposterously stupid to hate people because of their appearance, their race or nationality, their religion or lack of religion, how they have sex with other consenting adults, etc. There are far more apropos reasons to hate most people.
We believe in questioning ourselves, our assumptions, each other -- and we especially believe in questioning authority (the more authority, the more questions). We believe obedience is a fine quality in dogs and young children, but not in adults.
Like America's right-wingers, we believe in
individual responsibility,
hard work to get ahead,
and stern punishment for serious crimes.
We believe big government should not be blindly trusted.
But unlike most right-wing leaders, we mean it.
Like America's left-wingers, we believe in
equal treatment under law,
war as a last (not first) resort,
and sensible stewardship of natural resources.
We believe big business should not be blindly trusted.
But unlike most left-wing leaders, we mean it.
Like libertarians, we believe it's wrong and reprehensible to arrest people for what they think, believe, look like, wear, eat, smoke, drink, inhale, inject, or otherwise do to themselves.
But unlike many libertarians, we're not obsessed with the gold standard, we don't believe incorporation is humanity's highest achievement, and we don't believe everything in life comes down to dollars and cents. We've read and enjoyed Ayn Rand's novels, but we understand that they're works of fiction.
We're skeptical, and we're sick of so-called 'journalists' who aren't skeptical at all.
These pages are published by Harry and Helen Highwater, happily married low-income nom de plumes and rabble-rousers from Madison, Wisconsin (with a few friends scattered around the world helping out).
We try to spotlight news that hasn't gotten enough (or appropriate) attention in American media, along with our opinions and yours.
We bang our keyboards against the wall, because it doesn't hurt as much as banging our heads.
