The Morning Roar: LAPD Claims All Cars "Under Investigation", Neocons Stage RT Anchor's Resignation, and Gun Tattoo Draws State Troopers

Welcome to your  Thursday edition of The Morning Roar! We start things off this fine morning with a story from my own backyard here in Los Angeles. What's that pesky LAPD up to now?Los Angeles Police Claim All Cars in LA Under InvestigationEvery single car in Los Angeles is currently "under investigation?" Why, how could this be? According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), that is the exact excuse that the LA Police Department and LA Sheriff's Department are using in briefs submitted in response to a lawsuit by the EFF and the ACLU of Southern California seeking data from the Automatic License Plate Reader technology, which the LAPD openly uses to scan license plates all throughout the county.Jennifer Lynch of EFF reports: 

This argument is completely counter to our criminal justice system, in which we assume law enforcement will not conduct an investigation unless there are some indicia of criminal activity. In fact, the Fourth Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution exactly to prevent law enforcement from conducting mass, suspicionless investigations under “general warrants” that targeted no specific person or place and never expired.ALPR systems operate in just this way. The cameras are not triggered by any suspicion of criminal wrongdoing; instead, they automatically and indiscriminately photograph all license plates (and cars) that come into view. This happens without an officer targeting a specific vehicle and without any level of criminal suspicion. The ALPR system immediately extracts the key data from the image—the plate number and time, date and location where it was captured—and runs that data against various hotlists. At the instant the plate is photographed not even the computer system itself—let alone the officer in the squad car—knows whether the plate is linked to criminal activity.

The ALPR system is clearly in violation of the 4th Amendment, and it's a stretch worthy of Mr. Fantastic for the LAPD to claim that every single car operating in Los Angeles could be part of a "criminal investigation." Unfortunately, due to complications such as the socialization of roads and state monopolized vehicle registration, the issue becomes cloudy.In a free society, individual operators of road systems would likely have various methods of ensuring safe roads for their customers. It's even possible that one such method could be the scanning of license plates, in conjunction with a private vehicle registration service which could verify the driver's ability as well as the functionality of their vehicles. It's certainly possible that this would be an unpopular system, and if so the road owners would have to take this into account. Point being, there is nothing wrong per se about the technology of license plate scanning, but rather with its application by the LAPD, which owns a monopoly over the patrolling of Los Angeles' streets. Nobody may drive in Los Angeles without being subject to these license plate scanners; consumer choice is not a factor. Neocons State RT Anchor ResignationRemember the Russa Today anchor who quit live on air over claims of RT's bias in favor of Putin during coverage of the Ukraine crisis? Here's the video in case  you missed it.http://youtu.be/55izx6rbCqgQuite touching, right? Well yesterday an interesting report came out regarding that very resignation, courtesy of Max Blumenthal and Rania Khalek at TruthDig.com.  According to the story, Wahl was a disgruntled employee who had recently been demoted, and her resignation may have been planned in advance in coordination with certain Neocon operators.Far from a baseless conspiracy, there is quite a bit of evidence to back up that this event was pre-planned. Firstly, we have this tweet, sent out by the neocon Foreign Policy Institute about 20 minutes before the resignation happened live on air.

#WordOnTheStreet says that something big might happen on RT in about 20-25 minutes. Watch: http://t.co/nHjqi7CD1K— FPI (@ForeignPolicyI) March 5, 2014

Then, we have an "exclusive" interview with Wahl by James Kirchik which was released barely an hour after the resignation.W ho is James Kirchik? Why, he's the fabulous young neoconservative fellow who first put out the "expose" on Ron Paul's (not-so-racist) newsletters.And finally, the most damning evidence of all. This selfie Wahl took with the smug, swarmy Kirchik.Ok, maybe the selfie wouldn't exactly hold up in court, but it seems fairly clear that this was more than a spur-of-the-moment, patriotism-inspired event.Full story at TruthDig. Gun Tattoo Brings Armed State Troopers to Man's DoorThe fine folks at BenSwann.com continue to bring forth stories you just won't find on the evening news cast. On Tuesday morning, a Maine man was was greeted by armed troopers when tree workers mistook the tattoo of a gun on his stomach for an actual gun. According to the report, the workers were on Michael Smith's property when he asked them to cease their work due to noise. They obliged, but not before making a phone call to the local police. Before long, Smith had armed state troopers at his door calling him out with a megaphone.Luckily there was no violent altercation and the police left the scene without incident. But it begs a greater question- why were police called in the first place? Let's put aside the fact that the "gun" in question is clearly a tattoo (see above). Even if the man had a gun in his possession, on his own property, what exactly was the suspected crime that would justify a large presence of state troopers? From the reports Smith did not threaten violence upon the tree workers. And if he did indeed have a gun on his person, would that in and of itself entail any sort of wrongdoing?There seems to be a disturbing trend where people in society immediately associate gun ownership - or even possible gun ownership - with criminal activity. Possession of a gun should not make immediately make someone the suspect of a crime. Nor should a tattoo of a gun, as silly as it might look.Smith is lucky that the police did not overreact.Full story at BenSwann.com.  Read The Morning Roar every weekday Monday-Friday!The Lions of Liberty are on Twitter, Facebook & Google+Receive access to ALL of our EXCLUSIVE bonus audio content – including “Conspiracy Corner”, “Degenerate Gamblers” and the “League of Liberty Podcast” by joining the Lions of Liberty Pride and supporting us on Patreon!