Repressive bureaucracy need to have ways to process huge numbers of people *efficiently.* The chance to be heard, confront evidence against you, put on evidence of your own, etc. is not efficient. This is a primary reason you see people in power complaining about "bail reform."

Amazing how poisoned by the status quo/caceralism someone can be that they think jailing people who have not been found guilty is just the correct result, and that having an actual bail hearing is cheating.

Imagine calling basic constitutional rights like the opportunity to speak in court "cutting corners." Even more alarming, he's saying all this in service of jailing people indiscriminately "by the busload" who are presumed innocent (and only if their families don't have the listed cash payment).

There are moments the mask is removed, and all the lies evaporate. This quote by a District Attorney in California is incredible. He says the volume of shackled poor people brought to court--what he calls the "cattle call"--makes it impossible to consider them as individuals.

Shifting money from police and prisons to systems that meet people's needs are better for safety and, contrary to what you hear in the media, *one of the most popular policies* over decades of polling. Asking why this is hidden from us is important. equalityalec.substack.com/p/convention...

My 94-year-old grandmother is doing some light reading.

Thousands of articles, podcasts, and "think pieces" where liberals dismiss "defund" as unpopular, and yet the policy demand to reduce the size of police, prosecutor, and prison budgets is one of the most popular, consistently polled issues in the U.S: equalityalec.substack.com/p/convention...

"Every single conversation happening in the political consultant and campaign class among Democratic Party figures is proceeding from a set of “conventional wisdom” assumptions that are wrong about what people want and that fly in the face of a scientific consensus."

I've now updated this post to include the overwhelming poling data from crime survivors themselves. The fact that establishment figures lie to people about what crime victims want is one of the great shames of the modern Democratic Party and liberal punditry:

THREAD. Has anyone ever told you that we can't reduce the size and power of the police, prosecutor, surveillance tech, and prison bureaucracies because it's not popular? In my latest newsletter, I debunk that myth. equalityalec.substack.com/p/convention...

It's copadandize the children season. For the second year in a row, the SWAT team rappelled down the face of the Montreal Children's Hospital and then went inside to distribute gifts. Many hospital staff have criticized this training/PR exercise, but they've been ignored.

One of the darkest aspects of this is that the Editorial Board can be presumed to understand its audience. The level of manufactured ignorance it takes for a non-predator to respond positively to these ideas is breathtaking.

A full, official editorial today in the New York Times. Not an op-ed. The statements and images are made on behalf of the paper itself.

If you don’t know about our Right2Hug campaign, you should check out the links below. What these kids around the country are enduring and also how they are fighting back is something a lot more people should know about.

THREAD. There are alarming developments in Canada recently. Some politicians are apparently doing their best impression of Trump's Executive Orders on cash bail--they want to determine who is in a cage and who is free with their family based on who pays up-front cash.

THREAD. There are alarming developments in Canada recently. Some politicians are apparently doing their best impression of Trump's Executive Orders on cash bail--they want to determine who is in a cage and who is free with their family based on who pays up-front cash.

there are unique aspects of this new immigration detention regime, but as someone with an incarcerated sibling, many of the tactics are, sadly, familiar. international humanitarian law, supreme court rulings, federal rules and regulations, basic decency — all are optional in our prison system.

Torture is a feature of life in thousands of US jails and prisons. It’s often blamed on “guards,” but someone had to design this contraption, build it, plan its use, and run it up the chain of command. Judges and lawyers had to create a legal regime where this stuff pervades for decades.

This event is tonight in DC. It’s the last book event I have scheduled for the Copaganda tour. Hope to see folks! Talk starts at 6:30pm.

I wrote about local lobbying for body cams and reviewed @equalityalec.bsky.social's excellent new book, Le caméra d'intervention (Éditions de la rue Doirion), last month. tedrutland.substack.com/p/body-camer...

THREAD. Today our lawyers will be in a small courtroom in Colorado fighting for a constitutional right for children to hug their parents. Did you know that millions of children every year are barred from hugging their parents because of new policies? Do you know who benefits?

✨It's Giving Tuesday✨ This year, consider donating to Civil Rights Corps! CRC is committed to our fight to dismantle the systems that punish and cage our communities, but with the increased attacks on nonprofits, we need your support. Donate here: bit.ly/crc-donate

THREAD. As Orwell explained, once you lose the capacity to say 2+2=4, all else is lost.

The news has entirely failed to grasp the unprecedented scope of the ICE and DHS budgets. Nothing like it in modern history. A galaxy of public/private surveillance and caging institutions for $100,000,000,000s unleashed on a public that will be forever changed. www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...

DC folks: I'm excited to announce a last minute Copaganda event at Busboys and Poets this Thursday! As a special treat, one of the best journalists in the U.S. will be joining us to discuss authoritarianism. I'll let you know who it is later in the week... www.busboysandpoets.com/events/th-ev...

Precisely.

Many journalists are tracking the procurement and deployment of new technologies and tactics, but it's hard to get the entire picture. A generational threat to civil liberties that I suspect future governments will struggle (or refuse) to roll back. Dramatic reform/abolition will be required.

“Labeled as ‘domestic terrorists’ by the administration, these targets include anti-ICE protesters and anyone who allegedly funds them — all of them part of a supposed left-wing conspiracy to violently oppose the president’s agenda.”

The news has entirely failed to grasp the unprecedented scope of the ICE and DHS budgets. Nothing like it in modern history. A galaxy of public/private surveillance and caging institutions for $100,000,000,000s unleashed on a public that will be forever changed. www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...

I am working on a house repair project, so I subjected myself to this whole 90-minute podcast, notwithstanding that I've had M/tt St0ller blocked since back in the day on Twitter and have plenty of bones to pick with BJG. Here are the major points I took away from the conversation: 1/n

It was like watching a person who built a section of the Great Wall of China be lectured to by a person who owned a set of toy blocks as a child (that he didn't actually play with). Just absolute bedrock ignorance about what it takes to create something combined w irrational self-confidence 15/n

The person who debated me here routinely says things about police/prosecutors with *great confidence* to *hundreds of thousands of followers,* and he admits in this debate that he has no idea whether these things he has been saying are true or not. This is typical in punditry.

There’s no hope of an anti-fascist coalition if journalists do stuff like this without accountability. Crime was *down* under Boudin, who barely changed anything! It’d be like the SF Chronicle saying: “many in the city blame Boudin for city’s children becoming flat-earthers.”

THREAD. There are almost no instances in corporate media where there is a debate about the role of police, prosecutors, and prisons that includes a person critical of those institutions. One result? Many liberals and Democrats are wildly uninformed and misinformed. www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZCl...

I want you to understand that while news media and politicians were fearmongering every day about shoplifting in SF (while property crime was *down*), THIS was happening: "the inhalation of one-millionth of an ounce will cause cancer with a virtual 100% statistical certainty."

This debate exposes how baseless mainstream punditry is on cops, prosecutors, and prisons. Pundits don't know how the punishment bureaucracy works or the empirical evidence, and they're wrong about what's "popular." No wonder media rarely discusses it. www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZCl...

It is very rare that we have a deep debate in any media setting where prominent pro-police advocates are forced to defend their views. I tried my best in this fascinating and contentious argument to hold those views up to scrutiny. open.spotify.com/episode/5zV5...

The Labor Party in England is now proposing to get rid of almost all jury trials in England to make the criminal punishment bureaucracy more efficient. This should be a warning for us all. Neoliberals are walking us into the waiting arms of authoritarians.

All of the Democrats around the U.S. proposing more pretrial detention and fighting reforms to the cash bail system should be thinking about why, across modern history, authoritarians are obsessed with increasing the power of the government to detain people before any trial.

THREAD. Over many years, we became the national experts in fighting unconstitutional pretrial detention--all the more urgent because authoritarians need detention without process. But something wild just happened in one of our habeas cases: a DA used made up cases and citations.

I've just finished my last Copaganda event from the tour! We talked (a lot) in dozens of cities about the complicity of liberal institutions in rising fascism. But I've been told by federal regulators that the one thing missing was merchandise. Not anymore: www.bonfire.com/copaganda/

THREAD. Over many years, we became the national experts in fighting unconstitutional pretrial detention--all the more urgent because authoritarians need detention without process. But something wild just happened in one of our habeas cases: a DA used made up cases and citations.

I've just finished my last Copaganda event from the tour! We talked (a lot) in dozens of cities about the complicity of liberal institutions in rising fascism. But I've been told by federal regulators that the one thing missing was merchandise. Not anymore: www.bonfire.com/copaganda/

The Washington Post is just straight up spreading misinformation. Total witchcraft. Not a single person at the Post has any basis for the claim that "increased enforcement of tougher laws" either happened at all or reduced murder. Maybe someone should write a book about it...

The premise of this article--and nearly this entire genre of Copaganda--is that the identity of the police chief, supposed differences between different chiefs, and the things police do matter for "crime." This is untrue. It's like climate science denial. Safety has root causes.

The New York Times today calls the NYPD Commissioner "a data-centric billionaire heiress who has sharply criticized laws to relax bail." This like saying someone is a "data-centric oil company executive who has questioned global warming."

This Thursday at lunch I have the honor of giving a public lecture at Berkeley Law School about propaganda and the complicity of liberal institutions in this authoritarian moment. My grandma say that if you're in the Bay Area you absolutely cannot miss this.

Got lunch plans Friday? Join the Power Lunch Podcast to chat with our ED @rpogge.bsky.social, Michael Soyfer of IJ, & special guest @equalityalec.bsky.social! Friday’s episode focuses on the rise of mass surveillance and its growing threat to justice—12PM. Register: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

politicians and executives know that unnecessary everyday chemicals are leading to death and suffering for millions of us with loved ones who get cancer and parkinson’s. journalists don’t treat it as an urgent “public safety” issue like they treat shoplifting by poor people.