This is outrageous:
…of course, we can’t have the media looking into critical public safety initiatives like “Operation Constant Gardener.” If such scrutiny revealed that cops consider merely shopping at a garden supply store to be suspicious behavior, that drug testing field kits are more about circumventing the Fourth Amendment than accurate results or that a sheriff’s boast of having shut down a drug operation run by an “average family” in a “good neighborhood” was actually a terrifying raid in which SWAT cops held two kids at gunpoint because their mother enjoyed drinking tea … well, some people might begin to question the wisdom of the drug war.
I hope they win on appeal.
The incentives for the criminal justice system are completely screwed up: police get advancement for arrests, prosecutors get advancement for conviction, judges get appointed or elected for being tough on crime, and nobody gets any kind of personal or professional recognition for finding out the truth. No wonder we have an assortment of jack-booted Gestapo in these positions.