Free Country Datum IVa

It seems the NYC cops may not just be sweeping up bikers and holding them in pens, but photographers, tourists and grandmothers too. Gotta watch out for them public library users!

(The NYCLU is working to try to sort out the mess.)

Does this incident undermine or support Robert Waldman's suggestion that,

I recall Michael Froomkin's null hypothesis that the USA is still a free country and the proposed test of this hypothesis “The Republican national convention and the protests it inpires seem like a decent field test of the hypothesis that it’s still a free country.”

I'd say the evidence so far tends to support the alternative but is statistically insignificant because of the possibility of a heteroskedastic disturbance term (that is this “commanding officer might be mentally disturbed).

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One Response to Free Country Datum IVa

  1. Chris says:

    Michael,
    I can top this…check out this link where a kid in Utah with an anti-Bush sticker got a visit from the secret service after they received a tip from informants.

    http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_2406167

    I imagine he was lucky not to wind up in Gitmo.

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