Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

It's surely just a random fluctuation [Memo to self: do not become hopeful. Do NOT become hopeful. It just leads to pain.], but here's some more news suggesting that official abuses against people's rights — the sort that the mainstream establishment types in and out of the media claim don't happen and are only harped on by cranks — might actually not get forgotten.

Item: According to Miami Herald columnist Jim DeFede, 'Miami Model' of FTAA security is lightning rod, AFL-CIO Sec-Tres Richard Trumka

has made it his personal mission to settle the score with Miami city leaders and its police force for what happened during the Free Trade Area of the Americas summit last month.

''The American labor movement is committed, and I am personally committed, to see that the brutality we saw never happens again anywhere in this country,'' he said Tuesday during an AFL-CIO meeting to gather testimony from people who say they were abused by the police.

The often emotional meeting lasted four hours. ''The stories were worse than I imagined,'' Trumka said afterward.

He said the AFL-CIO would call on its friends in Congress and throughout the country to 'help us stop `the Miami Model' in its tracks so it can never raise its ugly head again.''

The 'Miami Model' has already become code for oppressive police work and suppression of dissidence. It's a bit unfair, as the model was actually perfected long ago, and has been used abroad at other summits, but Miami was perhaps the first town in several years to apply the model in the US.

Item: Washington Post reports that Tapes Show Abuse of 9/11 Detainees, so the abuse that previously didn't exist at all has now been upgraded to “as many as 20 guards were involved in the abuse, which included slamming prisoners against walls and painfully twisting their arms and hands” and “a pattern of physical and verbal abuse” although the Justice Dept. position (pre-judging the merits?) is that it is “unfortunate that the alleged misconduct of a few employees detracts from the fine work done by the correctional personnel at MDC and around the nation, who conducted themselves professionally and appropriately.”