While Anthony Graber was recently cleared of all charges after filming a police officer who pulled out a gun during a routine traffic stop, it doesn't appear as though the debate over filming police is over yet. A fellow libertarian at Quinnipiac was recently arrested while trying to film a police encounter in New Haven.

Here's an excerpt from my story for the Quinnipiac Chronicle (what is the internet for, if not shameless self-promotion?):

While there are no laws on the books in Connecticut that make filming a police officer illegal, Quinnipiac senior Kenneth Hartford found out on Saturday night that it isn’t quite so simple.

According to multiple witnesses, within minutes of Hartford beginning to film a Quinnipiac student being arrested outside of Toad’s Place in New Haven, an officer tackled and handcuffed him. Hartford was charged with Disorderly Conduct and Interfering with a Police Investigation. He went on to spend the night in jail at 24 Union Avenue.

In a short video that he took on his cell phone before his arrest, officers can be heard swearing at Hartford. The officer who ultimately arrested Hartford said, “Put that in your fucking pocket and get the fuck out of here.”

The full story, as well as Hartford's video, can be found here.

Here's Reason.tv with another excellent top three list, this time on the financial regulation overhaul:

Congessional Republicans recently launched a new site, called America Speaking Out, which allows users to submit and vote on policy ideas. From the homepage:

This site was developed by House Republicans as part of an official effort to increase the dialogue between Americans and their Congress. Here, Americans are provided a new platform to share their priorities and ideas for a national policy agenda....This is an open forum, however, where all Americans are welcome to respectfully offer their opinions, regardless of party affiliation and whether we endorse them or not. It is our hope the active engagement of the American people will produce a robust debate that will aid in the construction of a new American agenda.

So far, there is little in the way of productive debate, and plenty in the way of trolling, such as "Death penalty for teaching anything other than abstinence," "tax the french," and a long, rambling post about the dangers of lizard people that has since been deleted. There are some solid proposals on there, however. It seems like the posts are just about evenly split between libertarian ideas and trolls.

It looks like this little experiment is a failure, but it certainly was an interesting idea, and is worth checking out.

Kudos to cartoonist Cam Cardow, whose comics are some of the only things in my local paper that don't throw me into a rage.