TRAVERSE CITY, MI — Video of two northern Michigan men being subdued and arrested in a National Cherry Festival crowd by Traverse City police this week has sparked a debate about whether officers went over the line in their duties. The Traverse City Record-Eagle reports that two brothers from Garfield Township were arrested Wednesday evening, July 11, after police said one of them tried to incite a riot on the Union Street bridge downtown.

Los Angeles police said Friday that they have arrested numerous people for chalking downtown in the weeks leading up to ArtWalk. Protesters organized a "Chalk Walk" during Thursday's monthly ArtWalk in downtown Los Angeles to "celebrate our right to free speech and remind the LAPD and the city of Los Angeles that chalking is NOT a crime." Los Angeles Police has been arresting people who have marked downtown with chalk. The chalkers have been targeting the area around the Central City Assn, as the "lobby group of the 1%," according to a handout distributed at ArtWalk.

SWAT team raids Seattle OWS organizers with a warrant looking for "anarchist materials."

Law enforcement agencies in the U.S. made more than 1.3 million requests for consumers’ cellphone records in 2011, an alarming surge over previous years that reflected the increasingly gray area between privacy and technology. Cellphone carriers, responding to inquiries from a member of Congress, reported responding to as many as thousands of police requests daily for customers’ locations, text messages and call details, frequently without warrants.

Seven Myths about the Police

The police exercise legitimate authority. The average police officer is not a legal expert; he probably knows his department protocol, but very little about the actual laws. This means his enforcement involves a great deal of bluffing, improvisation, and dishonesty. Police lie on a regular basis: “I just got a report of someone of your description committing a crime around here. Want to show me some ID?”