The Institute for Justice has published an important new study on the economic impact of licensing laws.

As a new report issued today by the Institute for Justice discusses, more and more Americans now need the government’s permission before they can pursue the occupation of their choice. The IJ report, “License to Work: A National Study of Burdens from Occupational Licensing,” shows that for lower-income Americans, these government-imposed “occupational licensing” hurdles are not only widespread, but often unreasonably high. License to Work details licensing requirements for 102 low- and moderate-income occupations in all 50 states and D.C. It is the first national study of licensing to focus on lower-income occupations and to measure the burdens licensing imposes on aspiring workers . . .

All of the 102 occupations studied in License to Work are licensed in at least one state. On average, these government-mandated licenses force aspiring workers to spend nine months in education or training, pass one exam and pay more than $200 in fees. One third of the licenses take more than one year to earn. At least one exam is required for 79 of the occupations.

“These licensing laws force people to spend a lot of time and effort earning a license instead of earning a living,” said Dr. Dick Carpenter, director of strategic research at the Institute for Justice and report co-author. “They make it harder for people to find jobs and to build new businesses that create jobs.”

Data show that those practicing the 102 occupations studied are not only more likely to be low-income, but also to be minority and to have less education, likely making licensing hurdles even harder to overcome. In addition, about half the 102 occupations offer the possibility of entrepreneurship, suggesting these laws affect both job attainment and creation.

Licensing requirements are usually justified under concerns for public safety. But that’s usually just a canard.

 . . . research to date provides little evidence that licensing protects public health and safety or improves products and services. Instead, it increases consumer costs and reduces opportunities for workers.

License to Work provides additional reasons to doubt that many licensing regimes are needed. First, most of the 102 occupations are practiced somewhere without government permission and apparently without widespread harm: Only 15 are licensed in 40 states or more, and on average, the 102 occupations are licensed in just 22 states—fewer than half. This includes a number of occupations with no self-evident rationale for licensure, such as shampooer, florist, home entertainment installer and funeral attendant.

Second, licensure burdens often vary considerably across states, calling into question the need for severe burdens. For instance, although 10 states require four months or more of training for manicurists, Alaska demands only about three days and Iowa about nine days. Such disparities are prevalent throughout the occupations studied.

Finally, the difficulty of entering an occupation often has little to do with the health or safety risk it poses. Of the 102 occupations studied, the most difficult to enter is interior designer, a harmless occupation licensed in only three states and D.C. By contrast, EMTs hold lives in their hands, yet 66 other occupations face greater average licensure burdens, including barbers and cosmetologists, manicurists and a host of contractor designations.

Idea for some econ grad student: Do a study to determine the number of jobs the Institute for Justice has created over the years by suing, usually successfully, to overturn this protectionist nonsense.

In Topeka:

Several neighbors in the 1100 block of S.W. Plass Ave. were upset Monday night after a Topeka police officer drew his weapon and shot a dog to death.

“He drew his gun and fired five or six shots,” said neighbor Constantinos Miklas Acton. “He killed that dog dead for no reason.” . . .

A few minutes later, Acton took a break and saw the dog, a German shepherd and border collie mix, galloping playfully toward the officer.

A few seconds later, shots rang out.

“He knew I saw it,” Acton said. “He really got hot under the collar.”

Topeka police Sgt. Jennifer Cross didn’t release the officer’s name Monday night. She did confirm there had been several calls made about a barking dog and another dog possibly loose in the area.

She said the officer tried to make contact with the dog’s owner, and when the dog approached the officer, “he felt in danger.”

“His training is to protect himself,” Cross said.

And in Cheatham County, Tennessee:

A Cheatham County man said deputies gunned down his dog, and then disposed of the body in the most disrespectful way possible.  Now, he wants answers about how it happened.

Brandon Reed said his pit bull, Kojo, disappeared last Tuesday.

“I had a couple dogs show up in my yard, and they were just kinda hanging out, my dog was out, and he was playing with them, and they were laying around and stuff,” he said.  “Evidently, Kojo followed them back to their home.” . . .

“She said she called the police because my dog was there and he was causing some type of trouble, or she felt threatened,” Reed said.

Sheriff John Holder told NewsChannel 5 his deputies shot the dog after arriving on the scene, but said they did so because Kojo was being aggressive.

“My officers saw this dog come toward them, and my officers shot him,” Sheriff Holder said.  “And we’ll take responsibility for shooting the dog, but we would not have shot the dog if he had not shown some kind of aggression.” . . .

“She said, well, when the officers shot the dog, they dragged it into the woods and threw if off the bluff, which is right behind their house,” he said.  “There’s no way I could’ve found it without rappelling.  So I mean, I don’t even know where he is, I didn’t even get to bury him.”

Sheriff Holder insists that his deputies would not go that far.

“We left the dog there with the people who called us, and they said they would destroy the dog, bury the dog, I think is what they said,” said the sheriff.

That never happened, which is why Reed is so upset.

“It was all handled poorly, the whole situation,” he said.  “It’s so disrespectful to Kojo.  And he deserved more.”

NewsChannel 5 spoke to the woman who called 911 on that day.

She did not want to go on camera, but told us the deputies helped them carry Kojo into the woods, and to the top of that 150-foot bluff.

She said they simply placed the body near the edge, though, and somehow, it must have rolled off.

Image courtesy of the @firehat Twitter feed.

• Surprising photos of famous people.
• Another raid gone wrong. Dog dead, federal agents wounded.
• Justice.
• Milwaukee police chief who once said he’d instruct his officers to completely disregard the rule of law, and instead throw people to the ground at gunpoint for exercising their constitutional rights . . . is now facing multiple investigations of his police department for civil rights, excessive force, and sexual assaults.
• The answer is no.
• This article on an accidental police shooting includes all of your usual lack of accountability features: passive voice (“one officer’s gun went off, and the woman was shot.”), no details on the nature of the injury, and refusal to release the officer’s name.
• Headline of the day.
• Runner-up.
• Adam Serwer on the political fight to end indefinite detention.
• Dekalb, Georgia officer who shot a chained dog a few months ago is now under investigation for kicking a pregnant woman in the stomach.

I’m sorry, but I’m not really seeing the bravery or heroism, here. It’s important, sure. And it’s historic. And it might prove to be an effective use of the bully pulpit.

It’s also about f*cking time. Basically, Obama announced to the country today that he, personally, is cool with gay marriage. It’s a position he has allegedly held all along, but didn’t have the political spine to state publicly prior to this afternoon. Even then, he only made his statement after carefully strategizing with his aides to make sure it wouldn’t damage him politically. Or I guess to put it more accurately, once his aides convinced him that his gutless silence was hurting him more than what he said today possibly could.

Obama’s statement doesn’t change a single policy. He has basically adopted a federalist approach to the issue. To my knowledge, gay marriage also happens to be the only issue in which Obama embraces federalism. Obama apparently believes the states should be able to discriminate when it comes to marriage benefits, but if they allow cancer and AIDS patients to smoke pot, he asserts the supremacy of federal law, and sends in the SWAT teams. What a twisted set of priorities.

Moreover, because the federal government is actively discriminating against homosexual couples based on whether or not the state where they reside recognizes their marriage, there’s actually a decent equal protection argument argument against letting the states decide this issue. Or, better yet, for the federal government to just stop conferring special benefits onto heterosexual couples. Or, still better yet, to stop conferring benefits onto married couples at all.* And I say that as someone who generally believes in federalism. (And, to be fair, who isn’t married.)

I’ve been happy to praise Obama on those unfortunately few occasions when there’s been reason to do so. But this? This is a president half-assing it while still keeping plenty of political cover, and on an issue in which he could have effected real change had he had the courage of his convictions years ago.

As leadership goes, it’s little more than acknowledging the direction the wind is blowing. It hardly merits a new chapter for Profiles in Courage.

(*Insert boilerplate libertarian disclaimer about how government shouldn’t be in the business of sanctioning relationships in the first place.)

This police beating of Kelly Thomas is one of the most heartbreaking videos I’ve ever seen. Not just for Thomas, although quite obviously for Thomas. But also for the sheer depravity—the staring-you-in-the-face confirmation that your fellow human beings are capable of this sort of thing.

Of course, the point is also that these aren’t just any human beings. You can find violent videos at sites like World Star Hip Hop that are every bit as soul-crushing. But these are the people we entrust with the exclusive power to use coercive force—which we do in the interest of protecting the public. Days after the beating, one of these animals called into a radio show to boast about it. The night of the beating, one of them demanded treatment for a scrape on his elbow as Thomas lay dying a few feet away, looking like this.

Public officials closed ranks. A “special assistant to the DA” was brought on to defend the officers. The police department shut down the flow of information, then released misinformation (though another public official later found no fault with that). The city then tried to pay Thomas’ father $900,000 to go away.

Were it not for a citizen with a cell phone camera, the agitation of a local blog, and the determination of Thomas’ father, himself a former cop, we may never have known about Kelly Thomas. And these animals could well still be on the police force in Fullerton.

It’s difficult as hell, but you should still sit down to watch this video. Once you’re done, you can restore some optimism with this video from Reason.tv, which explains how technology and social media eventually shamed Fullerton officials into taking action.

(Via Carlos Miller, who has much more.)

That Tea Party extremist nut Rand Paul is at it again. First, he was the only U.S. Senator to openly speak out against renewal of the PATRIOT Act. Then he promised that it should it become necessary, he’d wage a filibuster to block SOPA. He raised holy hell about the NDAA.

Now the winger is trying to prevent a war with Iran or Syria.

Presidents of both parties, over the past several decades, have shown a willingness to interpret Senate resolutions in the broadest imaginable way when it comes to war, whether it’s to launch a 10-year land-war in Southeast Asia or Afghanistan, to torture detainees picked up in foreign countries or to eavesdrop without a warrant on American citizens.

This time around, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) wants to make sure there are no misunderstandings.

The Senate is debating legislation that would impose strict sanctions on Iran, including penalizing U.S. companies whose subsidiaries have ties to the country.

The bill, S. Res. 380, would not explicitly allow war with Iran. But Paul, who has been a critic of U.S. involvement in both Iraq and Afghanistan, doesn’t want to take any chances. His amendment would make clear that nothing in the bill “shall be construed as a declaration of war or an authorization of use of force against Iran or Syria.”

A single senator can wield serious influence in the Senate simply by refusing to go along, and Paul is willing to use it. In late March, Paul blocked the bipartisan Iran sanctions bill from coming to a vote, demanding consideration of his amendment. The House has already approved a version of the legislation. Moving forward would require coming to an agreement with Paul so that he lifts his objection, or getting 60 votes to bypass him, which would chew up several days of limited Senate floor time.

So far, only one Democrat, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), has expressed interest in signing on as a cosponsor . . .

Fortunately, seasoned Washington veterans are around to tamp down Paul’s nutty crusades.

The effort to rally votes simply to clarify that the bill does not authorize war has been a frustrating one for Paul. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, warned that the amendment wasn’t “helpful” at the moment.

“I just don’t think it would be helpful right now, frankly, to have that kind of a debate when you’re in the middle of negotiations, when you’re trying to send a bunch of other different kinds of messages, and when you don’t want to confuse the ability to bring people to the table and act in good faith,” he said. “When you start talking about war debate and strength debate, it’s a whole different climate. I don’t think it’s necessary.”

Thank goodness the Senate was full of people like Kerry back when Bush was in office, and not people like Paul. I mean, there may have actually been some debate over the PATRIOT Act. Or some attempt to be specific about what that authorization of war on terrorism did and didn’t allow the president to do.

• Pre-boom photos of Dubai.
• Fox reporter files breathless report after ride-along with the Maricopa County SWAT team. This time, no puppies were burned alive.
• “…the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine asks the White House to issue an executive order banning staged photo opportunities that show the president, the first family, the vice president, and members of the president’s cabinet eating unhealthy foods…”
• Gary Johnson: Not a spoiler.
• Stephen Colbert vs. Miracle Whip.
• Asshole dog.
• But for video: Bronx edition.
• Last week, the ever-earnest Michael Gerson defended the way Obama has used drones, even though they’ve killed hundreds of innocent people. This week, Gerson argues that Obama is ruthless . . . because he’s mean to Republicans.
• The first sentence of this paper (PDF) ends with what might be the best misplaced metaphor I’ve ever seen. That, or there was much, much more going on in those mortgage derivatives than has so far been reported.

Over at Huffington Post, I have an update on Terrance Huff, the filmmaker who was pulled over and searched in Collinsville, Illinois while returning from a Star Trek convention last year.

He filed a civil rights lawsuit this morning.

The 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has struck down the onerous Illinois wiretapping law.

The ruling from the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago is the strongest blow yet to the law, which is one of the strictest in the country and makes it illegal for people to audio record police officers in public without their consent.

The ruling follows last month’s announcement by Chicago officials that they would not enforce the law during the May 20-21 NATO summit when potentially thousands of people armed with smart phones and video cameras are expected to demonstrate in the city.

The ruling from the appeals court stems from a lawsuit filed in 2010 by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. The suit sought a preliminary injunction barring Cook County prosecutors from enforcing the law.

A federal judge denied the request, prompting the ACLU to appeal to the 7^th Circuit. In its ruling today, the appeals court agreed with the ACLU, saying, “The Illinois eavesdropping statute restricts far more speech than necessary to protect legitimate privacy interests.”

The ACLU of Illinois welcomed the ruling. Its legal director, Harvey Grossman, said that the “widespread accessibility of new technologies make the recording and dissemination of pictures and sound inexpensive, efficient and easy to accomplish.”

“In order to make the rights of free expression and petition effective, individuals and organizations must be able to freely gather and record information about the conduct of government and their agents – especially the police,” Grossman said in a statement.

There was one dissent. And with it, I think it’s officially time to stop pretending that Judge Richard Posner has any kinship with libertarians.

Judge Richard Posner dissented, saying the legislature in 1994 might have had good reason for requiring two-party consent — a higher standard of privacy than other states — even when it comes to recording police officers on public streets: “A person who is talking with a police officer on duty may be a suspect whom the officer wants to question; he may be a bystander whom the police are shooing away from the scene of a crime or an accident; he may be an injured person seeking help; he may be a crime victim seeking police intervention; he may be asking for directions; he may be arguing with a police officer over a parking ticket; he may be reporting a traffic accident,” Posner wrote. “Police may have no right to privacy in carrying out official duties in public. But the civilians they interact with do.”

Or it might be the alleged victim of sexual assault by a police officer, attempting to document the fact that the internal affairs cops to whom she’s trying to report the incident are bullying her into dropping her complaint. Posner  apparently thinks she should go to prison for that.

Keep in mind, this is the same Posner who is unconcerned with warrantless cell phone searches, and who in just about every other context seems to believe that privacy is dead.

Just not when you’re recording on-duty cops.

Doctors prescribed a Texas woman a strong narcotic after she shattered her knee in Haiti.  And then . . .

“They gave me a pretty high, heavy duty narcotic, Norco, as a painkiller going forward and I had used that up. It had been a month and I had called for my refill,” Lenhart said.

The pharmacy called Lenhart to ask her exactly what time she would be in pick up her prescription. She thought it was odd, but told the pharmacy what time she would be there.

Still on crutches and unable to drive, a friend of Lenhart’s, drove her to a CVS Pharmacy in Oak Cliff.

She wasn’t able to pick up her prescription because a police officer arrived to pick her up.

“He was like ‘we need to go outside,’” she said. “I was on crutches and I had a permanent IV line in my arm. I had a big leg brace. I asked him if it was necessary and he said yes and he rather policingly escorted me out the front door and into the back of a waiting patrol car.”

Lenhart was so stunned, she didn’t think to ask the officer questions. The officer explained to her what was going on.

“He said, ‘Well we believe that you have forged your pain pill prescription and we are calling your doctor now. But I’ve worked with this pharmacist a number of times and he’s never made a mistake,” Lenhart said.

The officer then took her the Dallas County jail, where she remained overnight.  After she was released on bond, she was charged with obtaining a controlled substance by fraud, a felony.

“I couldn’t go back to work until HR had received the paperwork that this was a mistake from my attorney,” she said.

Dallas police later dropped the charges after speaking with Lenhart’s doctor.

These idiots couldn’t even bother to call the woman’s doctor before tossing her in a jail cell.

Lenhart’s story has been making its way around the web the past few days, and has been generating the appropriate outrage. But it shouldn’t be all that surprising. This is the perfectly predictable outcome of all this painkiller hysteria of late. It’s bad enough coming from the usual drug warriors. But because there’s a big evil pharmaceutical corporation to play the villain, we now get progressive outlets like ProPublica, and Alternet and Salon spitting out the government’s hype without the least bit of skepticism—or concern for pain patients.

You can’t really blame the pharmacist, here. She risks arrest and criminal prosecution if some overeager prosecutor looking to make a name for himself decides she hasn’t been sufficiently suspicious of her customers. Think about that. The government will now throw you in jail for failing to be suspicious enough of your fellow citizens. (And not just with painkillers — remember this monstrous injustice?)

Don’t blame her employer, either. The DEA recently shut down two CVS stores in Florida because federal drug cops thought the stores should have been turning away more people who came to fill pain medication prescriptions. Not only that, the agencies also attempted to shut down the wholesaler who supplies those stores for not being sufficiently suspicious of them, a move that would have left thousands of patients in several states without access to the medication they need.

The government has created a poisonous, paranoid atmosphere in which every player in the painkiller process from manufacturer to patient has been deputized to police every other player, to the point where anyone who doesn’t continually question the motives and actions of everyone else risks losing his livelihood, or even his freedom.

But Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske personally assures me that none of this hysteria is affecting patients. People suffering from pain and conscientious doctors have nothing to worry about, Kerlikowski promises. Just trust him on this one.

Yeah, so tell that to Anne Lenhart. Or to the desperate pain patients who have been emailing me since the most recent doctor went down.

You are sorely missed, Siobhan Reynolds.

Time-lapse Venice.

The Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police is looking to strip a retired captain of his union membership, because he had sex with a 14-year-old girl illegally raided immigrant-owned bodegas across the city, then stole from and threatened their owners illegally arrested and nearly killed a man for legally carrying a firearm beat his girlfriend and threatened to “stamp” her “heart out” sexually assaulted three women during drug raids  . . . hmm. It appears to have been none of those.

So what could he possibly have done?

The retired Philadelphia police captain committed an act so heinous, so unforgivable in the eyes of the FOP, that union president John McNesby filed a rare grievance that could result in Lewis being permanently expelled from the FOP and stripped of union benefits such as life insurance and free legal assistance.

“It’s quite unusual. We had to dig into the books to see what we could do and couldn’t do,” said FOP pension director Henry Vannelli, who made the motion to refer Lewis’ case to the union’s grievance committee. “We don’t want that guy around.”

Lewis’ inexcusable offense?

He wore his police uniform to the Occupy Wall Street protest in Zuccotti Park last year. He wanted to show the world that the economic-equality movement is not just the pink-haired potheads and scatterbrained anarchists that some media outlets tend to focus on. He makes sure to tell people he’s retired.

“They thought everyone thought of them as dirty hippies. I made their concerns legitimate to the masses,” said Lewis, 60, explaining how he was greeted by the protesters last year. “Their gratitude was overwhelming.”

Lewis, who wore his police uniform to Southwest Philadelphia’s Elmwood Park on Tuesday for a May Day rally with Occupy Philly and labor leaders, became somewhat of an Occupy celebrity, appearing in Time magazine and on cable news.

All of which continues to infuriate McNesby and other FOP officials. The grievance committee could complete its Lewis investigation by the end of the month.

“He’s not respecting the uniform,” McNesby said. “People died for that uniform. It’s not Halloween.”

Not only should Lewis be punished by the union, McNesby said, he “absolutely” should be locked up every time he sets foot in Philly with his uniform on.

Only problem: Nothing Lewis did was illegal.

Also, here’s a bonus, fun glimpse at police union logic:

But if it’s all about the uniform, why doesn’t the FOP take issue with Philadelphia lawyer Jimmy Binns? The wannabe cop has been photographed with a Glock on his hip in a look-alike Philadelphia police uniform on a Harley-Davidson that says “police” on the side and is nearly identical to those ridden by city cops.

Simple, the FOP’s Vannelli says: “Binns is a very good friend of police.”

• How deep things are.
• Kentucky Supreme Court bars the unfortunately named town of Liberty from setting up roadblocks for sticker inspections.
• Supermoon photos.
• Police brutality cases crack up the town of Colwyn, Pennsylvania.
• Fun photos of New York City rooftops.
• “I was abducted by aliens.”
• The physics of spilled coffee.
• But for video, Broward County, Florida edition.

This is Lucy, a neglected pup that reader and fellow writer David McElroy rescued  . . . from his neighbors. You can read the story here.

• Striking photos from the most populous place on earth.
• The real data on immigration.
• Headline of the day. (Also a really bizarre story.)
• Runner-up.
• I predict lots of squirrel-related programming.
• Let’s give some due praise to Jefferson Parish, Louisiana Sheriff Newell Normand.
• Gary Johnson wins the LP nomination for president. This is a good thing for the LP. Best thing in years, in fact.

From the good folks at Keep Columbia Free:

A few days ago, SWAT officers of the Fulton (Missouri) Police Department shot and killed a dog while serving a “narcotics” search warrant. The residents of the house asked if they could cage the dog. The officers denied the request, ordering that the dog to be chained to a tree. The dog got loose and was then shot eight times, the first six shots wounding the dog and the last two point-blank, shotgun blasts killing it. After finishing off the first dog, the officers turned their guns on caged puppies only stopping when confronted by concerned neighbors.

They found enough pot to charge the guy with a misdemeanor. There’s a local news account at the link.

By the way, Fulton, Missouri has all of about 13,000 people. But they do have their own SWAT team.

While researching the first chapter of my book, which is basically a broad look at policing from the colonial era up through about the early 1960s, I found the fascinating (or I guess fascinating-sounding—I haven’t yet read it) book, Licentious Gotham: Erotic Publishing and Its Prosecution in Nineteenth-Century New York.

While flipping through the index, I found a fun appendix of book titles that were named in New York City obscenity indictments between 1840 and 1860. It’s like browsing an adult bookshop in Victorian America. A few of my favorites:

The Amorous History and Adventures of Raymond DeB—and Father Andoullard, Detailing Some Curious Histories and Disclosing the Pastimes of a Convent, With Some Remarks on the Use and Advantages of Flagellation

The Auto-Biography of a Footman

The Cabinet of Venus Unlocked in a Series of Dialogues between Louisa Lovestone and Mariana Greedy, Two Cyprians! of the Most Accomplished Talent in the Science of Practical Love

The Confessions of a Voluptuous Young Woman of High Rank

The Curtain Drawn Up; or, the Education of Laura

The Life and Adventures of Silas Shovewell

The Lustful Turk

Wedding Secrets Revealed by the Torch of Hymen

Memoirs of the Life and Voluptuous Adventures of the Celebrated Courtesan Madamoiselle Celestine of Paris Written by Herself

The Secret Habits of the Female Sex

Wonderful as these are, part of me was hoping for some dirty puns on Victorian novels. Maybe Moby’s Dick. Or Scarlet Let Her. Tail in Two Cities. The House of Girth. Great Expectorations.

I’ll stop now.

Michael Tarbox of the great Tarbox Ramblers is running a Kickstarter campaign to fund a solo album. If you like the sound, consider throwing a few bucks his way.

Here’s one of my favorites from the band:

This video doesn’t show a dog killing, or a person killing, or a police beating. But in some ways, it’s more appalling than those sorts of videos. In it, you’ll see a “multi-agency” police task force arresting employees at a series of massage parlors in Houston. The businesses were apparently fronts for prostitution. The initial raid was conducted by a paramilitary police team, as you can see from the screen capture. In the video, the head of the task force steps out in full SWAT attire, including a balaclava, as he leads the women out of the building. He keeps the mask on throughout the video.

The women, all but one of whom were immigrants, are led out in handcuffs and leg shackles. One repeatedly struggles with and trips over her shackles on her way to the wagon. They all look terrified. The whole thing is stomach-turning. It’s an ugly, egregious, cock-waving display of power.

At worst, these these women provided a sexual service to willing customers in exchange for money. For that, a completely victimless crime, they get frog-marched in leg shackles on citywide TV.

But under that scenario the cops only look like bullies. There’s another possibility that makes them look thuggish and incompetent. In interviews with the local news, our brave and hooded vice warrior points out that these women could in fact be victims. That is, they may have been in the sex business involuntarily. We can’t know, he says, because they refuse to talk. He says they may fear that if they talk, their families back home will face repercussions.

Now let’s assume this is true. That means this multi-agency task force knew there was a possibility that these businesses were staffed with women who had been forced into prostitution. Aware of that possibility, they still scared the hell out of the women, cuffed and chained them, and—here’s the really galling part—tipped off the local news so it could all be put on TV. The humiliation is bad enough. But if there’s substance to the claim that these women fear retaliation against their families in their native countries, the potential repercussors now have video showing exactly which women were arrested. Back-slaps all around, guys.

And yes, there’s no question that the police tipped off the local news. Four (by my count) different TV stations don’t coincidentally show up at a run-of-the-mill strip mall just as a prostitution raid goes down. And while we’re passing out shame buttons, let’s slap a few on Houston’s local news teams, too. That’s you KHOU, Fox 26, ABC affiliate KTRK, and KPRC.  Think about what you’re putting on the air.  There’s no law that requires you to accommodate the police every time they want to flex their muscles on the evening news. In one of the videos linked above, the news team shoves a camera into a woman’s face as she’s stepping into the wagon. The reporter then shouts questions at the woman—this just after the reporter points out the possibility that the woman she’s humiliating and zooming in on may be a sex slave.

And about that balaclava. Yes, I realize the cop was probably protecting his identity. Take the hood off, and the next time he’s slabbed over a massage table, the 19-year-old Thai girl rubbing his back might recognize from TV, and decline to offer him extras. Thus ruining his investigation. He may also investigate other vice crimes, like narcotics, in which case revealing his identity could put him at risk. Understood. But here’s an easier way to protect your cover: Don’t call in the news cameras before you make your bust.

Look, I understand that cops enforce the laws, they don’t write them. And in this case it appears that (a) neighboring businesses were complaining, and (b) these massage parlors may have been engaged in sex trafficking. It’s hard to fault them for investigating (although in some of these massage parlor cases, the cops tend to investigate “to completion.”)

But how about some restraint? You’re “apprehending” 105-pound women here. Maybe you leave the ninja gear at home. Considering that you believe these women could be emotionally and/or physically abused, maybe you also do this bust quietly, bring along some social workers, and take the women away in vans. Maybe you have trained counselors talk to the women for a few hours before you give them the Whitey Bulger treatment. Then, once you have a better grasp on the nature of these businesses, you can hold yourself a press conference and bask in praise for keeping Houston safe from prostitutes.

You won’t get to go on TV dressed up in your riot gear that way. But you’ll at least know you’ve done your job with some professionalism—and some humanity.

• Murder of journalists is on the rise. As a journalist, I find this newsworthy.
• Favorite new panic story: New “trend” in which kids are climbing into trees, then drinking until they fall out.
• Chuck Schumer isn’t going to like this.
• No indictment in the police killing of Kenneth Chamberlain.
• Federal court gives John Yoo immunity from torture lawsuit.
• The Clap is back, and this time it’s angry.
• Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson finds a reason to praise Obama: His willingness to kill people.
• Headline of the day.
• Jacob Sullum on the outrageous prosecution of Marissa Alexander.

Portland, Oregon.

• The Washington City Paper profiles food freedom fighter and Agitator pal Baylen Linnekin.
• The U.S. government is not looking good in this Chen Guangcheng story.
• Speaking of China, the Chinese government has reluctantly agreed to allow dissident Mao Yushi leave the country . . . in order to accept an award from the Cato Institute for his work to advance the cause of freedom.
• Lies, Damned Lies, and Drug Czar Speeches.
• Former ICE intelligence chief, other top ICE officials scammed $600,000 from U.S. taxpayers. Seems like a more important story than, for example, the Secret Service hiring prostitutes in countries where prostitution is legal.
• Headline of the day. The actual story likely of interest to regular readers here. Still. Quite a headline.
• Two city officials in Dallas attack a reporter’s hat.
• Pennsylvania cop under investigation for Tasering a juvenile nine times while the kid was in a jail cell.
• Philly cop alleged to have sexually assaulted a woman during a drug raid won’t be be prosecuted because the DA’s office failed to bring the charges in time.

Portland, Oregon.

A reader pointed out to me that I missed my 10-year blogoversary. It was either sometime last month or sometime in mid-February, depending on whether you measure from when I started blogging, or when I started blogging on something resembling the site you see now.

It’s a bit hard to believe. But thanks to all the regular readers, commenters, and those of you who send leads and tips from day to day. I do still plan to do an e-book of favorite posts and articles from the last 10 years. I just had to push the project back for a while when someone offered to pay me to write an actual book. But that will still happen. Eventually.

Also,  I guess this is a good time to let you know that the site will soon be making the switch over to Huffington Post I mentioned about a year ago. We’re still working out the specifics. But I hope you’ll all continue to participate over there.