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Former Texas Rep. Ron Paul has weighed in on the Boston Marathon bombing and the police response to it. The libertarian-leaning former presidential candidate is not happy about the latter.

Paul decries police response

Paul, writing in the blog run by his political ally Lew Rockwell, decried how Boston and surrounding areas were placed on a virtual lockdown after the shootout between the police and Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev left the former dead and the latter on the run. Paul described the lockdown and the house to house search by police as a "military-style takeover of parts of Boston." He suggested that the police violated civil liberties with warrantless searches and that politicians were using the incident to call for more surveillance cameras in public places. Paul suggested that in fact the Tsarnaev brothers were taken down by ordinary citizens, including people who had recorded scenes on their smartphones and the homeowner who eventually found Dzhokhar Tsarnaev hiding in his boat.

Paul concerns shared by the left

While Paul's concerns over a "military occupation" stems from his libertarian principles, they are shared by at least some on the left. Renee Parsons, an environmental lobbyist, suggests in the Huffington Postthat the Boston manhunt presented a "frightening futuristic vision of a police state." She wondered what might have happened if citizens in Boston had actually resisted the forced entry into their homes of armed police. She concludes that the manhunt and the tactics used represents a dangerous constitutional precedent.

The Washington Times reports that Bill Maher, the left-leaning HBO talker, also took up the theme of America becoming a police state. He also suggested that the Boston Police were "unprofessional" in shooting at Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as he hid in the boat, even though it was claimed later he was unarmed.

Boston manhunt defended

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat, defended the lockdown in Boston and surrounding areas in a press conference, according to the Boston Globe. "I think we did what we should have done and were supposed to do with the always-imperfect information that you have at the time," he said. At the same event State Police Col. Timothy Alben denied allegations that there had been a breakdown in data sharing between federal and state agencies during the crisis. However the fact that photos and videos provided by the public were crucial in the takedown of the Tsarnaev brothers -- one of Paul's points -- was readily acknowledged.

Texas resident Mark Whittington writes about state issues for the Yahoo! Contributor Network.

Read this article:
Ron Paul Claims 'Liberty was Also Attacked in Boston'

By Matt Viser, Globe Staff

WASHINGTON -- Former US representative Ron Paul has a warning for Americans after the Boston Marathon bombings, and it may come as a surprise.

The prominent libertarian says citizens should perhaps be more frightened by the police response to the attack -- which killed three and injured scores more -- than by the explosions themselves.

In an article called Liberty Was Also Attacked in Boston, the former Republican congressman and two-time presidential candidate compares the intense April 19 manhunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to scenes from a military coup in a far off banana republic.

The Boston bombing provided the opportunity for the government to turn what should have been a police investigation into a military-style occupation of an American city, Paul writes. This unprecedented move should frighten us as much or more than the attack itself.

Paul argues that the Boston case sets a dangerous precedent, recounting scenes of paramilitary police riding in tanks and pointing automatic weapons at innocent citizens.

Once the government decides that its role is to keep us safe, whether economically or physically, they can only do so by taking away our liberties, Paul writes. That is what happened in Boston.

During the manhunt, authorities encouraged residents in the Boston area to stay inside their homes. It created surreal scenes April 19, with eerily quiet streets.

Governor Deval Patrick last week defended the decision to shut down the Boston area.

I think we did what we should have done and were supposed to do with the always-imperfect information that you have at the time, Patrick said at a press conference on Friday.

Go here to read the rest:
Ron Paul: Boston shutdown during manhunt ‘should frighten us as much or more than the attack itself’

Former Rep. Ron Paul said the police response to the Boston Marathon bombings was scarier than the bombing itself, which killed three and wounded more than 250.

The Boston bombing provided the opportunity for the government to turn what should have been a police investigation into a military-style occupation of an American city, Paul, a Texas Republican, wrote today on the website of the libertarian writer Lew Rockwell. This unprecedented move should frighten us as much or more than the attack itself.

Paul said the scenes of the house-to-house search for the younger bombing suspect in suburban Watertown, Mass., were reminiscent of a military coup in a far off banana republic.

Forced lockdown of a city, he wrote. Militarized police riding tanks in the streets. Door-to-door armed searches without warrant. Families thrown out of their homes at gunpoint to be searched without probable cause. Businesses forced to close. Transport shut down.

(PHOTOS: Police manhunt in Boston suburbs)

Paul, a libertarian icon who made three separate bids for the Republican presidential nomination and whose son, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, is widely regarded as 2016 presidential candidate, argued the shutdown of Watertown and surrounding communities did little to ultimately capture the suspected bomber, Dzhokhar Tsmarnaev.

The suspect was not discovered by the paramilitary troops terrorizing the public, Paul wrote. He was discovered by a private citizen, who then placed a call to the police. And he was identified not by government surveillance cameras, but by private citizens who willingly shared their photographs with the police.

Pauls work with Rockwell, who was his congressional chief of staff from 1978 to 1982, has caused problems for the former representative in the past. Rockwell reportedly oversaw The Ron Paul Political Report, a 1980s and 90s-era newsletter whose controversial assertions about race, homosexuality and other topics were used against Paul in both of his presidential runs.

Continued here:
Ron Paul slams Boston 'occupation'

Ron Paul, the libertarian former Texas congressman whose hard-line views are widely admired on the radical right but who claims to reject racism, has started a new organization stacked with a hodgepodge of far-right extremists.

AsThe Daily Beastreportedyesterday, the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity is ostensibly designed to promote a discourse about U.S. foreign policy. But its advisory board is stacked with what writer James Kirchik characterized as a bevy of conspiracy theorists, cranks, and apologists for some of the worst regimes on the planet.

And just who are the far-right luminaries helping guide Pauls new endeavor?

One is Lew Rockwell, Pauls former congressional chief of staff who now heads the Ludwig von Mises Institute, an Auburn, Ala., think tank with deep ties to theneo-Confederate movement. Theres Judge Andrew Napolitano of Fox News and journalist Eric Margolis, both 9/11 truthers who suspect that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks may have been orchestrated by the government.

And alongside them sits Butler Shaffer, a Southwestern Law School professor who similarly once asked: In light of the lies, forgeries, cover-ups, and other deceptions leading to a war in Iraq, how can any intellectually honest person categorically deny the possibility of the involvement of American political interest in 9/11?

But thats not the worst of it, according toThe Daily Beast.

Also on Pauls board are prominent former government officials who claim that American Jews constitute a fifth column aimed at subverting American foreign policy in the interests of Israel, Kirchick reported. One of those is Michael Scheuer, a former CIA intelligence officer who has accused a long list of individuals and organizations of being intent on involving 300 million Americans in other peoples religious wars,The Daily Beastsaid.

Still another board member is Walter Bloch, a fellow at the Mises institute whoThe Daily Beastsaid believes the wrong side won the war against Southern secession and blames most of Americas current problems on the monster Lincoln.

Yesterdays article wasnt the first to note the affinity many extremists have for Paul. An article inThe New York Timesin 2011, when Paul was running for president, noted that while white supremacists, survivalists and anti-Zionists had allied behind Pauls campaign, he had not disavowed their support. Paul told the newspaper: If they want to endorse me, theyre endorsing what I do or say it has nothing to do with me endorsing what they say.

The controversy surrounding Pauls new organization is reminiscent of past revelations. Paul has been accused of authoring a series of newsletters, written under his name, that Kirchik says reveal decades worth of obsession and conspiracies, sympathy for the right-wing militia movement, and deeply held bigotry against blacks, Jews and gays. When Kirchik first detailed those newsletters in 2008, Paul claimed that he had not written them and he had no idea who had. Kirchik says in his latest article that the newsletters, which ostensibly gave supporters political news and investment advice, netted his family over $1 million per year.

Read more:
Ron Paul casts lot with extremists, conspiracy theorists

Former GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul has slammed US law enforcement for responding to the Boston Marathon bombing with police state tactics.

In a post on the website of libertarian activist Lew Rockwell, Mr. Paul said Monday that the governmental reaction to the tragic explosions was worse than the attack itself. The forced lockdown of much of the Boston area, police riding armored vehicles through the streets, and door-to-door searches without warrants were all reminiscent of a military coup or martial law, Paul added.

The Boston bombing provided the opportunity for the government to turn what should have been a police investigation into a military-style occupation of an American city, according to Paul.

RECOMMENDED: Quiz: How much do you know about terrorism?

Furthermore, this response did not result in the capture of suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Paul charged. He was discovered hiding in a boat by a private citizen, who called police.

And he was identified not by government surveillance cameras, but by private citizens who willingly shared their photographs with the police, Paul wrote on Lew Rockwells site.

Yikes. This isnt going to go down well in Watertown, is it? Citizens there applauded when police finally carted off Tsarnaev alive. The Boston police commissioner told his troops over the radio that its a proud day to be a Boston police officer. In the wake of the suspects capture the media have generally portrayed law enforcement officers as heroes.

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But Pauls contrarian take perhaps should not be surprising. After all, hes a committed libertarian who at one point in the GOP presidential debates said that the border fence with Mexico might at some point be used to keep US citizens penned in.

And while Pauls position here is, um, not in the majority, there are other public figures who charge that the Boston response was overkill. In some ways this is one of those points in the circle of American politics were conservative libertarianism and liberal progressivism meet.

More:
Ron Paul slams Boston police. Has he gone too far?