Man Arrested for Flying a Kite in the World’s Least Free Liberal Democracy

This is from the St. Paul Pioneer Press:

The man whose LED-lighted kite made some people think there was a UFO over St. Paul was back to his old hobby this week and ran into trouble.

St. Paul police received reports this summer about unidentified lights in the sky. They found the source on Aug. 20. Ernest Sawka Jr., 34, was flying a kite with small lights attached to a long string.

About 11 p.m. Monday, two people waved down officers, saying they “saw an unidentified object in the air” in the area of Minnehaha Avenue and Etna Street, said St. Paul police spokesman Andy Skoogman. “Our officers knew right away it was a kite with lights on it” because they were aware of the previous case.

Officers checked the area and found Sawka near Etna Street and Reaney Avenue, Skoogman said. He was flying a kite with blue lights on it, on a string that “was hundreds of feet long,” he said.

“Our officers asked him if he was trying to get a rise out of the public by flying his kite at night and he nodded yes,” Skoogman said. “He may think it’s funny, but we think it’s a waste of our resources.”

Police cited Sawka for disorderly conduct, public nuisance and being in a playground after hours.

Wednesday, Sawka denied telling officers he was trying to get a rise out of the public. “I was doing it because I enjoy doing it, I think it’s cool. I don’t care what the public thinks,” he said.
Sawka said he had asked the officers who stopped him in August whether his kite flying was illegal.

“They said, ‘No, we think it’s pretty cool,’ ” Sawka said. On Monday, when officers approached him, Sawka said he “was nothing but polite” and told them, “If this is illegal, just let me know,” but he said they gave him a hard time and confiscated the kite.

One officer told Sawka, “If I catch you doing this again, I’ll come and find you and put you in jail,” the man said.

Sawka said he’d like to fight the citation.

“Hopefully, the judge will say, ‘You’re here for flying a kite?’ and drop the case,” he said.

Now, I don’t imagine that this guy will serve any time for this heinous crime, but the story reminded me of this amazing piece that ran in The Economist back in July. A taste:

America is different from the rest of the world in lots of ways, many of them good. One of the bad ones is its willingness to lock up its citizens (see our briefing). One American adult in 100 festers behind bars (with the rate rising to one in nine for young black men). Its imprisoned population, at 2.3m, exceeds that of 15 of its states. No other rich country is nearly as punitive as the Land of the Free. The rate of incarceration is a fifth of America’s level in Britain, a ninth in Germany and a twelfth in Japan.

[...]

Muddle plays a large role. America imprisons people for technical violations of immigration laws, environmental standards and arcane business rules. So many federal rules carry criminal penalties that experts struggle to count them. Many are incomprehensible. Few are ever repealed, though the Supreme Court recently pared back a law against depriving the public of “the intangible right of honest services”, which prosecutors loved because they could use it against almost anyone. Still, they have plenty of other weapons. By counting each e-mail sent by a white-collar wrongdoer as a separate case of wire fraud, prosecutors can threaten him with a gargantuan sentence unless he confesses, or informs on his boss. The potential for injustice is obvious.

As a result American prisons are now packed not only with thugs and rapists but also with petty thieves, small-time drug dealers and criminals who, though scary when they were young and strong, are now too grey and arthritic to pose a threat. Some 200,000 inmates are over 50—roughly as many as there were prisoners of all ages in 1970. Prison is an excellent way to keep dangerous criminals off the streets, but the more people you lock up, the less dangerous each extra prisoner is likely to be. And since prison is expensive—$50,000 per inmate per year in California—the cost of imprisoning criminals often far exceeds the benefits, in terms of crimes averted.

Christine O’Donnell said last night that “America is one of the most free places in the country.” I take her drift — that we have an abundance of freedom is certainly a commonly held belief. And it’s generally based on comparisons with developing countries that have authoritarian governments. But why should we compare our liberties with those of the citizens of North Korea or Burma? Among wealthy liberal democracies, we are significantly less free, unless you’re talking about corporations’ “freedom” to fire employees at will, dump their crap in the environment or buy off elections — we’re definitely a free country in that regard.

But as far as indvidual freedoms go, we should keep in mind that the United States is a country where you can’t drink a beer on most beaches, but you can go to jail for next to nothing. (If you didn’t read it at the time, be sure to check out that whole piece from The Economist.)