For anyone at all concerned with abuses of state power and civil liberties, “Right to Remain Silent,” a This American Life episode from a couple weeks back, is absolutely mandatory listening. Having personally spent 12 hours in a holding cell as a guest of the City of New York for the crime of walking more than two abreast on a public street–no charges, no apologies, of course–I found the beat cop’s recordings of his superior ordering him to arrest literally anyone daring to step out in groups of more than two within the boundaries of a certain precinct particularly chilling–and, sadly, not all that surprising.
