What are you up to, Citizen?
Nov. 26th, 2007 09:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsI might have told this story before.
When I was at university in Florida, I was in a role-playing group with a bunch of other guys and we'd play all night on weekends. One night we were playing Morrow Project, a post-nuclear-holocaust RPG with all sorts of weirdies, more Terminator than Gamma World, and a whole bunch of fun.
One night around 1:00am while we were playing, there came a knock at the door. We opened the door to two police officers from the Melbourne Police Department peering in at us. "We, ah, we got a noise complaint from one of the neighbors." Now, we were a pretty loud group, I'll grant you that. Shouting, arguing, but mostly laughing. "Got a party going on in here?"
"Kinda," says the guy who owns the place.
"Were you playing music?"
"Not tonight. Just talking."
Some of us are watching the cop's eyes and those of his partner. So take in this scene: the living room of a university rental home, cheap ugly gray rug. There are three items of furniture: a Barcalounger in which sits a skinny guy with pale skin and white hair (it's Elric!) and it's his house, so he's doing the talking, a bookshelf, and a folding table in one corner. There's a boom box, but it's off. There is no beer, only soda pop and three fresh but empty pizza boxes. Six people, four men and two women, sit on the floor, leaning against the walls. Everyone has a loose-leaf binder in front of him or her, and more papers arranged purposefully on the floor. The papers, if you can see them at all, have a surprisingly technical look to them. Some people even have manila-colored ID cards among their papers.
On top of the bookcase is a pistol. You can just see the butt of the handgrip. It's a water pistol, but its owner has done an excellent job of painting it accurate gunmetal colors. On the folding table is a computer on its side, open with wires leading out, some of which are attached to another home-made box with knobs. Next to the computer and its doodad is a stack of Delta Airline Maintenance Manuals.
On the wall behind the guy in the chair is a map, two meters square, of the western half of the United States. (Remember, we're in Florida on the east coast.) Some places are pinned. Some have red circles around them. Others have yellow. A closer look would have revealed that many of the items of interest are military installations.
The cops eventually left us, advising us to just "keep it down." We promised we would.
Today, we'd so be in jail.
Obviously, most of the items in the room are explained by the game itself. The computer belonged to one of the housemates who fancied himself a musician; the stack of manuals belonged to the white-haired guy who was interning as part of his training at Florida Tech's aeronautical school.
When I was at university in Florida, I was in a role-playing group with a bunch of other guys and we'd play all night on weekends. One night we were playing Morrow Project, a post-nuclear-holocaust RPG with all sorts of weirdies, more Terminator than Gamma World, and a whole bunch of fun.
One night around 1:00am while we were playing, there came a knock at the door. We opened the door to two police officers from the Melbourne Police Department peering in at us. "We, ah, we got a noise complaint from one of the neighbors." Now, we were a pretty loud group, I'll grant you that. Shouting, arguing, but mostly laughing. "Got a party going on in here?"
"Kinda," says the guy who owns the place.
"Were you playing music?"
"Not tonight. Just talking."
Some of us are watching the cop's eyes and those of his partner. So take in this scene: the living room of a university rental home, cheap ugly gray rug. There are three items of furniture: a Barcalounger in which sits a skinny guy with pale skin and white hair (it's Elric!) and it's his house, so he's doing the talking, a bookshelf, and a folding table in one corner. There's a boom box, but it's off. There is no beer, only soda pop and three fresh but empty pizza boxes. Six people, four men and two women, sit on the floor, leaning against the walls. Everyone has a loose-leaf binder in front of him or her, and more papers arranged purposefully on the floor. The papers, if you can see them at all, have a surprisingly technical look to them. Some people even have manila-colored ID cards among their papers.
On top of the bookcase is a pistol. You can just see the butt of the handgrip. It's a water pistol, but its owner has done an excellent job of painting it accurate gunmetal colors. On the folding table is a computer on its side, open with wires leading out, some of which are attached to another home-made box with knobs. Next to the computer and its doodad is a stack of Delta Airline Maintenance Manuals.
On the wall behind the guy in the chair is a map, two meters square, of the western half of the United States. (Remember, we're in Florida on the east coast.) Some places are pinned. Some have red circles around them. Others have yellow. A closer look would have revealed that many of the items of interest are military installations.
The cops eventually left us, advising us to just "keep it down." We promised we would.
Today, we'd so be in jail.
Obviously, most of the items in the room are explained by the game itself. The computer belonged to one of the housemates who fancied himself a musician; the stack of manuals belonged to the white-haired guy who was interning as part of his training at Florida Tech's aeronautical school.
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no subject
Date: 2007-11-26 07:08 pm (UTC)I like how the article states "the information-sharing is supposed to go both ways". Makes me wonder how naive New York's firefighters really are.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-27 05:39 am (UTC)Yeah, no doubt. This was what, during the mid-80's? Maybe early 90's? There was a period where D&D equated to Satan worship, and telling police officers that you were playing an RPG might have been a bad idea, depending on the disposition of the police officers.
What are you up to, Citizen?
Date: 2007-11-26 07:16 pm (UTC)What are you up to, Citizen?
Date: 2007-11-26 07:54 pm (UTC)Re: What are you up to, Citizen?
Date: 2007-11-26 10:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-26 09:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-26 09:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-27 12:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-27 03:53 am (UTC)CthaWorld
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
no subject
Date: 2007-11-27 06:06 am (UTC)If, on the other hand you open the door for the nice officers and they happen to see what looks an awful lot like a bomb on your kitchen table, they're allowed to come in and arrest you. Even during the best of times.
The balance to these police powers is that, in the event that it's not actually a bomb, they'll let you go. Or something.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-27 03:40 pm (UTC)I believe he was talking about the article:
"The New York plan calls for firefighters to look for materials, equipment, literature and anything that may indicate a threat of terrorist activity and report it to the Department of Homeland Security."
That is very clearly "searching the place" when the fire department enters a premises of any kind.
And no, having been one of the individuals participating in that game in my friend's house (it was a house, not an apartment), the police never actually came into the house.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-28 04:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-27 03:54 am (UTC)Of course, I remember when free speech was for everyone. Sigh.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-27 07:18 pm (UTC)Wow. That's an amazing picture you painted. And I can clearly see how people could freak out about it :(
And after you'd all been arrested, and spent days explaining what was happening, they still wouldn't listen - and might have kept some of the materials confiscated, or never let some of you out, or have the ability to talk to counsel, or....
Grr. I hate my government right now. Must fix.