The news has been filled lately with suspicious packages being intercepted and suspicious people being arrested, The UPS package

Yesterday’s search of a Stamford apartment belonging to a man who tried to claim a small shipment of training grenades at a UPS facility in South Norwalk on Thursday with improper identification turned up more questions than answers or evidence.

The white powder scare

The incident began with their arrests at 12:30 p.m., outside the Middle Street office of the state Department of Children and Families, said police spokesman Lt. James Viadero.He said the women were acting suspiciously and dropped white powder, possibly salt, outside of the office. DCF had taken a child related to them, Viadero said.

Berke would not discuss that allegation. A DCF spokesman was unavailable for comment.

After they were arrested and brought to the booking area on the second floor, some of the powder fell from one of the women’s pockets, Viadero said.

Police called the Fire Department. The Fairfield County Hazardous Materials Team, the FBI, state police and Scott Appleby, the city’s emergency management director, responded.

“We don’t take anything lightly,” Viadero said.

It seems that we’ve lost the ability to use common sense in discerning real threats from benign threats. I’ll call it post-traumatic-republican-stress syndrome, caused by the constant barrage that there’s someone out there going to get your freedom-loving french fries. It started with the infamous comment by former White House press secretary, Ari Fleischer, “they’re reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say watch what they do”

We’ve become a nation of Gladys Kravitz’s, the erstwhile neighbour to the Stevens’ who spied on her neighbours because of the “suspicious activity” . It’s not just a Republican thing, Liberals seem intent on informing authorities on the mere acts of smoking, drinking and enjoying the trans-fat filled french-fry. This is the kind of stuff that communist leaning totalitarian countries used to be known for.

Ken Krayeske, by all accounts, is a peace activist, writer and political activist. None of which should ever, in a democratic country, constitute activities that require a police-state agency to add him to a list. The Courant reports:

His lawyer says Krayeske apparently came to the attention of state police by heckling Rell during a campaign stop in Glastonbury last year over her refusal to debate his candidate, Clifford Thornton.

“Are there little circles of law-enforcement officers who have lists of who is naughty and who is nice?” asked Krayeske’s lawyer, Norm Pattis. “What is the criteria for inclusion?”

Lt. J. Paul Vance, a spokesman for the state police, declined to comment on how Krayeske came to the attention of the state police intelligence unit or a regional police clearinghouse mentioned in the report, the Connecticut Intelligence Center.

“We share intelligence. We share information,” Vance said.

Nancy Mulroy, a Hartford police spokeswoman, played down the list, saying Krayeske was arrested for his actions.

“List or no list, if you rush off a bike and start charging toward the governor during a processional parade, you are going to be arrested,” Mulroy said. “In this day and age, when security is a very serious matter, you cannot expect to act like that and not have to face the consequences. Our job was to protect the governor, and we took it seriously.”

But one witness to the arrest, Eliot Streim, contradicted the police account.

Streim, a Hartford lawyer who was watching the parade with a colleague, said police did not intercept Krayeske as he ran into the parade route. On the contrary, Krayeske photographed the governor without incident and was detained by police only after Rell had passed by, Streim said.

Krayeske, 34, of Hartford was charged with breach of peace and interfering with a police officer. He said he has a record of three previous arrests involving acts of civil disobedience protesting the war in Iraq and the launching of a nuclear submarine, the U.S.S. Jimmy Carter.

And the President just recently made a signing statement declaring he, and he alone could open your mail without requiring any warrant. Feeling safer now?