If you believe the thesis presented in <i>Arrest-Proof Yourself: An Ex-Cop Reveals How Easy It Is for Anyone to Get Arrested...</i> (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-Reveals-Arrested/dp/1556526377/" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-Reveals-A...</a>), that in a period of declining overall real crime rates the bulked up police-judicial complex needs a steady diet of the "clueless" else there would be layoffs, then you'd expect these sorts of events to be magnets for police to build up their arrest statistics.<p>Doing these sorts of events may be less and less practical in the future. I can think of a number of countries where people tend to build walled compounds to among other things keep the "authorities" out, or at least strongly discouraged from "visiting".
<p><pre><code> "One DPW member was issued a $275 ticket for urinating on
the playa, and threatened with being forced to register as
a convicted sex offender."
</code></pre>
Lots and lots of stuff goes down at Burning Man that could get you registered as a convicted sex offender if that stuff occurred back in the normal world. However, it's a sexually charged event and everyone who goes to the event knows this before they go and the event occurs far far away from the normal world. To be out there charging people for acts that are within the social norms of the event, especially in a way that is going to follow them back to their life where ever they happen to live is pretty shitty.<p>TBH I don't get why public urination deserves more than a ticket as deterrence. Listing someone as a convicted sex offender is quite frankly absurd for such a benign infraction.<p><pre><code> "If the cops would leave their badges and guns at home and
just be burners like everyone else in BRC, we’d welcome
them just like we welcome anyone else. We’d even build
them a Donut Camp!"
</code></pre>
Not exactly the best comment to make if you don't want to attract the ire of law enforcement. It may be a playful jab that burners will get and consider not that big of a deal. But some tough guy LEO with a hard-on for prosecuting hippies is going to see that as an excuse for going there and ticketing people. It's now a known phenomena that police officers in many parts of the country will volunteer at major events like political summits where they it's likely that they might get a chance to crack some skulls. When you teach people new paramilitary skills, they are going to want to jump at opportunities to practice on real life human beings.
Calling the police pigs and showing outright disdain isn't going to help anyone, it only makes the Burning Man community look like a bunch of lawless idiots which is exactly what the police want. That said, this is likely retaliation for the lawsuit Pershing County sheriff lost against Black Rock, LLC (<a href="http://brcvpc.com/" rel="nofollow">http://brcvpc.com/</a>). The linked article said the BLM lost but I don't think they were even involved in the case, as far as I can tell the BLM has only been supportive of Burning Man.
Look, I'm all for weird stuff, but when a site features ads that read "FACT: Cancer is a Fungus, It Can Be Prevented" and two "X banned/hate this video"... hmm, how about no?
Law enforcement is big money, big profit.<p>Sadly as every last non-service job is shipped overseas, you can only expect more of it in every aspect of society as government sees it as boosting employment numbers, especially as we scale down wars and switch to drones, bringing home all those enlisted.
Here's a clarification from the official Burning Man blog:<p><i>[Note: It was erroneously reported on Boing Boing that BRC won a lawsuit against BLM this year and that BLM may be retaliating by writing more citations in Black Rock City. For the record, BRC was not in a lawsuit with BLM this year. There is an ongoing lawsuit with Pershing County. More information about that can be found at www.brcvpc.com. The information about retaliation is unfounded.]</i><p><a href="http://blog.burningman.com/2013/08/building-brc/law-enforcements-comin-to-town/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.burningman.com/2013/08/building-brc/law-enforcem...</a>
"One of the most peaceful and long running festivals in the country".<p>If you don't count rape. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vanessa-pinto/burning-man-rape_b_1897689.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vanessa-pinto/burning-man-rape...</a>