It's not paranoia...

...if they really are out to get you.

If you think this out-of-control police chief is unique, you've got another think coming.  Cops are now doubling as tax collectors.  Read more here.

Hanners blew the whistle on the department’s tactics and was eventually fired for refusing to comply and keep quiet. He says that each officer was required to make 100 contacts each month, which included tickets, arrests, field interviews, and warnings. This equates to 72,000 contacts a year in a 50,000 person town. His claims are backed up by audio recordings of his superiors he made. The Auburn police department declined requests to be interviewed for this story.

“There are not that many speeders, there are not that many people running red lights to get those numbers, so what [the police] do is they lower their standards,” says Hanners. That led to the department encouraging officers to arrest people that Hanners “didn’t feel like had broken the law.”

Not hard to imagine this:

"These danged red light cameras jest ain't generatin' nuff rev nu.  I gots a idear!  Let's just shorten tha yeller..."

Yeah, we were once the land of the free...