Wendy Whiteley suggested long-term staff associated with the previous gallery director Edmund Capon may have been targeted for removal.

"There seems to be some deliberate idea that they're kind of shaking out the rug," she said.

Whiteley added: "I really don't know. Perhaps they think loyalties get split."

Vere Kenny, a gallery volunteer for 10 years, said alienating the gallery's team of volunteers could also jeopardise the gallery's fundraising efforts.

"Discarding an unpaid workforce when dollars are being begged for extensions is not a good look," she said. "Nor is it a good idea to alienate a 200-odd body of people who may have influence and indeed some dollars they may now withhold."

She said the volunteers were told it was too difficult to train them for the new role.

"There is now some mention of customer surveys being part of the ticket selling," she said. "Great way to piss off your public."

The plan to replace the AGNSW volunteer task force of mainly elderly and retired men and women with casual ticket sellers was announced earlier this month.

The painting in the mischief at top, Bailed up, is at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. It was painted by Tom Roberts.

One of the more controversial provisions of the Patriot Act was to broaden the “sneak-and-peek” power for federal law enforcement officials. The provision allows investigators to conduct searches without informing the target of the search. We were assured at the time that this was an essential law enforcement tool that would be used only to protect the country from terrorism. Supporters argued that it was critical that investigators be allowed to look into the lives and finances of suspected terrorists without tipping off those terrorists to the fact that they were under investigation.

Civil libertarian critics warned that the federal government already had this power for national security investigations. The Patriot Act provision was far too broad and would almost certainly become a common tactic in cases that have nothing to do with national security.

But this was all immediately after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and there was little patience for civil libertarians. The massive Patriot Act of course passed overwhelmingly, including the sneak-and-peek provision, despite the fact that only a handful of members of Congress had actually read it. (Not to mention the public.)

More than a decade later, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has published an analysis on use of the sneak-and-peek power. Just as critics predicted, it’s now a ubiquitous part of federal law enforcement.

read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/10/29/surprise-controversial-patriot-act-power-now-overwhelmingly-used-in-drug-investigations/?tid=pm_pop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks

A 32-year-old black man was sitting in his car, cooling off after playing basketball in a public park in the city of Ferguson, Mo. Then a police officer pulled up.

The officer approached him and demanded his identification. He then accused the man of being a pedophile, since there were children in the park, and ordered him out of his car. When the man objected, the officer arrested him and charged him with eight violations of Ferguson’s municipal code, including a charge for not wearing a seatbelt, even though he was in a parked car.