Showing posts with label New World Police State. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New World Police State. Show all posts
Monday, December 28, 2009
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
The Word On The Street: "Defy Your Empire" - The G-20 Comes To America (and all we got was this lousy depression)
Protests will begin several days before the summit. Many of the activities are being coordinated by Pittsburgh’s Thomas Merton Center. There will be a march Sept. 25 for anyone who, as Jessica Benner of the center’s Antiwar Committee stated, “has lost a job, a home, a loved one to war, lost value to a retirement plan, gotten sick from environmental pollution, or lived without adequate healthcare, water, or food. … ”
There will be at least three tent cities, in addition to a Music Camp beginning Sept. 18 that will be situated at the South Side Riverfront Park near 18th Street. Unemployed workers will set up one tent city at the Monumental Baptist Church on Sept. 20 and five days later will march on the Convention Center. The encampment and the march are being organized by the Bail Out the People Movement.
The Institute for Policy Studies, The Nation magazine, the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, Pittsburgh United and other organizations will host events including a panel on corporate globalization featuring former World Bank President Joseph Stiglitz, along with a “People’s Tribunal.”
There will be a religious procession calling for social justice and a concert organized by Students for a Democratic Society [PDF, The Port Huron Statement, SDS founding document].
Go to Pittsburgh, Young Man, and Defy Your Empire
Posted on Aug 31, 2009
Shock troops and “free speech zones” have become the norm at mass gatherings in modern America.
By Chris Hedges
Globalization and unfettered capitalism have been swept into the history books along with the open-market theory of the 1920s, the experiments of fascism, communism and the New Deal. It is time for a new economic and political paradigm. It is time for a new language to address our reality. The voices of change, those who speak in powerful and yet unfamiliar words, will cry out Sept. 25 and 26 in Pittsburgh when protesters from around the country gather to defy the heads of state, bankers and finance ministers from the world’s 22 largest economies who are convening for a meeting of the G-20.
If we heed these dissident voices we have a future.
If we do not we will commit collective suicide.
[In Full @ TruthDig]
For more on how these organizations of the Power Elite destroy economies around the world, see:"Wednesday, June 4, 2008
The WTO, World Bank, and IMF - Destroying African (or insert your third world country's name here) Agriculture - Walden Bello, FPIF"
Monday, August 24, 2009
California's Overcrowded Prisons By-The-Numbers (200% of design capacity a big enough number for ya?) - Sacramento Bee
(Click the image for an "Interactive" @ Sac Bee)Other charts are available from the sidebar:
Monday, July 27, 2009
As Of August 8 2009 The MOVE 9 Will Have Been Imprisoned For 21 Years And No One Knows Who Committed The Crime
H/t: Mathaba News and the Pan-African News Wire
On August 8 2009 the MOVE 9 will have been incarcerated in a U.S. jail for 31 years.
From Wikipedia (slightly edited for clarity, in parentheses):
"In 1978, an end was negotiated to an almost year-long standoff with police (over housing code and H&S issues between the MOVE organization and the city of Philadelphia Pennsylvania).Note: "Their sentencing judge has publicly admitted that he has no idea who shot the one bullet that they are all being held accountable for..."
MOVE failed to relocate as required by the court order.[3] When the police later attempted entry, Philadelphia police officer James J. Ramp was killed in a shootout. Seven other police officers, five firefighters, three MOVE members, and three bystanders were injured.[4] As a result, nine MOVE members were found guilty of third-degree murder in the shooting death of a police officer. Seven of the nine became eligible for parole in the spring of 2008, and all seven were denied parole.[5][6] Parole hearings now occur yearly."
[In Full]
Flash forward a few years from 1978 to 1985.
"Attention, MOVE: This Is America! You must abide by the laws of the United States!” Philadelphia Police Commissioner Sambor declared through a loudspeaker, minutes before the May 13, 1985 police assault on the revolutionary MOVE organization’s home...
...That morning police shot over 10,000 rounds of bullets into their West Philadelphia home, and detonated explosives on the front, and both sides of their house." Source
Photo: Philadelphia Pennsylvania police use a State Police helicopter to satchel bomb the re-located MOVE communal house in 1985. The satchel charge was four pounds of C-4 plastic explosive and Tovex illegally obtained from the FBI. "The resulting explosion caused the house to catch fire, igniting a massive blaze which eventually consumed almost an entire city block.[8] Eleven people, including John Africa, five other adults and five children, died in the resulting fire.[9] Ramona Africa and one child, Birdie Africa, were the only survivors..."Ramona Africa, Mumia abu-Jamal, their defense attorney and others on the 'trial' of the MOVE 9
Get involved... More information [Here]
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
DoD anti-terror training program question - "Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorist activity? Correct answer: " protests."
FireFox users might also want this add-on
Among the multiple-choice questions included in its Level 1 Antiterrorism Awareness training course — an annual training requirement for all DOD personnel that is fulfilled through Web-based instruction — the department asks the following: "Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorist activity?"To answer correctly, the examinee must select "protests." [In Full]
Peace Out, Luv Duv, and don't forget to take it easy...
Da' Buffalo Amongst Wolves, "low-level terrorist"
Monday, May 18, 2009
Private Police State: Domestic police operations in the US are becoming the newest business for private security companies - ISN Security Watch
The company known for its private security work guarding senior US diplomats in Iraq beat the federal government and most aid organizations to the scene in another devastated Gulf. About 150 heavily armed Blackwater troops dressed in full battle gear spread out into the chaos of New Orleans. Officially, the company boasted of its forces "join[ing] the hurricane relief effort." But its men on the ground told a different story.
Some patrolled the streets in SUVs with tinted windows and the Blackwater logo splashed on the back; others sped around the French Quarter in an unmarked car with no license plates. They congregated on the corner of St. James and Bourbon in front of a bar called 711, where Blackwater was establishing a makeshift headquarters. From the balcony above the bar, several Blackwater guys cleared out what had apparently been someone's apartment. They threw mattresses, clothes, shoes and other household items from the balcony to the street below. They draped an American flag from the balcony's railing. More than a dozen troops from the 82nd Airborne Division stood in formation on the street watching the action.
Armed men shuffled in and out of the building as a handful told stories of their past experiences in Iraq. "I worked the security detail of both Bremer and Negroponte," said one of the Blackwater guys, referring to the former head of the US occupation, L. Paul Bremer, and former US Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte. Another complained, while talking on his cell phone, that he was getting only $350 a day plus his per diem.
"When they told me New Orleans, I said, 'What country is that in?'"From "Blackwater Down", Jeremy Scahill, The Nation, September 21, 2005
Police: Going Private
Domestic police operations in the US are rapidly becoming the newest line of business for private security companies, Jody Ray Bennett writes for ISN Security Watch.
By Jody Ray Bennett
18 May 2009
Pull Quote:
“In the Sept. 11 disaster that never seems to stop exacting its toll, one of the subtler but more serious losses is a consequence of the booming private security industry, which is draining the [NYPD] of some of its most desirable workers: the serious, smart and experienced senior officers the city needs most in a crisis.”In Full @ ISN Security Watch
Fast forward nine years later and one finds a young industry built almost entirely on the backs of former military and police personnel who have provided everything from diplomatic, convoy, embassy, weapon storage and energy infrastructural security to gathering intelligence, conducting interrogations, patrolling borders on land, fighting pirates on sea and transporting goods and personnel by air. It would seem there is nothing these forces cannot do.
On private patrol
Policing some of the most dangerous US cities has quickly become the newest line of business for many of these companies which have already replaced police officers in cities from Portland to Baltimore.
The phenomenon runs deeper than the normal shopping center or bank security guard. While in many cases private security personnel act more as city cleanup, organization or local ambassadors, some cities are pushing for armed private security personnel to patrol the streets, perform arrests and transport civilians. This is somewhat of a cause for concern, especially because of the more controversial issues surrounding the role of private military and security companies abroad in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.
Cities are turning to the private sector for a variety of reasons. Some local and state governments are under pressure from budget deficits and are often convinced that privatized industries are more cost-effective than state agencies and bureaucracies. Other cities have an already overstretched force that cannot respond to increases in crime, so private contractors are seen as a quick fix and an easy force multiplier.
From Oakland to New Orleans
Oakland, California is the latest city looking to hire private companies to patrol some of its rougher neighborhoods in the wake of record municipal budget deficits. Last April, according to the Wall Street Journal, the city successfully voted to outsource part of its police patrol to International Services Inc, but later retracted after “two of its vice presidents were accused […] by the Los Angeles District Attorney's office of defrauding the state of California out of more than $9 million in workers compensation.”
According to the daily Portland Mercury newspaper, Portland, Oregon’s downtown area is patrolled by armed personnel with arrest powers that are supplied by Portland Patrol, Inc, a company which, according to local media, has repeatedly evaded requests to appear before the city’s oversight committee.
Over 2,000 miles away, Chicago has turned to a company that currently operates in police-like automobiles marked “special patrol,” according to CBS News, and are expected to have their powers expanded as the city combats increased crime rates with an overstretched police force.
Down south in New Orleans, Louisiana, armed private guards patrol wealthy neighborhoods and private schools. According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, “Some areas of New Orleans have used armed private patrols since 1997, when residents in an east New Orleans community petitioned Louisiana's legislature to create a tax on property owners to pay for a private force. About 20 residential tax districts have been established, employing an estimated 100 private guards. This month, seven more neighborhoods voted to create such districts.”
During the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, New Orleans was patrolled by approximately 150 heavily armed Blackwater personnel alongside several other big contractor companies like Dyncorp, Wackenhut and most interestingly, ISI, an Israeli company that flew in former Israeli Special Forces commandos.
Most notably of all of these companies is Capital Special Police, which not only supplies guards and corporate escorts, but offers “real police officers [that] arrest for felonies and misdemeanors; issue citations for infractions; and enforce local ordinances.”
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
The Art Of Institutional Slander - Are You A 'Person Of Interest'?
"...the 'person of interest' is someone against whom there is no real evidence but someone who can be, at least for a time, used, vilified, scapegoated. It's time our law enforcement politicians learn to say 'No comment' and for them to educate the public that very often, especially at the beginning of a case, police have no idea who the perpetrator was, or at least no real evidence."William Fisher
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO BILL FISHER
Millions of words have been written and spoken about the politicization of the Department of Justice before, during and after the departure of Alberto Gonzales. But the silence on two of the DOJ’s most toxic practices has been deafening.
One is publicly labeling someone “a person of interest.” The other is wildly exaggerating the seriousness of the charges against a person. Both have been widely and indiscriminately used over the past decade. Both have destroyed people’s lives. Both have contributed to the environment of fear that followed 9/11. Both have been unashamedly exploited for career advancement by prosecutors, and for political gain by zealously loyal Bushies.
And neither has received any serious attention from the media or from the current presidential candidates.
But a new occupant of the Oval Office could and should end these dreadful practices with the stroke of a pen.
What exactly is a “person of interest?” The answer is that nobody knows. And nobody knows because the term has no basis in law. It first rose to prominence when the DOJ applied it to Richard Jewel, the hapless security guard who alerted authorities to the presence of a suspicious package at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta. A bomb exploded there shortly afterwards, killing a bystander and causing a fatal heart attack to a foreign journalist. It wasn’t long before the Feds’ attention shifted to the guy who should have been celebrated as a hero.
Jewel was “not accused” of planting a bomb or of anything else. The Clinton Justice Department told the media he was neither a “target” nor a “suspect” – terms customarily used by law enforcement. But he was effectively both. He was relentlessly harassed by the media, which painted him as a gung-ho cop wannabee. And his life was forever damaged, notwithstanding a belated apology from then Attorney General Janet Reno (the FBI never apologized).
Then came Steven Hatfill, the “person of interest” in the deadly 2001 anthrax mailings. In 2002, he was labeled a “person of interest” by then- Attorney General John Ashcroft. Tagged by the FBI, but neither accused nor charged, the Feds hounded this government scientist 24/7 for years. He lost his job and his reputation and became obviously unemployable.
Hatfill sued the DOJ. This summer, he agreed to take $5.82 million and an apology from the government to settle his claim that the DOJ and the FBI invaded his privacy and ruined his career.
Since Jewel and Hatfill, the “person of interest” moniker has metastasized to local and state law enforcement authorities that have used it hundreds of times. And since most ordinary folks lack the resources to fight back against injustice by innuendo, they have no option other than to let the authorities wreck their lives.
Under the DOJ’s own guidelines, prosecutors are allowed to publicly identify a person only they are seeking an interview for a criminal investigation. These guidelines prohibit any other disclosure of a person’s name until formal charges have been brought. Honored in the breach, as they say.
The National Association of Police Chiefs got it absolutely right when they called “person of interest” a "euphemism for a suspect."
So did Brian J. Foley, Visiting Associate Professor of Law at Boston University School of Law. He told me:
“A 'person of interest' is not an official designation. It is abused. Law enforcement is politics. Those in power use the term to assure the public that they're 'doing something.' Police authorities fear admitting that they literally have no clue who committed a crime.”He continued:
“Unfortunately, these politicians trash lives along the way -- the 'person of interest' is someone against whom there is no real evidence but someone who can be, at least for a time, used, vilified, scapegoated. It's time our law enforcement politicians learn to say 'No comment' and for them to educate the public that very often, especially at the beginning of a case, police have no idea who the perpetrator was, or at least no real evidence. The public should want responsible action (and restraint), not simply action. The media should also cease its complicity in this charade and rigorously question politicians who finger someone as a 'person of interest,' asking what evidence the police have to support their grave allegation. Otherwise, naming someone a 'person of interest' cheaply serves many of the same cynical purposes that 'show trials' serve in totalitarian regimes.”
In Full @ THE WORLD ACCORDING TO BILL FISHER: Memo To Obama And McCain: Add To Your Do-Do List
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Violations Of Spirit & Intent - San Angelo Texas district court judge blocks sect parents from reuniting with kids despite State Supreme Court ruling
Also notable... 2 out of 3 foster children in the Texas 'Foster Care' system are being drugged.
NBC News, with a 10 minute report.
If you want the details on the type of incidents attributable to Texas CPS, more recent abuse incidents, child endangerments, and general mismanagement of a state agency needing to be federally investigated, it's all at "It's Almost Tuesday:
Checking In: Violations in Texas Foster Care
Posted on May 21, 2008 by Forever
Below I have compiled a sample of real violations within the foster care system in Texas. These facilities are in major metropolitan areas (ie Dallas/Ft.Worth, Austin, San Antonio areas) and they are listed here exactly as they are reported here by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.
While we talk about foster care abuse that goes on, there is a little bit of a difference between saying the words “child abuse” and actually seeing a description of what real adults are doing (or not doing) to these children…. in the name of ‘protection’… and using tax payers money to-boot.
I plan on doing lists like these every once in a while… keep us checking in on Texas Foster Care facilities… checkin’ in on the children.
Standard Number 749.1521(4)
Standard Description: Medication Storage-Store medication covered by Section II of the Texas Controlled Substances Act under double lock in a separate container
Technical Assistance Given: Yes
Narrative
Several medications covered by Section II of the Texas Controlled Substances Act were found in a locked box in an unlocked cabinet. The cabinet was in the foster mother’s office, which was also unlocked. These medications, therefore, were not kept under double lock at the time of inspection.
Standard Number: 749.2471(9)(D)
Standard Description:Verification Certificate specifies the ages and gender(s) of children for which the home is verified
Technical Assistance Given: No
Narrative
The verification certificate at the home did not match the characteristics of the children placed. The certificate indicated the home was verified for children ages 10 to 17 even though a 7-year-old child was placed in the home.
Standard Number: 16102
Standard Description: Children must not be Abused or Neglected
Technical Assistance Given: No
Narrative
A young foster child was sexually assaulted by an older child in the home. The older child was arrested for sexual assault.
More @ It's Almost Tuesday
Even the DISSENTING judges thought the state's handling of the situation bizzare: "Justice Harriet O'Neill for the dissenting group. "On this record, however, I agree that there was no evidence of imminent 'danger to the physical health or safety' of boys and pre-pubescent girls to justify their removal from the YFZ Ranch, and to this extent I join the Court’s opinion."
In Full @ ABA Journal
This is 'home sweet home' for the FLDS chidren
...and this is how the 460+ children were FORCIBLY taken from their homes by Texas state authorities
The Third Court of Appeals ruled last week that the agency had overstepped its authority by removing all of the children from the compound. On Thursday, the Texas Supreme Court agreed with that decision and ordered the CPS to return the children to their homes.SAN ANGELO -- A state district judge who had been ordered by two higher courts to send children from a polygamist sect back home refused Friday to sign an order that would have started the process of reuniting them with their parents."
The judge's unexpected move came after four hours of legal wrangling where it appeared some of the children from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) would be going home as early as Monday.
Attorneys left the courtroom scratching their heads over Judge Barbara Walther's abrupt end of the hearing.
The sticking points centered on restrictions Walther added to an order that had been agreed upon among attorneys for Child Protective Services, the parents and the children.
Instead, Walther added additional restrictions...
In Full @ The Star-Telegram (Dead Link, NLA via google search)
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Da' Feds to collect DNA from every person they arrest - AP
...and in a country which imprisons more people per capita than anyone else in the world...
...that wouldn't be hard...
Or for that matter, just get arrested for peacefully protesting the illegal invasion of Iraq whilst on Federal government property.Squat on federal land...
There have to be thousands of things that people do every day that violate federal laws.
(Smoke pot on the local post office steps...)
Also consider
racism
as motivation:
“For some groups, the incarceration numbers are especially startling,” the report said. “While one in 30 men between the ages of 20 and 34 is behind bars, for black males in that age group the figure is one in nine.”
The racial disparity for women also is stark. One of every 355 white women aged 35 to 39 is behind bars, compared with one of every 100 black women in that age group. (Elaboration on this and more if you click the picture or link above)
Read: Feds to collect DNA from every person they arrest - AP via Y! News
Friday, April 11, 2008
State Terror In America - FBI Agents Contacted Jurors After Mistrial To Find Out Why
"Westmoreland County defense attorney Tom Ceraso, who was not involved in the case, said in his decades of experience trying cases in federal court he has never heard of the FBI telephoning or interviewing jurors."
--Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
from TPMmuckraker by Paul Kiel
The latest from Pittsburgh, where the U.S. attorneys' office continues to drop jaws with its handling of the case. From The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:In Full @ TPMmuckrakerTwo jurors said Thursday they were unnerved by FBI requests for home visits to explain why they deadlocked in the federal public corruption trial of former Allegheny County coroner Cyril H. Wecht.A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's Office in Pittsburgh tells the paper that prosecutors just wanted to chat about the case with the jurors, a "commonplace" practice. The FBI agents were simply setting up the appointments. It is true that it's commonplace for lawyers from both sides to speak to jurors after a trial to get feedback. But there are two important distinctions here...
Experts said the practice of using FBI agents to contact and interview jurors in their homes after mistrials was unusual, but the U.S. Attorney's Office in Pittsburgh characterized it as "commonplace."
"I thought it was kind of intimidating," the jury foreman said about the FBI phone call.
Said another juror, "I found it kind of unusual."
Thanks For Stopping By
Friday, April 4, 2008
Introducing...... Police States For PotHeads: U.S. to dispatch drones to hunt pot over California - McClatchy
U.S. to dispatch drones to hunt pot over Calif. forestsA quote from a Northern California Hemp grower:
Now I can use that ManPad missile launcher I purchased from FARC last year without worrying about 'civilian' casualties
The federal government plans to escalate its eradication of marijuana plantations in the backwoods of national forests this year, beginning in California with the deployment of larger strike teams and the controversial launching of miniature, remote-controlled spy planes to outfox growers, a top Bush administration official said Thursday.
Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey said an increasing number of pot growers financed by Mexican drug cartels are taking cover in the forest, particularly in the southern Sierra Nevada.
According to Rey, the administration decided to disclose the planned surge in forest surveillance after news organizations persisted in questioning U.S. Forest Service officials about a $100,000 purchase of two battery-powered "unmanned aerial vehicles."
Source, Sacramento Bee/McClatchy
There Have Been
Thanks For Stopping By
Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey said an increasing number of pot growers financed by Mexican drug cartels are taking cover in the forest, particularly in the southern Sierra Nevada.
According to Rey, the administration decided to disclose the planned surge in forest surveillance after news organizations persisted in questioning U.S. Forest Service officials about a $100,000 purchase of two battery-powered "unmanned aerial vehicles."
Source, Sacramento Bee/McClatchy
Thanks For Stopping By
Monday, March 31, 2008
TXTmob writer subpoenaed over 2004 RNC - NYTimes via Indybay
TXTmob writer subpoenaed over 2004 RNC
NYTimes
Sunday Mar 30th, 2008 11:16 AM
By COLIN MOYNIHAN
Published: March 30, 2008
When delegates to the Republican National Convention assembled in New York in August 2004, the streets and sidewalks near Union Square and Madison Square Garden filled with demonstrators.
Police officers in helmets formed barriers by stretching orange netting across intersections. Hordes of bicyclists participated in rolling protests through nighttime streets, and helicopters hovered overhead.
These tableaus and others were described as they happened in text messages that spread from mobile phone to mobile phone in New York City and beyond. The people sending and receiving the messages were using technology, developed by an anonymous group of artists and activists called the Institute for Applied Autonomy, that allowed users to form networks and transmit messages to hundreds or thousands of telephones.
Although the service, called TXTmob, was widely used by demonstrators, reporters and possibly even police officers, little was known about its inventors. Last month, however, the New York City Law Department issued a subpoena to Tad Hirsch, a doctoral candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who wrote the code that created TXTmob.
Lawyers representing the city in lawsuits filed by hundreds of people arrested during the convention asked Mr. Hirsch to hand over voluminous records revealing the content of messages exchanged on his service and identifying people who sent and received messages. Mr. Hirsch says that some of the subpoenaed material no longer exists and that he believes he has the right to keep other information secret.
“There’s a principle at stake here,” he said recently by telephone. “I think I have a moral responsibility to the people who use my service to protect their privacy.”
The subpoena, which was issued Feb. 4, instructed Mr. Hirsch, who is completing his dissertation at M.I.T., to produce a wide range of material, including all text messages sent via TXTmob during the convention, the date and time of the messages, information about people who sent and received messages, and lists of people who used the service...
Go to the New York Times for more
There Have Been Thanks For Stopping By
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