Saturday, September 3, 2011
Cryptogon
September 3rd, 2011
In my opinion, the fact that Calderón consented to the search, even though he thought the Apple employees were police officers, is the most terrifying aspect of this.
No warrant, no search. It’s pretty simple.
Why he opened the door, and said anything to these people, is also a mystery to me.
Anyway, here’s a link for Apple’s investigators to review: California Penal Code Section 538d:
Any person other than one who by law is given the authority of a peace officer, who willfully wears, exhibits, or uses the authorized uniform, insignia, emblem, device, label, certificate, card, or writing, of a peace officer, with the intent of fraudulently impersonating a peace officer, or of fraudulently inducing the belief that he or she is a peace officer, is guilty of a misdemeanor.
Via: San Francisco Weekly:
The bizarre saga involving a lost prototype of the iPhone 5 has taken another interesting turn. Contradicting past statements that no records exist of police involvement in the search for the lost prototype, San Francisco Police Department spokesman Lt. Troy Dangerfield now tells SF Weekly that “three or four” SFPD officers accompanied two Apple security officials in an unusual search of a Bernal Heights man’s home.
Dangerfield says that, after conferring with Apple and the captain of the Ingleside police station, he has learned that plainclothes SFPD officers went with private Apple detectives to the home of Sergio Calderón, a 22-year-old resident of Bernal Heights. According to Dangerfield, the officers “did not go inside the house,” but stood outside while the Apple employees scoured Calderón’s home, car, and computer files for any trace of the lost iPhone 5. The phone was not found, and Calderón denies that he ever possessed it.
In an interview with SF Weekly last night, Calderón told us that six badge-wearing visitors came to his home in July to inquire about the phone. Calderón said none of them acknowledged being employed by Apple, and one of them offered him $300, and a promise that the owner of the phone would not press charges, if he would return the device.
The visitors also allegedly threatened him and his family, asking questions about their immigration status. “One of the officers is like, ‘Is everyone in this house an American citizen?’ They said we were all going to get into trouble,” Calderón said.
One of the officers left a phone number with him, which SF Weekly traced to Anthony Colon, an investigator employed at Apple, who declined to comment when we reached him.
Reached this afternoon, Calderón confirmed that only two of the six people who came to his home actually entered the house. He said those two did not specifically state they were police officers.
However, he said he was under the impression that they were all police, since they were part of the group outside that identified themselves as SFPD officials. The two who entered the house did not disclose that they were private security officers, according to Calderón.
“When they came to my house, they said they were SFPD,” Calderón said. “I thought they were SFPD. That’s why I let them in.” He said he would not have permitted the search if he had been aware the two people conducting it were not actually police officers.
It remains unclear whether these actions might constitute impersonation of a police officer, which in California is a misdemeanor that can bring up to a year of jail time. Apple has not responded to our requests for comment. “I don’t have any indication of that. I’m not going to go there,” Dangerfield said, when asked about whether the Apple detectives might have misrepresented themselves.
Labels: Apple, San Francisco
Sunday, August 14, 2011
San Francisco Cellphone Censorship
SF cell shutdown: Safety issue, or hint of Orwell?
Breitbart
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - An illegal, Orwellian violation of free-speech rights? Or just a smart tactic to protect train passengers from rowdy would-be demonstrators during a busy evening commute?
The question resonated Saturday in San Francisco and beyond as details emerged of Bay Area Rapid Transit officials' decision to cut off underground cellphone service for a few hours at several stations Thursday. Commuters at stations from downtown to near the city's main airport were affected as BART officials sought to tactically thwart a planned protest over the recent fatal shooting of a 45-year-old man by transit police.
Two days later, the move had civil rights and legal experts questioning the agency's move, and drew backlash from one transit board member who was taken aback by the decision.
"I'm just shocked that they didn't think about the implications of this. We really don't have the right to be this type of censor," said Lynette Sweet, who serves on BART's board of directors. "In my opinion, we've let the actions of a few people affect everybody. And that's not fair."...[Full Article]
To Prevent Protests, San Francisco Subway Turns Off Cell Signals
PC Magazine
Bright idea, poor timing? Or just bad idea?
Pundits are panning leaders of San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) subway system for the actions they took to stifle potential station protests this past Thursday. According to officials, underground cellular service at select BART stations was turned off from around 4 pm to 7 pm that day in an attempt to prevent protest organizers from communicating and organizing via mobile devices...[Full Article]
Labels: California, cell phones, protests, San Francisco
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
August 9, 2011
The Department of Homeland Security will fund an effort by San Francisco to install real-time video cameras on 358 city buses, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The existing system, installed a decade ago, stores footage on tape located on each vehicle.
DHS’s Imaging System for Immersive Surveillance introduced this year. The new surveillance system will use a wireless network “that will enable SFMTA personnel to view, download and store the captured video images wirelessly and view them in real-time or through the Internet.”
According to city documents, “the new system will provide real-time viewing of images, inside and outside the bus, by law enforcement officers, emergency responders and other authorized personnel on a real-time basis from a distance of about 500 yards in case the bus is hijacked and used for terrorism activities.”
In March, it was reported the DHS planned to introduce new mobile surveillance technology at train stations, stadiums and streets.
The new technology allows the government to “track your eye movements, capture and record your facial dimensions for face-recognition processing, bathe you in X-rays to look under your clothes, and even image your naked body using whole-body infrared images that were banned from consumer video cameras because they allowed the camera owners to take ‘nude’ videos of people at the beach,” Mike Adams writes for Natural News.
Documents discussing the technology were obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
“EPIC calls these vans ‘mobile strip search devices’ because they give the federal government technology to look under your clothes without your permission or consent,” Adams notes. “It’s also being done without probable cause, so it’s a violation of the Fourth Amendment protections that are guaranteed to Americans under the Bill of Rights.”
California and San Francisco have received increased money from the federal government over the last few years. In 2010, the state received $268 million dollars from the DHS, approximately 16 percent of the $1.7 billion that DHS awarded nationally. San Francisco alone has received $200 million, according to the Homeland Security Newswire.
In 2007, it was reported that the DHS was spending hundred of millions of dollars on video surveillance systems around the country. Homeland Security Department spokesman Russ Knocke said surveillance systems are a valuable tool and “we will encourage their use in the future,” Newsmax reported.
The government claims the cameras will prevent terrorism, but as the Boston Globe reported in 2007 that the “proliferation of cameras could mean that Americans will feel less free because legal public behavior – attending a political rally, entering a doctor’s office, or even joking with friends in a park – will leave a permanent record, retrievable by authorities at any time.”
Labels: big brother, Department of Homeland Security, DHS, San Francisco, video surveillance
Friday, July 1, 2011
UK Telegraph
First, China made cut-price clothes and knick-knacks. Then it learned how to make mobile phones and iPads. Now it is making a 2,050ft-long bridge spanning the San Francisco bay.
Next month, four enormous steel skeletons, the last of the 12 segments of the bridge, will be shipped 6,500 miles from Shanghai to San Francisco before being assembled on site.
The bridge, which will connect San Francisco to Oakland on the other side of the bay, is a sign of how China has moved on from building roads and ports in Africa and the developing world and is now aggressively bidding for, and winning, major construction and engineering projects in the United States and Europe...[Full Article]
Labels: bridge, California, China, San Francisco
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Raw Story
The San Francisco Entertainment Commission was scheduled Tuesday to consider a proposal that would mandate ID scans for every person entering a "place of entertainment" attended by more than 100 people -- a move that immediately sparked the fears of civil libertarians, who saw it as yet another encroachment of a creeping "police state" culture...[Full Article]
Labels: California, ID scans, identity, police state, privacy, San Francisco
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Footage Of San Francisco Police Shooting A Man In A Wheel Chair Caught on Video
NEWS Four separate investigations were underway Tuesday after cell phone video surfaced of San Francisco police shooting a man in a wheelchair following an incident during which he allegedly stabbed an officer in the city's South of Market district. Officers had responded to reports of a man vandalizing city vehicles in the area of 10th and Howard streets Tuesday morning at approximately 10:15 a.m. The intersection is next to the San Francisco Behavioral Health Services building. The man, whose name has not yet been released, was in a wheelchair but was not confined to it, San Francisco Police Officer Chiang said. "He was seen up and moving about a number of times," he said. The suspect had a rock and knife in his hand and was slashing the tires of some city vehicles in the area, Chiang said. He did not know what the man's motive was for vandalizing the cars." - KTVU.
Labels: police, police brutality, San Francisco, shooting, video
Friday, November 19, 2010
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
November 18, 2010
Appearing on the Alex Jones Show today, current chief deputy DA and incoming DA of San Mateo County Steve Wagstaffe said his office will prosecute TSA employees who engage in lewd and lascivious behavior while conducting Homeland Security mandated patdowns at the San Francisco International Airport in San Mateo County.
Current chief deputy DA and incoming DA of San Mateo County Steve Wagstaffe on the Alex Jones Show.
“The case would be reviewed and if we could prove the elements of it, that it was inappropriately done with a sexual or lewd intent, that person would be prosecuted,” Wagstaffe told the Berman Post on Tuesday.
Wagstaffe told Alex Jones that county police will be sent to into the San Francisco International Airport. If they witness TSA employees engaged in criminal conduct, they will make arrests and the DA’s office will prosecute. Sexual battery in Mateo County is a felony if the molestation occurs beneath clothing and makes contact with skin and a misdemeanor if the touching occurs outside clothing.
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| News report on San Mateo County DA announcing his office will arrest and prosecute TSA for sexual molestation. | |
The new government mandated hands-on searches are used for passengers who find naked body inappropriate, when something suspicious appears in screening, or randomly. They can take two minutes per passenger and involve sliding of the hands along the length of the body, along thighs and near the groin and breasts, according to the Associated Press.
In addition, a district attorney in the county south of San Mateo, Santa Clara, told Wagstaffe his office will also prosecute TSA employees for inappropriate sexual behavior at the San Jose International Airport.
Since the new search procedures went into effect, the web has exploded in opposition to naked body scanners and intrusive patdowns. Reports posted by the The Drudge Report, Infowars.com, and Prison Planet.com have gone viral on the internet and forced the mainstream corporate media to cover the issue.
“Nationwide outrage against the TSA is not only bringing to light new cases of airport abuse, it’s throwing fresh attention on previous incidents that have been going on for years,” Paul Joseph Watson wrote on Wednesday. Watson notes several lawsuits initiated against the TSA, including one connected to a 2008 incident at the Corpus Christi airport where the TSA exposed a young woman’s breasts.
Coverage of TSA groping and public outrage has resulted in airports around the country reconsidering the procedures.
Earlier today, Orlando Sanford International Airport decided to opt out from TSA screening. Larry Dale, the director of the Sanford Airport Authority in Florida, said he will send a letter requesting to opt out from TSA screening, and instead the airport will choose one of the five approved private screening companies to take over, according to central Florida’s WDBO.
“The outcry is huge,” Texas Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison told the TSA administrator, John Pistole, at a Capitol Hill hearing yesterday. “I know that you’re aware of it. But we’ve got to see some action.”
“I’m not going to change those policies,” Pistole promised.
Labels: body scanners, San Francisco, San Mateo County
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
San Francisco Chronicle / SFGate.com
Labels: California, condoms, jail, San Francisco
NBCBayArea.com
Condom machines are the latest step in a program to promote safe sex at the San Francisco Jail's San Bruno lockup.
The Chronicle's Matier and Ross reported this week that authorities at the jail installed 16 condom machines throughout the facility -- one in each jail pod -- even though sex is technically illegal in the cell block.
Health workers have been handing out condoms to inmates at the jail since 1989 as part of a safe-sex program aimed at getting them ready for their release back into society.
Distributing condoms to inmates is "worth it," said Kate Monico Klein, who's directing the program under the City's Public Health Department, because it could save lives.
Labels: California, condoms, jail, San Francisco
Monday, July 26, 2010
Infowars.com
July 21, 2010
Video shows a San Francisco police officer throwing a resisting suspect to the ground, apparently knocking her unconscious.
Labels: California, police brutality, San Francisco
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