Scientific Dictatorship

Arrested dad wants answers after daughter draws gun pic

Toronto Sun

OTTAWA - Jessie Sansone and his family are reeling after he was arrested and strip searched by police after his four-year-old daughter drew a picture of a man with a gun in her Kitchener, Ont., kindergarten class.

The 26-year-old father of four said Saturday the sketch was supposed to be him, getting the bad guys and monsters.

The school must have thought differently, as after Nevaeh drew it Wednesday, the school contacted Family and Children's Services and they called police.

Waterloo Police met Sansone at the school when he tried to pick up his kids he was told he was charged with possession of a firearm. He was then handcuffed and put him in one of the several squad cars waiting outside, he said...[Full Article]

Uploaded by blazingcatfur on Feb 24, 2012

Uploaded by SDAMatt2a on Feb 27, 2012

Labels: big brother, Canada, police state

Los Angeles Added to Disturbing Trend of Joint Military, Police-Homeland Security Exercise List

Joint military exercises in Boston, LA, Little Rock in past six months

\
[Photo-Image: Joint Military 'exercise' downtown Boston, August 3, 2011]

“LOS ANGELES (CBS) — If you notice a heavy military presence around downtown Los Angeles this week, don’t be alarmed — it’s only a drill.”
CBS Los Angeles, January 24, 2012

If we were conspiracy theorists we would ask how many downtown urban areas does the military need for ‘joint military exercises’ with the local police? Exercises ignored by the mainstream news media which the public is given scant or no notice? The joint military exercises were part of a disturbing trend of joint military and police-Homeland Security military-type operations.

In the past six months, three joint military exercises in Boston, Little Rock, and Los Angeles. The Little Rock joint military exercise: 80-100 Special Operation ground forces, 7-9 rotary wing aircraft and 2-3 fixed wing airframes. The Los Angeles military exercise carried out while President Barack Obama gave his January 24, 2012, State of the Union speech. In April, 2011, the Miami-Dade police’s SE Regional Domestic Security Task Force ‘military’ multiple ‘Blackhawk-type’ helicopters exercise. In early January, a Homeland Security ‘training exercise’ at a Leesburg, FL, social security office. The training exercise involved Federal Protective Service officers in SWAT gear who carried AK-47′s...[Full Article]

Labels: martial law, police state

Charlton Library Sends Police To Collect Overdue Books From 5-Year-Old

CHARLTON (CBS) – A Charlton mom says her local library crossed the line when they sent police to collect her daughter’s overdue library books.

Her mom says the 5-year-old girl was so afraid that she burst into tears.

Charlton Police Sergeant Dan Dowd stopped by the home of Shannon Benoit to let her know that her daughter had two books several months overdue which needed to be returned or paid for...[Full Article]

Labels: big brother, Massachusetts, police state, tyranny

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNlJYSIzjoU

Uploaded by MikeHansonArchives on Aug 30, 2011

Labels: big brother, police state, surveillance, video

As America's Economy Collapses, "New Normal" Police State Takes Shape

by Tom Burghardt

Global Research, August 15, 2011
Antifascist Calling...

Forget your rights.

As corporate overlords position themselves to seize what little remains of a tattered social net (adieu Medicare and Medicaid! Social Security? Au revoir!), the Obama administration is moving at break-neck speed to expand police state programs first stood-up by the Bush government.

After all, with world share prices gyrating wildly, employment and wages in a death spiral, and retirement funds and publicly-owned assets swallowed whole by speculators and rentier scum, the state better dust-off contingency plans lest the Greek, Spanish or British "contagion" spread beyond the fabled shores of "old Europe" and infect God-fearin' folk here in the heimat.

Fear not, they have and the lyrically-titled Civil Disturbances: Emergency Employment of Army and Other Resources, otherwise known as Army Regulation 500-50, spells out the "responsibilities, policy, and guidance for the Department of the Army in planning and operations involving the use of Army resources in the control of actual or anticipated civil disturbances." (emphasis added)

With British politicians demanding a clampdown on social media in the wake of London riots, and with the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) agency having done so last week in San Francisco, switching off underground cell phone service to help squelch a protest against police violence, authoritarian control tactics, aping those deployed in Egypt and Tunisia (that worked out well!) are becoming the norm in so-called "Western democracies."

Secret Law, Secret Programs

Meanwhile up on Capitol Hill, Congress did their part to defend us from that pesky Bill of Rights; that is, before 81 of them--nearly a fifth of "our" elected representatives--checked-out for AIPAC-funded junkets to Israel.

Secrecy News reported that the Senate Intelligence Committee "rejected an amendment that would have required the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence to confront the problem of 'secret law,' by which government agencies rely on legal authorities that are unknown or misunderstood by the public."

That amendment, proposed by Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Mark Udall (D-CO) was rejected by voice vote, further entrenching unprecedented surveillance powers of Executive Branch agencies such as the FBI and NSA.

As Antifascist Calling previously reported, the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Justice Department "demanding the release of a secret legal memo used to justify FBI access to Americans' telephone records without any legal process or oversight."

The DOJ refused and it now appears that the Senate has affirmed that "secret law" should be guiding principles of our former republic.

Secrecy News also disclosed that the Committee rejected a second amendment to the authorization bill, one that would have required the Justice Department's Inspector General "to estimate the number of Americans who have had the contents of their communications reviewed in violation of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 [FAA]."

As pointed out here many times, FAA is a pernicious piece of Bushist legislative detritus that legalized the previous administration's secret spy programs since embellished by our current "hope and change" president.

During the run-up to FAA's passage, congressional Democrats, including then-Senator Barack Obama and his Republican colleagues across the aisle, claimed that the law would "strike a balance" between Americans' privacy rights and the needs of security agencies to "stop terrorists" attacking the country.

If that's the case, then why can't the American people learn whether their rights have been compromised?

Perhaps, as recent reports in Truthout and other publications suggest, former U.S. counterterrorism "czar" Richard Clarke leveled "explosive allegations against three former top CIA officials--George Tenet, Cofer Black and Richard Blee--accusing them of knowingly withholding intelligence ... about two of the 9/11 hijackers who had entered the United States more than a year before the attacks."

Clarke's allegations follow closely on the heels of an investigation by Truthout journalists Jeffrey Kaye and Jason Leopold.

"Based on on documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and an interview with a former high-ranking counterterrorism official," Kaye and Leopold learned that "a little-known military intelligence unit, unbeknownst to the various investigative bodies probing the terrorist attacks, was ordered by senior government officials to stop tracking Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda's movements prior to 9/11."

As readers are well aware, the 9/11 provocation was the pretext used by the capitalist state to wage aggressive resource wars abroad while ramming through repressive legislation like the USA Patriot Act and the FISA Amendments Act that targeted the democratic rights of the American people here at home.

But FAA did more then legitimate illegal programs. It also handed retroactive immunity and economic cover to giant telecoms like AT&T and Verizon who profited handily from government surveillance, shielding them from monetary damages which may have resulted from a spate of lawsuits such as Hepting v. AT&T.

This raises the question: are other U.S. firms similarly shielded from scrutiny by secret annexes in FAA or the privacy-killing USA Patriot Act?

Echelon Cubed

Last week, Softpedia revealed that "Google has admitted complying with requests from US intelligence agencies for data stored in its European data centers, most likely in violation of European Union data protection laws."

"At the center of this problem," reporter Lucian Constantin wrote, "is the USA PATRIOT ACT, which states that companies incorporated in the United States must hand over data administered by their foreign subsidiaries if requested."

"Not only that," the publication averred, "they can be forced to keep quiet about it in order to avoid exposing active investigations and alert those targeted by the probes."

In other words, despite strict privacy laws that require companies operating within the EU to protect the personal data of their citizens, reports suggest that U.S. firms, operating under an entirely different legal framework, U.S. spy laws with built-in secrecy clauses and gag orders, trump the laws and legal norms of other nations.

Given the widespread corporate espionage carried out by the National Security Agency's decades-long Echelon communications' intercept program, American firms such as Google, Microsoft, Apple or Amazon may very well have become witting accomplices of U.S. secret state agencies rummaging about for "actionable intelligence" on EU, or U.S., citizens.

Indeed, a decade ago the European Union issued its final report on the Echelon spying machine and concluded that the program was being used for corporate and industrial espionage and that data filched from EU firms was being turned over to American corporations.

In 2000, the BBC reported that according to European investigators "U.S. Department of Commerce 'success stories' could be attributed to the filtering powers of Echelon."

Duncan Campbell, a British journalist and intelligence expert, who along with New Zealand journalist Nicky Hager, helped blow the lid off Echelon, offered two instances of U.S. corporate spying in the 1990s when the newly-elected Clinton administration followed-up on promises of "aggressive advocacy" on behalf of U.S. firms "bidding for foreign contracts."

According to Campbell, NSA "lifted all the faxes and phone-calls between Airbus, the Saudi national airline and the Saudi Government" to gain this information. In a second case which came to light, Campbell documented how "Raytheon used information picked up from NSA snooping to secure a $1.4bn contract to supply a radar system to Brazil instead of France's Thomson-CSF."

As Softpedia reported, U.S.-based cloud computing services operating overseas have placed "European companies and government agencies that are using their services ... in a tough position."

With the advent of fiber optic communication platforms, programs like Echelon have a far greater, and more insidious, reach. AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein noted on the widespread deployment by NSA of fiber optic splitters and secret rooms at American telecommunications' firms:

What screams out at you when examining this physical arrangement is that the NSA was vacuuming up everything flowing in the Internet stream: e-mail, web browsing, Voice-Over-Internet phone calls, pictures, streaming video, you name it. The splitter has no intelligence at all, it just makes a blind copy. There could not possibly be a legal warrant for this, since according to the 4th Amendment warrants have to be specific, "particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." ...

This was a massive blind copying of the communications of millions of people, foreign and domestic, randomly mixed together. From a legal standpoint, it does not matter what they claim to throw away later in their secret rooms, the violation has already occurred at the splitter. (Mark Klein, Wiring Up the Big Brother Machine... And Fighting It, Charleston, South Carolina: BookSurge, 2009, pp. 38-39.)

What was Google's response?

In a statement to the German publication WirtschaftsWoche a Google corporate spokesperson said: "As a law abiding company, we comply with valid legal process, and that--as for any U.S. based company--means the data stored outside of the U.S. may be subject to lawful access by the U.S. government. That said, we are committed to protecting user privacy when faced with law enforcement requests. We have a long track record of advocating on behalf of user privacy in the face of such requests and we scrutinize requests carefully to ensure that they adhere to both the letter and the spirit of the law before complying." (translation courtesy of Public Intelligence)

Is the Senate Intelligence Committee's steadfast refusal to release documents and secret legal memos that most certainly target American citizens also another blatant example of American exceptionalism meant to protect U.S. firms operating abroad from exposure as corporate spies for the government?

It isn't as if NSA hasn't been busy doing just that here at home.

As The New York Times reported back in 2009, the "National Security Agency intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year."

Chalking up the problem to "overcollection" and "technical difficulties," unnamed intelligence officials and administration lawyers told journalists Eric Lichtblau and James Risen that although the practice was "significant and systemic ... it was believed to have been unintentional."

As "unintentional" as ginned-up intelligence that made the case for waging aggressive war against oil-rich Iraq!

In a follow-up piece, the Times revealed that NSA "appears to have tolerated significant collection and examination of domestic e-mail messages without warrants."

A former NSA analyst "read into" the illegal program told Lichtblau and Risen that he "and other analysts were trained to use a secret database, code-named Pinwale, in 2005 that archived foreign and domestic e-mail messages."

Email readily handed over by Google, Microsoft or other firms "subject to lawful access" by the Pentagon spy satrapy?

The Times' anonymous source said "Pinwale allowed N.S.A. analysts to read large volumes of e-mail messages to and from Americans as long as they fell within certain limits--no more than 30 percent of any database search, he recalled being told--and Americans were not explicitly singled out in the searches."

Nor, were they excluded from such illicit practices.

As Jane Mayer revealed in The New Yorker, "privacy controls" and "anonymizing features" of a program called ThinThread, which would have complied with the law if Americans' communications were swept into NSA's giant eavesdropping nets, were rejected in favor of the "$1.2 billion flop" called Trailblazer.

And, as previously reported, when Wyden and Udall sought information from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on just how many Americans had their communications monitored, the DNI stonewalled claiming "it is not reasonably possible to identify the number of people located in the United States whose communications may have been reviewed under the authority."

Why? Precisely because such programs act like a giant electronic sponge and soak-up and data mine huge volumes of our communications.

As former NSA manager and ThinThread creator Bill Binney told The New Yorker, that "little program ... got twisted" and was "used to eavesdrop on the whole world."

Three years after Barack Obama promised to curb Bush administration "excesses," illegal surveillance programs continue to expand under his watch.

A Permanent "State of Exception"

Under our current political set-up, "states of exception" and national security "emergencies" have become permanent features of social life.

Entire classes of citizens and non-citizens alike are now suspect; anarchists, communists, immigrants, Muslims, union activists and political dissidents in general are all subject to unprecedented levels of scrutiny and surveillance.

From "enhanced security screenings" at airports to the massive expansion of private and state databases that archive our spending habits, whom we talk to and where we go, increasingly, as the capitalist system implodes and millions face the prospect of economic ruin, the former American republic takes on the characteristics of a corporate police state.

Security researcher and analyst Christopher Soghoian reported on his Slight Paranoia blog, that according to "an official DOJ report, the use of 'emergency', warrantless requests to ISPs for customer communications content has skyrocketed over 400% in a single year."

This is no trifling matter.

As CNET News disclosed last month, "Internet providers would be forced to keep logs of their customers' activities for one year--in case police want to review them in the future--under legislation that a U.S. House of Representatives committee approved today."

Declan McCullagh reported that "the 19 to 10 vote represents a victory for conservative Republicans, who made data retention their first major technology initiative after last fall's elections."

Significantly, CNET noted that this is also a "victory" for Democratic appointees of Barack Obama's Justice Department "who have quietly lobbied for the sweeping new requirements."

According to CNET, a "last-minute rewrite of the bill expands the information that commercial Internet providers are required to store to include customers' names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and temporarily-assigned IP addresses."

However, by "a 7-16 vote, the panel rejected an amendment that would have clarified that only IP addresses must be stored."

Consider the troubling implications of this sweeping bill. While ultra-rightist "Tea Party" Republicans vowed to get "the government off our backs," when it comes to illicit snooping by securocrats whose only loyalty is to a self-perpetuating security bureaucracy and the defense grifters they serve (and whom they rely upon for plum positions after government "retirement"), all our private data is now up for grabs.

The bill, according to Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), who spearheaded opposition to the measure said that if passed, it would create "a data bank of every digital act by every American" that would "let us find out where every single American visited Web sites."

To make the poison pill legislation difficult to oppose, proponents have dubbed it, wait, the "Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011" even though, as CNET noted, "the mandatory logs would be accessible to police investigating any crime and perhaps attorneys litigating civil disputes in divorce, insurance fraud, and other cases as well."

Soghoian relates that the 2009 two-page Justice Department report to Congress took 11 months (!) to release under a Freedom of Information Act request.

Why the Justice Department stonewall?

Perhaps, as the Electronic Frontier Foundation disclosed last year, political appointees at the Department of Homeland Security and presumably other secret state satrapies, ordered "an extra layer of review on its FOIA requests."

EFF revealed that a 2009 policy memo from the Department's Chief FOIA Officer and Chief Privacy Officer, Mary Ellen Callahan, that DHS components "were required to report 'significant FOIA activities' in weekly reports to the Privacy Office, which the Privacy Office then integrated into its weekly report to the White House Liaison."

Included amongst designated "significant FOIA activities" were requests "from any members of 'an activist group, watchdog organization, special interest group, etc.' and 'requested documents [that] will garner media attention or [are] receiving media attention'."

Despite the appearance of reporting "emergency" spying requests to congressional committees presumably overseeing secret state activities (a generous assumption at best), "it is quite clear" Soghoian avers, "that the Department of Justice statistics are not adequately reporting the scale of this form of surveillance" and "underreport these disclosures by several orders of magnitude."

As such, "the current law is largely useless." It does not apply to "state and local law enforcement agencies, who make tens of thousands of warrantless requests to ISPs each year," and is inapplicable to "to federal law enforcement agencies outside DOJ."

"Finally," Soghoian relates, "it does not apply to emergency disclosures of non-content information, such as geo-location data, subscriber information (such as name and address), or IP addresses used."

And with Congress poised to pass sweeping data retention legislation, it should be clear that such "requirements" are mere fig leaves covering-up state-sanctioned lawlessness.

War On Terror 2.0.1: Looting the Global Economy

Criminal behavior by domestic security agencies connect America's illegal wars of aggression to capitalism's economic warfare against the working class, who now take their place alongside "Islamic terrorists" as a threat to "national security."

Despite efforts by the Obama administration and Republican congressional leaders to "balance the books" on the backs of the American people through massive budget cuts, as economist Michael Hudson pointed out in Global Research, the manufactured "debt ceiling" crisis is a massive fraud.

The World Socialist Web Site averred that "as concerns over a double-dip recession in the US and the European debt crisis sent global markets plunging--including a 512-point sell-off on the Dow Jones Industrial Average Thursday--financial analysts and media pundits developed a new narrative. Concern that Washington lacked the 'political will' to slash long-standing entitlement programs was exacerbating 'market uncertainty'."

Leftist critic Jerry White noted that "in fact, the new cuts will only intensify the economic crisis, while the slashing of food stamps, unemployment compensation, health care and education will eliminate programs that are more essential for survival than ever."

Indeed, as Marxist economist Richard Wolff pointed out in The Guardian, while the "crisis of the capitalist system in the US that began in 2007," may have "plunged millions into acute economic pain and suffering," the "recovery" that began in 2009 "benefited only the minority that was most responsible for the crisis: banks, large corporations and the rich who own the bulk of stocks. That so-called recovery never 'trickled down' to the US majority: working people dependent on jobs and wages'."

And despite mendacious claims by political officials and the media alike, the Pentagon will be sitting pretty even as Americans are forced to shoulder the financial burden of U.S. imperial adventures long into an increasingly bleak future.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta "warned Thursday of dire consequences if the Pentagon is forced to make cuts to its budget beyond the $400 billion in savings planned for the next decade," The Washington Post reported.

The Post noted that "senior Pentagon officials have launched an offensive over the past two days to convince lawmakers that further reductions in Pentagon spending would imperil the country's security."

"Instead of slashing defense," Panetta urged lawmakers to "rely on tax increases and cuts to nondiscretionary spending, such as Medicare and Social Security, to provide the necessary savings."

But as Hudson points out, "war has been the major cause of a rising national debt." After all, it was none other than bourgeois icon Adam Smith who argued that "parliamentary checks on government spending were designed to prevent ambitious rulers from waging war."

Hudson writes that "if people felt the economic impact of war immediately--rather than postponing it by borrowing--they would be less likely to support military adventurism."

But therein lies the rub. Since "military adventurism" is the only "growth sector" of an imploding capitalist economy, the public spigot which finances everything from cost-overrun-plagued stealth fighter jets to multibillion dollar spy satellites, along with an out-of-control National Surveillance State, will be kept open indefinitely.

On this score, the hypocrisy of our rulers abound, especially when it comes to the mantra that "we" must "live within our means."

As Wolff avers, "where was that phrase heard when Washington decided to spend on an immense military (even after becoming the world's only nuclear superpower) or to spend on very expensive wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Libya (now all going on at the same time)? No, then the talk was only about national security needed to save us from attacks."

"Attacks," it should be duly noted, that may very well have been allowed to happen as the World Socialist Web Site recently reported.

Driving home the point that war, and not social- and infrastructure investment fuel deficits, Hudson averred that "the present rise in in U.S. Treasury debt results from two forms of warfare. First is the overtly military Oil War in the Near East, from Iraq to Afghanistan (Pipelinistan) to oil-rich Libya. These adventures will end up costing between $3 and $5 trillion."

"Second and even more expensive," the economist observed, "is the more covert yet more costly economic war of Wall Street against the rest of the economy, demanding that losses by banks and financial institutions be passed onto the government balance sheet ('taxpayers'). The bailouts and 'free lunch' for Wall Street--by no coincidence, Congress's number one political campaign contributor--cost $13 trillion."

"Now that finance is the new form of warfare," Hudson wrote, "where is the power to constrain Treasury and Federal Reserve power to commit taxpayers to bail out financial interests at the top of the economic pyramid?"

And since "cutbacks in federal revenue sharing will hit cities and states hard, forcing them to sell off yet more land, roads and other assets in the public domain to cover their budget deficit as the U.S. economy sinks further into depression," Hudson wrote that "Congress has just added fiscal deflation to debt deflation, slowing employment even further."

While the global economy circles the drain, with ever more painful cuts in so-called "entitlement" programs meant to cushion the crash now on the chopping block, the corporate and political masters who rule the roost are sharpening their knives, fashioning administrative and bureaucratic surveillance tools, the better to conceal the "invisible hand" of that bitch-slaps us all.

And they call it "freedom."

Tom Burghardt is a researcher and activist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to publishing in Covert Action Quarterly and Global Research, he is a Contributing Editor with Cyrano's Journal Today. His articles can be read on Dissident Voice, The Intelligence Daily, Pacific Free Press, Uncommon Thought Journal, and the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks. He is the editor of Police State America: U.S. Military "Civil Disturbance" Planning, distributed by AK Press and has contributed to the new book from Global Research, The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century.

Labels: GlobalResearch.ca, police state

Woodpecker-Saving Daughter Costs Mom $500, Possible Jail Time

WUSA9.com

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. (WUSA) -- Eleven-year-old aspiring veterinarian, Skylar Capo, sprang into action the second she learned that a baby woodpecker in her Dad's backyard was about to be eaten by the family cat.

"I've just always loved animals," said Skylar Capo. "I couldn't stand to watch it be eaten."

Skylar couldn't find the woodpecker's mother, so she brought it to her own mother, Alison Capo, who agreed to take it home.

"She was just going to take care of it for a day or two, make sure it was safe and uninjured, and then she was going to let it go," said Capo.

But on the drive home, the Capo family stopped at a Lowes in Fredericksburg and they brought the bird inside because of the heat. That's when they were confronted by a fellow shopper who said she worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service...[Full Article]

Labels: big brother, police state, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Virginia

Georgia cops bust 10-year-old’s lemonade stand

Raw Story

Posted on 07.15.11
By David Edwards

When three girls in Midway, Georgia set up their lemonade stand, they intended to raise enough money to go to the water park. But the ever-vigilant local police quickly identified the girls’ effort as criminal enterprise and shut them down.

“It’s kind of crazy that we couldn’t sell lemonade,” 14-year-old Casity Dixon told WJCL. “It was fun, but we had to listen to the cops and shut it down.”

The police chief and another officer discovered the stand only one day after it had opened.

“They told us to shut it down,” 10-year-old Skylar Roberts said.

“We had told them, we understand you guys are young, but still, you’re breaking the law, and we can’t let you do it anymore,” Midway Police Chief Kelly Morningstar explained. “The law is the law, and we have to be consistent with how we enforce the laws.”

A city permit that would have allowed the lemonade stand to stay open costs $50 a day. In contrast, a child’s water park ticket goes for about $27.

Watch this video from WJCL, broadcast July 13, 2011.

Labels: lemonade stand, police state

The American Police State is the 'New Normal'

Yahoo News

COMMENTARY | According to The New York Times, the FBI just raided a data center in Virginia and seized many of its servers, causing websites owned by "tens of clients" to go offline -- including those belonging to people who hadn't broken a law, and were not suspected of any crime.

It may seem silly to get upset about the police taking down websites you don't use. A certain quote may come to mind, though, as we look at other ways that the police in America abuse their power...[Full Article]

Labels: police state

Rochester Police Arrest Woman For Videotaping Them From Her Front Yard

A woman was arrested for videotaping police from her front yard in Rochester, New York.

The woman, who is unidentified at this point, was recording a traffic stop where police had a man handcuffed on May 12^th. The video was uploaded to Blip TV today.

The cops noticed her recording and started hassling her with absurd notions...[Full Article]

Labels: New York, police state, Rochester, videotaping

Bellevue Family Suing FBI For Suspect Search At Home

WTAE.com

PITTSBURGH -- A Bellevue family said it’s suing the FBI after agents mistakenly entered their home with guns drawn looking for a suspect who wasn’t there.

Attorney Tim O’Brien said 12 officers, including members of the FBI, entered the home with assault rifles in March looking for a woman who had moved out two years earlier and who was not related to the family currently living there., the Adamses.

Grandmother Denise Adams said she fell to the floor when agents entered her home.

“They had all these red dots everywhere … on the floor, on my face, on my chest. I was scared I was going to get shot,” she said.

There were also children inside the home at the time.[Full Article]

Labels: FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation, lawsuit, Pennsylvania, police brutality, police state

Dept. of Education breaks down Stockton man's door

ABC News 10

STOCKTON, CA - Kenneth Wright does not have a criminal record and he had no reason to believe a S.W.A.T team would be breaking down his door at 6 a.m. on Tuesday.

"I look out of my window and I see 15 police officers," Wright said.

Wright came downstairs in his boxer shorts as a S.W.A.T team barged through his front door. Wright said an officer grabbed him by the neck and led him outside on his front lawn.

"He had his knee on my back and I had no idea why they were there," Wright said.

According to Wright, officers also woke his three young children ages 3, 7, and 11 and put them in a Stockton police patrol car with him. Officers then searched his house.

As it turned out, the person law enforcement was looking for was not there - Wright's estranged wife.

"They put me in handcuffs in that hot patrol car for six hours, traumatizing my kids," Wright said...[Full Article]

Labels: police state

Detained for photography in Baltimore



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iMr76atjUA


Detained for photography in Baltimore - Part two



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JOFwbiI8fQ


MTA Officers Detain Man For Taking Pictures

CBS Baltimore

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — The Maryland Transit Administration says more training may be called for after three MTA officers detained a man for taking pictures at a light rail station.

Pat Warren has more on the incident.

According to the ACLU, this isn’t the first time MTA Police have overstepped their bounds.

In a YouTube posting, Christopher Fussell left the camera rolling when he was confronted by three MTA officers for taking pictures at the Baltimore Cultural Light Rail Station.

“It is my understanding that I am free to take pictures as long as it’s not for commercial purposes but for personal use,” Fussell said in the video.

“Not on state property, not without proper authorization,” an officer said.

Fussell: “From who?”

Officer: “Nobody’s allowed to take pictures.”

The MTA admits the officers were in error.

“They can most certainly take photos of our system,” Ralign Wells, the MTA Administrator, said.

In addition to being wrong about MTA and state policy, the officer incorrectly cites the Patriot Act.

“Listen, listen to what I’m saying. The Patriot Act says that critical infrastructure, trains, train stations, all those things require certain oversight to take pictures, whether you say they are for personal use or whatever, that’s your story,” the officer said.

“So why don’t you have any signs posted to say I cannot take pictures?” Fussell said.

“Our officers have become very sensitive post 9/11 and we’re trying to see that they understand our passengers and citizens also have a right to take pictures,” Wells said.

The officer eventually threatened to take Fussell into custody.

“Do you have Maryland state identification on you?” the officer asked.

“I am not committing a crime,” Fussell said.

“Sir, I’m going to ask you one last time, then I’m going to take you into custody. Do we understand each other?” the officer said.

The ACLU considers it harassment by the MTA.

“This is not South Africa under apartheid and in this country, police do not have the right to walk up to you and demand you produce identification to them,” said David Rocah, ACLU.

The MTA acknowledges that additional training is in order.

“We’ll look at our training processes, we’ll look at whether any administrative situations need to occur with those officers,” Wells said.

The ACLU says it’s been working with the MTA on this very issue for five years, with no satisfactory result.

Fussell was detained for more than 40 minutes before MTA Police finally let him go on his way.

Labels: Baltimore, big brother, Maryland, police state

Supreme Court gives police a new entryway into homes

The Supreme Court, in an 8-1 decision in a Kentucky case, says police officers who loudly knock on a door in search of illegal drugs and then hear sounds suggesting evidence is being destroyed may break down the door and enter without a search warrant.

Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday gave police more leeway to break into residences in search of illegal drugs.

The justices in an 8-1 decision said officers who loudly knock on a door and then hear sounds suggesting evidence is being destroyed may break down the door and enter without a search warrant.

Residents who "attempt to destroy evidence have only themselves to blame" when police burst in, said Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

In a lone dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she feared the ruling in a Kentucky case will give police an easy way to ignore the 4th Amendment. "Police officers may not knock, listen and then break the door down," she said, without violating the 4th Amendment...[Full Article]


Search Allowed if Police Hear Evidence Being Destroyed

New York Times

WASHINGTON — The police do not need a warrant to enter a home if they smell burning marijuana, knock loudly, announce themselves and hear what they think is the sound of evidence being destroyed, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday in an 8-to-1 decision.

The issue as framed by the majority was a narrow one. It assumed there was good reason to think evidence was being destroyed, and asked only whether the conduct of the police had impermissibly caused the destruction.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for the majority, said police officers do not violate the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches by kicking down a door after the occupants of an apartment react to hearing that officers are there by seeming to destroy evidence.

In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote that the majority had handed the police an important new tool.

“The court today arms the police with a way routinely to dishonor the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement in drug cases,” Justice Ginsburg wrote. “In lieu of presenting their evidence to a neutral magistrate, police officers may now knock, listen, then break the door down, never mind that they had ample time to obtain a warrant.”...[Full Article]

Related Article...

Supreme Court Chips Away at the Fourth Amendment in KY Case

Labels: 4th Amendment, Constitution, police state, Supreme Court

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h683He0c7aY

Uploaded by RTAmerica on May 11, 2011

Labels: big brother, Chicago, police state, privacy, Russia Today, surveillance

Court: No right to resist illegal cop entry into home

INDIANAPOLIS | Overturning a common law dating back to the English Magna Carta of 1215, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Hoosiers have no right to resist unlawful police entry into their homes.

In a 3-2 decision, Justice Steven David writing for the court said if a police officer wants to enter a home for any reason or no reason at all, a homeowner cannot do anything to block the officer's entry...[Full Article]

Labels: Indiana, police state

Expert: Security Checkpoints Near Soft Targets May Soon Become The Norm
A Day May Come When You'll Be Patted Down Going Into Stores

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Counter terrorism experts say a retaliation attack for Osama bin Laden’s death is inevitable. Terrorists are expected to aim for more vulnerable soft targets like shopping malls or museums.

They are places jam-packed with people — pedestrian malls, shopping centers and stadiums.

“Yeah, I feel safe. But of course in the back of my head I know that things can happen,” one person told CBS 2’s Hazel Sanchez.

Counter terrorism expert Juval Aviv said terrorists seeking revenge for Osama bin Laden’s death will turn to attacks less dramatic than the destruction on Sept. 11 — focusing instead on soft targets like hotels, places of worship and mass transit hubs.

“It’s easier and less complicated to carry out,” Aviv said. “What they’re going to achieve if they’re successful is to kill as many people as possible.”

Security consultant David Boehm said the future could include security check points entering all soft targets — like your local department store. Boehm said even with a police presence, the areas are vulnerable...[Full Article]

Labels: checkpoint, pat-down, police state

Police State Expands On Bin Laden Death Hype

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
May 4, 2011

The Department of Homeland Security and police departments around the country are taking full advantage of the unverified assassination of the late CIA asset, Osama bin Laden.

In New York, the police “super-sized” security by dispatching a bevy of cops in elite, military style gear, according to the Examiner. Militarized cops were spotted with machine guns and large trained German Shepherds throughout major hubs like Grand Central Station, the Port Authority, Herald Square, and even in New York landmarks.

Dodger Stadium and Staples Center in LA received a fresh influx of cops. “The city remains in contact with the FBI and Homeland Security on a daily basis,” reports ABC 7. “But officials say security is a shared responsibility. They are calling on everyone to report anything unusual, and they’re reminding residents that if they see something, say something.”

Public rail systems in Florida added uniformed and plain-clothes security officers on platforms and on trains, authorities told the Sun-Sentinel. At Miami International Airport, “we’ve ratcheted things up a notch,” with increased police and K-9 patrols as well as random vehicle checks, said security director Lauren Stover. Florida’s major commercial airports, like those around the nation, plan to remain on high alert indefinitely with stepped up but mostly unseen security measures, according to the newspaper.

In Portland, Oregon, the Osama fiasco was exploited to put more cops and inspectors on mass transit in that city. “What we have done is, working with the TSA, increased our presence and visibility on the system,” said Bekki Witt, spokeswoman for TriMet, the public transportation system for the metropolitan area. The added security is typical after a U.S. military action or an elevated national threat level, notes The Oregonian.

Department of Homeland Security officers were performing warrantless searches at the Palm Springs International Airport on Monday. Transportation Security Administration spokesman Nico Melendez told KPSP Local 2 that officers from the Department of Homeland Security had been scheduled prior to Osama’s alleged assassination to perform searches at the airport in conjunction with TSA. Melendez said Viper teams will be working out of the airport this week.

So-called counter terrorism experts warn that followers of Osama bin Laden will strike in retaliation for the reported assassination of the former CIA operative who died in late 2001. “Terrorists are expected to aim for more vulnerable soft targets like shopping malls or museums,” CBS New York reports.

Security consultant David Boehm told CBS the future may include security check points entering all soft targets — like the local department store. “The reason they’re called ‘soft’ is because it’s so easily accessible to anyone. There has to be security checks for the safety of all people,” Broehm said.

The increased presence of militarized cops working with the Department of Homeland Security dovetails with action on Capitol Hill. The House Homeland Security Committee examined possible terrorist threats posed to mass transit systems around the country today.

“Especially now in the wake of bin Laden’s death, we have to assume that al-Qaida or its affiliates, al-Qaida in the Arabian peninsula, any of the others, any of the radicalized terrorists here at home, self-starters, if you will, loan wolves or organized terrorist operations in this country will launch a domestic attack,” said House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King, who recently held hearings on the supposed threat posed by radical Muslims.

Najibullah Zazi, the Oregon peroxide bleach would-be bomber, served as a centerpiece for King’s hearing today.

Zazi, a U.S. resident from Afghanistan, entered a guilty plea on conspiracy charges in early 2010. The government accused him of plotting to use weapons of mass destruction against the United States. It was said Zazi bought hydrogen peroxide at a beauty supply store and learned explosives techniques at a Pakistani al-Qaeda training camp.

During Zazi’s trial, the Department of Justice admitted that no operational bomb existed and veteran counterterrorism investigators said that important facts remained unknown, including whether Zazi selected a specific target, date, and recruited others to help.

Labels: Department of Homeland Security, DHS, Homeland Security, Kurt Nimmo, police state

SWAT Attacks Home School Mom for Refusing to Force Med Child

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
April 14, 2011

Detroit mother Maryanne Godboldo faces multiple felony charges and is being held on $500,000 bond after a 10-hour standoff with a heavily armed police SWAT team. Godboldo was protecting her 13-year-old daughter from unnecessary medication ordered by the state.

Godboldo’s daughter was born with a defective foot that required amputation of her leg below the knee, which led to Maryanne becoming a stay-at-home mother after her birth, according to Health Impact News Daily.

Despite her handicap, the child swam, sang, danced and played the piano. However, as the home schooled girl approached middle school age, she apparently wanted to start attending public school, and therefore had to “catch up” on immunizations the state insists are required under color of law.

SWAT police descend on mother’s apartment, reportedly using a tank.

According to her aunt, Penny Godboldo, the girl suffered an adverse reaction to the immunizations. “She began acting out of character, being irritated, having facial grimaces that have been associated with immunizations,” Penny told the Detroit News.

Maryanne Godboldo sought help from the Children’s Center, an organization claiming to help families with at-risk children. Godboldo told relatives the medications ordered by the doctor worsened symptoms, including behavioral problems.

When Godboldo refused to give her child the prescribed medication, Child Protective Services became involved. CPS obtained a warrant to remove the girl, but Maryanne reportedly refused to surrender the child to the state.

Police claimed Godboldo discharged a firearm in her apartment during the stand-off and that is when the SWAT team was called in.

Maryanne’s attorney, Allison Folmar, claims her client never shot at police in a report in the Voice of Detroit, which reports that the police sent the “Detroit Special Response Team (SRT) officers who descended on the home with a tank and assault weapons. Video footage shows individual officers staking out the house, taking cover behind trees with their weapons, as in a military operation,” reports Health Impact Daily News.

The Detroit News reports that Godboldo has an excellent reputation in her community, and during the 10 hour standoff many people from the community offered to help with the negotiations, including ministers and community activists.

Wayne Circuit Judge Deborah Thomas finally convinced Maryanne to surrender with a promise her daughter would be turned over to a relative. Family members, however, say the girl was grabbed by the state regardless of the promise.

Maryanne Godboldo was arraigned before 36th District Magistrate Sidney Barthwell Jr. on charges of firing a weapon in a dwelling, felonious assault, resisting and obstructing an officer, and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. Her bond was set at $500,000.

“I’m shocked by the amount of the bond. I never dreamed it would be set so high and she wouldn’t be free to care for her daughter,” said an outraged Deborah Thomas.

Maryanne Godboldo calls for Obama to intervene and have her child returned.

“Child Protective Services was trying to force her child to take a dangerous medication, Risperdal, against her will. We have been able to get a court order signed by [Wayne County Circuit Court] Judge Richard Skutt, staying the administration of this drug, which is not approved by the FDA in such cases. That’s why they put her in Hawthorne, so they could dope her up,” family attorney Allison Folmar told the media.

The Godboldo case is yet another example of CPS working in league with the police in order to kidnap children. Godboldo was obviously an excellent mother and not a threat to the police. The fact they sent a tank to her apartment is more evidence that the state will react in a violent knee-jerk fashion when its authority is challenged.

Labels: home schooling, homeschool, police state, SWAT

San Francisco considers requiring ID scans for most public events

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

[Webmaster - I just tried to set up another YouTube account and was REQUIRED to provide a cell phone number for them to call or SMS me to verify that I was a "real person", not a computer or a spammer. Looks like YouTube is in the data collection business, along with Google and Facebook. WHAT'S NEXT?!...COLLECTING YOUR SSN?! See the related article from a year ago below...]


YouTube now gone Orwellian – Now requires SMS from every new Registrant

FederalJack.com / April 10, 2010

Author: Brian D. Hill

Another Notice: If you don’t want to live in a police state I suggest boycott Google after calling them and telling them that until they stop the SMS verification or make it optional that you won’t ever use a Google product or else one day Google may require a Social Security Number just to use an account.

Notice: I only changed IPs to test the theory of YouTube requiring all to submit SMS information. It is not for abuse and I do not condone people changing IPs for abuse. I only did this to verify YouTubes new policy. This was not to escape any bans but simply to verify that YouTube is requiring all to submit personal information that could also be tracked by the CIA and government sponsored disinfo trolls.

Now if you are simply a regular person, not a spammer, and not a multiple account creator that just wants a Google or YouTube account, your out of luck without giving out your cell phone number or regular phone number to their authorities (aka the youtube police). YouTube has become a phone number collector which means they can give police, FBI, and CIA peoples private phone numbers if you use Google...[Full Article]

Labels: big brother, information, police state, privacy, YouTube