YouTube Terminates PINAC Account for “Violent” Police Videos, the Latest Shutdown on Independent Media
By Andrew Meyer | PINAC | November 20, 2015
On October 27, YouTube terminated the main channel of Photography is Not a Crime, claiming the channel posts too many videos that are “violent or graphic content that appears to be posted in a shocking, sensational, or disrespectful manner.”
Because of that, PINAC lost hundreds of videos it had posted on the channel.
The videos found on the PINAC YouTube channel are typically also aired by national and local television news stations now that police violence has become national news.
However, PINAC’s account was suspended in August for airing footage of the Virginia reporters getting shot to death, which many news stations chose not to run.
“We did so because we wanted to give readers the choice to view the full video if they wanted rather than make the decision for them,” said PINAC Founder and Publisher Carlos Miller. “While many news stations chose not to run that video, Washington Post media analyst Erik Wemple was quoted in an interview that not running the video in its entirety is ‘coddling’ the readership – which was our viewpoint all along.”
Wemple stated the following in that interview:
“If you really want to understand enormity and the horror of what happened, I’m afraid airing the video is one way to get that across,” he says.
“I don’t see the point in not telling the full story,” Wemple adds.
News outlets are not showing the images and posting the videos because, as the The New York Times put it, “we didn’t want to force people to see it,” he says.
“I think that’s coddling the audience a little much,” Wemple says.
YouTube then suspended the account again in September after PINAC aired a video of Delaware police shooting and killing a man in a wheelchair.
And the last straw was in October over a video of a Canadian cop repeatedly running over a dog before stepping out of his patrol car and shooting it to death.
That was when we received the following email.
YouTube continues to host thousands of channels that could also be described as “violent” content providers, including channels specializing in professional fighting highlights, clips of people fighting in the street and other channels with nearly identical content to PINAC.
Mark Dice, who has posted videos exposing the Bilderberg Group and other topics blacklisted from corporate “mainstream” media also had his channel deleted in March of 2014. When Dice made a video drawing attention to this blatant censorship on his secondary channel, that channel was then also deleted without explanation, despite zero negative history against it.
YouTube has a long history of shutting down alternative media channels, including those of Russia Today, Federal Jack, Stefan Molyneaux, and Alex Jones. And YouTube is not alone in their censorship of alternative media.
Luke Rudkowski, who runs the emerging news outlet WeAreChange, had his Facebook account suspended, while an Infowars reporter was repeatedly banned from Twitter.
PINAC Executive Director Grant Stern made the following statement:
It’s upsetting that YouTube would destroy a year’s worth of news journalism, including numerous worldwide exclusive videos. Our numerous YouTube Live interviews with key sources from the Baltimore Uprising were due to be arranged into a feature length movie, but now it appears all of that hard work was for naught.
The summary deletion of our YouTube account harms the public interest in knowing how our government officials behave when caught on camera, and breaks countless hundreds of news stories around the country who linked to our videos.
We have appealed each suspension only to be quickly denied. We appealed the last decision but don’t expect YouTube to restore our channel judging by their denials on previous appeals.
However, others have had the suspensions of their accounts typically overturned, but it often requires a fight from the audience. To help restore PINAC’s YouTube channel, post on your Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube itself using # YouTubeCensorship and #PhotographyIsNotACrime.
But we’re not holding our breath, so we are now using this channel as our main YouTube channel.
France Privacy Loss Preceded and Failed to Stop Attacks
Who What Why | November 19, 2015
Is giving up civil liberties in exchange for more “security” from terrorists a good deal?
Here’s a surprisingly candid take from former New York State homeland security adviser Michael Balboni, who was interviewed by New York radio station WNYC on November 17:
“One of the things that is very disturbing about what happened in France is that after the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January, the nation of France undertook some of the most significant and severe surveillance laws, and what I mean by severe is no warrant needed to do real-time monitoring of your emails, and now they’ve suspended any requirements before they do a search,” he said, referencing measures granted to police under France’s state of emergency.
“That’s something we wouldn’t tolerate here in the United States, but nonetheless, even with that, (the attackers) were able to amass this amount of weapons and conduct this.”
Cops Claim LSD Killed this Dad, but Autopsy & Video Confirms they Hogtied Him to Death
By Justin Gardner | The Free Thought Project | November 19, 2015
Memphis, TN – An independent autopsy has found that 30-year-old Troy Goode died from being hog-tied face-down for an extended period of time. The Southaven, Mississippi police department tried to blame Goode’s death on LSD, but there is no scientific basis for this claim.
As we reported in July, Goode and his wife attended a concert in Southaven where they took LSD. Goode began acting funny in a parking lot, and someone thought it was necessary to call the police.
The cops’ answer was to hog-tie Goode and place him face-down, which is known to be a potentially deadly position.
Bystander footage shows Goode being hog-tied, thrashing around, and then being placed into an ambulance. Several onlookers state their disbelief that cops would place someone in this dangerous position, with one even saying it’s good they are getting video “in case he dies.” Goode was pronounced dead an hour after arriving at the hospital.
A friend of the family contacted the Free Thought Project and said that Goode was asthmatic and he was denied his inhaler. We were also told that cops threatened to arrest friends and family if they visited Goode at the hospital.
The family has never accepted the official story and believes that excessive force and the manner of restraint killed Goode.
Not wanting to wait six to eight months for a state autopsy to be performed, Goode’s family had an independent one performed. Attorney Tim Edwards released the results at a news conference in Memphis.
He was suffocating. His heart increased into what is called tachycardia. There is no scientific basis to attribute his death to LSD.
This was lethal force, putting someone in a prolonged hog-tied position. This was not a situation where a 300-pound man attacked a police officer in the dark. This was a science nerd.
The toxicology report … rules out any drug-related causes. That takes that off the table. LSD does not cause heart failure.
Edwards is seeking a civil rights investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, and the family will file a lawsuit in January.
DeSoto County District Attorney John Champion declined to comment on the results of the independent autopsy. The DA and the police department will likely cling to the false excuse that LSD killed Troy Goode.
Southhaven Mayor Darren Musselwhite issued a statement defending the officers and said Goode posed a danger to himself and others. He also claims that Goode threatened officers and resisted arrest, and continued violent behavior in the ambulance. Musselwhite stated that Goode never said he couldn’t breathe, but the video and bystander reactions indicate that Goods was showing signs of distress.
The autopsy found no evidence of pre-existing disease that would have caused the death, and there is no known case of a person dying from LSD overdose. Troy Goode was having a bad trip, but it was the cops’ use of a dangerous restraint tactic that killed this husband and father.
It’s Already Happening: Authorities Are Using Paris Attacks To Rush New Mass Surveillance Laws
Vigilant Citizen | November 18, 2015
The CIA and government officials around the world are using the Paris attacks to push brand new surveillance laws. And it was all planned in advance.
While democratic systems usually take months (if not years) to pass new laws and legislation, it only took a few days after the Paris attacks to slap honest citizens with more surveillance laws. Several organizations are indeed capitalizing on the fear and panic caused by the attacks to bring forth a brand new agenda that takes a bold new step towards total government surveillance. What’s worse: Leaked information proves that authorities were waiting on a terror attack to go forward with their plan.
In a leaked e-mail written by Robert S. Litt, the intelligence community’s top lawyer during the month August, the plan is clearly outlined: There is a lack of support for the banning of encrypted communications but a terror attack could quickly turn the tide.
“Although the legislative environment is very hostile today, it could turn in the event of a terrorist attack or criminal event where strong encryption can be shown to have hindered law enforcement.
There is value keeping our options open for such a situation.” – Washington Post, Obama faces growing momentum to support widespread encryption
Only a few months after this e-mail, a terror attack occurs in Paris. Only a few hours after the attacks, news strangely blamed “encrypted communications.” Only days after the attacks, officials are calling for… the banning of encrypted communications.
The New York police commissioner, Bill Bratton, called it a “game changer” and, insinuated new legislation that would outlaw encryption was necessary by adding: “[Encryption] is something that is going to need to be debated very quickly because we cannot continue operating where we are blind. – The Guardian, Intelligence agencies pounce on Paris attacks to pursue spy agenda
CIA Director John Brennan is also using the terror attacks to plead for unrestricted government surveillance of all communications, blaming “privacy groups” for hindering their job.
Then on Monday, in an epic episode of blame shifting, the CIA director, John Brennan, reportedly said privacy advocates have undermined the ability of spies to monitor terrorists. He explained:
“Because of a number of unauthorized disclosures and a lot of hand-wringing over the government’s role in the effort to try to uncover these terrorists, there have been some policy and legal and other actions that are taken that make our ability collectively, internationally to find these terrorists much more challenging,” adding that there is a “misrepresentation of what the intelligence security services are doing.”
Read Brennan’s comments carefully because they are very revealing. When he says “legal actions,” he’s referring to the fact that multiple federal courts have ruled that the government’s secret mass surveillance on millions of Americans is illegal. So it sounds like the CIA director is saying it’s a shame that intelligence agencies can’t operate completely above the law any more, and is scapegoating any failings on his agency’s part on accountability that is the hallmark of any democracy. (Though he still can apparently operate above the law.)
More importantly, Brennan’s comments are incredibly dishonest. The post-Snowden USA Freedom Act passed by Congress reformed exactly one of the countless mass spying programs the US runs. It was the one that sucked up the phone calls of Americans only, and here’s the thing: it has been active this whole time and isn’t scheduled to shut down until the end of the month. – Ibid.
Government officials in the UK are also capitalizing on fear to rush sweeping new laws.
“On the other side of the Atlantic, politicians in the United Kingdom, which already has the most expansive surveillance laws in the western world, are using the tragedy to attempt to rush through their even more invasive, new mass-spying bill that aims at allowing police to see the websites every citizen visits and to force companies like Apple to backdoor their encrypted tools.”– Ibid.
Not Effective
None of these laws have proven effective in preventing terror attacks. In fact, the Paris attacks took place six months after the enactment of a massive (and controversial) surveillance law in France.
Passed by the French Parliament in May in response to the attacks on the Paris-based magazine Charlie Hebdo, the law allows the government to monitor phone calls and emails of people suspected of connections to terrorism without the authorization of a judge.
But it goes further than that. The law requires Internet service providers to install “black boxes” that are designed to vacuum up and analyze metadata on the Web-browsing and general Internet use habits of millions of people using the Web and to make that data available to intelligence agencies.
In exceptional cases, the law allows the government to deploy what are called “ISMI catchers” to track all mobile phone communications in a given area. These catchers are basically designed to impersonate cell towers, but they intercept and record communications data from phones within its range, and can also track the movements of people carrying the phones.
Finally, the law allows government agents to break into the homes of suspected terrorists for the purpose of planting microphone bugs and surveillance cameras and installing keyloggers on their computers, devices that capture data on every keystroke and mouse click. – Recode, France Has a Powerful and Controversial New Surveillance Law
In short, after each traumatic event in the Western world (manufactured or not), attention is turned towards a very specific and targeted item that “needs to be addressed as soon as possible.” This item is, in fact, part of controversial law that is sitting on shelves until in can be passed insidiously, while the masses are struck with horror. It happened with the Patriot Act and, almost 15 years later, it is happening again. Their formula is “Order Out of Chaos” and it keeps working.
Orwell’s Razor: All of 21WIRE’s predictions come true days after ‘Paris Attacks’
21st Century Wire | November 18, 2015
How predictable is the globalist imperial agenda? We are now witnessing the final stages of a long-term plan to induce another economic recession and erect a new high-tech police state throughout Europe and beyond. All they needed was a pretext.
While the mainstream media performed its normal routine of emotive reporting, stoking general fear and spreading mass hysteria, some smaller independent media outlets were busy plotting the establishment’s latest crisis agenda.
When the Paris Attack news broke last week, 21WIRE’s Patrick Henningsen went on television late Friday evening to comment on the unfolding drama, and also to analyze what was was likely to happen in the coming days and weeks in the wake of this event.
As it turns out, his quick predictions were incredibly accurate…
1. Declaration of a State of Emergency
France declared its first nationwide state of emergency since 1961 (when it attempted a coup d’état during the Algerian colonial war). Initially, this week’s snap passage of the emergency powers law only provides for a 12 day period, but on Monday French ministers confirmed this would be extended to 3 months because they believed that French citizens “had a right to a safe Christmas.” It gets even worse. After closing French borders, President François Hollande then proceeded to accelerate new police state measures after declaring publicly that, “We are a nation at war”, and then called for suspending normal due process by canceling search warrants, imposing curfews, traffic bans, and even authorizing local governments to impose a ban on public demonstrations. It seems the President has traded in his nation’s liberty for security theatre. In addition, over 100,000 police and soldiers have been deployed throughout the country. France is now under Martial Law.
2. Airstrikes by Monday
In predictable knee-jerk fashion, the French government seized upon this opportunity in order to insert more of its military assets into the Syria conflict by launching airstrikes on Sunday night in the area surrounding Raqqa, Syria, allegedly striking a multitude of “ISIS targets”, including command centers, weapons depots, and ISIS ‘Oil Assets’ – all thanks to supposed intelligence provided by the US. However, reports suggest that the impressive display of French air power didn’t actually net any real ISIS casualties. One can only wonder how so many ‘high value targets’, especially ISIS oil assets (we’re told this is so crucial to ISIS funding), could suddenly be made available to the French by a US military that claims to have been conducting round-the-clock airstrikes over this same region… for the last 14 months. This only reinforces many people’s suspicions that the US-led Coalition “Anti-ISIS(ISIL) Campaign” has been nothing more window dressing for a covert agenda, where the US and its allies have actually been working in concert with both ISIS and al Qaeda in Syria in order to achieve a long-held policy of toppling Syria’s government, ala regime change in Damascus.
3. Invoking the Article 5 ‘Mutual Defense’ Clause
To date, Washington’s multi-lateral proxy, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), has not been able to legally wiggle its way into Syria to help the thousands of foreign fighters and terrorists (like NATO did in Libya in 2010-2011) who have been allowed to flood into that country since 2011. Currently, the US and its allies are engaged in an illegal, undeclared war in Syria, and the US are desperate to find some legitimate avenue to pursue their military ambitions after having failed to cheat their way into Syria via a staged false flag ‘chemical weapons’ event in Aug 2013. According to NATO article 5, an attack on one member state is deemed an ‘attack on all’, and thus automatically triggers a joint military action (war) by the NATO collective against their declared enemy. Already, a number of political figures have cried out for ‘Article 5’ war powers, including former NATO head Anders Fogh Rasmussen who claimed that, “I do believe that the attacks on Paris qualify for an invocation of Article 5.” He added, “It was an attack on an ally and we know who the attacker is.” (certainly, they know the attacker much more than they are letting on). Eager to see a wider military deployment from Washington, US Senator Marco Rubio has called for ‘an Article 5’ too. Absent of any official NATO route, however, France has simply gone ahead and invoked an obscure ‘Mutual Defense’ pact hidden within the EU charter. The clause is called Article 42.7 of the Treaty on European Union which states that, “If a member state is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other member states shall have toward it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power.” Job done. Bombs away.
4. Calls for No Fly Zone
As 21WIRE first reported last year, the ‘No Fly Zone’ meme has been coming out of every available orifice in Washington since 2013, and this popular US tool for military intervention still draws the affectionate gaze of Democratic Party war hawks like Hillary Clinton, as well as the endless column of Republican war hawks who are in the pocket of the military industrial lobby. Whether its Jeb Bush, John McCain, or Lindsey Graham, they never get tired of the No Fly Zone.
5. US Republicans pushing for ‘boots on the ground’
Just like the No Fly Zone, ‘Conservative’ Republican war hawks have been desperate to implement another old chestnut – by throwing thousands of young US men and women at a problem which the US has actually created. War hawks in Washington DC have predictably seized on the Paris Attacks as an opportunity to reignite calls for “boots on the ground” in Syria. Amazingly, they are now claiming that massive deployment of troops “worked really well” in Iraq and Afghanistan.
6. Call for closing freedom of movement across European borders
Early Saturday morning, Hollande’s first move was to ‘seal’ France’s borders, supposedly to catch the terrorists. This ’emergency’ move also comes at the height of Europe’s co-called ‘Migrant Crisis’ (a crisis that’s actually been engineered by the US and Europe). Rather conveniently, one of Friday the 13th’s said ‘suicide bombers’ was allegedly carrying a fake Syrian passport, which somehow led the French government and the western media to conclude that the Paris Attacks were a result of the ‘Migrant Crisis’, claiming the terrorists has sneaked into the country as refugees. To date, this only an official conspiracy theory, but that hasn’t stopped politicians and ‘security experts’ from using this crack-pot theory as justification for a European lock-down, prompting some European leaders to call for an end to freedom of movement across Europe.
7. Debate on Govt Spying and Privacy Rights, now off the table
As expected, politicians looking to appear ‘tough on terror’ and the growing gaggle of security lobbyists, and other assorted corporate fascists, have called for something akin to a ‘European Patriot Act’ – an end to the ‘Post-Snowden’ debate over bulk data collection and privacy – covering issues like NSA and GCHQ blanket spying on all citizens, and imposing more regulations and government monitoring of mandatory manufacturer ‘back doors’ for computers, mobile phones, gaming consoles, and also calls to make encryption illegal (except for government of course).
8. Calls for mandatory ID’s, biometric IDs
This hasn’t hit the headlines yet, but you can be sure that the usual gang of security contractors are putting the final touches on their proposals from a new regime of biometric ‘real IDs’. Expect announcements before the week’s end.
The last one is wasn’t very difficult to predict, but it has now been proven accurate nonetheless…
9. Cameron using Paris to Push for Syria War Vote
Back in August 2013, British MPs rejected Cameron’s call for bombing Syrian government forces in a close vote. It turns out that MP’s made the right choice as that war would have been waged on false pretenses. As predicted on Friday last week, David Cameron has now promised a new “comprehensive strategy” to win MP’s Parliamentary votes for an open-ended UK bombing campaign ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Cameron claims he wants to, “do the right thing for our country” (fancy that), and hit the “head of the snake” of ISIS in Raqqa, Syria. What military impact the UK would make in a multi-nation war in the region is debatable, with an air force of about a dozen Typhoon fighters and a handful of operational naval vehicles. Make no mistake about it – the British defense industry would like nothing more than to see this happen tomorrow – along with increased defense spending and procurement. Job done. Bombs away.
We’d rather none of these had come true, especially this quickly, but it only goes to show just how transparent the new world order agenda really has become.
Watch 21WIRE’s Patrick Henningsen and his original analysis from Friday evening, Nov. 13, 2015 on RT International…
Most Police Training is Simply Learning to Kill – It’s Leading to a Deadly ‘Epidemic’
By Justin Gardner | The Free Thought Project | November 18, 2015
South Carolina — The Free Thought Project has been covering the murder of 19-year-old Zachary Hammond by Officer Mark Tiller since the incident occurred on July 26th. Three weeks ago the heartbreaking dashcam video was finally released, which shows a maniacal Tiller ruthlessly take the life of this teenager over a suspected bag of weed.
According to the Post and Courier, “the Hammond case was far from unusual” in South Carolina.
A campus cop at Spartanburg Methodist College shot to death an unarmed college student driving a car—including twice in the head—after responding to a report of a vehicle break-in. Of course, the cop claims that 20-year-old Delvin Simmons was trying to run him over, but there is no bodycam or dashcam video to refute that claim.
The Post and Courier found that South Carolina is set to break its current record of police shootings, and that 1 in 4 shootings involved officers who fired at moving vehicles. Criminal justice experts say this practice is “ineffective and risky to officers and bystanders.”
The paper’s investigation, titled Shots Fired: Mining lessons from tragedy, looked into the use of deadly force by the state’s police officers and how they learn from these encounters.
What they found was that the State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) and the Criminal Justice Academy do literally nothing to learn from past mistakes. For instance, there was no evaluation of the case of Walter Scott to glean lessons in avoiding the use of deadly force, even though Officer Michael Slager was charged with murder.
“They don’t want to admit mistakes,” said Philip M. Stinson, a former police officer who is a criminologist at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. “In some agencies there is an erroneous perception that if they were to discuss and learn from mistakes, any advancement would be viewed as an admission of guilt that could result in civil liability.”
Decades-old tactics of escalation and use of deadly force are firmly entrenched in police training,
“A survey that Wexler’s group recently completed showed the continuing emphasis placed on force over persuasion. Among the 281 police agencies that responded, the average number of basic training hours devoted to firearms was 58, compared to eight hours spent on de-escalation techniques and 10 hours on communication skills.”
The paper contrasts this to typical European approaches of law enforcement that emphasize keeping their distance, buying time and de-escalating the situation.
However, learning de-escalation tactics is an “elective” course for cops training at the academies. Instructor John McMahan sums up the extent of South Carolina’s current police training programs:
“Our main job is basic handgun fundamentals. Really all we are trying to do is to get them to where they can draw from a holster, site a line and pull the trigger.”
This was certainly on display when Mark Tiller so callously took the life of Zach Hammond.
Stinson, the criminologist and former cop, is taking aim at the unwillingness of police departments to learn from past incidents in order to reduce the violence being carried out upon he citizenry.
“It’s not second-guessing to say, ‘What can we do in the future to prevent these shootings from happening?’ That’s not second-guessing. That’s taking advantage of good policy and practice,” said Stinson.
As Chuck Wexler, director of the Police Executive Research Forum, points out, police shootings say a lot about “the training officers receive and the policies their departments adhere to.”
“So much attention is placed on the oversight issue, which is important, but you really have to look upstream at the policies and training that are in place,” said Wexler.
Instead of desperate attempts to blame victims, bystanders taking video, or journalists helping to expose police brutality, it’s time for law enforcement to take the blinders off and study their past actions.
After the Post and Courier exposed South Carolina law enforcement’s penchant for deadly force and shooting into moving vehicles, SLED chief Mark Keel is announcing they will change their ways.
He wants the Criminal Justice Academy “to start reviewing these cases and start looking for lessons learned, good and bad.” Keel says he is looking at policies and training practices in other states and may take specific actions next year.
They should not limit their research to other states in the U.S., as the ready use of brutality and deadly force is standard operating procedure across the country.
Time will tell if these announcements bring meaningful change, or if they are mere lip service to the increased scrutiny.
Mass Arrests After #BlackLivesMatter Protesters Shut Down Minneapolis Road
Sputnik – 17.11.2015
On Monday evening, 51 people were arrested in Minneapolis after shutting down a busy highway for over two hours in protest of an unarmed black man who was killed by police on Sunday.
Among those arrested were at least two reporters, one of whom was doing a live broadcast for the local Fox Affiliate as he was handcuffed.
Jamar Clark, 24, was shot in the face by a still-unnamed police officer and died on Monday after being taken off of life support.
“A man shot in an officer-involved shooting incident early on November 15, 2015, has died,” Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said in a statement. “Jamar O’Neal Clark, 24, of Minneapolis, died Monday evening. Clark’s body has been taken to the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office for autopsy.”
Witnesses have maintained that he was handcuffed when the single bullet was fired, though the police have stated their initial investigation has determined he was not.
Police had arrived at the scene of an assault after Midnight on Sunday morning, officers claimed that Clark was interfering with paramedics who were treating the victim, when a “scuffle” ensued.
The outrage in the community lead to protesters marching to the police department and forcing their way inside. Many protesters have been occupying the lobby of the station, refusing to leave until the officer’s name is released as well as surveillance footage.
On Monday evening, Clark was taken off of life support and died shortly after.
Later in the evening, another group of hundreds of protesters marched onto I-94 and shut down traffic in both directions. The interstate was backed up for miles as demonstrators linked arms and refused to move.
Eventually, 43 adult protesters and 8 juveniles were arrested and charged with misdemeanors. All have since been released.
The Minneapolis Police Department has placed the two officers involved in Clark’s death on paid leave and has requested a federal investigation into the incident.
Their police department remains occupied, and a list of demands has been released by the Black Lives Matter protesters:
1. Footage from the incident
2. An independent organization to investigate
3. Media to cover witness testimony, not just police point of view
4. Community oversight with “full disciplinary power”
5. Officers to live in the communities they serve
Journalists Syndicate decries arrest of 2 reporters in dawn raids
Mada Masr | November 17, 2015
Two journalists were arrested in a dawn raid of their homes in Gharbiya on Saturday, the Journalists Syndicate said in a statement that lambasted security authorities for aggressively targeting media workers and violating their basic rights.
The prosecutor general approved the release of one of the journalists, Sobhy Shoaib, on Sunday after the syndicate released its statement, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) said.
But Abdel Rahman Mohamed — deputy editor-in-chief of the privately owned Al-Mesryoon news site and a reporter for the National Company for Distribution — is reportedly still in custody pending investigations into charges that he belongs to a banned organization.
Journalists Syndicate President Yehia Qallash issued a separate statement exhorting the prosecutor general and interior minister to immediately order Mohamed’s release, arguing the charges against him were “baseless and pre-fabricated.”
Al-Mesryoon chief editor Mahmoud Sultan published an op-ed adamantly dismissing claims that Mohamed belonged to any banned or radicalized group. He confirmed that Mohamed was a specialist in the field of political Islam, but did not identify in any way with that school of thought.
Mohamed’s reporting shed light on rampant corruption in Egyptian businesses, Sultan said, but now he’s in jail while many of these corrupt businessmen have gone free.
A 2013 report from the Committee to Protect Journalists found that Egypt was the third most dangerous country for reporters — coming in only after Syria and Iraq — and conditions have only continued to worsen, Sultan wrote.
The Journalists Syndicate denounced tactics like dawn raids, punitive detentions and forced disappearances that security forces wield against reporters. The statement urged media professionals to adopt “a serious and unified stance against the expanding practice of arresting journalists and referring them to criminal hearings on the basis of faulty charges and questionable investigations.”
The statement further condemned the arrests of other journalists, including Mada Masr contributor Hossam Baghat, due to their writing.
The Interior Ministry is directly “responsible for the lives and well-being” of the 33 journalists currently detained or imprisoned, who must all be immediately released, the statement said.
The syndicate called for new legislation to safeguard and uphold basic rights for journalists while deregulating the sector and giving reporters more freedom to do their jobs.
American Cops Now Steal More Property than All US Burglars Combined
By Matt Agorist | The Free Thought Project | November 17, 2015
For decades now, federal government and their cohorts in law enforcement have been carrying out theft of the citizenry on a massive scale. We’re not talking about taxes, but an insidious power known as Civil Asset Forfeiture (CAF).
The 1980’s-era laws were designed to drain resources from powerful criminal organizations, but CAF has become a tool for law enforcement agencies across the U.S. to steal money and property from countless innocent people.
No criminal charge is required for this confiscation, resulting in easy inflows of cash for law enforcement departments and the proliferation of abuse. This phenomenon is known as “policing for profit.”
In the last 25 years, the amount of “profit” stolen through CAF has skyrocketed.
According to the US Department of Justice, the value of asset forfeiture revoceries by US authorities from 1989-2010 was $12,667,612,066, increasing on average 19.5% per year.
In 2008, law enforcement took over $1.5 billion from the American public. While this number seems incredibly large, just a few years later, in 2014, that number tripled to nearly $4.5 billion.
When we examine these numbers, and their nearly exponential growth curve, it appears that police in America are getting really good at separating the citizen from their property — not just really good, criminally good.
To put this number into perspective, according to the FBI, victims of burglary offenses suffered an estimated $3.9 billion in property losses in 2014.
That means that law enforcement in America has stolen $600,000,000 more from Americans that actual criminal burglars.
When police surpass the criminal accomplishments of those they claim to protect you from, there is a serious problem.
The good news is that Americans are waking up to this Orwellian notion of police robbing the citizens, and they are taking a stand.
Even police officers are taking a stand against CAF. In an exclusive interview in September, the Free Thought Project talked officer Stephen Mills, chief of police at the Apache, Oklahoma police department. Mills became an outspoken advocate against CAF, after he became a victim of it.
The idea of thieving cops has also united organizations on opposite ends of the political spectrum. In October, the ACLU and the Koch Brothers came together to stop the inherent police theft in America.
While the police keep grabbing your property, it is important to remain vigilant. Only through a lesser ignorance and the spreading of information will we overcome this blatant tyranny. Please share this article with your friends and family to wake them up to the criminal reality that is – civil asset forfeiture.
Corbyn’s rejection of ‘shoot-to-kill’ causes Labour rupture
RT | November 17, 2015
Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has been criticized by members of his own shadow cabinet after publically opposing a “shoot-to-kill” counter-terrorism policy on British streets.
Days after the Paris terror attacks the UK government ordered special forces to “shoot to kill” if Islamic State terrorists were to threaten a large number of people.
During a parliamentary meeting on Monday, a clear division among Labour Party factions emerged when MPs questioned Corbyn’s views on the policy and his stance on the legality of the extrajudicial execution of Mohammed Emwazi (also known as ‘Jihadi John’).
Ann Coffey and John Mann were among MPs to challenge their leader. A spokesperson for Corbyn said only a small minority of MPs had expressed themselves “volubly” during the meeting.
Corbyn was asked if he considered the strike that killed Emwazi to be legal. According to the Telegraph, he refused to answer, angering several Labour MPs.
‘I can’t speak for Corbyn’
Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn admitted he is struggling to defend Corbyn’s stance on the shoot-to-kill policy.
In an interview with the BBC, Benn said he “can’t speak” for the leader of his party.
“I can’t speak for Jeremy in relation to the particular circumstances he may have been thinking about,” he said.
He added it is “reasonable” to kill a terrorist where there is an “immediate threat to life.”
“All I can say is what is the position of the party. The long-standing position in the UK – there are procedures, it has got to be reasonable, it has got to be proportionate. But you have got to protect human life.”
Benn’s comments contrasted with Corbyn’s remarks when he was asked if he would be pleased to order the military or police to follow such a policy.
‘Shoot-to-kill policy is dangerous’
On Monday, Corbyn called the policy dangerous. “I’m not happy with the shoot-to-kill policy in general – I think that is quite dangerous and I think [the policy] can often be counterproductive,” he told the BBC.
“I think you have to have security that prevents people firing off weapons where they can, there are various degrees of doing things as we know.
“But the idea you end up with a war on the streets is not a good thing. Surely you have to work to try and prevent these things happening, that’s got to be the priority,” he added.
However, Corbyn’s aide insisted he is not opposed to the policy in all cases, adding he is “committed to what the existing law is – that any armed action by the police has to be proportionate to the threat.”
‘We are as ruthless as they are’
Commenting on the policy, Metropolitan Police (MPS) Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said officers working in terror situations would need to know they are supported when they are forced to pull the trigger.
“We work within the law and we make sure the people on the other side – the terrorists – know that we’re as determined as they are, we’re as ruthless as they are,” he told LBC radio.
“We work within the law, but the officers have some difficult decisions. They deserve all our support.”
Hamas: Banning the Islamic Movement is an Israeli racist measure
Palestine Information Center – November 17, 2015
GAZA – The Hamas Movement strongly denounced the Israeli decision to outlaw the Islamic Movement in the 1948 occupied lands as “an act of racism.”
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri stated in a press release on Tuesday that the Israeli ban measure against the Islamic Movement targets the Arab presence in the 1948 occupied territories.
“The Israeli decision is aimed at punishing the Islamic Movement and preventing it from continuing its role in protecting the Aqsa Mosque,” Abu Zuhri added, calling the decision as “a badge of honor” to the Islamic Movement.
The Hamas spokesman called on the international community to intervene to curb such Israeli racist measures against the Palestinians.
The Israeli security cabinet on Tuesday declared the Islamic Movement in the 1948 occupied lands an unlawful organization, effectively outlawing the group led by Sheikh Ra’ed Salah.
Following the decision, police forces raided over a dozen of the group’s offices in the 1948 occupied lands, seizing computers, files and funds.
The Israeli occupation authority also froze its bank accounts and said that 17 organizations affiliated with the Movement were served with orders to close down.
The police also called in several of the Movement’s officials for questioning, including Sheikh Salah, his deputy Sheikh Kamal Khatib, and the organization’s director of Jerusalem and Aqsa Mosque affairs, Salman Abu Ahmad.
France Has a Powerful and Controversial New Surveillance Law
By Arik Hesseldahl – <re/code> – November 14, 2015
As it plans its response to a series of six terrorist attacks Friday night that killed 129 and injured 352, the government of France will likely step up its efforts to keep tabs on the movements and communications of people within its borders.
As it happens, the attacks have occurred only a few months after legislators in that country passed a sweeping new surveillance law that gives the government broad powers to closely monitor the mobile phone and Internet communications of French citizens.
Passed by the French Parliament in May in response to the attacks on the Paris-based magazine Charlie Hebdo, the law allows the government to monitor phone calls and emails of people suspected of connections to terrorism without the authorization of a judge.
But it goes further than that. The law requires Internet service providers to install “black boxes” that are designed to vacuum up and analyze metadata on the Web-browsing and general Internet use habits of millions of people using the Web and to make that data available to intelligence agencies.
In exceptional cases, the law allows the government to deploy what are called “ISMI catchers” to track all mobile phone communications in a given area. These catchers are basically designed to impersonate cell towers, but they intercept and record communications data from phones within its range, and can also track the movements of people carrying the phones.
Finally, the law allows government agents to break into homes of suspected terrorists for the purpose of planting microphone bugs and surveillance cameras and installing keyloggers on their computers, devices that capture data on every keystroke and mouse click.
Critics of the law complain that there’s not much oversight and that the conditions under which the law’s powers can be triggered are vague. As The Verge noted in July, the government can authorize the surveillance for “major foreign policy interests” or to counter “organized delinquency.”
Surveillance operations are overseen by a nine-person committee led by Prime Minister Manuel Valls. But that committee has only an advisory role, and cannot overrule decisions by the prime minister.
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