Philly Cop Punches Handcuffed Suspect in Face, Social Media Catches Officer Planting Weapon
By Cassandra Fairbanks | PINAC | July 24, 2015
Social Media is ablaze with allegations that a Philadelphia police officer can be seen planting a weapon on a man he had just punched in the face while handcuffed.
Philly cops charged the suspect with a firearms violation in 2010 but it was dismissed in 2013.
The pair of officers were well aware that they were being filmed, as they proceeded to punch the detained man, twice.
The video shown below was originally posted to social media in 2010, but has resurfaced with people claiming that the officer can be seen pulling a weapon from his pocket approximately 30 seconds into the video- before waving it before the camera and telling the witness to get that on film.
“Watch very carefully from seconds 32 to 36 the officer reaches into his right pocket and pulls out a small silver handgun. Watch it in slow motion. Planted it right on him. I shared this to my wall the other day but I just noticed that a few minutes ago,” Facebook user Tony Soto wrote.
“Did I just watch that cop pull a small gun out of his pocket, then try to act like he found it???” Another user, Meredith Goerlich asked.
Those commentators are referring to a portion of the video where it appears that the officer wearing a tie is trying to plant the weapon and the man yells.
Philly Cop rests his plant weapon on partner’s back
While the suspect’s hands are bound behind his back by the first officer’s cuffs, the Philly cop wearing his black tie can be seen sucker punching the suspect.
At the sudden noise, his partner tosses him to the ground.
That’s when the dandy officer in his black tie pulled a weapon from his police pants pocket and began rubbing it all over his partner’s back to keep balance.
The weapon then vanishes behind his partner conducting the collar on the suspect.
Magically, the gun conspicuously reappears at that moment and if you weren’t sure what was happening, even longtime cop watchers at PINAC were shocked by the brazen move the officer in the black tie pulled next.
The officer in question then waves the gun around and shows the weapon to the camera guy, “like he caught a fish in a barrel,” PINAC editor Grant Stern noted.
Following the resurfacing of the video, the Philadelphia Police Department issued a statement, which reads in full:
“Many citizens have sent our department inquires about the attached video (screenshot below), and we do appreciate the concern regarding the video.
We would just like to inform all concerned citizens that this video was originally posted on April 19, 2010, involving an incident in which a male was arrested for Violation of Uniforms Firearm act- VUFA (illegal .22 caliber handgun).
Five (5) years ago when this video was posted, our department was notified and conducted an Internal Affairs investigation into the incident. Internal Affairs sustained the allegations of verbal and physical abuse against the Officer.
In accordance with the collective bargaining agreement between the City and the FOP; the department’s Internal Affairs Unit sent this case to the Police Board of Inquiry with the recommendation for disciplinary action against the officer.
Once this case was heard before the PBI, they concluded that no disciplinary action should be given. The original arrest against the male was dismissed in July 2013.
This department maintains the commitment to address these types of incidents. We will continue to educate our officers to conduct themselves in a professional manner and provide them with the training to treat all citizens fairly and impartially.”
If there was no wrong-doing on the part of the officers, why were charges dismissed against the man who allegedly had an illegal weapon?
30 Reasons Why Saying “Don’t Want to Get Hurt By Cops? Don’t Break the Law” is an EPIC FAIL
By Matt Agorist | The Free Thought Project | July 26, 2015
… In an attempt to break through to the apologist crowd, we have gathered 30 stories from our archives of examples in which police hurt innocent people, who never broke the law. Tragically, some of those hurt or killed were children; some were even disabled and mentally ill.
Jonathan Sanders had broken no law before he was chased down by a Mississippi cop who threw him to the ground and strangled him to death in front of family members.
Esmeralda Rossi was getting into the shower when two Arizona cops illegally entered her home, pulled her towel off, assaulted and arrested her as she screamed in horror — completely naked. Rossi had broken no law.
Eric Wilson was on his way home from his job at Lighthouse for the Blind when he was stopped by two Little Rock Police officers alleging he “fit the description” of a suspect. The fact that Wilson is legally blind did not stop these officers from assaulting a man who could not even see them.
Dillon Taylor had just walked out of a convenience store after purchasing a drink when police mistook him for a suspect. Taylor, who had in headphones at the time, did not hear the officer’s commands clearly. Officer Bron Cruz murdered then this innocent man, in broad daylight, despite Dillon Taylor not having committed a crime.
Daniel Chong was kidnapped by police and held in a pitch black cell for five days without food or water. He had broken no law and the officers who nearly killed him simply said that he had been at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Floyd Dent, a retired grandfather, was pulled over by cops who alleged he was a drug dealer. He was pulled from his vehicle and severely beaten on the side of the road by multiple cops. Video evidence later showed him to be innocent as well as implicating an officer for planting drugs on his vehicle.
Antonio Martinez was 22-years-old when he was brutally attacked, pepper sprayed and arrested by officer Jeffrey Guy. Martinez, who has down syndrome and the mental capacity of a 7-year-old, had committed no crime. After realizing their idiocy, the Sheriff offered his family a frozen turkey as compensation.
Sureshbhai Patel was left paralyzed after officer Eric Parker brutalized this 57-year-old grandfather who was in America to visit his children. He had committed no crime. Days after this thug was seen on video attacking an innocent man, apologists set up a fundraiser for officer Eric Parker.
Parker Mansell Jr. is in a wheelchair due to health complications. When police came to his house to serve a warrant to his son, they deployed a taser into the stomach of this immobile senior citizen, on purpose.
Dustin Theoharis was asleep in his bed when two cops busted into his bedroom and began to unload their pistols on this unarmed man. It is estimated that the two officers fired over 20 rounds of which 16 landed in Mr. Theoharis. Theoharis was not the man police were looking for and had committed no crime.
Sharod Kindell was on his way home from delivering baby formula to a relative when he pulled over to answer a cell phone call. He was not committing any crime. When police saw this “suspicious activity,” they pulled Kindell out of his vehicle before he could put it in gear. Instead of telling Kindell to put the vehicle back into park, an officer opened fire. Kindell received inadequate treatment for his gunshots and was held in torturous conditions for weeks, still bleeding out.
Roger Carlos was photographing a building of what was soon to be home to his wife’s medical practice when all of the sudden he was ransacked by an undercover drug task force officer and two SAPD SWAT members. He was beaten to the point of hospitalization after cops mistook him for another suspect, who happened to already be in police custody when Carlos was beaten.
Chad Chadwick was completely innocent when he was shot, tasered, brutally beaten, and had stun grenades thrown at him by vicious and incompetent SWAT officers. Then, those same officers tried to cover up their mistake by charging him with six criminal offenses including felony assault on a police officer.
David Hooks was killed by police as he lay face down in his own home. Police mistakenly raided the home of Hooks based on a bogus tip from a car thief about methamphetamine. This beloved father and grandfather never broke the law.
Akai Gurley was walking to his apartment with his girlfriend when he startled a pair of rookie cops. Instead of saying, “hello” or “hi,” NYPD officer Peter Liang put a bullet through this young father.
Maria Fernada Godinez was having a night out at an Orlando club when a cop fired his weapon at someone outside the club, instantly killing Godinez inside. The police charged the man who never fired a shot with her murder.
Henry Davis was mistaken by incompetent police for another man. He was then brutally beaten by Ferguson cops. Despite being completely innocent, the Ferguson PD charged him with property damage for getting his blood on their uniforms.
Jody Kozma is a 25-year-old woman who is mentally impaired. Police accused this innocent woman of shoplifting before assaulting her and throwing her to the ground. After they had reviewed the tapes, they discovered that Kozma hadn’t stolen anything.
Jerry Waller was asleep in his bed when incompetent police mistakenly burst into his home. Thinking he was being robbed, Waller went for his gun. This senior citizen was gunned down in his own bed and the officers responsible for his death were never disciplined.
Spencer Koptis was a toddler, who was suffering from inoperable brain cancer. A selfless medicinal marijuana grower was dialing in a strand of cannabis that was actually improving Koptis’ condition and giving it to him for free. However, police raided the medicinal grow farm and arrested the owner. Koptis, unable to get the medicine he needed, died months later.
Juan Ortiz, who is a 4′ 11″ Hispanic teen with down syndrome, was mistaken by two veteran cops for a 5′ 8″ white man. In front of his parents, police violently assaulted this young man in his front yard. He had harmed no one.
Najee Rivera was run over by two criminal officers after they pulled him over, leaving him severely injured. Police lied and said Rivera attempted to run away from them and that he “went for their batons.” However, months later, a surveillance tape from a nearby store showed that everything the officers said was a lie.
Robert Saylor was a young man with down syndrome who threw a bit of a tantrum after watching a movie and refused to leave the theater. Three off-duty cops, moonlighting as security, killed him. Saylor had not committed a crime, and the officers were never charged with one.
Gilberto Powell is another down syndrome man who was beaten within an inch of his life after cops saw a “bulge in his pants.” Incompetent cops mistook his colostomy bag for an erection and severely beat him.
Kelly Thomas was a schizophrenic homeless man whose case became widely known. He was detained by several officers who then beat him to death, on camera. Thomas had not committed a crime.
Luis Rodriguez was an innocent man who was killed by multiple officers after leaving a movie theater with his wife and daughter. The heart-wrenching murder was captured on video.
Douglas Zerby was finishing up watering his lawn when neighbors, completely brainwashed by the police state, called the cops because they saw Zerby holding what they thought was a gun. It was actually a water hose nozzle. Officers approached the position of Doug Zerby and without any warning whatsoever, fired upon Zerby, fatally wounding him with 12 rounds that entered his chest arms and lower legs.
Tamir Rice is another famous case of a child being gunned down by police. Rice was playing with a BB gun at a park when officer Timothy Loehmann pulled up and immediately shot the boy, without ever giving him a chance.
John Crawford was looking to purchase a BB gun at an Ohio Walmart when multiple officers rushed in and shot him on sight. He committed no crime and harmed no one.
Lastly is the innocent Baby Bou, whose face was blown apart after officers threw a stun grenade into his crib as he slept.
The War on Conspiracy Realists Continues
By Brandon Martinez | Non-Aligned Media | July 24, 2015
Do you believe that governments occasionally conspire to undermine the public good? Do you believe that governments manipulate people through fear to achieve nefarious ends such as war and intervention abroad? Do you believe that ‘elected’ officials serve rich and powerful special interests rather than the majority population?
If you answered yes to any of the above, and you are a British citizen, then you could be the target of a new ‘counter-extremism’ initiative spearheaded by that country’s perverse Prime Minister David Cameron. As part of his Orwellian ‘counter-extremism’ effort, Cameron has instituted a number of truly despotic measures intent on stifling free speech and extirpating ‘heretical’ viewpoints about false flag terrorism and the undue influence of Zionists on Western foreign policy.
While self-evident to most clear thinking people, the notion that the West is deliberately targeting Muslims and their countries in accordance with an intricately fashioned master plan of divide and conquer will now be a prohibited opinion that could put the British police state on your trail.
“Muslim conspiracy theorists,” Cameron proclaimed in a recent speech outlining his ‘five year strategy’ to combat extremism, who believe that “Jews exercise a ‘malevolent’ power, that [the] Israeli intelligence agency Mossad inspired 9/11 and that the UK allowed 7/7 because it wanted an anti-Muslim backlash” are to be singled out for suppression.[1]
Cameron’s 1984-style designs will give parents the ability to revoke their children’s passports if suspected of holding ‘extremist’ beliefs. Police will be given new surveillance powers as well as the authority to vet what certain ‘extremists’ and ‘conspiracy theorists’ post on social media. Additionally, Ofcom – Britain’s communications regulatory body – will also be empowered to “crack down on television channels broadcasting extremist messages.” ‘Extremist messages’ appears to be a thinly disguised euphemism for anything not consonant with Western and Zionist propaganda.
Cameron’s aggressive moves against free expression were not unforeseen. During a speech at the United Nations last September, the British leader decried “conspiracy theorists” as “non-violent extremists” who should be confronted with the “full force” of the British state.[2] The theory that Israel and Western intelligence agencies were involved in the fabrication of 9/11 and other false flag attacks was specifically mentioned by Cameron as one of those “dangerous ideas” that needs to be eliminated from public discourse. Inferences about Jewish-Zionist manipulation of Western foreign policy towards the Islamic world should also be combatted, said Cameron in the speech.
Distracting the Public from Western Sponsorship of ISIS
All of this disingenuous bluster rings hollow when one considers the fact that Western governments and their allies have supported, and many would argue created, ISIS to serve their duplicitous agenda in the Middle East.
The CIA, MI6 and Mossad, in conjunction with the oppressive autocrats of Saudi Arabia, have long worked with Wahhabi-Salafist extremist elements in the Middle East and North Africa to counter other more formidable, non-sectarian adversaries in the region such as Libya’s Gaddafi, Syria’s Assad, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Islamic Republic of Iran. A re-run of the CIA’s “Operation Cyclone” which empowered Mujahideen forces in Afghanistan against the Soviets in the 1980s is currently unfolding in the Middle East under the auspices of many of the same players.
Award winning reporter Seymour Hersh revealed in a 2007 report titled “The Redirection” that the Bush administration launched a joint covert operation with Israel and Saudi Arabia to augment “Sunni extremist groups” and other fanatics to weaken the influence of Syria, Iran and Hezbollah.[3] Obama picked up where Bush left off, flooding Syrian and Libyan insurgent groups with untold largesse and arms, using the corrupted Arab Gulf kingdoms as conduits for weapons transfers for the sake of plausible deniability.
Hersh’s sources close to the US government told him that the Saudis assured Washington that they exercised control over the extremist Wahhabi and Salafist groups, and would steer their fanaticism towards the Shiites. “It’s not that we don’t want the Salafis to throw bombs; it’s who they throw them at—Hezbollah, Moqtada al-Sadr, Iran, and at the Syrians, if they continue to work with Hezbollah and Iran,” Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi Arabia’s then-National Security Advisor, purportedly told his American counterparts in the Bush administration. “We’ve created this movement, and we can control it.”[4]
Part of the arrangement, Hersh explained, was a guarantee from the Saudis that Israel’s security interests would be safeguarded, which clarifies why ISIS and its affiliates have not attacked Israel despite the country’s close proximity to the terrorists’ strongholds in Syria and Iraq. “Israel would be assured that its security was paramount and that Washington and Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states shared its concern about Iran,” Hersh noted was the first point in a series of “informal understandings about their new strategic direction” to combat Shiite influence led by Iran.[5]
ISIS themselves have mostly eschewed hostility towards Israel, posting an official statement on social media in July 2014 saying that they’re more interested in fighting “Muslim infidels” than the Zionist state.[6] Israeli officials have expressed similar sentiments, with Israel’s former envoy to the US, Michael Oren, stating in a September 2013 interview that Tel Aviv “prefers” ISIS and al-Qaeda over the “bad guys backed by Iran,” namely Syria’s Assad and Hezbollah. Oren forthrightly conceded that Israel is committed to defeating through terrorist violence “the strategic arc that extends from Tehran, to Damascus to Beirut” with Assad in Syria functioning as the “keystone in that arc.” “That is a position we had well before the outbreak of hostilities in Syria,” Oren told the Jerusalem Post. “With the outbreak of hostilities we continued to want Assad to go.”[7]
The unholy alliance between Israel and the Salafist jihadists came right out in the open in June 2015 when ISIS released a video threatening to topple Hamas in Gaza[8], promising to bring bloodshed and ruin to the Strip. Salafist elements tied to ISIS have in fact attacked Hamas havens in Gaza on multiple occasions over the past few months, showcasing their utility as pawns of Israel.[9][10][11] There are also well-documented direct connections between ISIS-linked militants and Israel. A 2014 report compiled by United Nations observers stationed in the area revealed that the Israeli military has provided anti-Assad militants with sanctuary on the Israeli side of the Golan region, ostensibly treating wounded fighters in Israeli field hospitals and even giving them caches of weapons and other supplies.[12] On top of material support for the terrorists that have besieged Syria, Israel has aided their onslaught through numerous air strikes against Syrian military targets since the turmoil began in earnest in 2012, effectively attempting to tip the tide of the war in the Takfiris’ favour.[13] In January 2015 Israel conducted an airstrike that wiped out a brigade of Hezbollah fighters on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, once again highlighting the Takfiri-Tel Aviv nexus.[14]
In light of such treachery against Arabs and Muslims trying to liberate themselves from oppression and domination, ISIS’s primary function as an acquiescent tool of US-Israeli imperialism cannot be overstated.
Perfidious Albion
As Prime Minister Cameron feigns outrage and opposition to Islamic extremism, the British government under his watch has been an active and willing partner in the Machiavellian strategy of divide and rule in the Middle East spearheaded by the US and Israel.
The 2015 trial of Swedish national Bherlin Gildo – who fought for a militant group in Syria – confirmed London’s role in backing Takfiri insurgents battling Damascus. In his defense, Gildo’s lawyers introduced evidence that British intelligence agencies “were supporting the same Syrian opposition groups as he was, and were party to a secret operation providing weapons and non-lethal help to the groups, including the Free Syrian Army.” Confronted with this contradiction, the British court dropped all charges against Gildo, fearing more embarrassing evidence showcasing British complicity with Syrian rebels could surface during proceedings.[15]
In 2013, Roland Dumas, France’s former foreign minister, told a French television station that during a visit to Britain two years before the Syrian crisis began in 2011, British officials informed him of a secret plan to spark a rebel invasion of Syria.[16] “Britain was preparing gunmen to invade Syria,” Dumas said, pinpointing the origins of the scheme to Israel which, according to Dumas, sought to oust a neighbouring regime hostile to its imperial ambitions in the Levant. Dumas then recounted a conversation he had with an unnamed Israeli prime minister who allegedly told him that the countries in the Middle East that get in the way of Zionist objectives for the region would be swiftly eliminated.
In an April 2014 report entitled “The Red Line and the Rat Line,”[17] journalist Seymour Hersh uncovered British involvement with a CIA-led covert operation in Benghazi, Libya, wherein the Agency was secretly channeling the looted weapons stockpiles of the fallen Gaddafi regime to Western-backed Syrian rebels through a “rat line.” Commenting on Hersh’s report, The Independent’s Patrick Cockburn described the CIA/MI6 “rat line” project in Benghazi as a “supply chain for the Syrian rebels overseen by the US in covert cooperation with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.”[18] He summarized Hersh’s findings in more detail as follows:
“The information about this comes from a highly classified and hitherto secret annex to the report by the US Senate Intelligence Committee on the attack by Libyan militiamen on the US consulate in Benghazi on 11 September 2012 in which US ambassador Christopher Stevens was killed. The annex deals with an operation in which the CIA, in cooperation with MI6, arranged the dispatch of arms from Mu’ammer Gaddafi’s arsenals to Turkey and then across the 500-mile long Turkish southern frontier with Syria. The annex refers to an agreement reached in early 2012 between Obama and Erdogan with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar supplying funding. Front companies, purporting to be Australian, were set up, employing former US soldiers who were in charge of obtaining and transporting the weapons. According to Hersh, the MI6 presence enabled the CIA to avoid reporting the operation to Congress, as required by law, since it could be presented as a liaison mission.”
In addition to conniving with the US and Israel to arm Takfiri rebel gangs that eventually overran Gaddafi and continue to menace Syria, the British government has also covertly collaborated with Wahhabi extremists in its own country who serve as cartoonish fodder for anti-Muslim war on terror propaganda. In a May 2013 report for the Asia Times, security scholar Nafeez Ahmed disclosed that the British-based Salafist group Al Muhajiroun has been secretly supported by the British intelligence services since its inception in 1996.[19] That group has spawned nearly all of the supposed Islamic extremists implicated in (and perhaps framed for) various attacks in Britain, including the alleged ‘shoe bomber’ Richard Reid, the alleged Woolwich killers of British soldier Lee Rigby, the alleged 7/7 bombers and many others accused or convicted of terrorism-related offenses. Ahmed contends that various dubious personalities acting as leaders of Al Muhajiroun over the years – including Abu Hamza, Omar Bakri, Haroon Rashid Aswat and Anjem Choudary – have been clandestine agents of British intelligence fronting as ‘Islamic radicals.’
Despite his vocal support for al-Qaeda and ISIS, outwardly championing their grotesque bloodletting in Syria and Iraq today, Anjem Choudary (the current leader of Al Muhajiroun which has re-branded and re-named itself several times) is left untouched by British authorities and appears frequently on mainstream media. How can this impunity be explained if Choudary and his organization are operating independently without state protection? “Almost every major terrorist attack and plot in the UK has in some way been linked to Choudary’s extremist network,” noted Ahmed in the aforesaid piece, yet the radical preacher and his organization “[continues] to function with impunity in new incarnations.”
“[T]hrough Al Muhajiroun,” Ahmed explained, “MI5 is spawning many of the plots it lays claim to successfully foiling – as the FBI is also doing.” The MI5-controlled front group essentially serves a dual purpose: 1) it functions as a repository for Muslim patsies used in US-Israeli-British false flag operations, and 2) it acts as a recruiting hub for Wahhabi-Salafist mercenaries wielded as cannon fodder in various battle zones where Western/Zionist geopolitical and economic interests are at stake.
Unraveling the Web of Intrigue
Those not learned in the dark arts of black operations will likely be confused by all of this. “The West is fighting a war on Islamic extremism,” the indoctrinated lemmings will proclaim with confidence, completely unaware that they are being played for fools by professional spooks trained to employ artifices against the masses.
The surface rhetoric that politicians employ is merely a pack of daft lies intended to divert attention from the real agendas that drive policy. The public is fed a steady diet of cover stories and feel-good rationales – fanciful tales of good vs. evil – to pacify adverse reactions to and deflect unwanted attention from nefarious plots designed to benefit rich people and their interests.
David Cameron himself inadvertently identified whom some of these wealthy string-pullers are: Jewish Zionists committed to overturning every regime in the Middle East that is not yet subordinated to Tel Aviv. The other half of that equation includes an assortment of profiteering Anglos, Americans, Europeans, Arabs, Russians, Chinese and other money-mad opportunists. The Cameron’s, Obama’s, Harper’s, Hollande’s and Merkel’s of the world are mere screens or dummies for the real power behind the throne: the unscrupulous financiers, oligarchs and speculators who dominate Wall Street and the City of London, and to a lesser extent Shanghai and Moscow.
The Zionists, however, seem to be the most organized, the most aggressive and the most committed to living out their grandiose messianic dreams. Whether that vision entails a “New Middle East” in which “Greater Israel” rules the roost or a global government headquartered in Jerusalem remains to be seen. Either way it spells disaster for most of the world’s peoples.
Sources
[1] “Parents may cancel children’s passports in war on IS,” The Week, July 20, 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150724070333/http://www.theweek.co.uk/64449/cameron-attacks-ludicrous-extremist-conspiracy-theories
[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g-HqRP-ANk
[3] Seymour Hersh, “The Redirection,” The New Yorker, March 5, 2007. https://web.archive.org/web/20150318015442/http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/03/05/the-redirection
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Elad Benari, “ISIS: Fighting ‘Infidels’ Takes Precedence Over Fighting Israel,” Israel National News, July 8, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20140831070443/http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/182632
[7] Herb Keinon, “’Israel wanted Assad gone since start of Syria civil war’,” Jerusalem Post, Sept. 17, 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20150112102133/http://www.jpost.com/Syria-Crisis/Oren-Jerusalem-has-wanted-Assad-ousted-since-the-outbreak-of-the-Syrian-civil-war-326328
[8] “ISIS Threatens To Topple Hamas In Gaza,” Reuters, July 1, 2015. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/01/isis-hamas-gaza_n_7704360.html
[9] “Isis blamed for Gaza City bomb attacks,” The Independent, July 20, 2015. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-blamed-for-gaza-city-bomb-attacks-10400747.html
[10] “ISIS Allies Target Hamas and Energize Gaza Extremists,” New York Times, June 30, 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150713130805/http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/01/world/isis-allies-target-hamas-and-energize-gaza-extremists.html?_r=0
[11] “ISIS supporters claim attack on Hamas base in Gaza Strip,” Russia Today, May 8, 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150713195921/http://rt.com/news/256941-isis-attack-gaza-hamas/
[12] “UN details Israel helping Syrian rebels at Golan Heights,” Russia Today, Dec. 8, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20150316140841/http://rt.com/news/212319-israel-helps-syrian-militants/
[13] “Head of Syrian army after alleged airstrikes: Israel working with ISIS and al-Qaida,” Jerusalem Post, Dec. 7, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20150316154301/http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Head-of-Syrian-army-after-alleged-airstrikes-Israel-working-with-ISIS-and-al-Qaida-383907
[14] “’Israel strike’ kills Hezbollah men in Syria’s Golan Heights,” BBC News, Jan. 18, 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150316090443/http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-30873402
[15] “Terror trial collapses after fears of deep embarrassment to security services,” The Guardian, June 1, 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150610080819/http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jun/01/trial-swedish-man-accused-terrorism-offences-collapse-bherlin-gildo
[16] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeyRwFHR8WY
[17] Seymour Hersh, “The Red Line and the Rat Line,” London Review of Books, April 17, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20150315050157/http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/seymour-m-hersh/the-red-line-and-the-rat-line
[18] Patrick Cockburn, “MI6, the CIA and Turkey’s rogue game in Syria,” The Independent, April 13, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20150110040831/http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/mi6-the-cia-and-turkeys-rogue-game-in-syria-9256551.html
[19] Nafeez Ahmed, “UK pays price for MI5 courting terror,” Asia Times, May 30, 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20130801060233/http://atimes.com/atimes/World/WOR-01-300513.html
Copyright 2015 Brandon Martinez
UN lists 3,200 children arrested in Egypt since 2013 coup
MEMO – July 25, 2015
The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has said in a report that the arbitrary detention of minors by the Egyptian regime is “systematic and widespread.” Rassd.com published the findings of the report on Friday.
According to the working group, 3,200 children have been arrested since the end of June 2013, when the military carried out a coup against the first ever freely-elected Egyptian President, Mohamed Morsi. The UN claims that minors have been tortured inside state detention centres. Around 800 are still in prison, it reports, 200 of whom are in the Central Security Camp in Banha, north of Cairo.
“These minors are subject to ill treatment, including physical torture and sexual violence,” the report points out. “They are prevented from having any visits.”
The working group called on the Egyptian authorities to release all of the detained minors and compensate them proportionally for the harm they have suffered.
The report was produced following a complaint to the UN Working Group by Al-Karama, a Geneva-based, independent human rights organisation.
With New Spy Bill, France OKs Mass Surveillance
By Nadia Prupis | Common Dreams | July 24, 2015
France’s highest constitutional authority on Thursday approved a sweeping, controversial new surveillance law that greatly expands the government’s spying powers, despite widespread human rights concerns.
Making only minor changes to the legislation, which was approved by Parliament in May, the Constitutional Council ruled on Thursday that the bill generally aligns with the French constitution—even as privacy and civil liberties groups continue to call attention to its egregious rights violations.
“By validating almost all surveillance measures provided in the Surveillance Law adopted on 25 June, the French Constitutional Council legalizes mass surveillance and endorses a historical decline in fundamental rights,” said La Quadrature du Net, a Paris-based digital rights and civil liberties organization. “Only international surveillance has been deemed to be non compliant to the Constitution.”
The law gives French intelligence agencies power to tap phones and hack into computers; sweep up and analyze metadata of millions of civilians; and plant secret microphones, cameras, and ‘keystroke loggers’ in the homes of “suspected terrorists”—all without approval from a judge.
It also gives the government the power to authorize surveillance for reasons as vague as “major foreign policy interests” and preventing “organized delinquency.”
The government justified the bill by invoking recent attacks in Paris, which saw 17 people killed by gunmen in January at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a kosher deli. President Francois Hollande’s move to have the law approved by the Constitutional Council is “unusual,” the Guardian writes. But while it is rare, Hollande’s motives are clear—the decision by the Council ensures that the law will not be challenged as illegal in the future.
By approving the bill, the Council “has disavowed its role as protector of fundamental rights and liberties,” La Quadrature continued. “By refusing to implement effective control over the intelligence services, it is rubber-stamping a historic step back for privacy and freedom of communication, thus undermining the very foundations of democracy. This evening the reason of state was brutally imposed over the rule of law.”
One of the most controversial provisions in the bill requires internet service providers and telecommunications companies to install equipment, referred to in previous debates as “algorithmic black boxes,” that sift through internet traffic and metadata for so-called “terrorist” activity and alert authorities when flagged. Opponents have warned that portion of the bill will “create permanent surveillance,” as Communist Senator Cécile Cukierman said during a June debate—a charge which officials deny.
The law comes into effect just two days after the United Nations Committee for Human Rights released a report warning that the bill “grants overly broad powers for very intrusive surveillance on the basis of vast and badly defined objectives” and calling on France to “guarantee that any interference in private life must conform to principles of legality, proportionality and necessity.”
[…] Privacy International, which submitted recommendations this month to the UNHCR on the right to privacy in France, said the bill legalized hacking. “Its use by any state authorities, particularly intelligence agencies, must be highly regulated to protect against abuses of power. Yet the bill makes no provision for judicial authorisation or oversight of hacking powers,” the organization wrote.
Building a Mass Surveillance Infrastructure Out of Light Bulbs
By Chad Marlow | ACLU | July 23, 2015
For almost a quarter century, General Electric’s corporate slogan was “GE: We Bring Good Things To Life.” Well, based upon a report in Sunday’s New York Times, the company may want to dig up that old slogan, repurpose it a bit, and roll it out as “GE: We Bring Mass Surveillance To Lights.”
According to the Times, “using a combination of LEDs and big data technology,” everyday street lights, as well as those used to illuminate parking lots, store interiors and other locations, will soon be equipped for mass data collection. Of course, the soft sell for this hybrid product—which, as reported by the Times and Reuters in 2013, is manufactured by several companies including GE and Sensity Systems—is based around largely benevolent goals. For one thing, the LED bulbs are far more energy efficient than the light fixtures currently used by most cities. That’s good. They also point out that the built in monitoring features can be used to ease traffic congestion and sense when garbage cans are full. Who wouldn’t like that? Of course, there’s more. These lightbulbs-of-the-not-so-distant-future will also be able to GPS track individual shoppers as they travel through stores. Wait. What? The light bulbs can function as tracking devices? We would have to imagine that if they can GPS-track shoppers in stores, they could work just as effectively to track people as they walk the streets of our cities and towns. In fact, if you traveled through Newark Liberty International Airport in the past year, these spy-bulbs lights were already watching you. And there’s more: the bulbs can be programmed to “pick() up on suspicious behavior.” What exactly does that mean? If two women wearing head scarves decide to chat in a parking lot after seeing a late night movie, are the police going to be notified?
I always figured Big Brother was going to be some giant face on a wall, not a tiny camera hidden inside a light bulb.
The ACLU strongly opposes the creation of infrastructures for ubiquitous mass surveillance including the widespread deployment of lightbulb spying technology. But what is particularly troubling here is the stealthy way in which the product is being marketed and pitched to the press; to wit, as an energy efficient light bulb with built-in monitoring technology. Given the limited use of the product as a lighting device and the broad scope of its tracking and surveillance features, what this product really appears to be is a mass surveillance device being disguised as an LED light bulb. I would bet that if we could see a breakdown of the device’s production costs, the lightbulb versus surveillance technology discrepancy would be equally pronounced.
There are no doubt an increasing number of cameras in our public spaces, but it would still be a big deal for governments to construct giant, stealth surveillance networks that are under their centralized control. And although these surveillance bulbs may have beneficial uses, I think we would be far better off keeping our privacy, finding other ways to combat full trash cans and traffic congestion, and not bringing mass surveillance to lights.
Video Shows NYPD Cop Brutalize 11-year-old Girl, Proves that he Lied Under Oath
By Justin Gardner | The Free Thought Project | July 23, 2015
New York, NY — Video has surfaced of a New York City police lieutenant assaulting an 11-year-old girl on a Bronx street corner. The incident happened six months after Eric Garner’s death but is now being brought to light after a battle with the Corporation Counsel of the City of New York.
In the video, the large male cop forced the girl against the wall, then grabs her around the neck and throws her to the pavement, where he back cuffs her before leading her away.
In a sworn statement, the police lieutenant lied about what happened, saying she “and I both slipped and fell to the ground. On the ground [she] continued to flail her arms and thrash her body, preventing me from placing handcuffs on her. We continued to struggle until I was eventually able to place handcuffs on [her].”
As we can see, no one slipped to the ground, and the girl was not flailing and thrashing. It is pure brutality. The assault appears to be another example of NYPD harassment in minority communities, perhaps motivated by racism, all too similar to the circumstances leading to Eric Garner’s death.
According to civil rights lawyer Bob Herbst, who is representing the family, the girl was simply an innocent bystander to a situation that could have been resolved peacefully.
“This past February, after school was out for the day, some boys from the school were throwing snowballs at a passing car. When the driver got out to yell at them — and put one of the boys in a headlock — his smartphone fell out of his pocket and another boy picked it up. Upon realizing his phone was gone, the driver chased down one of the boys and threatened to call the police if the phone was not returned, and when it was not forthcoming, he did, apparently using someone else’s phone.
This 6th grader — let’s call her Angie — and a classmate were walking from school to the bus stop when they saw some of this. They were bystanders who had nothing to do with either the snowballs or the phone. But as the police arrived, the girls exchanged words as to whether they should stay to watch, or go, and then took off running for a block before stopping.
The driver — the man in the white jacket with the knapsack in the video — seeing Angie running, suspected — wrongly — that she was part of the group and had his phone. He approached Angie and asked for his phone. She told him she didn’t have his phone.
Shortly thereafter, as the video starts, this police lieutenant crossed the street, motioning for Angie to come toward him, which she did.”
It seems that running away was enough for the enraged cop to brutalize the girl instead of peacefully ascertaining that she did not have the phone.
If this wasn’t enough for the girl’s psyche, the Corporation Counsel of the City of New York (which prosecutes Family Court proceedings) began a juvenile delinquency proceeding against her. This happened one month after the girl’s parents decided to file claims of police assault and battery and the use of excessive force. Since no action was taken against the girl for four months after the arrest, the proceeding raises the suspicion that the Counsel is retaliating after the family said they intended to sue.
Fortunately, the video was preserved by the noble shopkeeper who allowed it to be copied onto the mother’s phone, and this is what proved the cop to be a liar. The obvious unprovoked brutality will force the Counsel to dismiss the case in six months, according to Herbst.
The police lieutenant’s gross abuse of power and the city’s shameful attempt at prosecuting the 6th grade victim has put the girl in a state of psychic distress.
“Her parents report that she now talks and cries in her sleep, and sometimes sleep walks. She is scared of and avoids the police. She does not want to think about or talk about what happened to her. She stays home more, does not like to go outside, and her relationships with friends have changed as she has become more withdrawn.”
Deputy Lied About Drugs to Illegally Obtain Warrant Leading to Raid that Blew Apart Baby’s Face
By Matt Agorist | The Free Thought Project | July 22, 2015
Habersham County, GA — In May of last year, Bounkham “Baby Bou Bou” Phonesavanh, 19-months-old, was asleep in his crib. At 3:00 am militarized police barged into his family’s home because the sheriff’s department claimed that an informant had purchased $50 worth of meth from someone who once lived there. During the raid, a flash-bang grenade was thrown into the sleeping baby’s crib, exploding in his face.
Baby Bou sustained severe injuries and may have possible brain damage.
Prior to obtaining the warrant, Nikki Autry, a Habersham County sheriff’s deputy and a special agent with the Mountain Judicial Circuit Narcotics Criminal Investigation and Suppression Team, claimed a confidential informant “was able to purchase a quantity of methamphetamine from Wanis Thonetheva at Thonetheva’s residence,” which she identified as the house where the Phonesavanhs were staying.
Autry claimed that she “confirmed that there are several individuals outside of the residence standing ‘guard.’”
However, it has come to light that these were lies. The informant never purchased meth at the residence, and there were never armed guards out front.
In a press release on Wednesday, the US Attorney’s Office stated that Autry has been indicted for her insidious role in the horrifying raid.
According to the report, Autry has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of providing false information in a search warrant affidavit and providing the same false information to obtain an arrest warrant. Providing false evidence to a judge to obtain a warrant is a federal civil rights violation.
“Our criminal justice system depends upon our police officers’ sworn duty to present facts truthfully and accurately—there is no arrest that is worth selling out the integrity of our law enforcement officers,” said Acting U.S. Attorney John Horn.
“In this case, Autry is charged with making false statements to a judge in order to obtain search and arrest warrants. Without her false statements, there was no probable cause to search the premises for drugs or to make the arrest. And in this case, the consequences of the unlawful search were tragic,” Horn continued.
According to the report:
The federal indictment alleges that Autry knew the NCIS informant had not purchased any methamphetamine from anyone at the residence and the NCIS informant had not proven himself to be reliable in the past. Additionally, the indictment alleges that Autry had not confirmed that there was heavy traffic in and out of the residence. Based on this false information, the magistrate judge issued a “no-knock” search warrant for the residence and an arrest warrant for W. T., who allegedly sold the methamphetamine. The warrant obtained by Autry was executed approximately two hours later, during the early morning hours of May 28, 2014.
What made this woman lie about drugs being at this residence is unknown. What kind of vile person would make up fake information to send officers barging into a family’s home in the middle of the night?
Despite the fact that Habersham county jurors in the local case found the warrant to have been obtained in a “hurried and sloppy” manner, lawyers for the sheriff and the other officers denied that “false and misleading information was used in the search warrant application.” This is also in spite of the fact that no drugs were found during the raid.
No one was charged by the local grand jury, but, fortunately, federal prosecutors launched their own investigation in October.
It is bad enough that a baby had his face blown apart by cops attempting to stop someone from selling an arbitrary substance to willing customers. However, seeing that a federal grand jury indicted one of the deputies for falsely obtaining the warrant in the first place, makes the raid nothing more than an armed home invasion, in which thugs in militarized attire terrorized a family and attacked a baby.
Sandra Bland is Everyman
By Adam Dick | Ron Paul Institute | July 23, 2015
Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathis is characterizing Sandra Bland — who died last week in a jail in the Texas county — as being “very combative” and “not a model person” during the traffic stop that led to her arrest and incarceration. His disparaging assessment appears to be far from the truth.
Recently released dashboard camera video of Bland’s arrest shows that throughout her ordeal on a Texas roadway Bland behaved appropriately and much as would many other ordinary people in a similar situation. Bland’s response may even have been more muted than average considering the infuriating nonsense she had to deal with — an out-of-control cop pulling her over for changing lanes without using a turn signal and then proceeding, for no good reason, to force her out of her car, throw her to the ground, handcuff her, and send her off to jail.
Bland’s response to the police harassment and brutality is commendable. Unless you accept the police-state mindset that Mathis’ comments suggest, you can’t help but admire Bland boldly standing up to a cop who literally had the power of life and death in his hands on that Texas roadway.
In the video we see and hear Bland being brutally attacked and arrested for expressing her opinion (after the arresting cop asked her for it), refusing to put out the cigarette she was smoking in her own car, or resisting arrest (let the nonsense of that excuse for an arrest settle in). After Bland is in handcuffs and other cops are present, you can even hear the cop who arrested her trying to work out, while on the phone with someone, a story to excuse his abuse of Bland.
As the cop escalated his physical attack, Bland yelled. Bland cursed. Bland insulted the policeman. She asked him repeatedly to give a logical justification, which never came, for his physical aggression against her.
If Bland continued to be upset and strongly communicated her anger during her confinement the next three days, how would that be anything but a normal, justified reaction? Why shouldn’t she scream about the abuse of her rights and the pain inflicted on her? Why shouldn’t she challenge the illogic and injustice of her captors’ actions? Such is natural and to be expected in reaction to extreme harassment and physical abuse.
Bland is now dead, apparently from hanging in a jail cell after being forcibly confined for three days. She was a victim of an out-of-control police, prison, and prosecution system that allowed a cop to harass, attack, and arrest her illegitimately and then proceeded to keep her in jail. Did Bland kill herself, or was she murdered? Some of Bland’s friends and family members dispute the suicide allegation. But, either way — suicide or murder — it is all but certain that the unjust system that created so much needless anguish for Bland in her final days, and individuals who carried out tasks to advance the injustice, are culpable for Bland’s death.
The DOJ is investing millions of dollars in research to spy on students at public schools nationwide
PrivacySOS | July 17, 2015
The Department of Justice’s National Institute for Justice funds law enforcement research to the tune of tens of millions of dollars each year. The full list of grants, posted each year, is a valuable insight into future of law enforcement trends in the United States. NIJ funding for 2014 appears to have primarily focused on two issue areas: school safety and clearing DNA backlogs at police departments across the country.
Among the dozens of projects that focus on school safety, there are some that appear progressive, at least judging from the limited amount of information available online. But while a slice of the funding explicitly aims to examine and interrupt the school to prison pipeline using restorative justice methodologies, a lot of the money is going toward research that will probably further entrench disparate outcomes based on race in the criminalizing trend in school discipline.
One of those projects is a City of Chicago Board of Education program called “Connect and Redirect to Respect (CRR),” which aims “to use social media monitoring to identify and connect youth to behavioral interventions.” In other words, the DOJ is giving $2.1 million dollars to the Chicago public schools to conduct research on how spying on student social media can impact school discipline. In New York, police spying on youth social media has resulted in the criminalization of speech.
Elsewhere, DOJ awarded nearly $2.5 million to the University of Virginia to study how “student threat assessment” is a “safe and supportive prevention strategy.” DOJ gave the Miami-Dade public schools $4.2 million for research on a project called “Enhancing School Safety Through Digital Intelligence: Evaluating Campus Shield.”
Among the projects DOJ funded that are not related to DNA testing or schools are the following:
- Nearly $4 million to the private Rand Corporation to identify law enforcement technology needs;
- $200,000 to Rand for something called the “Electronic Surveillance Continuation Project”;
- About $500,000 to Carnegie Melon University for research into something called an “Adaptive Expert System that Learns to Detect and Track Patterns of Crime in Internet Advertisements”;
- Follow-up funding, to reach a total of nearly $5 million, to FBI-connected private firm ManTech for “contactless finger print assessment”;
- $261,000 to Arkansas State University to study internet “radicalization”;
- About $4 million to war contractor Lockheed Martin “to operate a National Criminal Justice Technology Information Resource Center (NCJ-TIRC) within the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center (NLECTC) System”;
- $330,000 to Boston’s Children’s Hospital for research on “Gang Affiliation and Radicalization to Violent Extremism within Somali-American Communities”; and
- $500,000 to the Chicago Police Department’s predictive policing program.
Read the full list of NIJ projects funded in 2014.
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