NYPD says cops won’t be sanctioned for altering Wikipedia entries
RT | March 17, 2015
Two veteran New York City cops discovered to have altered Wikipedia entries related to high-profile police brutality cases from police headquarters won’t be punished, according to the commissioner.
New York Police Department Commissioner Bill Bratton made the announcement Monday and said the two officers – whose names will not be released – do not currently work in the police headquarters, and are assigned to two different units.
“Two officers, who have been identified, were using department equipment to access Wikipedia and make entries,” NYPD commissioner Bill Bratton told reporters. “I don’t anticipate any punishment, quite frankly.”
The officers might be reprimanded for using their employer’s computers for unrelated work and are expected to be spoken to by Internal Affairs Bureau investigators.
The Wikipedia alterations were made to entries concerning some of the city’s most controversial police brutality cases, including Eric Garner, Sean Bell and Amadou Diallo, all of whom were killed by officers.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said at the same press conference “city computers” are “supposed to be for city business. This was not authorized business.”
Most NYPD computers don’t allow access to the internet, an anonymous source told DNAinfo. Currently, the NYPD doesn’t have a policy specific to Wikipedia, but it is in the process of reviewing its social media rules. Police officials told local news source DNAinfo that they did not direct the changes made to Wikipedia.
Since Wikipedia is publicly accessed and edited by volunteers, it is not appropriate for NYPD officers to edit references they believe are inaccurate. Wikipedia users have removed some of the changes to the entries.
Capital New York reported Friday that as many as 85 IP addresses registered at NYPD headquarters have logged hundreds of edits to Wikipedia entries on victims of police brutality, dating back 10 years.
The NYPD only maintains records that can trace computer use for one year, but they were able to uncover that the two veterans had made alterations on the “Death of Eric Garner” page on Wikipedia shortly after a Staten Island grand jury decided not to indict NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo for his death.
Garner, who was placed in a chokehold, was killed by police last year during an arrest that was captured on video by an onlooker. One of the edits altered “Garner raised both his arms in the air” to “Garner flailed his arms about as he spoke.”
Why marijuana isn’t at the bottom of the list
By Pete Guither | Drug War Rant | March 17, 2015
“Let’s put it in perspective,” Obama said in response. “Young people, I understand this is important to you, but you should be thinking about climate change, the economy, jobs, war and peace, maybe way at the bottom you should be thinking about marijuana.”
That, of course, completely misses the point regarding what “thinking about marijuana” actually is about.
Tom Angell:
“But he should think again about how important this issue is. On average, there’s a marijuana possession arrest in the U.S. about every minute. Billions of dollars are wasted on enforcing prohibition laws that don’t stop anyone from using marijuana but do ruin people’s lives with damaging criminal records.”
Lee Rosenberg (via Twitter):
No, marijuana legalization is not the most important issue for young people to care about, but government incompetence on the issue has a very negative and very real impact on the perception that government is capable of solving more serious problems.
“Thinking about marijuana” is about more than getting high.
It’s about systemic police corruption. It’s about a failed criminal justice system that fuels situations like Ferguson. It’s about tens of thousands dead in Mexico. It’s about failed foreign policy. It’s about using bad laws to control a population and deny them basic rights. It’s about perversion of our Constitution. It’s about financial self-interest trumping science and reason.
Marijuana most definitely isn’t at the bottom of the list.
Interview With French Dissident Artist Zéon
By Brandon Martinez | Non-Aligned Movement | March 14, 2015
Zéon (pictured above, far left) is a French cartoonist, illustrator and painter. He is 31 years old and lives in Paris. He publishes some comic strip albums, and is running a group of dissident French cartoonists blacklisted by the mainstream press. He together with other artists produce comic books such as “L’Almanach pour tous“.
Brandon Martinez of Non-Aligned Media conducted an exclusive interview with Zéon who was recently arrested and charged with a ‘hate crime’ in France for an anti-Zionist graphic he designed in 2009.
Brandon Martinez: How long have you been doing politically-themed artwork?
Zéon: I began my first Zeon cartoons in 2007.
BM: When did you become aware of the Zionist issue and its relevance to France?
Zéon: In 2003, when the French humorist Dieudonné was banned from official media for a sketch he did about Israel.
BM: You were recently arrested for the crime of “offending Israel” with some of your artwork. What is the status of this case and what exactly are they charging you with?
Zéon: The judge charged me with “provocation leading to racial and religious discrimination by offensive words, in writtings, pictures or electronic communication means”, for a cartoon I did of a stabbed Palestinian child with an Israel map shaped knife. I drew it in 2009 at the time of the Gaza massacre.
BM: Many are enraged by the hypocrisy of the French government who on the one hand champion free expression for Charlie Hebdo’s anti-Muslim cartoonists, but on the other hand mercilessly persecute dissidents who critique Israel or Jews (yourself included). Is this double standard widely recognized by the French public or are people unaware of it?
Zéon: A good part of the people know it, mostly in the youth of today, mainly in the working classes.
BM: After the Charlie Hebdo shooting, we’ve seen the French regime enact stiff laws making it basically illegal to question the government’s neocon foreign policy. Will this have an impact on artists such as yourself?
Zéon: Yes, sure! After the Charlie Hebdo shooting, a lot of people were charged with the ‘defending terrorism’ law, including a young child of 8 years!
BM: What’s the feeling in France with regards to the Charlie Hebdo affair? Many are saying that it was staged or at the very least allowed to happen. What’s your opinion on this?
Zéon: There’s an emotional wave who stay in the public debate for the moment, but it can’t last forever and the rational thinking will shortly come back… “You can fool some people sometimes, but you can’t fool all the people all the time!” About the Charlie Hebdo shooting, I’m not a specialist, but my opinion is that these kinds of terrorist acts are most of the time supervised and controlled by the secret services. They’re the only ones who have the means and the logistics to bring these operations to fruition. There are many examples, like the September 11 attacks or the Toulouse and Montauban shootings… They infiltate radical groups, detect and use the most fanatical members to do violence. I think we’re in this kind of situation with the Charlie Hebdo affair.
BM: We saw the great march of the hypocrites shortly after the shooting, featuring some of the world’s worst war criminals, including Netanyahu. Are people in France not disgusted at how the shooting has been used by politicians to curtail freedom as well as push forward more war in the Middle East on behalf of Israel?
Zéon: Yes, everyday more and more people are waking up, fighting against this kind of manipulation. That’s a big problem for the François Hollande regime. They’re trying by all means to bring us back to the unique and automatic way of thinking, “la pensée unique”, they want us to believe everything the official media says, and finally manage us like sheep.
BM: What’s your association, if any, with Alain Soral’s Egalite Reconciliation group?
Zéon: I work regularly with them and their publishing house “Kontre Kulture”. For example, we’ll bring out in a few days a little cartoon book: “Je ne suis pas Charlie… Et j’t’emmerde!” (“I’m not Charlie… And go to hell!”) to respond with humor to this oligarchy who want us to choose between two camps, the “Charlies” or the “terrorists”.
BM: Where can people find your artwork and how can they support you?
Zéon: You can find my artwork on the internet or in my web blog: https://zeondessinateur.wordpress.com To support me, you can take a look at my comic strip “Yacht People” that I’ve done with Dieudonné et Alain Soral, unfortunately it’s only in french for the moment… But we are working on a 3D cartoon film which will be translated into English and Spanish.
CISA Isn’t About Cybersecurity, It’s About Surveillance
By Rachel Nusbaum | ACLU | March 13, 2015
They say the first step is admitting you have a problem. But sometimes that’s the easy part.
When it comes to cybersecurity, it seems everyone in Washington admits we have a problem. It’s in the solutions phase where things really start to fall apart for policymakers.
Instead of focusing on ways to make our data (and the devices we store it on) more secure, Washington keeps offering up “cybersecurity” proposals that would poke huge holes in privacy protections and potentially funnel tons of personal information to the government, including the NSA and the military.
Thursday, the Senate Intelligence Committee met behind closed doors to mark up the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015. They voted 14–1 to advance the bill, with Senator Wyden offering the lone no vote.
Unfortunately, by all accounts, CISA is one of those privacy-shredding bills in cybersecurity clothing.
If you remember CISPA, the information-sharing bill that fell under the weight of its privacy failings last Congress and even drew a veto threat from President Obama, the problems with CISA might sound a little too familiar. This bill is arguably much worse than CISPA and, despite its name, shouldn’t be seen as anything other than a surveillance bill – think Patriot Act 2.0.
The bill could also pose a particular threat to whistleblowers – who already face, perhaps, the most hostile environment in U.S. history – because it fails to limit what the government can do with the vast amount of data to be shared with it under this proposal. CISA would allow the government to use private information, obtained from companies on a voluntary basis (and so without a warrant) in criminal proceedings – including going after leakers under the Espionage Act.
If you are wondering how giving companies a free pass to share our personal information with the government will make our data more secure, you aren’t alone. We’ve already written about why real cybersecurity doesn’t need to sacrifice our privacy.
The ACLU also recently joined with a broad coalition to remind the committee about some of these problems – problems which have not been adequately addressed in the Senate’s proposal.
The letter reads, in part:
We now know that the National Security Agency (NSA) has secretly collected the personal information of millions of users, and the revelation of the programs has created a strong need to rein in, rather than expand, government surveillance. CISA disregards the fact that information sharing can – and to be truly effective, must – offer both security and robust privacy protections. The legislation fails to achieve these critical objectives by including: automatic NSA access to personal information shared with a governmental entity; inadequate protections prior to sharing; dangerous authorization for countermeasures; and overbroad authorization for law enforcement use.
You can read the full letter, and view the full list of signatories, here.
NYPD accused of editing Wikipedia pages for Eric Garner death, other scandals
RT | March 13, 2015
The New York Police Department is reviewing reports that computers connected to the NYPD’s own network edited the Wikipedia pages for some of the more infamous recent events to involve the force, including the choking death of Eric Garner.
Wikipedia articles pertaining to at least three individuals who died as a result of altercations with the NYPD, including Garner, were edited out of the department’s 1 Police Plaza headquarters, Capital New York reported Friday.
According to publicly available records of the online encyclopedia’s revision history, computers connected to Internet Protocol (IP) addresses traced back by the paper to NYPD headquarters edited — and sometimes attempted to delete — entries on alleged instances of police brutality and articles critical of the force’s conduct.
Along with a page on Garner — the Staten Island man who died last July after being placed in a chokehold by NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo — Wikipedia articles detailing no fewer than two others deaths involving the Big Apple’s boys in blue were altered by computers connected to the agency’s complex in downtown Manhattan, Kelly Weill reported for Capital New York this week.
Wikipedia pages for the NYPD’s so-called “stop-and-frisk” tactic, as well as recent scandals that have tarnished the force — such as the 2013 incident in which an undercover cop was caught up in a group beating on the West Side Highway — were edited from headquarters, Capital New York reported, along with the pages for Garner, Sean Bell and Amadou Diallo. Bell died in 2006 after undercover NYPD officers fired 50 times him and two other men, all unarmed, and Diallo was killed in 1999 when a cop mistook his wallet for a gun and opened fire.
Last December, someone connected through the NYPD’s network made multiple edits to the “Death of Eric Garner” page on Wikipedia, Weill reported, within hours of a grand jury’s decision not to charge NYPD Officer Pantaleo in the man’s death. “Garner raised both his arms in the air” was changed to “Garner flailed his arms about as he spoke,” Weill wrote, and “Use of the chokehold has been prohibited” was changed to “Use of the chokehold is legal, but has been prohibited.”
“Instances of the word ‘chokehold’ were replaced twice, once to ‘chokehold or headlock,’ and once to ‘respiratory distress,’” Weill reported, both times from the NYPD network.
With regards to the Bell shooting article, a user connected to the NYPD network initiated an effort to have the entry nixed altogether by filing a complaint on the website’s internal “Articles for deletion” page.
“He [Bell] was in the news for about two months, and now no one except Al Sharpton cares anymore. The police shoot people every day, and times with a lot more than 50 bullets. This incident is more news than notable,” the user wrote.
In 2006, according to Weill, a user of the NYPD network deleted 1,502 characters from the “scandals and corruption” section of Wikipedia’s “New York City Police Department” article. Two years later, another computer connected to the network deleted the entire “Allegations of police misconduct and the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB)” and “Other incidents” sections from the main NYPD page.
Weill, an intern with Capital New York, wrote that there are more than 15,000 IP addresses registered to the NYPD, and information about them can easily be found online for free. A simple computer script programed in Python ran those addresses through Wikipedia, she said, and then flagged instances in which edits were made.
“The matter is under internal review,” NYPD spokeswoman Det. Cheryl Crispin told Capital New York in an email.
Read more – Grand jury doesn’t indict NYPD officer accused in chokehold death
Texas Representative Proposes Bill to Make Filming the Police Illegal for Everyone But MSM
By Jay Syrmopoulos | The Free Thought Project | March 12, 2015
Austin, Texas – On Tuesday, a bill was filed by Texas Representative Jason Villalba (R-Dallas), HB 2918, which would turn private citizens who film police into criminals.
The bill attempts to usurp citizens of the ability to hold law enforcement accountable for their actions by negating people’s ability to create an accurate and impartial record of police interactions.
If passed, the bill would amend the current “INTERFERENCE WITH PUBLIC DUTIES” statute (Sec. 38.15), to include language that only allows filming of police (within 25ft) by “news media.”
The term “news media” is then defined as such:
(A) a radio or television station that holds a license issued by the Federal Communications Commission;
(B) a newspaper that is qualified under Section 2051.044, Government Code, to publish legal notices or is a free newspaper of general circulation and that is published at least once a week and available and of interest to the general public in connection with the dissemination of news or public affairs; or
(C) a magazine that appears at a regular interval, that contains stories, articles, and essays by various writers, and that is available and of interest to the general public in connection with the dissemination of news or public affairs.
Notice that private citizens, and internet based sites are not listed as qualifying as “news media,” thus allowing the marginalization of anyone that is not part of the old corporate media structure. This also means that a citizen wouldn’t be able to record their own interaction with an officer.
The law is intentionally structured in this manner as a means of controlling the narrative of police-involved incidents. Traditional news outlets often rely almost solely on police talking points when running a story involving the police. It’s extremely rare for them to allow the victim’s version of events to be part of the narrative, especially when conflicting with that of the police.
If not for the alternative media on the ground in Ferguson, much of what was transpiring there would have never seen the light of day as corporate media would have just buried the story altogether.
The proposed legislation also ignores legal precedent, established in Glik v Cunniffe, where the court held that “a private citizen has the right to record video and audio of public officials in a public place.”
In that case the court went on to say:
“…we have previously recognized that the videotaping of public officials is an exercise of First Amendment liberties,” affirming Glik’s constitutional right to videotape public officials in public places.
The court went on to state that the right to film public officials in public places was clearly established a decade prior to the case, which would mean it was already established as early as 1997.
For some reason, Representative Villalba thinks that his authoritarian “wisdom” should replace that of the Founding Fathers.
What’s clear is that filming law enforcement in the commission of their duties has been established as “free speech” under the 1st Amendment of the Constitution.
The ability of citizens to hold officers accountable for their actions is not only protected “speech,” it’s also a necessary check on an out of control law enforcement apparatus. … Full article
New Video Dispels the “Reached for My Gun” Myth of LAPD Cops in Killing of Homeless Man
By Matt Agorist | The Free Thought Project | March 11, 2015
Los Angeles, CA — Following the shooting of a homeless man in LA’s Skid Row last week, controversy arose over why the three LAPD officers pulled their triggers.
Chief Charlie Beck said that the video showed ‘Africa,’ the man killed by police, reach for a rookie officers gun. The rookie, who was just short of completing his probationary period, can be heard yelling out, “He has my gun. He Has my gun.”
The reason that a human life was ended that day by the LAPD had everything to do with the rookie yelling out those fateful words.
But did Africa really have this rookie’s gun? Were the officers’ lives ever at risk? Or, did these officers gun down a man in cold blood over this rookie’s fearful mistake?
According to the LAPD, the officer’s gun was found partly cocked and jammed with a round of ammunition in the chamber and another in the ejection port, indicating a struggle for the weapon.
Seems believable, right?
However, the holster that this rookie officer had on makes it nearly impossible to rack the slide while it is holstered.
From the LAPD’s images, we can see that the type of holster that the rookie was wearing, and that the majority of police officers wear, is a Dual Retention Hooded Holster, with optional hood guard.
The Free Thought Project spoke to former LAPD officer Alex Salazar, and he confirmed that most, if not all of the LAPD officers use these holsters.
This holster is specially made to prevent the exact scenario that the LAPD are claiming happened.
The “hood,” or the strap that holds the weapon in the hard plastic holster must be pushed down from a particular angle and then pushed forward, prior to exposing the back of the weapon.
During a struggle, it is entirely possible that the hood could have been pushed down, leaving the rear of the slide exposed.
However, this officer’s holster appears to be equipped with a hood guard. The hood guard adds another entirely new level of pistol retention as it is specially designed to prevent an assailant from pushing down the hood.
But we will give LAPD the benefit of the doubt here and say that this man was somehow able to get past the hood guard and push down the hood while being beaten and tasered.
However, these holsters have yet another line of retention. The third line of retention in this officer’s holster does not allow for the pistol to be removed, nor the slide pulled back, without knowing exactly how to lift it out of the holster.
This holster and holsters similar in design have a tension screw in place that allows for its users to set the desired level of friction needed to remove the pistol. However, if someone tries to pull the pistol out of the holster in any direction other than the officer’s set preference, the slide will not rack, nor will the pistol come out.
Knowing the specific functions of this rookie officer’s holster makes believing the official narrative on the shooting of this man hard to believe.
It is highly unlikely, if not completely impossible for a man, who is being aggressed against by multiple police officers, to do what police say he did.
The LAPD would like the public to believe that Africa supposedly maintained his composure and bypassed the hood guard on the officer’s pistol. After somehow bypassing the guard, he was then able to push down the hood and slide it forward. After this, he then was able to pull the slide back, and jam a round in the chamber, while laying on his back, fighting for his life, with tens of thousands of volts pumping through his body, while multiple officers beat him with batons.
Police accountability activist and friend to the Free Thought Project, Tom Zebra, conducted a similar investigation into the officer’s holster. Below is the well-made video by Zebra illustrating the holster’s retention properties.
Naked, unarmed black man shot dead by white metro Atlanta cop
RT | March 10, 2015
An African American man running and “crawling” naked through his apartment complex in suburban Atlanta was fatally shot Monday by a DeKalb County police officer. The unarmed man may have had mental health issues, authorities said.
The unidentified white DeKalb police officer responded to a call regarding a man, identified as Anthony Hill, 27, according to social media and confirmed by the Atlanta Journal Constitution, who was allegedly “acting deranged, knocking on doors and crawling around naked,” at The Heights apartment complex in Chamblee, Georgia, said Cedric Alexander, director of the county public safety department.
Despite being equipped with a stun gun and pepper spray, the officer fired two shots when Hill allegedly ran in his direction, ignoring calls to stop.
“The officer called him to stop while stepping backward, drew his weapon and fired two shots,” he said.
Hill, a resident of The Heights, died of the body wounds. Alexander said the investigation is in the hands of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) as “a result of what’s going on currently across this country as it relates to police shootings.”
“No weapon was found,” Alexander said. “The GBI is going to take the point on this investigation.”
Alexander did not say the distance between Hill and the officer, a 7-year veteran of the police force, when the latter shot.
“I think in all fairness we need to wait and see what the outcome of the investigation is because I can’t tell you, beyond what I have told you so far, what kind of measures that officer may have taken,” he said.
The officer has been placed on administrative leave.
As for Hill, Alexander suggested the man may have had some mental health issues.
“I can only reasonably assume that if he was running around the apartment complex naked, I believe we can make the assumption there may have been some mental health experience that he might have been having,” Alexander said.
Alexander added that DeKalb County police officers do undergo some training to deal with the mentally ill, but he said there will be an examination to determine if additional instruction is warranted.
“That’s becoming more and more apparent,” Alexander said. “We have already, as many departments have begun to do, look at how to expand our mental health training when we find it certainly necessary to do so. Because it appears that we’re seeing more and more of these cases across the country in which police are engaging with those who appear to be in distress.”
Hill’s murder comes about a week after the suspicious DeKalb County police shooting of a 44-year-old Kevin Davis in Decatur.
READ MORE: Wisconsin officer who shot unarmed man was exonerated in previous fatal shooting
Gagged And Censored: Justice Not Served For Drone Protester
By Steven Wishnia | Dissent News Wire | March 9, 2015
Bonnie Block, currently on trial in Mauston, Wisconsin for trespassing at an Air Force base where she was handing out anti-drone flyers, has been denied the right to present a political defense for her actions.
She and Jim Murphy, both part of the Wisconsin Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars, have been protesting monthly for more than three years at Volk Field, a Wisconsin Air National Guard base “where they train operators to pilot Shadow drones with cameras to do surveillance and ‘target acquisition’ so that the Predator and Reaper drones (remotely piloted from other US military bases) can drop Hellfire missiles on presumed militants in multiple countries.”
The two were arrested last May, when they “went on a bus tour of Volk Field as part of an open house to which the public was invited.” As Block and Joy First described it on PopularResistance:
When the bus stopped at a museum on the base, they got off and tried to hand out flyers to others who were on the tour. They were told to stop handing out their “propaganda” and leave the base. Since they had come by the tour bus they had no way leaving on their own and yet they were arrested for trespassing and taken to the Juneau County Jail.
Murphy was found guilty in a bench trial last September and ordered to pay a fine. Block asked for a jury trial. In response, the Juneau County District Attorney filed a Motion in Limine, a request to prohibit the defense from using certain arguments, a common procedure when a jury will be hearing a case against protesters. It asked:
…that Bonnie be prohibited from making “any argument that is known to be false or irrelevant to the issues before the Court” including among other things the policies of the US Government, International laws, the Charter or certain Resolutions of the United Nations, or moral or ethical strictures believed in by the defendant. She was also prohibited from commenting in any way “that her prosecution was a violation of any Constitutional or International Right or privilege.”
Of course, the important matters of the motion revolved around whether Bonnie could raise Constitutional free speech issues or provide any of the reasons she has for opposing drone warfare and handing out a leaflet raising four questions about drones.
The judge granted those key parts of the motion. He also forbade Block from making any reference to jury nullification, the idea that jurors can find a defendant not guilty even if they broke the law on the grounds that they don’t believe what the defendant did was really a crime.
In arguing for her right to speak about drones, the US Constitution, or why she was handing out leaflets, Bonnie said that she needs to be able to tell the whole truth for there to be a fair trial. Otherwise the jury could presume she was on the base for no good reason. Prohibiting this in a pretrial order prevents her from presenting a defense for her action. She argued that the prosecutor can object during the trial if something is improper and the judge can make a ruling at that point. Bonnie said that these pretrial motions are overbroad and will have a chilling effect because she will have to wonder if something inadvertent will result in her being found in contempt.
The judge responded saying that the case was about trespassing and that was the only issue that could be mentioned.
If Bonnie talked about drones or international law or the US Constitution, it could mislead the jury. He went on to say that there is no way they will get through the trial without referencing the leaflet that Bonnie and Jim were attempting to distribute, but neither side, nor any witness, can say anything about the actual content of that leaflet. If these rules are not followed the judge will grant a mistrial and impose sanctions.
The Guardian’s Homan Square story was huge on the internet—but not in Chicago media
By Jackie Spinner | Columbia Journalism Review | March 4, 2015
CHICAGO, IL — On Election Day just over a week ago, as this city’s reporters and editors focused on whether the incumbent mayor with ties to the White House would win big or be forced into a historic run-off, an out-of-town newspaper produced a startling account of alleged abuse at a police facility called Homan Square.
The blockbuster story, published in The Guardian and written by Brooklyn-based journalist Spencer Ackerman, described the warehouse as the “domestic equivalent of a CIA black site,” where secretive police units operate and detainees are “disappeared,” with no access to lawyers or relatives and no immediate record of their whereabouts.
With its comparisons to war-on-terror practices and allegations of police brutality, the story landed big on the internet, with well more than 100,000 social shares and write-ups across the Web. The one place it didn’t get much traction: Chicago media.
The city’s two main dailies, the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times, quickly reported that city police denied any wrongdoing in pieces that offered little original reporting. The CBS affiliate in Chicago also reported the police denial. The local papers and TV stations have since covered protests from groups demanding that the facility be shuttered.
But more than a week after the initial story, local enterprise reporting remains scant. The most notable examples are a few oddly framed stories, from the Tribune and public radio station WBEZ, suggesting that the focus on Homan Square is misplaced and that, according to local defense attorneys, abusive detentions and interrogations may actually be routine and widespread. If true, that would seem to be worth digging into—but the local coverage, especially in the Tribune, put as much emphasis on possible overreach by The Guardian as it did on police abuse. … Full article
‘Close, aggressive surveillance’: UK Special Forces back in Northern Ireland
RT | March 9, 2015
British Special Forces soldiers are once again operating in Northern Ireland, allegedly, to counter violent Republican groups including the Real IRA, according to intelligence sources.
Quoted in the Daily Star newspaper, they said up to 60 members of the Special Reconnaissance Regiment (SRR) are in the region.
One source told the paper that heightened dissident activity and the increased terror threat were linked to the approaching 100-year anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising – a period of Irish history which remains highly emotive.
Another described the unit’s role as “close, aggressive surveillance.”
The SRR replaced an earlier unit known as 14 Intelligence Company. Its creation in 2005 saw the specialist close surveillance role developed during the Troubles expanded for the War on Terror.
The same year it was reported the SRR had been involved in the counter-terrorist operation which eventually led to the gunning down in Stockwell tube station of Jean Charles De Menezes, an innocent Brazilian worker.
The regiment, the only British Special Forces unit to recruit women and estimated to be composed of between 500 and 600 personnel, has been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In August 2014, the SRR was reported to be hunting Islamic State militants, including Jihadi John, later identified as West Londoner Mohammed Emwazi.
Its forerunner – known colloquially as “14 Int” – was limited to operating in Northern Ireland.
Recently, there have been a number of damaging revelations and legal cases about covert British operations during the period of the Troubles.
In 2013, a BBC documentary uncovered claims that a secret army unit called the MRF was hunting and killing IRA members, and in the course of doing so may also have killed a number of innocent civilians.
Alongside their combat role, the hand-picked members of the MRF also carried out surveillance. In some cases while disguised as meths-drinking vagrants, at other times while pretending to be garbage collectors.
In February this year, the case of the Hooded Men made headlines again when human rights lawyer Amal Clooney – who is the spouse of actor George Clooney and has represented WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange – joined the legal team of 11 individuals who claim to have suffered torture while in the custody of British security forces.
Of over 300 people rounded up in June 1971, twelve were selected for further interrogation. They were then subjected to stress positions, hooding, white noise and food, drink and sleep deprivation.
These methods were known as the Five Techniques and would later form the practical basis for the treatment of captives by the United States military and intelligence services during the War on Terror. They have become synonymous with the process known as extraordinary rendition.
In 1976, the men took their case to the European Court of Human Rights and won. The ruling was later overturned and it was subsequently ruled that while they had been subject to inhumane and degrading treatment, it did not constitute torture.
Cops across the U.S. are being disciplined, not for brutality, but for not writing enough tickets
By Matt Agorist | The Free Thought Project | March 9, 2015
As more and more officers across the country expose quota systems within their departments the mission of the American police officer is becoming quite clear; revenue generator.
As there is no money in solving murders or preventing rapes, police departments in America have focused their duties on traffic citations and the drug war. Both of these venues are highly profitable for departments.
City and state governments have become so addicted to these revenue streams that we are now seeing full-on military raids on people in fruitless attempts to find drugs and money. Along with the drug raids, we are seeing police officers forced to collect a certain amount of revenue through traffic enforcement, or risk losing their jobs.
Over the weekend, 4 more state troopers from Tennessee exposed their department for enforcing a quota system. There would be many more according to the troopers, but their fellow cops are afraid to speak up for fear of retaliation.
Last week, six cops in Whittier, CA filed a lawsuit against the city after they were retaliated against for refusing to act as revenue collectors by following ticket and arrest quotas.
Last month, a former Bellefontaine Neighbors cop, ten-year veteran of the force, officer Joe St. Clair was ordered to carry out a policy that he says required cops to issue a certain number of traffic tickets, and even traffic arrests. If the cops failed to do it, they could be fired.
“I believe the chief put an illegal mandate on his officers. I think it’s unfair to the community,” St. Clair told KMOV.
Also, in November of last year. The Free Thought Project reported the story of police in Normal, IL. Several cops from the Normal police department sued the city claiming that the department’s policy forced them to make arrests without probable cause.
These are just a few of the many revenue collection schemes implemented in this “land of the free.”
Earlier this month, the Free Thought Project was leaked video that shows a Newaygo County Sheriff’s deputy admitting that their department breaks federal and state laws.
This cop admitted, on camera, that he routinely breaks federal and state law. He wasn’t blowing the whistle either. He was proposing a grant allocation to the Board of Commissioners and using the fact that he enforces quotas as a sales pitch!
When local news departments caught wind of our story, they interviewed the sheriff, who predictably denied the existence of quotas and assured the public that the deputy in the video has faced proper disciplinary action. However, if that deputy wasn’t immediately fired and arrested for breaking the law, then there was nothing “proper” about it.
The skewed reality here is that you can mandate that officers enforce illegal ticket quotas, and nothing happens to you. Only when officers refuse to take part in these illegal quota systems, do they become the ones who face any discipline.
In America, police can murder unarmed people while being videotaped and face little to no consequences. However, if they point out corruption within their departments, they not only face being fired, but their lives are threatened too.
Mandating that officers issue citations and make arrests is nothing close to “protecting and serving.” In fact, it’s quite the opposite.
Requiring a minimum number of citations forces conflict and potentially hostile interactions.
It truly forces police officers to create criminals out of otherwise innocent people in order to generate revenue, or they face losing their jobs.
Despite police departments across the country denying the existence of quota systems, the Free Though Project continues to expose them.
If you are a police officer or know one who wants to expose department corruption, send us an email at contact@thefreethoughtproject.com. Shining light on the darkness is the only way to prevent this corrupt leviathan from reaching unstoppable proportions.
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Bum Rap for the Rapa Nui
By Thomas Riggins | Dissident Voice | February 5, 2014
A new report in Science News Magazine (1-25-2014) by Bruce Bower details a reevaluation of the view that the Rapa Nuians, the native inhabitants of Easter Island (Rapa Nui), were responsible for the collapse of their population and society due to over exploitation of natural resources and the destruction of the rain forest on their island, a view recently popularized by Jared Diamond in his book Collapse (2005).
As Bower reports, the anthropologist Maria Mulrooney has published the results of her studies of the Rapa Nui culture (Journal of Archeological Science, December 2013) based on new radiocarbon dates from archeological sites on the island. She has concluded that after the clear cutting of the forest in the 1500s, to make room for agricultural production, the population of Rapa Nui remained sufficiently vibrant to carry on food production and continue their cultural development.
Exactly when the Rapa Nui arrived on Easter Island is unknown but it was on or before 1200 A.D. or so. Mulrooney maintains they had a thriving culture which was still going strong even after their “discovery” by the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen on Easter Sunday 1722. This would indicate that they had not suffered “collapse” as a result of forest clearance. … continue
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