Category: Police State

Stop and frisk in Philly

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

They do this because they can get away with it. So who’s letting them get away with it? All of us:

NO ONE GOT PUNCHED in the face – this time – but YouTube has given the Philadelphia Police Department another black eye, proving once again that smartphones are a bully cop’s worst nightmare.

Let’s just hope that Officer Philip Nace doesn’t land in the city’s tourism department when the dust settles.

“Don’t come to f—ing Philadelphia. Stay in Jersey.”

That’s one of Nace’s rage-induced zingers that were recorded in a disturbing 16-minute YouTube video of a recent stop and frisk.

The video, dated Sept. 27, shows Nace, 46, and another police officer from North Philly’s 25th District stopping two unidentified men, apparently after they said hello to a third man on the street.

“You don’t say ‘Hi’ to strangers,” Nace said as he confronts the two pedestrians. “Not in this neighborhood,” his partner added.
Continue reading “Stop and frisk in Philly” →

How the NYPD suppressed Occupy

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

We’re going to have to get better at this than they are:

A new short film by Paul Sullivan marking the second anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement explains how New York City police used targeted arrests to sap the gatherings of momentum, while also showing the threats leveled at protests, including the filmmaker himself.

Sullivan’s encounter with police is the tenth arrest in “10 Arrests In 87 Minutes,” as officers throw him into scaffolding while he tried to back away from another arrest. The camera spins around, but the audio remains clear, as an officer tells Sullivan — whose face is pressed against another officer’s shoulder — “Don’t put your mouth near him, ’cause I swear to God I will break your jaw. I will break your jaw if you bite him. And somebody will kill you.”

The film, shot during a demonstration marking the movement’s first anniversary on Sept. 17, 2012, also shows police going into the crowd at various points and dragging people away. In one instance, they throw a person to the ground, but do not arrest him until other protesters attempt to help them up.

Sullivan also points out that many of the arrests he sees involve men wearing hooded sweaters or bandannas, a day after former NYPD spokesperson Paul Browne warned of encounters with “anarchists.”

“That makes it sound like the NYPD has a very clear idea of who they are looking for,” he observes.

Armed EPA raid in Alaska

~ susie ~ 6 Comments

We don’t need soldier equivalents stationed in every town in America:

The recent uproar over armed EPA agents descending on a tiny Alaska mining town is shedding light on the fact that 40 federal agencies – including nearly a dozen typically not associated with law enforcement — have armed divisions.

The agencies employ about 120,000 full-time officers authorized to carry guns and make arrests, according to a June 2012 Justice Department report.

Though most Americans know agents within the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Federal Bureau of Prisons carry guns, agencies such as the Library of Congress and Federal Reserve Board employing armed officers might come as a surprise.

The incident that sparked the renewed interest and concern occurred in late August when a team of armed federal and state officials descended on the tiny Alaska gold mining town of Chicken, Alaska.

The Environmental Protection Agency, whose armed agents in full body armor participated, acknowledged taking part in the Alaska Environmental Crimes Task Force investigation, which it said was conducted to look for possible violations of the Clean Water Act.

However, EPA officials denied the operation was a “raid” and didn’t address speculation about whether it was connected to possible human and drug trafficking.

“Imagine coming up to your diggings, only to see agents swarming over it like ants, wearing full body armor, with jackets that say “POLICE” emblazoned on them, and all packing side arms,” gold miner C.R. Hammond told the Alaska Dispatch.

The other federal agencies participating in the operation were the FBI, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Coast Guard, the National Oceanic and the Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Park Service.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/14/armed-epa-agents-in-alaska-shed-light-on-70-fed-agencies-with-armed-divisions/?intcmp=latestnews#ixzz2f0KQ4z63

Bagel bomber busted at Vital Records

~ odd man out ~ 2 Comments

My plan was to hitchhike from Tinicum swamp past the junkyards and into Philly through the backdoor. My swamp rabbit friend tried to discourage me, but I had no choice, a temp agency was insisting on proof that I really existed, so I had to order a copy of my birth certificate, in person, at the Division of Vital Records, in Center City.

This, of course, is easier said than done. When you get to the Vital Records building, you have to take a number and wait for hours to speak to a clerk through a tiny hole in a bulletproof window. And that’s only if you get past two armed, gray-uniformed guards and their scanning devices, which are to make sure no one brings in bombs or other weapons. Why anyone would want to blow up a bunch of applications for birth and death certificates is a mystery to me, but I guess Big Brother knows.

I was commanded to empty the contents of my pockets into a plastic tray and put the tray and my backpack on the conveyor belt of the x-ray scanner. Then I had to walk between the two poles of another scanner, which (I think) was merely a metal detector. I made it inside but my bag set off an alarm, beep beep. The conveyor belt stopped moving.

bagel

The heavier guard took a long look at a monitor I couldn’t see. Then she eyed me suspiciously and said, “You got something shaped like a bagel in that bag?”

“Yes,” I replied, “A bagel.”

The guard ordered me to walk back through the metal detector, zip open the bag and remove the offending article. I pulled back the tin foil in which I’d wrapped a pumpernickel bagel, my favorite kind.

“You can’t bring no bagel into Vital Records,” she said.

I explained that the bagel was my lunch and promised not to eat it until my business inside was finished, but she wasn’t having any of that.

“You got to eat it outside, or throw it away,” she said, eyeing me even more suspiciously.

You’ve heard of the shoe bomber? I guess she thought I was the bagel bomber, armed with an explosive too subtle for x-rays to detect. It was a losing battle, so I threw the bagel into a nearby trashcan. The guard tensed up, as if fearing the bagel might still go off.

I’d learned my lesson — don’t try to sneak a bagel into a municipal building. But too late! My picture was probably being taken from a dozen angles and sent by Big Brother to cops all over the country, with this message: Be on the lookout for this man. May be carrying explosive bagels.

Footnote: Here’s a good piece about x-ray scanners and police states.

Well, you see, it’s a little bigger than that

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

So in two weeks, we go from the NSA spying on two percent of internet traffic to 75 percent? Will anyone bet on 100?

And, here we go again. This time, it’s the WSJ journal with the scoop on NSA surveillance, and how the defenders of the NSA have been lying to us. Despite claims that the NSA was really only focused on foreign communications, the WSJ is reporting that it actually covers 75% of US internet traffic:

The National Security Agency—which possesses only limited legal authority to spy on U.S. citizens—has built a surveillance network that covers more Americans’ Internet communications than officials have publicly disclosed, current and former officials say.

The system has the capacity to reach roughly 75% of all U.S. Internet traffic in the hunt for foreign intelligence, including a wide array of communications by foreigners and Americans. In some cases, it retains the written content of emails sent between citizens within the U.S. and also filters domestic phone calls made with Internet technology, these people say.

Basically, they’re just revealing more details about the things that whistleblower Mark Klein revealed years ago: that the NSA has deals with the major telcos which scoop up a huge amount of internet traffic.

The programs, code-named Blarney, Fairview, Oakstar, Lithium and Stormbrew, among others, filter and gather information at major telecommunications companies. Blarney, for instance, was established with AT&T Inc., former officials say. AT&T declined to comment.

This filtering takes place at more than a dozen locations at major Internet junctions in the U.S., officials say.

The WSJ report is wrong on one account, though. It claims that people believed that the NSA’s filtering actually happened “where undersea or other foreign cables enter the country” but that’s not true. Mark Klein made it clear that the NSA had machines directly on AT&T’s property.

And, of course, it will come as no surprise that these programs that work directly with telcos to tap into full internet traffic aren’t just about metadata:

…this set of programs shows the NSA has the capability to track almost anything that happens online, so long as it is covered by a broad court order.

[….] Inevitably, officials say, some U.S. Internet communications are scanned and intercepted, including both “metadata” about communications, such as the “to” and “from” lines in an email, and the contents of the communications themselves.

This also shouldn’t be a surprise. For all the talk of “metadata” it was always clear that the surveillance defenders were talking about this program only, which was the Patriot Act Section 215 “business records” program. But other programs, such as these listed above, were clearly about actual content as well.

Breaking: Manning Sentenced 35 years…

~ Boohunney ~ 2 Comments

Huffington Post:

FORT MEADE, Md. — Bradley Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison on Wednesday for handing WikiLeaks a massive cache of sensitive government documents detailing the inner workings of America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Manning, 25, was not allowed to make a statement when his sentence was handed down by military judge Col. Denise Lind. Guards quickly hustled him out of the courtroom, while at least half a dozen spectators shouted their support.

“We’ll keep fighting for you, Bradley,” one exclaimed.

Manning was also dishonorably discharged and demoted to the rank of private. He was ordered to forfeit all pay and benefits.

Manning was convicted on July 30 on 19 counts, including six Espionage Act violations, for his role in the largest leak of classified information in U.S. history. The charges carried a maximum sentence of 90 years, and the prosecution had requested Manning serve 60. His sentencing brings to a close a three-year saga in which he endured nine months in solitary confinement and saw himself transformed into a symbol of one individual’s potential in the internet age to roil the world’s sole superpower.

Greenwald/Miranda Roundup

~ Boohunney ~ 3 Comments

There is nothing like this to spice up the slow moving last weeks of August.

Even if you had been in a drowsy snooze, I am pretty sure you have caught wind that David Miranda, the partner of Glenn Greenwald, was detained at London’s Heathrow Airport over the weekend under Britain Terrorist Act. His laptop and other electronics were seized.

I find interesting the opinions of the acts committed by the Brits along with reactions and criticisms of Greenwald.

Initially, it seemed like this was an act of intimidation towards Greenwald and his partner:

“David (Miranda) is the partner of a journalist, not a journalist himself. The British government clearly believes it’s perfectly fine to target and intimidate journalists and their families and associates — their partners, husbands, wives, children, friends, colleagues — if it’s in the interest of its surveillance partner, the United States.”

I agree that it is not right to harass innocent family members just because one is doing their job. But, in these times, it would be naïve to think that family members and associates are not being watched and this kind of thing is not going to happen.

 

But, it gets a little more complex:

Mr. Greenwald’s partner, David Michael Miranda, 28, is a citizen of Brazil. He had spent the previous week in Berlin visiting Laura Poitras, a documentary filmmaker who has also been helping to disseminate Mr. Snowden’s leaks, to assist Mr. Greenwald. The Guardian had paid for the trip, Mr. Greenwald said, and Mr. Miranda was on his way home to Rio de Janeiro…

Mr. Miranda was in Berlin to deliver documents related to Mr. Greenwald’s investigation into government surveillance to Ms. Poitras, Mr. Greenwald said. Ms. Poitras, in turn, gave Mr. Miranda different documents to pass to Mr. Greenwald. Those documents, which were stored on encrypted thumb drives, were confiscated by airport security, Mr. Greenwald said. All of the documents came from the trove of materials provided to the two journalists by Mr. Snowden.

Miranda was “mule for the cause” carrying classified material and really not so innocent. But, it would be ridiculous to classify Miranda as a terrorist. Confiscating and keeping Miranda’s personal property seems a little over the top. I don’t think “the authorities” knew exactly what Miranda was carrying, but, I can almost bet that “intelligence” has a pretty good idea what information Snowden collected and there was probably no need to keep any of Miranda’s things.

Then, there is the whole “you’ll be sorry” thing. Apparently a quote from Reuters was not translated from Portuguese correctly and was reported like this:

“I will be far more aggressive in my reporting from now. I am going to publish many more documents. I am going to publish things on England, too. I have many documents on England’s spy system. I think they will be sorry for what they did,” Greenwald, speaking in Portuguese, told reporters at Rio de Janeiro’s airport where he met Miranda upon his return to Brazil.

Greenwald really meant this:

Greenwald said in a subsequent email to Reuters that the Portuguese word “arrepender” should have been translated as “come to regret” not “be sorry for.”

“I was asked what the outcome would be for the UK, and I said they’d come to regret this because of the world reaction, how it made them look, and how it will embolden me – not that I would start publishing documents as punishment or revenge that I wouldn’t otherwise have published,” he said in the email.

The Washington Post:

Greenwald’s point seems to have been that he was determined not to be scared off by intimidation. Greenwald and the Guardian have already been publishing documents outlining surveillance programs in Britain, and Greenwald has long declared his intention to continue publishing documents. By doing so, Greenwald isn’t taking “vengeance.” He’s just doing his job.

Let’s take a look around at some other opinions.

Wonkette:

Goddammit, British authorities. Glenn Greenwald does not need any actual real-world reasons to feed his crusading martyr complex. It is what gets him out of bed every morning!

Ugh, we hate it when Greenwald makes his egomaniacal threats. We also hate agreeing with him about anything even when he’s being hysterical (which is always). STOP MAKING US AGREE WITH GLENN GREENWALD, YOU LIMEY TWITS.

David Atkins:

I’ve had my issues with Greenwald. But I don’t care if you believe that Greenwald and Snowden are the embodiments of the Anti-Christ. I don’t care what documents Greenwald’s spouse was carrying, how classified they were, or whether you believe that Greenwald is a journalist. I don’t care.

When a government detains someone who is very clearly not a terrorist for nine hours without access to an attorney under a terrorism statute, that government has proven every point Greenwald wanted to make. The argument is over right there.

Betty Cracker:

Using terrorism statutes to routinely harass Laura Poitras and detain Greenwald’s spouse for nine hours is wrong because they aren’t terrorists. Greenwald’s fulminations about the US/UK targeting Miranda because he’s Greenwald’s hubby are bollocks because the government(s) had very good reason to believe Miranda is an agent in l’affaire Snowden, not just an innocent family member/tourist, but that doesn’t change the fact that anti-terrorism laws are supposed to be about preventing terrorism, not harassing journalists or even polemicists and their assistants.

Tough crowd.

Greenwald’s work regarding Snowden and exposing of the extent of the NSA’s capabilities and other spying is commendable. The information has even shook some on the Right to start criticizing the programs that are eroding Constitutional Rights that many on that side of the spectrum willingly gave up post 9/11.

But, there are plenty of folks keeping a critical eye on the messenger.

This is probably not news to you

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

But now it’s no longer a “conspiracy theory” or “paranoia”:

For years, the Central Intelligence Agency denied it had a secret file on MIT professor and famed dissident Noam Chomsky. But a new government disclosure obtained by The Cable reveals for the first time that the agency did in fact gather records on the anti-war iconoclast during his heyday in the 1970s.

The disclosure also reveals that Chomsky’s entire CIA file was scrubbed from Langley’s archives, raising questions as to when the file was destroyed and under what authority.

The breakthrough in the search for Chomsky’s CIA file comes in the form of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. For years, FOIA requests to the CIA garnered the same denial: “We did not locate any records responsive to your request.” The denials were never entirely credible, given Chomsky’s brazen anti-war activism in the 60s and 70s — and the CIA’s well-documented track record of domestic espionage in the Vietnam era. But the CIA kept denying, and many took the agency at its word.

Now, a public records request by FOIA attorney Kel McClanahan reveals a memo between the CIA and the FBI that confirms the existence of a CIA file on Chomsky.

It’s weird, don’t you think? Why is it that being against our endless wars makes you an enemy of the state?

WTF?

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

Boy, they really do spy on everyone, don’t they?

Organizers of the United Students Against Sweatshops in DC had wondered about “Missy,” an activist who always seemed to be on the scene, though no one seemed to know anything more about her. One thing they did know, however, was that Missy’s appearances were correlated with DC cops showing up at the stores where they were planning (lawful, peaceful) protest actions, preventing them from taking place.

A couple of lucky coincidences and some online sleuthing revealed that Missy was an undercover DC police officer named Nicole Rizzi, who had inflitrated a law-abiding, peaceful group whose purpose was to pressure clothing retailers to buy from suppliers in Bangladesh that met minimum standards on pay and working conditions. The group has filed a lawsuit against the District of Columbia, and they’ve asked the judge for an injunction prohibiting the police from further infiltration and spying of their group.