Home » Posts tagged 'police' (Page 5)
Tag Archives: police
Eye in the Sky – 60 U.S. Police Departments Have Asked for Drone Certification
Eye in the Sky – 60 U.S. Police Departments Have Asked for Drone Certification
Are drones coming to a police department near you? Possibly.
Next thing you know, they’ll be pepper spraying you from 10,000 feet.
From Yahoo News:
Los Angeles (AFP) – Drones are increasingly making their mark in the arsenal of US police forces, operating in a legal gray area and sparking concerns of constant surveillance of civilians.
Since 2012, government agencies can use small drones — weighing less than 55 pounds, or 25 kilograms — under certain conditions and after obtaining a certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration.
But the FAA, which is preparing small drone regulations, does not have authority on privacy protection and there is no specific framework on the issue on a national level.
Up to two dozen police forces are currently fully equipped with drones and trained to use them, including pioneers Grand Forks in North Dakota; Arlington, Texas; Mesa County, Colorado and the Utah Highway Patrol.
According to the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, at least 60 police forces across the country — from Houston, Texas, to Mobile, Alabama, North Little Rock, Arkansas, and Miami-Dade County — have asked for drone certification.
The FBI also uses drones for specific missions
Rights groups are not opposed to drones as such but rather are concerned that some law enforcement agencies will use them for constant surveillance of the population.
Silly conspiracy theorists. Your government loves you, and would never surreptitiously spy on you.
“Without proper regulation, drones equipped with facial recognition software, infrared technology and speakers capable of monitoring personal conversations would cause unprecedented invasions of our privacy rights,” the ACLU said.
“Tiny drones could go completely unnoticed while peering into the window of a home or place of worship.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
First State Approves Drones with Rubber Bullets, Tasers, Pepper Spray, Tear Gas, Sound Cannons for Domestic Use
First State Approves Drones with Rubber Bullets, Tasers, Pepper Spray, Tear Gas, Sound Cannons for Domestic Use
North Dakota has become the first state to approve government use of drones equipped with “less than lethal weapons”, including “rubber bullets, pepper spray, tear gas, sound cannons, and Tasers”.
The bill passsed largely due to the inherent corruption of the US political system, as the wording was modified to allow for weaponized drones and approved “thanks to a last-minute push by a … lobbyist representing law enforcement—tight with a booming drone industry”.
The Republican who originally proposed the bill had written it to ban all weaponization of drones, and he was dismayed that it ultaimately passed in a form that allows non-lethal weaponization.
Police claim the drones will only be used in “non-criminal” situations, such as surveilance, but did not mention that they have already been used in at least one criminal situation, or that the claim is dubious at best given the ultra-militarized and brutal state of policing in the US, which many, particularly those in ethnic minority groups, liken to military occupation.
A police deputy, explaining why he opposed requiring search warrants for use of drones, told Daily Beast that “you don’t want things that would potentially have a chilling effect on [drone] manufacturers”.
“It’s really all about the commercial development,” said Republican rep. Gary Paur.
As Daily Beast puts it, “In other words, limit civil liberties so Big Drone can spread its wings.”
Of course, there is a bit more to it than that, as numerous US crackdowns on pro-democracy protesters, including mass arrests of civilians and journalists, demonstrate.
Acoustic Cannon Sales to Police Surge After Black Lives Matter Protests
Acoustic Cannon Sales to Police Surge After Black Lives Matter Protests
During a company conference call with financial analysts last week, Tom Brown, the chief executive of LRAD, a military contractor, informed investors that sales were rolling in, not just from Chinese government agencies and the U.S. Navy, but also from American law enforcement.
LRAD manufactures an acoustic cannon that can be used either as a mounted loudspeaker or as a weapon to fire deafening noises at crowds of people.
Over the last year, following a wave of protests over officer-involved killings of black Americans, LRAD has seen an uptick in inquiries from police departments around the country.
Brown told financial analysts in a May conference call about the “renewed interest” from police departments. “A lot of grant money starts to flow to law enforcement, and we’re getting a lot of inquiries” following protests, he said. One inquiry he mentioned came from the Maryland Sheriff’s Department following the protests in Baltimore over the death of Freddie Gray.
Speaking to investors, LRAD executives explained that their product was on site in Baltimore, on loan from Montgomery County, Maryland, though officers ended up not using it on demonstrators. But, the LRAD executives added, the New York Police Department used the cannon as a loudspeaker to order demonstrators in Union Square who were holding a solidarity protest in support of the Baltimore actions to disperse.
Videos of the NYPD using the LRAD cannon to manage the demonstrators were widely circulated on YouTube, company officials boasted. “So we have been getting good press,” Brown noted, adding, “depending on which side of the press you’re looking at, but we’ve been getting very strong press from law enforcement.”
Washington Post Reporter Charged with “Trespassing” in Ferguson, Missouri as the “War on Journalism” Continues
Washington Post Reporter Charged with “Trespassing” in Ferguson, Missouri as the “War on Journalism” Continues
A year ago, Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery, was arrested in a McDonald’s in Ferguson Missouri. The fast-food establishment had been used as a staging area for several reporters, including theHuffington Post’s Ryan Rilley, who was also arrested. Here’s last year’s video clip of Mr. Lowery being harassed by a paramilitary police officer.
Although the men were later released without charges, a year later, they are being charged with “trespassing” by St. Louis County. TheWashington Post reports:
A Washington Post reporter who was arrested at a restaurant last year while reporting on protests in Ferguson, Mo., has been charged in St. Louis County with trespassing and interfering with a police officer and ordered to appear in court.
Wesley Lowery, a reporter on The Post’s national desk, was detained in a McDonald’s while he was in Missouri covering demonstrations sparked by a white police officer fatally shooting an unarmed black 18-year-old.
“Charging a reporter with trespassing and interfering with a police officer when he was just doing his job is outrageous,” Martin Baron, executive editor of The Post, said in a statement Monday. “You’d have thought law enforcement authorities would have come to their senses about this incident. Wes Lowery should never have been arrested in the first place. That was an abuse of police authority.
According to the summons, Lowery is being charged with trespassing on private property despite being asked to leave. He is also charged with interfering with a police officer’s performance of his duties because, the summons alleges, he failed to comply with “
These counts carry a possible fine of $1,000 and up to a year in a county jail, according to the St. Louis County municipal code.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Militarization Is More Than Tanks and Rifles: It’s a Cultural Disease, Acclimating the Citizenry to Life in a Police State
Militarization Is More Than Tanks and Rifles: It’s a Cultural Disease, Acclimating the Citizenry to Life in a Police State
“If we’re training cops as soldiers, giving them equipment like soldiers, dressing them up as soldiers, when are they going to pick up the mentality of soldiers? If you look at the police department, their creed is to protect and to serve. A soldier’s mission is to engage his enemy in close combat and kill him. Do we want police officers to have that mentality? Of course not.”— Arthur Rizer, former civilian police officer and member of the military
Talk about poor timing. Then again, perhaps it’s brilliant timing.
Only now—after the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security (DHS) and Defense have passed off billions of dollars worth of military equipment to local police forces, after police agencies have been trained in the fine art of war, after SWAT team raids have swelled in number to more than 80,000 a year, after it has become second nature for local police to look and act like soldiers, after communities have become acclimated to the presence of militarized police patrolling their streets, after Americans have been taught compliance at the end of a police gun or taser, after lower income neighborhoods have been transformed into war zones, after hundreds if not thousands of unarmed Americans have lost their lives at the hands of police who shoot first and ask questions later, after a whole generation of young Americanshas learned to march in lockstep with the government’s dictates—only now does President Obama lift a hand to limit the number of military weapons being passed along to local police departments.
Not all, mind you, just some.
Talk about too little, too late.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Obama Flip-Flops: Plans To De-Militarize His Militarized Police
Obama Flip-Flops: Plans To De-Militarize His Militarized Police
Having enabled billions of dollars worth of militarized equipment to be unloaded into every police department in the nation – only to have alienated the very Americans that hoped for change the most – it appears President Obama is ready to uncross another red line. Following unrest in U.S. cities over the deaths of black men at the hands of police officers,Reuters reports, during his triup to Camden NJ, Obama announced his plans to put in place new restrictions on the use of military equipment by police departments.
Just six months ago, President Obama was discussing increasing the funding for the militarization of America’s police force.
Now, after various riots, deaths, and police excess, he appears to be flip-flopping away from that idea…
Obama will ban police use of equipment such as explosive-resistant vehicles with tracked wheels like those seen on army tanks, the White House said in a fact sheet. For other types of equipment, such as MRAP (mine-resistant ambush protected) vehicles and riot shields, departments will have to provide added justification for their use.…
In the aftermath of the Baltimore riots, Obama has been speaking out more about race, including in a speech in the Bronx on increasing opportunity for young minority men and during a panel discussion on poverty in Washington.
“Race issues have been more present over the past year for this country. We’ve seen, since Ferguson, issues that have been bubbling up in communities becoming much more present,” said Rashad Robinson, executive director of colorofchange.org, a group that aims to strengthen the black community’s political voice in America.
Obama’s remarks in Camden will be the fourth time in as many weeks that he has held an event to discuss his ideas for improving life for poor black communities. Obama, the country’s first black president, has often been reticent about discussing race issues.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Dozens arrested in anti-capitalism May Day protest in Montreal
Eighty-four protesters arrested, Montreal police use tear gas to disperse demonstrators and bystanders
Police arrested 84 people, including 27 on criminal charges, and used tear gas to disperse demonstrators at a night-time protest in downtown Montreal organized by a local anti-capitalist group called CLAC.
Hundreds of people gathered at at least three different locations around the city, well before the protests officially got underway at 7 p.m. ET.
The group called on protesters to cause the “maximum disruption possible” to businesses downtown.
However, the majority of the crowd were people carrying anti-austerity messages with no intention of vandalism or violence.
By 7:10 p.m., police had already declared the demonstrations illegal and began ordering protesters to disperse.
As demonstrators moved up McGill College Avenue from de Maisonneuve Boulevard, police began launching rounds of tear gas.
Children gassed by police
Families and bystanders were among those gassed early in the demonstration. One woman said she brought her family to the protest thinking it would be peaceful.
“Suddenly, there was tear gas all around us,” the woman, who did not give her name, said, as one of her children cried in the background.
“We have a baby with us.”
Montreal police Sgt. Laurent Gingras said it’s regrettable that families were caught in the fray, but he said police warned people to leave the area before firing rounds of tear gas.
Montreal police confirmed there were arrests, but did not have a final tally.
Police kettled protesters
Gingras said one of the challenges police face was splinter groups that appeared across the city, making it difficult to disperse protesters.
Bystander Sarah Campbell was walking home from eating dinner near Sherbrooke Street and Hutchison Street when she saw police approach one of the splinter groups, comprised of around 15 protesters.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Rising Police Aggression A Telling Indicator Of Our Societal Decline
Rising Police Aggression A Telling Indicator Of Our Societal Decline
My first Uber lift was in South Carolina. My driver was from Sudan originally, but had emigrated to the US 20 years ago. Being the curious sort, I asked him about his life in Sudan and why he moved. He said that he left when his country had crumbled too far, past the point where a reasonable person could have a reasonable expectation of personal safety, when all institutions had become corrupted making business increasingly difficult. So he left.
Detecting a hitch in his delivery when he spoke of coming to the US, I asked him how he felt about the US now, 20 years later. “To be honest,” he said, “the same things I saw in Sudan that led me to leave are happening here now. That saddens me greatly, because where else is there to go?”
It’s time to face some uncomfortable ideas about the state of civilization in the United States. This country is no longer the beacon of freedom illuminating a better way for the world. Why not? Because it has ceased to be civilized.
The recent spate of police brutality videos and the complete lack of a useful or even sane response by the police unions is shaping my writing here. But it goes well beyond those incidents and extends into all corners of the lives of US citizens now, as police abuse is only one symptom of a much deeper problem.
What do we mean by “civilized?” Well, take a look at its official definition and see if you note any descriptors that are lacking in present day US culture:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Police asked telcos for client data in over 80% of criminal probes
Ottawa also sought legal advice on telco’s transparency reports
Canadian police seek online and phone data from telecommunications companies in almost every criminal investigation, according to a briefing note to the federal minister for public safety, obtained by CBC News.
The scale of the practice suggested in the memo indicates it has become routine for officers to tap into private internet activity.
“Canadian police estimate that at least one form of lawful access request is made by government agencies to TSPs [telecom service providers] in about 80-95 per cent of all investigations today,” states the Sept. 26, 2014 memo addressed to Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney, released under the Access to Information Act.
- RCMP telecom subscriber data requests poorly tracked, says privacy czar
- RCMP drops some internet-related probes following Supreme Court ruling
Lawful access includes police asking telecommunications companies to install wiretaps, give access to emails or texts, and hand over identifiers like the name or address of a customer.
Tamir Israel, a lawyer specializing in internet and technology law, says the figure is likely so high because until a Supreme Court decision last June, police didn’t need a warrant to obtain subscriber information such as the name and address associated with an IP address.
“When a tool is unregulated in this way, it becomes a matter of standard practice,” said Israel, a lawyer with the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic at the University of Ottawa. “No assessment is made as to the invasiveness of the tool, whether it’s justified in a particular context or not. It’s easy to do. It’s low cost, so you just do it.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
MAPLE SPRING: THE RED SQUARE MOVEMENT RETURNS AS ANTI-AUSTERITY PROTESTS HEAT UP IN QUEBEC
MAPLE SPRING: THE RED SQUARE MOVEMENT RETURNS AS ANTI-AUSTERITY PROTESTS HEAT UP IN QUEBEC
“They may have the toughest batons. They may have the thickest armor. They may have the largest newspapers. They may have the thickest wallets. But we have the longest breath. We have the courage of the oppressed. We have the strength of the multitude. But mostly, we are just right.” – Patrick Charron Morneau, spokesperson for the Association for Student Solidarity
In the summer of 2012, streets in cities across the province of Quebec, Canada, resounded most evenings with the sound of “les casseroles.” Citizens stood at open windows and on their balconies banging pots and pans as student protesters and sympathizers snarled traffic in daily marches which, at their peak, brought up to 200,000 people onto the streets of Montreal, the province’s largest city.
The Red Square movement was born to fight against the Liberal government’s plan to raise tuition by 75% over five years. Since 1968, mass actions of this sort have stopped Canadian governments in their tracks when it came to raising the fees for higher education.
Today, Quebec’s militant student actions have resulted in the lowest costs for post-secondary education in North America. In practical terms, it has also meant less debt and less worry for young people entering an economy that is producing fewer and fewer well-paid jobs, even for those with degrees.
The success of the Red Square protests – as well as the mobilization of activists from outside groups, especially in the environmental and anti-poverty movements – may be a sign that the energy unleashed in 2012 may now be getting harnessed for a broader fight against the neoliberal economic policies favored by almost every political party in the province and across Canada as a whole.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Police Gas Student Protesters In Quebec
Police Gas Student Protesters In Quebec
Earlier this week we reported that the Blockupy movement — supporters of which set fire to the streets of Frankfurt earlier this month in an anti-austerity protest timed to coincide with the grand opening of the ECB’s new headquarters — had apparently spread across the Atlantic to the streets ofMontreal where students describing themselves as “an association of young communists and anti-capitalists” got tear gassed, sound bombed, and shot with rubber bullets after they failed to provide police with an itinerary as to what they planned to vandalize and when.
Just days later and aggrieved Canadian students are at it again, this time in Quebec City where hundreds gathered to protest austerity measures like shorter library hours. Here’s more from RT News:
Students in Quebec City were sprayed with tear gas by Canadian police after holding an ‘illegal’ gathering to protest the provincial budget. A brief scuffle broke out before law enforcement officers began randomly gassing the demonstrators.Hundreds of students, some traveling from as far as Montreal, had gathered in front of the National Assembly to protest the Quebec government’s budget, which had been table on Thursday.
The demonstrators wanted to hold a protest in front of the National Assembly to show their disgust at cuts to services such as healthcare on campus and library hours. They were met by a line of riot police in full body armor.
According to reports, this group made the same mistake as the last group by not providing police with an itinerary thus rendering the whole endeavor illegal from the get go and so in the end, the outcome was largely the same: some folks got gassed.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Montreal Students Clash With Riot Police In Austerity Protests
Montreal Students Clash With Riot Police In Austerity Protests
Last week, anti-austerity protests in Germany turned the streets of Frankfurt into a veritable horror show as Blockupy supporters dressed as clowns clashed with riot police against a backdrop of flaming cars and utter chaos in what looked like a scene out of Pennywise The Clown Meets Black Hawk Down:
It now appears the Blockupy spirit has migrated across the pond to Montreal, where hundreds of students hit the streets to protest austerity measures drawing the ire of police armed with rubber bullets, tear gas, and sound bombs. Here’s more via RT:
Canadian police used tear gas and reportedly fired rubber bullets and sound bombs at hundreds of students protesting austerity measures at an anti-capitalist rally in Montreal. Thousands took to the streets on Tuesday to protest sweeping education cuts…Many activists wore masks, covering their faces while violating the local bylaw that prohibits covering faces during protests…
The Revolutionary Student Movement organized the Tuesday’s evening march. The group has claimed it is “an association of young Communists and revolutionary anti-capitalists.”
Thousands of students have been boycotting classes to protest against provincial government austerity measures, including new tuition hikes and university cuts.
The protesters reportedly broke car windows, lit flares, and spray painted some stuff, which all would have been ok had they provided police with a schedule initially:
Private Police: Mercenaries for the American Police State
Private Police: Mercenaries for the American Police State
“Corporate America is using police forces as their mercenaries.”—Ray Lewis, Retired Philadelphia Police Captain
It’s one thing to know and exercise your rights when a police officer pulls you over, but what rights do you have when a private cop—entrusted with all of the powers of a government cop but not held to the same legal standards—pulls you over and subjects you to a stop-and-frisk or, worse, causes you to “disappear” into a Gitmo-esque detention center not unlike the one employed by Chicago police at Homan Square?
For that matter, how do you even begin to know who you’re dealing with, given that these private cops often wear police uniforms, carry police-grade weapons, and perform many of the same duties as public cops, including carrying out SWAT team raids, issuing tickets and firing their weapons.
This is the growing dilemma we now face as private police officers outnumber public officers (more than two to one), and the corporate elite transforms the face of policing in America into a privatized affair that operates beyond the reach of the Fourth Amendment.
Mind you, it’s not as if we had many rights to speak of, anyhow.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Let’s Not Sacrifice Freedom Out Of Fear
Let’s Not Sacrifice Freedom Out Of Fear
A scientist, or any knowledgeable person, will tell you climate change is a serious threat for Canada and the world. But theRCMP has a different take. A secret report by the national police force, obtained by Greenpeace, both minimizes the threat of global warming and conjures a spectre of threats posed by people who rightly call for sanity in dealing with problems caused by burning fossil fuels.
The RCMP report has come to light as federal politicians debate the “anti-terrorism” Bill C-51. Although the act wouldn’t apply to “lawful advocacy, protest, dissent and artistic expression,” its language echoes the tone of the RCMPreport. It would give massive new powers to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to prevent any person or group from “undermining the security of Canada,” including “interference with critical infrastructure” and the “economic or financial stability of Canada.” And it would seriously infringe on freedom of speech and expression. The new CSIS powers would lack necessary public oversight.
The RCMP report specifically names Greenpeace, Tides Canada and the Sierra Club as part of “a growing, highly organized and well-financed anti-Canada petroleum movement that consists of peaceful activists, militants and violent extremists who are opposed to society’s reliance on fossil fuels.” The report downplays climate change, calling it a “perceived environmental threat” and saying members of the “international anti-Canadian petroleum movement … claim that climate change is now the most serious global environmental threat and that climate change is a direct consequence of elevated anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions which, reportedly, are directly linked to the continued use of fossil fuels.” It also makes numerous references to anti-petroleum and indigenous “extremists”.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
