Alternative News

The NYPD Goes After Another Cop Who Secretly Recorded His Boss

"In the years since New York Police Department Officer Adrian Schoolcraft emerged with secretly recorded evidence of misconduct in a Brooklyn precinct, other cops have been inspired to follow in his footsteps, capturing their commanders pressuring them to hit illegal quotas. The NYPD has long denied that it's compelled officers to reach certain figures for arrests, stop-and-frisks, and summonses. But the recordings proved that officers faced the threat of bad assignments, transfers, or other punishment if they didn't make their numbers." Continue reading →

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‘Florida’s Dirtiest Cop’ Charged With Kidnapping Man Who Wanted To File Brutality Complaint

"A notorious former Opa-Locka Police sergeant dubbed 'Florida's Dirtiest Cop' has been arrested for kidnapping a man who wanted to file a police brutality complaint against him. Investigators say Bosque punched the victim in August 2011 while on duty, responding to a domestic call. When the man wanted to file a police brutality complaint at the Opa-Locka Police station, Bosque 'forcefully escorted him from the lobby, handcuffed him and placed him into a holding area.' The victim was held against his will for a short time and was never provided an opportunity to file his complaint, according to the FDLE." Continue reading →

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Man Arrested for Video Recording Military Exercise from City-Owned Parking Lot

"A man who was video recording a national guard training exercise from a city-owned parking lot in North Carolina was arrested over the weekend. The group of citizens who were in the parking lot video recording were speculating that the intent of the exercise was to to train the military to impose martial law on Americans. Whether that is true or not, they certainly weren’t dissuaded from that opinion when one of their friends was arrested because he apparently got too close while recording the helicopter in the air. The man appeared to have been confronted by two national guardsmen before a police officer walks up and arrests him." Continue reading →

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Exonerated Chicago man claims police tortured him into confession

"After spending 24 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, a Chicago man has filed a lawsuit claiming that police subjected him to violent torture methods that made him urinate blood to force him to make a false confession. Former Chicago police Commander Jon Burge, who is named in the complaint, was convicted in 2011 for lying about police torture and sentenced to 4 ½ years in prison. Evidence presented at his trial showed that he suffocated suspects with plastic bags, held loaded guns to their heads and shocked them with electrical devices, Courthouse News reports. The former commander was allegedly also involved in the torture inflicted upon Kluppelberg." Continue reading →

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Cop Shot Litter of Kittens in Front of Screaming Children

"On Monday in Ohio, animal control Officer Barry Accorti shot and killed a litter of kittens in front of freaked-out children nearby. 'He informed [a witness] that shelters were full and that these cats would be going to kitty heaven,' Ohio SPCA Executive Director Teresa Landon told the Sun News. Landon said the home owner, who had called for help, assumed the officer 'would be trapping them or something and taking them to a shelter and they would be humanely euthanized if they were not adopted.' The stunned observer alerted the Ohio SPCA to the officer's actions, and the animal rights group responded with a Facebook campaign to 'expose' the behavior." Continue reading →

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Schwagstock founder Jimmy Tebeau enters federal prison; should other music-festival organizers worry?

"At first prosecutors weren't sure what charges to press against Tebeau. They used asset-forfeiture proceedings to take his land and freeze his bank accounts. Finally, six months after the raid on Tebeau's property, they accused him of 'maintaining a drug involved premises' — a violation originally intended to punish landlords who lease houses to crack dealers. The law, broadly drafted to criminalize properties maintained 'for the purpose of unlawfully manufacturing, storing, distributing, or using a controlled substance,' dates back to the mid-1980s, but it was amended in 2002 at the urging of then-U.S. Senator Joe Biden." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSchwagstock founder Jimmy Tebeau enters federal prison; should other music-festival organizers worry?

How Snowden Did an End Run Around the NSA and the Obama Administration

"Snowden went to the Washington Post first, but when the Post waffled, he dropped them and went to Glenn Greenwald, a pro-civil rights lawyer who lives in Brazil and writes for The Guardian, a British newspaper/website. Greenwald wrote up the story as Snowden gave it to him, thereby scooping the world. He gets 100% credit, as does The Guardian. The Washington Post gets also-ran status. These days, a leaker with a story can get his story out his way. There is always a journalist somewhere who will run it. If it’s in a major publication, which The Guardian is, the story will get coverage. A leaker no longer has to do it anyone else’s way. He can do it his way." Continue reading →

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Putin Lectures Obama on the Need for Greater Privacy

"So here is a former KGB official saying that America has gone too far in spying on its people. Worse, he’s correct. He said that Snowden’s revelations have revealed nothing new. He is correct. James Bamford has repeatedly revealed how far the NSA has gone. But the American public did not know. Snowden has gotten media attention for spilling beans that have long been out of the bag. Americans need a good scandal to catch their attention. Snowden is the source of the scandal. Bamford should have been, but he wasn’t. He was ignored. But the cloak-and-dagger story of Snowden in Hong Kong is irresistible. And now we get Vladimir Putin, defender of civil rights." Continue reading →

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Google, Yahoo, and Facebook Are Scrambling: “We Never Cooperated with the NSA!”

"How can they escape? Snowden’s story confirms James Banford’s story. Bamford revealed all this in 2008. No one cared. Now, without warning, this is a hot story all over the Web. How does a company plausibly deny this? They are all going with a version of this one: 'We never inhaled.' In March, 2012, Wired ran Bamford’s story on the NSA’s huge complex in Utah: 'The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say).' It got some coverage, but there was no follow-through. Congress does not care. Congress funded it." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingGoogle, Yahoo, and Facebook Are Scrambling: “We Never Cooperated with the NSA!”

Assange on NSA leak: Snowden will be prosecuted for years

"The ex-CIA man who blew the lid off America's vast NSA public surveillance net - is promising more explosive revelations. Edward Snowden's supporters are mobilizing too - with tens of thousands signing a petition to pardon the whistleblower. With us now, a man who knows what it's like to blow the whistle in a big way, and incur the wrath of Washington - Julian Assange. He joins talks to RT via broadband from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingAssange on NSA leak: Snowden will be prosecuted for years