Alternative News

Florida man attacked, arrested for ‘walking on wrong side of the road’

"A Florida man is suing the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office over a violent arrest in December 2012 that the officer was not able to defend in court. First Coast News reported on Monday that Bobby Wingate was cited by an officer for 'walking down the wrong side of the road' during the stop, then punched in the face. When the officer pulled out his Tazer, Wingate called 911 to protect himself. Wingate was arrested, charged with resisting arrest without violence and walking down the wrong side of the road and brought to trial. But in court, the officer testified he was not sure what side of the road Wingate was on, prompting the judge to dismiss the case." Continue reading →

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New Orleans Cop Gets Four Years For Fatal Drug Raid Shooting

"On March 7 of last year, Colclough was among a group of officers who raided her home on Prentiss Street in Gentilly, looking for evidence of drug dealing. As they marched up the stairs, 20-year-old Wendell Allen appeared at the top of the staircase. He was shirtless, wearing only pants and a pair of sneakers. He had nothing in his hands, Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro said Friday. He was unarmed. But Colclough fired his weapon once. The bullet tore through Allen’s chest, into his heart and his lungs. He fell on the landing and died within seconds." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNew Orleans Cop Gets Four Years For Fatal Drug Raid Shooting

Prison Phone Call Industry Will Fight New FCC Rules Lowering Inmate Rates

"After a decade of delay, the FCC voted 2-1 in August to set maximum rates for collect and prison debit card calls. The new maximum rate for a collect call will be 25 cents a minute -- still far above the average for a traditional landline, but a serious reduction. In an interview with The Huffington Post, the CEO of the second-largest company in the $1.2 billion a year industry said he will go to court to stop the still-unreleased rules if they are issued as described in an FCC press release. He also lashed out at the industry's critics. After a decade-long period of consolidation and mergers in the industry, Securus and another company, Global-Tel-Link, control 80 percent of the prison phone call market." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingPrison Phone Call Industry Will Fight New FCC Rules Lowering Inmate Rates

Private Plane Pilots Face Warrantless Drug Searches

"Private plane pilots, especially those traveling to or through states with relaxed marijuana laws, are being subjected to warrantless searches by state and federal law enforcement, the Toledo Blade reported Monday. 'None of the stops resulted in anything being found,' said Steve Hedges, a spokesman for the owners and pilots association. 'In most cases, the pilots were stopped and held while their planes were searched… I'm told one pilot was asleep in a motel room with his wife when agents kicked the door down and took them back out to the airport to search his plane, only to find nothing there.' The pilots' group has filed Freedom of Information Act requests for documentation justifying the searches." Continue reading →

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Texas Trooper Cleared in Helicopter Drug War Killings

"Trooper Miguel Avila was aboard the Department of Public Safety (DPS) chopper as it participated in the pursuit of the pickup. DPS said Avila believed the truck, whose bed was covered with a cloth, was carrying drugs, and that he opened fire to disable it because the fleeing vehicle was headed toward a school zone. (The shooting took place on an unpaved rural road.) The truck crashed after being fired upon. Police found no drugs, but instead found nine Guatemalan immigrants and a teenage driver. Six of the Guatemalans were in the bed of the pickup covered by a cloth. Two of them, Marco Antonio Castro and Jose Leonardo Coj Cumar, were fatally wounded by Avila's gunfire." Continue reading →

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Lavabit’s Owner Appeals Secret Surveillance Order That Shuttered Site

"The owner of the encrypted email company Lavabit has formally appealed the secret surveillance order that led him to defiantly shutter the site last month. But the details of the case were immediately placed under seal in the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, records show. The Texas-based email service shut down on August 8, blaming a court battle it had been fighting, and losing, in secret. In a statement announcing the closure, and in subsequent interviews, Lavabit owner Ladar Levison complained that he’s prevented from revealing exactly what the government asked him to do, or who it was targeting." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingLavabit’s Owner Appeals Secret Surveillance Order That Shuttered Site

6 Whopping Government Misstatements About NSA Spying

"Whistleblower Edward Snowden’s leaks about NSA spying have set off a fierce global debate about security and privacy in the internet age. The revelations of the United States performing mass surveillance on an international scale have also unleashed an avalanche of government misstatements aimed at defending, or even denying, the NSA’s dragnet surveillance. We’ve gone through them and picked out some of the biggest whoppers." Continue reading →

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Ex-TSA screener threatens LAX on eve of 9/11 anniversary

"Early this morning, members of a federal task force arrested Alpha Onuoha, a screener with the Transportation Security Administration who quit his position. According to Federal Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Laura Einmiller, Onuoha had been suspended recently, but suddenly resigned his position Tuesday afternoon and allegedly left a 'suspicious package' for another screener at TSA’s LAX Headquarters. The package is believed to have contained an eight-page letter in which Onuoha allegedly discusses the incident that led to his suspension, as well as his general feelings of disdain for the United States." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingEx-TSA screener threatens LAX on eve of 9/11 anniversary

Fed Warns of ‘Escalating Threats’ to U.S. Payment System

"The central bank oversees the nation's payment system. The Fed is seeking public comments on the weaknesses of the system, including its inability to process transactions in near-real-time. The U.S. lags behind other countries in the speed of transactions, the Fed said. 'In a world where several other countries are moving to ubiquitous near-real-time retail payment systems, the U.S. payment system does not have this capability,' according to the paper. The central bank also said 'cross-border payments from and to the United States are slow, inconvenient, costly and lack transparency regarding fees and timing.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingFed Warns of ‘Escalating Threats’ to U.S. Payment System