Animal Farm

Killing Without Consequences: “Counter-Insurgency” Warfare in Greenfield, CA

"A three-member 'break and rake' team approached the house, shattered a window, and threw in a flash-bang grenade. The fire quickly propagated itself through the house, generating a dense black cloud of highly toxic smoke. The SWAT team then trained its weapons on the house, which effectively prevented the victim from escaping from the burning building. The Fire Department responded quickly once fire enveloped Serrato’s home – but the SWAT team held them at bay for nearly a half-hour while the screaming victim was trapped inside. By the time the firefighters could enter the home, Serrato was dead." Continue reading →

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Obama DOJ Asks Court to Grant Immunity to George W. Bush For Iraq War

"In court papers filed today (PDF), the United States Department of Justice requested that George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and Paul Wolfowitz be granted procedural immunity in a case alleging that they planned and waged the Iraq War in violation of international law. Plaintiff Sundus Shaker Saleh, an Iraqi single mother and refugee now living in Jordan, filed a complaint in March 2013 in San Francisco federal court alleging that the planning and waging of the war constituted a 'crime of aggression' against Iraq, a legal theory that was used by the Nuremberg Tribunal to convict Nazi war criminals after World War II." Continue reading →

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Memory’s Half-Life: A Social History of Wiretaps

"American attitudes towards wiretapping significantly shifted during the 1940s, as the war and changes in the class distribution of telephones helped shift judicial acceptance of wiretaps. President Roosevelt issued a secret executive order authorizing widespread Justice Department wire-taps of 'subversives' and suspected spies. Hoover used these vague new powers to investigate not just Nazis but anyone he thought subversive. The social history of wiretaps is a history of mission creep, where FBI agents initially hunting for wartime Nazi spies soon monitored progressive activists fighting racial segregation." Continue reading →

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SWAT Cop: American Neighborhoods Are ‘Battlefields’

"This battlefield mindset is the product of a generation of politicians telling police that they're at war with things -- drugs, terrorism, crime, etc. -- and have then equipped them with the uniforms, tactics, weapons, and other accoutrements of war. One essay by Sgt. Glenn French was particularly disturbing. French serves as commander of a SWAT team in Sterling Heights, Michigan. French doesn't criticize me for arguing that too many police officers have adopted this battlefield mindset. Rather, he embraces the combat mentality, and encourages other cops to do the same." Continue reading →

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Canada plans to use hexacopter drones in war against geese

"Canada’s capital has ordered drone strikes to rid a popular Ottawa beach of pesky geese that dirty the waters with fecal matter, demonstrating on Wednesday how it works. The hexacopter — a 26-inch-wide remote-controlled hobby aircraft that was adapted by its owner for pest control — takes off every morning at dawn and chases away the waterfowl sullying the Ottawa River near Petrie Island park on the city’s east side. 'It’s been really effective,' city councillor Bob Monette told AFP. The city even obtained a special 'scare permit' from wildlife authorities to bother the protected birds. The $30,000-a-year program is to continue through to the end of October." Continue reading →

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Your identity will become “property of the U.S. government” under new rules

"Requirements in Senate Bill 744 for mandatory worker IDs and electronic verification remove the right of citizens to take employment and 'give' it back as a privilege only when proper proof is presented and the government agrees. Any citizen wanting to take a job would face the regulation that his or her digitized high-resolution passport or driver's license photo be collected and stored centrally in a Homeland Security database. The pictures in the national database would then need to be matched against the job applicant's government-issued 'enhanced' ID card, using a Homeland Security-mandated facial-recognition 'photo tool.'" Continue reading →

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Tulsa Area Man Beaten, Left For Dead By OKC Police Officers

"The couple said the beating stemmed from an argument the two were having over lunch meat. As they were arguing, a group of three men stopped to intervene. Two of them were off-duty Oklahoma City police officers. Lewis said one of the men confronted him, 'aggressively started pushing me around, telling me he was a cop and that I was going to do what he said.' Lewis said the men charged him as he asked for names and badge numbers. 'They jumped on me,' Lewis said. 'Began sitting on top of me, punching me directly in the face, while another one in their party was saying, 'hold him under, just hold him under.' And they repeatedly did this.'" Continue reading →

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Phoenix Police “Help” a Man to Death

"There are circumstances in which people might be tempted to seek the help of police officers. If they do so, they should understand that police are neither trained to help, nor are they expected to. They are trained, equipped, and prepared to employ aggressive violence against anybody who doesn’t submit to them immediately and without reservation — including the people whom they are supposedly there to 'help.' This was memorably illustrated by the murder of Michael Ruiz, an emotionally disturbed father of two from Phoenix, Arizona, by the police who had arrived on the scene to 'help' him." Continue reading →

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Man dead after police called for help taser, choke & drag him down a staircase

"Michael Angel Ruiz had a history of drug addiction. On July 28, for reasons unknown, he climbed onto the roof of his apartment. Witnesses called the police to protect his safety. This turned out to have been a fatal decision. First they tased him several times on the roof. He finally complied and hopped down. Cops immediately swarmed him and put him in a choke-hold. He remained in a choke-hold for at least three minutes. Michael Ruiz, now fully restrained, was dragged down the concrete stairs on his face. They allowed his head to dangle and thump against every stair. Video shows him lifelessly suffering head trauma on the descent down the stair case." Continue reading →

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New Hampshire Cops Kill Man Fleeing Drug Sting

"Several Weare police officers and two confidential informants were outside Dunkin' Donuts in Lanctot's Plaza on US Highway 114 doing a drug sting on the target, a suspected heroin dealer. When officers attempted to detain the man, he tried to flee. Two officers then opened fire, wounding the man as he sped off in his vehicle. He made it about one hundred yards before crashing near an ice cream stand along the highway. He was taken by ambulance to a Manchester Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Police have not said why they opened fire and they have not mentioned the seizure of any drugs." Continue reading →

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