Police State

Kathryn Johnston shooting – Wikipedia

"Kathryn Johnston was an elderly Atlanta, Georgia, woman who was killed by undercover police officers in her home where she had lived for 17 years. Three officers had entered her home in what was later described as a 'botched' drug raid. Officers cut off burglar bars and broke down her door using a no-knock warrant. One of the officers planted marijuana after the shooting. Later investigations found that the paperwork stating that drugs present at Johnston's house, which had been the basis for the raid, had been falsified. The officers later admitted to having lied when they submitted cocaine as evidence claiming that they had bought it at Johnston's house." Continue reading →

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Snapshots of Soviet America: The Rita Hutchens Story (Teaser)

"Rita Hutchens, a middle-aged quilt artist from Sandpoint, Idaho, experienced the dreaded 'midnight knock' -- the hallmark of a totalitarian police state -- as part of a Soviet-style campaign of official persecution. Her 'offense' was to seek redress for being assaulted by a police officer in what was ruled to be an illegal arrest. (This is the teaser for a full-length documentary.)" Continue reading →

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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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Homeland Security retains black race warrior

"Ayo Kimathi is a black supremist, who says in order for blacks to survive, they must kill large numbers of whites. Ayo Kimathi, who writes under the pen name of the 'Irritated Genie', works for the DHS. (Department of Homeland Security) Even more troubling is his job at the DHS, which is to buy guns and ammunition. During the evenings and on the weekends, he prepares for the coming race war and spewing diatribes about gays. He says he believes the white man is encouraging black men to turn gay. His site is named 'War is on the Horizon.'" Continue reading →

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Report of FBI back door roils OpenBSD community [2010]

"The report surfaced in e-mail made public yesterday from a former government contractor, who alleged that he worked with the FBI to implement 'a number of back doors' in OpenBSD, which has a reputation for high security and is used in some commercial products. He said the project was a 'circa 1999 joint research and development project between the FBI and the NSA,' which is part of the Defense Department. The OpenBSD project, which was once funded by DARPA but had its funding yanked in 2003 for unspecified reasons, says that it takes an 'uncompromising view toward increased security.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingReport of FBI back door roils OpenBSD community [2010]

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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ACLU: Secret program blacklists immigrants who are ‘perceived to be Muslim’

"The previously unknown programme, which began in 2008 under George W Bush to identify those with links to terrorism, has continued under President Obama to blacklist law-abiding applicants and profile Muslims as 'national security concerns'. Migrants who have travelled through or lived in areas of known terrorist activity, wired money back to their families, attended a mosque of interest to the FBI or even given a voluntary interview to the agency, can be labelled 'national security concerns', the report, published on Wednesday, says. The report suggests the FBI has used the Carrp rules to pressurise immigrants into becoming informants." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingACLU: Secret program blacklists immigrants who are ‘perceived to be Muslim’

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 →

Continue ReadingPhoenix Police “Help” a Man to Death