Police State

Feds Threaten To Arrest Lavabit Founder For Shutting Down His Service

"The saga of Lavabit founder Ladar Levison is getting even more ridiculous, as he explains that the government has threatened him with criminal charges for his decision to shut down the business, rather than agree to some mysterious court order. The feds are apparently arguing that the act of shutting down the business, itself, was a violation of the order. That same article suggests that the decision to shut down Lavabit was over something much bigger than just looking at one individual's information -- since it appears that Lavabit has cooperated in the past on such cases. Instead, the suggestion now is that the government was seeking a tap on all accounts." Continue reading →

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Bloomberg’s Public Housing Fingerprinting Idea Stuns, Infuriates Residents

"Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s latest crime-fighting idea had a lot of people riled up on Friday. The mayor wants to fingerprint more than 600,000 people who live in public housing. He said it would be done to make the projects safer. 'The people that live there, most of them, want more police protection. They want more people. If you have strangers walking in the halls of your apartment building, don’t you want somebody to stop and say, ‘Who are you, why are you here?'' But residents who live within the confines of NYCHA buildings said the mayor’s fingerprinting idea goes too far." Continue reading →

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Brooklyn family accuses NYPD of causing father’s fatal heart attack

"The Brooklyn District Attorney will launch an investigation into a botched raid by New York City police following accusations by the Brooklyn family involved that it led to their father suffered a fatal heart attack. WABC-TV reported that 43-year-old Carlos Alcis died early Thursday morning after police entered his family’s home allegedly looking for a suspect in a street attack in the area.Alcis’ family said he collapsed and went into seizures shortly after police entered. One of the victim’s sons, Imaunel alcis, told NY1 that one officer started pumping his heart and asked him to perform CPR, which runs counter to police reports saying officers assisted him." Continue reading →

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The FBI’s Privileged Partners in Crime

"According to legal scholar Harvey Silverglate, each day the typical American commits three acts that could be treated as felonies by a sufficiently creative federal prosecutor. On a typical day the FBI formally authorizes informants and provocateurs on its payroll to commit fifteen unambiguous crimes. The ATF and DEA also run huge networks of informants, but those agencies will not disclose any information about the number of undercover operatives they employ or the criminal activities in which they may be involved. In his book 'Our Enemy, the State,' Albert Nock observed that government doesn’t seek to abolish crime, but rather to monopolize it." Continue reading →

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“Why Did You Call the Police? They Don’t Help”

"In May of last year, Los Angeles resident Veronica Cornejo called the Sheriff’s Office to report that her mentally ill brother was severely agitated and potentially dangerous to himself and his family. The department responded by sending three deputies to the residence, who broke into the home without warning, drew their firearms, and dragged all five members of the family outside. After Veronica began to cry and plead with the deputy not to beat her ailing father, he threw the man on top of his daughter and then all three deputies began to beat both of them. Three members of the family were arrested for resisting arrest. The cases were dismissed." Continue reading →

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Mayor Bloomberg Calls Video Cameras For NYPD Officers “A Nightmare”

"When Judge Shira A. Scheindlin, of Federal District Court in Manhattan, ruled on Monday that the city’s stop-and-frisk program was unconstitutional and ordered that police officers in certain precincts strap tiny cameras to their uniforms to record their dealings with the public, Mr. Bloomberg’s response was immediate and emphatic. 'It would be a nightmare,' he said. 'We can’t have your cameraman follow you around and film things without people questioning whether they deliberately chose an angle, whether they got the whole picture in.'" Continue reading →

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Should Cops Wear Google Glass?

"Even in its most basic form—no fancy infrared add-ons—Google Glass would make the ultimate cop-monitoring tool: the 'stock' models are capable of streaming video and audio to a Google Hangout, which means a supervisor could sit in front of a monitor and watch several officers’ streams in real time. It’s also open to modification, meaning that a third-party developer could build apps for facial recognition, sound triangulation, or crime-scene navigation (the facial-recognition part is already in development). And for a couple hundred dollars, it’s also affordable to most police departments, especially those with budgets fattened by civil forfeiture." Continue reading →

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Police tell victims: Call 911 and you’ll get evicted under ‘nuisance’ laws

"In Pennsylvania and other states, police can force landlords to evict tenants who officers consider to be a nuisance. According to the New York Times, under so-called 'nuisance property' laws, individuals like domestic violence victim Lakisha Briggs of Norristown, PA can be told by police that if they call 911 one more time, they’ll be forced out of their homes. The nuisance ordinances are intended to protect residential neighborhoods from rowdy, disruptive households, but in cases like Briggs’, they can leave victims of violence in an impossible situation, needing to call for help, but knowing it could cost them their home." Continue reading →

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A Powerful Legal Tool, and Its Potential for Abuse: Material Witness Orders

"The orders are meant to help prosecutors compel testimony from problematic witnesses in criminal cases. But the orders are supposed to be used only in extraordinary circumstances, often when prosecutors fear a potential witness might flee instead of testifying. Controversy arose around federal prosecutors’ deployment of material witness orders after 9/11, when it came to light that they had used the warrants to detain large numbers of people to provide information about terror cases. But the use of these orders at the state-level remains largely unexamined." Continue reading →

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Federal authorities now targeting lie detector coaches

"Federal authorities have launched investigations against instructors advertising training for people looking to beat lie detector tests. 'Nothing like this has been done before,' one Customs official, John Schwartz, said of 'Operation Lie Busters' at a polygraphers’ conference in June in Charlotte, North Carolina. 'Most certainly our nation’s security will be enhanced. There are a lot of bad people out there.' Schwartz did acknowledge in his speech that teaching someone how to beat a polygraph test is not illegal. 'When you identify insider threats and you eliminate insider threats, then that agency is more efficient and more effective,' Schwartz said in June." Continue reading →

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