Archive for the 'Police State' Category
‘If you notice a heavy military presence around downtown Los Angeles this week, don’t be alarmed’
January 25th, 2012Via: CBS: If you notice a heavy military presence around downtown Los Angeles this week, don’t be alarmed — it’s only a drill. Joint military training exercises will be held evenings through Thursday, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. The LAPD will be providing support for the exercises, which will also be held in […]
Six Million People Are Under Correctional Supervision in the U.S.—More Than Were in Stalin’s Gulags
January 25th, 2012Via: New Yorker: For a great many poor people in America, particularly poor black men, prison is a destination that braids through an ordinary life, much as high school and college do for rich white ones. More than half of all black men without a high-school diploma go to prison at some time in their […]
And Now… Precrime Red Spot Lights
January 25th, 2012Via: AP: The police department in the city of East Orange, New Jersey is installing red spotlights to remotely shine on those police believe are about to commit a crime.
The Age of Transitions
January 23rd, 2012Via: The Age of Transitions:
Iraq Becoming ‘Police State’, Says Rights Group
January 23rd, 2012Meet the new boss… Via: AFP: Iraq is falling back into authoritarianism and headed towards becoming a police state, despite US claims that it has helped establish democracy in the country, Human Rights Watch said on Sunday. The criticism from the New York-based HRW, which the government quickly disputed, comes less than a year after […]
Alaska: Man Accused of Illegally Trading Moose Meat for Firewood
January 23rd, 2012Via: News Miner: The Fairbanks man who is accused of illegally trading moose meat for firewood is taking his case to court. Chad Gerondale, 41, has hired well-known Fairbanks attorney Bill Satterberg to represent him in the “meat for heat” case, as it has been dubbed by online spectators. “I’ve got a lot to say […]
Britain: Undercover Police Had Children with Activists
January 22nd, 2012Via: Guardian: Two undercover police officers secretly fathered children with political campaigners they had been sent to spy on and later disappeared completely from the lives of their offspring, the Guardian can reveal. In both cases, the children have grown up not knowing that their biological fathers – whom they have not seen in decades […]
Bay Area Company Creating Massive Vehicle Location Database from Police License Plate Scanning
January 12th, 2012Here’s one for your Retroactive Surveillance file folder. Via: San Francisco Chronicle: Capitalizing on one of the fastest-growing trends in law enforcement, a private company in Livermore has compiled a database bulging with more than 550 million bits of information that let police know when and where specific license plates of both innocent and criminal […]
Public School as Kafkaesque Nightmare
January 10th, 2012Via: Guardian: More and more US schools have police patrolling the corridors. Pupils are being arrested for throwing paper planes and failing to pick up crumbs from the canteen floor. Why is the state criminalising normal childhood behaviour? The charge on the police docket was “disrupting class”. But that’s not how 12-year-old Sarah Bustamantes saw […]
New York Governor Wants State to Take DNA Samples from More People Convicted of Crimes
January 5th, 2012Via: AFP: New York’s governor on Wednesday proposed making the state the first in the country to take mandatory DNA samples from anyone convicted of a crime, including relatively lesser offenses. Governor Andrew Cuomo, in an annual “State of the State” speech to the New York legislature, said currently DNA was collected in less than […]
