Archive for the 'Police State' Category
Court Tosses Case Over GPS Tracking
May 19th, 2009Via: Times Union: A Watervliet man will get a new trial on burglary charges after the state’s top court ruled Tuesday it was wrong for a police investigator to slap a GPS device on the defendant’s van to track his movements without a search warrant. A divided Court of Appeals, in a 4-3 decision, reversed […]
Boy and Girl Explorer Scouts Train to Fight Terrorists, and More
May 14th, 2009This is a cross between America Fuck Yeah and Starship Troopers. Via: New York Times: Ten minutes into arrant mayhem in this town near the Mexican border, and the gunman, a disgruntled Iraq war veteran, has already taken out two people, one slumped in his desk, the other covered in blood on the floor. The […]
Blind Interpreter Detained at Philly Airport for Questioning Flight Delay; Luckily His Visit to the U.S. Only Resulted in Minor Physical Injuries and Nightmares
May 12th, 2009Via: Philadelphia Daily News: A BLIND INTERNATIONAL interpreter who says he was dragged off a Belgium-bound flight, arrested and held in custody in Philadelphia for hours without food or water faces an arraignment Thursday. His crime: He questioned why his U.S. Airways flight was delayed nearly two hours. Nicola Cantisani, 61, of Brussels, Belgium, a […]
Wisconsin Court Upholds Warrantless GPS Tracking by Police
May 11th, 2009Via: Chicago Tribune: Wisconsin police can attach GPS to cars to secretly track anybody’s movements without obtaining search warrants, an appeals court ruled Thursday. However, the District 4 Court of Appeals said it was “more than a little troubled” by that conclusion and asked Wisconsin lawmakers to regulate GPS use to protect against abuse by […]
G20 Police ‘Used Undercover Men to Incite Crowds’
May 11th, 2009Via: Guardian: An MP who was involved in last month’s G20 protests in London is to call for an investigation into whether the police used agents provocateurs to incite the crowds. Liberal Democrat Tom Brake says he saw what he believed to be two plain-clothes police officers go through a police cordon after presenting their […]
Police to Severely Curtail Use of Stop and Search Powers
May 7th, 2009Via: Guardian: Police have bowed to mounting opposition and are to significantly reduce their use of controversial terrorism powers that allow them to stop and search people without reasonable suspicion, the Guardian has learned. Stop and search is one of the most draconian powers employed by police in the war on terror and a constable’s […]
SUPREME COURT CUTS BACK OFFICERS’ SEARCHES OF VEHICLES
April 22nd, 2009WOW! It’s Ripley’s Believe It Or Not on Cryptogon this morning. This is the best news I’ve posted in… Well, I’d pretty much forgotten about good news. It’s not all good (as you’ll read if you click through), but when the driving doom of Cryptogon lets up, even a little, it feels significant. Of course, […]
Rent-A-Cops: Cash-Strapped Cities Using Private Armed Guards Instead of Police
April 21st, 2009Via: Wall Street Journal: Facing pressure to crack down on crime amid a record budget deficit, Oakland is joining other U.S. cities that are turning over more law-enforcement duties to private armed guards. The City Council recently voted to hire International Services Inc., a private security agency, to patrol crime-plagued districts. While a few Oakland […]
Phoenix: Radar Camera Employee Murdered
April 21st, 2009Via: Arizona Republic: It has come under attack from protesters, politicians and even a pickax-wielding resident, but sentiment against Arizona’s photo-enforcement program had not turned to bloodshed until Sunday night. Doug Georgianni, 51, of Cave Creek, was shot and killed while sitting in a van alongside the highway and monitoring cameras that snap photos of […]
FBI Shuts Down Entire Hosting Provider Because of Alleged Activity of a Single Customer
April 4th, 2009Via: PCWorld: U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents have raided a Dallas ISP, knocking the company and almost 50 of its clients offline. The early morning Thursday raid closed down the operations of Core IP Networks, which operated out of two floors of a Telx collocation facility at 2323 Bryan Street in Dallas. The raid […]
