Archive for the 'Police State' Category
‘Stop and Frisk on Steroids’
June 2nd, 2014Via: The Atlantic: Last year, police in Miami Gardens, Florida briefly made headlines after surveillance video captured their harassment of a black clerk at a convenience store. They stopped and questioned the man, Earl Sampson, a ludicrous 258 times. On 62 occasions, they arrested him for trespassing at his place of employment, a pattern of […]
LAPD Adds Drones to Arsenal, Says They’ll Be Used Sparingly
May 31st, 2014*wink* Via: Los Angeles Times: The Los Angeles Police Department has acquired some eyes in the sky. On Friday, the department announced that it had acquired two “unmanned aerial vehicles” as gifts from the Seattle Police Department. The Draganflyer X6 aircraft, which resemble small helicopters, are each about 3 feet wide and equipped with a […]
What If U.S. Cities Just Stopped Participating in the War on Drugs?
May 17th, 2014Via: Citylab: Novick describes himself as “ambivalent” about drug legalization, and says his proposal is about the best use of tax dollars. “We can limit our inefficient expenditures of money without repealing drug laws,” he says. “It’s up to the city to determine how much money it’s going to spend chasing drugs dealers.”
Brazil Unveils ‘Robocop’ Suit to Protect Elite Police Unit During World Cup
May 15th, 2014Via: National Post: There will be a RoboCop style to the face of policing in Rio when football fans turn up for the World Cup in Brazil next month. Members of a special unit set up for the tournament and the 2016 Olympics in Rio have been given 200 sets of the 22lb “RoboCop” protective […]
New Zealand: Big Brother Has to Sign Off on ISP Infrastructure Changes and Personnel
May 13th, 2014So it goes… Via: ITnews: Local and international telcos and network providers in New Zealand are now required to comply with strict and complex new communications interception and security legislation. … Known as the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Act (TICSA), the new law requires network operators to register with the NZ Police. Similary, suppliers […]
Florida: Police Execute Two Unarmed People, Shoot Two of Their Own In Unhinged Rampage
May 9th, 2014This is Florida Gold. Via: CBS: On December 10, more than two dozen police officers from across Miami Dade County converged on a blue Volvo that had crashed in the backyard of a townhouse on 65th Street just off 27th Avenue. As the car was wedged helplessly between a light pole and a tree, nearly […]
Eyes Over Compton, “We Basically Kept it Pretty Hush Hush”
May 6th, 2014Via: The Atlantic: This is the future if nothing is done to stop it. In a secret test of mass surveillance technology, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department sent a civilian aircraft* over Compton, California, capturing high-resolution video of everything that happened inside that 10-square-mile municipality. Compton residents weren’t told about the spying, which happened […]
Feds Beg Supreme Court to Let Them Search Phones Without a Warrant
April 24th, 2014Via: Wired: American law enforcement has long advocated for universal “kill switches” in cellphones to cut down on mobile device thefts. Now the Department of Justice argues that the same remote locking and data-wiping technology represents a threat to police investigations–one that means they should be free to search phones without a warrant. In a […]
#myNYPD Twitter Campaign Backfires, Promotes Photos of Police Brutality Instead of Positive Encounters with Public
April 23rd, 2014Via: New York Daily News: An exercise in social media outreach turned #epicfail Tuesday when users flooded the Twittersphere with some of the NYPD’s most infamous moments of brutality. The NYPD, through its Twitter page, innocuously asked people on to post pictures of themselves interacting with New York’s Finest — complete with the hashtag myNYPD. […]
Introducing AISight: CCTV Network Completely Run by AI
April 22nd, 2014Via: ITProPortal: BRS Labs’ AISight is different because it doesn’t rely on a human programmer to tell it what behaviour is suspicious. It learns that all by itself. The system enables a machine to monitor is environment, and build up a detailed profile of what can be considered “normal” behaviour. The AI can then determine […]
