Archive for the 'Police State' Category
Security Check Now Starts Long Before You Fly
November 4th, 2013Via: New York Times: The Transportation Security Administration is expanding its screening of passengers before they arrive at the airport by searching a wide array of government and private databases that can include records like car registrations and employment information. While the agency says that the goal is to streamline the security procedures for millions […]
China: ‘Unprecedented’ Policy Changes Ahead
October 28th, 2013Via: Bloomberg: Chinese Politburo member Yu Zhengsheng said reforms to be discussed at a Communist Party meeting next month will be unprecedented, adding to signs that leaders are resolved to spur far-reaching policy changes. Yu’s comments, made in a speech at a forum to promote relations with Taiwan, were reported by the official Xinhua News […]
Some Florida Police Are Using Data to Predict Crime
October 27th, 2013Via: FastCompany: Well, the Fort Lauderdale Police Department isn’t using an oracle yet, but it is getting one step closer to Minority Report-style crime predicting. The department has become the latest agency to use big data analytics and data mining to prevent crime by staying one step ahead of criminals. According to IBM, the company […]
Meet the Private Companies Helping Cops Spy on Protesters
October 25th, 2013Via: Rolling Stone: While the specifics of which police departments utilize what surveillance technologies is often unclear, there is evidence to suggest that use of mass surveillance against individuals not under direct investigation is common. “The default is mass surveillance, the same as NSA’s ‘collect it all’ mindset,” says King. “There’s not a single company […]
Audio Announcement at George Bush Intercontinental Airport
October 13th, 2013Via: Police State USA: “You are also reminded that any inappropriate remarks or jokes concerning security may result in your arrest.”
America’s Police Are Looking More and More Like the Military
October 8th, 2013Via: Guardian: America’s streets are looking more and more like a war zone. Last week, in a small county in upstate New York with a population of roughly 120,000 people, county legislators approved the receipt of a 20-ton Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle, donated by the US Defense Department to the county sheriff. Between […]
Man Held in Solitary Confinement for 41 Years for a Crime He Didn’t Commit, Released from Prison on Verge of Death
October 2nd, 2013Via: The Times Picayune: In the last 41 years, Herman Wallace has been incarcerated for a robbery he did commit, indicted for a murder a court ruled he didn’t and diagnosed with a cancer that will end his life. But Tuesday night, he passed through the prison gates and, as a free man, made his […]
To Protect and Serve? MRAPS Come Home
September 28th, 2013Via: Dallas Observer: Now that the war in Iraq is officially over and the one in Afghanistan winding down, the Department of Defense found itself facing a conundrum. It had just spent billions of dollars buying heavily armored personnel carriers designed to stand up to insurgent attacks only to find that it had run out […]
Criminal: How Lockup Quotas and “Low-Crime Taxes” Guarantee Profits for Private Prison Corporations
September 25th, 2013Via: In the Public Interest: This report discusses the use of prison bed occupancy guarantee clauses in prison privatization contracts and explores how bed occupancy guarantees undermine criminal justice policy and democratic, accountable government. The report sheds light on the for-profit private prison industry’s reliance on high prison populations, and how these occupancy guarantee provisions […]
On Constitution Day, California College Student Ordered to Stop Handing Out Constitutions
September 20th, 2013Via: Huffington Post: Robert Van Tuinen, a student at Modesto Junior College in California, had a theory. He believed that the policies at his college limiting protests and expression were so restrictive that the college would try to shut him down even if he tried to hand out copies of the United States Constitution on […]
