Immigration agents are holding US residents in
unlisted and unmarked subfield offices, turning our legal system upside
down.
"If you don't have enough evidence to charge someone criminally but you think
he's illegal, we can make him disappear." Those chilling words were spoken by
James Pendergraph, then executive director of Immigration and Customs
Enforcement's (ICE) Office of State and Local Coordination, at a conference of
police and sheriffs in August 2008. Also present was Amnesty International's
Sarnata Reynolds, who wrote about the incident in the 2009 report "Jailed
Without Justice" and said in an interview, "It was almost surreal being there,
particularly being someone from an organization that has worked on
disappearances for decades in other countries. I couldn't believe he would say
it so boldly, as though it weren't anything wrong."......Read
Article
Amy Goodman
Detained at Canadian Border, Questioned About Speech…and 2010 Olympics
I, for one, welcome Canada's coming
military overlords
Do they know something we don't?
Published on Saturday,
Nov. 28, 2009 12:00AM ESTLast updated on
Sunday, Nov. 29, 2009 6:20PM EST
It turns out
that, apart from everything else it has going on at the moment, the
Department of National Defense is in the midst of a $25,000 pilot
project aimed at determining which uniform designs would best camouflage
Canadian soldiers if our troops were deployed in our own cities.
Do they know something we don't?........Read
Article
Canada's
secret spy days are over: CSIS chief
Public terrorism trials are changing the way
government spies operate, says Canada's spymaster, Jim Judd.
By The Ottawa CitizenApril
29, 2008
Public terrorism trials are changing the way government spies
operate, says Canada's spymaster, Jim Judd.
As a consequence of
the fight against global Islamic terrorism, an increasing number of
open-court criminal prosecutions in Canada, the U.S. and Europe
have, at their genesis, information collected by shadowy secret
agents rather than police officers...........more
New
rule puts U.S. Coast Guard in Canadian waters
Updated Tue. May. 26 2009 9:15 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
Canada and the U.S. signed an agreement Monday designed to increase border
security by allowing the RCMP and the U.S. Coast Guard to team up and ride in
each others' vessels during border patrols.
Known as the Shiprider program, the new rules intend to improve security
and eliminate jurisdictional grey areas in Canada-U.S. waterways. Without the
new program, vessels must stop at the border and call upon the other country's
officials for help.
The Shiprider program has been used as a pilot program over the past few
years to catch smugglers and criminals on joint waterways........more
Why Are Boy
Scouts Being Trained to Fight Terrorists?
Scouting
sure has changed since I met with my fellow Cub Scouts in the basement of
St. Paul's Episcopal Church.
The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy
Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young
people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and
escalating border violence — an intense ratcheting up of one of the group’s
longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police
officers and firefighters.
“This is about being a true-blooded American guy and girl,” said A. J.
Lowenthal, a sheriff’s deputy here in Imperial County, whose life clock, he
says, is set around the Explorers events he helps run. “It fits right in
with the honor and bravery of the Boy Scouts.”..............more
U.S. begins beefing up Canadian border
security
by Bob Drogin - May. 9, 2009 11:37
AM Los Angeles Times
High above the rugged border, an unmanned Predator B drone
equipped with night-vision cameras and cloud-piercing radar scanned the
landscape for signs of smugglers, illegal immigrants or terrorists.
Armed agents checked the identification of border crossers
while radiation sensors and other devices monitored vehicles entering by road.
Soon, a new network of telescopic and infrared video cameras mounted atop
80-foot-tall metal towers will rise above critical locations.
The beefed-up border security is not taking place along
America's chaotic southern border - riven by drug smuggling, gun running and
illegal immigration - but, rather, its traditionally boring northern boundary
with Canada...........more
'The Most
Humiliating Experience I Have Ever Had' -- Why Is the Supreme Court So
Callous About Privacy?
A teenage girl is strip-searched and
gets snickered at by old men in robes for challenging it -- what's so
funny about the Fourth Amendment?
Savana Redding was a 13-year-old eighth-grader at Arizona's Safford Middle
School when she was pulled out of class one day by her school's vice
principal, Kerry Wilson, and told to bring her books with her.................more
PA Judges Got Cash
to Lock Up Teens, Revealed a Broken Justice System
The structure of private detention and prison
contracting creates incentives and behaviors that poison our system of
criminal justice.
Last month, two Pennsylvania judges pled guilty to accepting $2.6 million
in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately-operated detention centers.
One judge secured the contracts for the firms and the other judge kept the
centers filled by sentencing over 5,000 teens, many for first-time offenses,
since the scheme started in 2003..............more
Companion Story
Despite a
Crashing Economy, Private Prison Firm Turns a Handsome Profit
The GEO Group Inc., a private prison firm paid
millions by the government to detain undocumented immigrants, is doing
just fine.
While the nation's economy flounders, business is booming for The GEO Group
Inc., a private prison firm that is paid millions by the U.S. government to
detain undocumented immigrants and other federal inmates. In the last year and
a half, GEO announced plans to add a total of at least 3,925 new beds to
immigration lockups in five locations. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE) agency and the U.S. Marshals Service, which hire the company, will fill
the beds with inmates awaiting court and deportation proceedings.............more
Newly Released Secret
Memos Provide the Blueprint for Bush's Police State
The memos' authors, John Yoo and
Jay Bybee, should be investigated, prosecuted, and disbarred.
Seven newly released memos from the Bush Justice Department reveal a
concerted strategy to cloak the President with power to override the
Constitution. The memos provide "legal" rationales for the President to
suspend freedom of speech and press; order warrantless searches and seizures,
including wiretaps of U.S. citizens; lock up U.S. citizens indefinitely in the
United States without criminal charges; send suspected terrorists to other
countries where they will likely be tortured; and unilaterally abrogate
treaties. According to the reasoning in the memos, Congress has no role to
check and balance the executive. That is the definition of a police
state.............more
Judges Plead Guilty in Scheme to Jail
Youths for Profit
by Ian Urbina and Sean D. Hamill
At worst, Hillary Transue thought she might get a stern lecture when
she appeared before a judge for building a spoof MySpace page
mocking the assistant principal at her high school in Wilkes-Barre,
Pa. She was a stellar student who had never been in trouble, and the
page stated clearly at the bottom that it was just a
joke............more
Oakland Residents Rise
Up to Protest Brutal Murder By Police
Posted by Adrienne Maree Brown Brown,
RaceWire at 8:31 AM on January 8, 2009.
"As I write this, rumors are flying and media is
fanning the riot flames."
This piece was originally posted last evening over at
RaceWire, the blog for
ColorLines.
As I write this there are no less than 6 helicopters circling overhead in
downtown Oakland. On the first day of the 10th year since Amadou Diallo was
brutally gunned down by police in New York City, Oscar Grant was fatally shot
in the back by a BART police officer, and the event was caught on video.
As I write this, rumors are flying and media is fanning the riot flames --
car and trash fires, police in riot gear and tanks, restaurant windows being
smashed, tear gas and rubber bullets being used. We won’t know the full
picture till the night is over and the smoke clears, but the story of the
successful nonviolent protest earlier this evening has been overshadowed by
this angry chaos..................more
George Bush Shoe-Thrower 'Too
Severely Beaten' for Court Appearance
Iraqi journalist who threw
his shoes at US president was not taken to court because it
could 'trigger anger', alleges brother
by Peter Walker and agencies
The brother of an Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at
George Bush claimed today that the television reporter was too
badly beaten to appear in court, as the speaker of Iraq's
parliament reportedly announced his resignation over the
issue.
Dargham al-Zaidi said he was told a judge had been to see
his younger brother, Muntazer, at the jail where he has been
held since throwing his shoes at the US president during a
press conference in Baghdad on Sunday. The television reporter
– whose actions have made him a star in the Arab world –
called Bush a "dog" and said he was angry at the US occupation
of his country......................more.
Posted by Digby,
Hullabaloo at 10:28 AM on
December 1, 2008.
The police have no right to shoot people with
electricity for having a "bad attitude."
Torridjoe at
Loaded Orygun is following the taser controversy and sees the same problem
that I do with this weapon. He recounts
this interesting story in the Portland Mercury about the city's use of
tasers, which discusses at some length the data that shows the seemingly
inevitable "mission creep" that overtakes police departments when they start
using the weapon................more
Surprise: Cops Who
Get Tasered Really Don't Like It
Posted by Digby,
Hullabaloo at 8:37 AM on
November 24, 2008.
Apparently some police officers have a bone to pick with
Taser International Inc.
This report
from the Las Vegas Sun about their
police department's experience with tasers is fascinating. (Too bad the
Brits didn't read it before deciding to
arm their entire police
force with these torture devices.) One of the most interesting thing
about it is that nearly all the information police receive is from the Taser
company itself.
Several cops got on their knees on a rubber gym mat. Kneeling in a
line, they linked arms, interlaced hands, and looked up. All they knew of
what comes next is this: It's going to smart.
This was called the "daisy chain." It was part of the Metro Police
Taser training program, the alternative to hitting a single individual
with thousands of volts from the weapon. It was the option officer Lisa
Peterson chose, a decision she regrets.........more
Preemptive Policing & the National Security
State: Repressing Dissent at the Republican National Convention
With "preemptive policing" all the rage in
Washington, the whistleblowing website Wikileaks
has done it again, exposing how repressive trends in the U.S. had real world
consequences for democracy during September's Republican National Convention (RNC)
in St. Paul, Minnesota.
On November 15, the global whistleblowers
published a leaked planning
document
"Special Event Planning: 2008 Republican National Convention," a dense
schematic used by repressors who targeted activists, journalists and concerned
citizens during the far-right conclave...........more
Members of Congress were told they could face martial law if they didn't
pass the bailout bill. This will not be the last time.
Background: the First Brigade of the Third Infantry Division, three to four
thousand soldiers, has been deployed in the United States as of October 1.
Their stated mission is the form of crowd control they practiced in Iraq,
subduing "unruly individuals," and the management of a national emergency. I
am in Seattle and heard from the brother of one of the soldiers that they are
engaged in exercises now. Amy Goodman
reported that an Army spokesperson confirmed that they will have access to
lethal and non lethal crowd control technologies and tanks.
George Bush struck down Posse Comitatus, thus making it legal for
military to patrol the U.S. He has also legally established that in the "War
on Terror," the U.S. is at war around the globe and thus the whole world is a
battlefield. Thus the U.S. is also a battlefield........more
Amy Goodman and Two
Democracy Now! Producers Unlawfully Arrested at RNC
Goodman has been charged with obstruction; felony riot charges are pending
against producers Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar.........more
Published on Friday, September 5, 2008 by
One
World.net
RNC Media Intimidation Condemned
by Jeffrey Allen
MINNEAPOLIS - Police and local and federal officials in St. Paul,
Minnesota are under fire from independent media groups for their
crackdown on reporters at this week's Republican National
Convention......more
The town of Postville, Iowa, population 2,000, has been turned
into an open-air prison. Jerry Johnson, who works at nearby Luther
College, called it something out of a bad science-fiction movie or
the kind of thing a 1930s totalitarian regime might have cooked
up.
"This was not only a grievous injustice but a shame on the
state of Iowa and the federal government," said Mr. Johnson.
"These were good, decent people who were also the most
defenseless."
On May 12, immigration officials swooped in to arrest 400
undocumented workers from Mexico and Guatemala at the local
meat-packing plant, a raid described as the biggest such action at
a single site in U.S. history. The raid left 43 women, wives of
the men who were taken away, and their 150 children without status
or a means of support. The women cannot leave the town, and to
make sure they do not they have been outfitted with leg monitoring
bracelets..............more
At
JFK Airport, Denying Basic Rights Is Just Another Day at the Office
I was recently stopped by Homeland Security as I was returning from a trip
to Syria. What I saw in the hours that followed shocked and disturbed
me...........
more
China Unveils
Frightening Futuristic Police State at Olympics
VANCOUVER - The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has doubled its
use of Taser stun guns since 2005, according to an investigation by
CBC and the Canadian Press. The RCMP has also been found to be less
than forthright in producing information related to Taser incidents.more
More Police
Thuggery: Cop Attacks 14-Year-Old Skateboarder
Wouldn't you prefer to have
your tax dollars go toward police officers focusing on real urban crime,
rather than kids skateboarding?
This unhinged, power-mad member of the Baltimore
Police Department, Officer Salvatore Rivieri, was suspended after an incident
last year, captured on video, where he attacked a skateboarder down at the
Inner Harbor, where skateboarding is banned. Rivieri, instead of simply
telling them to break it up, he gives the beat-down to 14-year-old Eric Bush.
(AP): ..........
more
Florida School Security Officer Tasers
11-Year-Old Girl .........
more
Public
doesn’t have all the facts, force says
By DAVENE JEFFREY Staff Reporter
Fri. Feb 1 - 1:05 PM
Halifax police struck back at detractors Thursday, insisting their officers
went by the book when they Tasered a 17-year-old girl in her bedroom last
year.
Student says he put his
hands up before he was zapped by controversial weapon
Jessey Bird, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Ottawa police used a Taser last week to subdue a 17-year-old Rideau High
School student who was behaving erratically in traffic near the school........
more►
Unnecessary and Excessive’: Brattleboro Receives Independent Report
Calling July 24 Use of a Taser Unjustified
by Bob Audette
BRATTLEBORO - The town can expect another lawsuit to hit its attorney’s desk
soon.
“We will be naming all parties,” said St. Johnsbury attorney David Sleigh, who
is representing Jonathan Crowell and Samantha Kilmurray, two nonviolent
protesters who were stunned with Tasers July 24, 2007, by Brattleboro police
after they refused to leave private property
Those parties include the town of Brattleboro, its police department and all
the officers involved in the incident, said Sleigh....
more►
The past couple of weeks have been rocky on the stock market, but one
company that hasn’t been suffering too much is Taser International. At the end
of January, its stock jumped by an impressive 8 per cent, and it’s even higher
today.
Matthew McKay, a stock analyst at Jeffries & Co. in San Francisco, cites a
simple cause: news that the Toronto Police Services Board plans to buy 3,000
new Taser electroshock weapons, at a cost of $8.6 million for gear and
training. If the deal goes ahead, tasers would become standard issue weaponry
for all of Toronto’s frontline officers, right next to their handcuffs and
batons.
On Wednesday night, I participated in a public forum about the prospect of
a fully taser-armed police force, organized by the Toronto Police
Accountability Coalition. One speaker, who had a history of psychiatric
illness, told the room: “We’re worried because we’re the people who are going
to get shocked.”
It’s a concern grounded in experience. According to Toronto Police Chief
Bill Blair’s own analysis, in 2006, city cops deployed the devices in 156
incidents. In all but nine, the subject appeared “to have a mental disorder”
or was in some sort of “crisis.”
Several speakers at the forum pointed out that $8.6 million would be better
spent keeping people out of crisis - by opening more beds and providing better
mental health and addiction services. Instead, four homeless shelters were
closed last year, at a loss of 258 beds.
But the most troubling remark of the evening was this: “Why is this
happening now?” The timing is indeed baffling. It was only three months ago
that video of the death of Robert Dziekanski at the Vancouver International
Airport caused an international furor. The tragedy exposed the most prevalent
misconception about tasers: that they are used primarily as an alternative to
guns. As former Toronto mayor John Sewell told me, “the taser is not the thing
that replaces the gun, it’s what replaces all the other things that police
might do other than use a gun, like talk to you.” .......
more►
THREE people have died in the U.S. this month after they were tasered by
police. SEVEN people died in the U.S. in January. SEVENTY-FOUR North Americans
(that we know of) died in 2007, five of them Canadian. At least 321
people have died in North America proximal to taser use since 2001. TWENTY
people have died in Canada since 2003 after police used tasers on them.
The taser has been identified as either a cause or contributing factor in
about 30 of the deaths. That number would be higher; however medical examiners
and coroners are often not impartial but are instead biased in favour of the
Crown or, as has been shown, they are under tremendous pressure from - among
others - the weapon's manufacturer, to make a particular finding.
1)
The safety implications of Tasers require urgent independent and unbiased
study.
2) Until such time
as independent and unbiased study into the safety implications of Tasers has
been properly completed, a moratorium must be imposed upon these weapons.
3) If, after
independent and unbiased study has been completed, the Taser is going to
remain in the police arsenal, it must be placed at a level equal to lethal
force on the continuum of force and used only as a second-to-last resort.
4) Safety standards
must be developed for Tasers. There are currently no Canadian safety
standards in place for this weapon.
5) Police must not
be allowed to investigate themselves but must be subject to independent
and unbiased civilian oversight.
6) Families of
people who die in police custody in Canada must be provided with funding so
that they may be properly represented by legal counsel.
Deaths in Canada
1. Terry Hanna, 51 – Burnaby, BC - April 19, 2003 - RCMP
2. Clayton Willey, 33 – Prince George, BC - July 22, 2003 - RCMP
3. Clark Whitehouse, 34 – Whitehorse, YK - September 2003 - RCMP
4. Ronald Perry, 28 – Edmonton, AB - March 23, 2004
5. Roman Andreichikov, 25 – Vancouver, BC - May 1, 2004
6. Peter Lamonday, 33 – London, ON - May 13, 2004
7. Robert Bagnell, 44 – Vancouver, BC - June 23, 2004
8. Jerry Knight, 29 – Mississauga, ON - July 17, 2004
9. Samuel Truscott, 43 – Kingston, ON - August 8, 2004
10. Kevin Geldart, 34 – Moncton, NB - May 5, 2005 - RCMP
11. Gurmeet Sandhu, 41 – Surrey, BC - June 30, 2005 - RCMP
12. James Foldi, 39 – Beamsville, ON - July 1, 2005
13. Paul Saulnier, 42 – Digby, NS - July 15, 2005 - RCMP
14. Alesandro Fiacco, 33 – Edmonton, AB - December 24, 2005
15. Jason Doan, 28 – Red Deer, AB - August 30, 2006 - RCMP
16. Claudio Castagnetta, 32 - Quebec City, QC - September 20, 2007
17. Robert Dziekanski (Polish Citizen) , 40 - Vancouver, BC - October 14, 2007
- RCMP
18. Quilem Registre, 39 - Montreal, QC - October 17, 2007
19. Howard Hyde, 45 - Halifax, NS - November 22, 2007
20. Robert Knipstrom, 36 - Chilliwack, BC - November 24, 2007 - RCMP
Excerpt:
When a government begins to transform into a dictatorship, the fortunate
few seeking control over the unfortunate many, the people of that nation must
stand unmoved by fear against the retrograde actions of would be dictators, a
violent minority, and restore their democracy. If they do not, than what
unfolded in Germany will unfold in other nations of the world resulting in no
end of trouble for the worlds peace loving peoples.
The victim was kept in a cell for six hours, was not allowed
to make a phone call or to get medical assistance for cuts and bruises she
received.
Regular readers of the Blend know that I've been following the seemingly
endless violent, sadistic Taser incidents involving law enforcement. Below
is something equally heinous -- the disgusting strip search of a woman by
police in Stark County, Ohio. (Raw
Story):
Hope Steffey's night started with a call to police for help. It ended
with her face down, naked, and sobbing on a jail cell floor. Now, the
sheriff's deputies from Stark County, Ohio who allegedly used excessive
force during a strip search 15 months ago face a federal lawsuit, and
recently released video won't help their case......
more►
A
jury in Ann Arbor, Michigan took four and a
half hours on the evening of December 3 to acquit Catherine Wilkerson of two
criminal misdemeanor charges stemming from an incident in November 2006.
Wilkerson's alleged "crimes" consisted of intervening to assist an unconscious
man who in her estimate was in grave risk of asphyxiation after an Ann Arbor
cop had inflicted unnecessary and sadistic force, and a paramedic had
compounded the brutality by breaking three ampoules of ammonia under the
unconscious man's nose, saying, "You don't like that, do you."
The entire case is a parable of current trends: the criminalization of free
speech; prosecutions intended to chill lawful protest; out-of-control
police conduct; a spaniel press; and most sinister of all, a witch-hunting
posture towards anything a cop or a prosecutor can construe as "radical
terrorism". This posture is embodied in its most sinister guise by the Violent
Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007, passed by the
House of Representatives by a vote of 404-6 earlier this year and now under
review by a committee of the U.S. Senate.
TRUE Government
The ten
steps or stages to the evolution of a true democracy.
Liberty can be enjoyed only when the
will and whims of human rulers are replaced by legislative enactments in
accordance with accepted fundamental law.
No government can long endure if it
fails to provide for the right to enjoy personal property in some form. Man
craves the right to use, control, bestow, sell, lease, and bequeath his
personal property.
Representative government presupposes
an intelligent, efficient, and universal electorate. The character of such a
government will ever be determined by the character and caliber of those who
compose it. As civilization progresses, suffrage, while remaining universal
for both sexes, will be effectively modified, regrouped, and otherwise
differentiated.
No civil government will be
serviceable and effective unless the citizenry possess and use wise techniques
of guiding and controlling officeholders and public servants.
The survival of democracy is dependent
on successful representative government; and that is conditioned upon the
practice of electing to public offices only those individuals who are
technically trained, intellectually competent, socially loyal, and morally
fit. Only by such provisions can government of the people, by the people, and
for the people be preserved.
