Author: Joe from MassPrivateI

Huffington Post

No business can operate without bankers — not even the bribery business.

British financial giant HSBC and American bailout kingpin Citibank processed transactions, managed money and vouched for Unaoil, a once-obscure firm that is now at the center of a massive international corruption scandal. Police raided Unaoil’s Monaco offices and interviewed its executives on Thursday, a day after The Huffington Post and Fairfax Media first exposed the company’s practices. Law enforcement agencies in at least four nations are involved in a wide-ranging probe of the company and its partners.   Continue reading “Big Banks Aided Firm At Center Of International Bribery Scandal”

WUSA 9

GREENBELT, MD (WUSA9) — A dramatic turnaround for a former top judge in Charles County.

Judge Robert Nalley was in a federal courtroom Monday in Greenbelt as a defendant, pleading guilty to depriving a man of his civil rights under color of law.

The former judge betrayed not a hint of emotion as he pleaded guilty to ordering a deputy to send 50,000 volts of electricity coursing through a defendant who was representing himself and refused to be quiet.   Continue reading “Former Md. judge guilty in shocking civil rights violation”

IB Times – by Mary-Ann Russon

Police in the US are continuing to raid the homes of people who operate exit nodes for the Tor anonymity network, most recently searching the condo belonging to a pair of outspoken privacy activists in Seattle.

On 30 March, Seattle Privacy Coalition cofounders Jan Bultmann and David Robinson were woken up at 6.15am at their condominium by a team of six detectives from the Seattle Police Department with a search warrant looking for child pornography, according to Seattle’s alternative weekly newspaper The Stranger.   Continue reading “Seattle police raid home of privacy activists who maintain Tor anonymity network node”

EFF – by Dave Maass

EFF’s efforts to fix holes in oversight of the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (CLETS) are paying off.

New data and records released by California Department of Justice (CADOJ) show a steep increase in the number of agencies disclosing cases of abuse of the state’s network of law enforcement databases—a major victory for transparency and law enforcement accountability.    Continue reading “EFF Pressure Results in Increased Disclosure of Abuse of California’s Law Enforcement Databases”

New York Daily News

The NYPD lieutenant who supervised the cursing plainclothes cops who arrested an on-duty postal worker in Brooklyn earlier this month has been stripped of his badge and gun, the Daily News has learned.

Lt. Luis Machado was placed on modified duty in connection with the embarrassingly volatile clash between cops and postal employee Glen Grays in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.   Continue reading “NYPD lieutenant who oversaw postal worker’s rough arrest stripped of badge and gun”

Ars Technica – by Cyrus Farivar

On Wednesday, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals published a legal opinion finding that state police must not only obtain a warrant before deploying a cell-site simulator, but are required to also fully explain to the court what exactly the device does and how it is used.

As Ars has long reported, cell-site simulators—known colloquially as stingrays, can be used to determine a mobile phone’s location by spoofing a cell tower. In some cases, stingrays can intercept calls and text messages. Once deployed, the devices intercept data from a target phone along with information from other phones within the vicinity. At times, police have falsely claimed the use of a confidential informant when they have actually deployed these particularly sweeping and intrusive surveillance tools.   Continue reading “Appeals Court: No stingrays without a warrant, explanation to judge”

NJ.com

NEWARK — The planned reformation of the Newark Police Department took a major step forward Wednesday, as city and federal officials named a nominee to oversee the process.

Former state attorney general Peter C. Harvey has been tapped to shepherd the implementation of a now finalized consent decree placing the city’s police force under federal oversight.   Continue reading “Former N.J. attorney general tapped as Newark PD watchdog, will oversee sweeping reforms”

Breitbart – by Charlie Nash

Social media posts that embarrass or insult someone would be illegal under bills covering online harassment being pushed by Rhode Island Attorney General Peter F. Kilmartin.

Kilmartin is pushing one bill which aims to criminalise “revenge porn,” or sexual images posted online without the consent of anyone featured. This is a reasonable bill that many would agree is necessary, but it is being used as a smokescreen to the other bill which Kilmartin is currently trying to push through.   Continue reading “Dangerous Online ‘Harassment’ Bill Being Pushed by Rhode Island Attorney General”

WBRZ 2 – by Trey Schmaltz

WHITE CASTLE – Police detained WBRZ reporter Chris Nakamoto while Nakamoto was pursuing a story on town government operations Wednesday.

Nakamoto was put in handcuffs, escorted to the police department and written a misdemeanor summons. The summons was written for an alleged violation of statute 14:63, remaining after being forbidden.   Continue reading “Louisiana town arrests reporter for trying to get public records on mayor’s salary increase”

New York Times – by Charlie Savage

WASHINGTON — After a jury found a man guilty of several gun and drug offenses, he took his case to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In the spring of 1998, two of the judges on a panel that heard his case agreed to vacate two of his convictions, saying that the evidence was too thin to support one, and the trial judge had made a mistake that tainted the other.

But the third judge on that panel, Merrick B. Garland, a former federal prosecutor whom President Bill Clinton appointed to the court a year earlier, sharply disagreed. In a dissenting opinion, Judge Garland — who is now President Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court — insisted that the evidence was good enough, and that the trial judge’s supposed mistake did not matter.   Continue reading “In Criminal Rulings, Garland Has Usually Sided With Law Enforcement”

KKTV

An important lesson to be careful about what you post on Facebook and other public sites. One local man ended up getting a ticket after a video he posted on Facebook was viewed by police.

Michael Dalton told 11 News he loves making Facebook videos in his free time.

“On a whim I say, ‘Hey I’ll do a quick recording.’ I found this new little shortcut if you don’t want to go across the highway,” said Dalton.   Continue reading “Facebook Post Leads To Police Ticket”

Grand Forks Herald – by Heidi Czerwiec

Apparently, it’s not enough that UND’s administration is attacking the quality of education by cutting programs and experienced faculty and jacking class sizes. Now, we must also feel under physical attack as well.

I look up from my office computer to see two figures in camo with guns outside my window. My first thought is for my students’ and my safety: I grab my phone, crawl under my desk and call 911. The dispatcher keeps me on the line until someone can see if ROTC is doing maneuvers.   Continue reading “Military maneuvers startle already-stressed UND campus”

CBS News

What started as a ticket for making an illegal left turn ended up with a Georgia teenager spending five days in a county jail. That’s because 19-year-old Kevin Thompson couldn’t quickly pay $838 in fines and fees related to the traffic offense.

Thompson described his time in jail “as the worst in his life,” said Nusrat Choudhury, the American Civil Liberties Union attorney who represented the teen in filing a federal lawsuit.
Continue reading “How you could go to debtors’ prison in the U.S.”

MassPrivateI

The United States Border Patrol operates 71 traffic checkpoints, including 33 permanent traffic checkpoints, near the southern border of the United States. Also, there are a number of Border Patrol checkpoints in the northern border states (New York or Maine), within 100 miles from the Canadian border. Fyi, nearly 200 million Americans live within the 100-mile interior checkpoint zone.

Things are about to get much worse, expect to see more checkpoints across the U.S. after the recent Rynearson v. The U.S. ruling.   Continue reading “Court ruling allows police to stop and question anyone within 100 miles of border”

AP

PALATKA, Florida (AP) — The Latest on a 4-year-old boy who shot his mother in the back as they were riding in a pickup truck (all times local):

2:35 p.m.

Police are recommending a misdemeanor charge for the mother of a 4-year-old boy who got a hold of her handgun and shot her as they were riding in a pickup truck.   Continue reading “Police want charge for mother shot by 4-year-old”