From the Trenches World Report
Enforce our Bill of Rights
How Many Constitutional Freedoms Have We Lost?
This post explains the liberties guaranteed in the Bill of Rights – the first 10 amendments to the United States Constitution – and provides a scorecard on the extent of the loss of each right. (This is an updated version of an essay we wrote in February. Unfortunately, a lot of information has come out since then.) Continue reading “Pop Quiz: How Many Constitutional Rights Have We Lost?”
Investigators said Thursday they have recovered 32,000 emails in backup tapes related to the Internal Revenue Service targeting of conservative organizations.
But they don’t know how many of them are new, and told a congressional oversight committee that IRS employees had not asked computer technicians for the tapes, as directed by a subpoena from House oversight and other investigating committees. Continue reading “32,000 emails recovered in IRS targeting probe amid allegations agency chief may have lied”
Lew Rockwell – by Andrew P. Napolitano
What if the current massive spying on Americans began with an innocent secret executive order signed by President Reagan in 1986? What if Reagan contemplated that he was only authorizing American spies to spy on foreign spies unlawfully present in the U.S.?
What if Reagan knew and respected the history of the Fourth Amendment? What if the essence of that history is the colonial revulsion at the British use of general warrants? What if general warrants were issued by a secret court in London and authorized British agents in America to search wherever they wished and to seize whatever they found? What if the revulsion at this British government practice was so overwhelming that it led to the Revolutionary War against the king? Continue reading “What if the Government Fears Freedom?”
KHOU 11 News – by Larry Seward
HOUSTON – A confrontation between a Houston police officer and a man armed with an AR 15 rifle sparked an internal investigation.
Houston Police Chief Charles McClelland saw the video of the 25 minute exchange, according to a spokesperson. He immediately ordered an investigation. However, the department cannot comment further, the spokesperson said.
In the video, trouble starts seconds after the officer and man with the AR 15, who also filmed the confrontation, met. The guy behind the camera walked away from police. Continue reading “Cop confronts open carry demonstrator”
LAS VEGAS — A Washington couple says they were falsely arrested by the Nevada Highway Patrol for stealing a collector car they actually owned.
The highway patrol admitted two errors that led to Robin and Beverly Bruins being removed from their car at gunpoint. And, now, the highway patrol is facing a lawsuit.
As the I-Team learned, it all began with confusion over a license plate on a classic car. A highway patrol dash camera recorded a trooper stating over a loudspeaker: “Driver! Remove your keys from the ignition and put them on the roof now!” Continue reading “I-Team: Collector car owners experience daylight nightmare”
Three Los Angeles police officers who fatally shot an unarmed man after a televised car chase in 2013 will not face charges over the killing, prosecutors said on Monday, in a case that has drawn criticism from the department’s police chief.
The news was contained in a letter dated Jan. 29 and released by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. It came as national scrutiny over police killings of unarmed people remains high after several high-profile deaths. Continue reading “No charges for LA cops who gunned down unarmed veteran on live TV during chase”
Free Thought Project – by Matt Agorist
Milwaukee, WI — In August of 2013 former detective Rodolfo Gomez savagely beat Deron Love during an interrogation. He was chained to the wall.
Love, 27, was accused of killing his 7-month-old baby, a charge he would not confess to and one that he would eventually beat.
A year after being tortured by Gomez, Love was found not guilty of first-degree reckless homicide and child neglect in the death of his infant son. Continue reading “Cop Chains Innocent Man to Wall, Beats Him, Gouges Eyes After Refusing to Confess to a Crime”
CHARLOTTE COUNTY, Fla. – WINK News is learning more about the Charlotte County Jail recording conversations between an attorney and his client. The chief public defender in the county believes the conversations protected by the attorney-client privilege are in the hands of the prosecution.
The attorney-client privilege is, at all times, supposed to be confidential. The Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office, which runs the jail, clearly violated that privilege. WINK News is learning the extent of that violation. Continue reading “Jail report details recordings of attorney/client consultations”
In a question and answer session on Reddit earlier today, Edward Snowden wrote:
The progress of Western civilization and human rights is actually founded on the violation of law. America was of course born out of a violent revolution that was an outrageous treason against the crown and established order of the day. History shows that the righting of historical wrongs is often born from acts of unrepentant criminality. Slavery. The protection of persecuted Jews. Continue reading “Snowden Calls for Disobedience Against the U.S. Government”
ABC News – by EILEEN SULLIVAN and RONNIE GREENE
On a hot Friday last July, a parolee was mowing a lawn in a small cul-de-sac on the west side of the city when he stopped to ask for a glass of water.
The 70-year-old widow whose yard he was mowing told him to wait on her porch. Instead, she said, he jerked the storm door open, slammed her against the wall, forced her into the bedroom and raped her. The parolee pushed her with such force, she said, that her front teeth were knocked loose. Continue reading “States Predict Inmates’ Future Crimes With Secretive Surveys”
Seattle Times – by Steve Miletich
Balancing free speech against public trust, Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O’Toole unveiled a sweeping new social-media policy Friday that bars officers from privately posting comments that reflect negatively on the department and its ability to serve the community.
“The Seattle Police Department is working tirelessly to rebuild community trust and restore pride in our organization,” O’Toole said in a statement addressing inflammatory posts attributed to two officers. “It’s unfortunate that behavior on social media by a few has contributed to the erosion of our collective efforts.” Continue reading “Seattle Police Chief unveils policy to curb cops’ social-media comments”
It took a 14 year old boy to stun the professional engineers, policy makers and white-hat security experts. The boy who was a part of a 5 day camp for car hacking and cyber security called CyberAuto Challenge.
The boy, who was 14 and looked like he was 10 as per Dr.Andrew Brown Jr., VP and Chief Technologist at Delphi Automotive, took up the challenge of remotely hacking a car.
The actual procedure for the participants of the camp including the school kids was to take help of the assembled experts and attempt remote infiltration of a car. Continue reading “14 Year Old Hacks Car with Homespun Kit with Circuits Bought From Radio Shack”
The Anti-Media – by Nick Bernabe
San Diego, CA — Thankful residents of City Heights appreciated the kind gesture of cops invading their home for no reason, beating and then arresting family members — at least according to a July police report filed after the incident. The family was thankful for being framed for a crime they never committed.
The only problem with this “official story” is that it’s basically completely fabricated. Continue reading “Cops Say Family Thanked Them For Beating and Arresting Them In Their Own Home”
The Sacramento Bee – by Cynthia Hubert
Cities across California are becoming more aggressive in citing and arresting homeless people for simple activities like standing, sitting or resting in public places, according to a report released Thursday by a legal clinic at the University of California, Berkeley.
The report, unveiled by the Berkeley law school’s Policy Advocacy Clinic, finds that local laws against vagrancy are increasingly “criminalizing” the homeless in an effort to drive them from communities and “make them someone else’s problem.” Continue reading “California cities ‘criminalize’ homeless”
Times Union – by Brendan J. Lyons
A man arrested on drug charges last summer has accused three city detectives of stealing more than $3,000 from his apartment after they took his keys and entered his Central Avenue home without a search warrant.
Police records indicate the detectives violated departmental policies when they seized a large amount of crack cocaine and more than two pounds of marijuana from the apartment. The detectives did not file drug charges and failed to photograph and fully document the evidence, including leaving an entry for “collection location” blank in a property report. Continue reading “Suspect Accuses NY Detectives Of Stealing Cash In Warrantless Search”
The Crime Report – by Graham Kates and Cara Tabachnick
Did the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) approve and possibly help design Afghanistan’s notorious “Salt Pit,” which was used by U.S. intelligence operatives to detain and torture suspected terrorists?
A small section of a 500-page Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA’s “detention and interrogation program” — a declassified version of which was released in December — prodded the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the BOP for more information about its role in the war on terror. Continue reading “What Was The Federal Bureau Of Prisons Doing In Afghanistan?”
There’s a kid in the Cook County juvenile jail right now who isn’t supposed to be there. A judge ordered his release on January 29.
Because he is a juvenile, WBEZ isn’t using his name, but his problem is not unique. Even after a judge has ordered their release, lots of kids wait weeks, even months to be picked up.
Their deadbeat guardian is the State of Illinois, and these kids are stuck in juvenile jail because the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) can’t find a place to put them. Continue reading “Illinois’ child welfare system leaves kids stuck in jail”
Washington’s Blog
Fox News
8 News Now
Raw Story – Reuters
WINK News – by Dave Culbreth
Washington’s Blog
TechWorm
WBEZ – by Patrick Smith