Joe from MassPrivateI, Author at From the Trenches World Report

CBS San Francisco

OAKLAND (CBS SF) — Oakland Mayor Mean Quan said Friday that a disaster preparedness conference and training exercise that drew protests Friday evening will not take place in Oakland next year.

The Urban Shield Conference, an event that brings together local, state and federal agencies as well as private equipment vendors and companies, drew several hundred protesters concerned with increasing police militarization to downtown Oakland Friday evening. Continue reading “Mayor Says ‘Urban Shield’ Won’t Return To Oakland Next Year Amid Police Militarization Debate”

Raw Story – by Tom Boggioni

A Bronx man has accused a half-dozen NYPD officers of taking turns beating and kicking him after he asked an officer why he had been searched when she was responding to a noise complaint, according to ABC7.

According to Santiago Hernandez, 23, he was standing in front of a home in the Melrose section of the Bronx on August 18th when a uniformed NYPD officer stopped and asked to frisk him. Continue reading “NYPD officers take turns beating Bronx man after search turns up nothing”

Military supplies KHOU 11 News – by Scott Noll

HOUSTON – Training to deal with school shooters is something police nationwide undertake in the wake of deadly attacks at schools like Columbine and Sandy Hook.

But the KHOU 11 News I-Team discovered not only are school police training to do battle, they’re equipping themselves for it too.

State records show 10 different school district police departments in Texas received military surplus equipment, including trucks, guns, and armor, through a Department of Defense program. The districts include the following: Continue reading “Military rifles, armor sent to Texas school police”

Seattle Times – by Jennifer Sullivan

Charles Gaither, the first director of King County’s Office of Law Enforcement Oversight (OLEO), said he will leave the job on Friday after what he describes as three “difficult” years.

“It’s a difficult environment when you don’t have the capacity to compel change,” he said. “This was not the best recipe for effective civilian oversight in law enforcement.”

Seated in his office Thursday morning, Gaither appeared visibly upset. He only offered bits and pieces of the challenges he said he faced in the job. Continue reading “Civilian head of sheriff oversight quits; neck restraints ‘last straw’”

The Intercept – by Glenn Greenwald

Throughout the last year, the U.S. government has repeatedly insisted that it does not engage in economic and industrial espionage, in an effort to distinguish its own spying from China’s infiltrations of Google, Nortel, and other corporate targets. So critical is this denial to the U.S. government that last August, an NSA spokesperson emailed The Washington Post to say(emphasis in original): “The department does ***not*** engage in economic espionage in any domain, including cyber.” Continue reading “The U.S. Government’s Secret Plans to Spy for American Corporations”

EAG News – by Kyle Olson

BOSTON – Boston Public Schools is equipping its bus fleet with cameras to monitor student behavior, but is insisting the microphones will be “turned off.”

The Boston Globe reported in July:

Boston is equipping all of its 750 school buses with cameras and microphones, enabling school officials to more thoroughly investigate reports of bullying, other disciplinary issues, and even traffic accidents. Continue reading “Boston school district rethinks plan to activate microphones on buses”

The Intercept – by Ken Silverstein

A prominent national security reporter for the Los Angeles Times routinely submitted drafts and detailed summaries of his stories to CIA press handlers prior to publication, according to documents obtained by The Intercept.

Email exchanges between CIA public affairs officers and Ken Dilanian, now an Associated Press intelligence reporter who previously covered the CIA for the Times, show that Dilanian enjoyed a closely collaborative relationship with the agency, explicitly promising positive news coverage and sometimes sending the press office entire story drafts for review prior to publication. In at least one instance, the CIA’s reaction appears to have led to significant changes in the story that was eventually published in the Times. Continue reading “The CIA’s Mop-Up Man: L.A. Times Reporter Cleared Stories With Agency Before Publication”

MassPrivateI

The DOJ Inspector General released a report on the FBI’s use of National Security Letters (NSLs)—the controversial (and unconstitutional) surveillance instruments used to gather personal information of Americans without any prior oversight from a judge. In a little-noticed passage buried in the report, the IG describes how NSLs have been used on journalists in the past, and indicates that the FBI can currently circumvent the Justice Department’s media guidelines to do so in the future. Continue reading “The FBI uses secret National Security letters to go after journalists”

Wall Street Journal – by Rani Molla

The recent events in Ferguson, Mo., have raised questions about shootings by police in the U.S. and homicides that are ruled justifiable. Unfortunately, it’s nearly impossible to answer some of those questions due to incomplete data.

The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program collects data from the more than 18,000 law enforcement agencies to provide statistics about crime and law enforcement in the U.S. From this program, for example, we know that there were 14,827 homicides and non-negligent manslaughters in 2012, the latest year for available data. But, it isn’t required that agencies submit justifiable homicide data—submitted as the Supplementary Homicide Report—to participate in the program. This makes the largest database of justifiable homicides in the U.S. very incomplete. Continue reading “Why the Data on Justifiable Homicide Just Won’t Do”

Washington Post – by Donna St. George and Ovetta Wiggins

At Julius West Middle School in Rockville, Md., all doors are locked after the morning bells ring. Those who arrive once the schoolday begins must buzz to get in, and they are video-recorded as they speak into an intercom.

It’s but one of many examples of how schools have boosted security as the school year begins across the region and across the country. Continue reading “Security measures increase as schools open for new year in a new era”

Breitbart – by Merrill Hope

DALLAS, Texas — It is like a Texas sampler platter of the 2014-15 Common Core offerings served up around the state — Sadlier “Common Core Enriched Edition” Vocabulary, Springboard and Carnegie Math. There is even a kindergarten handout that defines the importance of the term “Common Core.” Parents are up in arms. More so, they are worried. They have heard endlessly that there is no Common Core in Texas. It is the law. Yet, this is what is coming home in the backpacks. Continue reading “Texas Parents Stunned by Common Core Materials Coming Home From School”

Privacy SOS

On the weekend of September 5, 2014, the city of Oakland will play host to Alameda County’s 8th annual festival for paramilitary police, called Urban Shield. A private corporation called Cytel Group organizes the events with funds from the Department of Homeland Security. Thus far they’ve been held in the Bay Area, Boston, and Texas, but the CEO of the for-profit Cytel says he has plans to expand into the Middle East and Africa. Continue reading “Militarized police can purchase “187” murder t-shirts at Urban Shield trainings”

The Newspaper

After two years of photo enforcement use in Clearwater, Florida, the data show that accidents increased where red light cameras were installed. At a work session on Tuesday, the city council celebrated the results.

Chief Dan Slaughter made a presentation to the council that painted the performance of the cameras in the most positive light possible. The city’s crash data covered a “before” period of July 2011 to June 2012 which he compared with two six-month “after” periods of July 2012 to June 2013 and July 2013 to June 2014. Continue reading “Florida City Council Embraces Accident Causing Red Light Cameras, It’s All About The Money”

Sandusky Register

A special grand jury is expected to get underway later this month reviewing evidence in the shooting death of a 21-year-old black man inside a Walmart store Aug. 5.

But Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWIne still won’t release surveillance video from the store that family members say proves John Crawford III was innocent when police officers killed him.

Police in the Dayton suburb of Beavercreek said they shot Crawford after he waved an air rifle at customers and refused officers’ orders to drop it. Continue reading “Ohio’s attorney general fights release of video from Walmart shooting: ‘Trust the system’”

Huffington Post – by JOSH CORNFIELD and GEOFF MULVIHILL

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Police officers on the George Washington Bridge last September during lane closures apparently ordered by Republican Gov. Chris Christie’s aides as political payback said they warned superiors about the hazardous conditions created and were told not to talk about it on their radios, according to a summary provided by their lawyer to a legislative panel investigating the scandal.

Attorney Dan Bibb, who works for the union representing the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey officers, relayed information from 11 officers, including at least three who said they were told about the traffic change by a lieutenant who ordered them not to move the traffic cones blocking the lanes. Bibb’s comments were included in a synopsis obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday. Continue reading “Port Authority Officer Told Not To Reopen George Washington Bridge Lanes”

MassPrivateI

Documents released last week by the City of Oakland reveal that it is one of a handful of American jurisdictions attempting to upgrade an existing cellular surveillance system, commonly known as a stingray.

The Oakland Police Department, the nearby Fremont Police Department, and the Alameda County District Attorney jointly applied for a DHS grant to “obtain a state-of-the-art cell phone tracking system,” the records show. Continue reading “Police across the country are upgrading their “stingray” tracking capabilities”

MassPrivateI

Almost 13,000 agencies in all 50 states and four U.S. territories participate in the military “recycling” program, and the share of equipment and weaponry gifted each year continues to expand. In 2011, $500 million worth of military equipment was distributed to law enforcement agencies throughout the country. That number jumped to $546 million in 2012.

Since 1990, $4.2 billion worth of equipment has been transferred from the Defense Department to domestic police agencies through the 1033 program, in addition to various other programs supposedly aimed at fighting the so-called War on Drugs and War on Terror. For example, the Department of Homeland Security has delivered roughly $34 billion to police departments & colleges. Continue reading “More than 100 college police departments receive armored vehicles, assualt rifles”

Yahoo News – by Liz Goodwin

One freezing day last December in the tiny town of Palestine, Ark., a young man climbed into the police department’s Humvee, turned it on, and drove off on a joy ride.

“It never crossed my mind” that anyone would do that, Palestine Police Chief Stanley Barnes said Wednesday of the incident. The Humvee, which the town of fewer than 700 people got for free through a controversial Pentagon program that gives old military equipment to local police departments, doesn’t have keys. But it’s easy to look up how to start one. Continue reading “How does a police department lose a Humvee?”

Campus Reform – by Kaitlyn Schallhorn

Gun owners are not a “protected group” under the Constitution, according to a philosophy professor at the University of North Dakota (UND).

Jack Russell Weinstein, who is also the director of the Institute for Philosophy in Public Life at UND,claimed that people uncomfortable with open-carry gun owners should simply leave a business or restaurant where the activists are present—even if that means not paying the tab. He refuted the idea that to actively treat gun owners as if one is afraid of them is discriminatory in nature because gun owners are not “traditionally marginalized” and are not a “protected group.” Continue reading “Professor: gun owners not a ‘protected group,’ says people should flee from open carry activists”

MassPrivateI

General Motors (govt. motors), the largest US auto manufacturer by sales, is preparing to launch the world’s first mass-produced cars with eye- and head-tracking technology that can tell whether drivers are distracted, according to people with knowledge of the plans.

Seeing Machines, an Australian group listed in London, has signed an agreement with safety-goods maker Takata to supply GM with tracking devices for up to 500,000 vehicles over the next three to five years. Continue reading “Warning: GM to install sensors in cars that measure eye movement”