From the Trenches World Report
Enforce our Bill of Rights
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge in San Francisco stopped the destruction of millions of telephone records collected by the National Security Agency more than five years ago.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White, who is overseeing an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against the agency, issued a nationwide order Monday to safeguard evidence until March 19, when he will hold a hearing on extending the deadline further. Continue reading “Judge Halts Destruction Of NSA Surveillance Records”
Peter Maass, who I’ve been fortunate to meet and has had a pretty amazing career as an embedded war journalist, has penned a pretty fantastic read over at Glenn Greenwald’s new The Intercept venture. In it, Maass points out that among the ocean of compelling bits buried in the Snowden documents is this strange little fact: the NSA has an advice columnist who routinely provides NSA employees with office politics and interpersonal advice under the pen name “Zelda.” Her column, titled “Ask Zelda!,” routinely appears for employees with adequate security clearance via the agency’s intranet. Continue reading “The NSA Has An Internal Office Advice Columnist And Yes, She’s An Inconsistent Hypocrite Too”
Are drones not scary enough for you yet? How about this? A drone helicopter that spots you and identifies you as an intruder. It tells you to stop and put your hands behind your head. Instead, you keep coming. The drone then shoots you with barbed Taser darts that pump 80,000 volts into you. If you try to get up, it will continue pumping voltage into you until you submit and the authorities arrive. Continue reading “Meet CUPID: The Drone That Will Shoot You With an 80,000 Volt Taser”
BOSTON (AP) — The ladies of Wellesley College will still be allowed to plant kisses on passing runners and crowds will still flock to the finish line at the 118th Boston Marathon.
But a year after deadly twin explosions turned the race’s festive final dash into a scene of devastation, police and organizers of the world’s oldest annual marathon find themselves balancing security with its traditionally festive atmosphere. Continue reading “Police seek security balance for Boston Marathon”
LAWNDALE – March 8, 2014 (WPVI) — A Philadelphia police officer shot another man during a struggle that escalated from an argument over dog waste.
Police tell Action News that this morning just before noon, the off-duty officer was outside his home when a man stopped with his dog along the 6400 block of Oakley Street. The dog went to the bathroom on the officer’s lawn. The officer asked the man to clean it up, which prompted an argument and the man left. Continue reading “Off-duty Philadelphia cop shoots man during fight over dog waste”
US Customs and Border Patrol agents can detain American citizens for hours and seize laptops and phones without evidence or suspicion of wrongdoing. This has happened to a number of journalists, and press advocates worry that the frequency of these incidents is increasing.
On The Media dedicated its whole program this week to addressing a growing and disturbing problem: the suspension of constitutional rights at the US border, where Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) can detain US citizens for hours and seize their electronic devices without any suspicion of wrong doing. Perhaps worse, the policies and practices of CBP are extremely secretive and in many ways unaccountable, and Freedom of Information Act requests to the agencies are largely stonewalled or ignored. Continue reading “Suspicionless searches at US border: the next battleground for press freedom”
“The American public called PBS the most trusted source for news and public affairs programs and the most ‘fair’ source for news coverage.” – PBS, February 20, 2014
Last month, in response to Pando’s revelations that anti-pension mogul John Arnold secretly was financing PBS’s “Pension Peril” series, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting issued a scathingreport demanding immediate reform. Criticizing “the lack of transparency” at PBS, CPB’s ombudsman Joel Kaplan declared that public broadcasting outlets must let the public access details of their financial dealings. Continue reading “After pledging transparency, PBS hides details of new deal with billionaire owner of NewsHour”
Yesterday, the New Hampshire house passed a bill to thwart some of the actions of the growing surveillance state. House Bill 1533 (HB1533), which bans the use of any information obtained from a “portable electronic device” such as mobile phone in “a criminal, civil, administrative, or other proceeding,” passed by a voice vote and now moves on to the senate for further consideration. Continue reading “New Hampshire House Passes Bill to Ban Use of Warrantless Data”
The Verge – by Adrianne Jeffries
An administrative judge on the National Transportation Safety Board has ruled that the commercial use of small drones is in fact legal, despite six years of Federal Aviation Administration statements to the contrary.
Today Judge Patrick Geraghty dismissed a $10,000 fine levied by the FAA against Raphael Pirker, a Swiss drone operator who used a camera drone to film on the University of Virginia campus. “At the time of respondent’s model aircraft operation … there was no enforceable FAA rule or FAR Regulation application to model aircraft or for classifying model aircraft as an UAS,” the judge writes. Continue reading “Judge rules commercial drones are legal, undoing six-year ban”
The Daily Sheeple – by Lily Dane
Albuquerque police have released lapel camera footage that shows an officer shooting at a fleeing suspect.
In October 2013, officers were called about an erratic driver who was running drivers off the road and firing a weapon from his vehicle. Officers said the man, Joaquin Ortega, tried to carjack drivers after crashing his own car. Continue reading “NM Cops Shot at Fleeing Suspect: Caught on Video”
Washington Post – by NICHOLAS QUINN ROSENKRANZ
Intelligence Squared presented one of its best debates Wednesday night at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia — “Resolved: The President has constitutional power to target and kill U.S. citizens abroad.”
Arguing for the motion were Alan Dershowitz, professor of law, Harvard Law School; and Michael Lewis, professor of law, Ohio Northern University School of Law. Arguing against the motion were Noah Feldman, professor of law, Harvard Law School; and Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU National Security Project. All four debaters were superb. Continue reading “Intelligence Squared debate: The president has constitutional power to target and kill U.S. citizens abroad.”
Few notice the “spotter car” from Manny Sousa’s repo company as it scours Massachusetts parking lots, looking for vehicles whose owners have defaulted on their loans. Sousa’s unmarked car is part of a technological revolution that goes well beyond the repossession business, transforming any industry that wants to check on the whereabouts of ordinary people.
An automated reader attached to the spotter car takes a picture of every license plate it passes and sends it to a company in Texas that already has more than 1.8 billion plate scans from vehicles across the country. Continue reading “Repo companies a vast hidden surveillance network across the country”
LAS VEGAS (INTELLIHUB) — On the night of March 4, going into the morning of Wednesday, March 5, 2014, the city was bombarded by chemtrails released from militarized aircraft conducting geoengineering applications and possibly even entomological warfare on the citizens of Nevada. This was pointed out by YouTuber “dutchsinse” who located signs of scalar resonance and cloud seeding.
In the video’s description dutchsinse wrote what he saw in the radar imagery: Continue reading “Populace of Las Vegas sprayed with chemicals via aircraft at night in recent government test”
The Daily Caller – by Greg Campbell
Since pot was legalized in Colorado in 2012, an average of 600 fewer people have been arrested per month on possession charges, according to the Colorado Judicial Branch. And a 2010 research paper by the Cato Institute estimated that Colorado spent $1.3 billion per year enforcing marijuana laws that no longer exist.
But Colorado police chiefs want a piece of the estimated $133 million tax revenue that legal pot sales are expected to generate. Gov. John Hickenlooper earmarked the bulk of those funds for drug rehab and education efforts. Only $3 million is proposed to be spent on law enforcement and public safety, according to the Post. Continue reading “Despite legalization, Colorado cops ask for more money for marijuana enforcement”
The Daily Caller – by Robby Soave
The Euharlee, Georgia police officer who shot and killed a teenager because she wrongly thought he was holding a gun had made a similar mistake in the past, and was fired from her previous job as a police officer as part of long history of blunders and poor job performance.
When 17-year-old Christopher Roupe answered the door at his home on the night of February 17, officer Beth Gatny opened fire on him. Gatny, who was there to serve a warrant on Roupe’s father, had thought the teenager was holding a gun. Lawyers for the Roupe family say the kid did not have a gun, and was likely holding a video game controller for the Nintendo Wii. Continue reading “Unbelievable: Cop who wrongly killed teen had history of blunders, was fired from last job as cop”
Huffington Post 
Gizmodo 
Yahoo News – by DENISE LAVOIE
ABC 6 Action News
Boing Boing – by Trevor Timm
Pando Daily – by David Sirota
Activist Post
MassPrivateI 
Intellihub