Courthouse News – by Victoria Prieskop

ALBUQUERQUE (CN) — The ACLU sued Albuquerque for information on how its police use Stingray cellphone spying technology, and whether they use it for immigration enforcement, but Albuquerque claims all such records are confidential — including whether they use Stingrays at all.

International Mobile Subscriber Identity catchers — also known as cell-site catchers or Stingrays — simulate cell phone towers, pulling in all cellphone use within a certain distance. They can scan an area near targets of investigations for location and usage information, and in some cases can listen to conversations and track texts on phones in range, including those which have nothing to do with the investigation.   Continue reading “Albuquerque Police Call Spying Tech So Secret They Can’t Even Say They Have It”

LA Times

Californians no longer will face losing their driver’s licenses because of unpaid traffic fines starting next month.

Gov. Jerry Brown said the punishment doesn’t help the state collect unpaid fines and can send low-income people into a cycle of job losses and more poverty.

The policy will help ensure people’s lives are not derailed by traffic tickets, said Sen. Bob Hertzberg, a Van Nuys Democrat who has championed the issue in the Legislature.  Continue reading “California no longer will suspend driver’s licenses for traffic fines”

MassPrivateI

The war on terror just keeps getting more and more ridiculous every year. Nothing says BS, quite like spending taxpayer dollars on Homeland security sirens designed to scare everyone.

DHS is giving fire departments hundreds of thousands of dollars to install fear-inducing sirens across the country.

The program is called the ‘Homeland Security Grant Program Warning Sirens Project’ or the ‘Hazard Mitigation Grant Program’ (HMGP). DHS’s ‘terror siren project’ is also called the ‘Notification/Early Warning Siren Sustainment Project’.   Continue reading “Fire departments are installing DHS ‘terrorism warning sirens’ near schools”

The Newspaper

California motorists would have \fewer legal rights when contesting traffic tickets under a proposal from state Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye. California’s top judge last month ordered the Judicial Council to act on a recommendation calling for “civil adjudication” of all traffic tickets.

“I believe that the ultimate implementation of these recommendations is not only forward thinking and responsive to the real needs of Californians, but will also fundamentally improve their interactions and experiences with our justice system,” the chief justice said in a statement.   Continue reading “California Chief Justice To Strip Rights From Motorists”

Liberty Blitzkrieg – by Michael Krieger

This is not the sort of thing you see in a confident, brave, and civilized nation, it’s the sort of stuff you’d expect to see toward the end. It’s the stuff of craven war-mongers, of dishonest cowards, of a totally deranged and very dangerous media. The signs are everywhere; imperial decline is set to accelerate rapidly in the coming years.

– From the April post: Prepare for Impact – This is the Beginning of the End for U.S. Empire
Continue reading “The Most Dangerous Fake News of All is Peddled by the Corporate Media”

WFTV 9 News – by Ty Russell, Mark Boxley

Karlos Cashe thought he was facing a minor traffic ticket when he was pulled over by Oviedo police in March for driving without headlights.

When an officer saw white powder on his seat and floorboard, though, the situation became much more serious.

Cashe was on probation at the time on marijuana and cocaine charges from 2015.  Continue reading “Powdered drywall mistaken for cocaine lands innocent Oviedo man behind bars for 90 days”

Daily Mail

Just days ago, Amazon revealed it is buying the Whole Foods grocery chain in a staggering $13.7 billion all-cash deal.

Now, a patent recently awarded to the firm offers a look at how Amazon plans to stamp out its competition.

The patent details a system that could prevent customers using a store’s WiFi from visiting rival websites by blocking access or even redirecting them to ‘counter-competitive information,’ such as a relevant coupon or price comparison.   Continue reading “Could Whole Foods ban customers from checking competitor’s prices on their phone? Amazon patents method to limit wifi browsing in stores”

MassPrivateI

According to a Stanford Institute project called “The Open Policing Project” which looked at over 100 million police traffic stops.

“Police pull over more than 50,000 drivers on a typical day, more than 20 million motorists every year.”

Does that mean 50,000 people are breaking the law everyday?  Is there an epidemic of lawbreakers on our streets?   Continue reading “Police stop and question 20 MILLION motorists every year or 50,000 every day”

KING 5 News

A man who was shot and killed by a King County sheriff’s deputy for carrying a knife was actually carrying a pen, the sheriff’s office said Thursday.

Tommy Le, a Burien man, was shot just before midnight on June 13 by King County Sheriff Deputy Cesar Molina.

Molina had more than two years of experience in Los Angeles, Sgt. Cindi West said. He’s also worked for King County for more than two years.    Continue reading “Burien man shot by deputy was holding a pen, not knife”

WYFF 4 News

SIMPSONVILLE, S.C. — Simpsonville police have confirmed that a former Upstate police chief wanted for a bank robbery has been arrested.

A source close to the investigation says that former Williamston Police Chief Richard Inman has been arrested in Franklin County, Georgia.  Continue reading “Police: Former Upstate police chief wanted for bank robbery has been arrested”

Courthouse News – by David Lee

DALLAS (CN) – Criminologists say that police officers who deal with stressors, including divorce and falling behind on paying bills are more likely to use deadly force and should be closely monitored throughout their careers.

Faculty members at the University of Texas at Dallas, Loyola University Chicago and the University of South Florida studied the personnel records of 1,935 Philadelphia police officers and published their findings in the latest issue of Police Quarterly journal.   Continue reading “Stressed-Out Cops Need Close Monitoring, Professors Say”

Miami New Times

The details of Miami-Dade County’s proposed plan to surveil poor, black neighborhoods with semipermanent spy planes were grotesque. MDPD had asked for a federal grant for so-called wide-area surveillance (WAS) planes, which can record up to 32 square miles at once and were first used to track Iraqi insurgents. Even worse, MDPD buried its Department of Justice grant deep in a county document and somewhat clandestinely asked county commissioners to “retroactively” approve the fact that the department had asked for the spy planes.

But after New Times broke news of the plan two weeks ago, MDPD Director Juan Perez announced in an email to the American Civil Liberties Union today that he’s scrapping the program.   Continue reading “MDPD Scraps Plan for Aerial Spy Planes After Public Outcry”

Strategic Culture – by Wayne Madsen

Ever since the end of World War II, the United States, rightly or wrongly, but most of the time, wrongly, has fancied itself as the «world’s policeman». Even a disastrous and costly military intervention in Southeast Asia did not deter the United States from acting as the chief arbiter of what governments were «in» and which were «out» as evidenced by Central Intelligence Agency interloping in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Angola, Haiti, and Colombia. Two military interventions in Iraq and a U.S.-led military campaign directed against Yugoslavia were not enough to pry the United States from its self-appointed role as the chief «global cop». In fact, American neoconservatives continued to fanaticize about the United States leading the world into a post-Cold War «new American century».  Continue reading “The «World’s Policeman» Retires on Disability”

St. Louis Post-Dispatch – by Christine Byers and Nassim Benchaabane

ST. LOUIS • An off-duty officer was wounded by “friendly fire” as police looked for suspects after a stolen vehicle fled police and crashed late Wednesday.

The injured off-duty officer was treated at a hospital released on Thursday. The suspect was also treated, and released into police custody.   Continue reading “Off-duty St. Louis officer injured by ‘friendly fire’ after police chase of stolen car”

Courthouse News – by Helen Christophi

OAKLAND, Calif. (CN) — Oakland’s former police chief tried for six months to muzzle allegations that multiple officers sexually exploited an underage girl, and encouraged his department to drop its internal probe of the misconduct, according to a report released Wednesday by a court-appointed monitor.

The report, commissioned by U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson, placed the bulk of the blame on former Police Chief Sean Whent and the scornful attitude he fostered toward certain police victims.   Continue reading “Monitors Slam Oakland Police in Officers’ Sex Scandal”

MassPrivateI

According to an article in the Mercury News, the City of San Jose, California is letting anyCOMM install 300-1,000 street lights equipped with surveillance cameras and microphones on their streets.

“The council ultimately voted 7-4 to allow anyCOMM, a tech company with offices in El Dorado Hills, Gold River and San Jose, to install “nodes” which could have video and audio recording capabilities on 300 to 1,000 streetlights. The “pilot program” — as proposed by Mayor Sam Liccardo — would run for a year and only in pre-agreed upon areas.”
Continue reading “Cites across the country are using street lights equipped with microphones and surveillance cameras to spy on everyone”

NBC Bay Area

A llama caused some drama in Vacaville on Monday.

After the animal got loose from its pasture, two deputies with the Solano County Sheriff’s Office were forced to “think outside the box to coax this llama out of the roadway.”

Dashcam video posted on the Solano County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page using an orange rope to corral the llama back onto the field.    Continue reading “Solano County Sheriff’s Deputies Wrangle, Offer ‘Verbal Counseling’ to Wayward Llama”

Reason – by Jacob Sullum

“Guns Kill Almost 1,300 US Children Annually,” says the headline over a CNN story that begins with the case of a third-grader accidentally shot in the stomach at school by another student, describes a baby accidentally shot by his father, and closes with warnings about safe storage of firearms. The story creates a very misleading impression, since nearly four-fifth of the fatalities involved teenagers and most were homicides.

The CNN story was based on a study recently published in the journal Pediatrics that analyzed data on gun-related injuries and deaths among minors from 2002 through 2014. According to a table from the study, 78 percent of the deaths occurred among 13-to-17-year-olds, 53 percent were homicides, and 38 percent were suicides. Less than 4 percent were accidents involving children 12 or younger, so the examples cited by CNN are far from typical.   Continue reading “Report on ‘Children’ Killed by Guns Hypes Accidents, Which Are Rare and Declining”

Omaha World Herald – by Michael O’Connor and Emerson Clarridge

A toddler locked in a hot car.

Omaha police say it’s a potentially deadly circumstance, and one reason a local mother was ticketed Tuesday on suspicion of child abuse by neglect.

A gust of wind apparently slammed closed a sport utility vehicle’s doors, locking a nearly 2-year-old girl inside.

Continue reading “Mom ticketed after 1-year-old locked in hot car; police say it’s not an overreaction to a ‘dangerous situation’”