Courthouse News – by Martin Macias Jr

(CN) – California lawmakers advanced a bill Tuesday to allow judges to restrict someone’s access to guns if they pose a danger to themselves or others, despite concerns from community groups that the bill may violate civil rights.

Under current law, police officers or the immediate family members of someone who poses a threat can petition a court to issue a gun violence restraining order which, if granted, requires the gun owner to surrender all weapons and ammunition for 21 days.  Continue reading “Tougher Gun Violence Restraining Order Bill Advances in California”

MassPrivateI

Earlier this year, I warned people that the city of San Diego had been turned into a massive Chinese-Style public surveillance network, complete with facial recognition, spying streetlights, license plate readers and a police-run public watchlisting network.

But what I failed to mention is who is really behind it  Continue reading “The U.S. Marine Corps Turned San Diego Into A Massive Chinese-Style Smart City”

Daily Beast – by Jamie Ross

Officials from at least 22 foreign governments have spent money at Trump Organization properties, NBC News reports. In what the network called the “most comprehensive possible list of foreign spending at Trump properties,” the report details previously unreported hires, rentals, and purchases of properties owned by the president’s company.

At least nine foreign governments reportedly rented or purchased property in Trump buildings—Kuwait, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, China, Malaysia, Slovakia, Thailand, India, and the European Union. Nine hosted events at the properties—Afghanistan, Cyprus, Ireland, Japan, Philippines, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Trump has previously promised to donate any profits originating from foreign governments, and the Trump Organization has sent $343,000 to the U.S. Treasury during his presidency, but it’s not known exactly how that figure was reached.

READ IT AT NBC NEWS

Fox 10

PHOENIX (FOX 10) – Phoenix Police are investigating an incident of alleged misconduct by some of its officers after a video surfaced of them responding to a shoplifting incident.

Police say they were provided video on June 11 of officers taking two individuals into custody while investigating a shoplifting incident last month near 32nd Street and Roosevelt. It involved a man and a woman with two small children after the suspect vehicle was stopped not far from the scene of the theft.  Continue reading “Phoenix Police investigating officers after video shows alleged misconduct”

FLIR

ARLINGTON, Va.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Jun. 5, 2019– FLIR Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: FLIR) today announced the FLIR TrafiData intelligent thermal traffic sensor solution for improved data collection capabilities to offer transportation management with key insights for smarter, safer cities. FLIR TrafiData is a unique offering in the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) market with the ability to perform as both a data collection device and classification unit with the advantage of thermal and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in a single, unified platform.  Continue reading “FLIR Announces TrafiData Intelligent Thermal Traffic Sensor Solution for Smarter and Safer Cities”

MassPrivateI

Sometimes I have trouble coming up with a title for one of my articles, but this one came easy because the two companies involved in this article helped create it.

A New York based company called Vuzix along with a UAE software company called NNTC, worked together to produce the world’s first automatic facial recognition sunglasses for law enforcement.  Continue reading “Police To Use Automatic Facial Recognition Sunglasses To Watchlist People”

Cincinnati.com

The Cincinnati police officer who shot an 11-year-old girl with a stun gun in a Kroger shoplifting incident has successfully appealed his seven-day suspension.

An arbitrator handling the case brought by the Fraternal Order of Police, which represented Officer Kevin Brown, against the City of Cincinnati found that the policy in place during the August incident allowed officers to use a stun gun on children as young as 7. The arbitrator found Brown did not use excessive force.  Continue reading “CPD cop shot child with a stun gun at Kroger. It wasn’t excessive force, arbitrator finds”

ABC News

A Wisconsin city is considering an ordinance that would impose fines on the parents of young bullies after a viral social media post showed handwritten notes that students sent to a middle school girl urging her to kill herself.

The Legislative Committee in Wisconsin Rapids voted unanimously Monday to move an anti-bullying ordinance to be considered on June 18 by the Common Council, the Wisconsin Rapids Tribune reported.  Continue reading “Proposed Wisconsin city ordinance to fine parents of bullies”

ProPublica – by Conner Sheets

Shortly after Phil Sims became the sheriff of Marshall County, Alabama, at 12 a.m. on Jan. 14, he found a cardboard box in a storage closet containing five government-issued smartphones, each with multiple holes drilled clear through them.

It was the first time Sims had been allowed to enter the sheriff’s office, a red-brick building overlooking Lake Guntersville, a foggy bass-fishing mecca, since he defeated longtime Sheriff J. Scott Walls in the June primary election.  Continue reading “Wasted Funds, Destroyed Property: How Sheriffs Undermined Their Successors After Losing Reelection”

OZY – by Jamil Anderlini

Earlier this year, a U.S. congressional committee commissioned a report on China’s development of “smart cities,” with a particular focus on whether they were smarter than their American counterparts.

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission’s (USCC) request for submissions was revealing because it showed that, despite the hype, not much is known about the fruits of China’s efforts to build such cities. Smart cities are highly digitally connected and use the latest technology to manage services.  Continue reading “The Dark Side to China’s Smart Cities: Everyone’s Being Watched”

The College Fix – by Christian Schneider

In the wake of a recently filed lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana bias response team, The College Fix reviewed the 265 bias complaints the public university fielded during the last year. The lawsuit charges the university’s Bias Assessment Response Team (BART) with being a literal “speech police” force.  Continue reading “At University of Illinois, 265 bias complaints enforced by literal ‘speech police’”

MassPrivateI

If you thought the TAPS Act was bad, wait until you read this.

Our politicians are hard at work introducing bills that promise to turn America into a mirror image of China.

Rep. Kathleen Rice’s H.R. 3374 bill, otherwise known as the End Drunk Driving Act, would put breathalyzers and ignition interlock devices in every new car. Continue reading “New Cars To Be Equipped With Breathalyzers, Drivers Given Mental Health Assessments”

Zero Hedge – by Mark Angelides via LibertyNation.com

Every once in a while, there comes a piece of legislation that is so abhorrent to the very concept of liberty that it seems almost doomed to failure from the outset. Sadly, the same prognosis cannot be made for the Threat Assessment Prevention, And Safety (TAPS) Act of 2019, which, due to broad bipartisan support, may actually make it into law.  Continue reading “The Tyranny Of TAPS – Hunting Down ‘Future Threats’”

NY1

Jose Rodriguez has been a repo man for three years.

“It gets crazy sometimes,” he said.

But he said he experienced nothing as crazy as what happened May 30, when he was driving near the 120th Precinct stationhouse and came across a Nissan Maxima wanted by the bank because of three missed payments.  Continue reading “A Tow Truck Driver Repossessed an NYPD Officer’s Car. Then, He Ended up in Handcuffs.”

NBC News

William Montanez is used to getting stopped by the police in Tampa, Florida, for small-time traffic and marijuana violations; it’s happened more than a dozen times. When they pulled him over last June, he didn’t try to hide his pot, telling officers, “Yeah, I smoke it, there’s a joint in the center console, you gonna arrest me for that?”  Continue reading “Give up your password or go to jail: Police push legal boundaries to get into cellphones”

The Red Elephants

Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida recently signed a bill which added ‘anti-Semitism’ to the list of outlawed forms of discrimination in Florida, equating it with other forms of racial discrimination, reported the Tallahassee Democrat.

The major problem many have with this bill is that the definition of Anti-semitism under this law includes everything from saying the “Jews control the media,” “Jews are more loyal to Israel than to America,” to many other questionable statements that are protected under the first amendment of the United States constitution. It is also now illegal to question the number of Jews who died in the Holocaust.  No other genocide has this protection in the world.  Continue reading “In Florida, It is Now HIGHLY ILLEGAL to Say “Jews Control Hollywood””

LA Times

The Orange County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a $1.1-million settlement for the mother of a man who was shot 18 times and had his skull fractured after a sheriff’s deputy stomped on his head.

A federal jury ruled in January that the deputy used excessive force in the death of Connor Zion, 21, and decided his family should receive $360,000 in damages. An additional $740,000 was tacked on for the “tremendous amount of litigation” after the lawsuit slogged through the legal system for four years, said Dan Stormer, the attorney for Zion’s mother.

Continue reading “$1.1 million given to mother whose son was shot, stomped on by O.C. deputy”

CNet

If you’re walking in Bloomfield, New Jersey, there’s a good chance you’re being recorded. But it’s not a corporate office or warehouse security camera capturing the footage — it’s likely a Ring doorbell made by Amazon.

While residential neighborhoods aren’t usually lined with security cameras, the smart doorbell’s popularity has essentially created private surveillance networks powered by Amazon and promoted by police departments.  Continue reading “Amazon’s helping police build a surveillance network with Ring doorbells”

Cleveland 19

CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) – In a video just released by the Cuyahoga County Jail, officers strap inmate Terrance Debose to a chair and push him in a secluded cell then beat the defenseless man. The punches resulted in a concussion.

The video is from a wall camera on or about March 22, 2019.
Continue reading “Inmate beating video released involving indicted Cuyahoga County Jail officers”