The Warrior cops are out of control

[boutons_deux]

Screening Out Family Time: The for-profit video visitation industry in prisons and jails

While virtually no state prisons ban in-person visitation,

we found that 74% of jails banned in-person visits when they implemented video visitation.

Though abolishing in-person visits is common in the jail video visitation context, Securus is the only company that explicitly requires this harmful practice in its contracts

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/visitation/report.html?link_id=1&can_id=4217e8eb109c68bd0c2e4 143dd2d8c15&source=email-27-million-kids-have-parents-in-prison-they-need-your-help-firstname-default-friend-add-your-name-3&email_referrer=27-million-kids-have-parents-in-prison-they-need-your-help-firstname-default-friend-add-your-name-3&email_subject=fcc-commissioner-this-is-the-greatest-form-of-regulatory-injustice-i-have-seen-in-my-18-years

[boutons_deux]

HOW PETER THIEL'S SECRETIVE DATA COMPANY PUSHED INTO POLICING

When Sergeant Lee DeBrabander marked a case confidential in the Long Beach drug squad’s Palantir data analysis system in November 2014, he expected key details to remain hidden from unauthorized users’ eyes. In police work, this can be crucial—a matter of life and death, even. It often involves protecting vulnerable witnesses, keeping upcoming operations hush hush, or protecting a fellow police officer who’s working undercover.

someone working in the gang crimes division ran a car license plate mentioned in his case and was able to read the entire file. “Can you please look at this?”

Two weeks after he made his first complaint, his sensitive case was still an open book to other detectives at Long Beach PD. “I went over to Gangs and had them run the plate since they are not listed in our confidentiality group, and sure enough the plate was found within the narrative of the very report we want to keep tight control on,” he complained in an email to Palantir.

Four months later, his case was still visible to other officers, and he was still sending emails to Palantir to fix the problem.

Law enforcement accounts for just a small part of Palantir’s business, which mostly consists of military clients, intelligence outfits like the CIA or Homeland Security, and large financial ins utions.

In police departments, Palantir’s tools are now being used to flag traffic scofflaws, parole violators, and other everyday infractions.

But the police departments that deploy Palantir are also dependent upon it for some of their most sensitive work.

Palantir’s software can ingest and sift through millions of digital records across multiple jurisdictions, spotting links and sharing data to make or break cases.

The scale of Palantir’s implementation, the type, quan y and persistence of the data it processes, and the unprecedented access that many thousands of people have to that data all raise significant concerns about privacy, equity, racial justice, and civil rights.

But until now, we haven’t known very much about how the system works, who is using it, and what their problems are.

And neither Palantir nor many of the police departments that use it are willing to talk about it.

https://www.wired.com/story/how-pete...into-policing/

Thiel doesn't mind widely "outing" personal data to police (and probably corrupt PIs), but he was sure pissed at Gawker for outing him as gay.

[boutons_deux]

Bexar County Sheriff's Office identifies deputies allegedly involved in hazing incident

The seven deputies were placed on administrative leave after a hazing incident at a house party that involved county-issued handcuffs, shackles and a taser, Sheriff Javier Salazar said Monday in a news conference.

Salazar said criminal charges are being considered, including hazing, unlawful restraint and child endangerment.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/loc...reaking%20News

San Antonio's FINEST!

btw, SAPD has a 100+ vacancies, a great opportunity for you rightwingers to get union jobs for beating up blacks and browns.

[boutons_deux]

Welcome to Georgia, the epicenter of the private probation

After pleading guilty and serving ten days in jail over the DUI, he was put on probation to ensure he paid off the $3,385 he had racked up in fines. The judge turned him over to a probation company called Sentinel Offender Services. Sentinel was just supposed to make sure Slider paid his fines.

Instead, it outfitted Slider with a bulky ankle bracelet that would check his sweat for alcohol every half hour, even though his sentence didn’t forbid him from drinking, and charged him more money.

Slider was required to pay $330 a month for the device, on top of the $708 per month he had to pay toward his fines. Throw in $450 a month for child support, and Slider’s obligations nearly exceeded his total monthly income. Hundreds of dollars in these monthly costs went straight to Sentinel.

In theory, probation in the U.S. is a way to give people a chance to rehabilitate outside of an ins ution. Misdemeanor probation is presented as a gentler sentence than jail. But in practice, much of misdemeanor probation is just a prolonged, expensive payment plan for people who can’t afford fines.

And for Fred Slider, the whole system backfired. He fell deeper and deeper into debt until he ended up back in court in late 2015 over non-payment and a monitoring violation; Sentinel said the ankle monitor showed evidence of tampering, which Slider denies. The judge sent him back to jail. After he got out, he lost his job, fell into a depression, and started drinking a lot, his mother said. One night he got drunk and ran his car off the road, suffering a traumatic brain injury.

Sentinel, the company that put the ankle monitor on Slider, was founded in 1993.

It boasts contracts in 48 states for a variety of “offender services” many of which are “offender-funded.” The company does probation supervision, GPS ankle monitoring, and even anger management classes,

all for a fee to defendants.
The private probation industry has grown over the last two decades:

In Georgia alone, there are dozens of companies like Sentinel. They contract directly with municipal courts, dealing mostly with cases of traffic violations and petty crimes, replacing what used to be court-run probation offices.

The companies charge the probationers themselves a monthly fee, selling the model as a money-saver for cities and counties.

But much of the time, the original probation is due simply to an inability to pay fines to the court.

In other words, private probation is an expensive subs ute for a payment plan.

The result is nothing short of a racket.

https://theoutline.com/post/2103/wel...?utm_source=NL

$330/month for a bracelet would pay for a loan for a BMW or Mercedes.

[boutons_deux]

‘We were guinea pigs’: Jailed inmates agreed to birth control

In a small county in rural Tennessee, inmates were offered 30 days off their sentences

in exchange for a vasectomy or a long-acting birth control implant.

County officials say it was a tool in the fight against opiate abuse -

opponents call it eugenics.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40955288

ing slave states, as backward, retrograde as ever, esp the rurals.

[boutons_deux]

O.C. mass shooter is spared death penalty in case tainted by jail informant scandal

The county’s beleaguered law enforcement leaders received their most stinging rebuke yet on Friday, when Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals blocked prosecutors from pursuing the death penalty against a man who confessed to slaughtering eight people in a Seal Beach salon, ruling that

the county’s mishandling of information regarding informants would prevent a fair trial.

As he has through years of hearings, Goethals sharply criticized the conduct of sheriff’s officials and prosecutors. Time and time again, he said,

the Sheriff’s Department failed to comply with his orders to turn over information about the use of informants in the county jail.
“The Orange County Sheriff’s Department has consistently responded to this court’s lawful orders with such indolence and obfuscation

that this court has lost confidence that it can ever secure compliance from the prosecution team,” Goethals wrote in his 19-page decision.

If not for missteps by prosecutors and sheriff’s officials, Goethals wrote, Dekraai “would likely today be living alongside other convicted killers on California’s Death Row.”

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/l...s=mcnewsletter

[boutons_deux]

As Taser warns of more risks, cities bear a burden in court

“I did not in my wildest dreams expect this kid to die,” Haas, a certified Taser instructor, told Reuters.

As Tasers have become a common weapon in U.S. policing, so too have legal cases like Everette Howard’s.

And as the human toll mounts, the litigation toll is increasingly borne by the public.

At least 442 wrongful death suits have been filed over fatalities that followed the use of a Taser, almost all since the stun guns began gaining widespread popularity with police in the early 2000s,

Police departments and the municipalities they represent have faced 435 of these suits.

The manufacturer was a defendant in 128 of them.

In all, wrongful death lawsuits were filed in at least 44 percent of the 1,000-plus incidents Reuters identified in which someone died after being stunned with a Taser by police.

In nearly 75 percent of the suits, the Taser was one factor alleged in a broader array of force applied, such as punches, baton strikes and pepper spray.

Reuters do ented at least $172 million in publicly funded payouts to resolve the litigation.

Behind these legal battles is a troubling truth: Many officers aren’t aware Tasers have the potential to kill.

Some officers still fire their Tasers at the chest. Since the 2009 warning, 44 of the 199 wrongful death lawsuits filed against police, or more than 20 percent, have included allegations that an officer's Taser shot hit that part of the body,

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-taser-legal-specialreport-idUSKCN1B315U?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_so urce=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed% 3A+reuters%2FtopNews+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Top+News%2 9

[boutons_deux]

Judge orders DreamHost to hand over anti-Trump website records to Justice Department

the government backed down somewhat, clarifying that it would not ask for IP addresses. The Justice Department said it was only looking for records on how

the website was allegedly used “to organize, to plan, and to effect a criminal act — that is, a riot.”

In today’s ruling, a DC Superior Court judge ordered DreamHost to comply with the amended warrant, although the court will oversee how the data is searched,

https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/24/1...-trump-warrant

blatant intimidation by the racist Sessions/Trash police state, blatant abuse of the law for political ends.

no IP addresses, so that means names, tel nr, addresses, connection log, etc, etc. will still be handed over?

[boutons_deux]

DAPL SECURITY FIRM TIGERSWAN RESPONDED TO PIPELINE VANDALISM BY LAUNCHING MULTISTATE DRAGNET



Leaked do ents and public records reveal a troubling fusion of private security, public law enforcement, and corporate money in the fight over the Dakota Access Pipeline.

the work of TigerSwan, the private security company hired by Energy Transfer Partners to guard its property, appeared to be nearly done. Then the pipeline was hit by several acts of vandalism targeting valve sites along the route. Starting in mid-March, saboteurs snaked down the line, piercing holes in exposed parts of the pipeline and setting equipment on fire.
The vandalism, which disrupted completion of the pipeline, created new work for TigerSwan. But the company did more than deploy additional guards along the line — it also embarked on a multistate hunt for the culprits.

TigerSwan was founded amid a private security industry boom, its business driven by U.S. government contracts supporting the nation’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. With its Dakota Access Pipeline contracts, agents applied the tactics they had honed in wars abroad to an environmental and indigenous rights movement based in the rural American Midwest.

“Our concentrated focus is the massing of intelligence (digital and ground) to find, fix and eliminate one person from the ‘detachment’ who will lead us to the arrest and conviction to the remainder of these terrorists,” TigerSwan wrote on May 4, echoing a phrase, “find, fix, finish,” used by U.S. special operations forces in so-called targeted killing campaigns in Yemen, Somalia, and Afghanistan. The firm used the term “detachment” to refer to a group of anti-DAPL activists they believed were operating outside of protest camps.

TigerSwan’s surveillance operation frequently reached far beyond its mark, sweeping up dozens of individuals in its hunt for a few and casting su ion on pipeline opponents who say they were uninterested in property destruction.

while protest activity had substantially died down, TigerSwan only escalated its efforts to convince Energy Transfer Partners that threats remained. In its reports, TigerSwan indicated to its client that agents could keep the pipeline safe by deploying infiltrators to influence activists’ actions, monitoring private residences connected to pipeline resistance, and recruiting employees at local businesses to help keep watch.

the threats described in the situation reports were often inflated. Reports were framed based on “whatever sounded better for the company to put forth to ETP,” the former contractor said. “They were using scare tactics.

around the time that Little Creek opened in February, videos began appearing on Facebook pages called Defend Iowa and Netizens for Progress and Justice featuring an individual named Robert Rice, who failed to disclose his link to TigerSwan. A September 22 do ent noted that Rice had assisted TigerSwan in developing an information operations campaign. He didn’t just warn area residents that Little Creek members might be dangerous — at least one video also encouraged people to send tips to the administrators of the Facebook page on what they were seeing and hearing about the camp.

https://theintercept.com/2017/08/26/...state-dragnet/

ETP hires TigerSwan as its own, private EXTRAJUDICIAL militarized goon squad.

[boutons_deux]

and YOU, posse comitatus

Trump to restore program sending surplus military weapons, equipment to police

President Donald Trump plans to resume the transfer of surplus weapons, vehicles and other equipment from the nation’s military to its state and local law enforcement agencies, reviving a program that was sharply curtailed by President Barack Obama two years ago.

The program launched in 1990 but was greatly limited after public reaction to images of heavily militarized police in the streets of Ferguson, Mo., and other sites of civil unrest.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the move Monday morning at the Fraternal Order of Police convention in Nashville, and said the president would do so by executive order. The police union had lobbied for the restoration of the program, and Trump said he would do so during his campaign.

“Protective equipment is essential to officer and public safety in a wide variety of life and death situations,”

Obama said in 2015 that

“militarized gear sometimes gives people a feeling like [police] are an occupying force as opposed to a part of the community there to protect them. Some equipment made for the battlefield is not appropriate for local police departments.” ( sometimes? )

“represents a policy shift toward ensuring officers have the tools they need to reduce crime and keep their communities safe.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.c8d92487de21

[boutons_deux]

Well, it's ing Oklahoma, no surprise (google the Tulsa massacre)

An Oklahoma Police Chief Was Just Busted For Owning Neo-Nazi Websites

A local news station in Colbert, Oklahoma, KXII News, has exposed a newly appointed police chief for his links to websites that sell skinhead and white nationalist paraphernalia.


KXII News tracked down the certificate of ownership for ISD Records; the owner was a local man named Bart Alsbrook.

The Colbert Police Department named Bart Alsbrook interim police chiefthis week.

After KXII News called to confront Alsbrook about the website, he denied it was him.

After a nationwide search for another Bart Alsbrook returned absolutely no results, the news station again called Alsbrook, who now

“claimed a group of skinheads stole his wallet and began using his name after a fight at a heavy metal concert in the 1990’s.”

Within hours of KXII News calling Alsbrook, his website was taken offline.

http://occupydemocrats.com/2017/08/2...nazi-websites/

[Trill Clinton]

[Thread]

What'd you think, Trill? tee, hee.

‘Kill all white people’: Suspect in killings of five white men made threat in 2014

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/local...#storylink=cpy

[Thread]

What'd you think, Trill? tee, hee.

‘Kill all white people’: Suspect in killings of five white men made threat in 2014

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/local...#storylink=cpy

Trill just a little silent...tee, hee.

[Trill Clinton]

What'd you think, Trill? tee, hee.

‘Kill all white people’: Suspect in killings of five white men made threat in 2014

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/local...#storylink=cpy

I think that young man has very serious mental health issues and I hope he is given psychiatric treatment before he hurts himself or anyone else.

Look at this psycho.

[Thread]

I think that young man has very serious mental health issues and I hope he is given psychiatric treatment before he hurts himself or anyone else.

I'll just bet you do.

[Trill Clinton]

I'll just bet you do.

What do you think about the thug posing with the two pistols?

[Thread]

What do you think about the thug posing with the two pistols?

Ask me when the count is even.

[Trill Clinton]

Ask me when the count is even.

Lol smh

[boutons_deux]

‘This is crazy,’ sobs Utah hospital nurse as cop roughs her up, arrests her for doing her job

the head nurse at the University of Utah Hospital’s burn unit was professional and restrained when she told a Salt Lake City police detective he wasn’t allowed to draw blood from a badly injured patient.

The detective didn’t have a warrant, first off.

And the patient wasn’t conscious, so he couldn’t give consent.

Without that, the detective was

barred from collecting blood samples — not just by hospital policy, but by basic cons utional law.
Still, Detective Jeff Payne insisted that he be let in to take the blood, saying the nurse would be arrested and charged if she refused.

Nurse Alex Wubbels politely stood her ground. She got her supervisor on the phone so Payne could hear the decision loud and clear.

“Sir,” said the supervisor, “you’re making a huge mistake because you’re threatening a nurse.”

Payne snapped.

He seized hold of the nurse, shoved her out of the building and cuffed her hands behind her back.

A bewildered Wubbels screamed “help me” and “you’re assaulting me” as the detective forced her into an unmarked car and accused her of interfering with an investigation.

Wubbels was right. The U.S. Supreme Court has explicitly ruled that blood can only be drawn from drivers for probable cause, with a warrant.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...nl_most&wpmm=1

I bet tubby wubby Wubbels gets off with a reprimand, or he does like most bad cops, joins the sheriff's posse.

[Trill Clinton]

[boutons_deux]

the miliatarized police state (includes prosecutors, DA, elected judges, incarceration nation), 99.9% immune from prosecution, has really ed over what was left of the myth of American "civilization"

[Trill Clinton]

las vegas police department asks the nfl to investigate michael bennet. just take the L, man

[boutons_deux]

Mississippi cop tasered pregnant woman in the stomach even as she begged them to stop: witness

A police officer from Pass Christian, Mississippi, is being accused of tasering a pregnant woman in the stomach even after she implored him not to because of the harm it could do to her unborn baby.

The Miami Sun Herald reports that 27-year-old Aviana White got into a confrontation with police after they pulled over her brother’s car and discovered that he did not have a driver’s license.

White, who was a passenger in the car, had an outstanding warrant for a misdemeanor domestic violence charge from 2014, and refused to tell officers her name.

At some point during the confrontation, White walked away from the car and placed a phone call to the Pass Christian Police Department to complain about her treatment.

At that point, witnesses say an officer “charged” toward her while holding a stun gun before grabbing White.

Witnesses tell the Sun Herald that White then told the officer to be careful with the taser because she was pregnant.

Witness Alicia Burton says that the officer didn’t listen to her, and proceeded to taser her three times in the abdomen, and once in the leg.

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/09/miss...-stop-witness/

official report will say something like: "Fantastic, Wonderful, Perfect officer did not violate any dept protocols. Case dismissed"

[boutons_deux]

EFF, ACLU Sue Over Warrantless Phone, Laptop Searches at U.S. Border

Lawsuit on Behalf of 11 Travelers Challenges Uncons utional Searches of Electronic Devices

The plaintiffs in the case are 10 U.S. citizens and one lawful permanent resident who hail from seven states and come from a variety of backgrounds.

The lawsuit challenges the government’s fast-growing practice of searching travelers’ electronic devices without a warrant.

It seeks to establish that the government must have a warrant based on probable cause to suspect a violation of immigration or customs laws before conducting such searches.

The plaintiffs include a military veteran, journalists, students, an artist, a NASA engineer, and a business owner. Several are Muslims or people of color.

All were reentering the country from business or personal travel when border officers searched their devices.

None were subsequently accused of any wrongdoing. Officers also confiscated and kept the devices of several plaintiffs for weeks or months—DHS has held one plaintiff’s device since January. EFF, ACLU, and the ACLU of Massachusetts are representing the 11 travelers.

https://www.eff.org/press/releases/e...less-phone-and