A foundation connected to Motorola, a license plate reader (LPR) manufacturer, has published a report showing police expect to become more reliant on the technology. The Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) conducted a survey and found “71 percent of responding agencies already have LPRs.” “Typically, an agency has only a few vehicles equipped with the [...]

A judge in New York has ruled the New York Police Department must cease to perform “trespass stops” outside certain buildings in the Bronx without reasonable suspicion of trespass. The judge has determined the practice of “stop and frisks” is inherently unlawful or unconstitutional and should not be employed without “reasonable suspicion of trespass.” Judge [...]

A New York Times report indicates that “top intelligence officials in the New York Police Department” met Thursday to discuss how to use the Internet to “identify potential ‘deranged’ gunmen before they strike.” NYPD Police Commissioner Ray Kelly stated, “The techniques would include cyber-searches of language that mass-casualty shooters have used in e-mails and Internet [...]

UPDATE – 3:30 PM EST Both Matt and Glen were arrested. The Tar Sands Blockade reports they were loaded into a police van and taken away. The police brought an ambulance to the scene and then removed the concrete barrels. The police entered the pipe to arrest the two Blockaders. And, while the arrest was [...]

This morning four people Nacogdoches, Texas, “locked themselves to heavy machinery used along the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline route, according to the Tar Sands Blockade group. The action interrupted and halted ongoing pipeline construction until police pepper sprayed the blockaders and were able to arrest and remove them in flexicuffs. The action was planned [...]

Jose Pimentel faces state terrorism charges for allegedly building a pipe bomb that he planned to explode. Informants carried out a sting operation that eventually led to his arrest on November 18, 2011. Now, according to the New York Times, documents turned over to his lawyers show the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) played a [...]

A whistleblower lawsuit on behalf of two Chicago police officers has been filed in federal court. The suit alleges the officers faced retaliation after they discovered one of their fellow officers, Sergeant Ron Watts, was “robbing drug couriers and manufacturing a case against at least one confidential informant” at the Ida B. Wells public housing [...]

(update below) Two young women from New England who attempted to start a second tree blockade to stop TransCanada’s construction of the Keystone XL pipeline have been charged with felonies. They were arrested in the last twenty-four hours. As this blog reported yesterday, in Sacul, Texas, Pika of Vermont and Lauren of New Hampshire climbed up onto [...]

In an effort to connect the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline being constructed by the multinational corporation TransCanada to extreme weather like Hurricane Sandy, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein showed up to support the Tar Sands Blockade. Stein chose to risk arrest by taking supplies to the tree sitters. Backpacks and warm winter clothing [...]

Documents and surveillance video obtained by the Massachusetts chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) show the Boston Police Department (BPD) and the city’s Homeland Security fusion center, the Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC), have been spying on peace groups and local leaders. The documents show law enforcement [...]