By Josie Duffy in Daily Kos – A recent investigation by USA Today showed that police in Baltimore have been tracking cellphones during investigations but have failed to disclose the tracking to defendants and their attorneys. As a result, public defenders in Baltimore are expected to request that “a large number” of criminal convictions be thrown out. Baltimore police have used cellphone trackers, commonly known as stingrays, to investigate crimes as minor as harassing phone calls, then concealed the surveillance from suspects and their lawyers. Maryland law generally requires that electronic surveillance be disclosed in court. […] Stingrays are suitcase-sized devices that allow the police to pinpoint a cellphone’s location to within a few yards by posing as a cell tower. In the process, they also can intercept information from the phones of nearly everyone else who happens to be nearby.
By Sarah Jaffee in Truth Out – The rise of the Movement for Black Lives got Brandon Buchanan and some of his fellow graduate student employees in the University of California system thinking. Many of them had taken part in the protests rippling across the country, and the movement had also inspired them to think about what they could do within their own union, United Auto Workers Local 2865, to deal with questions of racism and anti-Blackness close to home. “To get our voices heard we realized that we needed to come together to form a committee that specifically addressed the needs of Black workers in the union,” Buchanan, a graduate student in sociology at UC Davis, told Truthout.
By Ryan Gallagher in The Intercept – A secretive British police investigation focusing on journalists working with Edward Snowden’s leaked documents remains ongoing two years after it was quietly launched, The Intercept can reveal. London’s Metropolitan Police Service has admitted it is still carrying out the probe, which is being led by its counterterrorism department, afterpreviously refusing to confirm or deny its existence on the grounds that doing so could be “detrimental to national security.” The disclosure was made by police in a letter sent to this reporter Tuesday, concluding a seven-month freedom of information battle that saw the London force repeatedly attempt to withhold basic details about the status of the case. It reversed its position this week only after an intervention from the Information Commissioner’s Office, the public body that enforces the U.K.’s freedom of information laws.
By Patrick Sheehan for Alternet. Detroit’s public electric company, DTE Energy, that the local government was forced to decommission all streetlights on its residential streets. Not only did DTE cut the power to street lights in Highland Park, it sent out workers to physically dig up and remove nearly 1,000 light-poles from the neighborhood. Highland Parkers now live in permanent, debt-induced darkness. Six miles away, in Detroit’s rapidly gentrifying downtown area, DTE Energy runs a very different public policy. The same company that repossessed 1,000 streetlights from Highland Park, condemning its residents to permanent darkness, has recently launched a pro-bono security program in the increasingly white area. Safety is a privilege in Detroit. Like all privileges, it gravitates toward the white and wealthy. Decades of budget cuts to public safety services alongside concentrated investment downtown has created two Detroits: downtown, white and professional, bathed in state-of-the-art private security; and the “neighborhoods,” poor and black, where public safety has become a do-it-yourself endeavor.
By Cole Strangler in IB Times – In the latest escalation of its campaign against the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the nation’s largest labor federation is calling on the Obama administration to declassify the full text of the proposed trade agreement. And on a rainy Tuesday morning in Washington, the AFL-CIO and its allies engaged in some old-fashioned political theater to make their point. As it stands, access to the deal is limited to negotiators and, upon special request, members of Congress, all of whom are legally barred from disclosing the details. Those strict rules remain in place even as the White House lobbies the House of Representatives on so-called fast-track legislation
By Bailey Lamon and Mike Roy in Revolution News – Saturday, May.30th 2015 was the 3rd National Day of Action held in Canada against Bill C-51, a piece of legislation supported by the ruling Conservative government and Liberal Party of Canada that attempts to address and eliminate potential threats of “terrorism”. It has been compared to the Patriot Act in the United States. C-51 passed in the House of Commons just weeks ago, making its way to the Senate who could, if they wanted to, scrap the bill entirely. At this point in time 15 Canadian Senators oppose C-51, while 5 are in support and 52 are undecided. National days of protest have been happening every month since the bill was proposed in addition to consistent campaigning from anti-C51 organizers all over the country.
The camp had been set up in a park next to the headquarters of the Montreal police department close to Place des Arts, following a march through downtown streets. The goal of the demonstration was to alert the public to the lack of affordable housing and the plight of the homeless. FRAPRU blames the Quebec government of lowering the number of new social housing units to 1,500 from 3,000 in its latest budget. The group blames Ottawa for progressively reducing the budget geared toward social housing. Police had issued an ultimatum soon after the arrival of the protesters, asking for the removal of the tents. About 15 tents remained up and police moved in to remove them. The removal was not met by resistance but three people were arrested for obstructing police.
There are no words… we are deeply deeply saddened by the arrests today of our Hawaiian brothers and sisters and other citizens who were peacefully protecting Mauna Kea from further desecration while we wait for Hawaiʻi’s courts to hear our appeal. In aloha we’ve directly sought the help of Governor Ige, Hawaiʻi Island Mayor Kenoi, University of Hawaiʻi President Lassner and Hawaiʻi County Prosecutor Roth. But so far none of them have stepped forward to intervene on our behalf. Last night we were informed by the Governor’s Chief of Staff that there was ‘too much construction company money at stake” for us to expect Governor Ige to use his executive authority to hold off construction until our appeal can be heard by the State Supreme Court.
More than 100 students and professors are accusing the Cornell police of conducting threatening interviews with student activists because of their involvement in a protest of the university’s Board of Trustees. Cornell police, however, say that the students were interviewed because of a reported crime. Officers are charged with investigating criminal acts regardless of the political motivation of who committed them, and it would be wrong to give preferential treatment to only certain people because they are student activists, Chief Kathy Zoner said. At around 1 a.m. on March 26, the night before the Board of Trustees meeting, someone broke into the Statler Hall Auditorium and used a private computer in the room, according to Chief Zoner.
Student protesters marched in Milan on Thursday, a day before the 2015 Universal Exposition opens there. Critics denounce corruption scandals surrounding the showpiece event as well as what they see as a waste of public money and the exploitation of volunteer labour. And this is just the beginning. Thousands more protesters are set to demonstrate on May Day itself to mark the opening Security is tight amid fears things could turn ugly. In raids aimed at rooting out potential troublemakers, several people have been detained, including French and German citizens. Items like pickaxes, gas masks and baseball bats have reportedly been seized. The government is counting on the Milan Expo to reinforce fragile signs of recovery in Italy.
Washington, DC – As the uprising in response to the brutal killing of Freddie Gray in Baltimore continues, it brings to the forefront the need for substantive action to address widespread systemic oppression of low-income communities of color by law enforcement across the United States. The DCFerguson Movement calls on the D.C. Council to dedicate the $2.9 million in new funding for police in the FY 2016 budget to community-led security initiatives. Currently, the Bowser Administration is proposing that $2.9 million be dedicated to put 48 new police officers on the streets. This proposal comes in addition to the egregious allocation of $5.1 million for body cameras on police officers, to collect footage that Bowser wants to make exempt from open records law.
According to Washingtonsblog: ‘Smart Meters’ are now being used by authorities to crack down on “water wasters” in California, but this is just the tip of the iceberg as far as what they can be used for. Ultimately, ‘Smart Meters’ are designed to be part of an entire “smart grid” that will enable government bureaucrats “to control everything from your dishwasher to thermostat“. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has even admitted that privacy and data access is a concern as far back as 2010 in a report on smart meter technology. The “Data Access and Privacy Issues Related to Smart Grid Technologies.” report states ‘Smart Meters’ are indeed spying on everyone.
The FBI is taking extraordinary and potentially unconstitutional measures to keep local and state police forces from exposing the use of so-called “Stingray” surveillance technology across the United States, according to documents obtained separately by the Guardian and the American Civil Liberties Union. Multiple non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) revealed in Florida, New York and Maryland this week show federal authorities effectively binding local law enforcement from disclosing any information – even to judges – about the cellphone dragnet technology, its collection capabilities or its existence.
Riot police in Montreal used tear gas and flash-bangs to disperse hundreds of students rallying in the city’s downtown in protest against the Quebec government’s austerity measures. Following dispersal, barricades have been put up at Montreal’s Carré Phillips and protesters are regrouping, according to various reports on the ground. The march began downtown as demonstrators gathered at Dominion Square on Friday night. The rally was declared illegal at 9:15 p.m. local time. Within the next 30 minutes, the riot squad was dispersing students from St. Catherine Street. Tear gas and stun grenades were repeatedly used, prompting students to scatter and run away.
The Baltimore Police Department has used secretive cellphone surveillance equipment 4,300 times and believes it is under orders by the U.S. government to withhold evidence from criminal trials and ignore subpoenas in cases where the device is used, a police officer testified Wednesday. The unusual testimony in a criminal case marked a rare instance when details have been revealed about the surveillance devices, which the Obama administration has aggressively tried to keep secret. Citing security reasons, the government has intervened in routine state public-records cases and criminal trials, and has advised police not to disclose details. On Wednesday, Baltimore police officer Emmanuel Cabreja said his technical unit has deployed the device, called Hailstorm, about 4,300 times since 2007.
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