Diabetic teen upset with TSA screeners at Salt Lake City Airport
May 8, 2012 by Kristen
Filed under Police State
SALT L AKE CITY (ABC 4 News) – A Colorado teen is upset with screeners at Salt Lake City International Airport. The type one diabetic says TSA agents were abrupt, rude and were responsible for breaking her $10,000 insulin pump. A pump she has to have to survive.
Savannah Barry is mad and on a mission. She wants travelers to be warned before they walk through TSA security. “They need to get with the program and have some education across the board for TSA.” After participating in a DECA conference in Salt Lake City with several classmates last week, Savannah, who is a type one diabetic and wears an insulin pump 24 hours a day, says she ran into TSA agents who were not prepared to deal with her medical situation. “I went up to the lady and I said, I am a type one diabetic. I wear an insulin pump. I showed her the pump. I said, what do you want me to do? I usually do a pat down – what would you recommend?”
Savannah then showed agents a doctor’s note explaining that the sensitive insulin pump should not go through the body scanner. She says she was told to go through it anyway. “When someone in a position of authority tells you it is – you think that its right. So, I said, Are you sure I can go through with the pump? It’s not going to hurt the pump? And she said no, no you’re fine.”
‘Help me,’ homeless man begs as cops fatally beat him in videotaped incident
May 8, 2012 by Kristen
Filed under Police State
(CNN) — A graphic video played at a hearing Monday to determine whether two California police officers should stand trial in the beating death of a homeless man showed them kicking and punching the mentally ill man as he lay on the ground — screaming in pain and begging for help.
The victim, Kelly Thomas, died five days after the beating on July 5.
Manuel Ramos, a 10-year veteran of the Fullerton, California, police department, is charged with second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter, while Cpl. Jay Patrick Cicinelli faces charges of involuntary manslaughter and felony use of excessive force in the same case.
Both have pleaded not guilty.
New Police Strategy in New York – Sexual Assault Against Peaceful Protesters
May 7, 2012 by Jack Blood
Filed under Police State
 US experiencing militarization of its police by Ygurvitz for Flickr | A few weeks ago I was with a few companions from Occupy Wall Street in Union Square when an old friend — I’ll call her Eileen — passed through, her hand in a cast.’What happened to you?’ I asked. ‘Oh, this?’ she held it up. ‘I was in Liberty Park on the 17th [the Six Month Anniversary of the Occupation]. When the cops were pushing us out the park, one of them yanked at my breast.’ ‘Again?’ someone said. We had all been hearing stories like this. In fact, there had been continual reports of police officers groping women during the nightly evictions from Union Square itself over the previous two weeks. ‘Yeah so I screamed at the guy, I said, ‘you grabbed my boob! what are you, some kind of f*cking pervert?’ So they took me behind the lines and broke my wrists.’ Actually, she quickly clarified, only one wrist was literally broken. She proceeded to launch into a careful, well-nigh… |
Read the rest of the story HERE:
Obama, Washington Target 2012 OWS
May 7, 2012 by Jack Blood
Filed under Police State
BOLD emphasis is ours…
Last October, Obama told ABC News:
“The most important thing we can do right now is those of us in leadership letting people know that we understand their struggles and we are on their side, and that we want to set up a system in which hard work, responsibility, doing what you’re supposed to do, is rewarded.”
“And that people who are irresponsible, who are reckless, who don’t feel a sense of obligation to their communities and their companies and their workers that those folks aren’t rewarded.”
His key words were: “we are on their side.”
At the same time, FBI, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and Secret Service agents were working cooperatively with local authorities to infiltrate, disrupt, subvert, and destroy the movement in cities nationwide.
Celebratory hope accompanied Obama’s election. After campaigning on a promise of hope and change, betrayal followed. He expanded the worst Bush policies. He usurped unbridled powers.
In June 2010, ACLU executive director Anthony Romero said Obama “disgusted” him. Civil liberty infringements got worse. Rule of law principles faded.
Last year, Yale Law Professor Jack Balkin said “(w)e are witnessing the bipartisan normalization and legitimization of a national security state.”
His administration created a “parallel track of preventative law enforcement that bypasses traditional protections in the Bill of Rights.”
In December 2008, before he took office, James Petras called him “the greatest con man in recent history.” He compared him to Melville’s Confidence Man. “He catches your eye while he picks your pocket.” He promises one thing and delivers another consistently on issues mattering most.
A November 2008 Robert Fitch speech to the Harlem Tenants Association revealed much about lay ahead. He said Chicago urban planners yearned to make the city’s south side developed like northern areas.
Demolitions for gentrification were wanted. Poor folks had to be driven out. Most were Black. As an Illinois state senator, Obama represented a targeted community. His “core financial supporters” and “inmost circle of advisors” stood to profit.
“Obama’s political base comes primarily from Chicago FIRE – finance, insurance and real estate industry” officials. Other key supporters included liberal foundations, elite universities, NGO community developers, and “real estate reverends who (preach and) produce market rate housing” at the expense of poor people kicked out for beneficiaries.
Together Fitch called them “Friendly FIRE….disguised by the camouflage of community uplift, augmented by the authority of academia, greased by billions in foundation grants, and wired” to provisions of the Community Reinvestment Act of 1995.</blockquote>
Obama was their guy, a front man. As president, Chicago style hope and change repeated across America. Before taking office in January 2009, Fitch saw what lay ahead. He wasn’t alone.
The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) is a public service legal organization. It’s “dedicated to the defense of human and civil rights secured by law, the protection of free speech and dissent, and the elimination of prejudice and discrimination. Among the PCJF cases are constitutional law, civil rights, women’s rights, economic justice matters and Freedom of Information Act cases.”
Its work includes “landmark constitutional rights litigation, often concentrated in the areas of free speech, assembly or other protected political organizing activity.”
According to PCJF’s executive director Mara Verheyden-Hilliard:
“The major defining feature of the Obama administration on (core constitutional issues) is the eagerness with which it embraced the stunning evisceration of civil rights and liberties that was a hallmark of the Bush administration, and then deepened those outrageous programs. He has successfully counted on the acquiescent silence of the liberals.”
In March, PCJF obtained heavily redacted Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requested documents. They showed federal agencies began “coordinated intelligence gathering and operations on” OWS last September.
On September 17, 2011, protests began in New York’s Zuccotti Park. Secret Service agents were there covertly. DHS was also involved.
Documents show its top officials “were preoccupied with the Occupy movement and have gone out of their way to project the appearance of an absence of federal involvement in the monitoring of and crackdown on Occupy.”
“On the street it would be called “Three Card Monte,” a swindler’s game to hide the ball — a game of misdirection. The House always wins.”
Before Zuccotti Park’s first demonstration, the DHS Office Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) prepared National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration (NCCIC) alerts about planned OWS demonstrations.
At issue is ongoing spying since 9/11. America became a total surveillance society. Millions are covertly watched. Their communications are monitored, including phone calls, emails, and other online activity. Doing so alerted authorities about coming plans. They were ready well in advance.
In response to FOIA, press, and public inquiries of its involvement, one DHS official wrote:
“I understand we have already received some FOIA requests regarding our possible reporting of the ‘Occupy’….protests.”
“I think should the FOIA experts find it appropriate to release information about the manner in which this issue was managed with DHS, it could only be perceived as a positive by those in the public who closely (observe) the Department.”
DHS tried to evade and obstruct a complete FOIA search to conceal its disruptive and coordinated activities with other federal agencies and local authorities.
On April 30, PCJF “updated and made public the largest and most comprehensive” ever FOIA obtained DC police documents. Years of hard fought litigation got them. Washington police operate under a “cloak of secrecy.” Sunshine revealed some of what it conceals.
Society’s most disadvantaged are harmed. It’s true across America. DC is a microcosm of authoritarian police serving powerful interests at the expense of ordinary people. Willful legal violations occur. No one’s held accountable. Anyone challenging the system is targeted.
In part, PCJF cracked the District of Columbia government’s wall of secrecy. A trove of materials were gotten and made public. PCJF called obtaining them “historic.”
On May 3, PCJF headlined, “DHS Releases More Documents on Occupy to PCJF.” They reveal “massive (federal) nationwide” OWS monitoring and information sharing between DHS and local authorities.
According to Verheyden-Hilliard:
“These documents show not only intense government monitoring and coordination in response to the Occupy Movement, but reveal a glimpse into the interior of a vast, tentacled, national intelligence and domestic spying network that the US government operates against its own people.”
“These heavily redacted documents don’t tell the full story. They are likely only a subset of responsive materials and the PCJF continues to fight for a complete release. They scratch the surface of a mass intelligence network” apparatus operating against the interests of ordinary Americans.
Documents gotten reveal “intense” federal monitoring of OWS activities. Those involved are identified to include names, addresses, and other relevant information. NORTHCOM’s kept informed ahead of planned demonstrations.
DHS stays in direct communication with the White House regarding ongoing operations and approved “public statements denying DHS’s involvement in Occupy actions.”
DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano runs its anti-OWS operations along with FBI and other federal agency officials. Obama appointed her.
The man who told ABC News “we are on their side,” in fact, oversees a plan to disrupt, subvert, and destroy what they’re working for. Imagine what’s ahead in a second term if he’s reelected.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
His new book is titled “How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War”
http://www.claritypress.com/Lendman.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour.
ALSO READ: FBI Entrapment Snares More Victims
How the Drug War Creates Collateral Damage – Elderly Couple’s Small Business Destroyed By DEA Regulations
May 6, 2012 by Jack Blood
Filed under Police State
88-year-old Bob Wallace, and his 85-year-old girlfriend, Marjorie Ottenberg fell in love 35 years ago backpacking to the tops of the highest peaks in the world.
Wallace is a Stanford educated engineer and Ottenberg is a former chemist and decades ago they came up with a water purification product for backpackers like themselves called Polar Pure out of their garage in Saratoga, Calif.
“For an old guy with nothing else to do, this is something that keeps us occupied,” says Wallace.
Today, Wallace and Ottenberg are fighting the Drug Enforcement Administration and state officials to continue to operate their business. Why? The DEA says that drug dealers are using their product to make methamphetamine.
The DEA says meth heads are interested in Polar Pure’s key ingredient, iodine crystals.
In 2007 the DEA reclassified iodine as a controlled substance and named Polar Pure in particular as a product that was of concern to the DEA. The DEA told Wallace and Ottenberg, they could continue to operate their business but they would have to pay a $1,200 regulatory fee, register with the state and feds, report any suspicious activity and keep track of each and ever person who bought a bottle of their product.
Bob says that the overhead alone would be too much to pass onto customers.
“So that’s why I didn’t bother with their rules, because I would be out of business if I followed their regulations,” says Wallace.
The same went for camping stores and online outlets that stocked Polar Pure. Instead of dealing with the new regulations they just dropped the product, effectively killing Wallace and Ottenberg’s business.
“Any time you deal with a government it’s a hassle,” says Ottenberg.
A spokeswoman for the DEA told the San Jose Mercury News that Wallace was “collateral damage.”
“They are being put out of business, they are totally being put out of business,” says Stephen Downing, a former Los Angeles Police Department deputy chief and a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.
Downing says that that the DEA is the most out of control arm of the federal government today because they are given so much authority with very little oversight.
“Within the controlled substances act, the DEA is given authority chemicals as they come up,” says Downing. “To make it easy for federal enforcement people to so called, do their job and make their quotas and have their show-and-tells, they pass these regulations that impact innocent people.”
Downing also says that the metrics for stopping use and production of methamphetamine don’t make sense.
The Justice Department’s own National Drug Threat Assessment for 2011 said that the availability of methamphetamine was increasing in every region of the country and the rates of abuse were increasing as well.
About 6:47 minutes.
Written and produced by Paul Detrick. Field produced by Zach Weismuller and Sharif Matar.
Go to http://www.reason.tv for downloadable versions and subscribe to Reason.tv’s YouTube Channel to receive automatic notifications when new material goes live.
Chicago Police State for NATO “Summit” – Airport-style security screenings on Trains etc
May 4, 2012 by Jack Blood
Filed under Police State
This will be added to a total citywide lock-down, complete with Military Choppers, snipers, biometric face scanning technology, and checkpoints. Welcome Oceania Army?
CHICAGO (CBS) – Some stations on the Metra Electric Line and South Shore Line could be shut down during the upcoming NATO summit, and passengers at other stations could face airport-style security screenings, due to the Secret Service security plan that could be released as soon as Friday afternoon.
CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine has exclusive details on those security measures, which the Secret Service is expected to officially unveil on Friday, or at the very latest, on Monday. Federal officials have promised the announcement will include a “comprehensive list of street closures and parking restrictions surrounding the NATO summit.”
The Secret Service has been battling with Metra and the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District over the security measures that will be needed on the Electric and South Shore lines, which both run directly under McCormick Place.
Metra and NICTD won round one of that battle, as trains on those two lines will continue to operate during the summit, although there will be significant delays at times, with trains possibly being stopped for security screening before passing McCormick Place.
The commuter rail agencies are still in talks with the Secret Service over major security measures for passengers, including airport-style screening of all riders during the summit. That would mean commuters on those lines would face patdowns, X-ray screenings, and long security lines at their stations before boarding trains.
The Secret Service initially wanted all trains to stop short of McCormick Place, with shuttle buses taking passengers around the summit site.
Then they talked about canine units conducting searches on trains, which would be halted before reaching McCormick Place.
Now, the Secret Service is planning for airport-style security screening at a limited number of stations on those two train lines. Many other stations on the Electric and South Shore lines – serving the South Side, southern suburbs and northwest Indiana – would be shut down during the summit.
Neither Metra nor the Secret Service will talk about the security measures yet. But sources said, with just over two weeks until the summit, nothing has been decided.
Earlier this week, Chicago police handled hundreds of May Day demonstrators marching from the West Side into the Loop, successfully containing the crowd with no arrests or injuries.
Many called it a trial run or dress rehearsal for NATO – for both police and protesters.
What most people didn’t see were all the CTA buses quietly re-routed around the demonstrations and marches, which will also be part of a CTA strategy to be announced after the Secret Service restrictions released.
The CTA plan will encourage commuters to use its rail lines, all of which will operate with full service. Many of its buses will not.
There will be what the CTA calls “hard closures” of bus routes affected by the security perimeter; and “soft rolling closures,” or temporary delays on other bus lines – like there were during Tuesday’s protest march – to wait for passing motorcades, parades, or demonstrations.
The CTA said bus managers and volunteers will be on the street at bus stops to help riders cope with the three-day detours.
What we’re hearing is that the CTA, RTA, and most other local agencies have been told to wait for the Secret Service announcement, before revealing their own plans.
That hints at an avalanche of information coming out about summit plans right after the feds break their silence and post all the security restrictions on various websites.
The tentative plan had that happening at around 6 p.m. Friday, but that could change.
UCSD student’s 5-day ordeal in DEA jail sparks outrage, anger
May 4, 2012 by Jack Blood
Filed under Police State
Is accountability finally catching up with the DEA? Not likely...
Elected officials are demanding answers after Daniel Chong, a 23-year-old UC San Diego student, was left unattended for five days in a Drug Enforcement Administration detention cell.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) called on U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. asking for an “immediate and thorough” Department of Justice investigation into the matter.
“After the investigation is completed, I ask that you please provide me with the results and the actions the department will take to make sure those responsible are held accountable and that no one in DEA custody will ever again be forced to endure such treatment,” she wrote.
The DEA apologized Wednesday to Chong, who was accidentally left unattended in a holding cell for five days and reportedly drank his own urine to survive.
San Diego attorney Gene Iredale said his client was “still recovering” from the ordeal. The attorney submitted the initial paperwork needed for a lawsuit Wednesday. The claim seeks $20 million in compensation for the incident.
“He is glad to be alive,” Iredale said of Chong. “He wants to make sure that what happened to him doesn’t happen to anyone else.”
News of the incident came to light when Chong told a San Diego television station he spent nearly a week in the cell without food, water or access to a toilet after an April 21 raid on a house in San Diego.
The DEA, which identified Chong only as “the individual in question,” said he and eight others were swept up during a raid of a suspected Ecstasy distribution operation, where agents found guns, ammunition, 18,000 Ecstasy pills and other drugs.
The nine suspects were taken to a DEA area headquarters, where they were fingerprinted, photographed and interviewed, the agency said. After processing, seven were taken to a county detention facility and one was released.
Chong, the agency said, was “accidentally left in one of the cells.” He told NBC San Diego he kicked the door “many, many times” in a futile attempt to get agents’ attention.
When they finally found Chong, he was taken to Sharp Memorial Hospital, where he stayed for five days. Iredale said Chong, who was close to kidney failure and had trouble breathing, spent three of those days in the intensive care unit.
Chong also suffered hallucinations and “thought he was going insane,” Iredale said. Chong told NBC San Diego he tried to kill himself by breaking his glasses and cutting his wrists.
“I didn’t care if I died,” he told the station. “I was completely insane.”
William R. Sherman, acting special agent in charge of the DEA’s San Diego Division, apologized in a statement Wednesday and said he had ordered “an extensive review” of DEA policies and procedures.
“I am deeply troubled by the incident that occurred here last week,” Sherman said. “I extend my deepest apologies [to] the young man and want to express that this event is not indicative of the high standards that I hold my employees to.”
The DEA said Chong told agents he had been at the house that was raided “to get high with his friends” and later admitted that he used a white powdery substance found in his cell that tested positive for methamphetamine.
Iredale confirmed Chong had stayed with friends the night of April 20 to “celebrate” the day heralded by many marijuana aficionados “in the typical way — by smoking some pot.”
But the attorney said the meth found in the cell was not his client’s and was there before his arrival.
“The DEA’s protocol was so sloppy that somebody who was a previous prisoner secreted a small amount of meth in a plastic bag inside a blanket,” Iredale said.
The San Diego Union Tribune reported that Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) wants a congressional investigation.
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Police detain suspect in May Day drum attack on officer
Drug-dealing cops using Occupy protesters as test subjects, snitches?
May 2, 2012 by Jack Blood
Filed under Police State
In this screengrab, cops escort a drug user into a patrol car to be taken to a secret warehouse where the "test subject" consumes the drug of their choice. It is part of the highly unethical "DRE" program.
By Andrew W. Griffin
Red Dirt Report, editor
Posted: May 2, 2012
OKLAHOMA CITY – In what strikes this reporter as highly unethical and likely illegal, police officers, highway patrol troopers and sheriff’s deputies from across Minnesota have been allegedly preying on drug-impaired youths, getting them high and observing their reactions, not unlike laboratory rats.
Norman-based blogger Kaye Beach, with Axxiom for Liberty, informed Red Dirt Report about this disturbing program and that similar activities may be taking place here in Oklahoma.
RogueMedia.org, with help from Twin Cities Indymedia, Communities United Against Police Brutality and Occupy Minneapolis, reported that their undercover investigation, revealed shocking stories of cops offering young people drugs and taken to a secret state-owned warehouse where vast amounts of drugs were consumed by the young test subjects under the watchful eyes of interested police. The activists also witnessed, in Minneapolis’ Peavey Plaza, “police dropping off impaired people” where Occupy Minneapolis congregates.
The video can be viewed here.
This appears to be part of a new “innovative training program” for police which allows them to become Drug Recognition Experts (DRE’s) and that those recruited for the tests would be already “drug-impaired.” As this activist video shows, several were not impaired and simply jumped at the chance of free drugs and a free meal, only to be dropped off back at the plaza in a drug-impaired state.
It would appear that this program only proves what a joke the “drug war” really is, when the cops are encouraging young people to take drugs so they can become drug-recognition experts.
Continuing, in the video it notes that the young people are offered free drugs, taken to a Minnesota Department of Transportation warehouse near the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, and observed as they ingest copious amounts of illegal drugs, primarily marijuana.
Interviewing different young people who took part in the “drug tests,” they discovered that no EMT’s or ambulances were on site.
“I got stoned with a couple of cops,” says one young man identified as ‘Panda.’ “I’m high as f***.
Panda explained he was at the local Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis when he was told the police were “doing research” to find out “how people react” under the influence of narcotics. And when the cops offered Panda to take part in the human experiment, he agreed.
Asked by the activist if it was “high-grade weed,” Panda replies: “Dude, this is some of the best s*** I’ve had in a while. Now I know what happens to the stuff they confiscate.”
Afterward, they bought the young drug user a double cheeseburger dinner at a McDonald’s. They monitored how fast they ate his meal so they could see if he had the “munchies.”
Panda also said that the cops knew he was deeply involved in the local Occupy Wall Street activist movement and they asked him to inform on other Occupiers.
Panda claims he was asked to participate some other time in the future, and Panda said “one day” he would consider it.
Another human subject, a young man, said his blood pressure was checked and that at the warehouse there were upwards of 30 cops on site. The Minnesota State Patrol website says these tests on human guinea pigs are part of certification training “where they perform 12 evaluations on drug-impaired subjects” to better train cops for field-sobriety tests and so forth. Certification training takes two-to-three weeks, according to the RogueMedia.org story.
Back to their video, another guy, who wanted heroin, said the cops gave him a big bag of weed to smoke.
Of concern is that these test subjects return to the plaza in an impaired condition and could endanger themselves or others in public gathering spaces, such as Peavey Plaza in Minneapolis.
The video notes that Minnesota’s DRE state coordinator is Riccardo Munoz, with the Minnesota State Patrol in St. Paul. He is part of the International Drug Evaluation & Classification Program.
RogueMedia.org notes that “the DRE program, run by the Minnesota State Patrol, has no Institutional Review Board or independent oversight. It is also suspected that the Minneapolis City Council is secretly working with law enforcement to “discredit and disrupt the Occupy movement.”
As Michelle Gross, president of Communities United Against Police Brutality noted: “I think most people would be very surprised to have our tax dollars used to get people high. These activities call into question the methods and motives of this DRE training.”
We have heard these DRE programs are being used in other states, including Oklahoma. We are investigating further to see if the Occupy OKC or other activists have been approached by the police and asked to participate in similar, clandestine “free narcotics” programs. We hope to have more on this story.
In the meantime, learn more about the DRE program at Axxiom for Liberty. Kaye Beach has been closely monitoring the situation.
Copyright 2012 Red Dirt Report
Student abandoned in DEA holding cell drank own urine to survive
May 1, 2012 by Kristen
Filed under Police State
Daniel Chong, a 24-year old student at UC San Diego, was taken into custody during a drug raid and abandoned in a holding cell for five days without food or water, according to NBC San Diego.
“They never came back, ignored all my cries and I still don’t know what happened,” he said. “I’m not sure how they could forget me.”
On April 21, Drug Enforcement Agents raided an apartment where Chong and his friends were smoking marijuana. Nine people were arrested and the agents reportedly seized ecstasy pills, marijuana, prescription medication, psychedelic mushrooms and weapons, according to CBS 8 News. Seven of those arrested were taken to jail and one was released.
Disabled parents fight to keep newborn at home
May 1, 2012 by Kristen
Filed under Police State
A disabled couple in Mississauga are fighting to keep their newborn son after social workers threatened to take the boy away unless he receives round-the-clock care from an “able-bodied attendant.”
Maricyl Palisoc and her partner, Charles Wilton, are the parents of a healthy month-old baby boy named William. Both parents have cerebral palsy, a disorder that limits their motor skills and slurs their speech, but has no effect on their cognitive abilities.
However, the Peel Children’s Aid Society is concerned about the couple’s ability to take care of their son and has expressed an intention to remove William from their home unless his parents secure 24-hour care from an able-bodied person.
The boy’s mother told CBC that she and her partner do not want to lose their son.
