http://www.infowars.com/you-are-being-tracked-aclu-reveals-docs-of-mass-license-plate-reader-surveillance/
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/17/2013 10:55 -0400
http://rt.com/usa/fbi-blocks-release-todashev-autopsy-195/
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/trayvon-martin/os-george-zimmerman-doj-investigation,0,1047877.story
http://beforeitsnews.com/media/2013/07/hastings-cremated-wo-family-consent-more-proof-of-a-cover-up-conspiracy-2470602.html
‘You are being tracked’: ACLU reveals docs of mass license plate reader surveillance
RT
July 17, 2013
July 17, 2013
The American Civil Liberties Union has released documents confirming that police license plate readers capture vast amounts of data on innocent people, and in many instances this intelligence is kept forever.
According to documents obtained through a number of Freedom of Information Act requests filed by ACLU offices across the United States, law enforcement agencies are tracking the whereabouts of innocent persons en masse by utilizing a still up-and-coming technology.
License place readers are among the latest items being regularly added to the arsenal of law enforcement gizmos and gadgets, but documents obtained through the FOIA requests have prompted the ACLU to acknowledge that safeguards that would properly protect the privacy of Americans are largely absent.
When a police department deploys license plate readers on top of patrol cars or at fixed locations, it lets officers see a snapshot of every vehicle that passes by a particular point. From there, that information can be matched against a database that contains automobiles involved in criminal investigations or cars whose owners may already be in trouble with the law. According to the ACLU, though, the data that’s collected and routinely stored reveal much more than the location of suspected scofflaws.
“At first the captured plate data was used just to check against lists of cars law enforcement hoped to locate for various reasons,” ACLU staff attorney Catherine Crump wrote on the non-profit group’s website Wednesday morning. “But increasingly, all of this data is being fed into massive databases that contain the location information of many millions of innocent Americans stretching back for months or even years.”
Crump and company filed FOIA requests to agencies in 38 states and Washington, DC compelling police departments there to provide them with information detailing their use of license plate readers. In response, the ACLU received 26,000 pages of information that it has analyzed and now made public.
https://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9240859/Quantum_Dawn_2_will_test_Wall_Street_s_cyber_readiness?source=CTWNLE_nlt_pm_2013-07-17
Computerworld - Starting at around 8.30 a.m. ET Thursday and continuing through Friday morning, dozens of major Wall Street firms will come under a series of massive cyberattacks aimed at crippling financial services networks around the country.
Fortunately for the firms -- and their customers -- the attacks will simply be a drill, codenamed Quantum Dawn 2. The effort is designed to test cyber incident response and coordination capabilities within the U.S. financial services sector.
The exercise, being coordinated by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), will involve about 50 organizations, including large financial firms, exchanges, the U.S. Treasury Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI.
Incident response teams from each organization will work from their facilities to respond to the simulated attacks and mitigate them in a coordinated fashion, according to a SIFMA spokeswoman. Participants in the exercise only know that the drill is being carried out, but have not been briefed on any specifics.
"This is not a Pass/Fail drill," she said. "The goal is to provide firms an opportunity to test their responses and to ensure that they are in the best position to mitigate."
For the exercise, SIFMA will use a tool called the Distributed Environment for Critical Infrastructure Decision-making Exercises -- Finance Sector (DECIDE-FS) from Cyber Strategies, a security services vendor based in Northfield, VT.
DECIDE-FS is basically a massively multiplayer online role-playing game in which players work together to try and keep financial services and transactions running normally amid a stream of simulated cyber attacks.
To begin, participants login to a common DECIDE-FS server and launch the exercise, which will then proceed as a "series of events within time intervals planned by the exercise controller," according to description of the technology by Cyber Strategies. Each participant in the exercise will make independent decisions, each of which in turn will have a negative or positive consequence attached to it.
This is the second time Wall Street firms have subjected themselves to a similar large-scale cyber exercise in recent years.
The Financial Services Sector Coordinating Council (FSSCC) led a similar exercise, code named Quantum Dawn in November 2011. That exercise, designed by Norwich University's Applied Research Institute, involved simulated cyberattacks as well as simulated physical attacks involving armed gunmen, against critical financial services targets.
The scenario in the first exercise involved attacks aimed at corrupting publicly reported stock prices and trades and also loss of availability of the National Market System, which is used in over-the-counter trading. The exercise showed that while the financial services sector had good plans and procedures for sharing information, its members were less coordinated when making critical decisions such as closing markets in the face of a massive cyberattack.
With Quantum Dawn 2, the focus is on evaluating cyber incident response readiness only and will not involve a physical element, the spokeswoman said. SIFMA will provide feedback on how well participants did on the drills in a few weeks, she added.
The cyber attack exercise comes at an important moment for the financial industry. In recent months, many of the nation's largest banks, including Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and U.S. Bancorp have been pummeled by massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.
The attacks have been notable because of their sophistication and persistence. Security firms such as Prolexic, which specializes in helping companies mitigate DDoS attempts, have noted how some attacks generated magnitudes more DDoS traffic than anything seen before.
Many believe the attacks are being orchestrated by a state-sponsored entity or entities. An Iran-based group calling itself "Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters" claimed responsibility for some of the early attacks. But security experts feel certain that others are involved as well.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-07-17/us-totalitarianism-wins-again-appeals-court-brings-ndaas-indefinite-military-detenti
US Totalitarianism Wins Again As Appeals Court Brings NDAA's Indefinite Military Detention Back
Back in September we, somewhat naively, penned "US Totalitarianism Loses Major Battle As Judge Permanently Blocks NDAA's Military Detention Provision" in which we said that "in May, U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest ruled in favor of a temporary injunction blocking the enforcement of the authorization for military detention. Today, the war against the true totalitarian terror won a decisive battle, when in a 112-opinion, Judge Forrest turned the temporary injunction, following an appeal by the totalitarian government from August 6, into a permanent one." Sadly, the "victory" lasted about 10 months. Today, US totalitarianism wins again.
- U.S. APPEALS COURT THROWS OUT PERMANENT INJUNCTION THAT HAD LIMITED U.S.
GOVERNMENT'S USE OF INDEFINITE MILITARY DETENTION -- COURT RULING
In other words, every legal decision will be binding... until Obama's cronies in the 13 circuit courts of the appellate system get a tap on the shoulder. And good luck with the SCOTUS.
And with that, the time to be on the lookout forblack helicopters is back.
More from Reuters:
A federal appeals court on Wednesday lifted a lower court order that would have prevented the U.S. military from indefinitely detaining people believed to have helped al Qaeda or the Taliban.The 3-0 decision by a panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York was a setback for journalists, activists and others who had argued that the law put them in danger of indefinite detention.It was a victory for the Obama administration, which said the practice is needed to fight terrorism.The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York said the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the law.The provision in question is part of the National Defense Authorization Act, which the U.S. Congress passes annually to authorize programs of the Defense Department.It lets the government indefinitely detain people it deems to have "substantially supported" al Qaeda, the Taliban or "associated forces."Journalists and activists whose work relates to overseas conflicts, including Pulitzer Prize-winner Chris Hedges and an Icelandic spokeswoman for Wikileaks, complained that the law could subject them to being locked up for exercising constitutionally-protected rights.In September 2012, U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest issued a permanent injunction preventing the United States from invoking the part of the law authorizing indefinite detentions, after granting a temporary injunction in May.Forrest, whom Obama appointed to the federal bench in 2011, had found the provision violated the Constitution in part because its language is too vague.The Obama administration won an emergency halt to that injunction so it could appeal.In lifting the injunction, the 2nd Circuit panel did not address the constitutional issues.U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who sat with the 2nd Circuit by designation and wrote the decision, said American plaintiffs like Hedges lack standing because the provision "says nothing at all about the President's authority to detain American citizens."
http://rt.com/usa/fbi-blocks-release-todashev-autopsy-195/
FBI withholds autopsy of Tsarnaev associate 'shot in head' during questioning
Published time: July 17, 2013 09:50
Edited time: July 17, 2013 13:06
Edited time: July 17, 2013 13:06
The FBI has ordered a Florida medical examiner’s office not to release the autopsy report of a Chechen man who was killed during an FBI interview in May over his ties to one of the suspected Boston Marathon bombers.
The autopsy report for Ibragim Todashev, 27, killed by an FBI agent during an interrogation which took place in his apartment on May 22 was ready for release on July 8. However, the FBI barred its publication, saying an internal probe into his death is ongoing.
“The FBI has informed this office that the case is still under active investigation and thus not to release the document,” according to statement by Tony Miranda, forensic records coordinator for Orange and Osceola counties in Orlando.
“The FBI has informed this office that the case is still under active investigation and thus not to release the document,” according to statement by Tony Miranda, forensic records coordinator for Orange and Osceola counties in Orlando.
The forensic report was expected to clarify the circumstances of Todashev's death.The Bureau’s statement issued on the day of the incident provided no details of what transpired, saying only that the person being interviewed was killed when a “violent confrontation was initiated by the individual.”
Back in May Ibragim Todashev’s father showed pictures of his dead son’s body at a press conference in Moscow, revealing he had been shot six times.
"I only saw things like that in movies: shooting a person, and then the kill shot. Six shots in the body, one of them in the head,” Abdulbaki Todashev said .
The medical examiner's office promised to check on a monthly basis whether the FBI is ready to grant permission for release of the autopsy report.
Todashev was interrogated by the FBI several times following the Boston Marathon bombings, with the final interview resulting in a fatal altercation. He was supposedly questioned over his alleged role in an unsolved 2011 triple homicide in Waltham, Massachusetts, which bombing suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev have been implicated in. Todashev was reportedly about to sign a written statement which would have tied him to the murders when he allegedly attacked an FBI agent.
The medical examiner's office promised to check on a monthly basis whether the FBI is ready to grant permission for release of the autopsy report.
Todashev was interrogated by the FBI several times following the Boston Marathon bombings, with the final interview resulting in a fatal altercation. He was supposedly questioned over his alleged role in an unsolved 2011 triple homicide in Waltham, Massachusetts, which bombing suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev have been implicated in. Todashev was reportedly about to sign a written statement which would have tied him to the murders when he allegedly attacked an FBI agent.
Investigators, most of them speaking anonymously, would later offer conflicting accounts of what happened in Todashev’s final minutes, with some claiming the man brandished a knife and others insisting he was unarmed.
Despite the FBI’s promise to look into the case, civil rights activists have called for an independent investigation.
The US Department of Justice Civil Rights Division announced on Monday it was overseeing a federal inquiry into the shooting incident.
“Federal prosecutors will review the evidence and make an independent determination whether a federal criminal investigation is warranted,” the Boston Herald cites a letter by US Deputy Assistant Attorney General Roy L. Austin as saying.
Todashev’s widow, Reniya Manukyan, welcomed news of the federal inquiry.
“We are glad that DOJ started. Hopefully it will bring more attention of the public and everybody will question the FBI and why they are not releasing anything,” she said.
Despite the FBI’s promise to look into the case, civil rights activists have called for an independent investigation.
The US Department of Justice Civil Rights Division announced on Monday it was overseeing a federal inquiry into the shooting incident.
“Federal prosecutors will review the evidence and make an independent determination whether a federal criminal investigation is warranted,” the Boston Herald cites a letter by US Deputy Assistant Attorney General Roy L. Austin as saying.
Todashev’s widow, Reniya Manukyan, welcomed news of the federal inquiry.
“We are glad that DOJ started. Hopefully it will bring more attention of the public and everybody will question the FBI and why they are not releasing anything,” she said.
Texas Police Officer Shoots Unarmed 14-Year Old Hiding in Shed
Bonnie Baron
AlterNet.org
July 17, 2013
A police officer for a Texas school district may have used excessive force in fatally shooting a teenager who fled the scene of a fistfight, a federal judge ruled.
AlterNet.org
July 17, 2013
A police officer for a Texas school district may have used excessive force in fatally shooting a teenager who fled the scene of a fistfight, a federal judge ruled.
Denys Lopez Moreno sued Officer Daniel Alvarado, Police Chief John Page and the Northside Independent School District in September 2011 for the death of her 14-year-old son, Derek Lopez.
The incident unfolded on Nov. 12, 2010, when Lopez allegedly exited a school bus and, in view of Alvardo, punched another student.
Lopez ignored Alvarado’s order to freeze and fled the scene with the school officer tailing him in a patrol car, according to the amended complaint.
With Lopez hiding in a shed at a nearby home, Alvarado drove back to the scene of the fight but allegedly refused to give up the search.
“Ignoring his supervisor’s orders to ‘stay with the victim and get the information from him,’ Alvarado placed the second boy into the patrol car and sped into the neighborhood to search for Derek,” the complaint states.
Local homeowners then directed Alvarado to the shed, Moreno claimed.
“In violation of NISD police department procedures, Alvarado drew his weapon immediately after exiting the patrol car,” the complaint states. “With his gun drawn, he rushed through the gate and into the back yard. Within seconds from arriving at the residence, Alvarado shot and killed the unarmed boy hiding in the shed.”
Moreno said the officer had a history of disregarding orders.
“In approximately a four (4) year period leading up to the shooting, defendant Alvarado had been reprimanded sixteen (16) times,” according to the complaint. “Specifically, he had been reprimanded for insubordination and failure to follow supervisors’ directives seven (7) times. Due to his poor service record, Alvarado was suspended without pay on five (5) occasions. On May 21, 2008, Alvarado was recommended for termination by Page. Despite being recommended for termination for insubordination and for refusal to follow supervisor directives, Alvarado remained on the force without remedial training.”
U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez granted the school district and Page summary judgment on Friday, but he refused to dismiss the claims of excessive force and negligence against Alvarado.
“In this case Alvarado testified that he saw an individual (later identified as Derek) strike another (later identified as Chris Avilez) about three times at a bus stop,” the orderstates (parentheses and brackets in original).
“He testified that he thought a misdemeanor assault had taken place. He placed the victim in his patrol car. A fact issue exists as to whether Alvarado was able to determine Derek’s age and the age of the victim, while that person was in his patrol car. When Alvarado arrived at the house where the shed was located, Alvarado testified that Derek posed no threat to the homeowner; that if he thought Derek was violent it would have been prudent for him to wait for backup; that at the moment he unholstered his weapon Derek posed no threat to him; and he drew his weapon because he thought that Derek could pose a threat by using some object in the shed as a weapon.
Alvarado testified that at no time did he see Derek with any gun or knife. Alvarado further testified that after the shed door hit his face, he ‘felt that [Derek] was coming after me, so I – I took the shot.’ Alvarado never saw Derek grab for any weapon.
“An officer cannot use deadly force without an immediate serious threat to himself or others. Here, genuine issues of material fact exist as to whether there was such an immediate threat.”
Northside ISD is the fourth largest district in Texas and encompasses the northwest section of San Antonio, according to its website.
The school district attracted national attention last year when a father challenged its program for tracking students with chip-embedded identification badges. The San Antonio Express-News reported on Monday that the district has ditched the program.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/trayvon-martin/os-george-zimmerman-doj-investigation,0,1047877.story
The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday afternoon appealed to civil rights groups and community leaders, nationally and in Sanford, for help investigating whether a federal criminal case might be brought against George Zimmerman for the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, one advocate said.
The DOJ has also set up a public email address to take in tips on its civil rights investigation.
Barbara Arnwine, president and executive director the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law – who earlier in the day joined calls for federal civil rights charges against Zimmerman, said that later in the afternoon, she joined a U.S. Department of Justice conference call to discuss the prospects.
“They were calling on us to actively refer anyone who had any information,” that might build a case against Zimmerman for either a civil rights violation or a hate crime, Arnwine said. “They said they would very aggressively investigate this case.”
Arnwine said the call was convened at about 3:30 p.m. by Tom Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice, and included representatives from the FBI, and several federal prosecutors, she said. DOJ officials also said they would open a public email address so people could send in tips on the case.
That email address, which is now in operation, isSanford.florida@usdoj.gov.
In addition to Arnwine’s group, Sherrilyn Ifill, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund; Laura Murphy, Washington Chapter head of the ACLU; and several national, Florida and Sanford-based “human relations” groups participated, Arnwine said.
During the call, DOJ officials announced they had set up a way for people to send email tips that could help aid in their investigation. The email address will be operational later this week.
Also Monday, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said a speech at the social action luncheon of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority, that he shares concerns about “the tragic, unnecessary shooting death” of Trayvon Martin last year, and he vowed to pursue a federal investigation into the matter, the Washington Post reported.
Holder pledged that the Justice Department would work to “alleviate tensions, address community concerns and promote healing” in response to the case.
http://beforeitsnews.com/media/2013/07/hastings-cremated-wo-family-consent-more-proof-of-a-cover-up-conspiracy-2470602.html
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