Police / Policing
Articles and Resources
Date Fairness.com Resource Read it at: Nov 15, 2012 Police Killing in Kenya Deepens Aura of Menace
QUOTE: a spectacularly dysfunctional national police force. “On a scale of 1 to 10, I would give our police a 2,” said Macharia Njeru, the chairman of Kenya’s new police oversight board, citing corruption allegations, human rights abuses, extrajudicial killings, failed inquiries and lost public trust.
New York Times Sep 09, 2012 Fighting for Bangladesh Labor, and Ending Up in Pauper’s Grave
QUOTE: For years, mutual suspicion has defined the relationship between the labor federation and the Bangladeshi establishment. Citing labor abuses, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. is currently petitioning Washington to overturn trade preferences for Bangladesh, infuriating Bangladeshi leaders and casting suspicions on the domestic labor groups nurtured by the federation, including those where Mr. Islam worked.
New York Times Aug 10, 2012 Why Asset Forfeiture Abuse Is on the Rise: It’s time to build a wall of separation between government power and the profit motive.
QUOTE: throughout the United States, government agencies increasingly rely on “civil forfeiture” to bolster their strained budgets. The more assets these modern-day tax collectors seize, the more money they have for new equipment and other things....We should all be concerned that district attorneys—who are, by law, supposed to pursue justice first and foremost—are perpetrating abuses of property rights so that they can fill their coffers with money that comes primarily from people who have not been convicted of any crime.
Reason Jul 13, 2012 That’s No Phone. That’s My Tracker.
QUOTE: Thanks to the explosion of GPS technology and smartphone apps, these devices are also taking note of what we buy, where and when we buy it, how much money we have in the bank, whom we text and e-mail, what Web sites we visit, how and where we travel, what time we go to sleep and wake up — and more. Much of that data is shared with companies that use it to offer us services they think we want.
New York Times May 07, 2012 No Room for Dissent in a Police Department Consumed by the Numbers
QUOTE: This, too, is Mr. Kelly’s police force, a department that can claim many victories but is consumed by a single imperative: crime and homicide rates must keep falling...There’s no definitive proof that top officials systematically manipulate crime data and set arrest quotas. But officers have stepped forward in recent years to talk of such practices in widely scattered precincts...
New York Times May 04, 2012 Using NYPD Warrant Squads to Monitor Protesters May Violate Constitution: Experts
QUOTE: Executing old warrants -- no matter how minor -- is legal. But legal experts say the tactic becomes illegal if it is done solely to investigate political activity.
WNYC Apr 21, 2012 Vast Mexico Bribery Case Hushed Up by Wal-Mart After Top-Level Struggle
QUOTE: Wal-Mart dispatched investigators to Mexico City, and within days they unearthed evidence of widespread bribery. They found a paper trail of hundreds of suspect payments totaling more than $24 million. They also found documents showing that Wal-Mart de Mexico’s top executives not only knew about the payments, but had taken steps to conceal them from Wal-Mart’s headquarters....The lead investigator recommended that Wal-Mart expand the investigation. Instead, an examination by The New York Times found, Wal-Mart’s leaders shut it down.
New York Times Apr 17, 2012 DOJ review of flawed FBI forensics processes lacked transparency
QUOTE: Attorney General Janet Reno and FBI Director Louis J. Freeh decided to launch a task force to dig through thousands of cases involving discredited agents, to ensure that “no defendant’s right to a fair trial was jeopardized,”...The task force took nine years to complete its work and never publicly released its findings. Not the results of its case reviews of suspect lab work. Not the names of the defendants who were convicted as a result. And not the nature or scope of the forensic problems it found. Those decisions more than a decade ago remain relevant today for hundreds of people still in the U.S. court system, because officials never notified many defendants of the forensic flaws in their cases and never expanded their review to catch similar mistakes.
Washington Post Mar 31, 2012 Police Are Using Phone Tracking as a Routine Tool
QUOTE: Law enforcement tracking of cellphones, once the province mainly of federal agents, has become a powerful and widely used surveillance tool for local police officials, with hundreds of departments, large and small, often using it aggressively with little or no court oversight, documents show. The practice has become big business for cellphone companies, too...
New York Times Mar 26, 2012 Trayvon's killing and Florida's tragic past
QUOTE: No matter the state, the circumstances are eerily familiar: a slaying. Minimal police investigation. A suspect known to authorities. No arrest. Protests and outrage in a racially charged atmosphere. Florida is known for its amusement parks, beaches and pensioners from the North. But history bears out that Florida has been as much a part of the South and its vigilante-enforced racial caste system as Georgia and Alabama.
CNN (Cable News Network) Mar 14, 2012 Domain seizures for copyright infringement likely to go global
QUOTE: Efforts to take down websites for copyright infringement are likely to move beyond U.S.-based registries, with ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) promising to more closely cooperate with global law enforcement agencies and governments.
Computerworld Mar 07, 2012 More Angst Over Pepper Spray
QUOTE: The UC police union and the former officer at the center of the controversy filed for the stay after hearing from a lawyer that the report would contain confidential personnel information, the release of which is prohibited under state penal code....Cruz Reynoso, the law professor emeritus at Davis and former associate justice of the California Supreme Court who was tapped to chair the task force, was outraged at the request – in particular, at its last-minute delivery – and worried that it could prevent the truth of what happened from coming out.
Inside Higher Ed Feb 17, 2012 Drones Set Sights on U.S. Skies
QUOTE: A new federal law, signed by the president on Tuesday, compels the Federal Aviation Administration to allow drones to be used for all sorts of commercial endeavors... Local police and emergency services will also be freer to send up their own drones. But while businesses, and drone manufacturers especially, are celebrating the opening of the skies to these unmanned aerial vehicles, the law raises new worries about how much detail the drones will capture about lives down below — and what will be done with that information.
New York Times Feb 12, 2012 Malaysia deports Saudi journalist Hamza Kashgari
QUOTE: Malaysian authorities have deported a Saudi journalist accused of insulting the Prophet Muhammad in a tweet. Police confirmed to the BBC that Hamza Kashgari was sent back to Saudi Arabia on Sunday despite protests from human rights groups.
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Jan 23, 2012 Justices Say GPS Tracker Violated Privacy Rights
QUOTE: The Supreme Court on Monday ruled unanimously that the police violated the Constitution when they placed a Global Positioning System tracking device on a suspect’s car and monitored its movements for 28 days. A set of overlapping opinions in the case collectively suggested that a majority of the justices are prepared to apply broad privacy principles to bring the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches into the digital age...
New York Times Jan 02, 2012 The Rules on News Coverage Are Clear, but the Police Keep Pushing
QUOTE: But the decade-long trajectory in New York is toward expanded police power. Officers routinely infiltrate groups engaged in lawful dissent, spy on churches and mosques, and often toss demonstrators and reporters around with impunity. When this is challenged, the police commissioner and the mayor often shrug it off and fight court orders.
New York Times Dec 23, 2011 CIA report: No issue with spy agency's partnership with N.Y. police
QUOTE: the agency helped police conduct covert surveillance on Muslims living in New York, raising broader civil liberty questions about the legality of the methods and scope of federal efforts to counter terrorism.
CNN (Cable News Network) Dec 15, 2011 Arizona sheriff faces federal allegations of discrimination against Latinos
QUOTE: Arizona's Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, under the leadership of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, has engaged in systemic discrimination against Latinos...A comprehensive investigation found the practices include "unlawful stops, detentions and arrests of Latinos,"...
CNN (Cable News Network) Nov 20, 2011 Officers Put on Leave After Pepper Spraying Protesters
QUOTE: The University of California, Davis, said on Sunday that two police officers had been placed on administrative leave after using pepper spray on seated protesters in a widely recorded encounter on Friday afternoon. Reflecting widespread anger over the police behavior...
New York Times Nov 19, 2011 Document Trove Exposes Surveillance Methods (Censorship Inc.)
QUOTE: a retail market for surveillance tools has sprung up from "nearly zero" in 2001 to about $5 billion a year, said Jerry Lucas, president of TeleStrategies Inc., the show's operator. Critics say the market represents a new sort of arms trade supplying Western governments and repressive nations alike. "The Arab Spring countries all had more sophisticated surveillance capabilities than I would have guessed..."
Wall Street Journal, The (WSJ) Nov 12, 2011 Keep government out of mind-reading business (My Take)
QUOTE: Now, for the first time in human history, we are peering into the labyrinth of the mind and pulling out information, perhaps even information you would rather we did not know....If my right to privacy means anything, it must mean the right to keep my innermost thoughts safe from the prying eyes of the state, the military or my employer.
CNN (Cable News Network) Nov 11, 2011 On Campus, a Law Enforcement System to Itself
QUOTE: On most of these campuses, law enforcement is the responsibility of sworn police officers who report to university authorities, not to the public. With full-fledged arrest powers, such campus police forces have enormous discretion in deciding whether to refer cases directly to district attorneys or to leave them to the quiet handling of in-house disciplinary proceedings....But many serious offenses reach neither campus police officers nor their off-campus counterparts because they are directly funneled to administrators.
New York Times Nov 08, 2011 Which Way Privacy? The Supreme Court asks whether the government can put a GPS device on your car without a warrant.
QUOTE: The warrant expired after 10 days, but the police nevertheless used the GPS to monitor everywhere he drove, every 10 seconds, for 28 days....Jones tried to have his conviction set aside, arguing that warrantless GPS surveillance violated his Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable government searches and seizures. The government replied that GPS tracking is no different from police observing activity in public spaces and roadways, which is not protected under the Constitution.
Slate Oct 25, 2011 How the Patriot Act stripped me of my free-speech rights
QUOTE: the government implausibly claimed that if I were able to identify myself as the plaintiff in the case, irreparable damage to national security would result. But I did not believe then, nor do I believe now, that the FBI’s gag order was motivated by legitimate national security concerns. It was motivated by a desire to insulate the FBI from public criticism and oversight.
Washington Post Oct 24, 2011 Why Homelessness Is Becoming an Occupy Wall Street Issue
QUOTE: political protesters do not face the challenges of urban camping alone. Homeless people confront the same issues every day: how to scrape together meals, keep warm at night by covering themselves with cardboard or tarp, and relieve themselves without committing a crime. Public restrooms are sparse in American cities—"as if the need to go to the bathroom does not exist," travel expert Arthur Frommer once observed. And yet to yield to bladder pressure is to risk arrest.
Mother Jones Sep 09, 2011 Desperate Guatemalans Embrace an ‘Iron Fist’
QUOTE: all across these highlands once ravaged by a 36-year civil war, the region’s bloodiest anti-Communist conflict, Guatemalans are demanding the unthinkable — a strong military, back in their communities. That is how desperate this country has become as gangs and Mexican drug cartels run fever-wild, capturing territory and corrupting institutions so that Guatemala will remain a safe haven for cocaine, guns, money laundering and new recruits.
New York Times Aug 25, 2011 Meant to Ease Fears of Deportation Program, Federal Hearings Draw Anger
QUOTE: A task force set up by the Obama administration to ease political tensions over a deportation program has held the last of four public hearings, which instead served largely to galvanize vocal protests against the policy....
New York Times Aug 25, 2011 In Britain, a Meeting on Limiting Social Media
QUOTE: British officials and representatives of Twitter, Facebook and BlackBerry met Thursday to discuss voluntary ways to limit or restrict the use of social media to combat crime and periods of civil unrest, while trying to dodge charges of hypocrisy and censorship that trailed Prime Minister David Cameron’s call to restrict use of the networks after this month’s riots.
New York Times Aug 19, 2011 Feds investigate L.A. sheriff's office for civil rights violations
QUOTE: The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is being investigated for alleged "systemic" civil rights violations during routine traffic stops by trying to identify people who live in publicly subsidized housing...
CNN (Cable News Network) Aug 19, 2011 Deal Frees ‘West Memphis Three’ in Arkansas
QUOTE: While many were convinced of the guilt of Mr. Echols, the alleged ringleader, others were immediately skeptical, believing he was singled out for being an outsider in a small town.
New York Times Aug 09, 2011 Pimps feed on twisting Californian dream
QUOTE: the fight against prostitution has been refocused and now the prostitutes are treated as victims..."With us changing our focus to trying to arrest the pimps, pimping carries a three year mandatory sentence here in California, so to us we have more of an impact because if we can arrest one pimp we can in theory shut down three or four girls because if their pimp's out, it gives them the opportunity to escape the life that they're in."
CNN (Cable News Network) Aug 05, 2011 Officers Guilty of Shooting Six in New Orleans
QUOTE: In a verdict that brought a decisive close to a case that has haunted this city since most of it lay underwater nearly six years ago, five current and former New Orleans police officers were found guilty on all counts by a federal jury on Friday for shooting six citizens, two of whom died, and orchestrating a wide-ranging cover-up in the hours, weeks and years that followed.
New York Times Jul 18, 2011 Are some countries abusing Interpol?
QUOTE: Some of these nations are using Red Notices to pursue political opponents or economic targets, according to a five-month investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Because of the way Interpol is structured, there can be little recourse for those who are unjustly targeted.
CNN (Cable News Network) Jun 29, 2011 Common Sense and Sensibility
QUOTE: the Supreme Court ruled that police, when questioning a child suspected of committing a crime, must take the suspect’s age into account and may have to provide Miranda warnings in circumstances that would not require the warnings to be given to an adult suspect. The vote was 5 to 4, and the author of the majority opinion was Justice Sonia Sotomayor. The premise that children are different from adults and may feel coercive pressure when an adult would not, she said, was simply one of “commonsense reality.”
New York Times Jun 16, 2011 Call Off the Global Drug War (OP-ED)
QUOTE: [US] Drug policies here are more punitive and counterproductive than in other democracies, and have brought about an explosion in prison populations. At the end of 1980, just before I left office, 500,000 people were incarcerated in America; at the end of 2009 the number was nearly 2.3 million. There are 743 people in prison for every 100,000 Americans, a higher portion than in any other country and seven times as great as in Europe.
New York Times Jun 15, 2011 Watching the Detectives
QUOTE: Because the department ignores lawsuits, it cannot analyze or learn from them; instead, the city effectively writes off these suits as the extraordinarily high cost of doing police business. In contrast, a small but growing group of police departments around the country have found innovative ways to analyze information gathered from lawsuits. They investigate lawsuit claims as they would civilian complaints, and they discipline, retrain or fire officers when the claims are substantiated.
New York Times Jun 13, 2011 Activists cry foul over FBI probe
QUOTE: The search was part of a mysterious, ongoing nationwide terrorism investigation with an unusual target: prominent peace activists and politically active labor organizers....The apparent targets, all vocal and visible critics of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and South America, deny any ties to terrorism. They say the government, using its post-9/11 focus on terrorism as a pretext, is targeting them for their political views.
Washington Post Jun 12, 2011 F.B.I. Agents Get Leeway to Push Privacy Bounds
QUOTE: The Federal Bureau of Investigation is giving significant new powers to its roughly 14,000 agents, allowing them more leeway to search databases, go through household trash or use surveillance teams to scrutinize the lives of people who have attracted their attention.
New York Times Jun 12, 2011 Some Police Recruits Impose ‘Islamic Tax’ on Afghans
QUOTE: The American-financed program aims to convert insurgents into village self-defense forces called Afghan Local Police, distinct from the existing national police force....aroused concern among aid workers and United Nations officials, who say it risks empowering local warlords who have little regard for human rights or proper behavior.
New York Times Jun 07, 2011 Homeland Security Department curtails home-grown terror analysis
QUOTE: The Department of Homeland Security has stepped back for the past two years from conducting its own intelligence and analysis of home-grown extremism...The decision to reduce the department’s role was provoked by conservative criticism of an intelligence report on “Rightwing Extremism” issued four months into the Obama administration, the officials said.
Washington Post Jun 01, 2011 Know Your Rights!
QUOTE: The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution protects you from unreasonable government searches and seizures, and this protection extends to your computer and portable devices. But how does this work in the real world? What should you do if the police or other law enforcement officers show up at your door and want to search your computer? EFF has designed this guide to help you understand your rights...
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) May 19, 2011 British Police Warn Rwandan Dissidents of Threat
QUOTE: Human rights groups have increasingly criticized the Rwandan government as being repressive and intolerant of any dissent... Critics of the Rwandan government have been killed or have simply vanished.
New York Times May 11, 2011 Prosecutors’ Hardball Tactics Produce Big Results in Galleon Case
QUOTE: Will the conviction of Raj Rajaratnam, the founder of the hedge fund firm Galleon Group, change anything on Wall Street?....Government crackdowns on insider trading tend to run in cycles. The last one that received as much attention was the Wall Street sweep in the 1980s that resulted in the convictions of Ivan Boesky and Michael R. Milken...
New York Times Apr 26, 2011 Deportation Halted for Some Students as Lawmakers Seek New Policy
QUOTE: ICE officials in central Florida recently invited immigration lawyers to bring forward illegal immigrants facing deportation who did not have criminal records, offering provisional authorization for them to remain here and work legally.
New York Times Mar 27, 2011 Ethical Quandary for Social Sites
QUOTE: The photos had been removed because he did not take the images himself, a violation of the site’s community rules… “That is totally ludicrous,” he said. “Flickr is full of accounts with photos that people did not take themselves.” Human rights advocates have also criticized Facebook for not being more flexible with some of its policies, specifically its rule requiring users to create accounts with their real names.
New York Times Mar 22, 2011 Race Issues Rise for Miami Police
QUOTE: Miami has a long history of racially charged police shootings, some of which combusted into deadly riots and Justice Department inquiries that ended with police officers in prison. The pattern this time is familiar: All seven men who were fatally shot by the police were African-American; the police officers who shot them are all Hispanic.
New York Times Feb 08, 2011 Egyptian man's death became symbol of callous state
QUOTE: ... the death of Khaled Said would have become a footnote in the annals of Egyptian police brutality. Instead, outrage over the beating death of the 28-year-old man in this coastal city last summer, and attempts by local authorities to cover it up, helped spark the mass protests demanding the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Washington Post Feb 05, 2011 States Struggle to Disarm People Who've Lost Right to Own Guns
QUOTE: Tens of thousands of gun owners, like Mr. Perez, bought their weapons legally but under the law should no longer have them because of subsequent mental health or criminal issues.
New York Times Jan 13, 2011 For Hezbollah, Claiming Victory Could Be Costly
QUOTE: Hezbollah and its allies acted on longstanding threats Wednesday to bring down Lebanon’s national unity government in a dispute over a United Nations-backed tribunal, which is expected to indict Hezbollah members in the assassination of a former prime minister, Rafik Hariri.
New York Times Nov 29, 2010 In U.S. Sting Operations, Questions of Entrapment
QUOTE: The arrest on Friday of a Somali-born teenager who is accused of trying to detonate a car bomb at a crowded Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in Portland, Ore., has again thrown a spotlight on the government’s use of sting operations to capture terrorism suspects. Some defense lawyers and civil rights advocates said the government’s tactics, particularly since the Sept. 11 attacks, have raised questions about the possible entrapment of people who pose no real danger but are enticed into pretend plots at the government’s urging.
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