“The Kronies are in action…Mandating, Tarrify-ing, Inflating, and Boondoggling their way to profits powered by their special konnection to the G-Force. Watch Big-G and his team stomp out competition!”
“Charlie Shrem, along with a Florida man named Robert Faiella, was charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering linked to alleged sales of more than $1 million in bitcoin to people who wanted to buy drugs on Silk Road, an online marketplace that accepted only the crypto currency. The arrests underlined growing concerns among law enforcement that bitcoin, a purely anonymous means of exchange, had become the preferred currency of the criminal underworld, and that payments companies like Shrem’s had become the enablers of drug trafficking and other nefarious enterprises. But you know what else has a history of enabling nefarious criminal enterprises? Banks.”
“Sen. Don Barrington (R-Lawton), the chairman of the Committee on Public Safety, has refused to allow a hearing on the legalization of marijuana. His reasons are due to special interests like district attorneys, and he has also stated that his church did not favor it. Interestingly, Barrington also has a private prison in his district, and received over $9,000 in campaign contributions from the private prison industry. When Red Dirt Report asked Johnson if she felt it would be possible for the legislature to pass a measure legalizing medicinal marijuana in the next 10 years, she asserted that the only way legalization is going to occur is through a ballot initiative.”
http://www.reddirtreport.com/red-dirt-politics/medical-marijuana-issue-importance-johnson
“Weighing in at 300 pounds, the five-foot K5 can patrol a neighborhood and uses a built-in laser to form a 3D map of the surrounding area in 270-degree sweeps. Four built-in cameras, meanwhile, are capable of scanning up to 1,500 license plates a minute. ‘Data collected through these sensors is processed through our predictive analytics engine, combined with existing business, government and crowdsourced social data sets, and subsequently assigned an alert level that determines when the community and the authorities should be notified of a concern,’ the company’s website states.”
http://rt.com/usa/california-company-android-robocops-knightscope-645/
“A police cruiser now typically is equipped with at least one laptop, giving instant access to national criminal databases, as well as portable fingerprint scanners, Breathalyzer units and automatic license-plate-reader technology that can identify stolen cars while cruising down the street, even at a high speeds. And while not department issued, personal smart phones and, specifically, policing-related apps are expanding officers’ one-stop data search capabilities. They also are toting far more firepower, typically high-caliber semi-automatic pistols and rifles with assorted magazine clips, as well as less-lethal beanbag shotguns and tasers.”
the common thread in U.S. policing as recently as a generation ago: the expectation that the typical patrol officer best protected and served his community by guarding his piece of turf and busting, intimidating or expelling any bad guy who entered it.
But experts and veteran law enforcement officials say that straight-forward mission is rapidly giving way to a more complex and nuanced form of policing. It’s a world in which technology and instant communication help that beat cop serve and protect, while simultaneously demanding new levels of training and accountability and raising serious civil liberties concerns.
“As Americans have grown increasingly comfortable with traditional surveillance cameras, a new, far more powerful generation is being quietly deployed that can track every vehicle and person across an area the size of a small city, for several hours at a time. Although these cameras can’t read license plates or see faces, they provide such a wealth of data that police, businesses and even private individuals can use them to help identify people and track their movements. Defense contractors are developing similar technology for the military, but its potential for civilian use is raising novel civil liberties concerns.”
“A secretive unit within the DEA known as the ‘Special Operations Division’ (SOD) specializes in gathering information on defendants through cavalier means (including data-sharing with the NSA), and then helps investigators recreate information trails so evidence appears to have come from ‘normal investigative techniques.’ The new documents reveal ‘DEA trainers routinely teach the finer points of parallel construction to field agents and analysts across the country, not just within the SOD’. In addition to concerns over constitutionality, the documents urge local law enforcement to hide their surveillance methods because ‘Americans don’t like [them.]’.”
http://www.alternet.org/peek-inside-dea-manual-terrifying-way-law-enforcement-lying-us
“After years of study, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Monday it will begin taking steps that could eventually require all new cars and trucks to be equipped with so-called vehicle-to-vehicle, or V2V, technology, calling it a key to saving lives while also improving traffic flow in major urban areas. At its most advanced, V2V technology could become critical to the development of the autonomous vehicles that many automotive manufacturers hope to put into production by the beginning of the next decade. The feds plan to release a more complete report on the research program later this month and will announce proposed rules before the end of the Obama administration.”
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/autos/feds-may-require-cars-talk-each-other-n21351
“What brought them to an Ohio shopping mall to jump an unsuspecting local nerd? In 2008, Congress passed the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property, or PRO-IP Act. Suddenly, protecting the trademarks and copyrights of American companies became a huge priority for a number of law enforcement agencies, including ICE. Soon, ICE was enforcing American intellectual property rights all over the globe. In 2009, the agency arrested 266 people in IP investigations, busting people who sell counterfeit movies, stream pirated content on websites, and sell licensed NFL gear. ICE more than doubled that number of arrests over the next two years.”
http://www.dailydot.com/politics/federal-agents-google-glass-mpaa-theater-enforcers/
“In jurisdictions with this practice the crime lab receives a sum of money for each conviction of a given type. Several state statutory schemes require defendants to pay crime laboratory fees upon conviction. Illinois crime labs receive fees upon convictions for sex offenses, controlled substance offenses, and those involving driving under the influence. Mississippi crime labs require crime laboratory fees for various conviction types, including arson, aiding suicide, and driving while intoxicated. Similar provisions exist in Alabama, New Mexico, Kentucky, New Jersey, Virginia, and, until recently, Michigan. Other states have broadened the scope even further.”
http://www.policestateusa.com/2014/state-crime-labs-incentivized-get-false-convictions/