Police state

As they scrambled recently to trace the source of a salmonella outbreak that has sickened hundreds around the country, investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention successfully used a new tool for the first time — the shopper cards that millions of Americans swipe every time they buy groceries.

With permission from the patients, investigators followed the trail of grocery purchases to a Rhode Island company that makes salami, then zeroed in on the pepper used to season the meat.

Never before had the CDC successfully mined the mountain of data that supermarket chains compile.

“It was really exciting. It was a break in the investigation for sure,” CDC epidemiologist Casey Barton Behravesh said.

At least 245 people in 44 states have been sickened in the outbreak. That includes 30 in California, 19 in Illinois, 18 in New York and 17 in Washington state.

The victims included Raymond Cirimele, a 55-year-old Chicago man. He said no one asked for his shopper-card data, but he would have provided it if someone had.

“I don’t have any secrets, so I’m not worried about it,” he said. “It’s kind of like the whole airport security and all that. I’d rather fly on a safe plane.”

…

Some privacy advocates, though, are troubled.

Longtime shopper-card critic Katherine Albrecht, director of a group called Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering, said she worries that the practice could lead to a switch from a voluntary system to mandatory use of such cards.

“That sends chills down my spine,” she said.

Source/Full Story: Yahoo! News

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration chief David Strickland told a congressional hearing on Thursday that the regulator is considering whether to make “black boxes” mandatory for all new vehicles. [ID:nN11246251]

The devices can capture data on speed, braking effort and other details which can be vital in reconstructing accidents.

Toyota has recalled more than 8 million vehicles globally to address the risk that accelerator pedals on a range of its vehicles could become stuck because of a loose floor mat or a glitch in the pedal assembly.

Unintended acceleration in the company’s Toyota and Lexus vehicles has been linked to at least five U.S. crash deaths since 2007. Authorities are investigating 47 other Toyota crash deaths over the past decade.

Source/Full Story: Reuters

The security guard is probably the pedophile.

A father was stopped from taking a photo of his son on a children’s train ride after an over-zealous security guard accused him of being a paedophile.

Kevin Geraghty-Shewan, 48, was approached by the guard after he took the picture of his four-year-old son Ben on the toy engine outside a shop.

He was then threatened with arrest after refusing to hand his mobile phone containing the picture after a row with a policeman.
Kevin Geraghty-Shewan

Mr Geraghty-Shewan said: ‘Ben saw a children’s ride which had a train on it and wanted to have a go because he’s obsessed with trains.’

Moments later, he was apprehended by the security guard.

The father-of-one, who was in the North East visiting family, said: ‘He said “you can’t take pictures in here”. I asked why and he told me it was because for all he knew I could be a paedophile.

‘I told him Ben Was my son. But he said I couldn’t prove it.

Source/Full Story: Mail Online

OIC

A teen wearing a clown mask with bright red-orange hair was arrested Tuesday, charged with the rarely reported offense of wearing a mask or hood on a public road and the more common crime of obstructing or resisting an officer without violence.

About 1:10 p.m. Tuesday, a deputy spotted the clown-masked man, later identified as Matthew Lopez, and at least one other person walking south on 58th Street North, a Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office report said.

They headed west through a wooded path near the rear of open offices. A deputy tailed them until a marked Temple Terrace police unit arrived. When the deputy tried to make contact, Lopez and another person ran, an arrest report states.

…Lopez was charged with two misdemeanors and has been released on $750 bail.

Source/Full Story:   tbo.com

A federal lawsuit accuses a suburban Philadelphia school district of spying on students at home through school-issued laptop webcams.

The suit says Lower Merion School District officials can activate the webcams remotely without students’ knowledge. The lawsuit alleges the cameras captured images of Harritan High School students and their families as they undressed and in other compromising situations.

Families learned of the alleged webcam images when an assistant principal spoke to a student about inappropriate behavior at home.

In a statement, the school district said the laptops contained a security feature intended to track lost, or stolen laptops but the feature has been deactivated.

The district said the tracking feature would not be reactivated “without express written notification to all students and families.”

Source/Full Story: Yahoo! News

…
Rebecca Solomon is 22 and a student at the University of Michigan, and on Jan. 5 she was flying back to school after holiday break. She made sure she arrived at Philadelphia International Airport 90 minutes before takeoff, given the new regulations.

She would be flying into Detroit on Northwest Airlines, the same city and carrier involved in the attempted bombing on Christmas, just 10 days before. She was tense.

What happened to her lasted only 20 seconds, but she says they were the longest 20 seconds of her life.

After pulling her laptop out of her carry-on bag, sliding the items through the scanning machines, and walking through a detector, she went to collect her things.

A TSA worker was staring at her. He motioned her toward him.

Then he pulled a small, clear plastic bag from her carry-on – the sort of baggie that a pair of earrings might come in. Inside the bag was fine, white powder.

She remembers his words: “Where did you get it?”
…
Answer truthfully, the TSA worker informed her, and everything will be OK.

Solomon, 5-foot-3 and traveling alone, looked up at the man in the black shirt and fought back tears.

Put yourself in her place and count out 20 seconds. Her heart pounded. She started to sweat. She panicked at having to explain something she couldn’t.

Now picture her expression as the TSA employee started to smile.

Just kidding, he said. He waved the baggie. It was his.

And so she collected her things, stunned, and the tears began to fall.

Another passenger, a woman traveling to Colorado, consoled her as others who had witnessed the confrontation went about their business. Solomon and the woman walked to their gates, where each called for security and reported what had happened.
…

Update: Ann Davis, the TSA spokeswoman, said this afternoon that the worker is no longer employed by the agency as of today. She said privacy laws prevented her from saying if he was fired or left on his own.

Source/Full Story: Daniel Rubin

Laws forcing the 11 million people who help out in schools and nurseries to undergo criminal record checks to prove they are not paedophiles are to be dropped following a massive outcry.

In a major government U-turn, Ed Balls, the schools secretary, has bowed to public opinion and will announce tomorrow that the controversial vetting and barring scheme, due to be introduced next July, will be dramatically watered down.

His decision follows a storm of protest over the summer, when it emerged that parents who take children to sports events or drive them around on behalf of scout groups would be among those subject to checks.

Source/Full Story:  The Observer

The cop had no choice? How did law enforcement get children under control prior to the use of tasers???  The father is right.  If the cop can’t handle a child then he shouldn’t be a cop.  The mother should be flogged.

Ozark police said they were called to a home where a mother asked for help with her unruly child, but the 10-year-old’s father said he’s outraged at the force police used against his daughter.

“I would like to say Ozark police Tased this little girl right here. Ten years old and [they] shot electricity through her body, and I want to know how the heck in God’s green earth can they get away with this,” said the girl’s father, Anthony Medlock.

Medlock said his daughter was at her mother’s house when Ozark police Officer Dustin Bradshaw shocked her in the back with a Taser and arrested her.

“If you can’t pick the kid up and take her to your car, handcuff her, then I don’t think you need to be an officer,” Medlock said.

Medlock said his daughter does show signs of having emotional issues, but she “doesn’t deserve to be treated like a dog. She’s not a tiger.”

According to a police report, the officer was called to the home by the mother and witnessed the child kicking and screaming.

The officer’s statement said the girl’s mother, Kelly Hamlert, told him to use a Taser on her if he needed to.

The officer did shock the girl after he said she kicked him in the groin.

“He had no other choice. He had to get the child under control,” said Ozark police Chief Jim Noggle.

Source/Full Story: KHBS

Meanwhile, the media ignores the rest of the story about what dangerous powers a declaration of a national emergency puts into play. As reported here on NaturalNews, this declaration effectively ends many civil liberties in America and, at least on paper, puts the U.S. government in the position of having the legal authority to force vaccinations on the entire population at gunpoint (if they wanted to).

The National Emergencies Act passed in 1976 has some peculiar realities attached to it. In particular, as Wikipedia reports:

A federal emergency declaration allows the United States Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to exercise its power to deal with emergency situations … Typically, a state of emergency empowers the executive to name coordinating officials to deal with the emergency and to override normal administrative processes regarding the passage of administrative rules.

Got that yet? By declaring a national emergency, Obama invokes a set of laws that not only override important sections of the U.S. Constitution, but that also activate FEMA to take charge of “responding” to the emergency.

Now we know why they need all those emergency medical tent camps near the hospitals. FEMA’s in charge! And if FEMA handles the swine flu pandemic in the same way the agency handled the Hurricane Katrina disaster, we may indeed need all those emergency triage tents after all.

Source/Full Story: by Mike Adams the Health Ranger

President Obama has declared a national emergency to deal with the “rapid increase in illness” from the H1N1 influenza virus.

“The 2009 H1N1 pandemic continues to evolve. The rates of illness continue to rise rapidly within many communities across the nation, and the potential exists for the pandemic to overburden health care resources in some localities,” Obama said in a statement.

“Thus, in recognition of the continuing progression of the pandemic, and in further preparation as a nation, we are taking additional steps to facilitate our response.”

The president signed the declaration late Friday and announced it Saturday.

Calling the emergency declaration “an important tool in our kit going forward,” one administration official called Obama’s action a “proactive measure that’s not in response to any new development.”

Another administration official said the move is “not tied to the current case count” and “gives the federal government more power to help states” by lifting bureaucratic requirements — both in treating patients and moving equipment to where it’s most needed.

Source/Full Story:  CNN.com

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said that the individual health insurance mandates included in every health reform bill, which require Americans to have insurance, were “like paying taxes.” He added that Congress has “broad authority” to force Americans to purchase other things as well, so long as it was trying to promote “the general welfare.”

The Congressional Budget Office, however, has stated in the past that a mandate forcing Americans to buy health insurance would be an “unprecedented form of federal action,” and that the “government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States.”

Hoyer, speaking to reporters at his weekly press briefing on Tuesday, was asked by CNSNews.com where in the Constitution was Congress granted the power to mandate that a person must by a health insurance policy. Hoyer said that, in providing for the general welfare, Congress had “broad authority.”

“Well, in promoting the general welfare the Constitution obviously gives broad authority to Congress to effect that end,” Hoyer said. “The end that we’re trying to effect is to make health care affordable, so I think clearly this is within our constitutional responsibility.”

Source/Full Story: CNSNews.com
Technorati Tags: Steny Hoyer

Last Friday, the ACLU and the ACLU of Texas submitted a brief to the Texas Attorney General’s office arguing that a District Attorney in East Texas should be barred from using money unfairly taken from motorists under Texas’s asset forfeiture law to defend herself from a lawsuit brought by motorists who claim that their property was taken illegally.

The District Attorney, Lynda K. Russell, is accused of participating in a scheme in which police officers routinely pulled over motorists in the vicinity of Tenaha, Texas without cause, asked if they were carrying cash and, if they were, ordered them to sign over the cash to the town or face felony charges of money laundering or other serious crimes. The seizures were purportedly made under Texas’s asset forfeiture law, which enables authorities to seize the profits of crime without a conviction. However, authorities had no evidence that plaintiffs were engaged in any criminal activity. None of the plaintiffs was arrested or ever charged with a crime. In a CNN.com article, David Guillory, one of two lawyers representing the plaintiffs, estimates that authorities in Tenaha seized an astounding $3 million between 2006 and 2008, and that in about 150 cases – almost all of which involved African-American or Latino motorists – the seizures were illegal.

District Attorney Russell argued that she should be able to use these funds for the “official purpose” of defending herself from charges that she threatened motorists with criminal charges if they didn’t hand over their money. The irony is rich, given that the purpose of the asset forfeiture law is to make sure that criminals don’t benefit from their crimes. Furthermore, Texas law prohibits the D.A. from using forfeited assets for this purpose.

According to state legislator John Whitmire, police agencies across Texas are wielding the asset-forfeiture law more aggressively these days to shore up their shrinking operating budgets. In Tenaha, the facts show that it was African American motorists who were forced to pay the price for the economic shortfall. Similarly, near the Mexican border, Hispanics allege that they are being singled out by local law enforcement. Yet again, it looks like people of color have come to bear the brunt of unfair and illegal enforcement of policy. What’s more, this is not the first time that the use of asset forfeiture as a law enforcement tool has been criticized. The practice received considerable attention in 2000 and 2001.

Although the ACLU opposes the use of forfeited assets to pay for District Attorney Russell’s defense, the ACLU has also argued that she should receive skilled government legal representation. In a disturbing refusal to accept responsibility for the D.A.’s actions, the Attorney General and the county both refused to represent Russell. Left unchallenged, this position is a threat to the civil and constitutional rights of all citizens. When a public official violates constitutional rights, the government must be held accountable. Otherwise, a dangerous precedent is set whereby government may excuse itself from overseeing the people it empowers and finances to act on its behalf. Either the county or the State must step up and take responsibility for Russell’s actions in Tenaha.

Source/Full Story: Blog of Rights
Technorati Tags: Lynda K. Russell, Tenaha

It’s a huge price to pay for being a “suspicious” individual.

A Pensacola police officer was placed on administrative leave Saturday after his cruiser ran over and killed a young male in Brownsville.

Pensacola Police Department Chief John W. Mathis said Officer Jerald Ard, 35, had been placed on administrative leave pending the results of an investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

“It’s obviously a very tragic and unfortunate incident,” Mathis said. “My heart goes out to the subject in this case and his family. We’ll just have to see how this plays out.”

According to a Saturday afternoon news release, Ard saw a suspicious man in a construction site about 1:50 a.m. Saturday, while he was on routine patrol near Cervantes and T streets.

The man left the scene on a bicycle and Ard pursued, attempting to stop him using verbal commands and blue police lights, the release said.

The officer also tried unsuccessfully to shock the fleeing man with a Taser stun gun, according to the release.

After the Taser was fired, the man turned into the parking lot of a vacant business near R Street, crashed his bicycle, and was run over by the pursuing police car, according to the release.

The man, who remained unidentified Saturday afternoon, was pinned beneath the car during the crash, and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Source/Full Story:  Pensacola News Journal
Technorati Tags: Jerald Ard

The medical model is that man is diseased.  The law enforcement model, apparently, is that man is criminal.  This is a good piece, read the whole thing @:  Washington Times

“You don’t need to know. You can’t know.” That’s what Kathy Norris, a 60-year-old grandmother of eight, was told when she tried to ask court officials why, the day before, federal agents had subjected her home to a furious search.

The agents who spent half a day ransacking Mrs. Norris’ longtime home in Spring, Texas, answered no questions while they emptied file cabinets, pulled books off shelves, rifled through drawers and closets, and threw the contents on the floor.

The six agents, wearing SWAT gear and carrying weapons, were with – get this- the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Kathy and George Norris lived under the specter of a covert government investigation for almost six months before the government unsealed a secret indictment and revealed why the Fish and Wildlife Service had treated their family home as if it were a training base for suspected terrorists. Orchids.

That’s right. Orchids.

Source/Full Story:  Washington Times

An Oklahoma trooper previously suspended for fighting with an ambulance driver is on paid administrative leave after being accused of using excessive force.

Trooper Daniel Martin is accused of beating Khristopher Douglas of Holdenville. Douglas says he was at a friend’s home helping with renovations Saturday when troopers pulled up to handle an apparent traffic stop.

Douglas says he was going inside when Martin demanded he come toward the street. Douglas says Martin grabbed his arm and began beating him when he questioned the order.

Oklahoma Highway Patrol Capt. Chris West says Martin and another trooper are on paid leave during the investigation.

Martin served a five-day suspension for the May incident in which he grabbed a paramedic in a choke hold around the neck.

Source/Full Story: The Associated Press