Corruption Corner – Page 26

Who Needs a Warrant When You Can Fabricate a 911 Call

Warrants are such a pesky formality for police officers. When they want to search a house and the owner isn’t stupid enough to just let them walk right in the police have to make a phone call to a judge, wait a few minutes for him to issue a warrant, and finally search the home. Some cunning officers in North Carolina have apparently come up with a way to bypass that inconvenient formality:

A North Carolina police chief has officially barred officers from making up phony 911 calls in order to gain access to private residences without a search warrant.

Several officers with the Durham Police Department lied about 911 hang-up calls to convince residents to consent to searches of their homes, an officer said under oath in late May, a local ABC affiliate reported.

The allegations prompted Police Chief Jose Lopez to send out an internal memo barring the practice.

“It has recently been brought to my attention that some officers have informed citizens that there has been a 911 hang-up call from their residence in order to obtain consent to enter for the actual purpose of looking for wanted persons on outstanding warrants,” he said in the memo, Raw Story reported. “Effective immediately no officer will inform a citizen that there has been any call to the emergency communications center, including a hang-up call, when there in fact has been no such call.”

Statists often tell me that my anarchist views are crazy because we need government to protect our rights. I find it peculiar to charge the biggest violator of rights with the task of protecting rights and this story demonstrates why. The state has written up its own set of rules, which it claims protects our rights, and then bypasses those same rules, meaning it must be violating our rights.

They’ve Got Us By the Net Neutrality Balls

I have bad news everybody. In the battle for net neutrality no matter who wins we all lose. I’ve discussed the issue of net neutrality as it pertains to libertarianism before. The main problem is that no actual competition exists in the market of providing Internet access. This near monopoly situation is the product of the state, which used its regulatory powers to protect its favored Internet Service Providers (ISP) from competition. So it shouldn’t surprise anybody that the state has set itself up to win no matter what.

Members of the Democratic Party have primarily been advocating to give the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulatory power over ISPs to “protect” net neutrality. Meanwhile the Republican Party has been busy discussing the need to take power away from the FCC to protect the “free” market:

US Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) wants to make sure the Federal Communications Commission never interferes with “states’ rights” to protect private Internet service providers from having to compete against municipal broadband networks.

Twenty states have passed laws making it difficult for cities and towns to offer their own broadband Internet services, and FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has pledged to use his agency’s authority to “preempt state laws that ban competition from community broadband.”

Since ISPs have a state granted near monopoly no free market exists so Mrs. Blackburn’s claim that she is working to protect it is absurd. But this story does demonstrate on concerning fact: in the chess game of net neutrality we are one move away from being checkmated.

Tom Wheeler, the currently appointed chairman of the FCC, was a lobbyist for the cable and wireless industries before being given his current position. He has already shown his hand by ruling that ISPs can provide fast and slow lanes for Internet traffic. So we know if the FCC gains the power to regulate ISPs it will kill net neutrality.

On the other hand if the FCC isn’t given more power to regulate ISPs the individual states, 22 of which have already moved to protect the handful of ISPs’ near monopoly, will allow their corporate partners like Comcast to destroy net neutrality by destroying their competition.

No matter who wins we lose. There is one last glimmer of hope but it’s not going to be easy. We need to work on cutting out the ISP middleman. I’ve briefly discussed the work I’ve been involved in to get mesh networks running in the Twin Cities. Building mesh networks is probably the only move that will save use from being checkmated. Because the state has set the board up in such a way that we’ll lose regardless of what powers the FCC has.

Police Want to Create Child Pornography to Prove Minor’s Selfies were Child Pornography

I’m not entirely sure where to begin with this:

A Manassas City teenager accused of “sexting” a video to his girlfriend is now facing a search warrant in which Manassas City police and Prince William County prosecutors want to take a photo of his erect penis, possibly forcing the teen to become erect by taking him to a hospital and giving him an injection, the teen’s lawyers said. A Prince William County judge allowed the 17-year-old to leave the area without the warrant being served or the pictures being taken — yet.

If you read the story you will find that the 17 year-old is accused of sending a sexually explicit video of himself to a 15 year-old girl. Even though the video was of himself he is still accused of manufacturing and possessing child pornography because he is a minor. To prove their case the police now want to take the 17 year-old kid, inject him with viagra, and take a picture of his dick to compare to the dick in the video. Because when you have a badge drugging a kid and taking sexually explicit pictures of him isn’t possessing and manufacturing child pornography because of mother fucking reasons you stupid fucking slaves.

Fortunately the boy’s guardian gets it:

Carlos Flores Laboy, appointed the teen’s guardian ad litem in the case, said he thought it was just as illegal for the Manassas City police to create their own child pornography as to investigate the teen for it. “They’re using a statute that was designed to protect children from being exploited in a sexual manner,” Flores Laboy said, “to take a picture of this young man in a sexually explicit manner. The irony is incredible.” The guardian added, “As a parent myself, I was floored. It’s child abuse. We’re wasting thousands of dollars and resources and man hours on a sexting case. That’s what we’re doing.”

That is exactly what they’re doing. They’re taking a parental issue of two teenagers acting as expected at their age and using it as an excuse to create some child pornography by drugging a kid. How anybody thinks the police in this situation aren’t a bunch of sicko fucks is beyond me. If I were the prosecutor I’d be filing charges against the cops.

TSA Develops New Scam to Steal Your Stuff

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will soon have to change its name to the Thieves’ Guild. While it has been stealing trinkets from airline passengers for ages now but it has had to steal more valuable items behind closed doors. That will no longer be the case! The TSA has developed a new scam to separate you from your stuff:

The TSA now requires that you power on your gadgets when flying to the US from “certain overseas airports.” If you have a dead battery, you’re out of luck. You’ll likely have to leave that hardware behind, and you might go through “additional screening” at the same time.

Did you run your laptop’s battery down at the meeting before flying back home? That’s too bad because it will now become the property of the TSA. Did your cellphone battery run out while you were taking pictures on your last day of vacation? The TSA thanks you for donating your cellphone to its agents.

There are so many things that are wrong with this new policy that I don’t know where to begin. First of all the fancy baggage x-ray machines can already see the contents of your electronic devices. If the screener misses a fucking bomb hidden inside of the case then he shouldn’t be screening. Anything. Ever. Because that’s a major mishap. Second of all there have been no cases of an attacker smuggling a bomb onto a plane inside of an electronic device. This is probably because the baggage x-ray machines would see it. Third of all having every passenger power on every electronic device they’re carrying is going to slow down security lines a lot. After all many passengers fly with a laptop and a cell phone at a minimum. Others also fly with an e-book reader, handheld game system, portable music player, smartwatch, camera, and so on. This policy would actually bring the entire Las Vegas airport to a grinding halt if TSA implemented it during Defcon.

This is another case of the TSA playing security theater and whenever it does that it almost always involves taking passenger’s stuff. And the best part about this theater is the ticket prices will soon be increasing. There’s nothing like having to pay somebody more money so they can steal more of your shit.

Everything We Do is Legal

It must be nice being the government. You get to make the laws, enforce the laws, and decided whether or not the laws are legal. So it should come as no surprise that after a very lengthy and deliberate investigation into the actions of its own surveillance apparatus the government has decided that everything it did was nice and legal:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The National Security Agency programs that collect huge volumes of Internet data within the United States pass constitutional muster and employ “reasonable” safeguards designed to protect the rights of Americans, an independent privacy and civil liberties board has found.

In a report released Tuesday night, the bipartisan, five-member Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, appointed by President Barack Obama, largely endorsed a set of NSA surveillance programs that have provoked worldwide controversy since they were disclosed last year by former NSA systems administrator Edward Snowden. However, they urged new internal intelligence agency safeguards designed to further guard against misuse.

First of all I’m glad that we now know that everything the NSA did was legal. Talk about a huge elephant in the room that was in need of being addressed! Second of all, I’m glad the government is finally getting more efficient. Why have a massive investigation involving multiple departments and every member of Congress when you can just grab five random dudes and tell them to take care of everything? Hopefully we’re witnessing the beginning of a new age of government efficiency because it would be nice to just appoint a few guys to fuck us over instead of paying thousands of people to do the same.

Apparently SWAT Teams are Private Entities

The different tricks and tactics used by law enforcement agencies to bypass data access laws are always amusing to read about. But the recent trick used by Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams in Massachusetts deserves special recognition:

As it turns out, a number of SWAT teams in the Bay State are operated by what are called law enforcement councils, or LECs. These LECs are funded by several police agencies in a given geographic area and overseen by an executive board, which is usually made up of police chiefs from member police departments.

[…]

Some of these LECs have also apparently incorporated as 501(c)(3) organizations. And it’s here that we run into problems. According to the ACLU, the LECs are claiming that the 501(c)(3) status means that they’re private corporations, not government agencies. And therefore, they say they’re immune from open records requests.

My favorite part about government transparency laws getting passed isn’t the laws got passed but the scams developed by the government to ignore them. This particular scam is especially clever. By being private organizations these SWAT teams are immune from any and all government transparency laws.

Fans of history will likely have a long list of scams developed by individuals, corporations, and non-governmental organized crime syndicates. But time and time again the state manages to outdo all of those other petty scam artists. I guess having a monopoly on both writing and enforcing laws helps.

That Whole Fair Trial Thing Was Woefully Out of Date Anyways

Do you remember that whole fair trial thing that people used to talk about? It involved zany things like the defendant being able to review all of the evidence that was going to be used to the prosecution. That mess lead to a lot of undesirable outcomes, namely people the state was targeting being found innocent of wrongdoing by a jury. Thankfully our benevolent overlords have corrected this problem and now allow the prosecution to withhold evidence from the defendant:

The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has ruled against terrorism suspect Adel Daoud, saying that he and his attorneys cannot access the evidence gathered against him. The Monday ruling overturns an earlier lower district court ruling that had allowed Daoud and his lawyers to review the legality of digital surveillance warrants used against him.

[…]

When Daoud’s lawyers discovered that this case involved secret evidence that they had not been privy to, they eventually asked the court to notify them if any evidence gathered had been done so under a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) order. Under the normal procedures of American jurisprudence, a defendant has the right to see the evidence against him or her and can challenge the basis on which such a warrant was authorized.

The government responded with its own affidavit from Attorney General Eric Holder, who told the court that disclosing such material would harm national security.

Now if we can just get rid of those inconvenient juries we will finally have a system that can throw anybody in prison for any reason whatsoever. I’m sure a convincing argument can be made for why juries are a threat to national security. After all a jury trial would involve 12 regular Americans hearing all of the evidence, which certainly qualifies as a threat to national security.

Shit like this is why I don’t take arguments claiming we need a government to administer justice seriously.

Real Life Idiocracy

I keep telling people that the movie Idiocracy made an accurate prediction it just set itself too far into the future. We now officially have the opening to the movie. There is currently an investigation into a prostitution ring as Ford Hood:

FORT HOOD, Texas – Testimony was to resume at the military court hearing of a Fort Hood sergeant accused of setting up a prostitution ring with cash-strapped female soldiers.

Sgt. 1st Class Gregory McQueen is facing more than 21 criminal charges filed in March that include pandering, adultery and sexual assault.

I’m betting Mr. McQueen knows a pimp by the name of Upgrayedd:

After Getting the Super Bowl Minneapolis Begins Cracking Down on the Homeless

Minneapolis “won” (in other words bought) the “prestigious” award of hosting the 2018 Super Bowl. With only four years until the big game Minneapolis is scrambling to finish up its new stadium and to rid the city of, shall we say, undesirables. Stage one of creating the facade that Minneapolis doesn’t have a homeless problem has already begun:

As part of a campaign called “Give Real Change,” billboards have popped up along Hennepin Avenue urging people to instead give money to the organization, which aims to end homelessness.

Steve Cramer, president and CEO of the Minneapolis Downtown Council, said the effort is designed to help panhandlers, not hurt them.

“Everyone agrees, five bucks on the street is just going to perpetuate a life circumstance that is not conducive to long-term health,” he said. “That five dollars would be better invested in longer-term solutions to deal with the root cause of someone’s homelessness.”

When a city official talks about helping the homeless what he really means is making their lives so miserable that they go somewhere else. Part of this involves regulations that prevent people from assisting the homeless (for example, feeding them). Another part involves centralizing as much homeless assistance as possible under one easily controlled roof. Once resources are centralized it’s a trivial matter to distribute them in such a way as to maximize homeless misery.

We must also remember that this campaign is only stage one. Stage two will probably involve making it illegal to give money to panhandlers, stage three will likely involve a crackdown on anybody attempting to feed the homeless (again, to protect the homeless from food of questionable nutrition!), and stage four will probably involve rounding up all of the homeless people and driving them to the border of North Dakota a week before the Super Bowl begins.

But sometimes you have to make a few miserable lives more miserable if you want everybody coming into town for the big game to see how problem-free your town is!

They Just Want to Thump Some Skulls

Modern police departments have more in common with military forces than they do with security agencies. If you look at most private security providers they tend to have little in the way of riot gear, grenade launchers, and armored personnel carriers. But there are a lot of police departments with plenty of all three and much more. Likewise the strategies employed by the two organizations differ. Private security providers tend to be far less psychopathic because no business wants its customers harassed by a man with a badge every time they try to come in the store. Modern police departments often don’t bother knocking on the door before sending a battering ram and a flashbang through as a precursor to a full scale invasion.

As modern police departments become more militarized more people are becoming upset, which has lead to a few investigations. The Seattle Police Department has been under investigation for a while now due to its use of excessive force on minorities. This has lead to the department adopting new rules of engagement, which has made many of its officers unhappy:

(Reuters) – Seattle police officers filed a federal lawsuit on Wednesday challenging new policies that restrict use of force, saying the rules endanger lives of both officers and civilians.

More than 120 officers have joined the lawsuit, which seeks a complete dismantling of a new use of force policy hammered out between the Seattle Police Department and the U.S. Department of Justice to stem an alleged pattern of excessive force.

The Seattle Police Department has been under federal monitoring since 2012, following an investigation into a series of incidents in which officers appeared to engage in excessive force, particularly against minorities.

I believe that modern police departments, due to the strategies they employ more commonly every day, attract a special type of person. Namely people who actually enjoy hurting other people. Because of this we have police departments that are filled with vicious men who get upset whenever their ability to hurt other people is hindered.

If these officers were actually concerned with helping people they would already be using the bare minimum amount of force necessary to resolve situations. There wouldn’t be multiple reports of excessive force as other officers would come down on any of their fellows that employed it. But excessive force is the norm so long as the words “officer safety” can be written on the report. Officer safety shouldn’t be the primary concern of a police department, the safety of community members should be.

In an ideal world an individual signing up to become a police officer would do so with the understanding that their job is to protect members of the community. That necessarily requires putting one’s own life on the line to protect others, not putting other’s lives on the line to protect one’s self. If that is an idea that disturbs an individual then they should find another job.