A man in Baltimore, Maryland is being arrested by two cops, out of nowhere a random onlooker, who has since been identified as 40-year-old Manuel Imel, walks up to one of the cops and tries to deck him in the face.
The two cops manage to bring the man to the ground, when a third officer shows up, he viciously kicks the restrained man in the head, then ... (more)
American citizens can be ordered to decrypt their PGP-scrambled hard drives for police to peruse for incriminating files, a federal judge in Colorado ruled today in what could become a precedent-setting case.
Judge Robert Blackburn ordered a Peyton, Colo., woman to decrypt the hard drive of a Toshiba laptop computer no later than February 21--or face the consequences including contempt of court.
Blackburn, a George W. Bush appointee, ruled that the Fifth Amendme... (more)
According to this judge, plebs can now be forced to testify against themselves, directly contradicting the fifth amendment. What a joke this country has become. - Chris
On Saturday in Somalia, the U.S. fired missiles from a drone and killed the 27-year-old Lebanon-born, ex-British citizen Bilal el-Berjawi. His wife had given birth 24 hours earlier and the speculation is that the U.S. located him when his wife called to give him the news. Roughly one year ago, El-Berjawi was stripped of his British citizenship, obtained when his family moved ... (more)
A Melbourne police officer reprimanded for deliberately disabling the dashboard camera in his patrol car, before confronting a 66-year-old man suffering from dementia, could face additional scrutiny as the city prepares for a potential lawsuit.
Officer Derek Middendorf’s actions — captured on video later salvaged by technicians — are at the center of calls for his dismissal as a lawyer for Albert Flowers says he plans to file suit against the city for false arres... (more)
Follow up to the story on the cop who beat man w/ dementia.
The debate about the Fed is under way, and thank goodness. But as with many policy debates, there really shouldn't be a debate at all. That's because, if you think about it, the idea of central banking makes no sense.
We don't have a government-created central repository that plans and manages shoe distribution. The market takes care of that. We don't have one for cabbage, keyboards or curtains. Somehow we get books, clothes, tree-cutting services and everything else we need and w... (more)
As usual when musing about a particular sample of the TSA’s evil, it’s tough to decide which detail most infuriates.
The Case of the Strip-Searched Seniors offers a perfect example. What angers you most: the TSA’s shaming frail, elderly invalids by compelling them to disrobe for a governmental goon’s inspection; its lying about these atrocities; or its "apology" that continues smearing the grannies as prevaricators?
Public school teachers in Buffalo can get botox, liposuction, hair removal, and various other nips and tucks from plastic surgeons -- all completely free. And taxpayers are footing the bill.
The Atlantic reports the perk is part of a self-insured rider in its teachers' contracts. There's no co-pay, so the school district pays for the... (more)
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul was blocked from boarding a flight Monday by the Transportation Security Administration in Nashville, Tenn., after refusing a full body pat-down, POLITICO has confirmed.
“I spoke with him five minutes ago and he was being detained indefinitely,” Paul spokesperson Moira Bagley said. “The image scan went off; he refused patdown.”
Paul’s father, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), tweeted out news of the incident, saying that ... (more)
The White House is standing by the Transportation Security Administration in its standoff with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and his father, Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas).
The elder Paul called the TSA a "police state" Monday after Rand Paul was reportedly detained by TSA after he refused to take a pat-down from TSA officials at the Nashville International Airport.
White House press secretary Jay Carney said Monday that he didn't have any reac... (more)
As Glenn Greenwald points out in his excellent analysis of the Megaupload case, immediately after opponents of SOPA and PIPA caused congressmen to back off from their proposed Internet legislation, the Justice Department stepped up to the plate and arbitrarily shut down Megaupload, one of the world’s largest websites. As Greenwald put it, the message from the Justice Department, whet... (more)
In the wake of last week’s Megaupload shutdown, some of the biggest names in the market are taking drastic action. During the last 48 hours many sites have completely withdrawn their systems for paying uploaders when their files are shared with others, but one of the most dramatic moves came first from Filesonic and today Fileserve. Both services now forbid people from downloading any files they didn’t upload themselves.
While the shutdown last week of Megaupload and t... (more)
India is the first buyer of Iranian oil to agree to pay for its purchases in gold instead of the US dollar, DEBKAfile's intelligence and Iranian sources report exclusively. Those sources expect China to follow suit. India and China take about one million barrels per day, or 40 percent of Iran's total exports of 2.5 million bpd. Both are superpowers in terms of gold assets.
By trading in gold, New Delhi and Beijing enable Tehran to bypass the upcoming freeze on its central bank's ... (more)
The government seems determined to turn out the lights on the digital age. And this is with or without SOPA or the other bills that were only this week shouted down by the global digital community on Blackout Wednesday. The very next day, after support for that legislation collapsed after an impressive mass protest, the FBI and the Justice Department demonstrated that they don't have to pay any attention to all this silly clamor. Congress, legislation, polling, debates, politicians, the will of ... (more)
Visitors to the massive file sharing site FileSonic.com are being greeted with the following message:
"All sharing functionality on FileSonic is now disabled. Our service can only be used to upload and retrieve files that you have uploaded personally."
It appears the site can only be used now as a personal cloud storage service. No longer can users upload and share files with their friends, which is no doubt the main usage of the site. This news wil... (more)
Much attention has been paid to the “disappearing middle class” and the “vanishing American Dream.” While the observations are largely accurate, they are also misleading. The traditional three-tier model of the upper, middle and lower class broadly categorizes people according to income and net worth. One significant problem with this model is that membership in any particular class is very much in the eye of the beholder. One man’s “scraping by” ... (more)
If you’re planning on bartering emergency stockpiles and supplies in the event of a disaster then be sure to check applicable state and Federal laws or you may end up being the subject of a sting operation, as was the case with Chad Gerondale of Alaska.
Bartering may have been a necessary trade practiced by the earliest of our human ancestors, but in a society where central planning and control is the status quo, even the exchange of food or services becomes an illegal act: ... (more)
Could the government outlaw lying? Not just lying that causes injury — lying that defames, for example, or defrauds — but could the government outlaw lying more generally? The Justice Department appears to think so. In a case called United States v. Alvarez, the government is asking the Supreme Court to hold that that the First Amendment doesn’t protect “calculated falsehoods.” Calc... (more)
SILVER SPRING, MD (WUSA) --- A retired US Secret Service agent says his 17-year-old son was in handcuffs with his feet bound when he was attacked by a Montgomery County police officer who grabbed him by the throat and slammed his head into a patrol car.
"It was very unprofessional and it was abusive and it was excessive force and it was police brutality," said John Pyles, who says he had a 23-year career in law enforcement and was offended by the behavior.
Bill Maher loves democracy... unless of course the people are actually being represented over his personal business interests, then strong-arm thuggery is the highest virtue and the people are an unruly mob.
A Georgian 10-yr-old boy asked his mom if he could get a tattoo to remember his brother who died, his mom consented and gave him permission.
Now she's facing being thrown in a government cage, police are also seeking to hunt down the tattoo artist, because consenting exchange is illegal in the 'land of the free.'
You know that anti-piracy video you sometimes see at the beginning of movies? It explains how you wouldn't steal a handbag, so neither should you steal a song or movie by an illegal download. Well, it turns out that the guy who wrote the music for that short clip, Melchoir Rietveldt, says that his music is being used illegally. It had been licensed to play at one film festival, not replayed a million times in DVDs distributed all over the world. He is demanding millions in a settlement fee from ... (more)
Reinforcing the fact that Chris Dodd really does not get what's happening, and showing just how disgustingly corrupt the MPAA relationship is with politicians, Chris Dodd went on Fox News to explicitly threaten politicians who accept MPAA campaign donations that they'd better pass Hollywood's favorite legislation... or else:
