Link du jour
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yIHS9bBQuZUhttp://www.pravdareport.comhttp://www.occurrencesforeigndomestic.c ... y-justice/http://www.michaelmckevitt.com/the-fram ... collusion/THE COLLUSION
JUNE 22ND, 2006
In the summer of 2000, members of MI5 and the FBI met in the Washington office of the FBI. The purpose of the meeting was to finalise the details of the stitch up of Michael McKevitt. Back in the mid 1990’s the FBI had supplied MI5 with a paid informant, David Rupert. Rupert had worked with the FBI since 1974. He was a multiple bankrupt and a career informant for 30 years, working initially with the FBI and later with MI5. During those years he was arrested for cheque and wire fraud as well as suspected white slavery having been found with a 15 year old run-away in his truck. He was never charged or convicted of any of the above. However his informant services where used extensively throughout the same period.
Rupert travelled to Ireland spying on Irish citizens from the early 1990’s. During the mid 90’s Rupert was introduced to MI5 who according to him directed and controlled his actions while in Ireland. At one point the FBI funded the lease of a Bar and adjoining caravan and camping holiday park in Co. Leitrim as a base for Rupert to spy from. Rupert claimed the park was being used by IRA sympathisers and duly sent the names, addresses and telephone numbers of all the families mainly from Belfast who had holidayed in the park to the FBI and MI5. This was at a time when Loyalist death squads were receiving information from state forces to set up and murder selected individuals on their instructions. The Garda authorities were aware of Rupert passing details on to FBI/MI5 about Irish citizens yet they chose to allow this to happen.
Throughout his stay in Ireland Rupert claimed he forwarded all of the relevant intelligence he had acquired to MI5 via encrypted e-mails. Between 1997 and 2001 Rupert posted 2166 e-mails to his paymasters in British intelligence.
According to an article in Forum Magazine:
“On 11 April 1998, Rupert dispatched his most controversial e-mail to MI5 headquarters. It was almost five months before the now infamous maroon Vauxhall Cavalier would decimate the centre of Omagh town and kill 29 people. For this reason the e-mail was all the more startling because in it Rupert informed MI5 that a dissident republican group was planning a car bomb attack in Omagh. The April car bomb attack in Omagh was eventually frustrated by Gardai south of the border. However, MI5 management knew the threat was only postponed and not extinguished. Within days MI5 e-mailed Rupert: “We disrupted the intention to use the car bomb, but maybe not for long”. MI5 obviously foresaw the strong likelihood of a renewed attempt to bomb Omagh. However, MI5 now held the advantage over the would-be car bombers in that from as early as April 1998 it knew Omagh was a likely target for a dissident republican car bomb attack.
Omagh bomb August 1998.
Rupert’s e-mails were not the only pre-August 15th information in MI5’s possession which pointed to a dissident republican attack in Omagh. A second key piece of intelligence came to light on August 4 when an anonymous phone-caller warned British intelligence of a planned dissident republican gun and bomb attack in Omagh on August 15. MI5 subsequently claimed that it dismissed this anonymous phone-warning as a rogue RUC Special Branch call. However, this was a poor attempt at distraction. The importance in all of this is that whereas Rupert provided specific details with regard to the proposed location of the planned bombing, this phone-warning supplemented his e-mail intelligence by not only confirming the location, but also providing the all important precise date of the planned attack.
However, the windfall of dissident republican intelligence did not end there. MI5 possessed a third piece of high-grade information which indicated that a car bomb attack was scheduled for mid-August. Two days before the Omagh bombing, FRU agent Kevin Fulton met with a Real IRA informant whose clothing, according to Fulton, was covered in dust particles of homemade explosives. Fulton correctly suspected that a car bomb attack was in an advanced stage of planning. Fulton provided British intelligence with the agent’s name and car registration number. Yet once again this vital piece of intelligence was ignored.
But perhaps the most startling disclosure concerning MI5’s foreknowledge of Omagh came during the inquest into the bombing. According to the Sunday Business Post (26/8/2001) leading British barrister Michael Mansfield QC, acting for Lawrence Rush, cross-examined several RUC witnesses. It emerged that a warning specifying the precise location of the bomb had not been passed on to local officers in time to clear the area.
“After that, we started getting threatening calls. We were told by the RUC that our name was on a death-list,” Solicitor Des Doherty said.
The RUC also confirmed to Doherty that a newspaper report of a spy satellite picking out the car used to transport the bomb was correct.
Doherty said. “It is understood that when the RUC contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation in America, they produced information from the satellite.”
This suggests that the maroon Vauxhall Cavalier contained a tracking device which enabled a US GPS satellite not only to follow the car’s movements but also pinpoint its exact location on the day of the bombing. At the request of MI5, US intelligence would have monitored the car as a priority and would have conveyed this surveillance data to MI5 without delay. Yet MI5 chose not to relay this information to RUC officers on the ground on August 15. Furthermore, the presence of a tracking device on the maroon Vauxhall Cavalier indicates the involvement of an MI5 agent in the planning or the execution of the Omagh bombing, at some point between the unlawful procurement of the maroon Vauxhall Cavalier and the detonation of the explosives on August 15.
After the Omagh bombing MI5 ordered Rupert out of Ireland as a matter of urgency. An August 16 MI5 e-mail instructed Rupert to “insulate yourself from the Gardai” [MI5 to David Rupert, E-mail 305, 16-08-98]. Later that night Rupert was ordered to: “Collect tickets at Belfast City Airport…You’ll be here [London] for two nights. We need to talk. It’s extremely important” [MI5 to David Rupert, E-mail 329, 17-08-98]. Rupert’s MI5 handlers obviously feared that their agent might be gripped as part of a massive cross-border investigation and that – if placed under sufficient pressure – Rupert might disclose the prior bomb warning he had conveyed to MI5 in early April in relation to Omagh. Indeed all of Rupert’s MI5 e-mails on Omagh were subsequently withheld from Nuala O’Loan when she conducted her large-scale investigation into the intelligence background to the tragic bombing. By late August 1998 there were a number of skeletons inside MI5’s cupboard.
https://www.irishcentral.com/news/fbi-a ... -237765331An FBI agent gave Whitey Bulger 40 pounds of plastic explosives most of which was sent to the IRA a key witness in the Whitey Bulger trial has stated.
Steve Flemmi is the prosecution key witness already serving life without parole who says he accompanies Bulger on most of his murder sprees, including the strangling of Flemini’s own girlfriend, Debra Davies, because she knew the two men were FBI informers.
On Friday Flemmi testifies that in the 1980s, FBI agent John Newton gave him and Bulger a case of C-4 explosives to send to the IRA.
“It was a surprise when we got it,” Flemmi old the court adding that he believed that Newton, who was a former Green Beret, got the plastic explosives while in military training.
Newton had the explosives in his South Boston home and arranged for the two gangsters to come and pick it up. Newton has denied the accusation.
Links to the IRA have surfaced in the trial. Bulger was very close to senior IRA figure Joe Cahill, meeting him frequently in Boston after he smuggled him across the border from Canada on a supporters bus when the Boston Bruins hockey team were playing a Canadian side.
Bulger idolized Cahill according to Kevin Cullen and Shelley Murphy two Boston Globe writers who have written a definitive book on Bulger called “Whitey Bulger”
Bulger had an Irish passport obtained legally through his grandparents nationality in 1987.
Following the explosives hand over, the IRA worked with the Bulger gang on getting more weapons which ended when the Valhalla trawler left Gloucester, Mass in 1984 chock full of guns and explosives for the IRA. The 7 and half tons of weapons was estimated to have cost $1 million dollars
The arms were handed off to an Irish fishing trawler the Marita Ann but that boat was stopped and boarded by Irish navy officials tipped off by an IRA mole.
http://www.enewscourier.com/news/local_ ... 983af.htmlALEA visits FBI center at Redstone Arsenal
Officials with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency on Monday addressed attendees of the inaugural FBI Analytical Writing Course at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, according to a press release.
ALEA Secretary Hal Taylor, state Bureau of Investigation Director Gene Wiggins and Alabama Fusion Center Director Jay Moseley spoke about the value of the analytical products to the intelligence and law enforcement communities and the importance of the two-week training, which concluded Friday.
They also expressed thanks to the FBI for providing this training to fusion center intelligence analysts from across the nation.
Fusion centers were created by state and local public safety executives in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and given the mission of assisting in the identification, prevention, mitigation, response and recovery of terrorist acts and other major criminal activity.
“Every day across the 79 fusion centers in 50 states and three U.S. territories, personnel assigned to lead and work in fusion centers from state and local law enforcement, homeland security, fire, public health and emergency management agencies, working alongside federal law enforcement and homeland security partners, are accomplishing that mission,” the release said. “They work to identify behavior that is reasonably indicative of pre-operational planning associated with terrorism or other criminal activity. Fusion center staff are also accomplishing their public safety mission with the protection of privacy, civil rights and civil liberties as a core function of their analytical activities.”
At the heart of every fusion center is an analyst who has the task of developing data into the intelligence products used to identify and prevent threats to communities and aid in the mitigation, response and recovery when public safety resources are unable to stop the threat. The National Network of Fusion Centers has more than 1,000 analysts supported through the development of training courses with federal partners.
https://www.propublica.org/article/davi ... -terroristThe American Behind India's 9/11—And How U.S. Botched Chances to Stop Him - ProPublica
Jan 24, 2013 - Officials say David Coleman Headley slipped through the cracks despite repeated warnings to U.S. ... Indian authorities think the U.S. knew more than it has revealed about the FBI informant's activities ...
indiamond6.ulib.iupui.edu:81/MS09070614g.html
The Framing of Michael McKevitt: Omagh, David Rupert, MI5 & FBI Collusion
Excerpt from the booklet, The Framing of Michael McKevitt
The Blanket is serialising the booklet.
Marcella Sands • 22 June 2006
In the summer of 2000, members of MI5 and the FBI met in the Washington office of the FBI. The purpose of the meeting was to finalise the details of the stitch up of Michael McKevitt. Back in the mid 1990’s the FBI had supplied MI5 with a paid informant, David Rupert. Rupert had worked with the FBI since 1974. He was a multiple bankrupt and a career informant for 30 years, working initially with the FBI and later with MI5. During those years he was arrested for cheque and wire fraud as well as suspected white slavery having been found with a 15 year old run-away in his truck. He was never charged or convicted of any of the above. However his informant services where used extensively throughout the same period.
Rupert travelled to Ireland spying on Irish citizens from the early 1990’s. During the mid 90’s Rupert was introduced to MI5 who according to him directed and controlled his actions while in Ireland. At one point the FBI funded the lease of a Bar and adjoining caravan and camping holiday park in Co. Leitrim as a base for Rupert to spy from. Rupert claimed the park was being used by IRA sympathisers and duly sent the names, addresses and telephone numbers of all the families mainly from Belfast who had holidayed in the park to the FBI and MI5. This was at a time when Loyalist death squads were receiving information from state forces to set up and murder selected individuals on their instructions. The Garda authorities were aware of Rupert passing details on to FBI/MI5 about Irish citizens yet they chose to allow this to happen.
Throughout his stay in Ireland Rupert claimed he forwarded all of the relevant intelligence he had acquired to MI5 via encrypted e-mails. Between 1997 and 2001 Rupert posted 2166 e-mails to his paymasters in British intelligence.
According to an article in Forum Magazine:
“On 11 April 1998, Rupert dispatched his most controversial e-mail to MI5 headquarters. It was almost five months before the now infamous maroon Vauxhall Cavalier would decimate the centre of Omagh town and kill 29 people. For this reason the e-mail was all the more startling because in it Rupert informed MI5 that a dissident republican group was planning a car bomb attack in Omagh. The April car bomb attack in Omagh was eventually frustrated by Gardai south of the border. However, MI5 management knew the threat was only postponed and not extinguished. Within days MI5 e-mailed Rupert: "We disrupted the intention to use the car bomb, but maybe not for long". MI5 obviously foresaw the strong likelihood of a renewed attempt to bomb Omagh. However, MI5 now held the advantage over the would-be car bombers in that from as early as April 1998 it knew Omagh was a likely target for a dissident republican car bomb attack.
Rupert's e-mails were not the only pre-August 15th information in MI5's possession which pointed to a dissident republican attack in Omagh. A second key piece of intelligence came to light on August 4 when an anonymous phone-caller warned British intelligence of a planned dissident republican gun and bomb attack in Omagh on August 15. MI5 subsequently claimed that it dismissed this anonymous phone-warning as a rogue RUC Special Branch call. However, this was a poor attempt at distraction. The importance in all of this is that whereas Rupert provided specific details with regard to the proposed location of the planned bombing, this phone-warning supplemented his e-mail intelligence by not only confirming the location, but also providing the all important precise date of the planned attack.
However, the windfall of dissident republican intelligence did not end there. MI5 possessed a third piece of high-grade information which indicated that a car bomb attack was scheduled for mid-August. Two days before the Omagh bombing, FRU agent Kevin Fulton met with a Real IRA informant whose clothing, according to Fulton, was covered in dust particles of homemade explosives. Fulton correctly suspected that a car bomb attack was in an advanced stage of planning. Fulton provided British intelligence with the agent's name and car registration number. Yet once again this vital piece of intelligence was ignored.
But perhaps the most startling disclosure concerning MI5's foreknowledge of Omagh came during the inquest into the bombing. According to the Sunday Business Post (26/8/2001) leading British barrister Michael Mansfield QC, acting for Lawrence Rush, cross-examined several RUC witnesses. It emerged that a warning specifying the precise location of the bomb had not been passed on to local officers in time to clear the area.
"After that, we started getting threatening calls. We were told by the RUC that our name was on a death-list," Solicitor Des Doherty said.
The RUC also confirmed to Doherty that a newspaper report of a spy satellite picking out the car used to transport the bomb was correct.
Doherty said. "It is understood that when the RUC contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation in America, they produced information from the satellite.”
This suggests that the maroon Vauxhall Cavalier contained a tracking device which enabled a US GPS satellite not only to follow the car's movements but also pinpoint its exact location on the day of the bombing. At the request of MI5, US intelligence would have monitored the car as a priority and would have conveyed this surveillance data to MI5 without delay. Yet MI5 chose not to relay this information to RUC officers on the ground on August 15. Furthermore, the presence of a tracking device on the maroon Vauxhall Cavalier indicates the involvement of an MI5 agent in the planning or the execution of the Omagh bombing, at some point between the unlawful procurement of the maroon Vauxhall Cavalier and the detonation of the explosives on August 15.
After the Omagh bombing MI5 ordered Rupert out of Ireland as a matter of urgency. An August 16 MI5 e-mail instructed Rupert to "insulate yourself from the Gardai" [MI5 to David Rupert, E-mail 305, 16-08-98]. Later that night Rupert was ordered to: "Collect tickets at Belfast City Airport...You'll be here [London] for two nights. We need to talk. It's extremely important" [MI5 to David Rupert, E-mail 329, 17-08-98]. Rupert's MI5 handlers obviously feared that their agent might be gripped as part of a massive cross-border investigation and that - if placed under sufficient pressure - Rupert might disclose the prior bomb warning he had conveyed to MI5 in early April in relation to Omagh. Indeed all of Rupert's MI5 e-mails on Omagh were subsequently withheld from Nuala O'Loan when she conducted her large-scale investigation into the intelligence background to the tragic bombing. By late August 1998 there were a number of skeletons inside MI5's cupboard.
We now know MI5 possessed four pieces of high-grade intelligence which forewarned of a dissident republican car bomb attack in Omagh on August 15. The earliest intelligence data was dated 11 April. Then came the anonymous August 4 phone-call, Kevin Fulton's August 13 intelligence report and finally the satellite monitoring of the Vauxhall Cavalier arising from a tracking device planted by a British agent involved in the Omagh bombing. Yet notwithstanding this avalanche of intelligence MI5 made no attempt to intercept the bomb How can this operational decision be rationally explained? What was the motivation of MI5 management? Did British intelligence want to protect the identity of its agent at all costs? Or was this yet another "securocrat" plot to subvert the peace?
MI5 management did not want to scupper the peace process, but it did want to protect the identity of its agent and, at the same time, drive - what it hoped would be - the final nail into physical force republicanism at an exceptionally sensitive time in the Irish peace process.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc ... -1.3351677Queens man says NYPD detectives planted cocaine, marijuana in his apartment in suit
BY ANDREW KESHNER
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Monday, July 24, 2017, 1:20 PM
A Queens man is suing to chop down a conviction he blames on detectives who planted evidence.
Anthony Lopez says there's no way cocaine and marijuana were found at his Jamaica apartment — unless police put it there during a bogus 2014 search.
And he says it's no coincidence that two officers at the search, Detectives Kevin Desormeau and Sasha Neve, are now facing criminal charges in Manhattan and Queens for allegedly lying in court documents and testimony about facts in other cases.
Lopez says he was boxed into accepting a misdemeanor plea on a weapons possession charge. In his July 17 lawsuit, Lopez asked a Brooklyn federal judge to rule that his civil rights were violated by the detectives and the NYPD, which he claims failed to train its investigators.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/cou ... -1.3349919 Court cop who forced a woman to perform sex act inside Brooklyn courthouse may face felony charges
Sgt. Timothy Nolan approached the woman on Oct. 21 as she waited for her boyfriend to post bail at the Schermerhorn St. building during the court’s lunch break, according to the victim.
The 26-year-old stay-at-home mom said the officer asked her to walk with him into the sixth-floor stairwell. Then he exposed himself and began to molest her, she said.
Off-duty NYPD cop arrested after leaving scene of accident
“He should be criminally charged. I don’t want this to happen to anyone else,” said the woman, who was alerted that she will be called to testify before a grand jury in the coming days.
The woman said she immediately reported she was attacked. Nolan was not arrested, but instead he was transferred to the Bronx.
http://dailycaller.com/2017/07/23/exclu ... ides-home/EXCLUSIVE: FBI Seized Smashed Hard Drives From Wasserman Schultz IT Aide’s Home
7:49 PM 07/23/2017
FBI agents seized smashed computer hard drives from the home of Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s information technology (IT) administrator, according to an individual who was interviewed by Bureau investigators in the case.
Pakistani-born Imran Awan, long-time right-hand IT aide to the former Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairwoman, has since desperately tried to get the hard drives back, the individual told The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group.
http://ticklethewire.com/2017/07/22/fbi ... -levinson/FBI Denies AP Report About Missing Ex-FBI agent Robert Levinson
ticklethewire.com-
FBI Denies AP Report About Missing Ex-FBI agent Robert Levinson ... to safely return Robert (Bob) Levinson home to his family,” the FBI said in a statement.
FBI Octopus
Trump critics failing their own ethics tests
ReporterNews.com-
Media experts rushed to his side and claimed that the memos were like his personal diary, and one CNN legal analyst (and former FBI agent) Asha Rangappa ...
http://www.latimes.com/local/california ... story.htmlHow an ex-FBI profiler helped put an innocent man behind bars
JULY 20, 2017
Raymond Lee Jennings wipes away tears during a hearing in a downtown L.A. courtroom. After new evidence was discovered and a former FBI profiler withdrew his testimony, a judge declared Jennings factually innocent. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
Exasperated, Jeffrey Ehrlich paused the true-crime television show every couple of minutes. The same thought kept running through the attorney’s mind: “No, that's wrong.”
The episode of “Killer Instinct” highlighted how the work of a retired FBI profiler had helped convict Ehrlich’s client of killing an 18-year-old woman in a Palmdale parking lot.
There were no fingerprints left behind, no murder weapon. But clues from the crime scene caught the profiler’s attention. The driver’s-side window of the victim’s car had been lowered several inches, suggesting to the profiler that the teen had rolled it down when someone who looked trustworthy approached. And her tube top was askew — a sign, the profiler said, of a botched sexual assault.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m ... story.htmlClaremont college suspends students for demonstration against pro-police speaker
Claremont McKenna College has suspended three students for a year and two others for a semester for blocking access to a campus event to protest a speaker known for defending police against Black Lives Matter activists.
The action, announced last week, arises out of an April 6 demonstration during which students and others ignored temporary barriers and blocked entrances to the Athenaeum and Kravis Center, where author and commentator Heather Mac Donald was scheduled to speak.
Many participants chanted “black lives matter” and “black lives — they matter here.”
At the time, campus officials and security decided not to make arrests or force the estimated 250 protesters to disperse. Instead, Mac Donald spoke before a handful of observers while the college live-streamed the event. Her 30-minute talk also was made available for later viewing.
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/texas/2 ... poop-prankFired San Antonio officer who made feces sandwich was involved in another poop 'prank'
Jan 26, 2017 - A San Antonio police officer fired last year for giving a poop sandwich to a homeless man took part in another feces-related
https://newsone.com/52571/top-5-worst-n ... y-moments/Top 5 Worst NYPD Brutality Moments
The recent incident with Michael Mineo claiming he was sodomized with a baton by police officers in Brooklyn has shown that police brutality is still a major problem in New York. This is not the first time a minority male has been sodomized by an NYPD officer.
Its seem as if most incidents of brutality in New York involve either sodomy or the shooting of unarmed and innocent civilians. As disturbing as the events actually are, even more disturbing is the amount of times that officers are acquitted for their actions. Here are some of the most disturbing occurrences of police brutality in New York in recent memory.
1. Abner Louima.
What happened to Abner Louima would’ve been disturbing if it happened in the Abu Graib prisons. Abner Louima was at a club in Brooklyn when a fight broke out. Policeman, Justin Volpe, mistakenly took Louima for a man who sucker punched him and began beating him up on the street.
Justin Volpe
Officers took Louima back to the precinct where Volpe continued to beat him. Volpe Kicked him in the testicles and sodomized him with a broomstick, causing critical internal damage. After he was done, Volpe, proudly displayed the excrement and blood stained broomstick to his co-workers and boasted that he had broken a man. Volpe then threatened to kill Louima and his family if he told anyone.
Volpe admitted in court to sodomizing Louima and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Only one other cop involved in the incident, Chris Schwartz, served any time. Louima sued the city successfully for $5.8 million.
2. Sean Bell
Sean Bell was killed on the morning of his wedding day at a strip club in queens. After leaving the nightclub, Bell and his friends were confronted by a plainclothes undercover officer who did not identify himself. When Bell sped off the officer along with his back up, let off 50 rounds into Bell’s vehicle, killing him and severely injuring his friends.
Although nobody in the car was found with a gun, police continued to smear Bell’s character after the incident as if Bell and his friends were under investigation and not the police officers. The officers were charged with manslaughter, reckless endangerment and assault but we’re all acquitted. Protests erupted all over New York and Al Sharpton was arrested.
Watch a Short Movie on Sean Bell
3. Amadou Diallo
Diallo was an immigrant from the republic of Guinea who despite his education worked selling DVD’s and socks on 14th St while studying at night. While returning to to his home after a meal, Diallo caught the eye of 5 NYPD officers who believed he fit the description of a serial rapist. The officers followed him to his apartment door. When Diallo reached into his jacket, a police officer yelled gun and the other officers let off 41 shots, 19 hitting Diallo. No gun was found on Diallo, only a wallet he pulled out to identify himself.
The officers were charged with second-degree murder and reckless endangerment but were acquitted after the trial was moved from the Bronx to more cop-friendly Albany, New York. Diallo’s mother sued the city for $61 million (20 million plus a million for each shot fired) and wound up being awarded $3 million.
Watch The Trailer For The Amadou Diallo Movie
4. Randolph Evans
15 year old Randolph Evans was shot and killed on Thanksgiving Night in 1976. Officer, Robert Torsney, was called to a housing project in Brooklyn to investigate a man with a gun. He met with group of young black men and proceeded to shoot the unarmed Evans for no given reason. Although he never was treated for epilepsy, Torsney’s defense maintained that he killed Evans because of a rare case of epilepsy and he was acquitted on the grounds of mental insanity.
5. Alberta Spruil.
Albert Spruil was a 57 year old church-going city worker. Her only crime was living in the wrong neighborhood. Cops believed that there was a large amount of guns, drugs and vicious dogs in her Harlem apartment. Without knocking they battered her door in and threw a flash grenade into her apartment. Although they found now weapons or drugs in her apartment, they put her in handcuffs. Despite the fact that she told them she had a heart problem, it took an hour and half to get her to the hospital where she was pronounced dead. The no knock raids have also killed a 92 year old black woman in Atlanta. Although no officers were charged in the incident, Spruil’s family collected $1.6 million for the
http://www.localnews8.com/news/pocatell ... /591833973Pocatello police 'reviewing' video of man filming FBI building following his arrest
Officer: Photography is violating voyeurism laws
Posted: Jul 23, 2017 06:18 PM MDT
Updated: Jul 23, 2017 07:05 PM
A Chubbuck man claims the Pocatello Police Department violated his First Amendment rights when officers arrested him for recording video from outside the FBI office.
“I stopped directly across the street and filmed vehicles entering the FBI complex for approximately 10 minutes before a police car drove up behind me,” Sean Johnson wrote to KIFI/KIDK reporter Chris Oswalt in an email. “I was standing on the sidewalk across the street from the complex, near a bus stop. I was just standing there filming, not saying anything to anyone, nor waving my arms around or otherwise causing a commotion.”
The video recorded in June, which is posted on YouTube, has just over 1,800 views. Johnson said he posted the video to raise awareness of “local police force's attitude and knowledge towards First Amendment activity.”
In the video, which starts with Johnson zooming in on the license plate of a vehicle pulling into a secured parking lot, an exchange can be heard between a Pocatello officer and Johnson begin about 27 seconds into the video.
“Everything alright?” the officer asked. Johnson does not acknowledge the officer until the unidentified officer tells Johnson he “got a call” that Johnson “was recording the FBI building.”
“That's correct, I am,” Johnson can be heard saying in the video.
During the nearly six-minute video, the officer continually explained to Johnson that he was conducting a criminal investigation into Johnson's recording.
"Right now I am conducting a criminal investigation,” the officer is heard saying. “We got a report that you were recording the FBI building. So I need to see your identification"
"What crime?" Johnson replied. “Public voyeurism,” the officer answered.
Idaho code does not have a public voyeurism law. There is, however, a video voyeurism code. It is listed under “Chapter 66: Sex Crimes.” Much of the code is targeted at sex crimes and sexual exploitation of another person. It does not address filming from a public right way, which is a protected federal right.
“Did you get their permission to record?” the officer asks Johnson in the video.
“Do I need their permission?” Johnson asks in a reply. “Absolutely,” the officer is heard saying. “It is called public voyeurism,” he continues.
The officer continually uses public voyeurism as grounds for his conversation with Johnson, telling him he needs permission to record a federal building and employees.
A three-page memo to all federal employees and law enforcement from August 2010 says otherwise. In the memo, it clearly reads “remember the public has the right to photograph the exterior of Federal Buildings from publicly accessible spaces, such as streets, sidewalks, parks or plazas.”
The memo goes onto say the recording of federal buildings cannot impede on law enforcement operations. Johnson is charged with resisting or obstructing officers.
Throughout the six-minute video, officers can be heard repeatedly asking Johnson for his ID. Each time, he provides little information until officers place him under arrest, explaining their reasoning.
"I gave you plenty of opportunities to provide identification,” the officer is heard. “You didn't identify yourself. I'm conducting an investigation for unlawful reason of you providing identification. So tell me who you are. Sean Johnson? That's a pretty common name."
“I was taken to jail and held for 15 hours until I paid my bail of $300 directly from my own account,” Johnson wrote in his email. “I have since retained an attorney and the expectation is that the charge of 'obstruction and delay' will be dropped by the prosecutor.”
The Pocatello Police Department said it is aware of the “YouTube video concerning filming of the FBI facility. The department is looking into the matter."
Hundreds of comments have flooded the police department's Facebook page starting the night of Saturday, July 23. Following several comments regarding the video and arrest, a spokesperson said the police department's Facebook page was taken down by an employee, but could not elaborate on why.”
“That will be determined this week,” city spokesperson Logan McDonnell said in a phone call with Oswalt.
The Facebook page has since been restored.
Johnson says he is considering legal action against the city.
"I am definitely considering it, but since my pretrial conference has not even happened yet I think it's a bit early yet," Johnson wrote. "The conference had been rescheduled to 8/10 due to a delay of the city providing materials as part of the discovery process."
Pocatello Police were criticized by the public earlier this month when a video surfaced showing an officer appearing to be sleeping on the job. The department said it was investigating that video back on July 1. Today, the department says the officer is still employed.
“As it is a personnel issue, we cannot comment further," a statement said.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/07 ... -case.htmlFBI turns over 7,000 documents from Weiner laptop in Clinton-tied case
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/flor ... date-21631South Miami Just Made a Huge Rooftop Solar Decision
Published: July 20th, 2017
South Miami this week became the first city outside of California to require all new homes to install solar panels on their roofs. Six cities in the Golden State began requiring solar to be installed on new homes over the past few years. But in Florida, where voters killed proposed solar restrictions last year, South Miami is now a pioneer.
This week, the South Miami City Commission in a 4-1 vote approved a law requiring solar panels to be installed on all new homes built in the city.
Solar panels line the exterior wall of an apartment building in Santa Monica, Calif.
Credit: LimelightPower/flickr
Mayor Philip Stoddard says the city is trying to cut its carbon footprint because the region will be deeply affected by climate change, especially as sea levels rise.
“We’re down in South Florida where climate change and sea level rise are existential threats, so we’re looking for every opportunity to promote renewable energy,” Stoddard said. “It’s carbon reduction, plain and simple. We have a pledge for carbon neutrality. We support the Paris Climate Agreement.”
Stoddard said he expects only a few new homes and other buildings to be built in South Miami this year because the city of about 11,000 is surrounded on all sides by dense urban development and has very little space for new construction. But the requirement for new homes complements the city’s push for existing homeowners to put solar on their roofs.
It also sets an example for other cities that may be considering doing the same thing.
Action to expand renewables on the local level is critical at a time when the federal government has stepped back from advocating for renewable energy, said Jeremy Firestone, director of the Center for Carbon-free Power Integration at the University of Delaware.
Rooftop solar helps wean America’s electric power system off coal and natural gas power plants that pollute the atmosphere with large amounts of carbon dioxide. President Obama made support for rooftop solar a part of his Climate Action Plan, which the Trump administration has abandoned.
“These mandates will have an effect locally,” Firestone said. “As to the larger effect, they would hopefully move states to increase the fraction of (electricity) generation that has to be dedicated toward renewable energy.”
A solar panel is insallted on a San Francisco rooftop.
Credit: Brian Kusler/flickr
Solar installation mandates would also help accelerate the acceptance of rooftop solar across the country, said K Kaufmann, spokeswoman for the Smart Electric Power Alliance, a nonpartisan renewable energy education organization in Washington, D.C.
As solar panel costs have fallen in recent years, a growing number of homes have installed them, often with the assistance of companies such as SolarCity, which helps to finance and install photovoltaic panels.
Rooftop solar makes up only a tiny fraction — less than 1 percent — of all the electricity generated in the U.S.. The amount of electricity generated by solar panels installed on homes and businesses across the country is expected to grow by 70 percent by the end of next year.
So far, the largest city in the country to mandate rooftop solar panels is San Francisco, which began requiring them on most new buildings beginning in January. The city mandates that solar panels, a “living roof,” or a combination of the two occupy between 15 and 30 percent of the surface area of a new rooftop. A “living roof” is covered with grass, trees or other vegetation.
Other California cities that have mandated solar panel installations include Culver City, San Mateo, Lancaster, Sebastopol and Santa Monica.
In Florida, the rooftop solar mandate didn’t come easily for South Miami.
Florida utilities and other groups launched a ballot initiative last year in an attempt to limit the expansion of rooftop solar. The proposed amendment to the state constitutional would have allowed utilities to charge fees to solar panel owners as a way to make up for the loss of revenue when homeowners generate their own electricity, according to Politifact.
The state’s largest utilities spent more than $20 million to support the ballot initiative, but the measure failed at the polls in November. South Miami’s electric utility, Florida Power and Light, which supported the ballot measure, did not respond to a request for comment.
In June, the South Miami solar mandate was opposed by the Washington, D.C. lobbying group Family Businesses for Affordable Energy, which says on its website that homeowners expose themselves to “predatory companies” that hide various costs associated with solar installations. The group did not respond to requests for comment.
“Despite all our sunshine, public utilities have spent tens of millions of dollars to fight solar,” Stoddard said. The measure’s defeat helped clear the way for the city to push solar panel installations for both new and existing homes.
“I expect to see a lot more
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m ... story.htmlSex, joy rides and car chases: Scandal in LAPD youth cadet program sparks alarm and calls for reform
The police officer talked strategy with the young cadets as they prepared for an obstacle course competition.
Should the strongest person go first? The tallest? Teamwork was important, said the officer, Ruby Aguirre.
As the teenagers — addressing everyone with a “Sir” or “Ma’am” — powered across monkey bars or scrambled to catch footballs in Elysian Park earlier this month, the scene seemed straight out of a recruiting brochure for the Los Angeles Police Department’s cadet program, which enrolls over 2,000 local youths.
But a recent scandal involving cadets, stolen police cars and illicit sex was not far from their minds.
The disturbing events have illuminated deficiencies both in the cadet program and in how the LAPD keeps tabs on its cars and other equipment.
The department’s written manual governing contact between cadets and adults has not been updated in more than a decade, even though a police officer was recently convicted of sexual crimes involving a 16-year-old cadet.
In the LAPD’s equipment rooms, officers say a culture of laxity has become the norm, creating opportunities for anyone — volunteers, cadets or officers — to walk off with property.