Human rights
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STRIKE: LaGuardia Workers Refusing to Work In Fear of Ebola-ravaged Countries
Airplane cabin cleaning crews at New York’s LaGuardia International Airport began a 24-hour strike on Wednesday, citing, in part, possible exposure to the Ebola virus. Meanwhile, a poll found most Americans want flights banned from Ebola-ravaged areas. Around 200 Air Serv employees who work on domestic flights to LaGuardia began their strike on Wednesday evening.…
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FBI Defends Violation of Fourth Amendment Rights
Lawyers for a digital rights group squared off with federal attorneys in a San Francisco courthouse on Wednesday during an appeals hearing that will determine whether the government can serve telecom providers with gag orders when requesting user data. Last year, United States District Judge Susan Illston ruled that the FBI’s use of administrative subpoenas…
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[VIDEO] POLICE BRUTALITY: NYPD cops under criminal investigation after punching, pistol-whipping teen suspect
Caught on surveillance camera two New York Police officers are being investigated for punching and using a gun to bash a teenage African-American boy. The surveillance footage, obtained by “On The Inside” DNAinfo New York, shows a teenager, Kahreem Tribble, being punched and pistol-whipped by two officers. The incident occurred August 29. The video shows…
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TERRORISTS AMONG US: FBI starts anti-jihadist neighborhood informer campaign
The FBI counter-terrorism division is calling on to Americans to report on fellow citizens engaged in suspicious activities to help identify possible terrorists, in the first place those connected to terrorist activities overseas. In a statement published by the FBI on Tuesday, assistant director of the counter-terrorism division Michael Steinbach said the Bureau needs “the…
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[VIDEO] Open-Carry Supporters Bring Guns To Ohio Walmart In Protest Of Police Shooting
Exercising the state’s open-carry laws on firearms, Ohio residents brought their guns to a Walmart store to protest the officer-involved fatal shooting of African-American shopper John Crawford. About 40 people rallied on Saturday in front of the Beavercreek Walmart to demonstrate against the death of Crawford, 22, who was shot to death by police inside…
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REPORT: Celebrities Targeted in Nude Photo Leak Threaten Google With $100M Lawsuit
A group of celebrities whose nude photos were leaked, including Jennifer Lawrence, Rihanna and Kim Kardashian, are now threatening to go to court against Google, suing the company for $100 million. Lawyers representing the women claim Google should have been able to remove the pictures from the internet, and in failing to do so “made…
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OBAMA: ‘We Underestimated ISIS Threat’
Publicly announcing that US intelligence agencies “underestimated” the presence and activity of Islamic State militants in Syria, US President Barack Obama in an interview with CBS called the country a “ground zero” for international jihadists. “Over the past couple of years, during the chaos of the Syrian civil war, where essentially you have huge swaths…
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TRANSPARENCY? Obama Administration Reportedly ‘Blocking’ Information From Press
Do you recall when Obama campaigned and promised to have the most transparent presidency in history? As we’ve seen to date, this administration is no more transparent than overflowing septic tank. Uncovering information that should be available to the public has become increasingly difficult under the presidency of Barack Obama, an Associated Press bureau chief…
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Mysterious, Unidentified Spying Cell Towers All Across Washington, D.C.
Washington, DC is littered with surveillance devices designed to trick surrounding mobile phones into logging onto signal-lifting networks, thereby allowing for tracking or call-monitoring purposes. While traveling around the capital city with Washington Post reporters, a top executive using his company’s mobile-security technology detected as many as 18 such devices mimicking legitimate cell towers around…
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Louisiana Police Killed Man, Lied To Mother About Death For 6 Months
It took a Louisiana mother six months to learn that police had killed her son during a scuffle. She believed he had died due to brain damage from chronic cocaine use. Now the FBI is investigating his death. Robert Minjarez Jr. died in March, but it wasn’t until the 11-page state forensic pathologist’s report was…
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Reading, Writing, M16s, and MRAPS: US education getting schooled over militarization
Just one month after the shooting death of African-American teenager Michael Brown by a white police officer, which brought military-grade vehicles and weapons onto the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, in response to an outbreak of protests and riots, Americans are wakening to the realization that their school districts are also being militarized. Although many Americans…
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Florida city drops saggin-pants law after NAACP lawsuit
A controversial ban on saggy pants in Ocala City, Florida, has been pulled up after a threatened lawsuit from the civil rights group NACCP. The NACCP had criticized the law, which came into effect in July 2014, and said it would take action against the city for unfairly profiling African-American men, according to WKMG radio.…
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Mike Brown jury gets extension, charges for Ferguson officer may be delayed until January
A St. Louis judge has granted an extension to the grand jury that has been tasked with deciding whether to charge a Ferguson police officer in the fatal shooting of teenager Michael Brown. The jury now has until January 7 to decide on an indictment. St. Louis County Judge Carolyn Whittington made the decision on…
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US Department of Justice launches new intel-gathering program to ‘counter extremism’
The US Department of Justice said it is launching a national pilot program in a number of cities to try and detect American extremists interested in joining terrorist organizations and fighting in countries like Syria and Iraq. US Attorney General Eric Holder said in a video message Monday that the program is designed to bring…
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[WATCH] US Navy nurse facing expulsion and losing career after refusing to force feed Gitmo detainees
A Navy nurse who refused to force feed hunger-striking Guantanamo detainees over the summer, once threatened with court-martial, could now lose his career. The nurse, a Navy lieutenant who has never been publicly identified, refused to force feed hunger strikers shortly before July 4 at Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay prison complex. The decision reportedly followed months…
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FBI’s facial recognition program hits ‘full operational capability’
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Next Generation Identification System, a biometric database reliant on tens of millions of facial-recognition records, is now fully operational, the agency announced Monday. The NGI system, after three years of development, is billed by the FBI as a new breakthrough for criminal identification and data-sharing between law enforcement agencies. “This…
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SUPREME COURT JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: ‘Drones will create Orwellian future’
US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has voiced concerns that, without sufficient protections, the age of unmanned drones and ubiquitous surveillance will usher in an “Orwellian world.” Sotomayor told faculty and students at Oklahoma City University last week that technological capabilities allow devices to monitor“your conversations from miles away and through your walls.” “We are…
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[WATCH]DC cop under fire by own chief after harassing man filming arrest
The Police Chief in Washington, DC, is speaking out against one of her officers and in support of a man who stopped to record police arresting a man on a sidewalk only to be harassed by police and suspected of involvement in a crime for doing so. Metropolitan Police Department Police Chief Cathy Lanier said…
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[VIDEO]’His hands were up!’ New footage shows Ferguson witnesses reacting to teen’s death
New footage of the moments just after Ferguson, Missouri teenager Michael Brown was killed by a local police officer indicates that a witness on the scene said the unarmed 18-year-old’s hands were raised while he was fatally shot. The video, released by CNN, shows several witnesses gathering in the vicinity of Brown’s slaying, attention focused…
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VETO: Missouri lawmakers approve 72-hour wait for abortions
Missouri’s Republican-dominated Legislature voted late Wednesday to override Gov. Jay Nixon’s earlier veto of a bill that institutes a 72-hour waiting period before a woman can have an abortion. Missouri now has the second-strictest waiting law in the US. The Republican-led Missouri House and Senate overrode the Democratic governor during a special veto session at…