Police and Army: Not Protecting and Not Serving Ordinary People
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-02-21 15:54:26 UTC
- Modified: 2014-02-21 15:54:26 UTC
Summary: Domestic and foreign abuses of power; examples from recent weeks for police and from the past 24 hours for the army/secret agencies
Police
-
Neighbors say Mary Musselman has been feeding backyard animals as long as they can remember.
"She fed the squirrels, the birds, strays and that was in the community. She's just always been that kind of soul," says neighbor Patty Palmer.
-
For absolutely no reason other than “because they could”, cops in Pinal County, Arizona executed a suspect who was standing there, not near any of the officers, with his hands in the air, offering no threat whatsoever. Without trial, judge, or jury, they simply assassinated the man, as his family looked on in horror. Warning: There is some graphic violence in the video below.
-
Stacey Feigel’s husband, Sheldon, is facing multiple felony counts related to an alleged scam involving filing fraudulently for adverse possession on abandoned homes. While arriving in court for a hearing, Stacey collapsed from a “cardiac event” (according to the coroner) and died. Attorney Mark Coleman suggested stress from the raid and arrest could have led to her death.
Panic
-
I've never seen a real study, but my guess is that it's a reflection of fear and desperation. It's a very frightened country. The United States is an unusually frightened country. And in such circumstances, people concoct either for escape or maybe out of relief, fears that terrible things happen.
Foreign Policy
-
The U.S. may be forced to withdraw troops completely from Afghanistan by the end of the year. That’s bad news if you’re the CIA and your lethal drone flights over neighboring Pakistan rely on the close proximity of Afghan airstrips.
Not surprisingly, the defense industry has already produced a solution: a new jet-powered drone that can range 1,800 miles from the nearest base.
-
As Spencer Ackerman, National security reporter, said “it’s just so little transparency and so much opacity when it comes to Drones, belonged to CIA; if it were military then you could at least get the insight as how it works and debate about whether it should run this way”. With his comment on Drones dilemma, CIA is not required to give any information on any drone operations. They do not officially discuss drone programme, as Spencer Ackerman mentioned.
-
Kareem Khan's son and brother died in a US drone strike. His lawsuit has made waves in Pakistan and overseas, and he was recently detained for nine days.
-
A year ago, 8-year-old Nabeela ventured outside while her 68-year-old grandmother picked vegetables in their family garden. Moments later, the grandmother was blasted to pieces by two U.S. drone missiles. Nabeela and other nearby grandchildren were injured when the exploding missile lodged shrapnel in their bodies.
No one is alleging the grandmother did anything wrong. Her fatal “mistake” was living in North Waziristan, a region in Pakistan pummeled by U.S. drone strikes (Amnesty International, Nov. 13).
-
A U.S. military drone strike in Yemen in December may have killed up to a dozen civilians on their way to a wedding and injured others, including the bride, a human rights group says. U.S. officials say only members of al-Qaida were killed, but they have refused to make public the details of two U.S. investigations into the incident.
-
Last week I wrote about the news that the Obama administration is considering whether to assassinate another American citizen in a drone strike. The Associated Press reported the target is an American citizen and member of al-Qaeda, “and the Obama administration is wrestling with whether to kill him with a drone strike and how to do so legally under its new stricter targeting policy issued last year.”
-
The story told by the report is one of disputed identity. Anonymous US officials have said all of the twelve men killed were militants traveling with Shawqi Ali Ahmad al-Badani, allegedly a member of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and the primary target of the strike. Officials say al-Badani was wounded, and escaped. Relatives of the dead say they didn't know him.
-
Lithuanian prosecutors said on Thursday they have opened an investigation into claims that a Saudi terror suspect was held in an alleged secret CIA jail in the Baltic state, reports LETA/AFP.
-
Sitcom and sadism mix uncomfortably in Luc Besson’s “3 Days to Kill,” starring Kevin Costner as a CIA hitman and absentee father.
-
As the world’s biggest online retailer, Amazon wants a benevolent image to encourage trust from customers. Obtaining vast quantities of their personal information has been central to the firm’s business model. But Amazon is diversifying -- and a few months ago the company signed a $600 million contract with the Central Intelligence Agency to provide “cloud computing” services.
Amazon now has the means, motive and opportunity to provide huge amounts of customer information to its new business partner. An official statement from Amazon headquarters last fall declared: “We look forward to a successful relationship with the CIA.”
The Central Intelligence Agency has plenty of money to throw around. Thanks to documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, we know that the CIA’s annual budget is $14.7 billion; the NSA’s is $10.8 billion.
The founder and CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, is bullish on the company’s prospects for building on its initial contract with the CIA. As you might expect from a gung-ho capitalist with about $25 billion in personal wealth, Bezos figures he’s just getting started.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Mass Layoffs at HashiCorp, IBM Hid Them
- The media did not mention those layoffs
- Microsoft Downgraded on Concerns (Lack of Growth) Amid Silent Layoffs in 2026
- The press isn't functioning anymore
- Links 23/03/2026: Gulf Water at Risk, Heatwave in Malaysia
- Links for the day
- Slop Means False, New Article by Cybershow
- "We are living in a world that is rapidly divesting from reality."
- Debianism election 2026 community poll created, everybody can vote
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Links 23/03/2026: "Shocking Peter Thiel Antichrist Lectures", Robert Mueller Remembered
- Links for the day
- The Scandal Bigger Than IBM/Red Hat Layoffs is the de Facto "Media Blackout" About Those Layoffs
- So we have a media crisis, aside from the economic crises
- Gemini Links 23/03/2026: Geminispace/Elpher Enhancement and the Cerberus Cinco
- Links for the day
- Fear is Not a Legitimate Factor
- Smart people know that trying to prevent moral people from doing the "Right Thing" will backfire
- Fuel Autonomy and What It Teaches Us About Software Autonomy (or Software Freedom)
- Need we wait until a "software Pearl Harbor" or protect ourselves proactively by weaning ourselves off of GAFAMware?
- Scheduled Maintenance This Coming Wednesday
- Other than that, all is the same and we carry on as usual
- Most Press Articles About IBM Are LLM Slop, Sometimes With Slop Images
- IBM basically laid off almost 1,000 people last week [...] At the moment about 75% of the 'articles' we see about IBM (in recent days) are some kind of slop
- Links 23/03/2026: Security Breaches, Energy Shortages, Another SRA Scandal, and Patents on Nature
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 22, 2026
- IRC logs for Sunday, March 22, 2026
- Streisand Effect and Justice
- This weekend this site has served over 8 million Web requests
- Gemini Links 22/03/2026: "Woman of Tomorrow" and "First Steps in Geminispace"
- Links for the day
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 19 Out of 200: They Were Ill-prepared for Tough Questions in Cross-Examination
- Very ill-prepared for the deteriorating situation caused by their clients' past behaviour towards many people, including high-profile figures who offered to testify
- The Media Sold Out to Slop Bros
- If you wish for the hype to stop, then stop participating in it
- EPO Strike a Week From Now, After That Strikes Can Become Permanent
- A week from tomorrow there will be another strike
- The Only Non-IBM Staff in Fedora Council/Leadership Attacks Booting Freedom (Just Like the Master Wants)
- Last week IBM laid off almost 1,000 people in Confluent and the media didn't write anything about it, so don't expect anyone in what's left of the media to comment on Fedora's demise and silent layoffs at Red Hat
- Just Like a Founder of XBox Said, Microsoft XBox is Collapsing, Management Continue to Jump Ship
- Nowadays Microsoft tries to promote this idea that Windows is XBox and XBox is Windows
- Links 22/03/2026: Slop Triggers Emergency at Meta, Energy Prices Rise Sharply
- Links for the day
- Links 22/03/2026: Microsoft 'Open' 'AI' in Legal Trouble (Plagiarism, Distortion, Misrepresentation); Facebook/Meta Kills Off "Horizon Worlds"
- Links for the day
- Racism Dressed Up as "Choice"
- Racism is rampant at IBM
- Probably an All-Time Record
- Our investment in our own SSG is paying off
- Your Site Should Implement Its Own Search (Before It's Too Late)
- GAFAM was never trustworthy
- Gemini Links 22/03/2026: LLM Slop Attacks USENET, Announcing Pig (New Game in Gemini Protocol)
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 21, 2026
- IRC logs for Saturday, March 21, 2026
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 18 Out of 200: Third Parties Funding Attacks on the Messengers, Lawsuits Against GAFAM-Critical Voices That Uphold Real National Security
- Women are like kryptonite to them
- Never Trust People Who Write Their Own Wikipedia Pages (Vanity Pages About Themselves) or Ask Friends to Do So. Also: Jono Bacon is Married to Microsoft.
- We'd hardly be the first to point out Wikipedia isn't what it seems
- No Tolerance for Attacks on Family Members
- Being a Free software activist ought not lead to "collateral damage" like attacks on family members, including doxing
- Sirius Open Source is Just a Zombie Firm With Shell Entities
- Many companies fake their health and their size
- Communities Can Only Survive When Trust Prevails
- PCLinuxOS is still a vibrant and authentic community
- Techrights Was Always a Community Site
- The harder we're attacked, the more people participate in the site
- Maintenance Reminder
- We'll carry on publishing
- Behind the PR Smokescreen and Microsoft-Sponsored Chaff, Microsoft Layoffs in "AI" Alleged This Month
- In an age when ~1,000 simultaneous layoffs aren't enough to receive any media coverage, what can we expect remaining publishers to tell us about Microsoft layoffs in 2026?
- EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part VIII - Mobbing and Silencing of Dissenting Staff
- that's the very cornerstone of functional democracies with real opposition parties
- Bluewashing at Confluent: Some Workers to Leave Within 3 Months (IBM Mass Layoffs)
- Is the "era of AI" an era when none of the media will mention over 800 layoffs? [...] There's a lesson here about the state of the contemporary media, not just IBM and bluewashing
- Microsoft OpenAI, Drowning in Debt and Forced to Make Significant Cuts (as Reports Reveal This Month), Does Hiring Disguised as "Takeovers" to Fake Value or Alleged Potential
- Remember what happened to Skype last year
- Reader Shares Recent Memes on Slop and 'Coding' by LLMs
- "just some funny memes I thought were relevant to current coverage."
- Slop Does Not Replace Art, It Contaminates Everything With Reckless Nonsense
- many Computer Scientists do not want programs to get contaminated by slop
- Coders Don't Just Reject 'Vibe Coding' Because They're "Luddites", They Just Know the True Cost of Slop
- if some programmer says slop sucks, don't rush to assume selfishness or defence of one's occupation
- When Nobody Else Covers the News
- There's an obvious "media blackout" regarding the mass layoffs
- Links 21/03/2026: David Botstein Dies, Slop as Censorship Apparatus
- Links for the day
- Links 21/03/2026: Metastablecoin Fragmentation and Crescent Moon
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 21/03/2026: Historic Ada Docs; The Lurking LLM on the SmolNet
- Links for the day
- HSBC the Latest Failed Bank Using Slop as Excuse for Its Financial Failure
- "HSBC is planning on cutting as many as 20,000 jobs in the near future as the company allies with AI revolution."
- Invitation to General Assembly After 1,200 EPO Workers Participated in the Demonstration 3 Days Ago
- "the strike of 19 March was also very well followed."
- A/Prof Susan G Kleinmann, Enkelena Haxhija & Debian-private risk to MIT
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, March 20, 2026
- IRC logs for Friday, March 20, 2026