Police Watch: January 2014
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-01-16 10:14:32 UTC
- Modified: 2014-01-16 10:24:27 UTC
Summary: Police abuses reported in the UK, as well as the US, with more interesting stories from Australia, Germany, and Argentina
-
Taylor Radig worked undercover at a cattle company and documented horrific abuses of dairy calves. She turned her footage over to the Weld County Sheriff’s Office, and police said they were charging three of the farm workers with animal cruelty.
But when Radig walked into the sheriff’s office to provide a formal statement a few months ago, the police turned around and told her that she, the whistleblower, was also being charged with animal cruelty for her investigation.
-
Mark Kennedy undercop cop spyThe story of Mark Kennedy, the undercover cop who targeted social activists throughout Europe, was shocking to activists and the general public alike — among them Kennedy’s former friend Jason Kirkpatrick. Now, Kirkpatrick is creating a documentary about Kennedy’s spy ops. He’ll be in New York City and San Francisco this month to preview clips from Spied Upon.
-
Labour calls on justice secretary to give private firm six months to improve situation at prison facing series of disturbances
-
Protesters, buskers, preachers, the young: all could end up with 'ipnas'. Of course, if you're rich, you have nothing to fear
-
In 2003 Operation Tiberius found that men suspected of being Britain’s most notorious criminals had compromised multiple agencies, including HM Revenue & Customs, the Crown Prosecution Service, the City of London Police and the Prison Service, as well as pillars of the criminal justice system including juries and the legal profession.
-
Secret networks of Freemasons have been used by organised crime gangs to corrupt the criminal justice system, according to a bombshell Metropolitan Police report leaked to The Independent.
-
As Mike reported recently, the NSA has presented no credible evidence that its bulk metadata collection is stopping terrorist attacks, or keeping people safe. Instead, the argument in support of the secret activities of the NSA and its friends abroad has become essentially: "Trust us, we really have your best interests at heart." But that raises the question: Can we really do that? New revelations from The Independent newspaper about massive and thorough-going corruption of the UK police and judiciary a decade ago show that we can't...
-
At least five people have been killed as looting spreads through Argentina.
Hundreds have been injured as people took advantage of a police strike to rob shops and homes.
Police have refused to go on patrol until their demands for a salary rise are met.
-
Police in north London have seized blankets, sleeping bags and food donations from rough sleepers in a crackdown on homelessness.
A local paper reported that the belongings, mostly donated by sympathetic members of the community, were snatched by police from a group of homeless people as they sheltered in an abandoned public baths for the night.
The nine people, including a man in his sixties, were seeking cover from a cold night in Redbridge and were left stunned when their worldly possessions disappeared into the back of a police car.
One of the men targeted in the action, Adam Jaskowiak, pleaded with officers to be allowed to keep his possessions for warmth. The 34-year-old said: “They [the police officers] were just taking the sleeping bags and chucking out everything. I asked to keep it, and the food, but they said ‘No’.
-
The incident, which began with Officer Ramos putting on gloves and announcing to Thomas that his "fists" were getting ready to "fuck him up," and ended with Thomas in an irreversible coma, was caught on surveillance tape and synched to Ramos' body mic recording. The tortured screams and gasps of the 135-lb. Thomas were unable to convince the jury find one of the cops guilty of lesser charges (Officer Cicinelli -- charged with involuntary manslaughter and use of excessive force). Even Cicinelli's own words -- "I ran out of options and just started bashing the hell out of [Thomas'] face [with the butt end of his taser]" -- failed to persuade the jury that the force used was excessive.
-
Police officials are refuting City Council President Pro Tem George Cushingberry’s claim that officers pulled him over Tuesday because he was black, pointing out that one of the officers involved was African-American.
-
Lostutter believes that the FBI investigation and raid of his house been motivated by local officials in Steubenville. “They want to make an example of me.” Now, he is facing 10 years in prison for his “crime” of exposing the Steubenville rapists.
-
A teenager in Australia who thought he was doing a good deed by reporting a security vulnerability in a government website was reported to the police.
-
A Boiling Springs Lakes, North Carolina family is looking for answers after local police shot and killed their mentally ill teenage son while responding to a call for help.
The family contends that Keith Vidal, 18, was “killed in cold blood” after police were requested to help calm the teenager down during a schizophrenic episode.
-
Stemming from an incident in June where plainclothes Alcoholic Beverages Control (ABC) agents attempted to apprehend her, Elizabeth Daly is now planning on pursuing legal action for a wrongful arrest and a night spent in jail.
-
At noon on Dec. 30, protesters in central Kyiv held mirrors in front of police for 30 minutes to commemorate the night of Nov. 30 when riot police used excessive force to breakup a peaceful rally on Independence Square consisting mostly of university students.
-
Police obtained legal permission to impose a curfew by conservative politicians a while ago, and they use it to retaliate against people who defend Rote Flora from being evicted in the name of capitalist gentrification policies. Cops claimed that they were attacked at their police station “Davidswache” on December 20th and on December 28th, in separate clashes from the demonstration on December 21st, but a lawyer in Hamburg says there was no second attack at the police station Davidswache on the 28th. He has demanded the videos of the incident from the surveillance cameras.
-
Zeit Online has reported, citing a non-government organization, that about 500 protesters being injured, 20 of them seriously. However, this information cannot be independently verified.
The cultural center’s squatting history dates back to 1989, when the Schanzenviertel area’s Rote Flora center was first occupied. Since then, its reputation as the central point for leftist rallying has been further cemented.
But the public anger itself had also to do with the wider issue of migrant and refugee rights, including those of the squatters at a run-down apartment block in Hamburg’s Reeperbahn area – also the city’s red-light district, which contains the so-called Esso Houses. The buildings, also often home to Germany’s Lampedusa refugees, were evacuated last weekend because of their poor condition.
After the initial chaos at the Rote Flora had subsided, the crowds migrated toward the Reeperbahn, where they were chased around the streets by the police.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- European Patent Office (EPO) Series: Photo-Ops Galore and Suspicions of Influence-Peddling
- coverage of the EPO's Croatian junket
- Pushing to the Top
- Publishing is about exposing corruption
- How Long Can a Company Delay Its Financial Report That Likely Confirms Exodus of Staff, Growing Debt, and Other Problems?
- Brett Wilson LLP was meant to release its annual report some time early this month
- European Patent Office (EPO) Series: Networking With the National Delegates
- António Campinos with a prime opportunity to network with the Administrative Council delegates and lobby for his reappointment
-
- Sirius Open Source's Latest Report: Fake (False) Number of Staff, Almost No Money in the Bank, Overdraft, and Growing Debt (About £100,000 More Borrowed)
- massive (and still growing) debt
- Links 30/06/2026: What's Wrong With EU Age Verification, RSA Keys with Many Zeros
- Links for the day
- This is Not a Security, This is a Circus
- Security does not mean "asked Microsoft for permission"
- Communities Need Strong Leadership, Not Dictators Like IBM
- Leadership in Free software is not ownership [...] Fedora will only last as long as IBM can somehow make some money out of it or leverage it to attract sharecropping
- Patents Are Not "Cash Cows"
- People who deliberately don't understand patents (or believe lies about them) will fail to understand how the world works (or does not work)
- Sad Lives of People Who Think Women Are Just Sexual Toys (All They Have is Money)
- money is still a man-made concept and life is finite
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 123 Out of 200: Why Violence Against Animals Matters
- Starting tomorrow (Wednesday) we'll begin telling stories about what happened last week
- EPO Staff Union's (SUEPO) The Hague Committee, With Help of Lawyer, Challenges Lack of Rewards for Hard Work
- The EPO is not about granting valid patents anymore. The horse-trading corrupt officials just see the EPO as some thing that "prints money"
- Massive EPO Demonstration Today
- It'll start in about 6 hours
- More Layoffs in Microsoft's PR Department, Even Ahead of 'D-Day'
- Notice they are not even waiting for the official date (nor week)
- Gemini Links 30/06/2026: Music and Broken Hearts
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 29, 2026
- IRC logs for Monday, June 29, 2026
- Gemini Links 29/06/2026: Using More of GPLv3+ and Merits of Security by TOFU
- Links for the day
- Links 29/06/2026: Lemote Yeeloong Laptop With OpenBSD, Slop Ruins Code/Development
- Links for the day
- Antisocial People With No Computer Science Background Are Ruining the Technology Space (Like Officials With No Experience in Patents Destroyed the EPO)
- This is a real issue; it needs to be widely recognised and tackled
- DDoS Attacks Are a Crime and They Only Increase Interest (Intrigue) in Their Target
- Information cannot be DDoSed out of reach/existence, except temporarily
- Whistleblowing and Retaliation by Microsoft Workers Against Microsoft Seems Increasingly Likely
- some will go to the press, looking to expose some shenanigans
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 122 Out of 200: Garrett's Solicitors Confirm That Garrett is Ban-Evading and Spying on Our IRC Network
- his solicitors basically acknowledge this
- PIPs and "Retirements": IBM Layoffs in Anything But Name
- That former Red Hat (now IBM) staff threatens to put my wife and I in prison is worse than cruel
- Contact Members of the EPO Administrative Council, Tell Them the EPO (Office) Became a Disgrace and an Enemy of Europe's Citizens
- If you live in Europe (not just the EU, even Turkey is included), please contact your delegates
- The World Needs GNU/Linux for Security, Turn Off "Secure Boot" (It's the Opposite of Security)
- They call it "Secure Boot", but what does it mean to say "Secure" when you actively opt for back doors controlled by Microsoft, the FBI, and many more parties?
- In Signal of Weakness or Phasing Out XBox (Not Sustainable, According to the CEO) Microsoft "Pauses New Third-Party Game Pass Deals"
- Moments ago
- Two Pieces About "AI" This Morning Were Paid-For SPAM at The Register MS
- The Register MS is the "Tech News" publisher you can pay to promote your company and even key-word-stuff pages for SEO purposes
- Week of Microsoft Layoffs, Maybe Record-Breaking Scale
- They will mislead about the scale
- Links 28/06/2026: More Om Malik Eulogies, Cloudflare Promotes Web Browser Monocultures
- Links for the day
- IBM's Alderon as "Silent Layoffs", Not Just Bailout From Taxpayers
- Seeing through the noise
- 'Modern' Web: "Stop! You Are Browsing Too Fast!"
- Can the Web ever recover from this?
- Pensions Tied to Ponzi Schemes Are Themselves Ponzi Schemes
- Pensions are becoming more like that as well
- Laptop Bricked After Microsoft Certificates Expiry
- Is "Jim" dead?
- Monoculture in Europe as National (or Continental) Security Threat
- We need more browser diversity
- Canada 5-0: GNU/Linux Rises to 5.0%, Windows Rapidly Falls to New Lows
- Will we be seeing 6-0 (6%) by year's end and will Microsoft be shown two red cards?
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 28, 2026
- IRC logs for Sunday, June 28, 2026
- Gemini Links 29/06/2026: Sansieviera, HiFi, and Self-Signed Certificates
- Links for the day
- Outsourcing is Not Security
- Outsourcing to Microsoft is the opposite of security
- Links 28/06/2026: Turkey's State Broadcaster Suspends Commentator, Journalists Under Attack
- Links for the day
- Debugpoint.com Turns to LLM Slop for 'Help'
- This is how sites die
- Follow the Real Security Experts
- Werner Koch
- Assessing the Upcoming (July) Proprietary/GAFAM Cuts
- The total (or %) matters to us because it can help shed light on what scale of layoffs to expect next week
- Microsoft Lunduke Does Not Correct or Clarify Misinformation That He Posted (or Repeats It Instead)
- Not the first time [...] detracts and/or distracts from legitimate criticisms
- How Not to Do Security
- Asking Microsoft for permission
- Gemini Links 28/06/2026: Simulation Theory and Pursuit of Novelty
- Links for the day
- Five Years After Its Formation Libera.Chat Has the Most Simultaneous Users in Internet Relay Chat (IRC)
- netsplit.de also measures the cross-network total at over 300k, probably for the first time in years
- The Slop 'Religion' is Dying: From Widespread (Paid-for) Hype to Widespread Hate
- Wait till "sentiment" in Wall Street - not just general (public) "sentiment" - shifts strongly against slop
- For Whistleblowers' Sake, Choose Hosting Platforms Wisely
- Techrights is hard to 'sedate'
- How to Discreetly Leak Important Information to Techrights
- Some years ago we published multi-part series about how to contact us securely
- Expect Many More Whistleblowers From Microsoft
- We envision many pissed off workers from Microsoft will become whistleblowers after next week's giant wave
- Efforts to Resume Progress on FreeJS, LibreJS, and Reduce Dependence on Microsoft
- It's still in a relatively early development stage
- Whistleblowers Improve the World
- we should appreciate and respect whistleblowers
- Microsoft Windows Plunges to All-Time Lows in Japan
- Microsoft is disintegrating; many people no longer use (nor need) Windows
- GNU/Linux Turns 43 in 3 Months From Now
- The Manifesto of the Free software movement (GNU Manifesto, 1985) turned 40 last year
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 121 Out of 200: One Day We'll Discover What Company or Rich Person/s Funded the Lawfare Against Us
- Even if the law firm shoulders some of the losses, then it is in effect an investor in the lawfare, according to established caselaw
- Working on "Linux", But on Microsoft's Payroll
- Under the totally false guise of "security" those same people are now promoting TPMs and other horrible things
- Links 28/06/2026: Energy Crunch, EEE by Microsoft, and John Bolton Pleads Guilty in Dictatorship of SLAPPs
- Links for the day
- Jim Not Dead Yet
- Let's wait a few more days
- Microsoft Layoffs So Big They Cannot Even Wait for 'D-Day' (July 1)
- "Layoffs at Xbox Appear to Have Already Begun, with Multiple Compulsion Games Employees Announcing Their Departures"
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 27, 2026
- IRC logs for Saturday, June 27, 2026
- Links 28/06/2026: Heatwave in Europe and Media Failing to Actually Criticise Power
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 28/06/2026: Poems, Photographs, and Neoliberalism as Religion
- Links for the day