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
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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.
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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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.”
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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.
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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.
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Sitcom and sadism mix uncomfortably in Luc Besson’s “3 Days to Kill,” starring Kevin Costner as a CIA hitman and absentee father.
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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
- As Expected, Microsoft Uses Media Operative (Jordan Novet) to Downplay the Scale of Mass Layoffs
- here we go
- Last Week's Public Talk by Richard Stallman Well Attended and Covered in Technical News Sites
- and we're looking at about 60,000 Microsoft layoffs in 3 years
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- Unless a Third of All Microsoft Layoffs Worldwide Are in Redmond (Washington) Alone, Microsoft Has Just Lied to Everyone Via Jordan Novet in CNBC (i.e. the Usual Any Time There's Mass Layoffs and Novet Weighs in With False Numbers)
- Maybe when Microsoft said 3% it meant ~6,000 or more in the US alone
- McKinsey (McK) is Killing IBM, It's All About Killing This Goose, "National Sales Team 80% on PIP Now" (Preceding Layoffs Without Severance)
- PIPs are not based on performance
- Links 13/05/2025: Microsoft Breaks Windows Very Badly Again, Mass Layoffs Reported (But False Figures, It's a Lot Higher)
- Links for the day
- 2025 Will be a Big Year For GNU/Linux on Desktops/Laptops
- with an economy like this, people who don't live in rich countries won't turn to Apple
- Signs of Trouble: Microsoft Job Openings for Jobs That Do Not Exist!
- Keeping up appearances?
- "Special Place in Hell" for Women Who Help Violent Microsofters From Another Continent Attack Local Women Who Did Nothing Wrong, They Just Got Bullied and Deserve Sympathy or Compensation
- Nothing says "Brat" like men who attack women, right?
- The Numbers Game: 50,000-60,000 Microsoft Workers Laid Off in 2.5 Years? And Debt Still Tripled Under Nadella.
- under Nadella Microsoft's debt trebled
- The Slow Death of Windows Will Mean the Inevitable Demise of Microsoft
- Once people stop using Windows, it'll be hard for Microsoft to sell anything to them
- Gemini Links 13/05/2025: Shopping is an Exasperating Nightmare and Making Phones Minimal
- Links for the day
- 23,000 More Microsoft Layoffs by the End of June If the Estimates Are Correct (In Addition to About 6,000 Layoffs So Far This Year)
- There's no questions about many layoffs happening this month. It got leaked already. The only question is when (and also how many).
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 12, 2025
- IRC logs for Monday, May 12, 2025
- Major Microsoft Layoffs This Week (Discussed Online)
- later we can expect a lot of spin, even misinformation
- What Happened to the Open Source Initiative (OSI) Elections: Missed Deadline
- they helped expose a number of other scandals
- Links 12/05/2025: Measles Rising and Taliban Outlaws Chess in Afghanistan
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 12/05/2025: Advice, Iorist Ethics, and Touchscreens
- Links for the day
- The Finances of GAFAM Aren't as They Seem
- MICROSOFT FINANCIAL PYRAMID revisited
- Links 12/05/2025: US Brain Drain and Reminder That "Microsoft's Lobbying Efforts Eclipsed Enron" (Fraud Coverup)
- Links for the day
- The Enshittification of Royal Mail (Post Office/Postal Services) Continues
- Enshittification is a thing, not only in the digital realm
- Red Hat's Owner is Called "America's Worst Tech Company" (IBM) and Microsoft's Liabilities Grow
- Microsoft has about a quarter of a trillion (yes, trillion with a "T") in liabilities
- If the Gossip is True, Today Microsoft Has "Large M1 Meetings" to Discuss Almost 30,000 More Microsoft Layoffs in 2025
- the claim is that Microsoft is preparing to lay off 10% of its staff
- Microsoft Has a Long and Proven History of Funding Meritless Lawsuits Against Rivals and Critics (It Always Backfires)
- It also looks like the solicitor used by two Microsofters to SLAPP us is being urgently replaced
- Links 12/05/2025: Gardens and Kitchens
- Links for the day
- Links 12/05/2025: Media Being Attacked (New Forms of Attack on the Press), Many Data Breaches
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 11, 2025
- IRC logs for Sunday, May 11, 2025
- Links 11/05/2025: Pyotr Wrangel and Kubernetes With FreeBSD
- Links for the day
- What Happened to the Open Source Initiative (OSI) Elections: A Moment of Silence and Revisionism Amid US Government Investigation and Community Uproar
- Not a word this month
- Microsoft Florian Becomes Patent Troll, Arranges to Sue Companies (Extorting Money Out of Them)
- From campaigner against software patents to paid Microsoft shill to "FOSS patents" (actually attacking FOSS) to revisionism as "books" (for Microsoft)... and now this
- How the SLAPPs From Microsoft Staff Are Connected to the Corrupt OSI, Whose Majority of Money Comes From Microsoft for Openwashing, LLM Hype, and Whitewashing GPL Violations During Class Action Trial
- Let's explain how some of these things are connected
- Links 11/05/2025: China's Fentanylware (TikTok) Tells Kids to Vandalise Schools' Chromebooks and Increased Censorship in India
- Links for the day
- You Need Not Be a Big Company to Defeat Microsoft If You Can Successfully Challenge Its Core "Ideas"
- Maybe that's just a sign that the ideas of RMS have become too effective and thus "dangerous"
- Gemini Links 11/05/2025: Yeeting Oligarch Tech, Offline Browsing
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, May 10, 2025
- IRC logs for Saturday, May 10, 2025