Free Republic

Don’t be surprised to see an Army tank rolling down a street near you.The Cobb County police department has refurbished a donated Armored Personnel Carrier for officers to use in SWAT situations. Enlarge this imageBOB ANDRES / bandres@ajc.comCobb police have a new tank. The vehicle is being driven by Detective Steve Brawner as Sgt. Lester Maddox directs him into position. Cobb County police unveil its new crime-fighting machine, The L.A.V. 300 (Light Armored Vehicle) at Marietta Square on Saturday. • Photos The vehicle, which retails for $500,000, is a Light Armor Vehicle that was used by the U.S. Army...

ACLU Director of Communications Brandon Hensler says the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida received an early victory today when Senior Federal Judge Lacey A. Collier denied the ATF’s motions for summary judgment in Kilpatrick v. U.S. The ACLU filed the case on April 18, 2006, on behalf of Karen J. Kilpatrick, who claimed that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) violated her Free Speech rights. Kilpatrick was driving her blue van in Pensacola on April 19, 2004, with the slogans “Remember the Children of Waco” and “Boo ATF” written on some of the windows when she was...

Ministers are considering spending up to £12 billion on a database to monitor and store the internet browsing habits, e-mail and telephone records of everyone in Britain. GCHQ, the government’s eavesdropping centre, has already been given up to £1 billion to finance the first stage of the project. Hundreds of clandestine probes will be installed to monitor customers live on two of the country’s biggest internet and mobile phone providers - thought to be BT and Vodafone. BT has nearly 5m internet customers. Ministers are braced for a backlash similar to the one caused by their ID cards programme. Dominic...

My name is Butch Housman. Months ago I wrote a letter to the editor of this newspaper. As a result, Federal Agent Thomas Chittum asked to move the trial of my friends Leonard and Tom Elliott to Frankfort and cited my letter as cause, claiming I had “polluted the jury pool.” I was named specifically before the court and was criticized for questioning both the mission of his agency, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives, and in particular his case against the Bacon Creek Gun Shop. I didn’t realize I was such an influential scribe. In light of...

A local television station's coverage of a Missouri campaign "truth squad" working on behalf of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has touched off a national Internet frenzy. < snip > What has prompted all the furor is that several members of Obama's "truth squad" in Missouri are prosecutors or members of law enforcement. They include St. Louis Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, Jefferson County Sheriff Glenn Boyer and St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch. All are Democrats. Joyce and McCulloch are featured in a KMOV report by John Mills, in which both say their aim was to refute any false...

Please copy, paste, and circulate this press release from the Governor of Missouri. Note the Web domain of the press release, governor.mo.gov. This is not "someone's blog," a "rumor," or a "smear." It is the official Web site of Missouri's state government. The Governor of Missouri says openly that Barack Obama conspired to misuse his state's law enforcement resources to "threaten and intimidate his critics."We cannot overemphasize the gravity of Governor Blunt's accusation. While we are not attorneys and cannot give legal advice, "Conspiracy against rights" is a felony under the U.S. Code, Title 18 (Crimes). At present, Governor Blunt's...

JEFFERSON CITY - Gov. Matt Blunt today issued the following statement on news reports that have exposed plans by U.S. Senator Barack Obama to use Missouri law enforcement to threaten and intimidate his critics. “St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch, St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, Jefferson County Sheriff Glenn Boyer, and Obama and the leader of his Missouri campaign Senator Claire McCaskill have attached the stench of police state tactics to the Obama-Biden campaign. “What Senator Obama and his helpers are doing is scandalous beyond words, the party that claims to be the party of Thomas Jefferson...

Army Unit to Deploy in October for Domestic Operations Beginning in October, the Army plans to station an active unit inside the United States for the first time to serve as an on-call federal response in times of emergency. The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent thirty-five of the last sixty months in Iraq, but now the unit is training for domestic operations. The unit will soon be under the day-to-day control of US Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command. The Army Times reports this new mission marks the first time an active unit...

BALTIMORE, Md. -- Biden accepted the endorsement of the National Association of Police Organizations this morning on behalf of the Democratic ticket, pledging to again provide a seat at the table for local law enforcement. Biden, speaking on a conference call with NAPO President Tom Nee, made a plug for the “Biden Crime Bill,” which he said was contributed to a 30 percent drop in violent crime in the 1990s. “Then, for some reason, because this administration and my good friend John don’t think it’s a role of the federal government to be involved in local law enforcement … they...

Making another step forward in recovering from Hurricane Ike, Metro officials announced late Sunday that the light rail will run on a regular schedule Monday and that HOV lanes on I-45 North will be reopen in the morning. ... Meanwhile, power outages across much of the city prompted Houston police to extend the citywide curfew until further notice. Curfew hours are from midnight until 6 a.m. "The purpose of the curfew is to protect the lives and property of all residents as law enforcement and other officials respond to emergencies and engage in recovery activities related to this disaster," the...

A raid gone wrong: Time to rein in police SWAT teams Published: Friday, September 19, 2008 Marc Fisher The Press of Atlantic City 9/19/09 It's sad, of course, that Cheye Calvo's dogs were blown away, left for hours in two pools of blood on the floors of his living and dining rooms. It's unfortunate, to be sure, that Calvo's front door had to be burst open, that it was necessary to plant his mother-in-law on the floor, arms bound, a high-caliber weapon pointed at her head, or that his house had to be trashed, every drawer flipped over, his belongings...

Drivers could have their speed controlled by satellite to stop them from breaking the limit following a Government trial of new technology. Cars fitted with the system would have their speed automatically monitored by satellites, which would also be programmed with the speed limits for different roads. A motorist who tried to accelerate beyond the speed limit would find the system stopping the car from going any faster or issuing a warning instructing them to slow down. The Department for Transport is set to back the system known as Intelligent Speed Adaptation. It follows lengthy trials conducted in Leeds in...

It used to be much harder to keep track of visitors who came into and out of B.M. Williams Primary School. People were asked to sign their names into a visitors' book in the office, but the signatures often were hard to read, said Principal Craig Mills. Sometimes there would be a last name, but only a first initial. And what if someone gave a fake name? No more. Now, every visitor who walks into B.M. Williams must produce identification for a machine that will record the information, compare it with the national sex-offender registry, then record how long the...

Private companies in the US are hoping to use red light cameras and speed cameras as the basis for a nationwide surveillance network similar to one that will be active next year in the UK. Redflex and American Traffic Solutions (ATS), the top two photo enforcement providers in the US, are quietly shopping new motorist tracking options to prospective state and local government clients.... The technology would be integrated with the Australian company's existing red light camera and speed camera systems. It allows officials to keep full video records of passing motorists and their passengers, limited only by available hard...

Scientists from Leeds University have discovered that the world was ruled by pig-like creatures for a million years. The “Age of the Porcine” occurred around 260 million years ago - when the creatures called lystrosaurs were the few survivors of a mass extinction. Nearly 95 pct of the living species were destroyed by a series of volcanic eruptions leaving behind pigs in a “golden age” of no predators. They had Earth’s abundant plant-life all to themselves. “We can only speculate on how lystrosaurs survived while the rest died. Perhaps its ability to burrow and hibernate protected it from the worst...

Patrol fires 12 troopers in cheating case Thursday, September 11, 2008 3:21 AM FROM THE (CANTON) REPOSITORY CANTON -- Twelve officers accused of cheating on a certification test for a device used to gather evidence against intoxicated drivers have been fired from the State Highway Patrol. Patrol spokesman Lt. Tony Bradshaw said it's the first time in the law-enforcement agency's 75-year history that so many officers have been let go at once. The patrol said the three sergeants and eight troopers from the Canton post and one Wooster trooper cheated on a certification exam for administering breath tests to determine...

Dem cops cuff, stuff Christian girls Sidewalk chalk messages challenged Obama's moral positions ****************** Posted: August 29, 2008 12:30 am Eastern By Bob Unruh © 2008 WorldNetDaily DENVER – Two teenagers who had been given city permission to write their messages protesting Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama's support for abortion on public sidewalks during the Democratic National Convention this week were shoved to the sidewalk, cuffed and arrested for doing just that. [SNIP] "I was peacefully sidewalk chalking when I was forcefully pushed to ground by a police officer from behind," Jayne White, 17, described. "As I was being...

We noted here efforts by Barack Obama's campaign to shut down his critics' free speech. In particular, Obama obviously doesn't want the public to know about his long-term, cozy relationship with proud-to-be-a-terrorist Bill Ayers. Now, Obama himself has upped the ante by demanding that the conservative who funded the Ayers ad be criminally prosecuted: Obama general counsel Bob Bauer today sent a second, sharper letter to the Justice Department, directly attacking the Dallas billionaire funding a harsh attack ad, Harold Simmons. "We reiterate our request that the Department of Justice fulfill its commitment to take prompt action to investigate and...

PHOENIX (Reuters) - U.S. immigration agents have arrested 595 people at a Mississippi factory in what was the largest workplace enforcement raid in the United States to date, an immigration official said on Tuesday. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez said federal agents arrested the workers in a raid at the Howard Industries Inc. factory in Laurel, Miss, on Monday, "This is the largest targeted workplace enforcement operation we have carried out in the United States to date," Gonzalez told Reuters by telephone. The swoop at the plant, which makes electrical equipment including transformers, was part of an ongoing...

"THIS data allows investigators to identify suspects, examine their contacts, establish relationships between conspirators and place them in a specific location at a certain time." So said the UK Home Office last week as it announced plans to give law-enforcement agencies, local councils and other public bodies access to the details of people's text messages, emails and internet activity. The move followed its announcement in May that it was considering creating a massive central database to store all this data, as a tool to help the security services tackle crime and terrorism. Meanwhile in the US the FISA Amendments Act,...

PORT ANGELES, Wash. (AP) - Watch for more impromptu U.S. Border Patrol immigration checkpoints around the north Olympic Peninsula, an agent says. One such checkpoint was set up Friday near the Hood Canal Floating Bridge. Another was used about six months ago near Forks. The latest checkpoint, set up a mile west of the bridge, operated for five hours Friday. The main objective of the temporary checkpoints is to catch terrorists and illegal immigrants, Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Michael Bermudez said. They're also used with local law enforcement to arrest felons and seize drugs and weapons, he said. Friday's checkpoint...

SEATTLE - Only in Seattle could an event touted as a way to help the environment get washed out during what is supposed to be the driest time of the year. 'By order of the Mayor' - One neighborhood is closed off to car traffic during selected weekends this summer. On Sunday it was the area around 14th and Republican on Capitol Hill, a residential area that's normally quiet anyway. "I think it promotes awareness of whatever we're promoting awareness of," said resident Thomas Hubbard. "A car passes by every once in a while, just people trying to get home....

Liberal without even Trying From the times of the Great Depression through the 1950’s, some people were known as those who were just “passing through” town. During that time, one could pass through a town anonymously. Those days are gone. With fingerprint, information, a certifiable form of identification, a social security number, a speck of DNA or a face recognition photograph authorities have the ability to know everything there is to know about an individual. That individual had better have their legal ducks in a row before passing anywhere. This is but a tiny fragment of an example of those...

Agents test fire weapons to narrow leads in the June 8 killing of the girls near Weleetka. WELEETKA — More than three dozen guns from the Weleetka area were test fired over the weekend as authorities worked to narrow their leads into the June 8 slayings of two girls. Jessica Brown, spokeswoman for the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, said more than 60 letters were sent out to registered owners of .40-caliber handguns, asking them to voluntarily submit their weapons for testing on Saturday and Sunday at the Okfuskee County Courthouse at Okemah. Brown said about 40 of those owners...

Armed with a battering ram and shotguns, Buffalo police looking for heroin broke down the door and stormed the lower apartment of a West Side family of eight. The problem is that the Wednesday evening raid should have occurred at an apartment upstairs. And, that’s only the tip of the iceberg, according to Schavon Pennyamon, who lives at the mistakenly raided apartment on Sherwood Street with her husband, Terrell, and six children. Pennyamon alleges that after wrongly breaking into her apartment, police proceeded to strike her epileptic husband in the head with the butt end of a shotgun and point...

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - The violent assault on Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo’s home late last month was certainly not the first bungled raid by a government SWAT team, but the bad publicity it generated should make it the last time these trigger-happy squads target innocent civilians. Tracking a 32-pound package of marijuana that had been addressed to Calvo’s wife, Trinity Tomsic, Prince George’s sheriff’s deputies forcibly entered the mayor’s home on July 29 and killed his two dogs before handcuffing him and his mother-in-law. But like so many other SWAT team raids across the country, this one turned out...

Council snoopers to get new powers to seize phone and email records - with taxpayers footing the £50m bill Last updated at 15:11pm on 13.08.08  Tory concerns: Shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve Council snoopers will be given even greater powers to pry into our phone, email and internet records  -  landing the taxpayer with a bill of almost £50million.  Town halls, along with the police, security services, health authorities and other public bodies, will have access to ' communication' records of anyone suspected of involvement in even the most minor crime.  The powers, which stem from an EU directive...

DENVER (AP) ― Denver voters passed a ballot measure that would give police the authority to seize cars driven by illegal immigrants. Initiative 100 requires police to impound vehicles of unlicensed drivers, an authority they already have. It also adds language to the city code that targets illegal immigrants.The measure says that when a driver is an illegal alien or "may be reasonably suspected of being an illegal alien" police can impound the car.

The city, created in 2006 after the rival cities of Helena and West Helena joined, is in one of the nation's poorest regions, trailing even parts of Appalachia in its standard of living. Phillips County lost a third of its population from 1970 to 2000 and, of the 24,107 people who remain, more than a quarter live in poverty.

Over the past couple years, we’ve noticed a suspicious number of ticket camera editorials by the Orlando Sentinel. After looking more closely, we noticed that nearly every editorial in the Sentinel was strongly in favor of installing ticket cameras. Furthermore, we noticed that nearly every pro-camera article was written by one member of the Sentinel’s Editorial Board, George Diaz.This seemed odd, so we decided to look into it further.After some quick research, we discovered that George Diaz appeared at a symposium held by The National Campaign To Stop Red Light Running in late 2007.As we covered on this blog previously,...

Police said yesterday they have cleared Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo and his family of any wrongdoing in connection with a package of marijuana that police intercepted en route to his home, leading to a violent raid in which deputy sheriffs killed the family's two dogs. Prince George's County Police Chief Melvin C. High delivered the news in a telephone call Thursday to Calvo, saying police and State's Attorney Glenn F. Ivey determined that Calvo and his family were innocent victims caught up in a drug-smuggling ring. High exonerated the mayor and his family and expressed regret that they were...

ORLANDO, Fla. — A team of psychic detectives is assisting Orlando police in their search for missing three-year-old Florida girl Caylee Marie Anthony, according to local news reports. The group, known as "Body Hunters" and lead by psychic detective Gale St. John, is "blind driving" around Central Florida in search for the toddler who was last seen June 16, Local6.com reported. "We will not even look at street names," psychic detective Gale St. John told the TV station and its Web site on Monday. "We drive and go completely on feeling instinct, chasing down what we call a person signature."...

We don't need government to regulate everything. San Francisco - Ever-perceived by the rest of the nation as perched on the fringe of rationality, San Francisco is about to flip its lid once again. The lid's color, if it's any comfort, is green – as in one of the three recycling bins into which its residents will be forced to sort their food waste. The consequences for the unwilling, if the mayor has his way? Fines up to $1,000 from the garbage police. I kid you not. Mayor Gavin Newsom is taking the leap from voluntary environmental engagement to an...

I saw the local police are angry about the swat team going into the Mayors house. Not only are they Friends of the mayor, the local Police Chief said that if one of his guys had been driving by when 5 heavily armed men in plain clothes and masks were kicking in the Mayor’s front door, they would have been fired on them thinking they were terrorists attacking the mayor’s home. Besides the shooting of dogs for no reason, which is bad enough, why do they have masks over their faces? Bad guys were masks so they can’t be identified...

Berwyn Heights, Maryland Mayor Cheye Calvo on the police raid on his home earlier this month: "The reality is that this happens all the time in this country and disproportionally in Prince Georges county and most of the people to whom it happens don't have the community support and the platform to speak out. So I appreciate you paying attention to our condition but I hope you'll also give attention to those who may not have the same platform and voice that we have." -snip- Here are a few excerpts from Calvo's letter to the Justice Department requesting that investigation:...

Go home or go to jail! Those are the only two options for people living in one Mid-South neighborhood. The mayor of Helena-West Helena, Arkansas has issued a mandatory curfew. the curfew is in place for an area he refers to as a "hot spot" for crime. It applies to anyone, any age, and any time of day. According to Mayor James Valley, this move is in the best interest of the city. "This curfew is for all people...everyone is subject to be stopped - almost like marshal law. And that's exactly what some are calling it. The mayor has...

The FBI has launched a review of the violent law enforcement raid of the home of Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo in Prince George's County last week that resulted in the deaths of the family's two dogs. The agency has begun "reviewing the events that occurred at Mr. Calvo's residence," said Richard J. Wolf, spokesman for the FBI in Baltimore, which has jurisdiction over federal civil rights investigations in Maryland. (snip) Courts across the country in recent years have ruled that it is almost always unacceptable for police to kill pets in the course of searching a home. Cases in...

Berwyn Heights' mayor is expected today to ask federal officials to investigate possible civil rights violations stemming from last week's raid of his Prince George's County home by police officers who shot and killed his two dogs, his attorney said. Mayor Cheye Calvo and his wife, Trinity Tomsic, will ask for a U.S. Department of Justice inquiry during a 2 p.m. news conference today outside their Berwyn Heights home, said Timothy Maloney, their attorney. "They're going to call for the Justice Department to come in," Maloney said. Calvo's home was raided by the county Sheriff's Office SWAT team and narcotics...

<p>There is a neighborhood adjacent to Capitol Hill in Washington that is under siege. But the police can't turn things around on their own. On any given day, residents and visitors to the Trinidad area of Northeast are forced to traverse unfamiliar streets because D.C. police have barricaded the neighborhood as an anti-crime tactic - and when law enforcers accomplish that they are intent and in effect creating a police state in the nation's capital. Granted, there is considerable blood being shed in Trinidad. But how undemocratic to set up check points.</p>

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Company recruits kids to keep records, bust parents for 'energy crimes' A new website campaign designed by a British power company recruits children through games, badges and cartoons to enlist as "Climate Cops," actively keeping records on their parents and neighbors for violations of "energy crimes" against the planet. The "Climate Cops" website encourages children to investigate family and friends and "then build your 'Climate Crime Case File' and report back to your family to make sure they don't commit those crimes again (or else)!" The site also warns children that they "may need to keep a watchful eye" to...

In Chicago, people like Robert Perry are subjected to exhaustive security checks. He was patted down, his wheel chair was examined and his hands were swabbed, all in public view in a see-through room at the security checkpoint. Perry, 71, is not alone "It's humiliation," Perry said. Perry was also taken to a see-through room by a TSA agent when his artificial knee set off the metal detector. "He yelled at me to get the belt off. 'I told you to get the belt off.' So I took the belt off. He ran his hands down over and pulled the...

An outspoken Long Island gun owner's home was raided by Nassau County detectives, who seized two dozen weapons he lawfully owns just one day after Rep. Carolyn McCarthy's office made a 911 call about him.

HOMEOWNERS must let council inspectors in to check for DANCING BEARS after they were handed 1,043 powers to pry. Armies of clipboard-touting officials can demand entry to check on everything from pot plants to fridges. Details of the vast array of laws were quietly slipped out to MPs last Tuesday by the Home Office. The list includes 430 new powers of entry brought in by Labour ministers – a year after a report said there were only 266. The checks include whether POT PLANTS have pests or imported “passport” documents, or if HYPNOTISM is being practised illegally. Inspectors can demand...

Bluetooth Big Brother uses mobiles and laptops to track thousands of Britons Last updated at 12:04pm on 21.07.08    Thousands of people in Bath are unaware their movements may have been tracked through their bluetooth mobiles Thousands of Britons' movements have been covertly tracked by scanners placed in streets, pubs and offices for a technology experiment.  The Cityware project run by the University of Bath has secretly placed scanners around the Somerset city, with the first 10 installed 2006. The scanners pick up bluetooth radio signals transmitted from mobile phones and laptops. In a scene reminiscent of the Will Smith...

Police in St. Louis seized cars, then freely drove them for months at a time. Perk extended to troubled daughter of police chief. Cars seized from motorists are being used as the personal rides of police officers and their relatives in St. Louis, Missouri. St. Louis Post-Dispatch investigative reporters uncovered the scandal while tracking down how Aimie Mokwa, 33, daughter of Police Chief Joe Mokwa, ended up driving vehicles registered to St. Louis Metropolitan Towing and its subsidiaries. Like many cities across the nation, St. Louis has adopted an ordinance giving police officers the ability to grab automobiles from people...

The Washington D.C. City Council has created so many hoops for handgun owners to jump through before they can exercise their Second Amendment rights, they may require legal counsel just to identify what the hoops are.  This sorry state of affairs is much to the satisfaction of The Washington Post, which called for just such an obstructionist policy in an editorial.  At least one of those hoops is illegal, according to the Supreme Court, but a Post news story spun that fact as the opinion of “opponents of the handgun ban.”  Is editorial policy coloring the news?The Washington Post is...

I can't help but notice that the NYS Police, the Sheriff's, and the local town and city cops no longer walk the beat or do much "protecting" They are trained now to make their primary priority issuing minor tickets that have big fines. Offense: Cell phone use = $150 bucks They also are trained to scan your auto inspection sticker, one day out of inspection and you may pay $200. Speed traps, you name it, Police are now a profit center first and foremost, more reason for people who want to prtect themselves to purchase the guns of their choice.

Caught speeding in Highland Park in April in his father's Acura RSX, Ryan Narciso found out the hard way about a recent change in a New Jersey gun law that could send him to prison for three years.The 20-year-old sales clerk at a shop at Menlo Park Mall and former Middlesex County College student had a pellet handgun in the car, according to an indictment filed last week in Superior Court, New Brunswick.The gun, a Gamo P-23, was sitting under the rear window of the 2004 coupe. Looking like a larger-caliber handgun, the firearm drew a quick response from the...

MORE British Insanity Mother Needs Criminal Record Check Before Accompanying Epileptic Son to SchoolThe Brits are entering the terminal stages of The Nanny State. While their streets are awash in criminals, the schools failing, the Health Care system on the respirator, and Islam on the verge of being the new royalty, the Brits have redoubled their efforts to make life more difficult for British families. From the Daily Mail. (How do they find this stuff? Hotline?) "Mother stopped from travelling with son in taxi to school - because she hasn't had a criminal record check" Yep. In Britain a mother...