Free Republic

At the start of this week, documents released by whistleblower Edward Snowden detailed DDOS attacks on chatrooms by a British online intelligence unit dubbed the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG). Now he has released a new trove showing that JTRIG is about much more than purely online annoyances.According to the documents, released to NBC News, JTRIG's role is to "deny, disrupt, degrade and deceive" by any means possible. These techniques include destroying an individual's computer with a custom virus dubbed "Ambassador's Reception", setting up social media honey traps to harvest embarrassing information, actively attacking companies online and off, and...

Galveston, Texas (CBS HOUSTON) – Former McGruff the Crime Dog actor, John R. Morales, has been sentenced to 16 years in prison following his guilty plea three years after police seized 1,000 marijuana plants, 27 weapons – including a grenade launcher, and 9,000 rounds of ammunition from his home. The man who played the famous “Take a bit out of crime” dog was arrested in 2011 after Galveston police and drug-sniffing dogs pulled over the McGruff actor for speeding, the Houston Chronicle reports. Authorities found diagrams of two indoor pot-growing operations sitting on the front seat, and multiple pot seeds...

How do we explain the arrest of a firefighter by a police officer at the scene of an accident — after an argument over where a fire truck should park? The authorities are still discussing the incident, which took place Tuesday night on California's I-805, where a car had rolled over at the center road barrier. As San Diego's CBS 8 TV reports, an argument broke out between a California Highway Patrol officer and a firefighter from Chula Vista, as they clashed over where the Chula Vista crew's fire engine should be stationed. Firefighters had placed their vehicle along the...

Police have called upon the military for help and are scratching their heads as to how and why a man in southern Sweden managed to amass an arsenal of hundreds of weapons, 557 of which he had a licence to own. . . . . . . . Fearing an explosion, officers cordoned off the house and called in a bomb squad and the military for help. Closer inspection showed that the homeowner had actually had licences for 557 of the weapons, but questions have been raised as to whether such an extensive collection is nevertheless in breach of Sweden's...

I was helping a young lady last night (age 20), whose mother had kicked her out the night before for making out with a young man in his car in the driveway. YL had been kicked out with a sleeveless shirt, no shoes, no coat, and no medicine (she had surgery several weeks ago on her back) and the mom literally threw her out into the yard. The mom was apparently incoherent with rage and they could barely even understand what she was screaming at them. They're still not sure why she flipped out like that. She also kept YL's...

My family has operated our business from the same small town in northern Italy for 500 years. This means that when we make a commitment to a local community, our hope is to do so for decades, if not centuries, to come. We apply this same philosophy to all of our factories and locations throughout the world. Such a commitment is not a one-way street, though.

A Jacksonville homeowner thought she may have been robbed Sunday, but realized instead her home had been altered by a SWAT team. Deborah Franz was told to leave her home by police during a standoff with her neighbor over the weekend. According to WTEV-TV, Franz overheard loud fighting next door, and then saw SWAT team members swarm the street. “The cop goes ‘You all need to leave, you can’t be in your house,’” Franz told the station.

Shutting down lemonade stands costs kids important entrepreneurial experience Over the last 30 years, it seems like it has gotten a little tougher for kids to start that most Norman Rockwell of ventures, the lemonade stand. Back in the 1980s and 1990s there were a few instances of local governments shutting kids' stands down for various reasons, although officials typically bowed to public pressure and allowed them to reopen. In 1983, 6-year-old Ali Thorn's lemonade stand in Belleair, Fla., was closed down after police received an anonymous complaint that her sign did not comply with city ordinances, but was quickly...

Englewood, New Jersey (My9NJ) - Rosie D’Rivera was 53, out of work and living through a tough economic time. When she couldn’t find work, she decided to take matters into her own hands and open a hot dog cart. Rosie said she started the business out of desperation and definitely made some mistakes. "When I started this, I didn't do my research. It was out of desperation, like oh my God, what am I gonna do? How am I gonna make money. I gotta pay my mortgage. So I went in head first. A lot of people think this is...

Full title: Super Bowl chaos: Officials plead with 28,000 train-bound fans to stay inside MetLife Stadium after Super Bowl despite having hours to react after pre-game transit disaster (snip) Despite record ridership causing massive inbound delays prior to the game, NJ Transit officials had only one train platform open when the game let out. (snip) 'Absolutely pathetic, the NFL had 40,000 people coming on buses, they knew there was going to be 45,000 people coming out,' Tammy Ritchie, from Vancouver, Canada, told the Star-Ledger. 'We stood in line sweating, it’s absolute horse crap. (snip) As more trains arrived, police tried...

EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ — Attendees to Super Bowl XLVIII will witness yet another exposé of excessive security and infringements of civil rights.Fans entering MetLife Stadium will be stopped at checkpoints, searched, put through metal detectors, and filmed.  Their vehicles may be inspected and their possessions will be limited to what they can fit into a single clear plastic baggie.  This treatment has become the norm for the NFL.The New Jersey State Police Department blog describes the process of entering the stadium on game day:Fan screenings begin at 2 p.m. on game day. Fans will enter heated welcome pavilions at MetLife Stadium,...

HARTFORD — Gun control advocates were buoyed Thursday by a federal court decision in Hartford that upholds Connecticut's toughest-in-the-nation assault weapons ban, calling it a constitutionally valid means of balancing gun rights and the government's interest in reducing gun violence."The court concludes that the legislation is constitutional," senior U.S. District Judge Alfred V. Covello wrote in a decision published late Thursday. "While the act burdens the plaintiffs' Second Amendment rights, it is substantially related to the important governmental interest of public safety and crime control."The legislature enacted comprehensive restrictions on ownership of semiautomatic weapons and ammunition early last year in...

Local Police Adopt Military Technology and Tactics Written by Joe Wolverton, II, J.D. Local Police Adopt Military Technology and Tactics Robots, facial recognition, and drones. These are the technologically advanced tools that used to belong to the military, but are now commonplace in local police departments. As The New American has reported, police departments and sheriff’s offices around the country every day look less like peace officers and more like warfighters. Using threats of terrorism as a pretext, police are buying (or receiving in free grants) tools developed for the armed forces and using them to carry out police raids...

<p>Police in the Philippines abused suspected criminals with a 'wheel of torture' game, according to human rights groups.</p>

President Obama on Tuesday unleashed a torrent of new executive actions, using his State of the Union address to underline his willingness to govern without Congress.Obama promised a dozen actions in the next year —including the creation of new “starter” savings accounts and a hike in the minimum wage for federal contractors — intended to embolden Democrats ahead of this year’s midterm elections.The prime time speech from the podium of the House immediately drew Republican condemnation as an effort to create an imperial presidency, but was staunchly defended by Democrats as a legitimate and necessary use of executive authority in the...

Video of a police standoff contradicts the initial Pinal County Sheriff's Office description of the chain of events that led to the shooting death of a suspected car thief. The man had led police and sheriff's deputies on a chase through Casa Grande and Eloy for nearly an hour, before deputies immobilized the car he was driving. A witness shot the video on a cell phone. It shows the final moments of the standoff, when deputies were ordering Manuel Longoria to surrender. The deputies had their weapons drawn and fired five bean bag rounds at the suspect, in addition to...

Utah Highway Patrol Lt. Alex Lepley imagines a scenario where a man has barricaded himself, fired a gun at police officers and placed bystanders in peril. Enter UHP’s new mine-resistant ambush protected vehicle, “MRAP” for short. Or at least that’s what the U.S. Army called it. The U.S. Department of Defense recently gave a surplus MRAP to the highway patrol. The law enforcement agency plans to use it to carry troopers to dangerous crime scenes and to keep those troopers safe while protecting civilians. […] The Defense Department has provided the weaponry and equipment through what it calls the 1033...

<p>ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - An investigation is underway into the shooting death of a German Shepherd by a St. Petersburg police officer.</p> <p>Police say officers were trying to stop Kenneth McNeal, 21, who they say was trespassing in Williams Park while walking a dog, which was on a leash. When McNeal ignored officers' verbal directions to stop so they could question him, they tried to physically detain him. Police say there was a struggle, then McNeal let go of the leash and the dog tried to bite one of the officers.</p>

Unwarranted NSA surveillance, the passage of NDAA, stop and frisk programs, and the rise of warrior cops, have essentially turned America into a centralized police state. Blurring the lines between the U.S. military and local sheriff departments sets a dangerous precedent that erodes freedom and civil liberties.Those lines are being blurred right now in South Carolina.According to The State, the Richland County Sheriff’s Department will participate in secretive joint exercise Monday and Tuesday with unnamed units from Ft. Bragg.The drills are scheduled to run up to midnight on both days and occur primarily in Lower Richland, around Hopkins and Eastover....

In pursuit of a dangerous black male killer, Los Angeles Police Department officers mistook two Latina woman for the suspect and fired one hundred shots. Then, Torrance Officer Brian McGee thought he saw the suspect’s vehicle and rammed into it at full speed, nearly killing the innocent driver, David Perdue, a white man. McGee also fired three shots at Perdue. But L.A. County District Attorney Jackie Lacey has decided not to press charges against McGee, since his error was “a reasonable mistake.”