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For much of the latter part of summer, police officers in Helena, Arkansas, shouldered military-style M-16 rifles equipped with laser sights and patrolled the streets of this little community of 15,000. White signs on large blue barrels were placed in a 10-block area, warning that it was under 24-hour curfew. "Everybody is subject to being stopped and questioned," said Mayor James Valley. "Our officers will ride in unmarked vehicles, pull surprises on people and check everybody out to see who they are." A crime spree prompted a similar lockdown in Hartford, Connecticut. After a chain of shootings that left one...

Park wardens have been ordered to stop and interrogate anyone who is not accompanied by children. The visitors who are quizzed have to explain their presence and risk being thrown out or reported to police if their answers are not satisfactory. The policy has been introduced at Telford Town Park in Shropshire. The council which manages the 420-acre area says it is a 'commonsense approach' aimed at safeguarding children. But park users accused it of 'authoritarian madness' and said the ruling risked panicking parents about the dangers faced from potential paedophiles. The policy came to light after two environmental campaigners...

The audience was overwhelmingly in favor of checkpoints, although protesters did fill the lawn outside the Library. The grant was accepted on a 6-1 vote, with Councilwoman Cristina Carrizosa opposed. Kudos to the mayor for rising to the occasion. Just when she's getting the hang of leadership, she's leaving. Carrizosa, for her part, said before the vote that she's fine with checkpoints but doesn't think Pomona's are being done appropriately. Carrizosa, who earlier this year compared Pomona officers to the Gestapo, also insisted she has always been a friend of the Police Department. At that comment, Chief Joe Romero, who...

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...

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.

<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>

A man was handcuffed, arrested and dragged before a court after falling off the settee with laughter while watching Have I Got News For You. Christopher Cocker, 36, was enjoying the BBC1 show when a joke made by panellist Paul Merton had him doubled up with laughter. He collapsed on the floor - but the thud startled his downstairs neighbour who, believing he had collapsed, called police. Officers arrived and said Cocker was initially co-operative but became 'aggressive' when they asked his name and tried to shut his front door. He was eventually disabled with parva spray through the gap...

In a major change of policy, the Transportation Security Administration has announced that passengers refusing to show ID will no longer be able to fly. The policy change, announced on Thursday afternoon, will go into force on June 21, and will only affect passengers who refuse to produce ID. Passengers who claim to have lost or forgotten their proof of identity will still be able to fly. As long as TSA has existed, passengers have been able to fly without showing ID to government agents. Doing so would result in a secondary search (a pat down and hand search of...

The compulsory identity card could be used to carry out surveillance on people, MPs warned today. Members of the Home Affairs Select Committee said it was concerned that the way the authorities use sensitive data gathered in the multi-billion pound programme could "creep" to include spying. The all-party committee also urged ministers to make plans on how to deal with the theft of personal details from the National Identity Scheme, which will build a massive database on every person over 16 in Britain. It accepted ministers' assurances that surveillance was not part of current plans, but asked for a guarantee...

'Baghdad-style' checkpoints in US capital By Tom Leonard Last Updated: 8:14PM BST 08/06/2008 Police in Washington DC have set up vehicle checkpoints in the American capital in a controversial measure aimed at tackling a wave of gun violence. In a move that critics have compared to the security clampdown in Baghdad, police are stopping motorists travelling through the main thoroughfare of Trinidad, a neighbourhood near the National Arboretum in the city's northeast section. Drivers' identification are checked and those who didn't have a "legitimate purpose" in the area, such as a church visit or doctor's appointment, are turned away. The...

D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier announced a military-style checkpoint yesterday to stop cars this weekend in a Northeast Washington neighborhood inundated by gun violence, saying it will help keep criminals out of the area. Starting on Saturday, officers will check drivers' identification and ask whether they have a "legitimate purpose" to be in the Trinidad area, such as going to a doctor or church or visiting friends or relatives. If not, the drivers will be turned away. The Neighborhood Safety Zone initiative is the latest crime-fighting attempt by Lanier and Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, who have been under pressure...

D.C. police will seal off entire neighborhoods, set up checkpoints and kick out strangers under a new program that D.C. officials hope will help them rescue the city from its out-of-control violence. Under an executive order expected to be announced today, police Chief Cathy L. Lanier will have the authority to designate “Neighborhood Safety Zones.” At least six officers will man cordons around those zones and demand identification from people coming in and out of them. Anyone who doesn’t live there, work there or have “legitimate reason” to be there will be sent away or face arrest, documents obtained by...

Now the taxman gets the power to turn up unannounced to your home and demand to see tax recordsBy BECKY BARROW - More by this author » Last updated at 01:10am on 14th March 2008 Tax inspectors will be allowed to come to your front door under new powers to come into force next year. Posed by model Inspectors will be allowed to make lightning visits to taxpayers' homes, under powers due to come into force next year.  Under the extraordinary new rules, they will be able to turn up unannounced and demand to see tax records. They will not...

Police hold DNA of 4.5m Britons - adding 1m to database over just 10 monthsBy MATTHEW HICKLEY and KIRSTY WALKER - More by this author » Last updated at 00:55am on 5th November 2007  More than one million people's genetic fingerprints have been added to the police DNA database in only ten months.  The "Big Brother" system, already the biggest in the world, now permanently stores the details of more than 4.5million individuals. The rise is the equivalent of 150 new entries every hour. The database now covers one in 13 of the population - around 7.5 per cent....

Should the federal government have the power to fire you from your current job? That’s a dramatic new role for the federal government buried in a provision of the immigration bill before the Senate. Under this plan, Heritage experts Wes Dyck, Bill Beach and James Sherk explain, “American workers would actually need approval from [the Department of Homeland Security] to continue working in their current jobs.” Millions of American citizens and legal residents, they continue, are not marked as either eligible or ineligible to work in the government’s current Employment Eligibility Verification System database. And if Washington bureaucrats cannot determine...

A draconian regime of fines, which would hit families at times of marriage and death, is being drawn up by ministers to enforce the Identity Card scheme. Millions of people, from struggling students to newly-wed women and bereaved relatives, will face a system of penalties, netting more than £40 million for the Treasury. People would be fined up to £1,000 for failing to return a dead relative's ID card, while women who marry will have to pay at least £30 for a new card if they want to use their married name, risking a £1,000 fine if they do not...

The federal government has barred two relatives of a Lodi man convicted of supporting terrorists from returning to the country after a lengthy stay in Pakistan, placing the U.S. citizens in an extraordinary legal limbo. Muhammad Ismail, a 45-year-old naturalized citizen born in Pakistan, and his 18-year-old son, Jaber Ismail, who was born in the United States, have not been charged with a crime. However, they are the uncle and cousin of Hamid Hayat, a 23-year-old Lodi cherry packer who was convicted in April of supporting terrorists by attending a Pakistani training camp. Federal authorities said Friday that the men,...

AP) SAN FRANCISCO Police may enter Californians' homes without warrants to arrest those suspected of driving under the influence, the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday in a case testing the scope of the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. The 6-1 decision follows similar rulings in about a dozen other states. A dissenting justice said the majority handed authorities a "free pass" to unlawfully enter private homes and arrest people without warrants. Under the Fourth Amendment, authorities are prohibited from entering a home and making an arrest without a warrant unless so-called "exigent" circumstances are...

We used to fingerprint felons -- now, we're "inking" traffic scofflaws. Run a couple of mph over the speed limit in the state of Kansas (or even fail to "buckle up for safety") and you'll be duly entered into the Kansas Bureau of Investigation's electronic fingerprint database -- a privilege once reserved for actual criminals, not ordinary citizens who commit minor violations of the motor vehicle code. KBI, authorized by the state government, will be "testing out" 60 automated fingerprint readers throughout the state beginning this month -- all of it funded by a $3.6 million grant from the Department...