Free Republic

BIRMINGHAM, Mich., Sept. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Three Michigan businessmen, who purchased a truckload of relief supplies for Hurricane Rita victims and drove down to Louisiana to deliver them, are suing the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff Department, certain sheriff department deputies, Harrah's Entertainment (the owner and operator of a local gambling casino), and certain Harrah's employees for assault, false arrest, false imprisonment, willful misconduct, and deprivations of civil and constitutional rights under the U.S. Constitution and federal law. The Michigan businessmen have retained the Birmingham, Michigan-based law firm of Norman Yatooma & Associates, P.C. (NYA) to represent them and manage the litigation...

(New Haven-WTNH, Sept. 19, 2006 10:45 PM) _ A student's refusal to walk through a safety detector earns him a trip home. For some the installation of metal detectors in schools is to better protect those inside. One New Haven student is refusing to walk the walk, questioning whether his rights are being violated. The district says it is like the right to enter a courtroom or get on a plane. It's new policy to keep young people safe. For this New Haven student it's all about his fourth amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. Nick...

Big Brother is shouting at you Last updated at 21:02pm on 16th September 2006 Big Brother is not only watching you - now he's barking orders too. Britain's first 'talking' CCTV cameras have arrived, publicly berating bad behaviour and shaming offenders into acting more responsibly. The system allows control room operators who spot any anti-social acts - from dropping litter to late-night brawls - to send out a verbal warning: 'We are watching you'. Middlesbrough has fitted loudspeakers on seven of its 158 cameras in an experiment already being hailed as a success. Jack Bonner, who manages the system, said:...

Dundalk, Md. - The SWAT team shooting death of Dundalk mother Cheryl Noel is part of a national increase in overly aggressive home invasion tactics by police officers, according to a recent study by the Cato Institute. “It’s troubling,” said Radley Balko, a policy analyst at Cato, a libertarian nonprofit public policy research think tank. “When you give domestic police officers military equipment, train them in military tactics and then tell them they’re fighting a War on Drugs, it’s not surprising that they behave like they’re in the military.” Noel’s family last week filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit against...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has a marijuana problem. On April 20 of this year, the FDA rejected marijuana for medical uses. The FDA said, "no sound scientific studies supported medical use of marijuana for treatment in the United States, and no animal or human data supported the safety or efficacy of marijuana for general medical use." This conclusion contradicts a lot of other scientific research and expert conclusions, including that of the National Academy of Sciences and the FDA itself. In 1985, the FDA was so convinced of marijuana's medical benefits that it approved Marinol and Cesamet, both...

PHILADELPHIA - BetOnSports PLC, the embattled London-based Internet gambling company that has been charged with fraud and racketeering by U.S. prosecutors, announced Friday that it has shut down its services for gamblers in the United States. On Thursday, the company told its employees that it was shutting down its Costa Rican and Antiguan offices, where it accepted wagers from tens of thousands of customers in the United States, its primary market. The shutdown will result in the elimination of about 800 jobs, the company said in a statement. The case against BetOnSports is being watched closely by the $12 billion...

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=2292911 Video at link above shows a women holding up a sign protesting the police when one of the police shoots her with a rubber bullet in the back of the leg.She then turns around and gets shot in the forehead(wich can and does kill people) then the video cuts to the police gathering around after the protests and laughing about shooting her and talking about giving out trophys for it

NASHUA – Police won’t prosecute a man for using his home security system to record detectives on his front porch, Nashua Police Chief Timothy Hefferan announced Friday. Michael Gannon was arrested June 27 after he made the videotape to record conversations among detectives who were at his door looking for his 15-year-old son, who was being investigated in connection with a mugging downtown. When Gannon brought the videotape to a police station to complain that a detective was rude to him, he was arrested on felony wiretapping charges. The case attracted attention around the world, as news spread via the...

PHILADELPHIA -- A Philadelphia family said they are outraged over the arrest of one of their family members. The family of Neftaly Cruz said police had no right to come onto their property and arrest their 21-year-old son simply because he was using his cell phone's camera. They told their story to Harry Hairston and the NBC 10 Investigators. "I was humiliated. I was embarrassed, you know," Cruz said. Cruz, 21, told the NBC 10 Investigators that police arrested him last Wednesday for taking a picture of police activity with his cell phone. Police at the 35th district said they...

JPFO began our campaign to "Boot the BATFE" (www.jpfo.org/bootbatfe.htm) in January of 2005. The instigating factor was a tape we received, a tape that indisputably showed BATFE agents attempting to frame an innocent gun owner, John Glover. That tape -- which we promptly copied and began distributing as _BATFE Fails the Test_ (www.jpfo.org/batfevideo.htm) -- was something the BATFE _never_ intended you to see. Thanks to it, the charges against Glover were dropped and all but one of his firearms returned. Eighteen months later, we offer you something else the BATFE was hoping wouldn't get out: John Glover's story, straight from...

Scottsdale made a deal with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and the Arizona Department of Public Safety in January to ignore their own speed violations snapped by the city’s pilot Loop 101 photo enforcement system. The arrangement meant sheriff’s office and DPS vehicles exceeding the posted 65 mph speed limit on Loop 101 received a free pass, even though in some cases police officials admitted the speeding might not have been justified. Some of the speeds recorded were significant, up to 117 mph. Since the high-profile camera system was turned on Jan. 22, city records show that 16 emergency vehicles...

Drug War Police Tactics Endanger Innocent Citizens Winston Churchill is commonly credited with having said, "Democracy means that when there's a knock in the door at 3 am, it's probably the milkman." One wonders what Churchill would make of modern-day, drug war America. For the last year, I've been researching a study on SWAT teams, "no-knock" raids, and the rise of paramilitary tactics in domestic policing (the study was released this week). The trends I've found are troubling, and some of the individual stories are absolutely heartbreaking. Each day in America, police SWAT teams raid more than 100 private homes,...

LA County Gun Task Force Serving Search Warrants LAPD & LASO Might Be Knocking On Your Door Next! LA County Gun Task Force Serving Search Warrants Officers from the Los Angeles County Gun Task Force in CA have begun serving search warrants on residents in that county who are suspected of holding un-registered "Assault Rifles" including 50 BMG target rifles. If you or any of your friends have not complied with the provisions of AB-50 that require you to register any 50 BMG rifles you own, you may very well expect a knock on your door at any time. This...

TOPEKA, Kan. - Kansas Libertarians were stopped from holding a fundraiser at a nudist camp in southwest Shawnee County, when sheriff's deputies blocked people from entering. Shawnee County deputies said they were merely enforcing a court order when they stopped people from accessing Lake Edun on Friday. Last year, Shawnee County District Judge Terry Bullock issued a court order banning "commercial or recreational activities" on the property unless the owners get a permit for such events - something the county refuses to provide. But Rob Hodgkinson, chairman of the Libertarian Party of Kansas, said a political party fundraiser isn't a...

DILLON — The owner of a gun parts company that was raided last week by federal agents is proclaiming his innocence after numerous parts and records were seized from his home. Richard Celata said agents with the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms went through his home and workshop near Argenta for hours on Wednesday, June 7, but didn’t find anything illegal. “We haven’t been charged with any crimes, and obviously what they found here didn’t violate any laws because I would have been arrested on the spot,” Celata, 45, said Thursday in a telephone interview. “They confiscated...

SPRINGFIELD - When federal agents converged on Michael Paulus in Celina, Ohio, in 2004, he was chagrined, to say the least. The admitted air rifle enthusiast told an agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives he was shocked to learn four unregistered silencers he owned were illegal, according to testimony yesterday in an ongoing federal firearms trial. Paulus was never charged in the investigation with roots in Western Massachusetts. "My impression of Michael Paulus is he is an upstanding citizen who had no idea he was breaking the law," ATF agent Larry K. Ward Jr. told jurors...

Followup to N.Y. Cops In Pa. Fireworks Stakeouts (NYPD seizes cars of NYers who legally buy fireworks in PA) New Yorkers are learning the hard way that an initiative to keep July 4th firecrackers out of the city means just what the warning signs on the highway say: "Transport fireworks, lose your vehicle." The NYPD has now corralled 58 vehicles under Mayor Bloomberg's fireworks crackdown, officials said...< snip > To get the message out, the city has eight 9-by-12-foot electronic signs that are rolled around the five boroughs and placed primarily at highways, bridges and tunnels. "We're doing this to...

If ever a piece of legislation should pass readily through the U.S. House of Representatives, it is a measure sponsored by Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., and Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., that would prevent the Department of Justice from using tax dollars to prosecute medical-marijuana patients in states that have legalized medical marijuana. Because it is a good bill, expect it to fail. Polls show that some three out of four Americans support allowing doctors to prescribe medical marijuana for patients who need it. Members must know that constituents within their districts use marijuana to control pain and nausea -- their families...

City of Light's finest bomb houses, arrest scores, kill dogs, and achieve nothing "We're going to have to be mobile, agile and slightly hostile in trying to get the job of policing done in the City of Buffalo," Buffalo Police Chief H. McCarthy Gipson announced when he was appointed to his position in February 2006. In April, Buffalo police made good on the boss's promise. The city conducted a massive anti-drug sweep from April 18 to April 20, dubbed "Operation Shock and Awe." Scores of police officers dressed in battle gear conducted 38 no-knock SWAT raids over the course of...

June 8, 2006 BATFE RAIDS KT ORDNANCE! Yesterday we received word that KT Ordnance, manufacturer of incomplete (80%-finished) frames, was raided for the alleged "illegal manufacture of firearms." KT Ordnance has been a great asset to those who wish to purchase unfinished receivers with which to anonymously manufacture their own firearms -- a perfectly legal process, according to the BATFE website ( http://www.atf.gov/firearms/faq/faq2.htm#a6 ). You can see from photos of the AR-15 kit ( http://www.jpfo.org/kto1.jpg and www.jpfo.org/kto2.jpg) that the product cannot possibly be a functioning "firearm" -- it's simply a chunk of metal! So how can this happen? Early reports...