Free Republic

Seeing that the CA Fascist thug from the US House of Lords, Dianne "Brownshirt" Feinstein. is threatening law-abiding US peasants with forced National Firearm Act registration of ALL semi-automatic weapons, the question arises: Can the BATF search your house at will if you have an NFA registered weapon? I have seen this answered in the affirmative elsewhere. Basically, the Fascist thug old bat wants to get rid of the 4th Amendment for gun-owning peasants, as she knifes the Second Amendment in the back.

An internal U.S. Department of Homeland Security document indicates that a controversial program designed to predict whether a person will commit a crime is already being tested on some members of the public voluntarily, CNET has learned. If this sounds a bit like the Tom Cruise movie called "Minority Report," or the CBS drama "Person of Interest," it is. But where "Minority Report" author Philip K. Dick enlisted psychics to predict crimes, DHS is betting on algorithms: it's building a "prototype screening facility" that it hopes will use factors such as ethnicity, gender, breathing, and heart rate to "detect cues...

A San Mateo family expressed outrage Tuesday that police shot and killed their two dogs after they escaped and started barking at children in a park. Police countered that the animals were vicious and one of them hadn't even been slowed after being jolted with a Taser stun gun. Carla Torres, 38, said her two boxers, a female named Bella and a male named Jordan, may have been loose and loud at Laurie Meadows Park on Monday, but that there was no reason for officers to shoot them. "I wish the police would have waited for animal control," Torres said....

Providence, RI - Rhode Island State Police say that the shooting death of a woman's Pit bull, "Champ" was an "unfortunate accident". Accident or not, a beloved family companion is dead. The tragedy happened on Wednesday morning when a fugitive task force was stationed outside of a home in Providence. Though the task force was waiting for a fugitive to emerge, they were instead greeted by two dogs who had been let out for a potty break. Moments after the dogs were let outside, shots were fired. The officer who fired the three shots told the dog's owner that the...

Does SWAT Need to Be Explained? Written by Ed Sanow I get frustrated with the educational sessions at chief’s conferences on SWAT. The attendees are treated like kindergarten kids. “There are some vewy, vewy bad people out there. They won’t do what the nice police officers tell them. So, sometimes, those nice police officers need help from ‘special’ police officers.” You got to be kidding me! Some 90% of agencies serving populations of more than 50,000 people, and 70% of agencies serving smaller populations have some kind of SWAT team. Yet, SWAT has to be explained like it is something...

The lasting impact of the raid on Gary Adams' home became clear in a comment from his 3-year-old granddaughter during a recent trip to the pharmacy. "She said, 'Granddad. Police. Hide,' " Adams, 57, of Bellevue recalled Wednesday while discussing the federal lawsuit he filed against the officers who burst into his home March 3. Led by FBI Special Agent Karen Springmeyer, about a dozen officers used a battering ram to enter Adams' rented Orchard Street home in a search for Sondra Hunter, then 35. But Hunter hadn't lived at that address for almost two years, while Adams and his...

Recently, police have been involved in what looks like murder in the course of home invasion and murder with intimidation of witnesses and press. At this rate, I expect the distinction between the ordinary Ordnungspolizei and Einsatzgruppen to become insignificant. As the experience with Minneapolis home invaders indicates, birdshot is not sufficient against armored opponents. At least two good hits were scored by the defender with minimal effect. The perpetrators were decorated by the police department even though they wrongdoing and settled the case at the cost to the taxpayers of over $600K. At least in this case the victims...

A California man who initially claimed to a local television station that he was roughed up by "SWAT team" members who allegedly battered down his front door to execute a search warrant related to his estranged wife's unpaid student loans was targeted due to an ongoing probe into alleged financial aid fraud. Local law enforcement officials have thus far not commented on the Stockton man's claim to ABC News 10/KXTV that he was grabbed by the neck and placed in handcuffs in back of a patrol car for six hours as his three children looked on during execution of the...

"Kenneth Wright does not have a criminal record and he had no reason to believe a S.W.A.T team would be breaking down his door at 6 a.m. on Tuesday."

A father was dragged from his home and handcuffed in front of his children by a SWAT team looking for his estranged wife - to collect her unpaid student loans. A stunned Kenneth Wright had his front door kicked in by the raiding party at 6 am yesterday before being dragged onto his front porch, handcuffed and led to a police car with his three children. He says he was then detained for six hours while officers looked for his wife - who no longer lives at the house. Mr Wright was later told by Stockton police that the order...

Via JWF and Reason, we now present this instructional video from the Department of Education. Now that the government has for all practical pruposes nationalized the student-loan industry, the DoE would like to educate recipients on new loan-collection processes. The banks used to send bill collectors and file claims in court, but the Obama administration doesn’t like those kind of harsh private-sector measures to retrieve lost capital. Instead, they’ll send a SWAT team to kick in your door and frighten your children — even if you don’t live with them anymore: CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO Kenneth Wright does...

Gannett. Link only per FR posting rules. Link here.

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — The Maryland Transit Administration says more training may be called for after three MTA officers detained a man for taking pictures at a light rail station. Pat Warren has more on the incident. According to the ACLU, this isn’t the first time MTA Police have overstepped their bounds. In a YouTube posting, Christopher Fussell left the camera rolling when he was confronted by three MTA officers for taking pictures at the Baltimore Cultural Light Rail Station. “It is my understanding that I am free to take pictures as long as it’s not for commercial purposes but for...

Records released by the Pima County Sheriff's Department this week show that the four houses served with search warrants the morning of May 5 - when Jose Guerena was shot and killed by a SWAT team - are less than four miles apart and are all connected to the Guerena family. And while initial reports were that doctors told the Guerena family that Jose had been shot 60 times, the Pima County medical examiner's preliminary report says he was shot 22 times. In its sole briefing on the incident, the Sheriff's Department said SWAT team members fired 71 rounds. Aside...

TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) – Video of the SWAT raid and deadly shooting of former Marine Jose Guerena has raised many questions from 9 On Your Side viewers who wanted to know how much force police are legally allowed to use when serving a search warrant. 9 On Your Side Reporter Steve Nuñez sat down with Criminal Defense Attorney Michael Bloom to show him the raw footage of the raid. The Pima County Sheriff's Department released the video to the media on Thursday. "I'm sure everyone's reaction first of all, it's horrible," said Bloom as he watched SWAT officers fire 71 bullets...

DETROIT — Federal investigators in Detroit have taken the rare step of obtaining search warrants that give them access to Facebook accounts of suspected criminals. The warrants let investigators view photographs, email addresses, cell phone numbers, lists of friends who might double as partners in crime, and see GPS locations that could help disprove alibis. There have been a few dozen search warrants for Facebook accounts nationwide since May 2009, including three approved recently by a federal magistrate judge in Detroit, according to a Detroit News analysis of publicly available federal court records. The trend raises privacy and evidentiary concerns...

It wasn’t a drug raid. But the details are fun. From the opinion: On May 31, 2007, Sam Bellotte printed some photographs from a memory card at a self-service station in a Winchester, Virginia Wal-Mart. When he went to pay for the prints, a clerk insisted on inspecting the photos. Mr. Bellotte admitted that some contained nudity and surrendered them, then made other purchases and left the store. The Wal-Mart employees charged with discarding the photos noticed one depicting male genitalia seemingly next to a child’s face. Concerned that the photograph was child pornography, the employees notified the Frederick County...

STATESVILLE, NC -- A man from North Carolina was convicted of minting his own currency. The U.S. Attorney's Office announced Friday afternoon that 67-year old Bernard von NotHaus was convicted of making, possessing and selling his own coins. During the eight day trial, the U.S. Attorney's Office said the investigation into NotHaus' activities began in 2005 and involved minting of coins worth an estimated $7 million. The U.S. Attorney's Office said the coins were made to resemble United States coins and that the Liberty Dollar coins were intended to be used as counterfeit money. NotHaus was the founder of a...

First they came for our bicycles. Now they’ve come for our guns. One day after word leaked of a New York State plan to require license plates and annual fees for bicycles, information has gotten out about pending legislation that would register and attach a fee to every firearm in the state. Already one of the most anti-gun states in the country, New York’s move would all but nullify the Second Amendment. At issue is Senate Bill 2994, which is linked in its entirety at the bottom of this column. It would require every gun owner in the state to...

Yesterday, we told you about an officer-involved shooting in Phoenix. Details were limited, so we said to check back later. We got the details and they're pretty nuts. According to court documents obtained by New Times, Phoenix Police Officer Richard Chrisman has been charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after fatally shooting 29-year-old Daniel Rodriquez. Rodriquez's mother called police about noon yesterday to report that she and her son had gotten into an argument and that Rodriquez was breaking things in her trailer home near Baseline Road and Central Avenue. Officer Chrisman and another officer found Rodriquez's mother...