Infinite Unknown

A frame from a video obtained by the Heraldo de Leon newspaper shows a torture session.

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AP) — Videos showing Leon police practicing torture techniques on a fellow officer and dragging another through vomit at the instruction of a U.S. adviser created an uproar Tuesday in Mexico, which has struggled to eliminate torture in law enforcement.

Two of the videos — broadcast by national television networks and displayed on newspaper Internet sites — showed what Leon city Police Chief Carlos Tornero described as training for an elite unit that must face “real-life, high-stress situations,” such as kidnapping and torture by organized crime groups.

But many Mexicans saw a sinister side, especially at a moment when police and soldiers across the country are struggling with scandals over alleged abuses.

“They are teaching police … to torture!” read the headline in the Mexico City newspaper Reforma.

Human rights investigators in Guanajuato state, where Leon is located, are looking into the tapes, and the National Human Rights Commission also expressed concern.

“It’s very worrisome that there may be training courses that teach people to torture,” said Raul Plascencia, one of the commission’s top inspectors.

One of the videos, first obtained by the newspaper El Heraldo de Leon, shows police appearing to squirt water up a man’s nose — a technique once notorious among Mexican police. Then they dunk his head in a hole said to be full of excrement and rats. The man gasps for air and moans repeatedly.

(George Orwell 1984 - The Infinite Unknown)

In another video, an unidentified English-speaking trainer has an exhausted agent roll into his own vomit. Other officers then drag him through the mess.

“These are no more than training exercises for certain situations, but I want to stress that we are not showing people how to use these methods,” Tornero said.

Continue reading »

Tags: G. W. Bush, George Orwell, human rights, interrogation, Mexico, Police, Police State, torture, U.S.

Roadside tests to detect drug use. Demanding bodily fluids is an intrusive, unreliable form of testing, critics warn

Drivers who get behind the wheel while high on drugs will face roadside testing and they could be ordered to surrender urine, blood or saliva samples at the police station under a controversial new law that takes effect one week from today.

Drivers who refuse to comply will be subject to a minimum $1,000 fine - the same penalty for refusing the breathalyzer. Continue reading »

Tags: Canada, civil liberties, civil rights, Police, Privacy

LOS ANGELES: Having lost her job and her three-bedroom house, Darlene Knoll has joined the legions of downwardly mobile who are four wheels away from homelessness.

She is living out of her shabby 1978 RV, and every night she has to look for a place to park where she won’t get hassled by the cops or insulted by residents.

“I’m not a piece of trash,” the former home health-care aide said as she stroked one of five dogs in her cramped quarters parked in the waterfront community of Marina del Rey.

Amid the foreclosure crisis and the shaky economy, some California cities are seeing an increase in the number of people living out of their cars, vans or RVs. Continue reading »

Tags: Foreclosures, Los Angeles, mortgage crisis, Mortgages, Police

SOLDIERS are to be deployed in Italian cities as Silvio Berlusconi, the prime minister, cracks down on crime as part of his government’s new domestic security package.

The troops - drawn from those who have served abroad - will patrol alongside regular state police and carabinieri paramilitary police.

They will be able to stop, search and identify suspects but will have no powers of arrest. Instead they must call for support or take suspects to the nearest police station.

Defence minister Ignazio La Russa said: “We are talking about a contingent of 2,500 troops who will patrol, alongside ordinary police, in order to safeguard the security of citizens.

“The scheme will be initially for six months and then renewed for another six months as a one-off and that will be it.

“If it was possible to recruit and train 2,500 police officers immediately then I would be delighted not to use troops.”

Opposition MPs and police unions did not share his enthusiasm with Antonio Di Pietro, of the Party of Values, saying: “Troops on the streets are only seen in places like Colombia against terrorists and armed insurrectionists. The idea of militarising cities gives an impression of insecurity and will affect tourism and the economy.” Continue reading »

Tags: Italy, Military, Police, Silvio Berlusconi, soldiers

Officers believe the boxes were being used to store criminal assets

Six suitcases packed with suspected gold dust and about £30m in cash have been found during searches of safety deposit centres in London, police say.

Detectives also found heroin and cocaine, evidence linked to child sex abuse and forged passports.

The Met Police believe criminals used the centres in Park Lane, Hampstead and Edgware to store criminal assets.

Armed police continue to guard the buildings as specialist officers search the 7,000 safety deposit boxes.

So far only a third of the boxes have been opened and the finds have also included a firearm, counterfeit currency, several works of Renaissance art and a substantial amount of high value jewellery.

I am confident that this operation will have a damaging impact on organised crime in London and around the rest of the country Commander Allan Gibson

Speaking after the raids Commander Allan Gibson said: “Search teams have been working around the clock to open all the boxes at the location and are progressing well, although we are likely to remain at the locations for some time yet.

“This is a complex and unique investigation that will use all of the expertise within the economic crime command and the findings are within our expectations at this stage.

“I am confident that this operation will have a damaging impact on organised crime in London and around the rest of the country.” Continue reading »

Tags: Deposit Box, Police, Raids, U.K.

“My reaction is, welcome to Baghdad, D.C.,” said Arthur Spitzer, legal director for the ACLU’s Washington office. “I mean, this is craziness. In this country, you don’t have to show identification or explain to the police why you want to travel down a public street.”
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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 from residents to stop a recent surge in violence. Last weekend was especially bloody, with seven slayings, including three in the Trinidad area.

“In certain areas, we need to go beyond the normal methods of policing,” Fenty (D) said at a news conference announcing the action. “We’re going to go into an area and completely shut it down to prevent shootings and the sale of drugs.” Continue reading »

Tags: ACLU, Police, Police State, U.S., Washington

Wolfgang Schauble, Minister of the Interior for Germany, at the First International Security Forum of Ministers of Interior and Public Security in Jerusalem on May 29. (Menahem Kahana/Agence France-Presse)

BERLIN: Despite strong criticism from the opposition and even its own coalition partners, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government agreed Wednesday to give Germany’s police forces greater powers to monitor homes, telephones and private computers, maintaining that an enhanced reach would protect citizens from terrorist attacks.

But opposition parties and some Social Democrats who share power with Merkel’s conservative bloc criticized the measures in the draft legislation, saying they would further erode privacy rights that they contend have already been undermined, after revelations of recent snooping operations conducted by Deutsche Telekom, one of the country’s biggest companies.

Deutsche Telekom had for some time been monitoring calls of its employers, despite federal regulations on strict data protection.

The proposed legislation would for the first time give federal police officers the right to take preventive measures in cases of suspected terrorism.

The bill, for example, calls for video surveillance of private apartments, online computer searches and phone monitoring.

But the nature of the surveillance, which would require the approval of the Bundestag, the lower house of Parliament, has worried many Germans, with some commentators recalling the Nazi past and its vast machinery of spying. They also point to the more recent role of the Stasi, the hated secret police in the once Communist-ruled East Germany, which established a pervasive system of keeping tabs on almost everyone in the country.

The draft law was fashioned after months of intense debate led by Wolfgang Schäuble, the conservative interior minister, who has long wanted the security forces to be given more leeway for surveillance. Continue reading »

Tags: Angela Merkel, civil liberties, Germany, Nazis, Police, Police State, Privacy, Stasi, Surveillance, video surveillance, Wolfgang Schaeuble

Italy has begun confiscating the cars of people driving under the effect of drugs or alcohol in the latest attempt to lower one of western Europe’s highest rates of road casualties.

Two drivers in their early 20s, a woman under the influence of alcohol and a man who had smoked a cannabis joint, have had their cars seized in northern Italy since the legislation came into effect at the end of last month.

The new legislation states that any driver who tests positive for any illegal drug or has blood alcohol levels exceeding set limits can have their car confiscated, as well as toughening fines and jail sentences.

The cars are to be auctioned off or used by the police, as is already the case for vehicles confiscated from mafia offenders and drug dealers.

Breathalyzer testing is not frequent in Italy, where 5,669 people died on the roads in 2006, the most recent data available. National statistics bureau ISTAT said the authorities must focus on curbing drunken driving to make the roads safer.

Wed Jun 4, 1:09 PM ET

Source: Reuters

Tags: Drugs, Italy, Mafia, Police

Police should stop routine surveillance of reporters and photographers covering demonstrations in London, the National Union of Journalists has told Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.

NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear made the call in a letter to Smith after receiving complaints that journalists, particularly photographers, were facing what amounted to harassment by members of the Metropolitan Police Forward Intelligence Team (FIT).

Dear said the NUJ had serious concerns about the FIT’s activities in monitoring and recording the activities of bona fide journalists, especially photographers.

“A number of members have alleged that the police’s surveillance action amounts to virtual harassment and is a serious threat to their right to carry out their lawful employment,” he said. Continue reading »

Tags: civil, civil liberties, Home Office, human rights, Jacqui Smith, Police, Surveillance

Police have clashed with hundreds of fishermen protesting against the high cost of fuel outside the headquarters of the European Union in Brussels.

Several windows in EU buildings were broken and at least one car was overturned during the demonstration.

Riot police responded by firing water cannon and launching baton charges.

The fishermen have said they will go out of business unless the EU allows national governments to give them more financial aid and subsidise their fuel.

French fishermen have been on strike for several weeks over the price of diesel, which has risen by 240% in the past five years.

In recent days they have been joined by members of fleets from the UK, Spain, Portugal and Italy, who have blockaded ports across Europe, and truck drivers.

Restructuring

With foghorns, flags and flares, hundreds of mainly French and Italian fishermen stopped traffic on the main road in the European district of the Belgian capital.

We came here… to tell Europe to stop getting in the way of the French government trying to help us Philippe Margoud In pictures: Fuel protests

After several hours of stand-off, the protest turned violent. A car was overturned, bins were set on fire and windows were smashed by flares.

Riot police lined up behind a barbed-wire barricade in front of the European Commission responded by attempting to disperse the crowd with water cannons and baton charges.

Earlier, a delegation of fishermen met senior EU officials briefly outside the Commission’s headquarters to explain their grievances and demand emergency aid from both the EU and their countries’ governments. Continue reading »

Tags: EU, Fishermen, Fuel, Oil, Oil Prices, Police