Tag: police state
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teachers stage fake gunman attack on 6th graders
from ap/cnn: Staff members of an elementary school staged a fictitious gun attack on students during a class trip, telling them it was not a drill as the children cried and hid under tables. The mock attack Thursday night was intended as a learning experience and lasted five minutes during the weeklong trip to a…
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i’d buy that for a dollar: approaching ‘robocop’ world
from freedom in our time: When I saw that film twenty years ago, it struck me as uncannily prophetic. (I speak of the original, not the pointless sequels.) Of all the dystopian visions available in literature and on film, RoboCop (directed by Paul Verhoeven, a Dutchman) created an uncannily plausible vision of American totalitarianism –…
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uk govt predicts 1⁄3 of people will resist ID checks
from register uk: One in three people will resist identity checks according to Government figures. The just-released statistics predict a widespread revolt over identity cards, but the Home Office has dismissed the figures as irrelevant and out of date… The figures show that 30 per cent of people were predicted by the Government to refuse…
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revolution, flashmobs, and brain chips
a grim vision of the futurefrom guardian: Information chips implanted in the brain. Electromagnetic pulse weapons. The middle classes becoming revolutionary, taking on the role of Marx’s proletariat. The population of countries in the Middle East increasing by 132%, while Europe’s drops as fertility falls. “Flashmobs” – groups rapidly mobilised by criminal gangs or terrorists…
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nypd spied broadly before ’04 convention
from raw story/ny times: “For at least a year before the 2004 Republican National Convention, teams of undercover New York City police officers traveled to cities across the country, Canada and Europe to conduct covert observations of people who planned to protest at the convention, according to police records and interviews,” the New York Times…
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big brother state
from you tube: An animated short about public surveillance by David Scharf
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texas gov orders anti-cancer vaccine
from ap/reason: Bypassing the Legislature altogether, Republican Gov. Rick Perry issued an order Friday making Texas the first state to require that schoolgirls get vaccinated against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer… Perry also directed state health authorities to make the vaccine available free to girls 9 to 18 who are uninsured or…
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news on the march
clinton sucks up to aipac with talk of iran warfrom raw story: At a speech Friday to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Friday, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) said “no option can be taken off the table” when dealing with Iran… Clinton tempered her remarks by saying she’s advocated engagement with “our enemies and Israel’s…
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fbi turns to broad new wiretap method
from zdnet: The FBI appears to have adopted an invasive Internet surveillance technique that collects far more data on innocent Americans than previously has been disclosed. Instead of recording only what a particular suspect is doing, agents conducting investigations appear to be assembling the activities of thousands of Internet users at a time into massive…
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maine revolts against digital US ID card
from reuters: Maine lawmakers on Thursday became the first in the nation to demand repeal of a federal law tightening identification requirements for drivers’ licenses, a post-September 11 security measure that states say will cost them billions of dollars to administer. Maine lawmakers passed a resolution urging repeal of the Real ID Act, which would…
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texas prison camp future american gulag?
from prison planet: A detention camp in Taylor Texas that currently holds hundreds of rebuffed asylum seekers who legally entered the country, half of which are children swept up in midnight raids, is a potential prime location for the enforced transfer of American citizens during a time of national emergency. The privatized Hutto jail, which…
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taser launches ‘stylish’ stun gun
from bbc: US stun gun maker Taser is unveiling a sleeker version of its controversial weapon aimed at safety and fashion conscious members of the public. Available in pink, blue, silver and black, the gun fits into a handbag like a mobile phone. It will be launched at a Las Vegas electronics fair on Monday.…
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democrats set to renew attack on free speech
from prison planet: A new piece of legislation set to be re-introduced in Congress by the Democrats under the guise of anti-bullying would reprimand schoolchildren for verbal criticism of their peers in any context, including sexual orientation, religion or simply expression of an opposing idea. The bill echoes federal hate crime legislation about to be…
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iris scan database of children forms
from houston chronicle: Technology developed to keep track of prisoners by scanning their irises became available Thursday to identify missing children… part of an effort to image the irises of 5 million children into a nationwide database over the next few years, said Robert Melley, vice president and CEO of Biometric Intelligence & Identification. but…
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riot cops detain hundreds of activists in moscow
from edmonton sun: Russian authorities pulled hundreds of opposition activists off buses and trains and detained them along with scores of others on Saturday ahead of a rare anti-government rally in Moscow, organizers said. The police action did not prevent more than 2,000 people from gathering in a central square, where leftist and liberal groups…