Friday, August 26, 2011

Jail population at new record high (uk)

The prison population in England and Wales has reached a record high for the third consecutive week as the courts continue to jail hundreds of people involved in the riots.
But the speed with which the prison population is rising following the riots appears to have slowed, with an increase of 167 this week compared with 723 last week, Ministry of Justice figures showed.
The total number of prisoners hit 86,821, compared with last week's record of 86,654, taking the population to about 1,500 short of the usable operational capacity of 88,338.
The Government has said there will be enough jail places for anyone sentenced to custody as a result of the violence and looting which swept across England's cities earlier this month, and contingency measures are also in place.
The rise - about 20 per day over the last week, compared with about 100 a day the previous week - comes as almost 1,500 people have appeared in court charged with offences linked to the riots.
A tough approach by the courts has seen seven in 10 of those charged remanded in custody, compared with just one in 10 of those charged with serious offences last year.
Prisons Minister Crispin Blunt has said there will be a "one-off increase in prison numbers as people serve their sentences" but that the new wave of inmates will not necessarily change long-term estimates of prison numbers.
Speaking on Tuesday, he said jails can cope with the spike in numbers and has defended the tough sentences in the wake of rioting.
"We are completely confident that the prison system and justice system are going to be able to cope with what the police are producing for us," he said. "This is an exceptional event. What we have to do is make sure there are prison places for those sent to prison by the courts and we will continue to do that regardless of how many people are sent to prison."
Contingency plans to manage the "unprecedented situation" could involve bringing on new accommodation early, using extra places in the public and private estate, or reopening mothballed accommodation. And it could also trigger plans to accommodate prisoners in police cells.

Monday, February 21, 2011

The Uninvited Visitors u.k.


Zaythoun Suleman | 20.02.2011 
On Wednesday 26th January 2011 at approximately 6am in the morning, my son had just made the first adhan for Fajr and was waiting to make the second adhan. All of a sudden, there was a bang on the door.

He didn’t know what to do; he saw the police through the window and feared he would be arrested. The banging got louder as they banged second time and then the third time which was so loud that he thought the door would be broken. He was so scared and confused that he didn’t know what to do. He finally came and woke us up.“Mum, there is someone banging on the door, it’s the police!” I jumped out of bed and looked out of the bedroom window.

Outside, I saw two police officers on the street and one near the door. I woke my husband up who went to open the door. I grabbed my hijab and jilbaab and covered myself, by this time our baby daughter was also awake. My son’s startled and worried face looked at me as I proceeded to go downstairs. He raised his hand to make the adhan…

As I walked through the living room, I saw three plain clothed men come through the door with a plain clothed woman. The man said he had a warrant to search the property under the Terrorism Act, he told me to come into the room. Two uniformed policemen came in and went upstairs and said the area is secure and shouted there were three children and a baby.

***

The second adhan was not vocalised as two police officers ran towards him, he moved out of the way as they passed and sat on the floor with his back against the wall petrified with fear.

“Hello, what is your name and who are you?” demanded the police officer.
“My name is****” he replied in fear and confusion.
“Do you have any brothers and sisters?”
He told them where everyone was “What are you doing here?” My son asked the officer.
“We are just gonna have a chat and then we will be on our way” and then the officer proceeded to wake his brothers up.

***

The woman said we need to go upstairs and get some clothes for the children and get them dressed as we would have to leave the property for a couple of days.

“Where are we supposed to go?” I asked.
“Is there somewhere you can go? You must have family or friends!” The lady said.
“No, I don’t have family here.”
“Family anywhere? We will take you anywhere you want to go.”
“You need to sort the children out to get ready to leave”. The lady escorted me upstairs to where my other sons were woken up by the uniformed police.

They were asleep upstairs when the police officer put the light on. My older son thought he was dreaming and rubbed his eyes. The police officer didn’t explain anything to my son who was startled to find him in his bedroom.
I told them to get dressed.

“You have to hurry up,” the plain-clothed woman officer said. My baby needed breastfeeding and they wanted me to get her clothes packed. I began getting her baby grows and vests together to put in the holdall bag, she took them off me, searched them before putting them into the bag herself. My daughter began to get upset as she was hungry so I told the lady I needed to feed her. I told my older son to pack a couple of clothes for him and his brothers and I came into my bedroom and closed the door.

The woman came in with me and watched as I fed my daughter. I began to get redressed in my jilbaab so I could use the bathroom. Another woman had joined us by then who said she had to search me before I went to use the bathroom. I told her that she had just been watching me breastfeed my daughter. She said she had to still search me and told me to undress, so I took my hijaab and jilbaab off and she proceeded to pat me down under my bra and through my hair.

The Adhan alarm on my husband’s phone was playing, so I reached to switch it off. The lady told me not to answer it. I told her I was switching the alarm off. She nodded and told me I was not allowed to touch my phone or any other phone.

I had a sister coming around in the evening, I wanted her number so I could call her and let her know not to come but they would not allow me to get her number from my phone. She told me that I would have to sort that out later and that right now the priority was to get us out of the house.
After this, I was allowed to use my own bathroom. Once we got all our clothes and nappies which were all being checked before they went into the bag, I was escorted into the kitchen to get baby food jars, I put a half eaten porridge box and a full one into a plastic bag. The lady took the half eaten box out when she searched what we were allowed to take. I went to pick my baby and brought her downstairs. We had been booked into a hotel.

***

The police officer watched my older son get undressed telling him that he wasn’t looking. My son continued to look at him and didn’t undress until he nodded and looked away.

My older son began to take his phone and put it in his pocket. He then took his money and a coin fell. The police officer heard it.

“You are not allowed to take your money, put it down; you are not allowed to take anything. Do you have anything else in your pocket?” My son took his phone out. “Do you have anything else?”

My son said “No,” the police officer then patted my sons pocket without any of us being present. My eight year old son was so scared to see them as soon as he woke up and feared he was going to be arrested, the police officer said “hello,” and began questioning him, they told him to get dressed. The police officer told **** to get dressed. He was thinking how to dress if the officers kept looking at him.

“I need privacy to get dressed”.
“Oh, I’m not looking at you; it’s just that I don’t want you to take anything dangerous.” The police officer re-assured him. My son tried to use a cover to cover himself so he could get dressed, the police officer said “Drop it, don’t pick it up, just get dressed right now”. He was so scared that he wore his trousers over his pyjamas.
“Go downstairs now!” My son wondered why he was acting like this. He went down and saw five police officers with my husband.
The same man who asked him his name before asked his name again.
“Oh, what is in your pocket?” the woman said pointing at his coat pocket.
“It’s just junk!” She took his wallet and searched it. The lady took his money; there was £55 and papers.
“That’s a lot of money” She said “Where did it all come from?”
“I saved it over Eid and pocket money”

She took it off him and put it on the table. He tried to take it but she said “You are not allowed to take it; your parents have enough money.”
My husband was searched three times, once before he went to the toilet, second when he came down and thirdly before he left the house. All this time, he had an escort of three police officers even when he was on the toilet at which time he had to leave the bathroom door open.

***

My older son was sat in the living room after he got dressed “What’s your name?” The police officer asked him.
“Usamah” replied my son.
“Usamah Bin Laden?” The police officer mocked.

***

As we left there were at least ten officers in the house and police vans and police cars as we were taken from our home. I was allowed to take £80 of my own money, no phone and my coat had to stay in the house to be searched before they brought it to me later. We were booked into a local hotel, with allowance to eat up to £22.50 per person per night. Anything we needed from our home over the next few days had to go through a police contact who left his details with my husband. We were given a phone the next day to make calls with a £10 top up, it had the police contact on it. The next day we were moved to another hotel in Milnrow which had a bar as a restaurant so we couldn’t eat there. We had to order food from a Halal takeaway which was reimbursed, they constantly reminded us it was tax-payers money and they were accountable for it. My husband overheard the hotel receptionist calling the officer as they were leaving.

“Hey guys, the restaurant next door need you to pay for your drinks”

***

The police volunteered to take my older two children to their Qur’an class saying that this is what they were here for.

***

During our stay away from home, four plain clothed men and a plain clothed woman escorted me, my three sons aged 12, 11 and 8 and my four month daughter to Asda’s for breakfast. This was all “low key” especially when the cashier in Asda’s became startled as to why two men in suits were paying for the meals of a Muslim hijabi and her children. They also ordered their coffees and paid for everything with what I assume was “tax-payers” money.

Whilst dropping my husband off at the hospital, the driver following the sat nav got lost. The other officer led him to a dead end before finally reaching the hospital.

On our way back to the house on the fifth day, the plain-clothed officer driving us told me they kept it “low-key” so we could tell the people whatever we wanted. The “low key” entailed police tape around the front bins and back yard, police presence 24 hours a day for four days and police escorting us everywhere we wanted to go. She told me that we would be handed back to the Metropolitan police who would show my husband around the house and explain what had been taken. Me and my children would sit in the car.

My husband told them that anything they had to say would have to be said in front of me so we were taken inside. They proceeded to take us through the house vaguely explaining what had been taken from each room. In the house all things were folded neatly, the officer explained they did this so they knew where they had searched; they told us that they had even washed the dishes. They refused to give us their names and contact numbers. Through persistent pushing from my husband they gave a Scotland Yard number and a name which the solicitor said is the general number. The uninvited visitors said they would be in touch and left.

***

Old holes which were filled were reopened and not fixed properly. Carpet was lifted and was not put back under the grips. There are traces of where they searched and an eeriness of knowing that your privacy was invaded as we try to function as a normal Muslim family.
They left us with a fear of not knowing who will come knocking and the power these people have in entering your homes and doing what they wish. Being burgled by a stranger is illegal in this country but having the police come into your house, taking laptops and mobile phones is legal. It leaves you numb and produces a wakeup call that nothing really belongs to you as it can be taken from you at anytime. The neighbours and passer bys want to know what happened, a few ladies went passed the house and shouted at the window. Another few were looking through our letterbox. There are more police patrolling the street we live on as well as police cars driving past.

Three weeks later, on Saturday 12th February 2011, two plain clothed officers knocked on the door. My husband went to open the door and they told him they had a list of property they had seized and wanted to talk inside. They said they didn’t want the neighbours to know what is happening, my husband said just say what you want to say. He replied it was private, so he let them in. My children were in the room, they wanted them to leave the room but my husband said “Say it in front of the children.”
“Are you sure you want them to know?”
“Just say it”
“You are suspected of terrorism, you and your associates should stop what you are doing as we will be monitoring you”
“What am I doing? I’m not involved in anything. Give me your name and number.”
“I am just a messenger, I can’t give you my contact name, and I’ll give you my contact number.” He wrote it on the back of the “property seized” list.
“My colleague is just trying to help you.” stated the other officer.
“Just leave, thank you” My husband showed them the door and called his solicitor.
We looked through the list, amongst them was my sons PS2 memory card, £900 cash including my son’s pocket money and eid money they had been saving for a year, my husband had got tickets for paintball and they took them also. The items that were taken were items that can be found in any family household and have nothing to do with terrorism which extracts the question “Who could be the next target? It could even be you…
As I finish writing this article, the adhan for Maghrib is being vocalised in the background. May Allah Subhana Wa Ta’ala keep all Muslims safe and protected from harm and strengthen them for this world and grant them the best in the Akhirah… ameen.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

#495 | Revealed: video footage of Greek army training to supress demonstrations


The video below is a filming of a military exercise of the Greek army in barracks of Northern Greece. The exercise, called “Kallimahos” [lit. 'fighting well'] included training on… suppressing civilian demonstrations. At approximately 2’50” into the video (the embedded video below links directly at that time), “demonstrators” chanting “we want peace” (in English) and holding peace banners are confronted riot police, vehicles and even with dogs (never used in demonstrations in the country so far).

Monday, January 24, 2011

From The Guardian Undercover police officers routinely adopted a tactic of "promiscuity" with the blessing of senior commanders, according to a former agent who worked in a secretive unit of the Metropolitan police for four years.
The former undercover policeman claims that sexual relationships with activists were sanctioned for both men and women officers infiltrating anarchist, leftwing and environmental groups.
Sex was a tool to help officers blend in, the officer claimed, and was widely used as a technique to glean intelligence. His comments contradict claims last week from the Association of Chief Police Officers that operatives were absolutely forbidden to sleep with activists.
The one stipulation, according to the officer from the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), a secret unit formed to prevent violent disorder on the streets of London, was that falling in love was considered highly unprofessional because it might compromise an investigation. He said undercover officers, particularly those infiltrating environmental and leftwing groups, viewed having sex with a large number of partners "as part of the job".
"Everybody knew it was a very promiscuous lifestyle," said the former officer, who first revealed his life as an undercover agent to the Observer last year. "You cannot not be promiscuous in those groups. Otherwise you'll stand out straightaway."
The claims follow the unmasking of undercover PC Mark Kennedy, who had sexual relationships with several women during the seven years he spent infiltrating a ring of environmental activists. Another two covert officers have been named in the past fortnight who also had sex with the protesters they were sent to spy on, fuelling allegations that senior officers had authorised sleeping around as a legitimate means of gathering intelligence.
However Jon Murphy, Acpo's spokesman on serious and organised crime, said last week that undercover officers were not permitted "under any circumstances" to sleep with protesters.
He added: "It is grossly unprofessional. It is a diversion from what they are there to do."
Mounting anger among women protesters will see female activists converge on Scotland Yard tomorrow to demand that the Met disclose the true extent of undercover policing. The demonstration is also, according to organisers, designed to express "solidarity with all the women who have been exploited by men they thought they could trust".
Climate campaigner Sophie Stephens, 27, who knew Kennedy, said there was fury among women who felt violated by the state: "We know women have been abused by men posing as policemen and it's becoming clear this was state-sanctioned. These women did not know they were forming a relationship with policemen. It's appalling – and now we want the full details of the undercover officers to be made public."
The protest will be followed on Tuesday by the appearance before the Commons home affairs select committee of the acting Met commissioner, Tim Godwin, and Commander Bob Broadhurst, who is responsible for public order in the capital. Both will be asked to explain why Scotland Yard gave false information over the use of covert operatives during the London G20 protests in 2009. The issue of sexual activity by operatives is also likely to be brought up.
The former SDS officer claims a lack of guidelines meant sex was an ideal way to maintain cover. He admitted sleeping with at least two of his female targets as a way of obtaining intelligence.
"When you are on an undercover unit you were not given a set of instructions saying you could or couldn't do the following. They didn't say to you that you couldn't go out and drink because technically you're a police officer, that you shouldn't go out and get involved in violent confrontations, you shouldn't take recreational drugs.
"As regards being with women in very, very, very promiscuous groups such as the eco-wing, environmental movement, leftwing, or the Animal Liberation Front – it's an extremely promiscuous lifestyle and you cannot not be promiscuous in there.
"Among fellow undercover officers, there is not really any kudos in the fact that you are shagging other people while deployed. Basically it's just regarded as part of the job. It'd be highly unlikely that you were not [having sex].
"When you are using the tool of sex to maintain your cover or maybe to glean more intelligence – because they certainly talk a lot more, pillow talk – you would be ready to move on if you felt an attachment growing.
"The best way of stopping any liaison getting too heavy was to shag somebody else. It's amazing how women don't like you going to bed with someone else," said the officer, whose undercover deployment infiltrating anti-racist groups lasted from 1993 to 1997. Two years later the SDS became the National Public Order Intelligence Unit, the secretive organisation that employed Kennedy and whose activities are the subject of three investigations.
The officer added that undercover police were strictly encouraged not to form a bond with women they were sleeping with and said that he knew Jim Boyling, the undercover officer who married an activist he was supposed to be spying upon.
Boyling, a specialist operations detective constable with the Met, was suspended on Friday pending an investigation into his professional conduct.
The former SDS officer, who has now left the Met, said one stipulation by senior commanders was that undercover officers should be married, so that they had something to return to. He said the move was introduced when a spy never returned after five years undercover.

Monday, November 8, 2010

[POSTSCRIPT] Body-scan Alert - Not Suffering Indignities at Airports


If you have to travel but don't wish to be part of the new nude morality of the United States that is trying hard to keep America safe from the ubiquitous Islamofascist terrorist, you still have some liberating choices in personal freedoms left:

1) 'To opt out for a pat down, say “I opt out.”

2) 'Warning: Pat downs are no longer the simple search like those in the past. In some instances, as part of an “enhanced patdown,” the TSA screener may use the front of their hands to touch your genitals.

Should you feel that you or your child were inappropriately touched, call for a law enforcement officer.

If presented with the option to leave the checkpoint for a private screening, consider politely declining with a “No, thank you,” as you will likely be asked to remove your clothing. Pat downs can be performed in public view.'

3) Warning2: Should you sensibly choose to exercise that right, then you have to deal with the possible trauma of being groped and molested: 'TSA agents stand accused today of fondling the genitals of women and little children as part of their "enhanced pat-down" procedures being rolled out at airport security checkpoints.'

4) Warning3: Should you sensibly choose to quote your inalienable rights guaranteed by the Constitution to protect yourself and your loved ones from these vile indignities, you may have to deal with being labeled a "domestic terrorist"!

5) Based on this escalation path of making the price of discontent progressively costlier and costlier, the vast majority will simply choose the body-scan. That appears to be the strategic thinking behind these enhanced pat down procedures and the occasional case of vile molestation which will be widely reported!

Image Photo taken with backscatter X-ray courtesy dontscan.us John_Wild_1
Image Photo taken with backscatter X-ray courtesy dontscan.us John_Wild_1
Image from an AIT device used in airports - two-women-refuse-full-body-airport
Image from an AIT device used in airports - two-women-refuse-full-body-airport
Know Your Rights Brochure What the TSA isn't telling you dontscan.us page1
Know Your Rights Brochure What the TSA isn't telling you dontscan.us page1
Know Your Rights Brochure What the TSA isn't telling you dontscan.us page2
Know Your Rights Brochure What the TSA isn't telling you dontscan.us page2


A Project Humanbeingsfirst Document

Body-scan Alert - Not Suffering Indignities at Airports (Postscripts November 08, 2010)

By Zahir Ebrahim | Project Humanbeingsfirst.org


Image Photo taken with backscatter X-ray dontscan-us-john_wild_1


Dear traveler friends to America,


Please pay URGENT attention to this:

“TSA agents gone wild: fondling little children, planting cocaine in passenger bags and more”

 http://www.naturalnews.com/030302_TSA_naked_body_scanners.html

“Get the facts about Advanced Imaging Technology”

 http://www.dontscan.us/scans.html

Please click on the images below to download the Know Your Rights at Airports Brochure from dontscan.us. If you don't like these images, you should be aware that according to the brochure, you have been generously afforded the right to say NO to body-scan with the supposed “I Opt-out” utterance.

Should you sensibly choose to exercise that right, then you have to deal with the possible trauma described in the first link above which states: 'TSA agents stand accused today of fondling the genitals of women and little children as part of their "enhanced pat-down" procedures being rolled out at airport security checkpoints.'

The brochure imaged below further carries the following warning:

'Pat downs are no longer the simple search like those in the past. In some instances, as part of an “enhanced patdown,” the TSA screener may use the front of their hands to touch your genitals. Should you feel that you or your child were inappropriately touched, call for a law enforcement officer.

If presented with the option to leave the checkpoint for a private screening, consider politely declining with a “No, thank you,” as you will likely be asked to remove your clothing. Pat downs can be performed in public view.'

Please study this carefully. This is unbelievable!

If you are like me, then my attitude is that before submitting to pat-down and after having uttered the formulaic “I opt-out”, coldly warn that nice-looking TSA agent getting ready to frisk you that he better not touch your and your family members' private parts and if he intends to, that you want to immediately see the manager/supervisor in-charge before subjecting yourself to pat-down physical search.

And, if you are still more like me, you will likely boldly add within earshot of others waiting in line to experience the same traumas, that you will NOT subject yourself to humiliation by either undergoing strip-search which is what the body-scan reduces to, or gross physical pat-down of your anatomy and the violation of your personal rights guaranteed you by the Constitution. And that while you know the TSA is merely doing its job to earn its paycheck just like the 'Good Germans' once did in the Third Reich, you are concerned for your own rights and privacy and you wish to take preventive action now rather than lament later!

I would personally make a calculated, un-emotional, carefully chosen, perhaps pre-rehearsed, loud statement of rights and dignity before I am humiliated, rather than doing it afterwards emotionally, when crying and talking to CAIR/ACLU/clergy and filing meaningless complaints serves little to mitigate the traumas – for indeed, it is only the un-courageous silent acquiescence to tyranny which creates all this erosion of rights and liberties in the first place. I did that once before, entirely un-rehearsed, and this is what I have advised my own family to remember – teaching by example rather than academic punditry – their old man's stance at the front door on those two occasions in April 2003 when the nice boys from the FBI had come calling looking for “terrorists” in our home in California: They dared to Knock on my door! [  http://prisonersofthecave.blogspot.com/2007/04/part-1-they-dared-to-knock-on-my-door.html ]

And I am still here. And so long as I have the choice, I refuse to suffer indignities, either in Pakistan my home country where it is far more common to be feeled up at every damn checkpoint and roadblock, or in the United States where I live. When I won't have the choice, I don't know what I will do – perhaps nothing different form the vast 'untermenschen' now bearing the brunt of “imperial mobilization” from Pakistan to Palestine. Every day I and my loved ones escape that fate, I offer a prayer of thanks!

If you are really like me, then you too will be boldly civic minded before you lose that choice. You too will daringly protect your own inalienable rights and your own dignity – no one else will do it for you.

Before the day comes when everyone is asked at gun-point every few hundred yards, “your papers, your papers please, show me your papers”, and one's refusal then is rewarded with a bullet lodged into one's brain, it is surely a tad easier to stand-up now with the little show of courage that it takes, before the indignities of these government mandated TSA searches.

Remember, TSA is authorized by the Homeland Security, which in turn is authorized by the US Government, to subject its denizens to this – TSA is not doing it on their own. It draws its rights from the Government, which at least in the lofty American Republican theory, draws its rights from the people. It isn't clear to me whether deliberately hiring sexual perverts into TSA and calculatingly seeding the traumas noted in the first link above, is part of the unwritten coercion policy of the Government to get objecting peoples to accept the body-scan! It just seems extraordinary to me that without some tacit support from higher-ups, that anyone in their right mind would do such molestation in such a public place with everyone watching.

This is a commonsense public service message from Zahir Ebrahim, Project Humanbeingsfirst.org

Please circulate it, specially to your young family members and womenfolk who travel. It does not matter that they might be travelling in the company of their adult male family members – perverts and absurdities do not discriminate between sexes and ages, nor does tyranny.

Just imagine the entire body-scan scam failing before it gets off the ground due to every civic-minded law-abiding courageous American declining all indignities in the name of enhanced security – their own, from big brother!

The UK and EU Airports shall not escape such draconian procedures either unless good peoples silently complying with state-tyrannies in Europe also stop doing so in significantly large numbers.

Despite the real fear of being labeled as suffering from an “oppositional defiant disorder” as per the newly revised DSM IV psychiatric manual, and the concomitant threat of being legally confined to 'state-hospitality' centers for rehabilitation, or worse, being labeled “domestic terrorist” as per big-brother's newly enacted police-state laws to maintain domestic tranquility in the face of rising public discontent, the price to be paid now to challenge the grotesquely Orwellian Western society while it is still in its infancy, is minuscule compared to what our progeny will face! A new generation born into a mature system of big brother in the West won't know the difference – unless their parents' generation takes a cross-Atlantic stand now while the Orwellian world is still only being birth-panged into existence under the pretext of fighting the War on Terror: What is War on Terror? [  http://humanbeingsfirst.wordpress.com/hot/ ]

While it may be only a small step to defeat body-scan intrusion into what used to be universally held sacred as intimate physical privacy both legally and morally only as recently as in yesteryear, its import in firing up the imagination of the public if the draconian measure is successfully thwarted, can be immense. The Western states being ubiquitously governed by brilliantly psychopathic minds, also realizing that such small defeats can quickly snowball into larger defeats with the possibility of widespread domestic revolts, will surely try to make an example of those resisting the body-scan! In the United States it is already frowned upon in some places to quote its Constitution chapter and verse: Postscript ‘War on Terror’ is not about ‘Islamofascism’ – Please get with the real agenda you people! [  http://bloghumanbeingsfirst.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/postscript-war-on-terror-is-not-about-islamofascism-please-get-with-the-real-agenda-you-people/ ]

Therefore, also be forewarned that if you sensibly choose to act in your and your progeny's own best interests, it may not be a free ride.


Summary

If you have to travel but don't wish to be part of the new nude morality of the United States that is trying hard to keep America safe from the ubiquitous Islamofascist terrorist, you still have some liberating choices in personal freedoms left:

1) 'To opt out for a pat down, say “I opt out.”

2) 'Warning: Pat downs are no longer the simple search like those in the past. In some instances, as part of an “enhanced patdown,” the TSA screener may use the front of their hands to touch your genitals.

Should you feel that you or your child were inappropriately touched, call for a law enforcement officer.

If presented with the option to leave the checkpoint for a private screening, consider politely declining with a “No, thank you,” as you will likely be asked to remove your clothing. Pat downs can be performed in public view.'

3) Warning2: Should you sensibly choose to exercise that right, then you have to deal with the possible trauma of being groped and molested: 'TSA agents stand accused today of fondling the genitals of women and little children as part of their "enhanced pat-down" procedures being rolled out at airport security checkpoints.'

4) Warning3: Should you sensibly choose to quote your inalienable rights guaranteed by the Constitution to protect yourself and your loved ones from these vile indignities, you may have to deal with being labeled a "domestic terrorist"!

5) Based on this escalation path of making the price of discontent progressively costlier and costlier, the vast majority will simply choose the body-scan. That appears to be the strategic thinking behind these enhanced pat down procedures and the occasional case of vile molestation which will be widely reported!


Postscript: Jeffrey Goldberg confirms the aforementioned summary conclusions in the Atlantic, October 29, 2010, 'For the First Time, the TSA Meets Resistance'
Image from an AIT device used in airports - two-women-refuse-full-body-airport-scan1 - Marvelous Girls blog

“I asked him if the new guidelines included a cavity search. "No way. You think Congress would allow that?"

I answered, "If you're a terrorist, you're going to hide your weapons in your anus or your vagina." He blushed when I said "vagina."

"Yes, but starting tomorrow, we're going to start searching your crotchal area" -- this is the word he used, "crotchal" -- and you're not going to like it."

"What am I not going to like?" I asked.

"We have to search up your thighs and between your legs until we meet resistance," he explained.

"Resistance?" I asked.

"Your testicles," he explained.

'That's funny," I said, "because 'The Resistance' is the actual name I've given to my testicles."

He answered, "Like 'The Situation,' that guy from 'Jersey Shore?'"

Yes, exactly, I said. (I used to call my testicles "The Insurgency," but those assholes in Iraq ruined the term.)

I pointed out to the security officer that 50 percent of the American population has no balls (90 percent in Washington, D.C., where I live), so what is going to happen when the pat-down officer meets no resistance in the crotchal area of women? "If there's no resistance, then there's nothing there."

"But what about people who hide weapons in their cavities? I asked. I actually said "vagina" again, just to see him blush. "We're just not going there," he reiterated.

I asked him if he was looking forward to conducting the full-on pat-downs. "Nobody's going to do it," he said, "once they find out that we're going to do."

In other words, people, when faced with a choice, will inevitably choose the Dick-Measuring Device over molestation? "That's what we're hoping for. We're trying to get everyone into the machine." He called over a colleague. "Tell him what you call the back-scatter," he said. "The Dick-Measuring Device," I said. "That's the truth," the other officer responded.

The pat-down at BWI was fairly vigorous, by the usual tame standards of the TSA, but it was nothing like the one I received the next day at T.F. Green in Providence. Apparently, I was the very first passenger to ask to opt-out of back-scatter imaging. Several TSA officers heard me choose the pat-down, and they reacted in a way meant to make the ordinary passenger feel very badly about his decision. One officer said to a colleague who was obviously going to be assigned to me, "Get new gloves, man, you're going to need them where you're going."” ---  http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/10/for-the-first-time-the-tsa-meets-resistance/65390/


Postscript-2: Statement of Enhanced Pat-downs from TSA's own BLOG

'You may have read about TSA implementing enhanced pat downs as part of our layered approach to security. Using the latest intelligence, TSA constantly updates our screening procedures to stay ahead of those who wish to do us harm and keep the skies safe for the flying public. When developing our security procedures, we use input from across the agency, including our Offices of Intelligence, Privacy, and Civil Rights and Liberties.

To add some perspective, TSA has used pat downs since our agency started federalizing checkpoints in 2002. They’re an effective way of helping us keep dangerous items such as weapons or improvised explosive devices off of planes.

So, what might cause you to receive a pat-down? Passengers may receive a pat-down in a number of circumstances: to resolve an alarm at a walk-through metal detector; if an anomaly is detected during screening with advanced imaging technology; or during random screening. Passengers who opt out of enhanced screening such as advanced imaging technology will receive an equivalent level of screening to include a thorough pat-down. Remember, you can always request to be screened in a private area.

You shouldn’t expect to see the same security procedures at every airport. Our security measures are designed to be unpredictable and are constantly assessed and updated to address evolving threats.' ---  http://blog.tsa.gov/2010/08/enhanced-pat-downs.html


Thank you

Zahir Ebrahim | Project Humanbeingsfirst.org



URL:  http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2010/11/body-scan-alert-not-suffering-indignity.html

PDF:  http://humanbeingsfirst.wordpress.com/files/2010/11/body-scan-alert-not-suffering-indignity-at-american-airports-postscript.pdf



Image Know Your Rights Brochure What the TSA isn't telling you dontscan.us page1

Image Know Your Rights Brochure What the TSA isn't telling you dontscan.us page2



Body-scan Alert - Not Suffering Indignities at Airports By Zahir Ebrahim | Project Humanbeingsfirst.org

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Seattle police officer apologises for racism and kick to innocent victim


10 May, 2010 | 12:08

A 15-year police detective of the Seattle police department was left in tears yesterday after the video of the officer kicking and using prejudice language on a man who they falsely detained.

Video of Police officer kicking innocent man in the face while on the floor.



The incident which occurred on 17 April, came to light thanks to an amateur camera man who filmed, officer Shandy Cobane, kicking an innocent man, while he was on the floor face down.

Officer Cobane who was seen on the video kicking and shouting racist threats as an innocent man.
Officer Shandy Cobane who was seen on the video kicking and shouting racist threats as an innocent man.
The whole incident started after the police was called to an armed robbery in which the suspects were described as Hispanic.
While the police detained a number of suspects, one man who was not handcuffed but was lying on the concrete floor was especially picked on by the officers.
Cobane was heard shouting, “I’m going to beat the f……. Mexican piss out of you homey. You feel me?”
Moments later the victim who appeared to be scratching his face while on the floor was kicked in the face by Cobane and then another female officer stamped on the man’s leg.
The whole incident occurred while at least four other police officers were in the scene watching and not warning their colleagues.
After the victim of the assault was identified as doing nothing wrong the police attended to his injuries as the man had trouble walking straight after the blow he had received to his head and the stamping on his leg.
Two police officers were then seen attending to the injured man saying “I want you to relax your weight on the car, okay?” while another officer said “Put your hands back so you don’t fall down.”
The cameraman who realized the suspect was innocent decided to get closer to the victim and asked questions.
Cameraman – “So they kicked you in the head, man?”
Victim – “Yeah, they did.”
Cameraman – “Tell me why they kicked you in the head?”
Victim – “I don’t know … They just knocked me down and kicked me in the head.”
According to The Seattle Times, Cobane who was in tears on Sunday in front of many reporters said “I know my words cut deep and were very hurtful. I am truly, truly sorry, as a 15-year veteran of the Seattle Police Department, at no time did I envision that I would do anything to bring such notoriety to my department. Sadly, I did,”
The Seattle Police department has since said that an internal investigation is taken place.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

High-tech security cameras coming to SVL: 24-7 video monitoring to include license plate and vehicle recognition



Aug 24,– SPRING VALLEY LAKE — Community leaders want to send a message: If you plan to commit a crime in Spring Valley Lake, don’t forget to smile for the camera.
S p r i n g Va l l ey L a ke A s s o c i at i o n’s b o a rd o f directors recently approved a $175,000 contract to install a high-tech wireless video surveillance system across the community, including in its equestrian estates.

The cameras will capture “evidence — quality” footage both day and night, SVLA General Manager Jon Sabo said. Both the San Bernardino County Sheriffs Department and the California Highway Patrol can access the feeds and use the tapes to help prosecute criminals.

And while the cameras won’t be capable of capturing sound, Sabo said license plate and vehicle recognition abilities will be built into the system.

Sabo said they expect to have cameras at six locations by Christmas, with the potential for 22 sites at build-out.
“Some of the cameras will be visible and some will not,” he said, with footage streaming into SVLA’s public safety dispatch center.

The board last year approved $175,000 for a first phase of the project, Sabo said, to do engineering work and a technical analysis. The community now has “several” limited systems in operation at public spaces across the community.

Earlier this month, during a special meeting, the board approved another $175,000 for the project this fiscal year. Sabo said much of that second-phase funding will go toward building out the wireless network and to install receiving equipment.

It’s possible that they could go to a third phase next year, according to Sabo, but that hasn’t yet been determined.

“We just want to make sure that we keep people as safe as possible,” said Ernie Martell, vice president of SVLA’s board of directors. With the economy being what it is, Martell said the board fears incidents of theft and vandalism could otherwise get worse.

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Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Death penalty initiative is withdrawn


The death penalty is in force in the United States
Image Caption: The death penalty is in force in the United States (Keystone)

The committee behind a people’s initiative to restore capital punishment for murders involving sexual violence have decided to withdraw it.

On their website, the group said that the initiative, which caused intense debate in Switzerland over the past week, had been the only way for them to make the population aware of problems in the justice system.

The surprising turn in the story comes a day after the Federal Chancellery said the initiative met formal legal requirements. Its supporters would have had until February 24, 2012 to collect the 100,000 signatures needed to force a nationwide vote on the issue.

Switzerland outlawed the civil death penalty in the 1940s, and observers were sceptical whether the initiative would gain enough support. It also raised legal questions.

Parliament would have decided whether the content of the initiative was valid, had enough signatures been collected.

The text had called for the Swiss Constitution to be modified to reintroduce the death penalty for people who committed murder “in combination with an act of a sexual nature against a child, sexual violence or rape”. It had also, according to the Le Temps newspaper, called for the penalty to be applied retrospectively.

The seven-member committee was made up of private individuals related to a murder victim. Its spokesman Marcel Graf confirmed the withdrawal to the Swiss News Agency on Wednesday.

Grievances

In a statement on its website, the committee said that the initiative – which it had on Tuesday called “fair and logical” - had been a way of airing grievances.

“Our main aim was to make people aware of serious shortcomings,” it said. This particularly concerned what the group alleged was a bias towards perpetrators in the Swiss justice system.

“Politicians must finally move the legal system on the side of the victims,” it said.

Media reports have pointed to a particular case, the murder of a young woman of Asian origin in Switzerland in 2009, as being at the origin of the launch of the initiative, although this has not been confirmed by the committee. Graf, from near Zurich, had stressed that the group was non-political.

The news on Tuesday that the Chancellery had allowed the initiative – on the grounds that it fulfilled formalities – caused a storm of debate within the media, as well as in legal circles and among politicians.

The move was reported as far away as the United States and the United Arab Emirates.

Political parties in Switzerland had roundly rejected the initiative. Only the rightwing Swiss People’s Party had said it was up to the people to decide. The parliamentary group for human rights was also “categorically” against the idea.

Experts also said it was open to question whether the death penalty would be constitutionally legal and in line with Switzerland's international obligations.

Even if it were accepted, they argued, it could have put Switzerland on another collision course on human rights issues – after the anti-minaret building initiative that was approved by the electorate last year.

Changing the system?

One aspect that came out during the controversy was legal and political dissatisfaction with the way that initiatives are examined.

Presently, the Chancellery only pronounces on the formalities of the document and parliament has the final say on whether the content is valid – after the signatures have been collected.

Some experts say it would be better for the content to be checked before the text goes out for signatures. Many legal specialists would like to see a court rule on the content. This debate has been ongoing for some time.

There is also some political support for change. Dick Marty, a Ticino politician and human rights specialist, was quoted in Le Temps as saying that initiatives merited “a preliminary, much deeper examination before signatures are collected”.

The centre-right Radical politician Isabelle Moret had already launched a parliamentary initiative, with 23 co-signatories, calling for a court decision before signatures are gathered.

This is due to be examined next month by the Political Institutions Committee of the House of Representatives, according to Le Temps.

In terms of what happens next with the initiative, a Chancellery spokesman said on Wednesday that the text’s backers did not have to do anything and should let the initiative “quietly go to sleep”.

This would mean that the 18-month deadline would run its course and it would be noted as not having gathered enough signatures in that time.

swissinfo.ch and agencies

Friday, August 20, 2010

Inside an A.L.F. Investigation: FBI Documents Expose Evidence in A.L.F. Case



Sunday, March 28 2010 @ 09:15 PM UTC
Contributed by: AnimalLiberation
Views: 364[Image]In March 2009, William “BJ” Viehl and Alex Hall were charged with Animal Enterprise Terrorism for the release of 650 mink from the McMullin Fur Farm in South Jordan, UT; and an attempted raid at Blackridge Farms in Hyrum UT. While their case is well-known, little has been written of the evidence which led to their indictment.
An inside look at the FBI evidence which led to indictments for a Utah Animal Liberation Front mink releaseFrom Voice of the Voiceless
In March 2009, William “BJ” Viehl and Alex Hall were charged with Animal Enterprise Terrorism for the release of 650 mink from the McMullin Fur Farm in South Jordan, UT; and an attempted raid at Blackridge Farms in Hyrum UT. While their case is well-known, little has been written of the evidence which led to their indictment.
[Image]
After Viehl’s sentencing, I was allowed to view FBI paperwork in their case, outlining the evidence against them. It offers crucial lessons on FBI investigations, and the errors activists make which can lead to their arrest.
In the paperwork, I learned the investigation into the Utah mink releases involved informants, cell phone records, search warrants, and more.
This article uses the case against Alex Hall and William Viehl as a case study in the anatomy of an Animal Liberation Front indictment: the evidence, and the lessons learned.
The Evidence
#1: Car key left at the scene
The most damning evidence was a car key found in the grass at the McMullin Fur Farm the morning after the raid. The key was later matched to Viehl’s vehicle. Viehl would later say the key had fallen from a shallow pocket while he was releasing mink.
#2: Cell phone records
The second most damning evidence against Viehl – and nearly the only evidence against Hall – is cell phone records placing them (or more accurately, their phones) near the mink farm in South Jordan around the time of the raid. Cell phone company records allegedly recorded the signals unique to each phone “pinging” off nearby towers before, during, and after the time of the mink release.
It should be well known at this point that every cell phone regularly broadcasts a signal which pinpoints the location of a phone. This leaves a nearly permanent record of the times and places of one’s travels (or at least the location of one’s phone). Cell phones also function as roving microphones, which can be turned on remotely and can pick up all conversation within earshot of a phone’s mouthpiece – even when the phone is turned off.
#3: Informants
An informant named “Sarah”, believed to be planted in the Salt Lake City animal rights movement by the FBI, was revealed in the paperwork. She attended animal rights meetings, protests, and the Confronting Cruelty conference in the spring of 2008. Paperwork refers to her only as “CHS (Confidential Human Source)”. However, those familiar with her were able to determine her identity from details in the paperwork. Salt Lake City activists remember her as asking a lot of inappropriate questions, and taking extensive notes at meetings. FBI paperwork shows she provided information on numerous individuals in the local animal rights movement.
I can personally verify the existence of “Sarah”: she befriended me at an animal rights conference under the pretext of seeking help for starting a dog rescue in Guatemala. “Sarah” would later take me on an all-expenses paid weekend trip to Moab, Utah in the fall of 2008.
View FBI reports of information reported by "Sarah":
"Confidential Human Source" Document #1
"Confidential Human Source" Document #2
"Confidential Human Source" Document #3
At least two other individuals consented to interviews with the FBI. The information obtained did not appear to aid the FBI’s case, but that in no way mitigates the seriousness of forfeiting your constitutional rights by talking to law enforcement.
#4: Being ID’d near mink farms
The pair had been stopped by police near Utah two mink farms in the weeks following the McMullin release.
Late one night in October 2008, a mink farmer who had stayed up all night to watch her farm (after two mink releases had occurred in the previous 6 weeks) in Hyrum, UT, followed a car she believed was suspicious. She claims the car pulled over after a short while, and approached her asking why she was following them. The farmer called police. Viehl and Hall were allegedly ID’d as the occupants.
Two weeks before 7,000 mink were released from the Lodder farm in Kaysville, Hall and Viehl were allegedly stopped by police near the farm. The officer alleged there had been burglaries in the area, and believed the two were casing homes. A subsequent search of the vehicle allegedly turned up ski masks and wire cutters.
#5: Warrantless bank record search
Without a warrant, Viehl’s bank turned over bank records showing (again, allegedly) Viehl hired a locksmith to open his vehicle in the days after the McMullin raid. Because a car key fitting Viehl’s vehicle had been found at the scene, this was used by the prosecutor to further indicate guilt.
#6: Vehicle search
The FBI obtained a search warrant to search a vehicle associated with Viehl. The key left at the mink farm was allegedly found to match the vehicle.
Conclusion
In the end, the car key found at the scene and cell phone record placing the phones near the farm the night of the raid provided the most incriminating evidence. The cell phone records are practically the only evidence being used in the (still pending) case against Alex Hall.
While evidence left at a scene and cell phone records cast one under a serious cloud of suspicion, they alone do not conclusively place the defendant at the scene. Evidence such as keys can be planted by the actual culprits to incriminate others, and cell phones being near a crime scene do not prove their owners were. However the supplemental, circumstantial evidence of the pair being ID’d near mink farms may have proven to be the deal-breaker in this case – or at least it provided much less wiggle-room in mounting a defense.
The indictment against William Viehl and Alex Hall is a combination of unfortunate errors and dumb luck on the part of fur farmers and the FBI. The evidence provides insight into the mechanics of FBI investigations, and how activists are apprehended for saving animals.
May future liberators learn from this case, and stay free to fight another night.
-Peter Young
William Viehl plead guilty to the McMullin Fur Farm liberation, and in February was sentenced to two years. At the time of this writing, he is in transit to California, where he will serve his time at a low security prison in Terminal Island. Check back soon for a mailing address.
Alex Hall has plead “not guilty” and is still fighting the charges, with the flimsy cell phone records evidence being the only substantial evidence against him.
Alex Hall Inmate #2009-06304 Davis County Jail 800 West State St. Farmington, UT 84025

Tensions Rise in Greece as Austerity Measures Backfire

08/18/2010
 

Entering a Death Spiral?


The austerity measures that were supposed to fix Greece's problems are dragging down the country's economy. Stores are closing, tax revenues are falling and unemployment has hit an unbelievable 70 percent in some places. Frustrated workers are threatening to strike back.
The feast of the Assumption of Mary on Aug. 15 is the high point of summer in the Greek Orthodox world. Here in one of the country's many churches, believers pray to the Virgin for mercy, with many of them falling to their knees.

The newspaper Ta Nea has recommended that the Greek government adopt the very same approach -- the country's leaders have to hope that Mary comes up with a miracle to save Greece from a serious crisis, the paper writes. Without divine intervention, the newspaper suggested, it will be a difficult autumn for the Mediterranean state.This dire prognosis comes even despite Athens' massive efforts to sort out the country's finances. The government's draconian austerity measures have managed to reduce the country's budget deficit by an almost unbelievable 39.7 percent, after previous governments had squandered tax money and falsified statistics for years. The measures have reduced government spending by a total of 10 percent, 4.5 percent more than the EU and International Monetary Fund (IMF) had required.
The problem is that the austerity measures have in the meantime affected every aspect of the country's economy. Purchasing power is dropping, consumption is taking a nosedive and the number of bankruptcies and unemployed are on the rise. The country's gross domestic product shrank by 1.5 percent in the second quarter of this year. Tax revenue, desperately needed in order to consolidate the national finances, has dropped off. A mixture of fear, hopelessness and anger is brewing in Greek society.
Unemployment Rates of up to 70 Percent
Nikos Meletis is neatly dressed, and his mid-range car is clean and tidy. Meletis used to earn a good living at a shipbuilding company in Perama, a port opposite the island of Salamis. "At the moment, I'm living off my savings," the 54-year-old welder says, standing in front of a silent harbor full of moored ships.
Meletis is a day laborer who used to work up to 300 days a year; this year he has only managed to scrape together 25 days' work so far. That gives him 25 health insurance stamps, when he needs 100 in order to insure himself and his family -- including his wife, who has cancer. "How am I supposed to pay for the hospital?" Meletis asks. Unemployment benefits of at most €460 ($590) per month are available for a maximum of one year -- and only if he can produce at least 150 stamps from the past 15 months.
There's hardly a worker in the shipbuilding district of Perama who could still manage that. Unemployment in the city hovers between 60 and 70 percent, according to a study conducted by the University of Piraeus. While 77 percent of Greek shipping companies indicate they are satisfied with the quality of work done in Perama, nearly 50 percent still send their ships to be repaired in Turkey, Korea or China. Costs are too high in Greece, they say. The country, they argue, has too much bureaucracy and too many strikes, with labor disputes often delaying delivery times.
Perama is certainly an unusually extreme case. But the shipyards' decline provides a telling example of the Greek economy's increasing inability to compete. Barely any of the country's industries can keep up with international competition in terms of productivity, and experts expect the country's gross domestic product to fall by 4 percent over the course of the entire year. Germany, by way of comparison, is hoping for growth of up to 3 percent.
Sales Figures Dropping Everywhere
Prime Minister George Papandreou's austerity package has seriously shaken the Greek economy. The package included reducing civil servants' salaries by up to 20 percent and slashing retirement benefits, while raising numerous taxes. The result is that Greeks have less and less money to spend and sales figures everywhere are dropping, spelling catastrophe for a country where 70 percent of economic output is based on private consumption.
A short jaunt through Athens' shopping streets reveals the scale of the decline. Fully a quarter of the store windows on Stadiou Street bear red signs reading "Enoikiazetai" -- for rent. The National Confederation of Hellenic Commerce (ESEE) calculates that 17 percent of all shops in Athens have had to file for bankruptcy.
Things aren't any better in the smaller towns. Chalkidona was, until just a few years ago, a hub for trucking traffic in the area around Thessaloniki. Two main streets, lined with fast food restaurants and stores catering to truckers, intersect in the small, dismal town. Maria Lialiambidou's house sits directly on the main trucking route. Rent from a pastry shop on the ground floor of the building used to provide her with €350 per month, an amount that helped considerably in supplementing her widow's pension of €320.
These days, though, Kostas, the man who ran the pastry shop, who people used to call a "penny-pincher," can no longer afford the rent. Here too, a huge "Enoikiazetai" banner stretches across the shopfront. No one wants to rent the store. Neither are there any takers for an empty butcher's shop a few meters further on.
A sign on the other side of the street advertises "Sakis' Restaurant." The owner, Sakis, is still hanging on, with customers filling one or two of the restaurant's tables now and then. "There's really no work for me here anymore," says one Albanian employee, who goes by the name Eleni in Greece. "Many others have already gone back to Albania, where it's not any worse than here. We'll see when I have to go too."
No Way Out
The entire country is in the grip of a depression. Everything seems to be going downhill. The spiral is continuing unabated, and there is no clear way out. The worse part, however, is the fact that hardly anyone still hopes that things will improve one day.
The country's unemployment rate makes this trend particularly clear. In 2009, it was 9.5 percent. This year it may rise to 12.1 percent and economists expect it to reach 14.3 percent in 2011. Those, though, are only the official numbers, which were provided by Angel Gurría, secretary general of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The Greek trade union association GSEE considers those numbers far too optimistic. It considers 20 percent to be a more likely figure for 2011. This would put the unemployment rate as high as it was in 1960, when hundreds of thousands of Greeks were forced to emigrate. Meanwhile, purchasing power has fallen to its 1984 level, according to the GSEE.
'Things Are Starting to Simmer'
Menelaos Givalos, a professor of political science at Athens University, has appeared on television, warning viewers that the worst times are still to come. He predicts a large wave of layoffs starting in September, with "extreme social consequences."
"Everything is getting more expensive, I'm hardly earning any money, and then I'm supposed to pay more taxes to help save the country? How is that supposed to work?" asks Nikos Meletis, the shipbuilder. His friends, gathered in a small cafeteria on the pier in Perama, are gradually growing more vocal. They are all unemployed, desperate and angry at the politicians who got them into this mess. There is no sympathy here for any of the political parties and no longer any for the unions either.

"They only organize strikes to serve their own interests!" shouts one man, whose name is Panayiotis Peretridis. "The only thing that interests me anymore is my daily wage. A loaf of bread is my political party. I want to help my country -- give me work and I'll pay taxes! But our honor as first-class skilled workers, as heads of families, as Greeks, is being dragged through the dirt!""If you take away my family's bread, I'll take you down -- the government needs to know that," Meletis says. "And don't call us anarchists if that happens! We're heads of our families and we're desperate."
He predicts the situation will only become more heated. "Things are starting to simmer here," he says. "And at some point they're going to explode."

Thursday, August 19, 2010

BP Hires Prison Labor to Clean Up Spill While Coastal Residents Struggle



In the first few days after BP's Deepwater Horizon wellhead exploded, spewing crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, cleanup workers could be seen on Louisiana beaches wearing scarlet pants and white t-shirts with the words "Inmate Labor" printed in large red block letters. Coastal residents, many of whom had just seen their livelihoods disappear, expressed outrage at community meetings; why should BP be using cheap or free prison labor when so many people were desperate for work? The outfits disappeared overnight.

About the Author

Abe Louise Young
Abe Louise Young is a poet and activist native to New Orleans, LA. She lives in Austin, TX. Visit www....
Work crews in Grand Isle, Louisiana, still stand out. In a region where nine out of ten residents are white, the cleanup workers are almost exclusively African-American men. The racialized nature of the cleanup is so conspicuous that Ben Jealous, the president of the NAACP, sent a public letter to BP CEO Tony Hayward on July 9, demanding to know why black people were over-represented in "the most physically difficult, lowest paying jobs, with the most significant exposure to toxins."
Hiring prison labor is more than a way for BP to save money while cleaning up the biggest oil spill in history. By tapping into the inmate workforce, the company and its subcontractors get workers who are not only cheap but easily silenced—and they get lucrative tax write-offs in the process.
Known to some as "the inmate state," Louisiana has the highest rate of incarceration of any other state in the country. Seventy percent of its 39,000 inmates are African-American men. The Louisiana Department of Corrections (DOC) only has beds for half that many prisoners, so 20,000 inmates live in parish jails, privately run contract facilities and for-profit work release centers. Prisons and parish jails provide free daily labor to the state and private companies like BP, while also operating their own factories and farms, where inmates earn between zero and forty cents an hour. Obedient inmates, or "trustees," become eligible for work release in the last three years of their sentences. This means they can be a part of a market-rate, daily labor force that works for private companies outside the prison gates. The advantage for trustees is that they get to keep a portion of their earnings, redeemable upon release. The advantage for private companies is that trustees are covered under Work Opportunity Tax Credit, a holdover from Bush's Welfare to Work legislation that rewards private-sector employers for hiring risky "target groups." Businesses earn a tax credit of $2,400 for every work release inmate they hire. On top of that, they can earn back up to 40 percent of the wages they pay annually to "target group workers."
If BP's use of prison labor remains an open secret on the Gulf Coast, no one in an official capacity is saying so. At the Grand Isle base camp in early June, I called BP's Public Information line, and visited representatives for the Coast Guard Public Relations team, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Louisiana Fisheries and Wildlife Department. They were all stumped. Were inmates doing shore protection or oil cleanup work? They had no idea. In fact, they said, they'd like to know—would I call them if I found out?
I got an answer one evening earlier this month, when I drove up the gravel driveway of the Lafourche Parish Work Release Center jail, just off Highway 90, halfway between New Orleans and Houma. Men were returning from a long day of shoveling oil-soaked sand into black trash bags in the sweltering heat. Wearing BP shirts, jeans and rubber boots (nothing identifying them as inmates), they arrived back at the jail in unmarked white vans, looking dog tired.
Beach cleanup is a Sisyphean task. Shorelines cleaned during the day become newly soaked with oil and dispersant overnight, so crews shovel up the same beaches again and again. Workers wear protective chin-to-boot coveralls (made out of high-density polyethylene and manufactured by Dupont), taped to steel-toed boots covered in yellow plastic. They work twenty minutes on, forty minutes off, as per Occupational Safety and Health Administration safety rules. The limited physical schedule allows workers to recover from the blazing sun and the oppressive heat that builds up inside their impermeable suits.
During their breaks, workers unzip the coveralls for ventilation, drink ice water from gallon thermoses and sit under white fabric tents. They start at 6 AM, take a half-hour lunch and end the day at 6PM, adding up three to four hours of hard physical labor in twenty-minute increments. They are forbidden to speak to the public or the media by BP's now-notorious gag rule. At the end of the day, coveralls are stripped off and thrown in dumpsters, alongside oil-soaked booms and trash bags full of contaminated sand. The dumpsters are emptied into local HazMat landfills, free employees go home and the inmates are returned to work release centers.
Work release inmates are required to work for up to twelve hours a day, six days a week, sometimes averaging seventy-two hours per week. These are long hours for performing what may arguably be the most toxic job in America. Although the dangers of mixed oil and dispersant exposure are largely unknown, the chemicals in crude oil can damage every system in the body, as well as cell structures and DNA.
Inmates can't pick and choose their work assignments and they face considerable repercussions for rejecting any job, including loss of earned "good time." The warden of the Terrebonne Parish Work Release Center in Houma explains: "If they say no to a job, they get that time that was taken off their sentence put right back on, and get sent right back to the lockup they came out of." This means that work release inmates who would rather protect their health than participate in the non-stop toxic cleanup run the risk of staying in prison longer.
Prisoners are already subject to well-documented health care deprivations while incarcerated, and are unlikely to have health insurance after release. Work release positions are covered by Worker's Compensation insurance, but pursuing claims long after exposure could be a Kafkaesque task. Besides, there is currently no system for tracking the medical impact of oil and dispersant exposure in cleanup workers or affected communities.
"They're not getting paid, it's part of their sentence"
To learn how many of the 20,000 prisoners housed outside of state prisons are involved in spill-related labor, I called the DOC Public Relations officer, Pam LaBorde, who ultimately discouraged me from seeking such information. ("Frankly, I do not know where your story is going, but it does not sound positive," she said on our third phone call.)
Going to prison officials directly didn't help. The warden of a South Louisiana jail refused to discuss the matter, exclaiming, "You want me to lose my job?" A different warden, of a privately-owned center admitted, on condition of anonymity, that inmates from his facility had been employed in oil cleanup, but declined to answer further questions. Jefferson Parish President Steve Theriot and Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser, and Grand Isle Police Chief Euris DuBois declined interview requests.
Transparency problems are longstanding with the Louisiana DOC. There is also scant oversight of private prison facilities. Following Hurricane Katrina, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) issued a 140-page report that documented abuses and botched prison evacuations, as well as the numerous times its requests for official information were rejected. "It appears that you are standing in the shoes of prisoners, and therefore DOC is exempted from providing any information which it might otherwise have to under public records law," DOC lawyers told the ACLU National Prisons Project.
Some officials have been more forthcoming. A lieutenant in the Plaquemines Parish Sheriff's Office told me that three crews of inmates were sandbagging in Buras, Louisiana in case oil hit there. "They're not getting paid, it's part of their sentence," she said. "They'll work as long as they're needed. It's a hard job because of the heat, but they're not refusing to work." In early May, Governor Bobby Jindal's office sent out a press release heralding the training of eighty inmates from Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in "cleaning of oil-impacted wildlife recovered from coastal areas." DOC Spokesperson Pam LaBorde subsequently denied that any inmates participated in wildlife cleaning efforts.
Offering an exception to this policy of secrecy is Lafourche Parish Work Release Center, the only one in the state that is accredited by the American Correctional Association. It is audited regularly and abides by national standards of safety and accountability, which is perhaps why I was able to simply walk in on a Thursday afternoon and chat with the warden.
Captain Milfred Zeringue is a retired Louisiana state police officer with a jaunty smile, powerful torso, and silver hair. His small, gray office is adorned with photos of many generations of his Louisiana family and a Norman Rockwell print picturing a policeman and a small runaway boy sharing a meaningful look at a soda fountain counter. A brass plaque confers the "Blood and Guts Award" upon Zeringue. Of 184 men living under the Captain's charge, 18 are currently assigned to oil spill work. The numbers change daily and are charted on white boards that stretch down the hallway.
Captain Zeringue says that inmates are glad for any opportunity they can get, and see work release jobs as a step up, a headstart on re-entry. "Our work release inmates are shipped to centers around the state according to employer demand," he explains, describing the different types of skilled and unskilled labor. "I have carpenters, guys riding on the back of the trash trucks, guys working offshore on the oil rigs, doing welding, cooking. Employers like them because they are guaranteed a worker who's on time, drug-free, and sober."
"And," he adds, "because they do get a tax break."
Inside the center, men sit around long plastic tables watching TV, or nap on thin mattresses under grey wool covers. The windowless dormitories hold twenty to thirty men each in blue metal bunk beds. Hard hats hang off of lockers, ceiling fans circle slowly, and each bunk has a white mesh bag of laundry strung from one rung. An air of dejection and fatigue permeates the atmosphere, but the facility looks safe and clean. It's surrounded by chain link fence and staffed by former police officers. One long shelf stacked with donated romance and adventure novels serves as a library. GED classes and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings gather weekly. Individuals are free to walk around the halls, use pay phones, shoot pool, or sit and watch cars pass on the highway from a small outdoor yard. A doctor visits once a week. Inmates greet the captain as we walk and jump to hold doors open for us.
Zeringue exudes a certain affection for the workers in his center. "To me, I'm kind of like Dad here. The inmates come to me and talk about their problems. They get antsy and nervous when they're close to getting out—how am I going to survive, how's my family gonna be with me?"
Like all Gulf Coast residents, inmates have good reason to feel anxious about the future. BP has received almost 80,000 claims for lost revenue in the wake of the spill. Scores of people are out of work, the offshore drilling industry is in limbo and the age-old fishing and shrimping professions are looking death in the face. In the towns and bayous of the gulf, anxiety and post-traumatic stress are taking hold.
In some places, the desperation is palpable. I met Randy Adams, a construction contractor from Grand Isle, on the sidewalk outside of a local bar. "This BP spill is turning me into an alcoholic, because I don't have anything to do," he says. "That, that, thing—that thing they did—" He points to the beach. He's unable to say "spill" or label it in any way. He points to the water again and again. "That thing has taken everything away from me. I have a gun under the front seat of my truck, and every day I decide, do I want to put a bullet in my skull? Live or die, that's my choice here, every day. My life is gone, do you understand?"
Scott Rojas of the Jefferson Parish Economic Development Commission suggests that for all the work to be done, finding local labor to do oil-spill cleanup jobs is trickier than it would seem. "These are really hard, and really low-paid jobs—I know agencies have put effort into finding locals to do the work. But they may not always have an easy time of it. As for reports of inmates being hired, I can't confirm or deny. The people down in Grand Isle swear to it, but you're going to have to talk to them."
The Louisiana Workforce Commission, the state unemployment agency, is advertising hazardous waste removal oil spill cleanup positions as "green jobs." They pay $10 per hour, so these jobs might seem like an attractive opportunity. But Paul Perkins, a retired Angola Prison deputy warden who owns and operates five for-profit inmate work release centers, says that even as the agency is "overflowing with applications for oil spill jobs," the work force is inconsistent. "They might hire 400 people on Monday, and after one day of work, only 200 will come back on Tuesday."
Hiring prison labor might prove more reliable, but it evokes understandable rage among Gulf Coast residents. According to Perkins, the Louisiana Secretary of Corrections, James LeBlanc, met with disaster contractors in early June and asked them to stop using inmate labor until all unemployed residents found work. But as the spill has so dramatically demonstrated, in this new environment, the government seems only able to make polite requests. BP calls the shots, and its private contractors, like ES&H, are the sole clean-up operators. From there, subcontractors, such as Able Body Labor, decide whom to employ.
Working for BP: "This isn't what I would like to be doing."
Anna Keller relocated to Grand Isle in May to work with Gulf Recovery LLC, to help develop community-based responses to the oil disaster. Also a member of Critical Resistance New Orleans, Keller says, it is "common knowledge" that prisoners are doing cleanup. "If you talk to anyone working on the beach they'll tell you, yes, prisoners are working here." She describes a shipping container that sits at the turn-off for the Venice Boat Harbor, advertising "Jails to Go." Such containers work as contract labor housing for work release prisoners, with bunks inside, bars on the windows, and deadbolts on the doors.
According to Keller, the use of inmate labor takes recovery one step further away from those people who are most intimate with the ecology, culture and landscapes of the area. In her view, they should be hired first, and not just for the grunt jobs. "Community members should be hired in the planning stages, and paid for their expertise. The local people are the true experts here."
Up the road at A-Bear's Restaurant in Houma, an elderly man in overalls describes his son's financial dilemmas to the room of locals over dinner. The son is 40, married with children, and was laid off from an oyster shucking factory shortly after the BP leak began. He's now walking door-to-door with a lawnmower, looking for grass to cut. The man holds his head in both arthritic hands. The waitress hands him a paper napkin to blot his eyes. I ask him if his son would work for BP in the cleanup and he grimaces. "Maybe, no, I don't think so," he says. "That would be hard for his pride, you know? For that little money? No."
Beach cleanup workers do make the lowest wages in the recovery effort. Others on the BP payroll have it slightly better, but the jobs they are doing are a daily reminder of what they have lost. Chris Griffin is a French-speaking Cajun shrimper whose father and grandfather also captained shrimp boats. After oil contamination closed the gulf waters, Griffin was hired to captain airboat tours of oil-impacted marshlands for BP. Three times a day he steers a slim four-seat boat with a deafening engine into the waters he's known all his life, while Coast Guard officials give media tours and answer the same grim questions again and again.
"This isn't what I would like to be doing," Griffin says, "but I'm glad I have a job so I can take care of my family. I'm not worrying about the money. Not everybody has that. Me, I'm worrying about the years in the future here. Will we keep cleaning it up? Will they take care of everybody?"