$1 million coin minted
(Thanx Stan!)
Bulldog Breed: Made In England 1969
25 minutes ago
Friday 28 October 2011
Wall Street Firms Spy on Protesters in Tax-Funded Center
According to newly unearthed documents, the planning for this high tech facility on lower Broadway dates back six years. In correspondence from 2005 that rests quietly in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s archives, NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly promised Edward Forst, a Goldman Sachs’ Executive Vice President at the time, that the NYPD “is committed to the development and implementation of a comprehensive security plan for Lower Manhattan…One component of the plan will be a centralized coordination center that will provide space for full-time, on site representation from Goldman Sachs and other stakeholders.”
At the time, Goldman Sachs was in the process of extracting concessions from New York City just short of the Mayor’s first born in exchange for constructing its new headquarters building at 200 West Street, adjacent to the World Financial Center and in the general area of where the new World Trade Center complex would be built. According to the 2005 documents, Goldman’s deal included $1.65 billion in Liberty Bonds, up to $160 million in sales tax abatements for construction materials and tenant furnishings, and the deal-breaker requirement that a security plan that gave it a seat at the NYPD’s Coordination Center would be in place by no later than December 31, 2009.
The surveillance plan became known as the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative and the facility was eventually dubbed the Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center. It operates round-the-clock. Under the imprimatur of the largest police department in the United States, 2,000 private spy cameras owned by Wall Street firms, together with approximately 1,000 more owned by the NYPD, are relaying live video feeds of people on the streets in lower Manhattan to the center. Once at the center, they can be integrated for analysis. At least 700 cameras scour the midtown area and also relay their live feeds into the downtown center where low-wage NYPD, MTA and Port Authority crime stoppers sit alongside high-wage personnel from Wall Street firms that are currently under at least 51 Federal and state corruption probes for mortgage securitization fraud and other matters.
In addition to video analytics which can, for example, track a person based on the color of their hat or jacket, insiders say the NYPD either has or is working on face recognition software which could track individuals based on facial features. The center is also equipped with live feeds from license plate readers...
Continue reading
Pam Martens @'Counterpunch'
Via
Official VFP Statement Regarding Occupy Incident in Oakland
VFP members are involved with dozens of these local "occupy movement" encampments and we support them fully. In Boston, for example, our members, wearing VFP shirts and carrying VFP flags, stood between a line of police and the encampment, urging police to "join the 99%" and not evict the protesters. In that case, several of our members were banged and bruised when the police decided instead to carry out their eviction orders.
In Oakland, last night, a similar thing happened, according to VFP Chapter 69 member and Navy veteran, Joshua Sheperd, who said he went to downtown Oakland "to see if, as a VFP member, I could help still the anger...to be between the police and the protesters...it seemed unconscionable to me that the police use the cover of darkness like that to do what they were doing." Fortunately, he was not injured in the police assault that left Olsen with a fractured skull
As with virtually every example of the occupy movement across the country, those encamped were conducting themselves peacefully beforehand, protesting current economic, social and environmental conditions in the U.S. brought about by decades of corporate control, a criminal financial industry and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that are driving the U.S. global empire into bankruptcy. These "occupy movement" participants are telling us something we need very desperately to hear. They should be listened to, not arrested and brutalized.
Police in the majority of cities are acting with restraint and humanity towards the encampments, but Veterans For Peace will not be deterred by police who choose to use brutal tactics. In fact, as happens with repression everywhere, more people join the cause. We do believe that the rank and file police officers are part of the 99%, the overwhelming majority of Americans who are suffering at the hands of an intolerable system. Layoffs and cutbacks in city after city prove that we must join together to demand justice for all.
We send our very best to Scott Olsen and his family and wish him a speedy recovery to health.
We shall not be moved.
@'Veterans For Peace'
Contact details:
Scott Olsen
Highland Hospital
1411 East 31st Street
Oakland, CA
Occupy Oakland: Jean Quan 'I don't know everything'
Oakland interim Police Chief Howard Jordan and Mayor Jean Quan answer questions about the Occupy Oakland camp raid at City Hall.
The decision to raid the camp outside City Hall was made by City Administrator Deanna Santana on Oct. 19 with consultation from interim Police Chief Howard Jordan after campers repeatedly blocked paramedics and police from entering the camp despite reports of violence and injuries.
Quan told a news conference at City Hall on Wednesday that her input on the raid was limited.
"I only asked the chief to do one thing: to do it when it was the safest for both the police and the demonstrators," she said.
The mayor said "I don't know everything" when asked by reporters if she was satisfied with how police conducted the sweep. She said she spent Wednesday meeting with community groups.
She also defended "99 percent" of police officers "who took a lot of abuse" and who "have really been trying to re-establish that connection with the community." But she said she asked Jordan to investigate reports of excessive force and wants a community police review board to look into the police actions.
Tuesday morning's police raid was the city's biggest law enforcement action since Quan took office this year. But Quan said she took a red-eye flight Sunday night to Washington, D.C., for a scheduled meeting and returned to Oakland at 10:40 p.m. Tuesday.
Seventeen law enforcement agencies and hundreds of officers cleared out a squatter city at City Hall's main plaza in the predawn hours. Santana said campers' unwillingness to address reports of violence, sexual assault, defecation and open flames prompted the sweep.
Even though the morning raid involved no reported injuries, the evening was different. Protesters gathered to retake the plaza but were blocked by police. Protesters hurled paint, bottles, rocks and chemicals at officers, who responded with tear gas...
Continue reading
Matthai Kuruvila @'SF Gate'
Thursday 27 October 2011
Google reports 71 per cent rise in UK government takedown requests
Google has reported a 71 per cent increase in UK government requests to remove items from its search and web services properties over the course of 2011.
The company's latest transparency report said that Google received 44 requests from the UK government over the first half of the year, the majority relating to YouTube, where police and other government groups asked for the removal of 220 videos.
The report revealed that 135 videos were taken down on the grounds of national security, and 61 over "privacy and security" complaints.
Privacy and security also led to the takedown of 67 Google image entries in the UK, along with 43 web search results and two Blogger entries.
The takedowns represent an increase over the second half of 2010, during which Google reported just 153 takedown requests. Overall numbers for 2010 were greatly skewed by a major government takedown in which more than 93,300 AdWords entries were taken offline.
In the US, Google received 757 takedown requests across its sites and services, up 70 per cent from the second half of last year. More than half were from Google Groups, where the company removed 379 pages deemed defamatory.
US authorities also called for the removal of 113 videos from YouTube, including several documenting alleged police brutality which Google refused to take down.
Shaun Nichols @'V3'
Top Romney Adviser Tied to Militia That Massacred
During the 1980s, Phares, a Maronite Christian, trained Lebanese militants in ideological beliefs justifying the war against Lebanon's Muslim and Druze factions, according to former colleagues. Phares, they say, advocated the hard-line view that Lebanon's Christians should work toward creating a separate, independent Christian enclave. A photo obtained by Mother Jones shows him conducting a press conference in 1986 for the Lebanese Forces, an umbrella group of Christian militias that has been accused of committing atrocities. He was also a close adviser to Samir Geagea, a Lebanese warlord who rose from leading hit squads to running the Lebanese Forces.
Since fleeing to the United States in 1990, when the Syrians took over Lebanon, Phares has reinvented himself as a counterterrorism and national security expert, traveling comfortably between official circles and the GOP's anti-Muslim wing. In a little over two decades, he's gone from training Lebanese militants to teaching American law enforcement and intelligence officials about the Middle East, and from advising Lebanese warlords to counseling a man who could be the next president of the United States.
"I can't think of any earlier instance of a [possible presidential] adviser having held a comparable formal position with a foreign organization," says Paul Pillar, a 20-year veteran of the CIA and a professor at Georgetown's Center for Peace and Security Studies. "It should raise eyebrows any time someone in a position to exert behind-the-scenes influence on a US leader has ties to a foreign entity that are strong enough for foreign interests, and not just US interests, to determine the advice being given."
Phares has long faced questions about his background with the Lebanese Forces. As sketchy details have trickled out, he's tried to downplay his involvement, claiming that he was "politically in the center" of Lebanese Christian politics and that he "was never a military official." But a Mother Jones investigation has found that he was a key player within the Lebanese Forces when it was involved in a bloody sectarian conflict...
Continue reading
Adam Serwer @'Mother Jones'
Morrissey's NME libel case to proceed to court
As previously reported, Morrissey has finally got round to suing the music weekly over an interview it ran with him back in 2007 in which the singer appeared to say that an "immigration explosion" had damaged Britain's identity. Morrissey immediately hit out at the magazine and its editor Conor McNicholas, arguing they had twisted his words to make him look racist, so that the interview would be more sensational and sell more copies. The NME denies any such editorial meddling.
Although it took Morrissey four years to get round to suing, top libel judge Michael Tugendhat has ruled the case should be properly heard. At a hearing earlier this month NME publisher IPC argued that the claimant's delay in pursuing any action meant they wouldn't get a fair trial (as the case would rely on witnesses recalling conversations from four years ago), and that the fact Morrissey had enjoyed much success as a recording and performing artist in the intervening years made a mockery of his claim the interview had harmed his reputation. The publisher asked that the case be dismissed.
But Tugendhat yesterday said in a written ruling: "Overall, in my judgment, a proper balance between [NME's] Article 10 right of freedom of expression [under the European Convention Of Human Rights] and Mr Morrissey's right to the protection of his individual reputation requires, in the circumstances of this case, that the action be permitted to proceed". He added that the singer's explanation for why it had taken four years to pursue his action - mainly that his falling out with former manager Merck Mercuriadis in 2008 had left his finances in chaos - was "credible".
Needless to say, Morrissey welcomed the ruling, telling reporters: "In 2007, the NME viciously attacked me and labelled me a racist and a hypocrite. Last week they sought to avoid facing me in court to settle the matter once and for all. I am delighted that the NME's attempt to stifle my claim was unsuccessful and that as a result I will be able to use the very public forum of the High Court in London to clear my name, loud and clear for all to hear".
Despite losing in its bid to block the action, an IPC spokesman yesterday said that "after almost four years, we are glad that the matter will now proceed to trial and we will finally get the opportunity to bring this matter to a close".
Of course there's still the chance of an out of court settlement depriving us of a full court hearing, but assuming the case does go ahead it could prove quite entertaining. Morrissey himself, his estranged former manager Mercuriadis, former NME editor McNicholas, his successor and former deputy Krissi Murison-Hodge, and the journalist who conducted the interview - Tim Jonze, now with The Guardian - may all be called to testify. Good times.
Via
Welcome to the Go Go (BBC Arena 1986?)
BBC Arena documentary on the Washington Go-Go funk scene featuring Trouble Funk, Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers, Experience Unlimited, Class Band, Redds and the Boys, Slug-Go and various interviews at T.T.E.D. records.
(Thanx DJPigg!)
Egypt set to release Ilan Grapel after four months of espionage charges
Israeli-American Ilan Grapel, who has been held in Egypt for over four months, is expected to be returned to Israel this evening as part of a deal that releases 25 Egyptian prisoners.
Most of the prisoners to be released are Sinai Bedouin jailed for smuggling drugs or weapons. None were killers; three are minors.
Three of the prisoners have already completed their sentences. Another five were due to be freed by the end of the year, one as early as next week.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's special envoy, Isaac Molho, and MK Yisrael Hasson (Kadima), who conducted the negotiations for Grapel, are to fly to Cairo today at 3:30 P.M., together with Grapel's mother, who arrived in Israel yesterday. The three will pick up Grapel and within less than an hour fly back to Ben-Gurion Airport, where Grapel will be shepherded through the VIP lane.
The media will not be allowed to photograph Grapel's arrival in Israel or speak to him; the only pictures to be distributed will be those taken by the Government Press Office.
Once Grapel is en route to Israel, the Egyptian prisoners will be freed at the Taba border crossing.
The 22 adult inmates were moved to a jail in the south yesterday to prepare them for their release, an Israel Prisons Service spokeswoman said. The minors will be moved today.
From the airport Grapel will be whisked off to the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, where he will have a short meeting with Netanyahu at about 6:30 that will also be closed to the press. It was not clear last night whether Grapel would then be allowed to hold a press conference.
The High Court of Justice yesterday rejected petitions against the prisoner swap. The petitioners, MK Michael Ben-Ari (National Union ), the terror victims group Almagor, and the Israel is Ours group, argued that the decision to release the Egyptians was problematic legally, since it was made by the 14-member security cabinet and not by the full government.
They also said the deal was disproportionate and unreasonable, noting that Grapel went to Egypt of his own free will, and was not sent there by Israel.
Grapel, a student at Emory University School of Law in Atlanta, Georgia, was arrested in Egypt on June 12 and accused of spying for Israel. The charges were later downgraded to incitement.
Barak Ravid @'Haaretz'
The Man Who Stayed Behind
In the last few months, as you and I have been fretting about the economy or moaning about the weather, Ryan Boyette has been living in a mud-wall hut and dodging bombs in his underwear.
ome humanitarian catastrophes — Congo, Somalia, Sudan — linger because the killing unfolds without witnesses. So Ryan, a 30-year-old from Florida, has made the perilous decision to bear witness to atrocities in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan, secretly staying behind when other foreigners were evacuated.
I met Ryan a few years ago in Sudan, and even then he was a compelling figure who spoke the local languages of Otoro and Sudanese Arabic. An evangelical Christian deeply motivated by his faith, Ryan moved to the Nuba Mountains in 2003 and worked for Samaritan’s Purse, an aid group led by the Rev. Franklin Graham.
Early this year, Ryan married a local woman, Jazira, a health worker — and 6,000 joyous Nubans celebrated at the wedding, along with Ryan’s parents, who flew in from Florida.
It was clear that war was brewing in the Nuba Mountains. The region had sided with South Sudan in the country’s long civil war, but now South Sudan was separating while the Nuba Mountains would remain in the north. The people — mostly Muslim but with a large Christian minority — supported a local rebel army left over from the civil war.
In June, fighting erupted. The Sudanese government moved in to destroy the rebel army and depopulate areas that supported it. Aid organizations pulled out their workers. Ryan decided that he could not flee, so when Samaritan’s Purse ordered him to evacuate, he resigned and stayed behind.
“A lot of people tried to convince me to leave,” Ryan remembers. “But this is where my wife is from, this is where I’ve lived for eight years. It’s hard to get on a plane and say, ‘Bye, I hope to see you when this ends.’ ”
Ryan organized a network of 15 people to gather information and take photos and videos, documenting atrocities. He used a solar-powered laptop and a satellite phone to transmit them to the West, typically to the Enough Project, a Washington-based anti-genocide organization. He also supplied eyewitness interviews that helped the Enough Project and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative find evidence of atrocities, including eight mass graves, on satellite images. And he helped journalists understand what was going on.
“He’s irreplaceable,” said Jonathan Hutson of the Enough Project. “There’s no substitute for someone on the ground.”
Ryan tried to keep his presence in the region a secret, at least from the Sudanese government, for fear that it might seek to eliminate a witness. Once, a bombing seemed to target his hut, but he heard the plane approaching and ran out in his skivvies and took cover; the bombs missed, and he was unhurt.
After the first few weeks, the killings on the ground abated. But the government has continued the bombings.
“It’s terrifying when they bomb,” Ryan told me. “You don’t feel safe at any time of day or night.”
The bombs typically miss and have killed fewer than 200 people, he says, but they prevent people from farming their fields. Several hundred thousand people have been driven from their homes in the surrounding state of South Kordofan, Ryan says, and a famine may be looming.
“It’s not a good time to have kids,” Ryan quoted Jazira as telling him. “If we have kids, they’ll just starve.”
Frustrated by the lack of attention for the Nubans’ plight, Ryan decided to return to the United States this month and tell his story. He couldn’t get a visa for Jazira in time — obtaining an American visa for a spouse is a long and complex process — so she is in a refugee camp for 15,000 Nubans in South Sudan, struggling to address health needs there. Meanwhile, in Washington, Ryan has testified before Congress and met with White House officials.
Soon, he’ll go back, rejoining Jazira and sneaking back with her into the Nuba Mountains. It’ll be more dangerous than ever now that he has gone public, but he is determined to give voice to the voiceless — and Nubans will do everything to protect him.
In a world where leaders often pretend not to notice mass atrocities, for fear that they might be called upon to do something, I find Ryan an inspiration. His eyewitness accounts make it more difficult for the world to neglect a humanitarian crisis in the Nuba Mountains — even if he does need to brush up on his tech skills.
I asked Ryan if he planned to use Twitter.
“Twitter?” he asked. “I’ve been in the bush for nine years, so I don’t know how to use it.” But he’s planning to learn.
Nicholas Kristof @'NY Times'
#OccupyOakland
northoaklandnow Oakland North
96.9% of the people agreed to go on a work strike on November 2.#OccupyOakland
96.9% of the people agreed to go on a work strike on November 2.
GregMitch Greg Mitchell
Well, a General Strike in major city would certainly provide giant inspiration/catalyst just as #OWS faced with what's next?
'Uphold constitutional rights of free speech and assembly while relying on the minimum use of physical force and authority required to address a crowd management or crowd control issue' (!!!)
Android Dreams
A tribute to Ridley Scott and Vangelis, whose atmospheric work on Blade Runner has been a huge source of inspiration in my shooting time lapses, as well as for entire generations of filmmakers. I hope this will make many of you want to revisit (or discover if you haven't yet) this genre-defining movie.
Shot roughly over a year in Tokyo with a Canon 5dmk2, mainly in the Shinjuku area.
Music: "Main Titles" and "Blush Response" from Vangelis' haunting score. It still sends chills down my spine every time I listen to it... my favorite soundtrack to this day. The new 3-cd remaster is well worth getting: itunes.apple.com/us/album/blade-runner-trilogy-music/id274024314
More information on the process here: season9.wordpress.com/2010/08/06/floating-point-an-interview-with-samuel-cockedey/
Via
Shot roughly over a year in Tokyo with a Canon 5dmk2, mainly in the Shinjuku area.
Music: "Main Titles" and "Blush Response" from Vangelis' haunting score. It still sends chills down my spine every time I listen to it... my favorite soundtrack to this day. The new 3-cd remaster is well worth getting: itunes.apple.com/us/album/blade-runner-trilogy-music/id274024314
More information on the process here: season9.wordpress.com/2010/08/06/floating-point-an-interview-with-samuel-cockedey/
Via
Veteran Scott Olsen Could Be The First Person To Die At A Wall Street Protest
Occupy_Police Police For The 99%
SIGN THE PETITITION! - We demand the IMMEDIATE resignation of Oakland Mayor Jean Quan: chn.ge/sc0alj#OWS #OccupyTogether #OcPo
Image
SIGN THE PETITITION! - We demand the IMMEDIATE resignation of Oakland Mayor Jean Quan: chn.ge/sc0alj
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
