Florida Man Caught In Legal Limbo For Filming Police

March 14, 2012

Activist Post

By Madison Ruppert

“Here is yet another article that demonstrates that the police are out of control. If they aren’t doing anything wrong, why are they afraid to be filmed?” –KTRN

Over a month ago, Steve Horrigan, a Florida resident, was arrested on charges of felony wiretapping for the high crime of recording video of police in public with his cell phone.

The Sarasota County, Florida State Attorney’s Office has yet to even formally file charges against Horrigan, and the North Port Police Department has not yet returned his cell phone.

Unfortunately, Horrigan’s case is not some isolated anomaly, but instead part of a much larger war on citizens who attempt to hold police accountable for their activities and do so in a wholly legal manner.

The state of Horrigan’s case has him in legal limbo wherein he cannot move forward with his lawsuit, and the state attorney has even more time before they have to file charges.

On top of the felony wiretapping, Horrigan is facing a misdemeanor charge of resisting arrest without violence, something which Carlos Miller characterizes as “the usual tack-on charge in Florida when you’ve pissed off the cops.”

Under state law in Florida, an individual who was arrested for a misdemeanor must be tried within 90 days of the arrest, while a felony arrest gives a period of 175 days.

Horrigan was arrested on January 25 of this year, so the state attorney has more time to make him squirm before they have to bring him to trial.

Thankfully, Horrigan’s case is getting some attention, at least amongst the local media like the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

Recently they ran an in-depth piece not only about Horrigan’s case, but the nationwide struggle between citizens who want to hold police accountable and those individuals who refuse to allow citizens to exercise this right.

Unfortunately, the author of the piece failed to point out the fact that there is absolutely no legal basis upon which an officer can arrest an individual for filming them in public carrying out their public duties where they have no reasonable expectation of privacy.

Click here for the full report.

Obama Fights To Keep Unconstitutional Warrantless Wiretapping Powers

February 21, 2012

Activist Post

By Madison Ruppert

“Didn’t Obama run on a platform of change? Apparently not.” –KTRN

So much for change. The Obama administration is continuing their efforts to go back on every single campaign promise, and beyond all odds make themselves look even worse than the administration of George W. Bush.

Personally, I didn’t think such a thing was possible, but with the extrajudicial killing of Americans, refusal to explain why they think they can engage in such activities (multiple times, no less), the passing the radically un-American National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (NDAA), and so much more, Obama is doing a great job at proving me wrong.

Now to continue this trend, Barack Obama has instructed the Justice Department to defend the warrantless wiretapping policy first introduced under George W. Bush.

In response, just last week the Department of Justice filed papers with the Supreme Court seeking to overturn a decision from an appeals court which allowed a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to continue.

This suit challenged the constitutionality of a law passed in 2008 which gave the American government what had previously been an unprecedented amount of power to snoop on American citizens without any semblance of probable cause.

Click here for the full report.

Man Faces 75 Years In Prison For Recording Cops!

September 1st, 2011

InfoWars.com

By: Paul Joseph Watson

41-year old Illinois mechanic Michael Allison faces life in jail for recording police officers after authorities hit him with eavesdropping charges based on the hoax that it is illegal to film cops, a misnomer that has been disproved by every other case against people filming police officers being thrown out of court.

The state of Illinois is trying to charge Allison with five counts of wiretapping, each punishable by four to 15 years in prison.

Allison refused a plea deal which would have seen him serve no jail time but would reinforce the hoax that it is illegal to film police officers, as well as acting as a chilling effect to prevent other Americans from filming cases of police brutality.

Allison has chosen to reject the plea bargain and fight to clear his name via a jury trial, arguing, “If we don’t fight for our freedoms here at home we’re all going to lose them.”

A judge is expected to rule on when the case will go to trial over the next two weeks.

As another report concerning the Allison case documents, in every other example where people have been arrested for recording police officers, the charges have been dropped and the case thrown out of court. Despite this fact, the state is so desperate to make an example out of Allison that an assistant from the Attorney General’s Office was recently sent to speak against him during a hearing.

The notion that it is illegal to film police officers is a mass hoax that is being promulgated by authorities, the media, and police officers themselves.

In the latest example, charges were dismissed against a woman who filmed cops in her own back yard in Rochester, New York.

In Illinois itself, eavesdropping charges against Tiawanda Moore for recording patrol officers were dropped, after a “Criminal Court jury quickly repudiated the prosecution’s case, taking less than an hour to acquit Moore on both eavesdropping counts.”

Despite the fact that recording police officers (public servants) is perfectly legal, Americans are still being arrested for doing so, and the establishment media is enthusiastically perpetuating the hoax that such conduct is unlawful, even though in doing so they are completely eroding protections that guarantee press freedom.

There is no expectation of privacy in public, the police are fully aware of this, which is why they have dash cams on their cars to record incidents, wear microphones and utilize other recording equipment as part of their job.

Cases like Allison’s have been thrown out all over the country and yet police continue to arrest people for filming them as a form of intimidation.

The fact that the state is knowingly ignoring its own laws in order to engage in acts of official repression highlights the rampant criminality that has infested every level of American government. This behavior is reflective of a predatory system that seeks to criminalize all first amendment activities.

It also highlights how petrified the system is about the public being able to document and record acts of police brutality.

Prosecutors in Allison’s case are deliberately attempting jail an innocent man for life for an activity that they know full well is not illegal. If anything, they should be the ones being charged with illegal conduct and official oppression.

Click here for the full report from InfoWars

U.S. Senator Wants to Probe Murdoch for Possible US Phone-Hacking

July 13th, 2011

International Business Times

A powerful American Senator wants to investigate Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. to determine if the phone-hacking scandal has stretched across the water from Britain to the U.S.

The Daily Telegraph of the UK reported that Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), a Senate committee chairman, has”serious questions” regarding whether or not News Corp “has broken United States law”.

The Senator’s demand for a probe could potentially have extremely dramatic repercussions on Murdoch’s media empire and legal liabilities.

Rockefeller, who is chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and great-grandson of the 19th century tycoon John D. Rockefeller, said in a statement: “The reported hacking by News Corporation newspapers against a range of individuals – including children – is offensive and a serious breach of journalistic ethics. This raises serious questions about whether the company has broken US law, and I encourage the appropriate agencies to investigate to ensure that Americans have not had their privacy violated.”

Rockefeller added: “I am concerned that the admitted phone hacking in London by the News Corp. may have extended to 9/11 victims or other Americans. If they did, the consequences will be severe.”

The Senate and House of Representatives has already been asked to investigate if News Corp. has been hacking the voice-mail messages of American citizens, raising the specter of Murdoch and his company having violated US laws.

Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), told reporters: “It’s hard to imagine that the same things [phone-hacking] have not been happening in the United States. Republicans are very tied to Murdoch but not at the expense of constituencies of Americans such as terror victims and soldiers.”

Kevin Zeese, a lawyer acting for the group ProtectOurElections.org, told reporters: “Rupert Murdoch moved to the US and became an American citizen in 1985 in order to take advantage of our laws.”

Apparently US Congress is watching for developments in Britain before considering taking any action on this side of the Atlantic against Murdoch.

“We’re keeping an eye on the situation, but are not planning on looking into it at this time,” said Jodi Seth, press secretary of Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate sub-committee on communications.

“For now, all that is certain is that there was hacking in Britain, which is outside of our jurisdiction.”

The chief executive officer of Dow Jones, a News Corp. subsidiary, is none other than Les Hinton, a former executive of News International, the UK subsidiary that owned the now-defunct News of the World newspaper (which was at the center of the scandal when it broke). Robert Thomson, the Wall Street Journal editor, was also part of News International.

Click here for the full report from International Business Times

The Kevin Trudeau Show: 5-16-11

Today, Kevin discusses who is actually controlling all the money in the world; it might not be who you think it is! PLUS, find out the dangers of vaccines and the lengths the government is going to to make sure you get the shots!

Health:
WHO says New Flu is Unstoppable
Drug Resistant Tuberculosis is On the Way
Swine Flu Similar to 1918 Pandemic
Flu Shots Put Children in Hospital
Homeless People DIE After Given Bird Flu Vaccine
Cures for Flus, Colds, etc.

Wealth:
134 Billion Dollars of U.S. Bonds Were Smuggled Into Switzerland
The Economy is Even Worse Than You Think
Home-Based Business Opportunities
Global Infomation Network

NWO:
Government Has Authority to Apprehend You, Quarantine You and Inject Drugs in You
NewsCorp was Accused of Illegal Wiretapping

Everything Kevin:
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Kevin is on YouTube!
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FBI Urges Congress to Expand Internet Wiretapping

February 18th, 2011

Raw Story

By: Eric W. Dolan

The FBI urged members of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security on Thursday to update the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) and make it easier for authorities to eavesdrop on Internet.

The act was passed in 1994 and requires telecommunication companies to design their equipment and services to ensure that law enforcement and national security officials can monitor telephone and other communications whenever necessary.

“Over the years, through interpretation of the statute by the Federal Communications Commission, the reach of CALEA has been expanded to include facilities-based broadband internet access and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services that are fully inter-connected with the public switched telephone network,” FBI General Counsel Valeria Caproni told the subcommittee.

“Although that expansion of coverage has been extremely helpful, CALEA does not cover popular Internet-based communications modalities such as webmail, social networking sites or peer-to-peer services.”

“As a result, although the government may obtain a court order authorizing the collection of certain communications, it often serves that order on a provider who does not have an obligation under CALEA to be prepared to execute it,” she explained. “Such providers may not have intercept capabilities in place at the time that they receive the order.”

The proposal to expand CALEA would require companies involved in online communications to re-engineer their software so that law enforcement could easily access it.

In October 2010, the New York Times reported that the Obama administration was drafting new regulations to make it easier for authorities to eavesdrop on Internet and e-mail communications.

But, according to Caproni, “the Administration does not have a formal position at this time on whether any legislative changes are necessary.”

Documents obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation through a Freedom of Information Act request show that the FBI and Justice Department have been working on amendments to CALEA since 2006 and have been lobbying Congress and the White House to support it.

“Though the administration claims this is just a technical fix, its request will actually change the structure of the Internet, providing the government with a master key to our online communications,” Laura W. Murphy, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office, said.

“The proposed changes will not only make it easier and cheaper for the government to invade our privacy, but also make the Internet more vulnerable to penetration from other sources.”

Click here for the full report Raw Story

Obama To Make Internet Eavesdropping Easier

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is drawing up legislation to make it easier for US intelligence services to eavesdrop on the Internet, including email exchanges and social networks, The New York Times said Monday.

The White House intends to submit a bill before Congress next year that would require all online services that enable communications to be technically capable of complying with a wiretap order, including being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages, the Times reported.

The services would include encrypted email transmitters like BackBerry, social networking websites like Facebook and peer-to-peer messaging software like Skype.

Federal law enforcement and national security officials are seeking the new regulations, arguing that extremists and criminals are increasingly communicating online rather than using phones.

“We’re talking about lawfully authorized intercepts,” said Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) general counsel Valerie Caproni.

“We’re not talking expanding authority. We’re talking about preserving our ability to execute our existing authority in order to protect the public safety and national security.”

Officials from the White House, Justice Department, National Security Agency, FBI and other agencies have been meeting in recent months to craft the proposals, the Times said.

But, citing officials familiar with the discussions, it said the participants had not yet agreed on important elements, such as how to define which entities are considered communications service providers.

President Barack Obama’s administration is seeking a broad mandate that would also apply to companies whose servers are operated abroad, such as Research in Motion, the Canadian maker of BlackBerry smartphones.

As an example, officials told the Times that investigators discovered that Faisal Shahzad, the suspect from the failed Times Square bombing in May, had been using a communication service without prebuilt interception capacity.

That meant that there would have been a delay before he could have been wiretapped, had he aroused suspicion beforehand, the officials said.

Click here to read the full article from AFP.