Justice for Andy Lopez Cruz! (d. 2013-10-22; Santa Rosa) [link]
Solidarity against the repression of a community in Santa Rosa! [link]
Louie's Legal Defense Fund (fundraising now closed)
[http://www.youcaring.com/other/louie-s-legal-defense-fund/163904]:
Louie Godoy is a leader in the struggle for JUSTICE FOR ANDY LOPEZ in Sonoma County. (Andy, age 13, was killed--shot 7 times before he could turn to face the sheriff--as he carried a toy gun.)
Louie has been arrested as a demonstrator, arrested making protest signs, harassed, cited, and abused systematically to silence his voice and discredit the Latino community here.
June 26, 2014, in court, a felony charge was dropped to a misdemeanor (and will go to trial), and the judge denied the DA's request to increase bail (which would have sent Louie to jail for lack of funds). These were successes, but there are other bogus charges which will keep the courts and his attorney busy, and Louie in fear for many months. Louie is very discouraged. He is a paid careprovider for his invalid mother, and father of 3 young children. His housing is in jeprody due to the effect of the police visits on his landlord and neighbors.
PLEASE HELP US FIGHT THIS INJUSTICE!
Your donation will go to Louie's excellent pro bono lawyer, Andrew Martinez of Santa Rosa, to help cover $4,500 court costs. Thank you very much!
Saturday, July 5, 2014
Thursday, July 3, 2014
"Revealed: 'Collect It All' NSA Targets Those Seeking Web Privacy; 'Merely visiting privacy-related websites is enough for a user's IP address to be logged into an NSA database,' says new report"
National Security Agency (NSA) [link]
2014-07-03 by Jon Queally [http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/07/03-5]:
Internet users who use online privacy tools or read certain websites may themselves become targets of NSA surveillance, according to a new investigation by public broadcasting outlets in Germany published on Thursday [http://daserste.ndr.de/panorama/aktuell/nsa230_page-1.html].
Citing documents that refer to "deep packet inspection" rules used by the NSA for its so-called "XKeyscore" program to determine what targets are selected for surveillance and how, the investigation reveals that people who seek out or use online privacy tools—including things like TOR, a network tool that provides digital anonymity and minimizes exposure to possible surveillance—may be targeted simply for making those efforts.
Other platforms targeted by the program include the LINUX open source operating system as well as privacy and encryption services such as HotSpotShield, FreeNet, Centurian, FreeProxies.org, MegaProxy, privacy.li and an anonymous email service called MixMinion. According to the reporting, the NSA characterized those who would use such services as "extremists," which sparked spirited outrage on social media as the story broke [https://twitter.com/search?q=nsa%20extremists&src=typd].
As part of its investigation, the researchers examined a piece of computer code found on a server maintained by Sebastian Hahn, a German student of computer science who manages a node on the TOR network. The discovery showed not only that Hahn was a target of NSA surveillance, but also the previously unknown lengths the agency has gone in targeting users of such tools.
Examination of the XKeyscore rules contained in the code (now published for the first time [http://daserste.ndr.de/panorama/aktuell/nsa230_page-2.html]) goes beyond previous reporting by the Guardian newspaper about the program and, according to the English version of the new reporting, "provides a window into the actual instructions given to NSA computers" conducting the surveillance.
"The top secret source code published here," the report continues, "indicates that the NSA is making a concerted effort to combat any and all anonymous spaces that remain on the internet. Merely visiting privacy-related websites is enough for a user's IP address to be logged into an NSA database."
When asked for his reaction to the findings, Roger Dingledine, an MIT alumnus who spearheads the TOR project, told the investigative team:
"We've been thinking of state surveillance for years because of our work in places where journalists are threatened. Tor's anonymity is based on distributed trust, so observing traffic at one place in the Tor network, even a directory authority, isn't enough to break it. Tor has gone mainstream in the past few years, and its wide diversity of users - from civic-minded individuals and ordinary consumers to activists, law enforcement, and companies - is part of its security. Just learning that somebody visited the Tor or Tails website doesn't tell you whether that person is a journalist source, someone concerned that her Internet Service Provider will learn about her health conditions, or just someone irked that cat videos are blocked in her location. Trying to make a list of Tor's millions of daily users certainly counts as wide scale collection. Their attack on the bridge address distribution service shows their "collect all the things" mentality - it's worth emphasizing that we designed bridges for users in countries like China and Iran, and here we are finding out about attacks by our own country. Does reading the contents of those mails violate the wiretap act? Now I understand how the Google engineers felt when they learned about the attacks on their infrastructure.”
On Thursday, as news of the story spread around the world, Hahn himself answered questions about the new developments surrounding XKeyscore and his role in the investigation [https://wwwcip.cs.fau.de/~snsehahn/Tor-Fragen.en.txt].
Asked how it felt to be in the company of German Chancellor Angela Merkel as a target of NSA surveillance, Hahn responded: "It is a different level of surveillance, thus I dislike this comparison. Every German citizen is subject of surveillance on a daily basis, without anyone mentioning it. My personal case might be good for headlines; the whole dimension and the missing protection measures, especially for less technical experienced people is the real scandal. I am shocked how easily innocent people can get into the focus of surveillance. Intelligence agency [sic] take that for granted."
As the German public broadcaster Das Erste summarizes [http://daserste.ndr.de/panorama/aktuell/NSA-targets-the-privacy-conscious,nsa230.html], the investigation into the code and the NSA targeting it represents revealed: "Merely searching the web for the privacy-enhancing software tools outlined in the XKeyscore rules causes the NSA to mark and track the IP address of the person doing the search. Not only are German privacy software users tracked, but the source code shows that privacy software users worldwide are tracked by the NSA."
Cory Doctorow, writing for Boing Boing in a piece aptly titled, 'If you read Boing Boing, the NSA considers you a target for deep surveillance,' says the reporting contains several key revelations [http://boingboing.net/2014/07/03/if-you-read-boing-boing-the-n.html]. He writes: "I have known that this story was coming for some time now, having learned about its broad contours under embargo from a trusted source. Since then, I've discussed it in confidence with some of the technical experts who have worked on the full set of Snowden docs, and they were as shocked as I was. One expert suggested that the NSA's intention here was to separate the sheep from the goats -- to split the entire population of the Internet into "people who have the technical know-how to be private" and "people who don't" and then capture all the communications from the first group."
In addition, and not for the first time [https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/02/24-4], the source of leak has the potential to be an explosive development all its own. According to Doctorow: "Another expert said that s/he believed that this leak may come from a second source, not Edward Snowden, as s/he had not seen this in the original Snowden docs; and had seen other revelations that also appeared independent of the Snowden materials. If that's true, it's big news, as Snowden was the first person to ever leak docs from the NSA. The existence of a potential second source means that Snowden may have inspired some of his former colleagues to take a long, hard look at the agency's cavalier attitude to the law and decency."
And technology expert and privacy advocate Bruce Shreier agreed, writing: "I do not believe that this came from the Snowden documents [...] I think there's a second leaker out there."
2014-07-03 by Jon Queally [http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/07/03-5]:
Internet users who use online privacy tools or read certain websites may themselves become targets of NSA surveillance, according to a new investigation by public broadcasting outlets in Germany published on Thursday [http://daserste.ndr.de/panorama/aktuell/nsa230_page-1.html].
Citing documents that refer to "deep packet inspection" rules used by the NSA for its so-called "XKeyscore" program to determine what targets are selected for surveillance and how, the investigation reveals that people who seek out or use online privacy tools—including things like TOR, a network tool that provides digital anonymity and minimizes exposure to possible surveillance—may be targeted simply for making those efforts.
Other platforms targeted by the program include the LINUX open source operating system as well as privacy and encryption services such as HotSpotShield, FreeNet, Centurian, FreeProxies.org, MegaProxy, privacy.li and an anonymous email service called MixMinion. According to the reporting, the NSA characterized those who would use such services as "extremists," which sparked spirited outrage on social media as the story broke [https://twitter.com/search?q=nsa%20extremists&src=typd].
As part of its investigation, the researchers examined a piece of computer code found on a server maintained by Sebastian Hahn, a German student of computer science who manages a node on the TOR network. The discovery showed not only that Hahn was a target of NSA surveillance, but also the previously unknown lengths the agency has gone in targeting users of such tools.
Examination of the XKeyscore rules contained in the code (now published for the first time [http://daserste.ndr.de/panorama/aktuell/nsa230_page-2.html]) goes beyond previous reporting by the Guardian newspaper about the program and, according to the English version of the new reporting, "provides a window into the actual instructions given to NSA computers" conducting the surveillance.
"The top secret source code published here," the report continues, "indicates that the NSA is making a concerted effort to combat any and all anonymous spaces that remain on the internet. Merely visiting privacy-related websites is enough for a user's IP address to be logged into an NSA database."
When asked for his reaction to the findings, Roger Dingledine, an MIT alumnus who spearheads the TOR project, told the investigative team:
"We've been thinking of state surveillance for years because of our work in places where journalists are threatened. Tor's anonymity is based on distributed trust, so observing traffic at one place in the Tor network, even a directory authority, isn't enough to break it. Tor has gone mainstream in the past few years, and its wide diversity of users - from civic-minded individuals and ordinary consumers to activists, law enforcement, and companies - is part of its security. Just learning that somebody visited the Tor or Tails website doesn't tell you whether that person is a journalist source, someone concerned that her Internet Service Provider will learn about her health conditions, or just someone irked that cat videos are blocked in her location. Trying to make a list of Tor's millions of daily users certainly counts as wide scale collection. Their attack on the bridge address distribution service shows their "collect all the things" mentality - it's worth emphasizing that we designed bridges for users in countries like China and Iran, and here we are finding out about attacks by our own country. Does reading the contents of those mails violate the wiretap act? Now I understand how the Google engineers felt when they learned about the attacks on their infrastructure.”
On Thursday, as news of the story spread around the world, Hahn himself answered questions about the new developments surrounding XKeyscore and his role in the investigation [https://wwwcip.cs.fau.de/~snsehahn/Tor-Fragen.en.txt].
Asked how it felt to be in the company of German Chancellor Angela Merkel as a target of NSA surveillance, Hahn responded: "It is a different level of surveillance, thus I dislike this comparison. Every German citizen is subject of surveillance on a daily basis, without anyone mentioning it. My personal case might be good for headlines; the whole dimension and the missing protection measures, especially for less technical experienced people is the real scandal. I am shocked how easily innocent people can get into the focus of surveillance. Intelligence agency [sic] take that for granted."
As the German public broadcaster Das Erste summarizes [http://daserste.ndr.de/panorama/aktuell/NSA-targets-the-privacy-conscious,nsa230.html], the investigation into the code and the NSA targeting it represents revealed: "Merely searching the web for the privacy-enhancing software tools outlined in the XKeyscore rules causes the NSA to mark and track the IP address of the person doing the search. Not only are German privacy software users tracked, but the source code shows that privacy software users worldwide are tracked by the NSA."
Cory Doctorow, writing for Boing Boing in a piece aptly titled, 'If you read Boing Boing, the NSA considers you a target for deep surveillance,' says the reporting contains several key revelations [http://boingboing.net/2014/07/03/if-you-read-boing-boing-the-n.html]. He writes: "I have known that this story was coming for some time now, having learned about its broad contours under embargo from a trusted source. Since then, I've discussed it in confidence with some of the technical experts who have worked on the full set of Snowden docs, and they were as shocked as I was. One expert suggested that the NSA's intention here was to separate the sheep from the goats -- to split the entire population of the Internet into "people who have the technical know-how to be private" and "people who don't" and then capture all the communications from the first group."
In addition, and not for the first time [https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/02/24-4], the source of leak has the potential to be an explosive development all its own. According to Doctorow: "Another expert said that s/he believed that this leak may come from a second source, not Edward Snowden, as s/he had not seen this in the original Snowden docs; and had seen other revelations that also appeared independent of the Snowden materials. If that's true, it's big news, as Snowden was the first person to ever leak docs from the NSA. The existence of a potential second source means that Snowden may have inspired some of his former colleagues to take a long, hard look at the agency's cavalier attitude to the law and decency."
And technology expert and privacy advocate Bruce Shreier agreed, writing: "I do not believe that this came from the Snowden documents [...] I think there's a second leaker out there."
Sonoma County DA Jill Ravitch faces demands for Justice for Andy Lopez!
Justice for Andy Lopez Cruz! (d. 2013-10-22; Santa Rosa) [link]
"Letter to DA Ravitch & Youth Picket on Tuesday, July 8"
2014-07-03 from "Justice Coalition for Andy Lopez (JCAL)" [www.justicecoalitionforandylopez.com]:
Andy’s Youth Call for Mass Picket at DA Ravitch Door
JUSTICE DELAYED IS JUSTICE DENIED!
When: Tuesday July 8 at 1pm
Where: DA Ravitch Office
600 Administration Drive, Room 212 J
Santa Rosa, CA 95403
“The Latino youth of Santa Rosa are damned mad! They want to know why nothing has been done to adjudicate the killing of their friend Andy Lopez last October. They plan to let District Attorney Jill Ravitch know exactly how they feel about her 8 month failure to indict the deputy who killed Andy for carrying a toy gun.” Said Nicole Guerra following an Andy’s Youth meeting.
Andy’s Youth will be joined by the Justice Coalition for Andy Lopez (JCAL) in a mass picket line at the Sonoma County Hall of Justice that houses the DA’s office. The Youth plan to deliver their message that Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied loud enough for the DA to hear them in her offices.
Preceding next Tuesday’s picket, JCAL members will be handing out thousands of copies of an Open Letter To DA Ravitch at July 4th parades and picnics throughout Sonoma County. (See attached.) On Tuesday, every employee working for the Court will receive the Open Letter on their way into work.
“What we’re seeing right now in Sonoma County is way worse than the spate of killings we experienced in the 90’s. That brought the Department of Justice Commission on Civil Rights here to investigate law enforcement practices. The report from that Commission blasted the Sonoma County Sheriffs and Santa Rosa Police for a pattern of excessive uses of force. We are now facing almost a death in a police-related incident on a monthly basis. That is intolerable,” said JCAL activist Mary Moore.
Please see letter to D.A. Jill Ravitch attached
---
DA Ravitch – WE CAN’T WAIT
Justice Delayed is Justice Denied!
Dear Madam District Attorney:
For over 8 months, you have asked Sonoma County residents to remain patient while you decide whether or not you intend to charge Deputy Gelhaus with criminal wrongdoing in the shooting of 13-year -old Andy Lopez last Oct. 22nd.
For over 8 months, we have signed petitions, asked Attorney General Kamala Harris to intervene, prayed, cried, marched, picketed, and attended Santa Rosa City Council meetings and Sonoma County Board of Supervisors’ meetings.
For over 8 months, we have stood, week after week, at the doorstep of your office in the Hall of Justice, educating all those entering the courthouse about the facts of Deputy Gelhaus’ wrongful shooting of a young boy carrying a toy gun.
For the last few weeks, many in the Santa Rosa, as well as Sonoma County, have been on edge awaiting your decision. You waited until the schools let out so that the students couldn’t walk out, you waited until after you won the election, and you are still stalling.
Indeed, for the last three weeks, many of us in this city and county have been on pins and needles awaiting your decision. We know that you have the Sheriffs working double-shifts, we know that you have cancelled vacations and we know that you have issued “Talking Points” to city and county employees threatening protestors with arrests.
We also know that last Friday June 27th, you planned a noon press conference to announce your decision – but abruptly cancelled it without explanation. Once again, your wavering and failure to announce a decision caused ripples of distress and anger.
We have done a comparative study with San Mateo County just across the bridge: In the June 3rd, 2014, officer-involved shooting of 18-year old Yanira Serrano in Half Moon Bay, DA Wagstaffe ordered the Sheriffs' Department off the case. Only independent investigators from the DA’s staff are investigating to avoid law enforcement bias!
The DA’s investigation will be completed within 10 weeks of the incident!
DA Wagstaffe has offered to attend a town meeting to explain all the facts for the public to examine all the documents and investigation that led to his decision.
Madam DA – our patience has run out! We demand you act NOW to INDICT Erick Gelhaus! Justice for Andy Lopez!
"Letter to DA Ravitch & Youth Picket on Tuesday, July 8"
2014-07-03 from "Justice Coalition for Andy Lopez (JCAL)" [www.justicecoalitionforandylopez.com]:
Andy’s Youth Call for Mass Picket at DA Ravitch Door
JUSTICE DELAYED IS JUSTICE DENIED!
When: Tuesday July 8 at 1pm
Where: DA Ravitch Office
600 Administration Drive, Room 212 J
Santa Rosa, CA 95403
“The Latino youth of Santa Rosa are damned mad! They want to know why nothing has been done to adjudicate the killing of their friend Andy Lopez last October. They plan to let District Attorney Jill Ravitch know exactly how they feel about her 8 month failure to indict the deputy who killed Andy for carrying a toy gun.” Said Nicole Guerra following an Andy’s Youth meeting.
Andy’s Youth will be joined by the Justice Coalition for Andy Lopez (JCAL) in a mass picket line at the Sonoma County Hall of Justice that houses the DA’s office. The Youth plan to deliver their message that Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied loud enough for the DA to hear them in her offices.
Preceding next Tuesday’s picket, JCAL members will be handing out thousands of copies of an Open Letter To DA Ravitch at July 4th parades and picnics throughout Sonoma County. (See attached.) On Tuesday, every employee working for the Court will receive the Open Letter on their way into work.
“What we’re seeing right now in Sonoma County is way worse than the spate of killings we experienced in the 90’s. That brought the Department of Justice Commission on Civil Rights here to investigate law enforcement practices. The report from that Commission blasted the Sonoma County Sheriffs and Santa Rosa Police for a pattern of excessive uses of force. We are now facing almost a death in a police-related incident on a monthly basis. That is intolerable,” said JCAL activist Mary Moore.
Please see letter to D.A. Jill Ravitch attached
---
DA Ravitch – WE CAN’T WAIT
Justice Delayed is Justice Denied!
Dear Madam District Attorney:
For over 8 months, you have asked Sonoma County residents to remain patient while you decide whether or not you intend to charge Deputy Gelhaus with criminal wrongdoing in the shooting of 13-year -old Andy Lopez last Oct. 22nd.
For over 8 months, we have signed petitions, asked Attorney General Kamala Harris to intervene, prayed, cried, marched, picketed, and attended Santa Rosa City Council meetings and Sonoma County Board of Supervisors’ meetings.
For over 8 months, we have stood, week after week, at the doorstep of your office in the Hall of Justice, educating all those entering the courthouse about the facts of Deputy Gelhaus’ wrongful shooting of a young boy carrying a toy gun.
For the last few weeks, many in the Santa Rosa, as well as Sonoma County, have been on edge awaiting your decision. You waited until the schools let out so that the students couldn’t walk out, you waited until after you won the election, and you are still stalling.
Indeed, for the last three weeks, many of us in this city and county have been on pins and needles awaiting your decision. We know that you have the Sheriffs working double-shifts, we know that you have cancelled vacations and we know that you have issued “Talking Points” to city and county employees threatening protestors with arrests.
We also know that last Friday June 27th, you planned a noon press conference to announce your decision – but abruptly cancelled it without explanation. Once again, your wavering and failure to announce a decision caused ripples of distress and anger.
We have done a comparative study with San Mateo County just across the bridge: In the June 3rd, 2014, officer-involved shooting of 18-year old Yanira Serrano in Half Moon Bay, DA Wagstaffe ordered the Sheriffs' Department off the case. Only independent investigators from the DA’s staff are investigating to avoid law enforcement bias!
The DA’s investigation will be completed within 10 weeks of the incident!
DA Wagstaffe has offered to attend a town meeting to explain all the facts for the public to examine all the documents and investigation that led to his decision.
Madam DA – our patience has run out! We demand you act NOW to INDICT Erick Gelhaus! Justice for Andy Lopez!
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Saturation coverage of surveillance drones
MSNBC's Weekends with Alex Witt: "Over 400 Military Drones Have Malfunctioned and Crashed Into Homes, Farms And Highways! These Craft Will Begin To Be Unleashed in Earnest Over Domestic US Skies, Over the Next Year and a Half""
2014-07-02 posted by Alexandra Bruce from "ForbiddenKnowledgeTV" [http://www.forbiddenknowledgetv.com/videos/police-state/over-400-military-drones-have-malfunctioned-and-crashed-into-homes-farms-and-highways.html]:
Here's a short segment from a June 21st, 2014 broadcast of MSNBC News (sometimes endearingly called "MSLSD").
The show's hostess, Alex Witt cites a Washington Post study, which found that over 400 military drones have malfunctioned and crashed into homes, farms and highways, with this number is expected to surge as these drone aircraft become increasingly deployed over American skies, in upcoming years.
She interviews journalist and lead writer of this Washington Post article, Craig Whitlock, "When Drones Fall from the Sky," asking him what the main malfunctions seems to be.
Whitlock cites the number 1 reason for these mishaps as being due to a breakdown in the connection with the crafts' GPS satellite links, the 2nd reason being mechanical or electrical failures and the 3rd being pilot error.
The various branches of the military have different standards of qualification for operating drones, with the Air Force having higher requirements than the Army but as for domestic use, these qualifications have yet to be hammered out by the FAA.
Witt asks if we'll be starting to see drones crashing into our windows and backyards, as these craft begin to be unleashed over domestic skies, over the next year and a half and Whitlock says that, indeed this has already started happening, to which Witt says, "Well, you've already booked yourself for an interview with us next week to talk about that!"
Recent visits with political activists by FBI in San Francisco, New York city, Chicago
2014-07-02 by BACRPR [https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/07/02/18758188.php]:
The FBI has recently tried to question activists in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. If you are visited or questioned by any kind of agent, say only "I have nothing to say to you. Give me your card and my lawyer will contact you. Then contact the Bay Area Committee to Resist Political Repression at BACRPR [at] riseup.net.
---
Statement on recent FBI visits and questioning of political activists
July 2, 2014
Over the past few weeks, more than a dozen political activists in New York, Chicago, and the San Francisco Bay Area have been visited by FBI, US Marshals, and Joint Terrorist Task Force (JTTF) agents. In some cases the agents have shown a more than 30-year-old wanted poster of Donna Borup, who was arrested with others during a 1981 anti-Apartheid demonstration at JFK International Airport. Borup was charged with “riot” and “assault on a police officer,” but did not appear for a 1982 federal trial in New York.
Because the government considers her a fugitive, there is no statute of limitations on her indictment or pursuit. But the government is using these minor decades-old charges to once again equate political resistance with terrorism.
So far, none of the known targets of FBI questioning have cooperated with the investigation. One activist responded by saying: "I refused to talk to the FBI when they questioned me 30 years ago, why would I talk to them now?" We believe these visits are an effort to intimidate political activists and stifle free speech and association. We strongly encourage anyone who is visited by the FBI or other agents, whether it concerns this case or any other politically motivated investigations, to insist on your right to remain silent. It doesn’t matter if you think you “have nothing to hide.” Even the most seemingly innocuous information can help the government further repress our movements.
Over the years, there have been numerous inflammatory and sensational mainstream media reports on people and organizations that the FBI claims are domestic terrorists. We know that many of these people are social justice activists like ourselves, and we will not be intimidated or coerced.
By refusing to cooperate with political fishing expeditions and by exposing the government’s harassment, we can build support and solidarity among our various communities.
If you are ever visited by the FBI or other law enforcement agents:
• Say only: "I have nothing to say to you. Give me your card and my lawyer will contact you."
• Contact your nearest National Lawyers Guild chapter to let them know about the encounter.
• Let us know what happened by contacting the Bay Area Committee to Resist Political Repression at: BACRPR [at] riseup.net.
• We encourage you to broadly spread the word of your experience, which will alert other activists.
For more information on resisting political repression:
• Unified statement of resistance against grand juries and FBI questioning at: [http://grandjuryresistance.org/statement.html]
• Information on resistance against grand juries and FBI questioning: [http://grandjuryresistance.org]
The FBI has recently tried to question activists in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. If you are visited or questioned by any kind of agent, say only "I have nothing to say to you. Give me your card and my lawyer will contact you. Then contact the Bay Area Committee to Resist Political Repression at BACRPR [at] riseup.net.
---
Statement on recent FBI visits and questioning of political activists
July 2, 2014
Over the past few weeks, more than a dozen political activists in New York, Chicago, and the San Francisco Bay Area have been visited by FBI, US Marshals, and Joint Terrorist Task Force (JTTF) agents. In some cases the agents have shown a more than 30-year-old wanted poster of Donna Borup, who was arrested with others during a 1981 anti-Apartheid demonstration at JFK International Airport. Borup was charged with “riot” and “assault on a police officer,” but did not appear for a 1982 federal trial in New York.
Because the government considers her a fugitive, there is no statute of limitations on her indictment or pursuit. But the government is using these minor decades-old charges to once again equate political resistance with terrorism.
So far, none of the known targets of FBI questioning have cooperated with the investigation. One activist responded by saying: "I refused to talk to the FBI when they questioned me 30 years ago, why would I talk to them now?" We believe these visits are an effort to intimidate political activists and stifle free speech and association. We strongly encourage anyone who is visited by the FBI or other agents, whether it concerns this case or any other politically motivated investigations, to insist on your right to remain silent. It doesn’t matter if you think you “have nothing to hide.” Even the most seemingly innocuous information can help the government further repress our movements.
Over the years, there have been numerous inflammatory and sensational mainstream media reports on people and organizations that the FBI claims are domestic terrorists. We know that many of these people are social justice activists like ourselves, and we will not be intimidated or coerced.
By refusing to cooperate with political fishing expeditions and by exposing the government’s harassment, we can build support and solidarity among our various communities.
If you are ever visited by the FBI or other law enforcement agents:
• Say only: "I have nothing to say to you. Give me your card and my lawyer will contact you."
• Contact your nearest National Lawyers Guild chapter to let them know about the encounter.
• Let us know what happened by contacting the Bay Area Committee to Resist Political Repression at: BACRPR [at] riseup.net.
• We encourage you to broadly spread the word of your experience, which will alert other activists.
For more information on resisting political repression:
• Unified statement of resistance against grand juries and FBI questioning at: [http://grandjuryresistance.org/statement.html]
• Information on resistance against grand juries and FBI questioning: [http://grandjuryresistance.org]
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Vallejo City Police personnel add 108% overtime to their normal work time, resulting in a 208% work rate
Vallejo Police Department [link]
"'Cash in' raises questions", letter by Gary W. Smith of Vallejo to the editor of "Vallejo Times-Herald", published 2014-07-01 [http://www.timesheraldonline.com/letterstotheeditor/ci_26069982/vallejo-times-herald]:
The story in Sunday's Times-Herald ("Cash in") raises serious questions about management in the City of Vallejo. The standard work year is 2,280 hours. How did a police corporal add 2,400 hours of overtime rates, totaling 4,480 hours, and it not trigger red flags throughout all levels of Vallejo's city management? It immediately stirred the payroll management curiosity from my experience:
• Experienced City Manager Dan Keen didn't know. Why didn't he?
• Who approved the overtime?
• Where was the City Payroll Department review for "unusual activity" which might be unauthorized or criminally malfeasant?
• Is there no "audit report" trigger in city payroll such that "out of the ordinary" expenses are exposed, reviewed and authenticated?
• Where was the "budget busting expense" of the overtime being reviewed by the city's fiscal department, which should have triggered budget forecast adjustments at periodic financial reviews with the city manager, department managers, the mayor and the city council?
• Where is the morality of allowing an individual to become accustomed to a level of pay that is extravagant and not normal — or is it?
We elect officials to expend tax funds responsibly. City management must have an "order of operation" that exposes potential mismanagement within weeks — not years. We still seem to be, post-bankruptcy, in a "reading-it-in-the-news" phase of management problems in Vallejo. In the real world, overtime is a short-term fix. This Times-Herald article shows that bankruptcy provided no change in how this city works — it doesn't work and it didn't learn anything!
This is your money, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer. You should be selfish about how it is spent, outraged and demanding accountability — I am!
"'Cash in' raises questions", letter by Gary W. Smith of Vallejo to the editor of "Vallejo Times-Herald", published 2014-07-01 [http://www.timesheraldonline.com/letterstotheeditor/ci_26069982/vallejo-times-herald]:
The story in Sunday's Times-Herald ("Cash in") raises serious questions about management in the City of Vallejo. The standard work year is 2,280 hours. How did a police corporal add 2,400 hours of overtime rates, totaling 4,480 hours, and it not trigger red flags throughout all levels of Vallejo's city management? It immediately stirred the payroll management curiosity from my experience:
• Experienced City Manager Dan Keen didn't know. Why didn't he?
• Who approved the overtime?
• Where was the City Payroll Department review for "unusual activity" which might be unauthorized or criminally malfeasant?
• Is there no "audit report" trigger in city payroll such that "out of the ordinary" expenses are exposed, reviewed and authenticated?
• Where was the "budget busting expense" of the overtime being reviewed by the city's fiscal department, which should have triggered budget forecast adjustments at periodic financial reviews with the city manager, department managers, the mayor and the city council?
• Where is the morality of allowing an individual to become accustomed to a level of pay that is extravagant and not normal — or is it?
We elect officials to expend tax funds responsibly. City management must have an "order of operation" that exposes potential mismanagement within weeks — not years. We still seem to be, post-bankruptcy, in a "reading-it-in-the-news" phase of management problems in Vallejo. In the real world, overtime is a short-term fix. This Times-Herald article shows that bankruptcy provided no change in how this city works — it doesn't work and it didn't learn anything!
This is your money, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer. You should be selfish about how it is spent, outraged and demanding accountability — I am!
Monday, June 30, 2014
Facebook.com manipulates targeted user pages to influence long-term moods
Organized Stalking and Electronic Harassment: [link]
"Anger Follows Facebook's Secret Study to Manipulate Emotions; Facebook is using us as lab rats, and not just to figure out which ads we’ll respond to but to actually change our emotions"2014-06-30 by Jon Queally from "Common Dreams" [http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/06/30]:
New details surrounding how Facebook allowed academic researchers to conduct a secret experiment on nearly 700,000 of its users to determine if digital manipulation of their emotions could be achieved has spurred widespread condemnation and new fears about the power of such systems when turned against the millions of people who use them on a daily basis.
The experiment in question, which sought to document evidence of a "massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks," was authorized by Facebook in 2012 and conducted with outside assistance by researchers at Cornell and the University of California.
As the Wall Street Journal describes it [http://online.wsj.com/articles/furor-erupts-over-facebook-experiment-on-users-1404085840], the purpose of the live experiment was to "determine whether it could alter the emotional state of [Facebook] users and prompt them to post either more positive or negative content." To achieve this, the site secretly and without the knowledge of those being subjected to the research "enabled an algorithm, for one week, to automatically omit content that contained words associated with either positive or negative emotions from the central news feeds of 689,003 users."
According to the abstract of the study [http://www.pnas.org/content/111/24/8788.full]:
[begin excerpt]
When positive expressions were reduced, people produced fewer positive posts and more negative posts; when negative expressions were reduced, the opposite pattern occurred. These results indicate that emotions expressed by others on Facebook influence our own emotions, constituting experimental evidence for massive-scale contagion via social networks. This work also suggests that, in contrast to prevailing assumptions, in-person interaction and nonverbal cues are not strictly necessary for emotional contagion, and that the observation of others’ positive experiences constitutes a positive experience for people.
Though the research was first published in an academic journal earlier this year, new attention was brought to it over the weekend after the New Scientist reviewed its findings and reported that the real-life emotions of people, "like [computer] viruses, can spread through online social networks."
[end excerpt]
And blogger Sophie Weiner, writing for AnimalNewYork, responded [http://animalnewyork.com/2014/facebook-experiment-manipulates-emotions-600000-users/]: "What many of us feared is already a reality: Facebook is using us as lab rats, and not just to figure out which ads we’ll respond to but to actually change our emotions."
Numerous outlets then picked up the story, with the Guardian reporting that the lawyers, internet activists and politicians it spoke with used words like "scandalous", "spooky" and "disturbing" to describe the mass experiment in emotional manipulation.
According to the New York Times [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/technology/facebook-tinkers-with-users-emotions-in-news-feed-experiment-stirring-outcry.html]:
[begin excerpt]
Although academic protocols generally call for getting people’s consent before psychological research is conducted on them, Facebook didn’t ask for explicit permission from those it selected for the experiment. It argued that its 1.28 billion monthly users gave blanket consent to the company’s research as a condition of using the service.
But the social network’s manipulation of its users’ feelings without their knowledge stirred up its own negative reaction. Some Facebook users and critics suggested that the company had crossed an ethical boundary.
[end excerpt]
As the Guardian reported, online "commentators voiced fears that the process could be used for political purposes in the runup to elections or to encourage people to stay on the site by feeding them happy thoughts and so boosting advertising revenues."
The newspaper quoted Clay Johnson [http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/29/facebook-users-emotions-news-feeds], the co-founder of Blue State Digital, the firm that built and managed Barack Obama's online campaign for the presidency in 2008, who said: "The Facebook 'transmission of anger' experiment is terrifying."
As Johnson wrote on Twitter: "Could the CIA incite revolution in Sudan by pressuring Facebook to promote discontent? Should that be legal? Could Mark Zuckerberg swing an election by promoting Upworthy [a website aggregating viral content] posts two weeks beforehand? Should that be legal?"
"Anger Follows Facebook's Secret Study to Manipulate Emotions; Facebook is using us as lab rats, and not just to figure out which ads we’ll respond to but to actually change our emotions"2014-06-30 by Jon Queally from "Common Dreams" [http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/06/30]:
New details surrounding how Facebook allowed academic researchers to conduct a secret experiment on nearly 700,000 of its users to determine if digital manipulation of their emotions could be achieved has spurred widespread condemnation and new fears about the power of such systems when turned against the millions of people who use them on a daily basis.
The experiment in question, which sought to document evidence of a "massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks," was authorized by Facebook in 2012 and conducted with outside assistance by researchers at Cornell and the University of California.
As the Wall Street Journal describes it [http://online.wsj.com/articles/furor-erupts-over-facebook-experiment-on-users-1404085840], the purpose of the live experiment was to "determine whether it could alter the emotional state of [Facebook] users and prompt them to post either more positive or negative content." To achieve this, the site secretly and without the knowledge of those being subjected to the research "enabled an algorithm, for one week, to automatically omit content that contained words associated with either positive or negative emotions from the central news feeds of 689,003 users."
According to the abstract of the study [http://www.pnas.org/content/111/24/8788.full]:
[begin excerpt]
When positive expressions were reduced, people produced fewer positive posts and more negative posts; when negative expressions were reduced, the opposite pattern occurred. These results indicate that emotions expressed by others on Facebook influence our own emotions, constituting experimental evidence for massive-scale contagion via social networks. This work also suggests that, in contrast to prevailing assumptions, in-person interaction and nonverbal cues are not strictly necessary for emotional contagion, and that the observation of others’ positive experiences constitutes a positive experience for people.
Though the research was first published in an academic journal earlier this year, new attention was brought to it over the weekend after the New Scientist reviewed its findings and reported that the real-life emotions of people, "like [computer] viruses, can spread through online social networks."
[end excerpt]
And blogger Sophie Weiner, writing for AnimalNewYork, responded [http://animalnewyork.com/2014/facebook-experiment-manipulates-emotions-600000-users/]: "What many of us feared is already a reality: Facebook is using us as lab rats, and not just to figure out which ads we’ll respond to but to actually change our emotions."
Numerous outlets then picked up the story, with the Guardian reporting that the lawyers, internet activists and politicians it spoke with used words like "scandalous", "spooky" and "disturbing" to describe the mass experiment in emotional manipulation.
According to the New York Times [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/technology/facebook-tinkers-with-users-emotions-in-news-feed-experiment-stirring-outcry.html]:
[begin excerpt]
Although academic protocols generally call for getting people’s consent before psychological research is conducted on them, Facebook didn’t ask for explicit permission from those it selected for the experiment. It argued that its 1.28 billion monthly users gave blanket consent to the company’s research as a condition of using the service.
But the social network’s manipulation of its users’ feelings without their knowledge stirred up its own negative reaction. Some Facebook users and critics suggested that the company had crossed an ethical boundary.
[end excerpt]
As the Guardian reported, online "commentators voiced fears that the process could be used for political purposes in the runup to elections or to encourage people to stay on the site by feeding them happy thoughts and so boosting advertising revenues."
The newspaper quoted Clay Johnson [http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/29/facebook-users-emotions-news-feeds], the co-founder of Blue State Digital, the firm that built and managed Barack Obama's online campaign for the presidency in 2008, who said: "The Facebook 'transmission of anger' experiment is terrifying."
As Johnson wrote on Twitter: "Could the CIA incite revolution in Sudan by pressuring Facebook to promote discontent? Should that be legal? Could Mark Zuckerberg swing an election by promoting Upworthy [a website aggregating viral content] posts two weeks beforehand? Should that be legal?"
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