NEW YORK – The sophistication of a global network of thieves who drained cash machines around the globe of an astonishing $45 million in mere hours sent ripples through the security world, not merely for the size of the operation and ease with which it was carried out, but also for the threat that more such thefts might be in store.

Seven people were arrested in the U.S., accused of operating the New York cell of what prosecutors said was a network that carried out thefts at ATMs in 27 countries from Canada to Russia. Law enforcement agencies from more than a dozen nations were involved in the investigation, U.S. prosecutors in New York said Thursday.

“Unfortunately these types of cybercrimes involving ATMs, where you’ve got a flash mob going out across the globe, are becoming more and more common,” said Rose Romero, a former federal prosecutor and regional director for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

“I expect there will be many more” of these types of crimes, she said.

Some of the fault lies with the magnetic strips on the back of the cards. The rest of the world has largely abandoned cards with magnetic strips in favor of ones with built-in chips that are nearly impossible to copy. But because U.S. banks and merchants have stuck to cards with magnetic strips, they are still accepted around the world.

Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch, who called the theft “a massive 21st-century bank heist,” announced the case Thursday in New York.

Hackers got into bank databases, eliminated withdrawal limits on pre-paid debit cards and created access codes. Others loaded that data onto any plastic card with a magnetic stripe — an old hotel key card or an expired credit card worked fine.

Operatives then fanned out to withdraw money in multiple cities, authorities said. The cells would take a cut of the money, then launder it through purchases or ship it wholesale to the global ringleaders.

Lynch didn’t say where they were located.

It appears no individuals lost money. The thieves plundered funds held by the banks that back up prepaid credit cards, not individual or business accounts, Lynch said.

Ori Eisen, a cybercrime expert and founder of 41st Parameter, a fraud detection and prevention firm, said the $45 million heist was on the “high-end” of what can be done by cybercriminals who exploit banking systems connected to the Internet.

“Given the scale of the global credit card networks, it is almost impossible to detect every kind of attack,” he said. “This attack is not the last one, and if the modus operandi proves to be successful crooks will exploit it time and again.”

Kristine Barnett noticed that her little boy Jacob – whom doctors had tagged as autistic – seemed to have a fascination with patterns. So she took him out of his school’s special ed program and let him study the things he’s passionate about. Now Jacob is on his way to winning a Nobel Prize.

Jacob Barnett, who was diagnosed with moderate to severe autism at 2 years old, is now studying for a master’s degree in quantum physics.

Jacob was silent for much of his childhood. But when he started to speak, he was able to communicate in four different languages.

As a child, doctors told Jacob Barnett’s parents that their autistic son would probably never know how to tie his shoes.

But experts say the 14-year-old Indiana prodigy has an IQ higher than Einstein’s and is on the road to winning a Nobel Prize. He’s given TedX talks and is working toward a master’s degree in quantum physics.

The key, according to mom Kristine Barnett, was letting Jacob be himself — by helping him study the world with wide-eyed wonder instead of focusing on a list of things he couldn’t do.

Diagnosed with moderate to severe autism at the age of 2, Jacob spent years in the clutches of a special education system that didn’t understand what he needed. His teachers at school would try to dissuade Kristine from hoping to teach Jacob any more than the most basic skills.

Jacob was struggling with that sort of instruction — withdrawing deeper into himself and refusing to speak with anyone.

But Kristine noticed that when he was not in therapy, Jacob was doing “spectacular things” on his own.

“He would create maps all over our floor using Q-tips. They would be maps of places we’ve visited and he would memorize every street,” Kristine told the BBC.

One day, his mom took him stargazing. A few months later, they visited a planetarium where a professor was giving a lecture. Whenever the teacher asked questions, Jacob’s little hand shot up and he began to answer questions — easily understanding complicated theories about physics and the movement of planets.

Jacob was just 3-1/2 years old.

His mom realized that Jacob might need something that the standard special education curriculum just wasn’t giving him.

So Kristine decided to take on the job herself.

“For a parent, it’s terrifying to fly against the advice of the professionals,” Kristine writes in her memoir, “The Spark: A Mother’s Story of Nurturing Genius.” “But I knew in my heart that if Jake stayed in special ed, he would slip away.”

His IQ rounds out to 170 — higher than that of Albert Einstein. He’s been working on his own theory of relativity. Professors at Princeton’s Institute for Advance Study were impressed.

“The theory that he’s working on involves several of the toughest problems in astrophysics and theoretical physics,” astrophysics Professor Scott Tremaine wrote to the family in an email.

“Anyone who solves these will be in line for a Nobel Prize.”

Warner Bros. has snatched up movie rights to Jacob’s story. Kristine and her son have embarked on a European book tour, but hope to have some time to rest by July.

“My goal for the summer is just to give him a few weeks off,” Kristine told the Indianapolis Monthly. “The last time he had that was when he came up with the alternative theory to the Big Bang. So who knows what he’ll create?”

Rochester, NY (published 5-4-13) – The following video clearly reveals police attacking a wheelchair bound black man waiting on the sidewalk at a bus stop.

Rochester City Police Address: 185 Exchange Blvd, Rochester, NY 14614

Phone:(585) 428-7033

The phone number for the local station house is: (585) 428-7131

As backups arrive, they order the residents to move away (beyond visual observation) and the crowd displays fear of the police for themselves and their children. The police, in turn, clearly fear photographic evidence and witnesses. In effect, the police attempt to render the public blind and deaf to the incident. The upshot for police:community relations is depressingly obvious. Once again, corruption can not be meaningfully differentiated from incompetence in public officials.

Ferretking25 comments,
“There is a protest on May 18th at the corner of Bartlett and Jefferson Avenue. Get involved and help stop RPD police brutality!”

Jimmy Jamm says,
“As a retired police officer, I’m thoroughly disgusted. It’s so disheartening how cops are becoming…THUGS!”

thrashermario opines,
“I keep telling people we need a second American revolution.”

shocler4fun argues,
“This is what you voted for because this criminal was black! remember the chickens come home to roost! Stop this vote and fight for freedom look at who your electing who funds them! Its only going to get worse! Time to unite as people not by color but as humans!”

xxHANNONxx complains,
“This is why we hate cops, if they actually protected and served they would be admired, but instead they have devolved into the worst kind of street gang there is and to top it all off the filthy media rubs it in our faces and tells we should be thanking them for their “service”, when in reality they are just a bunch of thugs and criminals.”

AMERICANSTEWS observes,
“When YOU are defenseless the bully’s will always kick your ass. The American Constitution and the Bill of Right’s has been abolished, now, will you support The Declaration of Independent’s ??????????”

chiflee67:
“What next , arrest coma patients ??? Charge them for assaulting PIGS ???”

junior13252able:
“Police state!”

James Bova:
“Please explain how either of the cops were kicking the man while both cops are kneeling on the ground?”

lazerith840:
“Its called a Knee to the face. Even if they didnt kick him that is still unessasary violence. You can even hear a cop say “Are you ready to get your ass kicked” 00:44sec.”

Ashurakyuichi:
“This is why I hate Rochester and cant wait to leave, The Police State mentality that people think makes them “safe” has drawn on my last nerve and I cant take this State any longer, and the Police worship and bowing down to the Praetorian’s is sickening. I have one thing to say to the State of NY and the Police.
I AM NOT YOUR SLAVE!!!!!!!!”

1notgilty:
“Welcome to the Rochester NY Police Department where the thugs have the badges and constantly abuse the public with impunity. This is the same police force that arrested Emily Good on her front yard last year for filming a black motorist being roused by police and the same police force that beat up peaceful anti-war marchers on Main Street 2 years ago, and the same police force that arrested 44 peaceful Occupy Rochester protestors for standing in a city park after 11:00 p.m. The mayor approves.”

jackdagripper:
“Always carry a video cam….People got to know!!!”

Police Attack Anti-War Demonstrators in Rochester

LEO upon being queried (near end of video) says demonstrator is being arrested for uttering profanity in public.

pkmusicproject”
“They arrested the only black guy first. Get that on the record.”

Rochester Police Quash Anti-Capitalist March 7-21-12

In the above video clip, Rochester, NY police can be seen attacking peaceful marchers on sidewalks, bullying the crowd, while protesters avoid involvement and scurry away instead of calling out for/giving contact information to serve as witnesses in any ensuing court appearances. Essentially, they abandon their comrades/neighbors, giving into fear of the police, encouraging the LEO’s to pick them off one by one until the march dissolves under the oppression of intimidation and brutality. There is no collective spine and the group behaves like cowed dogs. It is every citizen’s duty to bear witness to corruption, official incompetence, and brutality. Those in the video evaded that responsibility.

Unarmed Father of 4 Pleaded for His Life as Police Beat Him to Death

By Rania Khalek on May 10, 2013

Bakersfield, CA. – David Sal Silva, a 33-year-old father of four small children between the ages of 2 and 10, was beaten to death by as many as nine police officers in Bakersville, California, early Wednesday morning. Police say Silva was intoxicated and fighting officers. But this was contradicted by several eyewitnesses.

Grainy security camera footage obtained by 23ABC from a person who was “afraid of a cover-up by deputies and wanted ‘the truth to come out’”, appears to corroborate witness accounts, showing several men striking a man laying on the ground with objects over a dozen times.

The release of a 911 call from a woman who witnessed the beating (listen here) doesn’t bode well for the officers either. The woman can be heard telling the dispatcher:

“There’s a man laying on the floor and your police officers beat the shit out of him and killed him. I have it all on video camera. I am sitting here on the corner of Flower and Palm right now and you have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight Sheriffs. The guy was laying on the floor and eight Sheriff’s ran up and started beating him up with sticks.  The man is dead laying right here, right now.”

Despite the hazy security footage and 911 call, police are sticking to their story. So, someone is lying. But who? Fortunately, at least two witnesses captured the beating on their cell phones. However, the devices were immediately seized by police, which is illegal in California.

Cops vs. Witnesses

Kern County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Ray Pruitt says that a deputy with a canine was responding to a call from Kern Medical Facility late Tuesday night about an intoxicated man outside when he spotted and approached Silva at a nearby intersection. Pruitt claims that Silva put up a fight when the deputy attempted to take him into custody, at which point more deputies and two California Highway Patrol officers showed up to help. Silva then had trouble breathing. He was taken to Kern Medical Center and died less than an hour later.

But Witnesses tell a very different story.

Just minutes before Silva’s encounter with police, a woman, who asked not to be identified, told ABC23 that she saw Silva lying on the sidewalk seemingly unconscious. ”I seen the guy laying there. I thought something was wrong with him. Then when I saw him moving… I saw his chest  moving up and down…I knew that he was just drunk and eventually he’ll wake up,” the woman said.

It’s hard to imagine that Silva was able to muster the strength to fight off several police officers just minutes after he was purportedly incapacitated.

Ruben Ceballos, 19, told The Bakersfield Californian he was at his home and in bed when he awoke around midnight to screams and loud bangs, which he soon recognized as the sound of police batons smashing into Silva’s skull. ”When I got outside I saw two officers beating a man with batons and they were hitting his head so every time they would swing, I could hear the blows to his head,” Ceballos said. The beating continued for several minutes despite the desperate cries for help. Then Silva went silent and became unresponsive, Ceballos said.

“His body was just lying on the street and before the ambulance arrived one of the officers performed CPR on him and another one used a flashlight on his eyes but I’m sure he was already dead.”

The Sheriff’s office told the Californian that they will not comment on the case until their investigation into the matter is complete.

Recording the Police is Not a Crime

Criminal law attorney John Tello is representing seven witnesses to Silva’s beating. Two of them say they recorded the incident on their cell phones. Tello told the Californian of the disturbing lengths police went to seize his client’s device:

“When I arrived to the home of one of the witnesses that had video footage, she was with her family sitting down on the couch, surrounded by three deputies,” Tello said.

Tello said the witness was not allowed to go anywhere with her phone and was being quarantined inside her home.

When Tello tried to talk to the witness in private and with the phone, one of the deputies stopped him and told him he couldn’t take the phone anywhere because it was evidence to the investigation, the attorney said.

“This was not a crime scene where the evidence was going to be destroyed,” Tello said. “These were concerned citizens who were basically doing a civic duty of preserving the evidence, not destroying it as they (sheriff deputies) tried to make it seem.”

A search warrant wasn’t presented to either of the witnesses until after Tello arrived, he said, adding that one phone was seized before the warrant was produced.

Tello said the phone of the first witness was taken after the deputies told him he was either going to give up the phone the easy way or the hard way.

“They basically told him they were either going to keep him at this house all night until they could find a judge to sign a search warrant or he could just turn over his phone,” he said.

The witness gave up his phone two hours before he had to get to work and was told by deputies that he could collect his phone the next day after they had extracted the evidence they needed, Tello said.

However, the witness never got his phone back, Tello said, and was told it could take years before he does because the investigation could take a long time.

“My main concern is that these witnesses are not harassed by deputies because this case can make others who see crimes happening not want to speak up because of the way law enforcement handles situations,” Tello said.

If the deputies did in fact beat a helpless man to death, they have good reason to fear the recordings.

In Fullerton, California, just two and half hours away from Bakersfield, cell phone footage was instrumental in holding police accountable for beating Kelly Thomas, a mentally ill homeless man, to death in 2011.

Though California is a two-party consent state (requires all parties to consent to an audio or video recording for the the recording to be legal), the law does not apply in public settings due to an “expectation of privacy” provision. More importantly, police are not permitted  to confiscate a cell phone unless the phone was used in a crime. Therefore, the seizure of cell phones by the Sheriff’s deputies was illegal.

Silva’s Family Wants Answers

Silva’s younger brother, 31-year-old Christopher, was devastated after learning the details of his brothers death from witnesses. ”My brother spent the last eight minutes of his life pleading, begging for his life,” he told the Californian.

The family has since hired attorney David Cohn.

At a press conference Friday, Cohn praised witnesses for “policing the police” by recording the beating. He also expressed concern that the police might tamper with the footage.

“Those videos that were taken are the most important piece to this case and another main concern is that those videos aren’t altered or destroyed by the Sheriff’s Department,” Cohn said. ”We all know that a picture is worth a thousand words. And thank God we have concerned citizens who take video and pictures of incidents like this and who are ultimately policing the police.” He addressed the Sheriff’s department directly, asking, “what are you hiding?”

The family has yet to see Silva’s body as they patiently await the results of an autopsy conducted on Thursday. The coroner’s office says the cause of death is pending toxicology and microscopic studies.

Meanwhile, Silva’s mother, Merri, is struggling with how to tell her grandchildren that they no longer have a father. But her grief has only strengthened her desire for justice, which goes far beyond her son’s horrific death. Expressing concern for future victims of police brutality, she told the Californian, ”If I don’t do anything about my son’s death then it will just be pushed to the side and I don’t want this to happen to another person.”

The last time CO2 was regularly above 400ppm was three to five million years ago

Scientists are calling on world leaders to take action on climate change after carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere broke through a symbolic threshold.

Daily CO2 readings at a US government agency lab on Hawaii have topped 400 parts per million for the first time.

Sir Brian Hoskins, the head of climate change at the UK-based Royal Society, said the figure should “jolt governments into action”.

China and the US have made a commitment to co-operate on clean technology.

But BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin said the EU was backing off the issue, and cheap fossil fuels looked attractive to industries.

The laboratory, which sits on the Mauna Loa volcano, feeds its numbers into a continuous record of the concentration of the gas stretching back to 1958.

‘Sense of urgency’

Carbon dioxide is regarded as the most important of the manmade greenhouse gases blamed for raising the temperature on the planet over recent decades.

Human sources come principally from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas.

Ministers in the UK have claimed global leadership in reducing CO2 emissions and urged other nations to follow suit.

But the official Climate Change Committee (CCC) last month said that Britain’s total contribution towards heating the climate had increased, because the UK is importing goods that produce CO2 in other countries.

The last time CO2 was regularly above 400ppm was three to five million years ago – before modern humans existed.

Scientists say the climate back then was also considerably warmer than it is today.

Professor Sir Brian Hoskins, director of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London, said a greater sense of urgency about tackling climate change was needed.

“Before we started influencing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, over the last million years it went between about 180 and 280 parts per million,” he said.

“Now, since the Industrial Revolution and more in the last 50 years, we’ve taken that level up by more than 40% to a level of 400 and that hasn’t been seen on this planet for probably four million years.

“But around the world, there are things happening, it’s not all doom and gloom,” he added.

“China is doing a lot. Its latest five year plan makes really great strides.”

China’s plan for 2011-2015 includes reversing the damage done by 30 years of growth and increasing the use of renewable energy.

PORT ANGELES, Wash. — Investigators said a man in Port Angeles angry over new construction near his home went on a rampage and drove a bulldozer into three houses trying to destroy them.

The incident happened on Highway 101 at North Baker Street.
A resident in the area told the Peninsula Daily News that the man took a piece of logging equipment and “just went nuts.”

Keith Haynes, who lives near one of the damaged homes, told the newspaper that a woman inside one of the homes escaped unharmed.

Authorities arrested 51-year-old Barry Swegle. A neighbor named Phil Riley said a disagreement over a property line had been escalating for a long time between Swegle and Dan Davis, whose two properties were severely damaged, according to the Peninsula Daily News.

According to investigators, Swegle was angry with several neighbors over fence lines he felt were too close to his home.

One neighbor, Judith Walters, saw the bulldozer go through a home.

“I saw a tractor, out of control, I thought. And it plowed into the white house over here,” said Walters. “And she was in the doorway with her dog, her little Chihuahua and yeah, I was screaming at her at the top of my lungs, ‘Get out of the house!'”

Walters saw Swegle repeatedly slam into the home.

Gary Blevins told KIRO 7 Eyewitness News he has known Swegle since he was a boy, and has been concerned about his behavior for years.

“It makes my heart sad that he pulled anything like this,” Blevins said. “I even told the neighbor one time, I said, ‘You better watch him.'”

Chopper 7 flew over the scene, where a power pole was down, homes were gutted or damaged, and a truck was flattened.

Video showed a fence was twisted and broken, belongings were strewn outside homes, and a boat was ripped from its trailer.

The state Department of Transportation said the downed power pole caused power and traffic signals in the area to go out.

Highway 101 was closed for a time but has since reopened. Some power was restored.
According to the Clallam County Public Utility District, power was restored to most except about 200 Gales Addition customers, who will be affected by an extended outage.

The outage is expected to go on late into Friday evening or early Saturday morning.
All customers on South Mt. Angeles will experience a brief outage as well.

Customers up Golf Course Road, along Ennis and Pioneer, Roll-Inn Trailer Par and the area West of Gales will be without power into the evening, said officials with the PUD.

Authorities said no injuries were reported.

“You want to film something b**ch? Film this!”

Yet another police brutality story of cops assaulting photojournalists makes its appearance, this time in Baltimore, due to a citizen photojournalist and mother being savagely attacked by criminally inclined LEO’s at the scene. This kind of brutality has become so commonly exposed today as a result of technology, it’s a wonder some flatfoots haven’t figured it out. But violently disturbed street thugs calling themselves (A)narchists engage in identical behavior. Citizens are left to ponder their options/safety as they’re caught between the warring gangs. Miscreants from both camps must be held accountable for their crimes, assaults, thefts, robberies, their violation of civil rights, and their indifference to the inalienable rights of others.

(See TESC 4-20-13 Strong (A)rm Robbery-Assault on Photojournalist)

BALTIMORE (CN) – Baltimore police beat up a woman and smashed her camera for filming them beating up a man, telling her: “You want to film something bitch? Film this!” the woman claims in court.

Makia Smith sued the Baltimore Police Department, Police Commissioner Anthony Batts and police Officers Nathan Church, William Pilkerton, Jr., Nathan Ulmer and Kenneth Campbell in Federal Court.

Smith claims she was stuck in stand-still rush hour traffic in northern Baltimore when she saw the defendant officers beating up and arresting a young man.

She says pulled out her camera, stood on her car’s door sill and filmed the beating.

“Officer Church saw plaintiff filming the beating and ran at her,” the complaint states. “He scared her and she sat back in her vehicle. As he ran at her, he yelled, ‘You want to film something bitch? Film this!’

“Officer Church reached into plaintiff’s car and grabbed her telephone-camera out of her hand, threw it to the ground and destroyed it by smashing it with his foot.

“Officer Church pulled plaintiff out of her car by her hair and beat her. Officers Pilkerton, Ulmer, and Campbell then ran to plaintiff’s car and joined Officer Church in beating plaintiff and arrested her using excessive force. At all times described herein, plaintiff’s two year old daughter witnessed her mother’s beating and arrest by the Officers, as did others.”

Smith claims the cops taunted her and threatened to take her daughter away. She says they refused to call her mother to her toddler.

“The officers, despite the pleas of plaintiff, refused to call plaintiff’s mother. Instead, the officers tormented plaintiff by telling her that her daughter would be taken from her and sent to Social Services. Seeing plaintiff’s distressful reaction to these tormenting threats, they continued,” the complaint states.

Smith says she was arrested and taken to jail on bogus charges that she assaulted Church and resisted arrest.

She claims Church failed to appear for her trial – twice, and prosecutors dropped the charges, but she had to hire a lawyer and spend more money recovering her impounded car.

She claims Baltimore police have a history of illegally seizing and destroying recording devices.

She seeks $1.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages for civil rights violations, conversion and infliction of emotional distress.

She is represented by Christopher Lyon, with Astrachan Gunst Thomas.

Police departments around the country have been accused of similar responses to citizens filming them abusing other people.

DHAKA, Bangladesh — Well over a thousand impoverished factory workers died in the deadliest disaster in the history of the garment industry. Five factories were operating inside the building when the structure pancaked downward. The carnage was horrific and has focused global attention on unsafe conditions in Bangladeshi garment factories that make clothing for North American and European consumers — especially since there were advance warnings that the structure was unsafe.

The Rana Plaza death toll, now at 1,053, has been rising quickly in recent days, and will probably keep climbing. Located in an industrial suburb of Dhaka, Rana Plaza exemplified many of safety problems plaguing the garment industry in Bangladesh, the world’s second-leading garment exporter, trailing only China.

The authorities in Bangladesh now say the building was illegally constructed, with permits obtained through political influence. The owner, Sohel Rana, now in jail, was illegally adding upper floors to the structure at the time the building collapsed, officials said. [Public outrage has led to demands for his execution in the wake of over 1,000 deaths attributable to him and the corrupt officials he bribed/influenced.]

A female garment worker named Reshma escaped the carnage…a survivor–a miracle!

“Save me!” rescuers heard her shout, before they pulled her into the afternoon light, her face powdered in dust as she was placed on a stretcher.

The rescue of Reshma, as described by rescuers and government officials, has offered a temporary respite from the gloom and a startling tale of resilience: she survived in an opening maybe 10 feet by 8 feet in size, high enough for her to stand, within a penumbra of collapsed beams and pillars. Air trickled through the crevices. She found enough food and water to last until two days ago.

“I never dreamed I’d see the daylight again,” she told local Somoy TV from her hospital bed, according to news accounts.

Reaction in Bangladesh was euphoric. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina rushed to the military hospital where Reshma had been taken. Twelve days earlier, on April 28, rescuers had worked desperately to save another woman, Shaheena, who was then thought to be the last survivor. But she died after a fire broke out in the final hour of the rescue operation.

At Rana Plaza, recovery crews had little hope of finding a survivor when work began on Friday. A five-member army rescue team had begun using heavy machinery to crack into an area of the building’s basement but found it flooded with water. As they worked from the first floor, searching for the source of water, they noticed a movement.

“Suddenly we saw the movement of a stick,” Major M. M. Moazzem Hossain, a member of the team, said in an interview. “Someone from the second floor was trying to draw attention by inserting a stick through a narrow hole. When we reached there, we asked, ‘Is there anyone inside? ”

A female voice shouted out, “Save me!”

Major Hossain said the woman had told him her name was Reshma.

“We are with you,” he said he had told her. “We will not move out from this place without rescuing you.”

Now the soldiers and a group of firefighters began cutting a hole, using a hand drill and hammers, to try to reach her. “We were aware of the tragic accident during the operation to rescue Shaheena,” he said. “So we were very careful.”

For an hour, they kept cutting, making a hole about a foot and a half in diameter. Major Hossain said he squeezed through the hole and helped bring Reshma out. Startled, gazing curiously into the sunlight, Reshma was placed on a stretcher and taken immediately to the military hospital.

The Rana Plaza disaster led to nationwide mourning in Bangladesh as well as outrage because it appears that the accident could have been averted. A day before the collapse, an engineer examined cracks in the structure and warned Mr. Rana, as well as owners of the garment factories, that the building was unsafe and should be closed. Instead, workers were told to come to their factories the next morning.

REFLECTIONS:

The P(a)radox in all this stems from the inconsistency of some of the most violently radical anti-state (A)narchists who demand all government, all laws, all hierarchies be abolished. The contradiction is readily apparent to even childish minds.

How would such a scheme, if it were possible, prevent force & fraud (or protect the environment), both of which were at play in this outrageous example of capitalism literally crushing impoverished workers under its heel? Those youthful violent dilettantes calling themselves (A)narchists who so gleefully enjoy twisting the lion’s tale have no answer. Rather, by antagonizing the beast, they distract scrutiny of criminals such as the owners of the Bangladeshi sweatshops and those corporations who patronize them. The animal becomes obsessed with ridding itself of the lice biting its skin.

“If you strike a king, you must kill him.” -Machiavelli-

The young punk cultural acolytes playing at ‘revolution’, instead of mounting any credible threat to the state, slash tires of vehicles they suppose are too ‘nice’. They smash windows of businesses, small and corporate alike. They routinely assault journalists who they hope will cover their public demonstrations/riots. They demand media attention, then assault those who provide it. They aggressively photograph public events, then assault those who follow suit.

The hooligans cloaking themselves in the  mantle of ‘revolutionaries’ vex, but they do not prevail. They antagonize, but they do not remedy. They protest, but they do not listen. They plead for solidarity while engaged in assault and violating the rights of others. They argue for social justice while denouncing the very notion of ‘rights’ or laws intended to prevent force and fraud. THIS, they gush, is the path to a better tomorrow, a brighter more just future for all. Some of their most ardent proponents are not the young who will inevitably adjust their vision once their social imperative has been filled. It is those senior mentors who often derive their professorial salaries from the State while they preach “smash the state”, their tenure secure.

The assaultive U.S. (A)narchist extremists are anathema to the idea of freedom and autonomy they espouse. The relatives of dead Bangladeshi garment workers won’t be looking to (A)narchists for solace, but a government which will eschew corruption by preventing force, fraud, exploitation of the environment, and indentured servitude through wage slavery.  Those that can, DO! Those that can’t become violent juvenile street thugs wrapping themselves in the pretext of ‘politics’ and (A)narchy…a cancer on the principles of liberty, freedom, and autonomy.

by Rania Khalek on March 31, 2013

On Wednesday, March 27, hundreds of inmates at the Cibola County Correctional Center in Milan, New Mexico, engaged in a peaceful demonstration against poor treatment. Somewhere between 250 to 500 prisoners refused to leave the recreation yard in a demonstration that lasted for over 12 hours.

The Center, which houses over 1,100 minimum-security federal prisoners (all male), is owned and operated by the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation’s largest for profit system. CCA facilities are notorious for rampant human rights abuses, not exactly shocking for a company whose sole purpose is to profit from locking human beings in cages.

Media Fail

As of this writing, a Google News search of “Cibola County Correctional Center” results in just six news stories, all from local outlets. And all six of them read like a press release written by CCA.

Protesting is a risky endeavor for prisoners. It practically gaurantees retaliation from prison staff and more likely than not nothing will change. So it’s highly unlikely that prisoners went into this for no reason. Nevertheless, the authorities repeatedly claimed not to know why the prisoners were protesting and the local outlets shamefully trumpeted what was obviously CCA’s carefully crafted narrative.

“Public Information Officer Stephen Brown said they still were not able to find out why the inmates were protesting,” KOB Eyewitness News 4 reported. But as far as I can tell, News 4 made no attempt to speak with inmates or their advocates. Instead, they spoke with the parents of corrections officers inside the facility for added insight.

In an update, News 4 assured it’s readers that it was “still pressing for answers on why hundreds of inmates protested.” But don’t get too excited because the outlet spent the rest of the segment speaking with residents who live nearby the facility.

Action 7 News not only quoted the same couple that appeared in News 4‘s report, but also spoke with the mother of yet another prison guard. As for why there was a protest, Action 7 said the authorities were still investigating (move along, nothing else to see here).

The Cibola Beacon-News was the only outlet that spoke with anyone besides the prison authorities, but it had nothing to do with extra work on their part. “[T]he Beacon did receive an anonymous call early Wednesday about a possible demonstration because inmates claimed they were being treated unfairly. No specifics of mistreatment were provided by the caller,” the Beacon reported.

Undocumented Immigrants

None of these outlets even bothered to mention that Cibola Correctional is one of 13 privately-owned prisons contracted out by the federal government to meet the prison system’s so-called ”criminal alien requirements.” It doesn’t take that much digging to figure it out. Even CCA notes that “All offenders at Cibola…are illegal immigrants.” This should immediately raise red flags given the laundry list of documented horrors that have taken place at privately-run immigrant detention centers.

CAR facilities were created around 2000 to house undocumented immigrants convicted of felonies, though more often than not these are petty, nonviolent crimes as well as offenses upgraded to felony, such as reentry (reentering the county illegally).

Last year, Justice Strategies released a damning report about these facilities, titled, “Privately Operated Federal Prisons for Immigrants: Expensive, Unsafe, Unnecessary“, which lays out the substandard conditions in these for-profit prisons.

As the owner of several CAR prisons, CCA is no stranger to accusations of mistreatment.

Last year, a riot erupted at Adams County Correctional Center, a CCA-owned CAR prison in Mississippi. Several were injured and one prison guard was killed. CCA told the media that gang violence was to blame but it was later revealed it was a protest against abusive conditions that got out of control.

Another CCA-owned car facility, Eden Detention Center in Texas, broke out in a riot in 2010. “The number of inmates at the detention center, according to census estimates from 2008, exceeds by about 200 the general population in Eden,” reported the San Angelo Times.

The pattern of cost-cutting, negligence and abuse at CCA-owned prisons goes back even further, but that would take more paragraphs than you’re probably willing to read. The important thing to take away is that last week wasn’t the first time inmates at a CCA-owned CAR prison demonstrated against mistreatment.

In fact, it wasn’t even the first protest at Cibola. In April of 2001, some 700 Cibola prisoners staged an identical day-long protest in the recreation yard, which ended with guards firing tear gas to force inmates inside. Back then, the authorities said they didn’t know why the prisoners were protesting (sound familiar?), a claim the media dutifully reported. Apparently, very little has changed.

Inmates Seen as Sub-human

Several local residents left several nasty comments on the Beacon-News Facebook page, highlighting the hatred Cibola inmates are surrounded by.

John P. Gonzalez wants the authorities to spray the inmates down with a fire hose.

Teri Esquivel-Placencia suggests sending the protesting inmates to Joe Arpaio’s Arizona prison, known nationwide for its racist and brutally abusive treatment of prisoners.

Colton Baca left a highly disturbing comment about wanting to “gas them”, which implies that he works as a guard at the prison in question.

Joseph Apodaca, who is a correctional officer at the state-run Western New Mexico Correctional Facility according to his profile, also suggested tear gassing the inmates.

Though prisoners are generally seen as sub-human in the eyes of many Americans, the comments reflected an added hatred stemming from bigotry and xenophobia, such as this comment by Thomas Council:

Other commenters showed a complete lack of understanding about who these particular prisoners are suggesting that the inmates deserved to be mistreated because they were paying for committing crimes like drive-by shootings and assaulting elderly women, when in reality many of the inmates are imprisoned for minor, nonviolent offenses.

Meanwhile, the prisoners at Cibola are almost certainly facing painful retaliation for their disobedience. And the media seems to have already moved on.

Reporter Asks White House if U.S. Airstrikes That Kill Afghan Civilians Qualify as ‘Terrorism’

UPDATE: The reporter who asked the question is Amina Ismail, a journalist at McClatchy. I urge you to thank her for asking it (her twitter handle is @AminaIsmail) because I can’t imagine it was easy given how extremely rare and frowned upon it is to challenge the dominant “war on terror” narrative, especially as a female reporter with an Arab-sounding name. And Amina, if you’re reading this, thanks for kicking ass!

* * * *

Matthew Keys, the social media editor at Reuters, posted audio of a reporter asking White House Press Secretary Jay Carney if U.S. bombings that kill innocent civilians in Afghanistan constitute an “act of terror” given the labeling of the Boston Marathon bombing as “terrorism”. She specifically refers to a U.S. airstrike earlier this month that killed 11 children, just the latest in a seemingly endless line of Afghan civilian deaths at the hands of the U.S. government.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/88296126″ width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

Carney completely dodged the questions, pointing instead to the 9/11 terrorist attacks to justify U.S. bombings in Afghanistan. After a long-winded answer excusing U.S. conduct, Carney concludes, “ we take great care in the prosecution of this war.”

Tell me, does this look like “great care” to you?

 

I transcribed the exchange in full:

REPORTER: I send my deepest condolence to the victims and families in Boston. But President Obama said that what happened in Boston was an act of terrorism. I would like to ask, Do you consider the U.S. bombing on civilians in Afghanistan earlier this month that left 11 children and a woman killed a form of terrorism? Why or why not?

JAY CARNEY: Well, I would have to know more about the incident and then obviously the Department of Defense would have answers to your questions on this matter. We have more than 60,000 U.S. troops involved in a war in Afghanistan, a war that began when the United States was attacked, in an attack that was organized on the soil of Afghanistan by al Qaeda, by Osama bin laden and others and more than 3,000 people were killed in that attack. And it has been the President’s objective once he took office to make clear what our goals are in Afghanistan and that is to disrupt, dismantle and ultimately defeat al Qaeda. And with that as our objective to provide enough assistance to Afghan National Security Forces and the Afghan government to allow them to take over security for themselves. And that process is underway and the United States has withdrawn a substantial number of troops and we are in the process of drowning down further as we hand over security lead to Afghan forces. And it is certainly the case that I refer you to the defense department for details that we take great care in the prosecution of this war and we are very mindful of what our objectives are.

(At the very least, this serves as another example of the utter meaninglessness of the word “terrorism”.)