Oakland’s Mayoral Race; Who To Vote For & What Questions to Ask

OaklandWith Ras Baraka winning his bid for Mayor in Newark, NJ, the focus now turns to all the races set to unfold on June 3rd which is the next big election day for many around the country. Here in the Bay Area a major race for Mayor is unfolding in Oakland with 16 people running for office. People ideally need to be thinking, ‘Who they will they be voting for and why?? ‘

Ideally, our immediate focus should not be on who will win? but instead we should be focusing on what the positions each candidate has staked on key issues?  For example , before we start speculating who will win, we should be asking ourselves what are the positions and policies each Mayoral candidates in Oakland has to stem the tide of gentrification? This is especially important when we consider the thousands who have recently moved to Oakland and how its Black population once 60% has dwindled down to around 23% . How and why did that happen?

Let’s be clear there are some candidates who see the new influx especially in historically Black West Oakland as great. They honestly think gentrification often called ‘urban renewal‘ has improved the image and the quality of life for many in the city. Translation: the more white residents the better. Others feel that long time residents are getting the shaft. What plans are in store for Oakland’s next mayor around this issue?  What policies can they guarantee as mayor vs falling back on tired excuse that they can only advocate and hope the city council follows their lead?

Oakland-BrooklynAsk the candidates how they feel about the photo I posted where many are calling Oakland the New Brooklyn. Other have called Oakland the New San Francisco? Still others have said Oakland is the new Silicon Valley? Newcomers love the new labels. Long time residents hate it and feel like the city’s identity is being thrown under the bus with a marketing make over in which they had little if any input. How do you as an Oakland resident new or old feel about these labels?

How do you feel about Oakland having many of its sections renamed and marketed outside of town ie NOBE (North Oakland, Berkeley) or the new Brooklyn Basin project? Whats their thoughts on WOSP? (West Oakland’s Specific Plan?) More importantly how do the mayoral candidates feel and how have their actions reflected that sentiment? Are they placating new transplants? Again there are thousands of them ,making them a sizeable voting block or are they working with long time residents who don’t wanna leave the city they love?

How do our candidates feel about our sports teams.. The Raiders, the As and the Warriors?? What are they doing to keep them? What are they doing to cut ties? How important is it for you as an Oakland resident to have these teams?

What are the any of these candidates plans for affordable housing? Where do they stand on issues like rent control? How are these candidates dealing with housing discrimination? For those who don’t know, with gentrification has become desireable to only rent to out of towners who are willing to pay more or to rent to Non-Black/ Brown residents.. What are any of these current candidates doing about that?

Geoffreys Inner CircleHow are any of these mayoral candidates working to support and grow local businesses. There have always been innovative folks in Oakland who have been applauded all over the world for their being business savvy, yet the city has never recognized them.. In the past we seen city hall try to shut down businesses.. Folks may wanna talk to folks like to long time business owner Geoffrey Pete and ask him about the drama past mayors like Jerry Brown put him through in attempts to disrupt his thriving landmark business.

Currently we have OPD shutting down street vendors who have been a vibrant part of the culture forever. What opportunities are in place for homegrown businesses? Not newly arrived / recruited businesses, but homegrown folks who been here for decades and were never shown love? What opportunities are here for them?

What plans do any of these candidates have for schools? Are they anti teacher’s union and pro charter? Are they for universal pre-school or do they want folks to pay $1500-2000 a month for all these private preschools? Don’t ask these candidates what they are gonna do? Many have who are running have been active in Oakland prior to this year, so ask them what their track record is around education??

Oakland SchoolsAsk them if they are in favor of ‘Teach for America?’, ‘Common Core?‘ “No Child Left Behind ?‘ and Zero Tolerance policies?’ Ask them how they feel about our Community Colleges, CSUs and UC Systems? Are they politically aligned w/ folks who have been trying to privatize these once FREE public school systems and raise tuition or are they pushing to make sure these schools are free and accessible? Check their track record from the past, that’ll tell you a lot…

Where do mayoral candidates stand on jobs and job creation? Ask them if they are aware of the Jackson Rising plan around cooperative economics and if they talked with all the folks from the Bay Area and Oakland in particular who went to the recent conference in Jackson, Ms??

Ask them if they are pushing to make sure there are guarantees that Oakland residents will be hired for any new contracts awarded by the city? What have these candidates pushed for in the past? For example, with the BART extension to Oakland airport, what work did they put in advocating for Oakland residents to be hired? Don’t ask them what they say they are going to do.. Ask them what they did in the past? How did they vote? What letters did they write? What policies did they push? Show and prove..

Gang wars OaklandAsk these mayoral candidates what steps they have taken in the past to protect the image of this city? For example, when the Discovery Channel did a bogus special called ‘Gang Wars in Oakland‘ they claimed the city had 10k gang members and was the murder capital of the world. There are nowhere near 10 thousand gang members and it definitely wasn’t the murder capital. What reaction did any of these candidates have to our tarnished image?  How did they confront the Discovery Channel?

When the did the TV special Santa Rita, Oakland suggesting that Santa Rita prison was in oakland vs being in Dublin 30 miles away, what steps did these candidates do to correct that image? When they did the heavily promoted TV show on MSNBC ‘Lockdown Oakland‘ and then profiled violent crimes committed by people living in other cities how did our candidates react? What steps did they take to correct those falsehoods? Did any of these candidates buy into these narratives and call for more police and repressive policies, gang injunctions etc or did they know and love this city enough to know those stories were not only false portrayals but were actually fueled by an embattled police department pushing their own agenda to get more funding and more cops?

Oaklandpolice-225How do our candidates feel about the police and what’s their relationship to Oakland’s powerful police union? Do they feel Oakland needs more police? Do they feel the city needs less? What’s their plan to stop police brutality? What advocacy groups have they met with? What policies have they supported or not supported in the past around police reform? Did they show up to City Hall and weigh in when controversial policies like Gang Injunctions and youth curfews were debated? Where did they stand when the city voted to give Chief William Bratton 250K to consult the city?

Don’t wait on slick press releases and flashy commercials to get answers. Many of these candidates are on social media. Hit them up, ask the hard questions and be informed when you go to the polls June 3rd..

Reach out to some of these Oakland Mayoral candidates Shake Anderson Dan Siegel Libby Schaaf Bryan Parker Oakland Mayor Jean Quan Patrick McCullough, Courtney Ruby, Joe Tuman for Mayor of Oakland, Larry Lionel Young Jr, Sam Washington, Nancy Sidebotham, Margaret Wrigley-Larson, Peter Y. Liu, Bane Capital Ruby Paige Askew Gregory Wade

The Bay Area is Bracing for Urban Shield as SWAT Teams & Weapons Contractors Come to Oakland

Urban ShieldWith the tragic death of 13-year-old Andy Lopez by Santa Rosa sheriff deputies, fresh on our minds, many in the Bay Area are upset and beyond anxious about this weekends Urban Shield gathering.. For those who are unaware, The Department of Homeland Security, SWAT teams from all over the state and country and other Law Enforcement outfits will be descending upon Oakland to host a weapons show and hold an urban war game competition..

The conference and events surrounding it are sponsored by weapons manufacturers with very little money going back to the community where some of these exercises will take place. In fact Oakland City Council members were unaware this was taking place, while officials in surrounding more affluent cities have been pushing this left and right..

Here’s a brief break down of Urban Shield as more than 30 different organizations have banded together to push back. There are local newspaper articles talking about how the police are bracing for protests. Organizers noted that the Bay Area was chosen because of its high level of aggressive protests and dense population.

This year’s Urban Shield  activities are kicking off on the second anniversary of Occupy Oakland when  Iraq War vet Scott Olson was shot by police a protest..Some law enforcement folks note that it was training received at Urban Sheild that prepared police for Occupy protests.  If that’s not enough in addition to all the SWAT teams and weapons manufacturers, former police Chief Bill Bratton and now consultant to OPD will be here as well. Here’s a brief rundown of whats happening courtesy of Facing Urban Shield

There will be huge protests throughout the day in front of Oakland Marriot which is blocks away from Occupy Oakland‘s old site.. We give you the full run down with local activist in our Hard Knock Radio interview which is linked below..

What is Urban Shield?

From October 25th-28th, 2013 in Oakland, California, Urban Shield — a trade show and training exercise for SWAT teams and police agencies — will bring local, national and international law enforcement agencies together with “defense industry contractors” to provide training and introduce new weapons to police and security companies.

We know what this really means: more police and state repression, more tragedy and more death – since these weapons are used primarily against our communities. Over 30 local Oakland groups have formed an action network to express our opposition to the militarization of police and corporate complicity in it.

It Doesn’t Work

Urban Shield arises out of the incorrect assumption that suppression methods, such as the Wars on Drugs and Terror, as well as profiling tactics such as gang injunctions reduce violence in our communities. In fact, the opposite is true. The militarization of police and increased use of suppression tactics in schools, prisons, at the border, in our streets and against our youth are counterproductive to community well-being. Spending billions of dollars to militarize police agencies is deeply misguided.

We Need Alternatives to Policing

Instead of pouring resources into the militarization of police, we need to promote a culture of peace and health, and not one of more violence, war, poverty and incarceration. That is why over 20 groups in the Bay Area oppose Urban Shield and seek to hold our local government accountable for the massive waste of resources on policies and practices that do nothing to sustain our dreams or wellbeing. We want to send a clear message to repression profiteers and police that they must be directly accountable to the communities they now patrol. Instead of militarization, invest in life.

Right click the link below to download or  stream the HKR Intv

Right click the link below to download or
stream the HKR Intv

HKR-Urban Shield Comes to Oakland _10-23-2013

Police in Sacramento Beat an Unarmed, Restrained Man to Death

Police beating SacramentoSadly we have yet another troubling incident with police.. This time we have cell phone videos showing officers restraining an unarmed man who attempted to barricade himself in a store.. He’s shown being restrained by one officer, while another officer with a heavy baton beats him at least 10 times.. The man became unresponsive and later died.. The officers who remain unidentified are on administrative paid leave..

This troubling video comes two weeks after 8 Kern County Sheriffs beat an unarmed man named David Silva to death. An autopsy was released the other day saying the man died from a heart attack and not the beatings by 8 officers.. It’ll be interesting to see what sort of excuse is used for this beating in Sacramento..

All this comes on the heels of police officers shooting 26 year old Amos G Smith 8 times in the back of the head right here in the Bay Area.. This took place in Union City which is 20 miles south of Oakland..You can read about that HERE

I’ll say this as I did in the past, folks who organize around this need to push to make sure whenever there is allegations of police terrorism and abuse that there is a department completely separated from law enforcement that does the investigation.. That means the DA, the Coroner etc are not in the loop in any way.. Police routinely work with these individuals and departments and thus the relationships seem to compromise any sort of objectivity…

Also folks especially in Cali need to push and push hard to end the Policeman’s Bill of Rights which give cops damn near immunity to anything they do.. It keeps their names hidden from the public as well as their records.. So in the case of the 8 officers who beat the man to death in Kern County or the 6 officers who shot at two women delivering newspapers 100 while they were searching for renegade officer Christopher Dorner or in this recent incident in Sacramento, we have no way of knowing if they have history of abuse.. The Policeman’s Bill of Rights keep that hidden..The PBOR was enhanced and made more airtight last year..

As we close out its important to keep a close eye and hold these public servants who we give a badge and a gun accountable..While we have these disturbing incidents of brutality, we also have abuse of power as we are now seeing was the case with Boston Police, who everyone hailed after the Boston Marathon Bombing.. people cheered and toasted these officers for their work, while never questioning why they used 9 thousand officers to go searching door to door for one 19-year-old kid door to door..

We are now discovering that the elite unite within Boston Police known as BRIC.. were busy surveilling peace activists and anti-war demonstrators and wound up ignoring warnings about the two brothers, one who was on a terror list.. They became obsessed with with smashing down on citizens doing peaceful protest to the tune of millions of dollars versus following up on serious threats..In fact one of the people the Boston Police kept spying on wound up being a hero who helped saved lives during the bombing. His name is Carlos Arredondo a well known activist in the area.. Read about that HERE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UroBoZiLWs0

Below is the newscast and report of the 8 deputy sheriffs beating a man to death..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4Ka72Z7E_Y

From the Use of Drones to Enhancing Policeman’s Bill of Rights, Watch this Dorner Case Carefully

Davey-D-purple-frameThere are three things all of us should be concerned about w/ this Christopher Dorner saga.. First they are now using drones to hunt this man down.. On the surface that seems like no big deal, but because they are hunting for a ‘cop killer‘ who has stated via his manifesto that he has more in his sights, the police will equip drones with technology and use procedures that up till now are not allowed.

No I don’t think they will ‘shoot’ him from the sky.. But drones can be equipped with very intrusive snooping tools totally violate or constitutional and civil rights… Drones can be equipped to do everything from see behind walls to intercepting emails, text message etc.. Up til now the fight has been to limit law enforcement to use drones for search and rescue type operations.. They want search warrants and other legal documents to be in place before police use them…

But now the country’s second largest police department, LAPD can go all out testing and setting a precedent on using drones on American soil..bypassing the fight against them and current limits placed on them..In the search for Dorner, how much of our privacy will be violated? What sort of record keeping will be done on any of us?  The justification process has already started with media and law enforcement now dubbing Dorner as a ‘domestic terrorist‘…If he’s a terrorist does that allow the indefinite detention provisions of NDAA National Defense Authorization Act of 2013 kick in? Can people who are suspected of being in association or sympathizing with Dorner now subjected to provisions in NDAA or other anti-terrorist laws?

antoniovillaroagas-225Adding to this climate are recent remarks from LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa have him framing Dorner as someone who is has a reign of terror over the people of LA.. Are the people of LA in trouble or LAPD? Does the average person walking down the street need to fear Dorner? Is he going after them or LAPD?

As far as we know LAPD has 50 security units guarding family of officers mentioned in Dorner’s online uncensored manifesto and they have safe houses in place..I wont begrudge police the right to protect themselves from danger, but let’s be crystal clear, if everyone is under a reign of terror as suggested by LA’s mayor, what protections do we have in place? … Heck,  lets move beyond Dorner to everyday scenarios…If any of us was threatened because we stood up to the neighborhood criminal/thug as we are told to do by police would be no such protections or bright spotlights in place? Would they launch a thousand person manhunt to bring about justice as they are doing now? hell in many of the departments here in Cali, we are being told some crimes will not be investigated including burgalries

Second thing we should be concerned about is this move to do people in without a trial or due process. We see this playing out in the world court with Obama’s drone policies. Many of us have cheered and gone along with justifying it even to this date.. We now see it translating down on domestic/ local levels.. The shooting of the 2 women by LAPD and the man by Torrance PD was police shooting to kill, not follow the law.. It was shoot to kill and not bring Dorner before the courts, a right all of us no matter how despicable our actions, have a right to.. We should not get used to such draconian policies because with a few slight twists and turns one of us may suddenly find ourselves at the receiving end of this type of action which is now moving in the direction of policy..

Christopher Dorner

Christopher Dorner

We should be concerned that none of the officers involved with those shootings have been arrested. Forget firing them or giving the victims money.. Where’s the zero tolerance policy? Where’s the same zero tolerance that toward police neglect and abuse that they routinely apply to us.. .. Let one of us accidentally shoot a cop…There would be no leniency.. But here we are acting like this is no big deal. Some have gone so far to say.. “This happens all the time in the hood’.. Maybe it does.. but now with the world watching, we best be pushing the cause and making this be the example in which such actions end because a steep price is paid.. In short don’t let it slide… Again I remind folks, the police are not letting the actions of Dorner slide..

Also related to this… Do not be fooled by the slick PR move of LAPD re-opening the case Dorner’s firing.. Don’t get me wrong that case should be re-opened for all the public to see.. Transparency is needed. But lets understand what that really look’s like. Transparency with LAPD starts with us asking the right questions. For example, we should get an answer the conflict of interests, that was raised in the Manifesto where the sergeant who was accused of kicking a suspect if she had working relationships and strong ties to those judging her..We also need to see her record to see if she had a history of violence as claimed by Dorner…. Lastly we should not stop with that case.. We need to vigorously check out all the others while simultaneously making sure the recent shooting of innocent by LAPD is punished.

police state-1-450x369Third concern is that the police don’t use this incident to further strengthen the Police Man’s Bill of Rights that are already über restrictive..The law is so restrictive it took Colorlines and other news agencies two years to accumulate information for their groundbreaking story ‘How California Law Shield’s Violent Officers‘..

The point I was trying to get across when I was on the news show Democracy Now this morning, is that Dorner blew the whistle on fellow officers and gave us information that the public has little and now no access to even if an officer is on trial.. We should not take that for granted or overlook it..He said his supervising sergeant has a long history of violence. If this is true can we see her records? Can we see the complaints filed or are they tucked away and shielded because of the PMBOR? Here’s the link to my Democracy Now appearance http://www.democracynow.org/2013/2/11/wanted_for_killing_3_christopher_dorners

We should be pushing back and demanding such strict privacy be lessened.. I’m fearful after all is said and done, even the names of police will be hidden from us under the guise of ‘protecting’ them…

We should be concerned that what Dorner described in his manifesto seems to be a culture that severely punishes officers who whistle blow..It would be great if good officers who are subjected to witnessing abuses, but keep their mouths shut out of fear would find ways to help the public further open up the cracks we see around this Dorner case.. From looking at the legal documents files and the manifesto we see retaliation for reporting bad behavior as a recurring theme.. Contrast that with the current climate on the federal level where whistle blowers are routinely punished and then you can better understand why all of us should be re-thinking all of this.. ..You can download the Legal documents and court papers here..http://leaksource.wordpress.com/2013/02/08/christopher-dorner-investigation-documents-deposition-legal-papers-challenging-lapd/

10 Outrageous Tactics the Police Are Using and getting Away With

This is a recent article by John Knefel that first appeared in Alternet... It’s called 10 Outrageous Tactics Cops Get Away With. This will probably be one of the most sobering and important pieces you read all year.. I hope folks will take heed and truly understand whats happening right now.. There’s been a serious power grab right before us and very little push back, because folks are distracted or feel it won’t happen to them. many others have grown cynical and see the possibility of change as useless.. Whats useless is believing you can’t change things.. The first step in that is awareness followed by action.. That actions takes many forms.. It ranges from organizing and advocating to voting to harsh refusals to allow business to go on as usual..

As you are reading the article, below you may want to listen to this speech given in August 2008 by former political prisoner and Black Panther Dhoruba Bin Wahad, where he talks about the rise of the police state..

Below is the article explaining whats going on..

-Davey D-

Oaklandpolice-225Talk to someone who has never dealt with the cops about police behaving badly, and he or she will inevitably say, “But they can’t do that! Can they?” The question of what the cops can or can’t do is natural enough for someone who never deals with cops, especially if their inexperience is due to class and/or race privilege. But a public defender would describe that question as naïve. In short, the cops can do almost anything they want, and often the most maddening tactics are actually completely legal.

There are many reasons for this, but three historical developments stand out: the war on drugs provided the template for social control based on race; 9/11 gave federal and local officials the opportunity to ensnare Muslims (and activists) in the ever-increasing surveillance and incarceration state; and a lack of concern from the public at large means these tactics can be applied, often controversy-free, to anyone who resists them.

What follows are 10 of the innumerable tactics the police can use against a population often incapable of constraining their behavior
Police spy1. Infiltration, informants and monitoring. The NYPD’s Demographics Unit has engaged in a massive surveillance program directed at Muslims throughout the entire Northeast region, ignoring any jurisdictional limitations and acting as a secret police and intelligence gathering agency – a regional FBI of sorts. The AP’s award-winning reports [3] on the Demographics Unit helped bring some information about the program to light, including the revelation that its efforts have resulted in exactly zero terrorism leads. [4]

Although a lawsuit from 1971, the Handschu case, [4] “resulted in federal guidelines that prohibit the NYPD from collecting information about political speech unless it is related to potential terrorism,” legal experts worry that privacy rights have been so diminished that Muslims who are spied on may not be able to seek recourse. The AP quoted [5] Donna Lieberman in November 2011, who said, “It’s really not clear that people can do anything if they’ve been subjected to unlawful surveillance anymore.”

Muslims are not the only group that has been targeted. The AP reported [6] that the NYPD has also infiltrated liberal groups and protest organizers. Other cases of entrapment of activists, such as the NATO 5 [7] and the Cleveland 5, are also troubling. [8]

2. Warrantless home surveillance. Just in case you still think there must be some limit on how the authorities can surveil you, there’s this — a federal agency, not the police, but the larger point stands. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that it is legal for a law enforcement agent [9] to enter your house and videotape you without your consent. The case, United States v. Wahchumwah, revolved around a U.S. Fish and Wildlife undercover agent who recorded Wahchumwah without a warrant. The Ninth Circuit found the search to be “voluntary,” which led the EFF to write on its Web site: “The sad truth is that as technology continues to advance, surveillance becomes ‘voluntary’ only by virtue of the fact we live in a modern society where technology is becoming cheaper, easier and more invasive.”

The Ninth Circuit isn’t the only one who thinks warrantless video surveillance is perfectly OK. [10]

“CNET has learned that U.S. District Judge William Griesbach [11] ruled that it was reasonable for Drug Enforcement Administration agents to enter rural property without permission — and without a warrant — to install multiple ‘covert digital surveillance cameras’ in hopes of uncovering evidence that 30 to 40 marijuana plants were being grown.”

During the Bush years, Congress had to grant retroactive immunity to giant telecoms that engaged in warrantless wiretapping. It seems, the judicial branch wants to save Congress the trouble.

riot-police_9-2-083. Preemptive visits and harassment. One of the favorite tactics of police departments is targeting activists a day before a large event. We saw this on May Day in New York City, as cops descended on several activists’ apartments before the day of action, [12] and in Chicago before the massive No NATO protests. [13] The Cleveland 5 were also arrested before May Day, and back in 2008 the RNC8 were also preemptively arrested. [7]

4. Creating call logs from stolen phones. If you lose your phone in NYC and report it to the police, they’ll help you find it. So far, so good. Where the agreement turns pear-shaped, however, is what they do with your call logs. The NYPD subpoenas your call log from the day it was stolen onward, under the logic that the records could help find your phone.

But — and here’s the kicker — they get info for the calls you made on the day it was swiped, and possibly even info from your new cell phone if you keep your number. The information is added to a database called the Enterprise Case Management System, and the numbers are hyperlinked for cross-referencing. The call logs, all obtained without a court order and often without the victim’s permission or knowledge, could “conceivably be used for any investigative purpose,” according to the New York Times. [14]

5. Consent searches. Sometimes a cop gives you a command, but phrases it as a question, like, “Would you open your bag so I can look inside?” If you’re anything like the vast majority of people in the United States, you have no idea that you’re under no lawful obligation to answer in the affirmative. You can, legally speaking, ask if you are being detained, and if the answer is no, you are free to walk away. Or at the very least, not open your bag.

Cops are aware that they can intimidate someone they decide to search, and once they obtain “consent” – e.g. “Yes, man with a gun who is towering over me, you can look in my bag” – any evidence of criminality they find can be used in court. This method of searching people was developed, like several other tactics on this list, during the early 1980s when the Reagan administration ramped up the so-called war on drugs.

Many critics argue that the very idea of a “consensual” interaction between police and the public is impossible, if the police initiate contact. As Justin Peters writes [15], “[Police] know the average person doesn’t feel they’re in a position to decline a conversation with a cop.” A common tactic [16] is for officers to say they’ll let someone off with a warning, then proceed to ask a bunch of questions, even though the person is technically free to go.

Police-stopandfrisk-blue6. Stop and frisk. You’ve probably heard about stop and frisk by now, but for years this odious tactic – and close cousin to consent searches – went woefully underreported in establishment media. The NYCLU released staggering statistics for the year 2011 detailing the massive size of the program in New York City. One particularly memorable figure was that the NYPD stopped more young men of color than there are men of color in NYC. [17] (More information at stopmassincarceration.org [18].)
7. Pretext stops (Operation Pipeline). The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that cops are free to use minor traffic violations as a pretext to pull over people they suspect of committing drug crimes. Once pulled over, the police obtain “consent” – “Would you get out of the car and empty your pockets?” – and can go on fishing expeditions.

In the Supreme Court’s ruling in Ohio v. Robinette, “The Court made clear to all lower courts that, from now on, the Fourth Amendment should place no meaningful constraints on the police in the War on Drugs,” writes Michelle Alexander in The New Jim Crow. The Court determined [19] that cops don’t have to tell motorists they’re free to leave before getting “permission” to search their car.

In the mid-1980s, the DEA rolled out Operation Pipeline, a federal program that trained city cops in the shady art of leveraging pretext stops into consent searches. The discretionary nature of many of these searches resulted in massive amounts of racial profiling, so much so that some officials say [20] “the reason racial profiling is a national problem is that it was initiated, and in many ways encouraged, by the federal government’s war on drugs.”

8. Police dogs. Don’t consent to cops searching your bag? If you’re in a car or an airport, police can bring in the dogs to smell your stuff, and if the dog responds, they have probable cause to search you without your consent. “The Supreme Court has ruled that walking a drug-sniffing dog around someone’s vehicle (or someone’s luggage) does not constitute a ‘search,’ and therefore does not trigger Fourth Amendment scrutiny,” Michelle Alexander writes.

But if a dog barks or sits, shouldn’t we be comfortable with that triggering probable cause? Radley Balko has reported on the phenomenon of drug dogs giving false positives after reading cues from their handlers [16]:

The problem isn’t that the dogs aren’t capable of picking up the scent; it’s that dogs have been bred to please and interact with humans. A dog can easily be manipulated to alert whenever needed. But even with conscientious cops, a dog without the proper training may pick up on its handler’s body language and alert whenever it detects its handler is suspicious.

This is called the “Clever Hans effect,” [21] named after the horse who could do arithmetic by tapping his hoof. In reality, the horse could recognize the shift in his owner’s body language when he had arrived at the right number.

Drones police 9. Surveillance drones. The drones are coming, and the few illusions of privacy we cling to will soon disappear. The domestic market for drones in the next decade is estimated in the billions, [22] and police departments are chomping at the bit to implement this new technology. Drones already patrol the US-Mexico border, [23] and cities such as Seattle are moving toward using surveillance drones [24]. In August, a North Dakota court ruled [25] that the first-ever drone-assisted arrest was perfectly legal.

In our ever more authoritarian society, [26] expect politicians and the lobbyists who fund their campaigns to justify increased incursions into privacy in the name of security. The short-term incentives to value privacy have been all but forgotten, as “if you’re not doing anything wrong you’ve got nothing to fear” has gone from self-evidently absurd cliché to national motto.

10. Enlist the private sector. The comedian Chris Laker says of privatization: “You can’t privatize everything. Learned that from RoboCop.” But it seems police departments haven’t learned that lesson. In Arizona, police enlisted the help of the Corrections Corporation of America, a private, for-profit prison corporation, in a drug sweep of a public school. PRWatch reports: [27]

“To invite for-profit prison guards to conduct law enforcement actions in a high school is perhaps the most direct expression of the ‘schools-to-prison pipeline’ I’ve ever seen,” said Caroline Isaacs, program director of the Tucson office of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker social justice organization that advocates for criminal justice reform.

fuck-the-police-occupy-oakland-marchThe privatization of nearly all aspects of public life, from education to law enforcement, is a trend we should all find disturbing, not least of all when a company that profits from locking humans in cages is directly involved in the arrest process.

The larger point here is obvious. In the last decade, the Bill of Rights has been shredded at the federal level and the local level. There are few constraints on police, FBI, NSA, and private intelligence companies when it comes to surveillance of the public. That many of these programs and tactics are discretionary exacerbates and magnifies conscious and subconscious racist and classist attitudes among those who carry them out.

written by John Knefel of Alternet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKHsGh-y8d8

Florida is Home to a Rapper Sent to Jail for 2Years for doing a Cop Killer Song

Antavio Johnson

In the wake of the Trayvon Martin situation many are re-examining the strange case of Lakeland, Florida resident Antavio Johnson. Two years ago Johnson known as DJ TO was charged with 2 counts of Treat To a Public Servant due to saying the names of two Lakeland Police Department officers from Polk County Florida. According to an article detailing the case in the The Ledger, DJ TO was facing 5 years on each charge but accepted a plea bargain for 2 years total. You can read that story HERE

The song was discovered by Polk County sheriff’s Cyber Crime unit  after it was put on the MySpace page of a local record promotion company called Hood Certified Ent .

On the YouTube page, HCE head Lucky posted the following;

I myself, “Lucky” from HCE was locked up with T.O. and I still remain friends with him. I’ve come out publicly saying that I take full blame for the outcome of this case. With that said like I said on a news interview “I will never apologize to the law enforcement community however I do apologize to T.O. because if cops are threatened by the lyrics of a song, then they are in the wrong line of work.”

Apparently because DJ TO was on parole, it’s speculated that him making threats even in a song was somehow a violation.. The ACLU disagrees.. All of us should pause for a minute and take stock in how powerful police officers have become over the past few years. We now have some states where it’s illegal to film them. We have a Policeman’s Bill of Rights in states all over the country including California and Florida where its difficult for the public to have access to police abuse reports. In Cali, its damn near impossible to use that information in court cases. We in Cali found this out during the Oscar Grant case, when the past abuses of former BART cop Johannes Mehserle was inadmissible

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ9yCmhnfNk

Here’s Lyrics to the song

Hi, Grady

Free My Ni**a Chico

Straight up

Free My Ni**a Chico

Im’ma see you when you get home, homey.

Im’ma kill me a cop one day

He’ey

Cause I’m tired of em playin’ with my life

Lord, I know it ain’t right.

It ain’t right, no

If Officer ……………….[name removed upon request by LPD] he care at all

Get my timing wrong

Im’ma be puttin’ one in his dome

Mr. Officer

Mr. Officer

Try me on the wrong day

And I’m offin’ ya

I gotta grudge with the judge

Rugers for prosecutors

Calicos for C.O.’s

Bullet holes for P.O.’s

Call me crazy but I think I fell in love with the sound

Of hearing the dispatcher saying, “Officer Down”

Im’ma kill me a cop one day

He’ey

Cause I’m tired of em playin’ with my life

Lord, I know it ain’t right.

It ain’t right, no

Hey!!! T.O.!!!

If Officer …………… [name removed upon request by LPD]

The Wonder Woman

Get my timing wrong

I’m a be puttin’ one in her dome

Mrs. Officer

Mrs. Officer

Try me on the wrong day

And I’m offin’ ya

I gotta Glock for a cop

Choppers for crime stoppers

And one in the cartridge

For the Lakeland Police Department

 

75 Years for Taping the Police? Thats what One Man is Facing

I’m not sure what else could be said or written to make the folks aware of the urgency of this situation. There is a serious war being waged on ordinary folks at all levels, the most under reported involves the police who are rapidly going from state to state passing laws to make it illegal to not only videotape but also to simply take photographs..

Last week we told you about a case involving legendary producer Dr Dre who was facing a $3 BILLION dollar lawsuit for recording a police officer involved in a backstage dispute in Detroit. That case had been winding its way the Michigan court system for almost 10 years and finally made its way to the State Supreme Ct… many dismissed this and saw it as no big deal..

Now we have a man who is looking at 75 years in jail for videotaping the police.. Read the Alternet story below… While reading this ask yourself, what steps are you taking to fight back? Are you calling your congress person? Are you talking to local officials? Today its them.. Tomorrow it could be you who is caught up in some drama..

Also keep in mind that while police are busy pushing to pass these laws we have officers in Los Angeles lying to the public claiming they were shot.. Yes, you read that correctly…  Two weeks ago a  police officer said he was shot prompting  300 of his fellow officers to aggressively respond, They shut down schools, closed off streets and went running determined to find the culprit.. Turns out the officer who was shot lied..  You can read that story here in the LA Times

Folks may wanna take a listen to this important conversation we had on hard Knock Radio with privacy expert and lawyer King Downy about police and videotaping http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/66995

-Davey D-

75-Year Prison Sentence for Taping the Police? The Absurd Laws That Criminalize Audio and Video Recording in America

By Lauren Kelley

Last January, Michael Allison, a 41-year-old mechanic from Bridgeport, Illinois, went to court to protest what he saw as unfair treatment from local police officers. Allison is an auto enthusiast who likes to tinker with cars, several of which he keeps on his mother’s property in the neighboring town of Robinson. Because both towns have “eyesore,” or abandoned property rules that require inoperable cars to be either registered or kept in a garage (which neither house had, and which Allison could not afford to build), Allison’s cars were repeatedly impounded by local officials.

Allison sued the city of Bridgeport in 2007, arguing that the eyesore law violated his civil rights and that the city was merely trying to bilk revenues from impound fees. This apparently enraged the local police, who, Allison alleges, began harassing him at home and threatening arrest when Allison refused to get rid of his cars.

Shortly before his January 2010 court date, Allison requested a court reporter for the hearing, making it clear to the county clerk that if one was not present he would record the proceedings himself.

With the request for a court reporter denied, Allison made good on his promise to bring his own audio recorder with him to the courthouse. Here’s what happened next, as reported by Radley Bilko in the latest issue of Reason magazine:

Just after he walked through the courthouse door the next day, Allison says Crawford County Circuit Court Judge Kimbara Harrell asked him whether he had a tape recorder in his pocket. He said yes. Harrell then asked him if it was turned on. Allison said it was. Harrell then informed the defendant that he was in violation of the Illinois wiretapping law, which makes it a Class 1 felony to record someone without his consent. “You violated my right to privacy,” the judge said.

Allison responded that he had no idea it was illegal to record public officials during the course of their work, that there was no sign or notice barring tape recorders in the courtroom, and that he brought one only because his request for a court reporter had been denied. No matter: After Harrell found him guilty of violating the car ordinance, Allison, who had no prior criminal record, was hit with five counts of wiretapping, each punishable by four to 15 years in prison. Harrell threw him in jail, setting bail at $35,000.

That’s up to 75 years in prison for breaking a law Allison did not know existed, and which he violated in the name of protecting himself from what he saw as an injustice.

As Bilko points out, Allison’s case may be extreme, but he is hardly alone in facing outsized punishment for efforts to combat police wrongdoing. Take Christopher Drew and Tiawanda Moore, two Chicagoans highlighted in the New York Times last week. Drew, a 60-year-old artist, faces up to 15 years in prison for using a digital video recorder during his December 2009 arrest for selling art without a permit. Drew had planned on getting arrested in protest of the permit law, which he saw as a violation of artists’ rights. He was unaware that filming the ordeal was illegal.

Likewise, Moore, a 20-year-old Southside resident, did not know it was illegal to record a conversation she had with two police officers last August, and she too faces a prison sentence of up to 15 years for doing so. Moore’s case is especially troubling because she was in the process of filing a complaint with the two officers about a third officer, who Moore alleges sexually harassed her in her home. She told the Times that she “was only trying to make sure no other women suffered at the hands of the officer” by making the recording. Presumably, she was also trying to protect herself in case she faced another lewd advance. Instead, the officers tried to talk her out of filing her complaint and then slapped her with eavesdropping charges when they found out her Blackberry was recording.

continue reading this story over at Alternet

Rap COINTELPRO PtV…The NYPD Zeros In On Hip-Hop

Cedric Muhammad

Cedric Muhammad

The news out this week that the New York Police Department (NYPD) has been specifically watching the Hip-Hop community should come as no surprise to those of you who are regular readers of our “Hip-Hop Fridays” columns. For nearly a year now, we have been writing about the documented relationship between the FBI, local law enforcement and the media in the 1960s and 1970s and comparing that relationship with its real and potential counterpart today, in reference to the Hip-Hop industry. Any skepticism for what we have been arguing should have been swept away by Jay-Z’s arrest two weeks ago, by the NYPD street crime unit, and by this week’s admission from the NYPD, that its gang intelligence unit has been monitoring Hip-Hop artists and the nightspots that they and their fans frequent.

Having said that we hope that no one is really so naïve as to believe the NYPD’s explanation of their activities, that they are doing what they are, to protect Hip-Hop artists. We argue to the contrary and believe that their explained efforts to “serve and protect” the Hip Hop industry is a cover story, or a front to really arrest Hip-Hop artists on gang, drug and racketeering charges. This has been their aim for some time now.

To be sure, there are certainly a few who may be guilty of crimes. But a full-scale monitoring of an entire industry, in its biggest city, is evidence of more than good police work. After all, if drugs and gangs are what they are after, the police would be better staking out raves, heavy metal concerts and the homes of Rock artists in search of heroin, cocaine and ecstasy drug use, as well as ties to organized crime.

Black-Panthers-Huey-Bobby-brownFar from an effort to save rap artists, the effort is an indication of a return to the FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program – a program that was aimed at organizations like the Nation Of Islam, the 5% Nation Of Islam, the Black Panthers, SCLC and SNCC. Interestingly, two of the biggest files that the FBI kept during COINTELPRO, were its files on the NOI and the 5 Percenters – the two communities that arguably have had more impact on Hip-Hop than any other.

So now, an entire music industry joins that rarified air, previously the domain of activist and progressive organizations and those concerned with political consciousness, social change and community development. Now, that we have established this fact, we hope that the Hip-Hop community in general, and Hip-Hop artists in particular, are prepared for what awaits them and what has already been happening to them. We hope that they are prepared for their telephone lines to be tapped; their vehicles and homes to be bugged; agents to be placed within their organizations; their friends turned into government informants; letters and communications attributed to them, and even their forged signatures attached to such, without their knowledge; conflicts started between rivals and competitors; lies and half-truths about them planted in various media outlets, and yes, even violent action taken against them.

Every one of these acts, and much, much more were performed in COINTELPRO, with the help of the FBI and local police departments. In order to get an idea of how extensive the FBI’s efforts were, and for evidence of what we have described above, one should visit the FBI’s reading room, in person or online. foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex.htm .

photo credit: Panther 1619

photo credit: Panther 1619

You maybe surprised at some of the names the FBI has in its file index as part of COINTELPRO or other surveillance programs. The list includes several celebrities www.fbi-files.com/celebrities/index.html who the Bureau feared could move the public in ways counter to the desired direction of the status quo. Many of the most famous were White actors. The same fear exists today for Hip-hop artists who may have the most loyal fans in all of the entertainment industry.

The NYPD’s program is already being described as illegal and unconstitutional. Many believe that the program represents “profiling” – a practice that is increasingly coming under fire. It will be interesting to see if civil libertarians or the liberals and progressives which dominate the industry will come to the aid of the Hip-Hop community and defend them from what at the very least, is a massive invasion of privacy and at the most, an act of war.

We advise that Hip-hop artists should not be surprised to find little support from the labels that employ their services. For years, several record executives have been handing over marketing plans and providing information on a variety of artists to federal law enforcement officials. And on the local level, we know of at least two record label executives who have silent alarm buttons in their offices that connect them to the NYPD, in the case of an emergency or violent altercation. Of course these record label execs have their own artists in mind as the likely perpetrators of aggression.

Which leads us to a final point. If the Hip-Hop community is going to avoid the mistakes that the targets of COINTELPRO previously made, they will have to 1) begin to question their “friendships” with record label executives, lawyers and business managers who seem to have no problem providing privileged information to law enforcement officers 2) compare notes with one another 3) discontinue their recently increased leaning toward public disputes, 4) End any activities that can be construed as illegal and 5) they must seek ways to peacefully resolve conflicts and unite.

That is a tall order for rappers with enormous egos, and a disrespect for history, but if lives are to be saved today, a major change in the thinking of Hip-Hop artists and some of their fans must take place, in a hurry.

In light of the NYPD’s new program, if anybody can’t see what is happening by now, we don’t know what else will get their attention, before it is too late.

The more things change the more they stay the same. Hip-Hop…meet COINTELPRO.

http://www.blackelectorate.com/articles.asp?ID=34

Cedric Muhammad

Friday, April 27, 2001