DHS Directives on Border Searches of Electronic Media

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano recently announced two new directives aimed at improving oversight for searches of computers and electronic decides at U.S. entry ports. This is viewed as an important move to support DHS efforts to “combat transnational crime and terrorism while protecting [...]

ACLU demands records of border searches of laptops

The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol’s controversial practice of randomly searching laptops upon U.S. entry quietly began last year but has quickly drawn attention, including a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed this week by the American Civil Liberties Union for records related to the practice.
With regard to the searches, [...]

Racist Web Posts Traced to Homeland Security

After federal border agents detained several Mexican immigrants in western New York in June, an article about the incident in a local newspaper drew an onslaught of vitriolic postings on its Web site. Some were racist. Others attacked farmers in the region, an apple-growing area east of Rochester, accusing them [...]

San Bernardino County broadens inmate screening for deportation

Two flat-screen televisions loom large in a small booking office at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga.
Federally trained San Bernardino County sheriff’s employees use the screens to patch into other jails, some nearly 100 miles away, to identify inmates eligible for deportation.
For the past seven months, the Sheriff’s [...]

ACLU seeks data on border laptop searches

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a FOIA request for records on laptops searched by border officials, PC Magazine reported. ACLU says these searching practices raise questions concerning First and Fourth Amendment rights because “they involve highly intrusive governmental probing into a traveler’s most private information.” Department [...]

Congressional probe of Riverside Border Patrol office sought

The union representing U.S. Border Patrol agents is calling for a congressional investigation into the agency’s Riverside office.
Lombardo Amaya, president of Local 2554 of the National Border Patrol Council, said he’s frustrated that a Department of Homeland Security investigation of the office has not yielded results and might not [...]

Homeland Security to scan fingerprints of travellers exiting the US

The US Department of Homeland Security is set to kickstart a controversial new pilot to scan the fingerprints of travelers departing the United States.
From June, US Customs and Border Protection will take a fingerprint scan of international travelers exiting the United States from Detroit, while the US Transportortation Security Administration will [...]

Canadians Take Notice, the U.S. Is Militarizing the Border

More troops, more searches, more surveillance drones. The U.S. is taking Canadians’ pictures as they cross the border, and their biometrics.
A camera snaps your license plate.
An electronic card reader mounted on a yellow post scans your car for the presence of any radio-frequency ID cards inside. If there is an enhanced [...]

Mexican NGOs, Brigadier General, Unite in Letter Against Plan Mexico

May 7, 2009
Yesterday, 72 Mexican civil society organizations and a Brigadier General of the Mexican Army sent the following letter to US Congress demanding that all military aid to Mexico be immediately halted. The letter comes as the US House of Representative is considering more than doubling 2009 funding for the war [...]

Spying on anti-war protestors: US Army Concept of Operations for Police Intelligence Operations, 4 Mar 2009

Download document here.

Get Them While They’re Young

A new generation of thugs is being trained for post-9/11 law enforcement. From the New York Times:

The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and [...]

Ending the Drug War Would End the Violence

The news media are rife with stories about Mexican drug cartels operating throughout the United States and drug-related violence threatening U.S. cities near the border. Americans are becoming reluctant to cross into Mexican towns for fear of getting caught in the crossfire.
Do we need another reason to end the [...]

More bilingual deputies in Riverside County, fewer in San Bernardino County

The percentage of sworn deputies who are bilingual has climbed in Riverside County and dropped slightly in San Bernardino County compared to six years ago, according to data from the sheriff’s departments.
In 2003, 1.5 percent of deputies in the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department were bilingual. Today that number is 12.5 [...]

Arrests of U.S. border agents on the rise

WASHINGTON — A rising number of U.S. border enforcement officers are being arrested on corruption charges as Mexican drug cartels look to bribes as a way to get around tougher enforcement, border officials say.
Investigators arrested 21 U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers on corruption charges in the fiscal year that [...]

This is a hate-free city: Minutemen founder persona non grata

Monday, April 20 2009 CLAREMONT, California– Despite the right wing’s efforts at deception and obfuscation, pro-immigrant, pro-human rights, anti-racist, and community activists organized strong opposition to the arrival of anti-immigrant extremist Jim Gilchrist to our neighborhood.
A group called the Mountain View Republican Club invited Gilchrist to speak at an [...]

GAO Report on DEA’s Post-9/11 Drug Control Responsibilities

Drug Control: Better Coordination With the Department of Homeland Security and an Updated Accountability Framework Can Further Enhance DEA’s Efforts to Meet Post-9/11 Responsibilities
“Given the global context of the war on drugs-coupled with growing recognition since September 11, 2001 (9/11), of the nexus between drug trafficking and terrorism-the mission [...]

Young preacher tasered, beaten at Arizona traffic stop for refusing to submit to warrantless search

March crash of unmanned spy plane under Air Force investigation

Air Force investigators are probing the crash of an unmanned MQ-9 Reaper spy plane assigned to Creech Air Force Base that went down March 20 during a training mission over Fort Irwin, Calif., an Air Combat Command spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday.

“It did crash. Until the investigation is closed there’s not [...]

DHS Releases New Immigration Statistics for 2008

Naturalizations in the United States: 2008
U.S. Legal Permanent Residents: 2008
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Immigration Statistics has just released these two statistical reports which provide information on U.S. legal permanent residents and naturalizations for the year 2008. These reports are part of an ongoing [...]

Why Secretly Funded DEA Surveillance Planes Aren’t Flying

WASHINGTON — The first sign of trouble with the Drug Enforcement Administration’s new surveillance planes surfaced almost immediately.  On the way from the manufacturer to the agency’s aviation headquarters, one of them veered off a runway during a fuel stop.
The malfunction last spring was only the beginning.  A month later, the [...]

DEA’s Operation Xcellerator is Another Justice Department Dog and Pony Show

Despite the  “Largest and Hardest Hitting Operation to Ever Target” the Sinaloa Cartel, the DEA is Merely Treading Water in the War on Drugs
On February 25, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) held a press conference celebrating the culmination of Operation Xcellerator, which it says resulted in the arrests [...]

Thousands march against Arpaio in Phoenix

Thousands of opponents of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s illegal-immigration policies held their “March to Stop the Hate” in downtown Phoenix on Saturday..
As of 1:30 p.m., the speeches were still being made at the march’s destination, the federal building. According to initial reports, the march was peaceful, with no major incidents as [...]

Ex-agent: Probe of head of Riverside office widens

Already under investigation for allegedly punishing agents who did not meet arrest quotas, the head of Riverside’s U.S. Border Patrol office is now being probed for other alleged offenses, according to a former agent and the union representing Riverside agents.
Ramon Chavez, patrol agent in charge of the Riverside office, declined to [...]

Finally, the Law Goes After Joe Arpaio — the Most Abusive Sheriff In America

WASHINGTON – House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.), and Immigration Subcommittee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Constitution Subcommittee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), and Crime Subcommittee Chairman Bobby Scott (D-Va.) called on Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to investigate allegations of misconduct [...]

Canada Recalls Database of Citizens’ Personal Info Over Concerns of Abuse by US

The Canadian government is repatriating a database of personal information about British Columbia citizens after warnings the U.S. government might misuse it.
The information on several hundred Canadians was provided to U.S. Customs and Border Protection last year as part of a project to issue enhanced driver’s licenses instead of passports [...]

Hey Kids, Wanna Play Security Checkpoint: The Terrifying Marketing Of Police State Normalacy To Children

When I flew home from Washington, DC after a business trip last week, the TSA agent asked to test my laptop.  I politely asked what they were testing for.  It was just routine she told me.  And she’s right, it has become routine, a much too routine standard operating procedure [...]

Former Border Patrol agent describes ‘quota pressure’

MURRIETA, Calif. — A former Border Patrol officer said Thursday that constant demands to meet monthly arrest quotas led agents in the Inland Empire to cruise streets, bus stops and even medical clinics looking for illegal immigrants.
“We had to make eight apprehensions a day and if we didn’t meet that goal [...]

(Riverside) Justice for Annette García: Community responds to police murder of activist mother

RIVERSIDE, California – January 29, 2009 The Brown Berets of Aztlán led a march from the César Chávez Community Center at the Bobby Bonds Park to the Riverside Sheriff’s Department, where they held a candlelight vigil and demonstration.
They convoked the assembly to build momentum for the movement for justice for [...]

I am a Terrorist

See also:
Domestic Militarization Comes to San Bernardino County
Patriot Act – The War on Civil Liberties
The Second Amendment Versus The Police State?
Veterans for Peace (VFP) Opposes Combat Brigade’s Permanent U.S. Assignment
Assignment America: Keep juries dumb
Excellent Article on the Corrupt Prison-Industrial Complex
Court Rules Patriot Act’s “National Security Letter” Gag Provisions Unconstitutional
SoCal [...]

ACLU Challenges Border Patrol’s Searches

SEATTLE — The note from U.S. Attorney Jeff Sullivan to the U.S. Border Patrol was short and to the point: Stop sending petty marijuana cases to his office.”
It is our long-standing policy to use limited federal resources to pursue the sophisticated criminal organizations who smuggle millions of dollars of drugs, guns [...]

Prohibition and the Rise of Crime

On January 17, 1920, The 18th Amendment went into effect and what is known as Prohibition became reality. What did not become reality were the predictions of the benefits it would have vis-a-vis Organized Crime.

Feds: Boston border official Lorraine Henderson hired illegals

A U.S. border official whose job it is to keep illegal aliens out of New England was busted yesterday for knowingly employing three Brazilian housekeepers who snuck into the United States unlawfully, federal prosecutors charged.