Dirty cops will love SOPA —

Ken at Popehat examines Google's report on the number of police departments and governments that have requested removal of police brutality videos shot by citizens, and asks what will happen once the Stop Online Piracy Act makes spurious takedown even easier. — Cory •

Back in 2010, I blogged the video of Jules Mattsson, a 15-year-old freelance photographer who was stopped by police while shooting an Armed Forces Day parade in London. The police inspector took down his details, told him it was an offense under the Terrorism Act to take pictures of soldiers, told him that the police could stop public photography without recourse to any law, and then told him that photographing soldiers was "gay," "anti-social behaviour," "silly" and "stupid."

Finally, Mattsson has gotten justice: the police have paid him an undisclosed settlement and issued an apology.

"The inspector told [Jules] he was a public hazard and said that photographing in public was 'anti-social behaviour'," he said.

"He described the act of taking photographs as 'silly' and 'gay' and 'stupid'," said the spokesman.

"When [Jules] continued to state the lawfulness of his behaviour, the inspector declared it was 'dangerous' as he was 'likely to be trampled on by soldiers' from the parade."

Ms Cotton, head of the police misconduct department at the law firm, said: "The treatment of the police towards our client, a 15-year-old, was shocking. The inspector's comments were designed to belittle."

Metropolitan Police compensate parade-ban photographer

The strange, farcical trial of Byron Sonne continues (here are earlier installments). Sonne is a Toronto hacker and security researcher who was arrested during the G20, with much attendant press about the "fact" that he had been planning to make bombs in connection with the event.

Sonne was left in jail for nearly a year before his hearings began, and his charges were recharacterised as "possessing explosive materials" and "counseling the indictable offense of mischief not committed."

Now the "explosive materials" question is being addressed in court. Sonne had a lab in his basement, and he was a gardener. He possessed many substances that a "bomb expert" from Defence Research and Development Canada called "precursors" to making explosives. They are also normal gardening substances, and/or the sort of thing that a model rocketry hobbyist (as Sonne was -- he'd been a member of the Canadian Association of Rocketry) would keep in neatly labelled vessels in his basement.

No one disputes that Sonne had a lab in his basement, stocked with glassware and neatly labelled containers (see photos here). There was potassium permanganate, potassium nitrate, ammonium nitrate, iron oxide and zinc oxide. There was stearine, copper sulfate, urea, hydrogen peroxide and aluminum powder, as well as dextrin, sulfamic acid, hexachloroethane, charcoal, potassium silicate and sodium bicarbonate. Sonne had plastic bags full of wax shavings and PVC shavings, and a container of hexamine tablets next to his camp stove. There was acetone, methyl hydrate and hydrochloric acid in his garage. In his furnace room, he had an electrochemical setup where he seemed to be turning potassium chloride into potassium chlorate, a shiny white crystal that is, Anderson said, a well-known ingredient in improvised explosives like TATP (triacetone triperoxide) and HMTD (hexamethylene triperoxide diamlene).

Most of these chemicals have multiple uses. Urea and ammonium nitrate are fertilizers, and police photographed stacks of seeds from Martha Stewart Living. “That’s the difficulty with a lot of this,” Anderson said. “It can be done with ordinary kitchen stuff.” Some have no explosive properties at all. Copper sulfate can be used to grow “beautiful blue crystals,” beakers of which were found during the search.

Anderson said that none of the chemicals had been combined—what he saw were “precursors,” not a bomb. Still, the expert was sober, pointing out that there were enough precursors in the Forest Hill home to make eight to 10 kilos of explosives, enough to “blow apart the back of a bus.”

Byron Sonne: the thin line between terrorist and gardener (Thanks, Denise!)

A leaked memo from the City of London Police (the special police force maintained by the administrators of London's financial district, who are elected by the corporations with offices in its boundaries) includes the Occupy movement in a list of "terrorist/domestic extremist" organisations that pose a threat to the City's businesses. Other groups on the list include FARC and Al Qaeda.

It is likely that activists aspire to identify other locations to occupy, especially those they identify with capitalism.

Intelligence suggests that urban explorers are holding a discussion at the Sun Street squat. This may lead to an increase in urban exploration activity at abandoned or high profile sites in the capital.

Police include Occupy movement on ‘terror’ list (Thanks, carstenagger!)

In this video from the kettling of Occupy San Francisco protesters, SFPD sergeant Peter Thoshinsky (helmet #2197) is recorded walking the police line, ordering his officers, "If they do not do what you tell them, strike them."

The protesters who record this are understandably upset and try to engage the officers in a dialog about whether such an order is legal and should be followed. There's a certain amount of violating Godwin's Law here, which is understandable, even if it might not be the best way to win the day.

"If they do not do what you tell them, strike them." says SFPD while kettling OccupySF 2011-12-07

Occupy Melbourne surprised the local law by turning their tents into costumes; when police attempted to tear down the tents, they sprouted legs and heads and started running around the park. The cops turned and left, chased by tents.

But the cops came back, and exacted petty vengeance on the costumed protesters. Several officers grabbed a woman who was wearing a tent and restrained her while they sliced the tent costume off her and then they left with the tent, leaving the protester in a public park in only a bra and underwear.

Amy Goodman interviews Kamran Loghman, inventor of modern pepper spray and developer of police procedures for its use. Loghman regrets his work today, and says it's "fashionable" to use chemical agents on "people who have an opinion":

It is becoming more and more fashionable right now, this day and age, to use chemical on people who have an opinion. And that to me is a complete lack of leadership both in the police department and other people who cannot really deal with the root of the problem and they want to spray people to quiet them down. And it’s really not supposed to be that. It’s not a thing that solves any problem nor is it something that quiets people down.”

Pepper Spray Developer: It Has Become Fashionable to Use Chemicals on People with Opinions (via Naked Capitalism)

Democratic congressional candidate Ray Lutz was arrested for registering voters in San Diego's public Freedom Plaza (AKA Civic Center Plaza), where the local Occupy protest has taken place. The San Diego police arrested Mr Lutz for trespassing and confiscated his voter registration forms.

I've been skeptical of the "this is what democracy looks like" slogan (since mostly, democracy looks like boring things like long meetings, constituency consultations, and voter booths). But by any measure, registering voters in a civic square is assuredly "what democracy looks like." And arresting people who register voters? Well, that's something else altogether.

Ray Lutz being arrested at Freedom Plaza - Occupy San Diego

The US Senate's Defense Authorization Bill redefines America as a "battlefield" and authorizes US troops to conduct military arrests of civilians on US soil, and to indefinitely detain citizens without charge or trial. The ACLU wants you to write to your senator and demand that this insanity not pass.

The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president—and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world. Even Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) raised his concerns about the NDAA detention provisions during last night’s Republican debate. The power is so broad that even U.S. citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself.

The worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial provision is in S. 1867, the National Defense Authorization Act bill, which will be on the Senate floor on Monday. The bill was drafted in secret by Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) and passed in a closed-door committee meeting, without even a single hearing.

I know it sounds incredible. New powers to use the military worldwide, even within the United States? Hasn’t anyone told the Senate that Osama bin Laden is dead, that the president is pulling all of the combat troops out of Iraq and trying to figure out how to get combat troops out of Afghanistan too? And American citizens and people picked up on American or Canadian or British streets being sent to military prisons indefinitely without even being charged with a crime. Really? Does anyone think this is a good idea? And why now?

Senators Demand the Military Lock Up American Citizens in a “Battlefield” They Define as Being Right Outside Your Window (via JWZ)

A civil charge brought by a man who was arrested on his way to church during the Toronto G20 has revealed that senior officers ordered Toronto's police to make illegal arrests during the event. The man was held for 28 hours, 20 of them in handcuffs. He was arrested by as many as 20 officers, who believed him to be suspicious because he was wearing a bandanna. He was also subjected to a strip search.

The final report said that an unnamed officer with the Toronto Police Service wrote: “…we were given specific direction in regards to people that were wearing banners [sic], gasmask, goggles and that they were going to be arrestable or that they were to be arrested for Disguise with Intent, which is a Criminal Code Offense and as well anyone with a backpack was to be searched and if they refused to be search [sic] then they would be arrestable for obstructing police which is a Criminal Offence and as well as people, weapons including bottles and canisters of liquid were to be investigated and arrested for Possession of Weapons."

According to Wall's lawyer "the report shows that senior command directed officers to make unlawful arrests." “Wearing a bandana or refusing to allow police to look in your backpack are not criminal offences. We now have proof that many arrests were not the result of a few bad apples or overreaction by officers on the ground. The orders came from the top," lawyer Davin Charney said in a release to the media.

Man arrested during G20 settles lawsuit against police (via Reddit)

(Image: G20 Toronto, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from kowaleski's photostream)