Nothing like getting punched in the head in slo-mo….

AQ_PUNCHES from John Wiseman on Vimeo.

The Center for Tactical Magic engages in extensive research, development, and deployment of the pragmatic system known as Tactical Magic. A fusion force summoned from the ways of the artist, the magician, the ninja, and the private investigator, Tactical Magic is an amalgam of disparate arts invoked for the purpose of actively addressing Power on individual, communal, and transnational fronts. At the CTM we are committed to achieving the Great Work of Tactical Magic through community-based projects, daily interdiction, and the activation of latent energies toward positive social transformation.

They’re based in Oakland…Check ’em out!

…when Dick Cheney is smiling:

I won’t even bother going into the details of the disastrous FISA legislation that was passed this week. Cheney’s smirk tells you everything you need to know.

Georgetown Law professor Marty Lederman sums it up thusly:

The new statute permits the NSA to intercept phone calls and e-mails between the U.S. and a foreign location, without making any showing to a court and without judicial oversight, whether or not the communication has anything to do with al Qaeda — indeed, even if there is no evidence that the communication has anything to do with terrorism, or any threat to national security.

If you want all the details, Glenn Greenwald has them, as usual.

Toshi’s earlier post about the Active Denial System, and the recent publication by Wikileaks of a US Army Counterinsurgency Manual (see below), remind me of this very important but oft-overlooked fact:

Indeed, the public is The Enemy. The militarization of domestic law enforcement, and the migration of practices from the so-called “counterinsurgency” wars of Central America in the 1980’s to the U.S. military abroad and even to domestic policy gives the game away.

Indeed, reading excerpts from Foreign Internal Defense Tactics Techniques and Procedures for Special Forces is like reading the New York City police department’s planning documents for the Republican National Convention in 2004:

Examples of counterintelligence measures to use are

• Background investigations and records checks of persons in sensitive positions and persons whose loyalty may be questionable.
• Maintenance of files on organizations, locations, and individuals of counterintelligence interest.
• Control of civilian movement within government-controlled areas.
• Identification systems to minimize the chance of insurgents gaining access to installations or moving freely.
• Unannounced searches and raids on suspected meeting places.
• Censorship.

For the 2004 Republican Convention in New York, the police department spied on peaceful civil society groups for more than a year leading up to the protests, maintained files on organizations of interest, controlled and limited movement of civilians anywhere near the convention center or protest sites, established an ID system for conventioneers, infiltrated protest groups and acted as agents provocateur, and preemptively arrested thousands of people and held them without charge or access to counsel. And the city fought to keep secret thousands of pages of documents pertaining to the department’s planning remain withheld, despite numerous lawsuits.

What New York City did isn’t new. Indeed, before the latest Iraq War started, civil society groups were planning protests in Pittsburgh, and conducting training on how to handle police tactics. One participant told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

But in the last few years, we’ve witnessed the militarization of the police department. Cops snapping pictures, taking names, shooting rubber bullets — that’s stuff we always thought happened in Central America, although it was often U.S.-funded. What we’re finding is, it’s come home.

It’s interesting to read about this from the officers’ point of view, too. POLICE Magazine’s article from last month advises units of specially-trained officers to prepare for protests and rallies:

How these units will respond in the field depends on the rules of engagement set by their agency and the law. But here’s a good idea of the tools they will need to perform their mission: empty hands, batons, riot shields, electronic control devices, specialty impact munitions, chemical munitions, air launcher projectiles, K-9s, sidearms, shotguns, rifles, 37/40mm launchers.

The best part of it is, the media and the public (and particularly the police) usually claim that the protesters turned to violence. The next time you hear that claim, remember who brought “sidearms, shotguns, rifles, 37/40mm launchers”, and who brought puppets

The U. S. State Department sharply criticized the state of “freedom” in Russia in its 2001 annual Country Report on Human Rights Practices:

Authorities continued to infringe on citizens’ privacy rights. Government technical regulations that require Internet service providers and telecommunications companies to invest in equipment that enables the FSB [successor to the KGB –ed.] to monitor Internet traffic, telephone calls, and pagers without judicial approval caused serious concern. However, in response to a challenge by a St. Petersburg journalist, the Supreme Court ruled in September that the FSB is required to obtain and show court approval to telecommunications companies before it can proceed to initiate surveillance. Past practices raised questions among many observers about whether the FSB would abide by this ruling.

Well, at least somebody’s Supreme Court has ruled that the government can’t eavesdrop on telecommunications without a warrant!

Here in the Land of the Free, our Congress is busily trying to write retroactive laws that will protect the telecom companies that spied on U. S. citizens without judicial approval, at the behest of Dear Leader, of course.

(h/t: Glenn Greenwald, a.k.a. Glenzilla. See particularly this post about retroactive immunity.)

The June 2nd New Yorker has a piece of interest on “non-lethal” weapons.  It discusses a Marine and ex-LA cop and his experiences with non-lethal weapons as one of the leading “experts.”  Indeed, this is a fuzzy area and there are many other terms for “non-lethal.”  My favorite is the MAD device which shoots planar sound waves over a mile, so you can freak out people with sound, or whisper messages to somebody you are rescuing.  Reminded me of the Audio Spotlight developed at the MIT Media Lab.  It was also interesting that the most effective non-lethal weapon for stopping cars would be one that turns off or throttles the computer that controls the ignition.  My question to you: What would you do if you were put into the position where people wanted to harm you?

Abstract only right now:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/06/02/080602fa_fact_wilkinson

We’ve all heard of “evidence based medicine”. Well, the field of urban design is working to develop approaches to their work that use the same concepts: design spaces using an evidence based understanding of the environment and needs (as opposed to unfounded assumptions or purely political pressures).

Space Syntax is one of the world leaders in urban planning. Space Syntax takes an evidence-based approach to the planning and design of buildings and cities, using advanced computer modeling technologies.

Our good friend, world-class genius, and US Director of Space Syntax, Noah Raford, recently spoke to RUDI (the Resource for Urban Design Information) on the “real time data collection methods, parametric modelling at the urban scale, and future possibilities of ‘remote control urbanism’”. Noah predicts both the cool and creepy possibilities that are developing as a result of emerging technologies.

Find out what “spime” is HERE (20 Min Video Lecture)

The CIA just released documents re: their use of torture in interrogations. In this revealing document we learn all the details the CIA feels comfortable releasing. Everything is blacked out except: “These enhanced techniques include:” and then farther down the page, “waterboard.”

via boing boing

Nothing more sexy than cameras shaped like guns…

The FBI is attempting to recruit people to help them infiltrate vegan terrorist pot-luck dinners in Minneapolis/St. Paul the site for the 2008 Republican National Committee Convention this summer…

What they were looking for, Carroll says, was an informant—someone to show up at “vegan potlucks” throughout the Twin Cities and rub shoulders with RNC protestors, schmoozing his way into their inner circles, then reporting back to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, a partnership between multiple federal agencies and state and local law enforcement. The effort’s primary mission, according to the Minneapolis division’s website, is to “investigate terrorist acts carried out by groups or organizations which fall within the definition of terrorist groups as set forth in the current United States Attorney General Guidelines.”

Carroll would be compensated for his efforts, but only if his involvement yielded an arrest. No exact dollar figure was offered.

via Boing Boing