liberties // Current

Surprise: Cops Who Get Tasered Really Don't Like It | Rights and Liberties | AlterNet

Have you ever been tasered or know anyone that has been? Apparently some police officers have a bone to pick with Taser... more

pokesmot
added this

California Supreme Court Ruling Limits Medical Marijuana Distribution / NORML

Smelly Money Leads To Major Legal Review Of California’s Medical Marijuana Distribution. In an important legal case... more

pokesmot
added this

Gangs say they'll hurt kids in Ciudad Juárez to get teachers' holiday bonuses | Dallas Morning News

I can not believe they do this and get away with this, lets start a gang to rob the gang! MEXICO CITY – Elementary school... more

pokesmot
added this

Looking for an Alternative - The Drug Policy Situation in Georgia on Vimeo

Things are bad in the drug war here in the US, but they're bad all over. The Hungarian Civil Liberties Union has released... more

pokesmot
added this

Watching the Watchmen: What Obama can do about illegal surveillance

This makes good sense these guys have immunity! An area that has been neglected recently is that of the illegal wiretapping and... more

pokesmot
added this

Can George W. Bush 'self-pardon' himself?

There's no definitive legal consensus on whether a president can pardon himself. But Bush may well give the theorists an... more

pokesmot
added this

Police will use new compact scanner to take fingerprints in street.

Every police force in the UK is to be equipped with mobile fingerprint scanners - handheld devices that allow police to carry out identity checks on people in the street.

The new technology, which ultimately may be able to receive pictures of suspects, is likely to be in widespread use within 18 months. Tens of thousands of sets - as compact as BlackBerry smartphones - are expected to be distributed.

The police claim the scheme, called Project Midas, will transform the speed of criminal investigations. A similar, heavier machine has been tested during limited trials with motorway patrols.

To address fears about mass surveillance and random searches, the police insist fingerprints taken by the scanners will not be stored or added to databases.

Liberty, the civil rights group, cautioned that the law required fingerprints taken in such circumstances to be deleted after use. Gareth Crossman, Liberty's policy director, said: "Saving time with new technology could help police performance but officers must make absolutely certain that they take fingerprints only when they suspect an individual of an offence and can't establish his identity."

Details of the type of equipment and the scope of its use have been revealed in a presentation by the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA).

The initial phase of the Mobile Identification At Scene (Midas) project, costed at £30m-£40m, will enable officers to perform rapid checks on the fingerprints of people arrested or detained. The marks will be compared against records on Ident1, the national police database which holds information on 7.5 million individuals.

Geoff Whitaker, a senior technology officer with the NPIA, told the Biometrics 2008 conference that Project Midas would save enormous amounts of police time and reduce the number of wrongful arrests.

At present, officers have to take suspects to custody suites if they need to check fingerprints. On average, the agency's research shows, the procedure takes 67 minutes. "If we scaled this [saving] up to the national level that would equate to 366 additional police officers on the beat," Whitaker said. "One of the benefits is that it will reduce the number of errors - and we can reduce the number of arrests significantly.

Every police force in the UK is to be equipped with mobile fingerprint scanners - handheld devices that allow police to carry out... more