humanformat:

anarcho-queer:

The New York City Police Department and Microsoft have partnered up to bring the world a surveillance system straight out of a sci-fi novel. With a name both mundane and a little bit menacing, the Domain Awareness System allows the department to access around 3,000 CCTV cameras around the city and link the feeds with software to cross-check criminal and terrorist databases, take radiation levels, scan license plates, and more — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from a lower Manhattan headquarters. And when Microsoft turns around and sells the technology to other cities, New York gets a cut.

“We’re not your mom-and-pop’s Police Department anymore,” said Mayor Bloomberg yesterday at the system’s unveiling. “We are in the next century. We are leading the pack.” Ray Kelly added, “We can track where a car associated with a murder suspect is currently located and where it’s been over the past several days, weeks or months.” Months! The archival period for video is actually 30 days, but can be extended if the Deputy Commissioner of Counterterrorism feels like it.

The official documents ensure, “As with all NYPD operations, no person will be targeted or monitored by the Domain Awareness System solely because of actual or perceived race, color, religion or creed, age, national origin, alienage, citizenship status, gender (including gender identity), sexual orientation, disability, marital status, partnership status, military status, or political affiliation or beliefs.” But we’ve heard that one before.

Beyond the surveillance integration, the Domain Awareness System is an investment. “I hope Microsoft sells a lot of copies of this system,” the mayor said, “because 30 percent of the profits will go to us.” High-tech crime fighting and a business opportunity? It’s a Bloomberg-ian dream.

This is disgusting.

(via proletarianinstinct)

Source: anarcho-queer

Leftish: I can't stop watching the LIVESTREAM of #OCCUPYWALLSTREET

leftish:

The feed is mesmerizing! Everyone who comes before the cameras of the LIVE FEED has something important to say. These people are making sense! I don’t know where this is going, but I definitely support #OCCUPYWALLSTREET!

Here’s the LIVE FEED

and here’s a link to the “DEMANDS”

PLEASE SHARE, REBLOG, POST TO FACEBOOK, POST TO TWITTER!

inothernews: From the New York Daily News: Scores of protesters were arrested in Manhattan Saturday as a march against social inequality turned violent. Hundreds of people carrying banners and chanting “shame, shame” walked between Zuccotti Park, near Wall St., and Union Square calling for changes to a financial system they say unjustly benefits the rich and harms the poor. At least 80 people were carted away in police vehicles and up to five were hit with pepper spray near 12th St. and Fifth Ave., where tensions became especially high, police and organizers said. The National Lawyer’s Guild, which is providing legal assistance to the protesters, put the number of arrests at 100. Witnesses said they saw three stunned women collapse on the ground screaming after they were sprayed in the face. A video posted on YouTube and NYDailyNews.com shows uniformed officers had corralled the women using orange nets when two supervisors made a beeline for the women, and at least one suddenly sprayed the women before turning and quickly walking away. Footage of other police altercations also circulated online, but it was unclear what caused the dramatic mood shift in an otherwise peaceful demonstration. “I saw a girl get slammed on the ground. I turned around and started screaming,” said Chelsea Elliott, 25, from Greenpoint, Brooklyn, who said she was sprayed. “I turned around and a cop was coming … we were on the sidewalk and we weren’t doing anything illegal.” Police said 80 protesters were arrested or ticketed at multiple locations for disorderly conduct, blocking traffic and failure to obey a lawful order but the number could rise. If the NYPD’s excuse for this disgusting behavior — which should make decent police officers anywhere cringe with shame — is that the protestors didn’t have a permit, then fuck that.  Of course, Mayor Bloomberg is probably off in Bermuda on his usual weekend getaway, so neither he nor his police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, won’t have to be held accountable for these wanton acts of police brutality until Monday.  At least. For shame. (Photo: Jefferson Siegel / Daily News)
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inothernews:

From the New York Daily News:

Scores of protesters were arrested in Manhattan Saturday as a march against social inequality turned violent.

Hundreds of people carrying banners and chanting “shame, shame” walked between Zuccotti Park, near Wall St., and Union Square calling for changes to a financial system they say unjustly benefits the rich and harms the poor.

At least 80 people were carted away in police vehicles and up to five were hit with pepper spray near 12th St. and Fifth Ave., where tensions became especially high, police and organizers said.

The National Lawyer’s Guild, which is providing legal assistance to the protesters, put the number of arrests at 100.

Witnesses said they saw three stunned women collapse on the ground screaming after they were sprayed in the face.

A video posted on YouTube and NYDailyNews.com shows uniformed officers had corralled the women using orange nets when two supervisors made a beeline for the women, and at least one suddenly sprayed the women before turning and quickly walking away.

Footage of other police altercations also circulated online, but it was unclear what caused the dramatic mood shift in an otherwise peaceful demonstration.

“I saw a girl get slammed on the ground. I turned around and started screaming,” said Chelsea Elliott, 25, from Greenpoint, Brooklyn, who said she was sprayed. “I turned around and a cop was coming … we were on the sidewalk and we weren’t doing anything illegal.”

Police said 80 protesters were arrested or ticketed at multiple locations for disorderly conduct, blocking traffic and failure to obey a lawful order but the number could rise.

If the NYPD’s excuse for this disgusting behavior — which should make decent police officers anywhere cringe with shame — is that the protestors didn’t have a permit, then fuck that.  Of course, Mayor Bloomberg is probably off in Bermuda on his usual weekend getaway, so neither he nor his police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, won’t have to be held accountable for these wanton acts of police brutality until Monday.  At least.

For shame.

(Photo: Jefferson Siegel / Daily News)

(via bohemianarthouse)

Source: New York Daily News

America: Where you get arrested for wearing masks. Where millions people are homeless and hopeless. Where going to school automatically sends you into debt. Where the greatest city in the world is broke. Where people say “Wow, be glad you’re working” instead of “Wow, we deserve better.
Mark D. Stein (Staten Island Advance)

(via randomactsofchaos)

Source: vegasmoon

New York: New Bill Would Decriminalize Some Cases of Marijuana Possession

cwnl:

State legislators have introduced a bill decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana in public view. The bill comes on the heels of a WNYC investigation about alleged illegal searches during marijuana arrests.

The new bill, sponsored by Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn and State Senator Mark Grisanti of Buffalo, wouldn’t legalize marijuana possession — but instead of being arrested for smoking or displaying marijuana in public view, a person would receive a ticket and a fine. Currently, possessing a small amount of marijuana isn’t a crime unless you’re smoking or carrying it in public view.

The rationale for the new law is that it might slow the skyrocketing marijuana arrests rates that disproportionately hit the city’s black and Latino neighborhoods. +

IF YOU SUPPORT THIS PAGE OR NY RIGHTS IN GENERAL PLEASE REBLOG. WE NEED MORE BILLS LIKE THIS AND LESS RESTRICTION. THIS HAS TURNED INTO A POLICE CITY.

(via ikenbot)

Source: fuckyeahdrugpolicy

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