In einem Fernsehinterview sagte der Ex-Top-Spion: „Wir waren doch selbst auch gegen einen Staat, der allmächtig alle Bürger kontrolliert. Das geschah früher in Osteuropa, in den Sowjetstaaten. Und wir sind jetzt dabei, hier auch so was zu entwickeln. Die Stasi machte das, da gab es so viele Spione, inoffizielle Mitarbeiter.“ Grundsätzlich seien Geheimdienste und Agenten ja nötig, aber eben demokratisch kontrolliert, so Hoekstra.

Im Fall des erschossenen Jugendlichen Trayvon Martin wird der Todesschütze bis zum Prozessbeginn freigelassen.

A USA TODAY reporter and editor investigating Pentagon propaganda contractors have themselves been subjected to a propaganda campaign of sorts, waged on the Internet through a series of bogus websites.

Fake Twitter and Facebook accounts have been created in their names, along with a Wikipedia entry and dozens of message board postings and blog comments. Websites were registered in their names.

The timeline of the activity tracks USA TODAY‘s reporting on the military‘s „information operations“ program, which spent hundreds of millions of dollars on marketing campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan — campaigns that have been criticized even within the Pentagon as ineffective and poorly monitored.

(28.02.) As the Pentagon has sought to sell wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to often-hostile populations there, it has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on poorly tracked marketing and propaganda campaigns that military leaders like to call „information operations,“ the modern equivalent of psychological warfare.

From 2005 to 2009, such spending rose from $9 million to $580 million a year mostly in Iraq and Afghanistan, Pentagon and congressional records show. Last year, spending dropped to $202 million as the Iraq War wrapped up. A USA TODAY investigation, based on dozens of interviews and a series of internal military reports, shows that Pentagon officials have little proof the programs work and they won‘t make public where the money goes.

In den meisten Fernsehkrimis ist die Polizei-Welt noch in Ordnung: Täter verraten sich durch Fingerabdrücke oder DNA-Spuren, flüchten zu Fuß oder mit quietschenden Reifen im Auto und lassen sich so bestens verfolgen. Mit der Realität hat das aber immer weniger zu tun. Bei vielen Taten spielen heute Telefon oder das Internet eine Rolle – auch dort hinterlassen die Täter zwar Spuren. Die aber lassen sich kaum verfolgen, weil die Daten schon nach kurzer Zeit wieder gelöscht werden.

On March 19, New York governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law a bill expanding the ability of the police to collect DNA samples from citizens of the state. The state has been able to collect samples from those convicted of certain violent felonies since 1996. The new law, however, permits the the police to get genetic samples from almost anyone convicted of any crime in New York state. People convicted of possessing low quantities of marijuana for the first time are exempt, but otherwise even those convicted of non-violent misdemeanors are subject to the law. Like a lot of “crime control” legislation, the bill passed without a great deal of opposition in the Assembly.

MILWAUKEE- Governor Walker‘s proposal to take DNA samples from subjects in some felony and serious sex-related cases to submit DNA upon arrest is causing some controversy in Wisconsin.

Twenty-five states and the federal government collect DNA from suspects upon arrest. Under Wisconsin law, suspects don‘t have to give up DNA until they‘re convicted or investigators obtain a warrant to seize it.

New York lawmakers recently passed a bill that required states to mandate DNA samples from almost all criminals, including those convicted of misdemeanors.

The number of new civil claims for damages over alleged News of the World phone hacking faced by Rupert Murdoch‘s News International has reached nearly 50, including Sir John Major‘s former daughter-in-law Emma Noble, the high court has heard.

Others seeking damages for alleged invasion of privacy from News Group Newspapers, the News International subsidiary that published the now-closed Sunday tabloid, include former Conservative cabinet minister and chief whip Lord Blencathra and former Fire Brigades‘ Union general secretary Andy Gilchrist.

Some of the entities on the COA list are unsurprising. For example, journalists have reported that Customs and Border Protection uses Predator drones to patrol the borders. It is also well known that DARPA and other branches of the military are authorized to fly drones in the US. However, this is the first time we have seen the broad and varied list of other authorized organizations, including universities, police departments, and small towns and counties across the United States. The COA list includes universities and colleges like Cornell, the University of Colorado, Georgia Tech, and Eastern Gateway Community College, as well as police departments in North Little Rock, Arkansas; Arlington, Texas; Seattle, Washington; Gadsden, Alabama; and Ogden, Utah, to name just a few. The COA list also includes small cities and counties like Otter Tail, Minnesota and Herington, Kansas. The Google map linked above plots out the locations we were able to determine from the lists, and is color coded by whether the authorizations are active, expired or disapproved.

Without the video, all Andreas Ias would have to show for his weekend bicycle ride in the Jordan valley would be two stitches and a slightly swollen lower lip – plus a hardening anger about the treatment by Israeli soldiers of Palestinians.

But a few seconds of footage uploaded to YouTube catapulted the 20-year-old Danish activist into the media spotlight, drew statements from the Israeli prime minister, president and chief of staff, led to the disciplining of an Israeli army officer, and prompted debate over the use of video cameras as a weapon of modern warfare.

„Inzwischen wissen wir, dass das ein schwerwiegender Irrtum war“, sagte Schily. Mit „wir“ ist auch sein damaliger Amtskollege in Nordrhein-Westfalen gemeint, Fritz Behrens (SPD). (…)
Behrens hingegen, der auch von 1998 bis 2005 Innenminister war, hatte am Mittwoch auf eine Anfrage des Tagesspiegels eher diffus geantwortet. Er habe an die damaligen Ereignisse „heute nur noch vage Erinnerungen“, sagte Behrens. Er sei sich „ganz sicher“, einen terroristischen Hintergrund „nicht ausgeschlossen zu haben – das wäre völlig gegen meine sonstigen Formulierungsgewohnheiten“.

Dass da eine Chance vertan wurde, lässt sich aus dem umfangreichen Material schließen, das eine „Evaluierungsgruppe Allgemeines Register für Staatsschutzstrafsachen“ bei der Anklagebehörde in Karlsruhe zusammengetragen hat. Generalbundesanwalt Harald Range beauftragte noch im November 2011 vier Staatsanwälte damit, mögliche Versäumnisse beim Thema NSU zu prüfen. Innerhalb eines Monats sichteten die Experten 8000 Vorgänge von 1995 bis 2011. Bei 45 Komplexen wurden die Staatsanwälte fündig. Es waren sogar Vorgänge mit Namen von NSU-Leuten dabei.

The government is facing renewed pressure over its refusal to disclose Britain‘s role in abducting terror suspects after the information tribunal ruled there was „a very strong public interest in transparency and accountability“ over whether ministers actually applied their stated policy of opposing such practices.

The public interest in openness was all the greater „as ministers have had to correct earlier statements made to parliament about UK involvement“ in the practice known as extraordinary rendition – the seizure of prisoners and transfer of them to places where they were likely to be abused and tortured – the tribunal has found.