The Terrifying Case of Natalie Strecker

Comment: Full blown tyranny, Orwellian style is here. It was bad before, but it's a whole new slice of totalitarianism now descending... We resist this now or the there will be no freedom left to do so. The window is closing...

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Craig Murray

I am confident that over 2 million people in the UK have shared thoughts on the Genocide in Gaza that are stronger than anything Natalie Strecker has expressed

I am quite certain that I am one of those 2 million.

Yet Natalie Strecker, an avowed pacifist, today faces up to ten years in prison under the Terrorism Act when the verdict in her case comes in.

Strecker is charged with eliciting support for Hamas and Hezbollah, based on 8 tweets, cherry-picked by police and prosecutors from an astounding 51,000 tweets she sent, mainly from the Jersey Palestine Solidarity Committee account.

The tweets were rather rattled off in court and referred to occasionally again in whole and in part. There may be minor inaccuracies not affecting sense, but this is the best reconstruction of those tweets that I can make (they were not displayed to the public):

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California’s ‘Kiddie Stroll’ is state-sponsored slavery, selling children for sex

Kira Davis | New York Post

California’s laws have made children its least protected class.

As a matter of fact, if an American state wanted to establish a formal means of separating children from parents and other loving caregivers to feed a profitable industry, it couldn’t be done with much more effectiveness than in California. 

In 2023, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation requiring foster parents to “affirm” the LGBTQ identities of any children in their care.  

Naturally he hailed it as a giant leap forward for gay rights — but it effectively kicked committed religious believers out of the foster-care system. 

Last month, the governor signed AB 495, aka the legal kidnapping bill, which allows an unrelated adult to claim a “mentoring relationship” and exercise parental authority over any child. 

Newsom’s cronies in the Legislature touted it as a protection for the children of undocumented immigrants who might get whisked away by ICE in the middle of the day — but it effectively put an end to parents’ rights. 

Then there’s SB 357, which bars police from profiling underage prostitutes.

This was designed to loosen the legal hassles surrounding “sex work” (as the progressives call it, because sex seems like a job to them) and supposedly spare some unfortunate young women an early criminal record. 

Perhaps you’re beginning to see a pattern here. 

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Prince Andrew sought help of Met police officer in smearing Giuffre

Comment: Another privileged, predatory toff who should be in jail. Some hope. 

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The UK Telegraph

Disgraced former duke asked his taxpayer-funded bodyguard to investigate teenager who accused him of sex abuse 

Prince Andrew tried to smear his teenage sex abuse accuser by passing her confidential information to police, it has been claimed.

The Prince asked his taxpayer-funded police bodyguard to investigate Virginia Giuffre and passed him her date of birth and social security number, a leaked email revealed. 

He then told Buckingham Palace aide Ed Perkins, who at the time was Elizabeth II’s deputy press secretary, that he had asked one of his personal protection officers to dig up information about Ms Giuffre.

The revelations, published by the Mail on Sunday, came just 24 hours after the King moved against Prince Andrew amid fears that a newly unearthed email sent to Jeffrey Epstein would open the floodgates to more scandal, the Telegraph understands.

The Prince was forced to give up his remaining royal titles after it emerged he had stayed in touch with the paedophile longer than he had previously admitted.

The email, which emerged last week, exposed a fundamental “fault line” in Andrew’s defence and proved a “tipping point” for the King, palace sources said.

The revelation that the Prince had lied to the public presented a serious reputational risk to the monarchy and the King personally decided to act.

 The matter was then dealt with swiftly, with Andrew pressed to accept the latest sanction in a matter of hours. His ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, has also given up her title.

The Prince is said to have emailed Mr Perkins hours before an infamous photograph was published in February 2011 that showed him with his arm around Ms Giuffre’s waist.

 “It would also seem she has a criminal record in the States,” he wrote, according to reports. “I have given her DoB [date of birth] and social security number for investigation with XXX, the on-duty ppo [personal protection officer].” 

See also: Prince Andrew gives up his title as Duke of York 

Graham Linehan arrested at Heathrow over his X posts

Comment: Another example of British tyranny with police arresting people for having the wrong opinions. Forget serious crime, trawling x feeds is a far better use of tax payers' money. A dangerous red flag for our immediate future. The Clown World continues...

BBC News

Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan has been arrested at Heathrow Airport on suspicion of inciting violence in relation to his posts on X.

He was arrested by five officers after arriving on a flight from the US, and said in an online Substack article that officials then became concerned for his health after taking his blood pressure, and took him to hospital.

The Metropolitan Police said that a man in his 50s was arrested on 1 September at Heathrow Airport and taken to hospital, adding his condition "is neither life-threatening nor life-changing" , and he was bailed "pending further investigation".

Linehan said in an online article on Substack that his bail condition stipulates he is "not to go on Twitter" and that his arrest related to three posts on X from April, on his views about challenging "a trans-identified male" in "a female-only space".

The arrest prompted a furious backlash from figures including author JK Rowling.

Linehan shared screen shots of the posts he said he was arrested for on Substack, the subscription-based online platform.

The first post, from his X feed, called it a "violent, abusive act" for a trans-identified male to be in a female-only space. He suggested: "Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails punch him in the balls."

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London police official warns journalists not to publish gov. leaks with threats of imprisonment

Boing Boing

After a leak revealed that the British Ambassador to the USA had called Trump "inept, insecure and incompetent" (leading to the ambassador’s resignation and a round of Twitter insults between Trump and senior Tory officials), London’s Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu publicly warned journalists not to publish government leaks, threatening to imprison them if they do: "The publication of leaked communications, knowing the damage they have caused or are likely to cause may also be a criminal matter. I would advise all owners, editors and publishers of social and mainstream media not to publish leaked government documents that may already be in their possession, or which may be offered to them, and to turn them over to the police or give them back to their rightful owner, Her Majesty’s Government."

The comments drew sharp criticism from the British press. The Sunday Times political editor Tim Shipman called it a "sinister, absurd, anti-democratic statement" and tweeted, "Do you have any comprehension of a free society? This isn’t Russia." The US managing editor of the Financial Times, Peter Spiegel, called the remarks "rather chilling from a major police force in a western democracy."

The Tory leaders jockeying to be Prime Minister staked out opposing positions. Boris Johnson demanded that the leaker be "hunted down and prosecuted" (while not calling for any journalists to be targeted by police) while his rival Jeremy Hunt said he defended publishing leaks "in the public interest...to the hilt."

Labour leader and PM-in-waiting Jeremy Corbyn defended the right of journalists to publish leaks, calling it "vital" and applauding the law’s "considerable protections" for a free press.

However, former defence secretary Sir Michael Fallon said the leak was a clear breach of the Official Secrets Act and the police were entitled to try to prevent further disclosures.
"If they [the press] are receiving stolen material they should give it back to their rightful owner," he told the Today programme.
"They should also be aware of the huge damage that has already been done, and the potentially even greater damage to be done by further breaches of the Official Secrets Act."

Ambassador row: Met Police criticised for warning off press [BBC]

Police officers among 6 found guilty of shocking rape and murder of 8yo girl in India

RT

 

Six men in India, including police officers and a government official, have been found guilty of the gang rape and the bludgeoning to death of an eight-year-old girl in an explosive case that sparked outrage across the country. 

 

The nomadic girl was kidnapped, sedated and then gang raped multiple times in the Kashua district of the Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir in January 2018, the Times of India reports. Her body was found a week after she went missing. News of the case sparked outrage in India and internationally, with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres calling on authorities to bring the perpetrators of the “horrific” crime to justice.

Six of the seven accused were convicted by a special court in Pathankot on Monday.
Government worker and village head Sanji Ram, who is believed to have masterminded the crime, his juvenile nephew and two special police officers were found guilty of murder and gang rape, while a police constable and an inspector were found guilty of destroying evidence after taking money from Ram.

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Police raids escalate as the war on journalism goes worldwide

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium

The Australian Federal Police have conducted two raids on journalists and seized documents in purportedly unrelated incidents in the span of just two days.

Yesterday the AFP raided the home of News Corp Australia journalist Annika Smethurst, seeking information related to her investigative report last year which exposed the fact that the Australian government has been discussing the possibility of giving itself unprecedented powers to spy on its own citizens. Today they raided the Sydney headquarters of the Australian Broadcasting Corp, seizing information related to a 2017 investigative report on possible war crimes committed by Australian forces in Afghanistan.

In a third, also ostensibly unrelated incident, another Australian reporter disclosed yesterday that the Department of Home Affairs has initiated an investigation of his reporting on a story about asylum seeker boats which could lead to an AFP criminal case, saying he's being pressured to disclose his source. 


"Why has AFP suddenly decided to carry out these two raids after the election?" tweeted Australian Sky News political editor David Speers during the Sydney raid. "Did new evidence really just emerge in both the Annika Smethurst and ABC stories?!"

Why indeed?

"If these raids unconnected, as AFP reportedly said, it's an extraordinary coincidence," tweeted The Conversation chief political correspondent Michelle Grattan. "AFP needs to explain ASAP the timing so long after the stories. It can't be that inefficient! Must be some explanation - which makes the 'unconnected' claim even more odd."

Odd indeed.

It is true that the AFP has formally denied that there was any connection between the two raids, and it is in fact difficult to imagine how the two could be connected apart from their sharing a common theme of exposing malfeasance that the government wanted kept secret. If it is true that they are unconnected, then what changed? What in the world could have changed to spark this sudden escalation of the Australian government's assault on the free press?

Well, if as I suggested recently you don't think in terms of separate, individual nations, it's not hard to think of at least one thing that's changed. "The criminalization and crack down on national security journalism is spreading like a virus," WikiLeaks tweeted today in response to the ABC raid. "The Assange precedent is already having effect. Journalists must unite and remember that courage is also contagious." 

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Taxpayers Shell Out Record $6.75m After Cops Deprived Man of Water for 7 Days Until He Died

Comment: Of all the many symptoms of an increase in psychopathology in law enforcement and the penal system, this is one of the worst.

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Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project 

As TFTP reported in 2017, a jury found probable cause to bring criminal charges against seven jailhouse employees in the dehydration death of Terrill Thomas for cutting off the water to his cell until he died of dehydration. Since then, three of the officers were found guilty and handed down insultingly low sentences. And now, the taxpayers are taking the brunt of the responsibility as Thomas’ family receives a $6.75 million settlement.

“It reflects the callous disregard for Terrill Thomas’ life,” Ed Budge, a Seattle-based attorney who was part of the legal team representing Thomas’ estate told CNN on Wednesday. “We are satisfied that the settlement reflects the atrociousness of what happened, and it’s an appropriate result for this case.”

During an inquest in 2017, multiple inmates testified that they heard the 38-year-old beg for water—for days. After being locked in a cage with no water for seven days, Thomas finally died.

Thomas, a mentally ill inmate, had been placed in solitary confinement for seven days. Throughout his time in his jail cell, it was reported not once was he allowed the customary one hour of free time in the yard. In a seeming protest to his conditions, Thomas clogged the toilet, prompting the officers to shut all the water, not just the toilet water, off to his cell.

After hearing from nine jail employees, NBC News reported at the time that the jury deliberated for two hours before recommending charges be filed with one simple word, “Yes.” However, the jury’s decision would not lead to much accountability.

Lt. Kashka Meadors, who ordered the water to be cut off to Thomas’ cell pleaded no contest to abuse of residents in a penal facility, ending her criminal case, according to CNN affiliate WITI.

Officer James Ramsey-Guy, who obeyed the order to shut off the water to Thomas’ cell, took a similar plea deal.

Meadors received just 60 days of work release while Ramsey-Guy received only 30.

“I wouldn’t wish this upon my worst enemy…it’ll take you away. I feel like I passed away, losing my father. I don’t have him anymore. I’m not going to be who I used to be,” said Terrill Barns, Thomas’ son.

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Facial recognition: Britain faces a dystopian future

George Harrison
spiked.com

Automated facial recognition (AFR) is the state’s latest, and most invasive, surveillance technology.

Since 2015, three police forces – South Wales, Metropolitan and Leicestershire – have made use of AFR in controversial live trials. Now, South Wales Police have been taken to court by office worker Ed Bridges, who started a crowdfunding campaign when he felt his privacy had been violated by AFR.

Bridges’ legal challenge has been backed by civil-rights organisation Liberty, which argues that the indiscriminate deployment of AFR is equivalent to taking DNA samples or fingerprints without consent. According to Liberty, there are no legal grounds for scanning thousands of innocent people in this way. It also claims the technology discriminates against black people, whose faces are disproportionately flagged by mistake, meaning they are more likely to be stopped by police unfairly.

In London, AFR has been put on hold while the Metropolitan Police carries out a review. The Met is also facing a legal challenge of its own from Big Brother Watch, another civil-liberties group. Director Silkie Carlo, a vocal critic of AFR since its inception, told spiked: ‘People are right to be concerned when they can see us moving towards a police state. The result of this technology is that the normal relationship between innocence and suspicion has been inverted.’

One camera, placed in a busy, inner-city location, can scan the faces of up to 18,000 pedestrians per minute, automatically logging the features of anyone unlucky enough to walk past. A computer immediately checks these faces against a database of wanted mugs and lets nearby officers know if there’s a match.

I have previously warned on spiked against the illiberal use of this technology, and the flaws inherent in AFR policing have since become even clearer. Around 50 deployments have taken place so far in Wales alone, including during the Champions League final in Cardiff in June 2017. On that occasion, the cameras scanned 2,470 people – 92 per cent of whom were wrongly identified as criminals.

The trials do not exactly inspire confidence in the accuracy of this technology. But even if AFR worked perfectly, its use would still violate our right to privacy and turn us all into suspects. In previous live AFR trials, it was unclear what would happen to members of the public who refuse to be scanned. Well, now we know: anyone who doesn’t consent to being turned into a walking ID-card will be treated like a criminal.

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38 arrested in Rotherham, UK, as police probe child sex abuse and exploitation on claims of 13 victims

 

© PA
(Top row, left to right/) Tayab Dad, Nasar Dad, Basharat Dad. (Bottom row left to right/) Matloob Hussain, Mohammed Sadiq and Amjad Ali groomed two girls and sexually abused in Rotherham.

Richard Spillett
Daily Mail

Detectives investigating child sexual exploitation in Rotherham have arrested 40 people over the past two months. The 38 men and two women were questioned following allegations made by 13 victims about sexual abuse against them between 1997 and 2015. The National Crime Agency said the people arrested are aged between 29 and 53 and are from Sheffield, Rotherham, Leeds, Dewsbury, and Maidstone in Kent. All have been bailed or released under investigation pending further inquiries. The spokeswoman said the victims in the latest cases were aged between 11 and 26 at the time of the alleged offences. The National Crime Agency, often called 'Britain's FBI', is conducting a huge investigation after a 2014 report found more than 1,000 young girls had been abused in the South Yorkshire town. Scandals have since engulfed other towns and cities, including Newcastle, Telford and most recently Huddersfield, with a series of similar gangs jailed.

Vulnerable young victims were typically given drugs and alcohol before being passed around between men of Pakistani heritage to be raped and sexually assaulted at will. Authorities did little to tackle the abusers or save their young victims from their terrible ordeals, often due to fears over being labelled racist.

The latest arrests are part of the ongoing Operation Stovewood investigation. Towards the end of 2018, the NCA said it had 151 designated suspects, 275 other people under investigation and 296 female survivors of exploitation actively engaging with officers.

The NCA has full control of allegations between 1997 and 2013, with 250 staff and an annual budget that will soon reach £15 million a year.

Carl Vessey-Baitson from the National Crime Agency said: 'Arresting such a large number of individuals as part of one Stovewood sub-operation shows our desire to listen to victims and bring offenders to justice is not wavering.

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Dozens of Cities Have Secretly Experimented With Predictive Policing Software

Motherboard

Documents obtained by Motherboard using public information requests verify previously unconfirmed police department contracts with predictive policing company PredPol. 

The use of PredPol—a predictive policing software that once advocated for a controversial, unproven “broken windows” approach to law enforcement—is far more widespread than previously reported, according to documents obtained by Motherboard using public records requests. 

PredPol claims to use an algorithm to predict crime in specific 500-foot by 500-foot sections of a city, so that police can patrol or surveil specific areas more heavily. 

The documents obtained by Motherboard—which include PredPol contract documents, instructional manuals and slide presentations for using the software, and PredPol contract negotiation emails with government officials—were obtained from the police departments of South Jordan, UT; Mountain View, CA; Atlanta, GA; Haverhill, GA; Palo Alto, CA; Modesto, CA; Merced, CA; Livermore, CA; Tacoma, WA; and the University of California, Berkeley using public records requests. These cities and municipalities are home to over 1 million people, according to the most recent census data available. In October, BoingBoing's Cory Doctorow published a story speculating that these cities had contracts with PredPol, based on an anonymous researcher's study of the company's URL structures and login portals. These documents confirm these cities have or had relationships with the company.

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See also: Here Are Hundreds of Pages of Official Documents About Predictive Policing in America

Jussie Smollett's hate crime hoax exposes America's shocking skepticism shortage

Michael McCaffrey
RT

Jussie Smollett story is a microcosm of what is wrong with America and the mainstream media.

On Thursday, US actor Jussie Smollett was arrested in Chicago after being charged with filing a false police report.

Smollett, a gay African-American actor who stars on the hit TV show Empire, claimed that on January 29 he was the victim of a hate crime when two white men hurled racist and homophobic slurs at him, punched, kicked and poured bleach over him, and then put a noose around his neck while taunting him by proclaiming "this is MAGA (Make America Great Again) country."
Smollett's story was dubious to some because the idea of two Trumpites out at 2am in progressive Chicago hunting gay black men with a noose and bleach in minus 20 degree weather seemed far-fetched, as does the idea that they would be pop-culturally aware enough to have watched Empire and recognize a marginal celebrity like Smollett in the first place.

In the wake of Smollett's unusual claims, the media uncritically accepted his story and numerous celebrities such as Emma Watson, Katy Perry, Olivia Munn, and Ariana Grande tweeted vociferous support. Actress Ellen Page gave a heartfelt speech on The Late Show with Colbert laying the blame for Smollett's attack at the feet of "homophobic" Vice President Mike Pence.

Democratic presidential hopefuls chimed as well, with Kamala Harris and Cory Booker both calling the attack a "modern-day lynching," and a cavalcade of other politicians who tweeted their unquestioning support for Jussie and devout belief in his story.
The problem with all of the belief in Smollett is that, like Ms. Page's impassioned Late Show rant, it was entirely based on emotion and not reason. 

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Serial Pedophile Cop Arrested on 80 Counts of Sexual Abuse of Children

Free Thought Project

Cascade County, MT — Sexual misconduct among police officers is an unfortunately common crime. Multiple studies have shown that hundreds of cops a year are arrested or accused of sexual misconduct. In fact, the second largest complaint against officers — second only to excessive force — is that of sexual abuse. More startling is the fact that over half of the sexual abuse instances involve children. One particularly horrific example of this abuse is made by former Clark County Sheriff’s Deputy Virgil Wolfe who was arrested this month on dozens of charges of child sex abuse.

The Cascade County Sheriff’s Office posted Wolfe’s mugshot on their Facebook page last week, noting that Wolfe had been charged with one count of incest and 80 counts of Sexual Abuse of Children. The sheriff’s office noted that the arrest involved its own deputies along with several agents from the Department of Homeland Security.

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Mother, 38, is arrested in front of her children and locked in a cell for seven hours after misgendering a person on Twitter

Comment: Welcome to Brave New World 

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Martin Beckford
Daily Mail

A mother was arrested in front of her children and locked up for seven hours after referring to a transgender woman as a man online.

Three officers detained Kate Scottow at her home before quizzing her at a police station about an argument with an activist on Twitter over so-called 'deadnaming'.

The 38-year-old, from Hitchin, Hertfordshire, had her photograph, DNA and fingerprints taken and remains under investigation.

More than two months after her arrest on December 1, she has had neither her mobile phone or laptop returned, which she says is hampering her studies for a Masters in forensic psychology.

Writing on online forum Mumsnet, Mrs Scottow - who has also been served with a court order that bans her from referring to her accuser as a man - claimed: 'I was arrested in my home by three officers, with my autistic ten-year-old daughter and breastfed 20-month-old son present.

'I was then detained for seven hours in a cell with no sanitary products (which I said I needed) before being interviewed then later released under investigation ... I was arrested for harassment and malicious communications because I called someone out and misgendered them on Twitter.'

Confirming the arrest, Hertfordshire Police said: 'We take all reports of malicious communication seriously.' 

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Liking Tweets now potential Thought Crime in UK

Comment: Well worth watching this video to see how ridiculous (and dangerous) this kind of thought policing has now become. 

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Jonathan Pie: Rise of the UK free speech police

Jonathan Pie

Large-Scale Riots Continue In France For 4th Night

Zero Hedge

Riots continue in France after a 22-year-old Aboubakar Fofana lost his life in police control on Tuesday. The Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (CRS) official responsible for the has been indicted but remains free under judicial supervision. This decision has rekindled tensions in Orvault, Rezé, and the neighborhoods of Nantes, Breil, and Bellevue.

Ouest-France reports that the security forces wiped Molotov cocktails at Breil and Bellevue and responded with tear gas grenades.

As GEFIRA reports, for four nights straight, there have been riots between African migrants and the French police in the city of Nantes. The riots began after the police stopped and shot an alleged criminal, named Abubakar.

On Wednesday the police declared that they shot the African young man in self-defense after he tried to overrun a police-officer.

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Network of Pedophile Cops Raped Children for Years Because Dept ‘Mistakenly’ Covered It Up

Jack Burns
The Free Thought Project

Inside information into the years-long sex saga involving two former Louisville Metropolitan Police Department (LMPD) officers is now being revealed. The city commissioned former U.S. Attorney Kerry Harvey to investigate the LMPD Explorers program for children to determine if sexual misconduct, abuse, and even rape were widespread with police officers involved in the program.

Two former LMPD officers have been charged with serious crimes, as The Free Thought Project reported, and the city, with good reason, wanted to know more about how police handled the complaints from parents and reports children were being groomed, propositioned, and even raped.

As TFTP reported in October 2017:

Brandon Wood…allegedly raped a teenage boy, both in [his] car and in a residence, and filmed the crime for the purposes of producing pornography. [Kenneth] Betts and Wood were police officer mentors in the Youth Explorer Program for kids who want to one day become law enforcement officers. It was inside the mentorship program that they are accused of finding their victims.

The accusations were followed by lawsuits with one lawyer reportedly representing five victims abused by officers inside the Explorers program. Not only did parents accuse the police officers’ superiors of doing nothing about their criminal complaints, the Police Officers’ union also began to stonewall, filing a lawsuit in an attempt to prevent investigators from interviewing more cops.

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Facial recognition to be rolled out by London police sparking human rights concerns

The Independent

Millions of people face the prospect of being scanned by police facial recognition technology that has sparked human rights concerns.

The controversial software, which officers use to identify suspects, has been found to be “staggeringly inaccurate”, while campaigners have branded its use a violation of privacy.

But Britain’s largest police force is set to expand a trial across six locations in London over the coming months.

Police leaders claimed officers make the decision to act on potential matches with police records and images that do not spark an alert are immediately deleted.

But last month The Independent revealed the Metropolitan Police’s software was returning “false positives” – images of people who were not on a police database – in 98 per cent of alerts.

The technology, which has previously been used at Notting Hill Carnival and Remembrance Sunday services, was used on thousands of shoppers in Stratford, east London.

Scotland Yard said the Stratford operation would be “overt” and that members of the public passing the cameras would be handed leaflets, but The Independent did not observe any information being proactively given out.

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White privilege versus racial paranoia

Steve Salerno
Quillette

If you are white and enjoy any level of public platform - politician, professor, policy wonk - and you use said platform to address social issues, you are certain to be accused of seeing life through the distortive prism of white privilege. Black leaders and social justice firebrands will make the allegation in the most austere terms - witness that spicy moment during a recent debate on political correctness when Michael Eric Dyson bluntly labeled his conservative adversary, Jordan Peterson, a "mean, mad white man." Even those on the Left, such as Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, have not enjoyed immunity from this charge. Privilege is framed as a condition that, once acquired, can never be cured. However, it defies credulity to propose that Dyson and other leading social justice voices are alone in seeing life for what it really is, stripped of all parochial subtexts. Common sense suggests the existence of a complementary malady afflicting the accusers: racial paranoia, one might call it.

If some are inclined to miss the unfairness around them, is it not equally possible that others see unfairness where none exists? Nowhere in the public arena do paranoia and privilege collide more explosively than on the topic of unequal treatment under the law. In making their case, black advocates uniformly cite the videotaped incidents that by now have become an eponymous part of the national conversation on race: Eric Garner, Walter Scott, Philando Castile. All gave oxygen to Black Lives Matter, and later to the NFL's take-a-knee protests. Surely videos can be dramatic exhibits in mounting a case for extrajudicial violence. What a video cannot do, of course, is show us whether excessive force is excessively applied or racially motivated. For that we must turn to facts and figures.

A study out last week suggests that the view of law enforcement as a hotbed of racism is indeed highly inflected by paranoia. "Is There Evidence of Racial Disparity in Police Use of Deadly Force?" examines available data from police shootings in 2015 and 2016. The authors observe that determinations of bias normally are made simply by "comparing the odds of being fatally shot for Blacks and Whites, with odds benchmarked against each group's population proportion." That necessarily yields an incomplete picture, the authors assert, because of the substantial per capita difference in crime among blacks: "When adjusting for crime, we find no systematic evidence of anti-Black disparities in fatal shootings, fatal shootings of unarmed citizens, or fatal shootings involving misidentification of harmless objects."

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