Apparently, New York Police officers use possession of condoms (especially more than one condom) as one of the factors in determining whether there is probable cause to arrest someone for prostitution or loitering for the purposes of prostitution. It’s a foolish policy for health reasons, but the state legislature has so far declined to stop it.

Twenty-eight protesters were preemptively arrested in DeWitt, New York as they tried to reach Hancock Air Force Base for a demonstration outside the gates against the us of drones. The protesters were charged with “failing to obtain a town permit,” according to the Post-Standard.

As widely reported yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-to-4 decision that officials could strip-search individuals being admitted to jail, even if they had committed minor offenses. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in the decision that he was not willing to “second-guess the judgments of correction officials.” The holding may become limited, but its potential implications are disturbing.

Public records from local and state law enforcement agencies reveal a significant number of law enforcement agencies in the United States use cell phone tracking even if they do not have a warrant or probable cause to engage in such surveillance. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which requested and obtained the records, finds the [...]

Occupy Wall Street engaged in a protest on Saturday that called for the resignation of New York Police Department Commissioner Ray Kelly. It also included an anti-police brutality march that explicitly challenged the NYPD’s handling of the Occupy movement over the past months.

Truthout has received via FOIA a batch of DHS documents relating to their monitoring of Occupy sites and participants. The documents show DHS fixated on the role of the hacktivist group “Anonymous” in Occupy Wall Street for potential threats to on-line systemseThe documents show how DHS fixated on the role of the hacktivist group “Anonymous” in Occupy Wall Street. However, the docs released so far do not indicate any unusual DHS coordination with local police and other city officials on how to deal with occupations per se.

For two nights, it appears a dozen or so people have occupied Union Square in New York City. This morning there are people still in the park who slept there overnight. What is happening here carries the potential to renew the movement that has now been around for six months. It also affirms what has become a truth: every time the movement is met with police brutality or a huge show of police force, that movement is galvanized and new life is breathed into it.

The Obama Administration recently announced the G8 summit would be moved from Chicago to the secluded Camp David. For most of Chicago, the announcement was confounding. The city had been preparing for months and now, just over two months before the summit was to take place, Mayor Rahm Emanuel lost the privilege to host the summit and show off the city to some major world leaders. But you can understand why they did this.

It is 1999 in Los Angeles and Dave Brown (Woody Harrelson) is one of the most corrupt cops in the history of the Rampart Division.

The National Press Photographers’ Association (NPPA) wrote a letter to the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) after police interfered with an individual who was trying to record a young man being arrested. The incident occurred even though police had been given a directive not to interfere with citizens recording such events.