PI Newswire

A Mexican prosecutor investigating an alleged Canadian-led plot to help members of the Gaddafi family escape to Mexico was in Ontario last week to question witnesses, according to sources familiar with the case.

Among those who met with the prosecutor was Gary Peters, an Ontario-based private security contractor who oversaw an aborted plan to fly Col. Muammar Gaddafi’s son Saadi to a safe house near Puerta Vallarta last year.

RCMP officers accompanied the official during his visit, which ended Friday and indicates that Mexican authorities are still actively investigating the alleged scheme more than two months after arresting a Canadian woman.

Cynthia Vanier, of Mount Forrest, Ont., and three others were arrested in Mexico City in November over the alleged plot to fly Mr. Gaddafi, his wife and two children to Punta Mita, Mexico, on false passports.

Ms. Vanier has not been charged but is being held under a detention order that is scheduled to expire on Jan. 31. The investigation is being conducted by the PGR, Mexico’s federal office of the attorney general.

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From 2005 to 2010, the MetroHealth System’s police department regularly arrested and detained people — even though it lacked the legal authority to do so.

MetroHealth security personnel wear uniforms, carry guns, drive zone cars and have access to holding cells that are near the main hospital’s emergency department.

The health system calls its four dispatchers and nearly 60 state-trained peace officers and security guards “a full-service police department.”

But they are not police. The department lost its power to arrest and detain people when the city amended an ordinance granting that right in 2004.

MetroHealth’s new security director, Randall White, who was hired this month, said Friday that the department thought it was still a police force because the city continued to issue its guards private police commission identification until 2011.

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It’s not just for the Afghanistan and Iraq wars anymore. The Department of Homeland Security is interested in a camera package that can peek in on almost four square miles of (constitutionally protected) American territory for long, long stretches of time.

Homeland Security doesn’t have a particular system in mind. Right now, it’s just soliciting “industry feedback” on what a formal call for such a “Wide Area Surveillance System” might look like. But it’s the latest indication of how powerful military surveillance technology, developed to find foreign insurgents and terrorists, is migrating to the home front.

The Department of Homeland Security says it’s interested in a system that can see between five to 10 square kilometers — that’s between two and four square miles, roughly the size of Brooklyn, New York’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood — in its “persistent mode.” By “persistent,” it means the cameras should stare at the area in question for an unspecified number of hours to collect what the military likes to call “pattern of life” data — that is, what “normal” activity looks like for a given area. Persistence typically depends on how long the vehicle carrying the camera suite can stay aloft; DHS wants something that can fit into a manned P-3 Orion spy plane or a Predator drone — of which it has a couple. When not in “persistent mode,” the cameras ought to be able to see much, much further: “long linear areas, tens to hundreds of kilometers in extent, such as open, remote borders.”

If it’s starting to sound reminiscent of the spy tools the military has used in Iraq and Afghanistan, it should. Homeland Security wants the video collected by the system to beam down in “near real time” — 12 seconds or quicker — to a “control room (T) or to a control room and beyond line of sight (BLOS) ruggedized mobile receiver on the ground,” just as military spy gear does. The camera should shift to infrared mode for nighttime snooping, and contain “automated, real time, motion detection capability that cues a spotter imager for target identification.” Tests for the system will take place in Nogales, Arizona.

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In a rare defeat for law enforcement, the Supreme Court unanimously agreed on Monday to bar police from installing GPS technology to track suspects without first getting a judge’s approval. The justices made clear it wouldn’t be their final word on increasingly advanced high-tech surveillance of Americans.

Indicating they will be monitoring the growing use of such technology, five justices said they could see constitutional and privacy problems with police using many kinds of electronic surveillance for long-term tracking of citizens’ movements without warrants.

While the justices differed on legal rationales, their unanimous outcome was an unusual setback for government and police agencies grown accustomed to being given leeway in investigations in post-Sept. 11 America, including by the Supreme Court. The views of at least the five justices raised the possibility of new hurdles down the road for police who want to use high-tech surveillance of suspects, including various types of GPS technology.

“The Supreme Court’s decision is an important one because it sends a message that technological advances cannot outpace the American Constitution,” said Donald Tibbs, a professor at the Earle Mack School of Law at Drexel University. “The people will retain certain rights even when technology changes how the police are able to conduct their investigations.”

A GPS device installed by police on Washington, D.C., nightclub owner Antoine Jones’ Jeep and tracked for four weeks helped link him to a suburban house used to stash money and drugs. He was sentenced to life in prison before an appeals court overturned his conviction.

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Please find the top 25 news stories, current events, professional opinion and insights aggregated by PI Newswire for the week ending January 22, 2012. As always there are many great articles ranging from the bizarre to educational with everything else in-between. We encourage you to comment and share your thoughts, opinions and experiences. Enjoy, have a wonderful week & stay safe!

Vote NO on HB 1006!! http://bit.ly/yJx5ic

Anonymous Goes on Megaupload Revenge Spree: DoJ, RIAA, MPAA, and Universal Music All
Offline http://bit.ly/xS7Rnx

Free Software Blocks Keyloggers by Encrypting Keystrokes http://bit.ly/xmZZ7y

Cops: Jailed man smuggled gun in rectum http://bit.ly/z626A9

Do Women Cheat As Much As Men Do? http://bit.ly/AlRlNB

Man wants a job with FBI, instead gets 80 months in jail for child pornography http://bit.ly/wHnSZd

Controversy – but no charges – for coroner, private investigator for soliciting 17 year old autistic boy http://bit.ly/xLbNIP

The ‘toys’ that let you spy on the neighbours – new ‘Wi-Spi’ helicopter and ‘Intruder’ car offer hi-tech surveillance http://bit.ly/zUPrfb

Hidden Camera Inside Houston Precinct 1 Sheds Light on Police Probe http://bit.ly/wkHIIt

Should You Be Able To Sue Your Spouse’s Lover? http://bit.ly/AuTJnb

Eight officers resign over illegal searches of dozens of people using police files http://bit.ly/yt33hq

65 Year Old Woman Gets on Plane With Handgun in Purse: Passengers Furious With TSA http://bit.ly/wcwjuj

Forensic Apps for First Responders http://bit.ly/zdHZQE

Process Server Serves Lawsuit on Lindsay Lohan for Helping Kill Osama Bin Laden http://bit.ly/yujVu7

Air bag DNA foils insurance scam http://bit.ly/xwecQR

‘Boot up the backside camp’: Training female bodyguards Chinese style http://bit.ly/A0JiQ3

Background checks encouraged for online dating http://bit.ly/A5BN2G

NSA constructs hardened Android with super-spook mobile OS, available to the world http://bit.ly/yRyVHn

JP Morgan Chase Process Server Unable to Serve OJ Simpson Foreclosure Papers http://bit.ly/x7mhjq

Pepsi Pays 3 Million: EEOC Finds Hiring Discrimination against African Americans with Background Check Policy http://bit.ly/A1xShi

Police, Private Investigator Unable to Locate Missing Saudi Chemical Engineering Student Studying in Canada http://bit.ly/zlNdlr

Sex, spies and Mounties: the poisoned culture of the RCMP’s `Special O’ surveillance squad http://bit.ly/xTvefn

Ashton Kutcher Foursquare hack witnessed by millions of Twitter users http://bit.ly/zvLN4O

Bail Bondman & ‘Beat Down Posse’ leader convicted of racketeering and more http://bit.ly/xkLh1S

Google Abandons Anonymous Accounts With New Signup Form http://bit.ly/wRTEbJ

A 20-year-old man is facing 24 counts of voyeurism after police found hidden cameras in his bathroom and a bedroom.

Paul Zajac, 20, was charged with 24 counts of voyeuristic recording of another person.

Zajac first appeared in court in April 2011 after a woman found a hidden camera in the bathroom of the home they both lived in.

Police say he was living with his pregnant girlfriend and her family in a home on Brook Street in South Windsor.

South Windsor police said he confessed to hiding the camera below the base board heater in the bathroom, and officers report finding evidence it was frequently turned on.

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In what the U.S. authorities have called one of the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought, the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have seized the Web site Megaupload and charged seven people connected with it with running an international enterprise based on Internet piracy.

Megaupload, one of the most popular so-called locker services on the Internet, allowed users to transfer large files like movies and music anonymously. Media companies have long accused it of abetting copyright infringement on a vast scale. In a grand jury indictment, Megaupload is accused of causing $500 million in damages to copyright owners and of making $175 million by selling ads and premium subscriptions.

Four of the seven people, including the site’s founder, Kim Dotcom (born Kim Schmitz), were arrested Friday in New Zealand; the three others remain at large. Each of the seven people — who the indictment said were members of a criminal group it called Mega Conspiracy — is charged with five counts of copyright infringement and conspiracy. The charges could result in more than 20 years in prison.

As part of the crackdown, about 20 search warrants were executed in the United States and in eight other countries, including New Zealand. About $50 million in assets were also seized, as well as a number of servers and 18 domain names that formed Megaupload’s network of file-sharing sites.

The police arrived at Dotcom Mansion in Auckland on Friday morning in two helicopters. Mr. Dotcom, a 37-year-old with dual Finnish and German citizenship, retreated into a safe room, and the police had to cut their way in. He was eventually arrested with a firearm close by that the police said appeared to be a shortened shotgun.

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Controversy is building around the Morgan County coroner.

I-Team 8 has exclusive details into why some are calling for him to be removed from office, and why he quietly left the Morgan County Sheriff’s Department.

Garry Long’s personal website touts his “26 years serving Morgan County.” It highlights a career that includes being a Morgan County detective sergeant, an investigator for the Major Crimes Task Force, a member of the Fraternal Order of Police. He’s also the county coroner, an elected official.

However, Facebook messages to a 17 –year-old autistic boy tell a different story.

The boy asks: “were r u at”

Long responds: “I’m at home, upstairs in the man cave. Where do you want me to be?”

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Corrections officials in Onslow County, Ga., said they think they have solved the mystery of how a man managed to smuggle a .38- caliber handgun into his jail cell: He used his rectum.

According to a news release, the Onslow County Sheriff’s Office said the 10-inch-long weapon was found in the jail cell of Michael Leon Ward, following his arrest a day before on drug-related charges during a traffic stop.

Investigators said Ward was also a wanted fugitive on a murder warrant out of Atlanta.

Corrections officials told MSNBC that Ward did undergo a strip search during his booking, but that nothing turned up.

Authorities said the handgun was discovered in the jail cell toilet after Ward told corrections staff that he found the weapon in his cell. Deputies said the gun was test fired and found to be operational.

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A study examining Canadian police officers’ TASER use is “woefully out of touch” with the realities law enforcement faces and falsely implies TASERs caused at least two dozen deaths, a spokesman for TASER International said.

Though TASERs can reduce injuries to suspects, protect police officers and may prevent harm to bystanders, according to a US Department of Justice report, Temitope Oriola, who led the study, relied on media coverage of the deaths to argue TASERs represent a “teething new urban terrorism” that targets Canadian society’s “hapless,” the National Post reported.

Oriola completed his doctoral studies at the University of Alberta last year and said academics should take a stance on issues — objective analysis is “a thing of the past,” he stated — the study “reads more like a social commentary,” Steve Tuttle of TASER International said. It found the poor, mentally ill and chronic drug users are the most likely to be hit with TASERs and urges police to rethink the devices.

“It is beneath the integrity of the RCMP — a well-respected organization by international standards — and other police establishments in Canada to continue to use the TASER without conclusive independent scientific evidence succinctly demonstrating its effects or consequences on the human body,” the study concludes.

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Explosive allegations of espionage that centre on a Canadian intelligence leak to Moscow have resulted in the expulsion of four Russian embassy staff members from their stations in Ottawa, CTV News has learned.

The expulsion of the Russian staff, who are alleged to have taken part in the scheme, reportedly occurred four days after Sub-Lt. Jeffrey Paul Delisle was arrested in Halifax.

Delisle, 40, is facing two charges under Canada’s Security of Information Act, and sources say that Russia was the nation involved.

CTV’s Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife reported that four Russian embassy staff members were sent home as part of the growing fallout from the scandal, which was uncovered earlier this week.

Along with two unnamed embassy workers, Canada has sent Lt.-Col. Dmitry Fedorchatenko and Konstantin Kolpakov packing.

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Canadian law enforcement officials have never been hindered by having to abide by the country’s current privacy laws, say documents revealed Wednesday, yet Ottawa remains adamant police need more online surveillance powers.

Vancouver-based advocacy group OpenMedia.ca published details of an internal Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) email message to its members who represent more than 90% of the country’s police community. The message, OpenMedia says, asks CACP members to provide examples, even those with “confidential operational information,” of investigations thwarted by Canada’s privacy legislation.

The goal of the call for case studies would appear to be to justify the federal government’s proposed lawful access legislation. Originally included as part of the omnibus crime bill Prime Minister Stephen Harper vowed to pass if elected while campaigning last spring, the law would expand police powers to demand personal customer data from Internet service providers, who would in turn be required to make costly investments in surveillance technology.

Ottawa plans to reintroduce the legislation soon, following multiple unsuccessful attempts over the past decade. The proposed laws – C-50, C-51 and C-52 – have garnered widespread opposition from Members of Parliament, federal and provincial privacy commissioners as well as leading academics.

Opponents say the new laws would allow police to obtain personal information on a suspect whenever they wished without first obtaining a warrant, while current laws only allow police to bypass a warrant in emergency situations.

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