Page 366 - Tim Cushing News Today

A bill [PDF] that's likely headed to a dead end at the governor's desk or a state court targets protected speech that might...

Mon, Mar 8th 2021 3:45pm — Tim Cushing Theres a lot of competition for Worst Police Force in America. The NYPD is known for its casual approach to human life and its antagonistic approach to public records requesters. The Chicago PD operated its own black site to separate residents from their rights while interrogating them. The Pasco County Sheriffs Department thinks it should be in the business of turning students into criminals. The list goes on and fucking on. For a generation, a secretiv...

Tue, Mar 9th 2021 9:30am — Tim Cushing Ah, we were so young then. We excoriated the Obama administration for attacking and prosecuting whistleblowers at a faster clip than any other administration in history. This happened despite the fact Obama presided over some of the most historic leaks in history -- ones that kickstarted changes in surveillance programs and surveillance attitudes. The Obama Administration claimed to be the most transparent ever, but behind the scenes, it worked tireless...

There's an ongoing trial in (of all places) Iowa that cuts to the heart of First Amendment protections for journalists. Andrea...

Mon, Mar 8th 2021 9:27am — Tim Cushing John Oliver has demolished many institutions in his time (not literally, unfortunately, in most cases) as the host of HBOs Last Week Tonight. Its rare when a mainstream program chooses to address more esoteric matters often discussed at this website. But Oliver does it more than most and, for that, we truly appreciate him. When it comes to drugs and drug warrants, its all hands on deck. Sometimes, law enforcement agencies are able to obtain no-knock war...

FBI Director Chris Wray needs to shut the fuck up about encryption. Let me explain sum up: For years, consecutive FBI...

Thu, Mar 4th 2021 9:32am — Tim Cushing The CIA has delivered a rather curious response to a records requester. J.M. Porup sent a FOIA request to the agency asking it for documents about its rather well-documented assassination attempts and received a very curious non-answer from the USs foremost spooks. The CIA’s response to the question about assassinations wasn’t a denial that it had engaged in such activity. It just explained that such activity is illegal: “Please refer to Executive ...

Last summer as protests raged around the nation in response to the killing of an unarmed black man by a white Minnesota police officer...

Wed, Mar 3rd 2021 10:47am — Tim Cushing In all honesty, weve been asking the police to do too much for years. If we really care about the most vulnerable members of our community, we would stop calling cops to handle it. But for years, thats been pretty much our only option. We call 911 and 911 tends to send cops to deal with people in the throes of mental health crises. This has worked out badly. Cops arent trained to handle mental health issues. Theyre trained to apprehend criminals and me...

Wed, Mar 3rd 2021 3:23am — Tim Cushing Heres one more horrifying postscript to the still-ongoing criminal prosecution(s) of Backpages executives. Courts and attorneys general (including newly installed VP Kamala Harris) tried to run the company in on prostitution charges but often found their efforts rebuffed by courts who didnt see how hosting third-party ads was the same thing as aiding and abetting sex trafficking. Prosecutions abounded. So did a cottage industry of pearl clutchers and han...