redwinter
2nd November 2009, 16:16
Check out this new article from Revolution newspaper (www.revcom.us) which analyzes a new book detailing the organizational workings of the New York City Police Department, the largest and most militarized police department in the imperialist heartland.
It is the first part in a two-part series...I'm eagerly awaiting the next installment.
http://www.revcom.us/a/182/NYPD-en.html
The NYPD—Securing the City for Whom?
It is both outrageous and very disappointing that a recent book, Securing the City: Inside America's Best Counterterror Force—the NYPD, written by Newsweek reporter Christopher Dickey—a book which clearly discloses the thinking and workings of the police-state set-up of the New York Police Department (NYPD) and presents the NYPD as "model" for other police agencies to emulate– was met with nary a word of controversy or debate.
Basic summary of book
In Securing the City: Inside America's Best Counterterror Force—the NYPD (Simon and Schuster 2009), Christopher Dickey illustrates the strategy and approach of the NYPD in developing a doctrine and operation for pre-emptive police repression, utilizing extensive global and domestic intelligence gathering (with a special relation with the CIA), supposedly in order to protect New York City from another 9/11 type attack, as part of the so-called "war on terror." This book details operational approaches which have been developed to circumvent the basic constitutional protections of the First Amendment (related to speech and religion) and the Fourth Amendment (related to government search, seizure and surveillance). This book outlines the ways in which the NYPD in a very calculated way has developed a modus operandi designed to undermine the "due process of law" generally, and the legal threshold standards in relation to "probable cause" (enough factual evidence to indicate that a crime has been committed). It details how the NYPD has developed methods and resources to surveil, infiltrate and recruit among members of so-called "incipient terrorist cells" where there have been no laws broken, nor a clear basis established for "probable cause" to launch such investigations, but where nonetheless the NYPD thinks such groups or individuals may be headed towards trouble of one type or another. The cases which have been brought to court have been based on the testimony of police agents and informants, who, in most cases, planned and instigated the very "plots" which were the basis for these so-called "terrorists" to be arrested (see below for one case history). Further, these same methods of intelligence, infiltration and disruption were used by the NYPD against domestic dissidents in relation to the 2004 Republican National Convention: Using the "war on terror" as a pretext, the NYPD requested and was granted carte blanche powers to surveil and investigate protestors and protest groups without "probable cause," sending undercover agents across the country to spy on and infiltrate protest planning activities. At the time of the convention, the NYPD preemptively rounded up and incarcerated over 1,800 peaceful protestors, many without "probable cause."
While it is beyond the scope of this article to go very deeply into this, among other things, all of these measures represent a very significant leap in the integration of national and international intelligence and police agencies, and this includes the CIA, which heretofore was supposedly barred by law from spying within the U.S. on U.S. citizens or working with and carrying out common investigations and police actions with local law enforcement.
This book reveals how the government, in relation to the necessity it faces in carrying out its war for empire, is adopting ever more openly fascist and police state measures, undermining de facto (in fact, even if not yet codified in law) basic tenets of supposedly guaranteed constitutional rights. It is also a story of an ever more pliable population which, in various ways, has bought into and is becoming ever more complicit with the imperialists' logic rationalizing their war for empire and the accompanying fascist measures of oppression and repression.
Continue reading... (http://www.revcom.us/a/182/NYPD-en.html)
http://www.revcom.us/a/182/NYPD-en.html
It is the first part in a two-part series...I'm eagerly awaiting the next installment.
http://www.revcom.us/a/182/NYPD-en.html
The NYPD—Securing the City for Whom?
It is both outrageous and very disappointing that a recent book, Securing the City: Inside America's Best Counterterror Force—the NYPD, written by Newsweek reporter Christopher Dickey—a book which clearly discloses the thinking and workings of the police-state set-up of the New York Police Department (NYPD) and presents the NYPD as "model" for other police agencies to emulate– was met with nary a word of controversy or debate.
Basic summary of book
In Securing the City: Inside America's Best Counterterror Force—the NYPD (Simon and Schuster 2009), Christopher Dickey illustrates the strategy and approach of the NYPD in developing a doctrine and operation for pre-emptive police repression, utilizing extensive global and domestic intelligence gathering (with a special relation with the CIA), supposedly in order to protect New York City from another 9/11 type attack, as part of the so-called "war on terror." This book details operational approaches which have been developed to circumvent the basic constitutional protections of the First Amendment (related to speech and religion) and the Fourth Amendment (related to government search, seizure and surveillance). This book outlines the ways in which the NYPD in a very calculated way has developed a modus operandi designed to undermine the "due process of law" generally, and the legal threshold standards in relation to "probable cause" (enough factual evidence to indicate that a crime has been committed). It details how the NYPD has developed methods and resources to surveil, infiltrate and recruit among members of so-called "incipient terrorist cells" where there have been no laws broken, nor a clear basis established for "probable cause" to launch such investigations, but where nonetheless the NYPD thinks such groups or individuals may be headed towards trouble of one type or another. The cases which have been brought to court have been based on the testimony of police agents and informants, who, in most cases, planned and instigated the very "plots" which were the basis for these so-called "terrorists" to be arrested (see below for one case history). Further, these same methods of intelligence, infiltration and disruption were used by the NYPD against domestic dissidents in relation to the 2004 Republican National Convention: Using the "war on terror" as a pretext, the NYPD requested and was granted carte blanche powers to surveil and investigate protestors and protest groups without "probable cause," sending undercover agents across the country to spy on and infiltrate protest planning activities. At the time of the convention, the NYPD preemptively rounded up and incarcerated over 1,800 peaceful protestors, many without "probable cause."
While it is beyond the scope of this article to go very deeply into this, among other things, all of these measures represent a very significant leap in the integration of national and international intelligence and police agencies, and this includes the CIA, which heretofore was supposedly barred by law from spying within the U.S. on U.S. citizens or working with and carrying out common investigations and police actions with local law enforcement.
This book reveals how the government, in relation to the necessity it faces in carrying out its war for empire, is adopting ever more openly fascist and police state measures, undermining de facto (in fact, even if not yet codified in law) basic tenets of supposedly guaranteed constitutional rights. It is also a story of an ever more pliable population which, in various ways, has bought into and is becoming ever more complicit with the imperialists' logic rationalizing their war for empire and the accompanying fascist measures of oppression and repression.
Continue reading... (http://www.revcom.us/a/182/NYPD-en.html)
http://www.revcom.us/a/182/NYPD-en.html