The hatchet-wielding man who assaulted four New York police officers in Queens conducted a terrorist attack, New York City police said. At a briefing at New York Police Department headquarters on Friday, New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton was asked if the incident was a terrorist act. In response, he said, "I’m very comfortable this was a terrorist attack, certainly,” according to Ca [...]

An investigation concerning the use of federal civil forfeiture law by local law enforcement agencies across the United States has exposed problems with a routine but rarely discussed police tactic. After obtaining 43,000 reports from agencies across the United States, journalists at the Washington Post wrote over the weekend that the budgets of police departments and drug task forces are being [...]

With his second and final term in office nearly half-way done, United States President Barack Obama, who enjoyed record popularity after first being elected in 2008, is struggling to keep up with the ratings of wildly unpopular predecessor George W. Bush. Fallout isn’t unexpected during so-called “lame duck” sessions in which reelection is ruled out and campaigning for office is no longer [...]

Video has surfaced appearing to show a New York City police officer taking $1,300 from a man who says he was robbed and then pepper-sprayed by the cop during a stop-and-frisk last month that ended without arrest. The New York Daily News published exclusive video of the September 16 incident on Wednesday this week and reported that the Brooklyn district attorney’s office is now investigation a [...]

The FBI counter-terrorism division is calling on to Americans to report on fellow citizens engaged in suspicious activities to help identify possible terrorists, in the first place those connected to terrorist activities overseas. In a statement published by the FBI on Tuesday, assistant director of the counter-terrorism division Michael Steinbach said the Bureau needs “the public's assistanc [...]

The Pentagon's 1033 Program, which is militarizing state and local police forces with everything from high-powered firearms to armored vehicles, is also giving weapons to officials who have no law enforcement functions. The practice is leading watchdogs and even some US government officials to question why the US military is so desperate to unload its cache of used military hardware that it is [...]

The election of Barack Obama in 2008 brought hope and optimism to Americans and non-Americans alike. But after one and a half terms, the reality is sinking in that for all the promised change, it’s the “same old, same old.” The big question is why, writes Australian Greg Maybury. For folks who were fans of the late, great comedian Bill Hicks, they likely will be familiar with one of his m [...]

US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has voiced concerns that, without sufficient protections, the age of unmanned drones and ubiquitous surveillance will usher in an "Orwellian world." Sotomayor told faculty and students at Oklahoma City University last week that technological capabilities allow devices to monitor "your conversations from miles away and through your walls." [...]

Marsha Coleman-Adebayo recently co-wrote “No Rights that a White Man is Bound to Respect” for Black Agenda Report. She will be speaking at a rally outside the Justice Department Wednesday afternoon “to call on the Attorney General to help secure justice for Michael Brown and the people of Ferguson, Missouri, as well as an overhaul of U.S. law enforcement tactics in order to stop police bruta [...]

Close to 200 state and local police departments in the United States have been suspended for losing military-level equipment transferred to them by the Pentagon, a new investigation found. According to the media outlet Fusion, its independent investigation into the Pentagon’s “1033 program,” which equips state and local police departments across the US with excess military equipment, turn [...]

A 24-hour period of calm broke early Saturday when police returned to the streets in riot gear and some protesters looted stores and broke car windows. Other demonstrators helped restore calm. The reports that a festive atmosphere reigned for most of Friday night, as hundreds of people lined a busy Ferguson street, the site where a police officer fatally shot an unarmed black teenager nearly a [...]

The officer-involved shooting death of teenager Michael Brown this week and the subsequent protests across the United States have rekindled interest in another case of alleged excessive force blamed on the Ferguson, Missouri Police Department. Nearly four years to the day before Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson opened fire and killed Brown, 18, a complaint filed in federal court accused th [...]

If this doesn't wake you up, I don't know what will. [...]