Oct 17, 2024
seen from Malaysia
seen from China
seen from China
seen from China
seen from China
seen from Russia
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from Netherlands
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from Brazil
seen from China
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from Brazil
seen from Yemen
Source
Source
Source
I haven't heard people talking about this much, but I feel like it's important for people to know. Especially since SB 63 essentially bans bail funds by not allowing organizations, charities, individuals, or groups to bail out more than three people per year and requiring them to register as bonding agencies.
This is a direct response to all the protests happening here in Atlanta. So far, spreading the word can help as well as donating to The Atlanta Solidarity Fund .
In the meantime, here's some phone numbers of politicians you can go bug.
Randy Robertson (Guy who's sponsoring the bill): +1-404-656-0045
Brian Kemp (Governor of Georgia): +1-404-656-1776
Atlanta Police Foundation forced to disclose a year after a lawsuit, and could have implications for other cities
Timothy Pratt at The Guardian:
More than a year after a digital news outlet and a research group sued the Atlanta Police Foundation for allegedly violating Georgia’s open records law, the foundation has sent plaintiffs nearly 300 pages of records linked to its role as the driving force behind the police training center known as “Cop City”. The outcome “opens the door to what we want; it’s a guide stone for getting records from police foundations, so they can’t be a black box”, said Matt Scott, executive director of Atlanta Community Press Collective (ACPC), an Atlanta-based digital news outlet and one of two plaintiffs in the case. “A city can’t use police foundations as a way of getting around providing public records,” Scott added. The APF did not reply to an email from the Guardian seeking comment.
ACPC and Lucy Parsons Labs, the two plaintiffs, got the records after Jane Barwick, the Fulton county superior court judge, concluded a bench trial by ruling that the foundation was “under a duty to provide [the] records [...] pursuant to the Open Records Act”. The lawsuit was probably the first of its kind nationwide, Robert Vargas, a sociology professor at the University of Chicago, told the Guardian last year. Although the case centered on the Atlanta police foundation, observers said last year they were closely watching to see if its outcome had implications for police foundations in general and whether they might be subject to open records laws. Every major US city has a private foundation supporting police, with more than 250 nationwide, according to a 2021 report by research and activist groups Little Sis and Color of Change. The foundations have been used to pay for surveillance technologies in cities like Baltimore and Los Angeles without being subject to public scrutiny, according to the report.
Vargas said the ruling, and the records provided, “sets a precedent”. But he added that the results are a “mixed bag”, since Barwick did not offer an opinion about whether all the APF’s records should be available to the public, or whether police foundations in general should be considered public agencies. “The ruling doesn’t come down hard on the bigger issue,” Vargas noted. This means police foundations could continue to assert they have a right to withhold records and invite further litigation. The 287-page document the APF sent to plaintiffs on 1 July offers insight into how the foundation actively lobbied Atlanta city council members to squash activist efforts to put Cop City’s construction to a citywide vote in a referendum, among other issues.
[...] Also revealed in the document: the foundation posted 40 officers and installed eight cameras at the training center’s 171-acre (70-hectare) footprint in a forest south-east of Atlanta in late 2023, to protect it from any vandalism by activists.
Opposition to the $109-million center has come from a wide range of local and national organizations and protesters, and is centered on concerns such as unchecked police militarization and clearing forests in an era of climate crisis.
Nearly 300+ pages worth of records for Atlanta’s infamous Cop City have been released as a result of a court ruling favoring the release of records.
On the night of November 13th we set fire to 6 Ernst Concrete trucks at 553 Seaboard Industrial Drive. Ernst is pouring the foundation for Cop City. This site, like so many others, is completely unguarded. Front-pouring cement mixing trucks have large rear engine compartments which can be accessed without opening any doors. We placed incendiary devices and kindling near the engine block, the fuel tank behind it, and the double rear tires. We encourage further experimentation with incindiary placement. There was a time when contractors were afraid to take on this project. If we can make the cost of the contract greater than the profit, they will drop it. Sneaking around at night is fun and burning shit is cool.
The 109-page indictment paints the movement to oppose the construction of a massive police training center in the Atlanta area’s Weelaunee Forest as a criminal conspiracy, and it goes back to the Minneapolis police department’s killing of George Floyd, which took place almost a year before Cop City was announced.
By doing so, the National Lawyers Guild said in a press statement, the indictment “attempts to render all mass protest against police violence and racism—including the killing of Rayshard Brooks by Atlanta police—an ‘unlawful conspiracy’ or ‘racketeering.’ ”
Read more here.
Concern over US effort to prosecute Sam Tunick, accused by authorities of wiping his phone using GrapheneOS
GrapheneOS is a security and privacy focused mobile OS with Android app compatibility.