law enforcement authorities Archives

Ivory Coast ex-president Gbagbo freed by Hague court

February 1, 2019

By Stephanie van den Berg and Toby Sterling

THE HAGUE (Reuters) – Former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo was freed from detention by the International Criminal Court on Friday, under the condition that he will stay in the country that accepts to take him in and that he will return to the court when asked to do so.

Reading a unanimous decision by a five-strong appeals panel, presiding Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji ordered Gbagbo and co-defendant Charles Blé Goudé “to be released to a state willing to accept them on its territories”.

Gbagbo, who ruled Ivory Coast from 2000-2011, has spent seven years in custody in The Hague.

The men were acquitted of atrocities charges on Jan. 15 but had been kept in detention pending objections by prosecutors, who plan to appeal against the acquittal and sought guarantees that the men would return to court later if required.

A spokesman for the ICC on Friday night said both men had left the detention center in The Hague “as an interim measure,” without providing further details.

Documents released by the appeals panel said both men were not allowed “to travel beyond the territorial limits of the (…) receiving State without the explicit and prior authorization of the Court,” but gave no reference to their destination after their release.

Gbagbo and Goudé need to report weekly to the law enforcement authorities of the country that accepts them, and are not allowed to make any public statement on the case, the panel said.

“After two weeks waiting in jail, it’s quite a relief,” Gbagbo’s lawyer Geert-Jan Knoops said of Gbagbo’s release. “Somebody who’s acquitted should not be detained.”

Gbagbo’s family have said he would ultimately like to return to Ivory Coast but indicated he may first go to Belgium, where he has relatives. Blé Goudé’s intentions are not known.

Gbagbo’s potential return to his homeland is complicated by the fact that he was handed a 20-year sentence there for embezzlement, after a trial in absentia, in January 2018.

Judges at the trial said the prosecution case linking Gbagbo to election-related violence in 2010 and 2011, in which some 3,000 people were killed, was “exceptionally weak” and that it was unlikely the acquittals would be overturned.

But the appeals chamber was willing to hear prosecution arguments that Gbagbo might not return for future court hearings if he were set free.

Gbagbo’s acquittal was criticized by groups representing those who died in violence during the 2010 election, in which Gbagbo refused to concede defeat to his rival, Alassane Ouattara.

Hundreds of thousands fled the unrest that prosecutors blamed on Gbagbo, and victims fear his return home could revive hostilities in Ivory Coast.

(Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg, Toby Sterling and Bart Meijer; editing by Kevin Liffey and Leslie Adler)

Canada unveils new cyber monitoring rules

From: Breitbart.com

Canada’s government Tuesday introduced a bill to give law enforcement authorities sweeping powers to probe online communications, but the move sparked criticism about threats to privacy.

“New technologies provide new ways of committing crimes, making them more difficult to investigate,” Justice Minister Rob Nicholson told a press conference in unveiling the measure.

“This legislation will enable authorities to keep pace with rapidly changing technology.”

Opposition parties and civil liberties groups, however, said new police powers contained in the bill could result in unreasonable searches and seizures.

Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart, whose office is independent from the government, said in a letter to Public Safety Minister Vic Toews last October she had “deep concerns” about the proposed changes, which she said could have “serious repercussions for privacy rights.”

“I recognize that rapid developments in communication technologies are creating new challenges for law enforcement and national security authorities and that the Internet cannot be a lawless zone,” Stoddart said.

But “by expanding the legal tools of the state to conduct surveillance and access private information, and by reducing the depth of judicial scrutiny… (the bill would allow the) government to subject more individuals to surveillance and scrutiny.”

RE Tea Party » Technology

Every Breath You Take, Every Move You Make – 14 New Ways That The Government Is Watching You

From: InfoWars.com

If you live in the United States today, you need to understand that your privacy is being constantly eroded. Our world is going crazy, government paranoia is off the charts and law enforcement authorities have become absolutely obsessed with watching us, listening to us, tracking us, recording us, compiling information on all of us and getting us all to spy on one another.

If you doubt that we are rapidly getting to the point where the government will monitor every breath you take and every move you make, just read the rest of this article. The truth is that the government is watching you more closely than ever, and they are spending billions upon billions of dollars to enhance their surveillance capabilities even further. If our society stays on this current path, we will eventually have zero privacy left.

At this point, it is not too hard to imagine a society where we will not be able to say anything, buy anything, sell anything, assemble with others or even leave our homes without government permission. We truly are descending into a dystopian nightmare and the American people had better wake up.

Sadly, most people living in the United States and in Europe do not realize what is happening. Most of them think that everything is just fine. The “Big Brother control grid” that is being constructed all over the western world squeezes all of us just a little bit tighter every single day, and most people don’t even feel it.

But when you step back and take a look at the big picture, it truly is horrifying.

The following are 14 new ways that the government is watching you….

#1 In many areas of the United States today, you will be arrested if you do not produce proper identification for the police. In the old days, “your papers please” was a phrase that we used to use to mock the tyranny of Nazi Germany. But now all of us are being required to be able to produce “our papers” for law enforcement authorities at any time. For example, a 21-year-old college student named Samantha Zucker was recently arrested and put in a New York City jail for 36 hours just because she could not produce any identification for police.

#2 The federal government has decided that what you and I share with one another on Facebook and on Twitter could be a threat to national security. According to a recent Associated Press article, the Department of Homeland Security will soon be “gleaning information from sites such as Twitter and Facebook for law enforcement purposes”.
Other law enforcement agencies are getting into the act as well. For example, the NYPD recently created a special “social media” unit dedicated to looking for criminals on social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

RE Tea Party » Constitution