Olympic security and surveillance are big business and that business is also enabling the genocide in Palestine. But the World Cup, Olympics, and other mega-events are more than just business opportunities. They are advertisements for the Israeli military and government’s public-private consortium of surveillance, spying, and military contractors. Increasingly militarized and securitized mega-events are secured by firms run by former Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) soldiers and Mossad agents, expanding the reach of these groups, enabling them to monitor and surveil populations throughout the world. These firms train local police, security, and soldiers on techniques they experimented with and perfected while serving the IOF’s genocidal colonization scheme in Occupied Palestine.

Dodger Stadium (an LA28 Olympic venue) made national headlines last month when autonomous community members and grassroots rapid response networks observed hundreds of federal agents using the surrounding parking lots as a processing and staging area for ICE’s continued raids and kidnappings. Mainstream media parroted the Dodgers’ own claim that ICE was denied entry, and the organization has since pledged a measly $1 million towards financial assistance for families of immigrants impacted by recent events in the region.

The story serves as the latest example in a long legacy of LA stadiums, often built with public funds and dressed in civic pride, instead repeatedly used as instruments of repression against Black, brown, and immigrant communities.

For decades, these venues have been quietly transformed into launchpads for police raids, mass arrests, and immigration operations, as well as forces of displacement.

In the early 1870s, Wandsworth Prison in London produced haunting photographs of child offenders at a time when photography itself was still a novelty.

Many of these children were harshly punished for petty thefts that today would barely merit a warning. In Victorian society, no distinction was made between adult and juvenile criminals, so even very young offenders were sent to adult prisons, and in extreme cases, executed. Authorities, fearful of rising crime, began using cameras to document repeat offenders and circulated their images much like modern-day public warnings. It was only with the 1908 Children’s Act that juvenile courts were established, ending the practice of placing children in adult prisons or sentencing them to death, though corporal punishment remained.

Basil Farraj, an assistant professor at Birzeit University, talks about the conditions and treatment of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in Israeli detention centres.

John Oliver discusses felony murder, a way you can wind up in prison for murder without actually killing anyone.

In addition to the extensive technology at its disposal, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is devising plans for a bounty-hunting program that would enlist private contractors to help carry out Donald Trump’s mass deportations.

... Bushart’s arrest came after he decided to troll a message thread about a Charlie Kirk vigil in a Facebook group called “What’s Happening in Perry County, TN.” He posted a meme showing a picture of Donald Trump saying, “We should get over it.” The meme included a caption that said “Donald Trump, on the Perry High School mass shooting, one day after,” and Bushart included a comment with his post that said, “This seems relevant today ….”

His meme caught the eye of the Perry County sheriff, Nick Weems, who had mourned Kirk’s passing on his own Facebook page, The Intercept noted.

Supposedly, Weems’ decision to go after Bushart wasn’t due to his political views but to receiving messages from parents who misread Bushart’s post as possibly threatening an attack on the local Perry County High School. To pressure Bushart to remove the post, Weems contacted the Lexington Police Department to find Bushart. That led to the meme poster’s arrest and transfer to Perry County Jail...

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has unanimously approved another large settlement for hundreds of people who alleged they were abused as children while in the county’s care.

Traffic collisions involving police officers that caused severe injuries or deaths have resulted in multiple large payouts due to civil litigation in recent years.

... To end with a hint of optimism, at least we know what works, at least it’s clear what is causing the rise in homelessness—even if elected officials pretend otherwise. And we also know what works to get people back into housing—even if elected officials are killing these programs.

Housing First has proven effective. HUD and the US Department of Veterans Affairs were finding major success getting veterans into permanent housing with this approach.

And if the eviction to prison pipeline is shut down, real progress could be made in ending the national disgrace of hundreds of thousands of Americans sleeping on the streets. Unfortunately there is almost zero discussion of this by either of the two parties we’re gifted with in the “greatest democracy in the history of the world.”

To fill that void some Americans are just maybe starting to organize to do something about it themselves. We’ll look at those efforts next week.

And so, both data – and people – become trapped inside Thiel’s spy software. Willingly or unwillingly. Knowingly or unknowingly.

After being sued for violating state-level human trafficking laws, GEO Group, the nation’s largest private prison company, is pushing the Supreme Court to grant private government contractors like itself blanket immunity from such lawsuits.

archived (Wayback Machine)

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/28544126

Police in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, will be paid bonuses for killing suspects. Aimed at organized crime, the law will hit ethnic minorities - and eco-activists.

archived (Wayback Machine)

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/50063990

Admittedly this is almost 20 year old data, but I doubt it's much different today.

Credit to https://youtu.be/o8Btb1sGRK0 for showing me this chart.

Matthew Kellegrew of the Civil Liberties Defense Center, which represents the creator of stopice.net, called DHS' actions "a patent, open attempt to chill free speech"--