-Caveat Lector- [radtimes] # 193 An informally produced compendium of vital irregularities. "We're living in rad times!" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Send $$ to RadTimes!! --> (See ** at end.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contents: --New Assault on City's Gangs --ACLU Ads Warn Of 'Massive' Government Cyber-Snooping --Robotic insect takes to the air --Police ready for violence at ADB --Anarchy in the air as summit draws near --Biker Gang Pleads Guilty in Canada --The voice of an anticapitalist manifesto --Little Sympathy or Remedy for Inmates Who Are Raped --Special Report: Crime on the Internet =================================================================== New Assault on City's Gangs <http://www.nydailynews.com/2001-04-08/News_and_Views/Crime_File/a-106468.asp?> NYPD beefs up units to fight growing menace By PATRICE O'SHAUGHNESSY Daily News Staff Writer Sunday, April 08, 2001 He was 12, looking to belong and wanting protection in his Bronx neighborhood. He found the Netas. He wore the red, black and white beads, slashed a Blood in the stomach with a switchblade in a brawl outside Taft High School, did six months at Rikers Island, and led a chapter of 62 Netas in Williamsbridge. "I'm just trying to get out of the gang life now," said the 19-year-old, who requested anonymity. "But today, there are so much more kids joining." The city's gang members now number close to 15,000, with about half of them active, authorities say. Some just sport the colors, others band together in violence. Many are immigrants looking for muscle and status. The fluid, varied nature of the gangs and their enduring appeal has prompted a more focused law enforcement strategy. As a result, the police are now attacking gangs from all sides: Uniformed officers are at the schools; investigators work the streets and share intelligence with jail authorities, and cops educate parents at community meetings. The gangs reflect the changing face of the city: While new immigrants cling to ethnic associations, older gangs have become as assimilated as the neighborhoods. "There are no more parameters. The traditional ethnic membership is no longer there," said Deputy Warden Peter Curcio, commander of the Correction Department's gang intelligence unit. "The Bloods leader at Rikers is Latino. We have Chinese Bloods, black Netas, a white Five Percenter." "They are not sophisticated like in Los Angeles. We could have three Bloods on one corner, three on the next street, and they don't know each other," said Deputy Inspector William Tartaglia, head of the revamped NYPD Gang Division. Indeed, the New York gang scene is anything but monolithic. Graffiti on buildings along Rockaway Parkway in Brooklyn mark the turf of the 823 Canarsie G-Stone Crips, while the Sally Gangsta Crips tag walls on Pitkin Ave., each claiming local turf. "The rules differ from set to set, and Bloods in Brooklyn don't know Bloods in the Bronx," said one detective. On Feb. 20, police say enemy gang members joined forces in a robbery-murder in Central Park. Ismael Marzan, 25, was fatally shot as he sat on a bench with a friend. One suspect was arrested; he had a tattoo over a Bloods burn mark, showing he was a former member. His accomplice was a Crip. "The two gangs are usually archrivals," said an investigator. "That shows us they're not organized." Since Jan. 1, gang-linked crimes have included 24 homicides, 44 shootings, 32 slashings and 147 robberies. On March 30, Ivan Martinez, a Mexican immigrant delivering pizza in East New York, Brooklyn, became the latest fatality. Police said he was shot dead by a youth wearing blue beads a symbol of the Crips. The alleged killer and his pals robbed Martinez of $35, and spent it on Chinese food. "Being in a gang makes it easier to become involved in such violence, because you're bound to follow the directives, you do what you got to do," said Bob DeSena, head of Council for Unity, which has chapters in 56 city schools. Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik said the NYPD's new strategies have identified more people as members of gangs. "These are bad people," Kerik said. "They've identified themselves as security threats. It's an issue we have to stay on top of. [But because of NYPD efforts] New York has more control over this type of problem." The largest gangs are the Bloods, the Latin Kings, Netas, and the Crips, a rapidly growing force in Brooklyn. The Bloods claim about 5,000 members, but "only about half are 'blooded in,' the rest just wear red," said one investigator. The Latin Kings, once the largest and most violent gang in the city, had a strict hierarchy and a code of rules that every member in every borough followed. That structure led to its near-undoing by federal cases that put the leaders in prison. Mexican and Central American street gangs represent an emerging phenomenon, as those burgeoning immigrant groups seek a foothold in the city. "Most towns in Mexico are almost empty of young men," said Brother Joel Magallan of the Tepeyac Association, a citywide advocacy group for Mexican immigrants. "And when they come here, they are without parents, uncles or aunts; they need a family, so the group is useful to them. "They feel weak in the city, they have everything to lose, so they fight for territory, for small things." He estimates there are 30 Mexican gangs. Some amount to social clubs, others commit robberies or other crimes to support drug habits. "There are 500,000 Mexicans in New York, and the problem is 50% of the population are between 12 and 25 years old, and they have no activities," Magallan said. Two Salvadoran gangs causing concern are the Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13, and Salvadorans with Pride, which have been engaged in a murderous feud in Long Island. Authorities said there were six MS-13 members in city jails last week. Four years ago, gangs were not a law enforcement priority. Only a handful of cops were assigned to the problem, and there was no coordination between precincts, schools and jails. But by last December, 300 cops were assigned to three units in the Gang Division. The suppression unit responds to trouble at schools and violence-prone locations, the intelligence unit gathers information and tracks membership, and the investigative unit probes criminal enterprises. As part of the fresh focus on gangs, Curcio said Correction Commissioner William Fraser put several anti-gang initiatives in place at Rikers, where six years ago the Latin Kings ruled, wearing their gold and black beads and chanting together in the yard. There were more than 1,000 slashings a year in the mid-1990s at the prison. Now gang members cannot wear colors or beads, or gather in groups of more than five. There have been 15 slashings so far this year, Curcio said. He also gets a weekly report of the "hot precincts" from the NYPD, showing gang activities and other crimes, and correction investigators interview inmates from those neighborhoods for leads. "We knew activity was centering on Rikers, so we share information with Correction ...where the members are, who they are, when they get out," Tartaglia said. Since Jan. 1, the Gang Division has taken 66 guns and 100 knives from box cutters to daggers off the streets, and has made 900 arrests. In December, gang cops were led to one gun by a man arrested on a minor charge in the 108th Precinct in Queens. A gang detective debriefed him, and was told Windmuller Park at 52nd St. and Roosevelt Ave. was a hangout for three Mexican gangs: the Pitufos, Crazy Homies and Cachondos. On Saturday nights, the leaders would alternate possession of a 9-mm. pistol, and hide it in a trash basket in the park. Cops staked out the park and arrested 22 alleged gang members for trespassing, and found the gun. In January, gang cops watching a roller-skating rink near Prospect Park in Brooklyn saw groups of teens in red and blue fighting outside. The red-clad Bloods ran into an apartment building, came back out and returned to the rink. The cops approached the kids, and found a loaded .380 Beretta pistol on one. The armed youth told police he was bent on revenge the Crips at the rink were part of a group who stabbed him in a knife fight near Pacific High School two weeks earlier. Last week, the Brooklyn suppression unit was deployed at South Shore and Canarsie High Schools, two schools with a history of gang incidents because teens from throughout the borough attend, bringing their neighborhood rivalries. "Next week is Easter break, so we want to make sure everything stays calm," said Lt. Bill Dentrone, liaison between gang division and schools. Detective John Reilly was on hand to talk to any students who were arrested. "If you treat them like gentlemen, they open up to you," he said. As hundreds of kids poured out of South Shore at dismissal, two girls began yelling and pushing each other in what turned out to be a minor dispute. Within seconds, school safety officers ran out, two vans of gang suppression cops pulled up and 69th Precinct bicycle cops arrived. "We try to be more proactive," said Sgt. Paul Saraceno. It seems to be working. From September to January, there were 240 gang-related incidents at city schools, a decrease of about 25% from same period last year. Tartaglia said the division has just launched a community relations effort in which one of his officers will meet with parents, clergy and community groups. Magallan welcomed the initiative. "We're interested in working with them," he said. "I have a lot of hope. There is still time to do something for all young people." Gang Turf Brooklyn Bloods and Crips: East Flatbush, Brownsville, Canarsie Several Mexican: Sunset Park Bronx Bloods: Morris Heights, Highbridge Manhattan Bloods, Latin Kings, Netas: East Harlem Bloods: Harlem Queens Several Mexican: Corona, Elmhurst Gangs by the Numbers Gang-related crimes since Jan. 1: Homicides: 24, up 1 over 2000 Shootings: 44, down by 16 Robberies: 147, down 29 Slashings: 32, down 18 Since Jan. 1, the NYPD Gang Division has: Arrested 900 suspected gang members Seized 66 guns Seized 100 knives Executed 33 warrants Rikers Island population on April 5 was about 15,000, with 1,775 inmates identified as members of 47 gangs. Allegiance broke down as follows: Bloods: 600 Latin Kings: 300 Netas: 151 Five Percenters: 80 Crips: 50 Trinitarians: 41 Born To Kill: 19 MS-13: 6 M-18: 5 La Familia: 4 Aryan Brotherhood: 2 Other gangs represented include: Bad Boys, Chicano Boys, Black Panthers, Dominicans Don't Play, Los Papi Chulos, Los Solidos, Traviesos, Vagos, Jamaican Posse, Zulu Nation. Sources: NYPD and Department of Correction =================================================================== ACLU Ads Warn Of 'Massive' Government Cyber-Snooping http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/164373.html By David McGuire, Newsbytes WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A., 10 Apr 2001 Ratcheting up its attack on government cyber-surveillance efforts, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is launching a print and Internet advertising campaign that warns of "massive" government monitoring efforts. In a full-page ad set to debut later this month in issues of The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine, the ACLU warns that government e-surveillance programs like "Carnivore" and "Echelon" are encroaching on Fourth Amendment protections against "unwarranted government surveillance." ACLU Associate Director Barry Steinhardt said today that he hopes the ads will re-spark the national debate over government surveillance efforts, prompting Congress, in turn, to move the issue to the top of its agenda. "We are clearly trying to raise public awareness about the extent of the government's capacity for (electronic) eavesdropping," Steinhardt told Newsbytes today. "We're trying to focus the attention of the (Bush) administration and the Republican leadership." Steinhardt said that Republican leaders in Congress set the right tone last year by scrutinizing government cyber-snooping efforts. With the new Congress and administration settling in, now is a good time to revisit those issues, Steinhardt said. House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, agrees with the concerns raised by the ACLU, Armey aide Richard Diamond said today. "I think this is a good time to focus on government privacy abuses," Diamond said, adding that the Majority Leader looks forward to those issues being taken up sometime during this Congress. Specifically, the ACLU wants Congress and the Justice Department to turn up the heat on the FBI for its use of the controversial e-mail surveillance device, "Carnivore." While Carnivore came under heavy fire from lawmakers and civil liberties advocates last year, the debate over the device has been somewhat muted through the first few months of 2001. The ACLU advertisement bears a picture of a wireless phone under the legend "Now Equipped With 3-Way Calling. You, Whoever You're Dialing And the Government." The ad, which also includes a written statement about alleged government privacy abuses, includes a link to a special ACLU Web site dealing with the issue. That site is located online at http://www.aclu.org/privacyrights . =================================================================== Wednesday, 11 April, 2001 Robotic insect takes to the air <http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1270000/1270306.stm> Prototype: 'At the same stage as the Wright brothers' By BBC Science's Dr Chris Riley Engineers have test flown a prototype of the world's first robotic insect. It is hoped that future generations of this curious craft could carry tiny spy cameras into buildings. The designers, at a California-based company called AeroVironment, have been building micro-spy planes for years. Their fixed wing "Black Widow", a tiny black pocket plane just 15 cm (6 in) in diameter, is already being used by the military for surveillance behind enemy lines. "From a hundred metres above the ground it is hardly detectable to the eye and ear and can beam back crystal clear pictures of the ground below," says project manager Matt Keennon. But the team's ultimate dream is to build something they can fly inside a building without bumping into walls. Insect inspiration The Black Widow flies too fast to navigate carefully around a room. And what these pioneers of micro-flight wanted to do was create a craft which could fly slowly, change direction with ease and hover in the corner of a room. Their inspiration came from the world of insects. Insect wings often beat with a complex figure of eight motion, which gives excellent mid-air manoeuvrability, but is very hard for engineers to mimic. 'More like a bat' AeroVironment's latest attempt is dubbed "Microbat", because the 20 cm (8 in) long robot flaps its wings more like a bat than an insect. Such flapping wing aircraft - called ornithopters - have been around for years, says AeroVironment ornithopter engineer Joel Grasmeyer. "Our challenge has been to create a small, ultra-light wing to give us enough lift to carry an electric motor and battery into the air." In a smoky wind tunnel at the University of California at Los Angeles, doctoral students Nick Pornsin-Sirirak and Steven Ho have come up with a wing which gives as much lift as the insect wings they have been studying. Wright brothers They admit that when it comes to micro-flapping flight, they are at about the same stage that the Wright brothers were in 1903. But the ultra-light wings they have designed and built out of a thin polythene film and a simple carbon-fibre skeleton seem to give enough lift. And fitted to Microbat, they can keep the little robot aloft for as long as its tiny battery lasts. We might be far from machines which can master the air as well as insects and carry tiny cameras, but the spy's dream to become a fly on the wall might one day come true. =================================================================== Police ready for violence at ADB <http://starbulletin.com/2001/04/13/news/story5.html> Police preparing for violent protesters at Asian Bank meeting But a local group opposed to the bank says no such protests are planned By Nelson Daranciang Star-Bulletin 04/13/01 The Honolulu Police Department is preparing for a small group of violent protesters it believes may be heading to the Asian Development Bank conference at the Hawaii Convention Center May 7-11. Assistant Police Chief Boisse Correa said yesterday the group caused millions in damage at the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle and also caused problems at last year's Democratic Party and Republican Party conventions in Los Angeles and Philadelphia, respectively. "They're very smart; they're well organized," he said. "They actually separate and grid out a location and assign people in different areas to work with larger groups and try to infiltrate in that way." Correa believes the majority of the protesters will be peaceful. But ADBwatch, a network of local organizations and individuals opposed to the ADB, said police are overreacting. "The way they're reacting is setting up an atmosphere of paranoia," said Carolyn Hatfield. She said no groups here are making preparations for violent protests. And she believes national protest groups will concentrate their efforts on other meetings on the mainland. "We're hoping that these people go somewhere else, leave us alone and let us run a peaceful Asian Development Bank conference," Correa said. "If it is less than peaceful, we are prepared to handle that." Honolulu police have been training for the meeting since last summer. Correa said police will use Ala Wai Community Park and Ala Moana Beach Park to provide security for the ADB. However, he is not saying how many officers will be involved. Correa said some streets will be closed during the meeting. They could include portions of Atkinson Drive and Kapiolani Boulevard that face the convention center's large glass windows. "We are majorly concerned about the glass in the convention center," Correa said. "It's a big-time issue with us, and we have expressed those concerns to the state and the convention center." The state and the Hawaii Tourism Authority, not Honolulu police, are taking responsibility for security at the convention center. ADB officials expect 3,000 people will attend next month's meeting. ADBwatch has applied for a permit for a march and rally on May 9 for 5,000 to 7,000 protesters, but members are not sure how many participants there will be. =================================================================== Anarchy in the air as summit draws near ALLISON HANES The (Montreal) Gazette April 13, 2001 So what's it going to be then, eh? The famous opening line of Anthony Burgess's novel A Clockwork Orange neatly encapsulates the confrontation brewing between police and anarchists at next weekend's Summit of the Americas in Quebec City. With both predicting that if any violence occurs, it will be initiated by the other side, things could get ugly. Calling from his office at Yale University, where he is an assistant professor of anthropology, David Graeber laughed when asked how it feels to be the cause of the biggest security operation ever mounted by the RCMP. Graeber is an anarchist. In the past, he has also participated in Black Blocs, a confrontational protest strategy used at the World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service has ominously warned might lead to violence at the Quebec summit. But when Graeber talks, he's most polite and forthcoming: he returns calls promptly, he cracks jokes and he explains the finer points of the anarchist philosophy patiently and thoroughly. "Our long-term goals are pretty ambitious because we pretty much want to re-invent democracy and do it on a global scale," he said. "We're trying to create alternative institutions that would make the state unnecessary." Graeber's casual, friendly tone tends to gloss over some of the more contentious aspects of his world view, but he articulates anarchism as a political philosophy like any other, rather than some sort of scary anti-social behaviour. But a lot of anarchist rhetoric found on the Internet and in newsgroups is confrontational and sometimes downright inflammatory. "Nothing ever burns down by itself," quips a banner on the popular anarchist Web site infoshop.org. "Every fire needs a little bit of help." The RCMP are certainly worried. The presence of anarchists in Quebec is one of the top reasons for the 6,000 police officers, the arsenal of plastic bullets and the 3.8-metre-high security fence (nicknamed The Wall). "As far as the security measures go, it's the Black Bloc and others who espouse violence that most concern us," said RCMP Constable Julie Brongel. "Anything that is going to put either the property or the safety of people - be they protesters, officers or dignitaries - in peril is going to require our intervention." A recent CSIS report about protests planned for the summit also raises alarm: "Radical anti-globalization elements, many with links to anarchist groups, will take advantage of the meeting in Quebec City to organize protests and engage in violence. Anarchists, with their philosophy that justifies the destruction of private property, will draw disenfranchised youth to participate. "The call for the organization of Black Bloc affinity groups and the presence of several radical anti-globalization groups ... increases the likelihood of violence. ... The use of petrol bombs and similar disruptive instruments by a few radicals cannot be ruled out." Black Blocs are not formal groups but informal groupings of individuals who come together at demonstrations, usually with an agreed-upon set of tactics. They operate secretively and are organized horizontally into affinity groups, which co-operate and make decisions about action by consensus both before or during demonstrations. The affinity-group members dress alike, sometimes in black, sometimes in costumes, to obscure their identities, but also in a show of solidarity, the idea being: "If you did it, I did it with you; it might as well have been me." Within each affinity group, roles and responsibilities are distributed. Each has a "spoke" who meets with members of other affinity groups to present ideas, talk tactics and build the consensus needed to make decisions. Other roles can include the medic, who is responsible for first aid and the well-being of each affinity-group member, the supply person and the legal eagle, who tries not to get arrested and who keeps track of who does. "That person also keeps a list of whose dog needs to be walked if they go to jail for a few days - we don't want anyone's pet starving - and whose mom needs to be called," Graeber said. He will not be participating in Black Bloc activity in Quebec City, but as a member of Italian-based Ya Basta!, a group that dons brightly coloured protective gear and blocks roads. But he has been in a Black Bloc - as recently as January. At the inauguration of President George W. Bush in Washington, he and 600 other anarchists protested alongside disgruntled Democrats. "The most radical thing we did was throw paint bombs at the Washington Post," he said. "We thought it would be suicide to crash the parade route." They did storm the Naval Memorial, where the U.S. flag was ripped down and burned and the anarchist banner bearing the scrawled red "A" hoisted. As Graeber explains it, anarchists see a future where the state is replaced by a network of communities, where decisions are made locally by consensus and where borders don't exist. He doesn't pretend to speak for all anarchists or all sects of anarchism, but he is plugged in to the community. And he offers an important insight into the movement, because he is the only anarchist who would talk to The Gazette for this story. (One local anarchist said he would speak only about anarchist opposition to the Free Trade Area of the Americas, the pact being discussed in Quebec City; another called a Gazette reporter an obscenity in an E-mail; and a Quebec-City-based group's Internet manifesto included the warning "Journalists can go to hell.") Anarchists draw many of their ideas about democracy from indigenous peoples: the Maoris in New Zealand, the Indians in Chiapas, the Mohawks in Canada. They try to operate using these concepts. Anarchists have become part of the so-called anti-globalization movement because they, too, are concerned about the lack of democracy in international institutions, even though they reject their legitimacy. "We say, 'If you want to globalize, let's do it, but let's really do it and get rid of all the borders and national governments,' " Graeber said. Black Blocs are a strategy often employed by anarchists, but other groups form them, too. Tactics are not set in stone, but depend on a given situation. They can include "unarresting." "When police try to grab someone and haul them off, the Black Bloc will try to grab them back," Graeber said. Some, but not all, actions involve property destruction, usually of corporate targets. "In an international system founded on the pursuit of profit, we find our most effective action is to attack oppressors where it hurts most: their wallets," reads a communique from the Anti-Statist Black Bloc out of Philadelphia dated Aug. 9, 2000. Black Bloc followers adhere to a moral code, Graeber said. They make distinctions between private and personal property, so they might smash the window of a police cruiser (as long as no one is inside) but not the windshield of a private car. They do not consider vandalism to be violence. "There's a detailed code of ethics. People think very hard ethically about the actions they do," Graeber said. "Most of them are vegans. They wouldn't step on a worm." The blocs hate predictability and try to be creative about their strategy. An infoshop.org article on mobilizing for Quebec City suggested Medieval Blocs: "Beautiful battering rams, ladders, catapults and dead cows infected with the plague. ... Watch out for those cauldrons of hot oil." And also Doughnut Blocs: "Please don't feed the cops. Those jelly rolls make great-looking splats." But it's not always about the action. "The action can be secondary to the idea of just being there and having a presence," Graeber said. Black Blocs were formed at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washington, D.C., last year. A softer approach was taken after the Battle in Seattle in 1999. That's when Black Blocs first popped up on the cultural radar, although they date back to the Gulf War in the U.S., and a squatters movement in Germany in the 1980s. After days of peaceful demonstrations, badly outnumbered Seattle police clamped down with tear gas, spurring the Black Blocs into action. They smashed store windows and looted one Niketown outlet, threw eggs filled with glass-etching solution and spray-painted city benches and garbage bins, to the horror of more peaceful protesters, who formed rings around stores and even tackled Black Bloc practitioners to the ground. For a time there was a rift among anti-globalization activists, but successive demonstrations where police came down hard and heavy have united protesters. Leading up to Quebec, no protest group with which The Gazette spoke would denounce another's strategy; and they all blamed baton-wielding police for the outbreak of violence at past world meetings. The spectre of violence may again depend on police. A declaration on infoshop.com, dated March 28, and signed by seven groups, including Groupe Anarchiste Emile-Henry in Quebec City and La Main Noire in Montreal, states: "We shall respect the spirit and parameters of this rally, organized by various unions, non-governmental organizations, popular groups, women's groups and student associations: unless attacked by the police or the security forces, which could require us to defend ourselves, we shall remain non-violent during this event." Constable Brongel of the RCMP calls the declaration a hopeful sign about the tenor of the demonstrations, and said she hopes the anarchists stick to it. But she vehemently rejected the idea that police could instigate violence. "Through their training (officers are) taught to be very calm and very tolerant and to make a distinction between protest and illegal acts," she said. "Officers will be there to intervene if there has been an infraction of the law." Graeber offered this observation: "All the coercive force needed to keep order is a result of having the coercive force in the first place. If they'd said, 'Do what you like,' the worst that would've happened is we'd be doing a blockade." - Some Anarchist Web Sites: <www.infoshop.org>, <www.pouvoir-ouvrier.org>, <flag.blackened.net/~global/1299bbcommunique.htm>, <www.ainfos.ca>, <www3.sympatico.ca/emile.henry/eh.htm>. ------ - Allison Hanes's E-mail address is [EMAIL PROTECTED] =================================================================== Saturday, April 14, 2001 Biker Gang Pleads Guilty in Canada <http://news.findlaw.com/ap/i/1101/4-11-2001/20010411023216540.html> QUEBEC (AP) _ Eight members of a gang prosecutors say is linked to the Hells Angels pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges of gangsterism and drug-trafficking. The guilty pleas were a major victory for Canadian law enforcement agencies in their crackdown on motorcycle gangs accused of running Mafia-style drug rings. The defendants were arrested last year and were among the first to be tried under a federal law that makes it illegal to take part in organized crime. "I'm not a football player and I won't do high-fives ... but it's a very important victory," prosecutor Robert Rouleau said. "Let's say that this year is a good year for law enforcement." Late last month, police arrested more than 100 people suspected of links to the Hells Angels in a series of raids in Quebec, Ontario and other Canadian provinces. Police say drug-trade turf wars between the Hells Angels and a rival group are blamed for at least 158 murders, 169 attempted murders and the disappearances of 16 others. Described by prosecutors as enforcers who beat rival drug dealers with baseball bats and wooden beams, the defendants Tuesday pleaded guilty to more than 80 charges including drug-trafficking, aggravated assault, kidnapping and weapons offenses. More than 40 other charges were dropped. A sentencing hearing was scheduled for May 1. The trial proceeded after the judge rejected a constitutional challenge to the organized-crime law. Special security measures were in place for the trial. Plexiglas was put up around a prisoner's dock that faced away from the witness stand to prevent the defendants from intimidating those testifying against them. =================================================================== NEW LEFT The voice of an "anticapitalist manifesto" <http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2001/04/17/p1s4.htm> By Ruth Walker ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor TORONTO Talk about branding. A Times of London interviewer calls Naomi Klein "probably the most influential person under the age of 35 in the world." The National Post calls her the "wunderkind of the new New Left" and the "New Noam Chomsky." Hyperbole, perhaps. But Ms. Klein's blast against international corporate power, "No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies," is now a bestseller in Britain, Sweden, and on college campuses across Canada. The author and newspaper columnist will take center stage today as co-chair of the "People's Summit," a countercultural alternative to the official Summit of the Americas, opening in Quebec City on Friday. Klein is emerging as the leading voice of the antiglobalization movement, and it's tempting to call her the spokeswoman. But Klein is as hard to label as the "movement of movements" she writes and lectures about. "I'm less a spokesperson for the movement than its most devoted follower," she demurs. "Antiglobalization," she adds is not the best term, either. She prefers to call it "the pro-democracy" movement. It is precisely the amorphousness and leaderlessness of free-trade opponents that has helped focus attention on the articulate, mediagenic Klein and her work. And she certainly was in the right place at the right time with the right text. "No Logo" came out just after the 1999 street battles in Seattle. The protests confirmed free trade, once a topic that only a policy wonk could love, as an issue that could galvanize a new generation of political activists as civil rights and nuclear disarmament had inspired earlier generations. The book "gave voice to a movement almost before it existed," Maclean's magazine said in a cover-story profile last month. Klein's "anticapitalist manifesto," as it has been described, is a polemic against corporate power - the power to invade public space (ads and placement of brand-name products everywhere, including schoolbooks) to limit consumer options (as when big-box retailers drive out local players), and to cut jobs (when work is moved to cheap-labor locations overseas). In her book, Klein rails mostly against consumer-goods brand names. In today's economy, "brands" have replaced "products." Companies are selling mere image and lifestyle. In this equation, the ratio of corporate substance to corporate power is wildly out of whack. Klein describes the movement as "a response to the privatization of life - natural resources, health, education" and as "attempts to reclaim democracy from trade agreements." She adds, "What creates the coalitions [against trade pacts] is the ambitiousness of the agreements." Free trade is being put ahead of other social goods, such as local control over environmental protection and labor regulation. She's not opposed to free trade per se, but she suggests that there are other models for it than the current US-led push for a hemisphere-wide trade zone. She's also skeptical of free trade as an economic panacea: "Like NAFTA before it, the creation of the largest free-trade zone in the world is being sold based on the cure-all powers of trickle-down economics," she wrote in last week's column in the Globe and Mail. "There's been a dumbing down of politics," she says. "But there's a tremendous hunger to be part of the discussion." She speaks of students and others crowding into university lecture halls on Sunday afternoons to hear policy activists explain water issues or trade-law arcana. "People want to understand. I think that's really hopeful and exciting," she says. "It's hard to think of another person writing more colorfully and creatively on these issues," says Boston College sociologist Charles Derber. "She's a fresh voice." While cautioning against granting her "celebrity status," he calls her "part of the emerging class of global public intellectuals," adding that he distinguishes between "public intellectuals" - those "whose writing and thinking is shaping the public view" - and mere "talk-show pundits." Her work is also informed by a lot of her own on-the-ground reporting on issues like sweatshops in the third world. Professor Derber compares her to the student leaders of the early 1960s, who, in the early days of the "New Left" movement in the United States, breathed new energy into progressive politics. "No Logo" has sold nearly 20,000 hardcover copies in Canada since its release in January 2000. Also out in paperback this January, the book has been on the bestseller list here every week. It's been translated into nine languages. Klein's work is less well known in the US, where her column appears in The Nation. But she's enjoyed major success in Britain, where the prestigious Guardian newspaper carries her column and "No Logo" is No. 1 on the Sunday Times bestseller list. Her book is "obviously touching a nerve," says Nicholas Paschley, trade-book buyer for the University of Toronto bookstore. The book is selling well, he says, despite the fact that this university is "about as tame and politically disengaged ... as you'll find." That charge is not leveled against Concordia University in Montreal. Rob Green, outgoing president of the student union, reports, "We have 90 buses confirmed filled for the trip to Quebec City." The police presence at the official summit is being described as the largest in Canadian history, however, and Klein and others are concerned about limits on civil liberties during the summit. She and other activists have petitioned Prime Minister Jean Chrétien to remove the four-kilometer-long chain-link fence erected in Quebec City to keep protesters out. Mr. Green, the student leader, suggests that under Canada's Constitution, the level of curtailment of free speech and freedom of assembly anticipated this week would be legal only if the War Measures Act, a provision for a sort of martial law, were invoked. "The whole movement has been criminalized and presumed guilty," he says. Klein, too, worries that the extreme elements are becoming the public persona of the movement. But she also sees the movement expanding beyond street protests at summits. "Recently, police have taken to patting themselves on the back for learning to 'control' mass demonstrations," she wrote last week. "But how will they adapt to a global movement that is already transforming itself into thousands of local mini-movements, all internationally linked? They're going to need a pretty big fence." -------------------------- For further information: NoLogo.org <http://www.nologo.org/> No Logo by Naomi Klein Guardian: First Chapters <http://books.guardian.co.uk/firstchapters/story/0,6761,402483,00.html> Canadian artists launch plea to tear down Quebec City's 'Wall of Shame' <http://www.canoe.ca/NationalTicker/CANOE-wire.Summit-Security-Petition.html> =================================================================== Little Sympathy or Remedy for Inmates Who Are Raped <http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/15/national/15RAPE.html> By TAMAR LEWIN April 15, 2001 Eddie Dillard, a prisoner at Corcoran State Prison in California, knew what was in store the instant he heard who his new cellmate was to be: Wayne Robertson, a 230-pound sexual predator. Two years earlier, the men had fought after Mr. Dillard rejected Mr. Robertson's sexual advances. And Mr. Dillard, a 120-pound inmate serving time for assault, had been worried enough about future encounters to put Mr. Robertson's name on a list of known enemies with whom he should not share a cell. But on Friday, March 5, 1993, Mr. Dillard was moved into Mr. Robertson's cell. On Saturday, Mr. Dillard was raped. Mr. Robertson, who is serving life without parole for murder, testified that he sodomized Mr. Dillard "all night long." On Sunday, Mr. Robertson raped him again. On Monday, Mr. Robertson was taken to a hearing, and when the cell door was opened for his return, Mr. Dillard ran out and refused to re-enter the cell. Inmate rape has such an established place in the mythology of prison that references to confinement often call forth jokes about sexual assault. But while rape is accepted as a fact of prison life, the subject has received little serious attention and legal remedies are rare. Few prison rapists are ever prosecuted, and most prisons provide little counseling or medical attention for rape victims, or help in preventing such attacks. The widespread social reluctance to address the issue is reinforced by many legal constraints. A 1996 law barring the Federal Legal Services Corporation from financing legal aid organizations that represent prisoners reduced the number of lawyers available to litigate on behalf of inmates. That same year, the Prison Litigation Reform Act made it far more difficult for inmates to challenge the conditions of their confinement. In the few incidents that do lead to legal claims, the victims, as convicted criminals, do not garner much sympathy from politicians, prison officials or juries. And the legal standards for prisons' liability create a perverse incentive for guards to ignore the problem. Generally, prison officials can only be held liable for an assault if they had actual knowledge of a substantial risk to a prisoner and ignored it. "Many inmates find that when they try to report a rape, the guards don't want to hear it," said Joanne Mariner, a lawyer at Human Rights Watch, who recently completed a study of prison rape, to be released on Thursday. "They tell them to act like a man, to deal with the problem themselves. There are very few prisons that follow good procedures for counseling, or sending inmates for a medical examination." Because almost half the states do not collect statistics on prison rape and many inmates quickly learn that there is nothing to be gained in reporting rape there are no reliable national figures on its frequency. And many prison systems play down the problem, suggesting that rape is so rare that there is no need for data. Prison officials say that much of the sexual activity in prison seems to be consensual or if it is not that it is impossible to detect coercion. But lawyers who have spent substantial time investigating prison conditions say guards are too quick to assume consent. Donna Brorby, lead counsel for the prisoners in a decades-old lawsuit challenging Texas prison conditions, explained it this way: "In the Texas prison system, where I spent months interviewing prisoners, the policy, of course not written, is to leave it up to each prisoner to defend himself, and to consider people who don't fight off their attackers to be consenting. But many people feel powerless to fight off predators. Rape is the top of the pinnacle of a whole spectrum of violence and victimization in prisons." With two million Americans incarcerated nationwide, only Texas, Ohio, Florida, Illinois and the Federal Bureau of Prisons reported more than 50 sexual assaults a year in response to a Human Rights Watch request for information. But one study of inmates in seven men's prisons in four states published in the December 2000 issue of The Prison Journal, an academic quarterly found that 21 percent of the prisoners reported at least one episode of forced sexual contact since being incarcerated, and at least 7 percent reported that they had been raped. A 1996 survey of prisoners in Nebraska state prisons found that 22 percent of the inmates said they had been forced to have sexual contact while incarcerated, most of them having submitted to forced anal sex at least once. Still, the next year, when Human Rights Watch asked for information on prison rape, Nebraska prison officials said such incidents were "minimal." Other states, like New Mexico, said they had "no recorded incidents over the past few years." A survey in one Southern state, which provided information to Human Rights Watch on the condition that it not be named, underscored the confusion. While the survey found that prisoners estimated that one in three inmates had been coerced into sex, prison guards said it was about one in five. Prison officials in supervisory positions estimated about one in eight. The Dillard case first in criminal court and now in civil court is one of the few to come to public attention. Mr. Dillard's court papers charge that prison guards set up the rape, transferring him into the cell of Mr. Robertson, known as the Booty Bandit, to punish him for kicking another guard. Mr. Robertson backed Mr. Dillard's account. He told a state investigator in 1997 that he had asked Robert Decker, a guard, to place Mr. Dillard with him, and that Mr. Decker agreed to the move so Mr. Robertson could show Mr. Dillard "how to do his time." Mr. Decker and three other guards at the prison were charged with aiding and abetting sodomy. At the 1999 trial, they said they had not known that Mr. Robertson, 36, would attack Mr. Dillard, 23. or that the two were enemies. The guards said that Mr. Dillard had not complained about the cell transfer and that it had been a mistake, not an act of retribution. But Mr. Robertson and Roscoe Pondexter, a former prison guard who worked the weekend of the rapes, testified that the guards had knowingly exposed Mr. Dillard to sexual assault. "They knew Dillard was my enemy, and they knew who I was," said Mr. Robertson, whose records include more than a dozen complaints from inmates of being raped, choked or attacked after they refused his advances. "They put Dillard in for something to happen to him." The four guards were acquitted in the criminal trial. Mr. Dillard is now out of prison, living with his wife and two children in California. His civil suit against the guards is scheduled for trial in in January. If he wins, prisoners' rights advocates believe it could open the door for other such cases. "This is about as strong a case as there is," said Ms. Mariner, of Human Rights Watch. "If Dillard loses this one, it will be hard to avoid the conclusion that there's no point taking these cases to court." The Human Rights Watch report documents just how common and brutal prison rape can be and how it can escalate into repeated assaults and even slavery, in which inmates are sold or rented to other inmates for sex. The report also establishes that many men, rather than being beaten into submission, are coerced into sexual submission by those who seem to offer protection in a gang- ridden and terrifying environment. The study began in 1996, with announcements of the research project in Prison Legal News and Prison Life Magazine, two publications widely circulated in American prisons. Ms. Mariner was soon deluged with more than a thousand letters from inmates, many of them detailing rapes. One Texas inmate, whose experience was documented in the Human Rights Watch report, was raped by another prisoner eight times from July through November 1995. The first time he was raped, the inmate said, he told the prison chaplain, who had him write a statement for the prison's internal affairs department, whose investigator brought him into a room with the rapist and asked what happened. The inmate repeated his accusation, he said, but after the rapist said it had been consensual sex, the investigator sent both men to their cells, telling them he was not interested in "lovers' quarrels." The rapes continued, becoming increasingly violent, the inmate said, adding that although he filed several grievances, they were rejected. On the last day of December, he said, the rapist attacked him with a combination lock in a crowded prison dayroom, threatening to kill him. The inmate has no memory of the attack, the report says, but others in the dayroom watched as he was raped and beaten so forcefully that he suffered a concussion and a broken neck, jaw, collarbone and finger. The rapist hit him so hard with the lock that the word "Master" the brand of lock could be read on his forehead, and four years later, the circular mark was still visible to the Human Rights Watch researchers. The rapist was never prosecuted. The consequences of prison rape go beyond immediate physical injuries. Some inmates contract AIDS through rape. Kendell Spruce, an Arkansas prisoner serving time on a fraudulent- check conviction who said he was raped by more than 20 inmates in one year and contracted AIDS as a result, sued prison officials, charging cruel and unusual punishment. The prison warden, Willis Sargent, testified in Mr. Spruce's lawsuit that prisoners bore the responsibility for fighting off sexual advances, by letting others know they were "not going to put up with that." A Federal District Court found that even if the warden should have known of the risks to Mr. Spruce, his actions did not amount to deliberate indifference, the standard for holding him accountable. An appeals court reinstated the accusations against the warden and the case against him is continuing. Mr. Spruce's accusations against two other officials were dismissed. Even men who suffer no serious physical consequences are profoundly shaken by the experience of rape, some sinking into depression or attempting suicide, the Human Rights Watch report says. Many tell of deep shame that they did not put up enough resistance. "I feel that maybe some women might look at me as less than a man," said one inmate. "My pride feels beaten to a pulp." In recent years, some correctional systems, including those in North Carolina, Arkansas and Massachusetts and the San Francisco jails, have taken action to train prison officials to prevent inmate rape and to respond when it happens by seeking criminal charges against the perpetrators and medical and psychological attention for the victim. But these initiatives are the exceptions. "We all know that when a woman is raped, it's a serious, traumatic event," Ms. Mariner said. "But it's at least as serious for men. They need to talk about it. They need counseling. Prison staff needs to respond appropriately to inmates who have been threatened with rape or actually assaulted. And we all need to recognize that this is a deeply rooted systemic problem." =================================================================== Special Report: Crime on the Internet (video) By Kelli Arena CNN Justice Correspondent 04/17/01 (CNN) -- As technology becomes more sophisticated, so does cybercrime. U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials say that the future of national security -- and the personal safety of everyone -- may hinge on how prepared they are to fight crime on the Internet. FBI officials say that technology-enabled terrorists are looking for new ways to strike at critical national infrastructure and that organized crime rings are extorting companies by stealing proprietary information from the Web. Child pornographers have thousands of pictures at their fingertips, and according to law enforcement officials, easy access to Web sites is now attracting a younger audience who have begun experimenting with the production and publication of "peer" pornography. U.S. government agencies, including the Secret Service, FBI, State Department, Customs Service and the Department of Defense have all committed money and manpower to cybercrime-fighting units. But officials say that despite these efforts, the United States is still not completely up to the task of preventing or dealing with all cyberattacks. Those on the front lines of the cyberwar cite a number of problems in fighting technology-savvy adversaries. Recruiting people with advanced technological training on government salaries remains difficult -- the salaries are low compared to those at the corporate level. As soon as law enforcement develops a technological fix for a problem, cybercriminals often have already found new technological strategies. And deciding where to commit resources can be puzzling: Who would have targeted Oklahoma City as a possible site for a terrorist act before 1995? How does this affect you? In a three-part series on cybercrime, CNN Justice Correspondent Kelli Arena examines the issues and the steps you can take to protect yourself, whether it's protecting your personal information or restricting your children's time on the Web. Video links here: http://www.cnn.com/2001/LAW/04/16/cybercrime.overview/index.html =================================================================== "Anarchy doesn't mean out of control. It means out of 'their' control." -Jim Dodge ====================================================== "Communications without intelligence is noise; intelligence without communications is irrelevant." -Gen. Alfred. M. Gray, USMC ====================================================== "It is not a sign of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society." -J. Krishnamurti ====================================================== "The world is my country, all mankind my brethren, and to do good is my religion." -Thomas Paine ====================================================== " . . . it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds . . . " -Samuel Adams ====================================================== "You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no results." -Gandhi ====================================================== "The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable." -H.L. Mencken ______________________________________________________________ To subscribe/unsubscribe or for a sample copy or a list of back issues, send appropriate email to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. ______________________________________________________________ **How to assist RadTimes: An account is available at <www.paypal.com> which enables direct donations. If you are a current PayPal user, use this email address: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, to contribute. If you are not a current user, use this link: <https://secure.paypal.com/refer/pal=resist%40best.com> to sign up and contribute. The only information passed on to me via this process is your email address and the amount you transfer. Thanks! <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. 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