When Massachusetts-based reporter Shawn Musgrave obtained some of the Boston Police Department's license plate reader data, he found that police appeared to be targeting working class and black neighborhoods with the controversial surveillance tool.
Those through-the-wall sensors police and federal agents have been using for years in secret? Like drones and other surveillance technologies, they migrated back to the United States from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Massachusetts state public records law is among the weakest in the nation. But even the toothless statute doesn't allow for flagrantly improper behavior like this, via the Bay State Examiner:
Help! What is this thing? Spotted at the Black Lives Matter protest today in Boston, on a truck with commercial plates. I saw the same piece of technology at an Occupy Wall Street protest in New York in 2012, and wrote about it here. I'm still not clear on what, exactly, it's for.
The Director of the FBI, James Comey, is outraged that the New York Times gave an al Qaeda official anonymity to discuss the Paris attacks. Outraged!
From the Times:
Are you a former GITMO prison guard? Do you want to become a police officer in Massachusetts? There's a fast track for that.
For $2,500, returning GITMO guards can attend a police training workshop facilitated by a Worcester police officer who also works for the Massachusetts National Guard. The training program is hosted by the Worcester Police Department, which reportedly expects to recruit from among the graduates.
Muckrock editorial intern Anna Geary-Meyer filed a public records request with Boston Mayor Marty Walsh's office in December 2014 seeking information about Boston's 2024 Olympic bid. Over one month later, she hasn't received a substantive response.
Her December 2014 request sought:
