It’s monsoon season in Arizona and that means it’s also the season for dust storms. The city of Phoenix was engulfed in a large dust cloud yesterday, significantly reducing visibility and causing thousands to experience power outages. Dust storms can reach up to a mile high and on Tuesday all flights were delayed until well after 9pm. This video shows how the large wall of dust swept across the Phoenix and other surrounding regions in Arizona.
[Site editor's note: Even though, they seemingly have called it quits, an intriguing swan song ... ] Andy Greenberg writes in Forbes:
… I noted a new suite of police-policing apps including OpenWatch and Cop Recorder, which turn your phone into a “reverse surveillance camera” for secretly recording run-ins with authority figures. Now it appears that police are well aware of those programs and others that complicate law enforcement, and at least some cops are none too happy about them.
That’s one of the revelations … by the hacker group LulzSec, which dumped a cache of files that it stole from the Arizona Police Department, calling Arizona a “racial profiling anti-immigrant police state.” A pair of documents among the hundreds leaked show concerns about how smartphones are being used for everything from recording interactions with police to evading speed traps.
One document labelled “Law Enforcement Sensitive” lists the following apps, and warns officers to “take the time to look at an arrestee’s cell phone to see what applications they have.”
For more information, see original article.… Read the rest
Rob Beschizza writes on BoingBoing:
LulzSec announced Thursday evening the publication at Pirate Bay of a trove of leaked material from Arizona law enforcement agencies. Arizona’s Department of Public Safety confirmed shortly thereafter that it was hacked.
In the press release included with the dump, a LulzSec affiliate outlines a more activist agenda than is usually associated with the group:
We are releasing hundreds of private intelligence bulletins, training manuals, personal email correspondence, names, phone numbers, addresses and passwords belonging to Arizona law enforcement. We are targeting AZDPS specifically because we are against SB1070 and the racial profiling anti-immigrant police state that is Arizona.
The documents classified as “law enforcement sensitive”, “not for public distribution”, and “for official use only” are primarily related to border patrol and counter-terrorism operations and describe the use of informants to infiltrate various gangs, cartels, motorcycle clubs, Nazi groups, and protest movements.
The house from Alfred Hitchock's "Psycho". Photo: Poco a poco (CC)
This story seems like it came directly from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. It’s an interesting portrayal of life imitating art. Arizona Daily Star reports:
A Tombstone man was arrested Wednesday after authorities found the decomposed body of a woman believed to be his mother inside her home.
The Tombstone Marshal’s Office received a call Wednesday to do a welfare check on Jill Fattig, 68, at her home in Tombstone, said Marshal Billy Cloud.
A deputy went to the home but, when no one answered the door, he went to question the woman’s son, Timothy Fattig.
Fattig, 34, told the deputy that his mother was at a hospital in Tucson. When the deputy found this was not the case, he went back to Fattig, who eventually told him his mother had died about a year go.
After obtaining a search warrant, deputies found the skeletal remains of a woman inside Jill Fattig’s home, Cloud said.
The Week reports:
Liberal leaders in southern Arizona, tired of enduring conservative victories in their state legislature on everything from immigration to gun laws, have a plan: Break away and form a separate state known as Baja Arizona…
U.S. Border Patrol dune buggy in Arizona. Look who's riding shotgun!
This loaded article is sure to stir some controversy. Fox News reports:
A book celebrating suicide bombers has been found in the Arizona desert just north of the U.S.-Mexican border, authorities tell Fox News.
The book, “In Memory of Our Martyrs,” was spotted Tuesday by a U.S. Border Patrol agent out of the Casa Grande substation who was patrolling a route known for smuggling illegal immigrants and drugs.
Published in Iran, it consists of short biographies of Islamic suicide bombers and other Islamic militants who died carrying out attacks.
According to internal U.S. Customs and Border Protection documents, “The book also includes letters from suicide attackers to their families, as well as some of their last wills and testaments.” Each biographical page contains “the terrorist’s name, date of death, and how they died.”
Agents also say that the book appears to have been exposed to weather in the desert “for at least several days or weeks.”
Authorities told Fox News that there were no people in the area at the time the book was found, and no arrests have been made in connection with it.
The disease continues to spread. The “liberal” New York Times reports:
TUCSON — A victim of the shooting spree here that severely injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was taken into custody on Saturday after the police and witnesses said the man spoke threateningly at a televised forum intended to help this stricken city heal.
Tucson, AZ. Photo: Motorrad-67
Eric Fuller, 63, a military veteran who was passionate about liberal causes and who had supported Ms. Giffords, was “involuntarily committed for mental health evaluation,” according to Jason Ogan, a spokesman for the Pima County Sheriff’s office.
Mr. Fuller, who was shot in the left knee and the back on Jan. 8, was among several victims, medical personnel and others who attended a special forum televised by ABC and hosted by Christiane Amanpour.
State Representative Terri Proud, a Republican, was sitting two rows behind Mr. Fuller. The topic of gun control had come up in the forum, she said, and a comment was made by one of the speakers about a bill that was introduced recently in Arizona that would allow staff members on college campuses with concealed weapons permits to carry guns.
Jon Stewart takes a moment to have a heart-to-heart with his viewers on the cycle of craziness and patriotism after the Arizona tragedy. As he stumbles through trying to make sense of the incident he reminds us that whether politics or visual violence was a factor behind the motivation of the killings, “you cannot out smart crazy.”
A major elderly population means major glaucoma issues, which spells Arizona unexpectedly becoming the 15th state to legalize pot for medical use. Via CNN:
Almost two weeks after polls closed, Arizona voters have approved a medical marijuana law, state officials said Monday.
The close vote — by a margin of 4,341 votes — will be certified by the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office on November 29, said spokesman Matthew Benson. A ballot count from Maricopa County over the weekend allowed state officials to provide the results, he said.
Arizona becomes the 15th state, along with the District of Columbia, to have passed a medical marijuana law since 1996, said a spokesman with the advocacy group Medical Marijuana Project. The Arizona law will allow patients with “debilitating medical conditions” to use cannabis if they have a recommendation from their physician.
Arizona’s Proposition 203, approved 841,346 to 837,005, will allow about 120 clinics to dispense marijuana to patients with prescriptions, project officials said.
Arizona state Sen. Russell Pierce. Photo: Phoenician Patriot (CC)
Maybe this is what Tea Baggers mean by “leaner, more efficient government”? Privatising the process altogether? Alex Pareene at Salon explores Arizona’s sell out of its citizens to the highest corporate bidder:
When it comes to creating demand for a previously unnecessary service and making a profit by any means necessary, you can’t beat the private sector. So no one should be surprised that the private prison industry is in part responsible for the Arizona immigration law that requires state law enforcement agencies to enforce federal immigration law (read: lock up anyone suspected of being Hispanic until and unless they can prove their citizenship). NPR investigated the prison industry’s role in drafting and passing SB 1070. It’s pretty depressing.
Corporations and interest groups like R.J. Reynolds, ExxonMobil, the NRA, and the Corrections Corporation of America host a regular conference for state legislators in DC.
