More Than Guantanamo: Stop All Torture

Worth a look:

The torture of prisoners in US custody is not only found in military prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo. If President Obama is serious about ending US support for torture, he can start here in Louisiana.

The Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola is already notorious for a range of offenses, including keeping former Black Panthers Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox, in solitary for over 36 years. Now a death penalty trial in St. Francisville, Louisiana has exposed widespread and systemic abuse at the prison. Even in the context of eight years of the Bush administration, the behavior documented at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola stands out both for its brutality and for the significant evidence that it was condoned and encouraged from the very top of the chain of command.

In a remarkable hearing that explored torture practices at Angola, twenty-five inmates testified last summer to facing overwhelming violence in the aftermath of an escape attempt at the prison nearly a decade ago. These twenty-five inmates — who were not involved in the escape attempt — testified to being kicked, punched, beaten with batons and with fists, stepped on, left naked in a freezing cell, and threatened that they would be killed. They were threatened by guards that they would be sexually assaulted with batons. They were forced to urinate and defecate on themselves. They were bloodied, had teeth knocked out, were beaten until they lost control of bodily functions, and beaten until they signed statements or confessions presented to them by prison officials. One inmate had a broken jaw, and another was placed in solitary confinement for eight years.

Also see: http://bristolabc.wordpress.com/
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An Unmasking that May Kill the C2i

If you have not heard, the campaign group Plane Stupid recently caught a spy from corporate 'intelligence' group C2i in their midst;

Since late summer 2007, an employee of a corporate espionage agency has been trying to infiltrate Plane Stupid. Toby Kendall, who works for C2i International, a "special risk management" firm, thought he was undercover in our London group, gathering information on what we're up to. Instead we've been feeding the 'revenge movie' obsessed mole false information, which he's been reporting to the aviation industry for months.

Kendall, described as 'more Austin Powers than 007' bragged about his job on various social network sites (as well as a misogynistic streak coming from his bebo profile, 'Scared of: Having an uglier wife than Brooke's' he swaggers. Well ladies... whatcha wating for? He's a catch!)

So if you see this guy;



At any meeting or action - watch out!

Now if you go to his employers website - C2i, they have a news section where they point to recent media articles with them in - as of the date of writing the most recent entry was 12th November 2005. Indeed the site looks barren of activity. So they must have not been in the news? A quick google news search reveals plenty of mention of the company - but all out the outing of their super-spy.

Where this gets interesting is what future does C2i have? In a parallel case, the corporate spy group who went after peer-to-peer users, Media Defender, itself got hacked and thousands of emails and other files spilled out onto the internet, revealing lots of company secrets and operational methods. If you build the reputation of a company in understanding technology and you get popped by a better user of technology, that costs. It cost Media Defender over $825,000 and ended up bankrupting the company. How many clients have bailed on C2i (assuming it had more than one) since this story broke?

However the downside it that corporate infiltration won't stop, it will just get better - so we have to get more creative as a counter.