COPS TRADE DRUG PROSECUTION FOR CAR
The Milwaukee Police Department is accused of taking possession of a Mercedes-Benz convertible from a drug-addicted local businessman in return for agreeing not to prosecute him for cocaine possession. The businessman, Jordan M. Beck, was president of Mill Valley Recycling, a scrap metal business. Beck died at 42 from a drug overdose five months after his June 2005 arrest. Beck's family is trying to get the car back, arguing that he was pressured into making the deal and that he might be alive today if police had treated him as an ordinary drug offender.
(MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL, unearthed by Joel Sogol)

IRAQ WAR BENCHMARK
If U.S. involvement continues on the current scale, the funding for the Iraq war — combined with the conflict in Afghanistan and other foreign fronts in the war on terrorism — is projected to surpass this country's Vietnam spending next year.
(LOS ANGELES TIMES, unearthed by Common Dreams)

SMILE, YOU'RE ON CANDID CAMERA
Well, I get this video from a friend this morning. It is a cop describing this handy-dandy Orwellian gizmo the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have. Since the video looked legit or was, at the very least, a very slick hoax I set out to debunk/authenticate it and came across a whole body of knowledge centered around car thefts.
It seems that British Columbia is using a new technology called Automatic Licence Plate Recognition (ALPR), to target both traffic violators and stolen vehicles.

HERE'S THE VIDEO FOR THAT.

As you can see from the website address, it's tied to something called baitcars. Hmmmm. Well, go to their MAIN SITE for an explanation of all manner of things. For example: a "baitcar" is, as the name implies, a car put out by the police who hope that you take it off and they can study your nasty little behavior, find your hidy hole, etc.; a "lo-jack" is an aftermarket vehicle tracking system that allows vehicles to be tracked by police after being stolen; and a "honey trap" is a form of sting operation, in which "wrong doers are lured into revealing themselves to a policing organization. This would include a bait car, where a sting operation targets a known or suspected individual and attempts to trap them committing a specific case of crime, a honey trap establishes a general lure to attract unknown criminals."

CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO FOR EXAMPLES OF PERSONS CAUGHT IN THE ACT
(Suggested by DREW WALCH)

RAUL CASTRO IN CONTROL,SENATE TOLD
The Miami Herald, no great friend of the Castros, reports that the sibling has things in that island nation firmly in hand when the inevitable happens, this according to a top U.S. military spook.
(MIAMI HERALD, unearthed by Cuban Weekly News Digest)

MILITARY SPYING ON CIVILIANS
The Pentagon has been using a little-known power to obtain banking and credit records of hundreds of Americans and others suspected of terrorism or espionage inside the United States, part of an aggressive expansion by the military into domestic intelligence gathering.
(NEW YORK TIMES)