Freedom Fighter Radio

Source: Raw Story

The Navy can spray recruits in the eyes with pepper spray, even though it has been linked to death and is banned during warfare by international law, a federal judge ruled Friday.

The decision, revealed by the blog of Legal Times, is in response to a case brought by naval officers, who argued that the practice of “subjecting trainees to a direct shot of pepper spray was dangerous and deprived them of their constitutional rights to due process and equal protection. They said the Navy could rely on less intense training methods, such as smearing a small amount of the spray on the skin beneath the eyes, or forcing trainees to walk through a room that had previously been sprayed.”

But Judge Richard Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said he wasn’t in a position to overrule the Navy’s decision to continue the practice.

“The use of direct-impact [pepper] spray indisputably risks injury, but the agency decided that this risk was offset by the benefits of training,” Leon wrote. “Plaintiffs allegation that the action was ‘clearly not the product of reasoned thought,’ is little more than a legal conclusion and provides insufficient support for its claim that the agency decision was arbitrary and capricious.”

Pepper spray is made from oleoresin capsicum, an oily extract of pepper plants. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, there have been 27 deaths among people sprayed in California alone since 1993, although the deaths were not directly linked to the chemical. In particular, it can be fatal for individuals with asthma.

Pepper spray is banned for use in war by Article I.5 of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

The “spray may contain water, alcohols, or organic solvents as liquid carriers; and nitrogen, carbon dioxide, or halogenated hydrocarbons (such as Freon, tetrachloroethylene, and methylene chloride) as propellants to discharge the canister contents,” the North Carolina Medical journal wrote in a study. “Inhalation of high doses of some of these chemicals can produce adverse cardiac, respiratory, and neurologic effects, including arrhythmias and sudden death.”

According to Legal Times, the judge threw out the navy officers’ constitutional arguments as well, saying the practice of using pepper spray didn’t “shock the conscience,” even though it’s banned for use in warfare by the chemical weapons convention.

By:Lewis Page

Counter Terror Expo News of a possible viable business model for P2P VoIP network Skype emerged today, at the Counter Terror Expo in London. An industry source disclosed that America’s supersecret National Security Agency (NSA) is offering “billions” to any firm which can offer reliable eavesdropping on Skype IM and voice traffic.

The spybiz exec, who preferred to remain anonymous, confirmed that Skype continues to be a major problem for government listening agencies, spooks and police. This was already thought to be the case, following requests from German authorities for special intercept/bugging powers to help them deal with Skype-loving malefactors. Britain’s GCHQ has also stated that it has severe problems intercepting VoIP and internet communication in general.

Skype in particular is a serious problem for spooks and cops.

Being P2P, the network can’t be accessed by the company providing it and the authorities can’t gain access by that route. The company won’t disclose details of its encryption, either, and isn’t required to as it is Europe based.

This lack of openness prompts many security pros to rubbish Skype on “security through obscurity” grounds: but nonetheless it remains a popular choice with those who think they might find themselves under surveillance. Rumor suggests that America’s NSA may be able to break Skype encryption - assuming they have access to a given call or message - but nobody else.

The NSA may be able to do that: but it seems that if so, this uses up too much of the agency’s resources at present.

“They are saying to the industry, you get us into Skype and we will make you a very rich company,” said the industry source, adding that the obscure encryption used by the P2Pware is believed to change frequently as part of software updates.

The spyware kingpin suggested that Skype is deliberately seeking to frustrate national listening agencies, which seems an odd thing to do - Skype has difficulties enough getting revenues out of its vast user base at any time, and a paid secure-voice system for subversives doesn’t seem like a money-spinner.

But corporate parent eBay, having had to write down $1.4bn already following its $2.6bn purchase of Skype back in the bubble-2.0 days of 2005, might see an opportunity here. A billion or two from the NSA for a backdoor into Skype might make the acquisition seem like a sensible idea.

We asked the NSA for comment, particularly on the idea of simply buying a way into Skype, but hadn’t yet received a response as of publication.

WIKILEAKS EDITORIAL

On Thursday afternoon, Oscar Kamau Kingara, director of the Kenyan based Oscar legal aid Foundation, and its programme coordinator, John Paul Oulo, were shot dead at close range in their car less than a mile from President Kibaki’s residence. The two were on their way to a meeting at the Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights.

Both had been investigating extra-judicial assassinations by the Kenyan Police. Part of their work forms the basis of the “Cry of Blood” report Wikileaks released on November 1 last year and subsequent follow ups, including a UN indictment last month.

Since 2007 the Oscar foundation has documented 6,452 “enforced disappearances” by police and 1,721 extra-judicial killings.

The murders come just two weeks after United Nations Special Reporter on extra-judicial killings Professor Philip Alston called on on Kenya’s Attorney General and Police Commissioner to be sacked.

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