Archive for May 11th, 2009
An MP who was involved in last month’s G20 protests in London is to call for an investigation into whether the police used agents provocateurs to incite the crowds.
Liberal Democrat Tom Brake says he saw what he believed to be two plain-clothes police officers go through a police cordon after presenting their ID cards.
Brake, who along with hundreds of others was corralled behind police lines near Bank tube station in the City of London on the day of the protests, says he was informed by people in the crowd that the men had been seen to throw bottles at the police and had encouraged others to do the same shortly before they passed through the cordon.
Brake, a member of the influential home affairs select committee, will raise the allegations when he gives evidence before parliament’s joint committee on human rights on Tuesday.
“When I was in the middle of the crowd, two people came over to me and said, ‘There are people over there who we believe are policemen and who have been encouraging the crowd to throw things at the police,’” Brake said. But when the crowd became suspicious of the men and accused them of being police officers, the pair approached the police line and passed through after showing some form of identification.
Brake has produced a draft report of his experiences for the human rights committee, having received written statements from people in the crowd. These include Tony Amos, a photographer who was standing with protesters in the Royal Exchange between 5pm and 6pm. “He [one of the alleged officers] was egging protesters on. It was very noticeable,” Amos said. “Then suddenly a protester seemed to identify him as a policeman and turned on him. He legged it towards the police line, flashed some ID and they just let him through, no questions asked.”
Amos added: “He was pretty much inciting the crowd. He could not be called an observer. I don’t believe in conspiracy theories but this really struck me. Hopefully, a review of video evidence will clear this up.”
The Independent Police Complaints Commission has received 256 complaints relating to the G20 protests. Of these, 121 have been made about the use of force by police officers, while 75 relate to police tactics. The IPCC said it had no record of complaints involving the use of police agents provocateurs. A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: “We would never deploy officers in this way or condone such behaviour.”
The use of plain-clothes officers in crowd situations is considered a vital tactic for gathering evidence. It has been used effectively to combat football hooliganism in the UK and was employed during the May Day protests in 2001.
Brake said he intends to raise the allegations with the Met’s commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, when he next appears before the home affairs select committee. “There is a logic having plain-clothes officers in the crowd, but no logic if the officers are actively encouraging violence, which would be a source of great concern,” Brake said.
The MP said that given only a few people were allowed out of the corralled crowd for the five hours he was held inside it, there should be no problem in investigating the allegation by examining video footage.
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat and member of the so-called Blue Dog Coalition, plans to introduce an assault weapons ban this week. Gillibrand, the junior senator from New York, was at one time highly rated by the NRA for her advocacy of the Second Amendment.
Newsday claims Gillibrand has “undergone a transformation” over the last three months and has moved away from “her House record that won the NRA’s top rating while remaining a supporter of Second Amendment rights to gun ownership.” Since her Senate appointment, she has “passed just about every test on guns set by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy,” who reintroduced a bill closing the so-called gun-show loophole at a news conference last week.
It appears likely Ms. Gillibrand was a gun-grabber all along and used the Second Amendment as an election ploy. Polls indicate a large percentage of voters strongly support the Second Amendment.
McCarthy’s bill, H.R. 6676, would utilize the National Instant Criminal Background Check System for background checks on all gun store employees and dealers. In addition to H.R. 6676, three other bills have been offered including laws that would make it illegal for known or suspected terrorists to buy guns.
As reported by Infowars last week, the House is currently working on H.R. 2159, The Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act of 2009, sponsored by Rep. Peter King of New York. The bill would “increase public safety by permitting the Attorney General to deny the transfer of a firearm or the issuance of firearms or explosives licenses to a known or suspected dangerous terrorist.”
Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, told WorldNetDaily the bill will likely be used in junction with the DHS “Rightwing Extremism” report that characterizes advocates of the Second Amendment and others as terrorists. “By those standards, I’m one of [DHS Secretary] Janet Napolitano’s terrorists,” Pratt said. “This bill would enable the attorney general to put all of the people who voted against Obama on no-gun lists, because according to the DHS, they’re all potential terrorists.”
Senator Gillibrand is working closely with gun-grabbing organizations, including New Yorkers Against Gun Violence and the Brady Campaign, according to Matt Canter, Gillibrand’s spokesman. New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and others are working with Gillibrand on “anti-trafficking legislation to stop the flow of illegal guns,” Canter told Newsday.
The Obama administration recently attempted to link the right to own firearms to drug cartel violence in Mexico. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other administration officials have said 90 percent of the weapons used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States. In fact, only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S. Statistics reveal that most of the guns flowing into Mexico come from the black market, Russian crime organizations, South America, Asia, Guatemala, and the Mexican Army.
Soon after his shoo-in confirmation, Attorney General Eric Holder revived the assault weapons ban debate. Responding to a reporter’s question on weapons’ regulations,Holder said, “Well, as President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons. I think that will have a positive impact in Mexico, at a minimum.” Holder did not provide details on when legislation would be presented to Congress.
Democrats are reluctant to make additional attacks against the Second Amendment. In 1994, the issue was instrumental in handing over control of Congress to the Republicans. Earlier this year, the Democratic-led Senate dealt a body blow to the gun control movement, when 22 Senate Democrats, led by Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., joined 40 Republicans to shelve firearms restrictions in the nation’s capital.
Democrats fearful of backlash have told the Obama administration they would “actively oppose” any renewal of the assault weapons ban. Democrat senators Jon Tester and Max Baucus warned they would “strongly oppose any legislation that will infringe upon the rights of individual gun owners.”
Democrats, however, are biding their time. Veteran gun-grabber Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, author of the 1994 assault weapons ban, told CBS’ “60 Minutes” on April 12 that she has no intention of reintroducing the assault weapons ban at this time. “I’ll pick the time and the place, no question about it,” she said, that is to say when the opportunistic introduction of such legislation is politically expedient and will not damage her party.
Government propaganda and exploitation of recent high profile “gun violence” stories by the corporate media have not turned the public against the Second Amendment. “Recent polls show shrinking support for new gun control measures and strong public sentiment for enforcing existing laws instead. So strong is the shift in public opinion that a proposed assault-weapons ban — once backed by three in four Americans — now rates barely one in two,” reports the Houston Chronicle.
An April poll by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal found that support for curbing the sale of assault weapons and semiautomatic rifles has dropped from 75 percent in 1991 to 53 percent today.
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