Bollox America

Amnesty International has said that industry claims that Taser stun guns are safe and non-lethal do not stand up to scrutiny.

The organization called on governments to limit their deployment to life-threatening situations or to suspend their use.

The call came as the organization released one of the most detailed reports to date on the safety of the stun gun. The report USA: Less than lethal? is being published as the number of people who died after being struck by Tasers in the USA reached 334 between 2001 and August 2008.

Tasers are not the 'non-lethal' weapons they are portrayed to be, said Angela Wright, US researcher at Amnesty International and author of the report. They can kill and should only be used as a last resort. The problem with Tasers is that they are inherently open to abuse, as they are easy to carry and easy to use and can inflict severe pain at the push of a button, without leaving substantial marks.

Amnesty International's study – which includes information from 98 autopsies – found that 90% of those who died after being struck with a Taser were unarmed and many did not appear to present a serious threat.

Many were subjected to repeated or prolonged shocks – far more than the five-second "standard" cycle – or by more than one officer at a time. Some people were even shocked for failing to comply with police commands after they had been incapacitated by a first shock.

In at least six of the cases where people died, Tasers were used on individuals suffering from medical conditions such as seizures – including a doctor who had crashed his car when he suffered an epileptic seizure. He died after being repeatedly shocked at the side of the highway when, dazed and confused, he failed to comply with an officer's commands.

Police officers also used Tasers on schoolchildren, pregnant women and even an elderly person with dementia.

TV Interviewer : Why do you risk holidaying in Thailand at a time of unrest? Tourist : It's safer than going to America!

A Briton who has lived and worked legally in America for 35 years, married a US citizen and raised three children there, has been locked up in a New Jersey jail after falling victim to a draconian immigration crackdown.

Paul Clements, 58, a permanent US resident and former tour manager for bands such as the Rolling Stones and Dire Straits, is threatened with expulsion from his adopted homeland after his passport and green card were confiscated following a work trip abroad.

He now spends his days in a khaki prison jumpsuit as his case works its way through the US legal system and his wife and teenage daughter were reduced to tears when they saw him chained and in handcuffs in a recent court appearance.

The turmoil in their lives has its roots in a night out with friends at a local pub in 2002. On the way home, Clements, a manager at a large events production company, was arrested on suspicion of drink driving and police found a third of a joint of marijuana in his car.

He was fined, put on a year's probation and ordered to attend drug information classes as punishment for possession of 0.8 grams of marijuana, an amount so small that the authorities would not prosecute in many American cities, including neighbouring New York.

The offence did not leave him subject to the threat of deportation and he thought no more of the incident, even as he flew in and out of the country on subsequent trips overseas. But in late-May, he was held for several hours at New York's Kennedy airport as he arrived home from a work trip to Italy.

For the Department of Homeland Security has been updating its computer records to include thousands of offences committed by foreign residents (known as "aliens" in official US parlance).

And although Clements could not be deported for his offence, any conviction for controlled substance is cause for immigration authorities to refuse an arriving alien entry to the US.

He was eventually allowed into the country but ordered to return to the airport for what is known as a deferred inspection. On the second such trip, on Nov 12, he was arrested, handcuffed and taken away to an immigration jail in New Jersey.

Worse was to come on Nov 24 when Mr Clements appeared in an immigration court for a bail hearing arranged by his lawyer. The room was packed with his friends, family and colleagues who hoped he would be freed pending the immigration hearing, but the judge ruled that he was subject to mandatory detention until his case is heard – in March at the earliest.

His attorney, Michael DiRaimondo, is now attempting to arrange a deal with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials for him to receive parole so that he can spend Christmas with his family.

A man who has recently suffered torture in the Homeland of America now talks about it.

Just picture what would happen if the authorities developed a forensic instrument capable of detecting illicit fantasies in the mind, rather than on the computer hard drive (does anyone, really have nothing they would prefer to sexually hide?).

Pretty well everyone would end up on the Sex Offender's Register, and, if current sentencing policies were pursued, large areas of land would have to be surrendered for a massive new building development: Her Majesty's Prisons.

It immediately occurred to me that just such an instrument capable of detecting illicit fantasies in the mind has indeed already been invented: it is the so-called, much discussed penile plethysmograph, a device with which I am intimately familiar, having myself been one of the unfortunate victims of its use . At the very least, let me say that, if the penile plethysmograph is not such an instrument, it is remarkably close - damn close, I would say.

To rehearse my own personal experience, an elastic band is handed to one, whilst seated in a small, darkened private room, with orders to slip it around the shaft of one's male member. Electrical wires have previously been attached to the elastic band now around one's manhood, and these wires are in fact connected to a device (in a separate room) which records the rate at which the elastic band expands, and the diameter of the expansion, as one's manhood expands during subsequent tumescent erections.

To induce the erections, the male subject is shown a series of slides, and simultaneously hears a recorded running commentary to the slides. These slides consist of mild adult pornography, interspersed with suggestive photos of children of all ages and both genders. Occasional non-human photos are also occasionally shown (undoubtedly as controls). These photos might consist of nature photos, such as leaves or trees, or sunny meadows.

But the thing that really gets the subject's blood pumping (literally) is not so much the suggestive photos (though that undoubtedly helps), but rather, the highly suggestive and erotic descriptive monologue of various sexual acts which accompanies the photos. This, it can definitely be said, is highly pornographic, and involves verbal descriptions of all kinds of possible human sexual interactions: adult with adult, male with female, adult with minor, male with male, and female with female.

The penile plethysmograph, if used on every male alive in our Western democracies, would very soon fill up and overflow every prison now existing, and indeed, it could be said that because hidden sexual fantasies probably exist in all human beings, surely there could not be enough prisons then built to house all the males who would be found guilty of harbouring hidden and illicit sexual fantasies, once those fantasies were revealed to the light of day by this instrument.

What prevents this from happening? Why, only selective use of this instrument, of course, by those in a position of power; the use of this instrument as an effective instrument of repression against sociosexual minorities they wish to persecute and imprison. And a most effective instrument of persecution and repression it is. You may take it from my own firsthand experience.

Malcolm Nance, who trained hundreds of US servicemen and women to resist interrogation by putting them through "waterboarding" exercises, demanded an immediate end to the practice by all US personnel.

He said: They seem to think it is worth throwing the honour of 220 years of American decency in war out of the window. Waterboarding is out-and-out torture, and I'm deeply ashamed President Bush has authorised its use and dragged the US's reputation into the mud.

Nance said: The head is strapped down in such a way so they cannot resist the water. The head is elevated so the water goes down the oesoph agus. The water is poured very carefully over the nose – you keep a constant pour. You are drowning in water but you don't have the ability to hold your breath. You feel the water going in, you understand that water is filling your lungs.

Nance, who is now an independent consultant, said the technique was also futile, as well as barbaric, as the prisoner would say anything to survive – regardless of its truth.

Amnesty International is leading the campaign to persuade the US to abandon the practice – a form of torture used as long ago as the Spanish Inquisition – and is stepping up its efforts with the release of a graphic and disturbing cinema advertisement.

The broadcast begins with images of glistening clear liquid, suggesting it could be promoting a new brand of vodka or gin. But the camera pulls back to show water is being poured over the face of a desperate man strapped to a table.

Kate Allen, the UK director of Amnesty International, said: Our film shows you what the CIA doesn't want you to see – the disgusting reality of half-drowning a person. For a few seconds, our film-makers did it for real. Even for those few seconds, it's horrifying to watch. The reality – in a secret prison with no one to stop it – is much, much worse.

A number of US states are considering legislation to lower the legal drinking age from the current standard of 21 - if only to allow troops coming home from Iraq to drink.

The move would defy a generation of federal law and public opinion, which is strongly opposed to lowering the drinking age. In 1984 Congress set a uniform legal age of 21, threatening to cut highway funding to states which did not comply.

Despite the risk of penalties, however, seven US states are exploring lowering the drinking age - partly for under-age Iraq war vets and more broadly in recognition that teenagers are going to drink anyway.

If you can take a shot on the battlefield you ought to be able to take a shot of beer legally, said Fletcher Smith, who has sponsored legislation to lower the drinking age in South Carolina.

Kentucky, Wisconsin, and South Carolina have introduced legislation to lower the drinking age for troops to 18.

Four other states - Missouri, South Dakota, Minnesota, and most recently Vermont - would extend the privilege to the general population. However, South Dakota would only allow 18-20 year olds to buy low-alcohol beer. Advocates of a lower drinking age argue that teenagers are drinking, and that the secrecy encourages binge drinking among young people.

Our laws aren't working. They're not preventing underage drinking. What they're doing is putting it outside the public eye, Hinda Miller, a Vermont state senator, told reporters yesterday, after a committee took up her bill to study lowering the drinking age: So you have a lot of kids binge drinking. They get sick, they get scared and they get into trouble and they can't call because they know it's illegal.

While the move would be popular with college students and other young people obliged to pay for fake ID if they want a night on the town, there is concerted opposition to lowering America's drinking age. Mothers Against Drunk Driving and other nutter groups say raising the drinking age a generation ago has cut traffic related deaths among young people by 13%.

States that do lower their drinking age would also pay a heavy penalty under current legislation that would require them to forfeit 10% of their highway fund from the federal government.

A Texas woman who claims she was forced to remove a nipple ring with pliers in order to board an airplane has called for an apology by federal security agents and a civil rights investigation.

Mandi Hamlin said at a news conference in Los Angeles. My experience with TSA was a nightmare I had to endure. No one deserves to be treated this way.

Hamlin said she was trying to board a flight from Lubbock to Dallas on when she was scanned by a Transportation Security Administration agent after passing through a larger metal detector without problems.

The female TSA agent used a handheld detector that beeped when it passed in front of Hamlin's chest, the Dallas-area resident said.

Hamlin said she told the woman that she was wearing nipple piercings. The female agent then called over her male colleagues, one of whom said she would have to remove the body piercings, Hamlin claimed.

Hamlin said she could not remove them and asked if she could instead display her pierced breasts in private to the female agent. But several other male officers told her she could not board her flight until the jewelry was removed, she said.

She was taken behind a curtain and managed to remove one bar-shaped nipple piercing but had trouble with the second, a ring.

Still crying, she informed the TSA officer that she could not remove it without the help of pliers, and the officer gave a pair to her, said Hamlin's attorney, Gloria Allred.

She said she heard male TSA agents snickering as she took out the ring. She was scanned again and was allowed to board even though she still was wearing a belly button ring.

TSA officials said they were investigating Hamlin's allegations to see if its policies were followed. If an alarm does sound, until that is resolved, we're not going to let them go through the checkpoint, no matter what they're wearing or where they're wearing it, said TSA spokesman Dwayne Baird in Salt Lake City.

It is clear that people traveling into and out of the US have a lower expectation of privacy at the border. Perhaps more accurately, a governmental search at the border is more likely to be considered "reasonable."

The agents get to do things they can't do if, for example, they simply stop you on the street. They can question you, they can rifle through your unmentionables, and even examine documents you are bringing with you. The agents can even disassemble your gas tank, looking for hidden compartments that you could be using to smuggle things. In the Arnold case, the government argued that its search authority at the border is "plenary" or unrestricted, except that to do an invasive body cavity search, it would have to have some kind of suspicion.

But searches of things? Well, they can do whatever they want it would seem.

The customs agents' job is to protect the nation from "anything harmful," to gather intelligence, prevent terrorism, and to enforce all of the laws, including child pornography and copyright laws. The computer is no different from any other "closed container" that the agent may search. Just as the agent needs no probable cause to search your underwear, they need no probable cause to rummage through your laptop. And besides, they are doing it to protect the country and enforce the laws and prevent terrorist attacks. You don't have any privacy rights at the border anyway, so what's the problem?

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Controversial British author Sebastian Horsley was denied entrance into the United States as he arrived to promote his memoir of drug addiction, sex and his dysfunctional family, his publisher has said.

Seale Ballenger, spokesman for HarperCollins Publishers, said Horsley was stopped by immigration officials at New York's Newark airport after flying in from London to promote his latest book Dandy in the Underworld.

He said the flamboyant writer was accused of "moral turpitude" in connection with his former drug use, pro-prostitution stance, and controversial self-crucifixion in the Philippines in 2000.

Horsley claims to have slept with more than 1,000 prostitutes, worked as a male escort, and been in and out of rehab to treat drug addiction, with video interviews of him talking about his drug use and sex life posted on the Internet.

Ballenger said after several hours of questioning by immigration officials, Horsley was put on a plane and returned to London.

The New York Times quoted a customs spokeswoman, Lucille Cirillo, saying she could not comment on individual cases. But in an e-mail to the newspaper she explained that under a waiver program that allows British citizens to enter the United States without a visa, travellers who have been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude (which includes controlled-substance violations) or admit to previously having a drug addiction are not admissible.

Publisher Carrie Kania, from the HarperCollins' unit Harper Perennial that published the book in the United States, said she found it hard to understand why Horsley would be denied entrance into the U.S. for "his notoriety."

Horsley's memoir was published last September in Britain with reviewers calling it both amusing and revolting.

The US army has banned the publication of four cartoons drawn by Sami al-Hajj, the Al Jazeera cameraman held in the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, according to his lawyer.

The pieces, called Sketches of My Nightmare , include a drawing depicting al-Hajj, who has been on hunger strike for eight months, as a skeleton being force fed by US guards.

The drawings were submitted to the military censor but they would not permit their release.

However, detailed descriptions of the sketches were allowed through the censorship process and Lewis Peake, a political cartoonist, was able to recreate one entitled Scream for Freedom.

Al Hajj described the way he sees himself being force fed in the so-called "Torture Chair" - the restraint chair into which they are strapped twice a day to have a 110cm tube forcibly inserted into one nostril so that liquid food can be administered.

My picture reflects my nightmares of what I must look like, with my head double-strapped down, a tube in my nose, a black mask over my mouth, with no eyes and only giant cheekbones, my teeth jutting out – my bones showing in every detail, every rib, every joint. The tube goes up to a bag at the top of the drawing. On the right there is another skeleton sitting shackled to another chair. They are sitting like we do in interrogations, with hands shackled, feet shackled to the floor, just waiting. In between I draw the flag of Guantanamo – JTF-GTMO – but instead of the normal insignia, there is a skull and crossbones, the real symbol of what is happening here, he said.

Al-Hajj was seized by the US military while he was covering the war in Afghanistan for Al Jazeera's Arabic channel and has been held as an "enemy combatant" without trial or charge since 2001.

Beginning in 1999, the US government has entered into a series of single-bid contracts with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to build detention camps at undisclosed locations within the United States. The government has also contracted with several companies to build thousands of railcars, some reportedly equipped with shackles, ostensibly to transport detainees.

According to diplomat and author Peter Dale Scott, the KBR contract is part of a Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the removal of “all removable aliens” and “potential terrorists.”

Fraud-busters such as Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, have complained about these contracts, saying that more taxpayer dollars should not go to taxpayer-gouging Halliburton. But the real question is: What kind of “new programs” require the construction and refurbishment of detention facilities in nearly every state of the union with the capacity to house perhaps millions of people?

What could the government be contemplating that leads it to make contingency plans to detain without recourse millions of its own citizens?

Maria Udy, a marketing executive with a global travel management firm in Bethesda, said her company laptop was seized by a federal agent as she was flying from Dulles International Airport to London in December 2006. Udy, a British citizen, said the agent told her he had "a security concern" with her. I was basically given the option of handing over my laptop or not getting on that flight, she said.

The seizure of electronics at U.S. borders has prompted protests from travelers who say they now weigh the risk of traveling with sensitive or personal information on their laptops, cameras or cellphones. In some cases, companies have altered their policies to require employees to safeguard corporate secrets by clearing laptop hard drives before international travel.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Asian Law Caucus, two civil liberties groups in San Francisco, plan to file a lawsuit to force the government to disclose its policies on border searches, including which rules govern the seizing and copying of the contents of electronic devices. They also want to know the boundaries for asking travelers about their political views, religious practices and other activities potentially protected by the First Amendment. The question of whether border agents have a right to search electronic devices at all without suspicion of a crime is already under review in the federal courts.

The lawsuit was inspired by two dozen cases, 15 of which involved searches of cellphones, laptops, MP3 players and other electronics. Almost all involved travelers of Muslim, Middle Eastern or South Asian background, many of whom, including Mango and the tech engineer, said they are concerned they were singled out because of racial or religious profiling.

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Many US companies are using the Internet to snoop on their employees. If you fail to maintain amorphous “professional” standards of conduct in your free time, you could lose your job.

Employment law in most states provides little protection to workers who are punished for their online postings, said George Lenard, an employment lawyer. The main exceptions are workers who are covered by collective bargaining agreements or by special protections for public-sector employees; members of these groups can be dismissed only “for cause.” The rest of us are “at will” employees, holding on to our jobs only at the whim of our employers, and thus vulnerable.

A line needs to be drawn that demarcates the boundary between work and private life. When a worker is on the job, companies have every right to supervise activities closely. But what an employee does after hours, as long as no laws are broken, is none of the company’s business. When they do go off the clock and off the corporate network, how they spend their private time should be of no concern to their employer, even if the Internet, by its nature, makes some off-the-job activities more visible to more people than was previously possible.