Skip to content

Criminal Justice and Prisons

Support Craig Murray: Locking Hands

August 12, 2021 Rev. Stuart Campbell, Wings Over Scotland. , , ,
We had a phone call this morning from HMP Edinburgh, asking us to briefly relapse our retirement again to put out a request on behalf of Prisoner 157095 – better known to you and us as our friend Craig Murray, the only person on the planet to now or ever have been imprisoned for the undefined and extremely selectively prosecuted pseudo-crime of “jigsaw identification”. Craig is doing okay a week and a half into his eight-month sentence in Saughton and is being treated well by both staff and inmates, but was recently informed that he is not eligible for early release on an electronic tag (which might have seen him out by the end of next month) because he’s a civil prisoner rather than a criminal one.

The Nature Of Prosecutors

August 11, 2021 John Kiriakou, Consortium News. , , ,
For the past two weeks I’ve been ruminating about the prosecution of drone whistleblower Daniel Hale, who was sentenced on July 27 in the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria. He was given 45 months in prison. With good behavior and drug and alcohol counseling, it’ll end up being closer to 18 months. I was in the courtroom and witnessed the sentencing and the vindictive behavior of the prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg, who acted as though Hale’s case was a personal slight. Kromberg is also the prosecutor who has feverishly led the extradition case against Julian Assange. There is a myth about prosecutors fighting for justice. But people should know what prosecutors can really be like. They are government employees.  They get promoted when they win convictions.

Julian Assange And CIA Backed Assassination Plots

August 10, 2021 Lowkey and Stella Moris, A/Political. , , ,
In the interview Stella Moris speaks to Lowkey about huge new revelations about the case “The key witness is a diagnosed sociopath, a fraudster who was already convicted of embezzling Wikileaks for 50 or 60 thousand…The key allegations against Julian have been fabricated by him.. He admits he did that in exchange for total immunity. Under the protection of the US government he then continued his crime spree” Moris speaks about fearing for Assange’s mental and physical health “I am always concerned for Julian’s health… “What’s happening to Julian is monstrous. It’s the worst forces attacking the greatest virtues… “It’s the vision of us being reunited. Of him being able to be a father to our children and this injustice to end that helps us get through every day”

The Obsessive Pursuit Of Assange As UK Prepares Its Own Espionage Act

August 7, 2021 Alexander Mercouris, Consortium News. , , ,
The single-minded U.S. pursuit of Julian Assange as Britain proposes changes to its official secrets law shows the fierce determination of both governments to conceal their secrets. Recent developments in London point to a fresh attack on whistleblowing and media freedoms in the midst of strange and disturbing developments in the Julian Assange case. District Judge Vanessa Baraitser of the Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Jan. 4 refused the U.S. government’s request for Assange’s extradition to the United States, where he faces charges under the Espionage Act of 1917 and in connection with allegations of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.

Preliminary Assange Appeal Hearing Scheduled For August 11

August 7, 2021 Defend Wikileaks. , , ,
The United States government has been given limited permission to appeal the District Court’s decision to block the extradition of Julian Assange from the UK to the U.S. Britain’s High Court ruled that the U.S. government could appeal on some but not all of their requested points. Now a preliminary hearing has been scheduled for August 11th, at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, to argue the scope of that appeal, and whether the U.S. government will be allowed to appeal on its other two proposed lines of argument. Assange is expected to attend in person.

Collapsing Federal Corporate Crime Enforcement

August 3, 2021 Ralph Nader, Counter Punch. , ,
Despite constant exposés in the mainstream media – still only reporting the tip of the iceberg – neither members of Congress nor presidents from the Republican and Democratic parties have raised the banner of tough “law and order” to counter rampaging corporate crime. Proposals to bring the laws up to date in their penalties and coverage to deter corporate lawbreaking are never a priority for Congress. When was the last time you heard a politician demand “corporate reform”?

Craig Murray’s Jailing Is The National Security State’s Latest Assault On Independent Journalism

August 1, 2021 Jonathan Cook, The Grayzone. , , ,
Murray’s imprisonment for eight months by Lady Dorrian, Scotland’s second most senior judge, is of course based entirely on a keen reading of Scottish law rather than evidence of the Scottish and London political establishments seeking revenge on the former diplomat. And the UK supreme court’s refusal on Thursday to hear Murray’s appeal despite many glaring legal anomalies in the case, thereby paving his path to jail, is equally rooted in a strict application of the law, and not influenced in any way by political considerations.

The Case Against E-Carceration

August 1, 2021 James Kilgore, Emmett Sanders and Kate Weisburd, Inquest.
As COVID-19 spread through prisons and jails, getting people out of custody became a matter of life or death, heightening the need for eliminating cash bail, granting compassionate release, and embracing clemency nationwide. But in many places, decarceration does not mean freedom. Instead, people released from prisons and jails are increasingly ordered to wear ankle monitors and other surveillance devices that track, record, restrict, and control them. In San Francisco, a city that recently did away with bail altogether, the use of electronic monitoring went up 300 percent and New York is seeing a similar trend.

Biden Needs To Grant Clemency To People On Home Confinement

July 31, 2021 Scott Roberts, The Root. , , ,
President Biden campaigned on the promise to cut the prison population by half and end racialized mass incarceration. However, if he doesn’t grant clemency for those on home confinement, he’ll be responsible for the fastest expansion of the federal prison population in history. Decades of failed legislation has led to the disproportionate and overwhelming incarceration of Black people, oftentimes on first offenses due to strict mandatory minimums and overly harsh sentencing guidelines.

Craig Murray Will Surrender Himself For Prison

July 30, 2021 Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter. , , ,
In the case against former United Kingdom diplomat-turned whistleblower Craig Murray, the UK supreme court refused to hear Murray’s appeal. He will now surrender himself to police for an eight-month prison sentence. The High Court in Edinburgh in Scotland convicted Murray of contempt on March 25 after concluding that he published several blog posts, which they believe led people to identify witnesses in the sexual assault trial against former Scottish Minister Alex Salmond.

The Price Of Conscience

July 30, 2021 Chris Hedges, Scheer Post. , ,
The Justice Department coerced Hale, who was deployed to Afghanistan in 2012, on March 31 to plead guilty to one count of violating the Espionage Act, a law passed in 1917 designed to prosecute those who passed on state secrets to a hostile power, not those who expose to the public government lies and crimes. Hale admitted as part of the plea deal to “retention and transmission of national security information” and leaking 11 classified documents to a journalist. If he had refused the plea deal, he could have spent 50 years in prison.

The System’s Revenge

July 30, 2021 Craig Murray Justice, Wings Over Scotland. , , ,
Legal precedent will be set tomorrow as Craig Murray will be the first person to be imprisoned on the charge of jigsaw identification in the UK, and indeed in the entire world. Scotland’s second most senior judge, Lady Dorrian, sentenced Murray to 8 months of incarceration following a contempt of court charge for ‘jigsaw identification’ relating to the trial against Alex Salmond.

Wealthy Americans Targeted By US In Panama Tax-Fraud Probe

July 30, 2021 David Voreacos And Neil Weinberg, Boston Globe. , , ,
The Internal Revenue Service can now get information about electronic fund transfers and courier deliveries between the firm, Panama Offshore Legal Services, and its US clients, the Justice Department said in a statement Thursday. The IRS seeks to identify clients who used the law firm to “create or control foreign assets and entities” to evade taxes, the department said.

Donziger Slams Criminal Contempt Ruling

July 30, 2021 Jake Johnson, Common Dreams. , , ,
Human rights lawyer Steven Donziger said Monday that he is a victim of an "obvious travesty of justice" and vowed to appeal after a judge found him guilty on six counts of criminal contempt of court. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska marks the latest development in a case that stems from Donziger's role in securing a historic, multibillion-dollar settlement against Chevron over the oil giant's devastating pollution of the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Daniel Hale Receives 45-Month Sentence

July 28, 2021 Kevin Gosztola, Shadow Proof. , , ,
Drone whistleblower Daniel Hale was sentenced to 45 months in federal prison. It was a severe sentence but not the harshest sentence ever issued in an Espionage Act prosecution against a former United States government employee or contractor for the “unauthorized disclosure” of information. The sentence was not what U.S. prosecutors demanded. They wanted Hale to go to prison for nine years, but it is likely Judge Liam O’Grady issued a lower sentence after considering his mental health problems. This case is the first major Espionage Act conviction under President Joe Biden. Hale was a signals intelligence analyst in the U.S. Air Force, who was deployed to Afghanistan and stationed at Bagram Air Base.
«12345678910»
assetto corsa mods

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Donate Here

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Donate Here
Sign Up To Our Daily Digest

Independent media outlets are being suppressed and dropped by corporations like Google, Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our daily email digest before it’s too late so you don’t miss the latest movement news.