• U.K. citizens to be spied on by foreign police

    The U.K. Home Office today signed up to the European Investigation Order (EIO) which, when it is approved by the European Parliament, would allow any police force in Europe to spy on and pursue Britons even for the minor offenses; the power allows prosecutors from any EU country to demand details such as DNA or even bank and phone records on anyone they suspect of a crime as minor as leaving a restaurant without paying the bill

  • Law enforcement agencies using new recording technology for interviews

    A $28,000 iRecord recording system allows a police supervisor or other case agents to see an interview remotely from another room; during breaks, they can suggest questions that the interviewing officer might not have asked; uniformed patrol officers also can watch the interviews, making it a training tool

  • GAO: U.S. aid to Mexico's anti-drug efforts needs better oversight

    Under the Obama administration, the focus of the Merida Initiative is shifting away from high-priced helicopters and airplanes and toward reforming Mexico’s corrupt law enforcement, courts and other government institutions

  • Federal money to bolster crime-fighting capabilities of Arizona border counties

    Governor Jan Brewer allocates up to $10 million in federal stimulus money to help law enforcement pay for costs associated with illegal immigration, including drug trafficking and human smuggling; funds will buy satellite phones, SUVs, night-vision scopes, thermal imagers and weapons

  • Cybersecurity solution detects cyber attacks as they happen

    A winning entry in a cyber security competition gives analysts a way to look at computer network traffic and determine how a system was penetrated; it also supplies critical data that can be used to reduce system vulnerabilities and limit future attacks

  • Doha steps up security by installing CCTVs in malls

    Police says the number of offenses dropped from 4,677 in the first quarter of last year to 3,397 in the first three months of this year

  • Suriname president-elect says his trial for a 1982 massacre will go on

    Desi Bouterse, former dictator of Suriname who twice led military coups and who has been convicted in the Netherlands of drug trafficking, was elected president of the South American country earlier this week; he has been the main defendant in an on again, off again trial which began in November 2007; the defendants are charged for perpetrating a December 1982 massacre of politicians, journalists, and other critics of his military regime; iIf he is found guilty during his five-year term, Bouterse has the option of granting himself amnesty

  • Brazil considers bulletproofing schools to protect students in "at-risk areas"

    Teachers call for more protection in drug-gang areas after stray bullet hits an 11-year old student in the heart during math lesson; city authorities are currently studying plans to introduce reinforced walls and bulletproof windows in order to protect an estimated 100,000 students and 5,000 teachers who study and work in “at-risk areas”

  • Armed escorts to accompany New Mexico livestock inspectors

    Beginning on 26 July, armed deputies will accompany inspectors to the scales in a corridor that stretches southwest from Interstate 10 at Las Cruces to the New Mexico-Arizona border, along Luna, Hidalgo, and Grant counties; the sense of insecurity among ranchers along the border has increased since the highly-publicized 27 March murder of Arizona rancher Robert Krentz

  • FBI, ATF aid in inquiry of Mexico's first IED attack

    Car bombs have been used by terrorists and guerrilla groups in the Middle East, Ireland, Spain, and Colombia — but, until last Thursday, not in Mexico; the Juárez bombing involved an elaborate scheme — the perpetrators dressed a man in a police uniform and laid him on the ground to lure others to the body; the explosion occurred right after a paramedic and a federal agent approached the body; the bombing was part of a brutal war drug cartels have been waging to control the Chihuahua state drug smuggling corridor that has claimed more than 1,500 lives so far this year

  • Soaring immigrant deaths in Arizona desert in July

    The number of deaths among illegal immigrants crossing the Arizona desert from Mexico is soaring so high this month that the medical examiner’s office that handles the bodies is using a refrigerated truck to store some of them, the chief examiner said Friday

  • U.S. federal prosecutions of immigrants hits all-time high

    U.S. federal prosecutions of immigrants soared to new levels this spring; the 4,145 cases referred to federal prosecutors in March and April was the largest number for any two-month stretch in the last five years; the number of illegal immigrants in the United States has fallen — as of January 2009, an estimated 10.8 million people were in the country illegally, one million less than the 2007 — but deportations have been increasing, climbing from 185,944 in 2007 to 387,790 last year

  • Second drug submersible seized

    Colombia’s drug cartels frequently use semi-submersible vessels to smuggle large amounts of cocaine past American and Colombian patrol boats to Central America en route to the United States; law enforcement discovers and seizes second submersible in as many weeks: the first was seized in Ecuador, the second in Guatemala

  • Recent stun-gun use by police in U.S., U.K. raise questions anew about the device's safety

    Three cases of taser gun use by law enforcement last week bring the issue of taser back to the fore; human rights organizations have raised concerns about the safety of Tasers and consider them to be potentially lethal as well as open to abuse

  • U.K. government scraps stop-and-search anti-terror police power

    The U.K. Home Office announced it would limit Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 which allowed the police to stop and search anyone for no reason; from now on, members of public can only be stopped if officers “reasonably suspect” they are terrorists; the policy change comes after the January ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that Section 44 violated the right to respect for private life