The Alternative World Drug report

the negative impact of  a law-enforcement based strategy

2013 UNODC World Drug Report

Report can be downloaded.

With the Met, if you are innocent you have everything to worry about

Michael Mansfield, famous human rights lawyer, demonstrates that the innocent have plenty to worry about, especially if they get caught up in a police investigation that has been incompetently handled and they are trying to cover up.

16 people arrested over alleged £1m scam targeting pensioners

Is there nothing that organised crime won't do?

US spreads blowback nightmare

the article is a documenting of the spread of terrorism in Africa in recent years. The point to note is that as it has spread, so too has drug-trafficking and probably many other forms of organised crime not as yet noticed. The military is brilliant at opening the door to illicit business....discuss

Five myths about the National Security Agency

James Bamford nails 5 myths the NSA would like you to believe about the legal framework in which it operates when exercising surveillance over the world.

The other hacking scandal: Suppressed report reveals that law firms, telecoms giants and insurance companies routinely hire criminals to steal rivals' information

The words chosen in the headline are the independent's. If the state snooping doesnt worry you, and you can brush off the idea that journalists are poking around in your life, then how do you feel about insurance companies, law firms and even possibly celebrities snooping around you. "You have nothing to fear if you're innocent."...You certainly do if someone's out to get you!

Revealed: the top secret rules that allow NSA to use US data without a warrant

The legal basis for NSA data surveillance.There will be some law text books that will need rewriting on the evidence of these documents. Do they apply to "organised crime" as well??

West Africa piracy overtakes Somali ship attacks

There are links to other articles from this one, trying to explain a fall in the number of piracy incidents connected to Somalia

Liverpool-to-Plymouth £1m heroin and cocaine gang sentenced

Meanwhile, down in the South-West, Liverpudlians go on holiday...

Matrix boss warns no criminal is “untouchable” after drugs sentencing

I think I posted the newspaper coverage at the time of the verdict. This is the sentence, and includes some allegations about connections between the heroin importers and the "Croxteth Crew", a Liverpool street gang.

Why are so many of the UK's missing teenagers Vietnamese?

Issues in here that I can remember being raised at European conferences back around 2000. Why is the wheel constantly being re-invented?

Al-Qa’ida publishes guide for aspiring jihadists

Online guidebook for lone wolves and microcells.

Fitzgibbons jailed over £7m heroin drug deal (video and audio)

Another Liverpool family jailed for drug dealing. Lots of links in this Liverpool Echo story.

Chinese 'Comment Crew' hackers emptied QinetiQ of top-secret military data

Shutting stable door...Horse gone...Why do you have to spy on all of us when you arent even very good at spying on the spies?...All phrases that spring to mind. But lots of links from this article to other sources. If the Chinese can do this, what are the US doing to them??

6th International Conference on Surveillance and Society, Barcelona april 2014

CALL FOR REGISTRATION OF INTEREST AND ABSTRACTS

Contemporary surveillance is characterised by ambiguities and asymmetries. Surveillance results from different desires and rationales: control, governance, security, profit, efficiency but also care, empowerment, resistance, and play. Furthermore it can have both positive and negative outcomes for individuals and these may lead to  intended or unintended consequences. Surveillance is never neutral.  Surveillance is always about power and that power is increasingly asymmetric. Surveillance practices are also changing and as 'smart' surveillance systems proliferate utilising and generating 'Big Data' new forms of ambiguity and asymmetry arise. In this context the conference wishes to explore the following key themes:

KEY THEMES INCLUDE

Smart surveillance
Democracy and surveillance
Resilience and surveillance
Cultures and histories of surveillance
Representations of Surveillance in Film/Art/Literature/Media
Surveillance and empowerment
Surveillance and human rights
Surveillance in knowledge economies
Regulating surveillance
Surveillance, privacy and data-protection
Participatory surveillance and police surveillance of online social networks
Surveillance, games and play
Theories of surveillance
Ethics of surveillance
Gender and surveillance
Algorithmic surveillance
Politics and governance of surveillance
Surveillance and big data
STS approaches to surveillance
Surveillance and sports
Resistance to surveillance
Non-technological surveillance
Surveillance and mobility

Call for expressions of interest for Special issue

Current Issues in Criminal Justice Call for expressions of interest for Special Issue

Expressions of interest for 2014 are now open.

Expressions of interest should include:
* Title of the Special Issue
* Name(s)/titles/affiliations of Guest Editor(s)
* A brief description of the scope of the Special Issue and a statement about its interest to the CICJ readership (2 paragraphs)
* List of submissions and article abstracts (if available) proposed for inclusion (title, name of author(s) and affiliations)
* Indication of whether contributing authors have been approached and/or confirmed
* Contact information for the Guest Editor(s).

Guest Editors are expected to commit to working regularly on the Issue, meeting a schedule compiled by the SLS Law Publishing Unit, for at least six months leading up to the Issue's publication. As such, an indication of availability and capacity (of each Guest Editor) to meet deadlines will be required.

As a guide, the Special Issue total word count should not exceed 60,000 words, with articles 6000-8000 words (incl references), Contemporary Comments under 4000, and Book Reviews about 1000.

Recent Special Issues include "Ethnography and Reflective Practice: Studying Crime and Criminal Justice" (July 2013), edited by Dr Max Travers (The University of Tasmania), Dr Judy Putt (The University of Tasmania) and Dr Deirdre Howard-Wagner (The University of Sydney); "Forensic Science and Justice: From Crime Scene to Court and Beyond" (July 2012), edited by Associate Professor Roberta Julian and Dr Sally Kelty (The University of Tasmania); "Beyond Prison: Women, Incarceration and Justice?" (November 2010), edited by Associate Professor Gail Mason (University of Sydney) and Professor Julie Stubbs (University of New South Wales). To view the content of past issues, search for "Current Issues in Criminal Justice" at <http://search.informit.com.au/>.

In addition to expressions of interest for Special Issues, the Editors welcome names of individuals who might be willing to edit a Special Issue at some point in the future, suggestions of topics for Special Issues, and names of individuals who may be approached to edit on a topic of interest.

Please email expressions of interest to Louisa Di Bartolomeo at law.criminology@sydney.edu.au by 31 July 2013. Please contact the Editors with any questions.

Associate Professor Murray Lee and Dr Arlie Loughnan
Editors, Current Issues in Criminal Justice
murray.lee@sydney.edu.au
arlie.loughnan@sydney.edu.au

Liverpool gang jailed selling drugs in Ibiza

What we did on our holidays?

Sardinian bandit hero returns to his criminal ways

There must be books and articles on this "counter-culture hero".

German committed over money-laundering claims tells of "hell"

You have nothing to fear if you tell the truth, are normal or whatever, eh, Wee Willie Hague? I wonder if we will ever get the full story on this case?

What spying apologists don’t tell you about “thwarted plots”

"At the very least, the fuzzy cases Feinstein and Clapper are boasting about demonstrate the need for far more transparency on these tools. If they’re justifying a gross incursion on American privacy, in part because they helped track down an informant our intelligence services lost track of — and created false positives based on hair bleach purchases — then we need to seriously reconsider their use."...Indeed!

Europe alarmed by US surveillance

Of course, Europe does not include Wee Willie Hague, the UK's freedom-loving Foreign Secretary. Crimes of the powerful include telling us we have nothing to fear "if we're normal." They also include smearing whistleblowers. the problem, messieurs les gouvernment, consists in you being caught exceeding your powers and breaking the Rule of Law, not searching for whoever "betrayed" you. They didnt betray you, they told the citizens that you were betraying them. Now, how do we prosecute you for breaking the basic laws of democracy?

Jail for seven members of Mersey gang who raided cash machines across the country

More from Merseyside organised crime. All seems to have been a lot of work for small return...but where they up to a lot more in the community? article hints at as much...

AIC list of publications on people trafficking

There's one here i must read immediately! The myth of the people trafficking business model!

Latest on Financial Crime from the AIC

This stuff's for Monty!

Latest Serious and Organised Crime publications list from AIC

Reading material for the next few weeks! There will be a test!

Latest cybercrime alerts from Australian institute of Criminology

Includes articles on child pornography and Australian Federal Police Reports