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Just this week, we learned two officers will avoid federal charges in the 2016 death of Alton Sterling, a man pinned to the ground before he was shot.

Another officer has been fired for killing Jordan Edwards, a 15-year-old honor student. And yet another officer pleaded guilty after shooting Walter Scott as the 50-year-old was running away.

Date of death: April 29, 2017

Where: Balch Springs, Texas

What happened: Officers responded to a house party after reports of underage drinking. Police spotted a car leaving with five people inside -- including Jordan in the front passenger seat.

At first, Police Chief Jonathan Haber said the car was moving "aggressively" toward officers, and officer Roy Oliver fired into the car with a rifle.

But on Monday, Haber corrected himself and said body camera footage showed the car was driving forward -- away from the officers.

The outcomes: Haber fired the officer Tuesday, saying Oliver "violated several departmental policies."

Date of death: July 5, 2016

Where: Baton Rouge, Louisiana

What happened: Sterling was selling CDs outside a convenience store when police received a call of a man with a gun. Cellphone video showed police tackling Sterling and pinning him to the ground before Sterling was shot. But police said Sterling was reaching for a gun.

But Sterling's death has already yielded change. Baton Rouge Mayor Sharon Weston Broome said $2 million will be spent securing body cameras for the entire police force. On top of that, the city's police training manual will be revised, and officers will receive training in implicit bias, the mayor said.

Date of death: April 4, 2015

Where: North Charleston, South Carolina

As Scott ran away from the officer, a witness captured video of Slager shooting Scott several times in the back.

In exchange for his guilty plea for one of the federal counts -- punishable by up to life in prison -- two other federal charges and state charges were dropped.

Scott's death also led to a statewide change: The South Carolina Legislature passed a bill mandating the use of police body cameras.

Date of death: February 26, 2012

Where: Sanford, Florida

What happened: Martin was walking from a convenience store back to the home of his father's fiance. Neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman spotted him from his car and called 911, reporting "a real suspicious guy."

A scuffle broke out, but there were no direct witnesses. Zimmerman claimed Martin attacked him, hitting him in the nose and knocking him onto the pavement. Zimmerman said he then took out his gun and shot Martin in self defense.

But critics said Zimmerman was unjustified in confronting the unarmed teen, especially since Zimmerman didn't heed a police dispatcher's advice to stop following him.

Date of death: July 17, 2014

Where: New York City

The New York Police Department prohibits the use of chokeholds.

Garner, who had asthma, repeatedly said, "I can't breathe! I can't breathe!" while several officers restrained him on the ground. Police said he suffered a heart attack and died en route to a hospital.

The outcomes: A grand jury declined to indict Pantaleo, sparking protests and "die-ins."

Garner's death also spurred a new protest slogan: "I can't breathe," referring to some of his final words before he died. Several professional athletes wore shirts saying "I can't breathe" in silent protest.

Date of death: August 9, 2014

Where: Ferguson, Missouri

What happened: Brown was walking with a friend in the middle of a street when Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson approached them and told them to walk on the sidewalk.

After that, the narratives split. Authorities said Brown had attacked the officer in his car and tried to take his gun. Others said the teenager was surrendering, his hands in the air to show he was unarmed, when the officer opened fire.

Documents showed that Wilson fired his gun 12 times.

The outcomes: A grand jury decided not to indict Wilson -- leading to heated and sometimes violent protests in Ferguson and across the country.

The Justice Department found that "many officers" apparently viewed some of the city's black residents "less as constituents to be protected than as potential offenders and sources of revenue."

Date of death: April 19, 2015, seven days after he was injured

Where: Baltimore

Officers handcuffed Gray and put him in a police van. At some point, Gray suffered a fatal spinal cord injury. He died seven days later.

The outcomes: Six Baltimore police officers, including three black and three white officers, were charged in connection with Gray's death.

The settlement did not "represent any judgment" on whether the officers were guilty or innocent, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said.

"This settlement represents an opportunity to bring closure to the Gray family, the community and the city."

Read more here:
'Black Lives Matter' cases: When controversial killings lead to change - CNN

The Hinduja family has acquired a stake in UACTIV.com, a social networking and discovery platform for sports and fitness enthusiasts.

Hindujas took the stake in December as the lead investor in the startup's first seed round funding, UACTIV co-founder Atish Chhabria told ET. While they do not intervene in management-related matters, they do provide the startup with their mentorship, Chhabria said.

UACTIV declined to reveal the money that the Hindujas invested and the stake they picked up. Of the money raised, Chhabria said, half would go into strengthening technology at UACTIV , while 30% would be spent in marketing and the rest towards operational expenses.

UACTIV , launched in September 2016 by Chhabria and Bhavik Mehta, is a mobile app that facilitates meet-ups between users for games, events, classes, and other fitness activities organised by professionals, studios and communities.

It has partnered with health and wellness brands like RAW Pressery, AZANI, LiveYourSport and Dr Vaidya's and organises three to four open-to-all sport and fitness events every month. The startup had bootstrapped itself with funds of Rs 20 lakh till December before the Hindujas made the investment. It is looking hold the next round of funding in the next three months.

The app is currently active in Mumbai and has around 3,000 users. UACTIV is looking at expanding to places like New Delhi, Gurugram and Pune, and will consider testing the response in Hyderabad and Chennai.

The Hinduja group, that owns companies like Ashok Leyland and IndusInd Bank, is known to be a family group rooted in Indian tradition, but lately, it has been actively investing in new-age business ideas. Last year, the family was the lead investor in Swiss virtual reality startup Mindmaze.

More here:
Hinduja family becomes the lead investor in social network UACTIV - ETtech.com

Photo: West End 61/REX/Shutterstock

Social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, have altered the world in a myriad of ways, both positive and negative.Adoption is one area where social networking can have a huge affect, by making it much easier for adopted children and birth family to make contact, sometimes bypassing all safeguarding processes.

The impact of social networking on adoption is considered in a guide for Community Care Inform, first written by Eileen Fursland and recently updated by Julia Feast and Elaine Dibben from CoramBAAF. The guide covers key legislation and research, issues to be aware of and practical advice for adoption social workers. These are some brief tips from the guide; Inform subscribers can read the full guide and access the adoption knowledge and practice hub.

In many adoptions, its seen to be in the best interests of the child to have occasional direct or in direct contact with birth relatives, such as through an annual letterbox letter with a birth parent. This is agreed with adopters before the adoption order.

Contact agreements are voluntary, but social workers should think explicitly about addressing the issue of social networking in the agreement. This ensures that birth parents understand there could be consequences to them making an approach to their child. It also helps them to be aware of the need to seek support if they receive an approach from the child or young person directly.

It is natural for adopted children and young people to be curious about their birth families, and this curiousity often deepens when they reach adolescence. If an adopted young person expresses a wish to find out more information or to meet their birth parents, the adoptive parents need to talk this through with them, showing that they understand and accept the young persons need to know. They can say they will support them in finding out more through the proper channels.

The support of an experienced adoption social worker can be enormously helpful in this situation. They can explain the best way of re-establishing contact, and try and ensure the child or young person has a good understanding of the complexities of making contact and where it can lead. They can also help the young person understand the risks and drawbacks of using the internet to make a direct approach.

When adoptive parents find out about secret contact between the young person and their birth family, they are usually shocked, and may feel hurt, angry and betrayed. They are often anxious about the effect on their childs wellbeing.

Adoption social workers depending on their role and their agencys role many need to talk to adopted young people, their birth relatives and adoptive parents to try and support the various parties involved, help them agree a way forward and manage some very complex and painful situations.

Visit link:
Social media and adoption - what social workers need to know - Communitycare.co.uk

In 2016, the National Security Agency collected more than 151 million records about Americans phone calls, despite Congress passing a law the previous year the USA Freedom Act intended to curb bulk surveillance. These records are comprised of metadata about calls (which includes time, duration, and the numbers of both recipient and caller) and their collection was revealed in an annual transparency report, published on Tuesday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The report is the first assessment the public has seen of the impact of the USA Freedom Act, and shows the difficulty the NSA has reining in surveillance while continuing to collect useful intelligence. This Freedom Act was passed in 2015 after the Snowden revelations, and limits the NSA to collecting call metadata about individuals suspected of having ties to terrorism. The report shows that in 2016 the NSA received warrants to collect such information on only 46 terrorism suspects.

According to Reuters, officials from the NSA defended the report by saying that the figure of 151 million records was tiny compared to the scope of US surveillance pre-Snowden. (At that time the agency could scoop up billions of records per day, said one 2014 study.) The figure of 151 million is also misleading, said the NSA, as it counts multiple calls made to or from the same phone number. This, said the agency, explains the discrepancy between the small number of warrants and the huge number of records. However, the NSA did not provide a breakdown of the exact number of individuals caught up in the surveillance program, and many privacy advocates will be angered by the huge number of records still being collected.

Link:
NSA collected 151 million phone records in 2016, despite surveillance law changes - The Verge

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During his final year in office, President Obamas team significantly expanded efforts to search National Security Agency intercepts for information about Americans, distributing thousands of intelligence reports across government with the unredacted names of U.S. residents during the midst of a divisive 2016 presidential election, reported Circa on Thursday. The data, made available this week by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, provides the clearest evidence to date of how information accidentally collected by the NSA overseasabout Americans was subsequently searched and disseminated after President Obama loosened privacy protections to make such sharing easier in 2011 in the name of national security. A court affirmed his order.

The NSA is currently prohibited from spying directly on U.S. citizens. However, it is reported thatIn all, government officials conducted 30,355 searches in 2016 seeking information about Americans in NSA intercept metadata, which include telephone numbers and email addresses.

The activity increased by 27.5 percent over the prior year, according to the report, and more than triple the 9,500 such searches that occurred in 2013, the first year such data was kept.

The government in 2016 also scoured the actual contents of NSA intercepted calls and emails for 5,288 Americans, an increase of 13 percent over the prior year and a massive spike from the 198 names searched in 2013, Circa claimed. The searches ultimately resulted in 3,134 NSA intelligence reports with unredacted U.S. names being distributed across government in 2016, and another 3,354 reports in 2015. About half the time, U.S. identities were unredacted in the original reports while the other half were unmasked after the fact by special request of Obama administration officials.

Included in this list of names were campaign and transition associates of President Trump, as well as members of Congress, according toCirca, who allegedly spoke with a U.S. official.

There is no doubt that there was a spike in the requests to search for Americans in the NSA database, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Its simply easier for people to make requests. And while we have safeguards, there is always concern and vigilance about possible political or prurient motives that go beyond national security concerns.

Neema Singh Guliani, who acts as the ACLUs legislative counsel, also claimed in a comment that the information being increasingly mined about Americans has nothing to do with terrorism.

I think it is alarming. There seems to be a universal trendtoward more surveillance and more surveillance that impacts Americans privacy without obtaining a warrant, said the ACLUs legislative counsel, Neema Singh Guliani. This data confirms that there is a lack of acknowledgment that information is being specifically and increasingly mined about Americans for investigations that have little or nothing to do with international terrorism.

Caveated in the report, however, is that this data excludes the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), who are likely to have even more information on the subject.

The data kept by ODNI is missing some information from one of the largest consumers of NSA intelligence, the FBI, Circa noted. And officials acknowledge the numbers are likely much higher when the FBIs activity isadded.

This week, it was reported that the NSA ignored a law change and continued to collect phone records from U.S. citizens, while in April, it was revealed that the agency had eavesdropped on citizens using a blimp over Maryland.

Charlie Nash is a reporterforBreitbart Tech. You can follow himon Twitter@MrNashingtonorlike his page at Facebook.

See the article here:
Report: Obama Sought NSA Intel on 'Thousands of Americans', Including Trump Campaign During 2016 Election - Breitbart News