Daytime fireball soars over Australian sky

Lucky skywatchers who spotted a rare daylight meteor streaking across the Victorian sky might never see one again in their lifetime, said one astronomer.

Reports of the burst of flame across the blue sky started flooding through on social media at about 10.30am on Wednesday, with one describing it as a "fireball asteroid".

Astronomical Society of Victoria spokesman Perry Vlahos said he had heard reports of the sighting across the state, from Mildura to Wangaratta to Melbourne.

"It appears to have come in from the western sky burning with a bright orange colour and leaving a white trail behind it," he said.

Mr Vlahos said the soaring fireball was probably a space rock that has been pulled in by the Earth's gravity and burned up in the atmosphere.

The flaming rock did not hit the ground, he said, meaning it was a meteor as opposed to a meteorite.

Spotting a daylight meteor is considered to be quite rare, due to the energy required to light up the sky when competing with the sun.

The main difference with night-time meteors, known widely as shooting stars, is the size. Mr Vlahos said a meteor visible at night could be as small as a grain of sand or an apple pip.

"For something to be seen during daylight hours, it's got to be a little bit larger than that. I'm suggesting it might be about the size of a walnut, up to the size of a cricket ball."

Mr Vlahos said this meant the skywatchers looking up at the right time on Wednesday were very lucky.

"It is very rare that they saw it. I would say those that did wouldn't see another one in their lifetime," he said.

Just saw a meteor burn thru the earths atmosphere over Melbourne in broad daylight! Wow! #meteor

— CJ (@CJY2012) February 24, 2015

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Turn yourself in, Mr. Secretary of State! A Ukrainian's open letter to John Kerry

© Unknown

US Secretary of State John Kerry in 1971 protesting the war in Vietnam. When it comes to selling out John Kerry has no equals.

I am a citizen of Ukraine - a poor country, located in Eastern Europe. They say that George Bush Jr. couldn't find it on the map. Maybe that's why the war here began only now, after Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and other countries were freed from authoritarianism and to which the great USA brought democracy and prosperity.

But our time has now come. Desperate Ukraine is becoming more and more like the good old USA of your youth - the USA of Senator Joseph McCarty, Dr. Strangelove and the war in Vietnam. Our economy is in deep crisis, the Euromaidan 'reforms' are bringing catastrophic success, and the army is heroically retreating before the enemy.

You don't seem to trust those Germans much, but their intelligence claims that during the Ukrainian civil conflict there have been already some 50,000 casualties. Mainly, these have been civilians. If you recall, this all began with the deaths of some dozens of Ukrainians from sniper fire in Kiev's Maidan Square, under circumstances still unknown to this very day. This happened a year ago, when you supported the coup in Kiev in order to exchange the regime of a corrupted president for one of mindless politicians that are just as thievish, but much more bloodthirsty and obedient to you. They are now savoring lunches with you at summit meetings, each time asking for loans and weapons to proceed with the war that you call a "struggle for freedom."

Your leading TV channel CNN, in plain English, calls Ukrainian troops "pro-American forces," while a minister from your country is skilfully managing our deteriorating economy, thus reinforcing Ukraine's sovereignty, independence and honor.

Our "democratic" politicians have mastered the art of turning blood into money, lessons of which you constantly provide to the world. Recently they announced a fourth wave of military conscription in Ukraine. Surprisingly, it turns out that many people, burdened by the 'slavish past of communist tyranny', stubbornly refuse to die and kill their kin from the Donbas region. They refuse to do this even in the name of such fundamental values as those which personally benefit your friends in the Ukrainian government and the national interests of your country.

Many people are hiding from conscription and even fleeing to the large, neighbouring country to the east, which, as is well known, is conducting war against Ukraine. (By the way, this apparent war by our neighbour doesn't impede our president from conducting very profitable business of his chocolate and candy enterprises on the territory of the aggressor.)

The fugitives from conscription are being hunted down at their workplaces and in their relatives' homes. But there are still those who dare to come out on the streets and protest against the military draft. This jeopardizes the ability to continue the civil war, which - as we know - provides democratic transformation of our country into cemeteries and ruins.

The Ukrainian government is already taking necessary measures against such dangers. Our Parliament intends to criminalize protests against conscription (although the current conscription law is unlawful from the point of view of our legislation and Constitution). Our notorious patriotic politician proposing the law has even promised to punish such serious crimes retroactively by making the law itself retroactive.

Another new law will legalize tapping of cell-phones and reading of e-mail messages of those who evade conscription, and it will authorize covert surveillance of them. Dozens of such "evaders" have already been detained, some even convicted. This includes journalist and Euromaidan activist Roman Kotsaba, after he publicly criticized the war mobilization (which has not yet been officially declared by the Ukrainian government so as to not conflict with President Poroshenko's businesses). He was arrested by secret services and is imprisoned for at least several months.

President Poroshenko began the government's current session with the following words (in the spirit of H. Himmler or Al Capone): "Ukraine's secret services have already found a stash where anti-Ukrainian activity was generating from and, as of today, 19 opponents of military draft have been seized by their balls." According to Poroshenko, those opposing war, be they activists or journalists, present the same threat as the "armed enemies at the front," and therefore should be treated accordingly. We are only left to regret that the death penalty is temporarily abolished in our country and the arrested traitors cannot be punished to the extent which they deserve.

Nevertheless, you, Mr. Kerry, representative of a country which is today such an irreplaceable role model for Ukraine, may well become the 'Achilles hell' of our government's campaign for the military draft. Our insidious peace-mongers have discovered that many years ago, you joined an organization called "Vietnam Veterans Against the War." This organization, according to the late President Richard Nixon, played an important role in the 'subversive' anti-war movement. Back then, you actively campaigned against conscription and sending conscripts to participate in the 'anti-terrorist operation' against the 'so-called' Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Obviously, your actions effectively aided and abetted the hidden policies of the Kremlin.

While your current colleague, Senator John McCain, was languishing in captivity in Vietnam after an aircraft attack on civilian targets in Hanoi, you, Lieutenant Kerry, were arrested in Washington during an antiwar march of Vietnam veterans where you tried to publicly read the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Along with hundreds of other American soldiers demanding to stop the war, you threw down your military awards on the steps of the Capitol and proclaimed: "I'm not doing this for any violent reasons, but for peace and justice, and to try and make this country wake up once and for all."

So don't be surprised if your words and actions will be echoed and repeated by the opponents of the current civil war in Ukraine - those who also appeal for rule of law and arouse resentment among those unwilling to fight.

It was you who opposed indiscriminate fire on peaceful Vietnamese villages, where accomplices of the Vietnamese militants could hide. It was you who protested against the destruction of civilians' houses, even though the same measures, 'necessary for waging war on terror', are being applied in the Donbas region today. It was you who admitted the facts of war crimes committed by the U.S. army in Vietnam. These are your words: "There are all kinds of atrocities, and I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free fire zones. I conducted harassment and interdiction fire. I used .50-caliber machine guns, which we were granted and ordered to use, which were our only weapon against people. I took part in search-and-destroy missions, in the burning of villages. All of this is contrary to the laws of warfare, all of this is contrary to the Geneva Conventions and all of this is ordered as a matter of written established policy by the government of the United States from the top down. And I believe that the men who designed these, the men who designed the free fire zone, the men who ordered us, the men who signed off the air raid strike areas, I think these men, by the letter of the law, the same letter of the law that tried Lieutenant Calley, are war criminals."

Doesn't this sound like a direct appeal to condemn Ukrainian politicians for their war crimes?

In your article at the time in The Washington Star, you wrote that the U.S. soldiers were extremely disappointed by the striking differences they encountered between what was told by their political leaders and what they actually saw at war. Just think of what will happen if Ukrainian soldiers in the 'Anti-Terrorist Operation' area take this into consideration...

Finally, you quite irresponsibly said: "I realized that I would never be able to keep silent about the real situation in Vietnam". However, this essentially contradicts the wise policy of military censorship, carried out by the 'democratic' government of Ukraine. As you may know, any attempt to speak the truth about the real situation in the 'ATO zone' is considered a crime in Ukraine.

Mr. Secretary of State! In the current situation, I must urge you to voluntarily turn yourself in to the Ukrainian justice system to face punishment for your criminal, antiwar propaganda. I'm sure they will find room for you in one of the Ukrainian prisons holding opponents of military conscription. Thus, you will be able to show our citizens how a true democracy - a country free from totalitarianism - should really stop antiwar propaganda.

You may consider my letter as an appeal to the law enforcement agencies of Ukraine. I wish you good luck in their capable hands.

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New Study: Soda Ingredient Poses Cancer Risk

A new study carried out by the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF) has found that millions Americans who consume soda every day are putting themselves at risk of developing cancer as a result of an ingredient contained in many soft drinks.

4-Methylimidazole, commonly known as 4-MEI, is a coloring used by soft drink makers to give their beverages that distinctive dark hue. It can be found in many popular soft drinks, including Pepsi, Coca-Cola and Diet Cola.

There was clear evidence of carcinogenic activity of 4-methylimidazole in male and female B6C3F₁mice based on increased incidences of alveolar/bronchiolar neoplasms.

Exposure to 4-methylimidazole resulted in nonneoplastic lesions in the liver of male and female rats and the lung of female mice and in clinical findings of neurotoxicity in female rats.

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Forced blood draws, DNA collection and biometric scans: What country is this?

"The Fourth Amendment was designed to stand between us and arbitrary governmental authority. For all practical purposes, that shield has been shattered, leaving our liberty and personal integrity subject to the whim of every cop on the beat, trooper on the highway and jail official. The framers would be appalled."—Herman Schwartz, The Nation

© Global Research

Our freedoms—especially the Fourth Amendment—are being choked out by a prevailing view among government bureaucrats that they have the right to search, seize, strip, scan, spy on, probe, pat down, taser, and arrest any individual at any time and for the slightest provocation.

Forced cavity searches, forced colonoscopies, forced blood draws, forced breath-alcohol tests, forced DNA extractions, forced eye scans, forced inclusion in biometric databases—these are just a few ways in which Americans are being forced to accept that we have no control over what happens to our bodies during an encounter with government officials.

Worse, on a daily basis, Americans are being made to relinquish the most intimate details of who we are—our biological makeup, our genetic blueprints, and our biometrics (facial characteristics and structure, fingerprints, iris scans, etc.)—in order to clear the nearly insurmountable hurdle that increasingly defines life in the United States: we are all guilty until proven innocent.

Thus far, the courts have done little to preserve our Fourth Amendment rights, let alone what shreds of bodily integrity remain to us.

For example, David Eckert was forced to undergo an anal cavity search, three enemas, and a colonoscopy after allegedly failing to yield to a stop sign at a Wal-Mart parking lot. Cops justified the searches on the grounds that they suspected Eckert was carrying drugs because his "posture [was] erect" and "he kept his legs together." No drugs were found. During a routine traffic stop, Leila Tarantino was subjected to two roadside strip searches in plain view of passing traffic, during which a female officer "forcibly removed" a tampon from Tarantino. Nothing illegal was found. Nevertheless, such searches have been sanctioned by the courts, especially if accompanied by a search warrant (which is easily procured), as justified in the government's pursuit of drugs and weapons.

Close to 600 motorists leaving Penn State University one Friday night were stopped by police and, without their knowledge or consent, subjected to a breathalyzer test using flashlights that can detect the presence of alcohol on a person's breath. These passive alcohol sensors are being hailed as a new weapon in the fight against DUIs. However, because they cannot be used as the basis for arrest, breathalyzer tests are still required. And for those who refuse to submit to a breathalyzer, there are forced blood draws. One such person is Michael Chorosky, who was surrounded by police, strapped to a gurney and then had his blood forcibly drawn after refusing to submit to a breathalyzer test. "What country is this? What country is this?" cried Chorosky during the forced blood draw. Thirty states presently allow police to do forced blood draws on drivers as part of a nationwide "No Refusal" initiative funded by the federal government.

Not even court rulings declaring such practices to be unconstitutional in the absence of a warrant have slowed down the process. Now the police simply keep a magistrate on call to rubber stamp the procedure over the phone. That's what is called an end-run around the law, and we're seeing more and more of these take place under the rubric of "safety."

The National Highway Safety Administration, the same government agency that funds the "No Refusal" DUI checkpoints and forcible blood draws, is also funding nationwide roadblocks aimed at getting drivers to "voluntarily" provide police with DNA derived from saliva and blood samples, reportedly to study inebriation patterns. When faced with a request for a DNA sample by police during a mandatory roadblock, most participants understandably fail to appreciate the "voluntary" nature of such a request. Unfortunately, in at least 28 states, there's nothing voluntary about having one's DNA collected by police in instances where you've been arrested, whether or not you're actually convicted of a crime. The remaining states collect DNA on conviction. All of this DNA data is being fed to the federal government. Indeed, the United States has the largest DNA database in the world, CODIS, which is managed by the FBI and is growing at an alarming rate.

Airline passengers, already subjected to virtual strip searches, are now being scrutinized even more closely, with the Customs and Border Protection agency tasking airport officials with monitoring the bowel movements of passengers suspected of ingesting drugs. They even have a special hi-tech toilet designed to filter through a person's fecal waste.

Iris scans, an essential part of the U.S. military's boots-on-the-ground approach to keeping track of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, are becoming a de facto method of building the government's already mammoth biometrics database. Funded by the Dept. of Justice, along with other federal agencies, the iris scan technology is being incorporated into police precincts, jails, immigration checkpoints, airports and even schools. School officials—from elementary to college—have begun using iris scans in place of traditional ID cards. As for parents wanting to pick their kids up from school, they have to first submit to an iris scan.

As for those endless pictures everyone so cheerfully uploads to Facebook (which has the largest facial recognition database in the world) or anywhere else on the internet, they're all being accessed by the police, filtered with facial recognition software, uploaded into the government's mammoth biometrics database and cross-checked against its criminal files. With good reason, civil libertarians fear these databases could "someday be used for monitoring political rallies, sporting events or even busy downtown areas."

As these police practices and data collections become more widespread and routine, there will be no one who is spared from the indignity of DNA sampling, blood draws, and roadside strip and/or rectal or vaginal searches, whether or not they've done anything wrong. We're little more than economic units, branded like cattle, marked for easy identification, and then assured that it's all for our "benefit," to weed us out from the "real" criminals, and help the police keep our communities "safe" and secure.

What a bunch of hokum. As I point out in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State , these databases, forced extractions and searches are not for our benefit. They will not keep us safe. What they will do is keep us mapped, trapped, targeted and controlled.

Moreover, what if you don't want to be forced to trust the government with your most intimate information? What if you don't trust the government to look out for your best interests in the first place? How do you protect yourself against having your blood forcibly drawn, your DNA extracted, your biometrics scanned and the most intimate details of who you are—your biological footprint—uploaded into a government database?

What recourse do you have when that information, taken against your will, is shared, stolen, sold or compromised, as it inevitably will be in this age of hackers? We know that databases can be compromised. We've seen it happen to databases kept by health care companies, motor vehicle agencies, financial institutions, retailers and intelligence agencies such as the NSA. In fact, 2014 was dubbed the Year of the Hack in light of the fact that over a billion personal data records were breached, leaving those unlucky enough to have their data stolen vulnerable to identity theft, credit card fraud and all manner of criminal activities carried out in their names.

Banks now offer services —for a fee—to help you in the event that your credit card information is compromised and stolen. You can also pay for services to protect against identity theft in the likely event that your social security information is compromised and misused. But what happens when your DNA profile is compromised? And how do you defend yourself against charges of criminal wrongdoing in the face of erroneous technological evidence—DNA, biometrics, etc., are not infallible—that place you at the scene of a crime you didn't commit?

"Identity theft could lead to the opening of new fraudulent credit accounts, creating false identities for criminal enterprises, or a host of other serious crimes," said Jason Hart, vice president of cloud services, identity and data protection at the digital security company Gemalto. "As data breaches become more personal, we're starting to see that the universe of risk exposure for the average person is expanding."

It's not just yourself you have to worry about, either. It's also anyone related to you—who can be connected by DNA. These genetic fingerprints, as they're called, do more than just single out a person. They also show who you're related to and how. As the Associated Press reports, "DNA samples that can help solve robberies and murders could also, in theory, be used to track down our relatives, scan us for susceptibility to disease, or monitor our movements."

Capitalizing on this, police in California, Colorado, Virginia and Texas use DNA found at crime scenes to identify and target family members for possible clues to a suspect's whereabouts. Who will protect your family from being singled out for "special treatment" simply because they're related to you? As biomedical researcher Yaniv Erlich warns, "If it's not regulated and the police can do whatever they want ... they can use your DNA to infer things about your health, your ancestry, whether your kids are your kids."

These are just a few of the questions we should be asking before these technologies and programs become too entrenched and irreversible.

While the Fourth Amendment was created to prevent government officials from searching an individual's person or property without a warrant and probable cause—evidence that some kind of criminal activity was afoot—the founders could scarcely have imagined a world in which we needed protection against widespread government breaches of our privacy on a cellular level. Yet that's exactly what we are lacking.

Once again, technology has outdistanced both our understanding of it and our ability to adequately manage the consequences of unleashing it on an unsuspecting populace. As for all of those databases being sold to you for your safety and benefit, whether or not they're actually effective in catching criminals, you can be assured that they will definitely be snatching up innocent citizens, as well.

In the end, what all of this amounts to is a carefully crafted campaign designed to give the government access to and control over what it really wants: you.

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So much for rights: Chicago police illegally detain and torture Americans at local 'black site'

Chicago's Homan Square 'black site'

The Chicago police department operates an off-the-books interrogation compound, rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers say is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site.

The facility, a nondescript warehouse on Chicago's west side known as Homan Square, has long been the scene of secretive work by special police units. Interviews with local attorneys and one protester who spent the better part of a day shackled in Homan Square describe operations that deny access to basic constitutional rights.

Alleged police practices at Homan Square, according to those familiar with the facility who spoke out to the Guardian after its investigation into Chicago police abuse, include:

• Keeping arrestees out of official booking databases.


• Beating by police, resulting in head wounds.


• Shackling for prolonged periods.


• Denying attorneys access to the "secure" facility.


• Holding people without legal counsel for between 12 and 24 hours, including people as young as 15.

At least one man was found unresponsive in a Homan Square "interview room" and later pronounced dead.

Brian Jacob Church, a protester known as one of the "Nato Three", was held and questioned at Homan Square in 2012 following a police raid. Officers restrained Church for the better part of a day, denying him access to an attorney, before sending him to a nearby police station to be booked and charged.

[embedded content]

"Homan Square is definitely an unusual place," Church told the Guardian on Friday. "It brings to mind the interrogation facilities they use in the Middle East. The CIA calls them black sites. It's a domestic black site. When you go in, no one knows what's happened to you."

The secretive warehouse is the latest example of Chicago police practices that echo the much-criticized detention abuses of the US war on terrorism. While those abuses impacted people overseas, Homan Square - said to house military-style vehicles, interrogation cells and even a cage - trains its focus on Americans, most often poor, black and brown.

Unlike a precinct, no one taken to Homan Square is said to be booked. Witnesses, suspects or other Chicagoans who end up inside do not appear to have a public, searchable record entered into a database indicating where they are, as happens when someone is booked at a precinct. Lawyers and relatives insist there is no way of finding their whereabouts. Those lawyers who have attempted to gain access to Homan Square are most often turned away, even as their clients remain in custody inside.

"It's sort of an open secret among attorneys that regularly make police station visits, this place - if you can't find a client in the system, odds are they're there," said Chicago lawyer Julia Bartmes.

Chicago civil-rights attorney Flint Taylor said Homan Square represented a routinization of a notorious practice in local police work that violates the fifth and sixth amendments of the constitution.

"This Homan Square revelation seems to me to be an institutionalization of the practice that dates back more than 40 years," Taylor said, "of violating a suspect or witness' rights to a lawyer and not to be physically or otherwise coerced into giving a statement."

Much remains hidden about Homan Square. The Chicago police department did not respond to the Guardian's questions about the facility. But after the Guardian published this story, the department provided a statement insisting, without specifics, that there is nothing untoward taking place at what it called the "sensitive" location, home to undercover units.

"CPD [Chicago police department] abides by all laws, rules and guidelines pertaining to any interviews of suspects or witnesses, at Homan Square or any other CPD facility. If lawyers have a client detained at Homan Square, just like any other facility, they are allowed to speak to and visit them. It also houses CPD's Evidence Recovered Property Section, where the public is able to claim inventoried property," the statement said, something numerous attorneys and one Homan Square arrestee have denied.

"There are always records of anyone who is arrested by CPD, and this is not any different at Homan Square," it continued.

The Chicago police statement did not address how long into an arrest or detention those records are generated or their availability to the public. A department spokesperson did not respond to a detailed request for clarification.

When a Guardian reporter arrived at the warehouse on Friday, a man at the gatehouse outside refused any entrance and would not answer questions. "This is a secure facility. You're not even supposed to be standing here," said the man, who refused to give his name.

A former Chicago police superintendent and a more recently retired detective, both of whom have been inside Homan Square in the last few years in a post-police capacity, said the police department did not operate out of the warehouse until the late 1990s.

But in detailing episodes involving their clients over the past several years, lawyers described mad scrambles that led to the closed doors of Homan Square, a place most had never heard of previously. The facility was even unknown to Rob Warden, the founder of Northwestern University Law School's Center on Wrongful Convictions, until the Guardian informed him of the allegations of clients who vanish into inherently coercive police custody.

"They just disappear," said Anthony Hill, a criminal defense attorney, "until they show up at a district for charging or are just released back out on the street."

'Never going to see the light of day': the search for the Nato Three, the head wound, the worried mom and the dead man

© AP/Cook County sheriff's office

Brian Jacob Church, Jared Chase and Brent Vincent Betterly, known as the ‘Nato Three’.

Jacob Church learned about Homan Square the hard way. On May 16 2012, he and 11 others were taken there after police infiltrated their protest against the Nato summit. Church says officers cuffed him to a bench for an estimated 17 hours, intermittently interrogating him without reading his Miranda rights to remain silent. It would take another three hours - and an unusual lawyer visit through a wire cage - before he was finally charged with terrorism-related offenses at the nearby 11th district station, where he was made to sign papers, fingerprinted and photographed.

In preparation for the Nato protest, Church, who is from Florida, had written a phone number for the National Lawyers Guild on his arm as a precautionary measure. Once taken to Homan Square, Church asked explicitly to call his lawyers, and said he was denied.

"Essentially, I wasn't allowed to make any contact with anybody," Church told the Guardian , in contradiction of a police guidance on permitting phone calls and legal counsel to arrestees.

Church's left wrist was cuffed to a bar behind a bench in windowless cinderblock cell, with his ankles cuffed together. He remained in those restraints for about 17 hours.

"I had essentially figured, 'All right, well, they disappeared us and so we're probably never going to see the light of day again,'" Church said.

Though the raid attracted major media attention, a team of attorneys could not find Church through 12 hours of "active searching", Sarah Gelsomino, Church's lawyer, recalled. No booking record existed. Only after she and others made a "major stink" with contacts in the offices of the corporation counsel and Mayor Rahm Emanuel did they even learn about Homan Square.

They sent another attorney to the facility, where he ultimately gained entry, and talked to Church through a floor-to-ceiling chain-link metal cage. Finally, hours later, police took Church and his two co-defendants to a nearby police station for booking.

After serving two and a half years in prison, Church is currently on parole after he and his co-defendants were found not guilty in 2014 of terrorism-related offenses but guilty of lesser charges of possessing an incendiary device and the misdemeanor of "mob action".

The access that Nato Three attorneys received to Homan Square was an exception to the rule, even if Jacob Church's experience there was not.

Three attorneys interviewed by the Guardian report being personally turned away from Homan Square between 2009 and 2013 without being allowed access to their clients. Two more lawyers who hadn't been physically denied described it as a place where police withheld information about their clients' whereabouts. Church was the only person who had been detained at the facility who agreed to talk with the Guardian: their lawyers say others fear police retaliation.

One man in January 2013 had his name changed in the Chicago central bookings database and then taken to Homan Square without a record of his transfer being kept, according to Eliza Solowiej of Chicago's First Defense Legal Aid. (The man, the Guardian understands, wishes to be anonymous; his current attorney declined to confirm Solowiej's account.) She found out where he was after he was taken to the hospital with a head injury.

"He said that the officers caused his head injuries in an interrogation room at Homan Square. I had been looking for him for six to eight hours, and every department member I talked to said they had never heard of him," Solowiej said. "He sent me a phone pic of his head injuries because I had seen him in a police station right before he was transferred to Homan Square without any."

Bartmes, another Chicago attorney, said that in September 2013 she got a call from a mother worried that her 15-year-old son had been picked up by police before dawn. A sympathetic sergeant followed up with the mother to say her son was being questioned at Homan Square in connection to a shooting and would be released soon. When hours passed, Bartmes traveled to Homan Square, only to be refused entry for nearly an hour.

An officer told her, "Well, you can't just stand here taking notes, this is a secure facility, there are undercover officers, and you're making people very nervous," Bartmes recalled. Told to leave, she said she would return in an hour if the boy was not released. He was home, and not charged, after "12, maybe 13" hours in custody.

On February 2, 2013, John Hubbard was taken to Homan Square. Hubbard never walked out. The Chicago Tribune reported that the 44-year old was found "unresponsive inside an interview room", and pronounced dead. After publication, the Cook County medical examiner told the Guardian that the cause of death was determined to be heroin intoxication.

Homan Square is hardly concerned exclusively with terrorism. Several special units operate outside of it, including the anti-gang and anti-drug forces. If police "want money, guns, drugs", or information on the flow of any of them onto Chicago's streets, "they bring them there and use it as a place of interrogation off the books," Hill said.

'That scares the hell out of me': a throwback to Chicago police abuse with a post-9/11 feel

A former Chicago detective and current private investigator, Bill Dorsch, said he had not heard of the police abuses described by Church and lawyers for other suspects who had been taken to Homan Square. He has been permitted access to the facility to visit one of its main features, an evidence locker for the police department. ("I just showed my retirement star and passed through," Dorsch said.)

Transferring detainees through police custody to deny them access to legal counsel, would be "a career-ender," Dorsch said. "To move just for the purpose of hiding them, I can't see that happening," he told the Guardian.

Richard Brzeczek, Chicago's police superintendent from 1980 to 1983, who also said he had no first-hand knowledge of abuses at Homan Square, said it was "never justified" to deny access to attorneys.

"Homan Square should be on the same list as every other facility where you can call central booking and say: 'Can you tell me if this person is in custody and where,'" Brzeczek said.

"If you're going to be doing this, then you have to include Homan Square on the list of facilities that prisoners are taken into and a record made. It can't be an exempt facility."

Indeed, Chicago police guidelines appear to ban the sorts of practices Church and the lawyers said occur at Homan Square.

A directive titled "Processing Persons Under Department Control" instructs that "investigation or interrogation of an arrestee will not delay the booking process," and arrestees must be allowed "a reasonable number of telephone calls" to attorneys swiftly "after their arrival at the first place of custody." Another directive, "Arrestee and In-Custody Communications," says police supervisors must "allow visitation by attorneys."

Attorney Scott Finger said that the Chicago police tightened the latter directive in 2012 after quiet complaints from lawyers about their lack of access to Homan Square. Without those changes, Church's attorneys might not have gained entry at all. But that tightening - about a week before Church's arrest - did not prevent Church's prolonged detention without a lawyer, nor the later cases where lawyers were unable to enter.

The combination of holding clients for long periods, while concealing their whereabouts and denying access to a lawyer, struck legal experts as a throwback to the worst excesses of Chicago police abuse, with a post-9/11 feel to it.

On a smaller scale, Homan Square is "analogous to the CIA's black sites," said Andrea Lyon, a former Chicago public defender and current dean of Valparaiso University Law School. When she practiced law in Chicago in the 1980s and 1990s, she said, "police used the term 'shadow site'" to refer to the quasi-disappearances now in place at Homan Square.

"Back when I first started working on torture cases and started representing criminal defendants in the early 1970s, my clients often told me they'd been taken from one police station to another before ending up at Area 2 where they were tortured," said Taylor, the civil-rights lawyer most associated with pursuing the notoriously abusive Area 2 police commander Jon Burge. "And in that way the police prevent their family and lawyers from seeing them until they could coerce, through torture or other means, confessions from them."

Police often have off-site facilities to have private conversations with their informants. But a retired Washington DC homicide detective, James Trainum, could not think of another circumstance nationwide where police held people incommunicado for extended periods.

"I've never known any kind of organized, secret place where they go and just hold somebody before booking for hours and hours and hours. That scares the hell out of me that that even exists or might exist," said Trainum, who now studies national policing issues, to include interrogations, for the Innocence Project and the Constitution Project.

Regardless of departmental regulations, police frequently deny or elide access to lawyers even at regular police precincts, said Solowiej of First Defense Legal Aid. But she said the outright denial was exacerbated at Chicago's secretive interrogation and holding facility: "It's very, very rare for anyone to experience their constitutional rights in Chicago police custody, and even more so at Homan Square," Solowiej said.

Church said that one of his more striking memories of Homan Square was the "big, big vehicles" police had inside the complex that "look like very large MRAPs that they use in the Middle East."

Cook County, home of Chicago, has received some 1,700 pieces of military equipment from a much-criticized Pentagon program transferring military gear to local police. It includes a Humvee, according to a local ABC News report.

Tracy Siska, a criminologist and civil-rights activist with the Chicago Justice Project, said that Homan Square, as well as the unrelated case of ex-Guantánamo interrogator and retired Chicago detective Richard Zuley, showed the lines blurring between domestic law enforcement and overseas military operations.

"The real danger in allowing practices like Guantánamo or Abu Ghraib is the fact that they always creep into other aspects," Siska said.

"They creep into domestic law enforcement, either with weaponry like with the militarization of police, or interrogation practices. That's how we ended up with a black site in Chicago."

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Community kitchens: Time to revive an old custom to help feed millions

© Shutterstock

A return to community canteens as an alternative to food banks?

Did you watch Channel 4's latest sensational documentary Junk Food Kids? If so, you probably shared the sense of outrage that exploded across social media when scenes featuring obese children with decaying teeth were broadcast.

But the presence of fat children on our screens masks the fact that we are currently facing an unnecessary global starvation epidemic. We live in a time of overabundant food production. Despite this, almost a billion people go hungry every day. These figures are no longer only applicable to the developing world.

According to recent statistics, one in five British children now lives below the poverty line. Speak to those working in paediatric medicine in Britain today and they'll tell you that A&E departments are not just hosting overweight children with health problems but, especially in school holiday time, kids that are seriously under-fed. Just hang on for a minute and think about that - malnourished children in this country. Isn't that, well, just a tad Dickensian? Dead right it is. And so, unfortunately, is the solution to this problem: the food bank.

The Trussell Trust, which runs most food banks, feeds more than a million people a year. The trust is a faith-based network supplemented by other voluntary anti-food poverty schemes, the majority of which are church-based.

There is nothing wrong with non-proselytising faith groups alleviating food poverty. After all, there are plenty of biblical examples supporting this ethic. But one may be forgiven for wondering where the state comes in to all this.

Before Christmas the much-anticipated parliamentary report on food poverty was published. Even "advanced Western economies" with "mature welfare states", it stated, are reliant on food banks. How has this happened?

Communal kitchens

To answer this question, we need to look at how Britain dealt with food poverty in the past. From research into egalitarian eating, it's clear this country faced a serious food problem due to trade disruption during World War I. In the centenary year of 2014, while the BBC and other broadcasters were busy sending reporters off to trudge the poppy-dotted battlefields for the umpteenth time, they ignored an aspect of the war which has great relevance for public health today: communal kitchens.

The communal kitchens of one hundred years ago grew out of wartime working class communities, where public dining ventures nourished the most needy at a time when food supplies were poor and nutritional standards low. These grassroots efforts evolved into state-supported "national kitchens" or "national restaurants". People brought a plate or bowl to a "distribution centre" and had it filled up with nutritious food for a modest fee. This rough-and-ready model soon evolved into cheap restaurants where people received hearty, fresh, nutritious meals at incredibly low prices.

© Imperial War Museum

Eyeing their popularity, the wartime Ministry of Food took over the running of communal dining ventures. It backed the scheme only on the condition that it "avoid the taint of charity". The cafes and restaurants had to be self-supporting: the state expected a profit and would not offer its financial support otherwise. So the national kitchens, as they were patriotically re-branded from 1917, would be cheap but appealing - to both the struggling middle class as much as the working class. The profit went back into the local kitchens rather than the ministry - these were not-for-profits as we would understand it today - and they had to at least break even. Anything on top was reinvested.

Significantly, they would move beyond the idea of the Victorian soup kitchen, with the pearl-necklaced Lady Bountiful or smiling vicar doling out grub to the meek yet grateful poor. They had to be cheap yet attractive, efficient yet appetising. And they had to make a profit while maintaining rock bottom prices.

Essentially, the state gave them some of the capital needed to set up - and sometimes food. This was before the modern supermarket era so today, ideally, supermarkets would provide the food. The overriding point being that supermarket food waste is not really addressed by supermarkets giving non-perishables to food banks like they do now. Food waste lies in fresh food - fruit and veg - and this doesn't often make its way to food banks.

Fruit and vegetables

You couldn't get further from the perception of our current food bank model. The anti-charity ethos of the national kitchens ensured they had widespread appeal and did not come to be viewed as havens for the idle underclass. By contrast, a cursory glance across Twitter reaction to programmes such as Junk Food Kids shows that disdain for the "undeserving poor" is now back with a vengeance.

The communal kitchens were so popular that large cities boasted several. Hundreds of thousands dined at them each week. They served good, nutritious food at very low prices. They were clean, safe and kept people alive during a time of serious food shortage. They fizzled out after war, but were successfully revived during the World War II as "British Restaurants".

The model for these kitchens - a proud tradition started and revived in response to a social need - could find a place in today's downturn. However, modern-day food banks have reverted to the exact same Victorian taint of charity rejected by earlier politicians and volunteers.

© Danny Lawson/PA Wire

Barriers such as cost and storage mean that the majority of food banks also do not serve fresh fruit or vegetables, nor do they give people instruction as to how to incorporate the food they receive into meals. People lack cooking skills but they don't receive as much as a menu card at most food banks, they just get hand outs of non-perishables.

Supermarket Waste

So, let's revive communal dining instead. Let's have local authorities subsidising cheap cafes on-site or next door to food banks where people can get a cheap nutritious meal or simply an on-site kitchen where people can learn to prepare food as a meal. Let's force supermarkets to manage the donation of fresh produce more efficiently, providing fresh fruit and vegetables rather than just non-perishables. Donating non-perishables is so much easier for supermarkets and hits waste targets easily, but fresh produce is where the waste really lies. This would improve nutrition and get rid of a few fat kids plugged full of carbohydrates and sugar.

More importantly, let's use communal eating to combat problems borne of social dislocation, depression and loneliness. Intangibles such as mental turmoil are surprisingly easily targeted via simply sitting down and breaking bread.

Today there's no political will to nationalise food poverty by centrally funding national kitchens as there was during World War I but there's certainly a case for spending money to ensure food banks resemble community kitchens more - not just to feed, but to encourage better and affordable eating. In Peru , there is a system where the state provide basics (rice and cooking oil) and the communities provide and cook all the fresh food. The expense of doing this for the state is offset by long term savings in public health - and this is in a country where they don't have free public healthcare. If the NHS is to pick up the long term tab for poor eating then it's surely more cost effective to spend a bit now to reap the long term rewards.

Above all, then, let's overcome the idea of the handout. We did this 100 years ago, why not do it again? For that to happen, the state needs to step up to the mark, as do supermarkets. Otherwise the prospect of "junk food kids" will continue its monstrous yet unassailable waddle from media panic to social reality.

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BEST OF THE WEB: A letter to young people about 50 Shades of Grey

Just another 'Christian Grey' bad childhood.

{Many of you have asked that I provide my letter to young people as a PDF. Download A Letter to Young People About here.}

There's nothing grey about . It's all black.

Let me explain.

I help people who are broken inside. Unlike doctors who use x-rays or blood tests to determine why someone's in pain, the wounds I'm interested in are hidden. I ask questions, and listen carefully to the answers. That's how I discover why the person in front of me is "bleeding".

Years of careful listening have taught me a lot. One thing I've learned is that young people are utterly confused about love - finding it and keeping it. They make poor choices, and end up in lots of pain.

I don't want you to suffer like the people I see in my office, so I'm warning you about a new movie called Even if you don't see the film, its message is seeping into our culture, and could plant some dangerous ideas in your head. Be prepared.

is being released for Valentine's Day, so you'll think it's a romance. . The movie is actually about a sick, dangerous relationship filled with physical and emotional abuse. It seems glamorous, because the actors are gorgeous, they have expensive cars and private planes, and Beyonce is singing. You might conclude that Christian and Ana are cool, and that even though their relationship is different, it's acceptable.

Don't allow yourself to be manipulated by a Hollywood studio. The people there just want your money; they have no concern whatsoever about you and your dreams.

Abuse is not glamorous or cool. It is never OK, under any circumstances.

This is what you need to know about : as a child, Christian Grey was terribly neglected. He is confused about love because he never experienced the real thing. In his mind, love is tangled up with bad feelings like pain and embarrassment. Christian has pleasure from controlling and hurting women in bizarre ways. Anastasia is an immature girl who falls for Christian's looks and wealth, and foolishly goes along with his desires.

In the real world, this story would end badly, with Christian in jail, and Ana in a shelter - or morgue. Or maybe Christian would continue beating Ana, and she'd stay and suffer. Either way, their lives would most definitely not be a fairy tale. Trust me on this one.

As a doctor, I'm urging you: do NOT see . Get informed, learn the facts, and explain to your friends why they shouldn't see it either.

Here are a few of the dangerous ideas promoted by :

1. No! A psychologically healthy woman pain. She wants to feel safe, respected and cared for by a man she can trust. She dreams about wedding gowns, not handcuffs.


2. Wrong. A psychologically healthy man wants a woman who can stand up for herself. If he is out of line, he wants her to set him straight.


3. Flawed logic. Sure, Anastasia had free choice - and she chose poorly. A self-destructive decision is a bad decision.


4. I doubt that. Christian constantly supplies Anastasia with alcohol, impairing her judgement. Also, Anastasia becomes sexually active with Christian - her first experience ever - soon after meeting him. Neuroscience suggests their intimacy could jump start her feelings of attachment and trust, before she's certain he deserved them. Sex is a powerful, intense experience - particularly the first time. Finally, Christian manipulates Anastasia into signing a legal agreement prohibiting her from telling anyone that he is a long time abuser.
   

   Alcohol, sex, manipulation - hardly the ingredients of a thoughtful, detached decision.

   
   


5. Only in a movie. In the real world, Christian wouldn't change to any significant degree. If Anastasia was fulfilled by helping emotionally disturbed people, she should have become a psychiatrist or social worker.


6. Maybe... for adults in a long term, healthy, committed, monogamous relationship, AKA "marriage". Otherwise, you're at high risk for STDs, pregnancy, and sexual assault. It's wise to be very careful who you allow to get close to you, physically and emotionally, because just one encounter can throw you off track and change your life forever.

Bottom line: the power of lies in its ability to plant seeds of doubt. There are vast differences between healthy and unhealthy relationships, but the movie blurs those differences, so you begin to wonder:

Listen, it's your safety and future we're talking about here. There's no room for doubt; an intimate relationship that includes violence, consensual or not, is unacceptable.

This is black and white. There are no shades of grey here. Not even one.

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