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Hip-Hop Cops

By Salim Muwakkil

Law enforcement conflates gangs and hip-hop because young black men are at the core of both.
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“Police Secretly Watching Hip-Hop Artists” read the headline of the Miami Herald article that put the spotlight on a practice that has grown more ominous at the same time that hip-hop has grown more popular.

As Nichole White and Evelyn McDonnell reported on March 9, “Miami and Miami Beach police are secretly watching and keeping dossiers on hip-hop celebrities like P. Diddy and DMX and their entourages when they come to South Florida.” Police officials told the Herald they photographed rappers as they arrived at Miami International Airport and staked out hotels, nightclubs and video shoots. The reporters explained that dozens of major and minor rappers are listed and tracked in a “6-inch thick” binder supplied by the New York City Police Department (NYPD).

Rap artists and others associated with hip-hop culture have long complained of being targets of police harassment. New York, the birthplace of hip-hop music, has become the de facto center of hip-hop intelligence. A special NYPD unit is dedicated to hip-hop surveillance, according to The Village Voice. Police officials downplay the reports. They insist hip-hop cops are a small part of the intelligence division’s gang unit and that they simply try to preempt the kind of violence that seems to follow hip-hop artists.

But the NYPD’s response sparked more questions: Why is hip-hop associated with gangs? Why the intelligence division?

Those preemptive strategies apparently are being adopted by police forces in other cities. The Herald noted that the NYPD hosted a three-day “hip-hop training session” in May 2003 attended by officers from “other major cities like Los Angeles and Atlanta.”

Miami officials said they were compelled to do a crash course on hip-hop after realizing their city was becoming a favorite destination. But just like their big-city mentors, Miami cops’ actions are being driven by stereotypes. “A lot of, if not most, rappers belong to some sort of gang,” Miami Police Sergeant Rafael Tapenes told the Herald. Law enforcement conflates gangs and hip-hop because young black men are at the core of both—the same black youth who have had problems with American law enforcement since the days of the slave patrols.

Even before recent revelations of hip-hop surveillance units, in March 2003, The Source declared in a headline: “State of Emergency: Hip-Hop Under Attack.” The magazine, the country’s largest hip-hop oriented publication, sounded the alarm about attacks from the increasingly influential cultural right and more intrusive police scrutiny. It featured an interview with a New York City cop who admitted that a special unit existed specifically to monitor, even harass, hip-hop figures. The unidentified cop told The Source that these efforts were aided by an increased focus on security after 9/11, which “opened up avenues for the government to change laws and violate public rights.”

Some see motives that are even more nefarious. Cedric Muhammad, publisher of the webzine BlackElectorate.com and former manager of the hip-hop collective Wu-Tang Clan, ran a series linking police harassment of rappers to the infamous COINTELPRO programs of J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI. Muhammad recently wrote a public letter to the Miami Herald, suggesting that reporters should shift the focus of attention beyond police harassment and racial profiling, “properly placing it where it belongs—at the federal level.”

The feds already have used antiterrorism strategies to crack down on domestic street gangs, and some officials have even linked such gangs to terrorism. Muhammad writes that linking gangsta rappers to genuine gangsters allows a COINTELPRO-like program to continue under the guise of homeland security, thus preempting the potential for a militant mass movement of black people.

Of course, hip-hop made itself an easy target. A large part of the genre’s appeal is its flamboyant roguishness. The ghetto-centric sensibilities and crime-laced narratives that dominate so much of the genre offer a vicarious escape for some and, perhaps, a how-to manual for others.

Hip-hop artists often project images that skirt the edges of respectability, posturing a hard, “no sell-out” image, even as they rake in mainstream bucks. And then there are the “beefs”—the feuds that too often have jumped off records into reality. What’s more, critics increasingly complain that rap lyrics go beyond promoting violence and crime to self-hatred and misogyny. And these complaints are most strenuous within the African-American community, not the FBI.

Issues like these are sure to be addressed at the National Hip-Hop Political Convention (http://www.hiphopconvention.org) taking place in Newark, N.J., as this issue goes to press. The mid-June event gathered activists, politicians, scholars and hip-hop artists from across the country to discuss ways to empower the so-called hip-hop generation. I’m sure the police are watching.

Salim Muwakkil is a senior editor of In These Times, where he has worked since 1983. He is currently a Crime and Communities Media Fellow of the Open Society Institute, examining the impact of ex-inmates and gang leaders in leadership positions in the black community.

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  • Reader Comments

    Greetings Readership:

    This indeed is a timely article… but alas, the enemy was already at our gates.  COINTELPRO was reinvigorated and technologically updated years ago.  No longer is there a need for tailing individual and antiquated wire taps.  Now, you and your thoughts are your worse enemy.  This is especially true for hip-hop artist and sports stars (see below):

    Greetings

    I am a research scientist based out of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.  I was informally made aware of illegal neurological-psychological ops and experiments (biotelemetry) conducted at major universities (Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Smith College, DownState Medical Center, University of Southern California, etc) and cities (New York City, Boston).  Are you familiar with this technology? See below.

    Charles Kyte (Univeristy of Southern California, Skull & Dagger; Class of ‘98)
    [Son of a Deceased ‘World Order of St. Johns Knight of Malta’: CWolde Kyte, MD (MA), PhD,
    Knight Commander of North & South America, Australia]

    REFERENCE:
    World’s first brain prosthesis revealed
    19:00 12 March 03
    Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition.
    The world’s first brain prosthesis - an artificial hippocampus - is about to be tested in California. Unlike devices like cochlear implants, which merely stimulate brain activity, this silicon chip implant will perform the same processes as the damaged part of the brain it is replacing. [University of Southern California, Los Angeles]

    http://www.newscientist.com/news/print.jsp?id=ns99993488
    ________________________________________________________________________
    Keywords: radio implants, microchips, brain, bioelectrical resonance, DNA microchip
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM FOLLOWS MILLIONS OF PEOPLE


    Every thought, reaction, hearing and visual observation causes a certain neurological potential, spikes, and patterns in the brain and its electromagnetic fields, which can now be decoded into thoughts, pictures and voices. Electromagnetic stimulation can therefore change a person’s brainwaves and affect muscular activity, causing painful muscular cramps experienced as torture.

    The NSA’s electronic surveillance system can simultaneously follow and handle millions of people. Each of us has a unique bioelectrical reson- ance frequency in the brain, just like we have unique fingerprints. With electro-magnetic frequency (EMF) brain stimulation fully coded, pulsating electromagnetic signals can be sent to the brain, causing the desired voice and visual effects to be experienced by the target. This is a form of electronic warfare. U.S. astronauts were implanted before they were sent into space so their thoughts could be followed and all their emotions could be registered 24 hours a day.


    The NSA’s Signals Intelligence can remotely monitor information from human brains by decoding the evoked potentials (3.50HZ, 5 milliwatt) emitted by the brain. Prisoner experimentees in both Gothenburg, Sweden and Vienna, Austria have been found to have [missing word] brain lesions. Diminished blood circulation and lack of oxygen in the right temporal frontal lobes result where brain implants are usually operative. A Finnish experimentee experienced brain atrophy and intermittent attacks of unconsciousness due to lack of oxygen.

    Mind control techniques can be used for political purposes. The goal of mind controllers today is to induce the targeted persons or groups to act against his or her own convictions and best interests. Zombified individ-uals can even be programmed to murder and remember nothing of their crime afterward. Alarming examples of this phenomenon can be found in the U.S.

    MICROWAVE MIND CONTROL: MODERN TORTURE AND CONTROL MECHANISMS ELIMINATING HUMAN RIGHTS AND PRIVACY

    By Dr. Rauni Leena Kilde, MD
    September 25, 1999

    Helsingin Sanomat, the largest newspaper in Scandinavia, wrote in the September 9, 1999 issue that Scientific American magazine estimates that after the Millenium perhaps ALL people will be implanted with a “DNA microchip”.

    How many people realize what it actually means? Total loss of privacy and total outside control of the person’s physical body functions, men-tal, emotional and thought processes, including the implanted person’s subconscious and dreams! For the rest of his life!

    It sounds like science fiction but it is secret military and intelligence agencies’ mind control technology, which has been experimented with for almost half a century. Totally without the knowledge of the general public and even the general academic population.

    Supercomputers in Maryland, Israel and elsewhere with a speed of over 20 BILLION bits/sec can monitor millions of people simultaneously. In fact, the whole world population can be totally controlled by these secret brain-computer interactions, however unbelievable it sounds for the uninformed.

    Human thought has a speed of 5,000 bits/sec and everyone understands that our brain cannot compete with supercomputers acting via satellites, implants, local facilities, scalar or other forms of biotelemetry.

    Each brain has a unique set of bioelectric resonance/entrainment characteristics. Remote neural monitoring systems with supercomputers can send messages through an implanted person’s nervous system and affect their performance in any way desired. They can of course be tracked and identified anywhere.

    Neuro-electromagnetic involuntary human experimentation has been going on with the so-called “vulnerable population” for about 50 years, in the name of “science” or “national security” in the worst Nazi-type testing, contrary to all human rights. Physical and psychological torture of mind control victims today is like the worst horror movies. Only, unlike the horror movies, it is true.

    It happens today in the USA, Japan, and Europe. With few exceptions, the mass media suppresses all information about the entire topic.

    Mind control technology in the USA is classified under “non-lethal” weaponry. The name is totally misleading because the technology used IS lethal, but death comes slowly in the form of “normal” illnesses, like cancer, leukemia, heart attacks, Alzheimer’s disease with loss of short term memory first. No wonder these illnesses have increased all over the world.

    When the use of electromagnetic fields, extra-low (ELF) and ultra-low (ULF) frequencies and microwaves aimed deliberately at certain individ-uals, groups, and even the general population to cause diseases, disori-entation, chaos and physical and emotional pain breaks into the awareness of the general population, a public outcry is inevitable.

    [Eleanor White comment: ELF/ULF frequencies on their own cannot be focussed and are practically impossible to transmit in the usual manner of radio transmissions. ELF/ULF cannot carry voice.

    ELF/ULF CAN be carried on radio and ultrasound carrier signals, however, and are effective in things like setting up a target to be more receptive to hypnosis, force a target to be unable to sleep, and force a target to fall asleep daytime. This is like the reverse process of reading the brain’s natural ELF/ULF electrical activity using biofeedback.]

    Recommended reading: Mind Controllers, Dr. Armen Victorian, 1999, UK Mind Control, World Control, Jim Keith, 1997, USA Microwave Mind Control, Tim Rifat, The Truth Campaign, winter 1998, UK
    ____________________________________________________________________________

    Research Information:


    Note:

    3 of 125 DOCUMENTS

    Copyright 2003 Salon.com, Inc.
    Salon.com

    November 11, 2003 Tuesday

    SECTION: Feature

    LENGTH: 1811 words

    HEADLINE: Where is the real Matrix?

    BYLINE: By Shy Shoham and Sam Hall

    HIGHLIGHT:
    Neural implant devices are now a reality. But misguided federal policies are
    keeping them from the people who need them.

    BODY:

    In the futuristic vision of the Wachowski brothers’ movie trilogy “The
    Matrix,” humans dive into a virtual world by connecting their brains directly to
    a computer. Most movie viewers may consider direct interfaces with the nervous
    system as much of a fantasy as the movie’s gravity-defying special effects.
    However, for a small group of engineers and scientists this very idea is very
    real—and is driving advances in medical technology that could help millions
    of disabled people see and hear—and live normal lives. Unfortunately,
    bureaucratic hurdles have slowed the development of this technology, and its
    potential remains largely untapped.

    Real-life human-computer interfaces are called neuroprostheses—medical
    devices that connect directly to the human brain, spinal cord or nerves. “Matrix
    “ fans might be surprised to learn that neuroprostheses have been around as long
    as more “traditional” devices like cardiac pacemakers. In fact, a number of
    neuroprosthetic devices were already being developed in the 1950s, and by the
    early 1970s the National Institutes of Health established the Neural Prostheses
    Program to coordinate research in this promising field.

    The first neuroprostheses to become commercially available in the United
    States were cochlear implants, following their initial FDA approval in 1984.
    Sound from a microphone placed near the ear is coverted to weak electrical
    currents that activate auditory nerve endings inside the cochlea in the inner
    ear. The activity produced in these nerves propagates directly to the brain,
    where it produces an auditory perception. By bypassing the normal hearing
    apparatus it provides an artificial hearing sensation to deaf people. To date,
    more than 55,000 patients worldwide have received cochlear implants. The
    technology of cochlear implants has enjoyed remarkable advances since the early
    days. Improvements in signal processing now allow many deaf users to use these
    devices to perceive speech, talk on the phone, and even listen to music.

    While sensory prostheses like the cochlear implant provide a substitute
    sensory percept, motor prostheses are used to move muscles—allowing the
    paralyzed to regain lost function. One example of a motor prosthesis is the
    FreeHand system from NeuroControl Corp., which uses implanted muscle stimulators
    to restore limited hand movement in individuals paralyzed as a result of certain
    forms of spinal cord injury. The user of this system controls it with a
    controller-stimulator unit implanted behind his shoulder. Limb-control systems
    like the FreeHand system have been implanted in more than 300 patients.

    The most widely used motor neuroprostheses are devices used to stimulate the
    bladder in paralyzed individuals who have lost control of bladder voiding.
    Thousands of such devices have been implanted worldwide for over three decades.

    A very different use of neuroprosthetic devices is to disrupt unwanted brain
    activity, which can be the result of different neurological diseases. These
    devices target the tremors that result from Parkinson’s disease, essential
    tremor, seizures that result from epilepsy, and chronic, persistent pain (which
    has a variety of causes). They are implanted in patients that are not responding
    to medication. Anti-tremor devices are implanted by neurosurgeons in the patient
    ‘s brain, in a region called the basal ganglia. More than 15,000 patients have
    been implanted with such deep-brain stimulators. Anti-epileptic devices are
    implanted in the patient’s neck region around the vagus nerve. Over 18,000
    patients have been implanted with vagus-nerve stimulators to date. Devices for
    chronic pain have been implanted in a variety of regions, most commonly in the
    spinal cord. Many science fiction fans will argue that fully immersive virtual
    interfaces are the future of brain-computer interaction. The technology for such
    systems does not exist yet, but interestingly, the development of
    microelectronic technology over the last four decades, which has enabled chip
    manufacturers to squeeze hundreds of millions of transistors onto a single chip
    in your PC or cellphone, may also revolutionize the field of neuroprosthetics,
    allowing a technical leap in that direction.

    Several research labs from universities and companies around the world are
    using microelectronic technology to develop devices known as “microelectrode
    arrays.” These devices can “interact” independently with a large number of nerve
    cells: recording their activity or stimulating them. The development of
    microelectrode arrays has allowed researchers in the field to start thinking
    seriously about a variety of next-generation neuroprosthetic devices, including
    new types of neuroprostheses. These include vision prostheses for the blind and
    brain-computer interfaces for the totally paralyzed.

    Brain-computer interfaces are arguably the most “futuristic” devices
    currently being developed. If successful, they will allow paralyzed individuals
    to use their brain instead of their paralyzed muscles to communicate directly
    with a computer or control their environment. This may give patients suffering
    from the extreme “locked-in” syndrome a way to break out of their
    disease-induced solitude, and may provide quality-of-life benefits to many other
    individuals whose paralysis is not as complete. As with most other devices,
    several possible approaches are pursued in the development of brain-computer
    interfaces. Recording electrodes can be placed noninvasively on the surface of
    the scalp or implanted surgically into the brain, where they can be used to tap
    on the brain’s inner communications. Both approaches have pros and cons, and it
    is yet unclear which carries the best long-term potential.

    As humans we experience the world through our five senses, and nerves are
    used to control the muscles that move our body. Many diseases affect nerves,
    muscles and brain. Clearly, being able to bypass or block defective systems is
    an important capability—this is why neuroprosthetics has many possible
    applications and holds great promise.

    But how have these devices fared in the marketplace? Not well. In the entire
    1990s only eight implantable neuroprosthetic devices received FDA approval.
    Moreover, most of those devices were based not on cutting-edge advances, but on
    decades-old pacemaker technology.

    Why is so little innovation reaching the patient? One basic problem is a
    mismatch between the hurdles faced by neuroprosthetic devices in finding a
    profitable market, and the dynamics of the marketplace itself. An analysis of
    neuroprosthesis commercialization efforts from the last two decades reveals
    major barriers posed by FDA regulations and even larger barriers posed by
    device-reimbursement policies that fail to account for long-term economic
    benefits.

    The existing regulatory environment is largely adapted for the drug market,
    in which large companies and vast markets can shoulder long-term financial
    risks. However, the same environment has slowed neuroprosthetic
    commercialization and development to a trickle.

    Entrepreneurs in this field typically face a decade of regulatory uncertainty
    and chronic underpayment for the devices themselves. Many entrepreneurs are
    willing to shoulder this uncertainty, but the environment makes it difficult to
    raise the capital necessary for clinical trials and the initial phases of entry
    into the marketplace. This factor led directly to the discontinuation of the
    first cochlear implant introduced the United States: the 3M/House implant. More
    recently, distribution of the FreeHand system described above has been
    discontinued following disappointing financial results.

    Most neuroprosthetic devices target a relatively small patient population,
    making them ideal candidates for the FDA’s Humanitarian Device Exemption (HDE),
    which is supposed to waive the costly effort of demonstrating effectiveness.
    However, in its present form this exemption imposes a heavy burden on developers
    and hospitals as well as tight legal limits on device prices. In essence, the
    restrictions have so far prevented profitable manufacturing of the devices in
    the United States.

    The Vocare system, which restores bladder control to paralyzed individuals
    and was marketed in the United States by NeuroControl Corp. of Cleveland, Ohio,
    is an illustrative example. Despite years of availability in Europe, the Vocare
    system was withdrawn from the U.S. market following two years of disappointing
    financial results, leaving tens of thousands of paralyzed individuals without an
    equivalent alternative. This withdrawal is largely attributable to restrictive
    HDE policies. There are signs that at least some of the inefficiencies in the
    FDA review process are slowly being eliminated: Removing the HDE caveats would
    probably prove invaluable to neuroprosthetics as well as to their target users.

    The most serious barrier is undoubtedly the reimbursement policy, largely
    determined in the United States by Medicare. Medicare’s prospective-payment
    system does not contain specific reimbursement codes for neuroprosthetic
    devices, and they are invariably assigned to nonspecific categories that cover
    surgical costs but greatly underpay device costs. In fact, of the more than 500
    reimbursement codes, only four inpatient categories are specific to implantable
    devices—all for cardiac pacemakers.

    One may argue that this is a reasonable policy choice for cutting medical
    expenses, but a number of studies have shown that the long-term financial
    benefits of devices such as cochlear implants for the deaf, vagus-nerve
    stimulators for controlling epilepsy, and other neuroprosthetic devices are much
    greater than the immediate costs associated with device purchase and
    implantation.

    In spite of those studies, Medicare consistently underpays for these
    breakthrough technologies. Furthermore, the years spent until the actual
    reimbursement decision is made have already led to the withdrawal of several
    devices. There is no reason to assume that the fate of future neuroprostheses
    will be different. Reimbursement adjustments that will allow a more predictable,
    expeditious and unbiased payment for breakthrough medical devices (possibly by
    using temporary reimbursement codes) will almost certainly boost innovation in
    this field.

    In his groundbreaking 1984 novel “Neuromancer,” where “The Matrix” was born,
    William Gibson describes a future with vast computer networks accessible through
    direct human-computer interfaces. Gibson’s “cyberspace” has become an everyday
    reality in the World Wide Web, but the development of direct neural interfaces
    is still a disappointment. Simple policy adjustments can change this trend,
    allowing these useful devices, many of which can already be manufactured, to set
    the stage for major improvements in this branch of medical technology.

    LOAD-DATE: November 12, 2003
    __________________________________________________________________________

    Charles L. Kyte, III
    The Mount Sinai School of Medicine
    One Gustave Levy Place, Box 1124
    New York, NY 10029
    (212) 241-9386

    Posted by Charles Kyte @ Mount Sinai School of Medicine on Jun 29, 2004 at 9:05 AM

    I was going to say that.

    Posted by Neil on Jul 2, 2004 at 3:53 PM
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