No action against police officer who mistakenly Tasered blind man

When the mistake was realised he was taken to Chorley Hospital for treatment and was later released.

An investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission has now been completed and after a file was passed to the Crown Prosecution Service a decision has now been made not to press charges against the officer.

Malcolm McHaffie, deputy head of CPS Special Crime Division, said: “On the basis of the evidence provided, including CCTV footage and police log record, I have determined that no charges should be brought against the officer.

“The circumstances are unusual because the officer was acting on the basis of erroneous reports from members of the public that the victim was carrying a samurai sword.

“Anyone accused of an assault who may have acted under a mistaken belief as to the facts must be judged on the facts as they believed them to be.

“In addition, police officers are entitled to use reasonable force in order to effect an arrest and where the officer is under a mistaken belief as to the facts the question is whether, in the circumstances as he believed them to be, the force was reasonable.

“The officer has been informed by the police control room that they had received reports that a man was walking around the streets of Chorley carrying a sword.

“It appears the reflective nature of the stick used as a walking aid by the victim, who is partially sighted, led members of the public to mistake it for a weapon. The officer, who was acting on this misinformation, made the same mistake.”

Mr McHaffie said he had considered all the evidence in the case and there was insufficient evidence to prove the policeman had not been mistaken.

Mr Farmer said: “In a strange way I’m relieved, simply because these things can go on so long. At last I feel there is some progress being made. I’m bemused by it, but I just want this to move forward.

“There is no doubt what the police said themselves – I’ve been put through a terrible ordeal. I’ve been through a living nightmare.”

He lodged a claim for damages against Lancashire police in January.

Edited for Telegraph.co.uk by Katie Grant

Crime News – UK Crime News

No action against police officer who mistakenly Tasered blind man

Officials: NSA mistakenly intercepted emails, phone calls of innocent Americans

By Michael Isikoff
National Investigative Correspondent, NBC News

The National Security Agency has at times mistakenly intercepted the private email messages and phone calls of Americans who had no link to terrorism, requiring Justice Department officials to report the errors to a secret national security court and destroy the data, according to two former U.S. intelligence officials. 

At least some of the phone calls and emails were pulled from among the hundreds of millions stored by telecommunications companies as part of an NSA surveillance program. James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, Thursday night publicly acknowledged what he called “a sensitive intelligence collection program” after its existence was disclosed by the Guardian newspaper.

Ret. Adm. Dennis Blair, who served as President Obama’s DNI in 2009 and 2010, told NBC News that, in one instance in 2009, analysts entered a phone number into agency computers and “put one digit wrong,” and mined a large volume of information about Americans with no connection to terror. The matter was reported to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, whose judges required that all the data be destroyed, he said.

---

Another former senior official, who asked not to be identified, confirmed Blair’s recollection and said the incident created serious problems for the Justice Department, which represents the NSA before the federal judges on the secret court.

The judges “were really upset about this,” said the former official. As a result, Attorney General Eric Holder pledged to the judges that the intelligence agencies would take steps to correct the problem as a condition of renewing the NSA’s surveillance program. 

The Justice Department publicly confirmed to the New York Times in April 2009 that Holder had taken “comprehensive steps” to correct a problem in NSA collection after it “detected issues that raised concerns.” But department officials declined to discuss details about what was described at the time as the “over-collection” of information.

Blair declined to say how many times the NSA had had to report the improper collection of information to the court, but indicated  it had happened more than once. A spokesman for current DNI Clapper declined comment.

The 2009 incident that Blair described may shed light on an exchange between Clapper and Sen. Ron Wyden, D.-Ore., at a March hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Asked by Wyden, “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?” Clapper replied, “Not wittingly. There are cases where they could, inadvertently perhaps collect-but not wittingly.”

Related story

Obama: ‘Nobody is listening to your telephone calls’

Blair drew a distinction between the “collection” or mining of data on specific U.S. citizens by NSA and the massive trove of phone call information that was turned over to the NSA under a negotiated agreement among intelligence officials, the telecommunications companies and the FISA judges. The purpose of the FISA order was to store information in the event that U.S. intelligence agencies need to access it after getting specific intelligence that somebody in the U.S. might be tied to terrorism.  It is only at that point, he explained, that the NSA goes back to the court to get permission to mine or “collect” the data.  

But the intelligence community’s distinction between “storing” and “collecting” data does not satisfy privacy and civil liberties advocates. “They are playing games,” said Cindy Cohn, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is suing U.S. phone companies over their cooperation with the NSA. Of the improper collection acknowledged by Blair, she said, “Who knows how many times this has happened?”

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Follow Open Channel from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

Open Channel

Officials: NSA mistakenly intercepted emails, phone calls of innocent Americans

Officials: NSA mistakenly intercepted emails, phone calls of innocent Americans

By Michael Isikoff
National Investigative Correspondent, NBC News

The National Security Agency has at times mistakenly intercepted the private email messages and phone calls of Americans who had no link to terrorism, requiring Justice Department officials to report the errors to a secret national security court and destroy the data, according to two former U.S. intelligence officials. 

At least some of the phone calls and emails were pulled from among the hundreds of millions stored by telecommunications companies as part of an NSA surveillance program. James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, Thursday night publicly acknowledged what he called “a sensitive intelligence collection program” after its existence was disclosed by the Guardian newspaper.

Ret. Adm. Dennis Blair, who served as President Obama’s DNI in 2009 and 2010, told NBC News that, in one instance in 2009, analysts entered a phone number into agency computers and “put one digit wrong,” and mined a large volume of information about Americans with no connection to terror. The matter was reported to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, whose judges required that all the data be destroyed, he said.

---

Another former senior official, who asked not to be identified, confirmed Blair’s recollection and said the incident created serious problems for the Justice Department, which represents the NSA before the federal judges on the secret court.

The judges “were really upset about this,” said the former official. As a result, Attorney General Eric Holder pledged to the judges that the intelligence agencies would take steps to correct the problem as a condition of renewing the NSA’s surveillance program. 

The Justice Department publicly confirmed to the New York Times in April 2009 that Holder had taken “comprehensive steps” to correct a problem in NSA collection after it “detected issues that raised concerns.” But department officials declined to discuss details about what was described at the time as the “over-collection” of information.

Blair declined to say how many times the NSA had had to report the improper collection of information to the court, but indicated  it had happened more than once. A spokesman for current DNI Clapper declined comment.

The 2009 incident that Blair described may shed light on an exchange between Clapper and Sen. Ron Wyden, D.-Ore., at a March hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Asked by Wyden, “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?” Clapper replied, “Not wittingly. There are cases where they could, inadvertently perhaps collect-but not wittingly.”

Related story

Obama: ‘Nobody is listening to your telephone calls’

Blair drew a distinction between the “collection” or mining of data on specific U.S. citizens by NSA and the massive trove of phone call information that was turned over to the NSA under a negotiated agreement among intelligence officials, the telecommunications companies and the FISA judges. The purpose of the FISA order was to store information in the event that U.S. intelligence agencies need to access it after getting specific intelligence that somebody in the U.S. might be tied to terrorism.  It is only at that point, he explained, that the NSA goes back to the court to get permission to mine or “collect” the data.  

But the intelligence community’s distinction between “storing” and “collecting” data does not satisfy privacy and civil liberties advocates. “They are playing games,” said Cindy Cohn, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is suing U.S. phone companies over their cooperation with the NSA. Of the improper collection acknowledged by Blair, she said, “Who knows how many times this has happened?”

More from Open Channel:

• China hacked Obama, McCain campaigns, took internal documents


• Former drone operator says he’s haunted by his part in more than 1,600 deaths


• Scientific review criticizes government’s roundups of wild horses

Follow Open Channel from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

Open Channel

Officials: NSA mistakenly intercepted emails, phone calls of innocent Americans