Aftermath News

Associated Press | May 11, 2008

By KEVIN FREKING

WASHINGTON - Families claiming that a mercury-based preservative in vaccines triggers autism will challenge mainstream medicine Monday as they take their case to a federal court.

They seek vindication and financial redress from a government fund that helps people injured by shots.

Two 10-year-old boys from Portland, Ore., will serve as the test cases that determine whether the children and their families should be compensated. Attorneys for the boys will attempt to show the boys were happy, healthy and developing normally. But, after being exposed to vaccines with thimerosal, they began to regress and show symptoms of autism.

Thimerosal has been removed in recent years from standard childhood vaccines, except the flu shot. In 2004, a committee with the Institute of Medicine concluded there was no credible evidence that vaccines containing thimerosal caused autism.

Overall, nearly 4,900 families have filed claims with the U.S. Court of Claims alleging that vaccines caused autism and other neurological problems in their children. Lawyers for the families will present three different theories of how vaccines caused autism.

The case beginning Monday focuses on the second of those theories: that thimerosal-containing vaccines alone cause autism. Lawyers for the petitioning families said they will present evidence that injections with thimerosal deposit a form of mercury in the brain. That mercury excites certain brain cells that stay chronically activated trying to get rid of the intrusion.

“In some kids, there’s enough of it that it sets off this chronic neuroinflammatory pattern that can lead to regressive autism,” said attorney Mike Williams.

In the end, the families’ attorneys hope to convince a special master of the U.S. Court of Claims that thimerosal belongs on the list of causes for the inflammation that leads to regressive autism.

To win, the attorneys for the two boys, William Mead and Jordan King, will have to show that it”s more likely than not that the vaccine actually caused the injury.

Many members of the medical community are skeptical of the families’ claims. They worry that the claims about the dangers of vaccines could cause some people to forgo vaccines that prevent illness.

“I think that what’s so endearing to me about the anti-vaccine people is they’re perfectly willing to go from one hypothesis to the next without a backward glance,” said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Autism is a developmental disability that typically appears during the first three years of life and affects a person’s ability to communicate and interact with others. Dr. Andrew Gerber, a psychiatrists, said that medical experts don’t have a comprehensive understanding of what causes autism, but they do know there is a strong hereditary component.

Toxins from the environment could play a role, but currently, data does not support that they do, Gerber said.

Arguments are scheduled to go on throughout the month. A final decision could take several more months to occur. Claims that are successful would result in compensation taking into account lost earnings after age 18 and up to $250,000 for pain and suffering.

The families or the federal government can also appeal the decision of the special master to the Court of Federal Claims or to a federal appeals court.

While there have been about 5,000 claims relating to autism, there have been fewer than 3,000 claims for all other vaccines.

‘Everything to live for’: school student Hannah Bond hanged herself not long after showing her father the cuts on her wrists as part of her ‘emo initiation’

Daily Mail | May 7, 2008

by ANDREW LEVY

A girl of 13 killed herself after becoming obsessed with a fashion which links death with glamour, an inquest heard.

Emo fans wear dark clothes, practise self-harm and listen to “suicide cult” rock bands.

Two weeks before her death, she started following U.S. band My Chemical Romance.

One of their songs contains the lyrics: “Although you’re dead and gone, believe me your memory will go on.”

Hannah, described as a model pupil, had started cutting her wrists but told her father it was part of an initiation into the Emo fashion.

Coroner Roger Sykes said yesterday that Hannah’s death was “not glamorous, just simply a tragic loss of a young life”.

Hannah’s mother Heather told the inquest she had researched the trend since her daughter’s death.

“There are websites that show pink teddies hanging themselves,” she said.

“She called Emo a fashion and I thought it was normal.”

She added: “Hannah was a normal girl. She had loads of friends. She could be a bit moody but I thought it was just because she was a teenager.”

Hannah’s father Ray, a karate teacher, said: “Two weeks before, I saw the cuts. I asked her about them and she said it was an Emo initiation.

“She promised me she would never do it again.”

Hannah gave her name as Living Disaster on her page on social networking website Bebo.

The page is decorated with a picture of an Emo girl with bloody wrists after slashing herself.

Another picture shows a child’s exercise book scrawled with the words: “Dear Diary, today I give up. . .”

The inquest in Maidstone, Kent, heard Hannah had been with her boyfriend at a friend’s house on the evening of September 22 last year.

She had been angry when she was told she was not allowed to sleep over and when she got home in East Peckham she went straight to her room, saying: “I want to kill myself.”

The inquest was told Hannah had not used drugs or alcohol before her death but Vanessa Everett, her head teacher at Mascalls School, said self-harm had become commonplace among other Emo fans.

Recording a verdict of suicide, Mr Sykes said: “The Emo overtones concerning death and associating it with glamour I find very disturbing.”

•The Emo phenomenon began in the U.S. in the 1980s. It is a largely teenage trend and is characterised by depression, self-injury and suicide.

Followers wear tight jeans with studded belts and wristbands. Their hair is dyed black and worn in long fringes to obscure their faces.

Emo - from the word emotional - is a reference to the angst-filled lyrics and melancholy themes of the rock music central to the culture.

One of the foremost of these “suicide cult” bands is My Chemical Romance, from New Jersey.

Their first single, Welcome to the Black Parade, from the album The Black Parade, was released in 2006 and became a huge hit, going to number one in Britain.

The concept album follows the story of a character called The Patient, who dies of cancer.

The Black Parade is a nickname for the place where Emo fans believe they will go when they die.

Reuters Apr 29, 2008

BEIJING (Reuters) - Thousands of children in southwest China have been sold into slavery like “cabbages”, to work as labourers in more prosperous areas such as the booming southern province of Guangdong, a newspaper said on Tuesday.

China announced a nationwide crackdown on slavery and child labor last year after reports that hundreds of poor farmers, children and mentally disabled were forced to work in kilns and mines in Shanxi province and neighboring Henan.

“The bustling child labor market (in Sichuan province) was set up by the local chief foreman and his gang of 18 minor foremen, who each manage 50 to 100 child labourers,” the Southern Metropolis Newspaper said.

“The children generally fall between the ages of 13 and 15, but many look under 10,” it added.

The newspaper said 76 children from the same county, Liangshan, had been missing since the Chinese Lunar Year festival in February, 42 of whom had already left the region to work.

“The youngest kids found in the child labor market were only seven and nine years old,” it said.

According to a contract exposed by an undercover reporter, a child laborer is paid 3.5 yuan ($0.50) an hour and must work at least 300 hours a month.

“These kids are robust and can do the toughest work,” a foreman was quoted as saying, as he pulled a scrawny girl to stand beside him, the paper said.

Xinhua news agency said the county government had sent officials to rescue the children, but some were unwilling to leave, having been sold into slavery by their parents or volunteering to work themselves.

Children as young as 11 will form a “jury”, listen to evidence, and hand down a sentence.

Telegraph | Apr 28, 2008

By Auslan Cramb

Children will be allowed to sentence each other for minor crimes such as vandalism under plans for Scotland’s first “kid court”.

The scheme will be trialled in the Borders and will deal with young offenders who have admitted their guilt to the police, but whose offences are not serious enough to merit appearing before a Children’s Panel.

At the moment, such cases are dealt with in the form of a warning from the police.

Under the plan, which is similar to a scheme operated in New York, children as young as 11 will form a “jury”, listen to evidence, and hand down a sentence that could include repairing any criminal damage.

Other possible punishments involve writing letters of apology, saying sorry in person and listening to the victim explain the impact of the crime on them.

However, one former judge described the scheme, which is due to being approved by officials at Scottish Borders Council, as a “crackpot idea”. Lord McCluskey added: “It’s not always appropriate to bring in ideas from the United States, they have a very different situation from us.”

But John Scott, a criminal defence lawyer, said it was “worth trying”, adding: “Sometimes young people can get through to young offenders in a way that judges, lawyers and social workers can’t.” Officials who support the move believe that children who are sentenced by their peers are less likely to re-offend.

The children’s court plan is based on a scheme that has run for more than a decade in New York city, where youngsters from the age of 14 sit in judgment on each other.

The US scheme gives jury members ten weeks of training and swears them to secrecy. It also selects jurors from schoolchildren of various backgrounds and academic levels as well as former offenders to avoid accusations of class bias.

It avoids restricting courts to individual schools to reduce the chances of the accused and jurors knowing each other.

The Scottish version will see members of the panels supported by adults in the council’s youth justice team.

The local Children’s Reporter will advise on appropriate cases.

Jeremy Purvis, Lib Dem MSP for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale, said: “These youth panels will give an opportunity to nip offending behaviour in the bud.

“It won’t be appropriate for everyone, but there will be a significant number who will listen to their peers rather than some person in a suit. The disapproval of their peers confronts offenders in a way that a lecture from a much older person doesn’t.”

An estimated 37,000 offences are committed in Scotland each year by children under the age of 16.

Lost 400 children may have been trafficked into sex or drugs trade

· Government action plan ‘failing to protect victims’

The Guardian | Apr 23, 2008

by Robert Booth

More than 400 foreign children, many suspected of being trafficked into the sex or drug trade in Britain, have gone missing from local authority care.

Children from Africa, Asia and eastern Europe have disappeared from safe houses and foster homes around the country’s biggest ports and airports, figures released to the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act have revealed.

The missing children include at least 87 Chinese who disappeared from care around Heathrow and Gatwick and 68 from countries including Afghanistan, Albania and India who went missing from the care of Kent county council, which is responsible for protecting children trafficked through Dover and Folkestone.

Anti-trafficking campaigners believe the missing children are often taken from care by their trafficker and then exploited for prostitution, domestic servitude and other illegal activities. Other children escape out of fear of being found by the trafficker and without money or identity papers fall prey to further abuse and exploitation.

According to records from 16 local authorities around England’s ports and airports, an estimated 408 children disappeared between July 2004 and July 2007. They are known by officialdom as unaccompanied asylum seekers and child protection campaigners believe most have been trafficked.

It is thought that many escape only for traffickers to send them on for exploitation in other parts of the world, particularly Italy and Spain. Only 12 children have been traced and returned to care.

“We are shocked that the numbers keep rising,” said Christine Beddoe, the chief executive of ECPAT UK which campaigns for greater protection for trafficked children. “These figures come in spite of the government’s action plan on trafficking and show the need for an urgent inquiry into separated children who go missing. These vulnerable children need to be given independent guardians as soon as possible to ensure they are protected from traffickers who we know target them even while they are in care.”

Today local authorities on the front line of the illegal trade in children will tell ministers they need at least another £30m to continue offering the basic protections for unaccompanied asylum seekers under 18. ECPAT UK also wants the government to appoint an independent “rapporteur” who can work out the true extent of the problem. The last government estimate put the number of missing trafficked children at 183, which now seems low.

A spokeswoman for the Home Office said: “We are concerned about the number of children who go missing from local authority care each year who appear to have been trafficked. That is why we intend to identify a group of “specialist” local authorities which have effective procedures to keep children safe and to identify and provide proper services for the victims of trafficking. We intend to channel all cases to these authorities from around the country.”

According to the figures obtained by the Guardian, Newcastle city council reported 12 Somali children missing and said 13 of the 17 Chinese children it has taken into care have disappeared. Officials at Suffolk county council said they find unaccompanied children arriving in shipping containers and in the backs of lorries travelling through Felixstowe. They admitted losing track of 16 children since March 2005, including six Afghans. The worst record was at the London Borough of Hillingdon which estimates it is dealing with 1,000 unaccompanied minors a year, coming mostly through Heathrow airport.

The council said 74 went missing between 2006 and 2007 and it does not know how many it lost in the previous years. Despite a system of safe houses for the 145 children who came into the care of West Sussex, which includes Gatwick airport, 42 went missing, largely Chinese and Nigerians.

“As soon as they can they will contact their trafficker,” said Kirsty Hanna, manager of the Gatwick children’s team. “It could be they have memorised the trafficker’s mobile number, or the trafficker may have followed them to the safe house. There have been times when they have jumped out of the window. They are under a lot of pressure, often to pay back their passage. Their families back home could be threatened with torture or murder. We are constantly trying to disrupt the traffickers, but it has to be a losing battle if we can’t stop the problems abroad that causes the trafficking.”

‘This isn’t conjecture, it’s happening now’

WorldNetDaily | Apr 19, 2008

By Bob Unruh

A doctor at the renowned Children’s Hospital Boston has launched a new program to drug children to delay puberty so they can decide whether they want a male or a female body, according to a report today in the Boston Globe.

Pediatric endocrinologist Norman Spack, 64, says he started the Gender Management Service Clinic because he found himself encountering 20-somethings who were “transgendered” and in good shape socially, “but they were having trouble getting their physique to conform to their identity.

“I knew the 20-somethings could have better chances of passing if they were treated earlier,” he said.

“We don’t think that demonic is too strong a word to describe this,” said a statement from the pro-family Mass Resistance organization. “It brings us thoughts of the Nazi doctors who thought they were doing good things.”

WND has reported previously on some of the controversies prompted by the belief that a man can be born in a woman’s body, or vice versa, including in Montgomery County, Md., where county officials have adopted a law that precludes those who provide public accommodations from discriminating based on that “gender identity.”

Voters there have petitioned to have a vote on that law because they fear men who “decide” they are female walking into women’s restrooms and locker rooms.

“Is this our future?” asked Mass Resistance in a commentary. “Dr. Norman Spack runs a clinic for young children who’ve ‘decided’ they are transgendered. Among other things, the clinic administers powerful hormones to delay (or even stop) puberty in order that the children more easily undergo operations that mutilate their bodies to ‘change’ them to the opposite sex.”

“This is going on at the world-renowned Children’s Hospital in Boston – not some backwater clinic. This is the elite of the medical profession,” the organization said.

In a question-and-answer session with Globe columnist Pagan Kennedy, she starts the apologetic for doing surgery on children by saying, “Little boys sob unless they’re allowed to wear dresses. The girls want to be called Luke, Ted, or James.”

“Until recently, children with cross-gender feelings rarely received modern medical care – and certainly not hormone shots. After all, who would allow a child to redesign his or her body?” she asks.

But Spack, she wrote, has started a clinic that “is one of the few in the world to give children treatments that change their bodies.”

She reports he uses drugs to delay puberty, “granting them a few more years before they develop bodies that are decidedly male or female.”

Spack tells the interviewer he’s seen “preadolescents” who have been dressing in underwear of the opposite sex “for years.”

“The puberty-blocking drugs work best at the beginning of the pubital process, typically age 10 to 12 for a girl and 12 to 14 for a boy,” he said. He’s based some of his work on a Dutch model for sex-change, and said the recommendations there are age 16 for hormones that forever change a child’s body.

But “for others,” he wrote, “you lose opportunities if you wait. [One of my patients, a] transgendered girl from the UK, was destined to be a 6-foot-4 male. With treatment, she’s going to end up 5-foot-10.”

He said such treatments not only change the physical characteristics of the growing children, but also could leave them sterile for life.

“You have to explain to the patients that if they go ahead, they may not be able to have children. … But if you don’t start treatment, they will always have trouble fitting in,” he said.

“This isn’t conjecture,” Mass Resistance’ commentary said. “It’s happening now. And ‘transgenderism’ is being promoted to kids by homosexual/transgender activists in the public schools.”

Children as young as 12 already have been given the treatment.

Meanwhile, LifeSiteNews has reported that Spack previously acknowledged that only about 20 percent of children who claim to have a confusion over their gender hold those feelings in adulthood.

The hospital itself calls the program “unique in the Western hemisphere.”

“This will be the first major program in the country that … [is] also welcoming young people who appear to be transgendered and are considering medical protocols that might help them,” Spack said.

Pope Benedict as a Hitler Youth member

Blames American society for pedophile priest abuses

BBC | Apr 20, 2008

Pope Benedict XVI has spoken out for the first time about growing up under the “monster” of Nazism.

The Pope was a Hitler Youth member as a teen, usual for young Germans at the time, and was conscripted by the German army near the end of World War II.

Earlier, during a Mass at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan he again condemned paedophile Catholic priests.

Pope Benedict’s tour of the US is his first visit to the country since being elected head of the Catholic Church - it was the third anniversary of his elevation to the papacy on Saturday and the event was formally commemorated with the Mass at St Patrick’s.

Prisoner of war

Later in the day he addressed a cheering crowd of 30,000 young people on the field of St Joseph’s Seminary, in the New York suburb of Yonkers.

As a teenager, the pope was forced to join the Hitler Youth and he was conscripted into the German army towards the end of World War II, serving briefly in an anti-aircraft corps.
He deserted the German army towards the end of the war and was briefly held as a prisoner of war by the Allies in 1945.
After his release he studied theology and became a priest.
‘Banished God’

The Pope told the crowd his own years as a teenager had been “marred by a sinister regime that thought it had all the answers”.
“Its influence grew, infiltrating schools and civic bodies, as well as politics and even religion, before it was fully recognised for the monster it was,” he said.

“It banished God and thus became impervious to anything true and good.

“Let us thank God that so many people of your generation are able to enjoy the liberties which have arisen from the extension of democracy and respect for human rights.”

The earlier Mass at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan marked the third anniversary of his election as leader of the Roman Catholic church.

Pope Benedict was greeted by the Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, and the cathedral was filled with priests, deacons and members of religious orders.

A choir sang as the Pope walked down the large cathedral’s central aisle. The congregation rose and applauded and some people leaned over to touch his robe or kiss his Fisherman’s Ring.

“I join you in praying that this will be a time of purification for each and every particular Church and religious community, a time for healing,” the Pope said in his sermon, referring to the scandal of sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy.

“I also encourage you to co-operate with your bishops who continue to work to effectively resolve this issue.”

‘Christian morality’

More than 4,000 US Catholic clergy have been accused of sexually abusing minors since 1950.

The Church has paid out more than $2bn (£1bn) in compensation and legal fees, most of it since the scandal erupted in 2002.

Speaking out on the issue again during the Mass at St Patrick’s, the Pope said the scandal had not only caused much damage to the victims of paedophile abuse, but had diminished the reputation of the church in US society.

“A society which seems to have forgotten God and to resent even the most elementary demands of Christian morality,” he said .
The Vatican official in charge of reviewing sexual abuse claims against clergy worldwide said on Friday that the Church was considering changes to canon law governing the handling of such cases.

The official, Cardinal William Levada, did not specify the changes but said they would make it easier to remove clergy who had sexually abused children.

The sexual abuse scandal has been a recurring theme in the Pope’s visit.

Addressing 40,000 people at a Washington stadium earlier in the week, he spoke of the issue before talking privately to a group of people who had been abused by priests.

On Sunday, he will lead prayers at the scene of the 9/11 attacks in New York and then celebrate Mass at Yankee Stadium before returning to Rome later on Sunday.

Related

The Catholic Church and Nazism in Germany

The Catholic Nazi Inquisition

Lawsuit charges that Nazi gold funded Vatican ratlines

Christianity’s Role in the Rise of the Nazis

Ratlines (history)
Ratlines were systems of escape routes for Nazis and other fascists fleeing Europe at the end of World War II.

Knights of Malta Shadow government
Catholic Knights of Malta helped thousands of the worst Nazis and members of the SS to escape to freedom down the “Ratlines”

Reichskonkordat
The Reichskonkordat is the concordat between the Holy See and Nazi Germany. It was signed on July 20, 1933 by Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli and Franz von Papen on behalf of Pope Pius XI and President Paul von Hindenburg, respectively. It is still valid today in Germany.

Gulf Daily | Apr 19, 2008

WASHINGTON: Pope Benedict yesterday chided Americans for a moral breakdown he said had fuelled the church’s child sex abuse scandal, as he addressed the paedophile priest scandal that has rocked the US church.

In a speech to US Catholic bishops, the pontiff berated the bishops for their poor handling of a scandal surrounding sexual abuse of children in the church.

But he urged efforts “to address the sin of abuse within the wider context of sexual mores” as well as a reassessment of “the values underpinning society.”

“What does it mean to speak of child protection when pornography and violence can be viewed in so many homes through media widely available today?” the pontiff said on the first full day of his US visit.

“Children deserve to grow up with a healthy understanding of sexuality and its proper place in human relationships. They should be spared the degrading manifestations and the crude manipulation of sexuality so prevalent today.”

Describing clerics who sexually abuse children as “gravely immoral,” the octogenarian Pope warned that the scourge of paedophilia “is found not only in your dioceses but in every sector of society.” “It calls for a determined, collective response,” he said, but did not outline any firm action that the Vatican intended to take to purge the church of paedophile priests.

At the first public Mass of his US pilgrimage at the National Park stadium in Washington, he however, praised the United States as a land of opportunity and hope, though he lamented that the America’s promise fell short for Indians and blacks.

Hope for the future, he said, “is very much a part of the American character.”

Tens of thousands of worshippers filled a stadium on a clear spring day and cheered Benedict as he arrived in a white popemobile, standing in the back and waving. A crowd of 46,000 was expected, and the demand for tickets doubled the supply, organisers said.

The Pope, wearing scarlet vestments, led the service from an altar erected in the middle of the recently inaugurated baseball stadium. Rows of red-robed church leaders joined him. In brilliant spring sunshine, the pope walked down from the altar to distribute Holy Communion near the end of Mass.

“Americans have always been a people of hope,” he said during his homily. “Your ancestors came to this country with the experience of finding new freedom and opportunity.”

The US Catholic church plunged into its worst crisis in 200 years in 2002 when the archbishop of Boston confessed he had protected a priest who had sexually abused young members of his church - opening a floodgate of thousands of similar abuse cases around the country dating back decades.

Benedict angered victim support groups by praising the bishops’ efforts to heal the wounds from the scandal.

“The Pope continues to stand behind his men - the bishops who conceal clergy sex crimes,” said a Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests member, Joelle Casteix.

Related

Pope ‘led cover-up of child abuse by priests’

Pope ‘obstructed’ sex abuse inquiry
Confidential letter reveals Ratzinger ordered bishops to keep allegations secret

Pope says clergy abuse scandal sometimes ‘badly handled’

Bloody items found in Jersey home

BBC | Apr 18, 2008

Police investigating alleged abuse at a Jersey children’s home say they have found blood-stained items in two secret underground chambers.

The discoveries were made at Haut de la Garenne, the former children’s home where 100 people say they were abused.

Officers were searching the last of four cellars referred to as “punishment rooms” by people who claim they were physically and sexually abused.

Police say a skull fragment found in February probably pre-dates 1940.

However, they said their investigation remained a possible murder inquiry.

Meanwhile, Deputy Police Chief Lenny Harper said it was not clear at this stage whether there was an innocent explanation for the bloodied items, details of which have not been released.
He said: “In the last few days in cellars three and four we’ve found a number of blood-stained items.
“I would hesitate to assign a sinister motive to those, we just don’t know, there may possibly be an innocent explanation for them.

Covert investigation

“But the fact remains that, with the dogs’ assistance and the good work of the forensic examiners, we are still finding items which are of possible significance to the inquiry so it must go on.”

A major child abuse investigation is under way at Haut de la Garenne.

Scores of people have alleged that they were sexually and physically abused there as children.

In 2006, officers began covertly investigating claims of sexual and physical abuse of children dating back to the 1960s at Haut de la Garenne, following allegations by former residents.

The investigation was stepped up in February after police found the partial remains of a child’s skull buried in concrete in a stairwell.

Continued excavation

Police are continuing to excavate a network of four underground rooms which have been uncovered.

They have found a number of items, including shackles and a bath, which they say corroborate claims from victims.

One person has been charged in connection with allegations of abuse at the former children’s home.

The home’s former warder, Gordon Claude Wateridge, 76, has been charged with three offences of indecent assault on girls aged under 16 between 1969 and 1979.

He has appeared before St Helier Magistrates’ Court and was released on conditional bail until 12 May.

However, there are believed to be more than 40 suspects in the overall inquiry.

“They called me a b-i-t-c-h,” Lucasz said, spelling out the word instead of saying it. “They kept on swearing at me like a criminal.”

The Ottawa Citizen | Apr 18, 2008

By Andrew Seymour

The parents of a 10-year-old boy who was handcuffed and placed in the back seat of a police cruiser for being too noisy intend to file a complaint against Ottawa police today, alleging that at least one officer went too far in the way he treated their son.

Thomasz and Santana Gurzynski say police drew their firearms before entering their Norberry Crescent apartment and scratched the back of their son, Lucasz, while forcing him to sit down for questioning without an adult present.

Mrs. Gurzynski, 35, believes it was an overreaction by police, who were responding to a neighbour’s complaint that the Grade 5 student and five friends were playing video games too loudly and play fighting with wooden sticks.

“They shouldn’t be that loud, but the punishment didn’t fit the crime,” said Mrs. Gurzynski, who was walking home from her mother’s nearby house with her husband when the police arrived and apprehended her son shortly after 5 p.m. on Sunday.

Lucasz said he and his friends had been playing video games and fighting with the wooden sticks for about 40 minutes when a male neighbour yelled at them to quiet down and threw an empty beer can at their balcony, breaking a window.

Frightened, Lucasz said he and his friends left the apartment. When he returned with a 12-year-old female friend between five and 10 minutes later, three police officers were waiting for him in the hallway.

After he unlocked the apartment for the police, two of the officers drew weapons and kicked the door open before returning the guns to their holsters.

Lucasz said one officer then grabbed him by the shoulder and sat him down on a chair, scratching his back. He said the officer spotted a knife in the kitchen and told Lucasz that, if he had been holding it when they came in, he would have been Tasered.

The officer also wanted to know the names of the other children who had been at the apartment.

“After they finished questioning me, they handcuffed me,” Lucasz said yesterday, adding the officers ignored his request to speak to an aunt who lives in the same building.

Throughout the questioning, Lucasz alleged, the officers used foul language.

“They called me a b-i-t-c-h,” Lucasz said, spelling out the word instead of saying it. “They kept on swearing at me like a criminal.”

Lucasz, who was placed in the back seat of a police cruiser, said he was in tears when his parents arrived at the apartment about 20 minutes later. He was later released into their custody.

“I thought I was never going to see my parents again because they said something about child services,” Lucasz said, adding he was still having nightmares about the incident.

While acknowledging they were called to a “disturbance” at that address on Sunday, police declined comment on the incident.

Const. J.P. Vincelette said officers would handcuff children if they felt they were a risk to themselves or the officers. Const. Vincelette said it was generally at an officer’s discretion when to draw a firearm, but they often do it when there is a potential that other weapons are involved.

The amendments build on previous reforms by the then Howard government which required Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to implement wiretapping provisions in VoIP services.

Private organisations will be handed “quasi-police” powers under separate government plans announced on Monday.

Attorney-General Robert McClelland said business owners will be handed powers to intercept employee e-mails without notice in a bid to prevent cyber-terrorism.

Consumer advocacy groups are outraged by the reforms and have questioned the motives of the government, labelling the move as a blatant invasion of privacy.

NSW Council of Civil Liberties president, Cameron Murphy, said the changes are unnecessary and will inadvertently subject hundreds of people to privacy violations.

“These laws will massively increase the number of interception points available for techniques such as wiretapping,” Murphy said.

“Everything from online chatting, to Skype (VoIP) and mobile phone calls will be open to interception.”

He believes the changes are being driven by law enforcement which is effectively offloading its work on the private industry.

The reforms also violate the privacy of other parties involved in a monitored communication channel, according to the Council, the Australian Privacy Foundation (APF) and the Electronic Frontiers Association (EFA).

The organisations told Computerworld that NSW law, which allows businesses to intercept employee e-mails with consent, is a breach of the TIA and the Privacy Act. The problem arises from ambiguity in the law which does not stipulate rules for dealing with third party information, and what constitutes consent.