Blog

DOJ Refuses To Withdraw Memo Activating FBI Counterterrorism Division Against School Parents

In a quiet response to the Senate Judiciary Committee three days before Christmas, the Biden DOJ says it won’t withdraw a controversial memo used to activate the FBI Counterterrorism Division to investigate parents voicing their opposition to a variety of topics – primarily mask and vaccine mandates, and teaching critical race theory.

This week, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) revealed the pre-Christmas response – stating:

“[I]n December we asked why the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division was getting involved in parents expressing their concerns at school board meetings. Now, just to be crystal clear, there’s no excuse for real threats or acts of violence at school board meetings, but if there are such threats, these should be handled at the local level and the Attorney General should withdraw his memo that started this whole thing.

“Well, a couple days before Christmas, the Justice Department responded to us with just a one-page letter.

“In that letter, DOJ had nothing to say about why the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division was involved in local school-board matters. DOJ just said, ‘We’re not going to withdraw the memo.’ So, the Feds may be keeping track of school board meetings—even if it creates a horrible chilling effect. And, of course the FBI looking over your shoulder would have a chilling effect. Next week the Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on domestic terrorism. I hope we’re going to be focusing on the serious threats facing our country—and I hope no one thinks the focus is on our nation’s parents.”

The Garland memo

On October 4, AG Merrick Garland issued a memorandum announcing a concentrated effort to target any threats of violence, intimidation, and harassment by parents toward school personnel.

The announcement came came days after the national association of school boards asked the Biden administration to take “extraordinary measures” to prevent alleged threats against school staff that the association said was coming from parents who oppose mask mandates and the teaching of critical race theory.

In late October, however, it was revealed that Garland based the memo on unsupported claims made by the National School Boards Association, which apologized for inflammatory language. Garland maintains that the letter had no bearing on the DOJ’s stance.

Keep reading

New law allows non-citizens to vote in US

Incoming New York Mayor Eric Adams has allowed a bill giving the vote to non-citizens to become law automatically. That’s after the City Council passed it last month.

Non-citizen New Yorkers who have lived in the city for at least a month may legally vote in city elections as of next year, according to a bill which became law through the mayor’s inaction on Sunday. Adams, while expressing reservations with certain aspects of the bill, did not choose to veto or otherwise challenge it, allowing the City Council’s passage of the legislation to stand after what he called “productive dialogue” with others in city government.

While there are more than a dozen communities in the US that allow non-citizens to vote, New York – with more than 800,000 non-citizens calling the city (at least a temporary) home – is by far the most populous to pass such a measure. Eleven towns in Maryland and two in Vermont have done the same, but their populations amount to only a fraction of the country’s largest urban area.

Keep reading

Facebook’s former public policy director for elections suggests more censorship is needed

Former Facebook public policy director for global elections Katie Harbath says social media and tech platforms might lead to future political violence.

“I still believe social media has done more good than harm in politics, but it’s close,” she said to the WSJ. “Maybe it’s 52-48—and trending south.”

Harbath left Facebook last year. She’s now part of the Integrity Institute, yet another group that advises lawmakers in the US and Europe on laws promoting more regulation of social media. She’s also a fellow at several think tanks that focus on election issues.

Despite the massive amount of censorship that Facebook has implemented in the last few years, a move that has driven many users to seek out alternative platforms, Harbath is one of those who believes that Facebook needs to do more.

Keep reading

Police Caught Stealing Money from Innocent People To Secretly Buy Tech to Spy on Citizens’ Cellphones

The Boston Police department has been robbing citizens of their cash — many of whom were never accused of a crime — to buy surveillance technology off the books, to spy on citizens.

As their report points out, an August investigation by WBUR and ProPublica found that even if no criminal charges are brought, law enforcement almost always keeps the money and has few limitations on how it’s spent. Some departments benefit from both state and federal civil asset forfeiture. The police chiefs in Massachusetts have discretion over the money, and the public has virtually no way of knowing how the funds are used.

Boston cops have stolen so much money that they are secretly buying more expensive gear to seemingly get better at stealing money. According to the report:

[I]n 2019 the Boston Police Department bought the device known as a cell site simulator — and tapped a hidden pot of money that kept the purchase out of the public eye.

A WBUR investigation with ProPublica found elected officials and the public were largely kept in the dark when Boston police spent $627,000 on this equipment by dipping into money seized in connection with alleged crimes.

Because this spy equipment was bought with funds stolen from citizens, not even the Boston city council knew police had it.

Boston city councilors interviewed by WBUR said they weren’t aware that the police had bought a cell site simulator. Councilor Ricardo Arroyo, who represents Mattapan, Hyde Park and Roslindale, said, “I couldn’t even tell you, and I don’t think anybody on the council can necessarily tell you … how these individual purchases are made.”

Only because ProPublica obtained the documents, does anyone know the department is using stingray devices to spy on citizens. So much for transparency.

Keep reading

Nearly 700 Days into ‘2 Weeks to Flatten the Curve’ And The Only Thing That’s Reduced is Your Freedom

On March 16, 2020, the Trump administration released a 15-day plan to slow the spread of the coronavirus in the US. That was 663 days ago. We are now nearly two years, 2 presidents, 6 trillion dollars, and countless stolen rights into slowing the spread.

Over the last two years, one of the largest power grabs in the history of the world has taken place as fearful citizens willingly surrendered their rights to the state for the promise of safety. But that safety never came and it never will.

What did come, however, was a slew of arbitrary and often ridiculous mandates and decrees from politicians who think that government force can stop a pandemic. Despite the economically devastating draconian lockdowns that killed countless small businesses, vaccine passports, and mask mandates, COVID-19 returned — with a vengeance.

One of the most heavily vaccinated places on the planet, with the strictest vaccine mandates in the country, New York City, accounted for nearly 10% of all cases in the U.S. But that is not all. Even as states across the country continue to close schools, force citizens to wear masks and fire people for refusing the jab, the U.S. set a record for the highest daily case count in the entire world — at 1 million.

Keep reading

Bill Filed In Washington Would Authorize ‘Strike Force’ To ‘Involuntarily Detain’ Unvaccinated Families: ‘They Have Already Set Up The Internment Camps’

The Washington State Board of Health may soon amend state law to authorize the involuntary detainment of residents as young as 5 years old in Covid-19 “internment camps” for failing to comply with the state’s experimental vaccine mandate.

WAC 246-100-040, a proposed revision to include Covid protocol under the state’s Communicable and Certain Other Diseases act, outlines “Procedures for isolation or quarantine.” The measure would allow local health officers at “his other sole discretion” to “issue an emergency detention order causing a person or group of persons to be immediately detained for purposes of isolation or quarantine.”

Health officers are required to provide documentation proving unvaccinated residents subject to detention have denied “requests for medical examination, testing, treatment, counseling, vaccination, decontamination of persons or animals, isolation, quarantine and inspection and closure of facilities” prior to involuntarily confinement in quarantine facilities, the resolution states.

The amended law would also allow health officers to deploy law enforcement officials to assist with the arrest of uncompliant Washington residents.

Keep reading

The mysterious death of Democratic National Committee worker Seth Rich and the FBI’s battle to keep documents about it secret

A lingering Freedom of Information (FOI) battle involving the FBI continues in the case of Seth Rich.

Rich was a Democratic National Committee (DNC) worker who was attacked and killed on July 10, 2016 by an unknown person or people.

Police implied Rich was the victim in a botched robbery attempt. However, with no suspects in custody or even named, others suggested his death as linked to a leak of controversial DNC emails to WikiLeaks.

The emails were considered harmful to the DNC and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. Some theorized that Rich could have been the source of the leak, and then was murdered in retaliation.

One reason the case received a lot of publicity is that US intelligence officials blamed Russia for hacking into the DNC and giving the documents to WikiLeaks. If the document leak were an inside job, instead, it would mean Russia did not play the role intelligence officials claimed, at the same time some top officials were also fabricating links between Russia and Donald Trump, and at the same time an FBI attorney was doctoring documents to improperly obtain a wiretap against a Trump campaign associate as a “Russian spy.”

Speculation about Rich’s death led to lawsuits filed by the Rich family, who called the theories “right-wing conspiracy theories” that compounded their grief. They received some apologies and settlements regarding the claims, which they said they believed to be false.

Keep reading