Tag: police state

Court rules Ontario violated Charter by censoring Covid criticism on billboard

The Ontario government tried to silence a citizen for criticizing its Covid-19 response. Now a court has ruled it broke the Constitution.

The Ontario Divisional Court has found the Ontario Ministry of Transportation violated the Charter rights of George Katerberg by preventing him from displaying a political billboard criticizing public officials over their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Katerberg was represented by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF), whose constitutional lawyer Chris Fleury successfully argued that the Ministry’s actions violated section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which protects freedom of expression.

Katerberg’s billboard, erected along Highway 17 near Thessalon, featured photographs of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Premier Doug Ford, former Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam and other officials above the messages, “They knowingly lied about safety and stopping transmission” and “Canadians demand accountability.”

The Ministry first demanded the sign be removed after claiming one image on the billboard was linked to white supremacy. Katerberg immediately removed the disputed image, explaining it was inspired by Pink Floyd’s The Wall, and submitted a revised version. The Ministry then shifted its reasoning, claiming the billboard promoted hatred.

When that justification failed, the government changed the rules instead.

After Katerberg launched his Charter challenge, the Ministry amended its Highway Corridor Management Manual in 2025 to broadly prohibit political messaging on billboards along certain northern Ontario highways. It then relied on that newly created policy to reject the sign once again.

The Divisional Court wasn’t persuaded.

Justice Schreck found there was “no rational connection” between prohibiting political speech while allowing commercial advertising on the very same highways. The Court declared the Ministry’s policy unconstitutional, quashed its decision, and ordered the application to be reconsidered.

The Court also criticized the Ministry’s “shifting justifications” throughout the dispute, making clear the case was never about whether Katerberg’s views on Covid-19 were right or wrong. It was about whether the government could censor political speech because it disliked the message.

Following the ruling, JCCF lawyer Chris Fleury called the decision “a welcome affirmation of the importance of political expression,” saying governments cannot ban political speech while allowing businesses to advertise beside the same roads.

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EU Brings Back Chat Surveillance, Even As More MEPs Vote No

Europe’s biggest platforms can once again scan your messages without a warrant or any reason to suspect you of anything. The European Parliament revived a mass-surveillance regime on Thursday that its own members had already voted down in March, and it passed even with fewer MEPs backing it than opposing it.

The count on the measure known as Chat Control 1.0 came in at 314 against, 276 in favor, and 17 abstentions. More members voted to kill the regulation than to keep it, and it became law regardless, a version of democracy that would surprise most of the people living under it.

Because the European People’s Party forced the proposal back as a second reading, blocking it no longer took a simple majority of the room but an absolute majority of the entire Parliament, 361 of all 720 seats, counted whether a member turned up or not.

That threshold made absence decisive. The vote landed on the final sitting day before summer recess, a date when much of Parliament has historically already left Strasbourg for home, and under an absolute-majority rule every empty seat weighs against the side trying to reach 361. The 314 who showed up to reject the regulation were not outvoted by a larger camp in favor, since only 276 wanted it. They fell 47 votes short of a bar set by the size of the whole chamber rather than the size of the vote.

The contrast with the spring tells the rest of the story. When Parliament last ruled on this in March, defeating the extension needed only a simple majority, and 311 against, 228 in favor, with 92 abstentions, was enough to sink it and let the regime lapse in April. This week a slightly larger bloc, 314, voted the same way and lost. The will of Parliament did not shift between March and July. The procedure and the calendar did and that was enough to overturn the result.

Arithmetic handed the tech industry the outcome it wanted. Warrantless scanning of private communications is legal again across the bloc until 2028. Parliament did attach an exemption for encrypted communications, a gesture that costs nothing given that providers were not scanning encrypted chats anyway. A more substantive attempt failed. A move to restrict scanning to people a court had already flagged as suspects drew even stronger support, 322 to 255, and still collapsed against the same 361-vote wall. What survived was the broadest, most industry-friendly version on offer, one that monitors everyone’s messages by default and asks judicial permission for none of it.

Dr. Patrick Breyer, civil rights activist and former Member of the European Parliament, sent a statement to Reclaim The Net. “The fact that Chat Control is moving forward against the will of the majority of voting MEPs is a farce and damages democracy. Our children are the real losers in this undemocratic process. The passage of a genuine, permanent child protection regulation is now in serious jeopardy. The Council will never agree to a desperately needed paradigm shift as long as they can simply stick to the old approach of suspicionless scanning at the whim of the tech industry.”

He framed the loss as temporary. “Today’s vote on the interim regulation was a setback, but the political battle over the permanent ‘Chat Control 2.0’ is just getting started. The resistance we saw in Parliament today was so strong that finding a majority for permanent, suspicionless mass scanning in future negotiations is a complete pipe dream.”

His objection actually runs deeper than mere procedure. “Trying to protect children with suspicionless mass surveillance is like frantically mopping the floor while the faucet is still running. Blanket chat control is just as unacceptable as indiscriminately opening everyone’s physical mail. For five years, this failed system has served as a smokescreen to delay real action, all while overwhelming the police with false alarms. We need more child protection, not less—but we need effective protection, not the illusion of security.”

The reinstated regime holds until 2028 or until governments and Parliament agree on a permanent replacement, with negotiations set to resume in September. The dispute there turns on a single question that has divided Parliament, the member states, and the Commission for years, which is whether the scanning of private chats should cover everyone or reach only criminal suspects.

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‘So Many Threats’: UK Outlines Plan to Control What Public Can See on YouTube

The U.K. is pushing a proposal that could give government officials unprecedented influence over what people see on YouTube and other digital platforms, medical commentator John Campbell, Ph.D., warned this week.

“My concern is that the state is going to mandate what videos are promoted on YouTube,” Campbell said. “That’s basically what this seems to be about.”

In a recent podcast, Campbell examined the U.K. government’s new media green paper, “Watch this space: a new strategic direction for UK media,” and what it could mean for online speech.

He said the proposal could fundamentally change how people discover videos. Instead of seeing content based primarily on their interests or what other viewers are watching, government-backed sources could receive preferential placement.

“It wouldn’t be popularity that determines what videos become top of the YouTube feed, therefore most likely to be watched,” Campbell said. “It’s going to be the ones that the state mandates as appropriate for you because you can’t judge for yourself. … At least that’s the threat from this paper.”

The green paper, published in June by the U.K. Department for Culture, Media & Sport, proposes exploring a “prominence regime” that would ensure public service broadcasters and other designated “trusted” news providers remain easy to find as audiences increasingly consume news online rather than through traditional television.

Campbell suggested the proposals go far beyond the U.K. media industry. “This is going to affect everyone,” he said.

‘If this doesn’t send a bit of a shudder down your spine … it certainly should’

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Brazil’s Dictator-Judge Orders Raid on Jair Bolsonaro’s House, Finds Nothing

Officials from Brazil’s Federal Police (PF) searched the residence of conservative former President Jair Bolsonaro for weapons and ammunition on Wednesday — and found nothing.

The search was carried out on the order of Brazilian Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF) Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who demanded a wide search of all firearms registered under Jair Bolsonaro’s name this week even though all of the firearms have been accounted for by Bolsonaro’s legal team.

De Moraes reportedly justified the search on the grounds that there was an alleged “discrepancy” between the number of firearms registered under Bolsonaro’s name and the number relinquished by the former president during the legal proceedings against him. The STF justice is widely known for being at the forefront of a persecution campaign against Bolsonaro and for executing a litany of judicial actions against the conservative former president and his family,

Bolsonaro is presently serving a 27-year prison sentence for “crimes against democracy” under a strict house arrest at his home in Brasília. The former president, who suffers from multiple health conditions, was granted temporary humanitarian house arrest provisions this year after a severe case of bacterial pneumonia sent him to an Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

Despite the justice’s assertions, Brazilian lawyer João Henrique Nascimento de Freitas, who is part of Bolsonaro’s legal team, announced on social media that no firearms were found by the police during the search at the residence.

“I have just left President Jair Bolsonaro’s residence after accompanying yet another Federal Police search-and-seizure operation ordered by Justice Alexandre de Moraes,” the Portuguese-language message read. “The warrant sought weapons, ammunition, accessories, and registration documents. The defense had already previously disclosed the whereabouts of all the weapons.

“Result: nothing was found. It is regrettable that a former President of the Republic is still subjected to this type of action,” he concluded.

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How Flock Cameras Wrongly Tracked Me for Days Over ‘Stolen’ Plates and Sent Police After Me

Are you armed?!” the police officer screamed. “Get out of the car!”

On an otherwise normal Sunday afternoon in late June, I’d decided to take the $155,000 Range Rover I was testing that week out to run some errands with my wife. Little did I know that choice would complete a technological chain linking surveillance cameras, AI, and law enforcement that led to me and my wife being surrounded by police, hands on their guns, in a Kohl’s parking lot in suburban Minnesota.

After dropping off our Amazon returns, we’d just gotten back in the Range Rover and reversed maybe two feet out of the spot when four cop cars came flying out of nowhere and boxed us in. The officers jumped out and started shouting. It’s a situation that can quickly and frequently turn bad, so as unprepared as I was, I followed their orders, got out with my hands up, and tried to figure out what the hell was happening.

Eventually, after a tense hour, I did. The Plymouth Police Department had been tracking me for days using Flock license plate cameras, waiting for the right moment to strike, because they thought I’d stolen the Range Rover. And the reason I was ID’d as a dangerous car thief was a simple data error made 2,000 miles away in California, creating an edge case within an edge case that Flock’s AI camera network was unable to handle.

We now live in a surveillance state where cameras mounted on stoplights are tracking our cars, our devices, our pets, and even us. This is just the beginning; next, these cameras could be put in motion using our kids’ school buses. Whether you’ve actually stolen a car or are just rolling down the road having done nothing wrong, like me, once these systems have you in their crosshairs, there’s pretty much only one way it can go. Welcome to the future. It’s scary out there.

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California bans Glock-style handguns from commercial sale

Assembly Bill 1127 fundamentally shifts firearm regulations by prohibiting licensed dealers from selling some of the most popular semiautomatic handguns on the market. 

By focusing on how certain handguns are built, lawmakers want to stop people from easily turning standard pistols into fully automatic weapons.

What we know:

The legislation specifically introduces a new legal classification: “machinegun-convertible pistols.” 

Lawmakers drafted this category to address handguns, most notably Glock-style pistols, that feature trigger mechanisms capable of being converted into fully automatic firearms with relatively simple, aftermarket modifications.

For consumers, the immediate impact is restricted to retail environments.

Licensed firearm dealers must cease all sales of new inventory that falls under this classification. 

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LICENSE TO KILL? French MPs Approve Law That Gives Police Officers The ‘Benefit of the Doubt’ in Case of Shootings

The new law is making waves in a country in constant turmoil.

French deputies in the National Assembly passed ‌a law giving police officers who become involved in shootings the ‘benefit of the doubt’.

Critics of the legislation are calling it a ‘license to kill’.

Reported to be a longstanding demand of the French right, (that MSM will always call the ‘far-right’), the law means that cops who kill someone during a shooting are presumed ​to have acted within the limits of the law – unless there is proof to the contrary.

Reuters reported:

“The ​law was approved by 313 votes to 199 in the lower house of parliament, the ⁠National Assembly, on Tuesday evening. The government has lent its support to the law, which still needs to ​be voted on by the upper house.

The number of fatal shootings by police in France is among the ​highest in Europe and rising. The agencies that carry out investigations of police in France, the IGPN and IGGN, recorded 69 people killed by police or gendarmerie officers in 2024, compared with 49 in 2023 and 50 in 2022.”

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U.K. Police Offer ‘Unreserved Apology’ and £25,000 to Irish Comedian and Writer Graham Linehan After Armed Arrest at Heathrow Airport for ‘Gender-Critical’ X Posts

In September 2025, The Gateway Pundit reported that Irish comedy writer Graham Linehan, best known for creating Father Ted and The IT Crowd, was arrested at Heathrow Airport over social media posts criticizing transgender ideology.

Linehan was met by five armed officers on arrival in London and detained in connection with three posts made on X.

The posts under investigation included one in which Linehan wrote that men entering female-only spaces were committing abusive acts and should be challenged, with police called if necessary.

A second post read, “Make a scene, call the cops, and if all else fails, punch him in the balls.”

The third post flagged read, “I hate them. Misogynists and homophobes. F*** ’em.”

Linehan said he was taken into custody, locked in a cell, and later taken to the hospital because of stress.

He added that the condition for his release was that he stop posting on X.

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ICAN Obtains Records Showing Large Numbers of Pertussis and Measles Cases Among the Vaccinated

While the unvaccinated get blamed, through legal demand, ICAN has obtained documentation showing that in 2025 a large number of the cases of pertussis in West Virginia and measles in New York state were among the vaccinated!

In 2025, news headlines covered outbreaks of pertussis in West Virgina and measles in New York. Health authorities used these outbreaks as an excuse to crush individual and civil rights, coerce vaccination, and refuse medical exemptions by claiming the unvaccinated were falling ill.

ICAN decided to dig into how many were, in fact, unvaccinated. We recently received responses from West Virginia and New York and, for those following ICAN for a while, the results will not be surprising:

According to the chart below provided by WV’s department of health, 71% of the West Virginia cases in 2025 were in individuals who were up to date on their vaccines—and looking back on all cases over the past 7 years, 68% of cases were in individuals who were up to date.

This is not surprising given that the pertussis vaccine does not stop infection or transmission; in many situations, fully vaccinated people assume they are “protected,” get infected and may have fewer symptoms, and then proceed to transmit pertussis to others.

Similarly, in the measles outbreak in New York, 33% of individuals with measles had received at least one dose of the MMR vaccine and 28% purportedly had an “unknown vaccination status.”

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Carney wants sweeping powers over your phone while using a foreign one himself

Prime Minister Mark Carney wants sweeping new powers over Canada’s telecommunications system. But according to a recent Wall Street Journal report, when it comes to his own communications, he’s reportedly relying on a U.K.-based cellphone to communicate with foreign leaders.

If true, the irony is impossible to ignore.

The Carney government is pushing Bill C-22, legislation that would significantly expand Ottawa’s authority over Canada’s telecommunications sector in the name of national security. The bill would give the federal government broad powers to issue security orders to telecommunications companies, require providers to comply with government directives, and increase federal oversight of Canada’s communications infrastructure.

Canadians are being told these extraordinary powers are necessary because secure communications matter.

Apparently, that principle may not apply to the Prime Minister himself.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Carney has continued using a British cellphone while speaking with foreign leaders. If that reporting is accurate, Canadians deserve answers.

The issue isn’t simply where the phone was purchased; it’s about whether the Prime Minister is following the same security, transparency, and record-keeping standards imposed on everyone else in government, and now on the public. 

Among the questions that should be answered:

  • Communications security: Was the device approved for sensitive government communications under standards established by the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) and Treasury Board?
  • Government records: Were official calls, text messages and other communications retained in accordance with the Library and Archives of Canada Act and federal information management policies?
  • Access to Information: If government business was conducted using a foreign device or foreign telecommunications provider, are those records preserved in a manner that complies with the Access to Information Act, or could they be more difficult for Canadians to obtain?
  • Government device policies: Was the phone issued, managed and secured by the Government of Canada, or was it a personal device used for official business?
  • Foreign jurisdiction: Were official communications routed or stored through infrastructure subject to U.K. law, and what security assessment was conducted before using that device to communicate with foreign leaders?
  • Bill C-22: Why is the government demanding unprecedented oversight of Canadian telecommunications providers on national security grounds while the Prime Minister reportedly relies on a foreign telecommunications provider for his own communications?

Ottawa insists foreign technology, foreign influence and foreign infrastructure pose national security concerns. Yet the Prime Minister himself reportedly chose a foreign cellphone and foreign carrier while conducting international diplomacy.

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