Tag: police state

Nebraska Attorney General Pressures Lawmakers Not To Pass Medical Marijuana Bill

Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers (R) escalated his opposition to legislative efforts to help implement medical cannabis Wednesday, parading out more than a dozen law enforcement officers who support his stance.

At a news conference, Hilgers blasted Legislative Bill 677, from State Sen. Ben Hansen (R) of Blair, asserting that the effort to build a regulatory framework around voter-approved medical cannabis is nothing more than a path to recreational marijuana that he argued would “supercharge the black market.”

As he has already said this year, he urged lawmakers to wait until at least January, as he continues challenging in court the laws that voters approved last fall.

“This is not about the will of the people,” Hilgers, joined by various sheriffs, said of LB 677. “This is going to make Nebraska less safe, more dangerous. It’s going to handcuff the good men and women here that are in front of you and all their colleagues around the state.”

Hansen, other lawmakers and supporters of the 2024 ballot measures have already indicated that they have no intention to wait. They argue that without LB 677, the voter-approved laws could become the “wild west” or prevent Nebraskans who need cannabis the most from accessing it.

The voter-approved laws allow up to 5 ounces of medical cannabis with a physician’s recommendation. In effect since December, the laws passed in November with 71 percent voter approval.

A new Nebraska Medical Cannabis Commission is set to write new regulations around the laws, part of a companion ballot measure that passed with about 68 percent approval.

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RED FLAG: Carney called to freeze Freedom Trucker’s bank accounts, said protesters were ‘seditious’

An unearthed op-ed from February 2022 by Mark Carney provides Canadians with insight into how the new prime minister views the rights of private citizens.

In the wake of the Freedom Convoy protests that gripped Ottawa, Carney, one week into the protests and just before the use of the Emergencies Act by then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, made it clear that he was in favor of freezing the bank accounts of Canadians, cutting funding to the protest, and even calling the movement “seditious” without evidence. Carney declared that those who donated to the protest were “funding sedition” and referred to the organizers’ actions as “blatant treachery.”

One has to wonder if it was Carney who came up with the idea to freeze the accounts, as he had served as an advisor to the prime minister at this time.

He described balloon bouncy castles and a grassroots, peaceful movement as “dangerous infrastructure” that was being “reinforced” by those funding the movement.

Carney wrote: “On the first weekend, many Canadians who joined the demonstrations undoubtedly had peaceful objectives. Tired as we all are with unprecedented disruptions over the past two years, it’s understandable that many would want to come to Ottawa to protest. It’s a free country, and everyone should be able to express their opinions free of interference from the state, just as the press should be able to report without fear of harassment or intimidation.

“But now, in its second week, no one should have any doubt. This is sedition. That’s a word I never thought I’d use in Canada. It means ‘incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority.’”

Carney, perhaps drawing on his background in global finance, framed the convoy’s actions not as an expression of public dissent but as a direct attack on democracy. By writing, “You are funding sedition,” he bluntly told the public that any support—financial or otherwise—for the protests was an endorsement of an attempt to undermine the authority of a democratically elected government.

What followed was the freezing of bank accounts by the RCMP, in line with the emergency measures enacted by the Trudeau administration to quell the protests. A series of financial institutions, under pressure from government orders, complied by suspending the accounts of anyone linked to the convoy. This move caught the attention of international figures, including podcaster Joe Rogan, who cited it as an example of rights being “lost” in Canada.

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Real ID Is Not About Keeping You Safe

Today, after nearly two decades of implementation and delays, the federal government’s new identification requirements for traveling by plane domestically or entering federal buildings technically go into effect. This federally-compliant ID card—known as Real ID—can only be attained with specific records and documents laid out by the federal government. It’s labeled by a black or gold star in the upper right corner.

Even though DHS Secretary Kristi Noem promised that, at least initially, people without a Real ID will only have to face some “extra scrutiny” at security checkpoints, it’s safe to assume that, as the full requirement sets in over the next several weeks and months, some number of people will show up to airports unaware that they no longer have the documents required to board their plane. And, because the process of getting through most domestic airports was grueling enough before the deadline, many expect air travel to be especially arduous during the transition.

Because of the absoluteness of this new requirement and the harsh punishments for non-compliance—just picture what would happen to you if you tried to get into a federal building or onto a plane without the accepted forms of ID—it can be easy to write off the Real ID requirement as some new rule that, while annoying, is probably being implemented for a good reason.

It’s not.

As mentioned above, the Real ID Act was passed twenty years ago in 2005. It was one of the many measures rolled out in the wake of the 9/11 attacks that was presented to the public as being necessary to ensure that similar attacks would never happen again.

The original bill specified that the federal government would refuse to accept any form of ID that did not meet the requirements Congress had passed by May of 2008. But as that date drew closer, few states had implemented the new provisions. Some governors had vocally refused to comply because they opposed what was, in effect, the implementation of a national identification database.

That prompted the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to delay the deadline several times—first to 2011, then a complicated range of deadlines from 2013 to 2017 based on age and state of residence, and then to one universal deadline in October 2020.

Then the pandemic hit, and the deadline was extended again to 2021, then 2023, and finally to today, May 7, 2025.

If these new ID requirements were as crucial to the safety of air travelers—and the American public at large—as the federal government has claimed, the sheer time it’s taken to implement would be unacceptable. That alone is a sign that, perhaps, the federal government’s motivations are not what they say.

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Declassified Memo Reveals Biden Regime Ordered Feds to Investigate “Non Criminal” Conservatives Deemed to Be Spreading “Disinformation”

A June 2021 memo obtained by Just The News reveals the Biden Regime ordered federal prosecutors to investigate conservatives who spread disinformation, gun owners and active-duty servicemembers.

Per John Solomon of Just The News: A newly released memo from June 2021 shows the Biden administration authorized federal law enforcement to target Americans engaged in “concerning non-criminal behavior.” According to declassified documents, Biden officials directed law enforcement to investigate individuals such as active-duty servicemen, gun owners, and people deemed to be spreading “disinformation.”

No other information about the June 2021 memo was released as of Tuesday evening.

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Be Not Enticed To Tyranny: Oppose The Surveillance State

A surveillance state is being erected around the American public at an alarming rate. In many urban and suburban settings, anyone traveling on public streets or sidewalks will have his image captured by the ubiquitous surveillance cameras. A leisurely stroll around the neighborhood, as well as any conversation along the way, might be recorded if the city uses surveillance-enabled street lights. Even our own front yards might not be safe from the prying eyes of the state if a neighbor has a “smart” doorbell that shares data with law enforcement.

Rural areas are not exempt from this intrusion. Automatic License Plate Reader cameras (ALPRs, often contracted under the brand name FLOCK), are being placed on rural highways and on county lines in an increasing number of areas. Audio and video surveillance now cover remote corners of the Amazon Basin. Satellite technology could ensure that, one day, no square foot of the planet is unobserved.

The power of the modern surveillance state is without historical precedent. The argument that “there is no expectation of privacy in public” no longer adequately addresses the huge quantities of data that surveillance apparatus captures, stores, and analyzes.

While civil rights and other niche groups are sounding the alarm about the dangers of Big Brother, critics are surprisingly underrepresented among popular news outlets. When the topic of citizen surveillance is covered at all, these stories are often portrayed as a benign solution to a dangerous problem with the dangers to civil liberties receiving a brief nod, if even mentioned.

So why does the average citizen not have greater concern over these intrusions upon their civil liberties, in some cases even championing it? One answer to that question might be that these systems are a Trojan Horse. While they are dressed up as a gift that will protect society from all that they fear, it is the gift itself that poses the greatest threat.

The use of fear to gain power is a tale as old as time, but our unprecedented access to information has not made us any less vulnerable to it. Each decade of the lives of the modern citizen has brought about its own moral panic with the accompanying “solution.” From the Satanic Panic to the War on Drugs, fear has driven consistent relinquishment of our individual rights over time.

The justification for the modern surveillance state began on Sept. 11, 2001. The fear inspired by those terrible events was the foundation for the unconstitutional provisions of The PATRIOT Act, the advent of real-time crime centers, and the birth of the TSA. Public fear of terrorism enabled the government to impose security measures that would never have been tolerated in the absence of a crisis.

With greater public acceptance of an increasingly Orwellian environment, expanding surveillance from the airport into the streets required only amplifying stories of gang warfare, a problem portrayed as solvable only with the rampant use of cameras. 

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Police Are Now Using AI To Create Fake Undercover Profiles Online

American police departments near the United States-Mexico border are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for an unproven and secretive technology that uses AI-generated online personas designed to interact with and collect intelligence on “college protesters,” “radicalized” political activists, and suspected drug and human traffickers, according to internal documents, contracts, and communications 404 Media obtained via public records requests.

Massive Blue, the New York-based company that is selling police departments this technology, calls its product Overwatch, which it markets as an “AI-powered force multiplier for public safety” that “deploys lifelike virtual agents, which infiltrate and engage criminal networks across various channels.” According to a presentation obtained by 404 Media, Massive Blue is offering cops these virtual personas that can be deployed across the internet with the express purpose of interacting with suspects over text messages and social media.

Massive Blue lists “border security,” “school safety,” and stopping “human trafficking” among Overwatch’s use cases. The technology—which as of last summer had not led to any known arrests—demonstrates the types of social media monitoring and undercover tools private companies are pitching to police and border agents. Concerns about tools like Massive Blue have taken on new urgency considering that the Trump administration has revoked the visas of hundreds of students, many of whom have protested against Israel’s war in Gaza.

404 Media obtained a presentation showing some of these AI characters. These include a “radicalized AI” “protest persona,” which poses as a 36-year-old divorced woman who is lonely, has no children, is interested in baking, activism, and “body positivity.” Another AI persona in the presentation is described as a “‘Honeypot’ AI Persona.” Her backstory says she’s a 25-year-old from Dearborn, Michigan whose parents emigrated from Yemen, and who speaks the Sanaani dialect of Arabic. The presentation also says she uses various social media apps, that she’s on Telegram and Signal, and that she has US and international SMS capabilities. Other personas are a 14 year-old boy “child trafficking AI persona,” an “AI pimp persona,” “college protestor” [sic], “external recruiter for protests,” “escorts,” and “juveniles.

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German Political Class Gleefully Planning to Ramp Up Persecution of AfD and its Supporters, Because Hitler

Last Friday, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) declared Alternative für Deutschland to be a “confirmed Right-wing extremist” organisation. I very much fear that “the Right” is going to be the new panic apocalypse issue, now that climate has ceased to command apocalyptic fears, everyone abandoned the Covidpocalypse and nobody really believes that the Russians will invade Brandenburg and usher in the Putlerpocalypse.

The first thing that happened, after I wrote my Friday post, is that our American friends weighed in on this new round of political repression here in the best and most democratic Germany of all time. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President J.D. Vance both denounced this attack on the AfD.

I like to think that Vance’s tweet draws on my earlier suggestion for how to address these themes in ways that will prove particularly awkward for our establishment. Perhaps the Vice President really does read Eugyppius!

That is, however, a side matter. Tireless Russia hawk, former Bundeswehr officer and present Bundestag member Roderich Kiesewetter lost his mind in Rubio’s replies, claiming with bizarre incoherence that Europe must now hope for a new “Churchill” to “contain” the United States.

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Why We Need Nullification

What can we do if Congress passes a bad law? For example, Congress mandates that billions of dollars be spent on aid programs to the Ukraine, the Middle East, and other troubled areas. Of course, we can protest or refuse to pay part of our taxes. But if you try that, the IRS will come after you. In this week’s column, I’m going to talk about a remedy for such bad laws. States have the power to nullify unconstitutional laws, so they do not apply within that state. If the Alabama legislature, for example, nullified foreign aid, the people of Alabama couldn’t be taxed for this purpose.

What is the evidence that a state can nullify an unconstitutional law? Let’s look at an actual nullification, the Kentucky Resolution of 1799, written by the most libertarian of our founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson: “RESOLVED, That this commonwealth considers the federal union, upon the terms and for the purposes specified in the late compact, as conducive to the liberty and happiness of the several states: That it does now unequivocally declare its attachment to the Union, and to that compact, agreeable to its obvious and real intention, and will be among the last to seek its dissolution: That if those who administer the general government be permitted to transgress the limits fixed by that compact, by a total disregard to the special delegations of power therein contained, annihilation of the state governments, and the erection upon their ruins, of a general consolidated government, will be the inevitable consequence: That the principle and construction contended for by sundry of the state legislatures, that the general government is the exclusive judge of the extent of the powers delegated to it, stop nothing short of despotism; since the discretion of those who adminster the government, and not the constitution, would be the measure of their powers: That the several states who formed that instrument, being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction; and that a nullification, by those sovereignties, of all unauthorized acts done under colour of that instrument, is the rightful remedy: That this commonwealth does upon the most deliberate reconsideration declare, that the said alien and sedition laws, are in their opinion, palpable violations of the said constitution; and however cheerfully it may be disposed to surrender its opinion to a majority of its sister states in matters of ordinary or doubtful policy; yet, in momentous regulations like the present, which so vitally wound the best rights of the citizen, it would consider a silent acquiescence as highly criminal: That although this commonwealth as a party to the federal compact; will bow to the laws of the Union, yet it does at the same time declare, that it will not now, nor ever hereafter, cease to oppose in a constitutional manner, every attempt from what quarter soever offered, to violate that compact.”

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Federal REAL ID requirement takes effect Wednesday as airport delay worries grow

On Wednesday, Americans will need a REAL ID to board a domestic flight, enter secure federal facilities or access certain military bases, after the deadline has been pushed back multiple times over a 20-year period.

The requirement for REAL IDs comes from legislation passed by Congress in 2005. The legislation was a recommendation from a commission on terrorist attacks created after Sept. 11, 2001, and was intended to make IDs more difficult to fake. The REAL ID Act established minimum security standards for driver’s licenses and other forms of state-issued identification.

REAL IDs have enhanced security features like barcodes, holograms, and other anti-counterfeiting measures, but they also typically require more documentation to obtain than earlier forms of ID.

Most states require an applicant’s date of birth, proof of identity, proof of a Social Security number and two documents showing residency to issue a REAL ID. A valid U.S. passport or birth certificate, a Social Security card or other federally issued documents or tax documents often satisfy the identity and Social Security requirements.

Americans who don’t yet have a REAL ID can use a passport card or passport book, an enhanced driver’s license, a military ID or select other forms of ID to fly domestically. Minors accompanied by adults carrying acceptable forms of ID also aren’t required to have a REAL ID in order to board domestic flights.

REAL IDs aren’t required to enter federally owned or operated museums, obtain federal benefits or for access to health care, law enforcement or constitutionally protected activities.

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With Florida Marijuana Legalization Measure Circulating, DeSantis Signs Bill Making It Harder To Qualify Ballot Initiatives

Fresh changes to Florida law on ballot initiatives will create new hurdles for advocates aiming to put legislative proposals before voters—including, potentially, the renewed effort to legalize marijuana in the state.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Friday signed a measure into law that tightens requirements around citizen-initiated measures. Among other requirements, it mandates that supporters post a $1 million bond before commencing signature gathering, prohibits the use of out-of-state and noncitizen petitioners and narrows the window during which which signatures must be submitted to election officials.

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka (R), contends the ballot initiative process “has been taken over by out of state fraudsters looking to make a quick buck and by special interests intent on buying their way into our Constitution.”

“The bill seeks to root out the problem and provide assurances that only those with a stake in our Constitution can change it to that end,” she said at a hearing in March.

DeSantis, for his part, said on social media over the weekend that the bill will “combat petition fraud and prevent the special interest-abuse of our constitutional amendment process.”

Changes under the new law will also prevent Floridians with felony convictions from collecting petition signatures unless they’ve gone through the process of restoring their voting rights.

Residents will also have to provide personal details—including their driver’s license number, voter ID card number or the last four digits of their Social Security number—in order to fill out a petition. The form itself will then become a public record, raising potential privacy concerns.

Campaigns also have less time to return petitions to election officials, and they’ll face harsher fines for errors.

The new obstacles to placing a proposal on the statewide ballot come on the heels of two contentious constitutional amendments that went before voters last year, including one—Amendment 3—that would have legalized marijuana for adults 21 and older, and another on abortion rights.

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