Tag: police state

DHS Says Recording or Following Law Enforcement ‘Sure Sounds Like Obstruction of Justice’

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) says recording or following federal law enforcement “sure sounds like obstruction of justice,” despite federal circuit courts repeatedly ruling that such activity is core First Amendment speech.

In response to a question from Reason asking if the department considered following or recording a federal law enforcement officer to be obstruction of justice, the DHS Office of Public Affairs said in an emailed statement attributed to an unnamed spokesperson: “That sure sounds like obstruction of justice. Our brave ICE law enforcement face a more than 1150% increase in assaults against them. If you obstruct or assault our law enforcement, we will hunt you down and you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

It’s one of the most direct public statements yet from DHS articulating a policy that treats following, recording, and revealing the identities of federal immigration officers as illegal activity. There have been months of news reports and viral showing federal immigration officers threatening, brandishing weapons, and violently detaining people for following and recording them in public. 

David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, collected dozens of these instances in a report released earlier this month. Bier concluded that the amount of video evidence, in conjunction memos and public statements from DHS leadership, amounts to “an official, nationwide policy of intimidating and threatening people who attempt to observe and record [DHS] operations.”

Civil libertarians say it’s an unconstitutional policy. Although the Supreme Court has declined to address the issue, seven federal circuit courts have firmly upheld the right to record and monitor the police, as long as one doesn’t physically interfere with them. 

“Observing, following, and recording law enforcement are unambiguously protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution,” Bier tells Reason. “They are not obstruction of justice. The right to record helps guarantee justice by ensuring accountability and an accurate record of events.”

For example, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit concluded in 2017 that “First Amendment principles, controlling authority, and persuasive precedent demonstrate that a First Amendment right to record the police does exist, subject only to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit joined the club in 2022, when it ruled that a Colorado man had presented a clear First Amendment retaliation claim against a police officer who prevented him from filming a traffic stop.

Likewise, courts have frequently ruled that the First Amendment protects the right to warn others of police activity, such as flashing one’s headlights to warn of a speed trap ahead. In 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled that a Connecticut man’s First Amendment rights were violated when police arrested him for holding a sign warning drivers of police activity ahead.

“The right to record publicly visible law enforcement activity is a core First Amendment right,” says Scarlet Kim, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. “It creates an independent record of what officers are doing, and it is no accident that some of the most high-profile cases of misconduct have involved video recordings. The burning question is why ICE officers feel the need to hide who they are and what they do from the public—masking their faces, lacking visible ID, driving unmarked vehicles, and now attacking those who document their activities.”

The guiding First Amendment principle behind these court decisions was most memorably expressed in the 1987 Supreme Court ruling in Houston v. Hill, which struck down a Houston ordinance that made it unlawful to oppose or interrupt a police officer: “The freedom of individuals verbally to oppose or challenge police action without thereby risking arrest is one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state,” Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. wrote.

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Shein Can’t Sell Sex Toys Unless It Checks IDs, French Court Says

Shein, a cheap-stuff superstore based in China that is popular worldwide, cannot sell sex toys unless it checks purchaser IDs, a French court has ruled. The case comes after the French government tried to shut down Shein for three months.

International attention on the case has focused on the fact that Shein—through its third-party vendor marketplace—was temporarily selling what’s been described as “childlike sex dolls.” That’s appalling, of course. But understandable disgust and anger about that aspect has overshadowed a bigger story.

According to the BBC, the court ordered age verification measures to be enacted for the sale of all “adult” items, with a potential fine of €10,000 (about $11,700) for each breach.

Sex Toys: Age Verification’s Next Frontier?

“I don’t live in France and I don’t shop at Shein,” you might be thinking. “Why should I care?”

Because, my friends, this is another sign about where online age verification is going.

Politicians and activists—in the U.S. and around the world—initially pushed age verification measures as a requirement for porn websites. Who could be against stopping kids from watching hardcore pornography? they asked anyone who objected (conveniently eluding the facts that these bans are often broad enough to cover all sorts of sexuality-related material, and that they won’t affect just children but will invade the privacy of countless adults trying to access protected speech).

Then we started hearing about the need to implement age verification measures—checking IDs or requiring facial scans and so on—on all social media platforms. Now we’re hearing about age verification for video games, age verification for vibrators, age verification for everything.

Texas lawmakers earlier this year introduced a measure that would have mandated age verification for sex toy sales online. It failed to advance, but at the rate things are going I don’t think that will be the last we hear of it.

Measures like these could mean anyone who wants to purchase sex toys or sexual wellness devices online will have to attach their identity to the purchase—opening them up to surveillance, hackers, and so on.

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Citizens In Eastern Ukraine Will Not Be Allowed To Vote, Zelensky Says

President Volodymyr Zelensky has confirmed that Ukraine and Washington are in talks about holding elections, after earlier this month he much belatedly said while under pressure from Trump that he’s ready to allow national elections, so long as they can be done fairly and freely.

Zelensky indicated current discussions also hinge on the US and other partners helping set the conditions so Ukrainians can vote in safety. He previously stated the country could hold a vote within 60 days – but only if there are security guarantees.

Already over the weekend he erected more barriers to holding a vote, stipulating that citizens in Eastern Ukraine would not be able to participate. 

“Any election in Ukraine can not be held in Russia-occupied parts of the country,” Zelensky has been quoted in international press as saying, and he once again added that a proper voting process can take place only if security is ensured.

He has also lately said that Ukraine’s foreign minister had started the initial work on the infrastructure needed for Ukrainians living abroad to participate.

The four oblasts that President Putin has called “our four new regions” and “our citizens forever” include Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions – and were annexed after a popular referendum during the first year of the war.

Putin has blasted Zelensky’s rule as illegitimate given the canceled elections based on enacting a state of martial law, and President Trump has expressed increasing agreement with this perspective.

Still, Zelensky’s new ‘openness’ with holding an election has been coupled with plenty of caveats and likely immense barriers. For example last week he said—

…that a ceasefire with Russia must be in place before elections can be held in Ukraine, “at least for the duration of the election process and voting”. Ukrainian law forbids wartime elections but US President Donald Trump is pressuring Zelensky, whose term ended last year, to hold a vote.

But Trump this month finally put some real pressure on him, it appears. Given Zelensky had put the brakes on the US-proposed pace plan by definitively rejecting the territorial concessions aspects to the document, the US president’s assessment in a recent Politico interview was blunt and highly critical, going so far as to basically call Ukraine not a democracy.

“They haven’t had an election in a long time,” Trump said. “You know, they talk about a democracy, but it gets to a point where it’s not a democracy anymore.”

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The Surveillance State Is Making a Naughty List—and You’re On It

The Surveillance State is making a naughty list, and we’re all on it.

Unlike Santa’s naughty list, however, the consequences of landing on the government’s “naughty list” are far more severe than a stocking full of coal. They can include heightened surveillance, loss of privacy, travel restrictions, financial scrutiny, police encounters, or being flagged as a potential threat—often without notice, explanation, or recourse.

What was once dismissed as a joke—“Santa is watching”—has morphed into a chilling reality. Instead of elves, the watchers are data brokers, intelligence agencies, predictive algorithms, and fusion centers. Instead of a naughty-or-nice list, Americans are sorted into databases, risk profiles, and threat assessments—lists that never disappear.

The shift is subtle but profound.

Innocence is no longer presumed.

Everyone is watched. Everyone is scored. Everyone is a potential suspect.

This is the surveillance state in action.

Today’s surveillance state doesn’t require suspicion, a warrant, or probable cause. It is omnipresent, omniscient, and inescapable.

Your smartphone tracks your location. Your car records your movements. License plate readers log when and where you drive. Retail purchases create detailed consumer profiles. Smart speakers listen to everything you say. Home security cameras observe not just your property, but your neighbors, delivery drivers, and anyone who passes by.

In a dramatic expansion of surveillance reach, the Transportation Security Administration now shares airline passenger lists with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, enabling ICE to identify and arrest travelers at airports based on immigration status.

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Kansas Attorney General And Law Enforcement Sued Over Raids On Hemp Businesses

A McPherson County lawsuit filed by a Kansas business owner challenges “unconstitutionally vague” enforcement operations leading to seizure of cash and hemp-derived products at direction of the state’s attorney general and director of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

KBI director Tony Mattivi and Attorney General Kris Kobach said in October law enforcement officers raided CBD and vape shops to serve more than a dozen search warrants on businesses suspected of not complying with state drug law.

In a statement, Mattivi said targeted stores were “nothing but weed dealers” and the state must “enforce our controlled-substance laws when we have these substances causing bad effects on Kansas kids.”

Barry Grissom and Jake Miller, of a law firm based in Kansas City, Missouri, responded Monday by seeking on behalf of Mike Ballinger, owner of the McPherson CBD store Hanging Leaf, a court injunction to stop comparable raids and to compel return of seized property.

“The pleadings speak for themselves,” said Grissom, a former U.S. attorney for the District of Kansas and advocate for legalizing marijuana sales and consumption in Kansas.

Both Mattivi and Kobach, in their official capacity, were named in the filing requesting injunctive relief from “recent enforcement actions involving hemp products legally permitted under Kansas law.”

On October 1, Mattivi and Kobach disclosed their statewide “marijuana enforcement operation” focused on vape shops and CBD dispensaries. This law enforcement effort resulted in execution of at least 15 search warrants across Kansas.

The lawsuit said authorities seized $7,000 in inventory as well as cash from Hanging Leaf. A portion of cash taken into custody at Hanging Leaf was property of an unrelated business operated by the plaintiff, the suit said.

Attorneys for the plaintiff said Kansas law permitted hemp products with no more than 0.3 percent Delta-9 THC or tetrahydrocannabinol. The plaintiff alleged KBI testing with gas chromatography was capable of detecting “only the presence of THC and cannot determine the origin” of the substance. The suit says the KBI testing regimen improperly resulted in seizure of compliant goods.

In addition, the plaintiff asserted unconstitutional vagueness of Kansas law fostered “arbitrary enforcement that chills protected business activities.” The filing requested raids to be forbidden until the state adopted legal protection for products under 0.3 percent hemp derived from Delta-9 THC.

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Ohio Governor Signs Bill To Recriminalize Some Marijuana Activity, Vetoing Provision To Allow THC Drinks For A Year

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) signed a bill into law Friday that bans intoxicating hemp products and makes various changes to the state’s voter-passed marijuana law, including adding crimes such as making it illegal to bring legally purchased marijuana from another state back to Ohio.

DeWine signed Ohio Senate Bill 56, which will take effect in 90 days. He has been urging Ohio lawmakers to do something about intoxicating hemp products for the past nearly two years.

Ohio’s bill complies with recent federal changes by banning intoxicating hemp products from being sold outside of a licensed marijuana dispensary.

In November, Congress voted to ban products that contain 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container earlier this month when they voted to reopen the government.

Those who work in the intoxicating hemp industry are worried this will put thousands of people out of business.

DeWine line-item-vetoed the THC-infused beverage provision in the bill that would have allowed five milligram THC beverages to be manufactured, distributed, and sold in Ohio until December 31, 2026.

“My veto means that they cannot be sold,” DeWine said during a Friday press conference. “The simplest thing, frankly, to do is to stop it right now instead of going until the date in November set by federal law.”

DeWine said he does not think THC beverages are a good idea.

“I think they create extra problems,” DeWine said.

Ohio S.B. 56 had a provision that said if the federal government legalizes THC beverages, Ohio will consider “a more robust regulatory framework of these products,” according to the bill’s language.

“We got to this point because of poorly drafted federal legislation and people taking advantage of it,” Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima, said.

“So speculating about what the federal government may do in the future and what we may do as a result, I think, adds to the same problem that has already been created.”

On the marijuana side, the bill would reduce the THC levels in adult-use marijuana extracts from a maximum of 90 percent down to a maximum of 70 percent, cap THC levels in adult-use flower to 35 percent, and prohibit smoking in most public places.

Part of the probable cause portions were removed from the bill, but some of it still remains.

The bill prohibits possessing marijuana in anything outside of its original packaging and criminalizes bringing legal marijuana from another state back to Ohio. It also requires drivers to store marijuana in the trunk of their car while driving.

Ohio S.B. 56 would give 36 percent of adult-use marijuana sale revenue to municipalities and townships that have recreational marijuana dispensaries.

The bill also maintains the 10 percent tax rate on recreational marijuana and keeps home grow the same at six plants per adult and 12 per residence. It also places a cap on 400 marijuana dispensaries in the state.

Ohioans passed a citizen-initiated law to legalize recreational marijuana in 2023 with 57 percent of the vote. Sales started in August 2024 and exceeded $702.5 million in the first year.

Ohio lawmakers can change the law since it passed as a citizen initiative not a constitutional amendment, something they have been trying to do since late 2023.

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Why Should Americans Die For European Tyranny?

After the European Commission levied a several-hundred-million-dollar fine on Elon Musk and his social media platform X earlier this month, journalist Michael Shellenberger wrote a damning post in which he excoriated Europe’s rank censorship and state-sponsored propaganda.  He accused the commission of engaging “in a deception campaign aimed at confusing” Europeans and Americans into thinking that European elites’ “goal” is anything other than “to censor the American people.”

Shellenberger pointed out that Musk’s fine came while European governments are demanding backdoor access to all private text messages (under the pretense of combatting the transmission of child pornography) and creating a so-called “Democracy Shield” of government-funded “fact-checkers” that enables “censorship by proxy.”  He also noted that the European Commission announced the fine to coincide with the rollout of the Trump administration’s new National Security Strategy, in which President Trump makes this promise: “We will oppose elite-driven, anti-democratic restrictions on core liberties in Europe, the Anglosphere, and the rest of the democratic world, especially among our allies.”

Shellenberger put two and two together to make a provocative observation:

“The EU is now in direct violation of the NATO Treaty,” which “requires member states to have free speech and free and fair elections.  France and Germany are actively and illegally preventing political candidates from running for office for ideological reasons, namely their opposition to mass migration.  And the Romanian high court, with the support of the European Commission, nullified election results under the thin and unproven pretext of Russian interference, after a nationalist and populist presidential candidate won.”

As a parting shot, Shellenberger accused the European political class of betraying its own constitution, a document that purports to protect free speech:

“Everyone has the right to freedom of expression.  This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority.”  

How can the European Commission pretend to defend its own charter when it seeks to eradicate the free exchange of ideas on X, censor Americans’ speech, spy on citizens’ private text messages, and create an army of government-funded NGOs to justify censorship and push the commission’s propaganda?

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New Zealand Ex-Top Cop Avoids Jail for Child and Bestiality Porn Offences

A New Zealand court sentenced the country’s former deputy police commissioner to nine months of home detention on Wednesday, after he admitted to possessing child sexual exploitation and bestiality material.

Jevon McSkimming, who until late last year was New Zealand’s second-highest ranking police officer, was arrested and charged in June with eight counts of possessing objectionable material.

The 52-year-old admitted to three charges in November, including possession of child sexual exploitation and bestiality images which were stored on his work devices.

Judge Tim Black handed down a nine-month home detention sentence in the Wellington District Court on Wednesday, ruling McSkimming would not have to register as a child sexual offender.

The judge adopted a starting point of three years’ prison, but gave deductions for McSkimming’s guilty plea, remorse and attempts at rehabilitation.

He said McSkimming was of low risk to the community.

McSkimming’s lawyer, Letizea Ord, said her client was deeply ashamed of his actions.

One of the original charges said the offences happened between July 2020 and December 2024.

McSkimming was suspended from his job on full pay in December 2024, when an internal investigation into his conduct was launched.

He was on leave for six months before his resignation in May.

New Zealand police commissioner Richard Chambers in November described the case as “disgraceful” after McSkimming’s guilty pleas.

“The outcome shows all police, no matter their rank, are accountable to the laws that apply to us all,” he said.

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US Suspends $41 Billion Tech Deal with UK over Online Censorship Laws

The great transatlantic tech romance has hit the skids. What was sold as a landmark agreement binding Silicon Valley brains to British ambition has been shoved into neutral, all because Britain decided it quite fancies telling American machines what they are allowed to say.

Washington has now suspended the much-trumpeted US-UK technology agreement, a decision driven by mounting alarm over Britain’s new censorship law, the Online Safety Act.

The idea that a British regulator might fine or muzzle American firms has landed in Washington like a dropped wrench.

One participant in the talks put it bluntly, telling The Telegraph, “Americans went into this deal thinking Britain were going to back off regulating American tech firms but realized it was going to restrict the speech of American chatbots.”

The Online Safety Act gives Britain the power to fine companies it believes are enabling “harmful” or “hateful” speech, concepts elastic enough to stretch around just about anything if you pull hard enough.

The communications regulator Ofcom has not been shy about using these powers.

Enforcement notices have already landed on the desks of major American firms, even when their servers, staff, and coffee machines are nowhere near Britain.

From Washington’s perspective, this looks less like safety and more like Britain peering over the Atlantic with a ruler, ready to rap American knuckles.

The White House had been keen on the £31 ($41) billion Tech Prosperity Deal, seeing it as a front door to closer ties on AI research and digital trade.

Instead, officials began to see the Online Safety Act as a mechanism for deciding what American platforms, and their algorithms, are allowed to say. Chatbots like ChatGPT or Elon Musk’s Grok suddenly looked like potential defendants in a British courtroom, accused of wrongthink.

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Transportation Secretary’s Daughter Calls for Complete Eradication of TSA After Nightmare Airport Experience

The daughter of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy exploded at the Transportation Security Administration Thursday after an interaction she said almost caused her to miss a flight.

“I nearly missed my flight this morning after the TSA made me wait 15 minutes for a pat-down because I’m pregnant and didn’t feel like getting radiation exposure from their body scanner,” Evita Duffy-Alfonso posted on X.

“The agents were passive-aggressive, rude, and tried to pressure me and another pregnant woman into just walking through the scanner because it’s ‘safe,’” she posted.

“After finally getting the absurdly invasive pat-down, I barely made my flight. All this for an unconstitutional agency that isn’t even good at its job,” she posted.

“Perhaps things would have gone more smoothly if I’d handed over my biometric data to a random private company (CLEAR). Then I could enjoy the special privilege of waiting in a shorter line to be treated like a terrorist in my own country. Is this freedom?” she wrote.

She summarized her experience as “ Travel, brought to you by George Orwell — and the privilege of convenience based solely on your willingness to surrender biometric data and submit to radiation exposure?”

“The ‘golden age of transportation’ cannot begin until the TSA is gone,” she wrote.

That post followed a briefer eruption.

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