Tag: police state

UK Police Literally Have An ‘Elite Squad’ To Flag Spicy Social Media Posts…

An elite police unit set up by the Labour government has already flagged more than 100 social media posts to local forces, monitoring online “protest related activity” in a move critics brand a sinister step toward state control of speech.

The National Internet Intelligence Investigations team, created in the wake of the 2024 Southport riots, began operations in February. Freedom of Information figures obtained by the Telegraph and reported today show it has made 106 referrals of “suspicious” posts to forces across the country.

In June alone, 50 of those referrals came as public anger boiled over in Southampton after police bodycam footage exposed officers handcuffing dying teenage murder victim Henry Nowak while accepting a false complaint of ‘racism’ from his Sikh killer.

When the unit was first announced, then policing minister Dame Diana Johnson described it as “a dedicated function at a national level for exploiting internet intelligence to help local forces manage public safety threats and risks.”

The National Police Coordination Centre claims the squad “supports policing’s understanding of protest-related activity in the online environment by developing a broader picture of emerging, potential risks.”

Its remit, officials say, focuses on “providing strategic insight and improving awareness of protest-related developments that may have relevance to policing.”

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage commented “This is the beginning of the state controlling free speech. It is sinister, dangerous and must be fought.”

Police have refused to disclose which posts were flagged, citing exemptions around crime prevention. The pattern is clear enough. The unit was born from the Southport disorder that followed the murders of three girls by Axel Rudakubana.

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Flock Camera Mix-Up: Wisconsin Woman Pulled Over Twice at Gunpoint Due to Error

A Wisconsin woman was pulled over at gunpoint twice in one week after Milwaukee Police Department staff failed to remove a vehicle alert from the Flock license plate camera system.

Fox 6 Milwaukee reports that on Thursday, police in the Milwaukee suburb of Brookfield, Wisconsin, conducted a high-risk traffic stop on Interstate 94 after a Flock camera flagged a vehicle in connection with a Milwaukee homicide investigation. Video footage from the incident shows multiple officers with weapons drawn and a passenger extending their hands out the car window in compliance with police commands.

The vehicle’s driver, Amber Newell, and her passengers were detained during the stop. However, when Brookfield Police contacted the Milwaukee Police Department to coordinate the arrest, MPD informed them they no longer needed the vehicle or its occupants. The officers immediately released Newell and the other individuals.

According to the Milwaukee Police Department, the incident resulted from a personnel error rather than a technological malfunction. MPD staff had failed to remove the wanted vehicle alert from the Flock system after the investigation no longer required monitoring that particular car. Brookfield Police Chief Christopher Garcia stated that his officers’ actions were consistent with the information available to them at the time of the stop.

In an interview with FOX6 News, Newell described the emotional impact of the experience. “I haven’t been asleep since this has happened,” Newell said. “Every time I close my eyes, all I can see is guns.” Newell recounted the terrifying moments when police surrounded her vehicle. “My momma is like my go-to person, I wanted to call her so bad yesterday, but I’m like, if I make a sudden move, it’s gonna be over, it’s going to end my life,” Newell said.

What makes the situation even more disturbing for Newell is that this was not an isolated incident. She reported that Milwaukee police conducted a similar stop on Monday, also with guns drawn. According to Newell, officers provided no explanation, towed her vehicle, and released her without charges.

“It was very embarrassing because after they put us in cuffs, they walked us to the car, I don’t know what’s going on, I’m scared, all you see is people in they cars recording,” Newell said.

Milwaukee police declined to provide an interview regarding the incident. The department emphasized the error was related to data entry procedures rather than the Flock camera technology itself, but has not publicly addressed how similar mistakes might be prevented in the future.

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Judge Halts $800-a-Day Fines Against Investigative Journalist Catherine Herridge for Refusing to Betray Confidential Sources in China-Tied Case

Investigative reporter Catherine Herridge secured a major, though temporary, victory for press freedom after a federal judge clarified that she will not have to keep paying an $800-per-day contempt fine while her legal team asks the U.S. Supreme Court to hear her First Amendment case.

The court also denied plaintiff Yanping Chen’s request to increase the daily fine to a staggering $5,000 and ordered that the money Herridge has already paid be returned, Herridge announced Friday in a statement on X.

The district court has clarified that I don’t have to pay the $800 daily contempt fine for refusing to disclose my confidential sources while our team asks the Supreme Court to hear our First Amendment case.

The court also denied the plaintiff, Yanping Chen’s request to raise the daily contempt fines to 5K. The court ordered reimbursement for the fines I have already paid.

This case is much bigger than one journalist, one story, or one news outlet. The outcome will impact every newsroom in this country and the ability of reporters to protect their sources and do investigative reporting that seeks accountability.

Yet, critical evidence remains hidden from the public and under seal by the District Court.

At a time when many corporate media outlets choose to settle or pressure journalists to surrender their notes, I want to acknowledge that Fox News has continued to stand behind me and fully support the First Amendment and investigative journalism by paying my attorney’s fees.

I remain committed to safeguarding the principles of investigative journalism and a free press.

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Oxford Union Debate Stunt Exposes The Real Limit Of Free Speech In Britain

In the heart of the Oxford Union, a supposed bastion of open debate, a single brown paper envelope triggered pure panic.

Commentator Laurence Fox stood to argue that the West is right to be suspicious of Islam. He held up the envelope and indicated it contained a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad. The chamber erupted in frantic attempts to stop him opening it. Rules were suddenly invoked. Relevance was questioned. Respect was demanded.

The Muslim president of the Union interjected that her very presence should have been enough to persuade Fox that Muslims believe in free speech.

“My wife asked me not to show this for fear of repercussions for my family,” Fox said. “But I told her that if I did not, I would have submitted to Islam.” He continued that the West should resist Islam “in the strongest terms on free-speech grounds alone.”

Fox opened the envelope and revealed a cartoon of Rees-Mogg. Laughter and applause followed. The fear that had gripped the room evaporated the instant it became clear the image did not depict Muhammad.

In that moment the argument was settled more effectively than any speech could manage.

The debate took place under the motion “This House believes the West is right to be suspicious of Islam.” Speaking for the motion were actor and free-speech campaigner Laurence Fox, Tommy Robinson, and writer Jonathan Sacerdoti. Against them stood Oxford Union president Arwa Elrayess, a 20-year-old Muslim of Palestinian heritage from Gaza, Rees-Mogg, and others. Outside, left-wing protesters tried to block entry. Inside, the atmosphere was already charged.

Fox made free speech the centrepiece of his case. He cited polling showing that 78 percent of British Muslims believe no publication should print pictures of Muhammad, rising higher among some groups. He noted that Britain had long abandoned its own blasphemy laws. Then he produced the envelope.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, speaking against the motion, reached for procedure, recalling that as a former Union librarian he believed props were against the rules. Others in the audience scrambled for any technicality that might prevent the image from appearing. The chair eventually ruled that props were permitted.

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A Public Health Epidemic to Restrict Digital Rights

Remember that time a few years back when the government completely reshaped day-to-day life and restricted our basic rights to protect us from a disease that wasn’t that dangerous? Remember how our leaders forced us to comply with a suite of safety protocols that seemed mostly symbolic at best and a test of compliance at worst? Well, it’s happening again but not in the way you’d expect.

No, this time the threat is not some plague of medieval proportions. It’s not a new strain of super-Covid. It’s not Ebola or Disease-X. It’s not monkeypox or hantavirus. It’s not even explosive diarrhea from dirty lettuce. No, this time the threat is social media and the open internet.

That’s right. In case you haven’t heard, social media is causing a mental health crisis amongst young people. Porn and the potential for children to interact with adult strangers online probably isn’t great either. And therefore in order to protect our nation’s youth we all need to accept that the government has no choice but to reshape day-to-day life in the digital world.

A Brief History of Another Scientific Consensus

To give some background, starting roughly around 2012 depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicidality began to increase among minors. These trends coincided with the growing ubiquity of smartphones and social media. Subsequently, many parents, teachers, psychologists, and activists went on to suggest a link. Moreover, these claims were said to be supported by a growing number of scientific studies showing associations between social media use and measures of declining mental health.

When discussed in popular books such as Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation, these societal trends and supporting studies often are portrayed as undeniable evidence of a mental health epidemic caused by social media. When discussed in the media and by politicians, there can be a sense that this is a consensus position among experts overwhelmingly supported by “The Science.” 

Consequently, legislators across the country are rushing to demonstrate how seriously they take this and related issues by restricting access to certain digital corridors to those able and willing to convince a computer algorithm that they are in fact an adult – or by at least requiring everyone to jump through a couple additional government-mandated hoops just to get online.

Protecting Children by Requiring ID

Although many pieces of legislation have been proposed, and in some cases enacted into law, the most comprehensive and probably most threatening at the moment is the Kids Internet and Digital Safety Act (KIDS Act).

The KIDS Act, which recently passed in the House (and which I wrote about in more detail for The Washington Examiner), has been sent to the Senate. What happens next is unclear. But if it were to become law, it would require certain types of websites and digital technologies to provide distinct user experiences based on whether a user is an adult or a minor (or in some cases an adult, teen, or child).  

On paper, this is intended to protect minors from age-inappropriate content (e.g., pornography and cigarette ads), questionable practices on the part of social media companies (e.g., location sharing with third parties, personalized ads, and design features that encourage compulsive use), and online interactions with adult strangers and deceptive AIs. It also is meant to give parents greater control of their children’s social media accounts and online lives. 

In practice, however, the KIDS Act would require covered sites and technologies verify or at least estimate the ages of visitors or users through an array of mechanisms that at best legitimize current data collection practices by Big Tech (e.g., age estimation based on one’s online activity) and at worst mandate even more invasive ones that can be used to verify a user’s real-world identity (e.g., presentation of a government ID or submission to a biometric face scan). 

A similar effort has been proposed by the Senate. At the state level, places such as California, Texas, and Utah have their own age-gating legislation. Additionally, California and Illinois are pushing requirements that at least some operating systems collect age-bracket information on users to relay to websites as a means to ensure age-appropriate user experiences. 

Also, the Senate is considering the SCREEN Act, which is intended to prevent minors from viewing sexually explicit material online, seemingly by imposing more invasive age-gating protocols on anyone attempting to access such content. However, according to some analyses, the SCREEN Act may not only cover porn sites but also major streaming services and social media platforms. Furthermore, the SCREEN Act would require covered sites to crack down on people using VPNs to protect their privacy by circumnavigating compliance with age-gating requirements.

Despite some differences in the precise rationale and specific mechanisms imposed by these different pieces of legislation, the end result is always the same: an internet that is a little less free.   

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Online News Act left rural Canadians without credible information during wildfires: report

The report, first detailed by Blacklock’s Reporter, examined the consequences of Meta’s decision to block Canadian news from Facebook and Instagram following Parliament’s passage of Bill C-18.

The legislation was designed to compel large digital platforms to compensate Canadian publishers for news content. Meta responded by blocking news content from its platforms in Canada.

Researchers from the University of British Columbia said the consequences were particularly serious in rural communities, where Facebook had become a major source of local information during emergencies.

“Rural B.C. communities lost access to credible journalism at the precise moment they needed it most,” researchers wrote, citing consequences for public safety, trust and compliance with emergency instructions.

The study, “When Good Intentions Cause Harm: The Online News Act, Meta’s News Ban And Public Safety During Wildfire Emergencies,” examined wildfire coverage in several B.C. communities.

Researchers said removing journalism from Facebook did not eliminate information about the fires. Instead, personal accounts and emotionally charged material remained and were amplified on the platform, contributing to community outrage and conspiracy theories.

The report blamed the problem on a combination of declining institutional trust, social media algorithms and the disappearance of credible journalism from Facebook.

Researchers also criticized mainstream news coverage, saying the absence of local reporters with established community relationships made newsrooms increasingly dependent on governments and other “official voices.”

“Media were producing a version of wildfire events in which affected communities were compliance problems rather than people in crisis,” the report said.

The researchers noted an irony at the centre of the controversy: declining local journalism was partly caused by the advertising-market changes Bill C-18 was supposed to address, but the legislation ultimately contributed to credible journalism disappearing from one of the platforms rural Canadians relied upon most.

Blacklock’s was among the independent Canadian outlets that opposed the Online News Act, arguing it amounted to federal interference in the news marketplace. The outlet says it neither sought nor accepted payments available under the legislation.

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Flock Planned to Use 350,000 Uber, Lyft and Delivery Drivers as Mobile License Plate Cameras

A Flock presentation obtained through a public records request shows the surveillance company planned to use dashcams installed in hundreds of thousands of Uber, Lyft and delivery vehicles to collect license plate data for its network.

404 Media reports that the document provides new detail on Flock’s planned partnership with Nexar, a dashcam company. 404 Media first reported on the intended partnership last August based on information from multiple sources. The presentation shows Flock was actively pitching the partnership, and its plan to use Uber and Lyft drivers, to potential customers around the same time that reporting was published.

Flock told 404 Media in an email that it never executed the partnership with Nexar. But the presentation still lays out the company’s plan to enlist rideshare and delivery drivers to gather license plate data for its surveillance network. It is not clear whether Uber, Lyft or drivers working for those apps would have known their vehicles were being used for this purpose.

“Hundreds of Commercial Business and HOA [home owners associations] in GA [Georgia] are part of the network,” the presentation reads. “Plus Nexar partnership which includes 350k Uber/Lyft and other delivery service devices.” Flock wrote the document to present to the Georgia Office of the Attorney General last August.

Jason Hunyar, a resident of Dunwoody, Georgia, obtained the presentation through a public records request and shared it with 404 Media.

Flock’s automatic license plate reader cameras are typically stationary, mounted on tall poles where they continuously scan the license plate, color, make and model of passing vehicles. The Nexar partnership would have made that data collection mobile. Axon, a law enforcement contractor that also sells license plate readers, sells cameras that can be installed in police cars. Vigilant Solutions and the Digital Recognition Network, two license plate reader companies now owned by Motorola, collect similar data through cameras mounted in vehicles used by repossession agencies.

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Britain’s Hybrid Threats Directorate: Whitehall’s Ministry for Manufacturing Enemies

A British government operation established to counter Russian disinformation has expanded to Iran, China and Gaza, according to leaked Foreign Office files examined by David Miller, a British political sociologist and investigative researcher specialising in the study of propaganda and political influence.

Miller’s investigation for MintPress News draws on internal government pages and an organizational chart naming officials, specialist teams and private contractors. The documents expose part of a state apparatus that operates with little public scrutiny while monitoring and countering narratives deemed threatening to British interests.

At the centre of the files is the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s Information Threats and Influence Directorate. Its teams covered Russia, China and Iran, while another structure worked on Israel and Gaza. Miller reports that the directorate was later absorbed into the Cyber, Information and Tech Threats Directorate. Its functions now appear to fall within the broader Hybrid Threats Directorate.

Iran was not merely added to a list of foreign concerns. Miller reports that leaked charts place the China and Iran desk under the same official who led a semi-detached team focused on Israel and Gaza, with personnel developing proactive campaigns alongside regional and communications departments. The documents therefore place work concerning Iran, Israel and Gaza within an overlapping institutional structure, showing how the same Foreign Office information-threat structure could be directed across related geopolitical issues.

The Gaza operation emerges amid an unprecedented crackdown on Palestine solidarity in Britain. The government proscribed Palestine Action under terrorism legislation in July 2025. Since then, more than 3,300 people have been arrested and over 1,200 charged with terrorism-related offences, many for peacefully opposing the ban. The UN human rights chief warned that the proscription misused counterterrorism law and threatened freedom of expression, assembly and association.

The leaked files expose another layer of state power behind that visible police response. Government analysts monitor political narratives and trace how they circulate, while intelligence agencies, communications teams and contractors develop measures against activity classified as foreign manipulation. Ministers have already portrayed pro-Palestinian demonstrations as having been “hijacked” by people seeking to sow division. Within the information-threat apparatus described by Miller, such rhetoric can recast opposition to British support for Israel as something imported, manipulated or dangerous rather than a genuine political response to the destruction of Gaza.

Once dissent enters that system, official assessments can shape government messaging, engagement with online platforms, funding decisions and how people are treated across public institutions. The machinery exposed by Miller allows officials to define the threat, identify its alleged carriers and intervene without disclosing the evidence behind those judgments.

Parliamentary oversight has not kept pace. The Intelligence and Security Committee has warned that security functions transferred into policy departments have escaped its scrutiny. The government blocked attempts to extend the committee’s remit to bodies including the Counter Disinformation Unit and the Foreign Office’s intelligence policy department, preventing what the committee called “effective scrutiny by Parliament.”

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The COVID Lockdowns Gave America A Glimpse Of Socialism

The next time a candidate promises that greater government control will make life safer, fairer and more secure, Americans should remember 2020. They should remember the closed schools, shuttered businesses, restricted churches, isolated families, arbitrary mandates and government checks intended to compensate people for livelihoods government had interrupted.

COVID was not socialism in the strict textbook sense. Government did not nationalize most businesses or formally abolish private property. But the pandemic gave Americans a revealing glimpse of the governing instinct behind socialism: Central authorities replaced millions of individual decisions with government orders, restricted private activity in the name of the collective good and made citizens dependent on public assistance to endure the restrictions government itself imposed.

During the frightening opening weeks, temporary precautions were understandable. We faced an unfamiliar virus, hospitals feared being overwhelmed and officials had limited information. Most Americans accepted extraordinary restrictions because they were told the measures were necessary and temporary.

The problem was how quickly temporary precautions became a system of control and how slowly government surrendered that control.

Officials decided who could work and which businesses were “essential.” They determined whether children could enter their classrooms, congregations could enter their churches and families could visit elderly relatives. Restaurants, gyms, salons, theaters and neighborhood stores were closed or severely restricted. Weddings, funerals, worship services and private gatherings were regulated by executive order.

To a governor or public-health official, a restaurant or gym might have appeared nonessential. To its owner, it was income, retirement savings, personal identity and perhaps a business intended for the next generation. There was nothing nonessential about it.

Private ownership means less when government decides whether the owner may open the doors, employ workers or serve customers. The deed may remain in private hands, but practical control has shifted to the state.

The same pattern reached schools. Parents did not individually decide whether remote instruction was best for their children. Government agencies, teachers unions and school systems made that decision for them. Students and families bore the consequences through lost learning, social isolation and enormous strain on working parents.

Government also intruded on religious worship. Churches, synagogues and mosques were closed or severely restricted, sometimes while liquor stores and large retailers remained open. Americans were told when they could worship, how many could attend and even whether they could sing.

The First Amendment does not say religious liberty applies only when public officials consider it convenient. Yet during COVID, constitutional freedoms were treated as privileges that government could suspend and later restore.

Many rules imposed under the banner of science were actually emergency judgments supported by limited evidence. The six-foot distancing rule reduced business capacity and complicated school reopenings, yet Anthony Fauci later said he could not recall how that exact distance had been selected. It “sort of just appeared.”

Masking policies often showed the same lack of discrimination, treating crowded indoor settings much like solitary outdoor activity. California authorities even pursued and arrested a lone paddleboarder during a beach closure. Such episodes revealed what happens when officials become so certain of their authority that questioning a rule is treated as rejecting science.

Public-health experts were qualified to explain medical risks. They were not uniquely qualified to decide how much education, economic independence, religious liberty and personal freedom should be sacrificed. Those were political and moral decisions that belonged to elected representatives and the public.

Yet “following the science” became a way to avoid that debate. Science could help estimate the risk of infection. It could not decide whether a child should lose a year in the classroom, whether a family business should be destroyed or whether a dying person should be separated from loved ones.

Those decisions required balancing competing risks and values. Instead, one objective, reducing the spread of the virus, was often allowed to overwhelm nearly every other consideration.

The economic response reinforced the same pattern of centralized control.

Government restricted private commerce and prevented millions of people from earning income. It then stepped in with forgivable loans, enhanced unemployment benefits, stimulus checks and other assistance.

Some support was necessary. Government could not prevent people from working and then simply abandon them. But the arrangement exposed the deeper danger: Government first displaced private economic activity and then made citizens and businesses dependent on public money to survive the restrictions it had imposed.

That is the governing instinct behind socialism. Decisions move away from individuals, employers and markets and toward political officials who determine which activities may continue, who qualifies for assistance and how resources will be distributed.

The government that closed the business became the government offering to save it. The government that interrupted the paycheck became the government mailing the check. Dependence was not an accidental side effect of the restrictions. It was their predictable result.

Socialism is commonly sold as a promise of security. Government will protect people from illness, unemployment, high prices, inadequate housing and economic uncertainty. But protection requires authority. The more responsibility citizens surrender to the state, the more power the state claims to direct their choices.

COVID gave Americans a practical demonstration of that bargain. Officials promised safety and claimed the authority to regulate work, education, worship, travel, medical decisions and private gatherings. Every restriction was described as temporary, necessary and imposed for the common good.

That is how centralized control usually advances. It does not arrive by announcing that freedom is being abolished. It arrives through promises of safety, fairness, expertise and temporary necessity. Each expansion appears reasonable when viewed alone. Together, they transfer control of everyday life from citizens to the state.

This was not solely a Democratic failure. Officials in both parties expanded government power during COVID, which is precisely why the danger is larger than any one party or politician.

The lesson is especially important today because democratic socialism is gaining influence within the Democratic Party. The Democratic Socialists of America is not formally the Democratic Party, but its candidates generally seek office through Democratic primaries, and several have defeated incumbent Democrats.

The movement is candid about its objectives. Its constitution calls for “popular control of resources and production” and “economic planning.” Its national endorsement standards expect candidates to identify publicly as socialists, support the organization’s platform and view themselves as socialist organizers first and legislators second.

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Documents confirm FBI’s own ‘memo’ goof, as bureau treated SPLC as ‘government agency’

A few years back, during Joe Biden’s tenure in the White House when Catholics and other Christians seemed often to be in the bull’s-eye of his pro-abortion, pro-transgender, pro-leftist ideologies, the FBI’s Richmond office came up with a memo.

It identified “radical traditionalist Catholics” as potential domestic violent extremists. Terrorists, in fact.

The disastrous claims triggered a congressional investigation, a review by the Department of Justice’s Inspector General and widespread comments about the religious profiling active under Biden’s regiome.

It was “withdrawn,” officials confirmed, for not meeting bureau “standards.”

But now the full truth of the matter is being revealed. It seems that the FBI’s claims were based on sourcing from the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center, which agents at the time apparently were treating as a government agency.

The SPLC now, in fact, is under indictment for a number of counts for allegedly boasting to supporters about working to exterminate extremists, and then using donors’ funding to hand out cash to those very extremists.

At the time, the SPLC had claimed “radical traditionalist Catholics” are part of the people in America who “may make up the largest single group of serious anti-Semites in America.”

Now a report posted by the American Center for Law and Justice confirms at the time the scandal developed, a lawyer with the FBI’s Office of General Counsel, warned, “It seems that some of our folks may be equating a third-party organization with another government organization, and perhaps we need to remind the workforce about non-governmental organizations.”

The ACLJ explained, “That statement in and of itself is a remarkably dangerous implication of the Deep State.”

The ACLJ said it found the comment in a cache of internal FBI emails it obtained through a Freedom of Information Act litigation.

“The records reveal that the FBI’s own intelligence leadership quickly identified the fatal flaw in the now-infamous Richmond memorandum: The Bureau relied on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) subjective ‘hate group’ labels without first determining how the SPLC made those designations or whether its standards even aligned with the FBI’s own definitions,” the ACLJ said.

In fact, the SPLC routinely labels as a “hate group” any organization that does not comply with its own political, social and ideological agendas, including promoting transgenderism and abortion.

That leaves pro-family organizations like the Family Research Council, which was targeted in an attempted mass killing by a follower of SPLC ideologies, labeled as “hate.”

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