Tag: police state

Alert: Spanish Priest Facing Years in Prison for Comment That Offended Muslims

If you pay any attention to American ideological discourse, you’ve no doubt heard the one about “Christian nationalism.”

It’s this bogeyman idea that Christians are trying to take over the world politically, culturally, and spiritually (as if that’s a bad thing).

For anyone paying attention to the world, however, you’re no doubt aware of just how perilous — and powerless — life is for Christians outside of America’s protection.

Father Custodio Ballester, a Catholic priest in Spain, is facing the possibility of very real prison time on charges of “Islamaphobia,” according to a harrowing report from The Christian Broadcasting Network.

Ballester is facing up to three years in prison for this charge, as well as fines.

The big crime? Answering a question about the possibility of an interfaith dialogue between Christians and Muslims.

(It can’t be stressed enough that this happened in 2016, nearly a full decade ago.)

“This renewed revival of Christian-Muslim dialogue, paralyzed by the alleged ‘imprudence’ of the beloved Benedict XVI, is far from a reality,” Ballester wrote in a letter, responding to the question. “Islam does not allow for dialogue. You either believe or you are an infidel who must be subdued one way or another.”

The Christian Broadcasting Network added: “In a 2017 YouTube video, Ballester expanded on his 2016 remarks, warning that Islam not only poses a threat in Europe, but also that in many Muslim-majority countries, Christians face persecution.”

Despite the rote — and fairly accurate — description of Islamic culture, Ballester incensed the Association of Spanish Muslims Against Islamophobia.

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‘Inactive’ Chicago Cop Sentenced To 20 Years In Prison For Sexual Abuse Of Minors

An “inactive” Chicago police officer has been sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to charges that he sexually abused minors, the Cook County Sheriff’s Office announced.

David Deleon, 32, pled guilty Friday to one count of criminal sexual abuse and two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of victims under 18, Sheriff Tom Dart’s office announced. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison in the guilty plea.

Deleon’s conviction comes after his arrest in 2023, when officers with northwest suburb Norridge’s police department charged him with aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a minor. Norridge police seized Deleon’s phone, which included evidence that he sexually assaulted and abused minors and recorded lewd videos of himself with minors, according to the sheriff’s office.

Norridge police turned the evidence over to Chicago police, who forwarded it to the sheriff’s Internet Crimes Against Children unit.

Investigators found Deleon, who lived in Edison Park, met his victims while working as a Chicago police officer and would invite them to sleep at his home, the sheriff’s office said.

Deleon was charged in August 2023 with criminal sexual abuse and assault as well as two counts of manufacturing child pornography, two counts of possession of child pornography and one count of unauthorized videotaping, the sheriff’s office announced at the time.

Deleon agreed to plead guilty to the sexual abuse and assault charges in exchange for prosecutors dropping the other charges, according to the Tribune. He has been in jail since his August 2023 arrest.

Deleon was stripped of his police powers following the 2023 charges, according to the sheriff’s office. He is considered an “inactive” employee with the Chicago Police Department, a spokesperson said.

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Australia Advances National Facial Recognition Network Despite Privacy Concerns

Australia is moving forward with a national facial recognition network that will link millions of citizens’ identity documents, despite ongoing uncertainty about privacy safeguards.

The National Driver Licence Facial Recognition Solution (NDLFRS) will merge biometric data from driver’s licenses and passports so that both government departments and private businesses can verify individuals’ identities.

The proposal dates back eight years but has recently accelerated. The Digital Transformation Agency confirmed that the Department of Home Affairs will host the system, while each state and territory will continue to manage its own data.

The agency stated that the project aims “to protect Australian people from identity theft, to manage and prevent crime, to increase road safety and to improve identity verification.”

It also noted that “Tasmania, Victoria and South Australia have provided data to the NDLFRS, with other states and territories to follow.”

Although the initiative remains marked as “unendorsed,” the government is preparing to activate key components.

The Attorney-General’s Department has announced that the accompanying Face Verification Service (FVS), which checks whether a person’s facial image matches the photo held in official records, is expected to begin operation in 2025.

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Canada Bill Sponsor Says Age Verification, Blocking Powers, Could Apply to Any Site, Even Social Media

A new Canadian Senate proposal on age verification has raised serious questions about the future of free expression and online access.

The bill’s sponsor has confirmed that the government would have the authority to decide which websites fall under its control, including platforms that have nothing to do with pornography.

Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne, who introduced Bill S-209, told a Senate committee that enforcement would ultimately be at the discretion of the federal government. “The government will decide on the scope, so the government could decide to include social media like X in its choices,” she said.

That statement cuts to the core of the controversy. The Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act was introduced as a measure aimed at sites that make adult content available for commercial purposes.

Yet, according to its sponsor, the government could extend it to any platform where some form of explicit content can be found, even if it is incidental or user-generated.

Bill S-209 completed its second reading in the Senate on June 12, 2025, and is now under committee review, which last met on October 9.

If passed, it would empower the government to impose mandatory age ID verification requirements across a wide range of online services. Those who fail to comply could face court-ordered blocking by Canadian internet service providers.

Although the proposal is framed as protecting minors, its broad wording leaves the door open for the government to demand compliance from social media companies, search engines, or discussion forums where adult material may appear in isolated cases.

Under Section 12, the Cabinet is granted full regulatory authority to determine which sites are covered and to set the rules for verification technologies.

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Canada’s AG Claims Anti-“Hate” Law Isn’t About Censorship

Governments around the world have a long history of introducing laws that restrict speech while insisting they are not acts of censorship.

Each new proposal is framed as a measure to promote safety, combat misinformation, or protect vulnerable communities, yet the result is often the same: expanded state authority over what citizens can say or share.

Now Canada’s Attorney General Sean Fraser is attempting to reassure Canadians that the federal government’s new hate speech legislation, Bill C-9, is not a disguised attempt to police online expression.

The proposal, already facing strong opposition from free expression advocates, introduces new “hate-related” offenses and expands police powers over what is labeled “hatred” in the Criminal Code.

Fraser told MPs that the government is not seeking to criminalize internet activity that is currently legal.

“We should recognize there are many acts we may find offensive that do not constitute hate for the purpose of the Criminal Code,” he said during his appearance before the Commons justice committee.

He insisted the bill’s purpose is not censorship, even as he confirmed that its provisions would apply equally to speech on the internet and in public spaces.

The legislation, officially titled An Act To Amend The Criminal Code (Combatting Hate Act), also bans the display of Nazi and Hamas symbols that are deemed to promote hatred, makes it an offense to obstruct religious or cultural ceremonies, and rewrites how “hatred” is defined.

The bill frames it as “the emotion that involves detestation or vilification and that is stronger than disdain or dislike.”

Free speech advocates have warned that this rewording lowers the legal bar by abandoning the Supreme Court’s requirement that hatred must be “an emotion of an intense and extreme nature.”

Fraser responded that any online statement would only be subject to prosecution if it already met the threshold for hate propaganda under existing law. “The only circumstance where you could imagine some online comment attracting scrutiny under this law would attach to behavior that is criminal today but is punished less severely,” he told the committee.

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Mom Placed on Child Abuse Registry for Letting 13-Year-Old Babysit

When single mom of two and home health aide Alice (a pseudonym) needed to run a brief errand, she tasked her 13-year-old brother (whom she is also the caretaker for) with babysitting her nearly 1-year-old child. For this, she was placed on the state’s child abuse registry.

Mariel Mussack, an attorney with Community Legal Services, told Alice’s story during testimony before the Pennsylvania House Children and Youth Committee in favor of H.B. 1873—known as Reasonable Independence for Children—on October 6. Similar bills have been passed in 11 states to date, clarifying that neglect is when a parent puts their child in obvious, serious danger, not anytime they simply take their eyes off of them. 

As in most of the other states, the Pennsylvania bill has bipartisan sponsors: Rep. Jeanne McNeill (D–Whitehall), who is majority chair of the committee, Rep. Rick Krajewski (D–Philadelphia), and Rep. David Zimmerman (R–Reinholds). Krajewski opened the hearing by noting that he’d grown up with a single mom who worked two or three jobs, and therefore, he had to get himself to school and help care for his younger sister. “It really does chill me to think that, in the eyes of our state statutes, that could be seen as neglect,” Krajewski said. 

Zimmerman recalled growing up on a farm. “We’d be gone all day,” he said. “And we really would look out for each other.” 

Peter Gray, a research professor of developmental psychology at Boston College and a co-founder with me of Let Grow, a nonprofit fighting for childhood independence, testified that an independent childhood helps inoculate kids against despair. 

“Over the last 60 years, we’ve seen a gradual but overall huge decline in children’s opportunities to play, roam, and generally engage in activities independent of adults,” Gray said, adding that “we’ve seen a gradual but overall huge increase in anxiety, depression, and…suicide among young people.” 

That’s due to a shrinking “internal locus of control,” the sense that you can handle things alone, said Gray. The way you build a robust internal locus of control is by being trusted to decide some things for yourself, like how to spend your time, and what you can handle on your own. “But,” Gray said, “we’re not allowing [kids] to do that.”

As constant adult supervision becomes the norm, more and more kids are being reported to the authorities. Diane Redleaf, a civil rights lawyer and Let Grow’s legal consultant, says that 37 percent of American children will be the subject of a hotline call—that number soars to 53 percent for African-American children.

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Texas Is Sued Over Digital ID Age Verification Bill

A major technology association is suing the State of Texas over a new law that threatens both privacy and free expression.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) has filed a federal lawsuit challenging Senate Bill 2420, which is set to take effect on January 1, 2026.

We obtained a copy of the lawsuit for you here.

The group argues that the law forces both app stores and developers to impose invasive ID age checks, obtain parental consent, and label content in state-approved ways that violate the First Amendment.

Under SB 2420, anyone with an app store account would need to complete an age-verification process before downloading or updating applications.

If an app store determines that a user is under 18, that user would be blocked from downloading most apps or making in-app purchases unless a parent gives consent and assumes control of the account.

Minors who cannot link their profiles to a parent or guardian would lose access to app store content entirely.

App developers would also face new rules.

They must classify their apps into multiple age categories and provide written explanations for each rating. Every update, feature addition, or design change would require written notice to the app store.

CCIA says these mandates compel developers to describe their products in ways dictated by the state and pressure companies to collect personal data that users should not have to disclose.

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FDR’s “Four Policemen”: The Globalist Blueprint for Endless War and American Subjugation

It is time to expose the truth about Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s so-called Four Policemen plan — a sinister scheme concocted by the globalist cabal surrounding the 32nd president to permanently shackle the United States to a role of international enforcer in a world government order. Far from being a noble vision for peace, FDR’s “Four Policemen” was the original blueprint for what would become the United Nations — an unelected, unaccountable body of internationalists dedicated not to liberty, but to global control.

In the midst of the Second World War, even before the guns fell silent, Roosevelt and his cadre of globalist advisors — including Soviet sympathizers such as Alger Hiss — were laying the foundation for a postwar “New World Order.” The heart of this plan was what FDR euphemistically called the “Four Policemen”: the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and China. These four powers, according to Roosevelt, would act as the guardians of peace, responsible for policing the globe and suppressing any acts of aggression through military might.

Let that sink in: Roosevelt — hailed by modern progressives as a champion of democracy — openly proposed that a small clique of global superpowers should wield exclusive authority to intervene in the affairs of nations, impose sanctions, deploy military force, and determine which conflicts were worthy of attention. Sovereignty? An outdated relic. Consent of the governed? Irrelevant. In FDR’s globalist gospel, only the self-anointed “policemen” mattered.

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You Are the Carbon They Want to Reduce: Sandwiches in the UK Now Come With a Daily Carbon Allowance Score

It took only about 80 years for the UK to go from “Keep Calm and Carry On” to full-blown Orwellian Big Brother. The nation plans to institute a digital ID to “help tackle illegal migration, make accessing government services easier, and enable wider efficiencies.”

What it is, really, is a backdoor way to have control over every aspect of the lives of everyday Britons, including what they eat.

Case in point, food in the UK is now labeled with how much of someone’s “daily dietary carbon allowance” is used up by eating that item.

A sandwich is 8.1% of our “daily allowance.”

The score will be attached to digital IDs. The Left has made it very clear they want to limit what, and how much, we eat in order to “save the planet.”

This is a great way to do that.

Those same Leftists will, of course, be exempt from such rules.

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Dover, NJ Implements AI Surveillance, Expanding Facial Recognition and Public Monitoring Systems

Dover, New Jersey, has joined a growing wave of municipalities embedding artificial intelligence into public spaces, advancing a surveillance system that includes facial recognition and automated video analysis across its government buildings.

The town partnered with technology firm Claro to retrofit its existing camera infrastructure with AI tools, avoiding the need for costly new hardware while expanding its monitoring capabilities.

The system brings a range of features into play, including facial recognition, visible weapons detection, and real-time behavioral analytics.

These tools are now active in locations such as the town hall, police department, fire station, and public library.

Town officials say the technology is being used for incident detection, crime prevention, crowd control, traffic monitoring, and illegal dumping enforcement.

“As a small municipality, we don’t have the budget for constant law enforcement presence,” said Mayor James Dodd. “Claro gave us the ability to enhance safety with cutting-edge technology that works with what we already have.”

The rollout reflects a broader trend where small towns turn to algorithmic systems to fill gaps traditionally addressed by human staff.

AI tools, particularly facial recognition, are increasingly being deployed in public settings, sparking ongoing concern about surveillance practices and the erosion of privacy rights.

Councilman Sergio Rodriguez, who helped lead the initiative, emphasized that the project came together through collaboration rather than off-the-shelf sales.

“Claro wasn’t just selling a product,” he said. “They listened to our needs and delivered solutions that worked for the Town of Dover.” He pointed to the technology’s role in optimizing public safety while helping stretch municipal budgets.

“With AI supporting day-to-day operations,” he said, “we can better protect residents and allocate our budget more effectively.”

Claro markets its AI platform as adaptable to existing surveillance systems and suitable for both real-time alerts and forensic investigations.

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