Tag: police state

France’s Encryption Crackdown Could Break Secure Messaging for Everyone

France is attempting to pass a new surveillance law requiring the inclusion of secret encryption backdoors by providers, to serve intelligence agencies and police.

Critics say this attack on secure communications is the worst of its kind in the European Union (EU) and are urging citizens to put pressure on lawmakers to prevent the adoption of the so-called Narcotrafic law, which has cleared the country’s Senate and is now in the National Assembly.

Among those raising the alarm over the law is the well-known end-to-end encrypted email service Tuta, which reiterates the fundamental argument against building any backdoors into any encrypted app – something that French legislators now need to hear: once broken for one, encryption is broken for all.

“A backdoor for the good guys only is not possible,” says a blog post on Tuta’s site.

It adds that the idea to give law enforcement the ability to remotely activate cameras and microphones, expand “black boxes” authorization, and further facilitate online censorship (allegedly only related to the use and sale of drugs) might be presented by those behind the proposed law as needed to fight organized crime – but that, at the same time, it goes against a number of existing laws.

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Minnesota’s COVID Snitch Line Exposed: Hundreds Turned in Neighbors for Going Outside!

In March 2020, the State of Minnesota opened a hotline for residents to report violations to Gov. Tim Walz’s (D) COVID-19 stay-at-home orders, social distancing guidelines and lockdown directives.

Through a Freedom of Information Act request, Infowars has exclusively obtained over 950 emails and phone calls that were sent in to Minnesota’s violation tip line, showing busybody residents reporting others for using city parks, attending drive-thru church services, and indeed for merely walking on the sidewalk.

The emails illustrate how the fear instilled by the media and corporate establishment resulted in neighbors turning against one another, eagerly buying in hook, line and sinker to the largest psy-op campaign ever waged on humanity.

Below are just a few emails we’ve reviewed that show the extent to which many went along with Gov. Walz’s request.

Beware: These people live among you.

In one of the more incredible emails, a woman reported her own 18-year-old brother for “going back and forth…between houses.”

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Federal Ban On Interstate Marijuana Commerce Helps The Illicit Market While Hurting Legal Businesses, California Report Finds

California officials have unveiled a new report on the current status and future of the state’s marijuana market—with independent analysts hired by regulators concluding that the federal prohibition on cannabis that prevents interstate commerce is meaningfully bolstering the illicit market.

The California Cannabis Market Outlook 2024 report—commissioned by the state Department of Cannabis Control (DCC) and carried out by ERA Economics—looked at consumer trends, industry data, regulatory enforcement actions and more.

Marketing conditions for licensed businesses “have been challenging since 2021,” the report says, noting declining wholesale cannabis prices and stagnation in transitioning adults to the regulated market. Just about 40 percent of consumers are buying from legal operators years into the implementation of legalization.

“Competition from the illicit market contributes to lower prices in the licensed market,” it says. “Some consumers still purchase cannabis from illicit operations and illicit cannabis production moves across state lines into different markets.”

“[C]annabis consumption has modestly increased and many of those consumers are purchasing cannabis from licensed cannabis businesses, but there is still a substantial illicit market in California,” it says. “Careful analysis of the data does not show an explosion of illicit market production.”

A key part of the problem is ongoing federal prohibition, according to the analysis.

“Federal legalization of cannabis and facilitation of trade between different states with licensed markets would reduce trade of illicit cannabis and could lead to more stable prices in California and other states,” it says.

The report says “wholesale prices showed that prices in the licensed markets in California, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington are related,” and this “link between the licensed cannabis markets in California, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington has increased over time.”

“The link is the unlicensed market,” it says.

“Prices in these states have converged, and statistical analysis confirms these markets are co-integrated. Market co-integration generally occurs as a result of trade between nations (or in this case, states). However, without any legal interstate trade, this result indicates that the illicit market is a driving factor that connects prices across states.”

That’s not to say that the lack of interstate commerce is the sole factor stymieing the industry, of course. The report also identifies the unregulated market for intoxicating hemp products—as well as local bans on marijuana businesses—as contributing factors.

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Radical Reconstruction and State Omnipotence

In his book Omnipotent Government, Ludwig von Mises traces the shift in Europe from individualism to state omnipotence, highlighting the disastrous effects of empowering government to run every aspect of social and economic life:

Men now seem eager to vest all powers in governments, i.e., in the apparatus of social compulsion and coercion. They aim at totalitarianism, that is, conditions in which all human affairs are managed by governments. They hail every step toward more government interference as progress toward a more perfect world; they are confident that the governments will transform the earth into a paradise.

That insight aptly encapsulates the centralization of government power during the Reconstruction Era of 1865 to 1877 in the American South. The Radical Republicans saw the federal government as essential to the daunting task of rebuilding the south. William Dunning describes the devastation caused by the war, “the ravaged territory of the Confederacy, [as] the ancient social structure lay in obvious and irremediable ruin.” Particularly in “the heart of the Confederacy, the cotton states proper…chaos was universal.” In addition to the casualties of war, much of the South had been burned to the ground by General Sherman’s armies. The organization of labor was in disarray. While some emancipated slaves stayed at their usual work, others “wandered aimless but happy through the country, [and] found endless delight in hanging about the towns and Union camps.” The challenge of social and economic reconstruction was not inconsiderable.

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Jailing Canadians Is Just One Way Government Supports Israel

Canada supports Israel’s violence and apartheid in innumerable ways. Targeting critics of Israel has long been a way Canada assists Palestinian dispossession.

I was recently arrested for social media posts critical of Israel and spent five days in jail to win the right to discuss social media influencer Dahlia Kurtz who pursued charges against me. My experience fits a long history of Canadian police and intelligence services targeting critics of Israel and includes close ties to their Israeli counterparts.

Over the past 16 months Canadian authorities have responded to the popular uprising against Israel’s horrors in Gaza by greatly escalating their assaults on critics of Israel. As I’ve written or discussed, dozens of individuals have been jailed or had their residences raided. In the most egregious abuse of state authority, Ottawa listed the grassroots Vancouver-based Samidoun Palestinian Political Prisoners Network a terrorist organization.

While the suppression has escalated in parallel with the upsurge in activism, it’s been going on for a long time. In recent decades the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) has demonized and targeted critics of Israel. In one of the rare cases that was publicized, at least seven friends of Stefan Christoff were visited by CSIS agents over an 8-month period in 2009 and 2010. They arrived unannounced early in the morning and asked detailed and sometimes menacing questions about the Montreal activist’s work with Artists Against Apartheid or trips to the Middle East.

As Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) engaged in negotiations during the 1990s many Palestinian Canadians accused CSIS of intimidating opponents of the Oslo accords. CSIS allegedly offered cash in exchange for information on those opposed to the PLO’s compromise. A 1994 Washington Report on Middle East Affairs article explained, “CSIS is carrying out a political agenda by targeting only those who are aligned with non-Fatah groups of the PLO — those who oppose the accord signed by the PLO. More than 20 PFLP [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine] supporters have come forward alleging that they have been interrogated by CSIS.”

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Report Your Family For Wrong Think, Says German Government Initiative

Germany’s Interior Ministry, headed by Nancy Faeser – known for banning media outlets – and the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women, and Youth have launched a project dubbed, “Advice Compass on Conspiracy Thinking.”

The center is there to provide advice to anyone who “suspect their friends or family members have fallen victim to conspiracy theories,” according to the Interior Ministry.

You can’t make this up, and Germany’s current authorities are no pioneers here. In one form or another, the “spying starts at home” policy – trying to get people to make the state’s population surveillance job easier – has existed before.

But, worryingly, that was/is under some of the most repressive regimes in recent history.

As serious as the matter is, hilariously enough, the German word for “advice” happens to be – “rat.”

“Holistic” is how Faeser chose to describe this approach and the inclusion of the “advice” center into Germany’s overall fight against what the authorities consider to be extremism and disinformation.

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Ohio GOP Leaders Claim Bill To Roll Back Marijuana Legalization Law Doesn’t Disrespect Voters

Ohio’s Senate president is pushing back against criticism of a bill that would scale back parts of a voter-approved marijuana legalization law, claiming that the legislation does not disrespect the will of the electorate and would have little impact on products available in stores.

“My definitive message is: If you want to go purchase marijuana products from a licensed dispensary, that is going to be unchanged by Senate Bill 56,” Senate President Rob McColley (R) said on a podcast posted on Friday. “The only difference you’ll notice is the packaging may not look as appealing to children, but you’ll still be able to buy the same products.”

McColley was speaking on a The President’s Podcast, produced and published by Ohio Senate Republicans. He and host John Fortney, the communications director for the Senate GOP caucus, spent the first half of the podcast defending SB 56, which would amend the cannabis law passed by voters in November 2023.

Among other changes, the bill would halve the number of plants that adults could grow, add new criminal penalties around cannabis conduct and remove select social equity provisions in the law.

The Senate approved the proposal on a 23–9 vote last week.

Critics, such as Sen. Bill DeMora (D), who spoke against the measures on the Senate floor, contend that the plan “goes against the will of the voters and will kill the adult industry in Ohio.”

Fortney began the podcast by acknowledging “a lot of controversy around Senate Bill 56,” asserting that “all it did was preserve access to what the voters approved in November of 2023, the initiated marijuana statute, and put some safety and security parameters around it for—of all things, Mr. President—children.”

“The far left, the Democrat narrative, the narrative of the legacy media, has been, ‘Republicans are trying to take away what the voters approved,’ which is patently false,” Fortney continued. “What a lie.”

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FCC Chair Brendan Carr Wants More Control Over Social Media

In his short time as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Brendan Carr has been no stranger to using his power against disfavored entities. The chairman’s targets have primarily included broadcast networks and social media companies.

Recently, Carr revealed a fundamental misunderstanding about one of the most important laws governing the internet and social media.

On February 27, digital news outlet Semafor held a summit in Washington, D.C., titled “Innovating to Restore Trust in News,” which culminated in a conversation between Semafor editor-in-chief Ben Smith and Carr.

“The social media companies got more power over more speech than any institution in history” in recent years, Carr told Smith. “And I think they’re abusing that power. I think it’s appropriate for the FCC to say, let’s take another look at Section 230.”

Section 230 of the Communications Act effectively protects websites and platforms from civil liability for content posted by others. It also protects a platform’s decision to moderate content it finds “objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected.”

Like many conservatives, Carr looks askance at social media’s latitude to moderate content with what he perceives as impunity. “The FCC should issue an order that interprets Section 230 in a way that eliminates the expansive, non-textual immunities that courts have read into the statute” and “remind courts how the various portions of Section 230 operate,” he wrote in a chapter of The Heritage Foundation’s Mandate for Leadership, more popularly known as Project 2025.

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California Proposal Would Prevent Coverage Of Medical Marijuana In Workers’ Compensation Cases

California officials are accepting public comment through mid-March on a plan that would remove medical marijuana as an accepted treatment for injured employees in workers’ compensation cases. The change would effectively prevent doctors in such cases from recommending marijuana and end any compensation to pay for cannabis medications.

The change being considered by the California Division of Workers’ Compensation (DWC) is based on recently updated guidelines from the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) that say cannabinoids are “not recommended” for treatment of chronic, acute or postoperative pain and separately advising against cannabinoid use by safety-critical workers.

ACOEM in an update earlier this year listed various health risks associated with marijuana use—including cannabis use disorder, motor vehicle crashes, schizophrenia and others—and further said that evidence shows that cannabis is ineffective or only minimally effective at treating various types of pain.

As a result of the ACOEM update, the worker’s compensation division is weighing a change that would remove marijuana and related treatments from California’s medical treatment utilization schedule (MTUS) in workers’ comp cases.

Cannabis reform advocates and workers’ rights groups are pushing back against the proposal, saying it conflicts with numerous other studies indicating that marijuana can be effective for treating pain, and are urging supporters to file written comments with DWC ahead of a planned hearing on March 14.

“The recommendation flies in the face of scores of scientific studies,” Dale Gieringer, director of California NORML, said in an email, “including reports by the National Academy of Sciences and California’s Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research, plus the experience of countless California patients and doctors who have found medical cannabis valuable for treating intractable chronic pain.”

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Washington Lawmakers Once Again Abandon Effort To Allow Adults To Grow Marijuana At Home

Democrats in the Washington State legislature have once again given up on a plan to legalize home cultivation of marijuana for personal use, opting instead to keep the conduct classified as a felony.

Lawmakers in the House Appropriations Committee did not act on the homegrow bill—HB 1449, from Rep. Shelley Kloba—before a legislative deadline on Friday, meaning it’s now dead for the session.

If enacted law, the bill would have allowed adults 21 and older to grow up to six cannabis plants at home for personal use, with households capped at 15 plants regardless of how many adults reside on the premises. People could also lawfully keep the marijuana produced by those plants despite the state’s existing one-ounce limit on possession.

Kloba and other supportive lawmakers have worked for nearly a decade to pass a law allowing adults to grow a small number of cannabis plants for their own use, but each year, other lawmakers and executive agencies have stood in the way of the proposal.

Kloba’s staff on Friday confirmed to Marijuana Moment that the bill would not move forward this year, saying that the lawmaker “will continue pursuing this policy” but declining to comment further.

Last year, Kloba sponsored HB 2194, which similarly died after not being called for a vote in the House Appropriations Committee.

After last year’s proposal failed to advance, Kloba similarly said she would continue to pursue the reform.

“Every session has its own character and constraints, which so far have meant that the bill has not advanced to the Senate,” she told Marijuana Moment at the time. “But I am not giving up.”

Washington was one of the first U.S. states to legalize adult-use marijuana, passing a ballot initiative in 2012. Growing marijuana for personal use without a state medical card, however, remains a Class C felony, carrying up to five years in prison and up to $10,000 in fines.

Legislative efforts to allow personal cultivation stretch back to at least 2015, but so far each has failed.

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