Tag: police state

Pasco County Sheriff Will End Predictive Policing Program to Settle Lawsuit Over Harassment

The Pasco County Sheriff’s Office is permanently scuttling a predictive policing program that was the subject of critical media investigations and a pending civil rights lawsuit alleging the program amounted to frequent unconstitutional harassment of families.

In a settlement agreement ending that civil rights lawsuit, the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office acknowledged that its “Intelligence Led Policing” (ILP) program exceeded officers’ implied license to knock on doors and perform offender checks, interfering with the plaintiffs’ First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

One of those plaintiffs, Darlene Deegan, was harassed for three years by Pasco sheriff’s deputies after her opioid-addicted son was flagged by the program. This included repeated, day-after-day visits to her house by police, demanding to know where her son was, and accruing $3,000 in fines for petty code violations, allegedly in retaliation for her refusal to cooperate.

“For years, the Pasco Sheriff’s Office treated me like it could do anything it wanted,” Deegan said in a press release issued by the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm that represented her and several other county residents. “But today proves that when ordinary people stand up for themselves, the Constitution still means what it says.”

The Institute for Justice filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in 2021 on behalf of Deegan and three other Pasco County residents who claimed the harassment violated their constitutional rights.

In addition to ending the ILP program and agreeing not to create a similar one, the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office will pay $105,000 to the four plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

A 2020 Tampa Bay Times investigation first revealed how the ILP program used algorithms to flag “prolific offenders” that it believed were likely to be future offenders. Many of them were juveniles, such as 15-year-old Rio Wojtecki. Once someone was added to the list, deputies targeted their family, workplace, and friends and associates for suspicionless “checks,”  including at nighttime. Deputies contacted Wojtecki or his family 21 times over a four-month period—at his house, at his gym, and at his parents’ work. When Wojtecki’s older sisters refused to let deputies inside the house during one late-night visit, a deputy shouted, “You’re about to have some issues.”

“Make their lives miserable until they move or sue,” was how one former deputy described the program to the newspaper. Body camera footage obtained by the Tampa Bay Times backed up both the residents’ and whistleblowers’ claims that deputies used frivolous code violations to retaliate against targets.

The Pasco County Sheriff’s Office originally defended the ILP program. A department spokeswoman told a Florida news outlet in 2022, in response to another lawsuit over the program, that the “ILP philosophy attempts to connect those who have previously offended with resources to break the cycle of recidivism. This ILP philosophy has led to a reduction in crime and reduction in victimization in our community and we will not apologize for continued efforts to keep our community safe.”

But last year the department announced in court that it was phasing out the “prolific offender” list. The Institute for Justice hopes that the settlement agreement will stop the program from ever being resurrected.

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D.C. Circuit Court Upholds TikTok Ban, Prioritizing ‘National Security’ Over Free Speech

A federal appeals court ruled Friday that the federal government can tell a foreign-owned website that it must either sell itself to an American owner or be banned.

TikTok is one of the most popular social media sites on the planet, with more than a billion monthly active users worldwide and 170 million in the United States. Both Democrats and Republicans have long complained that the app—owned by ByteDance, a company based in China—is a potential vector for Chinese propaganda.

Much of the controversy stems from the level of control that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) demands over the private companies operating within its borders. The theory goes that Beijing could force ByteDance to turn over TikTok user data, or manipulate user algorithms to promote content favorable to the Chinese Communist Party.

Given China’s well-earned reputation as a repressive state, those could conceivably happen—though the key word there is conceivably. While many lawmakers have insisted that TikTok is an active national security threat, they have presented no evidence for this, at most claiming to have seen classified information that affirms their warnings.

During his first term, President Donald Trump threatened to ban TikTok outright unless it were purchased and operated by an American company. (Trump has reversed course since leaving office, now promising to “save” the app.) And this year President Joe Biden signed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. Singling out TikTok and ByteDance by name, the law made it functionally illegal for “a foreign adversary controlled application” to operate within the United States, or for any other entity to provide “internet hosting services to enable the distribution, maintenance, or updating” of the app.

The law defined the term “controlled by a foreign adversary” to include not only companies owned wholly by Chinese entities but also one in which a citizen of an adversarial nation “directly or indirectly own[s] at least a 20 percent stake.” In other words, even if the overwhelming majority of a company’s shares were owned by Americans, it could be banned or forced to divest so long as the remaining shares were held by Chinese, Russian, or Iranian citizens.

In order to continue operating within the United States, the only recourse would be to sell TikTok to an American company by January 19, 2025—Joe Biden’s last full day in office.

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Lawyers Slam DOJ’s “Insane” Online Gag Order Against Texas Doctor Who Exposed Controversial Practices on Children

The Biden-Harris administration seems determined to do a little more damage to free speech while on the way out and one example is the Department of Justice (DOJ) trying to impose a gag order on Dr. Eithan Haim.

Perhaps it’s the haste of it all but a filing to support the request for the gag order cites a number of X posts that Haim should be prevented from reposting, the inclusion of which has variously been described by their authors as “absolutely insane,” “unbelievable,” etc. move by the DOJ.

This new filing comes in the case United States v. Haim, where the doctor – a Texas Children’s Hospital whistleblower, who revealed some controversial transgender medical practices – is sued for alleged felony violation of HIPAA by exposing sensitive information.

We obtained a copy of the filing for you here.

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PROJECTION: Obama Suddenly Concerned About Rigged Elections and Weaponizing Government Against Opponents

Obama is suddenly very concerned about what the party in power can do to rig elections and weaponize the government against perceived political enemies. What curious timing.

While speaking at the ‘Democracy Forum’ the former president talked about the dangers of extremism and polarization. Isn’t it strange how this is all just becoming a concern for him now?

Obama knows his party just got wiped out but he still doesn’t seem to understand why.

The Washington Examiner reports:

Obama scorns ‘doom loop’ of political extremism after Democrats’ election defeat

Former President Barack Obama criticized the political “doom loop” created by politicians who portray their opponents as “enemies to be vanquished” just weeks after he warned voters about now President-elect Donald Trump while campaigning for Vice President Kamala Harris.

During his keynote address Thursday about the importance of pluralism at the Obama Foundation’s third Democracy Forum in Chicago, the former president reiterated his criticism of media companies for “playing to the extremes” and politicians who adopt “a maximalist position on almost every issue.”…

“Since total victory is impossible in a country politically split down the middle, the result is a doom loop of government gridlock, even greater polarization, wilder rhetoric, and a deepening conviction among partisans that the other side is breaking the rules and has rigged the game to tip it in their favor,” Obama told the crowd Thursday…

To that end, Obama underscored that pluralism is “not about holding hands and singing Kumbaya” but “about recognizing that any democratic power comes from forging alliances and building coalitions and making room in those coalitions, not only for the woke but also for the waking.”

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‘Deceptively Colored Firearm’ Bill Introduced by Equally Deceptive Michigan Democrats

“Democrats push ban on ‘deceptively colored firearms’ amid flurry of lame duck gun bills,” The Midwesterner reported Wednesday. “Designates illegal any firearm other than black, brown, dark grey, dark green, silver, steel, or nickel in color.”

Senate Bill 1134 would amend the Michigan penal code to make “An individual who violates this section or any rule promulgated under this section …  guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for not more than 1 year or a fine of not more than $500.00.”

This insulting and oppressively matriarchal assault on both the First Amendment right to expression and the Second Amendment right to arms is the “brainchild” of Democrat Senator Dayna Polehanski, who can get away with such tyrannical acts of legislative sabotage because she’s a “safe seat” Democrat. Per Ballotpedia, she won Michigan State Senate District 5 in 2022 by 61.1% to 38.9% over her Republican opponent, and she’ll be in office until 2027.

Forget that she’s inventing a “solution” in search of a problem, and a Google search for terms like “homicide with ‘colored firearms’” yields no relevant (but unintentionally racist) results from Google, and even if they did would not justify depriving gun owners of their rights under threat of a “law” enforcement response and punishment. Much like the Clinton “assault weapon” ban, it’s entirely cosmetic. And it’s not even an original idea, which, considering it comes from a Democrat Moms Demand Action endorsee is hardly surprising.

The impulse to ban them goes back years ago to then-New York City Mayor and perennial Everytown billionaire money man Michael Bloomberg holding a press conference where he denounced “red and yellow DuraCoat-painted guns … saying anyone who sold them was ‘sick’ and ‘twisted’.”  That, in turn, per a 2008 Daily News report, prompted Steve Lauer of Lauer Custom Weaponry to push back by “market[ing] a line of bright colors called the ‘Bloomberg Collection,’ …[and] introduce… a bright-red shade called ‘Furious Mike.’”

The bill is not without exemptions, notably for “an individual who owns or possesses it on the effective date of the amendatory act that added this section,” and, of course, for “Only Ones” of:

“The United States… This state or another state… A department, an agency, or a political subdivision of the United States, this state, or another state… A member of an entity or organization… while engaged in the course of that member’s duties with that entity or organization or while going to or returning from those duties.”

How the problem of “deceptively colored firearms” goes away when in the hands of someone with a badge is not explained. Neither is the rational basis for “grandfathering” colored guns for one group of citizens, but not providing equal protection for individuals who got theirs “after the effective date of the amendatory act that added this section,” but instead dictating that “no later than 14 days after receipt” they’ll be required to either surrender it “to the department of state police for disposal” or “Modif[y] the deceptively colored firearm or covert firearm so that it is no longer a deceptively colored firearm or covert firearm and cannot be readily converted into one.”

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Texas Should Ban All THC Products—Including Delta-8—In 2025, Lieutenant Governor Says

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) announced Wednesday that lawmakers in the state Senate would move to ban all forms of consumable tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, in Texas.

Patrick, who presides over the Senate and largely controls the flow of legislation in the chamber, said the THC ban would be designated as Senate Bill 3—a low bill number that signals it is among his top priorities for the upcoming legislative session.

The Republican-controlled Legislature was widely expected to take aim at Texas’s booming hemp market, which has proliferated with thousands of cannabis dispensaries since lawmakers authorized the sale of consumable hemp in 2019.

That law, passed one year after hemp was legalized nationwide, was intended to boost Texas agriculture by permitting the commercialization of hemp containing trace amounts of non-intoxicating delta-9 THC. But Patrick contends the law has been abused by retailers using loopholes to market products with unsafe levels of THC, including to minors.

“Dangerously, retailers exploited the agriculture law to sell life-threatening, unregulated forms of THC to the public and made them easily accessible,” Patrick said in a statement announcing the measure late Wednesday. “Since 2023, thousands of stores selling hazardous THC products have popped up in communities across the state, and many sell products, including beverages, that have three to four times the THC content which might be found in marijuana purchased from a drug dealer. ”

Texas has not legalized marijuana in any form for broad use.

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Kremlin Trolls South Korea & US: ‘Professed Democracy’ Can Morph Into ‘Absolute Chaos’ In Couple Of Hours

The Kremlin in a fresh Wednesday statement appeared to engage in a bit of trolling of South Korea and its Western backers like the US following the prior day’s wild and short-lived martial law events.

“North Korea’s concerns over its security are understandable given the political instability in the South,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, which is somewhat ironic given the West constantly stresses the real threat and source of regional instability is actually Pyongyang. 

Her comments sought to emphasize the unpredictability of democracies supported by Washington. “In my opinion, many have understood why the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea)… is so concerned over its security,” she said.

“It’s because they see that in a couple of hours [South Korea] can morph from a professed democracy into absolute chaos, with tanks on the streets, a storming of parliament, popular confrontation and some brute-force tactics,” Zakharova continued. 

This means the north’s vigilance and constant state of war readiness – which has included increased weapons testing of late – is entirely justified, she suggested in her explanation, given the “unpredictable” neighbor to the south.

Just before 5am local time on Wednesday South Korea’s president Yoon Suk Yeol lifted his martial-law declaration after parliament voted unanimously against the measure. Troops had at one point stormed the parliament building, and there were bizarre scenes of lawmakers scaling fences to get back in.

He had argued his drastic move was necessary as his political opponents made the nation vulnerable to North Korean “communist forces” as government couldn’t function. Parliament rejected the rationale.

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U.S. Taxpayers Spent Almost $13B To Fund Global War On Drugs In The Past Decade, Report Shows

Nearly $13 billion in U.S. taxpayer money has gone to fund worldwide counternarcotics activities since 2015, often coming at the expense of efforts to end global poverty while at the same time contributing to international human rights violations and environmental harms. That’s according to a new report issued on Wednesday by two organizations critical of the war on drugs.

The 47-page document, jointly published by the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) and Harm Reduction International (HRI), consists of what it describes as a “follow-the-money data analysis” that looks at anti-drug spending allocations across various government departments as well as case studies from Colombia, Mexico and the Philippines.

Authors wrote that the analysis “demonstrates how U.S. assistance has supported and expanded destructive and deadly anti-drug responses in low- and middle-income countries around the world.”

The $13 billion figure, the report says, “is more taxpayer money than the U.S. government spent over that decade on primary education or water supply and sanitation in low- and middle-income countries” and also greater than U.S. foreign aid over the same period “for all of Southern Africa or Central America.”

It’s also “about 300 times the total amount of U.S. foreign aid over that decade for women’s rights organizations in low-and middle-income countries around the whole world,” it adds.

DPA said in an email about the report that the topic is “especially timely as President-elect Trump and members of his administration threaten to ramp up the global war on drugs and increase punitive responses to international drug markets.”

For fiscal year 2025 alone, the report says, President Joe Biden “requested $1 billion for international ‘counternarcotics’ activities,” about half of which ($480 million) would be allocated to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), while about $350 million would have gone to the State Department.

“The role of the United States in exporting the destructive war on drugs to other countries is unparalleled,” DPA and HRI said in an executive summary of the findings. ”

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North Carolina Goes Drug War on Prostitution

North Carolina has made it a felony crime to patronize a sex worker. Under a law that took effect December 1, “any person who solicits another for the purpose of prostitution is guilty of a Class I felony for a first offense”—a crime that comes with a minimum of four months in prison, up to two years. Second and subsequent offenses are now Class H felonies, punishable by up to 39 months in prison.

“In the past, many first offenses under either classification have received house arrest or probation in lieu of prison time. Prior to this revision, the maximum penalty for purchasing sex from a consenting adult was a misdemeanor,” according to Yes Weekly.

Soliciting sex—like selling sex—has typically been categorized by states across the country as a misdemeanor. But in recent years, we’ve seen a disturbing trend of states starting to classify attempts to pay for sexual activity as a felony.

It’s a trend that’s bad for not only sex buyers but also, and perhaps especially, for sex workers. And it mirrors the misguided and detrimental path we saw people take with the war on drugs.

Three States Now Make Paying for Sex a Felony

Three states now make it a felony crime to pay for sex or attempt to pay for sex, even on a first offense and in situations where the person being paid is a consenting adult or a cop posting as a consenting adult. (Many states make it a felony to pay or attempt to pay a minor for sex, but that is not what we’re talking about today.)

Felony crimes not only tend to come with more harsh prison sentence but other conditions, such as loss of voting rights for some period of time, restrictions on the kinds of jobs one can hold, and restrictions on one’s right to own firearms.

“In 2021, Texas became the first state to make buying sex a felony, when Governor Greg Abbott signed a law increasing the maximum penalty to two years in prison for a first offense,” notes Yes Weekly. “State Representative Senfronia Thompson (D–Houston), the author of the bill, said ‘We know the demand is the driving force behind human sex trafficking. If we can curb or stamp out the demand end of it, then we can save the lives of numerous persons.'”

Last May, Oklahoma made “engaging in prostitution or soliciting, inducing, enticing, or procuring another to commit an act of prostitution” felony crimes.

The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE)—the conservative group formerly known as Morality in Media that has spent the past decade trying to rebrand itself as a feminist organization—is a major driver of these laws and, more generally, the idea that we can “end demand” for prostitution.

NCOSE tends to focus on salacious stories of people violently forced into prostitution and portray all sex buyers as people complicit in committing “atrocities.” The group and its allies make it very hard for politicians or anyone to speak out against harsher penalties for sex buyers, even though the vast majority of sex buying situations look nothing like the horror stories they blast out in support of them.

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Podcaster in UK Faces Prison For Saying “Young White Girls Are Being Raped by These Grooming Gangs”

A podcaster in the UK faces potential prison time after being charged for making “grossly offensive comments” in a YouTube video in which he stated, “Young white girls are being raped by these grooming gangs.”

Yes, really.

Carlisle Crown Court heard that 41-year-old Derek Heggie made the comments in two YouTube videos in early August during the rioting and unrest that took place across numerous cities in the aftermath of the Southport murders.

Heggie had been set to stand trial on a charge under the Malicious Communications Act, but instead “pleaded guilty to sending communication of an offensive nature.”

Prosecutors said Heggie’s comments were “particularly inflammatory” in the context of the riots and he is still being remanded in custody as he awaits sentencing later this month.

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