Tag: police state

Apple Removes Bitchat from China App Store at Cyberspace Administration Order

Apple deleted Bitchat from the China App Store, acting on a direct order from the Cyberspace Administration of China. Jack Dorsey, who created the app, posted a screenshot of Apple’s removal notice to X with a short caption: “bitchat pulled from the china app store.”

The notice Apple sent to Dorsey is almost a copy-paste of the one it sent to Damus three years earlier. The language is identical. The accusation is identical. The CAC determined that Bitchat violates Articles 3 of the Provisions on the Security Assessment of Internet-based Information Services with Attribute of Public Opinions or Capable of Social Mobilization.

That regulation, enacted in 2018, requires any online service capable of influencing public opinion or organizing collective action to undergo a government security assessment before going live. If a service hasn’t submitted to that assessment, the CAC can order it pulled.

It targets the capacity for “public opinions” and “social mobilization.” The Chinese government has decided that the ability to communicate outside state-approved channels is itself a security threat, and Apple consistently treats that determination as sufficient grounds for deletion.

Bitchat is a peer-to-peer messaging app that operates over Bluetooth mesh networks. It requires no internet connection, no phone number, no email address, and no user account.

Messages are end-to-end encrypted and stored only on the devices involved. There are no central servers to subpoena, no user databases to hand over, and no content moderation pipeline for the CAC to plug into.

Dorsey built the initial version over a single weekend in July 2025, coding it with Goose, Block’s open-source AI assistant. He published a white paper on GitHub and opened a TestFlight beta that hit its 10,000-user cap within hours.

That design is precisely the problem from Beijing’s perspective. China’s internet censorship apparatus depends on having a chokepoint.

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Meta To Comply With Florida Age Verification Digital ID Law

Meta agreed to comply with Florida’s age verification law, HB 3, and will begin purging accounts belonging to children under 14 starting in May. 

The company’s capitulation comes ahead of an April 8 deadline set by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who threatened litigation against any platform still refusing to verify the ages and identities of its users. Uthmeier is now pressuring Snapchat, Roblox, Discord, and TikTok to do the same.

What Florida calls child protection is also the construction of a statewide identity verification system for the internet. Meta is one of the biggest companies lobbying for age verification checks on the app store level.

HB 3 bans under-14s from social media entirely and requires parental consent for 14- and 15-year-olds. But to block minors, platforms first need to determine who is and isn’t a minor. That means age-checking everyone, adults included. The surveillance burden falls on millions of people who have every legal right to use these services without proving who they are.

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Idaho Lawmakers Approve Resolution Asking Voters To Reject Medical Cannabis Ballot Measure

The Idaho House of Representatives has joined the Senate in approving a resolution urging voters to “reject” an effort to place an initiative to legalize medical marijuana on the state’s November ballot.

The measure, sponsored by the Senate State Affairs Committee, claims that cannabis legalization in other states has led to a host of harms, including “increased cartel activity, development of black market marijuana production, human trafficking, and increased crime rates” as well as “increased rates of serious health issues,” environmental harms and “safety concerns on job sites.”

After passing the Senate in a voice vote earlier last week, SCR 127 cleared the House on Wednesday in a 58-9 vote. It argues that the marijuana initiative would not only increase costs to the state but that its list of approved medical conditions is “so broad that almost anyone could qualify.”

“The Idaho Medical Cannabis Act lacks safeguards to such an extent that it would effectively legalize widespread recreational use of marijuana,” the resolution claims. “The legalization of marijuana would have devastating impacts on Idaho children and their families… The Legislature urges the citizens of Idaho to reject any effort to bring the Idaho Medical Cannabis Act to the ballot.”

A statement of purpose filed with the legislation says it “addresses the devastating impact that legalizing marijuana has had on other states” and “identifies the significant problems” with the ballot initiative.

The Natural Medicine Alliance of Idaho (NMAI), which is leading the effort to place the legalization measure before voters this November, has pushed back against the resolution.

“Idahoans deserve to vote on this issue, and we are confident we will be able to get it in front of them this November to do just that,” Amanda Watson, a spokesperson for the group, said in a press release last month when the resolution was filed. “There are thousands of people across Idaho with stories like Dr. Tunney’s and they deserve dignified care and the option to choose an alternative to opioids. NMAI has operating field offices in every corner of the state and we are actively recruiting more team members in Coeur d’Alene, Meridian, Boise, Twin Falls, Pocatello and Idaho Falls. We are not taking our foot off the gas until the final bell rings.”

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Missouri Governor Says Restricting Hemp THC Products Is ‘Something We Need To Get Done’ As Ban Bill Heads To His Desk

Missouri’s governor says the state needs to take steps to restrict the availability of intoxicating hemp-derived THC products in line with legislation that lawmakers recently sent to his desk.

“At a high level, I’m very much in favor of taking these illegal drugs in the form of the candies and stuff off of the shelves for kids to be able to buy,” Gov. Mike Kehoe (R) said in an episode of  This Week in Missouri Politics that aired on Sunday.

While the governor said his office will “do bill review” on the specific provisions of the legislation that lawmakers passed last week, he generally agrees with its aim.

“The way the legislation is drawn up is it helps us match the federal standard that’s coming down on these issues,” Kehoe said, referring to national restrictions that President Donald Trump signed into law late last year and that are set to take effect this November.

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Ohio Judge Pauses Hemp Product Ban Enforcement, Saying It Favors Marijuana Industry

A Sandusky County court of common pleas judge has ruled that Ohio’s new law banning the sale of intoxicating hemp-derived cannabinoids except at licensed marijuana retailers is likely unconstitutional and has issued a temporary restraining order blocking the Fremont Police Department from enforcing it.

The ruling impacts only the Fremont Police Department and “all who may act in concert with them” and remains in effect only until April 28. It comes in a case brought by Seattle-based Cycling Frog, a hemp cannabinoid beverage company that sells its products throughout Ohio, including Sandusky County.

Judge Jeremiah Ray held that the new law created by the passage of Senate Bill 56 appears to violate the Dormant Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. That law effectively gives the state’s licensed marijuana dispensaries a monopoly over what are federally legal hemp-derived products, Ray held. (Congress voted to radically restrict hemp-derived cannabinoids last November, but that law does not go into effect until this coming November.)

“The practical effect is to immunize Ohio’s in-state marijuana industry, which Ohio law requires to have an in-state physical presence, from out-of-state competition with respect to federally legal hemp products otherwise sold in interstate commerce,” Ray said, noting the law also discriminates against in-state businesses.

“The parallel intrastate discrimination is no defense to the interstate discrimination. Indeed, the existence of parallel intrastate discrimination makes the protectionist effect of the ordinance more acute,” he wrote. “This is because the licensed dispensaries and their attendant supply chain benefit from a lack of competition from either inside or outside Ohio. This is, thus, inherently discriminatory on its face.”

The attorney representing Cycling Frog, Andy Mayle, said he asked Ray to make the temporary restraining order a class action that would block all law enforcement agencies in the state from enforcing the law.

“That’s the next step in the case,” Mayle said. “If he does, then basically the bill—with respect to the traditional hemp industry—will not be enforceable in Ohio.”

The regulation of interstate commerce is the province of Congress, not the state of Ohio, Mayle added.

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These common drug tests lead to tens of thousands of wrongful arrests a year, experts say. One state is fighting back

Bird poop scraped off a man’s car appeared on a drug test as cocaine. A toddler’s ashes registered as methamphetamine or ecstasy.

And a great-grandmother’s medicine tested positive for cocaine – spawning a 15-month legal nightmare, forcing her to refinance her home, and spurring a new state law that could set a precedent across the country.

Colorado just enacted the nation’s first law banning arrests based solely on the results of colorimetric drug tests – a field test widely used by law enforcement across the country.

The tests are popular because they’re cheap, portable and can screen for drugs in mere minutes. It’s just not feasible to send all suspected drug samples to state laboratories, which would be far more expensive and could take days or weeks to return results.

But these inexpensive tests also lead to false positives at alarming rates, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania found.

While the actual error rate nationwide is unknown, previous studies by manufacturers have put it around 4%. But the UPenn researchers believe the actual rate is much higher, from 15% to 38%. And a study by the New York City Department of Investigation showed test error rates from 79% to 91% in some correctional settings.

From lost jobs to months in jail, innocent people “are at risk of having their lives derailed by these inaccurate tests,” said Des Walsh, founder of the Roadside Drug Test Innocence Alliance.

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Mexico Speeds Up Biometric ID Rollout

Mexico’s government wants you to believe that handing over your fingerprints, iris scans, and facial data is voluntary. President Claudia Sheinbaum has said so publicly.

But by July 2026, every one of the country’s roughly 130 million mobile phone lines must be linked to a biometric national ID, and unregistered numbers get suspended on July 1.

Refuse the biometric credential and lose your phone.

The CURP Biométrica upgrades Mexico’s existing population registry code, the Clave Única de Registro de Población, from an 18-character alphanumeric string into something far more personal. The updated system captures face, fingerprint, and iris biometrics, packages them with a QR code and digital signature, and produces what amounts to a mobile-readable identity document tied to your body.

Registration happens at RENAPO and Civil Registry offices, where staff scan all ten fingerprints, both irises, take a facial photograph, and record a digital signature. You’ll need a valid photo ID, a certified CURP, and an original or certified birth certificate just to walk in.

The government has framed this primarily as a tool for addressing Mexico’s crisis of forced disappearances. The biometric data feeds into a Unified Identity Platform connecting the National Population Registry with the National Forensic Data Bank and records held by prosecutors and intelligence agencies, enabling real-time identity searches. That’s the stated purpose.

The actual system being built does considerably more than locate missing people. The legislation gives broad access to biometric and personal information to law enforcement, intelligence agencies, and the National Guard, and the law doesn’t require authorities to notify citizens when their data gets accessed. You won’t know who’s looking at your biometrics, or why, or how often.

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US & EU Negotiate Biometric Data-Sharing Deal

Washington wants to run European fingerprints through American databases, and the EU is considering it. The Department of Homeland Security and the European Union are in formal negotiations over an arrangement that would give DHS direct query access to biometric records held by EU member states, a level of access that Brussels has never granted to a non-EU country for border security purposes.

The deal sits inside DHS’s Enhanced Border Security Partnership program, which effectively tells Visa Waiver Program countries to open their biometric databases or risk losing visa-free travel privileges. Washington has set a December 31, 2026, deadline for EBSP agreements to be operational. After that, DHS reviews each country’s compliance. Countries that fail to meet expectations risk suspension from the VWP, which would reimpose visa requirements on their citizens.

When DHS encounters a traveler, asylum seeker, visa applicant, or anyone flagged during immigration processing, it would query a participating country’s database using that person’s biometrics.

A match returns fingerprints and related identity data to DHS.

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FBI’s New Political Pre-Crime Center

President Trump’s budget request to Congress contains the largest counterterrorism spending increase in years — and buried inside it is a new FBI-led center dedicated to “proactively” hunting Americans the government classifies as so-called domestic terrorists.

The new center and funding boost represent the implementation of Trump’s National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), the sweeping federal order I’ve been covering since it was signed last September.

Though public opposition to ICE succeeded at forcing the administration to back down in Minnesota — even firing both Kristi Noem and Gregory Bovino — the FBI is doubling down its domestic terrorism obsession.

Now, Trump’s budget request reveals, the FBI runs a dedicated “NSPM-7 Joint Mission Center”; with personnel from 10 federal agencies, it is busy “proactively” identifying domestic terrorists motivated by any of the following beliefs:

  • “anti-Americanism,”
  • “anti-capitalism,”
  • “anti-Christianity,”
  • “support for the overthrow of the U.S. Government,”
  • “extremism on migration,”
  • extremism on “race,”
  • extremism on “gender,”
  • “Hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family,”
  • Hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on “religion,” and
  • Hostility towards those who hold traditional views on “morality.”

In other words, if your political views are practically anything other than MAGA, you’re on notice, courtesy of the FBI.

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He didn’t want to cuff people in crisis. Anne Arundel police made him a mall cop.

Lt. Steven Thomas, who led the Anne Arundel County Police Department’s Crisis Intervention Team to international renown, has been reassigned to mall security after being disciplined for giving his officers the discretion not to handcuff people with mental illness or addiction.

His apparent ouster from the unit he’s helmed for a decade sent shock waves through the county’s criminal justice and substance abuse and mental health treatment circles.

Melissa Owens, a longtime Anne Arundel County Public Schools high school teacher who has bipolar disorder, credits Thomas’ unit with saving her life on several occasions when she was in crisis. She said Thomas’ reassignment, and the apparent reasoning, “raises questions.”

“Why have an entire program where you train first responders in how to use this discretion, all the tools they have in action, and then tell them you can’t use them?” said Owens, who now helps train officers on responding to people in mental crisis. “That’s pointless to me.”

Thomas is now assigned to the Bureau of Community Services, Police Department spokesperson Justin Mulcahy said. He declined to answer other questions, including about what prompted the change. Mulcahy said an acting lieutenant was in charge of the crisis unit.

A 30-year police veteran, Thomas now works out of the department’s post at Arundel Mills Mall, said O’Brien Atkinson, president of the union that represents Anne Arundel police officers. Atkinson said he couldn’t discuss the reassignment but lauded Thomas’ leadership of the Crisis Intervention Team.

“Our CIT program has been recognized as one of the best in the nation and world, really,” Atkinson said. “I think he certainly was a big part of that.”

Under Thomas’ leadership, the police crisis team was declared the best in the world in 2020 by CIT International. His unit also received that organization’s first regional platinum certification in 2024. These accolades drew praise from elected officials and contributed to Anne Arundel County’s status as the gold standard for crisis response in Maryland.

Officers in Thomas’ unit wear light-blue collared shirts and complete specialized training on how to help people in crisis. They connect people with mental illness or addiction to treatment. They sometimes transport people deemed to be dangerous because of mental illness to hospitals for emergency evaluations. When there’s a terrible tragedy, like a homicide, CIT officers respond to the emotional needs of people affected by it.

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