Tag: police state

Rhode Island Officials Consider Letting Marijuana Packages Have More Color—And Requiring More Info About The Product

Drive along the highway and you’ll see plenty of big, attention-grabbing billboards with bright colors advertising Rhode Island’s few licensed cannabis retailers. But go inside one of those stores and you’ll be met with a sea of neutral colors: white, gray or black. Occasionally, there’s navy blue.

Those neutral colors are by design, mostly to ensure products are not attractive to children who might accidentally ingest them. But state regulators may allow for some color in the future as the Rhode Island Cannabis Control Commission ponders changes to its packaging regulations.

Commissioners were presented with the idea during their July 30 meeting, where the three-member panel decided to add the language to its ongoing draft regulations that will govern the state’s fledgling cannabis sector. Other proposals include placing the name of the lab that tested the cannabis, the use of a QR code (with commission approval), and a list of cannabinoids that make up the product.

Allowing color “provides for more branding freedom for licensees” and came at the recommendation of the commission’s 18-member Cannabis Advisory Board, according to the July presentation.

“We’re trying to give the people the ability to brand the product, which gives them the ability to differentiate themselves in the market,” advisory board member Stuart Procter, co-founder and lab director for cannabis testing facility PureVita Labs in West Warwick, said in an interview.

The commission was formed last June, just a little over a year after recreational cannabis was legalized. Commissioners spent last summer on a listening tour, hearing the concerns of community members and cannabis workers, which include ensuring the commission prioritizes social equity measures.

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Missouri health department to begin enforcing ban on psychoactive cannabis compounds

On Sunday, the state of Missouri will begin enforcing Gov. Mike Parson’s executive order to crack down on psychoactive cannabis products.

The governor has said the products being targeted are often packaged to look like candy and can appeal to children, and they’re sold at convenience stores and other businesses with liquor licenses. The only exceptions will be for products that come from a source approved by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS).

The executive order issued August 1st also required the Division of Alcohol and Tobacco Control to file an emergency rule to forbid liquor license holders from selling psychoactive cannabis, but the rule has been blocked by Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft.

In a statement, the Department of Health and Senior Services said the rejection of the emergency rule filing “has no impact” on their enforcing the executive order.

“Executive Order 24-10 does not apply to products under the control or purview of the Division of Cannabis Regulation pursuant to Article XIV of the Missouri Constitution and sold by establishments licensed pursuant to Article XIV of the Missouri Constitution,” the statement said.

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Why the Telegram Prosecution May Move the Overton Window on Free Speech

Earlier this month, French authorities arrested Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, a chat app widely used around the world by nearly 1 billion people, including by political dissidents and terrorist groups. Some of the criminal charges, which are peculiar to French law, stem from allegations of clearly illegal and harmful material spread on the platform. But other charges, which relate to the mere use of encrypted technology, have set off wider concerns about a crackdown on free speech. To some extent, this has been led by the right, with Elon Musk pushing #freepavel on his X platform. But these worries have also been shared by journalists and civil-liberties groups worried about the encroachment of law enforcement on the way that people around the world communicate.,

To get a clearer sense of what is going on, I spoke with Daphne Keller, the director of the Program on Platform Regulation at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center. Keller, who was previously an associate general counsel for Google on free-expression issues, has written that the charges are more likely to be focused on how illegal material is handled by big tech but could represent a broader threat to how we people communicate online.

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German Court Forces Podcasters To Delete Episode Where They Referred To Balding Trans-Identified Male As “He/Him”

A podcast episode of Hoss and Hopf had to be deleted by court order because the moderators called a trans-identified man “a man” and used male pronouns to refer to him. The podcasters may be facing potential prison time or a fine of up to €250,000.

In the controversial podcast episode, the hosts discussed the case of Laura Holstein, formerly known as Nicolas. Holstein, a balding male who now identifies as a “woman,” has made multiple headlines over the past few months related to him demanding access to female spaces. Most recently, Holstein, with the support of the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency, has been pursuing legal action against a female-only gym in Bavaria.

But the Frankfurt am Main Regional Court has now stopped in to order the censorship of the Hoss and Hopf episode related to Holstein. The hosts, Kiarash Hossainpour and Philip Hopf, have also been prohibited from referring to Holstein as a man and using male pronouns for him. 

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Lula’s Leftist Party, PT Brasil, Continues to Post on X Despite Ban of Ordinary Citizens Using the Platform in the Country

The hypocrisy of these leftists never ceases to amaze… but wow, Lula’s government may have just taken the cake.

In one of the most brazen examples of “rules for thee, but not for me,” Brazilian President Lula’s ‘Workers Party’ continues to post repeatedly on X, despite yesterday’s implementation of Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes’ nationwide ban against the social media platform.

Hundreds of millions of citizens are now blocked from accessing their accounts after Lula’s feud with Elon Musk reached a tipping point on Friday when the socialist tyrant implemented the ban. Supposedly, the only way around this firewall is by using a VPN, however, if anyone is caught accessing the platform, they face heavy fines.

The ruling specifically mentioned Proton VPN, Express VPN, NordVPN, Surfshark, TOTALVPN, Atlas VPN, and Bitdefender VPN. De Moraes imposed fines of up to $8,874 a day for any user found using VPNs in Brazil.

Repeat offenders would likely face even worse repercussions. As has been demonstrated thoroughly, Brazil’s current government has proven it will go that extra mile to silence dissent.

This, however, is of no concern to the tyrants within the Lula regime. Since going into effect, ‘PT Brasil‘, the X account representing the ruling socialist party, has not skipped a beat in delivering its regularly scheduled lineup of propaganda.

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Backyard Privacy in the Age of Drones

Police departments and law enforcement agencies are increasingly collecting personal information using drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles. In addition to high-resolution photographic and video cameras, police drones may be equipped with myriad spying payloads, such as live-video transmitters, thermal imaging, heat sensors, mapping technology, automated license plate readers, cell site simulators, cell phone signal interceptors and other technologies. Captured data can later be scrutinized with backend software tools like license plate readers and face recognition technology. There have even been proposals for law enforcement to attach lethal and less-lethal weapons to drones and robots. 

Over the past decade or so, police drone use has dramatically expanded. The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Atlas of Surveillance lists more than 1500 law enforcement agencies across the US that have been reported to employ drones. The result is that backyards, which are part of the constitutionally protected curtilage of a home, are frequently being captured, either intentionally or incidentally. In grappling with the legal implications of this phenomenon, we are confronted by a pair of U.S. Supreme Court cases from the 1980s:California v. Ciraolo and Florida v. Riley. There, the Supreme Court ruled that warrantless aerial surveillance conducted by law enforcement in low-flying manned aircrafts did not violate the Fourth Amendment because there was no reasonable expectation of privacy from what was visible from the sky. Although there are fundamental differences between surveillance by manned aircrafts and drones, some courts have extended the analysis to situations involving drones, shutting the door to federal constitution challenges.

Yet, Americans, legislators, and even judges, have long voiced serious worries with the threat of rampant and unchecked aerial surveillance. A couple of years ago, the Fourth Circuit found in Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle v. Baltimore Police Department that a mass aerial surveillance program (using manned aircrafts) covering most of the city violated the Fourth Amendment. The exponential surge in police drone use has only heightened the privacy concerns underpinning that and similar decisions. Unlike the manned aircrafts in Ciraolo and Riley, drones can silently and unobtrusively gather an immense amount of data at only a tiny fraction of the cost of traditional aircrafts. Additionally, drones are smaller and easier to operate and can get into spaces—such as under eaves or between buildings—that planes and helicopters can never enter. And the noise created by manned airplanes and helicopters effectively functions as notice to those who are being watched, whereas drones can easily record information surreptitiously.

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The Biden/Harris corrupt DOJ has a nasty trick up its sleeve for J6 political prisoners…

In case you’re wondering just how weaponized and evil our so-called “justice department” has gotten under the Biden/Harris regime, we’ve got proof of the Marxist transformation of our once highly respected court system, all in the name of punishing political dissent. The latest move involves the regime’s favorite target: J6 political prisoners.

As you know, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the J6 defendants in the recent Fischer case. If you need a refresher, here’s what happened.

Lawfare Media:

On June 28, in a six-to-three ruling, the Supreme Court found that to prove a violation of Section 1512(c)(2), the government “must establish that the defendant impaired the availability or integrity for use in an official proceeding of records, documents, objects, or other things used in an official proceeding or attempted to do so” in Fischer v. United States.

The Court’s decision reverses that of the D.C. Circuit’s, which had adopted a much broader interpretation of the statute.

At issue in the case was the charge of corruptly obstructing an official proceeding under 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2). Joseph Fischer, an alleged Jan. 6 rioter, was indicted on seven charges, including one count of obstruction of an official proceeding under 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2) in 2021. Fischer later filed a motion to dismiss several of the charges against him, including the count under § 1512(c)(2), arguing that the statute “does not criminalize the obstruction of legislative action by Congress” and that any “alleged obstruction of the certification of the Electoral College vote is simply outside the scope” of the statute.

On March 15, 2022, U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols granted Fischer’s motion to dismiss his obstruction charge. The judge’s ruling essentially found that the government could not charge Fischer with corruptly obstructing an official proceeding under § 1512(c)(2). The government subsequently appealed the decision before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

After the ruling, the DOJ was forced to drop obstruction charges against many J6ers, including Fischer himself. But, sadly, this story doesn’t end there—not with this corrupt, tyrannical regime. Now, the crooked Biden/Harris DOJ is looking to retry J6ers who have already endured the horrific ordeal of a trial, sentencing, and conviction, all because they ruffled some papers.

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Medical Fascism

Medical fascism is when there is a corrupt merger of state and corporate entities in the health care industry — to borrow a turn-of-phrase from RFK Jr. Because of the inefficiency and lack of patient-centered care under medical fascism, you see a divergence between how much healthcare money is spent vs. the health of the people…

The USA spends 15 times as much on healthcare as Thailand does. The results? …

USA life expectancy:
77.01

Thailand life expectancy:
77.33

Evidence suggests that there is medical fascism in the USA and that the medical corruption is worse here than it is in any other nation in the world. U.S. citizens should instead enjoy medical freedom, getting the doctor they want and even the treatment that they want — with no entity getting between doctor and patient.

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SHOCKING: Over 50,000 British Citizens Have Been Charged For Using “Illegal Words Or Writing”

Over the last month, the United Kingdom has been hit hard by a wave of protests following the gruesome stabbing murder of three little girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, England on July 29, 2024.

 Axel Rudakubana, a 17-year-old male and the son of Rwandan nationals, murdered these young girls in cold blood. Protests immediately popped off the next day in Southport and spread across the UK. 

The frustration expressed by protesters represents a general hostility towards the overwhelming wave of non-white immigration that has landed on Albion’s shores in the last 70 years. 

As a result of these protests, the regime of Prime Minister Keir Starmer has started to arrest people for making posts on social media that explain uncomfortable truths about the troubling demographic situation in the UK and the harsh realities of non-white crime.

Before the Southport protests kicked off, X user ~~datahazard~~ noted on March 5, that “3300 people [were] arrested in Britain last year for saying naughty words online.” 

X owner Elon Musk was surprised by these revelations which he responded to in a tweet in disbelief saying, “3300?”

~~datahazard~~ then responded with an even more revealing analysis of these prosecutions, by posting a bar chart noting that “Over 50,000 Brits in the past decade have been charged with Illegal Words or Writing (Race/Religion subset)”

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NO FAKES – A Dream for Lawyers, a Nightmare for Everyone Else

Performers and ordinary humans are increasingly concerned that they may be replaced or defamed by AI-generated imitations. We’re seeing a host of bills designed to address that concern – but every one just generates new problems. Case in point: the NO FAKES Act. We flagged numerous flaws in a “discussion draft” back in April, to no avail: the final text has been released, and it’s even worse.  

Under NO FAKES, any human person has the right to sue anyone who has either made, or made available, their “digital replica.” A replica is broadly defined as “a newly-created, computer generated, electronic representation of the image, voice or visual likeness” of a person. The right applies to the person themselves; anyone who has a license to use their image, voice, or likeness; and their heirs for up to 70 years after the person dies. Because it is a federal intellectual property right, Section 230 protections – a crucial liability shield for platforms and anyone else that hosts or shares user-generated content—will not apply. And that legal risk begins the moment a person gets a notice that the content is unlawful, even if they didn’t create the replica and have no way to confirm whether or not it was authorized, or have any way to verify the claim. NO FAKES thereby creates a classic “hecklers’ veto”: anyone can use a specious accusation to get speech they don’t like taken down.  

The bill proposes a variety of exclusions for news, satire, biopics, criticism, etc. to limit the impact on free expression, but their application is uncertain at best. For example, there’s an exemption for use of a replica for a “bona fide” news broadcast, provided that the replica is “materially relevant” to the subject of the broadcast. Will citizen journalism qualify as “bona fide”? And who decides whether the replica is “materially relevant”?  

These are just some of the many open questions, all of which will lead to full employment for lawyers, but likely no one else, particularly not those whose livelihood depends on the freedom to create journalism or art about famous people. 

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