Tag: police state

New Mexico Dems Could Pass Broadest Gun Ban in U.S. This Week

For the past several years, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has been demanding the Democrat-controlled legislature deliver an “assault weapon” ban to her desk, and each and every session her fellow Democrats have declined to do so. In Grisham’s last year in office, though, Democrats are poised to deliver exactly what she wants; a bill that would take almost every semi-automatic long gun off the market in the Land of Enchantment.

New Mexico is in the middle of a 30-day session that’s supposed to be limited to budgetary issues only. Instead, Democrats are pushing a number of policy proposals, including SB 17, which would ban the sale and transfer of every gas-operated centerfire rifle that can accept a detachable magazine (along with those guns that have fixed magazine capacity of more than ten rounds), detachable magazines that can hold more than ten rounds of ammunition, and .50 BMG rifles, along with imposing a host of new regulations and restrictions on federally licensed firearms retailers. 

On Saturday afternoon the state Senate approved SB 17 along mostly party lines and sent the constitutional abomination on to the House, where it could come up for a vote as early as this week. 

“We have data that shows a lot of the gun crime in New Mexico is coming from guns sold at our local dealers, and we want the state to be able to also regulate and ensure those sales at our gun dealers here are responsible, are not straw purchases, and are happening as they should,” said state Sen. Heather Berghmans.

She says it would require gun shops to have more security measures, more training, keep thorough reports of sales and inventory, and their employees must be 21 years or older.

Yes, most guns used in crimes were originally sold by an FFL. That doesn’t mean, however, that New Mexico gun stores are doing anything wrong. That figure accounts for guns that are stolen or given to criminals by family and friends, along with straw purchases (which also can and do take place without the willing involvement of FFLs). 

Imposting these new requirements on FFL’s isn’t about stopping criminals from getting ahold of guns. It’s about making the process of being a gun store owner more difficult to navigate, more expensive to conduct business, and more legally dangerous to help people exercise a fundamental civil right. 

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EU Law Could Extend Scanning of Private Messages Until 2027

The European Parliament is considering another extension of Chat Control 1.0, the “temporary” exemption that allows communications providers to scan private messages (under the premise of preventing child abuse) despite the protections of the EU’s ePrivacy Directive.

A draft report presented by rapporteur Birgit Sippel (S&D) would prolong the derogation until April 3, 2027.

At first glance, the proposal appears to roll back some of the most controversial elements of Chat Control. Text message scanning and automated analysis of previously unknown images would be explicitly excluded. Supporters have framed this as a narrowing of scope.

However, the core mechanism of Chat Control remains untouched.

The draft continues to permit mass hash scanning of private communications for so-called “known” material.

According to former MEP and digital rights activist Patrick Breyer, approximately 99 percent of all reports generated under Chat Control 1.0 originate from hash-based detection.

Almost all of those reports come from a single company, Meta, which already limits its scanning to known material only. Under the new proposal, Meta’s practices would remain fully authorized.

As a result, the draft would not meaningfully reduce the volume, scope, or nature of surveillance. The machinery keeps running, with a few of its most visibly controversial attachments removed.

Hash scanning is often portrayed as precise and reliable. The evidence points in the opposite direction.

First, the technology is incapable of understanding context or intent. Hash databases are largely built using US legal definitions of illegality, which do not map cleanly onto the criminal law of EU Member States.

The German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) reports that close to half of all chat control reports are criminally irrelevant.

Each false positive still requires assessment, documentation, and follow-up. Investigators are forced to triage noise rather than pursue complex cases involving production, coercion, and organized abuse.

The strategic weakness is compounded by a simple reality. Offenders adapt. As more services adopt end-to-end encryption, abusers migrate accordingly. Since 2022, the number of chat-based reports sent to police has fallen by roughly 50 percent, not because abuse has declined, but because scanning has become easier to evade.

“Both children and adults deserve a paradigm shift in online child protection, not token measures,” Breyer said in a statement to Reclaim The Net.

“Whether looking for ‘known’ or ‘unknown’ content, the principle remains: the post office cannot simply open and scan every letter at random. Searching only for known images fails to stop ongoing abuse or rescue victims.”

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Massive TikTok Fine Threat Advances Europe’s Digital ID Agenda

A familiar storyline is hardening into regulatory doctrine across Europe: frame social media use as addiction, then require platforms to reengineer themselves around age segregation and digital ID.

The European Commission’s preliminary case against TikTok, announced today, shows how that narrative is now being operationalized in policy, with consequences that reach well beyond one app.

European regulators have accused TikTok of breaching the Digital Services Act by relying on what they describe as “addictive design” features, including infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications, and personalized recommendations.

Officials argue these systems drive compulsive behavior among children and vulnerable adults and must be structurally altered.

What sits beneath that argument is a quieter requirement. To deliver different “safe” experiences to minors and adults, platforms must first determine who is a minor and who is not. Any mandate to offer different experiences to minors and adults depends on a reliable method of telling those groups apart.

Platforms cannot apply separate algorithms, screen-time limits, or nighttime restrictions without determining a user’s age with a level of confidence regulators will accept.

Commission spokesman Thomas Regnier described the mechanics bluntly, saying TikTok’s design choices “lead to the compulsive use of the app, especially for our kids, and this poses major risks to their mental health and wellbeing.” He added: “The measures that TikTok has in place are simply not enough.”

The enforcement tool behind those statements is the Digital Services Act, the EU’s platform rulebook that authorizes Brussels to demand redesigns and impose fines of up to 6% of global annual revenue.

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Homeland Security Spying on Reddit Users

Homeland security field agents are scouring the social media site Reddit, monitoring the communications of law-abiding Americans critical of the agency.

The spying is revealed in a January intelligence bulletin produced by the Border Patrol and leaked to me. The subject of the report is Reddit user “Budget-Chicken-2425,” who is not a narco-trafficker, gang member, or terrorist. Just someone concerned about federal overreach.

The report centers on Budget-Chicken’s call for a protest near a Border Patrol facility in Edinburg, Texas. Though the report acknowledges that anti-ICE protests throughout Texas have been “generally lawful” and that there’s no evidence of any threat posed by Budget-Chicken’s call, any protest whatsoever near the border patrol facility is said to “warrant continued monitoring.”

To quote directly from the intelligence bulletin:

“At this time, there is no specific reporting of planned violence targeting DHS personnel or facilities linked to this protest call; however, any demonstration in proximity to USBP [United States Border Patrol] RGV [Rio Grande Valley] facilities may present operational, safety, and reputational risks that warrant continued monitoring.”

Budget-Chicken’s offending Reddit post was on the r/RioGrandeValley channel. Titled “Join me in protest against ICE,” the post is just a few sentences long, calling on “neighbors, family and community” to “be witnesses and to spread awareness” by protesting a Border Patrol station.

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New York Budget Bill Proposes Mandatory File-Scanning Tech and In-Person Sales for 3D Printers

New York’s latest budget proposal would place new obligations on manufacturers of 3D printers and other digital fabrication equipment, tying the operation of these tools to mandatory software controls.

The 2026–2027 executive budget bill, S.9005/A.10005, directs that devices sold in the state include “blocking technology” capable of scanning every design file and stopping production when a “firearms blueprint detection algorithm” flags a file as a potential gun or gun component.

The bill, similar to the ones we recently reported on in Washington state, treats file scanning as a workable technical safeguard, even though digital design files only describe shapes.

Many ordinary objects share the same geometric traits as regulated firearm parts. Pipes, housings, brackets, mounts, and mechanical connectors all overlap with components that appear in firearms.

Software that evaluates geometry alone cannot reliably separate lawful designs from prohibited ones. Such systems inevitably interrupt legitimate work while offering little resistance to deliberate misuse.

Although public discussion often centers on consumer 3D printers, the statutory language reaches much further.

The definitions extend to any machine capable of making three-dimensional changes to an object from a digital design using subtractive manufacturing. That scope covers equipment found in repair businesses and small manufacturing firms throughout the state.

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Arkansas Supreme Court Ruling Could Let Lawmakers Roll Back Medical Marijuana Access

Emily Williams struggled to find medication that alleviated chemotherapy side effects like nausea and loss of appetite following her 2010 cancer diagnosis. Eventually, she tried marijuana and it provided relief.

“I was just grateful,” she said. “I just felt grateful.”

The experience prompted the Fayetteville retiree to advocate for a citizen-led constitutional amendment voters approved in 2016 to create Arkansas’ medical marijuana program.

That program has since grown into a billion-dollar industry, with more than 115,000 patients using marijuana to treat conditions from Crohn’s disease to post-traumatic stress disorder. But an obscure legal fight over who can change citizen-led amendments to Arkansas’ Constitution casts uncertainty on the program’s future.

The court ruling is part of a nationwide battle playing out in states like Missouri and Nebraska over citizen-led ballot measures. Arkansas is one of 24 states that allows citizens to propose state laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Since the state’s first dispensary opened in 2019, thousands of Arkansans have accessed the program, including Christopher Duffy, a 35-year-old Fayetteville resident who said medical marijuana helped his anxiety and sobriety. Duffy said he’d remain committed to sobriety if marijuana becomes less accessible, but he worries about others.

“I’m lucky to have such a support system where were things to get tough or I started struggling, I could reach out,” he said. “There are those that don’t have that and I fear for them.”

Williams, 69, is afraid of losing access to medical marijuana, which she uses to manage ongoing complications from her illness.

“If I am not able to use this, my life would be completely, negatively impacted,” she said.

These concerns were sparked by the Arkansas Supreme Court upending 74 years of precedent in December with a ruling that declared lawmakers can amend citizen-led constitutional amendments with a two-thirds vote — 67 votes in the House and 24 votes in the Senate.

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Florida Lawmakers Approve Bill To Punish Medical Marijuana Patients For Having Open Containers Of Cannabis In Cars

Citing statistics showing that impaired drivers contribute to more than 30 percent of fatalities on Florida roads, Jacksonville Republican Rep. Dean Black introduced legislation Thursday that would ban medical marijuana patients from possessing open containers of cannabis.

The prohibition would apply if they were driving or a passenger in a vehicle, with the penalty being the loss of their medical marijuana card after committing a third such violation.

The bill (HB 1003) would work the same way Florida law does now in banning driving with open containers of alcohol, Rep. Black told members of the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee Thursday.

“We are trying to make sure that we establish—like we did with alcohol—a taboo. It’s wrong. It has to stop,” he said.

Black cited an Ohio study published last fall showing that, over six years, 40% of drivers who died in motor vehicle collisions had tested positive for THC in their system—and said he had plenty of anecdotal evidence that this is also happening in Florida.

“I was in Tallahassee and watched two people who were in front of me at a light on Monroe Street, and they were passing a bong between the windows of their car,” he said, eliciting laughs from some lawmakers. “It’s ridiculous. It’s killing people.”

Among the concerns opponents expressed is that the bill says that a county or municipality “may” adopt an ordinance that imposes more stringent restrictions than simply the removal of one’s medical marijuana card.

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EU Targets VPNs as Age Checks Expand

Australia’s under-16 social media restrictions have become a practical reference point for regulators who are moving beyond theory and into enforcement.

As the system settles into routine use, its side effects are becoming clearer. One of the most visible has been the renewed political interest in curbing tools that enable private communication, particularly Virtual Private Networks. That interest carries consequences well beyond “age assurance.”

A January 2026 briefing we obtained from the European Parliamentary Research Service traces a sharp rise in VPN use following the introduction of mandatory age checks.

The report notes “a significant surge in the number of virtual private networks (VPNs) used to bypass online age verification methods in countries where these have been put in place by law,” placing that trend within a broader policy environment where “protection of children online is high on the political agenda.”

Australia’s experience fits this trajectory. As age gates tighten, individuals reach for tools that reduce exposure to monitoring and profiling. VPNs are the first port of call in that response because they are widely available, easy to use, and designed to limit third-party visibility into online activity.

The EPRS briefing offers a clear description of what these tools do. “A virtual private network (VPN) is a digital technology designed to establish a secure and encrypted connection between a user’s device and the internet.”

It explains that VPNs hide IP addresses and route traffic through remote servers in order to “protect online communications from interception and surveillance.” These are civil liberties functions, not fringe behaviors, and they have long been treated as legitimate safeguards in democratic societies.

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EU Court Confirms Right to Confiscate Cars Imported From Russia in Violation of Sanctions

The EU Court confirmed the right of EU countries to confiscate cars imported from Russia in violation of sanctions.

“The prohibition, laid down by that provision, on purchasing, importing or transferring into the European Union applies to any good falling under the Combined Nomenclature codes listed in Annex XXI to Regulation No 833/2014, as amended by Council Regulation (EU) 2022/1904 of 6 October 2022, without it being necessary to verify, for each individual transaction, whether the purchase, importation or transfer in question generates significant revenues for the Russian Federation,” the statement, published on Thursday, said.

The sanctions on goods from Russia also apply to individuals, the court said, adding that cars imported from Russia in violation of sanctions not subject to registration in bloc, can be seized.

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Greece Announces Massive Closure Operation of 60 Illegal Mosques in Athens Operated by Bangladeshis and Pakistanis

The Greek government has launched an exhaustive operation to identify and shut down all illegal mosques in the municipality of Athens, estimated at around 60, most managed by immigrants from Bangladesh and Pakistan.

This initiative, announced by the Minister of Migration and Immigration, Thanos Plevris, includes the simultaneous deportation of foreigners operating these sites, emphasizing that those who do not comply with Greek law will face automatic expulsion.

The operation is activated following a landmark case in the Agios Nikolaos area, where the residence permit of a Bangladeshi citizen accused of running an illegal mosque was revoked.

This individual was sentenced to prison for operating a place of worship without permission, and the site was sealed by the authorities. Plevris, during a meeting of the parliamentary committee on legal immigration, stated that «what happened in Agios Nikolaos will happen everywhere,» promising the closure of all irregular places of worship along with the revocation of legal documents of their operators.

The measure is part of a broader effort to combat illegal trafficking and promote legal migration, with cooperation between ministries to seal these spaces and deport those involved.

Athens has only one legal mosque, but estimates indicate that nearly 60 unauthorized sites are operating, converted into basements, apartments, warehouses or parking lots without basic specifications such as ventilation or adequate sanitation.

These places, mostly frequented by Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities, have proliferated in the last decade, with previous figures exceeding 100 in Attica.

The conservative government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis has prioritized national security and border control, contrasting with left-wing policies that, in the past, have allowed the expansion of illegal immigration, overburdening resources and generating risks for social cohesion.

This massive purge represents a blow against migratory irregularity, aligned with previous efforts such as the deportation of hundreds of Pakistanis who infiltrated illegally by sea in 2025.

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