Tag: police state

Stop letting governments request social media censorship in secret

Governments around the world routinely request global social media and search platforms to remove content. This can be a positive thing if the content in question is clearly harmful. But it can be nefarious if the content is simply inconvenient or disagreeable to a government’s viewpoint on a particular current news topic.

Unfortunately, when governments around the world request or demand censorship, they do so with the expectation that their request will remain private and not be publicized. Some online platforms report a summary of these government requests. Other platforms are completely silent.

This has been observed recently in content removal requests from a powerful court justice in Brazil. X has brought the most recent requests into the glare of public lights with its initial refusals to comply, but it is clear that Brazil and other governments around the world intend to silence their opposition online without the embarrassment of making such requests in public.

The massive publicity around Australia’s recent request to remove content has triggered a national discussion in Australia on content moderation and the role of government in making specific requests.  

There are also undoubtedly numerous government requests to remove content that creates a truly imminent threat of harm. But sometimes they may be slow to or unable to remove such content quickly. Transparency for all these government requests, both good and nefarious, will improve both online safety and viewpoint neutrality.  

These governments, including the EU, and U.S. federal government agencies have built or are building organization infrastructure to make content removal requests. These government agencies expect their requests will not be made public and the social media platforms will quietly comply as directed to avoid facing regulatory, legal or financial consequences from these government entities.

However, when these requests are made public, such as we have seen with X publicly refusing the recent requests from Brazil and Australia, then the requests can be scrutinized and judged by the public in those countries as well as globally. 

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Oregon Police Ripped For Bizarre Reason They Won’t Arrest Naked Person Who Allegedly Exposed Themselves To Child

A TikToker claimed a naked woman came up to his two-year-old son and exposed herself, however, the cop said no crime has been committed.

The exchange has since gone viral, with X users blasting Oregon law over a bizarre caveat.

“You’re saying in the state of Oregon some can walk up into to your two-year-old kid completely bare naked and that’s not a crime even if it’s on your property?” the Tiktoker pressed.

The cop responded, stating, “Correct. Well, so, it’s trespassing.”

“But what I’m saying is there’s no laws against the actual nudity portion of it,” he added, to which the TikToker interjected, “So you can expose yourself to children in Oregon.”

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New York’s “SAFE” Digital ID Act For Kids Threatens Online Free Speech and Privacy

Legislators in the state of New York are pushing two new bills to regulate the internet, specifically as it pertains to the way minors use social media – Assembly Bill A8148A and Senate Bill S7694A.

If it succeeds, the law would be the first of its kind in the US, and likely represent a blueprint for other states.

But both acts, dubbed Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids, have drawn criticism for bringing up constitutional issues tied to First Amendment rights.

Meanwhile, Governor Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers are said to be close on agreeing on the text of the bills, which are presented as designed to prohibit tech platforms from providing addictive feeds to minors (replacing them with content shown in chronological order), and monetizing their data, among other things.

But how would these platforms ascertain if somebody’s a minor? By requiring that their parents go through the digital ID age verification before they can provide consent on behalf of their children to use a particular social network in a particular way.

And this is where the legislative intent goes against the First Amendment, critics say, as having all online activity tied to a government-issued ID chills free speech and opens data privacy issues.

Somewhat ironically, given their open disregard of the First Amendment in other scenarios, those critics include some of the biggest tech companies.

Constitution and freedom of expression aside – their bottom lines would suffer if the bills pass, and so they find themselves as (no doubt, for both parties) uneasy bedfellows with those who consistently campaign against age verification, manipulated feeds, and data harvesting.

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Washington State Law Exempting Some Medical Marijuana Purchases From Steep 37% Tax Takes Effect

Some purchases of medical marijuana in Washington State will no longer be subject to the state’s 37 percent cannabis tax under a new law taking effect on Thursday. The exemption, signed into law in March by Gov. Jay Inslee (D), applies specifically to products that have been certified to higher testing standards than typical state-legal products.

Medical marijuana cardholders were already eligible for exemptions from Washington’s sales and use taxes on cannabis, but they were not exempt from the state’s excise tax, one of the highest in the country.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Sharon Wylie (D) and two other Democrats allows state-registered patients and caregivers to avoid the tax when purchasing products that are compliant with Department of Health (DOH) testing standards, which are more rigorous than typical state cannabis standards. Manufacturers in the state are required to submit all medical and adult-use products to labs for testing, but producers can voluntarily have additional testing done—to screen for heavy metals, for example—that isn’t otherwise required.

Marijuana that passes the additional testing can be labeled with a DOH-developed logo, which now also serves as an indication that the product is tax-free for patients and caretakers.

Many states with both adult-use and medical marijuana already exempt patients from taxes.

Washington’s tax break is only temporary. As written, the new law is set to expire on June 30, 2029. A report by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee on the revenue impacts of the change is due in 2028.

One of the bill’s co-sponsors, Rep. Shelley Kloba (D) also sponsored a cannabis homegrow bill this session—the latest in a series of such measures introduced over the past several years—but the proposal ultimately died in committee. If passed, HB 2194 would have allowed adults 21 and older to grow up to four plants per person, with no more than 10 allowed per household. Home cultivation of marijuana without a medical marijuana card remains a felony in the state.

Kloba told Marijuana Momentthat she’s co mmitted to continued advocacy for the policy change and plans to introduce yet another homegrow measure next year.

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Louisiana Lawmakers Make Big Changes To State’s Medical Marijuana And Hemp Laws

Louisiana’s edible hemp industry survived a close call with state lawmakers who chose stricter regulations over a complete dismantling. Also, the state has forced the two public universities with exclusive rights to medical cannabis farming in Louisiana to transfer their duopoly to two private companies.

The revamped hemp products proposal, House Bill 952, sponsored by Rep. Dustin Miller (D-Opelousas), passed the House in a 72–30 vote and cleared the Senate 26–11 in the final hour of the legislative session Monday.

Miller’s legislation will, among other things, lower the potency of recreational hemp edibles from 8 milligrams to 5 mg of THC per serving and ban them from convenience stores that sell fuel. THC is an acronym for tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive compound in cannabis.

Restaurants and bars that currently hold alcohol and hemp permits will be able to continue selling hemp products, but the bill will stop the state from issuing any new hemp permits for alcohol establishments.

Final passage came after a compromise that left both sides disappointed.

“No one likes it,” Miller told his colleagues as they peppered him questions and expressed frustration with the final version. He said he was backing the compromise proposal because that was the commitment he made with some lawmakers who supported a competing proposal that would have criminalized all recreational THC products and dismantled the entire hemp industry.

Rep. Jason DeWitt (R-Boyce) criticized the legislation for arbitrarily banning hemp only from convenience stores that sell fuel.

“We’re gonna discriminate against stores that sell fuel versus ones that do not?” DeWitt asked. “We gave them a permit, and we’re basically gonna put them out of business?”

Miller agreed the ban doesn’t make much sense but said it was a way to appease the bill’s opponents who wanted hemp banned from all convenience stores.

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“Free Speech Prevailed” Says Elon Musk as Australia Drops Bid to Censor Internet Globally

Elon Musk’s has said “freedom of speech is worth fighting for” after Australia’s cyber safety regulator, eSafety, dropped its federal court case over X Corp’s refusal to block footage of a radicalised teenager stabbing a bishop at a Church in Sydney not just for Australians, but for users of the platform worldwide.

The case has been portrayed as a battle for control of the internet and goes to the heart of a central and as yet unresolved issue in an increasingly online world, namely, whether Government-led attempts to control the distribution within a country of what it regards as ‘harmful’ online material should be allowed to impinge on the rights of those beyond its borders to access that same material.

An initial ruling by federal judge Geoffrey Kennett last month overturned orders that videos of the bishop’s stabbing were to be hidden because they contained what Australian authorities argue is terrorist content that might influence others.

That decision still required ratification by the court, and a case management hearing had been due to take place at a later date. However, the country’s eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman-Grant, said on Wednesday that the watchdog has decided to drop the action following Judge Kennett’s ruling.

“I have decided to discontinue the proceedings in the federal court against X Corp in relation to the matter of extreme violent material depicting the real-life graphic stabbing of a religious leader at Wakeley in Sydney,” she said, adding: “I stand by my investigators and the decisions eSafety made.”

Grant went on to cite the prudent use of public funds as one of the reasons for dropping the case, although critics say it was also increasingly apparent that the Australian state’s argument in favour of a global ban on the material was legally indefensible.

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The Greenwich Noise Ordinance Hypocrisy

Effective May 24 at 6:00pm, the use of gas-powered leaf blowers, with a few exceptions, became prohibited on residential properties until September 30. This restriction specifically targets gas-powered leaf blowers. Beginning in 2025, individuals found in violation may face fines of $100 for a first offense and $249 for subsequent offenses.

The new ordinance passed at the Representative Town Meeting (RTM), the Town’s legislative body, in January.

If you drive around Greenwich, chances are you have observed first-hand that landscapers and even some residents are continuing to use their gas-powered leaf blowers, whether in defiance of the ordinance or perhaps they are completely unaware of what the RTM has mandated.

To be clear this is not intended to “rat out” or “snitch” on neighbors in the hopes they draw fines.

However, it is important to point out a bit of the hypocrisy when it comes to the equal application of the ordinance, also known as the “rules for thee but not for me” mentality.

On this particular morning, a Greenwich resident who happened to be driving up Glenville Street toward King Street snapped a few photos of landscapers using at least two gas-powered back pack leaf blowers and a larger leaf blower toward the rear of the property. The landscaping truck had New York license plates.

Based on the photos, the address was identified and an online search of the property was performed.

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New York Spends $225 Million on Its Own “Cop City” — to Make the Whole City Run on Cops

NEW YORK CITY Mayor Eric Adams announced last Friday that the city would spend at least $225 million on a new police training facility in the borough of Queens. The mayor’s decision to pour further public funding into policing comes as he slashed services to the city’s most vulnerable, including cutting library budgets by $58.3 million.

The priorities could not be clearer. Like many politicians across the country, the mayor wants to disinvest from public services and privatize them, while instead increasing mass policing and carceral enforcement as a response to social problems.

To see just how much Adams has become the paragon of governance through policing, one need only look at the intended purposes of the police training facility. The site will be used to train law enforcement officers for all the city’s agencies — including the departments of Sanitation, Homeless Services, the Administration for Children’s Services, and the Taxi and Limousine Commission — under one roof, alongside New York Police Department officers.

In response to the mayor’s announcement, a number of commentators on social media decried the plan as a “Cop City” for New York — the term used to describe a vast police training facility under construction in Atlanta, which will swallow up crucial forest land in that city.

Despite the fact that the Atlanta facility will be a compound of over 85 acres, the cost is estimated to be a ballooning $109 million — less than half the amount New York City is dedicating to its new training building.

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MISSOURI’S ATTORNEY GENERAL IS WAGING WAR TO KEEP THE WRONGLY CONVICTED LOCKED UP

WEARING A CRISP gray suit, Christopher Dunn walked into the Division 18 courtroom just blocks west from the famed Gateway Arch in downtown St. Louis, Missouri, on May 21. He took his seat at a long table crowded with binders of legal exhibits and surrounded by a half-dozen lawyers working to free him from prison.

It was the same courthouse where Dunn, now 52, was convicted in July 1991 and sentenced to life in prison for the murder of 15-year-old Recco Rogers. According to the state, under the cover of darkness Dunn opened fire on Rogers and two other boys while they were sitting on the front steps of a friend’s home.

There was no physical evidence linking Dunn to the murder; he has always maintained his innocence and says that on the night of the shooting he was at home with family watching TV and talking to a friend on the phone until after midnight. The state’s case against Dunn was built solely on the testimony of the two boys sitting with Rogers: 12-year-old Michael Davis and 14-year-old DeMorris Stepp. During truncated police interviews, each boy named Dunn as the shooter. At Dunn’s trial, the prosecutor boldly leaned into the lack of physical evidence: The boys’ testimony was “all the evidence in the case,” he told the jury.

As such, when Davis and Stepp later recanted their stories about Dunn being the assailant, there was nothing left to prop up the prosecution’s case. Although the situation was about as straightforward as they come, thanks to quirks of Missouri law, Dunn found himself in a legal quagmire. He had no way to effectively challenge his conviction. And so it was — until 2021, when a new law offered prosecutors an avenue to overturn convictions they believe were wrongly obtained by their office. In February, Gabriel Gore, St. Louis’ appointed circuit attorney, asked a court to exonerate Dunn. “Both witnesses … now state that it was too dark to see any shooter on May 18, 1990,” Gore wrote in a motion to vacate the conviction. “The recantations alone are enough to show clear and convincing evidence of actual innocence.”

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Major Alcohol Industry Group Pushes Congress For ‘Critical Action’ To Regulate Consumable Hemp Products, Rather Than Ban Them

A major alcohol industry association is calling on congressional leaders to create a regulatory framework for hemp-based intoxicating cannabinoids—rather than impose an outright ban as is proposed under a large-scale agriculture bill that’s advancing in the House.

In a letter sent to House and Senate Agriculture Committee leaders on Wednesday, Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America (WSWA) urged “critical action to ensure that intoxicating hemp products sold across the country are safe for consumers” as lawmakers work to advance the 2024 Farm Bill.

“We strongly advocate for clear federal rules and regulations that define intoxicating hemp compounds and to grant states the authority to regulate these products within their borders,” the alcohol trade association said.

The letter comes about a week after the House Agriculture Committee approved an amendment to the 2024 Farm Bill that would effectively ban most consumable hemp products—a proposal that saw some ideological splintering within the cannabis sector.

Ahead of that vote, WSWA said the “attempt to ban intoxicating hemp products is merely doubling down on the failed federal policy of prohibition.” But in this latest letter, the association used more tempered language. While it said a regulatory framework would be ideal, it also suggested Congress could enact legislation that also allows individual states to ban the products altogether.

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