Tag: police state

Police Scotland Deluged With Nearly 4,000 Complaints As New Hate Crime Law is Weaponized

As predicted, Police Scotland was deluged with nearly 4,000 complaints in the first day alone after the passage of an absurd new hate crime law, proving the legislation is being weaponized by activists.

Under the new legislation, anyone deemed to have been verbally ‘abusive’, in person or online, to a transgender person, including “insulting” them could be hit with a prison sentence of up to seven years.

Transgender activists have been busy making lists of people they are waiting on to make such comments, including Harry Potter author JK Rowling herself.

Although it was announced yesterday by police that Rowling wouldn’t be investigated, the mere fact that she has been reported could create a ‘hate incident’ file on her that will remain in perpetuity.

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Head of Controversial Global Engagement Center Admits Europe’s Regulatory Power Over Social Media Censorship Enforcement

The head of the US State Department’s highly controversial Global Engagement Center (GEC), James Rubin, appears to be on a “press tour” to promote more stringent regulation around social media, and more censorship.

Rubin is doing this seemingly oblivious of the “elephant in the room” – that GEC is at the center of scandals involving government/Big Tech collusion (this bureau engaged in flagging posts on social media) and even lawsuits stemming from these accusations.

Many of Rubin’s comments made on a recent Politico podcast episode compare and contrast the degree to which the EU and the US are able to regulate social media (and stifle speech).

He also seeks to reinforce the perception of GEC not as a government workaround for carrying out censorship on privately-owned platforms (which would be illegal in the US), but as an entity that is vital in combating “disinformation.”

In this case, AI is considered as a “force for good,” as Rubin revealed GEC would start using it to counter what it decides to consider as “disinformation,” and the policy is also to make sure as many other countries as possible fall in line with the US on this issue.

Regarding what the US could learn from others, Rubin singled out the EU where regulatory frameworks allow the authorities to carry out control and censorship of online information more aggressively, but also praised the work his country, the UK, and Canada are doing together to impose the use of AI watermarks.

Asked to what degree GEC “engages directly” with social platforms, Rubin first deflected by lamenting about how much better equipped the EU is to combat “misinformation” thanks to greater regulatory powers, and then claimed that GEC “does not work with them (platforms) – we meet with them.”

As for what “not working” with someone means according to Rubin, it goes like this: “We try to discuss the trends and the tactics that are used by manipulative countries or non-state actors. We work on that with them. We consult with them. They tell us what they’re seeing. We tell them what we’re seeing.”

He also asserted, “We do not ask them to take things down.”

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DARE Didn’t Make Kids ‘Say No’ to Drugs. It Normalized Police in Schools.

There’s no such thing as a universal millennial experience, but DARE comes close.

Starting in 1983, the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program sent police officers into classrooms to teach fifth- and sixth-graders about the dangers of drugs and the need, as Nancy Reagan famously put it, to “just say no.” DARE embraced an abstinence-only model in which any use of alcohol or drugs qualified as abuse and the only acceptable tactic was to abstain. Upon completing the 17-week program, students received a certificate and a T-shirt.

At its height, over 75 percent of American schools participated in the program, costing taxpayers as much as $750 million per year. Historian Max Felker-Kantor revisits DARE and its legacy in DARE to Say No: Policing and the War on Drugs in Schools, a new history of the program.

As a DARE graduate myself who wore the T-shirt long after it was fashionable (look, I liked the austere black-and-red color scheme), I vaguely recall presentations given by someone from the local police department. On one occasion, he told a student to act drunk and pretend to offer the class beer, while the rest of us screamed at her in reply. Another time, our officer-instructor went on a tangent about how “girls are just tougher these days,” before presumably tying it back to why it was imperative that we 10- and 11-year-olds resist any entreaties to shoot up heroin in our rural Georgia schoolyard. I recently learned to my horror that my wife won a poetry contest in her DARE program in Alaska—a poem that she then, mortified, had to read aloud during the DARE graduation ceremony.

In hindsight, DARE is primarily remembered as a joke, a bunch of cops acting out hokey anti-drug skits. By 1994, a decade after the program’s founding, studies clearly indicated that the DARE curriculum had little to no effect on rates of youth drug use. By the 2010s, it had become a popular source of irony and parody: When then–Attorney General Jeff Sessions praised the program’s effectiveness in 2017, DARE graduates noted on social media how they still smoke pot in their black-and-red shirts.

But while DARE didn’t “work” in the sense of keeping many kids from using drugs, Felker-Kantor argues the program was wildly successful at normalizing the presence of police, and the war on drugs, in people’s everyday lives.

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Hate crime law: Glasgow LGBT+ sex shop designated official reporting centre for controversial new laws

Police Scotland has been urged to drop an LGBT+ sex shop as an official reporting centre for Scotland’s new hate crime legislation after the outlet’s designation was described as “ill-thought” out.

The controversial Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act, which was passed back in March 2021, will come into force on April 1.

This legislation makes it illegal to stir up hatred against protected characteristics, such as age, disability, religion, sexual orientation or gender identity.

To help members of the public report incidents of hate crime, Police Scotland has designated numerous sites as ‘third party reporting centres’, with most being based in community buildings such as citizens’ advice bureaux, housing associations, libraries and council buildings.

However, Police Scotland is coming under fire for listing an LGBT+ sex shop called Luke and Jack in Glasgow’s Merchant City as one of these sites.

Other venues listed as third party reporting centres include a mushroom farm in North Berwick, a demolished office block in West Dunbartonshire, and a salmon and trout wholesalers in Duns.

Scottish Conservative MSP Annie Wells said: “Serious questions must be asked as to who thought a sex shop was an appropriate setting to report a hate crime. The SNP’s act is flawed enough without asking people to relay their experiences in this sort of outlet in the heart of the city centre.

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The War on Drugs Is Also a War on Pain Patients

In a March 22 opinion column in the New York Times entitled “The DEA Needs to Stay Out of Medicine,” Vanderbilt University Medical Center associate professor of anesthesiology and pain management Shravani Durbhakula, MD, documents powerfully how patients suffering from severe pain—many of them terminal cancer patients—have become collateral casualties in the government’s war on drugs.

Decrying the Drug Enforcement Administration’s progressive tightening of opioid manufacturing quotas, Dr. Durbhakula writes:

In theory, fewer opioids sold means fewer inappropriate scripts filled, which should curb the diversion of prescription opioids for illicit purposes and decrease overdose deaths — right?

I can tell you from the front lines that that’s not quite right. Prescription opioids once drove the opioid crisis. But in recent years opioid prescriptions have significantly fallen, while overdose deaths have been at a record high. America’s new wave of fatalities is largely a result of the illicit market, specifically illicit fentanyl. And as production cuts contribute to the reduction of the already strained supply of legal, regulated prescription opioids, drug shortages stand to affect the more than 50 million people suffering from chronic pain in more ways than at the pharmacy counter.

Dr. Durbhakula provides stories of patients having to travel long distances to see their doctors in person due to DEA requirements about opioid prescriptions. However, despite their efforts, they find that many of the pharmacies do not have the opioids they require because of quotas. She writes:

Health care professionals and pharmacies in this country are chained by the Drug Enforcement Administration. Our patients’ stress is the result not of an orchestrated set of practice guidelines or a comprehensive clinical policy but rather of one government agency’s crude, broad‐​stroke technique to mitigate a public health crisis through manufacturing limits — the gradual and repeated rationing of how much opioids can be produced by legitimate entities.

In the essay, Dr.Durbhakula does not question or challenge the false narrative that the overdose crisis originated with doctors “overprescribing” opioids to their pain patients.

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DEA Agrees To Hold Hearing On Proposed Ban Of Two Psychedelics Amid Pushback From Researchers

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has scheduled an administrative hearing to get additional feedback from experts about its renewed push to ban two psychedelics after abandoning its original scheduling proposal in 2022.

More than a year after DEA announced its intent to classify 2,5-dimethoxy-4-iodoamphetamine (DOI) and 2,5-dimethoxy-4-chloroamphetamine (DOC) as Schedule I drugs under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), the agency has agreed to hold a hearing before issuing a final rule.

DEA Administrator Anne Milgram signed off on the hearing notice on Thursday. It says that the agency’s administrative law judge will convene the meeting on June 10, at the request of three interested parties, including Panacea Plant Sciences, which had filed a motion contesting the proposed scheduling action last year.

Panacea Plant Sciences founder and CEO David Heldreth told Marijuana Moment on Monday that the company is “prepared to fight the DEA attempt to schedule DOI & DOC.”

“Beyond the scheduling attempt, we believe the DEA administrative law judges and system are unconstitutional,” he said, arguing that there’s legal precedent based on prior Supreme Court rulings. “We expect to file federal challenges to the ALJ prior to the hearing.”

In its notice about the psychedelics ban last year, DEA said its arguments about the merits of the scheduling action remained the same as in its prior abandoned ban attempt. It is maintaining that DOI and DOC hold high abuse potential with no established medical value. But it also notably described a change in the process to request an administrative hearing, which left some with the impression that the agency was deliberately complicating the procedure in the face of likely challenges from the psychedelics research community.

But, ultimately, DEA accepted the multiple requests for a hearing.

“Upon review of the requests for hearings, I have authorized a hearing, and direct the Chief Administrative Law Judge to assign the matter to an Administrative Law Judge who will complete all prehearing procedures, conduct a due process hearing…and issue a recommended decision for the Agency’s review and action,” Milgram said.

A DEA spokesperson told Marijuana Moment on Monday that they expect the notice to be posted on the online docket on Tuesday.

DEA backed down off its original proposed ban of the psychedelics following challenges from Panacea and researchers from Emory University. It remains to be seen how the agency will navigate the scheduling issue following the hearing with experts.

DEA separately withdrew from a proposal to ban five different tryptamine psychedelics in 2022 amid sizable pushback from the research and advocacy communities.

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New video shows teen kidnapping victim gunned down by cops as she ran toward them for help

Newly released video from law enforcement shows the moment California cops fatally shot an unarmed 15-year-old girl who was reported missing.

The harrowing footage released Monday shows Savannah Graziano slowly approaching officers along the 15 Freeway in Hesperia, Calif. on Sept. 27, 2022, one day after witnessing her father, Anthony John Graziano, 45, murder her mother, Tracy Martinez, ABC7 reported.

Moments later, gunfire erupts and Savannah is shot down in the crossfire.

“Stop shooting her! He’s in the car! Stop! She’s OK! He’s in the car! … Stop!” the deputy can be heard yelling.

The footage was released after reporters requested it under the California Public Records Act.

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Police Take 4 Hours to Respond to Looting of Walgreens in San Francisco

Underscoring how the problem has become so endemic, police waited four hours before bothering to respond to the looting of a Walgreens in San Francisco, at which point the store was closed anyway.

Video shot by a producer at CBS San Francisco who was shopping with his girlfriend shows a number of black youths wearing masks sweeping through the store, thieving items and throwing them into bags before leaving.

The group didn’t care that they were being recorded by surveillance cameras or the CBS producer filming them on his phone.

“End of the day on Easter Sunday should have been pleasant. Instead I was shocked to see looters taking what they pleased with no regard for the law, or those around them, real-life smash and grab,” he said.

The incident happened at the Walgreens store at 9th and Market Streets at about 4:30pm on Easter Sunday.

However, the police didn’t even bother to respond until over four hours later.

“San Francisco police said in an emailed statement that officers responded at about 8:38 p.m. to a report of a group of people stealing from a business on the 1300 block of Market Street. Officers arrived to find the business was closed and no one was there to report the incident,” reports CBS News.

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Poland Prepares New Hate-Speech Law: 3 Years In Prison For Insulting LGBT People

Poland, once a bastion of conservatism, is radically shifting gears under the new left-liberal government with a new “hate speech” law that could see offenders imprisoned for up to three years for “offensive” content against LGBT people.

The left had already been pushing for stricter speech controls before the coalition government formed, and since it won power, the left is now making good on its promises. On Wednesday, the Polish Ministry of Justice published a draft amendment to the penal code regarding hate speech on the website of the Government Legislation Center.

The new draft law is looking to expand classifications regarding hate speech to include age, disability, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity, according to Polish news outlet DoRzeczy.

In a strong stand against government plans to penalize what it calls “hate speech,” Poland’s Confederation party asserts the need for free and unrestricted public discourse

“The introduction of the proposed solutions will ensure enhanced and full criminal law protection against the use of violence or unlawful threats, incitement to hatred, insults and violations of bodily integrity due to the disability, age, gender, sexual orientation or gender identity of the injured party,” reads the draft.

The draft also threatens up to five years in prison for “threats.”

However, even for “insults,” which are loosely defined, penalties could be extremely harsh under the new draft law.

Provisions regarding gender, sexual orientation and gender identity have been added to article 256, which covers incitement to hated and in article 257 regarding insults.

Now, under these new rules, “insults” against sexual orientation or gender identity will be punishable by up to three years in prison.

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Gavin Newsom Applauds Rollout Of AI Surveillance Network In California

If you’re not a criminal then you have nothing to hide, right?  This is the perpetual argument used in favor of state mass surveillance throughout history.  It’s the underlying justification at the birth of every surveillance agency from the Soviet Cheka to the German Stasi and beyond.  Don’t commit crimes and “you have nothing to worry about.”

Of course, this argument requires the public to overlook a simple and universal truth – That which is legal today can be made illegal tomorrow, and the people who make these decisions are often not good people.  With the ability to track and trace the behavior and movements of the citizenry in real time, the temptation to abuse that technology to increase government power is exponential.  That is to say, mass surveillance tends to inspire governments to abuse their authority and treat people like criminals even when they are innocent.

As we witnessed around the world during the pandemic lockdowns, authoritarianism can rear its ugly head without much warning and with incredible speed.  Some western countries (and even a few American states) aggressively sought to make resistance to covid restrictions criminal, to the point that authorities were legislating and even building “camps” designed to lock up covid offenders.  These plans were of course denied by political leaders even as they were putting the pieces in place to implement them. 

All of this was done in the name of a virus with a 99.8% survival rate.  What might they do when a legitimate crisis comes along?

We have seen how far our governments are willing to go to go to secure greater power over the populace; they have proven they’re not trustworthy enough to handle unilateral oversight. With real-time AI based surveillance in place the dangers are far greater.  Across the country there has been a quiet rollout of a new algorithm driven camera network from a company called Flock Safety.  

Flock offers AI integrated cameras with off-grid options (solar) that they say are meant primarily for license plate reading and vehicle identification.  California Governor Gavin Newsom recently applauded the creation of a new 480 camera network from Flock that will ostensibly focus on the Oakland metro area.

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