Tag: police state

Israel’s censorship of the AP is a cautionary tale for the US

Philosophers consider slippery slope arguments to be logical fallacies. But those philosophers haven’t met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government. 

It took Israel about three weeks after banning Al Jazeera — due to purported national security risks stemming from its Qatari funding — to use the same law as a pretext to censor the Associated Press, one of the world’s largest news agencies. 

Fortunately, Israel quickly reversed course after pressure from the U.S. and press organizations. But the ordeal should serve as a cautionary tale for President Biden and U.S. lawmakers and prosecutors. They keep empowering future administrations to harass the media — apparently trusting them, against all historical evidence, to use restraint.  

And if (more like when) the U.S. government does abuse its new powers against the press, the superpower is not likely to back off in response to international pushback like Israel did. Otherwise Julian Assange would be a free man. 

Israel’s justification for the raid was that the AP broke the law by providing images to Al Jazeera, which is among numerous clients worldwide that receive video feeds from the AP. There was no allegation that any image endangered national security, but officials nonetheless seized the AP’s equipment, killing its live feed and temporarily stripping millions of people of a view inside Gaza. 

Perhaps Israeli authorities saw transparency itself as a national security threat. The U.S. should be able to relate — officials who once sought to censor the Pentagon Papers on security grounds now acknowledge the government’s real concern was embarrassment. 

Israel has shut the international press out of Gaza (in addition to killing at least 100 journalists). Some even floated sanctioning the country’s oldest newspaper, Haaretz, for criticizing the current government. Biden’s administration is reportedly concerned about journalists turning public opinion against Israel by exposing the devastation the Israel-Gaza war has caused. 

With that backdrop, who could’ve predicted that Israel wouldn’t stop with Al Jazeera once it started censoring news outlets? Well, other than press freedom advocates everywhere. 

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Thursday’s Energy Absurdity: In California, the tax-per-mile ‘conspiracy theory’ becomes reality

For several years now, boosters of the failing energy transition have publicly dismissed critics who have speculated that their ultimate goal where transportation is concerned is not merely to shift private car owners to adopt EVs, but to make the cost of owning a car so expensive that all but the most elite in society give up their cars altogether. Anyone reaching that imminently logical conclusion based on the evidence at hand has been dismissed as a ‘conspiracy theorist,’ or something worse.

One easy way to make owning a car increasingly costly would be to tax drivers on a cents-per-mile basis. With EVs replacing some percentage of gas-powered cars, states are finding their slush funds of taxes collected at the gas pump dwindling and are looking for ways to get the revenue flowing again. Some states, like Texas, are doing that with a hefty annual fee on EVs, but taking that route is hard to hide and tends to get hubris-filled EV buyers into a tizzy about having to actually help pay for the roads their extremely heavy vehicles do so much to damage. Go figure.

So, politicians being politicians, many are looking for a way to do this that’s somewhat easier to hide and seems “fair,” at least on the surface. For this reason, we now see the politicians and regulators in California (because of course it’s in California – where else?) now running tests on assessing a new tax based on miles driven each year.

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UK “disinformation unit” spied on citizens and flagged online speech for removal during pandemic

New documents reveal that authorities in the UK considered placing government employees inside of social media companies to form a type of digital KGB that would control online speech during the pandemic.

This is according to recently released minutes from the governing board of the Counter Disinformation Unit (CDU). They show that, as many people suspected, British authorities were actively involved in monitoring people’s speech online and flagging certain viewpoints for removal.

At one point, they discussed a strategy to “embed” civil servants in various companies that were running social media platforms, and there is nothing in the document to indicate that they did not follow through on this.

The CDU, which has since been rebranded the National Security Online Information Team in response to heavy scrutiny, insists that it is “countering disinformation and hostile state narratives” but the agency, along with government-hired private contractors, was put in charge of surveilling British citizens and silencing those who were deemed to be “COVID measures dissenters.”

Instead of going after foreign adversaries who were spreading misinformation, they were targeting British citizens – from journalists and medical professionals to politicians – who were criticizing the government.

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By month’s end, WHO seeks to pass Orwellian pandemic treaty to implement algorithmic surveillance and control systems worldwide

The World Health Organization (WHO) body of experts are set to convene in Geneva, Switzerland, at their 77th World Health Assembly from May 27 to June 1, 2024. At the assembly, WHO’s member countries will cast their votes on the final version of the agency’s “pandemic agreement.”

This agreement will give the beleaguered agency more power over sovereign nations, including the power to order targeted lockdowns and mitigation measures. The agreement will allow a global body of experts to use surveillance tools and implement broader mandates for PCR testing, masks, so-called vaccines and other countermeasures. Right now WHO is developing a standardized algorithm to quantify airborne transmission risk to dictate public policies on human interactions.

WHO’s psychotic ARIA tool doubles down on germaphobia, analyzes aerosols and micromanages human activity

WHO is currently collaborating with the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) to develop an online tool [PDF] that will evaluate and predict risks associated with future airborne virus transmission across various public and private settings. This surveillance tool, named ARIA, will model the hypothetical spread of airborne pathogens in indoor settings, so WHO can craft precise directives on mitigation measures for business owners, households, healthcare centers and others indoor venues.

According to WHO, ARIA was developed by “a global group of experts” who conducted a “comprehensive review of the scientific literature.” Again and again, we are told to “trust the experts” – even though WHO’s guidance has caused significant damage to families, economies and livelihoods worldwide.

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Say Goodbye to Cloud Anonymity? New US Regulations Demand User Identification

The US Department of Commerce is seeking to end the right of users of cloud services to remain anonymous.

The proposal first emerged in January, documents show, detailing new rules (National Emergency with Respect to Significant Malicious Cyber-Enabled Activities) for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) providers, which include Know Your Customer (KYC) regulation, which is normally used by banks and financial institutions.

But now, the US government is citing concerns over “malicious foreign actors” and their usage of these services as a reason to effectively end anonymity on the cloud, including when only signing up for a trial.

Another new proposal from the notice is to cut access to US cloud services to persons designated as “foreign adversaries.”

As is often the case, although the justification for such measures is a foreign threat, US citizens inevitably, given the nature of the infrastructure in question, get caught up as well. And, once again, to address a problem caused by a few users, everyone will be denied the right to anonymity.

That would these days be any government’s dream, it appears, while the industry itself, especially the biggest players like Amazon, can implement the identification feature with ease, at the same time gaining a valuable new source of personal data.

The only losers here appear to be users of IaaS platforms, who will have to allow tech giants yet another way of accessing their sensitive personal information and risk losing it through leaks.

Meanwhile, the actual malicious actors will hardly give up those services – leaked personal data that can be sold and bought illegally, including by those the proposal says it is targeting.

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Academic Validation: “Covid-19,” Psychological Operations, and the War for Technocracy

Finally, academia weighs in on Technocracy. David A. Hughes has released his massive book, “Covid-19,” Psychological Operations, and the War for Technocracy. He says, “Technocracy has been incubated for decades in China with the support of the Rockefellers and various technology transfers, and, with proof of concept having been established, the aim is now to roll it out in the West.”

Catherine Austin Fitts recognized David Hughes on the Solari Report:

Our Hero of the Week, the brilliant David A. Hughes, is a university lecturer on security studies, international relations theory, foreign policy analysis, globalization, and U.S. exceptionalism. With dual doctorates in German Studies and International Relations, his wide-ranging research interests include psychological warfare, 9/11, Covid-19, the deep state, intelligence crime, technocracy, resurgent totalitarianism, and global class relations.

Hughes frequently cites my work on the Trilateral Commission, Technocracy, and Transhumanism, keeping the whole body of thought in proper context.

If successfully implemented, technocracy will be worse than anything imaginable by Hitler or Stalin, because it amounts to the biodigital enslavement of humanity through biometric technologies, the “Internet of Bodies,” constant surveillance and monitoring, central bank digital currencies, and a Chinese-style social credit system. Moreover, if allowed to happen, such a control system could prove irreversible. Technocracy has been incubated for decades in China with the support of the Rockefellers and various technology transfers, and, with proof of concept having been established, the aim is now to roll it out in the West.

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A Brutal Suppression of Speech

Denial of civil liberties, accompanied by punishment for anybody who exposes those violations, has become commonplace in contemporary America.

Yet, nothing that the nation has experienced — and that the more discerning protest — prepared us for the grotesque spectacle on display in the brutal suppression of free speech on university campuses. 

What we witness is the iron fist of autocracy employed to intimidate, to hurt, to deter those who would question — however peaceably — the right of the powers-that-be to impose their confected version of the truth on the public. Moreover, it is grounded on an arbitrary assumption of power having no basis in law or customary practice.

Two singular features of this situation focus our attention. First, there is the stunning near unanimity of agreement by all segments of society’s elites on the rightness of the ruling narrative — and on the actions they take to enforce it. 

That is to say:

1) casting the issue as the dangerous radicalization of students by nefarious forces;

2) smearing demonstrators as “anti-Semites” — despite the large numbers of Jewish participants;

3) blanking out any reference to the cause and motivations of the protest: Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians; and

4) the need to crack down hard on these seditious students — physically by rioting police, and administratively by summary expulsions and suspensions without a semblance of due process.

These assertions emanate from the mouths of elected officials, police commissioners, media personalities, pundits and — most distressing — university presidents as well as boards of regents and trustees. 

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No jail time for former Dem Baltimore prosecutor convicted of perjury, mortgage fraud

On Thursday, Marilyn Mosby was sentenced after being convicted of perjury and mortgage fraud.

The 44-year-old former Baltimore city prosecutor was spared jail time, instead receiving a sentence of 12 months home confinement, 100 hours of community service, and three years of supervised release.

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who attended the sentencing hearing as a supporter, was seen celebrating the sentencing with Mosby and others.

According to the Associated Press, Mosby was accused of having withdrawn $90,000 from Baltimore’s deferred compensation plan in 2020 to make down payments on two homes in Florida, one in Kissimmee and another in Longboat Key.

Prosecutors argued that Mosby had lied about the impact the Covid-19 pandemic had on her travel-related side business in order to receive funds via the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.

While Mosby’s lawyers claimed that the $90,000 came from her own retirement funds and that she had paid a penalty to access it prematurely on top of federal taxes, the government maintained that it was the property of the city, and should have remained so until she was actually eligible to receive it.

Mosby was also said to have submitted a “gift letter” of $5,000 in order to take out a loan that was used to purchase the aforementioned property in Longboat Key that, contrary to her claims that it was from her husband, had actually come from her own account.

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House Committee Approves Farm Bill Amendment To Ban Most Hemp-Derived Cannabinoid Products Like Delta-8 THC

A key House committee has amended a large-scale agriculture bill in a way that would impose a general ban on hemp-derived cannabinoids such as delta-8 THC—with some industry stakeholders saying it could even federally criminalize many CBD products because the measure’s scope covers all ingestible hemp products with any level of THC.

If enacted into law, cannabinoids that are “synthesized or manufactured outside of the plant” would no longer meet the definition of legal hemp.

At the same time, the legislation that is set to advance through the House Agriculture Committee on Thursday also contains provisions that would reduce regulatory barriers for certain hemp farmers and scale-back a ban on industry participation by people with prior drug felony convictions.

Members adopted the cannabinoid ban amendment from Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL) as part of an en bloc package with other unrelated changes in voice vote. The overarching bill is expected to clear the committee later in the day before moving to the floor.

The move comes following a push from prohibitionists and certain marijuana companies who argued in favor of restricting the cannabinoid products, describing it as a fix to a “loophole” that was created under the 2018 Farm Bill that federally legalized hemp.

The ban’s adoption by the panel likely sets the stage for a showdown with the Democratic-controlled Senate, which has yet to release the full text of its version of the Farm Bill.

“My amendment will close the loophole created in the 2018 Farm Bill that allows intoxicating hemp products like delta-8 to be sold,” Miller said ahead of the vote. “These products are being marketed to children and sending hundreds of them to the hospital. We must stop teenagers and young children from being exposed to addictive and harmful drugs.”

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Ted Cruz Suggests Marijuana Rescheduling Might Lead To More People Dying In Car Crashes From Impaired Driving

U.S. Sen Ted Cruz (R-TX) criticized the Biden administration’s planned move of cannabis to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) during comments Wednesday at a Senate Commerce subcommittee hearing, citing increases in vehicle injury and fatality rates that he attributed to the legalization of adult-use marijuana.

Delivering remarks to the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Surface Transportation, Maritime, Freight and Ports, Cruz brought up a number of transportation-related concerns before pivoting to marijuana legalization and federal rescheduling.

“Another notable issue is drugged driving,” he said, reading from a prepared statement. “A 2022 research paper found that from 2009 to 2019, legalization of recreational marijuana was ‘associated with a 6.5 percent increase in injury crash rates and a 2.3 percent increase in fatal crash rates.’”

“And yet the Biden administration, rather than working to keep our families safe on the roadways, has instead decreed that it will reclassify marijuana from a Schedule I substance to Schedule III,” he continued. “The American Trucking Association quickly followed this news with a letter highlighting that rescheduling marijuana without an explicit allowance for a test for its use would create confusion and result in ‘serious safety impacts to safety-sensitive industries.’”

Though little else of the hearing involved marijuana, a representative of the American Automobile Association (AAA) testified that a small proportion of drivers appeared to have increased their dangerous driving behavior during the past few years, including driving after recently consuming cannabis.

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